§ 01 · Introduction
Luther lectured on Galatians twice, and the 1535 commentary grew out of the second series, taken down by his students and published with his blessing. He was fond of the epistle in a way that comes through on every page: Paul's argument with the Galatians — that the gospel is received by faith and not earned by keeping the law — was, to Luther, the argument of his own life.
The commentary is combative, funny, pastoral, and repetitive on purpose. Luther returns again and again to the distinction between the righteousness we work for and the righteousness that is given, because he believed the human heart forgets it daily. Readers on every side of the Reformation debates have found it worth arguing with.
Graebner's 1939 translation is a deliberate abridgement made for lay readers, so it moves quickly. For the full text, the sixteenth-century Middleton translation is available from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.