Galatians – freedom from the powers

Paul an apostle—sent neither by human commission nor from human authorities but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead—and all the brothers and sisters with me,
To the churches of Galatia:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen (Gal. 1:1-5).

Paul an apostle – I maintain that Paul does not use the term ‘apostle’ as a title: ‘Apostle Paul’ or as we often say ‘the apostle Paul’, but he simply says Paul an apostle. If it is used as a title there is an inherent hierarchy. I have a title so am ‘above’ you. As a description of ministry / calling the submission is first from Paul to the Lord. As an apostle he has to be accountable for that calling, he has something to live up to. If an apostle there has to be signs that indicate the calling.

After the common greeting of ‘grace and peace’ he then presents a (the?) central effect of the cross. It is for our ‘sins’ so that we might be free from this present evil age. Maybe he emphasises this in the Galatian situation, but I suspect this is central to Paul regardless of the situation. The problem is that our sins – (summary: our corporate failure to be human) means that there are powers that dominate and we end up captive to those powers. It is certainly a theme throughout the letter: Jesus comes at the ‘fullness of times‘ when the powers are at their extreme, both expressed as ‘heavenly’ powers and their influence and the ‘earthly’ power of the all-but one world government of Rome that shaped culture. (The tower of Babel / Babylon as type of imperial rule was never absolute, being an unfinished but substantial process. All the ‘antiChrist’ language fits into the context of the ‘fullness of times’.)

‘Forgiveness of sins’, ‘justified’, ‘redeemed’ could all be used to describe what results from the cross but Paul chooses to major on the deliverance from the powers. He uses it as he addresses the Galatians as the issue that he confronts is of a people who are being pulled back to servitude. Coming into obedience to the law he indicates will simply put them on a path that will bring a separation from Christ and a submission yet again to the elemental spirits / elements (ta stoicheia).

I think that for Paul this ‘freedom’ is more than a ‘theological’ truth, more than something positional. That is very clear in how he introduces himself. If we were to read the opening words without realising there is some nuancing that has to take place we would have to assume Paul was all-but saying: ‘stuff anyone human, regardless of who they are, I am totally independent and my apostleship is direct, so I have no plan to submit to anyone!’

We know as we go on to read that this bolshiness is not quite as strong as that, but freedom in Christ has to mean that we must be able to say ‘no’ at a human level, for I consider if we lose that there will soon come a point where we will not be able to give a wholehearted ‘yes’ to God.

But it is far more than freedom to say ‘no’ to someone. It is freedom from the powers that are shaping this ‘present evil age’. Powers that tell us to conform, to fit in. Powers that shape culture, economics, national identities and the like. Our passport does not define us – citizenship in heaven is what defines, and God has always had a global concern.

The Gospel is much more than put your hand up, pray this prayer and look now you have received a ticket to the cloudy place by and by. It is freedom from powers NOW. That is the door we enter through, the journey is life-long discovering what that means. Sanctification is not about some spotlessness but about a process where I can be observed to be free.


An aside: a while back as cryto-currency was beginning to hit the headlines I said that there is a new currency that will come, crypto as we have it is not it but is a sign that it is coming. This is gaining speed with the likelihood of the majority of nations developing digital, and centrally-controlled, currency. Many are raising (right) concerns over this. Will it be the mark of the beast? Yes indeed it will. Same mark as we have had for millennia! There is a growing convergence, a desire to get to a great ‘fullness of times’. How do we respond? First, without fear but with faith, and second operating on a different economy. The kingdom economy is ‘give and receive’; not ‘buy and sell’. So many opportunities are coming our way to work out what it means to be free from the powers of this evil age… and seems to me we have just shy of 20 years to work some of this out. What a wonderful journey ahead.

