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Bible in depth New Testament

The Interaction of Law , Works , Faith and Justification in St Paul 's Letter to the Galatians

The subject of Paul 's role in transforming what was seen at first as a renewal movement within mainline Judaism into the church of Jesus Christ has justifiably been an important subject for study by Christians and scholars in the years that have followed . The question of the value of the Law and works versus justification by faith is at the heart of the matter . F .C .Baur said that it was necessary to come to an

understanding of :`how Christianity , instead of remaining a mere form of Judaism .broke loose from it ' and so became a new religion

Paul 's career as a missionary was filled with attempts to deal with complex problems that affected the new born church . His responses fell into three main categories - general exhortations to unity , love and holiness as we find in Philippians 2 v 2 `Be united in your convictions and united in your love the purely practical matters as in I Corinthians 11 finally there were the passages such as we find in Galatians 3 where we have exhortations on specific matters - in this case the difference between an obligation to keep the Law which was being urged upon church members by the Judaizers and freedom in Christ because of their faith in him and the promise of justification because of his sacrifice

Galatians 2 v 16 is the central verse in this argument . I t is the point at which Paul 's theology of justification by faith is first mentioned The statement seems to come out of Paul 's endeavor to define and to defend his views as against the views being put forward by his fellow Jewish Christians . In Antioch Gentile believers had been until this time fully accepted into the group that Jesus was the Messiah , a Messiah who had been rejected by Judaism in general . The leading Christians in Jerusalem had already agreed that Gentile Christians had no need to be circumcised - see Galatians 2 v 1-10 and it had been the custom for the whole group , whether from Jewish or Gentile backgrounds , should eat together . But we are told in Galatians 2 v 11 that some Jews had arrived who found such behaviour unacceptable

Paul 's letter to the Galatians was written at a time when the church was very new and not entirely sure in every case what its beliefs and practices should be . Paul and his letters went a long way towards giving the church definite answers and so set the pattern for its future style as well as its theological basis . It is possible that the epistle to the Galatians was the first of his letters to be written to the churches according to Richard Longenecker in his commentary on Galatians . The fact that it is placed in our Bibles after the letters to the Romans and Corinthians may be because of the Old Testament tradition of ing...

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