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From Behind the Veil: The Epistles of John
Deep Exegesis:The Mystery of Reading Scripture
1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary
The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter
A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons
Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature
Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen
The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism
A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel
From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution
Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy
Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper
A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament
Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature
Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays
Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life
The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church
I’ve posted a paper by a student, Lisa Beyeler, that traces out connections between Jeremiah and Galatians. Click on “Downloads” at the top of the page, and you’ll find it.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 10:03 am
Galatians 6 is roughly organized as a chiasm:
A. Bear one another’s burdens
B. Boasting in oneself and not another
C. Sowing and reaping; flesh
D. Do good
C’. Judaizers want good show in flesh/boast in flesh
B’. Boasting only in Christ Jesus: crucified to world
A’. I bear stigmata
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, March 3, 2009 at 8:49 am
What did the Judaizers want? According to Galatians 6:12, they wanted to make a “good show” in the flesh. The verb for “making a good show” (euprosopeo) is a hapax in the NT and very rare elsewhere, but we might make a go at translating and interpreting through etymology. The word is clearly linked with prosopon, “face,” and the idea is perhaps that the Judaizers want to have “good face” through insisting that Gentiles observe circumcision and other Jewish customs. They are “saving face,” and from there you can plug into Paul’s comment all we’ve learned about honor in the ancient world from Jerome Neyrey and others.
Beyond that, the LXX uses euprosopos in Genesis 12:11 in Abram’s compliment to Sarai’s beauty. Might Paul have known that? Might the Judaizers seek “good face” by trying to claim Sarai as mother?
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, March 3, 2009 at 8:21 am
Philip Esler draws on the anthropological work of Anthony Cohen to suggest that Paul’s reference to “biting” and “devouring” may describe the actual internal life of Paul’s churches: “Anthony Cohen’s argument about the persistence of liminality among persons once they have crossed a boundary to join a new group raises the prospect that the members of the congregations had not yet internalized the values expected of them and continued to treat one another in the fiercely competitive way typical of unrelated persons in this culture. We should expect that the process of acquiring a new identity to be a a very difficult one.”
This line of argument has several advantages: First, it helps to show the coherence of Galatians. Paul hasn’t changed the subject once he gets to the beginning of chapter 5. Second, more specifically, he hasn’t changed the meaning of his terms. ”Flesh” still refers to adherents of Torah and Judaizers and those who remain under the managers and guardians; it hasn’t changed meaning to “sinful nature.” Paul’s list of “works of the flesh” describes the way of life among the false teachers.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 9:05 am
Paul contrasts fulfilling the law of loving neighbor with biting, devouring, and consuming. Love for neighbor is human behavior; anything else is feral.
The verb “bite” (dakno) is used only in Galatians 5:15 in the NT, and only twice in the LXX (Genesis 49:17; Deuteronomy 8:15), both references to biting snakes. Failing to fulfill the law of love is not only bestial but Satanic. Of course, he still has the Judaizers in mind, and is hinting that they are what Revelation calls a synagogue of Satan.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 7:59 am
Galatians 5-6 turns a number of Pauline terms inside out. After spending most of the letter polemicizing against seeking justification form the “works of the law,” Paul rehabilitates both “work” (5:6) and “law” (5:14; 6:2). After announcing that in Christ we have been freed from the Egypt of Judaic managers and tutors, he instructs us to use our freedom to become slaves to one another (5:13). He doesn’t quite rehabilitate flesh, though he has told us early on that life in the flesh can be life by faith in the Son of God, that is, life in the flesh can be lived out as life in the Spirit (2:20).
He even rehabilitates the stoicheia. ”If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit also let us stoichomen” (5:25). The NASB translates this as “walk,” but it’s a different verb than 5:16 (peripateo). ”Keep in step” is better. However it is translated, it is a deliberate play on the “elementary principles” from which Paul says we have been freed (as is the related verb sustoichei in 4:25).
Paul is showing us that the entire old covenant is resurrected in the new. It is not the same; law is no longer the Mosaic law, work is the working of love and of the Spirit, slavery is willing service, the stoicheic pattern is now set by the Spirit and not by under-guardians. It’s not the same but it’s all there, dead and risen in Christ Jesus and his body.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 7:48 am
Galatians 5-6 is organized as a chiasm, with the exhortation to bear one another’s burdens, and fulfill the law of Christ, at the center. The structure suggests that that the freedom that the Spirit grants is precisely freedom to bear the burdens of others as Christ as done for us.
