Background
Originally, "Galatia" referred to an area of north-central Asia Minor settled by three Celtic tribes. The province of Galatia established by the Romans grew to include adjacent territory to the south and extended almost to the Mediterranean coast. In the book of Acts, Luke records Paul's establishment of Christian churches in four cities of or near southern Galatia during his first missionary journey (Acts 13:14-14:23). On the apostle's second journey he might have traveled to northern Galatia too, but Luke does not specify any north Galatian cities visited by Paul.
Background
Paul's letter to the Galatians addresses multiple church congregations under pressure by "Judaizers;" who were preaching the need for Gentile Christians to observe the Mosaic law specifically with regard to circumcision - the central issue addressed by the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15. In Galatians Paul vehemently opposes the Judaizers, but nowhere does he invoke the momentous decision of the Council in support of his message of salvation solely by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ. The omission seems odd if Paul wrote the letter after the meeting occurred; therefore, many scholars believe he composed Galatians after his first journey ended but before the Council met, and that his visit to Jerusalem recorded in chapter 2 corresponds to the famine relief visit of Acts 11:27-30. Since Paul began his second missionary journey only after the Jerusalem Council took place, this epistle must address churches in southern Galatia only. Other scholars point to the striking thematic parallels between Galatians and Romans (written a dozen years after the Council) to argue for a later dating of Galatians, which allows for an audience that includes Christians in the northern part of the
province. In this case, Paul's visit to Jerusalem in chapter 2 takes place at the time of the Council (ca. A.D. 49).
Message
The questions of date and audience, however, in no way obscure the clear message of this epistle: the redemptive work of Christ on the cross nullifies for Jew and Gentile alike any partially works-based program for salvation and renders equally redeemed all who exercise faith in Jesus. That this freedom from religious legalism does not give license for moral abandon shows in Paul's exhortations to Spirit-led conduct and Christian unity.
The Two Galatias
1-2 Paul Establishes His Authority
Forgoing his typical greeting of thanksgiving, Paul wastes no time in asserting his divine appointment as an apostle and establishing the authority of the gospel as preached by him. His urgency stems from his audience's acceptance of a distorted version of the gospel, which renders it void of its meaning, "good news." So strongly does Paul oppose the misrepresentation that he invokes a curse on the perpetrator, hypothetically includes himself in the curse, and repeats the invocation. The reason for Paul's rhetorical questions concerning from whom he seeks approval, God or human beings (1:1o), becomes clear in 6:12 and 6:17: those preaching the distorted gospel do so to avoid persecution by otherwise disapproving people, while Paul bears on his body the scars of persecution that prove his effort to please God by preaching the pure gospel, whatever the personal consequences. The apostle's self-designation as a "bondservant" of Christ acknowledges his voluntary subservience to the master who freed him from sin.
To establish the authenticity and authority of his gospel message, Paul cites his past persecution of believers and his zeal for Judaism as evidence that his unlikely apostleship originated with God, not humans. Paul did not learn the gospel from his colleagues in Jerusalem; rather, God gave the gospel to him, beginning with a conversion-generating revelation of Jesus (Acts 9:1-9). His limited contact with only Cephas (the Aramaic equivalent of "Peter") and James, the brother of Jesus, seals the divine origin of Paul's message. That believers in Judea knew the apostle to the Gentiles only by reputation yet celebrated his evangelistic activity in Syria and Cilicia (Paul's native territory in southeastern Asia Minor) supports the divine bestowal of his apostolic authority.
Only after 14 years (either from his conversion or his initial trip to visit Peter) did Paul return to Jerusalem and share with the city's leading Jewish Christians the particulars of his gospel for the Gentiles. The refusal of the Jewish believers to require the circumcision of Paul's Greek associate Titus and the mention of Christian liberty under threat (2:3-4) combine to suggest the issue at stake: whether conversion
to Christianity by Gentiles requires their obedience to the Mosaic law (as did conversion to Judaism). Paul's preaching among the Gentiles has already answered an emphatic "No!" That the leading Jewish Christians of Jerusalem did not require him to alter his message ("contributed nothing") shows their support, and the extension of the "right hand of fellowship" by the apostolic "pillars" of the Jewish Christian church (2:9) shows them opposed to the "Judaizing" crowd.
Peter's joining with Gentiles in table fellowship during a visit to Antioch (Acts 10) supports Paul's advocacy of Christian freedom from the Law - even for Jews. But Peter's recoiling from the Gentiles on the arrival of other Jews from Jerusalem (possibly Judaizers themselves) drew public reproval from Paul for hypocrisy. His sermonic rebuke asserted believers' justification (consideration as righteous) by God's grace (illdeserved favor) apart from works of the Law, solely because they exercise faith in Christ, who fulfilled the righteous requirement of the Law on their behalf. Adding obedience to the Law as a requirement for salvation denies the sufficiency of Christ's atoning work on the cross - which alone achieved what the Law could not.
