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HomeResourcesPodcast episode 137: The shape of the Christian life in Galatians with Tom Schreiner

Podcast episode 137: The shape of the Christian life in Galatians with Tom Schreiner

Published on: 10 Apr 2025
Author: CCL

Last year in 2024, Tom Schreiner, Associate Dean for the School of Theology, the James Buchanan Harrison Professor of New Testament Interpretation and Professor of Biblical Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, USA, delivered the Annual Moore College Lectures on the Book of Galatians.

In this episode of the CCL podcast, Peter Orr speaks with Tom about Galatians and how what God says in this marvellous letter directs the way we think and act as his people, and how it shapes the Christian life. Their conversation touches on the cross, justification by faith, the place of the law and of works in the Christian life, the role of the Spirit, and what the fruit of the Spirit looks like in those who follow Christ.

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Runtime: 29:56 min.

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Transcript

Please note: This transcript has been edited for readability.

Tony Payne: Hello, I’m Tony Payne. Welcome to another edition of Moore College’s Centre for Christian Living podcast. It’s great to be with you again as we try to bring biblical ethics to everyday issues.

Normally in our episodes and in our discussions, we start with an issue and then we try to bring the Bible to that issue: we start with the circumstance or situation of our lives and then reflect back on what God has said and what it might mean for us to come back and think about this particular situation.

But in this episode of our podcast, we’re going to work it from the other direction: we’re going to start with the Bible and with a particular part of the Bible, and then think, “What does it mean for our Christian lives?” This is also a really important thing to do in biblical ethics.

We do need to deal with the issues of life as they come up to meet us, day by day, but we also need to pause and allow what God says—and what he says, of course, in the Scriptures and in different parts of the Scriptures—to shape what we do—to shape our whole lives and the attitudes that we bring to our lives each day.

In this episode, we’re going to be taking a look at the Book of Galatians in particular, and we’re going to take advantage of the fact that last year at the Annual Moore College Lectures, Tom Schreiner from the United States visited Moore College and gave a really stimulating, fascinating and very helpful set of lectures on the Book of Galatians. In this conversation, Pete Orr (and this is the last of the interviews that Pete Orr did before he stepped down from his role as the caretaker/Director of the Centre)—Pete Orr is going to be speaking with Tom Schreiner about the Book of Galatians and how Galatians shapes the Christian life—how what God says in this marvellous letter directs the way we think and act as his people.

I do hope you find this as stimulating and enjoyable as I did listening to it. Here’s Pete Orr speaking with Tom Schreiner, the Professor of New Testament at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, about the marvellous Book of Galatians.

[Music]

Introduction: Tom Schreiner and the Book of Galatians

Peter Orr: Welcome to Moore College’s Centre for Christian Living podcast! My name is Peter Orr and I’m very pleased today to be joined by Professor Tom Schreiner from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in the United States. Tom’s been here at Moore College delivering our Annual Moore College Lectures on Galatians. It’s been a wonderful week, and it’s great that Tom can join us on the podcast.

Tom, you spoke on Galatians all week. This is obviously not the first time that you’ve done some work on Galatians. How has the Lord used Galatians in your own life? What’s the nature of your study been?

Tom Schreiner: Yes. I was raised as a Roman Catholic and I’d never heard the gospel. As a 17-year-old, I read Galatians, Romans and other Pauline letters, and for the first time, I understood, from reading Galatians, that we’re justified, we’re saved not based on what we do, but based on the grace of God that’s been given to us in Jesus Christ. Since then, Galatians has nourished my soul with the gospel of grace, with the reminder that the good we do is finally due to God’s work in our lives by the Holy Spirit. As I said in the lectures, I love the words of Luther: as he was dying, he said, “We are beggars. This is true”

Why Paul wrote

PO: Just before we get into some of the themes in the letter, can you just sketch out again why is Paul writing to the Galatian churches? What’s the issue that’s prompting him to write.

TS: Yes. Some rival teachers entered the community. Probably they came from the outside and they said to the Galatian Christians who were recently converted that they needed to keep the law and to be circumcised to belong to the people of God.

I think these false teachers probably appealed to Genesis 17:9-14. They’re not popular verses [Laughter], but if you read those verses, it’s clear that according to the Old Testament, to be a member of the people of God, you had to be circumcised.

PO: So presumably a majority Gentile church is being told that, essentially, you have to become Jewish to be part of God’s people.

The place of the cross

PO: You spoke in your first lecture about the place of the cross in the letter. Could you just highlight the place of the cross in Galatians and then, from that, what we can learn about the place of the cross in the Christian life?

