Galatians Paper

St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians is one of his best works and reminds modern day Christians of the freedom that is found in Christ Jesus. Over time many theologians have written commentaries to expound upon the good news of the gospel in this work but no two men have ever grasped the concepts in St. Paul’s Epistle better than St. Augustine and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther. The timeless works of these men are still teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, believers in the twenty-first century. There are differences and similarities in how each man approaches their interpretation. For instance St. Augustine interprets the work, as he did with his book “Confessions,” through Plotinus’ Neo-Platonic view and Luther interprets the work through his doctrine of Law and Gospel. Differences aside, both men agree that the core of the message St. Paul conveys is the echo of Christ’s teaching in John 8:36, Jesus sets you free.
St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians serves both as a rebuke and a reminder to the churches he started in Asia Minor. The people of Galatia were young in their Christian walk and had not yet gained the gift of discernment that comes through experience. Paul had delivered the good news of the gospel of Christ to them, but his message was now being perverted by the Jewish Christian converts from Jerusalem. The free gift of salvation that Christ Jesus gives to God’s elect was intended for both Gentile and Jew. The Jewish converts didn’t yet grasp the freedom of a Christian. They felt that they were still bound to the law and were convinced that the Gentiles must therefore be bound to it as well. They took this belief to the churches of Galatia and were teaching circumcision to the Gentiles.
Paul was astonished that the people of Galatia had so quickly abandoned his teaching of freedom in Christ Jesus and proceeded to rebuke them. To prevent any future perversions Paul states, “But even if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed.” (Gal 1:8) He continued to explain to them that if they partake in circumcision, they are then bound to obey the whole law and that Christ is of no use to them. For if they could gain their righteousness through the law then Christ died for nothing. Furthermore, the law came to Moses 430 years after God had reckoned onto Abraham righteousness for his faith. Therefore the righteous live by faith not by the law.
After the rebuke section of his Epistle, Paul begins to remind them that they had received faith through the power of the Holy Spirit when he preached and reiterated the importance of Christ’s sacrifice. He continued to assure them that anyone who belongs to Christ must have their flesh crucified and now live life by the Spirit because life by the flesh is subject to the law and can only bring death and despair. But life by the Spirit sets you free from the law. Paul then encourages them to live like good Christians. According to the Apostle, a good Christian lives in joy, love, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
In the preface of his work “Commentary on the Letter to the Galatians,” St. Augustine observers:
“The reason the Apostle writes to the Galatians is so they may understand what it is that God’s grace accomplishes for them: they are no longer under the law.” (Augustine’s Commentary on Galatians p.125)
He further explains that the grace of the gospel that was preached to them by the Apostle had been abandoned. They had returned to the burdens of the law. Augustine recognizes that this line of thinking came from an influence outside their church.
The people of Jewish influence were claiming that, to be a Christian, you must both receive grace and be subject to the law. They were creating doubt in the minds of the church of Galicia in regard to the authority of St. Paul. Because of this, St. Paul reaffirms his authority.
“For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” (Gal 1:11-12)
By stating that his gospel had a divine, not a human, origin St. Paul claims that the authority of his gospel is infallible, in contrast to a human origin which is corrupt and self seeking.
In addition Augustine recognizes a theme of Christian correction in St. Paul’s Epistle: the correction of the Galatians, the correction of St. Peter, and the “how to” example explained in Gal. 6:1. The entire letter serves as a correction of the Galatians.
St. Paul observes St. Peter eating apart from the gentiles when a group of Jewish converts come to visit:
“When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.” (Gal. 2:11-13)