Come join us…

Tonight, 19:30UK time, Steve Lowton, Rowena Lavender and I will host a Zoom where through some Q&A and interview we are asking Peter McKinney to help us with some insight into the season we are in. Some months back we had a very insightful evening with Peter. There will be space for feedback, questions and comments. Link below:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5728039267?pwd=NEozVVM0Z1NJSDFKKzNwdG9KUDc5dz09

Meeting ID: 572 803 9267
Passcode: 5GkMTA


And a second LIVE event on Friday that might / might not be as insightful as the one with Peter (probably not!). Noel Richards, Martin Purnell (off-grid Christianity – I did a podcast interview with Martin some months back) and I are doing a live Christmas special. It will be a bit of fun, but I am sure there will be a number of more than serious contributions.


And finally advance notice!! I will be holding Zoom discussions on the third book in the series ‘Explorations in Theology’ (Third book: A Subversive Movement). I completed with a group last night on ‘Significant Other’. It was very stimulating, and with some new angles, Amy Bell said – ‘you should have put that in your book’!!

I will work on dates in the next few days. If you would like to join you would be very welcome. If you have been through the book before and would like to join in, or even if you missed out on book 2, I think you could join also – I would do a one off on book 2 to bring you up to speed… blah, blah… In short – watch this space.

Galatians… why not?

I have always liked the Galatians letter. Paul in a storming mood gets down to it, sends of his letter without any niceties, with a ‘listen to me, I am going to straighten all this out’. I like that for some reason, but I also like if for a few other reasons. It is short, it is not so involved as the much fuller version of ‘his gospel’ that we find in Romans; it is an early letter and it has conflict. So I thought (and hope I stick with it) I would simply make a few comments on the letter.

One of the issues surrounding the date is whether it comes before the council in Jerusalem in Acts 15 (AD50). He refers to a visit to Jerusalem (2:1) and of conflict with Peter (2:15-14… perhaps where he cheekily refers to Peter as Cephas). Did all this predate Jerusalem or come after? I think it came before and would date Galatians as very early 48/49AD. Peter’s behaviour being confronted by Paul prior to the letter that went out to the churches from Jerusalem. This adds to Paul’s depth of convictions to confront Peter before there had been a council to sort out those issues (though I personally think Acts 15 was a compromise that did not go far enough – all encouraging to us, where God takes a step back with a ‘you work it out’. Maybe all of this (date / who are the Galatians) is incidental but I like the idea that they were working things out as they went along.


An obvious theme in the letter is that of freedom / slavery.

  • Set us free from this present evil age 1:4.
  • Spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus 1:4.
  • Scripture has imprisoned all things 3:22.
  • Now before faith came we were imprisoned (under the law!) 3:23.
  • No better than those who are enslaved 4:1.
  • We were enslaved to the elemental principles (ta stoicheia) 4:3.
  • You were enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods 4:8.
  • [Now] you turn back to the weak and beggarly elemental principles (ta stoicheia)… to be enslaved by them 4:9.
  • Children of an enslaved woman or of a free woman 4:22.
  • She is in slavery 4:25.
  • She is free 4:26.
  • Child of the enslaved woman… child of the free woman 4:30.
  • For freedom Christ has set us free… do not submit to a yoke of slavery 5:1.
  • You were called to freedom 5:13.
  • Become enslaved to one another 5:13.

To that we could of course add words such as gospel, justified and grace; and also specific texts such as the ‘In Christ there is neither…’, or that only ‘new creation’ counts.

Paul is heavily biased toward freedom, indeed his first description of what happened as a result of the cross is that we are ‘set free… from this present evil age’. Freedom wins the day!

He navigates a line between ‘submit to no-one… do not give up your freedom’ and meeting with those in Jerusalem, submitting his revelation to them lest he run in vain; he also comes very close to describing the law in negative terms, seemingly indicating that the law (for Israel) and the gods of the nations were in the same category (ta stoicheia: elemental principles / spirits; that which orders and structures / shapes a society, hence it certainly spills over into the demonic spirit world; I suggest it includes the demonic that shapes society, culture etc. and is perhaps a summarising word for everything that shapes and holds a culture / nation back from finding maturity and freedom). He comes close but avoids that direct 1:1 relationship. He is close, but the law came from God… but he certainly seems to suggest that when approached as law performs the same result, it cannot deliver the freedom that is in Christ.

