Proclaimer Blog
Themes to get straight on in Galatians, part 1: the Spirit
I wrote in a recent Proclaimer about the overall aim of Galatians. I’m following that up with a couple of posts on two significant themes in the letter. The first seems to be quite often overlooked: the Spirit. If you were forced up against a wall and required to identify just one single theme as central in Galatians, it could arguably (and maybe controversially) be the Spirit. He appears frequently; I count 14 verses: 3.2, 3, 5, 14; 4.6, 29; 5.5, 16, 17, 18, 22, 25; 6.1, 8.
Here’s how Paul’s argument with regard to the Spirit in Galatians seems roughly to run:
· all Christians have received the Spirit, and have done so through believing the message rather than through doing works of the law (3.2-5).
· Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, with the particular purpose of enabling us to receive the Spirit (3.14).
· As God’s sons, what we have been given by God is the Spirit of his (true) Son (4.6).
· Since this is the life we now have, the only right and safe way to progress in Christ is now not by any law-observance, but by living both individually and corporately in line with the Spirit (all the references from 5.5 to 6.1).
· What awaits us on the last day – either destruction or eternal life – will be the just outcome of whether we have placed our energies and hopes in the new life that the Spirit of Christ brings, or in measurable, attainable human actions (such as circumcision and food laws) (6.7-8).
In tracing the Spirit through Galatians, I’m want my preaching on the more well-known ‘headline’ theme of Galatians – which is justification by faith – to weave the theme of the Spirit into the heart of my messages as inextricably as the Holy Spirit himself wove it into the letter.