Galatians 1:20 - Printer Friendly

ESV: (In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie!)

NIV: I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie.

NASB: (Now in what I am writing to you, I assure you before God that I am not lying.)

CSB: I declare in the sight of God: I am not lying in what I write to you.

NLT: I declare before God that what I am writing to you is not a lie.

KJV: Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not.

NKJV: (Now concerning the things which I write to you, indeed, before God, I do not lie.)

Paul interrupts the story of the years after his conversion to Christianity to make a urgent statement to the Galatian believers who have spent time with him. He says, in essence, "As God is my witness, I am not lying!"

Apparently, the Judaizers have been accusing Paul of doing exactly that. It seems they were suggesting that Paul got all his information and training from the apostles and was, therefore, not qualified to be an apostle himself. Paul's story has shown just the opposite. He spent the first years after his conversion—after seeing the Lord and being commissioned as an apostle—off on his own learning about Christ.

He urgently wants the Galatians to understand that he speaks with the authority of one sent out by Jesus and that his teaching to them can be trusted.

Galatians 1:11–24 begins with Paul's statement that he did not receive the gospel which he taught to the Galatians from any man-made religion, nor training from other people. He received it from Christ Himself. God revealed His Son Jesus to Paul, by His grace, even after Paul spent years as a Pharisee trying to destroy the Christian church. After Christ commissioned Paul to preach the good news to the Gentiles, he went off by himself for a few years and came to know the gospel through Christ directly.

Paul begins his letter to the Galatian churches abruptly, compared to his other writings. He has heard they are deserting the gospel which he preached and they believed: the good news that Jesus died to fully pay for all our sins on the cross. The Judaizers taught that these Gentiles must also follow the law of Moses to be saved and openly questioned Paul's authority. Paul makes the case that he has been made an apostle by Christ, who appeared to him and revealed the truth to him apart from the other apostles.

Galatians 1 begins one of the most-loved books about God's grace in all of Scripture. This and the following chapter detail Paul's biography, as he makes the case that he has been made an apostle by Christ and therefore his message is trustworthy. Chapters 3 and 4 go into depth about exactly what the gospel of God's grace is and why it is true. In chapters 5 and 6, Paul teaches about how Christians should live in the world as people who have received the grace of God through faith in Christ.

Galatians is sometimes called “a short Romans” for its similar themes of justification and sanctification through faith. A group of Christians known as “Judaizers” were preaching a gospel of legalism, rather than grace. Paul’s main purpose in writing the letter to the Galatians was to reiterate the true nature of the gospel: we are justified (made righteous) and sanctified (made more Christlike) through our faith in Jesus Christ alone. This letter was probably written shortly before the church elders in Jerusalem issued their official refutation of the Judaizers, commonly called the Jerusalem Council.

Accessed 5/2/2024 4:21:07 PM