How do you identify a fraudulent Christian spirituality, and what precisely do you say when you spot one? It is the thesis of this article that Paul's concern in Galatians is not, as has been supposed by the Reformers (particularly Lutheran scholarship), to denounce Torah-as opposed to grace-as a means to salvation;1 it is, rather, to denounce Torah as a means of spirituality, by which I mean a 'considered approach to the Christian life, existence and ethics'.
To demonstrate this thesis, I shall argue the following points:
o In the first century CE, Torah itself was not merely an 'adhesive label' which marked out the national identity of Jews; it was also a moral code and a means by which to live a self-controlled life.
o A significant number of recent scholarly treatments have suggested the likelihood that central reason for Torah's inroads in Galatia was as a means for enhancing the Christian life, either as a restraint of 'flesh'2 or as an enhancer of pneumatic existence.3 This insight, coupled with the fact that Paul sets the issue of Galatians up not as soteriological but as a question of competing eschatologies-as an apocalyptic antinomy4 between the present evil age and the age to come5-suggests that Paul uses eschatology as controlling code for a debate about spirituality/ethical life.
o Paul sees Torah-observance as a threat to his gospel precisely because it represents an undoing of the work of the cross-the ultimate apocalyptic event-and thus wars against any genuine Christian spirituality ensuing from that work.
o The rhetoric of 'Spirit' in the letter reflects Paul's approach to spirituality: Spirit-life as an eschatological gift rooted in the eschatological event of the cross.
Before turning to a brief overview of perceptions of the Torah in Second Temple Judaism(s),6 it seems necessary to address two issues which immediately fly in the face of our thesis. It has been argued (a) that the Galatian problem only concerns 'works of law'-namely, the specific 'badges' of Israel's national identity such as circumcision,7 Sabbath and food laws, and (b) that certain texts in Galatians (such as Paul's comment that circumcision makes one 'a debtor to do the whole law' [5.3]) suggest that the agitators were not urging the whole Torah upon the Galatians. Both suggestions present difficulties for my thesis that the issue concerns Torah as a system of morality.
There is not room in this paper to offer a full response, but the following points should be noted:
o Galatians reads very well as a single aural event when the Galatian problem is seen to concern competing systems of moral/ethical life.
o Though James Dunn has offered compelling arguments for identifying 'works of law' as the badges of Israel's national identity, his proposal does not extend to arguing that these are the only concerns at stake in Galatia.8 Instead, he argues that the Galatians wished to 'sustain' a claim to being God's people,9 a view which remains, ultimately, unproven and fails to address the concerns of Gal 5-6.
o Texts such as 5.3 are notoriously difficult to navigate, but to argue that such texts 'prove 'that there are no larger Torah-issues at stake in Galatians goes beyond the evidence.10
o Such readings of the problem appear to miss crucial facts: Torah promised a rigid ethical system for self-mastery of epiqnmia,11 It remains plausible that the Galatians were attracted to Torah for precisely this reason.12
1. Torah as Rule for the Righteous
James Dunn has tended to focus the Galatian problem around the elusive phrase 'works of law', arguing that this phrase has reference almost exclusively to Israel's national identity.13 This has tended to distort the Galatian problem focusing it around a question of 'identity' and has thus pointed away from the main issue-ethics. Torah was not simply a marker of Israel's covenant life and a system of ritual obligation; it also represented a way of life. To separate between the two is too modern, too arbitrary and completely incomprehensible by ancient standards.14
We may take up several examples from Second Temple Judaism to underscore these observations. First, the Torah was often presented as a system which offered the pagan world 'self-mastery' over passions. As Stanley Stowers has noted, that Pagans needed self-mastery was a given, for the 'dominant view in Graeco-Roman culture held that desires in themselves were not bad but dangerous, powerful, and prone to act independently of rational control'.15 These 'unruly appetites and passions ... were the source of immoral behaviour', so 'one had to subdue them'.16
Redolent of the type of mindless passions which destroyed self-control were the stomach/food and sex. 'The connection between the stomach and sexual desire made it possible for some Jews to hold forth their food laws as a comprehensive means to the goal of self-mastery'.17 During the reign of Augustus, the goal of self-mastery became an important theme-one which shaped Judaism's understanding of itself and Torah as a system: '... Jewish writings from the early empire ... place great emphasis on an ethic of self-mastery and present 1ewish law as a means to that goal'.18
Stowers offers Philo of Alexandria as 'our most extensive and instructive source for this Jewish strategy'. According to Philo, the Torah solves the greatest human problem-the treachery of desire (epiqnmia).19 He argues on several fronts that the law promotes self-mastery: (1) it strengthens the 'rational' in men against the passions; (2) the food laws assist the battle against 'pleasure'. Stowers concludes:
Scholars have long puzzled at gentile attraction to Jewish practices. But if we understand the enormous appeal exerted by the ideal of selfmastery and the powerful interpretation of the Jewish law as a means to it, then the popularity ... becomes understandable.20
He goes on to argue that Jewish teachers advertised 'Judaism as a superior school of self-mastery' and that they 'encouraged gentiles to learn applicable moral teachings and practices from the law of Moses'.21 Such a reading may well account for the circumstances in Galatia-this time with Christian Jewish teachers-and certainly would explain Paul's emphasis on Spirit as the true means for controlling what he calls 'flesh'.
These observations may be supplemented by taking up Palestinian Jewish authors of the Second Temple Period. Jesus ben Sira provides us with a good example From him, one gets the impression that Torah is far more 'practical' in terms of the righteous life than might at first be thought if one focused simply upon what made Israel distinctive-the so called 'works of Torah'.22 Indeed, Second Temple Judaism seems to have attached considerable value to Torah as a practical code of spirituality/wise living. Ben Sira points his audience to practical wise living and argues that this is all to be found proscribed in Torah (Sir. 24.23-29). In the same vein, the Pharisaic Psalms of Solomon promises eternal life to the 'righteous' because-picking up the stock language of the wisdom literature-they have 'the fear of the Lord' (Pss. Sol. 3.12; cf. Prov. 1.7).23
Second Temple Judaism seems quite capable of identifying practical godliness, wisdom and what we may call 'spirituality' with Torah. The same phenomenon may be observed at Qumran. One example should suffice. In the Damascus Document, the author writes the following of those who have entered the covenant:
But all those who have been brought into the covenant shall not enter the temple to kindle his altar in vain ... Unless they are careful to act in accordance with the exact interpretation of the law for the age of wickedness: to separate themselves from the sons of the pit; to abstain from wicked wealth which defiles, either by promise or by vow, and from the wealth of the temple and from stealing from the poor of the people, from making their widows their spoils and from murdering orphans; to separate unclean from clean and differentiate between the holy and the common; to keep the sabbath day according to the exact interpretation, and the festivals and the day of fasting, according to what they had discovered, those who entered the new covenant in the land of Damascus; to set apart holy portions according to their exact interpretation; for each to love his brother like himself; to strengthen the hand of the poor, the needy and the foreigner; for each to seek the peace of his brother and not commit sin against his blood relation; to refrain from fornication in accordance with the regulation ... (CD 6.11-7.2)24
In the face of such evidence, two conclusions appear reasonable. Second Temple Judaism (a) had identified practical holiness, ethics and spirituality with Torah-observance, and (b) saw Torah as something valuable to pagans in their struggle for self-mastery. It remains tenable, therefore, that Paul's opponents in Galatia may have approached the Galatian churches with a compelling argument about Torah as a means of practical godliness/spirituality.25 As J.L. Martyn suggests, 'when [the Galatians] heard Paul mention ['desire of the flesh'] they would almost certainly have recognised a reference to one of the Teachers' favourite topics: the Evil Impulse'.26 Torah provided both concrete directions on the moral/spiritual life and a means for living such a life.
