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 N^ Ymk: HODDER & STOUGHTON, PuhU 
 
THE EPISTLE 
 TO THE GALATIANS 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Rev. Prof. G. G. Findlay, B.A. 
 
 HEADINGLEY COLLEGE, LEEDS 
 
 HODDER & STOUGHTON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 THE PROLOGUE, 
 
 Chapter i. i — lo. 
 
 CHAPTFE. I. 
 
 PAGE 
 THE ADDRESS . . , • - , . . 3 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE SALUTATION . 19 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE ANATHEMA 34 
 
 THE PERSONAL HISTORY, 
 
 Chapter i. ii — ii. 21. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PAUL'S GOSPEL REVEALED BY CHRIST . . . .53 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 PAUL'S DIVINE COMMISSION 68 
 
vi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PAGE 
 PAUL AND THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH 83 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PAUL AND THE FALSE BRETHREN 98 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PAUL AND THE THREE PILLARS II3 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PAUL AND PETER AT ANTIOCH U9 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES AT STAKE I46 
 
 THE DOCTRINAL POLEMIC. 
 
 Chapter iii. i — v. 12. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE GALATIAN FOLLY 165 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ABRAHAM'S BLESSING AND THE LAW'S CURSE . . . 180 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE COVENANT OF PROMISE X96 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE DESIGN OF THE LAW .... . . (tit 
 
CONTENTS. vii 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 PAGE 
 THE EMANCIPATED SONS OF GOD 227 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE heir's COMING OF AGE 242 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE RETURN TO BONDAGE 257 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 PAUL'S ENTREATY 272 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE STORY OF HAGAR 286 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 SHALL THE GALATIANS BE CIRCUMCISED ? . . .302 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE HINDERERS AND TROUBLERS 316 
 
 THE ETHICAL APPLICATION. 
 
 Chapter v. 13 — vi. 10. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE PERILS OF LIBERTY 333 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 CHRIST'S SPII.IT AND HUMAN FLESH 7 . . , . 347 
 
riii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 BAGE 
 THE WORKS OF THE FLESH 361 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 TMK FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT 375 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 OUR brother's burden and our own .... 390 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 sowing and reaping 405 
 
 THE EPILOGUE. 
 
 CHAPTER Vi. II — 13. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 THE FALSE AND THE TRUE GLORYING . . . . 42I 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 RITUAL nothing: CHARACTER EVERYTHING . . . 435 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 THE BRAND OF JESUS 448 
 
THE PROLOGUE. 
 
 Chapter i. i — lo. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ADDRESS, 
 
 ^ Paol, an apostle (not from men, neither through man, but through 
 Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead), 
 and all the brethren which are with me, unto the Churches of Galatia." * 
 —Gal. i. i, 2. 
 
 ANTIQUITY has nothing to show more notable in 
 its kind, or more precious, than this letter of Paul 
 to the Churches of Galatia. It takes us back, in some 
 respects nearer than any other document we possess, 
 to the beginnings of Christian theology and the 
 Christian Church. In it the spiritual consciousness 
 of Christianity first reveals itself in its distinctive 
 character and its full strength, free from the trammels 
 of the past, realizing the advent of the new kingdom 
 of God that was founded in the death of Christ. It 
 is the voice of the Church testifying " God hath sent 
 forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts." Buried 
 for a thousand years under the weight of the Catholic 
 legalism, the teaching of this Epistle came to life again 
 in the rise of Protestantism. Martin Luther put it 
 to his lips as a trumpet to blow the reveille of the 
 Reformation. His famous Commentary summoned 
 enslaved Christendom to recover "the liberty wherewith 
 
 • The text used in this exposition is, with very few exception*- UuU 
 <tf the Reyised English Version, or its margin. 
 
4 THB BPISTLB TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 Qirist hath made us free." Of all the great Reformer's 
 writings this was the widest in its influence and the 
 dearest to himself. For the spirit of Paul lived again 
 in Luther, as in no other since the Apostle's day. 
 The Epistle to the Galatians is the charter of Evan- 
 gelical faith. 
 
 The historical criticism of the present century has 
 brought this writing once more to the front of the 
 conflict of faith. Born in controversy, it seems inevit- 
 ably to be born for controversy. Its interpretation 
 forms the pivot of the most thoroughgoing recent dis- 
 cussions touching the beginnings of Christian history 
 and the authenticity of the New Testament record 
 The Galatian Epistle is, in fact, the key of New Testa-, 
 mcnt Apologetics. Round it the Roman and Corinthian 
 Letters group themselves, forming together a solid, 
 impregnable quaternion, and supplying a fixed starting- 
 point and an indubitable test for the examination of the 
 critical questions belonging to the Apostolic age. What- 
 ever else may be disputed, it is agreed that there was 
 an apostle Paul, who wrote these four Epistles to certain 
 Christian societies gathered out of heathenism, com- 
 munities numerous, vadely scattered, and containing 
 men of advanced intelligence ; and this within thirty 
 years of the death of Jesus Christ. Every critic must' 
 reckon with this fact. The most sceptical criticism 
 makes a respectful pause before our Epistle. Hopeless 
 of destroying its testimony. Rationalism treats it with 
 an even exaggerated deference ; and seeks to extract 
 evidence from it against its companion witnesses amongst 
 the New Testament writings. This attempt, however 
 misdirected, is a signal tribute to the importance of the 
 document, and to the force with which the personality 
 of the writer and the condition! of the time have 
 
Li,a.l THE ADDRESS. 
 
 Stamped themselves upon it. The deductions of the 
 Baurian criticism appear to us to rest on a narrow 
 and arbitrary examination of isolated passages ; they 
 spring from a mistaken a priori view of the historical 
 situation. Granting however to these inferences, 
 which will meet us as we proceed, their utmost 
 weight, they still leave the testimony of Paul to the 
 supernatural character of Christianity substantially 
 intact. 
 
 Of the four major Epistles, this one is superlatively 
 characteristic of its author. It is Paulinisstma Paul- 
 inarum — most Pauline of Pauline things. It is largely 
 autobiographical ; hence its peculiar value. Reading 
 it, we watch history in the making. We trace the rise 
 of the new religion in the typical man of the epoch. 
 The master-builder of the Apostolic Church stands 
 before us, at the crisis of his work. He lets us look 
 into his heart, and learn the secret of his power. We 
 come to know the Apostle Paul as we know scarcely 
 any other of the world's great minds. We find in him 
 a man of the highest intellectual and spiritual powers, 
 equally great in passion and in action, as a thinker 
 and a leader of men. But at every step of our 
 acquaintance the Apostle points us beyond himself; he 
 says, *' It is not I : it is Christ that lives in me." If 
 this Epistle teaches us the greatness of Paul, it teaches 
 us all the more the Divine greatness of Jesus Christ, 
 before whom that kingly intellect and passionate heart 
 bowed in absolute devotion. 
 
 The situation which the Epistle reveals and the 
 personal references in which it abounds are full of 
 interest at every point. They furnish quite essential 
 data to the historian of the Early Church. We could 
 wish that the Apostle, telling us so much, had told ns 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 more. His allusions, clear enough, we must suppose, 
 to the first readers, have lent themselves subsequently 
 to very conflicting interpretations. But as they stand, 
 they are invaluable. The fragmentary narrative of the 
 Acts requires, especially in its earlier sections, all the 
 illustration that can be obtained from other sources. 
 The conversion of Paul, and the Council at Jerusalem, 
 events of capital importance for the history of Apostolic 
 times, are thereby set in a light certainly more complete 
 and satisfactory than is furnished in Luke's narrative, 
 taken by itself. And Paul's references to the Judean 
 Church and its three "pillars," touch the crucial question 
 of New Testament criticism, namely that concerning 
 the relation of the Gentile Apostle to Jewish Christianity 
 and the connection between his theology and the teach- 
 ing of Jesus. Our judgement respecting the conflict 
 between Peter and Paul at Antioch in particular will 
 determine our whole conception of the legalist con- 
 troversy, and consequently of the course of Church 
 history during the first two centuries. Around these 
 cursory allusions has gathered a contest only less 
 momentous than that from which they sprung. 
 
 The personal and the doctrinal element are equally 
 prominent in this Epistle ; and appear in a combination 
 characteristic of the writer. Paul's theology is the 
 theology of experience. " It pleased God," he says^ 
 "to reveal His Son in me** (ch. i. i6). His teaching 
 is cast in a psychological mould. It is largely a record 
 of the Apostle's spiritual history ; it is the expression 
 of a living, inward process — a personal appropriation 
 of Christ, and a growing realization of the fulness of 
 the Godhead in Him. The doctrine of Paul was as far 
 as possible removed from being the result of abstract 
 deduction, or any mere combination of data externally 
 
L I, s.] THB ADDRESS. 
 
 given. In his individual consciousness, illuminated by 
 the vision of Christ and penetrated by the Spirit of 
 God, he found his message for the worid. " We believe, 
 and therefore speak. We have received the Spirit of 
 God, that we may know the things freely given us of 
 God : " sentences like these show us very clearly how 
 the Apostle's doctrine formed itself in his mind. His 
 apprehension of Christ, above all of the cross, was the 
 focus, the creative and governing centre, of all his 
 thoughts concerning God and man, time and eternity. 
 In the light of this knowledge he read the Old Testa- 
 ment, he interpreted the earthly life and teaching of 
 Jesus. On the ground of this personal sense of salvation 
 he confronted Peter at Antioch ; on the same ground 
 he appeals to the vacillating Galatians, sharers with 
 himself in the new Hfe of the Spirit. Here lies the 
 nerve of his argument in this Epistle. The theory of 
 the relation of the Law to the Abrahamic promise 
 developed in the third chapter, is the historical counter- 
 part of the relation of the legal to the evangehcal 
 consciousness, as he had experienced the two states 
 in turn within his own breast The spirit of Paul was 
 a microcosm, in which the course of the world's 
 religious evolution was summed up, and brought to 
 the knowledge of itself. 
 
 The Apostle's influence over the minds of others was 
 due in great part to the extraordinary force with which 
 he apprehended the facts of his own spiritual nature. 
 Through the depth and intensity of his personal ex- 
 perience he touched the experience of his fellows, he 
 seized on those universal truths that are latent in the 
 consciousness of mankind, "by manifestation of the 
 truth commending himself to every man's conscience 
 in the sight of God." But this knowledge of the things 
 
S THB RPISTLB TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 of God was not the mere fruit of reflection and self- 
 searching ; it was " the ministration of the Spirit." 
 Paul did not simply know Christ; he was one with 
 Christ, "joined to the Lord, one spirit " with Him. 
 He did not therefore speak out of the findings of his 
 own spirit ; the absolute Spirit, the Spirit of truth and 
 of Christ, spoke in him. Truth, as he knew it, was 
 the self-assertion of a Divine life. And so this handful 
 of old letters, broken and casual in form, with their 
 "rudeness of speech," their many obscurities, their 
 rabbinical logic, have stirred the thoughts of men and 
 swayed their lives with a power greater perhaps than 
 belongs to any human utterances, saving only those 
 of the Divine Master. 
 
 The features of Paul's style show themselves here in 
 their most pronounced form. " The style is the man." 
 And the whole man is in this letter. Other Epistles 
 bring into relief this or that quality of the Apostle's 
 disposition and of his manner as a writer ; here all are 
 present The subtlety and trenchant vigour of Paulini 
 dialectic are nowhere more conspicuous than in the 
 discussion with Peter in ch. ii. The discourse op 
 Promise and Law in ch. iii. is a master-piece oi 
 exposition, unsurpassed in its keenness of insight, 
 breadth of view, and skill of application. Such passage* 
 as ch. i. 15, 16; ii. 19, 20; vi. 14, take us into the 
 heart of the Apostle's teaching, and reveal its mystical 
 depth of intuition. Behind the masterful dialectician 
 we find the spiritual seer, the man of contemplation, 
 whose fellowship is with the eternal and unseen. And 
 the emotional temperament of the writer has left its 
 impress on this Epistle not less distinctly than his 
 mental and spiritual gifts. The denunciations of ch. L 
 6—10; ii. 4, 5 ; iv. 9; V. 7 — 12; vi. 12 — 14, bum 
 
1. 1, a, J THE ADDRESS, 
 
 with a concentrated intensity of passion, a sublime and 
 holy scorn against the enemies of the cross, such as 
 a nature Hke Paul's alone is capable of feeling. Nor 
 has the Apostle penned anything on the other hand 
 more amiable and touching, more winningly frank and 
 tender in appeal, than the entreaty of ch. iv. ii — 20. 
 His last sentence, in ch. vi. 17, is an irresistible stroke 
 of pathos. The ardour of his soul, his vivacity of mind 
 and quick sensibility, are apparent throughout. Those 
 sudden turns of thought and bursts of emotion that 
 occur in all his Epistles and so much perplex their 
 interpreters, are especially numerous in this. And 
 yet we find that these interruptions are never allowed 
 to divert the writer from his purpose, nor to destroy 
 the sequence of his thought. They rather carry it 
 forward with greater vehemence along the chosen 
 course, as storms will a strong and well-manned ship. 
 The Epistle is strictly a unity. It is written, as one 
 might say, at a single breath, as if under pressure and 
 in stress of mind. There is little of the amplitude 
 of expression and the delight in lingering over some 
 favourite idea that characterize the later Epistles. Nor 
 is there any passage of sustained eloquence to compare 
 with those that are found in the Roman and Corinthian 
 letters. The business on which the Apostle writes is 
 too urgent, his anxiety too great, to allow of freedom 
 and discursiveness of thought. Hence this Epistle is 
 to an unusual degree closely packed in matter, rapid in 
 movement, and severe in tone. 
 
 In its construction the Epistle exhibits an almost 
 dramatic character. It is full of action and animation. 
 There is a gradual unfolding of the subject, and a skil- 
 ful combination of scene and incident brought to bear 
 on the solution of the crucial question. The Apostle 
 
!• THB EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 himself, the insidious Judaizers, and the wavering 
 Galatians, — ^these are the protagonists of the action; 
 with Peter and the Church at Jerusalem playing a 
 secondary part, and Abraham and Moses, Isaac and 
 Ishmael, appearing in the distance. The first Act 
 conducts us rapidly from scene to scene till we behold 
 Paul labouring amongst the Gentiles, and the Churches 
 of Judea listening with approval to the reports of his 
 success. The Council of Jerusalem opens a new stage 
 in the history. Now Gentile liberties are at stake; 
 but Titus' circumcision is successfully resisted, and 
 Paul as the Apostle of the Uncircumcised is acknow- 
 ledged by " the pillars " as their equal ; and finally 
 Peter, when he betrays the truth of the Gospel at 
 Antioch, is corrected by the Gentile Apostle. The 
 third chapter carries us away from the present con- 
 flict into the region of first principles, — to the Abrahamic 
 Covenant with its spiritual blessing and world-wide 
 promise, opposed by the condemning Mosaic Law, an 
 opposition finally resolved by the coming of Christ and 
 the gift of His Spirit of adoption. At this point the 
 Apostle turns the gathered force of his argument upon 
 his readers, and grapples with them front to front in 
 the expostulation carried on from ch. iv. 8 to v. 12, 
 in which the story of Hagar forms a telling episode. 
 The fifth and closing Act, extending to the middle of 
 ch. vi., turns on the antithesis of Flesh and Spirit, 
 bringing home the contention to the region of ethics, 
 and exhibiting to the Galatians the practical eff'ect of 
 their following the PauHne or the Judaistic leadership. 
 Paul and the Primitive Church; Judaism and Gentile- 
 Christian liberties; the Covenants of Promise and of 
 Law; the circumcision or non-circumcision of the 
 Galatians; the dominion of Flesh or Spirit; these are 
 
1. 1, a.] THB ADDRESS, ii 
 
 the contrasts through which the Epistle advances. Its 
 centre lies in the decisive question given in the fourth 
 of these antitheses. If we were to fix it in a single 
 point, ver. 2 of ch. v. is the sentence wc should 
 choose : — 
 
 " Behold, I Paul say unto you, 
 
 If ye be circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing.* 
 
 The above analysis may be reduced to the common 
 threefold division, followed in this exposition : — viz. 
 (i) Personal History, ch. L II — ii. 21 ; (2) Doctrinal 
 Polemic, ch. iii. I — v. 12; (^ Ethical Application ^ ch. 
 V. 13 — vi. 10. 
 
 The epistolary Introduction forms the Prologue^ ch. 
 L I — 10 ; and an Epilogue is appended, by way of 
 renewed warning and protestation, followed by the 
 concluding signature and benediction, — ch. vi. ii — 18. 
 
 The Address occupies the first two verses of the 
 Epistle. 
 
 I. On the one side is the writer: " Paul, an Apostle." 
 In his earliest Letters (to Thessalonica) the title is 
 wanting; so also in Philippians and Philemon. The 
 last instance explains the other two. To the Macedonian 
 Churches Paul writes more in the style of friendship 
 than authority : " for love's sake he rather entreats." 
 With the Galatians it is different. He proceeds to 
 define his apostleship in terms that should leave no 
 possible doubt respecting its character and rights : 
 " not from men," he adds, " nor through man ; but 
 through Jesus Christ, and God the Father, that raised 
 Him from the dead." 
 
 This reads like a contradiction of some statement 
 made by Paul s opposers. Had they insinuated that 
 he was ''an apostle from men," that his office was 
 
12 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 derived, like their own, only from the mother Church 
 in Jerusalem ? Such insinuations would very well 
 serve their purpose ; and if they were made, Paul would 
 be sure not to lose a moment in meeting them. 
 
 The word apostle had a certain latitude of meaning.* 
 It was already, there is reason to believe, a term of 
 Jewish official usage when our Lord applied it to His 
 chosen Twelve. It signified a delegate or envoy ^ ac- 
 credited by some public authority, and charged with a 
 special message. We can understand therefore its 
 application to the emissaries of particular Churches — 
 of Jerusalem or Antioch, for example — despatched 
 as their messengers to other Churches, or with a 
 general commission to proclaim the Gospel. The 
 recently discovered " Teaching of the Apostles " show^s 
 that this use of the title continued in Jewish-Christian 
 circles to the end of the first century, alongside of the 
 restricted and higher use. The lower apostleship 
 belonged to Paul in common with Barnabas and Silas 
 and many others. 
 
 In the earlier period of his ministry, the Apostle was 
 seemingly content to rank in public estimation with his 
 companions in the Gentile mission. But a time came 
 when he was compelled to arrogate to himself the 
 
 • Compare Acts xiv. 4, 14 (^Barnabas and Paul) ; I Thess. ii. 6 
 (^Paul and his comrades) ; Rom. xvL 7 {Andronicus and JuniaS) ; 
 2 Cor. viii. 23 ( Titus and others^ " apostles of the churches ") ; 2 Cor. 
 xi. 13 (" false apostles " : fudean emissaries') ; also Rev. ii. 2 ; Ileb. 
 iiL I ; John xiii. 16. On the N.T. use of apostle^ see Lightfoot'i 
 Galatians, pp. 92 — lOI ; but especially Huxtable's Dissertation in the 
 Pulpit Commentary (Galatians), pp. xxiii. — I., the most satisfactory 
 elucidation of the subject we have met with. Prebendary Huxiablc 
 however presses his argument too far, when be insists that St Paul 
 held his higher commission entirely in abeyance until the crisis of Um 
 Judaic controversy. 
 
1. 1, s.] THR ADDRESS. 
 
 higher dignity. His right thereto was acknowledged 
 at the memorable conference in Jerusalem by the 
 leaders of the Jewish Church. So we gather from the 
 language of ch. IL 7 — 9. But the full exercise of 
 his authority was reserved for the present emergency, 
 when all his energy and influence were required to 
 stem the tide of the Judaistic reaction. We can well 
 imagine that Paul *' gentle in the midst ** of his flock 
 and " not seeking to be of weight " (i Thess. ii 6, 7), 
 had hitherto said as little as need be on the subject 
 of his official rights. His modesty had exposed him 
 to misrepresentations both in Corinth and in Galatia. 
 He will " have " these people *' to know " that his 
 gospel is in the strictest sense Divine, and that he 
 received his commission, as certainly as any of the 
 Twelve, from the lips of Jesus Christ Himself (ver. Ii). 
 '* Not from men " excludes human derivation ; " not 
 through man," human intervention in the conferment 
 of Paul's office. The singular number (man) replaces 
 the plural in the latter phrase, because it stands 
 immediately opposed to "Jesus Christ" (a striking 
 witness this to His Divinity). The second clause 
 carries the negation farther than the first; for a call 
 from God may be, and commonly is, imposed by 
 human hands. There are, says Jerome, four kinds oi 
 Christian ministers : first, those sent neither from men 
 nor through man, hke the prophets of old time and the 
 Apostles; secondly, those who are from God, but 
 through man, as it is with their legitimate successors ; 
 thirdly, those who are from men, but not from God, as 
 when one is ordained through mere human favour and 
 flattery ; the fourth class consists of such as have their 
 call neither from God nor man, but wholly from them- 
 selves, as with false prophets and the false apostles 
 
■4 THB EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 of whom Paul speaks. His vocation, the Apostle 
 declares, was superhuman, alike in its origin and in 
 the channel by which it was conveyed. It was no 
 voice of man that summoned Saul of Tarsus from the 
 ranks of the enemies to those of the servants of Christ, 
 and gave him the message he proclaimed. Damascus 
 and Jerusalem in turn acknowledged the grace given 
 unto him ; Antioch had sent him forth on her behalf to 
 the regions beyond : but he was conscious of a call 
 anterior to all this, and that admitted of no earthly 
 validation. " Am I not an apostle ? " he exclaims, 
 **have I not seen Jesus our Lord?" (l Cor. ix. i). 
 " Truly the signs of the Apostle were wrought in him," 
 both in the miraculous powers attending his office, and 
 in those moral and spiritual quahties of a minister of 
 God in which he was inferior to none.* For the exercise 
 of his ministry he was responsible neither to " those of 
 repute " at Jerusalem, nor to his censurers at Corinth ; 
 but to Christ who had bestowed it (i Cor. iv. 3, 4). 
 
 The call of the Apostle proceeded also from '* God 
 the Father, who raised Jesus Christ from the dead." 
 Christ was in this act the mediator, declaring the 
 Supreme will. In other places, more briefly, he styles 
 himself "Apostle by the will of God." His appoint- 
 ment took place by a Divine intervention, in which 
 the ordinary sequence of events was broken through. 
 Long after the Saviour in His bodily presence had 
 ascended to heaven, when in the order of nature it was 
 impossible that another Apostle should be elected, and 
 when the administration of His Church had been foi 
 several years carried on by human hands, He appeared 
 once more on earth for the purpose of making this man 
 
 • I Cor xy. 10 J a Cor. It. a { yi. 3—10 ; xL St i6-~xii. I). 
 
Li,!.] the address. 15 
 
 His "minister and witness;" He appeared in the 
 name of " the Father, who had raised Him from the 
 dead." This interposition gave to Paul's ministry an 
 exceptional character. While the mode of his election 
 was in one aspect humbling, and put him in the 
 position of *' the untimely one," the " least of the 
 Apostles," whose appearance in that capacity was 
 unlooked for and necessarily open to suspicion ; on the 
 other hand, it was glorious and exalting, since it so 
 richly displayed the Divine mercy and the transforming 
 power of grace. 
 
 But why does he say, who raised Him from the dead? 
 Because it was the risen Jesus that he saw, and that he 
 was conscious of seeing in the moment of the vision. 
 The revelation that arrested him before Damascus, 
 in the same moment convinced him that Jesus was 
 risen, and that he himself was called to be His servant. 
 These two convictions were inseparably Hnked in 
 Paul's recollections. As surely as God the Father had 
 raised His Son Jesus from the dead and given Him 
 glory, so surely had the glorified Jesus revealed Him- 
 self to Saul his persecutor to make him His Apostle. 
 He was, not less truly than Peter or John, a witness of 
 His resurrection. The message of the Resurrection 
 was the burden of the Apostleship. 
 
