Why was Paul’s letter to the Galatians so crucial in bringing about the Protestant Reformation? Today, R.C. Sproul introduces this New Testament letter and outlines its urgent defense of the true gospel against manmade distortions. Get R.C. Sproul’s commentary on Galatians, plus lifetime digital access to his teaching series Galatians and Pleasing God, for your donation of any amount: https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/3609/pleasing-god Meet Today’s Teacher: R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was known for his ability to winsomely and clearly communicate deep, practical truths from God’s Word. He was founder of Ligonier Ministries, first minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew’s Chapel, first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine. Meet the Host: Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of ministry engagement for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, host of the Ask Ligonier podcast, and a graduate of Presbyterian Theological College in Melbourne, Australia. Nathan joined Ligonier in 2012 and lives in Central Florida with his wife and four children. Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts
Paul's anger here is a response to what he considers to be a critical attack on the truthfulness and the purity of the Christian doctrine.
When we think of the writing of the Apostle Paul, the book of Romans often comes to mind first. But we mustn't miss the significance of his letter to the churches in Galatia and the serious attack on the gospel that was taking place. Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and I'm thankful that you're with us for this Wednesday edition of Renewing Your Mind.
Galatians clearly outlines the Apostle Paul's theology and lays out the good news of the gospel against the distortions of the gospel that were beginning to enter the church. It's a letter to read, to study, and to meditate upon. And you can be helped to do that when you request not only R.C. Sproul's series on Galatians, but also his hardcover expositional commentary.
You can request this week's resource bundle when you give a gift of any amount at renewingyourmind.org. Well, here's Dr. Sproul to introduce us to Galatians and the battle Paul was fighting.
What I'd like to deal with today is a little bit of background and introduction to the book of Galatians, and if time permits, move into the content itself in the first chapter. A lot of the kinds of problems that surround this kind of introductory material to an epistle, Paul, are absent from the book of Galatians.
If there's any book in the Pauline corpus, that is, in that body of literature that is traditionally attributed to the Apostle Paul, if there's any book that today receives virtually unanimous consensus of scholarly opinion that it did indeed come from the Apostle Paul, it's the book of Galatians.
In other words, there are no serious controversies presently existing over the authorship of this epistle. This one was written by Paul. There were some skirmishes about it in the 19th century. Some of those coming out of the radical critical school tried to challenge even the authenticity of this epistle. but that was quickly disposed of and is no longer a live question.
What we do have in terms of background material that remains a problem, however, with Galatians is the question, what is the problem that has provoked Paul to write this epistle? Let me again say, by way of background, that first of all, the book of Galatians...
is probably the clearest epistle that comes from the pen of Paul that really shows Paul's unique contribution to the development of Christian theology. This is the clearest exposition we have of Paul's theology, even more so than the book of Romans. And I might say that the book of Romans stands, of course, in a very close relationship to the book of Galatians.
There's a sense in which they both ought to be read together. Galatians has been called time and again the Magna Carta of the Christian faith. This document is of supreme importance in terms of its content, particularly as it relates to the question of the relationship between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, between the Jewish community and the new movement called Christianity.
We talk about this in terms of the vocabulary, at least theologically, of the relationship between law and gospel, between the law of Moses now and the dispensation that comes to us in the ministry of Christ. There's one other peculiar dimension to this epistle that I think needs to be stated, and that's this. This letter exudes, it breathes a spirit, a mood of hot indignation.
If you want to see the reality of Paul, the man, come to this epistle. This epistle is written in anger and in astonishment. the kind of angry astonishment of which Paul is capable. And it's not against Paul that he manifests anger. His anger is proper. His anger is fitting for the problem that he is dealing.
Paul's anger here is a response to what he considers to be a critical attack on the truthfulness and the purity of the Christian doctrine. He is responding... to a group of people who have made a serious inroad into the fidelity of the Galatian churches. And this group to which Paul is speaking, against whom Paul is writing, is traditionally called the Judaizers. The Judaizers.
Capital J-U-D-A-I-Z-E-R-S. The Judaizers were a group of Jewish Christians, that is, converts coming out of Judaism, who were arguing militantly that Christians, all Christians, were bound to observe the ceremonial laws of Moses and of the Old Testament, and that circumcision as a religious rite was essential to salvation.
