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Galatians: Chapter 6:1-18
00:30:14
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.
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- [00:00]
A
Hello, I'm Michael Barber, and this is my dear friend Dr. Jim Prothro, and we're here discussing Galatians, and this is our Bible study. Through this Amazing Epistle of St. Paul, we have reached the final chapter of the epistle, Galatians, Chapter 6, and really glad to be back in the saddle. Just a little bit of inside baseball. The last time we did an episode, we ended, maybe you might have noticed, a little early, because as we were in the middle of talk, the door opened up and they gave us some gestures and it looked like there was some kind of emergency going on. There was a storm going on outside. And so I thought, well, maybe it's raining. So as soon as they said cut or we're out or whatever they say, they said, Dr. Prothero, Dr. Barbara, you may need to get upstairs to your office. Your offices have been flooded. And we had already had episode earlier this year where some water got into the roof. And he. He and I both have a lot of books, and so we were really worried about our books. So anyway, it all turned out to be okay. Nothing was seriously damaged, at least in our library. Our colleague Scott Heffelfinger did lose a few books. But anyway, we're glad to be back and reading St. Paul together, which is so much more enjoyable than filling buckets with water. Anyway. Paul says the following. Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, so and so, fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, he is nothing. I'm sorry? If anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work. And then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor, for each will have to bear his own load. Where would you like to start with those five verses?
- [02:14]
B
Well, there's so much here, and it's a real great exercise to read the last chapter, the last big chapter of a Pauline letter. Some of the last chapters we cut off just where he's saying hello to people and goodbye. But in most of them, the last chapter is where he really has this kind of final push for them after all of the things he's tried to convince them of earlier, so of the value of their reception of the Holy Spirit, to be right with God, to be pure before God, to be true members of Christ Jesus and sons and daughters of Abraham, to exhorting them to walk in the Holy Spirit and live in him without having to turn to circumcision instead as a kind of replacement for it. And what a small replacement it would be. And now here in chapter six, we've got his final push at the end of his exhortations to them to live well. And then we're going to get his sort of parting words at the end. And you can see right here at the beginning of chapter six, his first thing is again centered on the Spirit. If anyone's caught in any transgression, right? If you have a brother, a sister, who you know is sort of caught in a snare of sin, you who are spiritual, you who are filled with the Holy Spirit in a state of grace, should go and restore them. Restore, not beat them over the head with a tag hammer, because, come on, you sinner, don't you know better, right? He says, restore them in a spirit of gentleness and keep watch on yourself lest you be tempted. So you can see a couple of things here, I think. Number one, sometimes one can read Paul's talk about freedom and say, oh, great, there's freedom from consequences, freedom from rules, right? There's no, it doesn't matter what I do, right? It's gonna be okay. God loves me. And isn't that really the point, right? But you notice there's a danger in transgression and temptation. And so he wants them not only to go get other people, but also to watch themselves. But where does the power to do that come from? Does it come from the law? Does it come from their status of being?
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A
If you're circumcised, then you're able to help other people.
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B
No, no, Right? And it's not a status he's gonna talk about in a second against other people instead of talking about what they themselves are doing before God. It's not in the sort of boastful status of, I'm better than you and I'm part of the better group than you, because I have this one little bit of my piety, like circumcision, that's better than you, right? It's the Holy Spirit, right? And allowing the Holy Spirit to work in our lives and through the sacramental graces of God in the Church. And he brings it all home here in verse two, where he says, bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. And we can bear each other's burdens in lots of ways, in physical ways, in spiritual ways, and through prayer and interceding for one another, right? In Rejoicing with those who rejoice and in weeping with those who weep, to take what is on our brothers and sisters also onto us and share with them.
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A
In the immediate context, it seems bearing one another's burdens involves recognizing that somehow you have a responsibility to help people who are caught in transgression, though. So it almost seems that Paul is suggesting that one person's sin is another person's burden. In other words, no one can say, I'm sinning. This doesn't affect anybody else. This only affects me. No, because we're one in Christ. We're one body in Christ. Someone else's sin is never a private affair. It involves the whole body in some way, shape or form. I don't know. That's the way it strikes me. I. I love this idea, though, that bearing another's burden is what fulfills the law of Christ. So we've talked a lot about the law in, in Galatians, Paul is not antinomian in the sense that, oh, there are no commandments. No, there are. There is the law of Christ. And I think Paul would explain that the law of Moses belongs to the old creation. And the law of Christ would seem to speak especially to the new creation. And what Christ is doing is ultimately fulfilling all. In Romans, for example, loving your neighbor, loving others is ultimately a way of fulfilling the law, right?
