Galatians 6:(1-6), 7-16 Commentary

This Sunday brings us to the end of the Revised Common Lectionary’s very brief tour of Paul’s letter to the Christians in Galatia. The epistle’s tone is among the strictest if not harshest of all the Pauline letters. Yet the apostle ends it with verse 18’s “The grace [charis*] of our Lord Jesus Christ be with [meta] your spirit [pneumatos hymon], brothers [adelphoi].”

Paul has roundly and loudly condemned Galatia’s Jewish Christians who believed Christians were still obligated to obey many of the Old Testament’s ceremonial laws. He has used some of his most graphic language to nearly curse such a perversion of God’s will for God’s people’s lives. Yet the apostle ends his letter with verse 18’s “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers.”

That benediction falls outside of the RCL’s pericope for this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson. But under the Spirit’s prompting preachers might seriously consider not just including verse 18 in this Sunday’s Lesson but also making it a focus of our attention. When it’s all said and done, after all, it isn’t just that “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit” summarizes much of this Lesson. It’s also that, as C.S. Lewis is reported to have ended at least some of his communications, “It’s all grace.”

Grace is, in fact, both one of the Spirit’s animating forces and the product of the Spirit’s presence in Christians’ lives. Pastors might even choose to let the Spirit help us both view and proclaim nearly all of Galatians 6 through grace’s lens.

This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson’s Paul seems to invite his readers to view ourselves through the lens of grace. In verse 3 he tells Galatia’s Christians, “If anyone thinks [dokei] they are something [einai ti] when they are not [meden], they deceive [phrenepata] themselves.” Few things serve as better correctives to human arrogance than an awareness of God’s amazing grace in Jesus’ friends’ lives. The apostle insists those who assume we’re something special are lying to ourselves, our neighbors and God. All that we have been, are and ever will be is a gift of God’s amazing grace.

Of course, nearly all of us can find someone who seems to be our “inferior” in one way or another. That’s perhaps why the apostle summons us to “test” [dokimazeto]” our “own actions” [ergon heautou].” This is a call to God’s adopted children not to compare ourselves to even our fellow Christians. Paul suggests that if we must compare ourselves, we do so to both God and the fruits the Holy Spirit longs to produce in us. Then we can give thanks to God for the work the Spirit is doing rather than disparage our brothers and sisters in Christ.

As if to remind God’s dearly beloved people of our desperate need for God’s grace, Paul, even as he calls us to restore fallen Christians, warns us to “watch” [skopon] ourselves. Even Jesus’ holiest followers are vulnerable to being “tempted” [peirasthes]. No Christian is completely immune to the relentless temptation of the evil one. Galatians 6’s apostle reminds those who know we live by grace alone to pay close attention to our own vulnerabilities. Otherwise we easily become content with our failure to love God above all and our neighbors as ourselves.

God’s amazing grace offers, what’s more, a lens through which Jesus’ friends view our neighbors. “Brothers and sisters [Adelphoi],” Paul writes in verse 1, “if someone [anthropos] is caught in [prolemphthe] in a sin [paraptomata], you who live by the Spirit [hoi pneumatikoi] should restore [katartizete] that person gently [prautetos].” We, no less than the most sinful Christian, are saved and live by grace alone. So when our neighbors who follow Jesus with us stumble and fall, the apostle invites us to bend over to gently help them back to their feet.

The apostle, what’s more, goes on to summon his readers to view our neighbors who instruct us in God’s Word through grace’s lens. “The one who receives instruction [katechoumenos] in the word,” he writes in verse 6, “should share [Koinoneito] all good things [agathois] with their instructor” [to katechounti].” People who know God has graced us remember that God ministers that grace in part through those who proclaim the gospel of God’s saving grace.

In The Message’s paraphrase of that verse, we “enter into a common life with those who have trained [us], sharing all the good things that [we] have and experience.” Grace is not just something God shares with Christians. Grace is also a gift we share with others, including our Christian neighbors.

Paul seems to have grace very much in view as he pens verses 7-13. “Do not be deceived [planasthe],” the apostle writes there, “God cannot be mocked [mykterizetia]. A man reaps [therisei] what he sows [sperei]. Whoever sows [speiron] to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction [phthoran]; whoever sows to please the Spirit from the Spirit will reap eternal life [zoen aionion].”

While this is not an easy teaching to fully understand, preachers might note a couple of things about it. We naturally see the “sowing to please the flesh” much more readily in others than we see it in ourselves. Yet the apostle insists that even Jesus’ most Christlike friends are vulnerable to the temptation to selfishness and ignoring the needs of others. We are no less in need of God’s amazing grace than disobedient Christians.