In other words, they were arguing that if anybody comes into the new covenant, they must also submit themselves to all the prescriptions of the old covenant. Paul saw this not as a small intramural debate in theology. He saw this issue, you see, as attacking the very soul, the very heart, the very core of the riches of Christ, as we will see when we study this content.
The issue that Paul was dealing with in Galatians was very, very similar to the issue that burned the church and split it in two in the 16th century. It's the issue of justification by faith and the free grace of God. Well, having said that, let's get on, if we can, with the body of the epistle itself. Let's just look at the first five verses, which is called the salutation of the epistle.
Paul begins virtually all of his letters, at least most of his letters, with a personal greeting from the people that he's with, and starting in a spirit, you see, of warmth and kindness and gentleness. The first thing that strikes us in this salutation is a sense of abruptness. The kind of abruptness that's born in that anger that the apostle is feeling, obviously, as he's writing.
And also, the second thing that strikes us about the salutation is the content of it. And I'm going to call attention to that in a moment. But first, just let me read the salutation. Paul, an apostle. not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.
And all the brethren which are with me under the churches of Galatia, grace be to you and peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, that he may deliver us from this present evil world according to the will of God and our Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. All right, the first thing is a standard procedure for Paul.
It's normal for Paul when he begins the right letter to identify himself as the author, and he usually does it in terms of naming his name and his office. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, you see. Or Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ to the churches of Ephesus or whatever. You see, he goes on like this. But in the very beginning line of this epistle, we see the argument beginning to take form.
Paul doesn't simply say, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ and God the Father, but there's a parenthetical statement added in there. Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead. Now, at this point, you see, there's a subtle shift from the normal, easy flow of Paul's salutation. Now, there's a reason for that.
One of the critical problems that Paul was involved with in the Galatian community in terms of the Judaizers is that the Judaizers who were coming into those congregations and trying to force them into this business of circumcision and adherence to the Old Testament ceremonial legislation and all the rest, these people knew very obviously that the teaching that they were bringing...
was an open conflict and on a collision course with the teaching Paul had given to those churches. Obviously, there were people in that congregation saying, hey, wait a minute. What you're telling us is not the same thing that Paul told us. So then the secondary issue came upon the church, namely the issue of authority. Who is the authority?
And the people in the church began to appeal to Paul, the apostle. Ha! And one of the main tenets of the criticism that came at the hands of the Judaizers was a criticism launched against the authenticity and legitimacy of Paul's apostleship.
And they try to appeal instead to the Jerusalem church, to the original 12 apostles, the Judaizers did, and tried to belittle and deny the reality of Paul's apostleship. And so at stake in the whole epistle is the issue of Paul's apostleship. It's the same kind of thing, the same type of thing that happened at the time of the Reformation.
Let me just review that for you very quickly, just by way of illustration, what's going on here in the church. Theologians historically have tended to make a distinction between the formal issue of the Reformation and the material issue, or maybe we'll call it the primary and the secondary issue that was at stake at the Reformation.
The material issue, that is the matter, the core of the thing, the essence of the debate between the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant movement in the 16th century was what? What was the doctrine under dispute in the 16th century? Justification. How is a man justified? The material issue was the question of justification by faith alone.
But lurking behind all of the bait over this business of how is a man justified, which is a pretty critical question, isn't it? Huh? You bet. Eternity depends on the answer to that question.
Behind the material debate, many times behind the scenes, but from time to time exploding from the curtains and coming out into focus where everybody could see it in the light of day, was the formal issue of the question of authority. In other words, how do we solve this debate of the matter? What's the formal principle that we appeal to in order to solve the material question?
Remember, for example, the whole thing started, you see, when Luther packed up his theses on the church door at Wittenberg asking for disputation in the matter of theology. The issue he was raising was what? The whole business of indulgences were being sold there in Germany. He's raising the whole question of justification. He wasn't raising questions about the Pope's authority.
He wasn't raising questions about what the ultimate court of appeals was to be in the church. But more and more, you see, this became to be the issue.
So that finally, when Luther was called to the Diet of Worms to stand before the princes of the church and the princes of the world, and he was called upon to recant of his writings, recant of his work, you know, he gave his famous statement that the Diet of Worms says, unless I am convinced by Scripture or by evident reason,
I will not, indeed I cannot, recant, or to act against the consciences, neither safe nor wise, and all that. But here I stand. God help me, okay? What was introduced at that point was the formal issue, the principle of sola scriptura. What Luther was saying is, I'm not going to be convinced.
