Summary Of St. Paul's Letter To The Galatians

The letter to the Galatians was written by St. Paul to defend the Gospel that he delivered to them in a previous encounter(s), and refute the gospel that the Galatians had received from Jewish Christians. The main issue the Galatians takes on is the relationship between the Law and salvation. Furthermore, Paul takes the opportunity to address those that doubted his apostleship and the authenticity of his message. He spends the first two chapters of the letter defending his apostleship and the message of his gospel. In the third and fourth chapters he defends and elaborates on his message and clearly draws the line for the Galatians between the Law and salvation so that they may not cross it again. Last but not least, he defends his position and why he refuted the gospel of Jewish Christians, and he explains how salvation is attainable for those that …show more content…
His main argument hear is that the Law enslaves a Christian. It enslaves the believer, turns him/her into a someone that always owes something to God, thus alienating them from Christ once they fall away from grace, and finally, it hinders the advancement of one in the Christian virtues (5:1-12). This all together leads up to Paul’s point that why would Christ die on the cross for our sins if he wanted us to be enslaved to the Law. Nonetheless, Christ also did not die on the cross so that we may do whatever we want (5:13-26), but he died on the cross to liberate us from sin, and grant us life eternal and make it possible to live for God in order to be with God again. Next, Paul displays how we should live for God by the Spirit, and how certain qualities of this life cannot be restricted by the Law (5:22-26). He ends his epistle by showing how the true liberty is found in love and service of the other (6:1-10). He then unmasks the motives of the Christian Jews that tried to derail the Galatians and compares these motives to his own