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corpus-paul - Re: THi ELEUQERIAi in Gal 5:1

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  • From: Carlton Winbery <winberyc AT popalex1.linknet.net>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: THi ELEUQERIAi in Gal 5:1
  • Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1999 13:33:37 -0500


I'll not cite the lengthy reply of Mark.

>This is a common enough way to take Paul's meaning, that is, that the thing
>from which the Galatian gentile addressees have been freed and should
>remain so, is the Jewish Law. But I suggest that they have not been freed
>from the Law per se, and that this is not what they are urged to continue
>in freedom from.

I did not intend to say that Paul is opposed to law or even that the
problem is the law itself. What those made right with God are freed from is
anything or anyone that enslaves. Gal. 2:4 clearly shows that there were
people present at the conference who take away "our freedom which we have
in Christ." No doubt there were representatives of this group in Galatia
also. I agree that the gentiles were never under the law and Paul opposed
any who would seek to bring them under the law. An old work (early 50's)
by a man named Ropes contended that Paul faced the problem in the Galatian
churches of two groups, on legalistic and one antinomian. I think the
second group did not necessarily exist but that Paul realized the danger
that some might take the concept of a right relationship with god apart
from works of law as an absolute kind of freedom that required nothing of
the beleiver. This he combats in Galatians 5:13 and following.

Even earlier he had made the point that a person does not enter the right
relationship with God by law and a person does not continue in the
relationship by law (3:2-3). The Law is not the problem. The misuse of law
is.

>I suggest then that the issue turns on the "identity" for these gentile
>addressees who claim to be (and whom Paul regards as) already the people of
>God by faith in Christ: will they now be enslaved to another court of
>reputation's manner of gaining this identity, thereby implying that they do
>not already have it?

For Paul I don't think it is just a matter of identity unless that includes
all that a person does as well as what a person is. For him the word love
is a noun of action. So is faith. Both are exercised in the freedom that
allows what a person is and what a person does to be free and willing acts
of love for God and love for others.

>In other words, the freedom they have is to be known by God as his children
>by faith in/of Christ apart from becoming children of Israel. The slavery
>that Paul envisions is that of seeking the approval of another interest
>group which maintains that to gain this identity they claim for themselves
>in Christ they must complete the ritual process of conversion; i.e., become
>proselytes. (This happens to be a Jewish exigence, but I think Paul would
>appeal to this principle against any such alternate way of gaining identity
>for those who "already" have it in Christ, even if Jewish identity or
>behavior was not in view; I take this to be similar to what Baptists mean
>when they say they are not religious, or Baptist, or Christian, or
>whatever, to make a similar comparative point about their identity in
>Christ, not in terms of human acceptance). They are to resist this
>proposition, because of their belief, with Paul, that the age to come has
>dawned in Christ in the midst of the present age, and thus these
>representatives of the nations join with Israelites as the people of God
>without becoming Israelites themselves. The usual reading dismisses this
>equal participation for Israelites as Israelites, an ironic turn that Paul
>seems not to have considered might result from his one-sided polemic.
>
While Paul did not allow (re: Titus, not Timothy) gentiles to be made
Jewish converts, he did maintain his own Jewishness (see Stendahl, Paul
among Jews and Gentiles). He apparently thought it ok himself to continue
participating in the Jewish ritual practices and even in Rom. 11 says, "I'm
a Jew."

I am convinced that the basic problem in the Galatian cities is a struggle
with those who would make all Christians Jewish and that at least some of
these claimed the support of the "pillars of the church," the "superlative
apostles."


Dr. Carlton L. Winbery
Foggleman Professor of Religion
Louisiana College
winbery AT andria.lacollege.edu
winberyc AT popalex1.linknet.net
Ph. 1 318 448 6103 hm
Ph. 1 318 487 7241 off






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