EarlDoherty

I mentioned a couple of days ago that I would be posting something about Galatians 4:4. Since then, in putting together my thoughts on that passage, I noticed something that had never occurred to me before, nor have I ever seen any commentary which shows any awareness of this point. It has turned out to be quite significant, if not dramatic, and all sorts of corollaries follow from it. So I am going to lay it out here for reactions. Ben has been demanding a better take on my part on “born of woman” and I am finally able to oblige him. I think this virtually neuters the passage as support for an historical Jesus.

Galatians 4:4-7 contains the double phrase: “born of woman, born under the Law.” (I like to capitalize the word here as it refers to the Jewish biblical Law, not to law in general.) There are two ways to approach this passage: accepting the double phrase as authentic to Paul or questioning its authenticity and judging it as a likely interpolation. But leaving that choice aside for the moment, it is imperative that we first look at the passage as a whole, for regardless in which direction we lean, there are some surprising things to discover about it.

4 Then in the fullness of time, God sent his Son, born of woman, born under the Law, 5 in order that he might purchase freedom for the subjects of the Law, in order that we might attain the status of sons. 6 And because you are sons, God (has) sent into our hearts the Spirit of his Son, crying ‘Father!’ 7 You are therefore no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then also by God’s act an heir.”

Let’s start with “God sent [exapesteilen] his Son.” This verb of sending is used in the Old Testament in connection with the sending of spiritual beings, such as angels, or Wisdom as in the Wisdom of Solomon 9:10. The basic form of the verb, apostellō, is regularly used to denote the sending of the Holy Spirit. (The verb and its variants can also be used to speak of ‘sending’ a person.) The identical form of the verb is used in verse 6 to say that “God sent into our hearts the Spirit of his Son.” This is an aorist tense, placing both these actions fully in the past. Some translations of the verb in verse 6 render it in the perfect tense: “God has sent…” but this may be misleading. The question is, are the two thoughts, the two “sent” actions contemporary? Might they essentially be two parts of the same action? (Don’t worry, I’ll demonstrate it, not simply assume it.) By using a perfect tense in verse 6, translators set up a “God sent…God has sent,” sequence, as though the second is separate and subsequent to the first, the first representing the advent of Jesus on earth, the second the later installation of his Spirit into Paul’s converts. And no doubt such a translation has been influenced by that assumption. But if the two ‘sendings’ are more or less contemporary, then Paul may simply be relating both to the time of his own activities: the sending in both cases would then relate to the spirit of the Son only, so that we can take both in the sense of the present-day revelation of Christ by God to Paul and his congregations.

This would then represent the arrival of the spiritual Christ within the current phenomenon of divine revelation and Paul’s concept of “Christ in you.” This spiritual knowledge and presence of Christ would be part of the present situation (i.e., in Paul’s time) in which freedom from the Law is gained and those who are now “in Christ” achieve the “status of sons.” There need be nothing here that refers to an historical act by Christ on earth (or even a sacrificial act in the heavens). Let’s see how well this reading can be supported.

We should not ignore the fact that Paul has failed to refer here to any event of death and resurrection, historical or mythical. It is not, “God sent his son, who died on Calvary and rose from his tomb,” or even “God sent his son, who died on the cross and rose from death,” which could in the latter case allow placement in a mythical context. This in itself might suggest that Paul does not here have in mind such ‘events’ as the immediate means by which the ‘purchase of freedom’ was effected. This is what he says:

“…God sent his Son…in order that he might purchase freedom for the subjects of the law…”

I have dropped the contentious “born” phrases for now, so that we can see the main train of thought in the sentence. Note that the antecedent of “he” (the one who purchases freedom) could grammatically be either God or the Son. Usually, it is the Son who is assumed to purchase freedom, but this is a significant mistake.