 He adds, *' and all the brethren which are with me." 
 For it was Paul's custom to associate with himself in 
 these official letters his fellow-labourers, present at the 
 dme. From this expression we gather that he was 
 attended just now by a considerable band of companions, 
 such as we find enumerated in Acts xx. 2 — 6, attending 
 him on his journey from Ephesus to Corinth during 
 the third missionary tour. This circumstance has 
 tome bearing on the date of the letter. Bishop 
 
it THE RPISTLB TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 Lightfoot (in his Commentary) shows reason for 
 believing that it was written, not from Ephesus aa 
 commonly supposed, but at a somewhat later time, 
 from Macedonia, It is connected by numerous and 
 close links of internal association with the Epistle to 
 the Romans, which on this supposition speedily 
 followed, and with 2 Corinthians, immediately preced- 
 ing it. And the allusion of the text, though of no 
 decisive weight taken by itself, goes to support this 
 reasoning. Upon this hypothesis, our Epistle was 
 composed in Macedonia, during the autumn of 57 
 (or possibly, 58) a.d. The emotion which surcharges 
 2 Corinthians runs over into Galatians : while the 
 theology which labours for expression in Galatians 
 finds ampler and calmer development in Romans. 
 
 II. Of the readers^ " the churches of Galatia," it is 
 not necessary to say much at present. The character 
 of the Galatians, and the condition of their Churches, 
 will speak for themselves as we proceed. Galatian is 
 equivalent to Gaul, or Kelt. This people was a detached 
 fragment of the great Western- European race, which 
 forms the basis of our own Irish and West-British 
 populations, as well as of the French nationaUty. 
 They had conquered for themselves a home in the 
 north of Asia Minor during the Gaulish invasion that 
 poured over South-eastern Europe and into the Asiatic 
 peninsula some three and a half centuries before. 
 Here the Gallic intruders stubbornly held their ground ; 
 and only succumbed to the irresistible power of Rome. 
 Defeated by the Consul Manlius in 189 B.C., the 
 Galatians retained their autonomy, under the rule of 
 native princes, until in the year 25 B.C., on the death 
 of Amyntas, the country was made a province of the 
 Empire. The people maintained their distinctive 
 
LI.&] THE ADDRESS, 17 
 
 character and speech despite these changes. At the 
 same time they readily acquired Greek culture, and 
 were by no means barbarians ; indeed they were noted 
 for their intelligence. In religion they seem to have 
 largely imbibed the Phrygian idolatry of the earlier 
 inhabitants. 
 
 The Roman Goi^emment had annexed to Galatia 
 certain districts lying to the south, in which were 
 situated most of the cities visited by Paul and Barnabas 
 in their first missionary tour. This has led some 
 scholars to surmise that Paul's '* Galatians " were really 
 Pisidians and Lycaonians, the people of Derbe, Lystra, 
 and Pisidian Antioch. But this is improbable. The 
 inhabitants of these regions were never called Galatians 
 in common speech ; and Luke distinguishes ^* the 
 Galatic country " quite clearly from its southern border- 
 lands. Besides, the Epistle contains no allusions, such 
 as we should expect in the case supposed, to the 
 Apostle's earlier and memorable associations with these 
 cities of the South. Elsewhere he mentions the 1 by 
 name (2 Tim. iii. 11); and why not here, if he were 
 addressing this circle of Churches ? 
 
 The Acts of the Apostles relates nothing of Paul's 
 sojourn in Galatia, beyond the fact that he twice 
 "passed through the Galatic country" (Acts xvL 6; 
 i/iii. 23), on the first occasion during the second 
 missionary journey, in travelling north and then west- 
 wards from Pisidia ; the second time, on his way from 
 Antioch to Ephesus, in the course of the third tour. 
 Galatia lay outside the main line of Paul's evangelistic 
 career, as the historian of the Acts describes it, outside 
 the Apostle's own design, as it would appear from 
 ch. iv. 13. In the first instance Galatia follows (in 
 the order of the Acts), in the second precedes Phrygia, 
 
IS THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 a change which seems to indicate some new importance 
 accruing to this region : the further clause in Acts 
 xviii. 23, "strengthening all the disciples," shows that 
 the writer was aware that by this time a number of 
 Christian societies were in existence in this neighbour- 
 hood. 
 
 No cify is mentioned in the address, but the country of 
 Galatia only — the single example of the kind in Paul's 
 Epistles. The Galatians were countryfolk rather than 
 townsfolk. And the Church seems to have spread 
 over the district at large, without gathering itself into 
 any one centre, such as the Apostle had occupied in 
 other parts of his Gentile field. 
 
 Still more significant is the curtness of this designa- 
 tion. Paul does not say, "To the Churches of God 
 in Galatia," or " to the saints and faithful brethren in 
 Christ," as in other Epistles. He is in no mood for 
 compliments. These Galatians are, he fears, "remov- 
 ing from God who had called them " (ver. 6). He 
 stands in doubt of them. It is a question whether they 
 are now, or will long continue, " Churches of God " at 
 all. He would gladly commend them if he could ; but 
 he must instead begin with reproaches. And yet we 
 shall find that, as the Apostle proceeds, his sternness 
 gradually relaxes. He remembers that these " foolish 
 Galatians " are his " children," once ardently attached 
 to him (ch. iv. 12 — 20). His heart yearns towards 
 them; he travails over them in birth again. Surely 
 they will not forsake him, and renounce the gospel of 
 whose blessings they had enjoyed so rich an experience 
 (ch. iii. 3 ; v. 10). He calls them " brethren " once 
 and again ; and with this kindly word, holding out the 
 hand of forgiveness, he concludes the letter. 
 
CHAPTER IL 
 
 THE SALUTATION, 
 
 ** Grace to you and peace from God the Father, &nd oar Lord JetM 
 
 Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliTer us o«t of 
 this present evil world, according to the will of our God and Father : 
 lo whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen." — Gal. i. 3 — 5. 
 
 THE greetings and benedictions of the Apostolic 
 Letters deserve more attention from us than they 
 sometimes receive. We are apt to pass over them as 
 if they were a kind of pious formality, like the conven- 
 tional phrases of our own epistles. But to treat them 
 in such fashion is to do injustice to the seriousness 
 and sincerity of Holy Scripture. This salutation of 
 " Grace and Peace " comes from Paul's very heart It 
 breathes the essence of his gospel. 
 
 This formula appears to be of the Apostle's coining. 
 Other writers, we may believe, borrowed it from him. 
 Grace represents the common Greek salutation,— ^/by to 
 yoUf Xaipeiv changing to the kindred x^P''^ » while the 
 more religious peace of the Hebrew, so often heard 
 from the lips of Jesus, remains unaltered, only receiving 
 from the New Covenant a tenderer significance. It is 
 as though East and West, the old world and the new, 
 met here and joined their voices to bless the Church 
 and people of Jesus Christ 
 
 Grace is the sum of all blessing bestowed by God ; 
 
ae THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 peacty in its wide Hebraic range of meaning, the sum of 
 all blessing experienced by man. Grace is the Father's 
 goodwill and bounty in Christ to His undeserving 
 children ; peace^ the rest and reconcilement, the re- 
 covered health and gladness of the child brought home 
 to the Father's house, dwelling in the light of his 
 Father's face. Grau is the fountain of redeeming love ; 
 peace is the " river of life proceeding from the throne 
 of God and of the Lamb," that flows calm and deep 
 through each believing soul, the river whose *' streams 
 make glad the city of God." 
 
 What could a pastor wish better for his people, or 
 friend for the friend he loves most, than this double 
 blessing ? Paul's letters are perfumed with its fra- 
 grance. Open them where you will, they are breathing 
 out, " Grace to you and peace." Paul has hard things 
 to write in this Epistle, sorrowful complaints to make, 
 grievous errors to correct ; but still with *' Grace and 
 peace " he begins, and with " Peace and grace " he 
 will end I And so this stern and reproachful letter to 
 these " foolish Galatians " is all embalmed and folded 
 up in grace and peace. That is the way to ** be angry 
 and sin not." So mercy rejoices over judgement. 
 
 These two benedictions, we must remember, go 
 together. Peace comes through grace. The proud 
 heart never knows peace ; it will not yield to God the 
 glory of His grace. It scorns to be a debtor, even to 
 Him. The proud man stands upon his rights, upon his 
 merits. And he will have them ; for God is just. But 
 peace is not amongst them. No sinful child of man 
 deserves that. Is there wrong between your soul and 
 God, iniquity hidden in the heart ? Till that wrong la 
 confessed, till you submit to the Almighty and your 
 spirit bows at the Redeemer's cross, what hast thou 
 
L3-5-1 ^-^^ SALUTATION. %\ 
 
 to do with peace ? No peace in this world, or in any 
 world, for him who will not be at peace with God. 
 " When I kept silence," so the ancient confession runs 
 (Ps. xxxii. 3 — 5), " my bones waxed old through my 
 moaning all the day long " — that is w^hy many a man is 
 old before his time I because of this continual inward 
 chafing, this secret, miserable war of the heart against 
 God. *' Day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me ; 
 my moisture was turned into the drought of summer " — 
 the soul withered like grass, all the freshness and pure 
 delight of life wasted and perishing under the steady, 
 unrelenting heat of the Divine displeasure. "Then I 
 said " — I could bear it no longer — " I said, I will confess 
 my transgression unto the Lord ; and Thou forgavest 
 the iniquity of my sin." And then peace came to the 
 weary soul. The bitterness and hardness of life were 
 gone ; the heart was young again. The man was new 
 bom, a child of God. 
 
 But while Paul gives this salutation to all his 
 Churches, his greeting is extended and qualified here in 
 a peculiar manner. The Galatians were falling away 
 from faith in Christ to Jewish ritualism. He does not 
 therefore wish them " Grace and peace " in a general 
 way, or as objects to be sought from any quarter 
 or by any means that they might choose; but only 
 " from God our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, w^ho 
 gave Himself for our sins." Here is already a note 
 of warning and a tacit contradiction of much that they 
 were tempted to believe. It would have been a mockery 
 for the Apostle to desire for these fickle Galatians 
 ^j^race and peace on other terms. As at Corinth, so in 
 Galatia, he is '^ determined to know nothing save Jesus 
 Christ and Him crucified." Above the puerilities of 
 their Jewish ritual, above the pettiness of their wrang- 
 
TBB EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 ling factions, he directs his readers* gaze once more to 
 the sacrifice of Calvary and the sublime purpose of God 
 which it reveals. 
 
 Do we not need to be recalled to the same sight ? 
 We live in a distracted and distracting age. Even with- 
 out positive unbelief, the cross is too frequently thrust 
 out of view by the hurry and press of modern life. 
 Nay, in the Church itself is it not in danger of being 
 practically set on one side, amidst the throng of com- 
 peting interests which solicit, and many of them justly 
 solicit, our attention ? We visit Calvary too seldom. 
 We do not haunt in our thoughts the sacred spot, and 
 linger on this theme, as the old saints did. We fail to 
 attain " the fellowship of Christ's sufferings ; ** and while 
 the cross is outwardly exalted, its inward meaning is 
 perhaps but faintly realised. " Tell us something new," 
 they say; "that story of the cross, that evangelical 
 doctrine of yours we have heard it so often, we know 
 it all so well 1 " If men are saying this, if the cross 
 of Christ is made of none effect, its message staled by 
 repetition, we must be strangely at fault either in the 
 hearing or the telling. Ah, if we knew the cross of 
 Christ, it would crucify us ; it would possess our being. 
 Its supremacy can never be taken from it. That cross 
 is still the centre of the world's hope, the pillar of 
 salvation. Let the Church lose her hold of it, and she 
 loses everything. She has no longer any reason to 
 exist. 
 
 I. So the Apostle's greeting invites his readers to 
 contemplate anew the Divine gift bestowed upon sinful 
 men. It invokes blessing upon them " from our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins." 
 
 To see this gif^ in its greatness, let us go a little 
 farther back ; let us consider who the Christ is that 
 
L 3.5.] THB SALUTATION. %i 
 
 thus "gives Himself." He is, we are taught, the 
 almoner of all the Divine bounties. He is not the 
 object alone, but the depositary and dispenser of the 
 Father's good pleasure to all worlds and all creatures. 
 Creation is rooted in "the Son of God's love" (Col, 
 i. 15 — 18). Universal life has its fountain in "tht 
 Only-begotten, which is in the bosom of the Father.*' 
 The light that dispelled the weltering gloom of chaos, 
 the more wondrous light that shone in the dawn of 
 human reason, came from this "outbeaming of the 
 Father's glory." Countless gifts had He, "the Ufe of 
 men, the Word that was from the beginning," bestowed 
 on a world that knew Him not. Upon the chosen 
 race, the people whom on the world's behalf he formed 
 for Himself, He showered His blessings. He had 
 given them promise and law, prophet and priest and 
 king, gifts of faith and hope, holy obedience and brave 
 patience and deep wisdom and prophetic fire and 
 heavenly rapture ; and His gifts to them have come 
 through them to us, " partakers with them of the root 
 and fatness of the olive tree." 
 
 But now, to crown all. He gave Himself! "The 
 Word became flesh." The Son of God planted Him- 
 self into the stock of human life, made Himself over 
 to mankind ; He became the Son of man. So in the 
 fulness of time came the fulness of blessing. Earher 
 bestowments were instalments and prophecies of this ; 
 later gifts are its outcome and its application. What 
 could He have done more than this ? What could 
 the Infinite God do more, even for the most worthy, 
 than He has done for us in "sending His Son, the 
 Only-begotten, that we might live through Him I " 
 Giving us HixD, surely He will give us grace and 
 peace. 
 
•4 THE BPISTLB TO THE GALAT2ANS. 
 
 And if our Lord Jesus Christ " gave Himself," is 
 not that sufficient ? What could Jewish ritual and cir- 
 cumcision add to this "fulness of the Godhead?" 
 Why hunt after the shadows, when one has the 
 substance ? Such were the questions which the 
 Apostle has to ask his Judaizing readers. And what, 
 pray, do we want with modern Ritualism, and its 
 scenic apparatus, and its priestly offices? Are these 
 things designed to eke out the insufficiency of Christ ? 
 Will they recommend Him better than His own gospel 
 and the pure influence of His Spirit avail to do in these 
 latter days ? Or has modern thought, to be sure, 
 and the progress of the 19th century carried us be- 
 yond Jesus Christ, and created spiritual wants for 
 which He has no supply ? Paul at least had no 
 anticipation of this failure. All the need of hungry 
 human hearts and searching minds and sorrowing 
 spirits, to the world's latest ages, the God of Paul, the 
 Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is able to supply in 
 Him. " We are complete in Him," — if we but knew our 
 completeness. The most advanced thinkers of the age 
 will still find Jesus Christ in advance of them. Those 
 who draw the most largely from His fulness, leave its 
 depths unsounded. There are resources stored for the 
 times to come in the revelation of Christ, which our age 
 is too slight, too hasty of thought, to comprehend. We 
 are straitened in ourselves ; never in Him. 
 
 From this supreme gift we can argue down to the 
 humblest necessities, the commonest trials of our daily 
 lot. It adapts itself to the small anxieties of a stinig- 
 gling household, equally with the largest demands of 
 our exacting age. "Thou hast given us Thy Son," 
 says some one, "and wilt Thou not give us bread?" 
 We have a generous Lord. His only complaint is that 
 
U3-S-1 ^-S» SALUTATION. a5 
 
 we do not ask enough. " Ye are My friends," He says : 
 " I have given My life for you. Ask what ye will, and 
 it shall be done unto you." Giving us Himself, He 
 has given us all things. Abraham and Moses, David 
 and Isaiah, "Paul and Apollos and Cephas — yea the 
 world itself, ,life and death, things present and to come — 
 all are ours; and we are Christ's and Christ is God's" 
 (i Cor. iii. 22, 23). Such is the chain of blessing that 
 hangs on this single gift. 
 
 Great as the gift is, it is not greater than our need. 
 Wanting a Divine Son of man, human life remains a 
 baffled aspiration, a pathway leading to no goal. Lack- 
 ing Him, the race is incomplete, a body without its 
 head, a flock that has no master. By the coming of 
 Christ in the flesh human life finds its ideal realized ; 
 its haunting dream of a Divine helper and leader in the 
 midst of men, of a spiritual and immortal perfection 
 brought within its reach, has attained fulfilment " God 
 hath raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house 
 of His servant David ; as He spake by the mouth of 
 His holy prophets, which have been since the world 
 began." Jacob's vision has come true. There is the 
 golden ladder, with its foot resting on the cold, stony 
 earth, and its top on heaven's starry platform, with its 
 angels ascending and descending through the darkness ; 
 and you may climb its steps, high as you will I So 
 humanity receives its crown of life. Heaven and earth 
 are linked, God and man reunited in the person of 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 But Paul will not suffer us to linger at Bethlehem. 
 He hastens on to Calvary. The Atonement, not the 
 Incarnation, is in his view the centre of Christianity. 
 To the cross of Jesus, rather than to His cradle^ he 
 attaches our salvation. *' Jesus Christ gave Himself" — 
 
26 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 what for, and in what way ? What was the errand 
 that brought Him here, in such a guise, and at such a 
 time ? Was it to meet our need^ to fulfil our human 
 aspirations, to crown the moral edifice, to lead the race 
 onward to the goal of its development ? Yes — ultim- 
 ately, and in the final issue, for " as many as receive 
 Him "; it was to " present every man perfect in Christ" 
 But that was not the primary object of His coming, of 
 such a coming. Happy for us indeed, and for Him, if 
 it could have been so. To come to a world waiting 
 for Him, hearkening for the cry, " Behold thy God, O 
 Israel," would have been a pleasant and a fitting thing. 
 But to find Himself rejected by His own, to be spit 
 upon, to hear the multitude shout, " Away with Him I" 
 was this the welcome that he looked for ? Yea surely, 
 nothing else but this. For He gave Himself for our 
 sins. He came to a world steeped in wickedness, 
 seething with rebellion against God, hating Him be- 
 cause it hated the Father that sent Him, sure to say 
 as soon as it saw Him, " We will not have this man 
 to reign over us." Not therefore by way of incarna- 
 tion and revelation alone, as it might have been for an 
 innocent race ; but by way of sacrifice^ as a victim on 
 the altar of expiation, " a lamb led to the slaughter,' 
 He gave Himself up for us all. "To deliver us from 
 an evil world," says the Apostle ; to mend a faulty and 
 imperfect world, something less and other would have 
 sufficed. 
 
 Extreme diseases call for extreme remedies. The 
 case with which our good Physician had to deal was 
 a desperate one. The world was sick at heart ; its 
 moral nature rotting to the core. Human \\{t. was 
 shattered to its foundation. If it was to be saved, if 
 the race was to escape perdition, the fabric must be 
 
i.3-5.] THE SALUTATION. rj 
 
 reconstructed upon another basis, on the ground of a 
 new righteousness, outside ourselves and yet akin to 
 us, near enough to take hold of us and grow into us, 
 which should draw to itself the broken elements of 
 human life, and as a vital organic force refashion them, 
 " creating " men ** anew in Christ Jesus " — a righteous- 
 ness availing before God, and in its depth and width 
 sufficient to bear a world's weight. Such a new foun- 
 dation Jesus Christ has laid in His death. " He laid 
 down His life for us," the Shepherd for the sheep, the 
 Friend for His perishing friends, the Physician for 
 sufferers who had no other remedy. It had come to 
 this, — either He must die, or we must die for ever. 
 Such was the sentence of the All-wise Judge ; on that 
 judgement the Redeemer acted. ** His judgements are 
 a great deep " ; and in this sentence there are depths 
 of mystery into which we tremble to look, " secret 
 things that belong unto the Lord our God." But so it 
 was. There was no way but this, no moral possibility 
 of saving the world, and yet saving Him the accursed 
 death. 
 
 If there had been, would not the Almighty Father 
 have found it out ? would He not have ** taken away 
 the cup " from those white, quivering lips ? No ; He 
 must die. He tnust consent to be " made sin, made 
 a curse " for us. He must humble His stainless inno- 
 cence, humble His glorious Godhead down to the dust 
 of death. He must die, at the hands of the men He 
 created and loved, with the horror of the world's sin 
 fastened on Him ; die under a blackened heaven, under 
 the averting of the Father's face. And He did it. He 
 said, " Father, Thy will be done. Smite the Shepherd ; 
 but let the sheep escape." So He "gave Himself for 
 our sins." 
 
•8 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 Ah, it was no easy march, no holiday pageant, the 
 coming of the Son of God into this world of ours. He 
 *' came to save sinners!^ Not to help good men — this 
 were a grateful task ; but to redeem bad men — the 
 hardest work in God's universe. It tasked the strength 
 and the devotion of the Son of God. Witness Geth- 
 semane. And it will cost His Church something, more 
 haply than we dream of now, if the work of the 
 Redeemer is to be made effectual, and " the travail of 
 His soul satisfied." 
 
 In pity and in sorrow was that gift bestowed; in 
 deep humility and sorrow must it be accepted. It is 
 a very humbling thing to " receive the atonement," to 
 be made righteous on such terms as these. A man 
 who has done well, can with satisfaction accept the 
 help given him to do better. But to know that one has 
 done very ill, to stand in the sight of God and truth 
 condemned, marked with the disgrace that the cruci- 
 fixion of the Son of God has branded on our human 
 nature, with every stain of sin in ourselves revealed in 
 the light of His sacrifice, is a sore abasement. When 
 one has been compelled to cry out, "Lord, save; or 
 I perish ! " he has not much left to plume himself 
 upon. There was Saul himself, a perfect moralist, 
 '* blameless in the righteousness of the law." Yet he 
 must confess, "How to perform that which is good I 
 find not. In me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good 
 thing. Wretch that I am, who shall deliver me ? " 
 Was not this mortifying to the proud young Pharisee, 
 the man of strict conscience and high-souled moral 
 endeavour? It was like death. And whoever has 
 with sincerity made the same attempt to attain in the 
 strength of his will to a true virtue, has tasted of this 
 bitterness. 
 
L3-$.l THE SALUTATION. n 
 
 This however is what many cannot understand. 
 The proud heart says, " No ; I will not stoop to that. 
 I have my faults, my defects and errors, not a few. 
 But as for what you call sin^ as for guilt and inborn 
 depravity, I am not going to tax myself with anything 
 of the kind. Leave me a little self-respect." So with 
 the whole herd of the self-complacent, half-religious 
 Laodiceans. Once a week they confess themselves 
 " miserable sinners," but their sins against God never 
 yet cost them one half hour of misery. And Paul's 
 " gospel is hid to them." If they read this Epistle, they 
 cannot tell what it is all about; why Paul makes so 
 much ado, why these thunderings of judgement, these 
 cries of indignation, these beseechings and protestings 
 and redoubled arguments, — all because a parcel of 
 foolish Galatians wanted to play at being Jews ! They 
 are inclined to think with Festus, that this good Paul 
 was a little beside himself, Alas 1 to such men, content 
 with the world's good opinion and their own, the death 
 of Christ is made of none effect. Its moral grandeur, 
 its mfinite pathos, is lost upon them. They pay it a 
 conventional respect, but as for believing in it, as for 
 making it their own, and dying with Christ to live in 
 Him — they have no idea what it means. That, they 
 will tell you, is "mysticism," and they are practical 
 men of the world. They have never gone out of them- 
 selves, never discovered their moral insufficiency. 
 These are they of whom Jesus said, " The publicans 
 and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before 
 you." It is our human independence, our moral self- 
 conceit, that robs us of the Divine bounty. How 
 thould God give His righteousness to men so well 
 furnished with their own? "Blessed" then "are the 
 poor in spirit " ; blessed are the broken in heart — poor 
 
JO THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 enough, broken enough, bankrupt enough to stoop to 
 a Saviour " v/ho gave Himself for our sins." 
 
