Mutual Interdependence – the Key to Paul’s logic in Gal 3:1-4:11

Last updated on: February 17, 2012 at 8:48 am by Joel Willitts

Mutual Interdependence – the Key to Paul’s logic in Gal 3:1-4:11 2012-02-17T08:48:06-04:00 Joel Willitts

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William Dalton (“The Meaning of “We” in Galatians.” ABR 38 (1990): 33-44) studies the use of “we” in Galatians within a new interpretive framework of Paul that represents a “re-appraisal . . . [of] his relationship with Israel” (35). His interpretation begins with the assumption that Paul’s audience is pagan Gentile Christian with absolutely no Jewish representation among the recipients. This assumption is based on two even more basic assumptions. First, he assumes that Acts is unreliable as a source for Paul’s apostolic practices (see footnote 18). Second, he thinks that it is natural for a Jew to refer to Gentiles as “under the law” by which according to Dalton, they mean under the curse of the law. Now, both assumptions are debatable. The first, while having merits, overstates the point. The second is just wrong as Donaldson has shown (Paul and the Gentiles, pgs. 146-47; 181-82). Paul never uses the phrase “under law” for non-Jews. Also Dalton’s conclusions rest on the highly unlikely interpretation (e.g. Gager) of the term “those of the circumcised” in 6:13 which he understands be be not a reference to Jews.

For Dalton’s argument, since “those who are circumcised” (6:13) are not Jews and since they did not observe the law, the Jews are all the more distant from the mind of the Christian Galatian congregation as they heard Paul’s letter read aloud. According to Dalton, at least, when Paul uses “we” in the letter, we are justified in thinking that he is identifying himself with these Pagan Christian hearers unless we have good cause for taking another meaning (37).

Dalton believes there is only one passage in the letter that can be shown to be a case for an ethnic “we”, Gal 2:15-17. He comes to this passage eventually after showing the use of “we” elsewhere: Gal 3:1-14, 23-29; and 4:1-5. In each of these Dalton believes that a plain reading of the text reveals that Paul is identifying himself with his Gentile hearers without any reference to Jews. As an example he draws attention to Gal 4:1-5 and 4:7. In the former the “we” not only does not refer to pious Jews both “under the law” and the “elementary spirits of the universe”, but also those who have “received the status as sons”. These are Gentile pagan Christians. So when in 4:7 Paul uses the singular form of “you”, “you are no longer a slave but a son”, it is not a different group of people. “From all this, it is clear that the ‘we’ and the ‘you’ refer to the same people through the text”. This certainly sounds convincing and for most it indeed is.

My Response
But I think Dalton’s reading actually misses the key point. I’m convinced that Paul maintained a consistent ethnic distinction with the first person pronouns throughout the whole of the letter, a distinction which may even be discernible at the beginning in the very introduction (1:4 – “to rescue us”), although this minority position has very vocal critics (e.g. Schreiner, Das).

Paul does use the first person pronoun (“we”/“us”) to refer to both ethnic groups, Jew and Gentile, on occasion particularly in the latter portion of the letter (e.g. 5:1), but because the distinction is maintained when he does so the first person pronoun carries the freight of his argument in the letter.

So the ethnic distinction between Jew and Gentile, contained in the use of pronouns, is one of the key features, of an element of Paul’s argument. To ignore it accidentally or worse to intentionally erase it, is to surely miss the main point of Paul’s central section, Gal 3:1—4:11.

This section, flowing from Gal 2:11-22, makes the point that both the Jew and the Gentile are interdependent—the benefits of Jesus’ work are mutual confirmed by the other.

The sonship of Jews is confirmed on the basis of the sonship of Gentiles. The reception of the Spirit by Gentiles is confirmed on the basis of the reception of the Spirit by Jews. The freedom of the Jew from its pedagogos means freedom for the Gentile from the elementary powers of the world.

This argument is directed against the teaching that a Gentile needs to become Jewish through circumcision. From Paul’s perspective that’s an attach at the very heart of the gospel because, following his logic, if the Gentiles as gentiles are not receiving sonship, the Spirit and freedom, then neither is he as a Jew. It is a way to support his central contention that Gentiles should by no means undergo circumcision.

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