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Galatians 4:12-31 Having Made the Case That Galatians 4:12-31 Aaron Eime, Christ Church Jerusalem, 2021 Having made the case that the Galatians are indeed heirs of the promise to Abraham, along with the Jewish people, Paul now urges them to ‘be like him’. This raises the question, should Paul not have pointed to Jesus rather than to himself? Paul is not sinless nor without his faults, unlike the Messiah. While it is true that we should all endeavor to keep and promote others to keep, our eyes on the Lord, in following the Lord we also become role models to those who watch us, a sobering thought. Paul says he became like the Galatians; how so? Following his previous argument in Chapter 3, Paul's guardian is now the Messiah, and the Law is now written on his heart. Paul is like the Galatians in that he is now no longer ‘under the law’, that is under the guardianship of the Torah. How much we should ‘become like Paul’ is debated as Paul has some interesting things to say about women and head coverings. So we become like Paul in his status before the Law but do not accept all of his teachings. Paul introduces some new autobiographical material not found elsewhere in Scripture. He refers to a physical condition that brought him to Galatia. The exact nature of the condition is not described, however, his weakened state did not stop him from spreading the Gospel. The Galatians were actually blessed because of his physical condition as it was that very weakened state that brought Paul to them. It can be comforting to know that whether we are weak or strong, the Good News cannot be stopped, as Paul reflects in 2 Corinthians: ‘When I am weak then He is strong'. Paul then describes the tension between the ‘influencers’ who are trying to gain converts among the Galatians in opposition to Paul. Adversarial denominations still remain with us to this day and there appears to be nothing new under the sun. The identity of the ‘influencers’ still remains a mystery. I suspect Paul has never actually met them in person. Some people like to associate the ‘influencers’ with the men from James in Chapter 2, although that episode occurs in Antioch and we are now talking about communities in Galatia. There is really no way of knowing if these people are the same Jerusalem delegation or a different local group. Paul describes the effect of their preaching as causing the Galatians to be ‘shut out’. We discussed exactly who was being shut out and from what they were being excluded. The end result of the message of the ‘influencers’ was division once again. The Gospel had united the community; all were now equal before the Lord and equally under the guardianship of the Spirit. The ‘false gospel’ created inequality once again causing people to want to or feel they have to ‘work under the law’ to gain access and standing within the community. Paul then softens his language, informing the community of his urgent desire to be present with the Galatians and calls them ‘sons’. This familial term is not without its Rabbinic precedent. Rabbis counted their students as ‘sons’ when the disciple accepted the teaching of his master. Paul feels a close spiritual bond as the spiritual father figure of this community. And one can certainly feel his anguish at not being able to be physically present to defend his 'children' as they struggle against this false gospel. Paul then engages in allegory, although it was noted that what Paul does here is not technically the literal definition of allegory. Paul himself and essentially all commentaries describe it as allegory. God had made a covenant with Abraham that would include all the nations (Gentiles) of the world. That covenant was not abrogated by subsequent covenants, such as the Mosaic covenant, as subsequent covenants do not have that abrogation effect on previous covenants. For example, the Davidic covenant does not abrogate either the Abrahamic nor Mosaic covenant. Abrogation is actually an Islamic theology, whereby new revelations abrogate previous declarations by Allah. Abrogation is not an element of the Judaeo-Christian tradition, 1 Galatians 4:12-31 Aaron Eime, Christ Church Jerusalem, 2021 and those denominations that include it in their exegetical traditions are poorer for it. Amen! Abraham had two sons. Isaac was a legitimate freeborn son, and Ishmael was the son of the Egyptian Hagar, whom God also describes as a slave woman in Genesis 21. The two sons are allegorized as two covenants (Abraham vs Moses), two mountains (Sinai vs Zion), and two forms of Jerusalem (heavenly and earthly). In Genesis 21, thus in the Torah (Law) itself, Sarah urges Abraham to ‘cast out the slave woman,’ and God agrees for He says to Abraham, ‘Do what Sarah says'. Paul then urges the Galatians to likewise ‘cast out the slave woman’, that is in terms of the allegory, to become and act like the spiritual children of Isaac and thus heirs of the promise of Abraham. The inheritance of Abraham does not descend through Ishmael nor any of his other six sons to Keturah (which according to oral Torah was Hagar) nor any of the sons of his nameless concubines, but only through Isaac in whom we all share the same spiritual blessing. 2.
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