The Inscription and Greeting (Continued) (Galatians 1:1–5)

“Who gave himself for our sins.” In these and the following words is the second distinctive feature at the beginning of the Epistle to the Galatians. As in the inscription, by the addition of several phrases, the holy Apostle indicated his true apostleship, so here, in the greeting, by the addition of certain propositions, he brings to the attention the source and what the conditions of salvation are—the second principal subject of the epistle. By showing this, he gave the Galatians to understand beforehand that they were seeking salvation not where it is placed.

The form of the arrangement of our salvation corresponds to the baneful consequences of the fall. In the fall we became transgressors before God, objects of his wrath, and moreover, we were in disorder within ourselves, having received in ourselves the force of moral corruption—selfishness along with all the passions. In arranging our salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ, by his death, satisfied the justice of God, appeased his righteous wrath against us, reconciled us with God, and by sending the Holy Spirit healed our moral corruption through rebirth by the grace of the Holy Spirit, placing in us the power of a life morally pure before God, in opposition to all the passions operating in us. These two saving actions of the coming to earth of the Only-Begotten Son of God through his incarnation, the holy Paul expresses here as well—the first in the words: “who gave himself for our sins,”—and the second in the words: “to deliver us from the present evil age.”

“Who gave himself for our sins.” What this self-giving means is explained at length in other places. Thus, in Ephesians 5:2 it is said: “Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God for a fragrant aroma,”—or as elsewhere: “propitiation for our sins” (compare 1 John 2:2). For “God set him forth as a propitiation through faith in his blood, to show his righteousness for the remission of sins that had gone before” (Rom. 3:25). And he “suffered for our sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God” (1 Pet. 3:18). Thus “we are reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Rom. 5:10), who “redeemed us from the curse of the law, becoming a curse for us” (Gal. 3:13). By these brief words the Galatians were already being prepared to acknowledge their error. They were reminded thereby of the reconciling power of the death of the Lord, the failure to understand which they revealed in themselves by their turning to Judaism. There is no longer need for any sacrifices: one has been offered for all and for all times, and it alone accomplished what the law was powerless to do. Why then go under the yoke of the powerless law? Faith in the redemptive death of Christ the Savior gives us forgiveness of sins; but if the power of Christ’s coming were limited to this, our salvation would not be complete. It was necessary to add to this also the removal of the power of sin living in us, otherwise it would continually make us guilty anew before God. Therefore the holy Paul says that the Lord not only gave himself as a sacrifice for our sins, but also “delivered us from the present evil age,” that is, delivered us from the power of sin, which commands all the deeds of people of this age.

“The present age” is the order of things, especially moral ones, established by the fall and destined to continue until the renewal of all creation. Since this order was established by the fall, and that was the source of our moral corruption on account of the self-centeredness implanted in us along with all the host of passions, which gained dominion over all things in people and rule over all, then “the present” age is the same as the state of people in bondage to sin and passions. For which reason it is—“evil,” wicked and full of evil. A person living in this age, in the circle of people acting according to self-interest and passions, where at every step there is an attraction to sin and self-gratification, cannot deliver himself from it; for the same power that controls everything outside him also rules within him. That is why he is always a slave of the world, which lies in evil (1 John 5:19), in which there is only “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16). It is the grace of the Holy Spirit that delivers him, which, coming into the heart, removes from the sin living in us its power over him and gives him moral strength to resist its impulses. From that point on, a person no longer serves the world and sin (Rom. 6:6), though he is subject to its assaults. But, having received strength to resist it within himself, he resists by that same strength everything outside himself through which people serve the world and passions, and thus becomes withdrawn from the general circular life of people of this age. This is the deliverance from the present evil age, when a person begins “not to be conformed to this age” (Rom. 12:2), “not to love the world, nor the things of the world” (1 John 2:15). Deliverance from this age is not being taken out of it, but being given the strength to live in it not according to its spirit, to live in it and be foreign to it. The grace of the Holy Spirit produces this in us, but this grace the Lord Savior earned for us, which is why the holy Paul attributes to him even the very action of grace. The Lord gave himself to death, then rose, ascended to heaven, and sent from the Father the most Holy Spirit to earth, who withdraws everyone from the bonds of sin of the world. And it comes about that the Lord, having given himself, delivered us from the present evil age. For “if I do not go away,” he says, “the Paraclete will not come to you; if I go, I will send him to you” (see John 16:7). In the work of our salvation all is bound together in an indissoluble union and is accomplished by the action of one God, worshipped in Trinity, though in explanations of these actions they are attributed now to one Person, now to another of the Holy Trinity.

