Summary: The saving work of Christ in its vertical, horizontal, and cosmic dimensions is the reason for why the Galatians are able and commanded to walk in the Spirit, living lives of Spirit-empowered obedience, participating both now and into the age to come in eternal life.

Often, discussions of Paul’s letter to the Galatians focus on justification through faith in the work of the crucified and risen Lord and not on the basis of works of the law. Jarvis L. Williams addresses what he believes to be a neglected aspect of this letter. He believes that Christ’s saving work has vertical, horizontal, and cosmic dimensions that are realized in the life of the believer in the gift of the indwelling Spirit, in whom we may and must walk in ethical lives of empowered obedience. The believer must do so, not turning back to flesh-empowered adherence to the law. To do so is to cease to participate in the gift of eternal life, both now and in the age to come. To walk in the Spirit is to participate in eternal life now in anticipating of the age to come.

The author begins with a literature survey of other scholars who have addressed these questions in Galatians from Hermann Gunkel through David de Silva. He follows with a chapter on the death and resurrection of Jesus showing that the apocalyptic inbreaking of God’s rule is connected with the outpouring of the scripture, demarcating the old age of the flesh and the new age of the Spirit, freedom from bondage under the law and the elemental spirits and freedom in the Spirit to love God and each other (the vertical, horizontal, and cosmic dimensions of salvation). He argues then that those justified in Christ can, will, and must walk in the Spirit in order to inherit the kingdom. Those who do so enjoy empowered personal agency and ethical transformation. Paul’s anxiety, then, over the Galatians in turning away from the gospel for works of the law is that they will cease walking in the Spirit and participating in the reality of eternal life and will not inherit the kingdom. Williams then concludes with observations about the dangers of separating soteriology and ethical transformation and eternal life. He also makes observations about Christian social engagement around issues of race and ethnicity, and the implications of being one new people for how we pursue that engagement.

I thought the thesis of this work an important one, and indeed, often overlooked in Galatians. My problem with the book was the over-repetition of that thesis as well as the organization of the material. The author confines the literature survey to one chapter, without extensive interaction with the scholars in subsequent ones. The chapters following are thematically oriented and move back and forth throughout Galatians and other scriptures. I found myself wondering if a more effective approach would have been a consecutive theological exposition of the text of Galatians, showing how Paul develops the ideas that form the basis of his thesis, incorporating relevant scholarship in his commentary. I think that would have offered a more integrated, persuasive, and understandable rendering of the author’s thesis. Perhaps the author might consider this in a follow-up work for a more general audience.

That said, the author’s argument that Galatians connects the saving work of Christ to God’s empowering presence in the Galatians’ lives as part of the new thing God is doing is an important one. His contention that we must not disconnect theology, and particularly soteriology, and ethics is a trenchant one that we do well to heed. Likewise the warning, that to claim to be among the justified but to not walk in the Spirit in freedom from bondage to the cosmic powers and love for God and others, and the implications for participating in the kingdom, is one we ignore at our peril. It’s literally a matter of (eternal) life or death.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher. ( )