← Catholic Bible Study
Catholic Bible Study
Galatians: Chapter 5:1-26
00:25:43
Dr. Michael Barber and Dr. James Prothro, professors of Sacred Scripture at the Augustine Institute Graduate School, study St. Paul's pivotal Letter to the Galatians.
Loading summary
Transcript61 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hello, I'm Michael Barber. I'm a professor here at the Augustine Institute Graduate School. And with me is my dear friend, Dr. Jim Prothero, who's also a professor here at the Augustine Institute Graduate School. Surprise. And if you're watching this, you probably know that this is part of our ongoing Bible study on the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians. And Dr. Prother and I are passionate about learning from St. Paul and teaching St. Paul. And so we've been enjoying this tremendously. Now, we're going to pick up in Galatians Chapter 5. Since there are only six chapters, we are nearing the end. So we are going to now pick up in five, verse one. I got distracted by you raising your eyebrows. That was distracting. All right. For freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. What is this slavery that he's talking about? Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. So the yoke of slavery, for Paul is a reference to going back and embracing circumcision. He says, I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly await the. For the hope of righteousness. All right, let's talk about these first few verses here. Dr. Prothero. Here we're looking at Paul explaining why the Galatians shouldn't go back to circumcision. And why don't you unpack a little bit of what we've just read?
- [02:04]
B
Yeah, so he. He's especially in chapter four, and now he's continuing on into five. Right. He's setting up the issue of living in the Spirit of Christ as freedom, that we've been redeemed and set free from the curse of the law, from being bound from the Sinai covenant, the law as it was set for ancient Israel, for their sort of life together and life with God as a kind of guardian who was only there until the proper time when God would give the full adoption of children. We talked about this in three and chapter four of Galatians, and he's just done his bit about Hagar and Sarah and about which woman do you want to be children of Hagar, the slave woman whose children are set for slavery. That's like being under the law still after Christ has come, or Sarah, who is the wife whose child was a child of the promise. And you're a child of the promise because you received the promise, but by faith in Jesus Christ, you receive that Holy Spirit. And so he's still going on with the thing about freedom in this way. And he says, look, Christ has set you free for this freedom. You've been redeemed by the death and resurrection of Jesus. You've been redeemed from all of that. Why are you going to run back to it instead of saying, yes, redeemer, I'll follow you. Where would you like to take me? You know? So he says, don't submit again, right? Don't go back to that, to yoke of slavery. And he even emphasizes that, just as he did back in chapter one at the opening of the letter when he said, I'm surprised how quickly you're deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ Jesus. Here again, he sets this up as a question for their salvation, right? He says, look, you have to be with Christ. You need to follow Christ. If you make a giant willful act to say, hi, Jesus, thank you for the Holy Spirit, that's a great gift, but actually, I'd rather get my righteousness from my circumcision over here, so I'm just gonna go do that, right? He says, that's apostasy. You don't think it is. You think it's like picking up a new devotion or something like that, but it's not. You're actually making a choice against following Christ and where he's calling you and going the other way. And he says, you'll follow from grace. That doesn't necessarily mean they can't come back, of course, but Paul doesn't want them to fall. This is not the kind of thing where he's like, well, go try that out for a little while and we'll see what happens, right? He's trying really hard to keep them from going down this road, especially because we're not sure if he thinks that he'll ever see them again.
- [04:50]
A
That's right. And he's worried that if they try to take on circumcision, then these Gentiles will believe that they also have to take on all these other laws that are not applicable to them in the New Covenant. And so he says to them, and why are they doing this? Obviously, they're being drawn into taking on these laws because they think that, again, their justification, their salvation is somehow dependent on what they do. They have to make themselves worthy of the grace that they've Received. And Paul says, you are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law, you have fallen away from grace. Now there's a pun there, right? Because of circumcision, you're severed from Christ. He's saying, right. I'm sorry if that's gross, but that's Paul. It's the word of God.
- [05:42]
B
So cut off would be the other way to translate the word he used.
- [05:46]
A
That's right. And he says, you have fallen away from grace. So you have a choice. You. You're going to either put your faith in these practices like circumcision, or you're going to put your faith in God's grace that's already been active in you.
- [06:04]
B
And verse five is really crucial for that because verses two through four, he's been pretty heavy with them and really negative, saying, don't do this if you do hear all the bad things. But then instead of switching over and just saying, well, you guys will be cut off from grace, but we'll be fine. He says. He doesn't just say like, well, we're in the right group, so everything is fine. He models instead the attitude of faith. In verse five, he says, through the Spirit, right? Not just by ourselves or our own powers, without God's help, but through the Spirit, by faith and trusting God. We eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. We're looking ahead. John Paul ii. People would ask him, like, well, are you. Are you certain? How do you feel about your soul? And he goes, I hope I live in hope.
