Reflections on Paul

Number 11

What Paul says about God:

1.        God gave us Jesus whose sacrifice would rescue us from evil in accordance with God’s will. (1:1 and 1:4)

2.        God extends us grace and peace. (1:3)

3.        God destined Paul from birth to proclaim gospel of Jesus to the gentiles (1:15)

4.        It was through the grace of God that Christ freed us from justification through the law (2:21)

5.        God supplies the Spirit that works might deeds among us does it through grace that comes from faith and not works. (3:5)

6.        God foretold the good news he would justify the gentiles when he blessed Abraham because of Abraham’s faith. (3:8)

7.        God sent Jesus to that we might be adopted as free children, free from the burden of the law. (3:26 and elsewhere)

8.        God does not want us to be “lawless” because he wants us to refrain from immorality that would keep us from “inherit(ing) the kingdom of God.”

Paul’s repudiation of the law is striking from his prior life as a Pharisee. He morphed from being a driven defender of the law and Judaic tradition to emerge as even more driven opponent of those things. Paul was not satisfied with simply preaching a message of redemption by God’s grace through faith and to just proclaim that Jesus came to fulfill the law. Instead he defiantly smashed the idea that adherence to the law would serve God’s purpose. He personifies well the old maxim that there is no zealot like convert. 

Paul confidently proclaims his understanding of God’s purpose over and over again to drive home the message God wants us to have faith in him for the blessings he bestowed on us through Christ. His interpretation of God’s revelation is God blessed us through Abraham’s faith, determined we needed to be schooled us through Mosaic law but then freed from that same law through the death, resurrection and promised return of Jesus. 

The simplest way for me to relate how Paul preached the will of God is to say, according to Paul, God did not want us to rely on doing things like observing the law but by to have faith in him through the freeing gospel of Jesus. I understood the message well by the end of the first chapter but became dizzy from the repeated pounding he delivered to the Galatians by the time I staggered to the conclusion of the letter.

Peace.