Galatians 2
Dear RTB’ers,
Scholars disagree as to when Paul’s letter to the Galatians was written. Basically it comes down to either (1) after Paul’s first missionary journey and before his second or (2) after his second. In between his first and second missionary journeys we have the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 where the leaders of the church discussed the circumcision issue and held that converted Gentiles did not need to be circumcised. The leaders found that converted Gentiles need only to …abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. (Acts 15:20b) There was no need to have converted Gentiles circumcised. But even with this outcome decided by the church leaders, it seems that fervent, hard-line Jews had continued to make this an issue in the Galatian churches. Paul deals directly with this issue in the first half of today’s reading. The word “circumcise” and its derivatives occurs seven times in today’s first twelve verses. It was important to Paul that …James and Cephas and John … gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. (v. 9) With all this, it is my conclusion that this letter to the Galatians was written after Paul’s first missionary journey (Acts 13-14) and before the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) and his second journey. (Acts 16, ff.)
There is a lot of theology packed into the second half of chapter 2 (Gal. 2:15-21) Verse 20 is the one verse in this section that is most often quoted: I have been crucified with Christ… However, with such a focus on verse 20 we can easily miss the next verse: …for if righteousness were through the Law, then Christ died for no purpose. (v. 21b; the NASB has Christ died needlessly, an even more powerful phrase to me). Jesus dying needlessly…??!! Through all that suffering…??!! What a horrible thought!! That thought alone ought to propel us to grab onto the Gospel of grace – it’s not by our works that we are saved!! Folks, this verse is an evangelism tool. When someone says something like, “I think I’ll go to heaven; I’m basically a good person…”, then you can respond with “So Jesus wasted His time dying on the cross…?”
A final quick comment – Paul will frustrate you with his parenthetical expressions (Gal. 2:2,4,6,8; comments set off by dashes or by parentheses). These side comments can easily distract you from his main point in the rest of the sentence. So my advice is that you jump over these parenthetical expressions and read the full sentence by itself; it will be much more clear. Then go back to what he has said in the parenthetical expressions – what he has said there is relevant and worthwhile. [BTW, different translations may or may not set those comments off by themselves. The ESV clearly sets them off.]
Blessings!