What Paul is focusing on here is the specific transition of the believer from being under the Law to being free of it. From being a “slave” to being a “son.” This in fact has been his entire focus in the preceding chapter 3. And at what point has this transition from Law to freedom, from slave to son, taken place? The fact is, it has not been at the point of Jesus’ sacrificial act, regardless of whether that was historical or mythical. Paul locates it at quite a different point. Here is his thought a few verses earlier:

3:23 – “Before faith came we were held prisoner by the Law until faith should be revealed... 25 Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the Law.” [Note that the intervening verse 24 has been translated in either of two ways: “…the Law was our tutor until Christ came,” but this contradicts the thought in the two flanking verses which say that it is “faith” that has come. The other is preferable: “…the Law was a tutor leading us to Christ,” which is literally what the Greek says: (gegonen eis Xriston). The latter could be taken in any number of ways: leading us to learning about Christ, leading us to the time when Christ arrived—either in body, spirit, or the revelation of him. Many translations recognize this.]

Thus, even when Christ had performed his act of sacrifice, whether historical or mythical, we were still under the Law, still slaves, not yet sons of God. All this was only to change when faith arose, brought to new believers through the preaching of Paul. Once more, we see that exclusive focus on the apostolic movement as the key moment of the present time—seemingly its only moment—with Jesus suspended somewhere in an indeterminate dimension, communicating with humans and having the consequences of his shadowy acts brought into the light and into effect only with the preaching of the gospel by the likes of Paul.

If we allow the thought of 3:23-25 to govern 4:4 (which it should, else Paul is contradicting himself), we arrive at the following conclusion. If God sending his Son in verse 4 is focused solely on the act of producing that transition from Law to freedom, and Paul locates this transition at the time of faith (which is to say of the response to his own preaching), then the “sent” of verse 4 does not refer to any arrival of the Son on the earthly scene some decades earlier. Rather, the sending of verse 4 is the sending of the Son at the time of Paul, which can only mean through revelation into minds like his own (“God revealed his son in me,” as he has said in 1:16), enabling him to bring knowledge of the Son to others (“in order that I might preach him among the nations”) and produce the “faith” within them which brings about that freedom from the Law and confers the status of “sons” upon them.

Once again, and it follows logically from chapter 3, Paul has focused entirely on his own work and left the work of Jesus in outer darkness, known and brought into visibility only by God and revelation, with Paul himself acting as the medium for both. If the sending is of Christ as spirit (which is what Paul then says outright in verse 6), there is no ‘action’ by Christ at that time which purchases freedom, and thus God remains the subject of “to purchase freedom for the subjects of the Law.” It is by sending the revelation of his Son, the long-hidden secret (“mystery”) of which the epistles constantly speak, that God has set in motion the freeing of people from the Law and their adoption as sons through the work of Paul. Here Christ is essentially a passive figure.

Because verse 4 is not a reference to the Son’s acts themselves, but to God’s act in sending the revelation of his Son and making the benefits of his sacrifice available, all the elements of this passage fall into place. First, it must be pointed out, of course, that Paul also envisions, and elsewhere states, that it is Jesus’ act of sacrifice which has brought freedom from the Law. A short time earlier, in 3:13, he has said “Christ brought us freedom from the curse of the Law by becoming for our sake an accursed thing.” This is the primary act which is drawn on by God when he decides it is time for that freedom to be applied. But what has been the specific point of that application? It is not stated to be the actual time of the sacrifice. The passage from 3:23 to 4:6 makes it clear that the application of the effects of Christ’s act takes place only at the time of faith, which is the time of Paul, not Jesus. That coming of faith has been the act and responsibility of God, through his revelation to Paul and Paul’s subsequent missionary work.

