by Angus Harley

This is the beginning of a hermeneutical reading of Galatians from an NCT perspective. The NCT hermeneutic places at the forefront the core concept that the NT has interpretive control over the OT. To understand what this means or looks like, we will look at Paul’s words in the book of Galatians. In kicking things off, because I am writing for ordinary Christians, I will begin with the most simple version of the NCT hermeneutic as found in Galatians, namely, the two gospels paradigm.

The two gospels paradigm

Galatians 1. From the outset, Paul is concerned with promoting the true Gospel over against a false Gospel. The Galatians were abandoning the true Gospel for a false, Judaistic, Gospel (1:6-10). Paul then goes into a description of his apostolic bona fides to bolster his contention that his was the true apostolic Gospel and that of the Judaizers was false (1:11-24). 

Galatians 2. In Galatians 2, Paul then develops the same argument by, once more, citing historical evidence of his interactions as an apostle. Paul even had to confront Peter, who had weakly and momentarily abandoned the central contention of the New Covenant Gospel that made Jews and Gentiles one through faith in Jesus Christ (2:1-14). The Christian Jew was not above the Christian Gentile, for all were sinners saved by Christ Jesus and made one. Paul brings his own experience into the conversation, ” I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Gal.2:20). He was a sinner saved by Christ, who had died with Christ, and then was raised by faith with him unto newness of life. Indeed, the old Paul (‘I’) was dead, and the new, spiritually resurrected, ‘I’ was alive because Christ was in him and was his life. 

Galatians 3. Galatians 3 gets into the nitty-gritty theological details of the dueling gospels. At the heart of the Judaizers’ faux gospel was the Law of Moses. The Judaizers essentially attached faith in Christ to the Jewish system that a ‘believer’ must obey the Law of Moses to obtain righteousness. So, the Judaizers’ model was, essentially, for the Christian to become like a Jew and keep the Law of Moses to obtain righteousness.

What, in this system, would be the value of Jesus’ obedience and his death on the cross? One cannot say for 100% certain what the Judaizer’s thought of Jesus’ obedience to the Father, but it is probable, being so pro-Law, that they would have fitted his life and obedience within the same Law framework. What else could they have done? Wasn’t Jesus a Jew, “born of a woman, born under the Law”? Wasn’t he the ultimate heir of Abraham? Surely, then, he was a Law-keeper, so that this formed the basis of his righteousness for his own. If so, Jesus’ obedience on the cross would be either a version of Law-obedience, or, most likely, the sacrifice he paid for adhering to Law-obedience, for he was killed for his faithfulness to the Law of Moses. Wasn’t Moses persecuted by his own? Didn’t Israel reject him and his Law? If this were the Judaizer’s reasoning, it would have been formidable ‘Jewish’ logic based on obedience to the Mosaic Law.

Except, this Jewish-Law model was a false Gospel, a lie, untrue, and an accursed mindset (see Gal.1). Thus, Paul is at pains in Galatians 3 to distance Jesus from obedience to the Law, and, instead, he says that Jesus came to bear the Law’s curse (3:10-13), the exact opposite of the ‘do the works of the Law’ model. 

Leaving no stone unturned, Paul goes on to describe the true purpose of the Law: it was given to magnify transgressions, to lock down mankind in a state of sin. For in doing this, the Law acted as a kind of overseer or guard, hemming in the heirs until the coming of Christ and faith. Upon the arrival of Christ and faith, both Jews and Gentiles of faith- Abraham’s true heirs- were made one with Christ, and brought into a status that superseded Jew and Gentile, slave and free, and male and female.

In all of this, the Law is not set apart as a positive salvifically speaking, it carrying no life and grace at all, but bringing only condemnation. Yet, as an ‘actor’ in the wider plan of redemption given in the promise to Abraham, the Law acted out its divinely ordained part of keeping the heirs of Abraham under lock and key, as it were. If we were to write a drama, the Law of Moses would be the Dickensian oppressive poor house that oppressed the ‘orphans’, but then they come into an inheritance, for they were set free by a gracious nobleman who fought for them and gave them the gift of sonship.

Galatians 4. Galatians 4 is arguably one of the most fascinating passages in the whole of Scripture. In it, Paul blows to pieces the Law model of Christianity, this time using a vertical line of thinking. That is, in Galatians 3, Paul traced out for us in a linear manner historically speaking, from Abraham unto Christ, the unfolding of God’s redemptive plan. In Galatians 4, however, the argument is ‘from above to below’, from heaven in contrast to earth, the covenant below contrasted to the covenant above.

