Commentary on Galatians (1)
GALATIANS 1:1-5
Paul, an apostle — sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead – and all the brothers with me,
To the churches in Galatia:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
This opening passage foreshadows the personal and doctrinal issues that Paul will address in the body of his letter.
We do not know the exact words the Judaizers used to undermine Paul's ministry, but we can infer from his response some of the things that they might have said. He asserts that he is an apostle "sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father." It is likely that at the very beginning of his letter, he wishes to counter one of the accusations against him, that he is in fact not an apostle, or that he derives his authority and message not from Christ, but from mere men. So he begins by taking a firm stand regarding his ministry.
As one of the apostles, he has direct authorization from Christ to make definitive doctrinal pronouncements and the power to exercise church discipline. The Galatians did not hear the gospel from an inferior, unreliable, or even a secondhand source, but from an authoritative messenger sent directly by Jesus Christ and God the Father. At this point, the emphasis is on the authenticity and authority of the messenger and not the message. The latter will come up soon enough, and since Paul will say more about this, we will reserve additional comments for later.
He is an apostle sent neither "from men nor by man" – that is, he derives his authority neither from a group of men nor from an individual man. It is true that men have placed their hands upon him and sent him off to preach the gospel (Acts 13:3), but it was the Holy Spirit who called him out. It is on the basis of this divine commission and not any human recognition that Paul asserts the validity of his ministry. Indeed, as far as human recognition is concerned, his ministry is not universally accepted. This is one of the challenges that he would face time after time in his ministry, for example, not only here in Galatians, but also in his letters to the Corinthians.
There is a lesson here for how Christians should regard their ministers and how ministers should regard themselves. Although denominational ordinations, seminary degrees, and apprenticeships under prominent leaders often have something to do with the spiritual equipping of a minister and could add to a person's credibility in the eyes of men, credentials from human institutions or individuals can never impart the authority and power that come from a divine call.
If a minister thinks that he is authorized to preach because he has received credentials from his denomination, then what happens when he has to face a congregation that belongs to another denomination, and especially one that rejects the authority of his own? It is not the denominational credentials that undermine his ministry, but it is his conscious reliance on them that is self-defeating.
Then, most of us know what happens with seminary degrees. When a person claims expertise because of his seminary degree, the matter does not end there, but we are also interested in the institution that he attended. And if it is a seminary that is known for doctrines and practices that we find objectionable, it becomes easy to dismiss the person before we find out anything more about him. So a minister who thinks that he speaks with authority because he has a seminary degree faces a similar problem as one who depends on his denominational credentials. He appeals to things that have no spiritual authority in themselves, and he allows people to sweep him into narrow cliques so that those on the outside find no reason to pay him any attention.
Church credentials, seminary degrees, human endorsements, letters of recommendations, and so on, all have their roles. Some may even regard ordination as a means of grace. However, one can exercise the full power and liberty that come from the divine call only if he ministers on the basis of that divine call. This does not mean that people will always recognize the calling and authority given to a person, as in the case of Paul. But if he relies on human credentials, then even in principle his authority is reduced to that level and narrowed to that range. On the other hand, a divine mandate authorizes a person to function in any type of situation to which God sends him.
It misses the point to think that the above makes it impossible to select, promote, or examine a person for the ministry – we have been talking about a different question. When it comes to this other issue, the New Testament includes several passages listing the public qualifications for the ministry (e.g. 1 Timothy 3:1-7), which we will not discuss at this time. In short, they pertain to a person's lifestyle, character, doctrine, and competence.
Turning from the personal to the doctrinal aspect of the passage, the controversy concerns how a person becomes righteous and acceptable before God. Must he follow the law of Moses, Jewish traditions, or submit to circumcision? The immediate issue is not even whether it is good to become circumcised, to follow the law of Moses, or to obey any law of God, but whether this is the way to become righteous in God's sight. This distinction is important in order to maintain the gospel of grace and at the same time exclude antinomianism. For if as a matter of principle it is against grace to keep God's law or to obey God's command, then grace would indeed lead to sin. But this is not the gospel that Paul preaches.