OK… enough for now.

A new Bible

Last one was great, beginning life for me in 2007. A little worn out, travelled quite a way but always good to have one that references can be found easily… it is ‘on the right side of the page half way down’ kind of finding it. That one was the New Revised Standard Version… the new one, and I have been waiting a little while for this – the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (once the word ‘revised’ has been used in the title I guess a new title is a challenge… imagine if they continue to revise / update this one a few times!). Got it while in the USA so a few funny spelling quirks there – armor, not armour, Savior not Saviour… and what goes with the numbers: one hundred seventy five thousand – where did the ‘and’ disappear?

Translations. Never easy, but I like it as it is not always biased in my direction (NIV, a great translation is biased in an evangelical direction). Still not happy that they add the word ‘though’ in Philippians 2 ‘though he existed in the form of God… emptied himself’. A not unexpected translation but justifiable? Not from the text itself, and only justifiable if that behaviour of self-emptying is unlike God! But what if that behaviour is totally because Jesus is in the form of God? What would God do? (At least in the edition I have it has a wide margin so I can put a big note in there!)

Romans 3:25 – expiation or propitiation? The translators opt for ‘a sacrifice of atonement in his blood’ with a footnote (the one I prefer as the word is the word for the ‘mercy seat’ in the OT) ‘a place of atonement’.

A new version for me to read and get acquainted with – I look forward to that. Choosing a version? Almost as hard as being one of the translators (a job way beyond me). We probably bend the words a bit to suit ourselves, and squeeze texts in to agree with us just too much. Glad to have a Bible, and glad that on my best days I can acknowledge that it does not agree with me at every point. I simply seek to pretend that my theology is almost water-tight and leaks less than other theologies.

Time Frames

I have been meditating of late on two aspects relating to time-frames. Back to my old ground that I can not get away from… that of warfare and focus on (whoever / whatever he / it is) the devil and his (better here the masculine pronoun than the feminine!) works. I maintain what is very helpful is to get a time frame on the specifics of what he is up to.

Once we do that we can also know that there is a time frame of grace for the task in hand, or at least to survive any onslaught. Grace never runs out – even if I make my bed in Sheol I will find that God is my companion there, so said the Psalmist. But grace that covers for a task, a situation does run out, it is time-limited.

Backing up to the first aspect. Jesus was tempted in the wilderness for 40 days (time frame) and at the end of that period the devil departed:

When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time (Lk. 4:13).

That opportune time came back round at the end of the ministry:

I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me (Jn. 14:30).

Time frames can be seen in Paul’s (?) words in Ephesians 6:13

Therefore take up the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.

And in Revelation 12 (so much there in this chapter):

But woe to the earth and the sea,
for the devil has come down to you
with great wrath,
because he knows that his time is short!

When we sense a specific attack is coming it is really helpful if we can discern it to get some sight on the length of time we are looking at, for then we can be focused and come under the grace of God for that period. Grace covers so we do not need to fret, and grace empowers so that we act differently during that period. Covers so we do not have to get everything right; we act differently, we go beyond ourselves (or what we might normally do / react). And in that period of time we have some very practical advice from Paul (OK I actually think Paul did write Ephesians). Don’t be too fussed about great advances, just hold what you have:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to stand… Therefore take up the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand therefore…

Not sure that Paul or his scribe used bold but I have taken a liberty to add that in the text… though he does seem to indicate with his repetition that it might be about standing. It is not about great breakthrough. It is standing during the ‘day of evil’ for the day will give way… and there are days that are as long as our lives, the place that is ours to contend for.

Next to him was Shammah son of Agee, the Hararite. The Philistines gathered together at Lehi, where there was a plot of ground full of lentils; and the army fled from the Philistines. But he took his stand in the middle of the plot, defended it, and killed the Philistines; and the Lord brought about a great victory (2 Sam. 23:11,12).

Apparently lentil fields are there to be contended for. Here’s to standing under grace in our lentil field!

Perspectives