Galatians is Paul’s most fiery letter. Put yourself in the shoes of a first-generation Jesus-follower reading this missive from your church’s founder:

• “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you” (1:6).
• “I repeat, if anyone proclaims to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let that one be accursed (1:9)!
• “You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you” (3:1)?
• “I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves” (5:12)!

Yikes!

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this letter was one of the key texts that fired the Protestant Reformation: it’s not by your works, but by faith alone that you are saved. How dare we retreat from this truth! Luciano Lombardi conveys Paul’s heart loud-and-clear in a slightly different timbre than some of the reformed theologians. He uses the sustained metaphor of trying to use flashlights and candles to resist the fury of a storm.

Lombardi’s deep grasp of trinitarian theology makes this commentary unique. Father, Son, and Spirit exist in a perichoretic union that we creatures have been adopted into through the incarnation of Jesus Christ. In Christ, we are free to be truly and fully human. If you’ve read Lombardi’s book on Ephesians (A New Humanity), you’ll know what I’m talking about.

There is no match for the freedom that comes from the will and love of the Triune God—no moral improvement strategy, no pattern of structured worship, no adherence to a system or set of propositions, no twelve-step program—that can accomplish what the Father has acquired for us through the work of His Son and Spirit. (9)

A Free Humanity is an inspiring walk thorough Paul’s letter to the Galatians. It will leave awestruck at the love that the Father, Son, and Spirit have for us along with the absurdity of trying to forge our own way with flashlights and candles.

Lombardi, Luciano. A Free Humanity: A Walk through the Letter of Galatians. Word Alive Press, 2022.