Galatians 1:6

Occasion of the Letter

1:6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one ¹  who called you by the grace of Christ ²  and are following ³  a different ⁴  gospel –

Galatians 2:21--3:1

2:21 I do not set aside ⁵  God’s grace, because if righteousness ⁶  could come through the law, then Christ died for nothing! ⁷ 

Justification by Law or by Faith?

3:1 You ⁸  foolish Galatians! Who has cast a spell ⁹  on you? Before your eyes Jesus Christ was vividly portrayed ¹⁰  as crucified!

Galatians 5:1-2

Freedom of the Believer

5:1 For freedom ¹¹  Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not be subject again to the yoke ¹²  of slavery. 5:2 Listen! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you at all!

Galatians 5:6

5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision carries any weight – the only thing that matters is faith working through love. ¹³ 

Galatians 5:24

5:24 Now those who belong to Christ ¹⁴  have crucified the flesh ¹⁵  with its passions ¹⁶  and desires.

¹ sn The one who called you is a reference to God the Father (note the mention of Christ in the following prepositional phrase and the mention of God the Father in 1:1).

² tc Although the majority of witnesses, including some of the most important ones (Ì⁵¹ א A B F^c Ψ 33 1739 1881 Ï f vg sy^p bo), read “by the grace of Christ” (χάριτι Χριστοῦ, cariti Cristou) here, this reading is not without variables. Besides alternate readings such as χάριτι ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ (cariti Ihsou Cristou, “by the grace of Jesus Christ”; D 326 1241^s pc sy^h**) and χάριτι θεοῦ (cariti qeou, “by the grace of God”; 327 pc Thret^lem), a few mss (Ì^46vid F* G H^vid ar b Tert Cyp Ambst Pel) have simply χάριτι with no modifier. Internally, the reading that seems best to explain the rise of the others is the shortest reading, χάριτι. Indeed, the fact that three different adjuncts are found in the mss seems to be a natural expansion on the simple “grace.” At the same time, the witnesses for the shortest reading are not particularly impressive, being that they largely represent one textual strand (Western), and a less-than-reliable one at that. Further, nowhere else in the corpus Paulinum do we see the construction χάρις (cari", “grace”) followed by Χριστοῦ without some other name (such as κυρίου [kuriou, “Lord”] or ᾿Ιησοῦ). The construction χάρις θεοῦ is likewise frequent in Paul. Thus, upon closer inspection it seems that the original wording here was χάριτι Χριστοῦ (for it is difficult to explain how this particular reading could have arisen from the simple χάριτι, in light of Paul’s normal idioms), with the other readings intentionally or accidentally arising from it.

³ tn Grk “deserting [turning away] to” a different gospel, implying the idea of “following.”

⁴ tn Grk “another.”

⁵ tn Or “I do not declare invalid,” “I do not nullify.”

⁶ tn Or “justification.”

⁷ tn Or “without cause,” “for no purpose.”

⁹ tn Grk “O” (an interjection used both in address and emotion). In context the following section is highly charged emotionally.

¹⁰ tn Or “deceived”; the verb βασκαίνω (baskainw) can be understood literally here in the sense of bewitching by black magic, but could also be understood figuratively to refer to an act of deception (see L&N 53.98 and 88.159).

¹¹ tn Or “publicly placarded,” “set forth in a public proclamation” (BDAG 867 s.v. προγράφω 2).

¹³ tn Translating the dative as “For freedom” shows the purpose for Christ setting us free; however, it is also possible to take the phrase in the sense of means or instrument (“with [or by] freedom”), referring to the freedom mentioned in 4:31 and implied throughout the letter.

¹⁴ sn Here the yoke figuratively represents the burdensome nature of slavery.

¹⁷ tn Grk “but faith working through love.”

²¹ tc ‡ Some mss (א A B C P Ψ 0122¹ 0278 33 1175 1739 pc co) read “Christ Jesus” here, while many significant ones (Ì⁴⁶ D F G 0122*^,2 latt sy), as well as the Byzantine text, lack “Jesus.” The Byzantine text is especially not prone to omit the name “Jesus”; that it does so here argues for the authenticity of the shorter reading (for similar instances of probably authentic Byzantine shorter readings, see Matt 24:36 and Phil 1:14; cf. also W.-H. J. Wu, “A Systematic Analysis of the Shorter Readings in the Byzantine Text of the Synoptic Gospels” [Ph.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 2002]). On the strength of the alignment of Ì⁴⁶ with the Western and Byzantine texttypes, the shorter reading is preferred. NA²⁷ includes the word in brackets, indicating doubts as to its authenticity.

²² tn See the note on the word “flesh” in Gal 5:13.

²³ tn The Greek term παθήμασιν (paqhmasin, translated “passions”) refers to strong physical desires, especially of a sexual nature (L&N 25.30).