Bible Groups - Digests of Bible Commentaries

Paul's Letter to the Galatians - Chapter 6

1 Positive guidance for believers to ensure genuine community. To be "caught" in any trespass - either found out or be taken by surprise. Moral perfection is no more complete in Paul's time than in our own! Realising how easy it is for us to be "caught" helps us to be gentle with those who do transgress. "You spiritual ones" is therefore a challenge.
2 Bearing one another's (not others') burdens - as mutual slaves - highlights interdependence in a graced Jesus community. And fulfills Christ's law! "The law of Christ" provocatively replaces the Jewish Law. Christ himself is the model for believers' life.
3 Noone is self-sufficient - we all have burdens, so mutuality is the essence. Don't make unrealistic assessment of own burden, else thwart essential genuine community relationships.
4 Each person needs an objective standard of assessment - it should be of one's own work - one's own contribution to the community. And boasting should be only on what one has done, not comparison with others. Realism, not false modesty. And such work is fruit of the Spirit, not one's own effort.
5 Each must assume responsibility to assess the needs of the community.
6 The teacher’s function is essential to the community and should be supported.
7 Two final exhortations, appealing to self-interest. "Mocked" - ie scorned, ridiculed. God would indeed be contemptuous if no connection between what we sow and reap: God is cosmically just, we should take him seriously. Allowing themselves to be deceived would be a serious matter.
8 Paul elaborates this well-known maxim: the soil affects what one reaps. Both the flesh & the Spirit transform human decisions into eternal destinies. Sowing involves energy and effort - but sowing in the flesh produces nothing but the nothingness of death.
9 Sowing is an ongoing process, a sustained effort, to be rewarded at the eschatological moment determined by God. Our final destiny depends on our "sowing" - ie on what we do - our works. To be "called" (1:6, 15) is not to be magically transported to one's final destiny. Christ's death liberates us for new creation possibilities, but one can give up this freedom. Justification can be forfeited. Only God the Father can adopt us as his sons, but we do not have to accept. But if we do so we have to behave as members of the family - appropriate conduct is also required. Faith is not feelings: it is commitment to God, impossible for Paul to conceive without decision and behaviour. Human striving cannot gain God's acceptance, but faith entails deeds as a way of engaging life. "Works of the Law" is a very restricted subset of human activity. Note also that while we must crucify the flesh (5:24) and sow in the right place (6:8) - both our decisions, the fruit of the Spirit is not by us but by the Spirit working through our lives. We can choose whether to walk with the Spirit (5:16, 25), but by so doing we surrender to let the Spirit take charge.
10 Let us use each opportunity now to do - practice, work at - good to all - faith working through love (5:6). And to those in the "household" of faith - the extended family of believers - identified by their faith in Christ.
But why is Paul's advice needed - why not leave everything to the Spirit? Because believers inhabit both the real, public world of the flesh and the unseen, transcendental world of the Spirit.
11 Summing up in Paul's own hand.
12 Judaisers' motive is to avoid persecution for sharing table fellowship with non-Jews. Persecution is by Jews who are not Christians.
13 They - these Jews - do not obey the Law themselves, they are just playing the numbers game - wanting to boast they have converted Christians to Judaism - to "boast about your flesh". They are preoccupied with fleshly matters to which Paul has been crucified.
14 Paul will boast only of the cross of Christ. Repeatedly Paul emphasises the cross of Christ: the way Jesus died matters - he died in suffering and despised. His resurrection is from this death, not a simple heart attack, which would make the Christian faith very different. God shares our suffering in this world. The "offense" of the cross contrasts markedly with the circumcision mark of the Jews as people of God (5:11). The crucifixion was a decisive turning point into the new age. Jesus' death should be the pattern of our death to the flesh, and the love he shows in his death is a pattern for us.
15 Circumcision or not makes no difference. It is a new creation or created being - both the person and the situation we find ourselves in. The world no longer determines my behaviour - it is dead to me, no longer "there". The person who had lived there is no longer. Paul does not say circumcision amounts to nothing - both are now irrelevant in the new creation inhabited by believers in Jesus. This new creation, of course, the work of God - it is a creation. A new creation of new persons. This new creation shows how Christ might "rescue us out of the present evil age" (1:4); what God is bringing about through the Spirit; what believers are now becoming; what the inclusive community of God's adopted sons is. The new creation is taking shape now, in the midst of "this evil age", even as we await the hoped for righteousness (5:5).
16 Difficult to translate/understand. What rule? Perhaps that distinctions now don't count in this new creation; or that the only thing we can now boast about is the cross of Christ. Literally "peace be upon them and mercy": why this word order? Perhaps peace be upon those who follow this rule - that the cross is the only focus - and mercy also upon the Israel of God. The "Israel of God" echoes "the ekklesia = church of God" (1:13), ie all who have been baptised into Christ (3:27). Mercy is invoked on them all, but peace awaits acknowledging and living by the cross. The "Israel of God" could also mean the Israel made complete when all nations are included according to God's promise (3:8).
17 Paul bears marks of the crucified Christ on his body, which serve to brand him as a slave of Christ. So he can be indifferent to criticism. He answers only to Christ. Or pleads: "don't add to my sufferings by being tempted away from what I taught you".
18 Curt farewell, with blessing for all, softened slightly by use of "Brothers". "Spirit" singular - the communal oneness of spirit in Christ of all believers.