Galatians 1

Evidence from Paul’s Life

(1:1) “Paul, an apostle (not sent from men nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead).”

Paul is already laying the foundation for his authority as an “apostle” (apostolos). In Classical Greek, the word was “used of a naval expedition… that is, to send off on a long and arduous mission.”[] Paul was one of the original apostles who could write Scripture, and in his first letter (Galatians), he establishes his unique authority as an apostle. Here, he claims that he didn’t receive his authority from the other apostles or from any other human authority. He received it directly from “Jesus Christ and God the Father.” This will become important as the book unfolds, because the false teachers are questioning the legitimacy of Paul’s gospel, and supplanting it with their own. Paul repeatedly takes his stand on getting his gospel directly from the authority of Jesus—not humans.

Paul contrasts being sent “by men” with being sent “by Jesus.” This may be early evidence of a high Christology (i.e. Jesus being God). At the very least, we can infer that Jesus wasn’t merely a human being; otherwise, there would be no contrast between the two subjects.

Galatians is (arguably) our earliest epistle, and in the first line, Paul is already affirming that Jesus was “raised… from the dead.” The resurrection wasn’t a later legend of the early church. Paul assumes the truth of the resurrection, seeing no reason to defend it to his audience.

(1:2) “And all the brethren who are with me, to the churches of Galatia.”

The previous verse made it sound like it was “Paul against the world.” But consider this verse: Paul enjoyed fellowship and working with other people, rather than working alone (“all the brethren who are with me”).

(1:3) “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

The gospel message, which Paul will defend extensively in this book, is the way to have “grace” and “peace” with God. This is why Paul is such a passionate defender of the gospel. Jesus’ message of love and forgiveness is the ultimate cure to the human condition—namely, alienation from God.

(1:4) “[Jesus] gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.”

The “present evil age” (aiōn) in this context refers to false teaching and legalism in the Church. In this context, this term has “the same force as ‘world’ (kosmos) often has in the writings of John (e.g., 1 Jn. 2:15-17).”[] Indeed, at the end of the letter, Paul will write that “the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world (kosmos)” (Gal. 6:14).

“According to the will of our God and Father.” There is no separation between the love of the Son and the love of the Father. Both the Father and the Son worked together send Jesus to pay for our sins: “God loves us not because Jesus died for us; rather Jesus died for us because of the Father’s eternal and unconquerable love for us.”[]

(1:5) “To whom be the glory forevermore. Amen.”

Under legalism, humans give themselves the “glory.” Under grace, God gets the “glory.”

Paul’s Thesis Statement: There is only ONE gospel

Now that Paul has established his claim of apostolic authority, he next asserts that there is only one gospel. The false teachers were teaching something different than the truth of Christ, and the two are incongruent with one another.

(1:6) “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel.”

It would have been easy for Paul to make this a horizontal and personal issue between him and this church. Instead, he makes this a vertical and theological issue between them and Christ. Since the gospel is wrapped up in Christ’s work, deserting the gospel is deserting Jesus himself. The term “desert” (metatithesthe) means “to have a change of mind in allegiance” (BDAG). It is used of one of the torture victims during the Maccabean Revolt who refused to “turn away” from Judaism and embrace the Paganism of Antiochus (2 Macc. 7:24). The term was used “metaphorically to one who had changed allegiance from one country to another, a political traitor, or one who had switched sides in an armed conflict, a military deserter. Paul claimed the Galatians were spiritual turncoats!”[] Here, the Galatians were “turning away” or “deserting” the One who called them “by grace.” They were committing treason against God himself.

Paul uses the present tense, which means that the Galatians were in the process of deserting Christ. The story wasn’t over, and Paul expressed confidence that they would return to Christ (Gal. 5:10; 6:9). Paul was writing to get them back on track.

“I am amazed.” Apparently, legalism can enter into the church “quickly.” This was so shocking that Paul can’t help from sharing his amazement. This explains why Paul has a harsh “tone” in the opening of this letter (Gal. 4:20).

(1:7) “[This different gospel] is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.”

“[This different gospel] is really not another.” There aren’t different levels of good news from religion. It’s either the gospel (thesis) or no gospel (antithesis). The gospel is not like the difference between aspirin and ibuprofen; it’s the difference between antibiotics and arsenic. Paul was no relativist!

