NOTES for Gal 6:14

The apostle Paul does not often speak about the Cross, and when he does, he tries to be brief. But his words make one feel that, for him, the manifestation of the Son of God's love on the Cross is the very thing that feeds his faith. There is nothing more important, nothing more worthwhile, nothing the apostle would rather share with people than his knowledge that God died for us. When he comes to people, the apostle brings them exactly this message: "Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ be made void. For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God... for I resolved to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified," he writes at the beginning of the First Letter to the Corinthians. Yet for the apostle the Cross is much more than a sign of love; for him it is an event both of history and of his own life.

At the end of the Letter to the Galatians, as we read today, the apostle speaks about what, in his view, people boast in. To boast means precisely to display something good that has a direct connection to you. The Judaizing preachers with whom the apostle Paul is arguing try to boast that they are turning people toward a proper life under the Law; other people boast in their talents or knowledge, in spiritual or material wealth, in strength of body or character. Modern psychology calls this the need for positive self-esteem. Each person seeks it in his own way; each person finds in his life something for which, as it seems to him, he ought to be loved. In essence, all of us are seeking justifications for our own existence in this way.

And here the apostle says that our being needs no other justifications or even explanations except the Cross, on which God gives us His life. This is the foundational fact in our relationship both to ourselves and to others.