Summary of Galatians 5:26-6:18

Paul advises we should not desire empty glory and thereby provoke and envy one another. Even if someone is caught in sin, spiritual people should correct him in a spirit of meekness, watching out too so as not to fall into the same thing.

If we bear the burdens of one another, we fulfill the law of Christ.

If a person thinks he is something, whereas he is nothing, he deceives himself. So let each one examine what he does, and then he will have something to boast of for what he does -- not trying to raise himself by cutting down others. Let each one carry his own burden.

Those who receive religious instruction should share material goods with their teacher.

For no one can deceive God -- whatever one sows, that is what he will reap. If he sows the things of the flesh, he will harvest corruption thereby. If he sows for the spirit, he will reap eternal life.

So we should not get tired of doing good. We will get the harvest at the right time. Especially we should do good to those who share our faith.

Paul now takes up the pen (he has been dictating), and says: Look at the large letters in which I write.

Those who want to put up a good front, a good appearance in the flesh, are trying to get the Galatians to be circumcised, so they may not endure persecution (as Paul does) for preaching, instead, dependence on the Cross of Christ. Really, these Judaizers do not keep the law. They just want to get others circumcised in order to be able to boast of it. Paul says he will boast over nothing but the Cross of Jesus, through which the world has been crucified to him, and he to the world.

Neither circumcision matters, nor uncircumcision -- what does matter is being a new creation.

Peace and mercy to those who live this way, and to the new Israel of God (Christians). As for the rest, he says he bears the marks of Jesus, and so no one should make trouble for him.

He prays finally that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ may be with them. Amen.

Comments on 5:26-6:18

Here we have mostly rather miscellaneous moral exhortations. Paul commonly does this at the end of an Epistle. It is called paraenesis, which is just a Greek word for exhortation.

In 6:3 Paul speaks of a person as "being nothing." He does not mean nonexistence, of course. But he does mean what he says strongly in 1 Corinthians 4:7: "What have you that you have not received? And if you have received it, why boast as if you had not received it," i.e., as if you had generated the good yourself instead of just receiving it from God. St. Augustine says the same thing forcefully (Epistle 194.5.19): "When God crowns your merits, He crowns nothing other than His own gifts." We will see much more on this point in our comments on Philippians 2:13.

In 6:15 Paul says a Christian is a new creation. He says this in several places. It is important, for it shows that we are not totally corrupt from original sin, as Luther thought. After justification, we are remade so completely as to be a new creation. Creation means making out of nothing, or from scratch.

When Paul says in 6:17 that he bears the marks of Jesus in his flesh, he does not seem to refer to what today are called stigmata, the marks of the nails in the body of Jesus. Stigmata in Paul's day often meant the branding used to mark a slave as one's possession. In Paul's case, the marks would come from the beatings he often suffered for Christ.

In the last line Paul prays that the grace of Jesus may be with them. We explained in 1 Thessalonians 1 that the Greek charis can mean either grace or favor. But if we do at times translate as favor, we must still remember that favor does not mean merely that God, as it were, sits there and smiles at us -- and gives us nothing. If He gave nothing, we would do good by our own power -- and Paul will not allow such a thought, it would be the heresy of Pelagianism. So if the translation favor is used, we need to always remember that it includes God's giving something to us -- which is grace. Please recall the comments on 6:3 above.