“Only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.” False teachers crept into this church quickly after Paul had left it, and they were distorting the gospel message. Like dripping a single drop of poison into a clean glass of water, legalism spoils the message of grace. After all, what is “good news” about having to live a scrupulous moral life under the constant fear of judgment?

Paul draws a significant connection between distorting the gospel and disturbing the people. Stott writes, “These two go together. To tamper with the gospel is always to trouble the church. You cannot touch the gospel and leave the church untouched, because the church is created and lives by the gospel. Indeed the church’s greatest troublemakers (now as then) are not those outside who oppose, ridicule and persecute it, but those inside who try to change the gospel.”[]

“Distort the gospel” (metastrephō) can be translated “pervert” (NIV) or “deliberately twist” (NLT). George defines it as meaning “to reverse, to change to the opposite, to twist into something different.”[] They were putting the “cart before the horse” by reversing grace and law.

It must have been difficult to plant this church and quickly leave it. We wonder if Paul was reticent to leave one of his first church plants (Acts 13-14), worrying that they might fall away after he was gone. It turns out that this nightmare became a reality.

(1:8-9) “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! ⁹ As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!”

Paul places the authority of the gospel over angels and over the apostolic band. He even repeats himself for emphasis. It’s as if Paul was writing, “Did I stutter?!”

“Accursed” (anathema) conveys “the same idea as the Hebrew ḥērem, that of being ‘under the curse,’ ‘under the wrath of God.’”[] It refers to “nothing less than to suffer the eternal retribution and judgment of God.”[] In other words, Paul is calling down divine judgment for anyone who distorts the gospel message.

“We have said before…” This implies that Paul repeated this teaching. Perhaps he foresaw conflict arising in this church. After all, in Acts 13-14, Paul and Barnabas faced many different legalistic teachers who were openly fighting the message of grace.

(1:10) “For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.”

The idea of trying to “please” (areskō) means to “to act in a fawning manner, win favor, please, flatter” or to “accommodate” (BDAG, p.129). Paul was willing to compromise on many issues to win people to Christ (1 Cor. 9:19-23), but he was unwilling to budge on the gospel message. Paul’s words and “tone” (cf. Gal. 4:20) were likely offensive, but he had decided that he would speak the truth in love, rather than placate false teachers. In the words of Os Guinness, Paul was living for “the audience of One.” (cf. Eph. 6:6; Col. 3:22). One day, in the future, we will stand before God and either see our lives’ work burned up (1 Cor. 3:10-15) or we will hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant! …Come and share your master’s happiness!” (Mt. 25:21 NIV). Paul had his eyes fixed on this day.

(1:11-12) “For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. ¹² For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.”

“I neither received it from man.” This harkens back to verse 1 where Paul denied that his apostleship came “from men or through the agency of man.” Instead, Paul uses technical, rabbinical language that was used by Pharisees to describe transmitting sacred tradition (paralambanō or Hebrew qibbēl, 1 Cor. 11:23; 15:3). See comments on 1 Corinthians 15:3.

Only, in this case, Paul makes the audacious claim that his message came directly from Jesus himself. But how does Paul substantiate this extraordinary claim? How do we know that Paul is a teacher of the truth, while the false teachers are in the wrong? Paul gives several arguments to support this assertion.

Argument #1: Paul’s radical change of life

In the rest of chapter 1, we possess the “longest and richest autobiographical material we have from the pen of Paul.”[] Though, Paul is not just sharing parts of his testimony for edification. Rather, he has “selectively recounted certain incidents in order to make a theological point.”[] Paul had previously been a hostile, violent persecutor of the church. What could possibly have caused such a radical change in his life? Paul points out that the best explanation for this is that he had a true encounter with Jesus, as he mentioned in verse 12 above.

(1:13) “For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it.”

Paul gives his own testimony as evidence of the fact that verse 12 is true. He is raising an important question: Why would Paul stop persecuting Christians unless a cataclysmic change occurred in his life (such as Jesus appearing to him)? The Judaizers were claiming to be authentically Jewish and grounded their argument in their ethnicity. Paul argues that he has them beat: Not only was his entire “manner of life in Judaism,” but he was also a “persecutor” of Christians.