Previously St. Peter had lived like a gentile but now out of the fear of these men he returns to observing the law. St. Paul didn’t let this hypocrisy go uncorrected. In his letter to the Galatians Paul details his rebuke and correction of Peter which in Augustine’s view is being used as an example of how Christians should correct each other.
In the final chapter of Galatians St. Paul explains that the rebuking of a fellow Christian should be done out of love.
“Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” (Gal. 6:1-2)
He didn’t want them to neglect “fraternal correction,” however he didn’t want them fighting each other so he stresses that we should correct each other gently and in a spirit of love.
Augustine was influenced by Plotinus’ doctrine of neo-Platonism. Plotinus’ main concern was to detail the path of the human soul as it pursued union with God. In doing so he gave rise to his theories on the One, the mind, the World-Soul, and the place of humans in the scheme of things.
The One is the Light-Source out of which the world comes into existence. Although the One is the source of being, it does not posses being, as it is beyond being. The nature of the One is to create, thus becoming the Godhead. Its emanation is overflowing and leads to his next concept the Mind.
The Mind is the same as Plato’s concept of real ideas as it is a collection of infinite ideas and it gives the forms or templates for everything that actually exists in the world. The Divine Mind is the source of all other minds. To think rationally is to think the thoughts of God’s. The Mind feels both the urge to return to the Godhead and to create and its creation gives rise to Plotinus’ next concept the World-Soul.
The World-Soul is the agent of creation because the Mind is passive. Human souls are the highest level of creation. The World-Mind is composed of the same substance of the human soul and is eternal and immortal. The World-Soul feels a relentless urge to return home to the One. It also functions to create the material world as it is the energy and force that generates matter. Therefore Nature and all things in nature are the result of the overflowing World-Mind. Nature then becomes the furthest thing from the Godhead and therefore is evil. An enlightened soul views all made things as unworthy and shuns them.
A human’s place in this world is to nurse the soul as it journeys back to the Godhead. James L. Christian states in “The Wisdom Seekers”
We must disconnect from the world of trivial preoccupation; we must withdraw from the seductive environment of the senses that would detour our mind and body from the constant cultivation of our spiritual life. Our every effort is to become uncontaminated by flesh and body.” p.275
The soul’s job then is to, through its own free will, deny the material world thus purifying itself in the process of seeking the return to the Godhead.
Plotinus’ influence on St. Augustine is significant to the way he views freedom as presented in St. Paul’s Epistle, specifically the denial of the flesh and the journey of the soul back to God. According to St. Augustine the law is of the flesh as it came to humans through a human, Moses. Although God wrote the law he did so to serve as a disciplinarian for human life. Augustine believes that over time humans have added to it their own traditions making it worldlier. The law was never meant to impart righteousness onto the human soul but to humble it.
The law was ordained, therefore for a proud people so that they might be humbled by their transgression (since they could not receive the grace of love unless they were humbled, and without this grace they could not fulfill the precepts of the law at all), so that they might seek grace and not assume they could be saved by their own merits (which is pride), and so that they might be righteous not by their own power and strength, but by the hand of a mediator who justifies the impious. (Augustine’s Commentary on Galatians p.167)
For Augustine, St. Paul’s concept of freedom from the law and its oppression is denial of the flesh and the material world. For Augustine the freedom that Christ brings the human soul is grace giving a person the ability to deny the material world and return to God.
“Now a kind of death is brought about through the disciplinarian, with the intended result that the disciplinarian is not necessary, just as an infant is breast-fed with the result that it’s mother’s milk is no longer necessary, and one arrives at one’s homeland by ship with the result that the ship is no longer necessary. Another explanation is that through the law understood spiritually he died to the law, in order that he might not live under it carnally.” (Augustine’s Commentary on Galatians p.149)
St. Augustine also demonstrates his Neo-Platonic influence in book VIII of his “Confessions,” in which he is struggling with his conversion to Christianity.
“So let us hear no more of their assertion, when they observe two wills in conflict in one man, that there are two opposing minds in him, one good and the other bad, and that-they are in conflict because they spring from two opposing substances and two opposing principles.” (Confessions p.174)
Clearly in this passage Augustine is referring to the desire of the World-Soul to return to the One and the desire to create things in the material world. In a very Neo-Platonic way he calls the desire to return to the divine good and the desire for the world bad. In addition, the completion of his conversion demonstrates the purification of the soul on its journey to return to the One.
