A Dive into Galatians (Part 4: Galatians 3:21-5:12—Sons or Slaves?)

A Brief Recap Thus Far
Before we move on to the next major section of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, perhaps it would be good to pause and provide a brief recap of both the situation Paul is addressing and his initial argument as he addresses that situation.

I believe Paul wrote Galatians to the primarily Gentile churches he established in Galatia (pretty much south-central modern-day Turkey) shortly after his first missionary journey in AD 48-49. This actually makes Galatians probably the earliest of Paul’s letters, even before I/II Thessalonians.

In any case, Paul and Barnabas had gone through the region to preach in the Jewish synagogues, but soon realized that the majority of their fellow Jews rejected the Gospel they preached while, surprisingly, a whole bunch of Gentile accepted it…and they received the Holy Spirit.

On their way back to Antioch, Paul and Barnabas made their way to Jerusalem to privately meet with the original apostles and let them know what had happened and what they had done. Namely, Gentiles had accepted the Gospel and Paul had told them they didn’t have to “become Jews,” submit to Torah, and get circumcised. James and Peter agreed with what Paul had done, but soon after that, when Peter had visited Antioch, although he initially ate with the Gentile Christians, when some other Jews came up from Jerusalem, he pulled away and distanced himself from them. Paul then openly confronted Peter about what the Gospel ultimately was about—what the implications of Christ’s death and resurrection had for how one was to relate to the Torah on one hand, and how a “Jewish Christian” was to relate to “Gentile Christians.”

Obviously, around that very time of Paul’s confrontation with Peter, some “Judaizers” had made their way to Paul’s newly established churches in Galatia and had told the Gentile Christians that Paul wasn’t really a legitimate apostle and that if they really wanted to be part of God’s people, they had to do what God’s people (the Jews) had always done—submit to Torah and get circumcised.

That is what prompted Paul’s letter. You can imagine how angry Paul must have been—he just confronted Peter, and then he gets news some of his fellow Jews had gone behind his back and had bad-mouthed him to the very churches he had just established. All that biographical background can be seen in Galatians 1:1-2:14.

As Paul begins to address the situation in 2:15-3:20 by highlighting the fundamental differences between YHWH’s covenant with Abraham and YHWH’s covenant with Israel at Sinai. The Torah was the binding document that defined who the “great nation” that was to come from Abraham was—but the goal of the Abrahamic covenant wasn’t just to create a great nation. That great nation was God’s means to achieve His end—to bless all nations and to redeem His creation. And the way He was to bless all nations was through faith in Christ—that was the plan all along. And now that Christ had come and the Holy Spirit had been poured out on Gentiles, the Torah, which had defined the people through whom salvation would come, was no longer relevant. It had served its purpose. Righteousness and blessing were always a matter of faith, never of Torah. The Torah was like the box in which the gift of salvation came, and once that gift is unwrapped, you don’t need the box anymore.

The Job of the Torah: Nanny McPhee
But Paul isn’t done with his argument. In 3:21-5:12, he expands on his example of Abraham by highlighting the themes of sonship and slavery and developing them to further sketch out the fundamental difference between two modes of existence. A person either lives according to the old age and the old mode of existence, which is characterized by slavery and division (and he squarely puts the Torah in this camp), or one lives by faith and the new mode existence that is characterized by the life of the Spirit.

In 3:21-4:7, Paul addresses the question, “If Torah can’t produce righteousness, then what’s the purpose of Torah?” Remember, that claim would freak your normal Jew out—after all, keeping Torah was the thing that God’s people did. How could Paul tell Gentiles who accepted Christ that they didn’t have to keep Torah? Sure, accepting Christ might give them entry into God’s people, but God’s people kept Torah…right?

“Wrong,” says Paul. Yes, Jews, as the “great nation” YHWH worked through to bless all nations kept Torah. But keeping Torah wasn’t the end game. The end game was that all nations would be blessed with the blessing of Abraham, through faith. And that is always what the defining mark of God’s people was, and the Torah doesn’t nullify God’s promises to Abraham. Still, that doesn’t mean the Torah runs contrary to God’s promises to Abraham. It’s just that the Torah’s job wasn’t to fulfill those promises.

The Torah had a different job. Paul equates it to a governess, or nanny, if you will. Like a nanny, the Torah told people, “No, that behavior is bad! Stop it!” When people, like the children that they are, misbehave anyway, the Torah exacted discipline in order to not only guard people from further harm, but also to train them and grow them up to mature adults. Discipline actually protects people from greater harm and hopefully trains people to choose to do the right thing on their own. The goal of the Torah, as that of a nanny, is to grow the child up to where he is an adult who doesn’t need a nanny anymore. Paul argues that now that Christ has come and that faith that leads to righteousness and maturity has been made available in Christ, there simply is no more need for a nanny. The Torah had a job to do, it did it, and now its job is over.

Christians are Sons of God
Paul then picks up on the sonship imagery from his previous comments about Abraham and says that through faith in Christ, believers are all sons of God—it doesn’t matter if they are Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female—they are all in the same boat. They are all offspring of Abraham because they are all one in Christ Jesus, who is, if you will, the ultimate offspring of Abraham. And because they are sons, they are also heirs according to the promise God made to Abraham. That’s the good news—through faith in Christ, we are offspring of Abraham, sons of God, and heirs to God’s promises to Abraham. Through Christ, God fulfills His covenant with Abraham.

That being said, Paul has one more connection to make with the Torah. Even though that given “son” is going to inherit his father’s kingdom, until he grows up and comes of age, that kid is going to need a nanny! God may be the king, you might be His son who is bound to inherit His kingdom, but as long as you’re still a child, you are going to be put under the care of certain guardians whom you have to obey. That, Paul says, is the connection between the Torah and sons of God’s kingdom.