This, in fact, is the manner in which all the epistles describe the salvation workings of the present time. It is all God’s work, revealing Christ and making available the benefits of his sacrifice. This is why no role is ever given to Jesus in the present except to have himself be “manifested” (all those revelation verbs) and enter into Paul and his converts. It is why his acts are never introduced as part of the present scene. Instead, those acts, performed at some unspecified time, have created a deposit placed in the bank, an account kept hidden by God “for long generations” but now revealed. The account has been opened for withdrawals, with the PIN number being given out to those who have adopted faith in Christ Jesus. We find this fully in keeping with the thought in verse 7: “So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and thus by God’s act, an heir.” Here it is stated to be God who has performed the act which makes the believer a son, not Jesus, and this parallels and confirms the meaning in verse 4, in which it is God who has “purchase[d] freedom for the subjects of the Law,” not Jesus. Thus it has not been the death and resurrection which are the immediate cause of that freedom, and so the “God sent his Son” in verse 4 does not imply a reference to the life which contained such events, but rather it refers to God drawing on those acts to now put the available freedom into effect by revealing the Son and what he had done; he relies on Paul to elicit the necessary faith. (What a responsibility!) To change my analogy slightly, God has done it by taking the money from that now-open bank account and giving it to Paul to spend on his missionary efforts, to buy faith, the faith that produces sons. Christ’s face is on the bills given to Paul, the bills are passages from scripture telling of him, and the face on some of the bills even speaks the words of scripture in application to himself.

To put it another way, since it is God who has done the purchasing of freedom, and this is in the time of Paul, this pulls God’s act of ‘sending the Son’ in verse 4 into Paul’s time. This, then, could only refer to a sending in a spiritual sense—the new knowledge and presence of Christ—which is exactly what Paul goes on to say in verse 6: “God sent the Spirit of his Son.” Thus none of it is a reference to any arrival of Jesus on earth in the past. This does not, in itself, rule out some previous arrival on earth, but such a thought is not present in these verses. And it must be admitted that to take this spiritual sending as referring to the actual point of revelation of the Son, with no life preceding it, would be the natural assumption, given its perfect fit with all the epistles’ talk about such things as Christ being “manifested” in their own time, and having been part of God’s secret/mystery for long generations, and the looked-for Parousia of Christ from heaven containing no suggestion that he had been here previously, and so on.

This puts verse 6 in its proper relationship to verse 4. While the two thoughts are more or less contemporaneous, the second is something of a corollary and extension of the first. By revealing Christ and making the benefits of his spiritual-world sacrifice available to believers who now become free of the Law, God has created adopted sons. With Christ, God’s heavenly Son, now “in you” (within “our hearts”) in spiritual form, that “Spirit of his Son” is expressing its hosts’ new relationship with God by “crying: ‘Abba, Father!’.”

Paul, in this entire passage, is presenting God as sending his Son, not in terms of any arrival on earth, but in the sense of his revelation to humanity. This fits with every other reference in the epistles to the ‘coming’ of Christ in the present time, offering a “now” figure who speaks from scripture rather than a “then” figure of the past. That an entire movement from its beginning and for over half a century could have adopted such language and created such a picture if an historical Jesus had recently existed and whose memory lived on in their minds is simply impossible.

All this is further supported by another overlooked phrase, the very first words of verse 4: “Then in the fullness of time…” (literally, “when came the fullness of time [to plēroma tou chronou]”). What is that time? Certainly Paul does not here say, nor ever says, that it was a certain number of years ago, that it was at the time of an identifiable person or period in history which could locate Jesus on earth for us. Still, there is some validity to the idea that Paul is simply voicing the general thought that God did whatever he did when he had decided it was time to do so, and this is what the phrase serves to say. But this still leaves the anomaly of what specifically that “fullness of time” is applied to. Again, in light of what we have decided about the ‘sending,’ that it was the time of revelation, the time of the preaching by the likes of Paul, this makes the “fullness of time” refer to that preaching movement, conducted under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Nor can we shift the “sending” back into Christ’s time while leaving the “purchasing of freedom” until later, in the time of Paul, and thereby rescue verse 4 for a more traditional interpretation. Not only would this jar the flow of thought through the passage, it is ruled out by another passage in the Pauline corpus. Even though the epistle of Titus, one of the Pastorals, was written probably half a century later, it still preserves much of Paul’s thought. In its opening verses, the writer, pretending to be Paul, has this to say:

2 …the hope of eternal life which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time, 3 and now at the proper time [kairois idiois] he has revealed his word [NEB: openly declared himself] through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior.

