Today’s sermon audio can be found on Castbox at 162 “Grace to You and Peace from God” Galatians 1:1-5, part 2.

Our primary text for May 17 was Galatians 1:1-5. Our first reading was Romans 1:1-7. We read the salutation from Romans for a second example of how Paul begins his letters.

High-level Outline of Galatians (by Timothy George)

Last week we looked at the outline of Galatians that Timothy George used in his commentary on Galatians. Paul, of course, does not start his letter with his historical argument in defense of his apostleship and his gospel. He starts his letter in his normal way with a salutation. But even in the salutation we will see hints of his historical argument and his theological argument. I have included George’s outline below.

  1. History: No Other Gospel (1:1-2:21)
  2. Theology: Justification by Faith (3:1-4:31)
  3. Ethics: Life in the Spirit (5:1-6:18)

Today we will look at the structure and significance of Paul’s salutation in his letter to the churches of Galatia. I have included the sermon outline we will follow below.

Sermon Outline

"Grace to You and Peace from God" Galatians 1:1-5

  1. Salutation (1:1-5)
  2. Author (1:1-2a)
  3. Recipients (1:2b)
  4. Greeting (3-5)

Scripture References: Romans 1:1-7; Galatians 1:1-5; Acts 13:14-14:23; Acts 15:1-35;

1. Salutation (1:1-5)

1Paul, an apostle— not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— 2and all the brothers who are with me,

To the churches of Galatia:

3Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Galatians 1:1-5, ESV

In the first century in the Roman Empire ordinary letters started with a salutation with three elements: the name of the author of the letter, the name of the recipient, and a single word greeting such as “greetings”. F.F. Bruce gives an example: “Theon to Theon his father, greetings”. Paul followed this convention but he expanded the elements whenever that was useful.

Some scholars add a fourth element of thanksgiving to Paul’s salutations. That element is missing from Galatians. Instead there is a brief doxology in verse 5. And right after that a rather harsh statement of the problem that caused him to write the letter. This letter to the churches of Galatia is the only letter from Paul that does not have a thanksgiving element in the salutation.

Paul often expanded the author element to further the goals of the letter. Here in Galatians he elaborates on the author element to defend his apostleship and to make a key assertion about the substance of his gospel.

Paul also often expanded the recipient element to thank God for something or other about the recipients or to describe them positively. See, for instance, Romans 1:7: “To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints:” ( ESV ). The recipient element of Galatians, by contrast, is terse. Galatians is Paul’s most stringent letter because of the grave potential consequences of the doctrinal error being introduced by the opponents. Although we cannot be certain which churches Paul sent this letter to it will be useful to briefly consider the North Galatia versus South Galatia issue. I am thoroughly convinced that Paul wrote to churches in what we call South Galatia.

Paul always used a Christian greeting in his greeting element. The conventional approach would be to use a single word like “Greetings” or “Health”. Paul, instead, always uses the words “grace” and “peace” in his greeting element. So verse 3 gives us a typical Pauline greeting. But Paul goes on to verse 4 and verse 5. In verse 4 Paul comes back to his gospel (which is the gospel) and makes another key assertion. Then in verse 5 he writes a short doxology concluded with “Amen”.

2. Author (1:1-2a)

1Paul, an apostle— not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— 2and all the brothers who are with me,

Galatians 1:1-2a, ESV

Paul only records his Greek name. He never refers to himself as Saul (his Jewish name) in his letters.

Then Paul designates himself as “an apostle”. He uses the word “apostle” in the same sense that it is used of the Twelve Apostles. In other words, he considers himself to be an eyewitness of the resurrection of Christ who is called to preach the Gospel. He also considers himself to have been called to that apostleship by Christ Himself and God the Father. The word apostle is also used in the New Testament to mean something more like messenger without the direct commissioning by Christ. Perhaps Paul’s opponents were claiming that Paul was one of these “lesser” apostles.

Paul elaborates on the word apostle with the double assertion “not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ & God the Father”. It is from these two assertions that we derive the idea that Paul’s apostleship was being discredited by his opponents who distorted the gospel. This derivation is sometimes called mirror reading because we see a reflection of what is going on in the text rather than Paul explicitly telling us what is going on. The phrase “not from men” asserts that Paul’s apostleship did not originate from mere human beings. The phrase “nor through man” asserts that Paul’s apostleship was not mediated through a human being. There was no intermediary between Paul and God

Note that the word “but” is a strong adversative conjunction. The second use of the word “through” applies equally to “Jesus Christ” and to “God the Father”. In this second use “through” could indicate instrumentality or agency. The concept of instrumentality would especially fit Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus. Both Christ the Son and God the Father were equally involved in calling Paul to apostleship. This assertion that both Christ and the Father called Paul to apostleship supports the Trinitarianism and Christology expressed in the Creeds of Nicaea and Constantinople as well as the Definition of Chalcedon. This assertion is a summary of how Paul became an apostle.

Paul then makes a key assertion related to his Gospel (see 1 Corinthians 15:1-10): “God the Father, who raised him [that is, Jesus Christ] from the dead”. Both the deity and the humanity of Christ are asserted here in verse 1 since He is equal with God and He has died but also He has been raised from the dead. Paul, like all of the other apostles called directly by Christ to apostleship, had seen the risen Lord Christ on the road to Damascus. By direct revelation Paul knew that God the Father had raised Jesus Christ the Son after He had died for our sins. Paul doesn’t mention “for our sins” until verse 4 but here in this clause we have the death of Christ for our sins and the resurrection of Christ which is crucial for our salvation. By this resurrection Christ leads the way to our own future resurrections from the dead.