 II. Sinful men have made an evil ivorld. The world, 
 as Paul knew it, was evil indeed. " The existing evil 
 age," he says, the world as it then was, in contrast with 
 the glory of the perfected Messianic kingdom. 
 
 This was a leading distinction of the rabbinical 
 schools ; and the writers of the New Testament adopt it 
 with the necessary modification, that 'Uhe coming age," 
 in their view, commences with the Parousiaf the full 
 advent of the Messiah King.* The period that inter- 
 venes since His first appearing is transitional, be- 
 longing to both eras. It is the conclusion of " this 
 world," t to which it appertains in its outward and 
 material relations ; % but under the perishing torm of 
 the present there lies hidden for the Christian believer 
 the seed of immortality, " the earnest " of his future 
 and complete inheritance. § Hence the different and 
 seemingly contradictory ways in which Scripture speaks 
 of the world that now is. 
 
 To Paul at this time the world wore its darkest 
 aspect. There is a touching emphasis in the order of 
 this clause. " The present world, evil as it is : " the 
 words are a sigh for deliverance. The Epistles to 
 Corinth show us how the world just now was using the 
 Apostle. The wonder is that one man could bear so 
 much. " We are made as the filth of the world," he 
 says, " the offscouring of all things." | So the world 
 treated its greatest living benefactor. And as for his 
 
 • 2 Thess. i. 5—7 ; 2 Tim. ir. 18 ; Heb. x. 12, 13 ; 1 Pet. ▼. lOi 
 
 t I Cor. X. 1 1 ; Heb. ix. 26. 
 
 i I Cor. vil 31 ; I John ii. 17. 
 
 $ Rom. viii. 18 ; £ph. i. 13, 14. 
 
 I I Cor. ir. 9—13 ; xv. 30, 32 ; 2 Cor. vi. 4, 10; xi. 16, J3. 
 
i.j-5.3 THE SALUTATION. 
 
 Master — " the princes of this world crucified the Lord 
 of glory." Yes, it was a bad old world, that in which 
 Paul and the Galatians lived — false, licentious, cruel. 
 And that " evil world " still exists. 
 
 True, the world, as we know it, is vastly better than 
 that of Paul's day. Not in vain have Apostles taught, 
 and martjrrs bled, and the Church of Christ witnessed 
 and toiled through so many ages. '* Other men have 
 laboured; we enter into their labours." An English 
 home of to-day is the flower of the centuries. To 
 those cradled in its pure affections, endowed with 
 health and honourable work and refined tastes, the 
 world must be, and was meant to be, in many aspects 
 a bright and pleasant world. Surely the most sorrow- 
 ful have known days in which the sky was all sunshine 
 and the very air alive with joy, when the world looked 
 as when it came forth fresh from its Creator's hand, 
 " and behold, it was very good." There is nothing in 
 the Bible, nothing in the spirit of true religion to damp 
 the pure joy of such days as these. But there are 
 " the days of darkness ; " and they are many. The 
 Serpent has crept into our Paradise. Death breathes 
 on it his fatal blast. 
 
 And when we look outside the sheltered circles of 
 home-life and Christian brotherhood, what a sea of 
 misery spreads around us. How hmited and partial 
 is the influence of religion. What a mass of unbelief 
 and godlessness surges up to the doors of our sanc- 
 tuaries. What appalling depths of iniquity exist in 
 modern society, under the brilliant surface of our 
 material civilization. And however far the dominance 
 of sin in human society may be broken — as, please God, 
 it shall be broken, still evil is Hkely to remain in many 
 tempting and perilous forms until the world is burnt to 
 
Sa THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 ashes in the fires of the Last Judgement. Is it not an 
 evil world, where every morning newspaper serves up 
 to us its miserable tale of disaster and of crime, where 
 the Almighty's name is " all the day blasphemed," and 
 every night drunkenness holds its horrid revels and 
 the daughters of shame walk the city streets, where 
 great Christian empires tax the poor man's bread and 
 make his hfe bitter to maintain their huge standing 
 armies and their cruel engines of war, and where, in 
 this happy England and its cities teeming with wealth, 
 there are thousands of patient, honest working women, 
 whose Ufe under the fierce stress of competition is a 
 veritable slavery, a squalid, dreary struggle just to keep 
 hunger from the door ? Ay, it is a world so evil that 
 no good and right-thinking man who knows it, would 
 care to live in it for a single day, but for the hope of 
 helping to make it better. 
 
 Now it was the purpose of Jesus Christ, that for 
 those who believe in Him this world's evil should be 
 brought absolutely to an end. He promises a full 
 deliverance from all that tempts and afflicts us here. 
 With sin, the root of evil, removed, its bitter fruits at 
 last will disappear. We shall rise to the Hfe immortal. 
 Wc shall attain our perfect consummation and bhss 
 both in body and soul. Kept from the evil of the 
 world while they remain in it, enabled by His grace to 
 witness and contend against it, Christ's servants shall 
 then be hfted clean out for it of ever. "Father, I 
 wilV' prayed Jesus, " that they also whom Thou hast 
 given Me, may be with Me where I am." To that 
 final salvation, accomplished in the redemption of our 
 body and the setting up of Christ's heavenly kingdom, 
 the Apostle's words look forward : ** that He might 
 deliver us oui of this present evil world." Thi» was 
 
L 3-5.1 '^HE SALUTATION. 33 
 
 the splendid hope which Paul offered to the dying and 
 despairing world of his day. The Galatians were 
 persuaded of it and embraced it ; he entreats them not 
 to let it go. 
 
 The self-sacrifice of Christ, and the deliverance it 
 brings, are both, the Apostle concludes, " according to 
 the will of God, even our Father." The wisdom and 
 might of the Eternal are pledged to the work of human 
 redemption. The cross of Jesus Christ is the mani- 
 festo of Infinite Love. Let him therefore who rejects 
 it, know against Whom he is contending. Let him 
 who perverts and falsifies it, know with what he is 
 trifling. He who receives and obeys it, may rest 
 assured that all things are working for his good. For 
 all things are in the hands of our God and Father; 
 " to Whom," let us say with Paul, " be glory for ever. 
 Amen." 
 
CHAPTER IIL 
 
 THE ANATHEMA, 
 
 •* I marvel that ye are so quickly removing from him that called yo« 
 in the grace of Christ unto a different gospel ; which is not another 
 gospel : only there are some that trouble you, and would pervert the 
 gospel of Christ But though we, or an angel from heaven, should 
 preach unto you any gospel other than that which we preached unto 
 you, let him be anathema. As we have said before, so say I now again, 
 If any man preacheth unto you any gospel other than that which ye 
 received, let him be anathema. For am I now persuading men, or 
 God ? or am I seeking to please men ? if I were still pleasing men, I 
 should not be a servant of Christ." — Gal. L 6 — la 
 
 AFTER the Salutation in Paul's Epistles comes the 
 Thanksgiving. JEu%aptorTa> or EvXojrjro^ — these 
 are the words we expect first to meet. Even in writing 
 to Corinth, where there was so much to censure and 
 deplore, he begins, " I give thanks to my God always 
 for you." This letter deviates from the Apostle's 
 devout and happy usage. Not " I give thanks," but 
 " I marvel ; " not blessing, but anathema is coming 
 from his lips : a surprise that jars all the more upon 
 one's ears, because it follows on the sublime doxology 
 of the preceding verse. " I marvel to see you so 
 quickly falling away to another gospel. . . . But if any 
 one preach unto you any gospel other than that ye 
 received — ay, though it were ourselves, or an angel 
 from heaven — I have said once, and I say again, Let 
 BE Anathema." 
 
Ld-iaJ T3B ANATHEMA, jl 
 
 These words were well calculated to startle thc^ 
 Galatians out of their levity. They are like a lightning- 
 flash which shows one to be standing on the edge of 
 a precipice. We see at once the infinite seriousness 
 of the Judaic controversy, the profound gulf that lies 
 between Paul and his opposers. He is for open war. 
 He is in haste to fling his gage of defiance against 
 these enemies of the cross. With all his tact and 
 management, his readiness to consult the susceptibilities 
 and accommodate the scruples of sincere consciences, 
 the Apostle can find no room for conciliation here. He 
 knows the sort of men he has to deal with. He per- 
 ceives that the whole truth of the Gospel is at stake. 
 Not circumstantials, but essentials ; not his personal 
 authority, but the honour of Christ, the doctrine of the 
 cross, is involved in this defection. He must speak 
 plainly ; he must act strongly, and at once ; or the 
 cause of the Gospel is lost. "If I continued any longer 
 to please men," he says, "I should not be a servant 
 of Christ." To stand on terms with such opponents, 
 to palter with this "other gospel," would be treason 
 against Him. There is but one tribunal at which this 
 quarrel can be decided. To Him " who had cailed " 
 the Galatian believers " in Christ's grace," who by the 
 same grace had called the Apostle to His service and 
 given him the message he had preached to them — to 
 God he appeals. In His name, and by the authority 
 conferred upon him and for which he must give account, 
 he pronounces these troublers " anathema." They are 
 enemies of Christ, by their treachery excluded from 
 His kingdom. 
 
 However unwelcome, however severe the course the 
 Apostle takes, he has no alternative. " For now," he 
 cries, "is it men that I persuade, or God?^ He must 
 
S6 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 do his duty, let who will condemn. Paul was ready 
 to go all lengths in pleasing men in consistence with 
 loyalty to Christ, where he could do it " for their good, 
 unto edification." But if their approval clashed with 
 God's, then it became " a very small thing : " * he did 
 not heed it one jot. Such is the temper of mind which 
 the Epistles to Corinth disclose in Paul at this juncture. 
 In the same spirit he indites these trenchant and dis- 
 pleasing words. 
 
 With a heavy heart Paul has taken up his pen. If 
 we judge rightly of the date of this letter, he had just 
 passed through the darkest hour of his experience, 
 when not his life alone, but the fate of his Gentile 
 mission hung in the balance. His expulsion from 
 Ephesus, coming at the same time as the Corinthian 
 revolt, and followed by a prostrating attack of sickness, 
 had shaken his soul to its depths. Never had his 
 heart been so torn with anxiety, never had he felt 
 himself so beaten down and discomfited, as on that 
 melancholy journey from Ephesus to Macedonia, f 
 "Out of anguish of heart and with many tears" and 
 after-relentings (2 Cor. ii. 4 ; vii. 8) he wrote his First 
 letter to Corinth. And this Epistle is even more severe. 
 There runs through it a peculiar mental tension, an 
 exaltation of feeling such as prolonged and deep suffer- 
 ing leaves behind in a nature like Paul's. "The marks 
 of Jesus" (ch. vi. 17) are visible, impressed on his 
 spirit no less than on his body. The Apostle's heart 
 is full to overflowing. Its warm glow is felt under the 
 calmer course of narrative and argument : while at the 
 beginning and end of the Epistle it breaks forth in 
 language of burning indignation and melting pathos. 
 
 • I Cor. It. 3, 4 ; 2 Cor. v. 9—12 ; xii. 19. 
 
 t a Cor. L 8—10; ii. 12, 13 ; ir. &— 11 ; riL J—y. 
 
L6.iaJ THE ANATHEMA. 37 
 
 Before advancing a single step, before entering on any 
 sort of explanation or discussion, his grief at the fickle- 
 ness of his Galatian children and his anger against 
 their seducers must find expression. 
 
 These sentences demand, before we proceed further, 
 a few words of exegetical definition. For the reference 
 of " so quickly " it is needless to go beyond the verb 
 it qualifies. The Apostle cannot surely mean, ^^ so 
 soon falling away (after your conversion)." For the 
 Galatian Churches had been founded five, if not seven, 
 years before this time ; and the backsliding of recent 
 converts is less, and not more, surprising than of 
 estabhshed believers. What astonishes Paul is the 
 suddenness of this movement, the facility with which 
 the Galatians yielded to the Judaizing " persuasion," 
 the rapid spread of this new leaven. As to the double 
 '* other" (erepov, different, R.V,—dXXo) of w. 6 and 7, 
 and the connection of the idiomatic " only " (et /xr;, 
 except), — we regard the second other as an abrupt cor- 
 rection of the first ; while the only clause, extending to 
 the end of ver. 7, mediates between the two, qualifying 
 the statement " There is no other gospel," by showing 
 in what sense the writer at first had spoken of 
 " another." ** Ye are falling away," says he, '' to 
 another sort of gospel — which is not another, except 
 that there are certain that trouble you and would fain 
 pervert the gospel of Christ." The word gospel is 
 therefore in the first instance applied ironically. Paul 
 yields the sacred title up to his opponents, only to 
 snatch it out of their false hands. " Another gospel 1 
 there is only one ; although there are men that falsify 
 it, and seek to foist something else upon you m its 
 name." Seven times in this context (w. 6 — 11) does 
 the Apostle reiterate, in noun or verb, this precious 
 
38 THE RPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 word, as though he could not let it go. A strange sort 
 of " good news " for the Galatians, that they must be 
 circumcised forsooth, and observe the Jewish Kalendar! 
 (ch. V. 2, 3 ; vi. I2 ; iv. 9, 10.) 
 
 I. In Paul's view, there is but one gospel for man- 
 kind. The gospel of Jesus Christ bears afixedf inviolable 
 charackr. 
 
 On this position the whole teaching of Paul rests, — 
 and with it, may we not add, Christianity itself? 
 However variously we may formulate the essentials of 
 a Christian man's faith, we are generally agreed that 
 there are such essentials, and that they are found in 
 Paul's gospel to the Gentiles. With him the good tidings 
 about Christ constituted a very definite and, as we 
 should say, dogmatic body of truth. In whatever 
 degree his gospel has been confused and overlaid by 
 later teachings, to his ow^n mind its terms were perfectly 
 clear, and its authority incontestable. With all its 
 breadth, there is nothing nebulous, nothing limp or 
 hesitating about the theology of Paul. In its main 
 doctrines it is fixed and hard as adamant ; and at the 
 challenge of this Judaistic perversion it rings out an 
 instant and peremptory denial. It was the ark of God 
 on which the Jewish troublers laid their unholy hands. 
 "Christ's grace" is lodged in it. God's call to mankind 
 was conveyed by these "good tidings." The Churches 
 which the Apostle had planted were " God's husbandry, 
 God's building ; " and woe to the man who tampered 
 with the work, or sought to lay another foundation 
 than that which had been laid (i Cor. iii. 5 — ii). To 
 distort or mutilate **the word of the truth of the 
 gospel," to make it mean now one thing and now 
 another, to disturb the faith of half-instructed Chris- 
 tians by captious reasonings and self-interested per- 
 
L6-ial THR ANATHEMA. 39 
 
 versions, was a capital offence, a sin against God and 
 a crime against humanity. Paul possesses in his 
 gospel truth of unspeakable value to mankind, the 
 supreme revelation of God's mercy to the world. And 
 he is prepared to launch his anathema against every 
 wilful impugner, no matter what his pretensions, or 
 the quarter from which he comes. 
 
 " Well," it may be said, " this is sheer religious 
 intolerance. Paul is doing what every dogmatist, every 
 ecclesiastical bigot has done in his turn. His beliefs 
 are, to be sure, the truth ; and accordingly he unchurches 
 and anathematizes those who cannot agree with him. 
 With all his nobility of mind, there is in Paul a leaven 
 of Jewish rancour. He falls short of the sweet reason- 
 ableness of Jesus." So some will say, and in saying 
 claim to represent the mild and tolerant spirit of our 
 d%<t. But is there not in every age an intolerance that 
 is just and necessary ? There is a logical intolerance 
 of sophistry and trifling. There is a moral intolerance 
 of impurity and deceit. And there is a religious in- 
 tolerance, which includes both these and adds to them 
 a holy jealousy for the honour of God and the spiritual 
 welfare of mankind. It is mournful indeed to think 
 how many crimes have been perpetrated under the 
 cloak of pious zeal. Tantutn Religio poiuit suadere 
 malorum. The corruption of Christianity by human 
 pride and cruelty has furnished copious illustrations of 
 the terrible line of Lucretius. But the perversion of 
 this noblest instinct of the soul does not take away 
 either its reasonableness or its use. The quality of 
 a passion is one thing ; the mode of its expression 
 is another. The hottest fires of bigotry are cold when 
 compared with the scorching intolerance of Christ's 
 denunciations of the Pharisees. The anathemas of 
 
40 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 Jesus and of Paul are very different from those of 
 arrogant pontiffs, or of narrow sectaries, inflamed with 
 the idolatry of their own opinions. After all, the zeal 
 of the rudest fanatic in religion has more in it of manly 
 worth and moral capability than the languors of a 
 blas(^ scepticism, that sits watching with amused con- 
 tempt the strife of creeds and the search of human 
 hearts after the Living God. There is an idle, hstless, 
 cowardly tolerance, as there is an intolerance that is 
 noble and just. 
 
 The one gospel has had many interpreters. Their 
 voices, it must be confessed, sound strangely dis- 
 cordant. While the teachings of Christianity excite 
 so intensely a multitude of different minds, of everj 
 variety of temper and capacity, contradiction will 
 inevitably arise. Nothing is easier than to scoff at 
 "the Babel of religious opinions." Christian truth is 
 necessarily refracted and discoloured in passing through 
 disordered natures and defective minds. And, alas, 
 that Church which claims to hold the truth without 
 possibility of error or variation, has perverted Christ's 
 gospel most of all. 
 
 But notwithstanding all differences, there exists 
 a large and an increasing measure of agreement 
 amongst the great body of earnest Christians. Slowly, 
 yet surely, one debate after another comes to its settle- 
 ment. The noise and publicity with which discussion 
 on matters of faith is carried on in an age of religious 
 freedom, and when liberty of thought has outrun 
 mental discipline, should not lead us to exaggerate the 
 extent of our disagreements. In the midst of human 
 controversy and error, the Spirit of truth is carrying on 
 His work. He is the supreme witness of Jesus Christ. 
 And He abides with us for ever. The newly awakened 
 
L6-ia THB ANATHEMA. 
 
 historical conscience of our times is visibly making for 
 unity. The Church is going back to the New Testament. 
 And the more thoroughly she does this, the more 
 directly and truthfully she addresses herself to the 
 original record and comes face to face with Christ and His 
 Apostles there, so much the more shall we realize the 
 oneness and certainty of " the faith once delivered to 
 the saints." Beneath the many superstructures, faulty 
 and changing in their form, we reach the one ^' founda- 
 tion of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself 
 being the chief corner-stone." There we touch solid 
 rock. " The unity of the faith " lies in " the knowledge 
 of the Son of God." Of Him we shall learn most from 
 those who knew Him best. Let us transport ourselves 
 into the fellowship of His first disciples ; and listen to 
 His gospel as it came fresh from the Hps of Peter and 
 John and Paul, and the Divine Master Himself. Let 
 us bid the voices of the centuries be silent, that we 
 may hear Him. 
 
 For the Galatian readers, as for Paul, there could 
 be but one gospel. By his voice the call of God had 
 reached their hearts, (ver. 6 ; ch. v. 8). The witness of 
 the Spirit of God and of Christ in the supernatural 
 gifts they had received, and in the manifold fruit of a 
 regenerate Hfc (ch. iii. 2 — 5 ; v. 22, 23), was evidence to 
 them that the Apostle's message was " the true gospel 
 of the grace of God." This they had gratefully 
 acknowledged at the time of his first visit (ch. iv. 1 5). 
 The proclamation of the crucified and risen Christ had 
 brought to them unspeakable blessing. Through it 
 they received the knowledge of God ; they were made 
 consciously sons of God, heirs of life eternal (ch. iii. 26 ; 
 iv. 6—9 ; vi. 8). To entertain any other gospel, after 
 this experience and all these professions, was an act of 
 
41 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATJAN& 
 
 apostasy. " Ye are deserting (like runaway soldiers), 
 turning renegades from God : " such is the language in 
 which Paul taxes his readers. In listening to the 
 persuasion of the Judaists, they were *' disobeying the 
 truth " (ch. V. 7, 8). They were disloyal to conscience ; 
 they were trifling with the most sacred convictions of 
 their lives, and with the testimony of the Spirit of God. 
 They were forgetting the cross of Christ, and making 
 His death of none effect. Surely they must have been 
 " bewitched " to act thus ; some deadly spell was upon 
 them, which had laid memory and conscience both to 
 sleep (ch. ii. 2i — iii. 3). 
 
 The nature and the contents of the two " gospels " 
 current in Galatia will be made clear in the further 
 course of the Epistle. They were the gospels of 
 Grace and of Law respectively ; of Salvation by Faith, 
 and by Works ; of life in the Spirit, and in the Flesh ; 
 of the Cross and the Resurrection on the one hand^ 
 and of Circumcision and the Kalendar and " Clean 
 meats" on the other; the gospels of inwardness, and 
 of externalism — of Christ, and of self. The conflict 
 between these two was the great struggle of Paul's life. 
 His success was, historically speaking, the salvation of 
 Christianity. 
 
 But this contention did not end with his victory. 
 The Judaistic perversion appealed to tendencies too 
 persistent in our nature to be crushed at one blow. 
 The gospel of externalism is dear to the human heart. 
 It may take the form of culture and moralities ; or of 
 " services " and sacraments and churchly order ; or of 
 orthodoxy and philanthropy. These and such things 
 make themselves our idols ; and trust in them takes 
 the place of faith in the living Christ It is not enough 
 that the eyes of our heart should once have seen the 
 
L6-iaJ TEB ANATHEMA, 
 
 Lord, that we should in other days have experienced 
 " the renewing of the Holy Ghost." It is possible to 
 forget, possible to *' remove from Him that called us 
 in the grace of Christ." With Httle change in the form 
 of our religious life, its inward reality of joy in God, 
 of conscious sonship, of fellowship in the Spirit, may 
 be utterly departed. The gospel of formalism will 
 spring up and flourish on the most evangelical soil, 
 and in the most strictly Pauline Churches. Let it be 
 banned and barred out never so completely, it knows 
 how to find entrance, under the simplest modes of 
 worship and the soundest doctrine. The serried 
 defence of Articles and Confessions constructed against 
 it will not prevent its entrance, and may even prove 
 its cover and intrenchment. Nothing avails, as the 
 Apostle says, but a constant '' new creation." The 
 life of God in human souls is sustained by the energy 
 of His Spirit, perpetually renewed, ever proceeding from 
 the Father and the Son. " The life that I live in the 
 flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved 
 me and gave Himself for me." This is the true 
 orthodoxy. The vitality of his personal faith in Christ 
 kept Paul safe from error, faithful in will and intellect 
 to the one gospeL 
 
 IL We have still to consider the import of the 
 judgement pronounced by Paul upon those who pervert 
 the gospel of Christ, " Let him be anathema. Even 
 should it be ourselves, or an angel from heaven, let htm 
 be anathema." 
 
 These are tremendous words. Commentators have 
 been shocked at the Apostle's damning his opponents 
 afl;er this fashion, and have sought to lighten the weight 
 of this awful sentence. It has been sometimes toned 
 down into an act of excommunication or ecclesiasticaJ 
 
44 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 censure. But this explanation will not hold. Paul 
 could not think of subjecting '^ an angel " to a penalty 
 like that. He pronounced excommunication against 
 disorderly members of the Thessalonian Church ; and 
 in I Cor. v. i — 8 he gives directions for the carrying 
 out of a similar decree, attended with severe bodily 
 affliction supernaturally adjudged, against a sinner 
 whose presence grossly stained the purity of the Church. 
 But this sentence goes beyond either of those. It 
 contemplates the exclusion of the offenders from the 
 Covenant of grace, their loss of final salvation. 
 
