The Problem at Galatia (No Other Gospel #1)

Many of the epistles of the New Testament were written incidentally--that is to say, they were written in response to a specific situation or grew out of particular context. The New Testament writers didn't usually just sit down and think: “You know, I should write an epistle today”--usually there was some specific occasion which drove them to write and, more often than not, it was some kind of problem. If the early church had had no problems, our Bible would be significantly shorter. That is definitely the case with Galatians. Galatians is a letter full of strife and anxiety. This is a letter of crisis; a letter of warning; a letter of argument.

And the argument did not end with the letter. Galatians is still a topic of discussion for it touches on issues central to the church, wherever the church is. But one of the first issues to settle about Galatians is exactly where the church was. Galatians is written to the churches of Galatia but where exactly was Galatia? This issue is complicated because the term Galatia can refer specifically to the Roman province of Galatia (which was in southern part of Turkey) or the region inhabited by the Galatian people group (which was in the northern part.) (For a more modern parallel to this issue: Indiana and the Indians basically share a name, but a letter written to Indiana and one written to the Indians would not necessarily go to the same place.)

I believe the evidence is in favor of the Province of Galatia (or the Southern Galatian Theory) for two reasons. First, it is very clear that Paul personally founded these churches. (See especially Galatians 4:19) The entire tone of the letter is founded on this fact. I think it was Adam Clarke who pointed out the difference in tone between Galatians and Romans. Romans deals with similar issues but in an entirely different manner. Because Paul had not yet been to Rome when he wrote Romans, but he had not only preached at but founded the church at Galatia. That is why he could speak with such authority, as a leader, as a father. But there is no specific mention of Paul ministering in any of the cities of Northern Galatia; these cities are never mentioned by name in Acts. (Though to be clear Acts does not give all the details of Paul's ministry.) However, we do know that Paul and Barnabus, during their First Missionary Journey traveled through the Southern Galatia and preached in such cities as Antioch in Pisidia, Iconium, and Lystra. Paul had great success in the province of Galatia and left many believers--these churches he would visit again on his second missionary journey, though this time without Barnabus. Second, Galatians gives us a good deal of chronology about Paul's life which, by comparison to the book of Acts, shows that Galatians was most likely written between his first and second missionary journey--and therefore right after his ministry in the churches of southern Galatia. Most likely this letter was written from Antioch, very soon after Paul's return from his first missionary journey (somewhere around AD 48-49.)

However, though it is rather difficult to pinpoint exactly when or where the letter was written, it is very easy to tell who and why. Who, of course, is Paul. Even liberal scholars who deny many of the Pauline letters agree that Paul wrote Galatians. And as for the occasion, this is very clear as well. Ephesians seems to have no definite occasion and Philippians has several, but Galatians one single, clear cut purpose:

“I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.” (Galatians 1:6-9)

The keyword of Galatians is the word “gospel” which occurs 12 times throughout the letter. Paul had preached the gospel to them, the gospel which he had received from Christ, the gospel of salvation through faith in Christ. But it seems that Paul had barely left before other preachers appeared who started preaching a different kind of gospel.

Now, we have to remember one thing about this word Gospel. When we think of the gospel we think of the four gospels which we find in the Bible--Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But very likely, none of those had been written at this time. In fact, very little of the New Testament had been written at this point. (Possibly only James.) There was no New Testament and there certainly were no New Testament commentaries or theologies. There was the life and the words of Jesus which had been preserved orally and, perhaps had been written down in some form, but there wasn't an exact, official “gospel” in the sense that we have it now.

That's why the concept of apostleship was so important. The word “apostle” means one who is sent, but the apostles were something more than missionaries or preachers. There were many Christian preachers and teachers in the New Testament, but there were not many apostles. (Though occasionally the word is used in a looser, more general sense as in Acts 14:14.) The one essential thing about an apostle is that it was one who had learned from Christ, and was a witness of His life and resurrection. (Acts 1:21-22, 1 Corinthians 9:1) They were the ones with first-hand knowledge of Jesus' life and teaching and who were entrusted with preserving and preaching that knowledge. (That would include eventually the writing of the gospels; two of which were written by apostles and the other two by men closely associated with the apostles.)

So that's what we have to remember in reading Galatians. There was no New Testament to appeal to. What they had was the Old Testament and the authority of the apostles who had heard the words of Christ. That is why the situation at Galatia was so tricky. Paul had preached to them the gospel. But now other people had come to the church, claiming that Paul was not an apostle and was preaching a false gospel while they were preaching the true one. So we have two competing, mutually exclusive gospels being proclaimed by two different voices. And here's the thing. They couldn't just do a Bible study of the New Testament to find out which Gospel was right because there was no New Testament. All they could look to was the authority of the apostles who received the revelation of Christ--and the Old Testament--and their own experience with Christ. And as you look at Galatians, you'll see that what Paul does is defend his authority as an apostle and appeal to the Old Testament and appeal to their own experience.

But to understand the exact issue that stands at the heart of Galatia, you have to keep in mind a fact about early Christianity. Jesus was a Jew. The apostles were Jews. The multitude saved at Pentecost (the first members of the New Testament church) were Jews. Christians worshipped the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and read the books of the law. Acts 2:46 describes the first Christians: “And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart.” Notice where they met: in the Temple. Early Christianity was very Jewish. The people we read about in the early chapters of Acts were Jews or Jewish proselytes who still remained in and acted as part of the Jewish community in so far as the Jewish community let them. If you're an atheist and become a Christian, you stop being an atheist. If you're a Buddhist and become a Christian, you stop being a Buddhist. But the Jews did not stop being Jews when they became Christians. Not just because being Jewish was their ethnic identity, but because they saw Christianity as being the natural culmination of Judaism. They would say that by being Christians they were being true Jews. St. Paul himself saw this continuity between Judaism and Christianity. In answering the charges against him before Felix he says: “But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets.” (Acts 24:14. c.p., Matthew 5:17) Christianity is not a replacement for Judaism, but rather its ultimate fulfillment.