2. Spirituality as Eschatology
In recent years an increasing number of scholars have been questioning why Paul's converts would have been attracted to Torah-observance in the first place. Beverly Roberts Gaventa-who takes up this very issue in her influential SBL paper27 suggests the following:
For heuristic purposes we begin with a question that might be addressed to Paul in response to a reading of Galatians. Perhaps a group of believers from among the Galatians approached Paul, eager to find a solution that will satisfy both Paul and their more recent visitors. The question from this imaginary 'compromise party' runs as follows:
Why make such a point of saying that Christians must not follow the law? Perhaps the Gentiles will benefit from keeping some portions of the law. It surely cannot adversely affect their Christian lives, and it might help to restrain their enthusiastic or libertine tendencies. Would not the external sign of circumcision ensure that Gentile Christians identified themselves with the people of Israel and their God? You are perhaps right to contend that Gentiles are not obliged to follow the law, but why do you insist that they must not do so.28
What makes such an approach attractive is that it re-introduces ambiguity to the problem in Galatia, which for so long has been framed almost exclusively in soteriological terms-as a debate about 'getting in', to pick up the language of Dunn.29 In this light, however, the issue takes on a more ethical hue: it has to do with Christian existence, and how one lives ethically as a covenant-participant (OLK~505). Gordon Fee argues in the same direction: 'Indeed the issue raised by the agitators is not how one enters life in Christ ... but how such life is brought to completion'.30 Likewise Charles Cosgrove: 'The letter is concerned with the grounds of life in the Spirit, including the specific question of whether the powerful work of the Spirit can be promoted by lawkeeping'.31 John Barclay allows that something of the Galatians attachment to the Judaizers' views lies with their desire to 'fix the boundaries of acceptable belief and behaviour'.32 He adds further that 'the moral directives of the law must have been most welcome to the Galatians'.33 Dunn toys partially with this reading, too. He suggests that the issue in Galatia is that 'works of Torah' are test cases for Jewish faithfulness to covenant,34 and chastises Sanders for reducing 'justification' to mere transfer terminology, a debate about entry into and not continuation in.35
There seems, then, to be some merit in re-reading the letter to see if the Galatian problem is not exclusively ethical in nature. But this raises a further question: if the issue is not soteriological but ethical-the very direction in which these scholars point us-one would have reason to ask why Paul chooses to frame the question eschatologically/christologically. The logical conclusion is that for Paul, Christian spirituality or the ethical life is eschatological in nature. In other words, ethics in 'this present evil age' is determined by the age to come, not by cosmos.
From the outset, Paul sets up an apocalyptic antithesis between the present evil age and the salvation in Messiah's cross (Gal. 1.3b-4a). I note with interest that this antithesis represents an 'eschatological confession' which takes the place of Paul's traditional prayer. Paul often alludes to the central concerns of his letters in his opening prayers, and then returns to them at the end. As we would expect, this antithesis is answered at the end of the book by a similar one (6.14-15). Paul is addressing the apocalyptic antithesis set up by the cross between the new creation-Christ nexus and the old creation-cosmos nexus. This language, strategically placed as it is,36 suggests that Galatians is not primarily about Torah or justification by faith. It is about the antithesis between Christ and cosmos, eschatological life and death. It is not about adding Torah to Gospel; it is about adding cosmos to Christ. If this is correct, then Paul objects to Torah because it is (a) a part of cosmos and therefore (b) not a part of life 'in Christ'. The cross has rendered Torah-as a system of belief and identity belonging to cosmos-obsolete.
3. Torah Thwarts the Grace of God
Paul had been a diligent student of Torah, and indeed seems to have gained his past identity in knowing the oracles of God in Torah (Phil. 3.1-11).37 He well understood that Torah was for Jews the most reliable expression of God's will for the righteous. Its prescriptions concerning food, ritual and moral and civic life appear to have been related to Jewish identity in Second Temple Judaism. These markers had become test cases for covenant faithfulness. Judaism had already defined the key identity markers for the righteous: circumcision, Sabbath-observance and food laws.38 But such marks were clearly suggestive of a larger relationship with Torah: Torah was the mark of spirituality, its modus vivendi.39 It was certainly not believed that these were works by which one could earn salvation.40 Observing Torah was merely a way for the faithful to show their love for God, and the badges of Torah-observance helped demarcate 'insiders' from 'outsiders'.4l
Against this background, the core of Paul's thought in Galatians lies with the Christ versus cosmos antithesis.42 In Paul's mind, this polarisation between Christ and cosmos is forged by the cross itself. Life can only be found 'in Christ'; everything else belongs to cosmos, which is death, since it stands condemned by the cross. Thus, Paul has a more fundamental reason for his critique of the addition of Torah to Gospel. It is not Torah per se he is objecting to, but what Torah stands for-that is, cosmos.43
The first place that Paul gives a more than general hint about the troubles in Galatia occurs in 2.11-21, where he recounts his conflict with Peter at Antioch, over kosher food laws. Peter has apparently been accused of being a 'sinner'(2.15), someone who does not keep Torah and is in danger of falling out of covenant with God, and so he retreats from his 'libertarian' stance at the rebuke of 'those from James' (2.12).44 Paul's criticism is that Peter is (implicitly) compelling Gentiles 'to live as a Jew' (2.14)-that is, to take on Jewish identity-badges, marking out the righteous-identity of the people of God.45 Paul agrees with Peter that Jews are not Gentile sinners (2.15), but argues that Peter should agree that to be righteous is only through Christ and not at all through Torah (2.16). Here Paul sets the matter up antithetically, as an either/or, not a both/and. It is either Christ or Torah, but it is not both. Why? Excluding v. 17 for the moment (which is the nub of the problem as Paul sees it), v. 18 explains that to be declared a 'transgressor' is only possible if one rebuilds what was torn down in Christ (Torah). Torah was torn down by the fact of Messiah's appearance and death upon a cross. One is only a 'transgressor' of Torah if one is assumed to 'live to Torah'.
If this is correct, then v. 19 becomes readily comprehensible: Paul is no 'transgressor' to Torah, for he 'through the Torah died to the Torah', in order that he 'might live to God'. It is through the cross he has died to Torah: 'I have been crucified with Christ' (2.20a).46 The train of thought is now clear: it is the crucifixion which has placed a gulf between Paul and Torah. Paul lives only through Messiah's life (2.20b), but to Torah he is dead, for Torah belongs to cosmos and Paul belongs to Christ. That Paul here considers himself as 'in Christ' and thus part of the new creation is confirmed by the phrase 'live to God', which in Second Temple Judaism meant to have attained the life of the world to come (see 4 Macc. 7.19; cf. Rom. 6.10-11). Paul is thus arguing he is part of the new creation already.