Then Paul adds “and all the brothers who are with me” as senders and/or endorsers of the letter. Paul may well have been at Syrian Antioch when he sent the letter. So Paul may mean that the leadership of Syrian Antioch agrees with the letter’s positions on Paul’s apostleship and on Paul’s Gospel. Of course, we don’t know where Paul was or who was with him when he wrote Galatians. But, if he is writing the letter right before the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15 he may well be writing from Antioch. Regardless, Paul demonstrates unity with all of these brothers by including them as senders.

3. Recipients (1:2b)

To the churches of Galatia:

Galatians 1:2b, ESV

Paul says nothing extra in the recipients element of the letter. But we need to consider 2 issues:

1) The North Galatia Versus South Galatia Location of the Recipients
2) The Correlation of Acts with Galatians and the Date of Galatians

Making decisions about these kinds of issues will sometimes help us to better understand the meaning of the letter. But there is no serious interpretive problem with any of the credible solutions. We won’t go into detail about the proposed solution. We would like to know which churches in the Roman Province of Galatia Paul wrote to if we can and how the letter relates to Acts.

1) The North Galatia Versus South Galatia Location of the Recipients

In the 1st century Galatia was an extensive Roman province in what is now know as Türkiye (formerly Turkey). This province contained both the North Galatia and the South Galatia areas. Until the modern era scholars assumed Paul meant ethnic Galatia which corresponds to North Galatia (which includes modern Ankara). This assumption led to many comments the recipients of the letter being like other Celtic ethnic groups.

But in the 19th century Sir William Ramsey did extensive archeological, epigraphical, and geographical work in what had been Galatia. Ramsey published multiple books on his work. He started with the North Galatia position but based on the evidence became convinced of the South Galatia position. In the 20th century F. F. Bruce further strengthened the argument for South Galatia based on his thorough grasp of ancient literature.

I favor the South Galatia position. The arguments are complex and numerous. Many proponents of either position give unconvincing arguments. I find Bruce’s arguments to be quite convincing.
I think that the South Galatia position fits very well with the corresponding narrative found in Luke’s Acts of the Apostles. So I think Paul is writing to the churches in Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Derbe, and Lystra. (Pisisdian Antioch is to be distinguished from Syrian Antioch.)

2) The Correlation of Acts with Galatians and the Date of Galatians

The choice made about correlating Acts with Paul’s letter needs to also fit with the chosen date of the letter. So we handle them together.

I think Paul was writing to the churches that Luke identifies in Acts 13:14-14:23 (Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Derbe, and Lystra). If Paul wrote Galatians to those churches he could have written to them before the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15:1-35 (which is thought to have occurred AD 49 or 50). That assumption would suggest that Paul wrote this letter in about AD 48.

What Paul wrote in Galatians 1:6 seems to indicate a tight timeline: “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him”. The words “so quickly” seemingly indicate that the Galatians had been exposed to the distortions of the Gospel very soon after Paul and Barnabas had left the Galatians to go back to Syrian Antioch. There are certainly other plausible correlations, dates, and explanations. But I think Acts 13:14-14:23 indicates who Paul wrote to and I think he did so just before the Jerusalem Council (therefore, about AD 48).

4. Greeting (1:3-5)

3Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Galatians 1:3-5, ESV

Paul expands the conventional greeting in all of his letters. We should consider three aspects of this greeting:

1) The Greeting Itself (3)
2) The Elaboration of the Greeting (4)
3) The Concluding Doxology (5)

1) The Greeting Itself (3)

Paul prays as he writes “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,”. The two words grace and peace summarize the gospel (cf Timothy George). The word grace indicates that God shows us His unmerited favor to save us. This free gift of salvation brings us into true peace. This salvation comes from one source: the one God in three persons. Here in Paul’s greeting the Father and the Son are explicitly linked. They are both fully God, they both save us. Paul acknowledges here the humanity of the Son as well by the name “the Lord Jesus Christ”: the Lord indicates deity and control; Jesus indicates His human nature; and Christ indicates that He is the anointed one, the Messiah.

2) The Elaboration of the Greeting (4)

Paul elaborates on “the Lord Jesus Christ: “who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age,”. It is the Lord Jesus Christ who gave Himself for our sins. He provided the atonement for our sins and gave us personal salvation through faith alone. It is the Lord Jesus Christ who delivers us from the present evil age . We are, as believers, on our way to a new sinless age.
So Paul brings core aspects of his Gospel into the greeting element just as he had also done in the author element. Then Paul asserts that this salvation is “according to the will of our God and Father,”. Here Paul implicitly calls attention to our election. Our God and Father has chosen us before the foundation of the world. This “will of our God” makes it inevitable that we will be saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

3) The Concluding Doxology (5)

Paul concludes his greeting with praise to God for our great salvation: “our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.”. We also ought to respond to our salvation in this same way. Doctrine leads to doxology or at least it ought to.

We have mentioned election and the corresponding inevitability of salvation. But from our perspective, we do not need to try to discern the secret will of God. We are commanded to Believe in the Lord Jesus and we then will be saved. Is that not what we need most? The grace and peace of God and Jesus.