All in the family
For in Christ Jesus, you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Galatians 3:27-28)
The apostle Paul is relaxing with his co-workers at a café in a city in the province of Macedonia after preaching the good news of the gospel throughout the day during his 3rd missionary journey. While he is enjoying his Mediterranean meal, several of his co-workers who are pastoring the churches of Galatia, approach Paul and inform him that the Galatians have “turned to a different gospel.” Jewish-Christian missionaries have infiltrated the churches and have insisted that Paul’s gospel — “a person is justified not by the works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ” (Galatians 2:16) — is inadequate. These troublemakers argue the Gentile converts must observe elements of the Jewish law such as circumcision and other rituals in order to be saved and be a part of the covenant people of God.
Paul is stunned, troubled, and angered by the success of these rival missionaries. He asks his co-workers, “How is this possible?” “How could they forget that salvation is all of grace by faith alone in Jesus?” And then he declares, “I made it clear to them that God’s promise to Abraham to bless all the nations (Genesis 12:3), to create a new multi-ethnic family, would find its fulfillment through the death of Jesus Christ (Galatians 2:21; 3:18, 29), which liberates them from their sins (Galatians 1:4) and empowers them through the Spirit to experience ‘love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control’” (Galatians 5:22-26). “Don’t they realize that all those who live under the cross of Christ in the new creation are members of the new people of God, a new humanity, the Israel of God?” (Galatians 6:14-16). Exasperated, Paul exclaims, “You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?” (Galatians 3:1). And perhaps inappropriately, Paul wishes “those who unsettle you would castrate themselves” (Galatians 5:12).
What has led Paul to express such strong sentiments? Is he having a bad day? Is he behaving badly? On the contrary, what is at stake is the very nature of the Gospel itself; what is at stake is God’s grand, majestic vision to fashion a new community of believers from “all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues” (Revelation 7:9); what is at stake is the radical character of the grace of God and the universal scope of His love toward all of humanity. In short, what is at stake is the very essence of the plan of salvation — the story of God’s redemption of a lost and broken world through Israel’s election and the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus whereby God creates a community of believers empowered by the Spirit.
The apostle Paul’s polemical letter to the Galatians discloses a critical moment in the early church’s struggle to define its mission and core identity. Nationalistic restrictions of any kind are over; a cultural imperialism that seeks to impose specific ethnic identity markers is over. Now, we “are all children of God through faith” in Christ Jesus; in baptism, “we have been clothed with Christ” (Galatians 3:27-28). We are part of the redeemed community, the body of Christ where “God is at work through the Spirit to create communities that prefigure and embody the reconciliation and healing of the world. The fruit of God’s love is the formation of communities that confess, worship, and pray together in a way that glorifies God” (Richard Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament, 32). What a joy and privilege it is to be part of a new multi-ethnic redeemed community. Thanks be to God.
—Leo Ranzolin, ThD, is dean of the School of Religion.
