Foolish Galatians

Here in the United States we’re in the middle of a presidential election year, with candidates doing their best to win over as many voters as possible. In a sense, a political campaign is not that different from how 1st century Christian missionaries tried to win over Jew and Gentile converts to their particular interpretations of Christianity.

In a contemporary political campaign, when one candidate critiques the positions of their opponent, the audience is familiar with what the opponent has said or done. But when it comes to Paul defending his ministry against his opponents, such as the Judaizers in Galatians, we only hear one side of the story. We have to reconstruct the opposing viewpoint from how Paul argues against it in his letters. And, just as a modern politician tends to twist their opponent’s position, you can be sure that Paul is giving his audience neither a complete nor a generous interpretation of the Judaizers’ position.

Arguments Against the Judaizers

The core of Paul’s refutation of the Judaizers in Galatians lies in chapters 3 and 4. A key argument is an experiential one: the Galatians received the Spirit without doing works of the Law, so how can doing works of the Law be necessary for justification (3:1-5):? Prior to receiving the gospel, the Galatians were enslaved to the “elemental spirits of the world.” Faith in God’s son redeemed them from their slavery and made them adopted children of God. How can the Galatians return to slavery (4:1-9)?

Paul also relied on Scripture to refute the Judaizers: God promised Abraham, a man whose faith was reckoned as righteousness (Gen 15:5-6), that through his offspring all the nations would be blessed (Gen 22:18). They will be blessed not because they are circumcised, but because they believed, like Abraham did. And this promise to Abraham was made 430 years prior to the Law being given to Moses, so how can it be contingent on observing the law (Gal 3:6-18)?

The Allegory of Sarah and Hagar

Paul cites the story from Genesis of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar, but says the Judaizers have misinterpreted it. This requires a little explanation. In Genesis 16 Sarah, seeing that she was childless, gave her Egyptian slave-girl Hagar to Abraham as a concubine. Hagar conceived but became contemptuous of Sarah, who then mistreated her to the point that Hagar ran away. But YHWH found Hagar by a spring of water in the wilderness and told her to return, later giving birth to Ishmael. In Genesis 21:8-21, Hagar is again driven off into the wilderness where God intervenes once more to save the life of mother and child.

Hagar and Ishmael Banished by Abraham (1781) by Flemish painter Pieter-Jozef Verhaghen

As well as we can reconstruct it, the Judaizers’ argument was that Abraham had two children, one (Isaac) the son of the free woman Sarah, the other (Ishmael) the son of the slave-girl Hagar. Jews are the descendants of Isaac and Gentiles are the descendants of Ishmael, so both Jew and Gentile are children of Abraham. But the Jews are the true children of Abraham because, like him, they practice circumcision and observe the Sabbath and other feasts. As the Messiah, Jesus offers Gentiles the opportunity to share in God’s promise of blessings to Abraham’s descendants. All they have to do is accept circumcision and observe the Mosaic Law.

Paul interprets the story of Sarah and Hagar as an allegory (Gal 4:21-31). The child of the slave woman (Hagar) is born according to the flesh and the child of the free woman (Sarah) is born according to the promise. The descendants of Hagar are not the Gentiles but the Jews, for they are enslaved to the Law. The descendants of Sarah are those born according to the Spirit, in freedom. Sarah had Abraham drive out Hagar because she did not want the child of the slave to share Abraham's inheritance. Thus Paul makes a subtle suggestion that the Galatians are to drive out the Judaizers.

Such an allegorical interpretation of Scripture was once popular, but has been out of favor since the Middle Ages. It’s not hard to see why. There are simply no controls to the interpreter’s imagination. Are Jews the children of the free woman or the slave woman? As you can see, this approach allows for diametrically opposed interpretations of the same biblical passage. How can someone possibly judge which of these allegorical interpretations is correct?

It’s not entirely an academic question. Paul is trying to refute those who would impose the Mosaic Law on Gentiles. From his perspective, the Judaizers are trying to enslave his Christian converts. But to say Paul is denigrating Judaism as a religion that enslaves people is to completely misinterpret Paul. That’s exactly what the 2nd c. theologian Marcion did, concluding that the God of the OT was incompatible with the teachings of Jesus. Anti-semites down through the centuries have also used Paul to justify their prejudice.

Abraham vs. Jesus

The Judaizers’ elevated focus on Abraham and Law caused Paul to reflect on the role of Jesus and “the Law of Christ” which he defines as “faith working through love” (Gal 5:6). It is the love of Christ “who loved me and gave himself for me” that now lives in Paul (2:20). The magnitude of Christ’s love is his self-sacrifice on the cross (a death, by the way, that is condemned by the Law [3:13]).

The Christian is freed from obedience to the Law but that does not mean – contrary to what the Judaizers might say – that Christians are free to indulge the desires of the flesh (5:16-21). The works of the flesh lead to destruction of the individual and the community, but the fruit of the Spirit lead to building up the individual and the community (5:22-26). Use your freedom to become slaves to one another (5:13) because it is only by bearing one another’s burdens that one fulfills the Law of Christ (6:2). Christ himself said that the whole Law could be summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Did Paul’s letter bring the Galatians round to his side again? His letter was preserved, so at least some in Galatia thought his writing was worth keeping and sharing with other churches. Galatians served as a rough draft for Paul’s letter introducing himself to the churches in Rome, where he was able to expound on his theological ideas of justification by faith. Both Galatians and Romans would inspire Luther to develop his doctrine of sola fide (justification by faith alone).

Maybe Paul was misunderstood in his own time, but his writings have continued to inspire Christians throughout the centuries.