 (1:14) “I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions.”

Paul just finished writing that he was persecuting and killing Christians. In the same breath, he states that he was “advancing in Judaism” beyond his colleagues. In this case, his religious zeal was “not in accordance with knowledge” (Rom. 10:2). Paul was psychologically sincere that killing Christians was right, but he was sincerely wrong. This confronts us with the notion that not all religion is necessarily good. In Paul’s case, his religious zeal led him to murder others.

Where did Paul get the idea to use violence against Christians? At this point in his life, Paul likely viewed his “zeal” as being in line with the great heroes of the Jewish faith: Phineas killed a fornicating Israelite because of his great zeal (Num. 25:6-7); Joshua killed Achan for breaking God’s commands to plunder the Canaanite cities (Josh. 7:24-26); Elijah slew 450 prophets of Baal who were perverting the nation in his day (1 Kin. 18:19, 40). Likely, Paul saw himself as “standing in the tradition of these zealous leaders in his campaign of violence against the Christians who to his mind were contravening the purpose of God by subverting his holy law.”[]

The Judaizers probably argued that their message had its foundations in the Jewish traditions. Yet again, Paul has them beat: He was at the top of his class when it came to the “ancestral traditions” of Judaism. He not only had incredible zeal and an incredible mind, but he also was incredibly religious—far more than his opponents.

(1:15-16) “But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased ¹⁶ to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood.”

It would be very, very odd for a zealous Jewish rabbi to start preaching among Gentiles—given the hostility between the two groups in the first century. What could account for this? One word: “God.” Once God spoke to Paul in such a palpable way, he didn’t need to go back to Jerusalem to hear a higher authority on the subject. Hence, Paul didn’t “consult with flesh and blood.”

Argument #2: Peter and James agreed with Paul’s gospel

In our view, Paul is not appealing to Peter and James as authorities over him. Paul has already pointed out that the gospel message itself has authority over angels, teachers, and even the apostles (“even if we… preach to you… he is to be accursed” Gal. 1:8-9). The gospel message is bigger than the apostles themselves. Instead of appealing to Peter and James as his authority, Paul is debunking the Judaizers’ claim that his gospel contradicted the gospel in the church in Jerusalem. In other words, Paul is falsifying the claim of the “men from James” (Gal. 2:12) who claimed to have authority from the Jerusalem apostles.

(1:17) “Nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus.”

The Judaizers were probably arguing that they got their authority from Jerusalem (from James?). But Paul writes that during this time he went away from Jerusalem. He went to Arabia which is in the vicinity of Damascus.[] Paul was “never dependent on the Jerusalem authorities for his gospel or his commission to preach it.”[]

What was Paul doing for these three years? We reject the view that Paul was going to pray, meditate, and seek God on Mount Sinai. At this point in history, “Arabia” referred to the “Nabatean Kingdom, a vast expanse of territory stretching southward from Damascus toward the Arabian Peninsula.”[] Instead, Paul went up to “Arabia” to teach the gospel (cf. Acts 9:20), and is why he faced persecution from Aretas IV (9 BC to AD 40; 2 Cor. 11:32-33).

(1:18) “Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas, and stayed with him fifteen days.”

If Paul had in any way doubted that his gospel was authentic, then why would he wait three years to go to Jerusalem? Paul viewed his experience of the risen Jesus to be just as authentic as the other apostles (cf. 1 Cor. 15:8ff).

“Become acquainted with” (historesai) means “to investigate,” “to enquire,” and “to investigate.”[] This word was used for “history” by the time of Aristotle (Poet., 9, p. 1451b, 3) and Herodotus (History, 2.99.1).[] In other words, Paul was on a historical investigation when he came to Jerusalem.

While there is some doubt as to whether this classical definition should be applied to Paul’s usage,[] we have to consider the context: After all, Paul surely didn’t travel all the way to Jerusalem to “shoot the breeze” for two weeks. No doubt, Paul was badgering Peter with questions about Jesus’ earthly ministry, historically investigating the earthly life of Jesus. Since Paul didn’t have the privilege of knowing Jesus before his ascension, he wanted to confer with Jesus’ disciples who had all of this historical data.[] Fung writes, “Peter must have been an invaluable source of information concerning Jesus’ life and ministry… The two apostles can hardly have avoided talking about the earthly life and ministry of their common Lord.”[] Fung also aptly notes that the only two names mentioned here (Peter and James) are also listed in Paul’s list of the eye witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection appearances (1 Cor. 15:1-7). Thus, Paul wanted to interview the eyewitnesses of the resurrection (Gal. 1:1).