- [06:57]
A
That's right.
- [06:58]
B
And it's not a weirdo hope like, I hope the rain goes away. Or, man, I really hope that they don't do this. Or I really hope whatever, right? It's a confident hope.
- [07:09]
A
That's right.
- [07:10]
B
Not confident in ourselves, but a confidence in God because we know God and God's love and his promise. And so we wait for the fullness of our justification and the day that we're finally and fully perfected.
- [07:22]
A
That's right. That's right. And so Paul will go on to say then in verse 6, for in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything. And this is one of my favorite lines in Paul, but only faith, working in love. I mean, that really sums it all up, right? What counts isn't circumcision or uncircumcision. What ultimately is justifying is faith. And of course, when Paul speaks of faith here, he doesn't just mean having a belief about something. He doesn't just mean accepting Something as a proposition. But he means faithfulness. He means, you know, living a life that is faithful, faithfulness, working through love. And ultimately, Paul has introduced this in the beginning of the letter by talking about this idea of love, by talking about how God loved us and gave His Son for us. Christ gave himself out of love for us. And so near the end of the letter, now, Paul is talking about what our proper response is, that grace is now working in us to make us like the one who gave Himself for us.
- [08:44]
B
That's right. And he moves on from this great. This, this. This. This sort of modeling of faith. And then this line in verse six and. And verse six is really crucial also because it reminds us about the positive point. Right. It's really easy to read through some of these arguments. And if you've been listening to us and you hear us say, like, circumcision. Circumcision. Circumcision. Covenant circumcision. Right. You're gonna be like, wow, okay, all right, all right, all right. Don't get circumcised. Well, great. I'm. I'm a girl or I was raised. That never happened to me. Or it already has happened to me, and I'm not responsible for it anyway, so whatever. But you see, Paul's actual positive point that he's trying to get them to do is, on the one hand, did not follow this other teaching, but the main thing is he wants them. It's not uncircumcision or circumcision. It's not either one of these things. It's about faith. And he points them positively. And now what he's going to do, like a really, really good persuasive speaker, is he's going to take that great positive perspective and then let that put into sharper relief what's gone wrong in Galatia, and tell him, look, this is what we're going for. You were going for it for a while there, and now you're not. What happened? Stop it.
- [10:06]
A
Right.
- [10:06]
B
To try to make them want to follow the way that he's proposing.
- [10:10]
A
That's right.
- [10:11]
B
So Paul goes 7 through 12.
- [10:12]
A
Yep. He goes on to say, you were running. Well, who hindered you from obeying the truth? And by the way, Paul talked in the previous section about falling away from grace. And this is an idea that we have in Catholic tradition. Right. The idea of falling out of grace. Some Christians say, oh, well, once you're saved, always saved. Can't lose your salvation. Doesn't seem to be the way Paul sees it. You can choose if you if you wish to separate yourself from Christ. And now he's warning them you were running. Well, who hindered you from obeying the truth? And of course, Paul knows the answer. It's a rhetorical question. It's the troublemakers there. This persuasion is not from him who calls you a little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? And I think this is a good question. What does Paul mean here where he says, if I still preach circumcision, why am I being persecuted? Why do you think he says that here?
- [11:29]
B
Well, on the one hand, it's a quick reminder to them that his message isn't just an attempt to be popular with everybody. Remember back in Galatians 1:10, he says, am I now trying to please men or God? And it seems like some people might have been saying, oh, Paul's telling you you don't have to get circumcised because he's just trying to make you feel nice and kind of sweeten the deal to make you become part of the church. But really he's not here. He's not giving you the real, unvarnished, real truth. It's supposed to be harder than that. And Paul is saying, well, you might think that I'm pleasing people, but if I wanted to please people and do what made sense to people, as a Pharisee who believes in the Messiah promised to Israel, shouldn't I be telling all the Gentiles to get circumcised?
- [12:20]
A
Right.
- [12:20]
B
Shouldn't I go hang out with the powerful people in Jerusalem?
- [12:23]
A
Right.
- [12:24]
B
But I'm being persecuted for this. Now, there's other people who have other views about this, but that's at least one way to think about how to hear this in what he's saying. Because his point is to show that his persecution is part of an evidence of his faithfulness, that he's trying to follow God and not just do what other people will expect or want.