Thus the “proper time,” an idea equivalent to Galatians’ “fullness of time,” is indeed the time of revelation and preaching by Paul. It is not the time of Jesus’ arrival and acts on earth. Now, the Galatians verse might theoretically allow for an earlier arrival even if the “time” it refers to is the time of faith when believers actually become sons, ultimately based on Christ’s work, but common sense surely rules that out. Is any writer going to present the “fullness of time” as coming only with the period of Paul and his preaching, rather than with the past incarnation of the Son and his earthly career? Of course, such a way of thinking is betrayed all through the epistles (see p.52-55), such as in 1 Corinthians 10:11, “Upon us the fulfillment of the ages has come!” where Paul himself declares that all the expectations of the previous age have been focused on and come to fruition in his time and its imminent Parousia of Christ, rather than in any life of Christ in the recent past. This just accentuates the fact that all of it goes against common sense that an entire movement would express itself this way. Furthermore, Titus 1:2-3 does not even allow us to deliberately go against common sense. There is simply no room made in those verses for an earlier arrival. Between God’s promises made “before the beginning of time” and the revealing of his word “at the proper time” in the preaching of Paul, no scope is allowed for any arrival of Christ on the earthly scene to do work of any kind, either bestowing eternal life or revealing its availability. No writer would ever have laid out such a pattern and completely ignored Jesus in the middle of it. (This is only the most blatant indicator that the writer of the Pastorals knows of no historical Jesus.)

Go back to Galatians 3:23 and consider yet another view on the way Paul presents things. “Before faith came, we were held prisoner of the Law until faith should be revealed.” In the context of an historical crucifixion some decades earlier than Paul was writing, this would be a curious thought. If Jesus dying on the cross was the necessary act which brought about the setting aside of the old Law (and it was), surely any idea that the Law still held sway even after that historical event had happened would be unnatural. The Law would have ceased to have any force, any life in it, from that point on, even if the message about that cessation was yet to be brought to people, even if people only assumed that they were still under the Law until informed otherwise by Paul. Yet Paul, in 3:23, states clearly that the Law was in effect, it continued to make people prisoners, until his time, the time of revelation to apostles like himself and the bringing of faith to their converts. He never attaches any ‘end’ of the Law to the actual death of Jesus. However, this would make sense in the context of a death which had not taken place at any identifiable point in history, but in the spiritual world, something hidden for long ages, knowledge of which has only now come through God’s revelation about it. In such a context, the only point that would be available to which the end of the Law’s dominion could be assigned would be the point at which that sacrifice was revealed and faith in it was inaugurated. In fact, Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 4:14: “We believe Jesus died and rose again,” clearly implying that not only the rising, but even the death was a matter of faith, not historical knowledge. As well, in 1 Corinthians 15:12-16, he also seems to say that Christians know of Jesus’ resurrection through revelation by God, through faith rather than historical witness.

The observations thus far are valid quite apart from the absence or presence of “born of woman, born under the Law.” But they do have a bearing on the question of whether those phrases should be in the text, or whether they are interpolations. If the sending of the Son in verse 4 refers only to the revelation and arrival of the spirit of Christ in the knowledge of the world (through Paul), in Christ being “in” the believer through baptism and faith, then the idea of Christ being “born of woman” would be completely irrelevant—even if an historical Jesus had existed. The “born” idea would have had no bearing on what was being said around it. By the same token, “born under the Law” would be almost equally lacking germaneness to what was being discussed. I say “almost” because the idea of parallelism might conceivably be in play here--in the mythical context. If Christ undergoes similar experiences to his devotees on earth, this being the principle of the link between them (as in Romans 6:3-5), then Paul might want to say that he too had “come under the Law”; the same reasoning might even apply to the inclusion of “born of woman.” And yet within the context of the Galatians passage itself, neither of these features would play any direct role. Christ is not being set up as the one who abolishes or purchases freedom from the Law. That is God himself, and he can hardly be born of woman or born under the Law. Besides, for Paul to introduce the idea that Jesus had been born and lived under the Law would be to open up a can of worms, for then he might be called on to explain Jesus’ relationship to the Law and its pitfalls while he lived his human life, how someone in thrall to the Law could free people from it. (Of course, he never does.) So it is hard to see why Paul would even be tempted to insert “born of woman, born under the Law” into this passage.

