Fooling Ourselves with Fig Leaves

Confusing Religiosity with Righteousness

Miciano

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781498233354
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

In his letter to the church in Galatia, the Apostle Paul addresses the inefficacy of religious tradition for salvation and reaffirms the completeness of Jesus Christ's redemptive work for our deliverance and righteousness. Fooling Ourselves with Fig Leaves is an attempt to take the message of the Galatian epistle and apply it to today's spiritual context. In it, the author takes us through a journey of discovery and insight as he exposes the deceptive nature of religion, and highlights efficacy of justification by grace through faith.

1

You’ve Got Mail

Galatians 1:1–5

I must confess, I can’t remember the last time I sat down with a pen in hand and took my time to write a thoughtful letter. Sadly, the art of letter writing seems to be a lost skill in this modern age of electronic mail and mobile texting. I imagine that postal workers wake up each day concerned about how long it will be before their industry will be largely unnecessary (God forbid!). Needless to say, all this has changed the landscape of communication and human connectedness.

Conversely, the ancient world was very much marked by, if not dependent on, letter writing as an important means of communication. It was at the heart of how people dialogued when face-to-face conversations were not possible. In fact, the Roman Empire took this form of communication so seriously that it developed the most advanced postal system of its day. We are not certain whether the early church and its leaders made extensive use of this system, but it is conceivable that they would have. The Apostle Paul, for instance, would have benefited much from this service, considering he wrote quite a number of letters in his lifetime.

Paul is credited with writing almost half of the books that make up the New Testament. All of his books came in the form of epistles, or letters. Although I am certain Paul would rather have conveyed his messages in person, the fact that he could not be in several places at once made writing letters the next best option to communicate his thoughts and instructions to the churches. Letters, therefore, became one of the principle tools for spreading the gospel message in the first century.

Paul wrote many such letters in the course of his ministry. Some were written to individuals, while others were written to churches. The epistle to the Galatians is an example of the latter. It is also believed to be the first (or one of the first) among many that Paul wrote. This makes it a valuable resource for understanding Paul’s own development as an apostle and a leading theologian of the ancient church.

Every letter is written for a specific purpose with a particular audience in mind. In order to appreciate and understand the message of Galatians, it is important to take time to know who wrote this letter, to whom it was written, and what prompted its composition.

The Author: Paul the Apostle

In this letter, Paul identifies himself as its author. This in itself is not unusual. What is unusual, however, is the manner in which he described himself. In Gal 1:1, he wrote, “This is a letter from Paul, an apostle. I was not appointed by any group of people or any human authority, but by Jesus Christ himself and by God the Father, who raised Jesus from the dead.” Immediately, one senses an authoritative tone to Paul’s introduction. It is almost as if he wanted to establish his apostolic credentials from the very onset of his letter. The reason for this becomes obvious once we understand the circumstances that brought about this epistle.

The Galatian churches had been plagued with false teachers who sought to destroy what Paul had accomplished among the churches in the region. The primary method employed by these false teachers was to question the authenticity of Paul’s apostleship. They managed to convince some of the Galatians to reject Paul because he was not an original eyewitness to the earthly ministry of Christ and did not receive his apostolic calling prior to the death and resurrection of Jesus. It was believed by some that these were the two important criteria for true apostleship. If so, then the term “apostle” can only be used to refer to the twelve original followers of Jesus. However, there is nothing in Scripture that insists on such a limited understanding of what an apostle is, and, as such, the scope of apostleship supersedes the circle of the original twelve.

By definition, the word “apostle,” from the Greek apostolos, simply means “one who is sent with a message.” While it is true that the original twelve followers of Christ fit this definition, there were also others who fit this description. Take, for instance, other eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Jesus. In 1 Cor 15, shortly after asserting that Peter and the (original) apostles saw the resurrected Christ, Paul goes on to identify the other witnesses as “James and . . . all the apostles” (1 Cor 15:7). The James mentioned here is not one of the original twelve but rather the brother of the Lord Jesus, the eventual head of the Jerusalem church. Likewise, the apostles mentioned in verse seven refer to those who became apostles after the ministry of the twelve was well established. Furthermore, in 1 Thess 2:7, Paul referred to himself, along with Silas and Timothy, as apostles when he wrote, “As apostles of Christ, we certainly had a right to make some demands of you.”

So in what sense is Paul an apostle? Although he was not necessarily an eyewitness to the earthly ministry of Jesus, Paul “saw” the Lord during his Damascus road conversion. Also, it was then that the Lord commissioned Paul to be a messenger of the gospel. In fact, the Lord affirmed this call to another believer named Ananias when he said, “For Saul is my chosen instrument to take my message to the Gentiles and to kings, as well as to the people of Israel” (Acts 9:15). In this sense, Paul is an authentic apostle even though he became one, in his words, “at a wrong time” (1 Cor 15:8), meaning that he was saved and called after the resurrection rather than beforehand. Paul is therefore right to claim that his apostleship was established directly by Christ without any human agency. This is, in essence, the highest form of apostolic authentication.

Paul’s reference to God as the “one who raised Jesus from the dead” is an important assertion that will give credence to his subsequent argument regarding the sufficiency of Christ’s redemptive work. The power of God to raise the dead is the same power that liberates believers from the clutches of sin and releases us to enjoy the freedom we have in Christ. The life of Paul serves as a perfect example of this important salvific principle.

