Paul in Syria: the Background to Galatians by Barnett Paul;

Author:Barnett, Paul;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Unknown
Publisher: Authentic Media
Published: 2014-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Paul had established the relationship between Christ crucified, faith and the Spirit in the immediately prior passage (2:17–21), a relationship he correspondingly applied to the Galatians based on his preaching to them. There is a clear congruence between Paul’s cross-centred experience at Damascus and his cross-centred preaching in the following years.

Since the Damascus experience brought to an end Paul’s dependence on law as the means to access with God it is not surprising that he magnified the faith of Abraham for righteousness and eliminated the role of Moses/law for righteousness. Paul had preached the cross message for the response of faith whereas the ‘agitators’ had proclaimed the necessity of ‘works of the law’ for righteousness. The texts Paul appealed to were consistent with his viewpoint (Gen. 15:6; 12:3; Deut. 27:26; Hab. 2:4; Lev. 18:5; Deut. 21:23).

Paul’s adapted use of these Old Testament (LXX) texts is none too subtle as he continues to argue that it is ‘of faith’ and not ‘of works of the law’ that people find the righteousness of God and the blessings of his Spirit. It is not possible to tell for certain that Paul was employing texts that he had used during his synagogue debates in Syria–Cilicia, but in all likelihood this was indeed where Paul developed this apologetic.

The Two Jerusalems

Slavery is a prominent theme in Galatians occurring as many as twenty times and is specifically connected with ‘the present Jerusalem’, which is (by inference) ‘the Jerusalem that is below’ (Gal. 4:25,26). Pointedly the ‘slavery’ in this ‘Jerusalem’ is identified with Mt Sinai (=Moses/law), which in the setting of Galatians is the demand that Gentiles submit to works of the law, including circumcision. The antithetical ‘freedom’ in Paul’s ‘allegory’ is the redemption from the curse of the law through faith in Christ crucified and the accompanying presence of Christ within, by the power of the Spirit (Gal. 3:13–14; 4:4–6).

The revolutionary element in this paradigm is that both Jews and Gentiles are enslaved. Gentiles are in bondage to gods ‘that are by nature not gods’ (Gal. 4:8) and – radically speaking – the historic covenant people are also enslaved. They are enslaved ‘under law’ (Gal. 3:23,25; 4:4). Paul was concerned for the Gentiles in Galatia lest they exchange slavery to the gods for slavery to ‘works of the law’, specifically male circumcision and the observation of ‘days, months, seasons, years’ under the Jewish Calendar (Gal. 4:10).

Paul’s exceedingly negative portrayal of ‘Jerusalem’ in Gal. 4:21–31 prompts the question about its identity. Is Jerusalem the wider community of Jews, the circumcision activists or the group associated with the ‘pillar’ apostles? The general argument of the letter passes a disappointing verdict about James and Peter (Gal. 2:11–14), though it is doubtful that Paul regards them in such a negative term as slave masters. At the same time, it is doubtful that Paul was referring to the wider Jewish community in Jerusalem. Paul makes no reference to them as such in this letter. Thus it appears that Paul had in mind

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