GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
GALATIANS 1:10
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10 In fact, am I now looking for approval from men, or from God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Here Paul moves to a new thought, which will lead him to recount his conversion and his education at the feet of Jesus, as well as his small association with the apostles and the beginning years of his ministry. He leads up to this by asking a question that was probably being asked, at least indirectly, by some of his opponents in Galatia: “Am I looking for human approval? Am I trying to please men?” He says “now” for emphasis, to contrast what he was doing when he was with them, preaching and teaching. Whatever their accusation of Paul, his answer is simple: Who do you think I’m trying to please by pointing out false doctrine? Would it please human beings there in Galatia? If not, which people would be happy that I’m doing this? Is it for posterity only? Aren’t I trying, as always, to do the will of God?
It seems as if the accusation leveled against Paul was that he had watered down the law to make converts in Galatia. But what is watered down in the message that each and every person is sinful and condemned? That there is nothing in any of us that deserves God’s grace, his healing compassion, or his forgiveness? The creation can praise him. “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1). But man? “The pride of your heart has deceived you.” “There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins” (Ecclesiastes 7:20). This isn’t what anyone would say who is looking for approval from men. “For the world finds nothing more irritating and intolerable than hearing its wisdom, righteousness, religion, and power condemned” (Luther).
Look closely at the third sentence of our verse. Paul does in fact say, “If I were still trying to please men….” That little word “still” (Greek ἔτι) is a hint about what is coming. Paul will freely admit what he used to be before his conversion. As a young man, Paul was a Pharisee (Philippians 3:5), “a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man” (1 Timothy 1:13). But Paul was shown that salvation is only through Christ, by the grace of God. “He saved us,” Paul wrote, “not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5). Once, Paul tried to please the other Pharisees. If he were still doing that, he would never preach the way he does now.
The Judaizers were always looking for ways to undercut Paul’s message, to find holes and errors in Paul’s life, to finds chinks in Paul’s armor, so they threw all kinds of details into the air like a despearate and lazy fighter throwing dust instead of punches. Paul’s past life would be an obvious choice. Therefore, Paul will beat them to it. That’s going to be the remainder of this chapter.
Paul has to do this. They had thrown down a gauntlet, and he had to pick it up. A Christian– and especially a Christian pastor or teacher– must do such things for the sake of his people. Paul’s congregations in Galatia were under attack by teachers of false doctrine. What else could he do? He had to show his people what was right and what was wrong. In this case, to accomplish this, he had to take on their accusations about himself and his message. To do this he will open up the story of his life from his conversion to the present day, and the Holy Spirit will take this as an opportunity to do even more. As Tertullian points out in his fifth book against Marcion, “Paul touches on his own conversion from a persecutor to an apostle– thereby confirming the Acts of the Apostles, in which book may be found the very subject of this Epistle (that is, Galtians), how that certain persons interposed, and said that men ought to be circumcised, and that the law of Moses was to be observed, and how the apostles, when consulted, determined by the authority of the Holy Ghost that ‘a yoke should not be put upon men’s necks which their fathers even had not been able to bear’” (Book V Chapter 1, quoting Galatians 5:1 and Acts 15:10). Marcion, the opponent of Tertullian in the second century, rejected the book of Acts among others but accepted Paul. Tertullian showed by many proofs how Paul accepted the entire Bible as inspired and showed it in his writings.
The doctrine of man’s sinfulness does not please anybody, but for all who have their consciences pricked and their hearts broken by this true doctrine and set their hearts on Jesus also have their wounds bound up again by Christ’s love and forgiveness. For like poor wounded Josiah (2 Chronicles 35:23) sinful man faints from his injury, and would perish, forever groaning without help. But the blood of Christ cleanses our groaning consciences (Hebrews 9:14), and we are remade as the people of God to serve him and to give him glory with our lives.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Galatians 1:10 A servant of Christ