Paul began this epistle with a word of greeting for his readers to introduce himself as the writer and to emphasize the divine source of his apostolic commission.
1:1 The nickname (cognomen) "Paul"is from the Latin Paulus, which means little. The earliest physical description of Paul we have comes from a second-century apocryphal writing. It described Paul as "a man of small stature, with a bald head and crooked legs, in a good state of body, with eyebrows meeting and nose somewhat hooked, full of friendliness; for now he appeared like a man, and now he had the face of an angel."9The apostle's Hebrew name was Saul. As the apostle to the Gentiles he consistently used his Gentile name, Paul, in his epistles.
In his reference to himself Paul emphasized his apostolic office. The Greek word translated "apostle"(apostolos) means one who is sent. The New Testament uses this word in two ways. In its more restricted sense, the word means someone who had received a special commission from the risen Christ (i.e., Paul and the Twelve apostles). In its more general sense it refers to those sent with a message from God (as in Acts 14:4, 14; 2 Cor. 8:23; Phil. 2:25). It even describes Jesus (Heb. 3:1). In Galatians Paul always used "apostle"in the technical sense to describe the Twelve and himself.
Paul contended that his apostleship did not originate from men, nor did it come to him through men (e.g., Peter, James, Ananias, or whomever, as, for example, does the Roman Catholic papacy). Rather Jesus Christ, whom he described as equal with God the Father, bestowed it on him. The resurrection of Jesus Christ demonstrated the power of God. The Apostle Paul may have referred to the Resurrection to emphasize the importance of his apostolic office, which he defended in this epistle.
In view of what Paul said in this chapter and the next, it seems clear that his enemies in Galatia were claiming that the apostle had received his apostolic commission from other men. Specifically they suggested that it came from the other apostles or the leaders of the church at Antioch (cf. Acts 13:1) rather than directly from Jesus Christ. This would have made it an inferior apostleship.
1:2 The churches of Galatia were probably the churches in the southern Roman province of Galatia (Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, et al.) rather than those in northern ethnic Galatia.10This is the only one of Paul's inspired letters that he addressed neither to Christians in one specific town nor to an individual.
". . . the Church as the total community is not a mere aggregate of individual congregations; rather the local church is the universal Church in its local manifestation."11
1:3-5 The greeting Paul wrote in most of his epistles was a combination of the commonly used Greek (charis, grace) and the Jewish (shalom, peace) salutations. The former in the Christian context refers to God's undeserved favor that is the portion of His children. Galatians opens, closes (cf. 6:18), and is full of grace (vv. 6, 15; 2:9, 21; 3:18; 5:4). The actual Greek word is chairein, meaning "rejoice,"but this standard Greek greeting meant the equivalent of "hello."The latter word of greeting, peace, defines not just the absence of hostility but the totality of God's blessings. This word had become a standard Jewish greeting. Believers enjoy peace with God and with other people because God has taken the initiative in extending His grace to us in Christ (cf. Num. 6:24-26). Peace always follows grace in Paul's salutations because that is their logical and temporal relationships. The three-fold title "Lord Jesus Christ"indicates His exalted rank, His saving significance, and His divine commission respectively.12
Jesus Christ gave Himself for our sins in two respects. He gave Himself all through His earthly ministry as the Suffering Servant of God (cf. Isa. 53), and He gave Himself as the final sin offering on the cross. Both aspects of His self-sacrifice could be in view here. Paul probably wanted to emphasize the totality of Christ's self-sacrifice.
The purpose of the Lord's self-sacrifice was that He might deliver us out of the control of this present evil age, the world system that dominates the inter-advent era.13We are in the world, but we are free to live apart from the evil that dominates it thanks to Christ's work for us. Not only so, the Lord will remove us from it by death or translation. Again, both aspects of our deliverance were probably in Paul's mind as he wrote these words. Christ's death transferred the believer from Satan's power to God's power, from one sphere to the other (cf. Col. 1:13).
"In this one verse Paul has described several aspects of the redemption wrought by Christ: its cause (for our sins,' that is, because of them), its means (Christ sacrificed himself'), its purpose and effect (for our sins,' that is, for their expiation; to rescue us'), and its origin (the will of our God and Father'). Thereby Paul has in fact touched on the chief argument of the letter, and succinctly announced in anticipatory fashion the main contents of its doctrinal section, inasmuch as the point of the controversy between Paul and His Galatian opponents lies precisely in the significance of Christ and his redemptive work and more specifically in the bearing of this work on the law."14
