Ah – To the Churches in Galatia 1: 1-5

To the Churches in Galatia
1: 1-5

To the churches in Galatia DIG: Why does Sha’ul-Paul have two names? How did Paul assert his authority? How was Sha’ul commissioned as an apostle? How were the other twelve apostles commissioned? Why did Paul include the items mentioned in his greeting? Who were the brothers? Why did the phrase, “Grace and shalom,” have a special significance to the Galatians? What was the purpose of Paul adding, “Who gave Himself for our sins?” Why no word of commendation?

REFLECT: Paul’s tone reminds us that our faith is a matter of heart, as well as head – feelings, as well as intellect. How does this encourage you? How does it challenge you? Do you know anyone who finds it hard to accept the authority of apostolic teaching in the B’rit Chadashah teaching? How does that challenge you? How would you explain the gospel to someone who asked you today what you believe?

An introduction of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, identifying the author, addressees, and the situation for the composition.

One way to deny the truthfulness of a message is to deny the authority of the one who gives it. The Galatian church had received the true gospel of grace from Paul and had believed it until some false teachers called Judaizers came in after he was gone. They not only attacked the validity of the message, but also that of the messenger. Apparently the Judaizers had convinced some of the Galatian church members that Paul was a self-appointed apostle with no divine commission.⁶ Paul started his letter the way all letters were started in those days: from person A to person B, to the greeting. But as he goes along the way he decides to throw in various points that he will deal with later. These points need our attention.

From: Sha’ul (see the commentary on Acts, to see link click Bm – The First Missionary Journey: Paul is Sha’ul and Sha’ul is Paul), an apostle. Paul’s miraculous conversion and call to ministry created some problems. Right from the very beginning, he was separated from the original apostles. His enemies said that he was not a true apostle for this reason. So, he immediately calls himself an apostle and begins to defend his apostolic authority. Where did this authority come from, he said: I received my commission not from human beings or through human mediation, but through Yeshua the Messiah and God the Father (1:10 to 2:14, 5:11, 6:12-14). Then he points out the most important part of the book, the gospel, “God the Father who raised Him from the dead” (1:1) By adding this qualifying phrase, Paul emphasizes that fact that whereas the other apostles were commissioned by Yeshua while He was present in the flesh during His incarnation, he himself was given his commission by the resurrected and glorified Messiah.

Having satisfactorily established his credentials – at least temporarily – Paul introduces all the brothers who were with him (1:2a). Who were the brothers with Paul? Paul based his ministry in the city of Antioch (see the commentary on Acts Bj – The Church in Syrian Antioch), a large ancient city with a substantial Jewish community and more than a dozen synagogues. In Syrian Antioch, the believers were first called Christianoi (Acts 11:26), which became the Greek name for the sect. “Christians” was not a derogatory name; rather, that was simply a Greek name of their particular sect of Judaism.

In those days each synagogue had a name, like “the synagogue of the Hebrews,” or, “the synagogue of the Freedmen,” or something to denote their particular sect. Originally, the synagogue in Antioch was probably called “the synagogue of the Christianoi,” in other words, “the synagogue of the Christians,” serving as a meeting place for both Jewish and Gentile believers. The men who met with Paul in Antioch included Barnabas, one of the missionaries from the earliest days of the Yeshua movement; Manaen, once a member of Herod Antipas’ court and someone who had perhaps known Yeshua personally; and also Luke the physician, Paul’s traveling companion and the author of the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts (Acts 13:1-3). These were a few of the men with Paul when he said: all the brothers with me.⁷

Paul and Barnabas left Syrian Antioch on the eastern Mediterranean seaboard and spent some time ministering on the island of Cyprus. Then they set sail for the mainland and their ship entered the mouth of the Cestrus River. They sailed seven miles upstream to the river-harbor city of Perga. They went from Perga and came to Pisidian Antioch, and entering the synagogue on Shabbat, the two weary travelers sat down (Acts 13:14). After reading from the Torah and the haftarah (the reading from the Prophets), the elders of the synagogue, as was the custom, offered the visitors to say a few words of teaching, a derashah. Brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, speak (Acts 13:15).

As Paul began a synopsis of the gospel, he said: Brothers, sons of Abraham and those among you who are God-fearers, it is to us the message of this salvation has been sent (Acts 13:26). The threefold address refers to the three types of people one might find in any Diaspora synagogue of the first century. First, Paul’s brothers were his fellow Jews, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob through a Jewish mother. Secondly, there were sons of Abraham, or proselytes. There were two types of proselytes: proselytes of the Gate and proselytes of the Covenant. Proselytes of the Gate adopted many Jewish practices like celebrating Shabbat and the feasts of Isra’el, but did not become a full proselyte. Most of these were men because circumcision was not required. But proselytes of the Covenant entered the Covenant of Sinai as a full Jew, so to speak. Most of these were women because this level required circumcision. Thirdly, there were God-fearers. These were Gentiles who became convinced that ADONAI was the only true God, they abandoned their paganism and idolatry, but they did not choose to become a proselyte in any form, and hence there was no adoption of Jewish customs or practices (see the commentary on Acts Be – The Centurion’s Vision).