Thus the basic antithesis is fixed and firmly in place, as confirmed by v. 21: if covenant identity, membership in the people of God and inheritance of the new creation had been possible through Torah, Christ died needlessly. Therefore, we may safely conclude that Paul's objection has more to do with Christ-new creation versus Cosmos-old creation antithesis than it does with faith versus Torah per se.
Paul's next reference to Torah occurs in 3.1-5, where his basic point is that the arrival of the Holy Spirit in the Galatian congregation is the sign par excellence that they are members of the new covenant community, and thus a part of the new creation in Christ. The logic underlying this argument is that Spirit is that the mark of covenant membership justification; cf. 2.21). In other words, to be a Christian means fundamentally to have God's Spirit dwelling within.47 Here again, the issue is not faith versus Torah, but new creation versus cosmos. Paul establishes this antithesis in v. 1 by arguing that the Galatians received the Spirit by believing in the crucified Jesus, 'before whose eyes Jesus Christ has been publicly placarded as crucified!'48 Again, the cross becomes the wedge between old existence and new, between Christ and cosmos, a fact proved by the antitheses that Paul poses in this section: 'faith' versus 'works of Torah', and 'Spirit' versus 'flesh'.49
The argument that follows v. 5 is extremely complex, and there is no space here to offer a complete exegesis. I offer several observations that appear reasonable from the foregoing discussion:
o The argument which began in 3.1-5 comes full circle by v. 14, where Paul identifies the promise made to Abraham (Gen. 12.1-3) as the gift of the Holy Spirit. In other words, the promise that 'in you shall all the families of the earth be blessed'50 is fulfilled by God's gift of the Spirit, and thus the Spirit is the mark of God's worldwide covenant family.
o Paul's apparent prooftexting in vv. 6-13 is not arbitrary; rather he is expounding Israel's covenant theology from Genesis, Deuteronomy, Leviticus and Habakukk. The key lies again with the crucifixion of Christ (v. 13) as fulfilment of the curse formula of Deut. 27.26. The emphasis lies with Christ having redeemed us from the curse of Torah (v. 13), with the result being new covenant identity-possession of Spirit (v. 14).51
o Thus, the emphasis throughout vv. 6-14 is upon Torah as (a) of no value for marking out the people of God (members of the new covenant/new creation) for they are demarcated by faith, and (b) obsolete because of the cross.
o Torah becomes obsolete for one reason alone: the Christ-event has condemned it, for it belongs to cosmos. Christ's death guarantees the Spirit which is the key to the new life. For Paul, the cross and the Spirit are integrally linked (2.18-21; 3.1-14; 6.14-15).52
A similar point is made in 3.15-29, where Paul sets up a contrast between the time before 'faith' and the time after 'faith'(vv. 23-26):
Before faith came we were guarded under Torah, being shut off from the coming faith about to be revealed; so then, the Torah, our Tutor, has brought us into Messiah, in order that we might become righteous by faith. Now, when faith came we were no longer under a Tutor,53 for you are all sons of God through faith, [and thus] in Messiah Jesus.
This argument revolves around how one maintains life as a covenant participant. It presupposes that Torah had a role for a time, but now that faith has come Torah is obsolete, for it is no longer the mark of covenant membership. The final words of v. 26, 'in Messiah Jesus', do not refer to the object of faith-that is, it should not be understood as faith 'in Christ Jesus'54-but rather refers to the means of inclusion in the new creation: 'you are sons of God through faith and henceforth you are part of (en) Christ Jesus'.55 That this is the correct reading may be confirmed by comparing vv. 27-29. Here Paul makes the precise point that new covenant participants are all baptised into Messiah (by the Spirit) and thus are clothed with Messiah. In other words, they are part of the new creation in him (v. 27). So also vv. 28-29:
[In Messiah] there is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; there is neither male nor female; [why?] for you are all one in Messiah Jesus. Now, if you are (part) of Messiah, then you are Abraham's descendants, heirs [of the new creation] in line with the promise [of Gen. 12.1-3].
It is unmistakable that the point of the argument is not to criticise Torah, but to target what characterises New Covenant members-those who are in the new creation. Paul's answer is formulated as follows: (a) the new creation is formed in Messiah; (b) faith is all that is needed to receive the Spirit56 and be baptised into Messiah; and (3) there is no outward sign- like circumcision-that anyone is in Messiah, for in the new creation there is no distinction between members (v. 28).
The slave/free antithesis of ch. 4 is also governed by the Christ/cosmos antithesis. In my reading of 4.3, the 'elemental principles of cosmos' must include Torah (which explains the 'we' of Paul as Jew), but it must also refers to those things (such as idolatry) which enslaved pagans.
So then, on the one hand when you did not know God you were enslaved to those (beings) who are by nature non-gods. But now on the other hand, knowing God, rather being known by God, how can it be that you are turning again to weak and impoverished elemental principles (of cosmos), to whom you wish to be enslaved all over again. You are [Torah-]observers57 with regard to days and months and times and seasons.' (4.8-10)
Paul thus likens observance of Torah to the Galatians' erstwhile enslavement to non-gods in their pagan past-the truly shocking element in the argument.58
What then are these 'elemental principles' (stoiceia) of cosmos? Whatever the stoiceia are, they are (a) part and parcel of cosmos,59 (b) things which enslave people (4.3, 8)60 and (c) emblems by which some gain an old-aeon identity, as Paul perceived it.61 Further, (d) the stoiceia have been abolished by the Christ-event (4.4-5) 62 The evidence of adoption into the family of God (and hence out from the tutelage of the stoiceia) is the Holy Spirit (4.6), bringing the argument begun in 3.15 full circle.
In ch. 5, particularly in vv. 1-5, Paul warns that if the Galatians accept circumcision-which is the sign of covenant membership/fidelity63 under cosmos-then 'Christ profits you in no way' (5.2). It is Christ or cosmos, but not both. Indeed, he argues, once one is circumcised, one becomes a debtor to do the whole Torah (5.3). Why? Because that one has taken his/her stand with cosmos, claiming his/her identity there and seeking to take on the life of the new creation through an old creation spirituality (the force, I think, of oitinei en nomj dikaiousqea~: 'you who are trying64 to become righteous65 via Torah' [v. 4]).
By way of summary, the above reading is an attempt to validate my initial question concerning Paul's objection to Torah. As I have argued, for Paul, the problem in Galatia is not really Torah for Torah's sake, or Torah as a means of salvation per se, but alternative approaches to 'righteous-identity'. There is virtually nothing in what Paul says which would lead one to the conclusion that the debate concerns either 'getting in' or whether the Gentiles are really God's people. It seems to me that the Galatian crisis assumes that the Galatians are both 'in' and God's people. Paul's main concern in Galatia is not soteriology but ethics, which is what one would expect, given the argument in the first section of this paper. In reality, were it not for pervasive desire of scholars to read the - dikai word group in exclusively 'entry' terms, this fact would have been unanimously affirmed. Close observation of Paul's statements about Torah has demonstrated that Paul sees a greater theological issue at stake: his christology and eschatology have been challenged by Torah's inroad. Hence, Paul is not attacking Torah just because it is 'Torah' or 'works'; his concerns are eschatological and christological in nature. Any old-aeon approach to covenant-life undoes the work of the cross. Paul's aggravation with Torah is, then, its claim to be a means of living out covenant life.66 As we shall observe shortly, Paul reserves that role for the Holy Spirit.
