SLIDES

The Letter to the Galatians

Part 2

Introduction

During our last lesson, we discussed some introductory issues concerning our study of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Of course, we learned that the Apostle Paul wrote this Important letter to five churches in the southern Roman Provence of Galatia. He wrote it from his home church at Antioch in Syria. It was also Barnabas’ home church.

Paul wrote this letter to encourage the believers in the five churches to hold on to the gospel message he presented to them, not the message from a group of men were teaching that salvation and growing in Christ were results of faith in Jesus plus keeping several aspects of the Mosaic Law. These men were called Judaizers.

We discussed three important terms that Paul used repeatedly in the book of Galatians.

Justification – Justification is a judicial act of God in which He declares a sinner righteous. Believers are not righteous because they are still sinners but declared righteous because believers are in Christ.  Being declared righteous is synonymous with being saved. Salvation is instantaneous. It is not a process!

Sanctification – Sanctification, however, is the process of being made righteous. It is also called progressive sanctification. The goal is to grow in Christ.  Sanctification is a lifelong process of maturing, growing, or becoming more like Christ from the power of the Holy Spirit.  Like justification, sanctification occurs as a result of faith and grace, not by works. 

Glorification – Glorification is what occurs when one becomes perfectly righteous. Being glorified means that Christ will change Christians into His likeness at His return. Perfective sanctification is another term for glorification. It means being fully conformed to the image of God’s Son.

A study of the book of Galatians

1.     Salutation (1:1-5)

Paul's greeting to the Galatians is different from his greetings to other churches. He was writing under heavy stress. False teachers and critics had arisen in the church who were criticizing and attacking him. They were questioning his call to the ministry and his authority as God's messenger. They were even questioning the good news he was preaching. Therefore, the usual affection expressed toward churches and individuals is missing. From the very first sentence his writing is abrupt. He attacked the Galatian churches vigorously with words straight to the point: he was a true minister of God, a true apostle, and a special messenger of the Jesus the Messiah. The good news he was preaching came directly from God through divine revelation, not through man. Let’s begin by reading Galatians1:1-2.

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),

2 and all the brethren who are with me,

  To the churches of Galatia:

In verse 1 Paul introduces himself as the writer of the letter. A common misconception that he changed his name from Saul to Paul after he became a believer and when Jesus told him he would have a ministry to the Gentiles. Paul did not change his name from Saul to Paul.

Paul was saved in AD 35 on the road to Damascus. Four years after his salvation in AD 39 during his first visit to Jerusalem after his salvation, he was still known as Saul.

In AD 46 or 47, Paul visited Jerusalem during a famine. He was still called Saul during this visit. This was 11 or 12 years after his salvation.

During his first Missionary journey in AD 48 found in Acts 13-14, when he planted the churches in Galatia, he was still called Saul. This was 13 years after his salvation.

I think Acts 13:9 clarifies the situation.

“But Saul, who was also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, fixed his gaze on him…”

Paul was given two names at birth. His Jewish name was Sha’ul or Saul, and his Roman name was Paulos or Paul since he was born a Roman citizen. Rabbi Slivovitz in his book, A New Look at Rabbi Jesus said, “…most Jews have two names: their secular one and a Hebrew one. The choosing of names takes much deliberation by families and their rabbis. Often, parents decide to select names with similar sounds. Thus, Rabbi Albert Slivovitz ’s Hebrew name is Abraham. Someone may have the Gentile name of Gail, a Hebrew name of Galil. Two other examples from Scripture are Matthew and Peter.  Mathew, who was a Roman Tax Collector before following Jesus, also was given the name Levi at birth.  Peter’s Hebrew name was Cephas.

The bottom line is that Paul did not change his name. He always had both names from birth of Saul and Paul.

In Galatians 1:1, Paul called himself an Apostle. The word apostle means one who is sent. In this case, an apostle was an ambassador who was called and sent to represent Jesus and His’ mission. He was also like a very special messenger who was sent forth to proclaim the good news of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Therefore, an apostle was a combination of ambassador, representative, and special messenger.

The twelve disciples of Jesus were, of course, also apostles. He gave these twelve men the title of apostle because of the special responsibility to spread His message after He returned to heaven. They were disciples, learners first, and then were elevated to the ministry of apostles.

They were not just sent to pass along His’ teaching, but Jesus gave them the authority to represent His very person. They healed the sick, cast out demons, preached the good news of the Kingdom, and later the good news of the death, burial, and resurrection of the Jesus, etc. That’s why Jesus told the disciples,” He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me.” (Matthew 10:40)

There were several qualifications for being an apostle of Jesus. These are found in Acts 1:22-23.

22 beginning with the baptism of John until the day

that He was taken up from us—one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection.”

23 So they put forward two men, Joseph called

Barsabbas (who was also called Justus), and

Matthias.

Paul did not follow Jesus from John the Baptizer to His’ accession, but he did qualify as being an apostle who was a bit different as we see in 1 Corinthians 15:8.