- [06:51]
B
And without a strict break between old and new. Oh, sure. So that the, that the new creation, the same way that grace, right, works on and then perfects our nature, right? What we are already right. The new creation takes what is there right in. In the old and, and brings it to its perfection. And you can see Jesus doing this, right? Where Jesus will say to somebody, they'll say, what must I do?
- [07:17]
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Right?
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What's the greatest commandment? And Jesus doesn't say, well, forget about Moses, right? And yet he's able to distill the commandments of Moses down to the two greatest ones, right? The love of God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and loving our neighbor as ourself. And in chapter five, that's exactly what Paul has said. If you flip back in chapter five, verse 14, he says the whole law is fulfilled in one word.
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That's right.
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You shall love your neighbor as yourself. That's right. And the law of Christ doesn't just tell us to do that, but Christ himself shows us how to love perfectly because he did. And he senses the Holy Spirit to empower us to walk in that love.
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A
And then, of course, the statement about if anyone thinks he is something. When he is nothing, he deceives himself, which is a helpful corrective. Right. In some ways, if you find someone who's caught in a transgression, then it's important to address that. But at the same time, we have to be humble and not think that somehow, oh, it's from us. No, it's from the Spirit. If we're able to help, it's because says we're spiritual. It's because the Spirit is at work within us. And only then is each able to test your work. Only if you're spiritual really in context, and only then are you able to help others.
- [08:38]
B
That's right. And you can see him continue on in the same kind of vein in verse four. That goes along with verse three. Right. So let everybody test his own work and then you can have a reason to boast in yourself. Right before God. Right. Thank you, God. I resisted that temptation. And we can glory in the Lord and his grace for us, but only because the Lord. Yeah, but only because the Lord in us and not against somebody else. Right. I'm going to come restore you from your transgression, you poor heathen, because you know what? I am better. And so I'm going to restore you because I've really got the goods. And you, I don't know what's wrong with you, son. Right. Come on. Right. That would be boastful against somebody else. Right. Instead of saying, I'm going to go restore you out of love and in the example of Christ and then toward. If I'm thinking about my own stuff, right. And God's own work in me, right. I'm going to do a self examination, right. Where I'm going to take stock and say, realistically, right. Have I been heeding the Lord and walking in the Spirit? Well, here. Yes. Good. Thanks be to God. No. Okay, I need to work on that. Right. But it. Your. Your. Your evaluation of yourself becomes interior, whereas your aid for other people is what's exterior instead of. Instead of boasting of your own self against somebody else.
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And of course, we can't boast, not in himself alone, because each will have to bear his own load.
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That's right.
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Right.
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That's right.
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And Paul goes on to say, let the one who is taught the Word share all good things with the one who. Who teaches. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. Well, let's just take that first verse there before we get into the imagery that follows. Let the one who has taught the Word share all good things with the one who teaches. What does Paul mean that by that?
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This is another. So you can. You can think about these all together. You can think about them as slightly separate. One of the things that strikes me in verse six is to remember how much the church is kind of a sub theme in Galatians.
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Right.
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That is sort of under everything Paul does. Right. They're not just thinking about maybe breaking off from Paul to hang out with some other apostles.
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Right.
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They're not just thinking about switching parishes.
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Right.
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They're thinking about actually, Right. When they think about leaving Paul. Paul says, you're thinking about leaving Christ. I've spoken the truth to you, and I've become your enemy. And when you leave me and make me your enemy, you do the same thing with God. That's what he says in chapter four. He says, I've become your enemy. You stand against me. But back in chapter one, the most important way of characterizing it, he says, you've deserted Christ. You've gone over the other side. You've gone to the opposition to the grace of God and Jesus. And so let the one who's taught the Word share all good things with the one who teaches very directly and literally. This is about sharing with the one who is bringing you into the faith. Right. But also about being in communion with him and them needing to be in communion with Paul, who has taught them the Word, and with the other ministers who are also in communion with Paul under him. They need to be in communion with them and with the whole church because ultimately that brings us into communion with Christ. And so that's how I kind of related to everything that's going on in the letter. But I'm sure you have more.