 Thrice besides has Paul used this ominous word. 
 The cry ''Jesus is anathema," in I Cor. xii. 3, reveals 
 with a lurid effect the frenzied malignity towards Christ 
 of which the spirit of evil is sometimes capable. In 
 a very different connection the word appears in Rom. 
 ix. 3 ; where Paul " could wish himself anathema from 
 Christ," if that were possible, for his brethren's sake ; 
 he could find it in his heart to be cut off for ever from 
 that love of God in Christ of which he has just spoken 
 in terms of unbounded joy and confidence (Rom. viii. 
 31 — 39), and banished from the heavenly kingdom, if 
 through his exclusion his Jewish kindred might be 
 saved. Self-sacrifice can go no further. No heavier 
 loss than this could be conceived for any human being. 
 Nearest to our passage is the imprecation at the end of 
 I Corinthians : " If any man love not the Lord, let him 
 be anathema," — a judgement proclaimed against cold 
 and false hearts, knowing His love, bearing His name, 
 but with no true love to Him. 
 
 This Greek word in its Biblical use has grown out of 
 the cherem of the Old Testament, the ban declared 
 against that which was cut off from the Divine mercies 
 and exposed to the full sweep of judgement. Thus in 
 
L6-ial THE ANATHEMA, 4S 
 
 Deut. xiii. 12 — 18, the city whose people should "go 
 and serve other gods/' is declared cherem {anathema)^ 
 an "accursed," or "devoted thing" (R.V.), on which 
 ensues its destruction by sword and fire, leaving it to 
 remain "a ruin-heap for ever." Similarly in Joshua 
 vi., vii., the spoil of Jericho is anathema, Achan's theft is 
 therefore anathema, and Israel is made by it anathema 
 until "the accursed thing is destroyed" from among 
 the people. Such were the recollections associated 
 with this word in the Mosaic law, which it would in- 
 evitably carry with it to the minds of those against 
 whom it was now directed. And there is nothing in 
 later Jewish usage to mitigate its force. 
 
 Now the Apostle is not writing like a man in a 
 passion, who flings out his words as missiles, eager 
 only to wound and confound his opponents. He 
 repeats the sentence. He quotes it as one that he 
 had already affirmed in the hearing of his readers. 
 The passage bears the marks of well-weighed thought 
 and judicial solemnity. In pronouncing this judge- 
 ment on "the troublers," Paul acts under the sense 
 of Apostolic responsibility. We must place the 
 sentence in the same line as that of Peter against 
 Ananias and Sapphira, and of Paul himself against 
 Elymas the Cypriot sorcerer, and against the incestuous 
 Corinthian. In each case there is a supernatural 
 insight and authorization, "the authority which the 
 Lord gave" and which is wielded by His inspired 
 Apostle. The exercise of this judicial function was one 
 of " the signs of the Apostle." This was the proof of 
 " Christ speaking in him " which Paul was so loth to 
 give at Corinth,* but which at this crisis of his ministry 
 
 • t Cor. X. I-— II } xiii, i — lo ; i Cor. iv l8— ai. 
 
46 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 he was compelled to display. And if he " reckons to 
 be bold against" his adversaries in Galatia, he knows 
 well the ground on which he stands. 
 
 His anathema struck at men who were the worst 
 enemies of Christ. " We can do nothing against the 
 truth/' he says ; " but for the truth " he was ready to 
 do and dare everything, — to " come with a rod/* as be 
 tells the proud Corinthians. There was no authority, 
 however lofty, that he was not warranted to use on 
 Christ's behalf, no measure, however severe, from which 
 he would shrink, if it were required in defence of the 
 truth of the Gospel. " He possesses weapons, not 
 fleshly, but mighty through God " ; and he is prepared 
 to bring them all into play rather than see the gospel 
 perverted or overthrown. Paul will hurl his anathema 
 at the prince of the archangels, should He come 
 " preaching another gospel," tempting his children from 
 their allegiance to Christ. This bolt was not shot a 
 moment too soon. Launched against the legalist 
 conspiracy, and followed up by the arguments of 
 this and the Roman Epistle, it saved the Church 
 from being overpowered by reactionary Judaism. The 
 Apostle's judgement has marked the gospel of the 
 cross for all time as God's inviolable truth, guarded by 
 lightnings. 
 
 The sentences of judgement pronounced by the 
 Apostles present a striking contrast to those that have 
 fulminated from the Chair of their self-styled successors. 
 In the Canons of the Council of Trent, for example, we 
 have counted one hundred and thirty-five anathenias. 
 A large proportion of these are concerned with the 
 rights of the priesthood ; others with complicated and 
 secondary points of doctrine ; some are directed virtually 
 against the teaching of Paul himself. Here is one 
 
L6-ia] THB ANATHEMA, 
 
 specimen : " If any one shaH say that justifying faith is 
 nothing else but a trust in the Divine mercy, remitting 
 sins for Christ's sake, or that it is this trust alone by 
 which we are justified : let him be anathema." * Again, 
 " If any one shall say that the Canon of the Mass 
 contains errors, and therefore should be abrogated : let 
 him be anathema." f In the closing session, the final 
 act of the presiding Cardinal was to pronounce, 
 "Anathema to all heretics;" to which the assembled 
 prelates shouted in response, "Anathema, anathema." 
 With this imprecation on their lips the Fathers of the 
 Church concluded their pious labours. It was the Re- 
 formation, it was " the liberty of the sons of God " that 
 Rome anathematized. Paul's censure holds good against 
 all the Conciliar Canons and Papal Bulls that con- 
 travene it. But twice has he pronounced this awful 
 word ; once against any that " love not the Lord," a 
 second time upon those who wilfully pervert His 
 gospel. The Papal anathemas sound like the maledic- 
 tions of an angry priesthood, jealous for its prerogatives; 
 here we have the holy severity of an inspired Apostle, 
 concerned only for the truth, and for his Master's 
 honour. There speaks the conscious " lord over God's 
 heritage," wearing the triple crown, wielding the powers 
 of Interdict and Inquisition, whose word sets armies in 
 motion and makes kings tremble on their seats. Here 
 a feeble, solitary man, " his bodily presence weak, his 
 speech contemptible," hunted from place to place, 
 scourged and stoned, shut up for years in prison, who 
 could not, except for love's sake, command the meanest 
 service. How conspicuous in the one case, how want- 
 ing in the other, is the might of the Spirit and the 
 
 * Session tL, CaiL ziL t Session xxiL, Can. ^ 
 
4S THE RPISTLB TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 dignity of the inspired word, the transcendence of 
 moral authority. 
 
 It is the moral conduct of those he judges that 
 determines in each case the sentence passed by the 
 Apostle. For a man knowing Jesus Christ, as we 
 presume the members of the Corinthian Church did 
 know Him, not to love Him, argues a bad heart. Must 
 not we count ourselves accursed, if with our knowledge 
 of Christ we had no love for Him ? Such a man is 
 already virtually anathema. He is severed as a branch 
 from its vine, ready to be gathered for the burning 
 (John XV. 6). And these Galatian disturbers were 
 something worse than mere mistaken enthusiasts for 
 their native Jewish rites. Their policy was dishonour- 
 able (ch. iv. 17). They made the gospel of Christ sub- 
 servient to factious designs. They sought to win 
 credit with their fellow-countrymen and to escape the 
 reproach of the cross by imposing circumcision on the 
 Gentiles (ch. ii. 4; vi. 12, 13). They prostituted religion 
 to selfish and party purposes. They sacrificed truth to 
 popularity, the glory of Christ and the cross to their 
 own. They were of those whom the Apostle describes 
 as ''walking in craftiness and handling the word of 
 God deceitfully/' who " traffic " in the gospel, peddHng 
 with it as with petty wares, cheapening and adultera- 
 ting it like dishonest hucksters to make their own 
 market by it (2 Cor. ii. 17 ; iv. 2). Did not Paul do 
 well to smite them with the rod of his mouth ? Justly 
 has he marked with the brand of this fiery anather .a 
 the false minister, "who serves not the Lord ChriU, 
 but his own belly." 
 
 But docs this declaration preclude in such a case the 
 possibility of repentance ? We trow not It declares 
 the doom which is due to any, be he man or angel, who 
 
L6.ia] THB ANATHEMA. 49 
 
 should do what these *' troublers " are doing. It is a 
 general sentence, and has for the individuals concerned 
 the effect of a warning, like the announcement made 
 concerning the Traitor at the Last Supper. However 
 unlikely repentance might be in either instance, there 
 is nothing to forbid it So when Peter said to Simon 
 Magus, " Thy money perish with thee I " he neverthe- 
 less continued, " Repent, therefore, of this thy wicked- 
 ness, and pray the Lord, if perhaps the thought of thy 
 heart shall be forgiven thee" (Acts viiL 2'o — 22). To 
 his worst opponents, on any sign of contrition, Paul, 
 we may be sure, would have gladly said the same 
 
THE PERSONAL HISTORY. 
 Chapter i. ii — ii. 21. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PAUL'S GOSPEL REVEALED BY CHRIST. 
 
 "For I make known to you, brethren, as touching the gospd 
 which was preached by me, that it is not after man. For neither did I 
 receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through 
 revelation of Jesus Christ For ye have heard of my manner of life in 
 time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted 
 the church of God, and made havock of it : and I advanced in the 
 Jews' religion beyond many of mine own age among my countrjrmen, 
 being more exceedingly z«alous for the traditions of my fathers." 
 — Gal. L ii — 14. 
 
 HERE the Epistle begins in its main purport. 
 What has gone before is so much exordium. The 
 sharp, stern sentences of w. 6 — 10 are like the roll of 
 artillery that ushers in the battle. The mists rise 
 from the field. We see the combatants arrayed on 
 either side. In due order and with cool self-command 
 the Apostle proceeds to marshal and deploy his 
 forces. His truthful narrative corrects the misrepre- 
 sentations of his opponents, and repels their attack 
 upon himself. His powerful dialectic wrests from 
 their hands and turns against them their weapons of 
 Scriptural proof. He wins the citadel of their position, 
 by establishing the claim of the men of faith to be the 
 sons of Abraham. On the ruins of confuted legalism 
 he builds up an impregnable fortress for Christian 
 liberty an immortal vindication of the gospel of the 
 grace of Grod. 
 
54 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 The cause of Gentile freedom at this crisis was 
 bound up with the person of the Apostle Paul. His 
 Gospel and his Apostleship must stand or fall together. 
 The former was assailed through the latter. He was 
 himself just now " the pillar and stay of the truth." 
 If his character had been successfully attacked and his 
 influence destroyed, nothing, humanly speaking, could 
 have saved Gentile Christendom at this decisive 
 moment from falling under the assaults of Judaism, 
 When he begins his crucial appeal with the words, 
 " Behold, / Paul say unto you " (ch. v. 2), we feel that 
 the issue depends upon the weight which his readers 
 may attach to his personal affirmation. He pits his 
 . own truthfulness, his knowledge of Christ, his spiritual 
 discernment and authority, and the respect due to 
 himself from the Galatians, against the pretensions of 
 the new teachers. The comparison is not indeed so 
 open and express as that made in 2 Corinthians ; none 
 the less it tacitly runs through this Epistle. Paul is 
 compelled to put himself in the forefront of his argu- 
 ment. In the eyes of his children in the faith, he is 
 bound to vindicate his Apostolic character, defamed by 
 Jewish malice and untruth. 
 
 The first two chapters of this Epistle are therefore 
 Paul's Apologia pro vita sua. With certain chapters in 
 2 Corinthians, and scattered passages in other letters, 
 they form the Apostle's autobiography, jne of the 
 most perfect self-portraitures that literature contains. 
 They reveal to us the man more effectively than 
 any ostensible description could have done. They 
 furnish an indispensable supplement to the external 
 and cursory delineations given in the Acts of the 
 Apostles. While Luke skilfully presents the outward 
 framework of Paul's life and the events of his public 
 
L 11.14.] PAULS GOSPEL REVEALED BY CHRIST, 55 
 
 career, it is to the Epistles that we turn — to none 
 more frequently than this — for the necessary subjective 
 data, for all that belongs to his inner character, his 
 motives and principles. This Epistle brings into bold 
 relief the Apostle's moral physiognomy. Above all, it 
 throws a clear and penetrating light on the event 
 which determined his career — the greatest event in the 
 history of Christianity after the Day of Pentecost — 
 Paul's conversion to faith in the Lord Jesus. 
 
 This was at once the turning-point in the Apostle's 
 life, and the birth-hour of his gospel. If the Galatians 
 were to understand his teaching, they must understand 
 this occurrence ; they must know why he became a 
 Christian, how he had received the message which 
 he brought to them. They would, he felt sure, enter 
 more sympathetically into his doctrine, if they were 
 better acquainted with the way in which he had 
 arrived at it They would see how well-justified was 
 the authority, how needful the severity with which he 
 writes. Accordingly he begins with a brief relation of 
 the circumstances of his call to the service of Christ, 
 and his career from the days of his Judaistic zeal, when 
 he made havoc of the faith, till the well-known occa- 
 sion on which he became its champion against Peter 
 himself, the chief of the Twelve (ch. i. 1 1 — ii. 21.) His 
 object in this recital appears to be threefold : to refute 
 the misrepresentations of the Circumcisionists ; to 
 vindicate his independent authority as an Apostle of 
 Christ ; and further, to unfold the nature and terms of 
 his gospel, so as to pave the way for the theological 
 argument which is to follow, and which forms the body 
 of the Epistle. 
 
 I. Paul's gospel was supematurally conveyed to him, 
 by a personal intervention of Jesus ChrisL This 
 
$6 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 assertion is the Apostle's starting-point. " My gospel 
 IS not after man. I received it as Jesus Christ revealed 
 it to me." 
 
 That the initial revelation was made to him by 
 Christ in person, was a fact of incalculable importance 
 for Paul. This had made him an Apostle, in the 
 august sense in which he claims the title (ver. i). 
 This accounts for the vehemence with which he defends 
 his doctrine, and for the awful sentence which he has 
 passed upon its impugners. The Divine authorship of 
 the gospel he preached made it impossible for him 
 to temporize with its perverters, or to be influenced 
 by human favour or disfavour in its administration. 
 Had his teaching been " according to man," he might 
 have consented to a compromise ; he might reasonably 
 have tried to humour and accommodate Jewish pre- 
 judices. But the case is far otherwise. " I am not at 
 liberty to please men," he says, ''for my gospel comes 
 directly from Jesus Christ" (w. lo, ii). So he 
 " gives " his readers " to know/' as if by way of formal 
 notification.* 
 
 The gospel of Paul was inviolable, then, because 
 of its superhuman character. And this character was 
 impressed upon it by its superhuman origin : " not 
 according to man, for neither from man did I receive 
 it, nor was I taught it, but by a revelation of Jesus 
 Christ." The Apostle's knowledge of Christianity did 
 not come through the ordinary channel of tradition 
 and indoctrination; Jesus Christ had, by a miraculous 
 interposition, taught him the truth about Himself. He 
 says, " Neither did /," with an emphasis that points 
 tacitly to the elder Apostles, whom he mentions a few 
 
 • Comp. Rom. «. 22 ; i Cor. xii. 3 ; xy. f ; 9 Cor. viii. I. 
 
I.II-I4.1 PAULS GOSPEL RBVBALBD BY CHRIST. 57 
 
 sentences later (ver. 17). To this comparison his adver- 
 saries forced him, making use of it as they freely did to 
 his disparagement.* But it comes in by implication 
 rather than direct assertion. Only by putting violence 
 upon himself, and with strong expressions of his 
 unworthiness, can Paul be brought to set his official 
 claims in competition with those of the Twelve. Not- 
 withstanding, it is perfectly clear that he puts his 
 ministry on a level with theirs. He is no Apostle 
 at second-hand, no disciple of Peter*s or dependant 
 of the ''pillars" at Jerusalem. "Neither did I," he 
 declares, " any more than they, take my instructions 
 from other lips than those of Jesus our Lord." 
 
 But what of this " revelation of Jesus Christ," on 
 which Paul lays so much stress ? Does he mean a 
 revelation made by Christ, or about Christ ? Taken 
 by itself, the expression, in Greek as in English, bears 
 either interpretation. In lavour of the second con- 
 struction — viz. that Paul speaks of a revelation by 
 which Christ was made known to him — the language 
 of ver. 16 is adduced : "It pleased God to reveal His 
 Son in me." Paul's general usage points in the same 
 direction. With him Christ is the object of manifesta- 
 tion, preaching, and the like. 2 Cor. xii. I is probably 
 an instance to the contrary : " I will come to visions 
 and revelations of the Lord." f But it should be 
 observed that wherever this genitive is objective (a 
 revelation revealing Christ), God appears in the con- 
 text, just as in ver. 16 below, to Whom the authorship 
 of the revelation is ascribed. In this instance, the 
 
 • Seech, ii. 6 — 14 ; i Cor. i. 12 ; iii. 22 ; iv. 9 ; ix. i — 5 ; jnr.8 — 10. 
 
 t This genitive is, however, open to the other construction, which 
 is unquestionable in i Cor. i. 7 ; 2 Thess. i. 7 ; also i Pet. L 7, 13. 
 Rer. L i furnishes a prominent example of the subjective genitiTe. 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAHS. 
 
 gospel is the object revealed; and Jesus Christy in 
 contrast with man, is claimed for its Author. So at 
 the outset (ver. i) Christ, in His Divine character, was 
 the Agent by whom Paul, as veritably as the Twelve, 
 had received his Apostleship. We therefore assent to 
 the ordinary view, reading this passage in the hght of 
 the vision of Jesus thrice related in the Acts.* We 
 understand Paul to say that no mere man imparted to 
 him the gospel he preached, but Jesus Christ revealed it. 
 
 On the Damascus road the Apostle Paul found his 
 mission. The vision of the glorified Jesus made him a 
 Christian, and an Apostle. The act was a revelation — that 
 is, in New Testament phrase, a supernatural, an imme- 
 diately Divine communication of truth. And it was a 
 revelation not conveyed in the first instance, as were 
 the ordinary prophetic inspirations, through the Spirit ; 
 "Jesus Christ," in His Divine-human person, made 
 Himself known to His persecutor. Paul had "seen 
 that Just One and heard a voice from His mouth." 
 
 The appearance of Jesus to Saul of Tarsus was in 
 itself a gospel, an earnest of the good tidings he was to 
 convey to the world. " Why persecutest thou Me ? " 
 that Divine voice said, in tones of reproach, yet of 
 infinite pity. The sight of Jesus the Lord, meeting 
 Saul's eyes, revealed His grace and truth to the perse- 
 cutor's heart. He was brought in a moment to the 
 obedience of faith ; he said, " Lord, what wilt Thou 
 have me to do ? " He " confessed with his mouth the 
 Lord Jesus" ; he "believed in his heart that God had 
 raised Him from the dead." It was true, after all, that 
 ** God had made " the crucified Nazarene " both Lord 
 and Christ ; " for this was He I 
 
 • AcU ix. 1^19 ; xxn. 5—16 j xxri i»— iSL 
 
u II-I4-] PAULS GOSPEL REVEALED BY CHRIST. 59 
 
 The cross, which had been Saul's stumbling-block, 
 deeply affronting his Jewish pride, from this moment 
 was transformed. The glory of the exalted Redeemer 
 cast back its light upon the tree of shame. The curse 
 of the Law visibly resting upon Him, the rejection of 
 men, marked Him out as God's chosen sacrifice for sin. 
 This explanation at once presented itself to an instructed 
 and keenly theological mind like Saul's, so soon as it 
 was evident that Jesus was not accursed, as he had 
 supposed, but approved by God. So Paul's gospel 
 was given him at a stroke. Jesus Christ d3ang for our 
 sins, Jesus Christ living to save and to rule — behold 
 " the good news " I The Apostle had it on no less 
 authority than that of the risen Saviour. From Him 
 he received it to publish wide as the world. 
 
 Thus Saul of Tarsus was born again. And with 
 the Christian man, the Christian thinker, the theologian, 
 was born in him. The PauHne doctrine has its root in 
 Paul's conversion. It was a single, organic growth, the 
 seed of which was this ^' revelation of Jesus Christ." 
 Its creative impulse was given in the experience of the 
 memorable hour, when " God who said, Light shall 
 shine out of darkness, in the face of Jesus Christ 
 shined " into Saul's heart. As the light of this reve- 
 lation penetrated his spirit, he recognised, step by step, 
 the fact of the resurrection, the import of the crucifixion, 
 the Divinity of Jesus, His human mediatorship, the 
 virtue of faith, the office of the Holy Spirit, the futility 
 of Jewish ritual and works of lav/, and all the essential 
 principles of his theology. Given the genius of Saul 
 and his religious training, and the Pauline system of 
 doctrine was, one might almost say, a necessary deduction 
 from the fact of the appearance to him of the glorified 
 Jesus. If that form of celestial splendour was Jesus, 
 
«o THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 then He was risen indeed ; then He was the Christ ; 
 He was, as He affirmed, the Son of God. If He was 
 Lord and Christ, and yet died by the Father's will on 
 the cross of shame, then His death could only be a 
 propitiation, accepted by God, for the sins of men, 
 whose efficacy had no limit, and whose merit left no 
 room for legal works of righteousness. If this Jesus 
 was the Christ, then the assumptions of Saul's Judaism, 
 which had led him into blasphemous hatred and outrage 
 towards Him, were radically false ; he will purge him- 
 self from the " old leaven," that his life may become 
 " a new lump." From that moment a world of life and 
 thought began for the future Apostle, the opposite in 
 all respects of that in which hitherto he had moved. 
 "The old things," he cries, ''passed away; lo, they 
 have become new" (2 Cor. v. 17). Paul's conversion 
 was as complete as it was sudden. 
 ^^ This intimate relation of doctrine and experience 
 gives to Paul's teaching a peculiar warmth and fresh- 
 ness, a vividness of human reality which it everywhere 
 retains, despite its lofty intellectualism and the scholastic 
 form in which it is largely cast. It is theology alive, 
 trembling with emotion, speaking words like flames, 
 forming dogmas hard as rock, that when you touch 
 them are yet glowing with the heat of those central 
 depths of the human spirit from which they were cast 
 up. The collision of the two great Apostles at Antioch 
 shows how the strength of Paul's teaching lay in his 
 inward realization of the truth. There was lije behind 
 his doctrine. He was, and for the time the Jewish 
 Apostle was not, acting and speaking out of the reality 
 of spiritual conviction, of truth personally verified. Of 
 the Apostle Paul above all divines the saying is true. 
 Pectus facii theologum. And this personal knowledge 
 
L 11-14.] PAULS GOSPEL REVEALED BY CHRIST, fi 
 
 of Christ, " the master light of all his seeing/' began 
 when on the way to Damascus his eyes beheld Jesus 
 our Lord. His farewell charge to the Church through 
 Timothy {2 Tim. i. 9 — 12), w^hile referring to the general 
 manifestation of Christ to the world, does so in language 
 coloured by the recollection of the peculiar revelation 
 made at the beginning to himself: ''God," he says, 
 " called us with a holy calling, according to His purpose 
 and grace, which hath now^ been manifested by the 
 appearing * of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished 
 death and brought life and immortality to light f 
 through the gospel, whereunto / was appointed a 
 preacher and apostle. For which cause I also suffer 
 these things. But I am not ashamed : for I know Him 
 in whom I have believed." This manifestation of the 
 celestial Christ shed its brightness along all his path. 
 
 II. His assertion of the Divine origin of his doctrine 
 Paul sustains by referring to the previous course of his 
 life There was certainly nothing in that to account 
 for his preaching Christ crucified. " For you have 
 heard," he continues, *' of my manner of hfe aforetime, 
 when I followed Judaism." 
 
