This month, we focus in on the greetings with which Paul begins his letters. As he identifies himself in relation to God, we see how Paul understands God. We continue asking, “Who are you, Lord?” today as we look at Paul’s greeting in his letter to the Galatians.
“Mommy said so,” is a phrase that immediately takes me back to my childhood home, where my siblings and I frequently argued our cases by invoking parental authority. When my mother began taking graduate classes one afternoon a week, I was left in charge. I loved being in charge. I came up with new games, made the best fried hot dogs, and tried to ensure my siblings would consider me “the fun one.” But when tensions rose between us, I was quick to assert the authority bestowed on me by our mother.
Paul, an apostle called by God
Just as my feeble authority in my home originated outside of myself, Paul begins his letter to the Galatians by identifying the Source of his authority:
“Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead” (Galatians 1:1)
After this brief introduction, Paul jumps right into criticism of the Galatian church with no mincing of words:
“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel” (Galatians 1:6).
Galatians, deserting the faith
Paul fervently calls the Galatians to return to the Gospel as they had heard and received it from him. The Galatians’ faith had been weakened by Judaizers who asserted that Christian Believers should be following mosaic law. Under the influence of false prophets, the Galatians’ confidence in Paul had also suffered. Thus, his opening words attest to his God-given authority, and the first two chapters describe the early years of Paul’s conversion and ministry, preaching the Gospel as revealed to him directly through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
The Epistle to the Galatians
When we read the letter to the Galatians as a whole, we see that Paul shows the Galatians that the entirety of our spiritual life, just like his calling as an apostle, is “not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.”
“yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.” (Galatians 2:15-16)
Our justification is not from men nor through man, but through the resurrection of Christ. Neither the Galatians’ attempts to keep the mosaic law nor our own grasping at righteousness in legalism are the source of our righteousness or the means by which we are saved.
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)
God The Father, Who raised Christ from the dead
Let’s return again to verse one. The last words of Paul’s short introductory verse include this description of God the Father: “… who raised him from the dead.”
I think of all the ways Paul could have described the Father: Creator, Redeemer, Most Holy God, King of Kings… I won’t postulate why Paul chooses this specific descriptive phrase for God the Father in his introduction, but I do notice the effect the words have on my understanding of God as we ask, “Who are you, Lord?”
When I read of Paul’s apostleship “through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead” my mind is drawn to the God or miracles, Who resurrects, Who breathes life into what was dead. He is the Father who raised Christ, attesting to His sonship. He is the God who took a Jewish pharisee who was spiritually dead in enslavement to the law and brought about his rebirth on the road to Damascus.
Paul knows our Father as the God of resurrection. In the sacrament of baptism, we are buried with Christ and then rise with new life (Romans 6:3-5). And this new life is entirely of God.
Neither Paul’s apostleship, nor our salvation, nor the spiritual life of our rebirth are “from men [or] through man,” the result of our own works or resulting from the efforts of others. Rather, we live entirely “through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.” Let us not follow the Galatians into legalism, nor fall into the trap at the tower of Babel, chasing the glory of our own efforts, but may we instead yield to the life born in us through Christ.
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