As a postscript, I’ll cover one other ‘technical’ base, in case Ben or Kevin think to put it forward (it would be pretty esoteric, and require some very convoluted thought—more convoluted than Paul’s usual—to be inserted into verse 4, but both of them have been known to find tiny straws in an acre of hay). We’ve established that the “purchase of freedom” is something done by God, not Jesus. (Remember, it’s “God’s own act,” as the NEB emphasizes it.) But could it be claimed that this act by God was enabled by Jesus being sent to earth in the past and being “born of woman, born under the Law”? First of all, these would be very secondary to the death and rising which is the primary act which bestows salvation. (Why didn’t Paul put those forward instead of the woman/Law ideas?) In what way would being born of woman and born under the Law be features worthy of highlighting as important? It would go without saying that if Jesus had lived on earth and been crucified as a human being on Calvary he was “born of woman.” That would hardly contribute anything to the primary act or strengthen it; it would merely be gratuitous and redundant. In fact, since orthodox interpretation of the passage assumes that the sending of verse 4 means the life of Christ and his saving act of death and crucifixion, Paul would have no earthly reason (pun intended) to say that he was “born of woman”, and thus the presence of the phrase provides a justification for suggesting interpolation.

If “born of woman” is thus to be set aside, “born under the Law” would almost certainly have to go with it. But even without that, what could “born under the Law” itself have contributed to the primary act of death and resurrection? Nothing that I can see. And if one tries to see any relevance for it in relation to the discussion of the abolition of the Law surrounding it, that too is hard to come by. In what way is Jesus having been “born under the Law” a useful or working part of the mechanism by which God has freed believers from it, which is what this passage is all about? It simply has no bearing on the process. If it did, Paul would be led to spell that relevance out, especially since it would be far from obvious to his readers (just as it is far from obvious to us).

That’s enough for now (although much more can be said, and I'm working on it).

Earl Doherty

PhilosopherJay

Hi Earl,

This is a very thoughtful and sharp exposition.

I remember also spending half-a-day on the passage, a few weeks ago, and following a fairly close logic to yours, coming to the same conclusion that "born of woman, born under the law" was a later interpolation.

My other conclusion was that whoever put those words in the line, probably took out "the spirit of" from the phrase "God sent the spirit of his son." in the same line. The switch from "God sent his son" in line four to "God sent the spirit of his son" in line six is just too drastic to swallow. A reader/listener would have asked "What do you mean? Did God send his son or did he send the spirit of son? Stop trying to confuse us." I think we have to give the writer credit for knowing that "a son" and a "spirit of a son" are two quite different things, and assume that he wrote "God sent the spirit of his son" in both lines.

It would be interesting to check the manuscript evidence and the evidence of Church fathers to see if there is any other evidence for these changes. I believe I did find some when I went searching for it; but at the moment I'm feeling too lazy/busy to look for it.

Warmly,

Jay

judge

But Earl what you have not shown is why the phrases are contentious.
Isn't it true that you want them to be contentious, not that you give any good reason to think they are more contentious than any other random verses?

GakuseiDon

Nothing wrong at all with Earl changing his mind, but it would be good if he can clear up his current understanding of his reading of the key phrases.

Here is Earl originally on this point (from his website):
http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp08.htm

"Paul here uses the same verb for “arose” (descended, born of) which he also uses in Galatians 4:4 (“born of woman, born under/subject to the law”). When I discuss this latter passage below, I will explore more fully the point that this is not a straightforward verb of “birth” but rather of “becoming,” of “coming into existence.” Its broader implication fits the atmosphere of myth, the workings of the higher world where these processes went on...

