Galations 1

  When this letter was written, and to what churches, is much disputed.  Obviously the Holy Spirit, knowing our attention span, graciously tells us only those things that are needful, which is only a spotty outline of what happened, fleshed out at important places.  Otherwise, the world could not contain all the books (John 21:25).  This is a useful thing to remember, as it is easy to assume too much.  How does Galatians fit into the book of Acts?  We must hold our opinions loosely, but I favor the view that Paul wrote it to the churches he visited in the southern part of the Roman province of Galatia during his first missionary trip; Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch of Pasidia (Acts 13 and 14).  Most likely, Judaizers soon arrived in those new churches perverting the pure gospel of salvation by God’s free grace alone, and Paul wrote this letter from Antioch of Syria to counter the threat.  If so, this may be an early epistle. (AD 48-49?)

     1:1-5.  Paul immediately defends his apostolic authority and message as coming directly from God the Father mediated through the resurrected Jesus Christ (1).  His greeting immediately attacks the idea that grace and peace with God result from any initiative of man.  The Father sent Christ, who gave himself for our sins, that he might save us out of an evil world system lost in sin and death.  This was all done according to the Father’s will, and for his eternal glory (4-5).  This is the gospel of sovereign grace that was being distorted by the taint of works righteousness, the addition of something more needed for salvation other than faith in what God had done in Christ Jesus.

     1:6-10.  What we know is God’s word must be believed and obeyed.  God’s word does not change.  If a minister of God, even Paul himself or an angel (8), changes God’s word of salvation by his sovereign grace alone through Christ, let him be anathema (cf. 1 Kings 13:18; 2 Cor.11:13-14).

     1:11-12.  Cf. Acts 9:15-16, which clearly says that the Lord had much more to reveal to Paul after the initial revelation at his conversion.

     1:13-14.  More than anyone, Paul understood how hopeless it was to try to earn a righteousness before God by his own works.  If such a zealous Pharisee couldn’t do it, then those who were trying to keep one foot in Judaism were trusting in the way of death (cf.3:2-3).  If the old covenant could have been kept, there would have been no need for Christ to shed his blood to establish the new (2:21; cf. Heb.8:6-13).

     1:15-16.  Cf. Ps.139:13,16; Jer.1:5.  These verses teach unconditional election by God’s sovereign grace from all eternity.  Paul never doubted his ability to make free choices that mattered, or that he alone was responsible for his sin.  But over and above all, he knew that he could never get ahead of God (“the Alpha and Omega…who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty”  Rev.1:8).  As he looked back on his life and his calling, he knew that God had been with him always, and had prepared him for this very purpose for which he was now being used.

     1:17-24.  Paul’s major point here is that as an apostle of Jesus Christ, his calling and instruction had come from the risen Christ alone, and his allegiance was to him alone.  Peter, and James the Lord’s brother, may have had much to tell him, but they could neither add nor take away anything from his commission or his divine message.

     Some say the reference to “Arabia” (17) is most likely not the Arabian Peninsula, but a political subdivision of the time to the east of Damascus.  Probably Paul spent a fair part of three years (18) there being instructed by the Lord both by direct revelation and by an enlightened re-study of the OT, but this is mostly supposition (cf. Acts 9:22-30; 2 Cor. 11:32-12:9).