On Galatians and Christian Freedom

One of the major roadblocks to the Messianic Jewish interpretation of Scripture is the epistle of Galatians. Various attempts have been made to re-explain this book and cast it into a Jewish light. Some insist that while Galatians is true in stating that we are justified wholly through "faith" (see Ephesians 2:8-10), they still insist on obedience to Jewish Law, as defined by the Torah, the first five books of the Protestant Bible. They see Torah obedience as a "fruit" of salvation. This is a position this author is attempting to refute, as I believe Galatians contradicts the Messianic Jewish interpretation when honestly read without preconceptions.

Before I begin, though, I wish to define some terms. The principle point of this epistle is the issue of slavery versus freedom. There are two words within this epistle that refer to slavery. The first is the noun δοῦλος which means "slave" or "servant". The second is δουλεύω which is a verb meaning "to enslave". When I use the noun "slave" or the verb "enslave", I have these two Greek words in mind.

I wish to begin this study with Galatians 4:8-10, which many Messianics use as a proof-text to prove their position. These verses say:

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days and months and seasons and years!

The basic argument is that it isn't the Jewish festivals that are being spoken of, but rather, pagan holy days, since the gentiles never kept the Jewish holy days. Given the immediate context, this interpretation certainly makes sense. However, it is a poor interpretation, not based in proper hermeneutics, which I shall attempt to demonstrate shortly.

The Galatians were formerly enslaved to the "elementary principles" (στοιχεῖα). According to the Apostle Paul, the gentiles are turning back to them, those that are not "gods". In other words, by observing the days mentioned in this passage, they were turning to demonic entities!

However, it is also important to note that, according to Galatians 4:3, that the Jews who also kept the Law were likewise enslaved to these same "elementary principles of the world" (τὰ στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου).In Galatians 4:1-5, we read:

I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

From the proper noun "we" in this passage, we know Paul is talking about the Jewish people. We know this because he himself is Jewish (2:15) and his words in this chapter build upon his words in the previous chapters.

According to Paul, the Law was given 430 years after his unconditional promise to Abraham, until the promised offspring should come (3:18-19). The Jews were held under this Law until the "coming faith" was "revealed" (3:23). The Law, then, was given as a guardian to guard the Jews until Jesus Christ came to justify them by "faith" (3:24-25). But now that "faith", in the form of Jesus Christ, has come, there is no longer a need for "the guardian", since all are now sons of God through "faith" (3:26).

Its important to note that Paul definitely refers to the old covenant as being a covenant of bondage, whereas the new covenant represents freedom (4:21-30). The children of the new covenant, the Christians, belong to the "free woman" (4:31).

It is after Paul establishes these points that he says the following in Galatians 5:1-4:

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 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.

This is because Paul has already established that the purpose of the Jewish law, the Torah, was to point toward Jesus. This is a point he re-echoes later in Colossians 2:15-17. Through Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, demonic rulers and authorities were disarmed and so there was no more reason to be accused by outsiders on non-observance of the various holy days, festivals, the Sabbath and kosher laws, which were shadows pointing to Christ. In fact, Ephesians 2:14-16 is clear that it was the Mosaic Law that was the dividing wall of hostility and Christ destroyed the entirety of it through His crucifixion.

For this reason, to get circumcised, according to Paul in Galatians 5:1-4, is to "submit again to a yoke of slavery". Are we to suppose that the Galatians were being re-circumcised? I doubt it, since the contextual evidence of the epistle seems to suggest he is writing to gentiles. Rather, it makes far more sense, according to proper principles of hermeneutics, that he was saying that by attempting to be "justified by the law", which wasn't designed for righteousness, they were returning to the demonic entities who enslaved them previously while they were pagans. This is because the Law wasn't designed for righteousness! Rather, it was designed to point toward Christ.