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A
No. Well, I don't want to take too much time on that one verse. So let's move on. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked for whoever. For whatever one sows that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will reap well from the flesh reap corruption. But the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good. For in due season we will reap if we do not give up. So then as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone and especially to those who are of the household of faith. Now, I love this harvest imagery here that Paul uses. Basically, the principle that whatever you sow, that's what you will reap highlights the fact that for Paul, our good works actually do play a very important role in the grand scheme of salvation. I think a lot of people want to downplay the role of works in Paul because of truly, Paul does highlight the role of grace, as we've already talked about. But nonetheless, Paul is very clear that your works are determinative of the outcome that you will experience here.
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That's right. And one thing to notice here that strikes me about the harvest imagery is that there's only two options. There's the flesh. Imagine it as two fields, right? There's the field of the flesh. And that's a weird image.
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Yeah.
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Okay. Yeah, Got it.
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Yeah. Right.
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And you're going to sow into either one or the other, and you'll reap what you sow. Now, normally, when we think about it, right, it's whatever the seed is that we plant, doesn't matter where we plant it, wherever the seed is that we plant, that determines what will come out. But Paul wants to imagine two different fields, and he's not sort of painting a picture of, like, well, on Tuesday you had three, you know, spirit plantings, but you had two flesh plantings. And that's not really good. But then on Wednesday, you had, like, eight flesh plantings, two spirit plantings, and now you're kind of. Your bank account is low. He's not sort of like inviting everybody to count them up, right. He wants you to imagine turning your back on the flesh to go to this other field where the sowing is good, the growing is good, and the harvest that you receive is good because everything about it is the Holy Spirit. And he wants you to, like a seed, sink your life, your devotion, your desires, your hopes, your dreams, your values and your works into the spirit. Right. And this field, and to work and plow there, because that's where we'll find a good harvest. In Romans, chapter six, he describes it a little bit differently, as though we're serving two different masters. And he says the works you used to do when you were serving sin and the devil and death, well, what were you going to get? Death. Because that's all that that master can pay you. But when we serve the Lord and we stay with him, will we fail? Yes. Do we need to repent? Yes. All the time. Right. And of more things than we're aware, most of the time.
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Right.
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But if we serve the Lord, right. Or if we sow to the other field in the spirit. Right.
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And Paul's very concrete about this too, right. Like, what does it mean to sow to the spirit and reaping from the Spirit? Because he goes on to say, we'll let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up. But what does this reaping look like? What is this doing look like? So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone and especially to those who are of the household of faith here we are to do good to other people. And so this idea of reaping to the Spirit is not just like, about your intention, it's not just your feelings, it's not just your inclinations, it's, it's, it's what you give, it's what you do. And I, I think you can actually imagine that on some level here Paul has the idea of alms giving of. Because elsewhere in his letters he uses similar imagery. So doing good is not just like this abstract. No, there are actual actions that we do. And when we do those things, we are planting seeds that are going to grow back and, you know, what goes around comes around, so to speak. All right, in. And I like how he says, especially to those who are of the household of faith, it's a very Jewish perspective because in the ancient Jewish world, in the ancient world, broadly, Jews were known to take care of one another. So if you went to a town and you were a Jew, you would go find the Jews in that town and they would look out for you. Right. And so here Paul has a similar mindset that now in the New Covenant community, we really have to look at each other as not just friends, not just partners, but brothers and sisters, fellow members of the body of Christ. And so that's that recognition should translate an actual deeds of charity, concrete deeds of charity that we perform for one another. So I think it's just a beautiful little detail, especially to those who have the household of faith, not saying not to other people, but especially. All right, we come to the final verses here. See, with what large letters? I am writing to you with my own hand. See now this verse just cracks me up because here, here we have Paul talking about the fact that he's writing this particular verse. Normally in the ancient world, the author wouldn't hold the stylus in his hand. We've seen lots of art like that. But it was a skill to write legibly. I mean, I haven't learned that skill to write legibly, but it was a skill to write legibly. So you would hire someone who would actually be able to write clearly for you. And Paul said, this is my own, this is what I write. My unsophisticated writing is Rather large. You needed to, you know, write in small letters so that you could preserve the paper. Anyway, so see, with what large letters. I am writing to you with my own hand. You have any thoughts on that verse before move on.