 Here ends the chain oifors reaching from ver. 10 to 13 
 — a succession of explanations linking Paul's denuncia- 
 tion of the Christian Judaizers to the fact that he had 
 himself been a violent anti-Christian Judaist. The seem- 
 ing contradiction is in reality a consistent sequence. 
 Only one who had imbibed the spirit of legalism as 
 Saul of Tarsus had done, could justly appreciate the 
 hostility of its principles to the new faith, and the 
 sinister motives actuating the men who pretended to 
 
 * *Eri^i«{a, % supernatural appearance, luch as that of the Second 
 Advent 
 t ^wri^w, comp. a Cor. ir. 6. 
 
6a THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 reconcile them. Paul knew Judaism by heart. He 
 understood the sort of men who opposed him in the 
 Gentile Churches. And if his anathema appear need- 
 lessly severe, we must remember that no one was so 
 well able to judge of the necessities of the case as the 
 man who pronounced it. 
 
 "You have heard" — from whom? In the first 
 instance, probably, from Paul himself. But on this 
 matter, we may be pretty sure, his opponents would 
 have something to say. They did not scruple to assert 
 that he " still preached circumcision " * and played 
 the Jew even now when it suited him, charging him 
 with insincerity. Or they might say, *' Paul is a 
 renegade. Once the most ardent of zealots for Judaism, 
 he has passed to the opposite extreme. He is a man 
 you cannot trust. Apostates are proverbially bitter 
 against their old faith." In these and in other ways 
 Paul's Pharisaic career was doubtless thrown in his 
 teeth. 
 
 The Apostle sorrowfully confesses "that above 
 measure he persecuted the Church of God and laid 
 it waste." His friend Luke makes the same admission 
 in similar language, f There is no attempt to conceal 
 or palliate this painful fact, that the famous Apostle of 
 the Gentiles had been a persecutor, the deadliest enemy 
 of the Church in its infant days. He was the very 
 type of a determined, pitiless oppressor, the forerunner 
 of the Jewish fanatics who afterwards sought his life, 
 and of the cruel bigots of the Inquisition and the Star- 
 chamber in later times. His restless energy, his 
 indifference to the feelings of humanity in this work 
 of destruction, were due to religious zeal. " I thought,* 
 
 • Ch. T. 1 1 ; oomp. I Cor. ix. 20 ; AcU xvL 3 \ xxi. ao— a6 ; xxiiL d 
 t Acts TU. 58 ; viii. 1—3 ; ix. i. 
 
Lii.14.1 PAULS GOSPEL REVEALED BY CHRIST. 63 
 
 ne says, " I ought to do many things contrary to the 
 name of Jesus of Nazareth." In him, as in so many 
 others, the saying of Christ was fulfilled : " The time 
 Cometh, when whoso killeth you will think that he is 
 oflfering a sacrifice to God." These Nazarenes were 
 heretics, traitors to Israel, enemies of God. Their 
 . leader had been crucified, branded with the extremest 
 mark of Divine displeasure. His followers must perish. 
 Their success meant the ruin of Mosaism. God willed 
 their destruction. Such were Saul's thoughts, until he 
 heard the protesting voice of Jesus as he approached 
 Damascus to ravage His httle flock. No wonder that 
 he suffered remorse to the end of his days. 
 
 Saul's persecution of the Church was the natural 
 result of his earlier training, of the course to which in 
 his youth he committed himself. The Galatians had 
 heard also " how proficient he was in Judaism, beyond 
 many of his kindred and age ; that he was surpassed 
 by none in zeal for their ancestral traditions." His 
 birth (Phil. iii. 4, $), education (Acts xxii. 3), tempera- 
 ment, circumstances, all combined to make him a zealot 
 of the first water, the pink and pattern of Jewish 
 orthodoxy, the rising hope of the Pharisaic party, and 
 an instrument admirably fitted to crush the hated and 
 dangerous sect of the Nazarenes, These facts go to 
 prove, not that Paul is a traitor to his own people, still 
 less that he is a Pharisee at heart, preaching Gentile 
 liberty from interested motives ; but that it must have 
 been some extraordinary occurrence, quite out of thp 
 common run of human influences and probabilities, that 
 set him on his present course. What could have 
 turned this furious Jewish persecutor all at once into 
 the champion of the cross? What indeed but the 
 reveUtioD of Christ which he received at the Damascus 
 
«4 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 gate ? His previous career up to that hour had been 
 such as to make it impossible that he should have 
 received his gospel through human means. The chasm 
 betvi'een his Christian and pre-Christian life had only 
 been bridged by a supernatural interposition of the 
 mercy of Christ. 
 
 Our modern critics, however, think that they know 
 Paul better than he knew himself. They hold that the 
 problem raised by this passage is capable of a natural 
 solution. Psychological analysis, we are told, sets 
 the matter in a different light. Saul of Tarsus had a 
 tender conscience. Underneath his fevered and am- 
 bitious zeal, there lay in the young persecutor's heart 
 a profound misgiving, a mortifying sense of his 
 failure, and the failure of his people, to attain the 
 righteousness of the Law. The seventh chapter of 
 his Epistle to the Romans is a leaf taken out of the 
 inner history of this period of the Apostle's life. 
 Through what a stern discipline the Tarsian youth had 
 passed in these legal years 1 How his haughty spirit 
 chafed and tortured itself under the growing con- 
 sciousness of its moral impotence! The Law had 
 been truly his 7raLha<y(iyy6<; (ch. iii. 24), a severe tutor, 
 preparing him unconsciously **for Christ." In this 
 state of mind such scenes as the martyrdom of Stephen 
 could not but powerfully affect Saul, in spite of him- 
 self. The bearing of the persecuted Nazarenes, the 
 words of peace and forgiveness that they uttered under 
 their sufferings, stirred questionings in his breast not 
 always to be silenced. Self-distrust and remorse were 
 secretly undermining the rigour of his Judaic faith. 
 They acted like a " goad " (Acts xxvi. 14), against 
 which he *' kicked in vain." He rode to Damascus — 1 
 long and lonely journey — in a state of increasing dis- 
 
1.11-14.] PAULS GOSPEL REVEALED BY CHRIST, 65 
 
 quiet and mental conflict. The heat and exhaustion of 
 the desert march, acting on a nervous temperament 
 naturally excitable and overwrought, hastened the crisis. 
 Saul fell from his horse in an access of fever, or cata- 
 lepsy. His brain was on fire. The convictions that 
 haunted him suddenly took form and voice in the appari- 
 tion of the glorified Jesus, whom Stephen in his dying 
 moments had addressed. From that figure seemed to 
 proceed the reproachful cry which the persecutor's con- 
 science had in vain been striving to make him hear. A 
 flash of lightning, or, if you like, a sunstroke, is readily 
 imagined to fire this train of circumstances, — and the 
 explanation is complete 1 When, besides, M. Renan is 
 good enough to tell us that he has himself "experienced 
 an attack of this kind at Byblos," and " with other 
 principles would certainly have taken the hallucinations 
 he then had for visions,"* v/hat more can we desire? 
 Nay, does not Paul himself admit, in ver. 16 of this 
 chapter, that his conversion was essentially a spiritual 
 and subjective event ? 
 
 Such is the diagnosis of Paul's conversion offered us 
 by rationalism ; and it is not wanting in boldness nor 
 in skill. But the corner-stone on which it rests, the 
 hinge of the whole theory, is imaginary and in fatal 
 contradiction with the facts of the case. Paul himself 
 knows nothing of the remorse imputed to him previously 
 to the vision of Jesus. The historian of the Acts knows 
 nothing of it. In a nature so upright and conscien- 
 tious as that of Saul, this misgiving would at least have 
 induced him to desist from persecution. From first to 
 last his testimony is, ^* I did it ignorantly^ in unbelief.'* 
 It was this ignorance, this absence of any sense of 
 
 • La ApdireSf p. 180, note i. 
 
66 THE EPISTLB TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 wrong in the violence he used against the followers of 
 Jesus, that, in his view, accounted for his "obtain- 
 ing mercy" (i Tim. i. 13). If impressions of an 
 opposite kind were previously struggling in his mind, 
 with such force that on a mere nervous shock they were 
 ready to precipitate themselves in the shape of an over- 
 mastering hallucination, changing instantly and for ever 
 the current of his life, how comes it that the Apostle 
 has told us nothing about them ? That he should have 
 forgotten impressions so poignant and so powerful, is 
 inconceivable. And if he has of set purpose ignored, 
 nay, virtually denied this all-important fact, what be- 
 comes of his sincerity ? 
 
 The Apostle was manifestly innocent of any such 
 predisposition to Christian faith as the above theory 
 imputes to him. True, he was conscious in those 
 Judaistic days of his failure to attain righteousness, 
 of the disharmony existing between " the law of his 
 reason " and that which wrought " in his members." 
 His conviction of sin supplied the moral precondition 
 necessary in every case to saving faith in Christ. But 
 this negative condition does not help us in the least to 
 explain the vision of the glorified Jesus. By no psycho- 
 logical process whatever could the experience of Rom. 
 vii. 7 — 24 be made to project itself in such an appari- 
 tion. With all his mysticism and emotional suscepti- 
 bility, Paul's mind was essentially sane and critical. 
 To call him epileptic is a calumny. No man so diseased 
 could have gone through the Apostle's labours, or 
 written these Epistles. His discussion of the subject 
 of supernatural gifts, in I Cor. xii. and xiv., is a 
 model of shrewdness and good sense. He had ex- 
 perience of trances and ecstatic visions ; and he knew^ 
 pcrVaps as well as M. Renan, how to distinguish them 
 
L 11-14.] PAULS GOSPEL REVEALED BY CHRIST, •? 
 
 from objective realities.* The manner in which he 
 speaks of this appearance allows of no reasonable doubt 
 as to the Apostle's full persuasion that **in sober 
 certainty of waking sense" he had seen Jesus our 
 Lord. 
 
 It was this sensible and outward revelation that led 
 to the inward revelation of the Redeemer to his soul, of 
 which Paul goes on to speak in ver. 16. Without the 
 latter the former would have been purposeless and 
 useless. The objective vision could only have revealed 
 a " Christ after the flesh/' had it not been the means of 
 opening Saul's closed heart to the influence of the Spirit 
 of Christ. It was the means to this, and in the given 
 circumstances the indispensable means. 
 
 To a history that ^^ knows no miracles," the Apostle 
 Paul must remain an enigma. His faith in the crucified 
 Jesus is equally baffling to naturalism with that of the 
 first disciples, who had laid Him in the grave. When 
 the Apostle argues that his antecedent relations to 
 Christianity were such as to preclude his conversion 
 having come about by natural human means, we are 
 bound to admit both the sincerity and the conclusive- 
 ness of his appeal. 
 
 • I Cor. adv. 18; 3 Cor. xii. 1—6 ; Actsxvl 9 j xviii. 8, 9 ; xxii 17, i& 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 PAULS DIVINE COMMISSIOM. 
 
 "But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me, even 
 from my mother's womb, and called me through His grace, to reveal 
 His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles ; imme- 
 diately I conferred not with flesh and blood : neither went I up to 
 Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me : but I went away 
 into Arabia; and again I returned unto Damascus." — Gal. i. 15 — 17. 
 
 TT pleased God to reveal His Son in me: this is after 
 all the essential matter in Paul's conversion, as in 
 that of every Christian. The outward manifestation of 
 Jesus Christ served in his case to bring about this 
 result, and was necessary to qualify him for his 
 extraordinary vocation. But of itself the supernatural 
 vision had no redeeming virtue, and gave Saul of 
 Tarsus no message of salvation for the world. Its 
 glory blinded and prostrated the persecutor ; his heart 
 might notwithstanding have remained rebellious and 
 unchanged. ** I am Jesus," said the heavenly Form, — 
 '* Go, and it shall be told thee what thou shalt do " ;— 
 that was all I And that was not salvation. *' Even 
 though one rose from the dead," still it is possible not 
 to believe. And faith is possible in its highest degree, 
 and is exercised to-day by multitudes, with no celestial 
 light to illumine, no audible voice from beyond the 
 grave to awaken. The sixteenth verse gives us the 
 inward counterpart of that exterior revelation in which 
 
L 15-17.] PAULS DIVINE COMMISSION. 69 
 
 Paul's knowledge of Christ had its beginning, — but 
 only its beginning. 
 
 The Apostle does not surely mean by " in me/' in 
 my case, through me {to others). This gives a sense 
 true in itself, and expressed by Paul elsewhere (ver. 24; 
 I Tim. i. 16), but unsuitable to the word '^ reveal/' and 
 out of place at this point of the narrative. In the next 
 clause — ** that I might preach Him among the Gentiles " 
 — we learn what was to be the issue of this revelation 
 for the world. But in the first place it was a Divine 
 certainty within the breast of Paul himself. His Gentile 
 Apostleship rested upon the most assured basis of 
 inward conviction, upon a spiritual apprehension of the 
 Redeemer's person. He says, laying emphasis on the 
 last two words, " to reveal His Son within me." So 
 Chrysostom : Why did he not say to me^ but in me ? 
 Showing that not by words alone he learned the things 
 concerning faith ; but that he was also filled with the 
 abundance of the Spirit, the revelation shining through 
 his very soul ; and that he had Christ speaking in himself. 
 
 I. The substance of Paul's gospel was, therefore, given 
 him by the unveiling of the Redeemer to his heart. 
 
 The ''revelation " of ver. 16 takes up and completes 
 that of ver. 12. The dazzling appearance of Christ 
 before his eyes and the summons of His voice addressed 
 to Saul's bodily ears formed the special mode in which 
 it pleased God to *'call him by His grace." But 
 *' whom He called. He also justified." In this further 
 act of grace salvation is first personally realised, and 
 the gospel becomes the man's individual possession. 
 This experience ensued upon the acceptance of the fact 
 that the crucified Jei us was the Christ. But this was 
 by no means all. As the revelation penetrated further 
 into the Apostle's soul, he began to apprehend its 
 
TO THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 ■ i» ' 
 
 deeper significance. He knew already that the 
 Nazarene had claimed to be the Son of God, and on 
 that ground had been sentenced to death by the 
 Sanhedrim. His resurrection, now a demonstrated 
 fact, showed that this awful claim, instead of being 
 condemned, was acknowledged by God Himself. The 
 celestial majesty in which He appeared, the sublime 
 authority with which He spoke, witnessed to His 
 Divinity. To Paul equally with the first Apostles, He 
 '* was declared Son of God in power, by the resur- 
 rection of the dead." But this persuasion was borne 
 in upon him in his after reflections, and could not 
 be adequately realised in the first shock of his great 
 discovery. The language of this verse throws no sort 
 of suspicion on the reality of the vision before Damascus. 
 Quite the opposite. The inward presupposes the 
 outward. Understanding follows sight. The subjective 
 illumination, the inward conviction of Christ's Divinity, 
 in Paul's case as in that of the first disciples, was 
 brought about by the appearance of the risen, Divine 
 Jesus. That appearance furnishes in both instances 
 the explanation of the astounding change that took 
 place in the men. The heart full of blasphemy against 
 His name has learnt to own Him as ^' the Son of God, 
 who loved me and gave Himself for me." Through 
 the bodily eyes of Saul of Tarsus the revelation of 
 Jesus Christ had entered and transformed his spirit. 
 
 Of this interior revelation the Holy Spirit, according 
 to the Apostle's doctrine, had been the organ. The 
 Lord on first meeting the gathered Apostles after His 
 resurrection " breathed upon them, saying, Receive ye 
 the Holy Ghost " (John xx. 22). This influence was 
 in truth *' the power of His resurrection " ; it was the 
 uspiring breath of the new life of humanity issuing 
 
i. 15-17.) PAULS DIVINE COMMISSION. 71 
 
 from the open grave of Christ The baptism of 
 Pentecost, with its " mighty rushing wind," was but 
 the fuller effusion of the power whose earnest the 
 Church received in that gentle breathing of peace on 
 the day of the resurrection. By His Spirit Christ 
 made Himself a dwelling in the hearts of His disciples, 
 raised at last to a true apprehension of His nature. All 
 this was recapitulated in the experience of Paul. In 
 his case the common experience was the more sharply 
 defined because of the suddenness of his conversion, 
 and the startling effect with which this new conscious- 
 ness projected itself upon the background of his earlier 
 Pharisaic life. Paul had his Resurrection-vision on 
 the road to Damascus. He received his Pentecostal 
 baptism in the days that followed. 
 
 It is not necessary to fix the precise occasion of the 
 second revelation, or to connect it specifically with the 
 visit of Ananias to Saul in Damascus, much less with 
 his later ** ecstasy" in the temple (Acts ix. 10—19; 
 xxii. 12 — 21). When Ananias, sent by Christ, brought 
 him the assurance of forgiveness from the injured 
 Church, and bade him " recover his sight, and be filled 
 with the Holy Ghost," this message greatly comforted 
 his heart, and pointed out to him more clearly the 
 way of salvation along which he was groping. But 
 it is the office of the Spirit of God to reveal the Son 
 of God ; so Paul teaches everywhere in his Epistles, 
 taught first by his own experience. Not from Ananias, 
 nor from any man had he received this knowledge ; 
 God revealed His Son in the soul of the Apostle — 
 "sent forth the Spirit of His Son into his heart" 
 (ch. iv. 6). The language of 2 Cor. iii. 12 — iv. 6 
 is the best commentary on this verse. A veil rested 
 on the heart of Saul the Pharisee. He read the Old 
 
ya THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 Covenant only in the condemning letter. Not yet did 
 he know ''the Lord" who is "the spirit." This veil 
 was done away in Christ. " The glory of the Lord " 
 that burst upon him in his Damascus journey, rent it 
 once and for ever from his eyes. God, the Light-giver, 
 had **shined in his heart, in the face of Jesus Christ." 
 Such was the further scope of the revelation which 
 effected Paul's conversion. As he writes afterwards 
 to Ephesus, '' the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the 
 Father of glory, had given him a spirit of wisdom and 
 revelation in the knowledge of Christ ; eyes of the 
 heart enlightened to know the hope of His calling, 
 and His exceeding power to usward, according to that 
 He wrought in Christ when he raised Him from the 
 dead, and set Him at His own right hand " (Eph. i. 
 17 — 21). In these words we hear an echo of the 
 thoughts that passed through the Apostle's mind when 
 first " it pleased God in him to reveal His Son." 
 
 W. In the light of this inner revelation Paul received 
 his Gentile mission. 
 
 He speedily perceived that this was the purpose 
 with which the revelation was made : *' that I should 
 preach Him among the Gentiles." The three accounts 
 of his conversion furnished by the Acts witness to 
 the same effect. Whether we should suppose that the 
 Lord Jesus gave Saul this commission directly, at His 
 first appearance, as seems to be implied in Acts xxvi., 
 or infer from the more detailed narrative of chapters 
 ix. and xxii., that the announcement was sent by 
 Ananias and afterwards more urgently repeated in 
 the vision at the Temple, in either case the fact remains 
 the same ; from the beginning Paul knew that he was 
 appointed to be Christ's witness to the Gentiles. This 
 destination was included in the Divine call which 
 
1.I5-I7-J PAULS DIVINE COMMISSION, f3 
 
 brought him to faith in Jesus. His Judaic prejudices 
 were swept away. He was ready to embrace the 
 universalism of the Gospel. With his fine logical in- 
 stinct, sharpened by hatred, he had while yet a Pharisee 
 discerned more clearly than many Jewish Christians the 
 bearing of the doctrine of the cross upon the legal 
 system. He saw that the struggle was one of life and 
 death. The vehemence with which he flung himself into 
 the contest was due to this perception. But it followed 
 from this, that, once convinced of the Messiahship of 
 Jesus, Paul's faith at a bound overleaped all Jewish 
 barriers. "Judaism — or the religion of the Crucified," 
 was the alternative with which his stern logic pursued 
 the Nazarenes. Judaism and Christianity — this was 
 a compromise intolerable to his nature. Before Saul's 
 conversion he had left that halting-place behind ; he 
 apprehended already, in some sense, the truth up to 
 which the elder Apostles had to be educated, that " in 
 Christ Jesus there is neither Greek nor Jew." He passed 
 at a step from the one camp to the other. In this 
 there was consistency. The enlightened, conscientious 
 persecutor, who had debated with Stephen and helped 
 to stone him, was sure, if he became a Christian, to 
 become a Christian of Stephen's school. When he 
 entered the Church, Paul left the Synagogue. He was 
 ripe for his world-wide commission. There was no 
 surprise, no unpreparedness in his mind when the 
 charge was given him, "Go; for I will send thee far 
 hence among the Gentiles." 
 
 In the Apostle's view, his personal salvation and 
 that of the race were objects united from the first. Not 
 as a privileged Jew, but as a sinful man, the Divine 
 grace had found him out. The righteousness of God 
 was revealed to him on terms which brought it within 
 
74 THE EPISTLE TO THE GAL AT JANS, 
 
 the reach of every human being. The Son of God 
 whom he now beheld was a personage vastly greater 
 than his national Messiah, the '* Christ after the flesh" 
 of his Jewish dreams, and His gospel was correspond- 
 ingly loftier and larger in its scope. "God was in 
 Christ, reconciling," not a nation, but "a world unto 
 Himself." The " grace " conferred on him was given 
 that he might " preach among the Gentiles Christ's un- 
 searchable riches, and make all men see the mystery" 
 of the counsel of redeeming love (Eph. iii. I — ii). It 
 was the world's redemption of which Paul partook ; and 
 it was his business to let the world know it. He had 
 fathomed the depths of sin and self-despair ; he had 
 tasted the uttermost of pardoning grace. God and the 
 world met in his single soul, and were reconciled. He 
 felt from the first what he expresses in his latest Epistles, 
 that " the grace of God which appeared " to him, was 
 "for the salvation of all men" (Tit. iL ii). "Faith- 
 ful is the saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that 
 Christ Jesus came mto the world to save sinners, of 
 whom I am chief "^ (i Tim. i. 15). The same revela- 
 tion that made Paul a Christian, made him the Apostle 
 of mankind. 
 
 III. For this vocation the Apostle had been destined by 
 God from the beginning. " It pleased God to do this," 
 he says, "who had marked me out from my mother's 
 womb, and called me by His grace." 
 