The first section, 4:1-20, is not merely dismantling the Judaistic rendition of the Mosaic Law, but is critical of its entire Dickensian role. Just as Dicken’s depicted in his books a poor house that reflected the whole of England, so the Law’s bondage was but an extension of a human-wide problem. This universalism is behind the statement that the Son was born of a woman and born under the Law (4:4). for the broader concern is stated first: Jesus was made a man. As a man, the Son of God from above came under the Law of Moses. Paul is exposing, in other words, the innate relationship between this world and the Mosaic Law and its religion. And so, in his censure of the Galatians who had turned to the Law, Paul amazingly scolds them for turning “back again to to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again”. Notice the double returning “again”, making us in no doubt about the Law-worldly religion equation. For Paul understood that the religion that the Law presented was nothing more than an extension of the physical, fleshly, this-world, elemental, dos and donts, days, times, and seasons, of world religion that held all men in bondage (Col.2:8, 20-23).

In the second half of Galatians 4, vv21-31, Paul goes even deeper into the depths of the nature of the two gospel paradigm- as if such a thing were possible! If there is any doubt in the reader’s mind about the equation of worldly, elemental religion with the Law of Moses and its commandments, then the series of contrasts that Paul enumerates should instantaneously dismiss the mist! For in this section, Paul blatantly, brazenly, and boldly lumps together any Galatians who wanted to be under the Law with Ishmael, Hagar, the Jews, earthly Jerusalem, the Old Covenant, Mount Sinai, the Law, the flesh, bondage, enslavement, and with those who persecute the people of God. You can’t make this stuff up! In dire and glorious contrast to this motley crew is a celestial conglomeration of Sarah, the heavenly Jerusalem, the heavenly people of God, Isaac, the Spirit and the birth he gives, the heavenly covenant (= the New Covenant), liberty, sonship, and freedom. The earthly vs the heavenly, two gospels.

Galatians 5. The same division arising from the two gospels paradigm is further refined into a spiritual contrast, but this time in regard to the lifestyle of two controlling and competing powers: the flesh and the Spirit. Once again, Paul is pursuing a vertical or theological perspective, and not a linear, horizontal, or chronological one. It is the difference, in other words, between two ways of life: one from above, one from below. The Christian is Spirit-born, having believed in Jesus Christ. Nonetheless, even the Christian has to wrestle with ‘the flesh’. Sarx, or the flesh, is ‘the’ mode of life on earth: it is a lifestyle tied to faux religion, sin, evil behavior, weakness, the Law, the Old Covenant, and so on. It is the way of the world and its faux religions and gods that devotes itself to days, years, and religious principle derived from the human flesh (4:8-11), none being of more relevance than circumcision in the flesh. A true heir of Abraham, by contrast, will live a godly lifestyle by the Spirit, having crucified the flesh through faith in Christ.

Galatians 6. Paul then closes out the two gospels paradigm by arguing that those who are true believers in Jesus will follow his apostolic teaching and love and support their brothers and sisters. Any attempt to enforce the Jewish-Judaizer’s religion is sowing to the flesh. The flesh and its ways mean nothing, circumcision and uncircumcision (and by extension, Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free) are useless. What counts alone is those who walk by the apostolic word of peace and mercy, aka, the new creation and the true, that is, heavenly, Israel of God (see 1:3).

Concluding thoughts. What was presented was a very simple version of the NCT hermeneutic as found in Galatians. It took the controlling idea of the NT having interpretive control over the OT, applied it to Galatians, and allowed Galatians to speak for itself. Lo and behold, we discovered that not only was the Law described in a non-salvific manner, and as having zero roots in grace or mercy, and no association with faith, but that the Law and its Covenant were enslaving powers and forces, especially via the flesh and its earthly, worldly religion, that held all men in bondage. Paul was saying to the Galatians, ‘Peel back to Judaizers’ rhetoric and what do you get? You get a rotten bag of maggots of earthly religion.’ In radical contrast to this was the Gospel of the heavenly, New, Covenant, that was the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham, that issued from Jesus bearing the curse of the curse due to a violated Law, and then was sealed by the blessing of the gift of the Holy Spirit to a new creation, and new world of Jews and Gentiles of the faith. Hallelujah, what a Savior!