Burton also notes that the word usually translated as “born” (genomenon) is not the most unambiguous verb to use for this concept; a form of gennao, to give birth, would have been more straightforward. Instead, Paul uses a form of ginomai, which has a broader meaning of “to become, to come into existence.” “Out of woman,” of course, implies birth, but the point is, the broader concept lends itself better to the atmosphere of myth, if that is what Paul has in mind. And his “born of woman” is not only something that was said of certain mythical savior gods, like Dionysos (and various other products of Zeus’ mythical dallyings), it is a detail he could well have based not on history, but on the source he uses for all he says about the Son: the Jewish scriptures."

Earl in the thread on "Born of a woman" from last year:
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=169780

"“Born of woman” would be a natural insertion in Galatians (let’s say around the middle of the 2nd century to counter docetics like Marcion and others) to make the point that Jesus was in fact a human man from a human mother. The question is always raised why Paul would need to make this obvious point to his readers. This is doubly true if he wrote long before docetics came along whose views would need counteracting. The first insertion would have been of genomenon ek gunaikos, but later this was regarded as not graphic enough since it used the verb ginomai, and so later emendations changed it to the more direct gennwmenon, from the verb gennaw."

Finally, Earl writes in this thread:
As I said, people's arguments change, evolve and become even stronger. Nothing wrong at all with that happening. But if they change, it means that previous ones have been discarded, and if they have, then it must be for some reason. Is the insertion of "born of woman, born under the law" merely "gratuitous and redundant", since the orthodox interpretation already assumes the sending of verse 4 means the life of Christ? If so, why did the interpolator need to insert it? Or does the "broader implication fit the atmosphere of myth"? If so, why would the interpolator use those words?

I know that Earl thinks I have a "failure of imagination", and I'm not trying to be picky here (honestly!) In fact, I will stay out of this debate if Earl likes. Perhaps it may be better if ALL historicists who have been charged with "failure of imagination" stay out of this debate, so we can let those sympathetic to Earl's theories question him on it, to help him build the strongest case possible.

Toto

Did you miss the important qualifier?

EarlDoherty

I'm glad I have Don's permission to refine and evolve my ideas, even if this means that previous ideas are now inadequate or just not up to present snuff. I don't see that anything I said previously is now "wrong" in light of what I've posted today, just in a less developed state. Anyway, the point isn't worth arguing over.

Don also misses the point that it is possible to evaluate the original writer's motives or understanding when trying to decide whether he said a contentious phrase, and that this can be quite different from evaluating whether a later scribe could have inserted something. They don't both operate under the same influences, especially if they are separated by a century. Why Paul would use those words is a very different question from why an interpolator would use those words. The interpolator would use those words because the situation in his day was different from Paul's (there were no docetic heretics in Paul's day), and he would have an entirely different reason to insert something like that where Paul would not.

Anyway, more will follow in a day or two, including a new examination of what Burton has to say on this passage.

I sincerely hope that Ben is going to weigh in on this, since he (and others) have always maintained that mythicists don't have a peg-leg to stand on in light of Galatians 4.

(And Galatians 4 is not "contentious"??)

Earl Doherty

GakuseiDon

Actually, this is a point that is probably worth highlighting, esp for cumulative cases. It ties neatly with Vork's thread on frameworks.

As a trivial example, recently you suggested that the Ignatius letters may be dated to 120 CE. In your book, you dated them to around 107 CE, and suggested that Tacitus may have been influenced indirectly by them. Now, if the date of the letters are moved back to 120 CE, the consequence is that the proposed possible influence becomes unlikely. Not a big deal as your theory is at the moment. But if a new point about the Ignatius/Tacitus connection gets raised where the dating is important, your reasons for settling on the earlier or later date would become important.