The above insights gain strength from the recognition that ultimately, any reading of Galatians which does not take seriously the edge of ethical concern in the letter does not do justice to the fact that Paul's 'argument' runs well into ch. 6, where issues of ethics and Spirit/Spirituality come to the fore. Chs. 5-6 of Galatians stand as a sentinel against any reading which addresses itself exclusively to issues of either national identity, soteriology or 'getting in'.67
4. The Rhetoric of the Spirit
In the previous sections of this paper I have suggested that eschatology is a code for a debate about spirituality. I have tested this theory by observing what Paul says about Torah and have noted that his rhetoric is not motivated by an anti-Torah bias, but rather by a defence against Torah's reductionism both christologically and eschatologically. In the following section, I will forward a positive description of Paul's rhetoric concerning 'Spirit' in Galatians.
For Paul, Spirit is so integrally linked to the cross that any attack upon a spirituality rooted in pneuma is a form of reductionism with reference to the cross. This is precisely the point he makes in Gal 3.2, where proegrafh estaurwmenox; can surely refer to nothing other than Paul's initial proclamation of the Gospel and the arrival of Spirit in Galatia. Paul was 'living proof'-in his own words, 'a public placard'-of the crucifixion. Thus Paul is here linking the arrival of Spirit with his own living example of crucifixion, as one who lives his life through Christ and the Spirit, not Torah.
In 3.1-5, Paul's objection to the Galatian approach is precisely that they have 'begun' the Christian life 'by Spirit', but are now trying to reach their goal 'by flesh'.68 The Spirit thus becomes the major rhetorical tool ('proof') that the new age has been inaugurated.69 This leads us to a crucial insight about Paul's rhetoric: the 'Spirit' language in Galatians is addressed toward ethical not soteriological issues. It is this observation which must be tested by reviewing briefly Paul's references to the Spirit within the argument.
While 3.1-5 provides the first use of the term pneuma in the letter, 2.16-21 contains a subtle (though suggestive) reference. Based on the parallel with Rom. 8.9-10, it is probable that when Paul states 'Christ lives in me' (2.19) he has the Spirit in mind. Christ lives in Paul 'by the Spirit'.70 This insight is significant. In his following statements, Paul goes on to say that his current life ('the life I now live in flesh ...') is the issue he wants to address. In other words, he is not addressing 'getting in' but 'existence in'. From his point of view, the issue of 'getting in' has already been settled, and Jewish Christianity is in fundamental agreement about the 'by faith' approach (see Gal. 2.16). Given the paradigmatic nature of this passage,71 this is an extremely important clue to the nature of the Galatian problem. Already in 2.15-21, Paul is indicating that the argument concerns how one continues in covenant existence after entrance. This fact should not surprise us, since this is precisely Paul's objection to Peter's actions at Antioch (2.11-14).
This same point emerges in 3.1-5. It is not so much about 'getting in' or how one receives the Spirit, but how one 'completes' the Christian life: nun sarki epiteleisqe?72
3.13-14 speaks of the death of Christ as 'curse' (v. 13) in a context where Paul is discussing how it is that the Gentiles receive the Spirit. Here, he is laying the ground-work for the following arguments (4.156.10), but there is nothing in the context which suggests that issue has anything to do with 'getting in'. Indeed, in light of Paul's comments in 2.15-21, the linking of the Spirit as eschatological gift with the cross as eschatological event (see especially 3.25: 'when faith came...') is the striking, though hardly surprising, feature.
In 4.6-11, Paul makes his famous statement that because the Galatians are sons of God (v. 6), God has granted them the Spirit who cries Abba, but his remarks must be weighed carefully. The voice of the indwelling Spirit testifies to 'sonship' not slavery (v. 7), and yet both Torah and pagan idolatry constitute slavery (vv. 8-11). Paul is not trying to prove to the Galatians that they are really 'in' or that they do not need anything to sustain that claim. In other words, he is trying to say something about the incompatibility of Christian life with Torah-ethics: Torah is about slavery but Christian spirituality is freedom of the Spirit (which is precisely the point in 4.21-31).73 We are dealing with what Dunn calls second phase issues.74 The assumption of Paul's argument is that the Galatians are already 'sons'. His next line of thought is that the death of Christ is what brings one into sonship (vv. 4-5) and that the Spirit testifies to this new sonship (v. 6). Since the Galatians are 'sons', they are 'free' (v. 7), but Torah is for slaves (vv. 8-31). Clearly Paul's comments relate to what governs the Christian life.
The summary exhortation in ch. 5 which follows upon this train of thought is a classic of the Pauline indicative/imperative ethic.75 Paul assumes the Galatians will agree that they are already 'in': 'Stand firm in the liberty with which Christ has liberated you...' (5.1); in other words, act in accordance with who you already are. Paul could not be any clearer that the issue relates to how one lives as a Christian, not how one becomes so, even remains so, or sustains a claim to be so. The epoch-turning crucifixion of Messiah is the crucial element: it leads to a new way of living governed by 'liberty' from the old existence.
In 5.2-5, Paul makes the point that Torah-observance undoes the cross and flies in the face of Spirit-life. In v. 6 he looks at this issue in terms of practical spirituality ('faith working through love'), and says that Torah is valueless in promoting such 'Spirituality', presumably because Torah offers its own brand of small 's' spirituality. That Paul has a practical spirituality in view is confirmed by v. 13, where the 'liberty' argument is turned around to relate to 'flesh' and 'serving one another in love'. Paul's point is clear: since Torah is incompatible with this Christian liberty/sonship, it is incompatible as a form of Christian spirituality because it is eschatologically defunct. Nevertheless, Paul wants the Galatians to know that his brand of spirituality produces 'love', which is the whole summation of Torah's ethics (v. 14), and grants a freedom from 'flesh' (v. 13). There is no need of another system for self-mastery. Torah does not aid true spirituality, for it promotes fleshly behaviour (v. 15; cf. vv. 19-21). On the other hand, 'walking in the Spirit' (vv. 16-17) produces true spirituality (v. 22), which is incompatible with Torah (v. 18).
Paul's eschatology comes to the fore again in this section (5.14-26), for he again links the possession of Spirit and his brand of spirituality, with the crucifixion of Christ (v. 24): 'Those who belong to Messiah Jesus crucified76 the flesh'. This crucifixion has led to a new life in Spirit (v. 25a), and thus to a new form of 'Spirit-uality'-namely, 'walking by Spirit' (v. 25b) not Torah. In my reading, the Galatian problem cannot merely concern 'getting in', but involves competing spiritualities. The crucifixion has put in place a new set of circumstances governing Christian life and ethics.
