Editor’s note: This article is part of a series commemorating the Year of St. Paul written by Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, S.J., a Scripture scholar and archbishop of Ottawa.
Paul’s epistle to the Galatians is arguably his most polemical writing. After the salutation (1:1-5), Paul skipped the usual prayer of thanksgiving to berate his converts for abandoning the faith, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different Gospel” (1:6).
Paul recalled that by accepting the Gospel and Baptism, they were given the Holy Spirit and experienced the freedom of God’s children. Now they appeared willing to listen to a different message than the one he had preached, turning to a state of servitude unbecoming of God’s sons and daughters.
The Epistle to the Galatians addresses whether Gentile converts must come under the Law, that is, if they are bound to observe its ritual stipulations. Paul argued they were not. But after he had evangelized them, other “missionaries” — probably Jews who had come to faith in Christ Jesus — unsettled the Galatians by contradicting Paul and saying that they had to submit to circumcision and ritual injunctions.
Paul saw this message as an insidious undermining of the Gospel message. For he knew that well-intentioned people, such as those who have had a recent religious conversion, are prone to want to do what’s right to keep on good terms with God. In other words, they are tempted to want in some way to earn salvation.
Paul’s argument was that observance of the law is a quagmire (“if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you” [5:2]). For gentiles who accept the religious practice of circumcisions are thereafter “obliged to obey the entire law” (5:3), a Herculean, even impossible feat.
Paul offered a different approach, saying: “the only thing that counts is faith working (expressing itself) through love.” For would-be disciples, the only avenue to a right relationship with God is faith in the saving deed of God who let Jesus die on the cross for sinners, then raised Him from the dead.
Christian freedom, Paul taught, is not only a freedom from slavery, but a freedom for service to others. Paul succinctly describes the Christian life as consisting in a “faith which expresses itself through love” (5:6).
To those who want to embrace the many prescriptions of the Law in order to win God’s favour, Paul says, “the whole Law is summarized in a single command: Love your neighbour as yourself.”
Paul assured the Galatians — tempted to abandon their faith-commitment to the Gospel of the cross — that through their Baptism they had become a new creation. Henceforth, no distinction (Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female) would be of any account, “for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
Paul makes a brief allusion to the Incarnation of God’s Son “when the fullness of time had come” to show that God had a cosmic timetable by which He would break humanity’s misery and offer the redemption promised in ancient days through the prophets.
When Paul says that Jesus was “born of a woman, born under the Law” (4:4), he indicated Christ’s solidarity with the people of Israel. Already Paul’s mind is turned to the very death of Jesus on the cross that broke the Law’s hold over sinful humanity “so that we (both Jews and gentiles) might receive the adoption as sons” (4:5).
The risen Lord Jesus poured out on the redeemed His Holy Spirit. This freely given Spirit now enables believers to do what — on their own — they could not achieve, to live the new life of God’s favour.
With a renewed vision of God — as the One who freely offers redemption to those who believe — disciples need no longer seek their own personal or religious advantage but rather that of their neighbours.
If you “live by the Spirit” (that is, walk in the way that the Spirit guides your disciple’s life), Paul told the Galatians, you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.
In Galatians 5:19-23, Paul enumerated the works of the flesh and then the fruits of the Spirit. He was acutely aware that in the corporate life of the church “the flesh” produces factions and strife. By contrast, the Spirit brings to the faith community love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
“The flesh” stands for any self-seeking human desire opposed to the divine will and the wholeness of community life. Paul’s opponents probably stressed the fearsome power of this evil impulse of the flesh and offered “obeying the law” as the way to overcome it.
Paul rebutted this claim, declaring that the Spirit of God is the only agent powerful enough to undo the grip of the flesh: “if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law.
Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, S.J. is a noted Scripture scholar and writer. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Fordham University, Master of Divinity and Doctor of Theology degrees from Toronto School of Theology and a Licentiate in Theology from Regis College. Archbishop Prendergast taught in Halifax at Atlantic School of Theology from 1975-1981, then was Rector of Toronto's Regis College from 1981-87 and Dean of Theology from 1991-1994. For 10 years he wrote a weekly column on Scripture for The Catholic Register.
Editor’s note: This article is part of a series commemorating the Year of St. Paul written by Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, S.J., a Scripture scholar and archbishop of Ottawa.
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