Through a Neo-Platonic lens Augustine interprets Paul’s message as one of freedom though denial of worldly things and desires so that a soul may be purified and focus solely on God. Augustine sets an example for his future parishioners in his “Confessions.”
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther often referred to St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians as “my Katie von Bora.” This Epistle captivated Luther’s heart and he preached from it habitually.
“But it is because, as I often warn you, there is a clear and present danger that the devil may take away from us the pure doctrine of faith and may substitute for it the doctrine of works and human of human traditions. It is very necessary, therefore, that this doctrine of faith be continually read and heard in public.” (Luther’s Works vol. 26 p.3)
According to Luther’s commentary, St. Paul’s Epistle is an argument establishing the doctrine of faith, grace, and the forgiveness of sins. It teaches Christians to distinguish between Christian righteousness and all other kinds of righteousness so that in the midst of despair through the temptation of the devil, a Christian may gain freedom by shifting their focus to this passive righteousness and cling to the promise of the gospel.
“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore.” (Gal. 5:1)
In his commentary, Luther explains that the freedom that Paul is referring to in the above passage isn’t a political freedom, but the freedom of the spirit from the conscience.
“For Christ has set us free, not for a political freedom or a freedom of the flesh but for a theological or spiritual freedom, that is, to make our conscience free and joyful, unafraid of the wrath of God.” (Luther’s Works vol. 27 p.5)
Luther believes that the spirit must be trained so that it can recognize an accusation from the law and abandon the despair it causes for the freedom of Christ. His doctrine of law and gospel comes from this idea of oppression and freedom.
For Luther, the law is the law that Moses delivered to the Israelites in the Old Testament or anything else that puts a burden upon the human conscience and causes them to seek active righteousness, active in the sense that a person tries to obtain righteousness through their own works. The law serves as the “Hammer of God” hammering away at the flesh with its demands until it brings about a level of despair that crushes a person’s pride. Its purpose is not to bring about righteousness but to create in the human soul the need for the gospel.
What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. (Gal. 3:19)
The gospel is the promise that God gave through faith in his son Jesus Christ.
Faith in the gospel comes from the hearing of the word of God from a elected preacher causing faith to spring to life in the soul of the elect believer through the power of the Holy Spirit. This faith sets you free from the supervision and demands of the law obtaining righteousness passively not by your own merits.
“You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” ( Gal. 3:26-27)
The gospel is God’s free gift of reconciliation through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
Through law and gospel Luther is able to comprehend Paul’s theology and detect God’s work in the lives of his parishioners through the example set forth in the Galatians Epistle. God comes down to us and uses the law to show humans that they are sinful, causing despair.
When a man’s sin has been disclosed by the law that the law shines into his heart, he finds nothing more odious and intolerable than the law.”(Luther’s Works vol. 26 p.320)
After being convicted by the law, a person is comforted by the mediator Jesus Christ.
That mediator is Jesus Christ. He does not change the sound of the law, as Moses did; nor does he cover it with a veil or lead me away from view of the law. But he sets himself against the wrath of the law and abolishes it; in his own body and by himself he satisfies the law. Afterwards he says to me through the gospel: “Of course, the law is horrible and wrathful. Do not be afraid , however, or run away; but stand fast. I take your place and make satisfaction to the law for you.” (Luther’s Works vol. 26 p.325)
For example, the Galatians were being told that they must become circumcised to be Christians. This is the law in action. But St. Paul delivers the promise of the gospel reminding them that righteousness is passive, not active there, by abolishing their obligation to the law.
Of the two commentaries discussed, I would choose Luther’s view to adopt into my own personal theology. Luther puts the obligation of salvation on God not humans; where as St. Augustine puts the burden on the human to nurse and purify the soul as it travels back to God. Being a human I would rather have the omnipotent being God in charge instead of a depraved, fallen being such as myself. Luther’s theology also unyokes a person from the law in a sense that it gives relief from the pressures of society. For instance, according to Luther, the gospel is there to give serenity and comfort to a soul. In contrast, St. Augustine’s commentary views the gospel as a guide on a tiresome journey.
I believe the freedom that is given through Christ is a better understood by Luther and is a better model for pastors to use with their parishioners. It sets them free from the standards of society, the law, and allows them to enjoy the things God has given us, as opposed to Augustine’s view of everything of the world being evil and should be shunned. Augustine’s view stresses a person out, as they are constantly worrying abou t being too worldly. Luther gives God’s grace and freedom to enjoy life and do what makes you happy as long as it doesn’t conflict with Christ’s new commandment of love God and neighbor.





