It is evident that deliverance from the present evil age is not something mechanical, but a moral change, not accomplished without the participation of human will. In another place the holy Paul speaks of this thus: “Who gave himself for us to deliver us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people that is his own, zealous for good deeds” (Titus 2:14). Zeal for good deeds, through faith in the Lord, in obedience to him, for his glory—is the living sign of whether one has been withdrawn from the bonds of the present age. This is depicted in the same place as follows: “The grace of God has appeared to all people, teaching us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live temperately, righteously, and piously in the present age, awaiting the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (see Titus 2:11–13).

Saint Chrysostom explains at length that by the evil age one should not understand creatures or life itself as the passage of time, but says: “when you hear of the evil age, understand by this evil deeds, corrupted freedom. Why then did Paul say: ‘from the present evil age’? He said this according to the common usage of the word among people. For we ourselves often say now: a bad day was it for me—blaming not time but deeds and circumstances. So Paul, condemning evil intention, used a commonly accepted expression and shows that Christ released us both from previous sins and placed us in safety from future ones. The first he showed in the words: ‘who gave himself for our sins,’ and by the following: ‘to deliver us from the present evil age’—he indicated a safe harbor for the future as well. The law was powerless to free from even some sins, but grace is mighty to purify from both these and those.”

Blessed Augustine says: “the present evil age should be understood on account of the evil people living in it, just as we sometimes call a house evil on account of its evil inhabitants.” Ambrosiaster explains deliverance from the present age thus: “so that, being freed from under the yoke of the law, we would no longer be sinners before God, but righteous through rebirth, for which we are also called sons of God; so that, having become foreign to the spirit of this age, we become partakers of the endless age.” Jerome likewise: “even in this age he delivers us from the present evil age, when, having died with Christ, we are transformed anew in our senses and dispositions and are no longer of this world.”

For the Galatians these words, reminding them of the action in their hearts of the grace-giving power through faith in the Lord by means of the holy mysteries and of their inner renewal, served as a strong indication beforehand that, by inclining toward the law, they were abandoning what is better and taking up what is worse. Saint Chrysostom writes: “we were bogged down in countless transgressions and deserved the harshest punishment. But the law not only did not relieve us, but even condemned us, revealing our sins and being unable to free and deliver us from God’s wrath. On the contrary, the Son of God made the impossible possible, forgiving our sins and changing those who were our enemies into the rank of friends, and gave us also countless other blessings.” After setting forth similar thoughts, Theophylact adds: “how then, leaving your Deliverer, do you listen to the law, which brought no benefit?” Or as Ambrosiaster: “what then is this delusion after grace to return under the yoke of the law, that is, after receiving freedom to wish to be in slavery! The one who, after being ransomed, runs back to his former master insults his ransomer.”

