Augustine, in his commentary on Galatians, here comments on the Apostle Paul’s insistence that Christians are no longer under the law but have received salvation as a free gift of grace. The context is the controversy over whether Gentile converts must be circumcised. The circumcisers tried to force on them full observance of the Jewish Law.
Paul writes to the Galatians to make them understand that by God’s grace they are no longer under the law. When the Gospel was preached to them, there were some among them of Jewish origin known as circumcisers – though they called themselves Christians – who did not grasp the gift they had received. They still wanted to be under the burden of the law.
LAW,
GRACE & FAITH
Now God had imposed that burden on those who were slaves to sin and not on
servants of justice. That is to say, God had given a just law to unjust men in
order to show them their sin, not to take it away. For sin is taken away only
by the gift of faith that works through love. The Galatians had already received
this gift, but the circumcisers claimed that the Gospel would not save them
unless they underwent circumcision and were willing to observe also the other
traditional Jewish rites.
THE
GOSPEL & THE GALATIANS
The Galatians, therefore, began to question Paul’s preaching of the Gospel
because he did not require Gentiles to follow Jewish observances as other
apostles had done. Even Peter had yielded to the scandalized protests of the
circumcisers. He pretended to believe that the Gospel would not save the
Gentiles unless they fulfilled the burden of the law.
But
Paul recalled him from such dissimulation, as is shown in this very same
letter. A similar issue arises in Paul’s letter to the Romans, but with an
evident difference. Through his letter to them Paul was able to resolve the
strife and controversy that had developed between the Jewish and Gentile
converts.
GALATIANS
TURN TO ANOTHER GOSPEL
In the present letter Paul is writing to persons who were profoundly influenced
and disturbed by the circumcisers. The Galatians had begun to believe them and
to think that Paul had not preached rightly, since he had not ordered them to
be circumcised. And so the Apostle begins by saying: I am amazed that you are
so quickly deserting him who called you to the glory of Christ, and turning to
another gospel.
After
this there comes a brief introduction to the point at issue. But remember in
the very opening of the letter Paul had said that he was an apostle not from
men nor by any man, a statement that does not appear in any other letter of
his. He is making it quite clear that the circumcisers, for their part, are not
from God but from men, and that his authority in preaching the Gospel must be
considered equal to that of the other apostles. For he was called to be an apostle
not from men nor by any man, but through God the Father and his Son. Jesus
Christ.
Crossroads Initiative
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