In the foregoing discussion, no attention has been given to 6.1-10, which Gordon Fee urges is still reasoned argument.77 In other words, ch. 6 is not mere 'application', extraneous to the argument of the letter,78 even if Paul is here bringing 'the chickens home to roost'.79 6.1-10 seems to offer an illustration of the concreteness of Paul's Spirit-based spirituality.80 It should be noted that the key term is pneuma, which appears in its noun form in v. 8 (twice) and v. 1 (once) and adjectivally (pneumatikoi) in v. 1. Fee best summarises the essence of Paul's thought:
The final argument (5.13-6.10) becomes one of the most significant in the corpus for our understanding of Pauline ethics as Spirit-empowered Christ-likeness lived out in Christian community as loving servanthood.81
Numerous scholars take the view that even though the crucifixion of Christ is not mentioned here, it is surely implied: the law of Christ is, ultimately, following the pattern of love set by the faithful Messiah who went to the cross. So, for instance, Gaventa writes,
Although Paul does not directly invoke the name of Christ ... the exhortations [of 5.13-6.10] correspond to Paul's claims [about] the actions of Christ, whose crucifixion resulted directly from his obedience and love.82
To sum up, then, I agree with Fee that the 'Spirit ... plays a leading role in the argument of the letter'.83 In fact, it is Paul's ultimate rhetorical 'proof' about the accuracy of his approach to the Galatian problem, confirmed by the fact that many of Paul's references to the Spirit occur in contexts controlled by crucifixion rhetoric (2.19-21; 3.1-5, 13-14; 4.4-6; 5.24-25).84 Several important conclusions follow on from this:
o If, as I have argued earlier, Paul's concerns in Galatians are ultimately christological and eschatological, then he is using the rhetoric of Spirit to reinforce his point about eschatology. In other words, Paul is talking about the Spirit as the sine qua non of eschatological existence; the Spirit is the eschatological gift, but a gift which cannot be divorced from the cross as eschatological event.
o This explains why Paul stresses the eschatological dimension so strongly in Galatians. Presumably neither the Judaizers nor the Galatians thought they were assaulting the cross, but Paul sees this as the logical result of any alternative and fraudulent spirituality. It seems likely to me that they thought in terms of assisting Spirit through Torah's spirituality/moral demands, but for Paul the cross provides an eternal either/or. Thus, in terms of Paul's rhetoric in Galatians, the key 'spirituality' term is not pneuma but staurox, and Paul's interests lie with the nexus between the two-hence my desire to refer to Paul's rhetoric in terms of spirituality as eschatology. Paul has dressed up competing spiritualities in terms of a debate about eschatology. If one stresses the importance of pneuma for the argument at the expense of staurox, then one does violence to the letter's theology.
o Since Paul uses the nexus between the terms 'Spirit' and 'cross' as his main rhetorical tool in Galatians, and since the rhetoric of pneuma has reference in the letter to ethical interests-morality post-entry 'into' the covenant-it follows that Paul's concerns in Galatians do not have to do with soteriology and 'getting in', but with sanctification. The 'cross' begins the new creation, and existence in that age is governed by 'Spirit'.
Therefore, any move away from a Christian life rooted in pneuma is a desertion from the cross. Since pneuma is the mark of the new life, and pneuma is dependent upon the cross, the cross is the key to the new life. In terms of Pauline rhetoric, the constellation of terms he uses to answer the Galatian problem (e.g. 'in Messiah', 'justification/justified', 'Spirit' and 'freedom') all have reference to the new (ethical) life after the cross. In short, the debate in Galatians is over what constitutes the basis of Christian spirituality, not how one enters the covenant.
5. A Concluding Postscript on Pentecostalism
Several valuable lessons may be learned from Galatians if we have ears to hear. Beverley Roberts-Gaventa composed a piece of rhetoric from the Galatians to Paul. In this fictitious communication the Galatians ask:
Why make such a point of saying that Christians must not follow the law? Perhaps the Gentiles will benefit from keeping some portions of the law. It surely cannot adversely affect their Christian lives, and it might help to restrain their enthusiastic or libertine tendencies...You are perhaps right to contend that Gentiles are not obliged to follow the law, but why do you insist that they must not do so?
We may first ask, why indeed does Paul-formerly a devout Jew, who swallowed Torah whole-now reject it as a means for Godly living? Paul's answer, as we have noted, is because the very notion of a Torah-based spirituality attacks the true spirituality of life lived through the eschatological Spirit. Or worse: since the Spirit comes as a result of the cross, any diluting of a pure, Spirit-driven ethic vandalises the Messiah's work on the cross. Christian spirituality begins and ends with the will of the loving God, actualised through the suffering of the obedient Son, and applied in real time by the Spirit.
In this light, it would be remiss of Pentecostals, pastors and churches to fail to pause and ask what have we added to Christian spirituality? In adding anything-any rule, any self-help philosophy, any moral guide, any form of therapeutic human actualisation-we have trodden onto sacred ground. In stepping on the Spirit's toes, we are deconstructing the cross and engaging in a form of neo-Galatianism.
It is high time for our churches to repent and acknowledge that Spirit-baptism is the result of the death of our blessed saviour upon the cross. I pray that we never get the cart before the horse, for if we forsake the cross at the heart
Notes
1. I accept E.P. Sanders's extensive critique of this reading of Paul. See his Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns in Religion (London: SCM Press, 1977). For examples of this type of (Lutheran) reading, see F.F. Bruce, Commentary on Galatians (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), p. 21, and his student, R.Y.K. Fung, The Epistle to Galatians (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), p. 8; cf. S.K. Williams, 'Justification and the Spirit in Galatians', JSNT 29 (1987), pp. 91-100.
2. See, for example, H.D. Betz, 'Spirit, Freedom, and Law: Paul's Message to the Galatian Churches', SEA 39 (1974), pp. 145-60; idem, 'In Defense of the Spirit: Paul's Letter to the Galatians as a Document of Early Christian Apologetics', in E. Schussler-Fiorenza (ed.), Aspects of Religious Propaganda in Judaism and Early Christianity (University of Notre Dame Center for the Study of Judaism and Christianity in Antiquity, 2; Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1976), pp. 99-114; idem, Galatians: A Commentary on Paul's Letter to the Churches in Galatia (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979), pp. 3-8. Cf. also S.K. Stowers, A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews and Gentiles (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), who acknowledges that many texts in Galatians can only be explained on the grounds of Torah's offer of self-mastery of epiqumia (esp. p. 71).
3. See especially C.H. Cosgrove, The Cross and the Spirit: A Study in the Argument and Theology of Galatians (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1988), p. viii. While I concur with Cosgrove that the issue is not soteriological, it seems to me he has placed too much emphasis upon the charismatic dimension of the argument at the expense of the ethical. His reading also runs aground upon his all too creative circumventing of chapters 1-2 as a key to Paul's overall paraenetic objective. Cf. J.L. Martyn, 'A Law-Observant Mission to the Gentiles: The Background of Galatians', SIT 38 (1985), pp. 307-24.
4. I am indebted for this language to J.L Martyn, 'Events in Galatia: Modified Covenantal Nomism versus God's Invasion of the Cosmos in the Singular Gospel. A Response to J.D.G. Dunn and B.R. Gaventa', in J.M. Bassler (ed.), Pauline Theology. I. Thessalonians, Philippians, Galatians, Philemon (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994), pp. 160-79; idem, 'Apocalyptic Antinomies in Paul's Letter to the Galatians', NTS 31 (1985), pp. 410-24.