The early Christian church was exclusively and entirely a Jewish Church and its members quite naturally saw Christianity in the context of Judaism. And that's not a problem--God had instituted the Jewish economy for that specific reason, that it might give birth to Christianity--but the problem came here. Part of the institution of the Jewish economy was the separation between the Jews and the Gentiles. Jews were specifically forbidden from marrying Gentiles and the entire complex Mosaic laws of ritual cleanliness were largely aimed at maintaining a separation between the Jews and Gentiles. By the time of the New Testament, the Jews had carried the concept much farther. Obviously, they couldn't avoid all contact with Gentiles, but they did believe very strongly in this separation. In Acts 10:28, Peter reminds Cornelius “Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation.” Note the word Peter uses here: “unlawful.” To him, as a good Jew, it was like a flagrant breach of the law to go and enter into the house of a Gentile, meeting with him as a friend. This was the separation that existed between the Jews and the Gentiles. The only way the Jews could accept a Gentile was if they became Jewish--if they went through circumcision and adopted the law of Moses and became practicing Jews.

So this is the situation of the early church. The Christian church was exclusively a Jewish church which saw Christianity in the context of Judaism--and that included the separation between Jews and Gentiles. And as far as we can tell, they had no idea of preaching the gospel to Gentiles. They would preach to Jewish proselytes--like the Ethiopian eunuch. That was no problem, despite the ethnic and societal differences that stood between him and Philip. But full Gentiles were a different story. That's why the story of Peter and Cornelius is so important. It seems that Peter would not have preached the gospel to a gentile, even a good gentile like Cornelius, if Jesus hadn't first made a point of giving him a vision and all-but specifically telling him to. If you turn over to the opening of Acts 11, you'll find that some of the church was upset with Peter until he told them the whole story--because Jews did not have this kind of fellowship with Gentiles. If they had any idea of evangelizing Gentiles, it would have been by first proselytizing them to Judaism and then turning them into Christians.

And that brings us to a group of people we refer to as the Judaizers. The Judaizers were those who believed that in order to be Christians, Gentiles had to become Jews and follow the Mosaic law--and specifically undergo the rite of circumcision, which was the symbol of entrance into the Jewish community. The conflict in Galatians centers around this question: this question of whether Gentiles have to become Jews in order to be saved. And this was a question that haunted a large part of the early church. But to understand Galatians, we have to understand that there is actually a larger question involved. The specific issue of Jews and Gentiles isn't very pressing to us since American holiness/Wesleyan churches tend to be primarily Gentile. Nobody seriously contends now that we need to become Jews to be saved. But this issue was actually a touchstone for a much larger issue--the issue of the gospel itself. The question of whether Gentiles needed to become Jews to be saved was only an application of the question of how anybody, Jew or Gentile, could be saved.

Within the Judaism of Paul's day, there were different ideas about how one could be saved, how one could be right with God. Two need special mention here. One was “Covenantal Nomism.” Covenantal Nomism was based on the fact that God had established his covenant with the Jews. They were His people and He was there God. Therefore, being a Jew, submitting to the covenant, acknowledging God--that was what was necessary to salvation. That is why things like circumcision, the laws of food, and the Sabbath were so important--because those were symbols of the Jewish covenant and served to separate Jews from Gentiles. This is an oversimplification, but Covenantal Nomism said that the way to be saved was simply to be a Jew.

The other idea was “Legalism.” Legalism was the idea that man could find acceptance with God by obeying the law--that is, the law of Moses. Rabbi Akiba pictured God like a bookkeeper with a great ledger in which He recorded the good deeds and the bad deeds of man. At the final judgment, only those would be saved whose good deeds outweighed the bad. Some Jews said that one could dispense with offering sacrifices at the Temple by doing good deeds instead; in other words, that our good works, our obedience to God, could make us acceptable with God. One of the fragments of the Qumran says that if people obey the law they would “rejoice in the end times” because their obedience would “be reckoned to (them) as righteousness.” This is the idea of legalism--that we can find salvation through the works of the law--and, specifically, the law of Moses. (For an extensive discussion of Legalism and Covenantal Nomism and their place in relation to Paul's doctrine, see The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown, Kostenberger et. al., 377-386)

Now, these two ideas--Legalism and Covenantal Nomism--though very different do share several common elements--both see salvation as centered around the Jewish covenant and the Jewish law. And that's where you get the Judaizers. Though they were doctrinally Christian, in their minds they still accepted these ideas about salvation--that salvation was through the Jewish covenant or the Jewish law, through circumcision and through good works. And that is why they obviously believed Gentile Christians had to become Jews in order to be saved.

That is the issue of Galatians. The Philippian jailer asked: “What must I do to be saved?” That was the question the church was faced with in its early days. The nature of the gospel hinged on that question. That was the conflict between Paul and the Judaizers; that was the conflict that had brought trouble to Galatia. The Judaizers said that by becoming Jews and following the Jewish laws, one could find salvation. But Paul had taught that salvation came through faith in Jesus Christ. That was the gospel, and there was no other.

Today there are still many ideas about salvation. There are still people who believe that salvation lies in doing certain things or being part of a certain group.  And that is why the issue of Galatians is still relevant and why its message is still important. There is only one gospel, and that gospel is the good news of salvation as a free gift through faith in Jesus Christ.