 While " Saul was yet breathing out threatening and 
 slaughter" against the disciples of Jesus, how difterent 
 a future was being prepared for him I How little can 
 we forecast the issue of our own plans, or of those we 
 form for others. His Hebrew birth, his rabbinical 
 proficiency, the thoroughness with which he had 
 mastered the tenets of Legalism, had fitted him like no 
 
HS-I7.J PA UrS DIVmS COMMISSION. 75 
 
 other to be the bearer of the Gospel to the Gentiles. 
 This Epistle proves the fact. Only a graduate of the 
 best Jewish schools could have written it. Paul's 
 master, Gamaliel, if he had read the letter, must per- 
 force have been proud of his scholar ; he would have 
 feared more than ever that those who opposed the 
 Nazarene might " haply be found fighting against 
 God." The Apostle foils the Judaists with their own 
 weapons. He knows every inch of the ground on 
 which the battle is waged. At the same time, he 
 was a born Hellenist and a citizen of the Empire, 
 native " of no mean city." Tarsus, his birthplace, 
 was the capital of an important Roman province, and 
 a centre of Greek culture and refinement. In spite of 
 the Hebraic conservatism of Saul's family, the genial 
 atmosphere of such a town could not but affect the 
 early development of so sensitive a nature. He had 
 sufficient tincture of Greek letters and conversance 
 with Roman law to make him a true cosmopolitan, 
 qualified to be " all things to all men." He presents 
 an admirable example of that versatility and suppleness 
 of genius which have distinguished for so many ages 
 the sons of Jacob, and enable them to find a home and 
 a market for their talents in every quarter of the world. 
 Paul was " a chosen vessel, to bear the name of Jesus 
 before Gentiles and kings, and the sons of Israel" 
 
 But his mission was concealed till the appointed 
 hour. Thinking of his personal election, he reminds 
 himself of the words spoken to Jeremiah touching his 
 prophetic call. " Before I formed thee in the belly 1 
 knew thee ; and before thou earnest out of the womb 
 I sanctified thee. I appointed thee a prophet unto the 
 nations " (Jer. L 5). Or Uke the Servant of the Lord 
 in Isaiah he might say, ''The Lord hath called m« 
 
r6 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 from the womb ; from the bowels of my mother hath 
 He made mention of my name. And He hath made 
 my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of His 
 hand hath He hid me ; and He hath made me a 
 polished shaft, in His quiver hath He kept me close " 
 (Isa. xlix. I, 2). This belief in a fore-ordaining Pro- 
 vidence, preparing in secret its chosen instruments, so 
 deeply rooted in the Old Testament faith, was not want- 
 ing to Paul. His career is a signal illustration of its 
 truth. He applies it, in his doctrine of Election, to the 
 history of every child of grace. " Whom He foreknew, 
 He did predestinate. Whom He did predestinate, 
 He called." Once more we see how the Apostle's 
 theology was moulded by his experience. 
 
 The manner in which Saul of Tarsus had been pre- 
 pared all his life long for the service of Christ, magnified 
 to his eyes the sovereign grace of God. " He called 
 me through His grace." The call came at precisely the 
 fit time ; it came at a time and in a manner calculated 
 to display the Divine compassion in the highest possible 
 degree. This lesson Paul could never forget. To the 
 last he dwells upon it with deep emotion. "In me,** 
 he writes to Timothy, " Jesus Christ first showed forth 
 all His longsuffering. I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, 
 insolent and injurious; but I obtained mercy" (i Tim. 
 i. 13 — 16). He was so dealt with from the beginning, he 
 had been called to the knowledge of Christ under such 
 circumstances that he felt he had a right to say, above 
 other men, " By the grace of God I am what I am." 
 The predestination under which his life was con- 
 ducted "from his mother's womb," had for its chief 
 purpose, to exhibit God's mercy to mankind, *' that in 
 the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches 
 of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus " 
 
LlS-17.1 PAULS DIVINE COMMISSION, Tl 
 
 (Eph. ii. 7). To this purpose, so soon as he discerned 
 it, he humbly yielded himself. The Son of God, whose 
 followers he had hunted to death, whom in his madness 
 he would have crucified afresh, had appeared to him to 
 save and to forgive. The grace of it, the infinite kind- 
 ness and compassion such an act revealed in the Divine 
 nature, excited new wonder in the Apostle's soul till 
 his latest hour. Henceforth he was the bondman of 
 grace, the celebrant of grace. His life was one act 
 of thanksgiving *'to the praise of the glory of His 
 grace 1 " 
 
 IV. From Jesus Christ in person Paul had received 
 his knowledge of the Gospel, without human interven- 
 tion. In the revelation of Christ to his soul he 
 possessed the substance of the truth he was afterwards 
 to teach ; and with the revelation there came the com- 
 mission to proclaim it to all men. His gospel-message 
 was in its essence complete ; the Apostleship was 
 already his. Such are the assertions the Apostle makes 
 in reply to his gainsayers. And he goes on to show 
 that the course he took after his conversion sustains these 
 lofty claims : ** When God had been pleased to reveal 
 His Son in me, immediately (right from the first) 
 I took no counsel with flesh and blood. I avoided 
 repairing to Jerusalem, to the elder Apostles ; I went 
 away into Arabia, and back again to Damascus. It was 
 three years before I set foot in Jerusalem." 
 
 If that were so, how could Paul have received his 
 doctrine or his commission from the Church of Jeru- 
 salem, as his traducers alleged ? He acted from the 
 outset under the sense of a unique Divine call, that 
 allowed of no human validation or supplement. Had 
 the case been otherwise, had Paul come to his know- 
 ledge of Christ by ordinary channels, his first impulse 
 
7« TEE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 would have been to go up to the mother city to report 
 himself there, and to gain further instruction. Above 
 all, if he intended to be a minister of Christ, it would 
 have been proper to secure the approval of the Twelve, 
 and to be accredited from Jerusalem. This was the 
 course which ** flesh and blood " dictated, which Saul's 
 new friends at Damascus probably urged upon him. 
 It was insinuated that he had actually proceeded in 
 this way, and put himself under the direction of Peter 
 and the Judean Church. But he says, " I did nothing 
 of the sort I kept clear of Jerusalem for three years ; 
 and then I only w^ent there to make private acquain- 
 tance with Peter, and stayed in the city but a fortnight." 
 Although Paul did not for many years make public 
 claim to rank with the Twelve, from the commencement 
 he acted in conscious independence of them. He calls 
 them " Apostles bejore w^," by this phrase assuming 
 the matter in dispute. He tacitly asserts his equality 
 in official status with the Apostles of Jesus, assigning 
 to the others precedence only in point of time. And 
 he speaks of this equality in terms implying that it 
 was already present to his mind at this former period. 
 Under this conviction he held aloof from human guidance 
 and approbation. Instead of " going up to Jerusalem," 
 the centre of publicity, the head-quaners of the rising 
 Church, Paul " went off into Arabia." 
 
 There were, no doubt, other reasons for this step. 
 Why did he choose Arabia for his sojourn ? and what, 
 pray, was he doing there ? The Apostle leaves us to our 
 own conjectures. Solitude, we imagine, was his principal 
 object. His Arabian retreat reminds us of the Arabian 
 exile of Moses, of the wilderness discipline of John the 
 Baptist, and the " forty days " of Jesus in the wilder- 
 ness. In each of these instances, the desert retirement 
 
1 15-17.] PAULS DIVINE COMMISSION, 79 
 
 followed upon a great inward crisis, and was prepara- 
 tory to the entrance of the Lord's servant on his 
 mission to the world. Elijah, at a later period of his 
 course, sought the wilderness under motives not dis- 
 similar. After such a convulsion as Paul had passed 
 through, with a whole world of new ideas and emotions 
 pouring in upon him, he felt that he must be alone ; he 
 must get away from the voices of men. There are 
 such times in the history of every earnest soul. In 
 the silence of the Arabian desert, wandering amid the 
 grandest scenes of ancient revelation, and communing 
 in stillness with God and with his own heart, the young 
 Apostle will think out the questions that press upon 
 him ; he will be able to take a calmer survey of the 
 new world into which he has been ushered, and will 
 learn to see clearly and walk steadily in the heavenly 
 light that at first bewildered him. So "the Spirit 
 immediately driveth him out into the wilderness." In 
 Arabia one confers, not with flesh and blood, but with 
 the mountains and with God. From Arabia Saul 
 returned in possession of himself, and of his gospel. 
 
 The Acts of the Apostles omits this Arabian episode 
 (Acts ix. 19 — 25). But for what Paul tells us here, we 
 should have gathered that he began at once after his 
 baptism to preach Christ in Damascus, his preaching 
 after no long time* exciting Jewish enmity to such a 
 pitch that his life was imperilled, and the Christian 
 brethren compelled him to seek safety by flight to 
 Jerusalem. The reader of Luke is certainly surprised 
 to find a period of three years,t with a prolonged 
 
 • ^/jiJpai iKavai, a considerable time. The expression is indefinite. 
 
 t Ver. 18 : that is, parts of " three years," according to ancient 
 reckoning — say from 36 to 38 A^., possibly less than two in actual 
 dttxation. 
 
So THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 
 
 residence in Arabia, interpolated between Paul's con- 
 version and his reception in Jerusalem. Luke's silence, 
 we judge, is intentional. The Arabian retreat formed 
 no part of the Apostle's public life, and had no place in 
 the narrative of the Acts. Paul only mentions it here 
 in the briefest terms, and because the reference was 
 necessary to put his relations to the first Apostles in 
 their proper light. For the time the converted Saul 
 had dropped out of sight ; and the historian of the Acts 
 respects his privacy. 
 
 The place of the Arabian journey seems to us to lie 
 between vv. 21 and 22 of Acts ix. That passage gives 
 a twofold description of Paul's preaching in Damascus, 
 in its earlier and later stages, with a double note of 
 time (vv. 19 and 23). Saul's first testimony, taking place 
 " straightway," was, one would presume, a mere declara- 
 tion of faith in Jesus : " In the synagogues he proclaimed 
 Jesus, (saying) that He is the Son of God " (R.V.), 
 language in striking harmony with that of the Apostle 
 in the text (vv. 12, 16). Naturally this recantation 
 caused extreme astonishment in Damascus, where Saul's 
 reputation was well-known both to Jews and Chris- 
 tians, and his arrival was expected in the character of 
 Jewish inquisitor-in-chief. Ver. 22 presents a different 
 situation. Paul is now preaching in his established 
 and characteristic style ; as we read it, we might fancy 
 we hear him debating in the synagogues of Pisidian 
 Antioch or Corinth or Thessalonica : *' He was con- 
 founding the Jews, proving that this is the Christ." 
 Neither Saul himself nor his Jewish hearers in the 
 first days after his conversion would be in the mood 
 for the sustained argumentation and Scriptural dialectic 
 thus described. The explanation of the change lies 
 behind the opening words of the verse : " But Saul 
 
1 15-19.] PAULS DIVINE COMMISSION. »i 
 
 increased in strength " — a growth due not only to the 
 prolonged opposition he had to encounter, but still 
 more, as we conjecture from this hint of the Apostle, 
 to the period of rest and reflection which he enjoyed 
 in his Arabian seclusion. The two marks oi time 
 given us in vv. 19 and 23 of Luke's narrative, may be 
 fairly distinguished from each other — "certain days," 
 and " sufficient days " (or " a considerable time ") — 
 as denoting a briefer and a longer season respectively : 
 the former so short that the excitement caused by 
 Saul's declaration of his new faith had not yet subsided 
 when he withdrew from the city into the desert — in 
 which case Luke's note of time does not really conflict 
 with Paul's *' immediately " ; the latter affording a 
 lapse of time sufficient for Saul to develope his argu- 
 ment for the Messiahship of Jesus, and to provoke the 
 Jews, worsted in logic, to resort to other weapons. 
 From Luke's point of view the sojourn in Arabia, how- 
 ever extended, was simply an incident, of no public 
 importance, in Paul's early ministry in Damascus. 
 
 The disappearance of Saul during this interval helps 
 however, as we think, to explain a subsequent statement 
 in Luke's narrative that is certainly perplexing (Acts 
 ix. 26, 27). When Saul, after his escape from Damas- 
 cus, "was come to Jerusalem," and "essayed to join 
 himself to the disciples," they, we are told, " were all 
 afraid of him, not belie\'ing that he was a disciple I " 
 For while the Church at Jerusalem had doubtless heard 
 at the time of Saul's marvellous conversion three years 
 before, his long retirement and avoidance of Jerusalem 
 threw an air of mystery and suspicion about his proceed- 
 ings, and revived the fears of the Judean brethren ; and 
 his reappearance created a panic. In consequence of 
 his sudden departure from Damascus, it is likely that 
 
 6 
 
Ss TEE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 fto public report had as yet reached Judaea of SauFfj 
 return to that city and his renewed ministry there. 
 Barnabas how came forward to act as sponsor for the 
 suspected convert. What induced him to do this — 
 whether it was that his largeness of heart enabled hin 
 to read Saul's character better than others, or whether 
 he had some earlier private acquaintance with the 
 Tarsian — we cannot tell. The account that Barnabas 
 was able to give of his friend's conversion and of hisi 
 bold confession in Damascus, won for Paul the placd 
 in the confidence of Peter and the leaders of the Church 
 at Jerusalem which he never afterwards lost. 
 
 The two narratives — the history of Luke and the 
 letter of Paul — relate the same series of events, but 
 from almost opposite standpoints. Luke dwells upon 
 Pauls connection with the Church at Jerusalem and 
 its Apostles. Paul is maintaining his independence oj 
 them. There is no contradiction ; but there is just such 
 discrepancy as will arise where two honest and compet- 
 ent witnesses are relating identical facts in a different 
 connection. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 PAUL AND THE PRIMITIVE CHURCB, 
 
 "The dafter three years I went up to Jerusalem to risk Cephas, and 
 tarried with him fifteen days. But other of the apostles saw I none, 
 but only James the Lord's brother. Now touching the things which 
 I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not. Then I came into the 
 regions of Syria and Cilicia. And I was still unknown by face unto 
 the churches of Judaea which were in Christ : but they only heard say. 
 He that once persecuted us now preacheth the faith of which he once 
 made havock ; and they glorified God in me." — Gal. i, i8 — 24. 
 
 FOR the first two years of his Christian life, Paul 
 held no intercourse whatever with the Church 
 at Jerusalem and its chiefs. His relation with them was 
 commenced by the visit he paid to Peter in the third year 
 after his conversion. And that relation was more pre- 
 cisely determined and made public when, after success- 
 fully prosecuting for fourteen years his mission to the 
 heathen, the Apostle again went up to Jerusalem to 
 defend the liberty of the Gentile Church (ch. ii. I — 10). 
 A clear understanding of this course of events was 
 essential to the vindication of Paul's position in the 
 eyes of the Galatians. The " troublers " told them that 
 Paul's doctrine was not that of the mother Church; 
 that his knowledge of the gospel and authority to 
 preach it came from the elder Apostles, with whom 
 since his attack upon Peter at Antioch he was at open 
 variance. They themselves had come down from 
 Judaea on purpose to set his pretensions in their true 
 
84 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 light, and to teach the Gentiles the way of the Lordi 
 more perfectly. 
 
 Modern rationalism has espoused the cause of these 
 "deceitful workers" (2 Cor. xi. 13 — 15). It endea- 
 vours to rehabilitate the Judaistic party. The ''criti- 
 cal " school maintain that the opposition of the 
 Circumcisionists to the Apostle Paul was perfectly 
 legitimate. They hold that the " pseud-apostles *' o^; 
 Corinth, the "certain from James," the "troublers" and 
 " false brethren privily brought in " of this Epistle, did 
 in truth represent, as they claimed to do, the principles 
 of the Jewish Christian Church ; and that there was a 
 radical divergence between the Pauline and Petrine 
 gospels, of which the two Apostles were fully aware 
 from the time of their encounter at Antioch. However 
 Paul may have wished to disguise the fact to himself, 
 the teaching of the Twelve was identical, we are told, 
 with that '• other gospel " on which he pronounces his 
 anathema ; the original Church of Jesus never emanci- 
 pated itself from the trammels of legalism ; the Apostle 
 Paul, and not his Master, was in reality the author of 
 evangelical doctrine, the founder of the catholic Church. 
 The conflict between Peter and Paul at Antioch, 
 related in this Epistle, supplies, in the view of Baur 
 and his followers, the key to the history of the Early 
 Church. The Ebionite assumption of a personal rivalry 
 between the two Apostles and an intrinsic opposition in 
 their doctrine, hitherto regarded as the invention of a 
 desperate and decaying heretical sect, these ingenious 
 critics have adopted for the basis of their " scientific " 
 reconstruction of the New Testament. Paul's Judaizing 
 liinderers and troublers are to be canonized ; and the 
 pseudo- Clementine writings, forsooth, must take the 
 place of the discredited Acts of the Apostles. Verily 
 
I 18-24.] PAUL AND THB PRIMITIVE CHURCH, 8$ 
 
 " the whirligig of time hath its revenges." To empanel 
 Paul on his accusers' side, and to make this Epistle 
 above all convict him of heterodoxy, is an attempt 
 which dazzles by its very daring. 
 
 Let us endeavour to form a clear conception of the 
 facts touching Paul's connection with the first Apostles 
 and his attitude and feeling towards the Jewish Church, 
 as they are in evidence in the first two chapters of this 
 Epistle. 
 
 I. On the one hand, it is clear that the Gentile 
 Apostle's relations to Peter and the Twelve were those 
 oi personal independence and official equality. 
 
 This is the aspect of the case on which Paul lays 
 stress. His sceptical critics argue that under his 
 assertion of independence there is concealed an opposi- 
 tion of principle, a ^' radical divergence." The sense of 
 independence is unmistakable. It is on that side that 
 the Apostle seeks to guard himself. With this aim 
 he styles himself at the outset *^ an Apostle not from 
 men, nor by man " — neither man-made nor man-sent. 
 Such apostles there were ; and in this character, we 
 imagine, the Galatian Judaistic teachers, like those of 
 Corinth,* professed to appear, as the emissaries of the 
 Church in Jerusalem and the authorised exponents of 
 the teaching of the " pillars " there. Paul is an Apostle 
 at first-hand, taking his commission directly from Jesus 
 Christ. In that quality he pronounces his benediction 
 and his anathema. To support this assumption he has 
 shown how impossible it was in point of time and cir- 
 cumstances that he should have been beholden for his 
 gospel to the Jerusalem Church and the elder Apostles. 
 So far as regarded the manner of his conversion and 
 
 * 2 Cor. xi. 13 J Ui i — 3. See the remaika on the word ApostU in 
 Chapter I. p. la. 
 
86 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 the events of the first decisive years in which his 
 Christian principles and vocation took their shape^ his 
 position had been altogether detached and singular ; 
 the Jewish Apostles could in no way claim him for 
 their son in the gospel. 
 
 But at last, " after three years," Saul " did go up to 
 Jerusalem." What was it for ? To report himself to 
 the authorities of the Church and place himself under 
 their direction ? To seek Peter's instruction, in order to 
 obtain a more assured knowledge of the gospel he had 
 embraced? Nothing of the kind. Not even *'/o question 
 Cephas," as some render la-Toprjcrai, following an older 
 classical usage — " to gain information " from him ; but 
 " I went up to make acquaintance with Cephas." Saul 
 went to Jerusalem carrying in his heart the conscious- 
 ness of his high vocation, seeking, as an equal with an 
 equal, to make personal acquaintance with the leader of 
 the Twelve. Cephas (as he was called at Jerusalem) 
 must have been at this time to Paul a profoundly 
 interesting personality. He was the one man above 
 all others whom the Apostle felt he must get to know, 
 with whom it was necessary for him to have a thorough 
 understanding. 
 
 How momentous was this meeting ! How much we 
 could wish to know what passed between these two in 
 the conversations of the fortnight they spent together. 
 One can imagine the delight with which Peter would 
 relate to his hstener the scenes of the life of Jesus; 
 how the two men would weep together at the recital of 
 the Passion, the betrayal, trial and denial, the agony of 
 the Garden, the horror of the cross ; with what mingled 
 awe and triumph he would describe the events of the 
 Resurrection and the Forty Days, the Ascension, and 
 the baptism of fire. In Paul's account of the appear- 
 
i. 18.24.] PAUL AND THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH, 87 
 
 ances of the risen Christ (i Cor. xv. 4 — 8), written 
 many years afterwards, there are statements most 
 naturally explained as a recollection of what he had 
 heard privately from Peter, and possibly also from 
 James, at this conference. For it is in his gospel mes- 
 •>age and doctrine, and his Apostolic commission, not 
 in regard to the details of the biography of Jesus, that 
 Paul claims to be independent of tradition. And with 
 what deep emotion would Peter receive in turn from 
 Paul's lips the account of his meeting with Jesus, of 
 the three dark days that followed, of the message sent 
 through Ananias, and the revelations made and purposes 
 formed during the Arabian exile. Between two such 
 men, met at such a time, there would surely be an 
 entire frankness of communication and a brotherly 
 exchange of convictions and of plans. In that case 
 Paul could not fail to inform the elder Apostle of the 
 extent of the commission he had received from their 
 common Master ; although he does not appear to have 
 made any public and formal assertion of his Apostolic 
 dignity for a considerable time afterwards. The sup- 
 position of a private cognizance on Peter's part of 
 Paul's true status makes the open recognition which 
 took place fourteen years later easy to understand 
 (ch. ii. 6 — 10). 
 
 " But other of the Apostles," Paul goes on to say, 
 ** saw I none, but only James the brother of the Lord.' 
 James, no Apostle surely ; neither in the higher sense, 
 for he cannot be reasonably identified with " James the 
 son of Alphaeus ; " nor in the lower, for he was, as far 
 as we can learn, stationary at Jerusalem. But he stood 
 so near the Apostles, and was in every way so im{K>r- 
 tant a person, that if Paul had omitted the name 01 
 Jamei in this connection, he would have seemed to pass 
 
88 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 over a material fact. The reference to James in i Cor. 
 XV. 7 — a hint deeply interesting in itself, and lending sc* 
 much dignity to the position of James — suggests that; 
 Paul had been at this time in confidential intercourse 
 with James as well as Peter, each relating to the other 
 how he had " seen the Lord." 
 
 So cardinal are the facts just stated (w. 15 — 19), as 
 bearing on Paul's apostleship, and so contrary to the 
 representations made by the Judaizers, that he pauses 
 to call God to witness his veracity : '* Now in what t 
 am writing to you, lo, before God, I lie not." The 
 Apostle never makes this appeal lightly ; but only in 
 support of some averment in which his personal honour 
 and his strongest feelings are involved.* It was 
 alleged, with some show of proof, that Paul was an 
 underling of the authorities of the Church at Jerusalem, 
 and that all he knew of the gospel had been learned 
 from the Twelve. From ver. ii onwards he has 
 been making a circumstantial contradiction of these 
 assertions. He protests that up to the time when he 
 commenced his Gentile mission, he had been under no 
 man's tutelage or tuition in respect to his knowledge of 
 the gospel. He can say no more to prove his case. 
 Either his opposers or himself are uttering falsehood. 
 The Galatians know, or ought to know, how incapable 
 he is of such deceit. Solemnly therefore he avouches, 
 closing the matter so far, as if drawing himself up to 
 his utmost height : " Behold, before God, I do not 
 lie ! " 
 
 But now we are confronted with the narrative of 
 the Acts (chap. ix. 26 — 30), which renders a very 
 diflfercnt account of this passage in the Apostle's life. 
 
 • 8ee Rom. ix. i j t Cor. i. 17, 18, 23 ; 1 Thes». ii ^ 
 
i. 18-24.] PAUL AND THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 89 
 
 (To w. 26, 27 of Luke's narrative we have already 
 alluded in the concluding paragraphs of Chapter V). 
 We are told there that Barnabas introduced Saul *' to 
 the Apostles"; here, that he saw none of them but 
 Cephas, and only James besides. The number of the 
 Apostolate present in Jerusalem at the time is a 
 particular that does not engage Luke's mind ; while it 
 is of the essence of Paul's affirmation. What the Acts 
 relates is that Saul, through Barnabas' intervention, 
 was now received by the Apostolic fellowship as a 
 Christian brother, and as one who '^ had seen the Lord." 
 The object which Saul had in coming to Jerusalem, 
 and the fact that just then Cephas was the only one of 
 the Twelve to be found in the city, along with James — 
 these are matters which only come into view from the 
 private and personal standpoint to which Paul admits 
 us. For the rest, there is certainly no contradiction 
 when we read in the one report that Paul *' went up to 
 make acquaintance with Cephas," and in the other, that 
 he *' was with them going in and out at Jerusalem, 
 preaching boldly in the name of the Lord ; " that *' he 
 spake and disputed against the Hellenists," moving 
 their anger so violently that his life was again in 
 danger, and he had to be carried down to Caesarea and 
 shipped off to Tarsus. Saul was not the man to hide 
 his head in Jerusalem. We can understand how 
 greatly his spirit was stirred by his arrival there, and 
 by the recollection of his last passage through the 
 city gates. In these very synagogues of the Hellenists 
 he had himself confronted Stephen; outside those 
 walls he had assisted to stone the martyr. Paul's 
 address delivered many years later to the Jewish 
 mob that attempted his life in Jerusalem, shows how 
 deeply these remembrances troubled his soul CActs xxiL 
 
TBS EPISTLS TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 ly — 22). And they would not suffer him now to li ''; 
 silent. He hoped that his testimony to Christ, delivers td 
 in the spot where he had been so notorious as ^a 
 persecutor, would produce a softening effect on his old 
 companions. It was sure to affect them powerfully/, 
 one way or the other. As the event proved, it did ncit 
 take many words from Saul's lips to awaken againrit 
 him the same fury that hurried Stephen to his deatih. 
 A fortnight was time quite sufficient, under the circum- 
 stances, to make Jerusalem, as we say, too hot to hold 
 Saul. Nor can we wonder, knowing his love for Ms 
 kindred, that there needed a special command from 
 heaven (Acts xxii. 21), joined to the friendly compulsioAi 
 of the Church, to induce him to yield ground and quit 
 the city. But he had accomplished something; he 
 had " made acquaintance with Cephas." 
 