As I said, the above example is totally trivial with respects to your current mythicist thesis. In the case of "born of a woman", you are correct to point out that the expression may have meant something in Paul's day (as "fitting the atmosphere of myth"), while meaning something different by the time we hit the Second Century (a "gratuitous and redundant" statement of earthliness). If this is what you think is the case, then fine. If you think something else, also fine. But what is needed is for you to clarify what you think is actually happening here. In that way, your current reading can be measured against other points as they arise.

The issue is this: Changes in how you view what is happening in one area may affect your evaluation of other areas (as per the Ignatius/Tacitus example). So it is very important to be clear on what you see is happening in these contentious passages, so we can see if it matches the overall thrust of the literature of the day. The end result is either that weaknesses in your case can be shown, or your case becomes stronger. I can't think of any other way of evaluating a cumulative case where we are dealing with data such as this.

TedM

Hi Earl,

I have little problem with much of your analysis. Paul’s message to the Galations is all about the redeeming value of faith. He clearly is dealing with the fact that there are others who are teaching a different gospel about Jesus which requires that Christian Gentile Galations follow the Jewish law. Paul’s message, which I maintain IS the mystery he writes about in a few places, is one of Gentile salvation via faith in Jesus’ redemptive act of crucifixion. So yes, the preaching of faith, and the arrival of faith was PARAMOUNT to the Galations, according to Paul, because that is what enabled the Galations to become adoptive sons of God.

I’ll now respond to some points you made:

Jesus could have purchased the freedom, which is only “given out” upon having the kind of faith Paul later Paul revealed. That is not inconsistent with the passage as stated at all.

The same use of the verb in verses 4 and 6 is consistent with Jesus first arriving, and the arrival of the concept of salvation through faith for Gentiles arriving later. It simply isn’t a problem.

As for the Titus passage, the similar idea (something significant happened at a point in time) can certainly be used to apply to two different “significant” events--one being the arrival of Jesus, and the other the arrival of Gentile salvation through faith, following soon within a few years of his redemptive act..

While the arrival of Pauls’ gospel of salvation via faith no doubt was a major event for Paul, the existence of Jewish Christians who opposed his viewpoints and seemed to be connected with the earliest Jewish Christians in the movement would suggest that the actual arrival of the “story” of Jesus--his crucifixion and resurrection--was not an old story. The “arrival” of the Jesus’ story surely WAS significant, attested to by the early creed of 1 Cor 15.



I haven‘t seen that you‘ve demonstrated in any way that the “sending” of his Son in verse 4 is corresponding to the exact same time of the “sending” of his Son’s spirit in verse 6. One is literally referring to his “arrival”, the other the “arrival of Gentile salvation through faith”. There is no reason to conclude that these sendings are one and the same. If you don’t allow interpolation for “born of a woman, born under the law” the time difference is obvious.


Paul doesn’t write that Christ was only sent as spirit, and he clearly writes that Christ purchased freedom, implying on the cross. The problem is that he didn’t distinguish between purchased freedom becoming available and being given out.

The orthodox view is fairly simple:

God sent his Son, who was born of a woman, born Jewish. His Son purchased freedom through his death. Freedom comes through faith. Revelation of faith came later--preached by Paul, and argued against by certain Jewish believers in Jesus. Upon having faith, God sends his Son’s spirit into the believer’s hearts, and they too become sons of God, heirs to the promise.

The only problem I see with this is that Paul didn’t spell out that his version of revelation of faith came after Jesus came. However, that is a problem for your own theory also.


4:4 need not be referring to the time Paul's gospel was preached.
3:16 and 3:24 allow for a time after Abraham and the Law for Christ's arrival, which may be what 4:4 is referencing.

Where does Paul ever say that the acts of Jesus were hidden for long generations? He doesn’t. Rather, the mystery of Gentile salvation was hidden for long generations. This is Paul’s focus. Might it not explain his relative silence on Jesus’ ministry? After all, Jesus himself maybe didn’t preach Gentile salvation via faith, and in Acts there is an evolution towards accepting this concept.