A. 5:1-15: focus on issues of freedom, circumcision, and the law
B. 5:16-26: flesh and Spirit; circumcision isn’t mentioned
C. 6:1-5: bearing burdens and fulfilling law of Christ
B’. 6:6-10: sowing and reaping, with emphasis on flesh-Spirit contrast
A’. 6:11-18: circumcision and law; circumcision mentioned for the first time since beginning of ch 5
The A section is also chiastically arranged:
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 5:21 am
Paul expresses amazement that the Galatians could return to the “weak and poor elements” after being liberated by Christ (Galatians 4:9).
But were the elements always so weak and beggarly? It seems not. They were powerful enough to enslave (4:3). To be sure, they enslaved children, but that does take some power. Further, Paul describes the former life of the Galatians as a life under (hupo) the stoicheia, an expression that parallels Paul’s talk of enslavement under the law (3:23) and under guardians and managers (4:2). Again, this suggests that the stoicheia have some power.
Or, they did. God sent His Son and then His Spirit to redeem from the stoicheia and elevate us to sons (4:4-6). Paul is drawing on the exodus story, placing the stoicheia and the law in the position of defeated Pharaoh. Once Pharaoh was powerful; but after the plagues and the exodus he was “weak and beggarly.” So too the “elements.”
But this means, of course, that the elements exercised some genuine power prior to the missions of the Son and Spirit. Plutarch was right: Once the oracles spoke, but now, mysteriously, they’ve gone silent.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 9:07 am
Galatians 3-4 is constructed with a fairly neat chiasm:
A. Abraham, Spirit, faith, 3:1-14
B. The Law is not mediator of one, 3:15-22
C. We were under tutors, 3:23-26
D. Baptism, 3:27-29
C’. Under stoicheia, 4:1-11
B’. Personal appeal, 4:12-20
A’. Abraham’s two sons, one by the Spirit, 4:21-31
The B sections don’t seem to fit. But they do:
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 8:19 am
Paul begs the Galatians to become as he is (Galatians 4:12). In context, this means, “Give up circumcision, the Jewish food laws, observance of days, months and seasons.” Why should they?
The basis for Paul’s exhortation is the fact that he has become as they are: “Become as I, because I also as you.” He became as a Gentile among the Gentiles, as weak among the weak.
Behind this is Paul’s consciousness that his ministry must be conformed to Christ’s. Christ above all says to us: “Become as I, because I also [became] as you.”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 8:00 am
Galatians 4 is clearly about the law’s role as guardian and steward in charge of Israel during her minority. But Paul’s description of Israel applies just as well to Adam. Adam was created a minor son, an infant, but was promised an inheritance. Paul hints at the Adamic dimensions of Israel’s history under the law by saying that the minor child is treated like a slave thought he is “lord of all” (4:1). That’s Adam: under command, though created to have dominion over all other creatures.
The law, then, is in this sense a perpetuation of the Adamic “covenant of works”: The law is a continuation of the minority covenant for a son who has proved rebellious.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 7:54 am
Following up an earlier post: How are we to understand the connection of the reception of the Spirit and being counted as righteous in Galatians 3:5-6? Some alternatives suggest themselves:
1) Righteousness is a status and the Spirit is the gift that God gives to those whom He counts righteous.
2) Righteousness is a status and the Spirit grants faith that is the instrument by which we accept that status. Or, following Wright, the Spirit grants the faith that marks us as those whom God will regard as righteous (regeneration before justification).
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 10, 2009 at 8:49 am
Faith in Protestant theology is instrumental, the passive human means by which we appropriate the righteousness of Christ, by which we stand righteous before God.
In Galatians at least, Paul’s characteristic construction doesn’t use the usual prepositions of instrumentality – en and dia. Rather, he uses ek, which has the basic connotation of exit from, separation from, or source. ek can have an instrumental sense, and even seems to be used in place of en at times. So, “by faith” is not necessarily wrong.
But have we spend enough time considering the alternatives? Might ek pisteos mean source, origin, or cause in some contexts? And, might pistis here be shorthand for pistis Christou, perhaps understood in Hays’s sense of “the faith(fulness) of Christ?
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 10, 2009 at 8:40 am
What did God promise Abraham? Paul says that Abraham and his seed were promised an inheritance (Galatians 3:18, 29), and that inheritance includes the blessing of the nations (Galatians 3:8), the gift of the Spirit (Galatians 3:14), and righteousness (Galatians 3:6).
These are not discrete gifts in Paul’s mind. The transition from Galatians 3:5 to 3:6 makes this clear. 3:5 says that the Galatians received the Spirit by hearing with faith, and Paul compares this (kathos, “just as”) to Abram being reckoned righteous by faith. The analogy is: Galatians:Abraham; faith:faith; reception of Spirit:righteousness.