 This brief visit to the Holy City was a second crisis 
 in Paul's career. He was now thrust forth upon his 
 mission to the heathen. It was evident that he was 
 not to look for success among his Jewish brethren. 
 He lost no opportunity of appealing to them ; but it 
 was commonly with the same result as at Damascus 
 and Jerusalem. Throughout life he carried with him 
 this " great sorrow and unceasing pain of heart," that 
 to his ** kinsmen according to the flesh," for whose 
 salvation he could consent to forfeit his own, his 
 gospel was hid. In their eyes he was a traitor to 
 Israel, and must count upon their enmity. Everything 
 conspired to point in one direction : * Depart," the 
 Divine voice had said, "for I will send thee far hence 
 anto the Gentiles." And Paul obeyed. " I went," he 
 relates here, "into the regions of Syria and Cilicia" 
 (ver. 21). 
 
 To Tarsus, the Cilician capital, Saul voyaged from 
 
i. 18-24.] PAUL AND THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 91 
 
 Judaea. So we learn from Acts ix. 30. His native 
 place had the first claim on the Apostle after Jerusalem, 
 ai'id afforded the best starting-point for his independent 
 mission. Syria, however, precedes Cilicia in the text; 
 it was the leading province of these two, in which 
 Paul was occupied during the fourteen years ensuing, 
 and became the seat of distinguished Churches. In 
 Aatioch, the Syrian capital, Christianity was already 
 planted (Acts xi. 19 — 21). The close connection of the 
 Cliurches of these provinces, and their predominantly 
 Gentile character, are both evident from the letter 
 addressed to them subsequently by the Council of 
 Jerusalem (Acts xv. 23, 24). Acts xv. 41 shows that 
 a number of Christian societies owning Paul's authority 
 were found at a later time in this region. And there 
 was a highroad direct from Syro-Cilicia to Galatia, 
 which Paul traversed in his second visit to the latter 
 country (Acts xviil 22, 23); so that the Galatians 
 would doubtless be aware of the existence of these 
 older Gentile Churches, and of their relation to PauL 
 He has no need to dwell on this first chapter of his 
 missionary history. After but a fortnight's visit to 
 Jerusalem, Paul went into these Gentile regions, and 
 there for twice seven years — with what success was 
 known to all — "preached the faith of which once he 
 made havoc." 
 
 This period was divided into two parts. For five 
 or six years the Apostle laboured alone ; afterwards in 
 conjunction with Barnabas, who invited his help at 
 Antloch (Acts xi. 25, 26). Barnabas was Paul's senior, 
 and had for some time held the leading position in the 
 Church of Antioch ; and Paul was personally indebted 
 to this generous man (p. 82). He accepted the position 
 of helper to Barnabas without any compromise of his 
 
f» THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 higher authority, as yet held in reserve. He accoirj(i- 
 panied Barnabas to Jerusalem in 44 (or 45) a.d., witjh 
 the contribution made by the Syrian Church for th)c 
 rehef of the famine-stricken Judean brethren — a visi t 
 which Paul seems here to forget.* But the Church s 
 Jerusalem was at that time undergoing a severe per 
 secution ; its leaders were either in prison or in flighil 
 The two delegates can have done little more tha?n 
 convey the moneys entrusted to them, and that with 
 the utmost secrecy. Possibly Paul on this occasic>n 
 never set foot inside the city. In any case, the everit 
 had no bearing on the Apostle's present contention. 
 
 Between this journey and the really important visjt 
 to Jerusalem introduced in chap. ii. I, Barnabas ana 
 Paul undertook, at the prompting of the Holy Spirit 
 expressed through the Church of Antioch (Acts xiii. 
 I — 4), the missionary expedition described in Acts 
 xiii., xiv. Under the trials of this journey the ascend- 
 ancy of the younger evangelist became patent to all. 
 Paul was marked out in the eyes of the Gentiles as 
 their born leader, the Apostle of heathen Christianity. 
 He appears to have taken the chief part in the 
 discussion with the Judaists respecting circumcision, 
 which immediately ensued at Antioch ; and was put at 
 the head of the deputation sent up to Jerusalem con- 
 cerning this question. This was a turning-point in 
 the Apostle's history. It brought about the public 
 recognition of his leadership in the Church. The seal 
 of man was now to be set upon the secret election 
 of God. 
 
 During this long period, the Apostle tells us, he 
 "remained unknown by face to the Churches of Judaea." 
 
 • Acts xi. 27—30. It is rignificant that this ministration was scni 
 "to the Eldera." 
 
L iS-a4.] PAUL AND THE PRIMITIVE CHURCB, 93 
 
 Absent for so many years from the metropolis, after a 
 fortnight's flying visit, spent in private intercourse 
 with Peter and James, and in controversy in the 
 Hellenistic synagogues where few Chiistians of the 
 city would be likely to follow him,* Paul was a 
 stranger to the bulk of the Judean disciples. But they 
 watched his course, notwithstanding, with lively interest 
 and with devout thanksgiving to God (vv. 22, 23)- 
 Throughout this first period of his ministry the Apostle 
 acted in complete independence of the Jewish Church, 
 making no report to its chiefs, nor seeking any direction 
 from them. Accordingly, when afterwards he did go 
 up to Jerusalem and laid before the authorities there 
 his gospel to the heathen, they had nothing to add 
 to it; they did not take upon themselves to give him 
 any advice or injunction, beyond the wish that he and 
 Barnabas should ** remember the poor," as he was 
 already forward to do (ch. ii. i — 10). Indeed the three 
 famous Pillars of the Jewish Church at this time openly 
 acknowledged Paul's equality with Peter in the Apostle- 
 ship, and resigned to his direction the Gentile province. 
 Finally at Antioch, the head-quarters of Gentile 
 Christianity, when Peter compromised the truth of 
 the gospel by yielding to Judaistic pressure, Paul had 
 not hesitated publicly to reprove him (ch. ii. ll — 2l). 
 He had been compelled in this way to carry the vindi- 
 cation of his gospel to the furthest lengths ; and he had 
 done this successfully. It is only when we reach the 
 end of the second chapter that we discover how much 
 the Apostle meant when he said, ^'My gospel is not 
 according to man." 
 
 ♦ For the ministry alluded to in Acts xjcvi. 20 there were other, latei 
 opportunities, especially in the journey described in Acts xv. 3; ms« 
 also AcU xxL 15, 16. 
 
94 THE EPISTLE TO THE GAL AT JANS, 
 
 If there was any man to whom as a Christian 
 teacher he was bound to defer, any one who might be 
 regarded as his official superior, it was the Apostle 
 Peter. Yet against this very Cephas he had dared 
 openly to measure himself. Had he been a disciple of 
 the Jewish Apostle, a servant of the Jerusalem Church, 
 how would this have been possible ? Had he not pos- 
 sessed an authority derived immediately from Christ, 
 how could he have stood out alone, against the preroga- 
 tive of Peter, against the personal friendship and local 
 influence of Barnabas, against the example of all his 
 Jewish brethren ? Nay, he was prepared to rebuke 
 all the Apostles, and anathematize all the angels, 
 rather than see Christ's gospel set at nought For it 
 was in his view " the gospel of the glory of the blessed 
 God, committed to my trust I ^^ (i Tim. i. ii). 
 
 II. But while Paul stoutly maintains his indepen- 
 dence, he does this in such a way as to show that there 
 was no hostility or personal rivalry between himself 
 and the first Apostles. His relations to the Jewish 
 Church were all the while those oi friendly acquaintance 
 and brotherly recognition. 
 
 That Nazarene sect which he had of old time per- 
 secuted, was ^* the Church of God" (ver. 13). To 
 the end of his Ufe this thought gave a poignancy to 
 the Apostle's recollection of his early days. To 
 " the Churches of Judaea"* he attaches the epithet in 
 Christy a phrase of pecuHar depth of meaning with 
 Paul, which he could never have conferred as matter 
 of formal courtesy, nor by way of mere distinction 
 beLv;een the Church and the Synagogue. From 
 
 Ver. 33. It is arbitrary in Meyer to exclude from this category 
 the Church of Jerusalem. 
 
1. 18-24. J t*^VL AND THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH, 95 
 
 Paul's lips this title is a guarantee of orthodoxy. 
 It satisfies us that the " other gospel " of the Circum- 
 cisionists was very far from being the gospel of the 
 Jewish Christian Church at large. Paul is careful 
 to record the sympathy which the Judean brethren 
 cherished for his missionary work in its earliest stages, 
 although their knowledge of him was comparatively 
 distant : " Only they continued to hear that our old 
 persecutor is preaching the faith which once he sought 
 to destroy. And in me they glorified God." Nor does 
 he drop the smallest hint to show that the disposition 
 of the Churches in the mother country toward himself, 
 or his judgement respecting them, had undergone any 
 change up to the time of his writing this Epistle. 
 
 He speaks of the elder Apostles in terms of unfeigned 
 respect. In his reference in ch. ii. 1 1 — 21 to the error 
 of Peter, there is great plainness of speech, but no 
 bitterness. When the Apostle says that he " went up 
 to Jerusalem to see Peter," and describes James as 
 *'the Lord's brother," and when he refers to both of 
 them, along with John, as " those accounted to be 
 pillars," can he mean anything but honour to these 
 honoured men ? To read into these expressions a 
 covert jealousy and to suppose them written by way 
 of disparagement, seems to us a strangely jaundiced 
 and small-minded sort of criticism. The Apostle 
 testifies that Peter held a Divine trust in the Gospel, 
 and that God had "wrought for Peter" to this 
 effect, as for himself. By claiming the testimony of 
 the Pillars at Jerusalem to his vocation, he shows his 
 profound respect for theirs. When the unfortunate 
 difference arose between Peter and himself at Antioch, 
 Paul is careful to show that the Jewish Apostle on that 
 occasion was influenced by the circumstances of the 
 
96 THE EFISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 moment, and nevertheless remained true in his real 
 convictions to the common gospel. 
 
 In view of these facts, it is impossible to believe, 
 as the Tendency critics would have us do, that Paul 
 when he wrote this letter was at feud with the Jewish 
 Church. In that case, while he taxes Peter with 
 "dissimulation" (ch. ii. II- 13), he is himself the real 
 dissembler, and has carried his dissimulation to amazing 
 lengths. If he is in this Epistle contending against the 
 Primitive Church and its leaders, he has concealed his 
 sentiments toward them with an art so crafty as to over- 
 reach itself. He has taught his readers to reverence 
 those whom on this hypothesis he was most concerned 
 to discredit. The terms under which he refers to 
 Cephas and the Judean Churches would be just so many 
 testimonies against himself, if their doctrine was the 
 " other gospel " of the Galatian troublers, and if Paul 
 and the Twelve were rivals for the suffrages of the 
 Gentile Christians. 
 
 The one word which wears a colour of detraction is 
 the parenthesis in ver. 6 of ch. ii. : "whatever afore- 
 time* they (those of repute> were, makes no difference 
 to me. God accepts no man's person." But this is no 
 more than Paul has already said in ch. I 16, 17. 
 At the first, after receiving his gospel from the Lord in 
 person, he felt it to be out of place for him to ^* confer 
 with flesh and blood." So now, even in the presence 
 of the first Apostles, the earthly companions of his 
 Master, he cannot abate his pretensions, nor forget 
 that his ministry stands on a level as exalted as theirs. 
 This language is in precise accord with that of i Cor. 
 XV. 10. The suggestion that the repeated ol Bo/coupt€<: 
 
 • We follow Lightfoot in reading the wori as in ch. L 33, and 
 everywhere else in Paul, as a particle of iifru. 
 
L l»-24l PAUL AND THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 95 
 
 conveys a sneer against the leaders at Jerusalem, as 
 " seeming " to be more than they were, is an insult to 
 Paul that recoils upon the critics who utter it. The 
 phrase denotes "those of repute," "reputed to be 
 pillars/' the acknowledged heads of the mother Church. 
 Their position was recognised on all hands ; Paul 
 assumes it, and argues upon it. He desires to magnify, 
 not to minify, the importance of these illustrious men. 
 The}' were pillars of his own cause. It is a maladroit 
 interpretation that would have Paul cry down James 
 and the Twelve. By so much as he impaired their 
 worth, he must assuredly have impaired his own. If 
 their status was mere seeming^ of what value was their 
 endorsement of his ? But for a preconceived opinion, 
 no one, we may safely affirm, reading this Epistle 
 would have gathered that Peter^s " gospel of the cir- 
 cumcision " was the " other gospel " of Galatia, or 
 that the "certain from James" of ch. ii. 12 repre- 
 sented the views and the policy of the first Apostles. 
 The assumption that Peter's dissimulation at Antioch 
 expressed the settled doctrine of the Jewish Apostolic 
 Church, is unhistorical. The Judaizers ab uted the 
 authority of Peter and James when they pleaded it in 
 favour of their agitation. So wc are told expressly in 
 Acts XV. ; and a candid interpretation of this letter bears 
 out the statements of Luke. In James and Peter, Paul 
 and John, there were indeed "diversities of gifts and 
 operations," but they had received the same Spirit ; they 
 served the same Lord. They held alike the one and 
 only gospel of the grace of God* 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 PAUL AND THE FALSE BRETHREN, 
 
 ** Then after the space of fourteen years I went up again to Jcrtisalem 
 irith Barnabas, taking Titus also with me. And I went up by iXi'vela- 
 tion ; and I laid before them the gospel which I preach among the 
 Gentiles, but privately before them who were of repute, [asking them 
 whether I am running, or had run, in vain : but not even Titus who 
 was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. Butt/ 
 tt/oj*] because of the false brethren privily brought in, who came in 
 privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they 
 might bring us into bondage : to whom we gave place in the way of 
 subjection, no, not for an hour ; that the truth of the gospel might coa- 
 tinue with you." — Gal. ii. i — 5. 
 
 " "POURTEEN years" had elapsed since Paul left 
 X Jerusalem for Tarsus, and commenced his Gentile 
 mission.? During this long period — a full half of his 
 missionary course — the Apostle was lost to the sight 
 of the Judean Churches. For nearly half this time, 
 until Barnabas brought him to Antioch, we have no 
 further trace of his movements. But these years of 
 obscure labour had, we may be sure, no small influence 
 
 * The writer is compelled in this instance to depart from the render 
 ing of the English Version, for reasons given In the sequel. See also 
 ft paper on Paul and litus at Jerusalem^ in The Expusitok., 3rd series, 
 ▼oL vL, pp. 435 — 442. The last three words within the brackets agrer 
 with the R.V. margin. 
 
 t These fourteen years probably amounted to something less in ou> 
 reckoning, — say, from 36 to 51 A.D. Some six years elapsed be£an 
 Pftol wu aunmoned to Antioch. 
 
Hi-S] PAUL AND THE FALSE BRETHREN, 99 
 
 in shaping the Apostle's subsequent career. It was 
 a kind of Apostolic apprenticeship. Then his evange- 
 listic plans were laid ; his powers were practised ; his 
 methods of teaching and administration formed and 
 tested. This first, unnoted period of Paul's missionary 
 life held, we imagine, much the same relation to his 
 public ministry that the time of the Arabian retreat did 
 to his spiritual development. 
 
 We are apt to think of the Apostle Paul only as we 
 see him in the full tide of his activity, carrying '* from 
 Jerusalem round about unto Illyricum " the standard of 
 the cross and planting it in one after another of the 
 great cities of the Empire, " always triumphing in every 
 place ; " or issuing those mighty Epistles whose voice 
 shakes the world. We forget the earlier term of pre- 
 paration, these years of silence and patience, of un- 
 recorded toil in a comparatively narrow and humble 
 sphere, which had after all their part in making Paul 
 the man he was. If Christ Himself would not " clutch " 
 at His Divine prerogatives (Phil. ii. 5 — ii), nor win 
 them by self-assertion and before the time, how much 
 more did it become His servant to rise to his great 
 office by slow degrees. Paul served first as a private 
 missionary pioneer in his native land, then as a junior 
 colleague and assistant to Barnabas, until the summons 
 came to take a higher place, when " the signs of an 
 Apostle" had been fully "wrought in him." Not 
 in a day, nor by the effect of a single revelation did he 
 become the fully armed and all-accomplished Apostle 
 of the Gentiles whom we meet in this Epistle. " After 
 the space of fourteen years " it was time for him to 
 stand forth the approved witness and minister of Jesus 
 Christ, whom Peter and John pubhcly embraced as thei" 
 equal 
 
100 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 Paul claims here the initiative in the momentous 
 visit to Jerusalem undertaken by himself and Barnabas, 
 of which he is going to speak. In Acts xv. 2 he is 
 similarly placed at the head of the deputation sent from 
 Antioch about the question of circumcision. The 
 account of the preceding missionary tour in Acts xiii., 
 xiv., shows how the headship of the Gentile Church had 
 come to devolve on Paul. In Luke's narrative they 
 are " Barnabas and Saul " who set out ; " Paul and 
 Barnabas " who return.* Under the trials and hazards 
 of this adventure — at Paphos, Pisidian Antioch, Lystra 
 — Paul's native ascendancy and his higher vocation 
 irresistibly declared themselves. Age and rank yielded 
 to the fire of inspiration, to the gifts of speech, the 
 splendid powers of leadership which the difficulties of 
 this expedition revealed in Paul. Barnabas returned 
 to Antioch with the thought in his heart, "He must 
 increase; I must decrease." And Barnabas was too 
 generous a man not to yield cheerfully to his companion 
 the precedence for which God thus marked him out. 
 Yet the "sharp contention" in which the two men 
 parted soon after this time (Acts xv. 36 — ^40), was, we 
 may conjecture, due in some degree to a lingering sore- 
 ness in the mind of Barnabas on this account. 
 
 The Apostle expresses himself with modesty, but 
 in such a way as to show that he was regarded in this 
 juncture as the champion of the Gentile cause. The 
 "revelation" that prompted the visit came to him. 
 The " taking up of Titus " was his distinct act (ver. i). 
 Unless Paul has deceived himself, he was quite the 
 leading figure in the Council ; it was his doctrine and 
 his Apostleship that exercised the minds of the chiefs 
 
 • Acts xiU. a, 7, 13, 43. 45' 46. 5° > «▼• "» H \ «▼• «! «« 
 
a. 1-5-] PAUL AND THE FALSE BRETHREN. lOi 
 
 at Jerusalem, when the delegates from Antioch appeared 
 before them. Whatever Peter and James may have 
 known or surmised previously concerning Paul's voca- 
 tion, it was only now that it became a public question 
 for the Church. But as matters stood, it was a vital 
 question. The status of uncircumcised Christians, and 
 the Apostolic rank of Paul, constituted the twofold 
 problem placed before the chiefs of the Jewish Church. 
 At the same time, the Apostle, while fixing our attention 
 mainly on his own position, gives to Barnabas his 
 meed of honour ; for he says, '^ I went up with Barnabas," 
 — " we never yielded for an hour to the false brethren," 
 — " the Pillars gave to me and Barnabas the right hand 
 of fellowship, that we might go to the Gentiles." But 
 it is evident that the elder Gentile missionary stood 
 in the background. By the action that he takes Paul 
 unmistakably declares, ** I am the Apostle of the 
 Gentiles ; " * and that claim is admitted by the con- 
 senting voice of both branches of the Church. The 
 Apostle stepped to the front at this solemn crisis, not 
 for his own rank or office' sake, but at the call of God, 
 in defence of the truth of the gospel and the spiritual 
 freedom of mankind. 
 
 This meeting at Jerusalem took place in 51, or it 
 may be, 52 a.d. We make no doubt that it is the 
 same with the Council of Acts xv. The identification 
 has been controverted by several able scholars, but 
 without success. The two accounts are different, but 
 in no sense contradictory. In fact, as Dr. Pfleiderer 
 acknowledges,! they " admirably supplement each 
 other. The agreement as to the chief points is in 
 
 • Comp. Rom. xi. 13 ; xv. 16, 17. 
 
 t Hibbert luctures^ p. 103. This testimony is the more valuable M 
 aoming firom the ablest living exponeat of the Baurian theory. 
 
loa THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 any case greater than the discrepancies in the details ; 
 and these discrepancies can for the most part be 
 explained by the different standpoint of the relaters." 
 A difficulty Hes, however, in the fact that the historian 
 of the Acts makes this the third visit of Paul to Jerusalem 
 subsequently to his conversion ; whereas, from the 
 Apostle's statement, it appears to have been the second. 
 This discrepancy has already come up for discussion 
 in the last Chapter (p. 92). Two further observations 
 may be added on this point. In the first place, Paul 
 does not say that he had never been to Jerusalem 
 since the visit of ch. i. 18 ; he does say, that on this 
 occasion he ''went up again," and that meanwhile 
 he " remained unknovv n by face " to the Christians of 
 Judaea (ch. i. 22) — a fact quite compatible, as we have 
 shown, with what is related in Acts xi. 29, 30. And 
 further, the request addressed at this conference to the 
 Gentile missionaries, that they should " remember the 
 poor," and the reference made by the Apostle to his 
 previous zeal in the same business (w. 9, 10), are in 
 agreement with the earlier visit of charity mentioned 
 by Luke. 
 
 I. The emphasis of ver. i rests upon its last clause, 
 — taking along with me also Titus. Not " Titus as well 
 as Barnabas " — this cannot be the meaning of the 
 " also " — for Barnabas was Paul's colleague, deputed 
 equally with himself by the Church of Antioch ; nor 
 " Titus as well as others " — there were other members 
 of the deputation (Acts xv. 2), but Paul makes no 
 reference to them. The also (jcaX) calls attention to 
 the fact of Paul's taking Titus, in view of the sequel ; 
 as though he said, " I not only went up to Jerusalem 
 at this particular time, under Divine direction, but I 
 took along with me Titus besides." The prefixed with 
 
il. 1-50 PAUL AND THE FALSE BRETHREN. 103 
 
 {(Txjv) of the Greek participle refers to Paul himself: 
 compare ver. 3, "Titus who was with me." As for the 
 '* certain others " referred to in Acts xv. 2, they were 
 most likely Jews ; or if any of them were Gentiles, 
 still it was Titus whom Paul had chosen for his com- 
 panion ; and his case stood out from the rest in such 
 a way that it became the decisive one, the test-case for 
 the matter in dispute. 
 