For those who do not wish to be limited to the direct thoughts provided by a given Scripture passage but seek also the resolution of all related questions raised by it, we present the thoughts of Saint Chrysostom regarding the words of the Apostle about delivering us from the present evil age. They shed light on the darkness of our life and restore respect for it, which is greatly shaken by the fact that this age is evil and the world surrounding us, not excluding ourselves, lies in evil. There were heretics who, seeing much evil in the world, thought that it was not created by the all-good God, but was a product of some evil power. Against them Saint Chrysostom directs his discourse: “some heretics seize this utterance to their own advantage, slandering the present life and producing Paul as a witness to their slander. Look, they say, Paul calls the present age evil. But tell me, what is an age? Time composed of days and hours. What then? Is the continuation of days and the course of the sun evil? I think no one would say this, even if they reached the height of madness. You will say: the Apostle did not call time evil, but the present life. But these words do not mean that, and you do not base the slander woven by you against life on the words of the Apostle, but voluntarily compose your own interpretation. Allow us too to interpret what the Apostle said, and all the more so, because our interpretation is pious and has foundation. What then shall we say? That no evil, and never by itself, has ever been the cause of any good; but in the present life, on the contrary, are acquired countless crowns and ineffable rewards. That is why the blessed Paul himself values this life so much when he says: ‘if I am to live in the flesh, this is fruitful labor for me; which one I shall choose, I do not know’ (Phil. 1:22); and, deliberating about the choice, that is, whether it is better to live here or to depart and be with Christ, he prefers to remain here. But if the present life were evil, he would not say this of himself, and no one else could take advantage of it for the works of virtue, no matter how much he tried. For no one can acquire good from evil, nor acquire temperance from debauchery, nor goodwill from envy. And when Paul says: ‘the mindset of the flesh is opposed to God’s law and cannot submit to it’ (see Rom. 8:7); he is saying that evil, inasmuch as it is evil, cannot be good. So, when you hear of the evil age, understand by this evil deeds, corrupted freedom. For Christ did not come to kill us and thus remove us from the present life, but to leave us in the world and make us worthy heirs of heavenly life. Therefore, in his conversation with the Father, he said: ‘they are in the world, and I am coming to you. I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but to protect them from evil,’ that is, from evil (John 17:11, 15). But if you do not wish to accept this explanation and will not stop saying that the present life is evil, then do not condemn suicides afterward. For one who rids himself of evil would be worthy not of blame but of crowns. Thus, one who ends his life by violent death, or by hanging, or in some other way, would not be worthy of condemnation, according to your opinion. On the contrary, God punishes such more severely than murderers, and we all rightly recoil from them in horror. For if it is criminal to kill others, it is all the more so to kill oneself. If the present life is evil, then murderers should be rewarded for delivering us from evil. And the world should not be called evil. If you point out to me murderers, adulterers, and grave-robbers, I will say that these sins do not blame the present life: they depend not on our life in the flesh, but on corrupted free will. For if they belonged to the present life and were necessarily bound to it, then no one would be free and pure from them. Look—no one can avoid the necessities inevitably bound to life in the flesh. What are these necessities? to eat, to drink, to sleep, to grow, to hunger, to thirst, to be born, to die, and all other such things. No one can avoid them, neither sinner nor righteous, neither king nor commoner, but all are subject to this necessity of nature. Thus, if the necessity of doing evil were essentially bound to life, then no one would escape it, just as no one can escape the unavoidable necessities of nature. Do not tell me that rare individuals live well: for you will not find a single one who could avoid the necessary needs and requirements of nature. Therefore, even if only one is found living virtuously, the truth of our word suffers nothing from it. What else will you say, wretched and miserable one? Is this the evil and corrupt life by means of which we come to know God, philosophize about what is to come, become angels among men, and unite in one communion with the heavenly Powers? And what further proof shall we find against your evil and corrupt reasoning?”

“According to the will of God our Father.” The Lord Savior gave himself for our sins and delivered us from the present evil age according to the will of God our Father. The entire arrangement of our salvation—that it be accomplished through faith in the Lord our Redeemer and by the grace of the Holy Spirit—was according to the will of God the Father. Just as the Old Testament economy (dispensation) was according to the will of the heavenly Father, so the new grace, which replaced it, became the possession of mankind according to that same will. For the Galatians this indication was very important. If the false teachers had impressed upon them fear of offending God, who gave the law through Moses, the Apostle gives them the means to cast off this fear, assuring them that the New Testament arrangement of salvation is also from that same God, and that in departing from it, they directly oppose God.

What was said earlier: “He who gave Himself”, is phrased with the idea that He Himself gave Himself; but here: “by the will of God the Father” indicates the co-action of the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity. What the Father does, He does not without the Son; and what the Son does, He does not without the Father. As in the Eternal Counsel concerning our salvation, the Son also says: “to do Your will, O God, I desire” (Ps. 39:9); and God the Father, before the foundation of the world, according to the good pleasure of His will, ordained that our salvation should be in His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, through sanctification and adoption as sons (Eph. 1:4–5). So too in time, the Son of God both lays down His own soul (Jn. 10:18), and is delivered to death by the Father—according to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God (Acts 2:23), because the hand of God and the counsel of God had decreed it to be so (Acts 4:28). Holy Chrysostom, on the words: “He who gave Himself for our sins”, writes: “Behold, He did not bear slavish or forced service, nor was anyone delivering Him, but He Himself delivered Himself. Therefore, when you hear John saying: ‘God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son for us’ (Jn. 3:16), do not for that reason diminish the dignity of the Only-begotten, nor think of Him as being merely human. For although it is said that the Father delivered Him, this is not so that you should regard the service of the Son as slavish, but so that you should know that the service borne by the Son was pleasing to the Father as well. Paul demonstrated this same thing here when he said: ‘by the will of God and our Father’, not by command, but by will. For the will of the Father and the Son is one; what the Son willed, the Father also willed.” Blessed Jerome agrees and says: “and the Son delivered Himself for our sins not without the will of the Father, and the Father delivered the Son not without the will of the Son. But it is the will of the Son to do the will of the Father, as He Himself says in the psalm: ‘to do Your will, O God, I desire’ (Ps. 39:9)”.