Again, the question is how a person becomes righteous, justified, and acceptable before God. The topic will receive ample attention in the body of the letter, so we need not spend time on it here. What we have in this opening passage is a positive statement of the apostle's doctrine, doubtless given in anticipation of what follows, but that is also informative in itself.
Paul writes that Christ "gave himself for our sins." How is this relevant? Here is an example of how a positive statement about the gospel counteracts a false gospel, or how sound doctrine excludes its distortion. We are "rescued" because Christ "gave himself," and not because of our works or merits. To merely draw attention to this, that this is the gospel, should settle the issue. This is because, as Paul will soon point out, "if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing" (Galatians 2:21). That is, the idea that "righteousness could be gained through the law" is antithetical to the sacrifice of Christ, so that they exclude each other. However, to be a Christian is to affirm that Christ "gave himself for our sins," and therefore, that "righteousness could be gained through the law" cannot be part of the Christian gospel, nor is anyone a Christian who affirms that righteousness is obtained this way.
This simple principle also speaks to today's controversies surrounding the doctrine of justification. In fact, the statement that Christ "gave himself for our sins to rescue us" should settle most questions and refute most heresies related to this doctrine. That is, any teaching that denies the necessity or the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice, even if by implication, cannot be the Christian gospel. And as Paul declares in the next passage, no one who teaches or affirms such a teaching can be a Christian. A person cannot be a Christian and at the same time affirm or practice something that renders Christ's sacrifice unnecessary or insufficient.
Thus in this introductory passage, Paul encapsulates his answer to both the personal and the doctrinal aspects of the controversy. The rest of the letter contains specific arguments and explanations.
It is sometimes said that Paul is not a systematic thinker. It depends on what a person means by this as to whether or not we should accept the statement. If it means that his writings are occasional, so that he does not leave us with a body of doctrine presented as a system, then this is true in a sense, although we cannot accept even this without qualification. However, if it suggests that Paul is a purely pragmatic thinker, coming up with solutions as problems arise without an existing, extensive, organized, and self-consistent understanding of God's mind, or if it suggests that any part of Paul's writings contradicts or even appears to contradict another part, then the statement is false.
Although we may agree that Paul has written no systematic theology as such, and certainly not a textbook on the subject, in his mind he indeed affirms a system of theology that stands behind all of his sermons and letters. In fact, my exposition on Acts 17 points out that his speech on Mars Hill follows an outline that is almost identical to the arrangement of our typical systematic theology,2 touching on the doctrines of revelation, theology proper, creation, providence, anthropology, ethics, christology, soteriology, and eschatology. This is not a coincidence, but it is because the topics logically and naturally lend themselves to such an arrangement in thinking and presentation.3 In philosophical terms, the same outline would address the topics of epistemology, metaphysics, religion, biology, history, and ethics. Moreover, that speech exhibits a logical order in which one point follows from the previous one, and each one is related to all the others.
The necessary conclusion is that Paul is a systematic theologian, although this fact is obscured by the occasional nature of his letters. Or to put this in a much more accurate way, those who wish to find an excuse to assert their own theories and agendas exploit the occasional nature of these letters in order to deny the systematic structure and content of the apostle's thinking.
For a discourse to be occasional means that there is a context, and when a person addresses an audience who shares a common context, it is natural and often more efficient to assume the context and address only the problems and disagreements, rather than to begin "from scratch." Just because most of Paul's writings are occasional does not mean that he is primarily a pragmatic thinker or that he invents doctrines to match the solutions as the need arises. Instead, he explains and develops the relevant aspects of his system of theology, and then he applies them to the current situation. Not only does his occasional letters contain extensive doctrinal expositions, but behind everything that he writes is a complete theological system. There are strong indications of this in our passage, even though it is only an introduction to a letter.
Several times Paul acknowledges God and his divine fatherhood. Then, he puts God the Father and Jesus Christ on the same level, and at the same time distinguishes the two. Although he does not mention the Holy Spirit, he acknowledges the Trinity elsewhere in his writings, and he is consistent with the doctrine here. He says that he is sent "not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father," implying that Christ is more than a mere man, but on the level with God the Father, who has the right and power to send him forth as an apostle.