TS: Yeah. I think it’s very interesting that—and it wouldn’t have been wrong, per se; Paul could have said, “Well, of course you shouldn’t be circumcised; you’re baptised.” But instead, the polarity or the opposition is fundamentally between circumcision and the cross: how do you enter the people of God? Is it by being circumcised, or is it through the cross of Christ? Of course, for Paul, it’s the cross.

We see the cross in the introduction to the letter: he’s delivered us from “the present evil age” (Gal 1:4). Then we see it at the end of the letter, where he says that he’s only going to boast in the cross (Gal 6:14). Paul says in Galatians 2:21, “if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose”. Or he says in Galatians 3:1, “Who has bewitched you”/cast a spell over you? “It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified”. Or the curse is removed through the cross (Gal 3:13). We’re adopted through the cross (Gal 4:5).

So I think the message there is, well, we need first as sinners—as those who are alienated from God—as those were in Adam—we need death and then new life. We need death and resurrection. The pathway for that is not our own work, but the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We need to place our faith in the crucified and resurrected one. That’s how we enter into life, not by keeping a command like circumcision or any other command.

PO: Yeah, it’s very striking, as you said, the way the cross frames the letter. It’s very unusual for Paul to start his letter talking about the death of Christ. But in this kind of crisis situation where they’re being drawn away, it’s the cross that he holds before them.

The law and the Christian life

PO: You touched on the law—particularly circumcision and how they didn’t need to be circumcised. They didn’t need to keep the law for the Christian life. That raises some interesting questions about the place of the law in the Christian life, particularly the Ten Commandments. How should we as Christian believers relate to God’s law from the Old Testament?

TS: So I think the law in the Old Testament is bound up with the covenant made with Israel under Moses—the Mosaic covenant. I would argue from what we see in Galatians 3-4, Paul distinguishes between the covenant made with Abraham and the covenant made with Moses. He emphasises that the covenant made with Moses came 430 year later. It cannot invalidate the covenant made with Abraham.

Another way of putting it is, I think, Paul argues that the covenant made with Moses is an interim covenant—a temporary covenant—not a permanent covenant. This is a very complicated question, but there’s a sense in which the covenant made with Moses is of a different nature, because Paul contrasts promise—the Abrahamic covenant being one of promise—and he emphasises the Mosaic covenant as one of “doing” and performance. I don’t think that’s the only element of the Mosaic covenant, but I think it’s there.

So I think Paul would say, “Look: the law came with the Mosaic covenant. Christians are not under that law at all.” That covenant was meant for Israel. Israel was, so to speak, kind of church and nation together—a theocracy. A theocracy is where God is ruling the nation directly through his law. But the church of Jesus Christ is not under that covenant. The church of Jesus Christ isn’t a theocracy; we are the people of God in every nation throughout the world. So we’re not under the Mosaic law. That’s the first thing to say. I would argue that no stipulation in the Mosaic covenant per se is obligatory for us as Christians. It’s very important to say “per se”.

However, it’s interesting—it’s complicated, isn’t it—because then we read in Galatians, but also in other places, that Paul appeals in Ephesians to “Honour your father and mother” or in Romans, to commands like “Don’t commit adultery. Don’t murder.”

Some people say that Paul is operating on distinctions between the moral law, the civil law (i.e. the law for a nation), and ceremonial law or ritual law, and that’s the basis on which he’s making divisions. The moral law is still applicable today, but not the ceremonial and civil law. I actually think that insight is, in many ways, basically right. But I think it backs into the issue the wrong way. I don’t think Paul argues that specifically; instead, I think Paul says, “You’re not under the law at all”—by which I think he means the Mosaic covenant. That era of redemptive history has ended.

So then we have to ask the question, “Why are certain commands cited as authoritative?” I think we can say several things. First of all, the whole Old Testament is still the word of God. Even though we’re not under the law, what we read in the law is still God’s word speaking to God’s people. Second, we need to read the old covenant in light of the fulfilment that has come in Jesus Christ. We read the Old Testament texts both in their historical context, but we also read them in light of the whole canon. We read them in light of the fulfilment that has come in Jesus.

Then it seems to me that the New Testament is our guide about what commands are authoritative. We see repeatedly, “Don’t commit adultery. Don’t murder. Don’t steal.” Then Paul talks about the “law of Christ” (Gal 6:2). In Galatians 5:14 and 6:2, it seems that law of Christ is a law of love. We see a reference to the law of Christ in 1 Corinthians 9:20-21, where it relates to showing love to our neighbour. Then there’s a relationship between love and keeping the commands in Romans 13.