5. I shall demonstrate that the letter is controlled by a complex inclusio framing the concerns of the letter. B.R. Gaventa, 'The Singularity of the Gospel: A Reading of Galatians', in Gaventa (ed.), Pauline Theology, pp. 147-59, gives some attention to the two texts I am citing (1.4 and 6.14-15), but does not bother to discuss how they function to bracket the concerns of the letter. She does, however, make the correct observation, 'The theology reflected in Galatians is first of all about Jesus Christ and the new creation God has begun in him (1.1-4; 6.14-15), and only in light of that Christocentrism can Paul's remarks concerning the law be understood' (p.149).
6. I use the term 'Second Temple Judaism' to denote, not a homogenous expression of belief and praxis in the first century CE, but rather a diverse plurality of expressions of belief and praxis based upon an underlying symbolic Weltanschauung. See N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God, 1; London: SPCK, 1992), pp. 167-243. Admittedly, in this paper I focus only on certain expressions of Second Temple Judaism.
7. So most recently N.T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said (London: Lion, 1997), pp. 120-21. Contra Wright, see the arguments of J.D.G. Dunn, The Epistle to the Galatians (BNTC; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), pp. 265-66; R.N. Longnecker, Galatians (WBC, 41; Dallas: Word, 1990), p. xcv; Bruce, Galatians, pp. 19-20; D. Luhrmann, Galatians (trans. O.C. Dean; Continental; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), p. 3, who all suggest that the elements included circumcision and the cultic calendar.
8. J.D.G. Dunn, 'Echoes of Intra-Jewish Polemic in Paul's Letter to the Galatians', JBL 112 (1993), pp. 459-77 (466) denies that this is his view, and affirms that Paul could have numerous elements of Torah in mind when he uses the phrase. He writes: 'It is simply that the larger commitment and sense of obligation to live within the terms laid down by the law, to perform 'works of the law came to focus in particular test cases like circumcision and food laws...' In Galatia, 'works of law' were infant steps into a much larger system.
9. J.D.G. Dunn, 'The Theology of Galatians: The Issue of Covenantal Nomism', in Gaventa (ed.), Pauline Theology, pp. 125-146 (130).1 suspect the real issue was sustaining a claim to be 'righteous'/moral-this is the language Paul uses.
10. Dunn, Galatians 265ff. is particularly compelling on this point. 'To do the whole Torah' is to take up the whole Jewish way of living or, to put it into my language, the Jewish method of spirituality.
11. Stowers, Rereading, pp. 42-82 is masterful on this point: 'Furthermore I must illustrate the concrete and existentially palpable significance of this ethic of selfmastery for people in Paul's milieu and situate Jewish moralizing directed toward non-Jews within this context' (p. 42).Cf. Philo, Spec. Leg. 4.55: 'The Law requires that all who live according to the sacred constitution of Moses must be free from every unreasoning passion and every vice to a higher degree than those who are governed by other laws'.
12. Notice should be taken of another crucial text in Gal. 4.8-11. E. Schweizer, 'Slaves of the Elements and Worshippers of Angels: Gal. 4.3, 9 and Col. 2.8 ,18, 20', JBL 107 (1988), pp. 455-68 has posited a connection between the Galatians preChristian asceticism (to purify their souls?) and the attraction which Torah provided. This reading seems not far removed from that of Stowers (see my discussion below).
13. See particularly his discussion of the social function of the law in 'Works of the Law and the Curse of the Law', NTS 31 (1986), pp. (524-25) and his seminal essay 'The New Perspective on Paul', repr. in Jesus, Paul and the Law: Studies in Mark and Galatians (London: SPCK, 1990),183ff. Dunn is particularly impressed by the fact that the phrase 'works of law' finds its only obvious parallel at Qumran (especially 4QMMT) and seems to address intramural Jewish debates and factionalism. This gives him his clue as to the problem in Galatia: see his 'Echoes', pp. 459-477, and n. 8 above.
14. G.F. Moore's classic treatment of Second Temple Judaism, Judaism in the First Centunes of the Christian Era (3 Vols.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1927), though dated, provides a valuable treatment of Jewish approaches to Torah. See particularly II, pp. 79ff., where Moore argues that the splitting of the moral and legal elements in Torah has no basis in Judaism itself since Torah 'claims for its sphere the whole life, and not only of the outward life but of the inward life which we call piety'. This same point is made by D.J. Lull, The Spirit in Galatia (SBLDS, 49; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1980), p. 29, who notes that even the ritual elements of 'works of law' would have had reference to ethics.
15. Stowers, Rereading, p. 47.
16. Stowers, Rereading, p. 48.
17. Stowers, Rereading, p. 50.
18. Stowers, Rereading, p. 57. Italics mine. On respect for Jewish self-control and self-mastery in the Hellenistic world, see L.H. Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), pp. 223-232.
19. See Philo, Virt. 100.
20. Stowers, Rereading, p. 61. Cf. also p. 64, where Stowers also notes that ancient writers depicted the Jews as a nation of philosophers.
21. Stowers, Rereading, p. 61.
22. Dunn, 'Theology', pp. 126-27; Cf. idem, 'Echoes', p. 463, where Dunn acknowledges that 'purity issues all came to focus in the meal table'. Clearly table-fellowship was not just about the rigid exclusivism of Israel's national identity- moral issues were to the fore.
23. Philo identified wisdom with Torah (Leg. All. 3.15.46) and argued that the Jews gain through Torah what the Greeks gained through the study of philosophy (Virt. 10.65).
24. The translation is that of Florentino Garcia Martinez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated: The Qumran Texts in English (trans. W.G.E. Watson; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994), p. 37. In this text we see a mixture of the so-called badges of Torah (eg. Sabbath, table-fellowship, etc.) and the moral concerns of Torah.
25. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, pp. 121-22 agrees that the issue is not how one becomes a Christian, but wholeheartedly disagrees with my assessment of the problem: 'In particular, the polemic against Torah in Galatians simply will not work if we "translate" it into polemic either against straightforward self-help moralism or...legalism.' Contra Wright, Stowers insists just the opposite-namely, that the Galatian problem does concern self-help moralism: 'The strongest argument for making the ethic of self-mastery central in reading...Galatians comes from the explanation it provides of the ethical material in the letters' (Rereading, p. 70).
Wright, it seems to me, has taken too narrow a view of the role of Torah in the Galatian problem. By identifying 'works of Torah' exclusively as a national charter, one ultimately dispenses with its clear ethical import. In any event, the issue in Galatia cannot be reduced to merely the issue at Antioch-namely, table fellowship. In my view, such a reduction misses the subtle social differences between Antioch (God-fearers as converts) and Galatia (pagan idolaters as converts) and the importance of Gal. 5-6 in dealing with the Galatian problem. Further, the issue at Antioch concerns purity in table-fellowship; consequently, the break in fellowship would have been made both upon both ritual and moral grounds (hence the moral language in ch. 2: 'sinners' [2.15, 171, 'sin' [2.171, 'transgressor' [2.18]). Though these are covenant labels, there is also moral and practical condemnation inherent within them. It seems to me that we miss this point at our peril. The terms are used in intra-Jewish polemic, but they also have reference, as Dunn correctly argues, to 'those who disregarded the law and whose conduct was condemned by it' ('Echoes', p. 462. Italics mine). This insight stands in the context of intra-Jewish debate as well.