Bibliography:

Augustine, St. Augustine’s Commentary on Galatians Oxford Early Christian Studies
Translated by Eric Plumer

Luther, Martin Luther’s Works Vol. 26&27 Concordia Publishing House
Translated by Jaroslaw Pelkian

Augustine, St. Confessions Penguin Classics
Translated by R.S. Pine-Coffin

Christian, James L. The Wisdom Seekers Vol. 1 Thompson Learning Inc.

The New Oxford Annotated Bible New Revised Standard Version

Luther Seminary Entrance Essay!

Jamie Strickler
Law and Gospel Study
Autobiography
December 10, 2007

Since my baptism the Lord has been using the Law, through events in my life, to hammer my flesh into submission and sending preachers to deliver His promises to strengthen my faith and preserve my hope. The most significant events that come to mind are: being bullied as a child, a career as a high school wrestler, a failed relationship, a failed marriage, and a failure to succeed financially.
As a third grader it became evident that I was the fat kid, I was tormented mercilessly. There were a number of bullies and at thirty-three years old I can still remember their names and still feel the humiliation and pain they inflicted. Each crushing blow to the gut or pop to the nose reminded me that I wasn’t good enough and obviously wasn’t living up to the standards or law of the world. These crushing blows inflicted by the agents of evil sent me on a journey to find out how, in this world, I could obtain righteousness. Believing that the world couldn’t accept me for who I am, I believed that a perfect being like God to love me? There must be some way in which I could perform to earn God and the world’s acceptance.
First I tried to build my body. As a freshman in high school I discovered that I was stronger that everyone else and that gained me some notoriety. I spent the next four years of my life working out and seeking out more mature lifters to learn new techniques to become bigger and stronger. As a senior in high school I weighed one hundred ninety-five pounds and had obtained a low six percent body fat. To my delight I was feared and caught the attention of a couple of young girls. At the time I mistook fear as respect and sexual conquest as love.
I also discovered that I had a talent in the sport of wrestling and punished each opponent as if they were one of my childhood bullies. In competition I broke opponent’s ribs, fingers, and did my share of eye gouging. Anything to win! Acquiring the rank of captain of the team I won more and more matches and became more feared. But it seemed with each victory I became angrier, in hind sight I see that my anger wasn’t the real emotion I was experiencing. Anger never presents itself alone, it is always covering up some more vulnerable emotion and for me that emotion was fear of losing. In my subconscious mind I couldn’t lose a match or else everyone would see me for who I really was a weak fat kid in an athlete’s body. But in my conscious mind I no longer needed God because I had become God. But the Law was about to strike again. Just before the State Tournament my senior year I received a crushing blow that I would never be able to overcome. I had justified myself physically in the flesh and my merciful Savior knew that is was causing me pain and one day in practice my right knee got caught in the mat and was super flexed ruining my chances of a State Championship. Wrestling at fifty percent I placed sixth to opponents I had beaten earlier in the year. As I stood and received my reward, a bronze medal, I knew that I would never wrestle again, I had failed, and once more I wasn’t good enough.
Not being in the spot light was more than I could bear and I turned to the only one, at the time, who could make me feel like a man, my high school girlfriend. She was a college student standing five foot one and blonde, every young boy’s dream. She introduced me to the party life and I found that by drinking alcohol I could somehow forget, for a short time, all my failures. She was, I thought at the time, my dream girl until she entered someone else’s dream and became my nightmare. I was attending college now and I couldn’t handle the loss of the one thing that made me somewhat whole. I quit school and entered a deep depression. The Law had struck again.
I then turned to my faith. I had been baptized and confirmed in the Catholic Church and I knew of no other place to look for meaning except mass. I attended church regularly and had enrolled in community college, I was back on track. I met a nice high school girl whose mother was a born again Christian. She introduced me to a non-denominational church which lead me to start reading Christian literature. I found, in their church a loving, forgiving God, not the condemning, vengeful God of my past. Marrying that girl and finding success in the auto business I believed I was on my way.
At twenty-two I was making six figures and had found yet another way to gain my own righteousness or so I thought. Torn between the party life, work, family and church on Sunday I failed to notice that my new bride had become lonely. When she turned to drugs and an older man I felt the Law once again knock me on my kester. She filed for divorce and we celebrated our three year anniversary with the dissolution of the marriage. I was crushed and felt more rejected that I ever had in my life. Then my loving and rescuing Savior came to me through a man He had called to the office of Pastor, Kerry Jecht. Kerry was the pastor of my ex-wife’s church and we had met to try to save my marriage. Becoming friends I found my faith strengthening as he delivered the promises of the Gospel, planting the Jesus seed if you will, but I still couldn’t leave the security of an intoxicated weekend to drown my pain. As St. Augustine said, “Lord make me chaste, but not yet!”