If the Pope disagrees with me, if all the councils of the church disagree with me, I'm still not going to repudiate this thesis because my authority, finally, in the final analysis, is the Bible. Now, if you can show me that I've misread the Bible, I've misinterpreted the Bible, you see, or if the Bible doesn't say what I'm saying, I'll gladly submit and I'll repent of all the evil of my teaching.
But until that day comes, I'm going to stand right here. What was the issue before it? And this is exactly what's happening, you see, in the Galatians situation. They're debating over this business of the relationship between the old covenant and the new covenant. They're debating, you see, between the relationship of the law and the gospel.
And then the question comes up, okay, well, what this debate really centers around is that Paul says one thing and the Judaizers say another. And so the Judaizers begin to now come up with the formal question, all right, so what if Paul says, who's he? Why should we submit to his authority? And Paul is responding now, jealous to demonstrate his authority as an apostle.
And we have the greatest defense by Paul himself to the legitimacy of his apostleship that's to be found anywhere in the New Testament right here in this epistle, beginning in the first line. Well, I have to say a word about this, too, before I go any further. And that is that, you know, there's a sense in which Paul's beating his own drum, blowing his own horn here. But Paul's not doing that.
simply that he may receive the proper honor and adulation of the people. If there's anything that characterizes Paul, it's his own self-consciousness of being nothing more than a slave to Jesus Christ. He's not interested in self-aggrandizement. He's not interested in winning glory to himself.
He's not playing the game that the disciples did earlier when they were hassling over who was going to be the greatest in the kingdom of God. You see, he understood what John the Baptist's attitude was when John would say, you know, I must decrease that Christ might increase.
The idea here being, of course, that it's no significance whatsoever, whether in all eternity you or I are preferred among the others. That's insignificant in the kingdom of God. What difference does it make which one of us receives the most honor? Because any honor we receive, in a sense, is only that much applause and exultation that's directed away from Christ and to us.
We should hate the applause of men. And this is a thesis that comes from Paul's pen over and over and over again. And to accuse Paul, you see, of defending or writing about his apostleship here simply for the sake of blowing his own horn is to miss the point altogether. But what Paul understood was his role in redemptive history was extremely important for those people.
And he had to make it clear to them that his apostleship was genuine, that he had to make clear that part of the gospel of Christ includes apostolic authority. It's a very touchy situation to be in. It's like a minister fighting for his right to be heard as a minister. It's sort of against our grain for a man to have to defend himself like this. But Paul wasn't defending himself.
He was defending his office, which was absolutely vital for the people's well-being. And so he begins, Paul, an apostle, Not Paul, a missionary, although he performed that task. Not Paul, the pastor, though he performed that task. Not Paul, you see, the leader for the faith, though he performed that task. Paul, an apostle. And he asked, not of men, nor by men. That's a forceful thing.
He doesn't say it once. He says it twice. He covers himself from every direction. Paul apostles, he says, neither of men or by men. The human dimension is excluded here. Okay? What Paul is arguing already at the beginning of this is that my apostleship rests on divine authority. Not of men, neither by men, but by and through, you see, by the means of Jesus Christ. And that's not enough.
God the Father who has raised him from the dead. You see, the line of authority goes like this. The Father has commissioned the Son. Jesus says over again, I speak nothing of my own, but only that which the Father has sent me to say. Don't tell me you love the Father and hate me. That was his debate with the Jews.
Don't tell me you love God, but you don't need Jesus, because I'm the emissary, I'm the divine logos here. You reject me, you reject the Father. You say you love God and hate me, you're a liar when you say you love God. You say God is your Father and you don't hear the Son who comes from the Father's house. You're a liar when you use the word Father.
Understand, the line of authority, God commissions Jesus, Jesus commissions the apostle. That's the line. And so what Paul is saying, you see, very clearly they understood this, what he's saying to the Galatians, if you reject my message, you're not just rejecting me, you're rejecting the message of Jesus.
And not only that, but you're rejecting the message of God the Father, who has vindicated his son by resurrection. Now, when Paul says that he's an apostle not by man or through man, he's not denying the importance of a call.