So I would say that at the end of the day, it does seem that distinction of “Okay, what parts of the law speak to us in a transcendent way that apply today?”—they are the moral norms of the law. But they’re not authoritative, I would argue, because they’re part of the old covenant. They’re part of the Ten Commandments (and many people disagree with that). However, they’re authoritative because they represent God’s will or, even more profoundly, God’s character. They describe who God is.

That’s a theological judgement. Paul never explains what he’s doing. We have deduce from looking at the text.

PO: Thanks Thomas! That’s very helpful.

The Sabbath

PO: I guess with the Ten Commandments, as you say, most of them are repeated—laws against idolatry, adultery, one God. I guess the one that evangelical Reformed Christians would maybe disagree on would be the Sabbath command. How should we think about the Sabbath and our relationship to that command?

TS: Yes, and that is the most difficult issue. I would begin by saying literally practising the Sabbath on Saturday is not what I think we’re required to do or asked to do. It’s fine to do so, but first, I’d say that I think the Sabbath is on Saturday, not Sunday. This isn’t Scripture, but Ignatius, writing very early says in maybe 110 AD, we don’t worship on the Sabbath, but on the Lord’s day. I think they distinguished between the Sabbath and the Lord’s day.

Why don’t I think the Sabbath is authoritative? I think the Sabbath points redemptive historically to our rest in Christ. Jesus says, “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28). It’s very interesting in Matthew that that is followed up by two Sabbath stories, where Jesus is clearly the Lord of the Sabbath. I think we have an indication that the Sabbath command pointed to, eschatologically, our rest in Jesus. That rest in Jesus is ours when we’re trusting in him. It seems to me Hebrews picks this up in chapter 4:1-11: the Sabbath rest points to our end time rest, which we enjoy now by faith, but our end time rest, which is not in the land of Canaan any longer, is our heavenly rest in the new creation. I would argue that new creation is a physical creation; it’s the whole universe. The whole universe will be the place of our Sabbath rest.

A couple of other things: Paul says this in Colossians 2:17: the Sabbath is a “shadow”, and the “substance” or the “soma” belongs to Christ. That word for “shadow” is the same word Hebrews uses in Hebrews 10:1 of Old Testament sacrifices: Old Testament sacrifices are a shadow. Shadows are good, but they point to the substance. The Sabbath was a sign of the Mosaic covenant given to Israel, and it’s restricted to that covenant, but it points to our Sabbath rest as a shadow to Christ.

The other text that I think is very interesting is Romans 14:5, where Paul says, “One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.” Scholars dispute this, but I think he’s clearly including the Sabbath. That’s something the Jews practised every week. It was very prominent in their lives, their experience and their thinking. So isn’t it interesting that Paul says, “It’s fine to observe the Sabbath. Be convinced in your own mind. If you want to observe it, observe it.” But he also says, “Other people don’t hold that view” and therefore it seems to me that Paul doesn’t think the Sabbath is required anymore.

I always like to say, “Imagine him saying that about murder or adultery. Some people think murder is wrong; other people think it’s okay. Just be convinced of whatever seems right to you.” There’s no way that Paul would say that about those commands! [Laughter] So I think that’s an indication that the Sabbath is not required today.

[Music]

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TP: And now let’s get back to our program.

Justification by faith

PO: One of the other themes that Paul returns to again and again in the letter is the theme of justification. Justification is one of those terms that young Christians hear about, know they should believe, but maybe feel a little fuzzy about it. What do we mean when we talk about justification by faith, not by works? How does Paul develop that idea in the letter?

TS: Yeah. I think justification comes from the world of the court—the law court. If we picture in our mind God as the judge and he is making a judgement—he’s assessing our lives—what do judges do? They declare you to do be in the right or in the wrong. What does Scripture say? God declares us—at least, initially—to be in the wrong, because we’re sinners. Judges assess our lives based on what we’ve done, and Scripture is clear: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. So it seems like there’s no hope for us.

But then the gospel teaches us that Jesus Christ is the crucified and risen one. Galatians 3:10 says those who don’t obey the law are cursed, because the law demands that we obey everything in it. But then Galatians 3:13 says, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’”. So Christ died in our place. He became a curse for us. He died in our place. He took the penalty we deserve, which is to be cursed. I think that’s the end time curse.

So how does justification come? How can God declare us to be in the right? It’s not based on our works, because God demands perfection; everyone needs to abide by everything written in the book of the law. So we have to do everything the law says. We don’t do that; we can’t do that. But Christ died in our place and took the curse that we deserve, so if we put our trust in him, we rest on him for our righteousness. If we don’t rely upon our works or our performance, but his work, then we are justified: God declares us to be in the right, not based on our own works, but based on Christ crucified and risen. That’s the best news in the world!