A salesman at the dealership in which I was working introduced me to his oldest daughter Zanny. We fell immediately in love and were married, by Kerry, in less that a year. Through out our seven plus years of marriage God has used Zanny to demonstrate to me what unconditional love and forgiveness truly looks like, she is a living breathing example of what God can do in a marriage. After the birth of our son, Joseph Michael, we decided that we better find our place in a church and since we were both raised Catholic, it was time to return there. I went through the process of having my first marriage annulled and then we had our marriage blessed and our son baptized. By the time our daughter, Ally Rae, was born we were good “Sunday” Catholics. But there was something missing, we kept drifting deeper in to debt as we were making over one hundred thousand dollars a year but living like we made two hundred thousand. I had abandoned God again for my new Gods power, things, and money and again the Law had its way with me.
911 was a horrible time for a lot of people and it killed the car business. We left the comfort of our small town so that I could take a job with a larger dealership in hopes that our new income could out run our current lifestyle. It didn’t. We were bankrupt, spiritually and financially. It was on Memorial Day 2003 that the Holy Spirit seed planted inside me became a fruit bearing tree. I had had enough, the Hammer of God had taken its toll on my flesh; I had been yoked to the Law too long.
I didn’t know what to do but I knew I had to leave the car business. It was amazing, I no longer bound to the bondage of guilt for having to manipulate people and that alone set me free from the abuse of alcohol. I spent the next nine months working as a loan officer in a mortgage company helping people, like me, fresh out of bankruptcy save their houses and my spare time searching for Christ. That was it, this was my calling, I was called to help people in trouble.
I ran into an old friend from the car business, Bob Eckhart, who invited me to his non-denominational mega church and I again discovered the forgiving merciful God. I started training with them part-time to become an associate Pastor with their upcoming satellite branch. For nine months I mentored with two pastors, Jason Stark and Tom Clegg. I had a hunger for the Word of God and devoured three to four Christian books a week. On Jason’s recommendation I started mentoring and counseling men from our church, but now matter how hard I tried it was never enough to satisfy my hunger to do the work of God; I was never quit good enough.
Tom asked me what it was I wanted to do with my life and I told him I wanted to return to school and become a Pastor. He referred me to Grandview College. Then the Law struck again, when the new satellite church opened I was passed up for the associate pastor position. My heart was broken, and we left the church.
In the mean time I had registered for school full time and Zanny excitedly reentered the work force managing a retail store. We had lost our house but we were able to secure a small two bedroom town home. We were dirt poor but extremely happy and free. To add to our joy Zanny unexpectedly became pregnant.
At Grand View College I met Doctors Ken Jones and Mark Mattes and they became my new delivers of the Gospel promise. Through my spiritual father, Dr. Ken Jones, I leaned of Luther and his theology of Law and Gospel. Finally it was all clear, all this really wasn’t up to me, my will was bound to God by God. Everything I thought I understood about God was turned upside down and inside out. Hidden in all the trials I had experienced God was drawing me to himself, hammering away at my flesh with Law and building my faith with the promise delivered by his elected preachers. I was finally free from the obligation to gain my own righteousness; Jesus had done it for me. We joined Faith Lutheran Church in Clive Iowa where I serve as a care minister and we had our third child, Gabriella Suzanne, baptized.
Through the tutelage of Dr Jones I have been unyoked of the burden on the Law by embracing the theology of justification by faith alone explained through Luther, St. Augustine, and St. Paul. I once asked Dr. Jones, “Now that I am free from the Law, what do I do now?” He answered, “What do you want to do?”
Well I’m doing it, for the past year and a half I have served as a chaplain with Hope Ministries’ Bethel Rescue Mission not because I have some debt of service to pay God, but because I am completely happy being called to take up the mission of John the Baptist pointing my bony finger to the cross of Christ for the broken to see.
I want to attend Seminary because I feel an internal call to be an ELCA pastor and want to explore it further. The fruit that is associated with Luther Seminary entices me, for instance, Ken Jones, Steve Paulson, Gerhard Forde, David Nerdig, Jack Mithelman, and Mark Mattes.
I am Lutheran through and through. I am convinced that God elects people to eternal salvation and draws them to himself through a bound will. No more searching for righteousness through works. I see Luther’s theology of Law and Gospel lived out each day in lives of the men I encounter at the shelter and using Luther’s theology am able to explain to them the freedom I have been freely given. The Sacraments of baptism and communion have become very dear to me, baptism being the bestowing of Christ’s promise upon God’s elect and in communion experiencing Christ’s presence. I am in complete agreement with the Nicene Creed, and the Apostles Creed. I see that as Christians we are just sinners now justified by and set free to follow Jesus and obey his Laws of loving God and neighbor. Through the gift of Christ crucified I am free from relying on my emotions, feelings, or understanding and in times of trial can cling to God’s Gospel promises. I no longer dread the Law I embrace the Gospel