What’s more, preachers might also note that any escape from the consequences of pleasing the evil one and our sinful nature is a gift of grace. After all, even Jesus’ godliest followers have sown to please our sinful nature. Yet because of what Jesus did, we have received the gift of eternal life anyway. So that is a gift of God’s grace alone.

As a result, we can keep “doing good” [kalon poiountes]” (9) to “all people [pantas], especially [malista] to those who belong to the household [tous oikeous] of faith [pisteos]” (10). Here Paul seems to especially have our Christian neighbors in mind, including, perhaps, those who have sown to please the flesh.

Even those on whose spirits grace rests easily tire of being Christlike towards our neighbors. Yet Paul summons us to continue to do good to all, in part because we long for them to receive God’s amazing grace with their faith. Acting and talking in Christlike ways quickly fatigues God’s dearly beloved people. Yet the apostle invites us to keep on doing good, especially to our brothers and sisters in Christ, in part because they have received God’s grace.

Paul has God’s amazing grace squarely in view as he roundly scolds those who are trying to force their fellow Christians to be circumcised. In verse 15 he’s quite explicit about that grace: “Neither [oute] circumcision [peritome] nor uncircumcision [akrobystia] means anything [ti estin]; what counts is the new creation [kaine ktisis].”

In other words, nothing, even what is to Jewish people the seminal act of circumcision, can make a person acceptable to God. Nothing we do justifies us in God’s eyes. It’s all about what God is graciously doing in, with and through God’s adopted children. It’s quite simply all about the new creation that is people in whom the Spirit is working. “Peace [eirene] and mercy [eleos]” (16) are God’s gifts of grace only for those who have received that grace with our faith.

That amazing grace is a reason why Paul can write in verse 12, “Those who want to impress people [euprosopesai] by means of the flesh [en sarki] are trying to compel [anankazousin] you to be circumcised [peritemnesthai]. The only reason [monon hina] they do this is to avoid [me] being persecuted [diokontai] for the cross [staurou] of Christ.” Those who are trying to force Christians to be circumcised don’t, in Paul’s view, wish to help them be rescued from their sins or come closer to God. They only want to save their own skins. It’s almost as if they fear God’s grace won’t be enough to sustain them through trials and tribulations.

In fact, Paul goes on to write in verses 13 and following, “Not even those who are circumcised [peritemnomenoi] keep [phylassouin] the law [nomon], yet they want [thelousin] you to be circumcised that they may boast [kauchesontai] in the flesh.” People who are trying to force Galatia’s non-Jewish Christians to be circumcised can’t themselves be bothered with trying to please God through obeying the commandments. They want to, instead, bask in the reflected glory of having convinced other people to submit to circumcision. They want to brag about how they’ve helped others be more holy.

The Paul who knows that God has saved him by grace alone refuses to boast about his substantial obedience to God’s law. He glories in what God has done for him in Christ alone. “May I never [me genoito] boast [kauchasthai] except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,” he writes in verses 14 and 15. “Through which the world [kosmo] has been crucified [staurotai] to me [emoi], and I [kago] to the world.”

Nothing really means anything to the apostle but Christ’s saving life, death and resurrection. That amazing work of God’s rescuing us from our sins is the only reason Paul would even consider boasting or, as is perhaps a more likely translation of kauchasthai, celebrating that amazing grace.

It’s tempting for those on all sides of the disagreements that roil the 21^st century Church to effectively minimize that grace. We may no longer expect other Christians to be circumcised as part of our obedience to God. But Jesus’ closest friends easily expect other Christians to take our side in the theological and ethical debates. We may not explicitly question whether those with whom we disagree have received God’s grace with their faith. But God’s adopted children’s loud criticisms of them may make others wonder if we question their faith.

In that context, Christians might consider blessing both those with whom we agree and those with whom we disagree with Paul’s benediction that The Message paraphrases as, “May what our Master Jesus Christ gives freely be deeply and personally yours, my friends.”

*I have here and elsewhere added in brackets the Greek words for the English words the NIV translation uses.

Illustration

In her January 27, 2022 article in First Things entitled, “What We’ve Been Reading – January, 2022,” Elizabeth Bach writes about the American author Flannery O’Connor. In it she notes, “In [Flannery O’Connors] stories, everyone is a filthy sinner and a hypocrite to boot — convinced of his own saintliness while singularly aware of everyone else’s faults. There is usually not a single hero to root for.

“Yet this, rather than pious pastoralism (which she despised in Catholic literature), was how she poured her devout Catholic faith into her writing: ‘It all boils down to Grace,’ she wrote. Her stories show that we are all flawed and require God’s grace to save us from our sinful selves — usually in unexpected and painful ways.”