As Paul preached the gospel, he included all three groups of people in his message. The synagogue received his message with enthusiasm and asked Paul and Barnabas to return and speak more on the following Sabbath. When the synagogue meeting broke up, many of the Jewish people and God-fearing inquirers followed Paul and Barnabas. They kept begging them to speak these things to them again at the next Shabbat. The following Shabbat, almost the entire city, both Jews and Gentiles, came together to hear the word of the Lord. They came to hear the Word of God and the synagogue was overflowing with people standing outside. Since the town’s citizens had the opportunity to hear the Torah read every Shabbat, they were presumably drawn to Paul’s preaching of the Word in regard to Jesus.⁸

The teaching of the Torah, requiring circumcision, attracted only a few Gentiles, but the preaching of grace, attracted a multitude of Gentiles who had heard Paul’s sermon the previous Shabbat and understood that the salvation he proclaimed in Messiah included them! The word had spread like wildfire through the Gentile community and they were there in masses. But when the unbelieving Jewish leaders saw the Gentile crowd, they were filled with zealousness (Greek: zelos), as the Great Sanhedrin had been previously (Acts 5:17). Their zealousness was over the presence of all those Gentiles. It was one thing to proclaim the coming Messiah to the Jews. It was quite another to maintain that the Messiah God accepted the Gentiles on an equal basis. To them this was a little short of blasphemy,⁹ and they tried to contradict Paul’s interpretation of Scripture by continually revealing him. 

The message of the gospel itself raised no objections from the Jewish community. On the contrary, the Jewish people of Galatia listened eagerly and wanted to hear more. The message of Messiah’s death, burial, and resurrection, and the justification and salvation available through Him, sounded good to their ears. They found no offense in the cross. Those were the days before Christian arguments had galvanized Jewish objection to the gospel. They didn’t raise any objections until they saw the overwhelming response of the Gentiles. To the Galatian Jewish community of Pisidian Antioch, the offense of the cross was the inclusion of the Gentiles.

Paul and Barnabas shrugged off the concern and continued to teach the new believers. However, both Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said: It was necessary for the word of God to be spoken to you first (Romans 1:16). Since you reject it and judge yourselves unfit for eternal life – behold, we are turning to the Gentiles (13:43-46). Paul cited Isaiah 49:6 as evidence that the salvation of the Gentiles had been ADONAI’s plan all along. In the prophecy, God addresses His chosen Servant and tells Messiah to bring salvation to the Gentile nations, “It is too small a thing for you to be My Servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Isra’el I have kept; I will also make You a light for the Gentiles, that My salvation (My Yeshua) may reach to the ends of the earth.” Eventually, pressure from the Jewish community forced Paul and Barnabas out of Pisidian Antioch. Recovered enough to travel deeper into Galatia, they set out for another Galatian city: Iconium. They shook the dust from their feet as they left.

Paul saw that pattern repeated over and over again in city after city. Popular success at the synagogue was typically followed by the conversion of a large number of God-fearing Greeks and no small number of the leading women. But the Jewish people became jealous (Acts 17:4-5). Everywhere Paul went, Gentiles seemed to flock to the synagogue to hear him speak. All over Asia Minor, he found Gentiles eager to hear the message of the gospel and Jewish people eager to rid themselves of that same message, not because of theological objections about Yeshua, but because they objected to the intrusion of Gentiles into their faith on an equal basis. Nevertheless, Paul was able to establish a Gentile church in Galatia.

Paul eventually worked his way back to his home base (see the commentary on Acts Br – Paul’s Return to Syrian Antioch). After completing his First Missionary Journey, Paul received word that the Gentle believers that he had established in Galatia were being bewitched (see the commentary on Galatians Bf – O Foolish Galatians, Who has Cast a Spell on You) by a group of Judaizers (see Ag – Who Were the Judaizers?), who had infiltrated the city after he had left. When Paul heard about this, under the influence of the Ruach ha-Kodesh, Paul sat down and wrote a letter to the Gentile believers in Galatia.¹⁰

To: The Messianic communities in Galatia. Unlike Paul’s other letters this was not written to one specific city, but to a region in what is today central Turkey where Paul established the congregations of Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe (Acts 13:51 to 14:23) and later returned to strengthen them (Acts 15:36, 16:1-6, 18:23) (1:2b):

Grace and shalom to you from God our Father and from the Lord Yeshua the Messiah (1:3). Grace and shalom is a combination of traditional First Century Greco-Roman and Jewish greetings. The salutation proper given here is the uniform one found in all of Paul’s letters, but it has special significance in this letter since the recipients were turning away from the doctrine of grace toward the legalistic teachings of the Judaizers.