Paul had hands laid on to him by the disciples in Jerusalem and all the rest, and not denying the fact that he was commissioned by the Jerusalem church to be the apostle of the Gentiles. Paul's not denying his ordination, you know, in the context of men, but he's talking here about his call to the rank of apostleship.
And the thing that differentiates the apostle from every other office in Scripture is that the apostle's call is an immediate one rather than a mediate one. Understand that. His call and commission comes directly and immediately from Christ. No human intervention.
subsequent levels of authority in the church, the pastor, the deacon, you see, the missionary, they're called inwardly by God to be sure, but that call has to be confirmed by men, by the body of Christ. What I'm saying here is that Paul is not despising the call of man. Indeed, he himself is involved in the laying on of hands and the commissioning of men.
He himself becomes one of those human mediaries to ordain other people into the ministry. But what he is saying is that there is a distinction between every office in the church and that office of apostle, which stands on a parallel line with the function of the prophet in the Old Testament.
as being uniquely divinely commissioned as agents of revelation, as spokesmen of absolute authority from the Lord himself. Thus, in the Old Testament, the prophet can preface his message, his oracle, with the statement, not thus saith Isaiah, or according to my judgment, or in my opinion, saith Jeremiah, but he would begin his oracle with the statement, thus saith the Lord. In order to do that,
That prophet had to substantiate his call. Now, let me just again elaborate here. Part of the reason why Paul's apostleship was under dispute was the fact that there was a difference in his particular historical situation from the 12th. See, if you look at the book of Acts and you read about what happens when Judas dies and the church is called upon to appoint a successor, right? To Judas.
What are the criteria that are used here to determine whether or not a person ought to fill that office? And we can glean from the text basically three kinds of consideration. One, that the person was first a disciple. Two, that the person was an eyewitness of the resurrection. Three, that he was directly and immediately appointed by Christ. That he was called.
Paul didn't satisfy all those requirements. And so there was a way there that the question could come up on. He wasn't a disciple. He never knew Jesus caught the Sarka, that is, after the flesh. He didn't know him in his earthly ministry, wasn't he? Trained by Jesus in Jesus' own rabbinic school.
The thing is that Paul's apostleship is not of men, neither by no human intermediary, but it's by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead. And all the brethren which are with me unto the churches of Galatia. That notices a departure here from Paul's normal attitude. Normally he'll say, and from Phoebe and Gaius and Crispus and Timothy and whoever else is with them.
He'll mention them by name. But here I say, and all the brethren with me, I usually say to this church and to all the churches in Galatia, and there's a kind of generalness here. Perhaps maybe I'm reading between the lines here too much, but you get the idea of the swiftness of movement of the salutations. Paul's in a hurry to get down to the issue. Deal with it.
Not so fast, though, that he neglects to give them the apostolic blessing. Grace be to you and peace from God the Father. And from our Lord Jesus Christ. Polite enough and courteous enough and kindly disposed enough to give them this normal standard type of greeting, grace and peace. That's what he wants for these people. He wants them to experience the graciousness of God.
He wants them to know the full dimension of peace that comes from Christ, from our Lord Jesus Christ. But again, you see, he doesn't say grace and peace to you from God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ. You know, to him glory be forever and ever and amen. But what does he do? It acts on to the salutations. Something that touches the very issue that he's going to deal with throughout the epistle.
Grace be to you and peace from God, our Father, from our Lord Jesus Christ. Karma! who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world according to the will of God and to our Father. Already, you see, the lines of the argument are being drawn here.
I wanted to remind these people, don't forget, this grace and peace that I'm sending to you is from that Jesus, you see, who died for your sins and who has delivered us from the evil of this world. That's the cardinal point that the people of the Galatian churches were beginning to forget. To whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Amen.
Amen. That was R.C. Sproul on this Wednesday edition of Renewing Your Mind, introducing us to the Apostle Paul's letter to the churches in Galatia. This early series from Dr. Sproul is 11 messages, and you can have digital access to it, plus his series, Pleasing God, when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org or when you call us at 800-435-4343.
In addition to digital access to those series, we will also send you R.C. Sproul's expositional commentary on Galatians. So make your donation today at renewingyourmind.org or by clicking the link in the podcast show notes. Renewing Your Mind is a listener-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries, so thank you for your generosity. How should we respond to those who preach a distorted gospel?
Thank you.