The Gospel Paul Defended

We have looked at the word anomia ἀνομία an-om-ee'-ah where it is written, and at the prophets’ record of what forsaking the Torah brought. Now we return to the claim that opened this short run of chapters: “Keeping the Torah is legalism, and that is another gospel.”

It is a serious charge. Paul himself spoke of another gospel, and he spoke with heat. If keeping the Torah is truly what he meant, we ought to know it, so we will take the two terms one at a time.

The Word “Legalism”

The first can be dealt with briefly. As we saw in Book 1, “legalism” is not a Bible word, and what Scripture does say runs the other way. The one who does and teaches the commandments is called great in the kingdom (Matthew 5:19). The doers of the nomos νόμος nom'-os will be justified (Romans 2:13). Faith does not nullify the nomos but upholds it (Romans 3:31). The holy ones of the last days are “those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Yeshua” (Revelation 14:12). It is Scripture that puts the commandments of God and the faith of Yeshua in one verse, and Scripture does not call that legalism.

Where “Another Gospel” Is Written

Paul uses the second phrase at the very start of Galatians:

Galatians 1:6-7 I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the charis χάρις khar'-ece(grace) of Messiah, for a different good news; which is not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and wanting to distort the good news of Messiah.

Something had come into the Galatian churches that Paul calls “a different good news,” and at once he adds that it is not really another at all. It is a distortion of the one good news of Messiah. We need not guess what it was, because Galatians defines it. To see the definition, we need the two questions this book has carried since Chapter 1.

Scripture asks two different questions. The first is how a sinner is justified before God. The second is how the justified person lives. Understanding Galatians comes down to seeing which of the two questions each verse answers.

The First Question

How is a sinner justified before God? We read Paul’s answer in Chapters 5 and 6 of this book. No one is justified by works of nomos, but through the faith of Messiah (Galatians 2:16; 3:11). The Torah was not given to impart life (Galatians 3:21).

Paul did not invent that answer; he quoted it. When he says that a man is justified by faith, he is standing on Genesis, the Prophets, and the Psalms. From the Prophets he took “the righteous shall live (chai חַי khah'-ee) by his faith” (Habakkuk 2:4), which we read in Chapter 6. Genesis and the Psalms say it as well:

Genesis 15:6 And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.

Psalm 143:2 And do not enter into judgment (mishpat מִשׁפָּט mish-pawt') with your servant; for before you no one living (chai) shall be justified.

David wrote those words a thousand years before Paul. The answer to the first question is faith, and it always was. The Torah itself placed the altar and the blood within its own pages. It is not a book that says, “Keep this and be justified.”

The Second Question

How does the justified person live? Here the answer is the Torah, and the clearest way to see it is to look at the order in which things happen.

Abraham was counted righteous by faith in Genesis 15. Eleven chapters later, God says this of him:

Genesis 26:5 because that Abraham hearkened to my voice, and kept my charge (mishmeret מִשׁמֶרֶת mish-meh'-reth), my commandments (mitzvot מִצוָה mits-vaw'), my statutes (chuqqot חֻקָּה khook-kaw'), and my Torah."

Faith came first, and the walk followed.

Israel shows the same order at Sinai:

Exodus 20:2-3 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of servants. You shall have no other gods before My face.

Verse 2 is the rescue, and verse 3 is the first commandment. God did not say, “Keep these and I will bring you out.” He brought them out, and then He gave them the commandments. Salvation comes first, and the Torah is the way of the saved.

Think of a wedding. No one wins a bride by memorizing the vows. The love, the choosing, and the covenant itself all come first, and no vow can produce them. Yet once the two are married, no husband can say, “We have love now, so I don’t need to keep the vows.” The vows did not create the marriage; they are how the married live.

Paul says the same later in the letter:

Galatians 5:13-14 For you were called to freedom, brothers; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for sarx σάρξ sarx(flesh), but through agape ἀγάπη ag-ah'-pay(love) serve one another. For the whole nomos(law) is fulfilled in one logos λόγος log'-os(word), in the statement, "You shall agape(love) your neighbor as yourself."

A few verses later he adds:

Galatians 6:2 Bear one another's burdens, and thereby fulfill the nomos(law) of Messiah.

The justified are not free from the Torah. They are free to keep it, through love.

Ten Verses Apart

These words stand very close to the verse that is quoted against keeping the Torah. In Galatians 5:4 Paul writes, “You have been severed from Messiah, you who are seeking to be justified by nomos(law).” Ten verses later, in 5:14, he writes that “the whole nomos(law) is fulfilled” in love of neighbor. If 5:4 meant “do not keep the Torah,” 5:14 could not have been written.

To whom, then, is 5:4 speaking? We first read these verses in Chapter 6. Read them again together with the verse before:

Galatians 5:3-4 And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole nomos(law). You have been severed from Messiah, you who are seeking to be justified by nomos(law); you have fallen from charis(grace).

The verb is not “keep” but “be justified,” dikaioo δικαιόω dik-ah-yo'-o, to make or declare righteous. What Paul rebukes is not the keeping of the Torah but the seeking to be justified by it. Verse 3 shows the concrete form this took: the teaching that a man must receive circumcision in order to be justified. That is what the visitors in Galatia were preaching, the same teaching Acts 15 records: “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved” (Acts 15:1).

That is the “another gospel” of Galatians: the answer to the first question was changed from faith to Torah.

Two Ways to Go Wrong

There are, then, two ways to go wrong, and they mirror each other.

“Keep the Torah” answers the second question, and Galatians 5:4 answers the first. They are different answers to different questions. Mix them into one, and the result is the sentence with which we began: keeping the Torah is legalism.

Where Abraham Stood

Over the last three chapters we have found that Scripture never once speaks well of Torah-lessness. The words attached to it are depart, gathered out, son of destruction, He hated it, fire, curse, and wrath.

Keeping the Torah, on the other hand, is not another gospel. It is the place where Abraham stood. Paul says that the Scripture “proclaimed the good news beforehand to Abraham” (Galatians 3:8). The man to whom the good news was proclaimed beforehand believed God and was counted righteous, and then he kept God’s charge, His commandments, His statutes, and His Torah. That is not a different good news; it is the oldest one there is.

With that, Part Two comes to its end. We asked whether the commandments can be kept, and whether keeping them is pride, a burden, or legalism, and Scripture has answered each question in its own words.

Galatians, however, has more to say, and some of its sentences seem to say the opposite. One of them sounds like Paul’s own confession that he had torn the Torah down: “If I rebuild what I have once destroyed,” he writes, “I prove myself to be a transgressor.” What Paul destroyed can be seen at a dinner table in Antioch.