God’s act in verse 7 points back to verse 6, NOT verse 4: “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts”. This need not required the purchasing of freedom to have originally occurred in Paul's time by requiring the purchase to happen at the same time as the acceptance of the gift, and can be consistent with the orthodox view I gave above.



This is an unnecessary conclusion since God’s act in verse 7 doesn’t have to tie back to verse 4, as shown above, and so God‘s Son sent in verse 4 could be the same person he refers to as “born of a woman“, “born under the law“ and “to redeem “. The orthodox view flows better than your interpretations allow unless perhaps if you require interpolation..


“born of a woman, born under the law” is a thought about an arrival on earth.




I don’t see the jarring you see. He says he sent Jesus to earth to redeem people, including the Gentile Galations, who through faith can become heirs to the promise. It is only jarring when you wrongly conclude that since adoption occurred upon a later faith, he therefore “sent” his Son in verse 4 at the same time that he “sends” his Son’s spirit into the Galations hearts through Paul‘s preaching in verse 6.. You seem to not be allowing for there to be a lapse in time between the act of redemption and the revealing of how redemption is attained by Paul in his gospel.



They might if Jesus never spoke of this kind of Gentile salvation, and if they were being persecuted and argued against by many who were involved in and who had some significant political power in the original movement based on this man’s resurrection and belief that he had been the long-awaited Messiah. Gentile salvation didn’t require discussions about Jewish teachings and miracles and such..Rather it required faith in his resurrection.


3:13 and 3:24 might argue against that.

Not sure about the born of a woman. “..born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” This seems to imply that Gentiles could not be saved by faith until the curse of the law (on the Jews) was broken through Jesus’ sacrifice. This could only be done by someone who was also under the curse--a Jew too.

ted

dog-on

Read the orthodoxy back into Paul for a conservative understanding.
"Paul’s message, which I maintain IS the mystery he writes about in a few places, is one of Gentile salvation via faith in Jesus’ redemptive act of crucifixion".

Mr. Doherty has, in my view, "hit the nail on the head" and is only missing one bit to bring the solution completely into focus.

This epistle becomes extremely clear, without the need for anachronistic orthodox understanding, once one takes the view that this epistle was, indeed, a Marcionite document.

The "God" referred to is Marcion's own Stranger God. The son is sent to ransom humanity, with his blood, from the creator god. The Stranger God and the ransom paid through his son is the mystery hidden for ages, but now revealed through the scriptures to Paul.

The Creator God set his laws. These are not up for discussion, they do not change. Only a divine ransom paid a higher deity could ransom the creation from being bound under the law.

As Paul says in 1 Corinthians:

6We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

The rulers being the demiurge and his minions.

Read the epistle with this understanding and ignore the interpolated Hebraisms.

It also explains the complete change in character between OT god and NT god...(two different dudes :angel: ).

Clouseau

It is essential. Let's look at the whole sentence.

'But when the time had fully come,'

...after it had become very obvious that externally applied law was useless, except to point up the inability of man to do good.

'God sent his Son,'

...i.e. God manifested himself.

'made of a woman,'

...without any advantages at all; subject to all the weaknesses and temptations that those whom he wanted to save were and are subject to.

'born under law,'

...the absence of the article indicates that Jesus was judged by natural law that applies to all, which, as he himself pointed out, is of a higher strictness than Mosaic Law. He was also subject to Mosaic Law, of course.

'to redeem those under law,'

...so the purpose of being born as a human, of being subject to the judgement of the law, was to redeem. The substitutionary Lamb of God had to be perfect, not perfect in a 'vacuum', but 'tempted in every way as we are'.

'in order that we might receive adoption as sons.'

...so the Son, by substitution, produces sons; sons of equal righteousness, though a righteousness imputed, therefore sons 'adopted'.

There can be no adoption without the 'winning' of perfection against all the difficulties that mankind faces. That is why Jesus was also 'the Son of Man'- what man should be, and can be, by faith.