1. I am not a Bible translator.
2. I don't believe in "eisegesis" - so the idea of "deleting context" and "deleting the exegetical setting" for a given text - is not something I am used to doing.
And now we begin -
Read
Galatians 4:
21 Tell me,
you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law?
In
Romans 3:19-21 Paul already defined his use of the phrase "
Under the Law"
19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them
who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and
all the world may become guilty before God.
20 Therefore
by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight:
for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
Paul makes the case that the Law is still binding
And it defines what sin is.
And it condemns all mankind - showing that all need salvation... need the Gospel for "All have sinned" Rom 3:23
The church in Galatia is a gentile church - not a Jewish one.
And why is Paul accusing a gentile church of this?
Why does Paul think the gentiles of Galatia want to be "under the Law"?
Here Paul is expanding on what He thinks of certain Gentiles in Galatia
Gal 5
4 You have
been severed from Christ, you who are
seeking to be justified by law;
you have fallen from grace.
Back to
Romans 3
20 Therefore
by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight:
for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
Why does Paul think the gentiles in Galatia are guilty of this?
ANSWER:
Gal 5
2 Indeed I, Paul, say to you that
if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. 3 And I testify again to ev
ery man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law.
Ah-hah -- is that the great sin of the gentiles in Galatia??
Nope. Paul requires that Timothy be circumcised
Acts 16
a certain disciple was there, named Timothy,
the son of a certain Jewish woman who believed, but his father
was Greek. 2 He was well spoken of by the brethren who were at Lystra and Iconium. 3 Paul wanted to have him go on with him.
And he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in that region, for they all knew that his father was Greek.
Gal 5 - whether you are circumcised or not - does not matter.
6 For in Christ Jesus
neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.
1 Cor 7:19 Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing,
but what matters is keeping of the commandments of God.
Repeatedly Paul teaches that while it is true that it does not matter if one is circumcised or not - yet when the gentiles in Galatia do it -- they are "
fallen from grace" and "
severed from Christ". Gal 5:4
Why?
Because they are doing it as a "sign" that they wish to be "
justified by law" Gal 5:4
Where did the GENTILES in Galatia get that idea if not from Paul?
Answer: a certain small contingent of Christian Jews from Judea
Acts 15:1
Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”
They simply made that idea up -- no OT or NT scripture required it. The Christian gentiles in Galatia were giving in to Jewish practice of "making stuff up" and setting their own tradition = the Bible.
Gal 4
22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman. 23 But he
who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise, 24 which
things are symbolic.
- Paul now tells the reader he is switching over from real-life-literal to "symbolic".
- In real life it is the children of Isaac son of Sarah that gather at Sinai - not the children Ishmael son of Hagar.
So
this is not Paul claiming that Moses and Elijah who stand "with Christ" in Matthew 17 - in glory-- are standing in opposition to Christ, opposition to Grace, opposition to the Gospel.
Gal 4
For these are the
two covenants: the one from
Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is
Hagar— 25 for this
Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and
corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children—
Paul argues that in rejecting the Messiah -- The non-Christian Jews (as well as Christian Jews that choose to "make stuff up" place tradition above the Bible) -- and by symbol - Jerusalem as their capital -
stand in opposition to the Gospel - as a counterfeit to it - just as Hagar and Ishmael represented a counterfeit to the promise - that was to come through Sarah's son Isaac.
Gal 4
26
but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the
mother of us all.
Jerusalem above "is mother of us all" - of both Christian gentiles and Christian Jews. Our "heritage" our "national and family identity" is united in the "Jerusalem above" which was in heaven at the time of Sinai and still is to this very day.
Paul is taking away the "heritage problem" that he brings up in Gal 4
8 But then, indeed,
when you did not know God, you served those which by nature are not gods.
That was the gentile pagan "heritage" and that is apparently what the Christian Jews promoting circumcision of gentiles were selling them - a "deal" for getting rid of their pagan heritage by identifying with literal Jews or by engaging in other forms of syncretism
9 But
now after you have known God, or rather are known by God,
how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage? 10 You observe days and months and seasons and years. 11
I am afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain.
Gal 4
28 Now
we, brethren, as
Isaac was, are children of promise. 29 But, as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him
who was born according to the Spirit, even so
it is now
Indeed - Christians were being persecuted by non-Christian Jews from Judea
<Did "somebody" watch a debate between Steve Gregg and Doug Batchelor? - is that what this is about?>
