The Law & the Spirit

In Graeco-Roman society, a pedagogue oversaw the up-bringing of a child. Included in the pedagogue’s charge were the supervision, care, guidance, protection, instruction, and discipline of the child. This metaphor of the pedagogue is suggestive of a broader familiar relationship, since a pedagogue was employed by a father who wanted his child to be nurtured in accordance with paternal expectations and hopes. The metaphor of the law as a pedagogue is well suited to Paul’s temporal argument; just as a pedagogue is relieved of duty once the child comes of age, so the law’s function as an overseer of God’s people comes to an end with the coming of Christ. It is with the benefit of Christian hindsight that the experience of being under a pedagogue (the law) can be seen as a form of confinement (3:23), since with the coming of Christ a form of guidance is available that sets people free for service: that is, the guidance of the Spirit. If is the Spirit, rather than the pedagogue, that is to form the character of God’s people come of age. The pedagogical role of the law has given way to the guidance of the Spirit. So Paul writes: ‘If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law… If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit’ (5:18, 25). The Spirit, who as we have seen produces the fruit of Christ-likeness in Christians, has been sent into the hearts of Christians reproducing in them Jesus’ own intimate cry to God: ‘ABBA, Father’ (4:6). Israel’s relationship to God had been a mediated one by means of the law acting as a pedagogue; by contrast, the Christian’s relationship to God is one of intimacy as the Christian enters into the boundaries of Jesus’ own cherished and distinctive sonship. While the people of Israel enjoyed a special relationship with God prior to Christ (signalled by the giving of the law), that relationship was of a different order altogether to the kind of unprecedented intimacy that comes in the wake of Christian union with Christ.

Bruce Longenecker, “Galatians,” in The Cambridge Companion to Paul, pg. 69-70

Fee on Galatians

Apparently, Gordon Fee's commentary on Galatians is available.

Gordon D. Fee, Galatians: A Pentecostal commentary on Paul's Letter.

ISBN 978-1-905679-02-7

But I can't seem to find it anywhere, except here: http://www.deopublishing.com/pcs.htm Anyone got more info? Anyone know any more about the series, or read one of the commentaries?

Gal 3:20 - any clues?

Galatians 3:20 Now a mediator involves more than one party; but God is one.

I'm presenting a paper on Galatians 3-4 soon and I'm stumped. The most honest confession about this passage I can find is by F. F. Bruce.

The two statements in v 20 are completely intelligible if each is taken by itself. It goes without saying that a mediator requires at least two parties between which he is to mediate; he cannot mediate on behalf of one party only. That God is one is the theological basis of Judaism and Christianity alike… It is the relation between the two clauses that constitute the interpretive problem. In what way does the affirmation that God is one form an antithesis to what is said about the mediator? The number of solutions offered to the problem as been reckoned to exceed 300 – one might wonder, indeed , if this is Robert Browning’s ‘great text in Galatians’ with its ‘twenty-nine distinct damnations’ for the unwary exegete.

[Bruce, Commentary on Galatians, pg. 178]

Any other ideas? ANyone have a clue as to how this relates to the argument of Gal 3? Recommeded articles? Looking through Burton, Bruce, Hays, Longenecker, Witherinton and they don't seem to have much clue either... Desperation haunts this wary exegete...

Gal 3:2 - Translating

The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spirit by performing the works of the Torah or by trusting what you heard?

Richard Hays notes the difficulty in translating this verse and offers the various possibilities.[1]

The Meaning of ex akoēs pisteōs

If akoē means “hearing”: a) pistis = “believing”: “By hearing with faith”

b) pistis = “the faith”: “by hearing the faith (i.e., “by hearing the gospel)

If akoē means “message”: c) pistis = “believing”: “from the message that elicits faith”

d) pistis = “the faith”: “from the message of the faith” (i.e., “from the gospel message”)

Hays goes on to note that:

The noun akoē can sometimes mean “hearing,” but Paul’s use of it in a similar context in Rom 10:16-17 suggests that he understands it to mean “what is heard” – in other words, the proclaimed message… Here the interpreter of the letter is faced with a crucial fork in the road. Does Paul attribute the receiving of the Spirit to a human action (“hearing with faith”) or to divine initiative (“the message that elicits faith”)?[2]

I have translated this as “trusting what you heard” since ajkoh commonly referred to “the content of what is heard.”[3] I'm not convinced Hays has succeeded in demonstrating that the possible interpretations are mutually exclusive. If the Galatians trusted Paul’s message, it does not therefore negate the power of the message to provoke or elicit trust. It merely notes that by trusting what was spoken by Paul, and not by performing the various Jewish commandments, the Spirit descended upon them. Thus, I would still want to argue that this leaves open the question of divine initiative and human action.

[1] This table is found in Hays, “Galatians”, pg. 252 and further discussed in R. B. Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ (Scholars Press, 1983) pgs. 143-149

[2] Hays, “Galatians”, pg. 252

[3] Longenecker, Galatians, pg. 103