- [12:44]
A
Right? Right. So he says, in that case, the offense of the cross has been removed. And I think the key idea here is that if you are going to be faithful to Christ, you should expect to be persecuted. It's teaching of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. Woe to you, he says in chapter six, woe to you when all men speak well of you. Bible versesfor politicians. Right. I mean, you are in dangerous territory if everyone speaks well of you.
- [13:18]
B
And that includes our own groups.
- [13:21]
A
That's right.
- [13:22]
B
Notice who is it that's upset with Paul.
- [13:24]
A
Right.
- [13:25]
B
Other Jews who believe in Jesus, who are missionaries.
- [13:28]
A
Right.
- [13:30]
B
Paul isn't sort of setting everything up and like, well, here's my people and my people all support me. The only reason that people don't like me is those people over there. Right. Being faithful doesn't just set off to one side, to the other, full right and left, left, right. You end up in trouble kind of everywhere, really, trying to follow the Lord.
- [13:50]
A
That's right.
- [13:50]
B
Because he doesn't fit into our little boxes.
- [13:55]
A
He goes on and he says, I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves. And here is that line where Paul is speaking extremely harshly. Right. Or there's a little bit of rhetorical flair here where Paul has been talking about circumcision. And he's. He's basically saying, I wish those who would unsettle you would emasculate themselves would, you know, anyway, slip the knife. And he says, for you were called to freedom, brothers only. Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another. And then we get this tremendous line, for the whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. So what does it mean for Paul to keep the law? What does it mean that Christ fulfills the law? Ultimately, Augustine would say, all of the Scriptures, all of our study of the Scriptures are meant to lead us to the idea of loving God and loving your neighbor. Right. And what Paul is explaining here is it may seem to be the case that what I'm saying is, oh, well, you're no longer under the law. I'm not saying you're no longer under the law. So don't pay attention to the law and don't pay attention to serving one another. Not saying, now that Christ has saved you, you don't have to worry about, you know, responding to the grace that's been given to you. No, as he already said, nothing counts but faith working through love.
- [15:28]
B
That's right. And you can see here the freedom that Paul is talking about isn't a freedom to do whatever you want, but a freedom to do what God wants.
- [15:37]
A
That's right.
- [15:37]
B
And he's going to get to that when he talks about the role of the spirit in verse 17.
- [15:41]
A
That's right. That's right. So he says, but if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another in Other words, if there's backbiting, if you're talking about one another behind one another's back, if you're talking about somebody else, guess what? They're probably talking about you too. If you hear other people. Obviously he knows from his letter. It seems clear these troubling teachers are saying very bad things about Paul. Well, if they're saying that about me, guess what they're probably saying about you. Right. So then we move into this beautiful passage where Paul speaks of the. The fruits of the spirit. And he says, but I say, walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. So first he lays out what are the. The desires of the flesh and these things that are against the spirit. He says they are opposed to one another. The desires of the flesh are opposed to the desires of the spirit. Obviously, he's not saying that we should somehow seek to be disembodied, as if our body is itself a problem, but the flesh is a symbol of our fallen nature. Right. He says, if you are led. And by the way, there's a Greek word that's really important. And I'm reminded you are wearing a Greek tie. I really like this tie because it's got Greek all over it. And it's appropriate because you are actually. Dr. Prother is actually teaching Greek this coming term here at the Augusta Institute. I think there are 60 students signed up for your Greek class or something.
- [17:26]
B
We have a lot of people who.
- [17:28]
A
160, is it?
- [17:30]
B
No, but. But that's a big. That's a big class for Greek and an elective.
- [17:35]
A
The.
- [17:35]
B
That's not required for everybody.
- [17:36]
A
Fret the AI.
- [17:36]
B
It's a very big class, but it's quite wonderful. And you can always audit the course if you want to just sort of.