“and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.”

He did see the risen Messiah, but he considered himself born untimely or born prematurely because he lacked the "gestation" period of having been with the Messiah during His earthly ministry. He did not feel he was qualified to be an apostle. But since He was called by Jesus to be one, as we shall see in the next phrase, he considered himself the least of the apostles because he had persecuted the church. In time, the other apostles would recognize that Jesus Himself had appointed their former enemy to be one of them.

There is no evidence in Scripture to suggest there are apostles today, even though some men and women call themselves by that title. No biblical evidence exists to indicate that these thirteen apostles were replaced when they died or that apostles exist today. Jesus appointed the apostles to do the founding work of the Church, and foundations only need to be laid once. After the apostles’ deaths, other offices besides apostleship, not requiring an eyewitness relationship with Jesus or His resurrection, would carry on the work.

The authority of the apostles today is seen in the New Testament writings of the apostles. The authority of the church is not found in a human being but in Scripture. 2 Timothy 3:16 says “all Scripture is inspired by God. The Bible says it is the Scriptures that are inspired by God, not the men who wrote them.  That is why we as believers should invest time in studying Scripture, which is God’s authoritative Word for us today. We should measure everything we do by the Scriptures. That is why we should study them carefully.

Even though Jesus has not commissioned any apostles today, each believer is commissioned as a witness. (Acts 1:8) We are to be a witness as the subject in sharing the Good News with people and a witness as the object because people are looking at us and evaluating us. Also, according to Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:20, we are also ambassadors for the Messiah. We represent Him wherever we go and whatever we do! How are each of us doing as witnesses and ambassadors?

In contrast to an apostle was a disciple. I want to now distinguish a disciple from an apostle. In Israel in Jesus’ day, there were many disciples. A disciple was one who followed and submitted himself to a  rabbi to learn from him. The word rabbi means teacher. John the Baptizer and the Pharisees had disciples. Paul was a disciple of the well-known and respected Pharisee Gamaliel as seen in Acts 22:3 but is never called a disciple of Jesus. The word disciple is used 285 times in the four gospels and Acts.

 But the term disciple is not used again in the New Testament after the book of Acts. Why?  Probably because the act of physically following a teacher was difficult in other cultures and may have been replaced by the word Christian in Acts 11:26 that says, “The disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.”  So, The word Christian means follower of Christ. Isn’t that what we are? We follow Jesus today but not physically. The term Christian replaced the term disciple.  I am not in any way suggesting that we stop using the word disciple. I’m just giving you a little history on how the term disciple evolved. We do use the word disciple a lot today. It is patterned after the fact that believes in Jesus should submit themselves to Jesus and the New Covenant way of life. Even though Paul never uses the word, the discipleship pattern is found in 2 Timothy 2:2. “The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

Willian Barclay asked several questions cornering being a disciple in his commentary on Luke. “It is possible to be a follower of Jesus without being a disciple; to be a camp-follower without being a soldier of the king; to be a hanger-on in some great work without pulling one's weight. Once someone was talking to a great scholar about a younger man. He said, 'So and so tells me that he was one of your students.' The teacher answered devastatingly, 'He may have attended my lectures, but he was not one of my students.' It is one of the supreme handicaps of the Church that in it there are so many distant followers of Jesus and so few real disciples.”

 The New Daily Study Bible - The Gospel of Luke. Counting the Cost, Luke 14:25-33

Each of us should ask ourselves, since we refer to our self as a Christian, a follower of Christ, do we really live up to that name by submitting to and following Jesus and the New Covenant way of life or are we just attending class?

Paul asserted his apostleship in this salutation because he had learned that the Judaizers had sown seeds of legalism after he had planted the churches in Galatia and departed.  The Judaizers tried to discredit Paul as an impostor. If they could instill distrust among the Galatians regarding the accuracy or completeness of Paul's message or if they could drive a wedge between Paul and the other apostles, then the Galatians might readily listen to a more "Jewish" version. This version by the Judaizers emphasized doing the works of the Law to be saved and to grow as a believer in Jesus.

Paul was clear that he was not called or appointed to be an apostle by a search committee of men or the mother church in Jerusalem or his home church in Antioch, Syria. The word “but” is a very strong here and shows that His call was of heavily origin because he was called, appointed, and commissioned by Jesus on the road to Damascus to bear the name of Jesus before the Gentiles. (Acts 9:15) Therefore, the good news he proclaimed was authoritative and true. So, the ultimate source of Paul’s apostolic authority was God the Father, and his apostolic calling came by means of Jesus the Messiah.

Here the Father is said to be responsible for the resurrection of Jesus. However, other verses in Scripture gives to credit to Jesus and the Holy Spirit for Jesus’ resurrection.

Jesus - John 2:18-20

18   The Jews then said to Him, “What sign do You show us as your authority for doing these things?”

  19   Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

  20   The Jews then said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?”

The Holy Spirit – Roman 8:11

  11   But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.