But the salient point is that you still did not show Paul making your wild assertions as quoted above.
Specifically your claim
1."That epistle was written to refute Sola Scriptura"
2. "Paul was furious about their regression to Sola Scriptura and called them fools for it"
You know what I love about the stance I've taken? At some junctures it derives with a kind of logical rigor from axioms logically irresistible, or at least commonly held. Indeed I can make a good case for my stance even without recourse to Scripture. Think about. Religion doesn't make sense - doesn't really work well - without the Inward Witness. For example even if you believe "the gospel" (the basic propositions), by default you're still unsaved! How so? Consider the Mormons, JWs, Jews. They all read the bible and worship "God" - but it's the wrong God! This is because the feeble human mind cannot properly picture an ineffably holy God - he will only worship a conceptual idol. The Inward Witness is for us - all of us - precisely what he was for Paul on the Road to Damascus. He provides a
revelatory vision of Christ. You do see Christ, even if the vision isn't as distinct ("loud and clear") as what Paul saw. That's why Vincent, for example, defined the new birth as a vision of Christ (Vincent's Word Studies on John 3), and why Gordon Fee insisted that a literal beholding of Christ is
exegetically undeniable of 2Cor 3:18.
And it's not an event of the past - the Inward Witness is here and now. The "gospel", then, is an ongoing stream of Direct Revelation. You're either in it or outside of it, in the darkness. You and I both need to swim further into it, into deeper waters, but at least we're both in it.
What I've just confirmed, then, is a point made earlier - that Paul's experience on the Road to Damascus wasn't merely a transition from unbelief to faith - it was actually a paradigm shift - a shift from a 20-year reliance on Sola Scriptura to a full reliance on Direct Revelation. And he never looked back. That's the "gospel" of Galatians. Let's pick it up in chapter 1:
"For I certify to you, brothers, that the gospel I preached was not devised by man.
12I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it
by revelation from Jesus Christ" (Gal 1).
He's already building a parallel between himself and Abraham, that he will hit on later. Like Abraham, Paul was raised steeped in the traditions of his forefathers - until he heard the Voice! Then he abandoned all those traditions forever.Here's two more references to Direct Revelation:
[I was] extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and [vocally]
called me by His grace, was pleased
16to
reveal His Son in me, I did not rush to consult flesh and blood"
He's stressing his newfound independence. He didn't need tutelage from men because Direct Revelation was now governing him. All he needed was the Voice.
"Fourteen years later I went up again to Jerusalem, accompanied by Barnabas. I took Titus along also.
2I went in response
to a revelation" (2:1).
At this point he starts complaining about the Galatian regression to written laws such as circumcision - he's complaining about conclusions reached by Sola Scriptura. The Voice wasn't mandating all believers to be circumcised - Paul was sure of it, but here's the crucial point. His assurance wasn't based on Scripture! It was based on the Voice! If Paul were still prioritizing exegesis, he'd still be advocating circumcision! Obviously!
Let's move on to chapter 3. I told you the "gospel" is a revelatory vision of Christ, right? That's the point of verse 1, still overlooked today:
"You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before
your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified" (Gal 3:1).
Paul was a prophet. As such, he preached with a superlative degree of divine unction. This wasn't the ordinary preaching of today. When PAUL preached the crucifixion, the Anointing typically showed the audience a REVELATORY VISION of it. They literally SAW Christ, and Him crucified. This whole chapter, then, is about Paul reminding them of DISTINCT experiences with the Holy Sprit, and receiving Him. Anything distinct ("loud and clear") from Him counts as Direct Revelation. The next verse reads:
"I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?"
Paul says so much in one verse !!! (That's why I can't possibly cover Galatians in one post).
(1) First, he's asking them to recall a DISTINCT EXPERIENCE of receiving the Spirit. Remember how things worked in Acts? Typically it went like this, "When Paul laid his hands on them, the Spirit fell upon them, and they spoke in languages and prophesied." THAT kind of distinct experience is in view here. It's something they would DISTINCTLY REMEMBER (otherwise Paul's words don't make sense).
(2) He's contrasting two ways of walking with God - the Sola Scriptura approach (observing written law, and thus practicing circumcision) versus the "hearing of faith" (that phrase is the literal rendering of the Greek). I'm going to prove, shortly, that this phrase refers to hearing the Voice (it's a general reference to Direct Revelation which includes seeing visions). Bear with me.
Moving on to the next verse:
"Are ye so foolish? having
begun in the Spirit, are ye now made [
mature] by the flesh?...He therefore who supplies to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you,
doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?"
Paul's argument is incredibly simple. How had they begun? They began by receiving the Holy Spirit through the hearing of faith. That being the case, how were they to mature? Obviously the same way they had begun! They needed to continue receiving the Spirit by the hearing of faith! It works like this. The Voice is the divine Word (an outpouring) emanating from God's mouth (Isa 55:11). Thus the key to revival/sanctification is receiving multiple (incremental) outpourings, by hearing the Voice multiple times, until the human heart is FILLED FULL with the divine Glory (I can't get into metaphysics here). Gordon Fee was well aware of the basic argument here - he insisted that Paul is talking about receiving the Spirit again and again, the Galatians were supposed to continue in the same way they had
begun, as I argued.
We stopped at verse 5. But the real proof of the entire argument is verse 6. As a number of scholars including Calvin have noted, at verse 6 Paul cites the
prophet Abraham - specifically Abraham's experience as Gen 15 - as the proof of his whole argument. In other words, as Calvin noted, Gen 15 is adduced at verse 6 to surface Abraham as the
paradigmatic exemplar of what it means to receive the Spirit via the "hearing of faith".
"Then the [
voiced] Word of the Lord came to Abram in a [
revelatory] vision [speaking promises]...Abraham believed [the spoken promises] and God credited it to him as righteousness."
Did you catch that? God didn't drop a bible on his head. Rather, the prophet Abraham received an outpouring of the divine Word via hearing the Voice (and seeing a vision). He received the Spirit via the "hearing of faith" - and this example is the paradigm of sanctification for us all. In fact Paul's argument at Romans 4 centers
on the same passage.
And more than just sanctifcation. Miracles too. Go back to verse 5:
"He therefore who supplies to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you,
doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?"
Again, Paul is looking to Abraham as proof of all these points. What miracle did Abraham receive at Gen 15? And what did the "hearing of faith" have to do with it? Everything! His wife was barren. At Gen 15, Abraham didn't actually obtain a son at that exact moment. Rather the Voice promised him a son! He received the miracle of a son proleptically, via the hearing of faith!
Let's understand why Paul calls the Galatians fools. Regeneration is the impartation of holiness (easy to prove exegetically) - it is INSTANTEOUS HOLINESS. You don't get holy by observing commands. You RECEIVE holiness. And what is holy is not sinning. This means the human constitution is multi-part. Part of you was sprinkled with the Holy Spirit (and is now holy), the rest of you is the sinful nature. How do we mature, then? By observing written laws deduced by Sola Scriptura/exgesis? No! We need more sprinklings/outpourings until we are ENTIRELY holy, filled full with the Holy Spirit. Revival and sanctification are the same thing, a fact overlooked by the church for 2,000 years.