- [17:43]
A
Listen and watch if you want to learn Greek. And one thing that you notice in the Greek here is the word that's used here for led by the spirit. That's the same Greek term that's used elsewhere in reference to the Exodus tradition. So here we have new Exodus imagery in Paul. Right. Just as the Israelites were let out of slavery in Egypt, so too we can be led by the spirit out of this life that is dominated by the desires of the flesh. So he says, you are not under the law now. The works of the flesh are evident. So what are the works of the flesh? Sexual immorality. Again, these are the things that are opposed to life in the Holy Spirit. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery. Enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions. The Greek word. There is the word where we get heresy. Interestingly enough, envy, drunkenness, orgies and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Now I think this list might be surprising to some people. On the one hand, there are some people who think, well, once you're saved, you're always saved. There's nothing you can do to lose your salvation again. That's not Paul's teaching. Paul says if you do these things, you will not inherit the kingdom of God. It's just that simple. Now what are these things? Oh, sexual immorality, idolatry, people. Yeah, first commandment, you should only have one God of no other gods before me. Sexual immorality. Okay, yeah, I obviously expect that. But there are other things on the list that we often don't talk about that are on this, that Paul puts with these other sins. Strife, strife. It's where you have conflict with other people. Jealousy, fits of anger. You know, it's remarkable to me how many will try to justify intemperate attitudes by pointing to things like Jesus's act of cleansing the temple. Right, the so called cleansing the temple. Some are actually called that. But that scene in the gospels where Jesus, according to Wanika, has a whip and he drives people out, People say, see, Jesus lost it. One scholar calls it Jesus's temple tantrum. That's amazing. Is nowhere in the gospel narratives does it describe Jesus as angry. In that context it's the zeal for thy house will consume me. But zeal and anger are not the same thing. Doesn't seem like Jesus loses it. Right. Fits of anger. This is a major problem in the spiritual life. And Thomas Aquinas, other great writers would point out that anger is almost always related to pride. Right. Because if you think you're so much better than everybody else, you just can't stand it when you don't get your way. Right. Envy, drunkenness. I think these things often don't make people's lists of the most important sins, but they sure do for Paul.
- [20:57]
B
No, that's right. And you notice, I mean this is. It was important in Paul's day. It's important in ours too. Like you said, we expect things like idolatry, sensuality, sexual immorality, orgies. Yeah, obviously. But there's all of these other things that have to do with our ability to live together.
- [21:23]
A
Right, right.
- [21:23]
B
And the way in which we disturb the harmony of Our life together as a church or with others around us.
- [21:35]
A
Right.
- [21:35]
B
Divisions, strife.
- [21:41]
A
Right.
- [21:43]
B
These are things that Paul is. Rivalries, feuds, feuding. Yep. A lot of feuding down here. And. Right. Whatever town, I won't name it because somebody get mad at me. These are important things to Paul.
- [21:57]
A
That's right.
- [21:58]
B
And they're. They're things that we find it easy to sort of pass over because we decide that, like, our reasoning for do it is good, for doing it is good. Right. Just like anger. But they're important because the life of following Jesus isn't just ticking off like, okay, well, I've got no adultery. Okay. That's a big one.
- [22:25]
A
Whew.
- [22:26]
B
No idolatry. Okay, That's a big one. Right. But also like our whole lives with one another.
- [22:31]
A
That's right.
- [22:32]
B
If you have your ESVCE, you'll notice a little note in verse 21 when Paul says, I warned you, as I have before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. And there's a little note that says, it could also translate this. Make a practice of doing. Remember, there's always forgiveness for sins, for falling, and restoration through the sacrament of confession. But if this is the way you're gonna continue to live your life, you're gonna sink your life and who you are and bring the Holy Spirit that has been given to you into all of this. And you're gonna say, no, this is how I wanna live. I wanna. And you can call it fighting the right kind of thing or being angry for the right kind of reasons, all you want to. Right. But at the end of the day, you're gonna find your life directed against people instead of directed toward God.
- [23:22]
A
That's right.
- [23:24]
B
And that's a break. Just like turning away for circumcision.
- [23:30]
A
Right? That's right. And I think it's important that for Paul, we've seen there is this communal dimension of salvation. Salvation is not just about me and Jesus. It's about being incorporated into the family of God, into the people of God, being incorporated into the ecclesia. And so sins like divisions, rivalries, strife, fits of anger, dissensions, you know, this, these are. These are not of minimal importance to Paul. And of course, he's seen this on the ground in the churches of Galatia because of these false teachers that have come in. He says, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. Against such things there is no law, and those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. So we no longer live according to the flesh, lived by the Spirit. According to these things that Paul mentions. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. In his commentary on Galatians, Thomas Aquinas actually does this really helpful thing where he lays out the fruits of the Spirit and the works of the flesh. And he shows how Paul seems to be paralleling certain aspects of this. So love, Aquinas says, seems to be the opposite of sexual immorality. Sexual immorality is ultimately selfishness. It's ultimately, you know, about loving yourself and not loving others. Joy is the opposite of impurity and sensuality. Right? Patience and goodness is the opposite of sorcery and enmity and rivalries and all these other things. And so we can really reflect on all this. We're going to talk more about this as. As. As we go on now. I want to thank all of you who contribute to our mission circle, and I want to enc you to check out our next Bible study. We'll be picking up Galatians chapter six, unpacking some of these things a bit more. Until then, may God bless you in your study of His Word.