Carson / Robinson Sr. Christ Has Set Us Free

Preaching and Teaching Galatians
1. Auflage 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4335-6264-8
Verlag: Crossway
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 176 Seiten

How can a sinful human stand before a holy God?  The New Testament book of Galatians deals with this question-a question that stands at the heart of the gospel. In Christ Has Set Us Free, nine seasoned Bible teachers walk through the entirety of Galatians, offering insights on how to interpret and apply its important message about justification by faith. This book will help all who teach or study the Bible better understand what Christ has done to set us free from the power of sin through his death and resurrection.

D. A. Carson (PhD, Cambridge University) is Emeritus Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He is a cofounder and theologian-at-large of the Gospel Coalition and has written and edited nearly two hundred books. He and his wife, Joy, have two children and live in the north suburbs of Chicago.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Carson, D. A.

Robinson Sr., Jeff

Leseproben

1

Introduction to Galatians

Thomas R. Schreiner

Martin Luther captured the message of Galatians and the teaching of Jesus (Matt. 5:3) when he wrote:

Therefore, God accepts only the forsaken, cures only the sick, gives sight only to the blind, restores life to only the dead, sanctifies only the sinners, gives wisdom only to the unwise fools. In short, He has mercy only on those who are wretched, and gives grace only to those who are not in grace. Therefore, no proud saint, no wise or just person, can become God’s material, and God’s purpose cannot be fulfilled in him. He remains in his own work and makes a fictitious, pretended, false, and painted saint of himself, that is, a hypocrite.1

Amazingly, Gordon Fee writes from quite a different perspective, saying that his goal is to help people read Galatians “as if the Reformation had never happened.”2 On the one hand, Fee’s goal is laudable. He wants to read the text on its own terms. On the other hand, it is remarkably naive and ahistorical, for he pretends that he can read Galatians as a neutral observer of the text apart from the history of the church. I am not suggesting that we must read Galatians in defense of the Reformation, nor am I denying that the Reformation may be askew in some of its emphases. But it must be acknowledged that none of us can read Galatians as if the Reformation never occurred. Such a reading is five hundred years too late. Nor can we read Galatians as if the twentieth century never happened or apart from the works of Ignatius, Irenaeus, Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, and the like. We can consider whether Reformation emphases were wrong (I will argue that they were not), but what we cannot do is read Galatians as if we were the first readers.3

Theology of Galatians

Paul is engaged in a battle for the gospel in this letter, and his words still speak to us today. Vital issues for the Christian life are tackled in Galatians. Paul unpacks the heart of the gospel. We see the meaning and the centrality of justification by faith, which Luther rightly argued was the article by which the church stands or falls. How can a person stand before a holy God without being condemned? Paul answers that question in Galatians.

Jesus Christ is also central in Galatians. We will see that Jesus is fully divine and hence should be worshiped. And the cross of Christ plays a fundamental role in the letter, for no one is justified apart from the cross. Believers are right with God because Christ on the cross bore the curse that believers deserved, and Christ freed us from the power of sin through his death and resurrection.

Paul also emphasizes the power of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers, for as Christians we please God only through relying on the Spirit. The Christian life is not an exercise in autonomy or self-effort but is lived in dependence on the Holy Spirit. The role of the law in the Christian life is also unpacked, so that we gain a sharper profile of the relationship between the old covenant and the new, between the law and the gospel, between the old age and the age to come.

Galatians focuses on soteriology, but at the same time the nature of sin is set forth in the letter, and thereby we understand more clearly why the death of Jesus Christ is of supreme importance. Reading Galatians should not be merely an academic enterprise. The gospel Paul proclaims in it has often been used by the Lord to revive the church. We see from Paul’s passion for the gospel that issues of life and death are at stake.

Author

No significant scholarly debate exists on whether Paul wrote Galatians.4 Indeed, Galatians is often identified as quintessentially Pauline. I will assume, therefore, without further argumentation that Galatians was written by Paul.