I, for one, question whether the paradigmatic value of Gal 2.11-21 and its application to Galatia lay with table-fellowship, or, rather, it lies with Paul who stands firm against Torah and does not deviate from living through Christ not Torah (the clear point of 2.15-21).
26. Martyn, 'Events', p. 177. On the 'evil impulse', see W.D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism: Some Rabbinic Elements in Pauline Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 4th edn, 1980), pp.17-35; cf. Stowers, Rereading, 42-82.
27. Gaventa, 'Singularity', pp.147ff.
28. Gaventa, 'Singularity', pp.150-51.
29. Dunn, 'Theology', p 130. The phrase ultimately owes its current usage to E.P. Sanders, Paul, The Law, and the Jewish People (Philadelphia: Fortress Press,1983).
30. G.D. Fee, God's Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), p. 369. Fee is clearly enamoured, however, with the view that the issue in Galatia is one of full membership in the people of God. See his 'Freedom and the Life of Obedience: Gal 5.1-6.18', RevExp 91 (1994), p. 201.
31. Cosgrove, Cross, p. viii. I would take exception with Cosgrove's exegesis, particularly in placing so much weight upon a text (3.5) which cannot bear the whole. His insight, at least, points us away from the soteriological reading.
32. J.G.M. Barclay, Obeying the Truth: Paul's Ethics in Galatians (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1988), p. 71. It seems to me that Barclay's view sits well with Stower's reading of the problem.
33. Barclay, Obeying the Truth, p. 72.
34. Dunn, 'Theology', p. 128.
35. Dunn, 'Theology', p. 130. Longnecker, Galatians, p. xcviii also suggests the practical value of Torah to combat libertinism.
36. Clinton Arnold ('Returning to the Domain of the Powers: STOICHEIA as Evil Spirits in Galatians 4.3, 9', NovT 38 [1996], pp. 55-76) observes: '...the dangers and inadequacies of the old aeon are highlighted throughout Galatians'.
37. I concur with B.J. Malina and J.H. Neyrey, Portraits of Paul: An Archaeology of Ancient Personality (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1996), pp. 51ff, that Phil. 3.3ff represents a rhetorical self-encomium, in which Paul addresses the key claims of his self-identity as a man in Judaism with 'a noble birth into an honourable tribe, from a rigorous education, and from a virtuous life...'
38. Dunn, Galatians, pp.136-37.
39. Cf. J.B. Tyson, "'Works of Law" in Galatians', JBL 92 (1973), pp. 423-31 (430): 'Thus, when Paul thinks of works of law, he thinks of existence as a Jew'.
40. Sanders' works on Paul and Judaism have demonstrated this point aptly: see his Paul and Palestinian Judaism, pp. 17ff. Despite Sanders' best efforts, there are still those who argue that Judaism misunderstood its own religion to the point that Sanders' covenantal nomism represents the ideal of Judaism, but works-righteousness its praxis. See D.A. Hagner, 'Paul's Quarrel with Judaism', in C.A. Evans and D.A. Hagner (eds.), Anti-Semitism and Early Christianity: Issues of Polemic and Faith (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), pp. 138-39. Hagner would not need to resort to this reading if he took seriously that Paul's debate with Judaism concerned the correct approach to ethics/morality, Spirit versus Torah.
41. Dunn, 'Theology', p.130.
42. This language is drawn from Martyn, 'Events', pp. 160-179; idem, 'Apocalyptic Antinomies', pp. 410-24.
43. See Martyn, 'Events', p. 177: 'Galatians ... is not about Law observance and not even about the Law. As we have repeatedly noted, it is about the Gospel of Christ's cross that-without setting conditions of any sort-has brought about the death (paradigmatically) of Paul's cosmos and thus (paradigmatically) of Paul himself, in order to commence the new creation.'
44. On Paul's relations with Jerusalem, see J.D.G. Dunn, 'The Relationship between Paul and Jerusalem according to Galatians 1 and 2', in, Jesus, Paul and the Law, pp. 108ff. On the Antioch episode in general, see E.P. Sanders, Jewish Association with Gentiles and Galatians 2.11-14' in R.T. Fortna and B.R. Gaventa (eds.), The Conversation Continues: Studies in Paul and John in Honour of J Louis Martyn (Nashville: Abingdon, 1990), pp.170-88.
45. See my 'Once More PISTIS CRISTOU: Gal 2.16 as Objective Genitive', in this issue of Australian Pentecostal Studies (print version only).
46. So also Tyson, 'Works of Law', p.427.
47. I concur with Fee, Empowering Presence, p. 383, that the contrast in 3.1-5 is not between 'faith' and 'works of Law', but I disagree that it concerns 'life under Law (=slavery) and life in the Spirit (=adoption as children)'. Rather, the contrast in 3.1-5 relates to life before and life after confrontation with the cross: that is, one must end as one started, by 'faith' in the work of the cross.
48. Fee, Empowering Presence, p. 382, is heading in the right direction with his comment: 'Here he describes his ministry among them as the public exhibition of the reality of the crucifixion...', but he fails to note how so. In my view it is either the link between Paul as crucified minister and supplier of the Spirit/miracle-worker or-as seems equally possible and perhaps more likely-the 'placarding' refers to Paul's own cruciform life in terms of public proclamation: a Jew who does not preach nor practice Torah! In any event, it is the Galatians' movement toward flesh/Torah which undoes the cross (cf. 2.21).
49. On the eschatological dualism inherent within this polarisation, see W.B. Russell 111, 'Does the Christian Have 'Flesh' in Gal 5.13-26?', JETS 36 (1993), pp. 17987 (esp.180-81).
50. Contra S.K. Williams, 'Promise in Galatians: A Reading of Paul's Reading of Scripture', JBL 107 (1988), pp. 709-720, who argues that the Spirit itself is not the fulfilment of the 'promise' to Abraham.
51. I am indebted for this reading of Gal 3.6-14 to N.T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), pp.137ff. For another important reading, see T.L. Donaldson, 'The 'Curse of the Law' and the Inclusion of the Gentiles: Gal 3.13-14, NTS 32 (1986), pp. 94-112. On the relationship between the two hina clauses in v.14, see Williams, 'Justification', p. 92, who argues that the 'blessing of Abraham' is justification not the Spirit. In my view, these are two sides of the same coin, but see his clarifying comments on p. 95.
52. Cosgrove, Cross, pp. 169ff., has observed the same feature, though I dispute his view that 'the ongoing supply of the Spirit' is enhanced by one's participation in the cruciform existence. Whether this insight is valid is debateable, but certainly Paul's concern lies far more strongly with the cross as an eschatological reality.
53. On the Paidagogos motif, see N.H. Young, 'PAIDAGOGOS: The Social Setting of a Pauline Metaphor', NovT 29 (1987), pp. 150-76; D.J. Lull, "'The Law was our Pedagogue": A Study in Galatians 3.19-25', JBL 105 (1986), pp.481-98.