Likewise, the inheritance of righteousness is linked to the Abrahamic blessing of the nations in verse 8: Scripture foresees that the nations will be justified by faith when it promises that Abram will be a blessing to the nations. Blessing is eulogeo, etymologically, “good-word.” The blessing that Yahweh pronounces over the nations is evidently the blessing of being counted righteous; “you are just” is the good word that God speaks to those who believe in Christ.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 10, 2009 at 8:29 am
Transgression in Paul’s terminology refers to violation of specific commandments. Mostly. But Galatians 2:17 has a radical redefinition of transgression. J. Louis Martyn says, when Paul says that re-erecting the wall of separation between Jew and Gentile makes him a transgressor, he implies that “the Law can play a role leading not to the defining and vanquishing of transgression, but rather to transgression itself! . . .whoever reerects the Law’s distinction between Jew and Gentile, as thought God were making things right through observance of the Law, rather than in Christ, has thereby shown himself to be a transgressor.”
Transgression is usually boundary-crossing. But Paul says that in the new covenant transgression can take the form of erecting boundaries. And he is also implying that transgression is not judged by timeless moral standards, but is redemptive-historically qualified.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 9:37 am
There does appear to be a positive connection between justification and nature in Galatians 2. It’s elusive, but it seems to be there.
In verse 17, Paul argues that those who seek justification in Christ cannot be found sinners without implying that Christ Himself is a minister of sin. Me genoito!
“We” in verse 17 is, I suggest, “we Jews,” the same identified as “Jews by nature” in verse 15.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 8:44 am
What is the logic of Paul’s argument in Galatians 2:15-16? This breaks down into several questions: Where does “justification” come from? How does Paul move from Jews-by-nature as opposed to Gentile-sinners to justification by the faith of Christ rather than the works of the law? And, of course, verse 16 has two of the most controverted phrases in recent Pauline studies: What does Paul mean by “faith of Christ”? And what are the “works of the law”?
Let’s take the first questions first.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 8:24 am
In Galatians 1, Paul twice says things happen “in him.” God reveals His Son “in me” (1:16). The phrase could mean “through me,” suggesting that Paul is an instrument of God’s unveiling of the Son. It’s just as possible, though, that Paul is himself the locus of that revelation; he is one of the places where God shows Himself.
At the end of the chapter, Paul says that everyone was glorifying God “in me” because he had turned from persecutor to preacher (v. 24). This could mean simply that everyone was glorifying God “on account of my conversion.” But the phrasing is more striking: Paul is the locus of praise – not the object of praise, but the “place” or the “instrument” through which praise is offered to God.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, January 27, 2009 at 9:33 am
According to Paul’s summary, the gospel is about Jesus’ self-gift, which plucks us from this present evil age (Galatians 1:4). What is that evil age?
Paul’s use of “then/now” shows in the chapter shows what it means for him. The Galatians have heard about his zeal for the ancestral traditions of Judaism, his manner of life “then” (1:13). At that time, zeal took the form of persecution of the church.
Paul returns to his life “then” at the end of the chapter, with a neatly arranged sentence: “only they were hearing that the one who persecuted you then now announces the faith which then he was destroying” (v. 23).
For Paul at least, the present evil age involved zeal for the fathers’ traditions, persecution of the church, advancing beyond those of his generation. Deliverance was deliverance from Judaism, which, Paul later goes on to tell us, was a system subjected to the elementary principles of the world.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, January 27, 2009 at 9:27 am
Paul uses the noun “gospel” or the verb “evangelize/preach the gospel” twelve times in the first two chapters of Galatians. It is good news for the twelve tribes.
While we can’t rest too much on grammatical forms, it is interesting to note the objects of the verb euaggelizo in these chapters. Typically, the object of “evangelize” is not the audience but the content of the announcement. Specifically, in Galatians 1:16 the object is “Him,” the Son whom the Fathe who separated Paul from the womb revealed in the apostle. The verb might better be translated as “announce” or “proclaim” than “preach the gospel.” Paul was sent to “announce the Son” to the Gentiles. (”Preach” would be fine, but has churchy connotations that the original word didn’t yet have.)
In 1:23, the Paul who once persecuted now preaches the “faith.” This might well be another way of saying that He announces Christ, since “faith” seems to be a name of Jesus in 3:23. It could also refer to the faith that the gospel elicits, or the teaching concerning Jesus that forms the content of the gospel. Either way, the object is about what is said rather than the audience. Again, “anounce” or even “herald” seems to be a good translation. Paul’s calling is to announce Christ, the faith, to the Gentiles.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, January 27, 2009 at 9:20 am
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