Galatians Journal: Chapter 2, verse 4

Galatians 2:4 “This matter arose because some false brothers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves.”

Paul discusses the motivation behind the Judiazing controversy. He begins by defining and identifying the culprits as “some false brothers.” Does Paul mean that these mean were not real Christians? Its hard to read between the lines here. “False brothers” could be “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” evil men with evil motives, with the emphasis on “false.” Yet, he refers to them as “brothers.” Can an authentic, born again Christian be this deceived? And then, be so “evangelistic” in his deception? I think the answer is yes. When I consider the Christian traditions in which I was raised (Roman Catholicism), a mainline traditional church that presented an obvious implication that faith alone wasn’t quite enough – that good works must accompany faith, that participation in a sacramental theology is vital to be right with God, and that Church tradition is just as important as God’s Word – I understand how a deception like this can take hold and flourish. And I’m not just picking on Catholics, either. Even in many evangelical churches, an emphasis on what we must “do” can bring a subtle paradigm shift in the way we think about God. I imagine it is quite possible for a believer who is sincerely seeking after God, recognizes Jesus as the Messiah and son of God, and is serious in his commitment to serving God could be overshadowed by the concept of clinging to ethnic or religious traditions that are either not important or even contradict the truth, or can’t come to grips with the concept that no good thing that they could do could ever be enough to please God – to save, or sanctify them. I have known many Catholics who were obviously born again Christians, who loved God, and had a living relationship with Him, yet were vehemently committed to the sacraments and traditions of the Catholic church (even some that appear to be obviously anti-scriptural to me) and defended them as necessary, even vital for a complete relationship with God – sometimes, to the point of being necessary for salvation. Many of these folks were passionately evangelical about things that were uniquely “Catholic,” trying to draw others in. (The same can also be said for the non-essential doctrines, customs, and traditions of any Christian church. For those of you who don’t have any experience with Catholicism, you can look to your own traditions. Think of the “traditional hymns” vs “modern praise chorus” controversy in some traditional Protestant Denominations today). I imagine the origin of the Judiazing heresy in Paul’s time wasn’t much different. Add to this the strength of the Jewish cultural identity, and its traditional aversion to anything in Gentile culture, and this concept is amplified.

Indeed, Paul uses the phrase “some” with “false brothers.” Perhaps the origin of this heresy was with people who were not true Christians, whose motives were to tear apart the work of God, and then it took root in people like those I have just described.

These false brothers “infiltrated” – you couldn’t tell they were there, or couldn’t tell them apart from the others in the church. Paul says they were there to “spy on” the church. The footnote states that this word is the same one used for a military spy. The real source of this heresy was Satan – in a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” mode. The real tragedy here is this is not like the Corinthian church, where a lot of issues were related to immoral people trying to excuse their immoral behaviors by wrapping it in the cloak of respectability within the context of Christianity. In Galatia, we have Christians who in all other ways are upstanding, good, moral believers, expressing their love and devotion to God in all that they do, yet, they purposefully reject an entire segment of God’s people on the basis of their ethnic background.

Paul ends the verse by saying that these false brothers had the goal of taking the Galatians’ “freedom” and turning them into “slaves.” This is the key concept of the entire book. The “freedom” here –or deliverance from slavery – is multifaceted. It is freedom from the bondage of rules and the impossible goal of pleasing God by what we in and of ourselves can do; it is Freedom from the Law, and its inability to save us; it is freedom from the bondage of sin (see Galatians 5 in particular) and deliverance from that bondage into a life of freedom in the Spirit; and it is freedom from the walls that divide us – nationality, ethnicity, tradition, even perhaps the issue of personal taste – so that we can truly fellowship with one another and have that RELATIONSHIP with God, and with each other.