54. So the NIV.
55. Cf. NRSV.
56. On 'faith' and the 'Spirit' as the two objective marks of covenant membership in Paul, see Tyson, 'Works of Law', p.431.
57. Without doubt, Torah's sacred festivals are in view. See Arnold, 'Returning', p.73.
58. Contra Arnold, 'Returning', p. 68, who prefers to see a 'conceptual relationship' between the otoiceia and the Torah rather than a strict parallelism. Arnold is forced to this view by his desire to argue that the otoiceia are demons without juxtaposing Torah with the demonic.
59. For a discussion of otoiceia rooted in the ancient sources, see Schweizer, 'Slaves', pp. 455ff. For a review of possible interpretations of the phrase, see D.R. Bundrick, 'Ta Stoicheia Tou Kosmou (Gal 4.3)', IETS 34 (1991), pp. 353-64; Arnold, 'Returning', pp. 55ff.
60. On the relationship between astronomy, idolatry and calendrical observation, see T.C.G. Thornton, 'Jewish New Moon Festivals, Galatians 4.3-11 and Colossians 2.16', JTS 40 (1989), pp. 97-100; cf. T. Martin, 'Pagan and Judeo-Christian Time-Keeping Schemes in Gal 4.10 and Col 2.16 NTS 42 (1996), pp.105-19.
61. On the issue of identity gained through Torah, see Tyson, 'Works of Law', pp. 423ff. If Paul's argument deals with identity at all, in my view, which it clearly must, it is not to prove that the Galatians belong to the people of God. This is assumed (and illustrated) throughout the argument. It is, rather, to lead to the basic thesis of the Hagar/Sarah midrash: we are sons of 'freedom/Spirit'; they are sons of slavery/Torah-and all of this to demonstrate the key to his argument about ethical life: Spirit not Torah! See J.H. Neyrey, 'Bewitched in Galatia: Paul and Cultural Anthropology', JBL 50 (1988), pp. 81-82.
62. J.L. Martyn, 'Christ, the Elements of Cosmos, and the Law in Galatians', in L.M. White and L. Yarbrough (eds.), The Social World of the First Christians: Essays in Honour of Wayne A. Meeks (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), pp. 16-39, observes many of the same features. Martyn goes further, however, by arguing that the otoiceia and the Torah are 'more than functionally parallel entities' (p. 17). But this passage need not be read as saying that Torah is one form of veneration of the Cosmic elements; on the contrary, both Torah and the otoiceia are merely expressions of cosmos: see the genitive qualifier in v. 3 and the comments of Arnold, 'Returning', p. 65.
63. Cf. Dunn, 'Theology', p. 131: 'circumcision was not typically thought of within Judaism as a rite of entry into the covenant but as one of the commandments ... which expressed one's status as a Jew'.
64. I am of the view that the linear tense here represents conative force: 'you presently trying to become 'righteous' in Torah'. There seems very little doubt that just as 'in Christ' represents a sphere of covenant membership, so here en nomw has the same force. Clearly Paul is arguing that en nomw represents the old-aeon approach. Dunn, Galatians, p. 267, indicates that it can mean an 'attempted but incomplete action'.
65. My translation of dikaiousqe will not be received by all interpreters, but it seems to me that this term has both 'transfer into covenant' and 'moral life within covenant' in view. Those who enter covenant are the 'righteous' but they also do God's will and are 'righteous'. Dunn, 'Theology', p. 130 appears to have arrived at this same conclusion.
66. J.G.M. Barclay, 'Mirror Reading a Polemical Letter: Galatians as a Test Case' SNT 31 (1987), pp. 73-93, considers it highly likely that Paul's opponents agreed that the Spirit had been given to all who believed in Messiah.
67. Gaventa, 'Singularity', pp. 14849, offers compelling logic on precisely this point. See also the substantive critique of Dunn by Martyn, 'Events', p. 164, who makes the point that Galatians must be 'heard' as a six chapter(!) aural event.
68. Dunn, 'Theology', p. 129, discusses this text as a reference to 'second phase' life: life after one enters covenant. His view, it seems to me, fits better with my thesis that what is being argued in Galatia is conflicting approaches to ethical life, than with his own: sustaining a claim to being part of God's people.
69. See of Lull, Spirit, pp. 25,169ff., 193ff.
70. So Fee, Empowering Presence, p. 374.
71. Contra Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, p. 121, the paradigm in 2.11-21 is not table-fellowship as a sign of 'who is a member of the people of God', but Paul as a paradigm of one whose life, after the cross, remains unaffected by Torah.
72 I am sceptical that epiteleisqe refers to perfectionism. For this view, see R. Jewett, 'The Agitators and the Galatian Congregation', NT5 17 (1971), pp. 198-212. Though there can be little doubt that the Judaizers were making some sort of ethical claim based upon the rite of circumcision and 'works of law', perfectionism cannot be proved. Probably they simply saw it as a rite which assisted the restraint of epithumia/flesh in line with the view of Stowers, Rereading, p. 70. On epiteleisqe, see the judicious comments of Barclay, Obeying the Truth, pp.49-50, who cautions against building too much upon this verb.
73. See J.L. Martyn, 'The Covenants of Hagar and Sarah', in John T. Carroll et al. (eds.), Faith and History: Essays in Honour of Paul W. Meyer (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1990), pp. 160-92.
74. Dunn, 'Theology', p. 129.
75. See M. Parsons, 'Being Precedes Act: Indicative and Imperative in Paul's Writing', in B.S. Rosner (ed.), Understanding Paul's Ethics: Twentieth Century Approaches (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995) 217ff.
76. The verb is aorist.
77. Fee, Empowering Presence, p. 371.
78. See Russell, 'Does the Christian Have Flesh', pp. 182ff.; G.A. Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), p.146, who both make this point.
79. Russell, 'Does the Christian Have Flesh', p.184: 'He now rips back the curtain to reveal how the community of the sarx will really function in the absence of the empowering work of the Spirit.
80. J. Lambrecht, 'Paul's Coherent Admonition in Gal 6.1-6: Mutual Help and Individual Attentiveness', Biblica 78 (1997), pp. 33-56 (52), has grasped Paul's mind here: the exhortations of 6.1-6 offer a positive presentation of the command in 5.25 to 'keep in step with the Spirit' and are a 'concretization of the general command'. Lambrecht's work offers a good critique of Betz, Galatians, pp. 295-306 and others who view this material as extraneous to the argument. Though Paul tends to avoid concretization with regard to Spirit ethics, he is aware of 'case law' which is concrete: see S. Westerholm, "'Letter" and "Spirit": The Foundation of Pauline Ethics', NTS 30 (1984), p. 245.
81. Dunn, 'Theology', p. 131 calls this section Paul's 'covenantal nomism'. In other words, though Torah is defunct there is still a need for 'guidance on life-style and praxis'.
82. Gaventa, 'Singularity', p. 155. Though these comments have reference to the christocentrism of the letter and not the crucifixion theme, Gaventa elsewhere says, 'it is the crucifixion that dominates Paul's christology in Galatians' (p.156).
83. Fee, Empowering Presence, p. 369.
84. We might perhaps add 3.29, where the reference to persecution could be an allusion to the crucifixion of Messiah.