Who gave Himself for our sins (1:4a). Here Paul brings to the attention of the Galatians, who were ignoring the substitutionary nature of Messiah’s atoning death, which is the true ground of acceptance for all believers (4:21 and 5:4). This was purposely added because the Galatians were falling back on good deeds as the basis for their acceptance and relationship with ADONAI. Therefore, Paul counters the bloodless religion of the Judaizers with the doctrine of substitution, which teaches that the Lord Yeshua took our place on the cross, and for those of faith, substituted our sins for His righteousness, which perfectly satisfies every demand of a holy God.

So that he might deliver us from the present evil, transitory world-system (1:4b). The word deliver (Greek: exaireo carries the idea of rescuing from danger) is the big idea of the letter. The Good News is a rescue, an emancipation, as it were, from a state of slavery. The word evil is not from kakos here, but poneros. In the latter word, the intent of the evil can be seen as far more sinister than in the former. The kakos man may be content to perish in his own corruption, but the poneros man is not content unless he is corrupting others as well, and drawing them into the same destruction as he himself will suffer. The Adversary is not called the kakos one, but the poneros one. The present evil world-system is described by Paul as poneros. We might best translate this Greek word as pernicious.

It is important that Paul candidly states that Yeshua gave Himself for our sins . . . so that he might deliver us from the present evil world-system. Believers being rescued from sin is something that is to be affected by the work of Yeshua, not something that occurs via human effort. In too many cases throughout religious history, both before and after Paul’s letter to the Galatians, untold multitudes have thought that their own actions in association with obeying the 613 commandments of Moses is what will rescue them from evil and bring them to Abraham’s side. Those who think like this have forgotten that it was not the Torah that delivered Ancient Isra’el from Egyptian bondage, it was ADONAI who delivered her.¹¹

The Scrolls understand that this present evil world-system is under the dominion of Belial, of the Angel of Darkness. “And the hand of the Angel of Darkness is total dominion over the sons of deceit; they walk on paths of darkness. From the Angel of darkness stems corruption of all the sons of justice, and all their sins, their iniquities, their guilts and their offensive deeds are under his dominion in compliance with the mysteries of God, until his moment; and all their afflictions and their periods of grief are caused by the dominion of his enemy; and all the spirits of his lot cause the sons of light to fall” (Rule of the Community 3:20-24).¹²

In obedience to the will of God, our Father (1:4c). But Paul is quick to add that the act of Messiah rescuing us is not according to our plan, or in proportion to our obedience to a set of rules, or because of any good quality in us, but according to the Father’s sovereign will. Therefore, this rescue is according to His plan, not ours. All of which means that the salvation secured on the cross for us by our Lord is to be received by faith, apart from any merit of our own. We cannot earn what Messiah has secured for us. Salvation is a free gift. For grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not from yourselves – it is the gift of God. It is not based on deeds, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Paul concludes his introduction with a doxology fitting for such a saving God. His motive for writing to the Galatian churches was that he might acknowledge that ADONAI is worthy of glory forever and ever (1:5a)! The apostle’s supreme purpose was to glorify his Lord, and he calls all believers to do everything to the glory of God (First Corinthians 10:31). In these five opening verses Paul covers the four stages of our salvation. The first stage was the sovereign decree of YHVH to save, the second was the death of Messiah for our sins, the third was the appointment of apostles to testify to the gospel, and the fourth was the gift of His grace to those who would believe in Yeshua Messiah. In each of these stages the Trinity is at work, because Their will and Their work are always one. Together They planned salvation, together They provide salvation, together They announce salvation, and together They grant salvation to everyone who comes to Them in faith.¹³

The abruptness of the language is remarkable. In Paul’s other letters, he always has a word of commendation for the churches to which he is writing, even in the case of the church at Corinth which he was taking severely to task because of serious disorders within its membership. He does not even address them as those trusting in Messiah Yeshua, or the kedoshim, the holy ones, although they were. This shows the extent and seriousness of their defection, also the troubled state of the apostle’s mind mingled with his indignation at the actions of his converts.¹⁴

Amen (1:5b). This implies oath, acceptance of words, and confirmation or words. It implies oath, as it is written: The woman is to say, “Amen, amen” (Numbers 5:22). It implies acceptance of words, as it is written: Cursed is the one who does not uphold the words of this Torah by doing them. Then all the people are to say, “Amen” (Deuteronomy 27:26). And it implies confirmation of words, as it is written: So the prophet Jeremiah said, “Amen! May ADONAI do so! May ADONAI fulfill your words that you have prophesied” (Jeremiah 28:6a).¹⁵

Therefore, Paul had already drawn the lines of battle by touching on two vital concerns. He had affirmed his own apostleship and had declared that the basis of mankind’s salvation is based solely on the work of Messiah and not any human deeds.

Dear Father God, We praise and thank you that you sent the message of your great love/gospel out to all so that you might deliver us from the present evil, world-system (1:4b NIV). The gift of Your love was at such a great sacrifice for you! Though You give your gift freely to all who believe, yet it cost you such pain and sorrow. We bow in worship and adoration of You! Please give us opportunities and the right words to use to share your gift with others, and may go ahead of us to soften their hearts to be willing to follow you as their Lord and Savior. We love you Father! In your holy Son’s name and power of resurrection, Amen