Luther said, “If I could believe that God was not angry with me, I would stand on my head for joy.”1 That’s the good news of the gospel: if you’re trusting in Christ, God is happy with you. You’re accepted in the beloved.

PO: So the specific language of justification by faith, as opposed to justification by works—the significance of the faith is trusting in Christ?

TS: Yes, yes. Faith is not just merely mentally agreeing with something, although it includes that; we have to believe Jesus really died for us and was raised from the dead. But faith means we’re saved by trusting. I think “trust” is a good word. Or relying. Or resting on Christ. Or embracing Christ. There’s this sense of receiving from God what Christ has done for us.

It’s interesting to think of the Gospel of John, because I think John uses a lot of different metaphors for believing—like “receiving”, “accepting”, “drinking”, “eating”, “coming”, “following”, “entering”. What John is trying to teach us is the same thing I think Paul is saying: faith is receptive, but it kind of enters into our very being like a drinking and an eating.

Works in the Christian life

PO: What about the place of works in the Christian life? If we are made right with God, trusting in Christ’s work, what place do good works have in our Christian lives? Do we just not worry about it? Do we not think about them? What’s the place that they have?

TS: Yeah. Some would make the mistake of saying (and I think Paul reflects on this in Romans 6, but it’s also in Galatians 5 and 6), “Well, if we’re justified by the grace of God—if his grace is so great that it shines brighter when we sin—we see the greatness of God’s forgiveness—should we sin even more?” (Rom 6:1). Of course in Romans 6, Paul argues that we died to sin. But I think it’s clear in Paul that good works (and I would use this language)—good works are a necessary consequence or evidence that we belong to God.

Here’s a text in Galatians, which celebrates so wonderfully God’s free grace: Paul speaks of the works of the flesh and he says, “I’m saying to you just as I said to you before, those who practise the works of the flesh will not enter the kingdom of God” (cf. Gal 5:19-21). So Paul can say, “If you practise evil, you will not be saved. You won’t enter the eschatological kingdom. You won’t enter the new creation. Instead, you’ll be cursed.” Well, we know from the rest of Galatians and the rest of Paul’s letters—and, really, the rest of the New Testament—that that can’t mean that our works are the basis of our right relationship with God, because we’re all sinners. We’ve all fallen short. We all need to receive God’s grace and to be forgiven of our sins.

Also, I think it’s clear that we continue to sin as Christians. I like to point to what Augustine said to Pelagius in their debate. Pelagius, by the way, believed you could be perfect as a Christian, and the great scholar and pastor, Augustine, said, “Well, Jesus taught us the Lord’s Prayer, and the Lord’s Prayer asks God to forgive us of our sins.”2 So Augustine rightly said, “That is to be a regular feature of our lives.” If in the Lord’s Prayer, which we’re to pray regularly, says, “We petition God to forgive us of our sins”, then sin must continue in us. This means we’re not talking about perfection, and the good works can’t be the basis of our justification.

But the good works must be there, and I think they’re an evidence of the power of the Spirit in our lives. They’re the fruit that shows that we truly have eternal life. Those whom God has justified, he’s also regenerated and given new life, and he’s transformed us. We’re not perfect, but we’re different. We have a new orientation, a new pattern, a new direction.

So if you’re a very sensitive Christian, you can over-emphasise this. You can read it in a very perfectionistic term and worry every day about whether you’re saved. This theme of the necessity of good works could be read in a kind of perfectionistic direction, and I’ve counselled people when they get very worried about this—that God doesn’t want us to be worried in that way. On the other hand, you can under-emphasise it and say, “Well, it doesn’t matter at all.” There is a new pattern in our lives that clearly needs to be there as an indication that we really belong to God.

PO: Just on perfectionism, one of my favourite stories about Charles Spurgeon, the famous Baptist pastor from Victorian London is when he was at a conference. One of the speakers claimed that he was perfect. The next morning at breakfast, Spurgeon writes that he took a jug of milk and poured over the brother’s head, and then he writes, “His perfection disappeared under the curds and whey.”3 [Laughter]

TS: That’s beautiful!

The Spirit and the Christian life

PO: Wonderfully (and Galatians spends a lot of time on this) the Lord gives us of his Holy Spirit to enable us to live the Christian life. There are some wonderful texts in chapter 5 that talk about walking by the Spirit and being led by the Spirit. Can you say a little bit about what that actually means? I think we can sometimes easily use that language of “We need to walk by the Spirit”, but we don’t really stop and think, “What does that actually mean?”