And for the Galatians, the holy Fathers see a powerful instruction in these words. So Blessed Theodoret says: “The Lord Christ not only Himself administered our salvation, but also has the Father’s good pleasure in this. That is why the Apostle added: ‘by the will of God and the Father’. Everywhere he places the Father alongside Christ, teaching thereby that it was also pleasing to the Father that we should live not under the Law, but according to the Gospel.” Ecumenius continues the same thought: “Since they were saying that one must not abandon the Law, as it was given by God, he shows that to believe in Christ is also the will of the Father.” More fully than both of them does Holy Chrysostom: “Since they thought that they would disobey God, the giver of the Law, if they accepted the new one, and therefore feared to abandon the ancient Law, the Apostle corrects this prejudice as well, saying that this is also pleasing to the Father. And he did not simply say: ‘by the will of the Father’, but: ‘of our Father’ (an addition he often makes), so that he might shame them all the more by pointing out that Christ made the Father His own and our own Father as well.” “And this is accomplished through our new birth from Him in baptism. Why then circumcision? Why the Law?” (Ecumenius)

Gal 1:5. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen.

Holy Paul, living in God and always carrying in his grateful heart the great blessing of God toward mankind, revealed in redemption, and toward himself in his calling not only to salvation but to Apostleship as well, was often moved during the writing of his Epistles by this consciousness and was seized with rapture to glorify God. (So: Rom. 11:36; Rom. 1:25; 2 Cor. 11:31; Eph. 3:21; Phil. 4:20; 1 Tim. 1:17.) So here as well. Having mentioned the will of God and the Father, his mind was lifted above the heavens to the throne of the Tri-personal Godhead, upon which rests the Eternal Counsel concerning the salvation of our race—and he offers glory to God for this good pleasure of His will (Eph. 1:5). May eternal glory be His for such a great blessing! For the words: “forever and ever” mean the same as the holy of holies, the song of songs, the heavens of heavens. Eternities of eternities—infinite eternity (Blessed Jerome). “Amen”. The Savior spoke: “Amen, amen”—truly, truly. And here “amen” may mean: “truly so”. Or it expresses only a wish that it should be so. May He receive glory from all who know His glorious name. This recalls the command of the Savior: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good deeds, and glorify your Father, who is in heaven” (Mt. 5:16). Let no one darken by his life and deeds the glory of the God whom he confesses. Holy Chrysostom writes on this passage: “and this is new and unprecedented; for we do not find the word ‘amen’ anywhere at the beginning and in the preamble of the Epistles, but only after many and lengthy discussions is it placed. Here, desiring to show that what has already been said is sufficient for the conviction of the Galatians and that his word has no need of further elaboration, he placed ‘amen’ at the beginning of his Epistle. For evident transgressions do not require lengthy preparations for their exposure. Therefore, after recalling the cross and resurrection, the cleansing of sins and protection from them from now on, the will of the Father and the consent of the Son, grace and peace and all the riches of God’s gifts, he concluded his discourse with glorification. And he concluded thus not only for this reason, but also from his extreme wonder at the magnitude of the gift and the superabundance of grace, and from contemplating what we were and what God has made us, beyond our expectation and in so short a time. Unable to express all of this in words, he ended his discourse with glorification, sending up praise to God for the whole universe—not such praise as would correspond to the magnitude of God’s blessings, but such as was possible for him. And therefore afterward with even greater force he continues his discourse, kindled, as it were, by a strong flame, from the contemplation of God’s blessings”