It is for this reason, based on the textual evidence of Galatians, and its counterparts in other parts of Pauline epistles, that the holy days in Galatians 4:8-10 must be referring to the Jewish holy days. Paul speaks about Jewish law in the entirety of this epistle, he demonstrates that Jewish law was given to point toward Jesus and that while the Jewish people were under this law, they likewise were subject to the "elementary principles", alongside the Gentiles. Thus, it makes only sense that the Jewish law refers to the entire old covenant, which has come to an end (Hebrews 8:13). The new law is the Law of Christ (1 Corinthians 9:21, Galatians 6:2, Hebrews 7:12).

Then what about sin? Some say that the Jewish law tells us what sin is, so we must obey it.

Its important to note that sin pre-existed the Law given at Mount Sinai (Romans 5:12-14). In fact, even the gentiles, who didn't have the law, knew from their consciences God's moral demands (Romans 1:19, 2:14-16). Moses was clear in Deuteronomy 5:1-3 that the old covenant, with its laws, was revealed at Mount Sinai and not given to the patriarchs, even though Abraham himself observed a law (Genesis 26:5) and even paid tithes (Hebrews 7).

In Galatians 5:16-23, Paul gives a list of various sins that cut us off from Heaven and follows this with a list of true fruits that Christians will demonstrate:

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 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. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Paul gives similar lists in other epistles (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). The purpose of the Law, according to Paul, is to point sinners to Christ (see also 1 Timothy 1:8-11). And it is as they have "faith" or trust, as they "crucif[y] the flesh with its passions and desires" (Galatians 5:24) that they walk in the Spirit. And they do this by trusting Jesus' ability to save them. Therefore, according to Paul, those who teach "Jesus plus Law" are "accursed", for they teach "another gospel" (Galatians 1:6-9). The new covenant is just trusting Jesus to deliver them from their sins. Therefore, Christian freedom entails freedom from the Law of Moses, that can never save. It will pass away with heaven and earth (Matthew 5:18), but Jesus' words never will (Matthew 24:35).

It is for this reason I believe that Messianics who insist on obedience to the Law teach another gospel and stand on theologically shaky territory. According to Paul, those who submit to the Law of Moses cut themselves off from Christ and are listening to demonic spirits. This is true even if an angel from heaven tells them otherwise (Galatians 1:8). We are not to listen to those who "go[ . . .] on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by [their] sensuous mind[s]" (Colossians 2:18) if they contradict apostolic doctrine, because the church is "built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone" (Ephesians 2:20). Therefore, according to Paul, whoever contradicts the apostles are listening to the demonic and thus "under the curse" (Galatians 3:10). This is true no matter how many true prophecies they have, no matter how many demons they cast out or no matter how many mighty works they do (Matthew 7:21-23). Those who teach another gospel, according to Paul, are accursed.

Christianity alone, with the exception of Judaism, which was its parent, is the only wholly historic faith. We know this because the resurrection was a historic reality documented not only in the writings of the New Testament, but likewise those of the followers of the apostles, the early church fathers, who affirmed that they taught these things, even though they introduced some errors that contradicted Scripture. Even the pagan historians of the day acknowledge Jesus existed, if not His resurrection! Since we know this and we know that Paul's gospel was approved by Jesus' chosen apostles (Galatians 2:2-9), the same apostles who were promised that the gates of Hades would not prevail against the church that they helped established (Matthew 16:18), logic then follows that those who contradict apostolic doctrine, doctrine that is backed up by heaven, are under the curse and dragging themselves to hell unless they repent. I only make these appeals to history as an evidence that the things Paul wrote in the epistle to the Galatians are true. These truths are self-evident from Scripture for those who take the time to study them and interpret the Old Testament through the New instead of the New Testament through the Old (see 2 Corinthians 3). The new covenant does not build on top of the old covenant, rather the old covenant points to the new covenant and, because of the new, it is completely dissolved.

According to Paul, righteousness is through Christ. And since the annals of history prove he was who he said he was, we know his testimony is true. His gospel also lines up with Jeremiah 31:31-33, which reads:

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

It is definitely not like the covenant of old. It is an entirely different covenant:

In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away (Hebrews 8:13).

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