TS: Yes! It is very beautiful. Walking by the Spirit (Gal 5:16): that metaphor is saying step by step, day by day, we rely on the Spirit. We step out, so to speak, but we’re asking God through his Spirit to strengthen us.

As we do so, then he uses the language of being “led” or “directed”, or being “governed” or I think we could say “controlled” by the Spirit (Gal 5:18). I don’t think he’s thinking so much of direction for a particular guidance, or something like that, but that our lives are under the control of the Holy Spirit. How does that happen? I think we pray for God by his Spirit to help us as we live our lives.

Then he speaks of the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal 5:22): love, joy, peace, patience, and so forth. That’s helpful, because you might say, “Am I living under the authority, power and strength of the Holy Spirit?” Well, there’s the works of the flesh and there’s the fruit of the Spirit; we can tell what the fundamental direction of our lives is. Again, it’s not perfection.

Then in Galatians 5:25, he says, “keep in step with the Spirit” (or “march in step with the Spirit”), which is a nice image. It says that the Spirit is our director and we march: he says “March!” and we march. Or then in Galatians 6:8b, using an agricultural image, he says, “the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life”. So there is a human dimension to it, where we’re asking the Spirit to help us. We’re stepping out. We don’t just “let go and let God”. We’re not just passive. Yet at the same time, there’s supernatural, ineffable work in us.

I always like to add in Ephesians 5:18: “be filled with the Spirit”. I think that’s another way of talking about this as well.

The fruit of the Spirit and our relationships

PO: One of the things you brought out in your lecture, which was so striking in this context, is that in the lists of the fruit of the Spirit, so many have to do with to how we relate to one another. That’s a theme that comes out at the end of Galatians: as much as Paul is talking about us and our relationship with the Lord and our own faith, and we have to exercise that individually, the Christian life is lived in the context of relationships.

TS: Yeah, and it’s so striking: when he talks about the works of the flesh, I think if I remember right, there are three terms for sexual sin, two for idolatry, two for drunkenness and partying, but eight sins are social: quarrelling, fighting, dissensions, and so on. Of course, with the fruit of the Spirit, you think of love, patience with others, gentleness with others, exercising self-control, and so forth. Then he talks about reproving others who are in sin, but doing it gently; not being envious; and not biting and devouring one another. How practical is this!

Again, what does it mean to walk in the Spirit? It means that we love one another in concrete and specific ways. We can, in our rooms, think we’re very pious and godly, and love God and read the Bible, and those experiences are real. But if in our daily lives and our interactions with others, we’re not living in a way that shows kindness and grace to others, then we’re not living in a way that accords with the life of the Spirit.

Conclusion

PO: Tom, thank you very much—in the lectures you delivered at Moore College and in our conversation just now—for showing us how helpful Paul’s letter to the Galatians is for understanding and living the Christian life. Thanks for being on the podcast!

TS: It was my pleasure, Peter!

[Music]

TP: Thanks for joining us on this episode of the Centre for Christian Living podcast from Moore College. For a whole lot more from the Centre for Christian Living, just head over to the CCL website: ccl.moore.edu.au, where you’ll find a stack of resources including every past podcast episode all the way back to 2017, videos from our live events and articles that we’ve published through the Centre.

While you’re there on the website, we also have an opportunity for you to make a tax deductible donation to support the ongoing work of the Centre here at Moore College.

We’d also love you to subscribe to the podcast and to leave a review so that people can discover our podcast and our other resources. We always love and benefit from receiving your feedback and questions. Please get in touch: you can email us at [email protected].

Many thanks to Karen Beilharz from the Communications Team here at Moore College for all her work in transcribing, editing and producing this podcast; to James West for the music; and to you, dear listeners, for joining us each week.

Thank you for listening. I’m Tony Payne. Bye for now!

[Music]

Endnotes

1 Heiko Oberman, Luther: Man Between God and the Devil, trans. Eileen Walliser-Schwarzbart (Doubleday, 1992), 315.

2 See Augustine, Of the Gift of Perseverance, trans. Robert Wallis (428/9) chapter 5.

3 Matthew Payne writes, “I suspect this anecdote evolved from an incident that Spurgeon recounted in his autobiography which isn’t nearly as exciting. However, the point is the same: Spurgeon exposed a self-professed “perfectionist” as sinful by driving him to anger.” (“The godly heresy of sinless perfection”, The Gospel Coalition Australia, 22 February 2018. https://au.thegospelcoalition.org/article/godly-heresy-sinless-perfectionism/) See also C.H. Spurgeon, “Reminiscences as a village pastor”, C.H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography: 1. The Early Years (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1962), 229.

Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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