Christ Crucified (eBook)

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The Adversaries

Introduction

Galatians heralds the truth of the gospel, and this gospel stands as the authority over all people everywhere. Thus, Paul defends it passionately in the letter (Gal. 2:5, 14) over against his antagonists. The adversaries in Galatia, on the other hand, insisted that Paul deviated from the gospel and that he wasn’t a genuine apostle. The identity of the opponents in Galatians has been a matter of sharp controversy over the years, and examining that issue in detail would require a longer chapter than is possible here.1 Instead I will attempt to paint a portrait of the agitators from the letter itself. Such an enterprise is not without risks since we don’t hear the adversaries in their own voice. We only know about their views through what Paul says about them. If we could talk to Paul’s opponents, we would certainly gain a fuller and deeper understanding of their perspective. Since we are confined to what Paul says about the agitators and since Paul doesn’t provide a full account of their views, we have to engage in what is called mirror reading.2 From what Paul writes, we attempt to discern the identity and theology of the opponents. We recognize our historical distance from the first readers at this very point since the Galatians knew who the adversaries were and what they taught. Paul assumes such knowledge in writing the letter to the Galatians, reminding us that the letter wasn’t written to us but to the first readers.3

Paul gives us enough information in Galatians so that we can sketch in quite a full picture of those who resisted him. For those of us who believe in divine inspiration of the Scriptures, we also believe that God has given us all the information we need to understand the letter. The providence of God is such that what we have in the Scriptures is sufficient to understand their message. In the case of Galatians we don’t claim to have a comprehensive grasp of the letter as if everything is perfectly clear. But I do claim that enough information is given so that we have a clear understanding of the central message of the letter.

We don’t enjoy absolute certainty about the identity of the opposition, but they bear striking similarities to the Pharisees who debated with Paul and Barnabas in Acts 15. Even if they were not the same people, they shared the same perspective on the law, the law that was given on Mount Sinai. These Pharisaic believers in Christ insisted that Gentile believers should get circumcised and keep the Mosaic law and that such was necessary for salvation (Acts 15:1, 5). The Galatian agitators almost certainly advanced the same argument, as we shall see. It is probable as well that those troubling the Galatians came from outside the church. Thus, it is possible that the opponents hailed from Jerusalem or possibly Syrian Antioch. If that is the case, they traveled to Galatia, declaring the same message that they promulgated in Israel and its near environs. We don’t know, of course, whether Paul’s opponents were the same people who questioned him and Barnabas in Acts 15. What does seem plausible, however, is that—if they were distinct from those in Jerusalem and Syrian Antioch—they advocated the same message.

Questioned Paul’s Apostolic Authority

As we examine Galatians, some features of the adversaries’ teaching come into sharper focus. For instance, we have good reasons to think that they questioned Paul’s apostolic authority, and this is particularly evident in Galatians 1–2. We have a hint that they had doubts about Paul from the outset of the letter since in the first verse, after declaring that he was an apostle, Paul immediately adds that he was “not from men nor through man” (Gal. 1:1). Paul often begins his letters by asserting that he was an apostle (Rom. 1:1; 1 Cor. 1:1; 2 Cor. 1:1; Eph. 1:1; Col. 1:1; 1 Tim. 1:1; 2 Tim. 1:1; Titus 1:1), but this is the only letter where he immediately claims that his apostleship didn’t have a human source. A note of self-defense, an apology of Paul’s apostolic legitimacy, peeks through the first verse of the letter! Paul defended himself from the beginning because the opponents questioned his apostolic authority. The agitators likely claimed that Paul failed to tell the Galatians that they had to be circumcised (more on this shortly) because he wanted to please people (Gal. 1:10). Perhaps they even claimed that Paul preached circumcision elsewhere (Gal. 5:11) and that he failed to bring up the matter in Galatia because he didn’t want to offend them.

Our historical distance from Galatians may screen us from the distinctiveness of Paul’s apostolic ministry. We need to remember that Paul wasn’t one of the original twelve apostles who were commissioned by Jesus and who accompanied him throughout his ministry. Paul himself says that he was “untimely born” (ektrōma) and confesses he was “unworthy” to be an apostle since he persecuted the church (1 Cor. 15:8–9; cf. 1 Tim. 1:12–16). We don’t know if Paul ever met Jesus while he was on earth. One can easily understand, then, that questions could be raised about Paul’s apostolic legitimacy. We can imagine the opponents saying to the Galatians, “Who is this person who never walked and talked with Jesus? Where did he get his gospel? And does it agree with the gospel proclaimed by the apostles in Jerusalem?” In other words, they probably claimed that Paul’s gospel was dependent on the apostles from Jerusalem and that he distorted what the twelve taught.4 They could have unsettled the Galatians by saying that the gospel Paul taught was not the same gospel that the twelve taught in Jerusalem. Paul’s gospel was an outlier, they charged, not in accord with the gospel proclaimed elsewhere in the world.

The adversaries asserted, then, that Paul’s gospel was human and not from God or Jesus Christ (Gal. 1:11). I should note, by the way, that we have no clear evidence that these agitators denied that Jesus was the Messiah. Apparently, there was no argument on that matter, and thus both Paul and the opponents claimed that they were Christians—followers of Christ. If they denied that Jesus was the Messiah or that he had risen from the dead, we can be sure that Paul would have responded vigorously. Despite their common belief that Jesus was the Messiah, these troublemakers (1:7; 5:10) asserted that Paul didn’t proclaim the true gospel, the gospel that emanated from Jerusalem, the gospel preached by the twelve apostles. Paul’s so-called gospel, according to his antagonists, was transmitted to him by human beings and didn’t have a divine origin (1:12).

Demanded Observance of Circumcision and the Law

We have seen that the opponents in Galatia questioned Paul’s apostolic authority, asserting that his gospel was merely human since it did not agree with the Jerusalem apostles. But what was the controversy between Paul and the agitators precisely? What was the issue that led to such a fierce dispute? If we work backwards and consult the end of the letter, the difference between Paul and the antagonists surfaces, and it comes out most clearly in Galatians 6:12–13

It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh.

Paul’s accusations against his adversaries aren’t my concern here; what we see without any doubt is that the opponents required circumcision, that they reproved the Galatians for failing to observe this command from the torah. We have another indication that the issue was circumcision in Galatians 5:2–4 since Paul warns the Galatians in the strongest possible way about the fatal consequences that will follow if they get circumcised. They are warned that they will be severed from Christ, fall from grace, and face eschatological judgment if they receive circumcision. Paul also tells the story in Galatians 2:3–5 about some “false brothers” who wanted to impose circumcision on Titus when he traveled to Jerusalem with Paul and Barnabas. Actually, if we are reading Galatians for the very first time, we don’t realize as we encounter this story about the conflict over circumcision in Jerusalem that circumcision was also controversial in Galatia. After reading the entire letter, however, we understand why Paul brought up the story of the attempt to get Titus circumcised. He foreshadows in Galatians 2 the debate that was raging in the Galatian churches.

For modern readers the claim that one must be circumcised seems strange and perhaps even bizarre, but when we read the Old Testament the demand of the opponents has much more credibility. They almost certainly appealed to Genesis 17:9–14:

And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be...