The Letter to the Galatians by David A. Desilva

Author:David A. Desilva [Desilva, David A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion, Biblical Commentary, New Testament, General
ISBN: 9781467450447
Google: m-vbDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Published: 2018-09-18T23:54:51.805262+00:00

IV. ARGUMENTS AGAINST ADOPTING TORAH OBSERVANCE (3:1–4:11)

Paul sets forth the argumentative underpinnings of his implicit claim that righteousness does not come through aligning one’s life with the stipulations of the Torah, the obvious conclusion to be drawn from his contrary-to-fact statement in 2:21 (since no party in this altercation would be willing to admit that “Christ died for nothing,” v. 21c). Paul’s anchoring arguments are grounded upon the Galatians’ firsthand experience of having received the Holy Spirit and continuing to experience this Spirit at work in their lives and in their midst (3:1–6; 4:4–11). This experience, Paul asserts, ought to have been sufficient to cause the Galatian converts to realize that their trust in God had already attained for them all that was needful for “righteousness” (5:5–6) and that they were already sons and daughters in God’s household and thus heirs of God’s promises. Any further attempt to reinforce these gains through Torah observance would, on the contrary, undermine these gains (4:8–11; see also 5:2–4).

The premise behind this argument, which Paul will develop in 3:7–14 (climactically in 3:14b), is that the reception of the Spirit signals the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham and to Abraham’s “Seed,” whom Paul identifies as the singular offspring, Jesus (3:15–16). This premise calls for an acknowledgment that the experience of the Holy Spirit, as well as the consequent action of the Holy Spirit in the believer and believing community, is of much greater importance for Paul than is captured in the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds, or in any systematic theology wherein “pneumatology” is an afterthought to, rather than an integral part of, “soteriology.” The further premise behind this premise, which Paul will develop in 3:15–25, is that the promise to Abraham and his Seed, and not the giving of the law, is the fulcrum point of God’s plan to bring human beings back into line with God’s righteousness. This position requires, in turn, that Paul address God’s reason for the giving of the law in the first place (3:19–22), if it was not for the reasons that the rival teachers allege, and that Paul establish the precise relationship of Christ’s death to the Torah and its term limits (3:10–14, 23–25; 4:1–7).

Evident throughout this section is the importance of establishing what makes a person a son or daughter or Abraham and thus an heir of “the promise”:

You all know, then, that those who exhibit trust, these are the ones who are Abraham’s sons and daughters. (3:7)

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law . . . in order that the blessing of Abraham might come to the nations in Christ Jesus, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through trust. (3:13–14)

If you are of Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs in accordance with promise. (3:29)

You are no longer a slave, but a son (or daughter)—and if a son (or daughter), then also an heir through God. (4:7)

Paul devotes so much attention to this point, which is largely ancillary to his

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