Galatians 1:1 - Homiletics

The inspired authority of the apostle.

The first line of the Epistle is designed to settle the question of his authority and independence as a teacher of the Church. The truth of the gospel, as he phrases it ( Galatians 2:5 ), was involved in this merely personal question.

I. THE NECESSITY FOR VINDICATING HIS AUTHORITY . Emissaries of the Judaistic party, who had obtained access to the Galatian Churches, sought to undermine his doctrine by denying or minimizing his apostleship. They limited the term "apostle" almost exclusively to the twelve, and were thus enabled to assert

II. HIS COMMISSION AT ONCE ORIGINAL AND DIVINE . "An apostle, not from men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead."

1 . He was a true apostle. He emphatically asserts his independent apostleship, placing his official title in the very forefront of his Epistle. He affirms that he was an apostle before he had any intercourse with the twelve ( Galatians 1:17 , Galatians 1:18 ), and that on three different occasions the apostles recognized his full apostolic standing ( Galatians 1:18 , Galatians 1:19 , Galatians 2:9 , Galatians 2:10 , Galatians 2:11-21 ). He was, therefore, no delegate of the twelve, and had no secondary or intermediate place of authority under them. He was, as he described himself to the Corinthians, "a called apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God."

2 . His commission was not " from ( ἀπὸ ) men , nor by ( διὰ ) man. " The false teachers might have suggested that the pro ceedings at Antioch implied a purely human commission. But he had been called to the apostleship long before his designation at Antioch to a special missionary work ( Acts 26:16-20 ). His calling was neither that of Matthias nor of Barnabas. He was called neither by a body of men nor by an individual representing the authority of such a body.

3 . His commission was entirely Divine. "By Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead."