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Session 3: Galatians Reflection Paper
According to Gundry, the big deal about Galatians is that the Judaizers were teaching a perverted, legalistic gospel and Paul wrote this epistle to counteract the falsity of this gospel and teach the truth of the real gospel. The Judaizers believed that the Gentiles should keep the customs of circumcision and every other tradition from the Mosaic law, in addition to their faith. According to Gundry (2012), “Paul argues that if we are justified by faith at the start, we should continue by faith rather than by the law” (p. 310) and he breaks his stance down into three parts:
“law versus grace and promise”, “works versus faith”, and “flesh versus the Spirit” (p. 310). God’s grace was demonstrated by the law. The law established by Moses was a foreshadowing of the promise of Jesus: “But when the fulness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law” (
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, 2001, Galatians 4:4). Galatians 2:16 also says,
Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified (
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, 2001).
Jesus lived a perfect, blameless life. He was the ultimate sacrifice who became sin for us all, died on the cross, and nailed our sins there too. Because of this we are no longer bound by the law of the Old
Testament. Its purpose was to point us to Christ, who is the ultimate grace, and who we now have freedom in. Gundry (2012) adds, “Christians must conduct themselves according to the Holy Spirit rather than according to the flesh (the sinful urge)” (p. 310). But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of
the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these