Now, in 4:3 Paul says people were in servitude to the elements of the world. These “elements” are equated with idols or other worldly authorities who enslave people. Shockingly, Paul then applies that term to the Torah to a certain degree—although it acts as a guardian/nanny, it still is another manifestation of the idolatrous elements of the world. How could Paul do that? Did he really put the Torah on the same category as…idols? Well, yes he sort of did! Why? Because it is part of this old, present age. Like idols and other “elements of the world,” the Torah puts people under its authority and those people are no different than slaves. But Paul’s point is that once you come of age and reach maturity, it is then you will “recover the rights of sons” (4:5) and no longer be under the authority of the nanny. It is then you will be free from the “elements of the world.” And the good news is that with the coming of Christ, that has happened. You’re not a slave; you’re not a “son in training” who is no different than a slave; you’ve come of age and have now taken your place next to your father the king.

The Torah–One of the “Elements of the World”
Given all that, in 4:8-20, Paul tells the Galatian believers how much he is afraid they might succumb to the pressure of these Judaizers, agree to get circumcised, and start trying to keep the Torah. He reminds them that they used to worship idols but were now set free in Christ. If they submit to Torah, they would be allowing themselves to be enslaved to the same “weak and basic elements of the world” all over again—only instead of being enslaved to an idol, they’d be enslaved to the Torah. He notes with shock that they were already participating in some Jewish practices by observing days, months, seasons, and years.

Paul reminds them that he had first come to them with some sort of weakness in the flesh (4:12-16). He says they took care of him and would have readily “torn out their own eyes” and given them to him if possible. He says they treated him like an angel, like Christ himself even. Clearly the Galatian believers and Paul loved each other, and Paul was hoping that his stern letter to them wouldn’t ruin that. This reference, along with his comments about his huge handwriting in 6:11, indicates that his “thorn in the flesh” he mentions in II Corinthians 12:7 was probably some sort of problem with his eyesight. Given the fact he was blind for three days after his Damascus Road experience, it is possible that after he recovered his sight that he still was left partially blinded.

 In any case, Paul ends this part by telling them that the only reason the Judaizers were pressuring them to submit to the Torah wasn’t because of some zeal for God, but rather because they were just zealous to promote themselves. That’s what self-righteous people like to do, isn’t it? “Be like me, then you’ll be holy and righteous!” The emphasis really isn’t on being holy and righteous, it’s on “being like me”! That’s how self-righteous promote themselves and convince others that they really are better than everyone else. It’s not just first century Judaizers who do this. It’s a hallmark of the false religiosity in many churches and even our political parties!

Sarah vs Hagar
In any case, in 4:21-5:1 Paul teases out his Abraham example just a little bit more. This time, he focuses on the two main women in Abraham’s life: Sarah his wife, who gave birth to Isaac, and Hagar the slave woman, who gave birth to Ishmael. Paul says Hagar’s son Ishmael was born according to the flesh, meaning according to the natural way. Hagar was young and fertile and when Abraham had sex with her, she conceived, because that’s what normally happens. By contrast, Sarah’s son Isaac was born according to the promise. Sarah was barren and couldn’t conceive, but because God was going to make good on His promise to Abraham, He caused her to conceive and give birth to Isaac—he was, in effect, a “miracle baby.”

Can you see how Paul is going to relate these two women to what he’s been saying? Hagar, the slave who gave birth to Ishmael according to the flesh—Paul says she represents Mount Sinai, the Mosaic Covenant, and…the Torah! And since the Judaizers from Jerusalem who were pressuring the Galatian believers to submit to Torah, Paul equates Hagar with Jerusalem as well. Bottom line, the Judaizers were slaves to the Torah and they were trying to enslave the Galatian believers to the Torah as well.

By contrast, Sarah was a free woman who gave birth to Isaac, according to God’s promise. She represents, not the present Jerusalem enslaved to the Torah, but rather the Jerusalem above, where there is freedom. Thus, the Galatian Christians were free children of the promise, like Isaac, and the Judaizers were slave children of the flesh who were bullying them, just like Ishmael picked on Isaac. Therefore, just like Abraham drove out both Hagar and Ishmael and said they would have no part in his inheritance, Paul tells them they need to do the same with the Judaizers—reject them and kick them out, because those Judaizers will have no part of the inheritance that is in Christ.

What Did Paul Just Say?
Finally, in 5:2-12, Paul makes one more personal appeal to the Galatians not to succumb to circumcision by using a shocking wordplay in 5:4. He says that any Gentile believer who gets circumcised (which involves a cutting off of the foreskin) is effectively cut off from Christ and is obligated to keep the entire Torah. To do that is to say, “Faith in Christ isn’t enough. I need to do the works of Torah in order to become righteous.” To do that is to become enslaved to the Torah and to reject the freedom that is in Christ through faith.

But then comes the shocking part. After telling the Galatian believers he was confident they would do the right thing and not listen to the Judaizers, Paul turns his attention to the Judaizers and says something that most translations do their best to tone down. In 5:12, Paul says he wishes that those who were trying to circumcise the Galatian believers would just castrate themselves or emasculate themselves. The Greek, though, is even more graphic. Paul essentially says, “I wish those who want to circumcise you would just cut their ‘junk’ off!” You see? It’s so graphic, even I have to use the euphemism ‘junk’ for it! If there is one thing I’ve learned throughout my years in Biblical Studies, it’s that God is not squeamish about using rather vulgar language from time to time.