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Or other. Other than re. Explaining what you just said?
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Okay.
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No, not really.
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All right. It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be. Be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. For even those circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they themselves keep the law. I'm sorry. He says, for even those who are circumcised do not keep the law, but they. Them do. I have a typo there in my handout. Is that how it reads in your Bible there?
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But they desire, okay. Do not themselves.
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Oh, but they desire. There we go. But they desire to have you circumcised so that they may boast in your flesh. What's Paul's point here, Dr. Prothorpe?
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B
So here at the end, right, and he's writing the final appeal and showing them how involved he is in this, that he's writing it in his own hand with these big letters and he's at the sort of final end here. He's just calling out to win them back again to the gospel and saying, look, the people who are giving you this maybe nice sounding message of circumcision, right? I don't know how they sort of fill it out, but it's them, they're the ones who are trying to boast in the flesh, right? They're the ones who are saying, oh, hey, we have the goods and you don't, so why don't you come on back, right? But it's not in the spirit. And he said this already in chapter four a little bit, that they're desirous of you in the wrong way. And now he says, here, look, he says they want to make you circumcised so that they can go brag about. About it, right? It's not good for you. It's not because it's for you that they're trying to convince you of this, right? And there's a lot of things that. That might be going on at the time. Whenever there's tensions between Jews and Romans, the Christians especially early on at first were sort of lumped in with the Jews, and most of them were in fact Jews. But that meant that Gentiles, like these Galatians, right, And the Jews who hung out with them and ate with them might look like traitors, right? If the rest of their family is saying, hey, the Gentiles, the Romans are coming in and being cruel to us. And now you've gone over with them, just like siding with the enemy. And you can say, no, they follow Jesus, the Messiah. Right. But it still looks like that. Right. If you're sort of crossing over the tables. So there might be some of that going on, but it might also just be that these guys are really interested only in the circumcision and kind of putting new notches on their belt for how many Gentiles they get to convince to get circumcised.
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A
And do you think that maybe this is more subtly, this is what circumcision is about. Right. Circumcision is a matter of the flesh. It's something that you do in the flesh. And Paul's saying, we want to reap to the Spirit, not to the flesh. So the fact that circumcision is of the flesh, those who are saying you have to be circumcised in order to really be a real Christian, you're going the wrong direction. You're going in the wrong field there. Right. And part of that is that they want to boast, right? So the boasting about flesh shows you. It's like it's revelatory. This is really of the field of the flesh, not the field of the Spirit.
- [22:21]
B
That's right. And Paul puts it kind of into sharp relief in verses 13 and 14. They want to boast in your flesh, and I'll boast too, but only in the cross of Jesus Christ. They want to boast in a way that makes them not persecuted, that makes people not think that they're crazy. Right? That makes people go, oh, of course. That makes complete sense. I am happy to follow the cross even when it's a stumbling block to people. And when people look at me like I'm nuts or when people say that I've committed some sort of terrible crime, I'm going to stay with the cross. And that's the most important thing here. It's not about not just do people respect me or not. Right? Because you can be a really poor representative of Jesus and get disrespected and persecuted, but that's not really like, what we want. Paul says, I'm going to follow the cross. I'm going to follow the cross all the way to glory on the other side, even in martyrdom, which is where he ends up. But I'm not going to leave at any point, the grace of Jesus Christ, his death and his resurrection, and his giving of the Spirit for the sake of capitulating to anything.
- [23:32]
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Right? And then he goes on to say, neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And this is really what Paul has been driving at, right? That ultimately what we have in the new covenant is a realization of the hopes for a new creation that you see expressed in prophets like Isaiah and, you know, other ancient Jewish works. And what really matters isn't whether you're circumcised or not, but ultimately whether you have been transformed by Christ.
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That's right.
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And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God. Now, this is a famously controverted passage, the Israel of God. But it seems that Paul is explaining that the true Israel of God isn't just those who have been circumcised, but those who have been brought in into that. That sphere of the new creation. Fair enough. Yeah. All right. And then we have the closing lines. From now on, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.
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Yeah.