Redemption was accomplished "according to the will of our God," signifying that salvation is effected by the gracious purpose and providence of a sovereign God. By his will, Christ "gave himself for our sins." Here we find the ideas of sin, of punishment, and of vicarious sacrifice, or the doctrine of the atonement. Both the justice and mercy of God are embedded in the above. After Christ sacrificed himself, God "raised him from the dead," so that the resurrection is included here as well.
The work of Christ has "rescued us from the present evil age." The language refers not to a removal from something, but a deliverance from its power. Although Christians remain in this world after their conversion, they have been delivered from slavery to the power of sin. Here Paul makes ethical applications out of eschatological categories. He acknowledges a "two age" division between the present and the future, but the coming of Christ has ushered in the kingdom of God, so that the very powers of heaven reside in believers even now. An entire book could be devoted to this point alone. We may also see a contrast between the "present evil age" and the "for ever and ever" of God's glory and power.
Thus most of the loci of a complete systematic theology is either mentioned or assumed in these first five verses of the letter. It is true that one must bring with him some of the details from other parts of Scripture to fully perceive and appreciate these doctrinal assumptions. But the fact that the assumptions are here means that these doctrines are ingrained in the apostle's thinking, and that he stands on this foundation as he writes to the Galatians.
Like his other writings, the letter to the Galatians is an expression and application of this system of theology, so that it is adapted to the need at hand. However, when the common context is taken away, and when he has to present the Christian faith "from scratch," as in his speech on Mars Hill, then we see that Paul is indeed a systematic theologian, a systematic thinker. Again, there in Acts 17, where his audience is unfamiliar with the biblical doctrines and thought categories, he follows an arrangement that resembles our typical systematic theology outline.
Those scholars who regard Paul as merely a pragmatic thinker and not a systematic one err in examining the question from the wrong end. Whereas Paul in fact possesses an extensive and coherent system in his mind, and his letters contain his expression and application of this, these scholars examine his writings without considering the kind of mind that produced them. Just because a piece of writing is not a systematic theology does not mean that its author is not a systematic theologian or that he has no system of belief in his mind.
For example, although I have written a systematic theology and consider the subject the most important course of learning for a believer, I often write sermons, commentaries, position papers, and responses to questions and objections about the Christian faith, and almost none of them will read like a systematic theology, since they are occasional. But a system of theology is so ingrained in my mind that, whether consciously or unconsciously, everything that I speak or write is in fact an expression and application of this system.4 And insofar as I am a consistent thinker, all of my writings should conform to this system. This is a key to interpreting a writer's materials. If you grasp a person's system of thought, you are more likely to correctly understand what he means when he applies it. In fact, in many cases, you should be able to predict what he will say on a subject.
The ideal is that every detail of a person's system conforms to that system of thought that is in Scripture. The honest and competent theologian will, of course, seek to resolve any anomaly in favor of what Scripture actually teaches, even if he must discard his previous beliefs to do this. To the extent that the system of theology in his mind is derived from and corresponds to that which is taught in Scripture, this person's thinking is synchronized with the mind of Christ, and he is qualified to address the issues and questions that he faces as a believer and as a minister.
Paul leaves us an example to follow if we were to become mature thinkers. That is, we must obtain a comprehensive and coherent understanding of the system of thought that is revealed in Scripture, and formulate the various doctrines in our minds in a way that exhibits perfect harmony, excluding all traces of contradictions and paradoxes. Then, we must learn to fluidly apply this system in our daily conversations, as we preach the gospel, as we debate unbelievers and answer heretics, counsel fellow Christians, resolve ethical questions, and so on.
Like Paul, when we are applying this system of thought, there is no need to always refer to it in a prescribed arrangement, but what we speak or write should demonstrate a logical interplay of the biblical doctrines, deftly blending them together to produce an answer as if it comes straight from the mind of Christ to address the situation at hand. Then, of course, if the situation demands that we summarize the entire Christian faith in a logical order and without being confined to a narrow context, we should be able to do that as well.
NOTES
2 See Vincent Cheung, Presuppositional Confrontations.
3 See Vincent Cheung, Systematic Theology.
4 See Vincent Cheung, Systematic Theology, Ultimate Questions, Presuppositional Confrontations, Apologetics in Conversation, The Author of Sin, and Captive to Reason.