The Galatians’ Pagan Past

Most of us absorbed a story about the Galatian church without ever being told it in so many words. The Galatians heard the gospel and were saved by grace. Then they slipped and went back to the Torah, back to Moses and the law. Paul was so alarmed that he called it another gospel and pronounced a curse on it:

Galatians 1:8-9 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should proclaim to you a good news contrary to what we have proclaimed to you, he is to be anathema ἀνάθεμα an-ath'-em-ah(accursed)! As we have said before, so I say again now: if anyone is proclaiming to you a good news contrary to what you received, he is to be anathema(accursed)!

Told that way, the lesson seems obvious: going back to the Torah after being saved is the gravest danger in the Christian life, serious enough for Paul to say “anathema(accursed)” twice.

In Chapter 29 we saw what Galatians itself calls “another gospel.” This chapter asks a different question, a question about people: who the Galatians were, where they had come from, and who was pressing circumcision on them. The word “back” in that story only works if they had been there before.

You Cannot Go Back to a House You Never Lived In

Suppose a friend grew up in a small town in Ohio and has never left the country. One day you hear someone say, “She’s moving back to Portugal.” You would stop the speaker at once, because she has never been to Portugal. She may be moving there, and she may even be making a mistake, but whatever she is doing, she is not going back.

Now listen to how Paul describes the Galatians’ past:

Galatians 4:8-9 However at that time, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those which by nature are no gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless stoicheia(elementary principles), to which you desire to be enslaved all over again?

This is not a description of people raised on Moses. The Galatians Paul is speaking to here were not Jews. They were people of the nations who had served idols, and the past Paul reminds them of is not a life under Moses but service to gods that are no gods. People who never knew the Torah cannot go “back” to it.

Paul uses two telling verbs here. The first is ginosko γινώσκω ghin-oce'-ko, to know: “now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God.” Paul corrects himself in midsentence. The Galatians did not find God by their own searching; God knew them first. The second is douleuo δουλεύω dool-yoo'-o, to serve as a slave. They had been slaves before, and now they “desire to be enslaved all over again.”

The verse itself says what they would be enslaved to: “the weak and worthless stoicheia(elementary principles).” Paul does not say “to the Torah of Moses.” What those stoicheia were, and what Paul says next about days and months, is the subject of Chapter 33. For now it is enough to hold on to this: whatever the Galatians were turning to, it was a return to the kind of slavery they had known before, and that slavery was to gods that are no gods.

What Was Being Pressed on Them

The Galatians, then, had not wandered back to Sinai on their own. Something new had come to them from outside. Paul names it, and he puts his own name to the warning:

Galatians 5:2 Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Messiah will be of no benefit to you.

The opening words are weighty. The word behold is ide ἴδε id'-eh, look, pay attention. The verb in the following verse is martyromai μαρτύρομαι mar-too'-rom-ahee, to call a witness or testify solemnly: “I testify again to every man who receives circumcision.” Paul is not tossing off an opinion; he is standing up in court.

He is testifying not about the Sabbath, the feasts, or the food laws, but about circumcision received as the way to be justified. In verses 3 and 4, the one who seeks “to be justified by nomos νόμος nom'-os(law)” has been “severed from Messiah.” That was the teaching the visitors brought.

Who the Visitors Were

Paul then turns to the people demanding circumcision, and he tells us why they did it:

Galatians 6:12 Those who desire to make a good showing in sarx σάρξ sarx(flesh) try to compel you to be circumcised, simply so that they will not be persecuted for the cross of Messiah.

What drove them was not love for the commandments of God. It was the wish to look good and the wish to stay safe. A circumcised Gentile convert was something they could show off, while a crucified Messiah was something that got people into trouble. So they pressed circumcision on the Galatians, and they did it for their own sake.

The very next verse adds a detail that turns the usual story upside down. As we saw in Chapter 5, Paul says of them, “those who are circumcised do not even keep the nomos(law) themselves” (Galatians 6:13). The people pushing the Galatians toward circumcision were not Torah-keepers at all. They wanted a mark on someone else’s flesh to boast about, while they themselves did not keep the law.

Picture, then, the actual scene in Galatia. On one side stood believers from the nations who had come out of idol worship and had received the Spirit by hearing with faith. On the other stood visitors who did not keep the Torah, telling them that unless they were circumcised they could not be counted righteous. That is not a church going back to Moses. It is a church being told that faith in Messiah was not enough.

Who Was Cursed

Return now to the verses with which the claim began, Galatians 1:8-9, and ask one simple question: who is anathema?

It is not the Galatians, whom Paul goes on calling “brothers” throughout the letter. The curse falls on the one who proclaims “a good news contrary to what you received,” on the messenger who changes the message. Paul even includes himself and the angels in the warning: “even if we, or an angel from heaven.” He also uses the word prolego προλέγω prol-eg'-o, to say beforehand: “As we have said before, so I say again now.” This was not a new rule, for Paul had warned them before.

The message they had received was that a sinner is justified by grace through faith in Messiah. The contrary message was that he is justified by being circumcised. The curse rests on the second message and on whoever brings it.

Where the Rebuke Lands

The rebuke of Galatians, then, is aimed not at keeping the Torah but at seeking to be justified by having kept it, and in Galatia that took the concrete form of circumcision demanded as a condition. To that rebuke this book says amen. Anyone who tells a sinner that he must earn his standing before God by a mark in his flesh, or by any work at all, is preaching another gospel, and Paul’s words apply to him in full.

Galatians has one more verse that seems to strike at the commandments, and this one names the calendar.