Recipients

Was the letter to the Galatians written to south or north Galatia? Why does it even matter? It should be said at the outset that the destination of the letter does not fundamentally change its interpretation. Where it makes a difference is in terms of history. The letter’s destination determines how we correlate Galatians with Acts. For instance, did Paul’s confrontation with Peter (Gal. 2:11–14) take place before the apostolic council of Acts 15 (so most who support the south Galatian theory) or after that meeting (the north Galatian theory)?

These historical matters shape our interpretation of the book, at least in minor ways. Does Paul omit mentioning any of his visits to Jerusalem in the letter to the Galatians? How do we correlate the Pauline visits to Jerusalem with his visits as they are recorded in Acts? The issue is of some importance because we have a historical faith and believe that the events of biblical history are significant. Still, the importance of the issue must not be exaggerated, and some readers may want to skip to the next section and read about the situation of the letter.

Galatia became a Roman province in 25 BC, and the province included people from many ethnic groups, including the “Celts” or “Galatians,” who had migrated to Asia Minor by 278 BC.5 In Paul’s day the province was a large area that touched the Black Sea in the north and the Mediterranean in the south. As time passed, however, the province changed. “Vespasian detached almost all of Pisidia from Galatia in AD 74 and about AD 137 Lycaonia Galatica was removed and added to an enlarged province of Cilicia. In AD 297 southern Galatia was united with surrounding regions to form a new province of Pisidia with Antioch as its capital.”6

Hence, commentators in early church history naturally thought Galatians was written to the province as it existed in later Roman history, and therefore, virtually all scholars believed that Galatians was written to the ethnic Galatians in the northern part of the province. But the work of William Ramsey and others in the twentieth century has provoked scholars to reexamine the destination of the letter, for scholars are now apprised of the dimensions of the Galatian region during Paul’s day. Therefore, the identity of the recipients of the letter has been debated intensely in the last century.

The north Galatian theory maintains that the letter was sent to ethnic Galatians located in the northern part of the Galatian province.7 As Philip Esler remarks, the north Galatian theory could be described as “tribal” Galatia since on this view the letter was sent to those who were ethnically Galatians.8 The south Galatian view proposes that the letter was sent to the cities Paul visited on his first missionary journey in Acts 13–14.9 It is not the purpose of this chapter to discuss in detail the destination of the letter, and I will argue that the south Galatian hypothesis is more likely. In any case, the interpretation of the letter is not affected significantly by whether one holds to a north or south Galatian hypothesis,10 though one’s view on the destination of the letter has major implications for Pauline chronology.

Date

The date of the letter is determined by the question of the recipients. If one espouses a south Galatian hypothesis and places the letter before the events of Acts 15:1–35, then Galatians is the earliest Pauline letter and may have been written circa AD 48. One could support, however, the south Galatian hypothesis and correlate Acts 15:1–35 with Galatians 2:1–10. In such a scenario, the letter could be dated in the early 50s. If one accepts the north Galatian hypothesis, the letter was likely written somewhere between AD 50–57.

Situation

The situation of Galatians must be discerned from the letter itself. But how can we reconstruct what occurred when we are separated from the letter by two thousand years and are limited to Paul’s comments and perspective in detecting the historical circumstances that called forth the letter? It has often been said that we suffer from the disadvantage of hearing only one end of a phone conversation. There was no need for Paul to explain the situation thoroughly to the Galatians since they were obviously acquainted firsthand with what was happening. Therefore, we have to engage in mirror reading to determine the historical background of the letter. The method for such a mirror reading has been set forth in an important essay by John Barclay, with which I am in significant agreement.11 I will begin by identifying the major elements Barclay sets forth for identifying opponents in a polemical letter.12

Barclay begins by warning us against overconfidence in reconstructing the situation when opponents are named since we are limited to Paul’s perspective on the situation. In addition, he observes that the Pauline response is often polemical and emotional, and hence Paul inevitably distorts the character of the opponents. Barclay rightly perceives that Paul does not present the opponents as they would have presented themselves. Paul does not attempt to write an objective report of the theology of the agitators.

Still, it does not follow that Paul’s portrayal is inaccurate. For if he had miscommunicated the views of his opponents, it is less likely that his response to them would have been effective in convincing the...