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In other words, so what if you have the mark of circumcision? I bear the marks of Jesus. I. I bear the signs that he's been whipped, he's been. Been scourged, he's been beaten, he has been. He bears in his body the marks of his fidelity to Jesus.
- [25:02]
B
That's right. In First Corinthians, chapter 4, when Paul is talking about what apostles are, because people have been competing sort of this apostle versus that apostle. One of the most kind of visual images for what an apostle is in Paul's letters is he says, we are a spectacle is usually the way it's translated. The Greek word he uses is a theatron, a theater. We are a theater of Christ. So when you watch us preach, right, we should be icons of Jesus. Right. Like in a theater where we're putting on display, right. The truth of Christ. In Galatians 3, he says, you guys saw with your very eyes Jesus depicted as crucified. Does that mean that, like, Paul went around with a paintbrush or. Right. Was he, like, kind of carving things for them?
- [25:52]
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Peter drew some amazing pictures of Jesus and they were curious what he looked like. And Paul got a few copies. This is what he. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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But when you see Paul preaching the gospel, right, he is putting on display the love of Jesus. When you see Paul act to forgive somebody who sinned, you can see on display the love of Jesus. When you can see Paul getting beaten with rods, whipped or thrown in prison, which happens a lot to the guy. You can see an icon of Jesus who suffers for the sake of the Church. And so Paul here in verse 16, verse 17, it's quite beautiful, right? Let nobody else cause me trouble. I bear on my body the marks of Christ. The Greek word he uses there is stigmata. And he's not just talking about the traditional stigmata that's happened to a lot of mystics, these particular scars. But his whole body's scarred from all of the beatings and imprisonments. And that's what shows that he's an apostle of Jesus. He doesn't need letters of recommendation. He doesn't need, you know, the right kind of group to say, like, well, hey, I'm this so and so from Jerusalem sent me, right? He says, I have been sent by Jesus, and you can tell because I suffer for him. And here he doesn't bother me about it anymore.
- [27:07]
A
And here he's living out what he's. What he said earlier in the letter, he talked about how Christ had been revealed. God was pleased to reveal his Son. It says in English to me, but really it's in me. So Christ is revealed in me in Paul. And then one of my favorite verses in the whole Bible, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me, right? So this brings that idea to sort of its conclusion in the letter. And then he says, the grace of our Lord Jesus be with your spirit, brothers. Amen. And we've talked about that grace being the gift of Christ himself in us. Christ is alive in us. The one who gave himself on the cross for us now gives himself to us to live in us. I hope you've enjoyed our Bible study on Galatians, as it has been just a treat to be able to do this with you. Dr. Prothero, thank you so much for this privilege. Now, I do want to let you know I wanted to put a slide up, and I didn't have time to do that before I came downstairs, but Dr. Prothero has an exciting new book that is going to be available very soon through Catholic University of America Press. And you want to just. We've got about a minute left. Do you want to say something about it? Sure.
- [28:22]
B
So, as a short, short commercial, if you're interested. So it's going to be coming out with Catholic University of America Press, and its title is the Apostle Paul and His An Introduction. And so what I do is in the first five chapters, I go through sort of introducing Paul, his life, his letters, little details like, well, why does he say he's got big letters here? Right. How does he write them? Why does he say that It's Paul and Timothy writing this letter, but isn't it Paul? So we'll go through all of those questions. We'll talk about. About how we read across all of Paul's letters and how we read through these letters where he's talking straight to people about something that's going on and understand the theology in them. And then chapter five goes through the Book of Acts and Paul's life and the way that he is presented in the Book of Acts. And then I have chapters on each letter after that. All of the letters that bear Paul's name in the New Testament, so Romans all the way through to Titus and Philemon. And in each one, we talk about kind of the background, talk about the outline and the structure, and I kind of summarize what he's saying. And then after that, reflections on some of the key issues theologically in it, with quotes from the Catechism and lots of quotes, some quotes from the church fathers, but definitely a lot and a lot of Paul.
- [29:47]
A
Yes. So it's a fantastic book. If you want to just. Just get an introduction to all the various letters to historical, background, theological issues, you're not going to find a better book. And we're really excited that this book is coming out soon. Thanks again for being with us. Thank you for letting me do this with you, Dr. Prothero. It's a privilege. Thank you for joining us. Hope to see you again for a future Bible study. Until then, may God bless your study of His Word.