The Recipient: The Churches of Galatia

Regarding his intended audience, Paul wrote, “All the brothers and sisters here join me in sending this letter to the churches of Galatia” (Gal 1:2). Although we know this letter was written to a group of churches as opposed to one particular local church, the exact location of Galatia is not as easy to identify as it might seem. Also, our ability to determine when this letter was written is contingent upon knowing who these Galatians believers were.

There are currently two schools of thought regarding what Paul meant by the churches in Galatia. The term “Galatian” can have an ethnic meaning or a political meaning. Ethnically, it refers to the group of people the French call the Gauls. They occupied the region known as Northern Galatia. There is little evidence that Paul ever visited this northern region of Galatia.

Politically, “Galatian” refers to the people who live in the region known as Southern Galatia, an area conquered by the Romans in 189 BC. This southern region was actually included in the list of places Paul visited during his first missionary journey. Because of this and other circumstantial considerations, many scholars today believe the Galatian epistle was addressed to those in the south. If this is the case, Paul most likely wrote this letter in AD 49 while he was in Corinth, just prior to the First Jerusalem Council in AD 50. This position, although popular, is not fully conclusive.

Although we may never fully ascertain whether Paul was writing to the Galatians in the north or the south, his opening words to them are nonetheless meaningful. He wrote, “May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace. Jesus gave his life for our sins, just as God our Father planned, in order to rescue us from this evil world in which we live. All glory to God forever and ever! Amen” (Gal 1:3–5).

The greeting of “grace and peace” was common in the first century, but it has special meaning in this letter. The word “grace” conveys the idea of God’s bestowed favor. Theologically, it is especially significant because it includes the notion that such favor is neither merited nor deserved by its recipients. We have done nothing to earn God’s forgiveness. The blessings of righteousness and eternal life are “gifts” in the purest sense of the word. God gives them to us with no consideration of our ability to obtain them on our own. The only condition placed on us is that we wholeheartedly receive this gift and cherish it as the priceless treasure that it is.

“Peace,” on the other hand, describes the result of living in the state of grace. Whereas peace is commonly understood as the absence of turmoil, the biblical concept of peace carries a somewhat nuanced meaning. Peace is not so much the absence of trouble as it is the presence of God in the midst of turmoil. This peace that surpasses human understanding can only come from God himself. Because we are saved by his grace through faith, we become able to live in peace even though the rest of our earthly existence may be riddled with external strife and conflict.

Paul alluded to the sacrificial death of Christ—the laying down of his life on the cross—as God’s way of dealing with the problem of sin and human depravity. We are rescued from the consequences of sin and are lifted from our fallen state only because of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. This means that no one is able to point to religiosity as the source of one’s righteousness because a right standing with God is, as we have argued, a gift. The benefit of this gift is that we are rescued from this evil world. That is not to say that we immediately cease living in an evil world but rather that we no longer live under the influence and subsequent consequence of sin. This is the true freedom of the human soul. And because of the conditions under which we obtain this freedom, it is fitting to glorify God forever and ever, because there is no other way, and there never will be another way for us to be free. Jesus himself said, “So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free” (John 8:35).

The Reason: To Expose the Lie of False Teachers

When I first came to the United States, virtually no one communicated through email or cell phones. I was about nine thousand miles from home, and the only cost-effective way to connect with my family and friends was through letters delivered by the postal service. It would literally take weeks, if not months, between sending and receiving letters. Each day after class, I would rush home to stick my hand in the mailbox, hoping there would be a letter for me. Oh, how I looked forward to reading anything and everything that came from the Philippines. They could never replace face-to-face conversations, but they were better than nothing.

Now before I over-romanticize the notion of receiving mail, there are times when a letter arrives that you wish had never come, such as a bill from the IRS or a note informing you of the death of a loved one. Some letters are just difficult to read. I’m fairly sure this is how the Galatians felt about reading Paul’s letter. After all, this was not a lighthearted correspondence from an acquaintance; rather, it was a stern letter of rebuke and correction from a concerned spiritual father.

Normally, Paul began his letters with words of praise and thanksgiving for the individual or church he was addressing. For instance, in his letter to the Philippians Paul wrote, “Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God” (Phil 1:3). However, such accolades are noticeably absent in the letter to the Galatians. Instead, the apostle begins by saying, “I am shocked that you are turning away from God, who called you to himself through the loving mercy of Christ. You are following a different way that pretends to be the good news” (Gal 1:6). Not one to offer the Galatians insincere flattery, Paul gets straight to the point. It is easy to imagine him with a grim look on his face as he wrote (or dictated) this line. In ancient literature, this manner of conveying anger and angst is found only in the harshest of situations. In Paul’s mind, the Galatian controversy was so grave that it merited this kind of approach.

The Galatian epistle is often classified as deliberative rhetoric. This refers to an ancient form of argumentation in which the speaker presents a case with the intention of convincing the listener to change a particular perspective and, consequently, a behavior. Paul employs this writing style throughout t...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: You’ve Got Mail
• Chapter 2: An Unlikely Story
• Chapter 3: All in Favor, Say “Aye”
• Chapter 4: Peter, Peter, Kosher Eater
• Chapter 5: Stop! In the Name of the Law
• Chapter 6: A Promise Is a Promise
• Chapter 7: Free at Last!
• Chapter 8: Losing My Religion
• Chapter 9: Two Is a Crowd
• Chapter 10: Take It or Leave It
• Chapter 11: Adding Fruit to Your Diet
• Chapter 12: Reap It Good
• Chapter 13: Just One More Thing
• Epilogue