3-4 Faith over Law
Paul reminds the Galatians that they received the Holy Spirit - the sign of their salvation - by exercising faith in Christ, not by performing works of the Law. "Ending with the flesh" (seeking salvation through the Law) amounts to foolishness. The apostle's position is not some current theological fad; rather, it originates with Abraham, the forefather of the Hebrew nation. More than four centuries before giving the Law through Moses, God made his promise to Abraham, who himself was not righteous but whose faith God regarded as righteousness. Inheriting the promised blessings, therefore, does not depend on biological descent from Abraham; instead, the promises pass to his only truly righteous descendant, Jesus Christ, and to people who exercise Abraham-like faith in him. Till the coming of Christ, who through his own death killed the curse that doomed humanity, the Law served as a temporary guardian to expose our inability to obey God perfectly and thereby earn salvation even in part (3:23-24). Rather than nullifying the faith-based covenant with Abraham, the Law itself is relieved of its role by emancipating faith in Christ, the necessity of which the Law points out and the availability of which extends to all people indiscriminately.
Paul extends the metaphor of the Law as guardian of spiritual minors, whose moral immaturity postpones the receipt of their rightful inheritance and thus relegates them to the practical status of a slave (4:1-11). Like the date set by a father for his heir's coming of age, so came the "fullness of time," when through the redemption from the Law effected by Christ God made possible our adoption as mature heirs qualified to receive the covenantal promises through faith. Why are the Galatians reverting to an inferior status by re-enslaving themselves to the "elemental" principles of the Law, including the observation of Jewish feasts and festivals (4:10)? Let them embrace his current admonition with the same enthusiasm they showed at their conversion.
Paul ends his argument with an allegory from the very Law to which the Galatians are returning. Hagar, the slave of Abraham's wife, represents the covenant made at Mount Sinai, headquartered at the Jerusalem temple, and perpetuated by Hagar's descendant "slaves" of the Law - left out of the covenantal will. The "free woman" (Abraham's wife, Sarah) represents Christianity, the covenant of faith headquartered in the "Jerusalem above" (heaven). Sarah's free heirs, though now persecuted by their Law-enslaved kin, will alone inherit the promises made to Abraham because of his faith.
5-6 Fleshing Out Christian Freedom
For a Gentile male, the first step in conversion to Judaism was circumcision as the initial act of obedience to the Law. The Jewish Christian "troublers" of the Galatians are pushing circumcision as a requirement for conversion to Christianity too; so Paul warns that saying "yes"
to circumcision implies the obligation of keeping the entire Law. To submit to circumcision, therefore, means choosing a life of "slavery" to the Law and rendering personally irrelevant the redemptive work of Christ, which inspires Spirit-led obedience to the "law" of love (cf. 6:2, "the law of Christ"). Paul's ire at the Judaizers surfaces in his wish that they castrate themselves (instead of preaching circumcision to the Galatians, whose Greek way of thinking viewed circumcision as a mutilation that marred the ideal of male physical beauty; 5:12). The "works of the flesh" (5:19-21) and the contrasting "fruit of the Spirit" (vv 22-23) emphasize behavior that respectively fractures and fosters Christian unity (cf. vv. 15, 26). To "live" by the Spirit (5:25) means to gain eternal life; to "walk" by the Spirit (v. 16) means to respond to the promise of eternal life with Spirit-led conduct during one's earthly life.
Christian community requires the gentle correction of "transgressors" (those who carry out "deeds of the flesh;" as in 5:19-21) to restore them to fellowship and the communal bearing of "burdens" (hardships) now in the knowledge that each individual will answer for his or her individual conduct at the final judgment (6:2, 5). The obligation to provide economic support for teachers of the gospel surfaces in 6:6. Paul adds these ethical admonitions to correct the misimpression that Christian freedom from the Law equals license for lack of personal restraint.
Paul endorses the letter as an authoritative document by finishing it off in his "own hand" after having dictated it to a secretary. He underscores his stance against the gospel-damaging propaganda of Judaizers motivated by selfprotection and self-promotion. Fearing their own persecution, they inflict on the Galatians the mark of slavery to the Law (circumcision). That Paul's priority is not his personal, physical welfare but the religious welfare of his spiritual children shows in the marks of Christian freedom he bears on his body - scars of persecution that prove the purity both of his motives and his message.