(1:19) “But I did not see any other of the apostles except James, the Lord’s brother.”

Paul only met with Peter and James at this time. James had been a skeptic of his brother (Mk. 3:21; Jn. 7:5). However, Jesus appeared to him after his resurrection, and this changed his life forever. Later in the book, Paul will point out that these Judaizers came “from James.” Here Paul points out that he himself came “from James,” so to speak, and James agreed with Paul’s gospel—not theirs! This would make the Judaizers shiver in their seats, because Paul was debunking their authority.

(1:20) “(Now in what I am writing to you, I assure you before God that I am not lying.)”

Again, we see the main reason for Paul giving his testimony: He is trying to demonstrate the truth of his gospel and why he should be believed.

Argument #3: The believers in Cilicia, Syria, and Judea can confirm Paul’s testimony

(1:21-24) “Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. ²² I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea which were in Christ; ²³ but only, they kept hearing, ‘He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith which he once tried to destroy.’ ²⁴ And they were glorifying God because of me.”

Paul didn’t stop in Jerusalem. He went and visited all the believers in Syria and Cilicia (v.21), and word spread to all the churches in Judea (v.22). All of these believers confirmed Paul’s testimony and his changed life (see Argument #1 above). This would really make the Judaizers panic: Paul’s testimony could be confirmed by the very same people he formerly persecuted (v.23). In fact, these same believers were praising God for Paul!

Acts records that the Jerusalem believers were afraid when they first met Paul after he came to Christ. After all, Paul had been a violent murderer (Acts 9:26). It took Barnabas to vouch for Paul’s authenticity in order to assuage their fears (Acts 9:27). In our view, all of these events align quite well with Luke’s compressed account in Acts 9:21-29.

Questions for Reflection

(1) Read verses 6-10. What led Paul to write this letter to the Galatians?

(2) How would you define the gospel? How do you know that you have the right definition of what the gospel is?

(3) Read verse 10. Paul seems to be very inflexible when it comes to pleasing people. How does this fit with other passages that describe Paul? (e.g. 2 Cor. 5:11; 1 Cor. 9:20-23; 10:33; Acts 16:3)

(4) Read chapter 1. What reasons does Paul give for why we should trust him, rather than the Judaizers?

• Paul opens this chapter trying to convince his readers that they have been defrauded into believing a “different gospel” (v.6). His case is this:

• We shouldn’t trust the authority of humans—only Christ (vv.8-9).

• Paul received his gospel directly from Christ (vv.11-12).

• He gives evidence for this claim by appealing to his own personal testimony. He notes that he had been a persecutor of the church—not an apostle. But his life entirely changed after meeting the risen Christ (vv.13-17). He notes that he didn’t need to go compare his gospel with the other apostles, because he was so certain his was correct.

• He notes that he did meet the apostles, but this wasn’t the basis of his authority.

• Finally, all of the churches could be called to the stand to support his testimony.

With evidence like this, why wouldn’t the churches in Galatia respect Paul’s authority? Paul is arguing that these false believers (v.7) couldn’t stand up to his credentials and evidence for the veracity of his gospel.

(5) People in our culture generally claim that objective truth does not exist when it comes to spirituality. How does this perspective fit with Paul’s claims throughout Galatians 1?

Apart from the biblical view, what problems do you see with relativism? Should thinking people adopt this view?

What do you believe is at stake in holding to objective truth versus relativizing it?

(6) Paul seems to be pretty angry in this section, even having a harsh “tone” (Gal. 4:20). When do you think it’s appropriate to get angry as a believer? When is it wrong to get angry? Consider Ephesians 4:26 (“Be angry, and yet do not sin”) or John 2 where Jesus clears the temple.

(7) Is it possible to be passionate for the truth without being self-righteous or condescending? What insights do we see from Paul’s example in Galatians 1?