 The mention of Titus' name in this connection was 
 calculated to raise a lively interest in the minds of 
 the Apostle's readers. He is introduced as known to 
 the Galatians ; indeed by this time his name was 
 familiar in the Pauline Churches, as that of a fellow- 
 traveller and trusted helper of the Apostle. He was 
 with Paul in the latter part of the third missionary 
 tour — so we learn from the Corinthian letters — and 
 therefore probably in the earlier part of the same 
 journey, when the Apostle paid his second visit to 
 Galatia. He belonged to the heathen mission, and 
 was Paul's " true child after a common faith " (Tit. i. 
 4), an uncircumcised man, of Gentile birth equally with 
 the Galatians. And now they read of his " going up 
 to Jerusalem with Paul," to the mother-city of believers, 
 where are the pillars of the Church — the Jewish teachers 
 would say — the true Apostles of Jesus, where His 
 doctrine is preached in its purity, and where every 
 Christian is circumcised and keeps the Law. Titus, 
 the unclean Gentile, at Jerusalem 1 How could he be 
 admitted or tolerated there, in the fellowship of the first 
 disciples of the Lord ? This question Paul's readers, 
 after what they had heard from the Circumcisionists, 
 would be sure to ask. He will answer it directly. 
 
 But the Apostle goes on to say, that he " went up 
 in accordance with a revelation." For this was one 
 
id4 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 of those supreme moments in his life when he looked 
 for and received the direct guidance of heaven. It was 
 a most critical step to carry this question of Gentile 
 circumcision up to Jerusalem, and to take Titus with 
 him there, into the enemies' stronghold. Moreover, 
 on the settlement of this matter Paul knew that his 
 Apostolic status depended, so far as human recognition 
 was concerned. It would be seen whether the Jewish 
 Church would acknowledge the converts of the Gentile 
 mission as brethren in Christ ; and whether the first 
 Apostles would receive him, " the untimely one," as a 
 colleague of their own. Never had he more urgently 
 needed or more implicitly relied upon Divine direction 
 than at this hour. 
 
 *' And I put before them (the Church at Jerusalem) 
 the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles — but 
 privately to those of repute : am I running (said I), 
 or have I run, in vain ? " The latter clause we read 
 interrogatively ^ along with such excellent grammatical 
 interpreters as Meyer, Wieseler, and Hofmann. Paul 
 had not come to Jerusalem in order to solve any doubt 
 in his own mind; but he wished the Church of 
 Jerusalem to declare its mind respecting the character 
 of his ministry. He was not '^ running as uncertainly ; " 
 nor in view of the '' revelation " just given him could 
 he have any fear for the result of his appeal. But 
 it was in every way necessary that the appeal should 
 be made. 
 
 The interjected words, " but privately," etc., indicate 
 that there were two meetings during the conference, 
 such as those which seem to be distinguished in Acts 
 XV. 4 and 6 ; and that the Apostle's statement and the 
 question arising out of it were addressed more pointedly 
 to " those of repute." By this term we understand, 
 
^.1-5.] PAUL AND THE FALSE BRETHREN, 105 
 
 here and in ver. 6, " the apostles and elders " (Acts xv.), 
 headed by Peter and James, amongst whom "those 
 reputed to be pillars " are distinguished in ver. 9. Paul 
 dwells upon the phrase oi Bofcovme^, because, to be 
 sure, it was so often on the lips of the Judaizers, who 
 were in the habit of speaking with an imposing air, 
 and by way of contrast with Paul, of '* the authorities " 
 (at Jerusalem) — as the designation might appropriately 
 be rendered. These very men whom the Legalists 
 were exalting at Paul's expense, the venerated chiefs 
 of the mother Church, had on this occasion, Paul is 
 going to say, given their approval to his doctrine ; they 
 declined to impose circumcision on Gentile believers. 
 The Twelve were not stationary at Jerusalem, and 
 therefore could not form a fixed court of reference 
 there; hence a greater importance accrued to the 
 Elders of the city Church, with the revered James at 
 their head, the brother of the Lord. 
 
 The Apostle, in bringing Titus, had brought up the 
 subject-matter of the controversy. The " gospel of the 
 uncircumcision '* stood before the Jewish authorities, 
 an accomplished fact. Titus was there, by the side 
 of Paul, a sample — and a noble specimen, we can well 
 believe — of the Gentile Christendom which the Jewish 
 Church must either acknowledge or repudiate. How 
 will they treat him ? Will they admit this foreign 
 protdg^ of Paul to their communion? Or will they 
 require him first to be circumcised ? The question 
 at issue could not take a form more crucial for the 
 prejudices of the mother Church. It was one thing 
 to acknowledge uncircumcised fellow-believers in the 
 abstract, away yonder at Antioch or Iconium, or even 
 at Caesarea; and another thing to see Titus standing 
 amongst them in his heathen uncleanness, on the 
 
io6 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 sacred soil of Jerusalem, under the shadow of the 
 Temple, and to hear Paul claiming for him — for this 
 '*dog"of a Gentile — equally with himself the rights 
 of Christian brotherhood I The demand was most 
 offensive to the pride of Judaism, as no one knew 
 better than Paul; and we cannot wonder that a 
 revelation was required to justify the Apostle in making 
 it. The case of Trophimus, whose presence with the 
 Apostle at Jerusalem many years afterwards proved 
 so nearly fatal (Acts xxi. 27 — 30), shows how 
 exasperating to the legalist party his action in this 
 instance must have been. Had not Peter and the 
 better spirits of the Church in Jerusalem laid to 
 heart the lesson of the vision of Joppa, that *' no man 
 must be called common or unclean," and had not 
 the wisdom of the Holy Spirit eminently guided this 
 first Council of the Church,* Paul's challenge would 
 have received a negative answer; and Jewish and 
 Gentile Christianity must have been driven asunder. 
 
 The answer, the triumphant answer, to Paul's appeal 
 comes in the next verse : " Nay, not even f Titus who 
 was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be 
 circumcised." Titus was not circumcised, in point of 
 fact — how can we doubt this in view of the language 
 of ver. 5 : " Not even for an hour did we yield in 
 subjection ? " And he *' was not compelled to be cir- 
 cumcised " — a mode of putting the denial which implies 
 that in refusing his circumcision urgent solicitation had 
 
 * Acts XV. 28 : *' It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us." 
 This was in the Early Church no mere pious ofificial form. 
 
 t For this use of aXW oi5^ compare Acts xix. 2 (here also after a ques- 
 tion) ; I Cor. iii. a ; iv. 3. We observe a similar instance of the phrase in 
 iEschylus, Fersa, 1. 792. 'AW opposes itself to the expectation of the 
 Judaistic " compellers," present to the mind of Paul and his readers. 
 
u. I-5.J PAUL AND THE FALSE BRETHREN. 107 
 
 to be withstood, solicitation addressed to Titus him- 
 self, as well as to the leaders of his party. The kind 
 of pressure brought to bear in the case and the 
 quarter from which it proceeded, the Galatians would 
 understand from their own experience (ch. vi. 12 ; 
 comp. ii. 14). 
 
 The attempt made to bring about Titus' circumcisioD 
 signally failed. Its failure was the practical reply to 
 the question which Paul tells us (ver. 2) he had put 
 to the authorities in Jerusalem ; or, according to the 
 more common rendering of ver. 2^, it was the answer to 
 the apprehension under which he addressed himself to 
 them. On the former of these views of the connection, 
 which we decidedly prefer, the authorities are clear of 
 any share in the '^ compulsion " of Titus. When the 
 Apostle gives the statement that his Gentile companion 
 *^was not compelled to be circumcised" as the reply to 
 his appeal to *' those of repute," it is as much as to say : 
 " The chiefs at Jerusalem did not require Titus' circum- 
 cision. They repudiated the attempt of certain parties 
 to force this rite upon him." This testimony precisely 
 accords with the terms of the rescript of the Council, 
 and with the speeches of Peter and James, given in 
 Acts XV. But it was a great point gained to have the 
 liberality of the Jewish Christian leaders put to the 
 proof in this way, to have the generous sentiments 
 of speech and letter made good in this example of 
 uncircumcised Christianity brought to their doors. 
 
 To the authorities at Jerusalem the question put by 
 the delegates from Antioch on the one side, and by the 
 Circumcisionists on the other, was perfectly clear. If 
 they insist on Titus' circumcision, they disown Paul 
 and the Gentile mission : if they accept Paul's gospel, 
 they must leave Titus alone. Paul and Barnabas 
 
io8 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 Stated the case in a manner that left no room for 
 doubt or compromise. Their action was marked, as 
 ver. 5 declares, with the utmost decision. And the 
 response of the Jewish leaders was equally frank and 
 definite. We have no business^ says James (Acts xv. 
 19), "to trouble those from the Gentiles that turn to 
 God." Their judgement is virtually affirmed in ver. 3, 
 in reference to Titus, in whose person the Galatians 
 could not fail to see that their own case had been 
 settled by anticipation. *' Those of repute " disowned 
 the Circumcisionists ; the demand that the yoke of 
 circumcision should be imposed on the Gentiles had 
 no sanction from them. If the Judaizers claimed their 
 sanction, the claim was false. 
 
 Here the Apostle pauses, as his Gentile readers 
 must have paused and drawn a long breath of relief 
 or of astonishment at what he has just alleged. If 
 Titus was not compelled to be circumcised, even at 
 Jerusalem, who, they might ask, was going to compel 
 them 7 — The full stop should therefore be placed at 
 the end of ver. 3, not ver. 2. Vv. I — 3 form a 
 paragraph complete in itself. Its last sentence resolves 
 the decisive question raised in this visit of Paul's to 
 Jerusalem, when he " took with him also Titus." 
 
 II. The opening words of ver. 4 have all the appear- 
 ance of commencing a new sentence. This sentence, con- 
 cluded in ver. 5, is grammatically incomplete; but that 
 is no reason for throwing it upon the previous sentence, 
 to the confusion of both. There is a transition of thought, 
 marked by the introductory Bui* from the issue of 
 Paul's second critical visit to Jerusalem (vv. I — 3) to 
 
 • This particle is a serious obstacle in the way of the ordinary 
 punctuation, which attaches the following clause to ver. 3. The ii is 
 nmilar to that of ver. 6 (drb 8k r. Sokovvtuv) ; not of xa-i' ISiav W in ver. 
 
ii.I-S.] PAUL AND THE FALSE BRETHREN. 109 
 
 the cause which made it necessary. This was the action 
 of "false brethren," to whom the Apostle made a 
 determined and successful resistance (vv. 4, 5). The 
 opening " But " does not refer to ver. 3 in particular, 
 rather to the entire foregoing paragraph. The ellipsis 
 (after " But ") is suitably supplied in the marginal render- 
 ing of the Revisers, where we take it was to mean, not 
 *' Because of the false brethren Titus was not (or was 
 not compelled to be) circumcised^^' but " Because of the 
 false brethren this meeting came about, or, / took the 
 course a/oresaid." 
 
 To know what Paul means by " false brethren," we 
 must turn to ch. i. 6 — 9, iii. I, iv. 17, v. 7 — 12, vi. 12 — 14, 
 in this Epistle; and again to 2 Cor. ii. 17 — iil i, iv. 2, 
 xi. 3, 4, 12 — 22, 26; Rom. xvi. 17, 18; Phil. iii. 2. 
 They were men bearing the name of Christ and pro- 
 fessing faith in Him, but Pharisees at heart, self-seeking, 
 rancorous, unscrupulous men, bent on exploiting the 
 Pauline Churches for their own advantage, and regard- 
 ing Gentile converts to Christ as so many possible 
 recruits for the ranks of the Circumcision. 
 
 But where, and how, were these traitors '* privily 
 brought in ? " Brought in, we answer, to the field of 
 the Gentile mission ; and doubtless by local Jewish 
 sympathisers, who introduced them without the con- 
 currence of the officers of the Church. They " came in 
 privily" — slipped in by stealth — " to spy out our liberty 
 which we have in Christ Jesus." Now it was at Antioch 
 and in the pagan Churches that this liberty existed in 
 
 3t nor of Bay drov 8k araipov (Phil. ii. 8), which are parenthetical qualifica- 
 tions. And to say, '* Because of the false brethren Titus was not com- 
 pelled to be circumcised," is simply an inconsequence. Would he have 
 been compelled to be circumcised if they had not required it ? Thii 
 b the assumption implied by the above construction. 
 
!!• THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 its normal exercise — the liberty for which our Epistle 
 contends, the enjoyment of Christian privileges inde- 
 pendently of Jewish law — in which Paul and his 
 brother missionaries had identified themselves with 
 their Gentile followers. The " false brethren " were 
 Jewish spies in the Gentile Christian camp. We do not 
 see how the Galatians could have read the Apostle's 
 words otherwise; nor how it could have occurred to 
 them that he was referring to the way in which these 
 men had been originally " brought into " the Jewish 
 Church. That concerned neither him nor them. But 
 their getting into the Gentile fold v^^s the serious thing. 
 They are the ''certain who came down from Judaea, 
 and taught the (Gentile) brethren, saying, Except ye be 
 circumcised after the custom of Moses, ye cannot be 
 saved;" and whom their own Church afterwards re- 
 pudiated (Acts XV. 24). With Antioch for the centre of 
 their operations, these mischief-makers disturbed the 
 whole field of Paul and Barnabas' labours in Syria 
 and Cilicia (Acts xv. 23 ; comp. Gal. i. 21). For the 
 Galatian readers, the terms of this sentence, coming 
 after the anathema of ch. i. 6 — 9, threw a startling 
 light on the character of the Judean emissaries busy in 
 their midst. This description of the former "troublers " 
 strikes at the Judaic opposition in Galatia. It is as if 
 the Apostle said : " These false brethren, smuggled in 
 amongst us, to filch away our liberties in Christ, wolves 
 in sheep's clothing — I know them well ; I have en- 
 countered them before this. 1 never yielded to their 
 demands a single inch. I carried the struggle with 
 them to Jerusalem. There, in the citadel of Judaism, 
 and before the assembled chiefs of the Judean Church, 
 I vindicated once and for all, under the person of Titus, 
 your imperilled Christian rights." 
 
U. l-5i PAUL AND THE FALSE BRETHREN, in 
 
 But as the Apostle dilates on the conduct of these 
 Jewish intriguers, the precursors of such an army of 
 troublers, his heart takes fire ; in the rush of his emo- 
 /ion he is carried away from the original purport of his 
 sentence, and breaks it off with a burst of indignation : 
 " To whom," he cries, '* not even for an hour did we yield 
 by subjection, that the truth of the gospel might abide 
 with you." A breakdown like this — an anacoluthon, as 
 the grammarians call it — is nothing strange in Paul's 
 style. Despite the shipwrecked grammar, the sense 
 comes off safely enough. The clause, " we did not 
 yield," etc., describes in a negative form, and with 
 heightened effect, the course the Apostle had pursued 
 from the first in dealing with the false brethren. In 
 this unyielding spirit he had acted, without a moment's 
 wavering, from the hour when, guided by the Holy 
 Spirit, he set out for Jerusalem with the uncircumcised 
 Titus by his side, until he heard his Gentile gospel 
 vindicated by the lips of Peter and James, and received 
 from them the clasp of fellowship as Christ's acknow- 
 ledged Apostle to the heathen. 
 
 It was therefore the action of Jewish interlopers, 
 men of the same stamp as those infesting the Galatian 
 Churches, which occasioned Paul's second, pubHc visit 
 to Jerusalem, and his consultation with the heads of the 
 Judean Church. This decisive course he was himself 
 inspired to take; while at the same time it was taken 
 on behalf and under the direction of the Church of 
 Antioch, the metropolis of Gentile Christianity. He 
 had gone up with Barnabas and '' certain others " — 
 including the Greek Titus chosen by himself — the 
 company forming a representative deputation, of which 
 Paul was the leader and spokesman. This measure was 
 the boldest and the only effectual means of combatting 
 
112 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 the Judaistic propaganda. It drew from the authorities 
 at Jerusalem the admission that ** Circumcision is no- 
 thing," and that Gentile Christians are free from the ritual 
 law. This was a victory gained over Jewish prejudice 
 of immense significance for the future of Christianity. 
 The ground was already cut from under the feet of the 
 Judaic teachers in Galatia, and of all who should at any 
 time seek to impose external rites as things essential to 
 salvation in Christ. To all his readers Paul can now 
 say, so far as his part is concerned : The truth of the 
 gospel abides with yon. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PAUL AND THE THREE PILLARS, 
 
 ** But from those who were reputed to be somewhat (what they onoc 
 were, it maketh no matter to me : God accepteth not man's person) — 
 they. I say, who were of repute imparted nothing to me : but contrari- 
 wise, wien they saw that I had been intrusted with the gospel of the 
 uncircumcision, even as Peter with thi gospel of the circumcision (for 
 he that wrought for Peter unto the apostleship of the circumcision 
 wrought for me also unto the Gentiles) ; and when they perceived the 
 grace that was given unto me, James and Cephas and John, they who 
 were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of 
 fellowship^ that we should go unto the Gentiles, and they \mto ths 
 circumcision ; only they would that we should remember the poor; 
 which very thing I was also zealous to do." — Gal. iL 6 — lo. 
 
 WE have dealt by anticipation, in Chapter VI., with 
 several of the topics raised in this section of 
 the Epistle — touching particularly the import of the 
 phrase " those of repute," and the tone of disparage- 
 ment in which these dignitaries appear to be spoken of 
 in ver. 6. But there still remains in these verses 
 matter in its weight and difficulty more than sufficient 
 to occupy another Chapter. 
 
 The grammatical connection of the first paragraph, 
 like that of w. 2, 3, is involved and disputable. We 
 construe its clauses in the following way : — (i) Ver. 6 
 begins with a But^ contrasting " those of repute " with 
 the " false brethren " dealt with in the last sentence. 
 It contains another mnacoluihon (ox incoherence of lan- 
 
 8 
 
■14 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 guage), due to the surge of feeling remarked in ver. 4, 
 which still disturbs the Apostle's grammar. He begins : 
 '* But from those reputed to be something " — as though 
 he intended to say, " I received on my part nothing, no 
 addition or qualification to my gospel." But he has 
 no sooner mentioned ** those of repute " than he is re- 
 minded of the studied attempt that was made to set up 
 their authority in opposition to his own, and accordingly 
 throws in this protest: *'what they were aforetime,* 
 makes no difference to me : man's person God doth 
 not accept." But in saying this, Paul has laid down 
 one of his favourite axioms, a principle that filled a 
 large place in his thoughts ; t and its enunciation 
 deflects the course of the main sentence, so that it is 
 resumed in an altered forni : " For to me those of 
 repute imparted nothing." Here the me receives a 
 greater emphasis ; a.nd /or takes the place of but. The 
 fact that the first Ap©stles had nothing to impart to 
 Paul, signally illustrates the Divine impartiality, which 
 often makes the last and least in human eyes equal to 
 the first. 
 
 (2) Vv. 7 — 9 state the positive^ as ver. 6 the negative 
 side of the relation between Paul and the elder Apostles, 
 still keeping in view the principle laid down in the 
 former verse. " Nay, on the contrary, when they saw 
 that I have in charge the gospel of the uncircumcision, 
 as Peter that of the circumcision (ver. 7) — and when 
 they perceived the grace that had been given me, James 
 and Cephas and John, those renowned pillars of the 
 Church, gave the right hand of fellowship to myself and 
 
 • For this rendering of nori comp. ch. i. 13, 23 ; and see Lightfoot, 
 or Beet, in he. 
 
 f Comp. Rom. iL II ; I Cor. i. 37 — 31 ; xr. 9, 10 ; Eph. vL 91 
 Col. iii. 25. 
 
U.6.ia] PAUL AND THE THREE PILLARS. 115 
 
 Barnabas, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles, 
 while they laboured amongst the Jews " (ver. 9). 
 
 (3) Ver. 8 comes in as a parenthesis, explaining how 
 the authorities at Jerusalem came to see that this trust 
 belonged to Paul. " For," he says, *' He that in Peter's 
 case displayed His power in making him (above all 
 others) Apostle of the Circumcision, did as much for 
 me in regard to the Gentiles." It is not human ordina- 
 tion, but Divine inspiration that makes a minister of 
 Jesus Christ The noble Apostles of Jesus had the 
 wisdom to see this. It had pleased God to bestow this 
 grace on their old Tarsian persecutor ; and they frankly 
 acknowledged the fact. 
 
 Thus Paul sets forth, in the fii^t place, the completeness 
 of his Apostolic qualifications ^ put to proof at the crisis of 
 the circumcision controversy ; and in the second place, 
 the judgement formed respecting him and his office by the 
 first Apostles and companions of the Lord. 
 
 I. ^*To me those of repute added nothing." Paul 
 had spent but a fortnight in the Christian circle of 
 Jerusalem, fourteen years ago. Of its chiefs he had 
 met at that time only Peter and James, and them in the 
 capacity of a visitor, not as a disciple or a candidate for 
 office. He had never sought the opportunity, nor felt 
 the need, of receiving instruction from the elder Apostles 
 during all the years in which he had preached Christ, 
 amongst the heathen. It was not likely he would do 
 so now. When he came into conference and debate 
 with them at the Council, he showed himself their equal, 
 neither in knowledge nor authority ** a whit behind the 
 very chiefest." And they were conscious of the same fact. 
 
 On the essentials of the gospel Paul found himself 
 in agreement with the Twelve. This is implied in the 
 language of ver. 6. When one writes, ** A adds nothing 
 
ll« THB EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 to B," one assumes that B has already what belongs to 
 A, and not something different. Paul asserts in the 
 most positive terms he can command, that his inter- 
 course with the holders of the primitive Christian 
 tradition left him as a minister of Christ exactly where 
 he was before. *' On me," he says, ** they conferred 
 nothing" — rather, perhaps, ^^ addressed no communication 
 to me." The word used appears to deny their having 
 made any motion of the kind. The Greek verb is the 
 same that was employed in ch. i. 1 6, a rare and 
 delicate compound.* Its meaning varies, like that of 
 our confer ^ communicate, as it is applied in a more or 
 less active sense. In the former place Paul had said 
 that he " did not confer with flesh and blood " ; now 
 he adds, that flesh and blood did not confer any- 
 thing upon him. Formerly he did not bring his com- 
 mission to lay it before men ; now they had nothing 
 to bring on their part to lay before him. The same 
 word affirms the Apostle's independence at both epochs, 
 shown in the first instance by his reserve toward the 
 dignitaries at Jerusalem, and in the second by their 
 reserve toward him. Conscious of his Divine call, he 
 sought no patronage from the elder Apostles then ; and 
 they, recognising that call, offered him no such patronage 
 now. Paul's gospel for the Gentiles was complete, and 
 sufficient unto itself. His ministry showed no defect in 
 quality or competence. There was nothing about it 
 that laid it open to correction, even on the part of those 
 wisest and highest in dignity amongst the personal 
 followers of Jesus. 
 
 • We cannot explain •Kpoca.viQtvro here by the Ayedtfiijr of rcr. 3, 
 45 though Paul wished to say, ** I imparted to them my gospel ; they 
 Imparted to me nothing further.^ For Tpot- implies direction^ ratha 
 than additun. See Meyer on this verb in ch. L 16^ 
 
li.6-io.l PAUL AND THE THREE PILLARS, 117 
 
 So Paul declares; and we can readily believe him. 
 Nay, we are tempted to think that it was rather the 
 Pillars v,'ho might need to learn from him, than he 
 from them. In doctrine, Paul holds the primacy in the 
 band of the Apostles. While all were inspired by the 
 Spirit of Christ, the Gentile Apostle was in many ways 
 a more richly furnished man than any of the rest. The 
 Paulinism of Peter's First Epistle goes to show that the 
 debt was on the other side. Their earlier privileges 
 and priceless store of recollections of '*all that Jesus 
 did and taught," were matched on Paul's side by a 
 penetrating logic, a breadth and force of intellect applied 
 to the facts of revelation, and a burning intensity of 
 spirit, which in their combination were unique. The 
 Pauline teaching, as it appears in the New Testament, 
 bears in the highest degree the marks of original genius, 
 the stamp of a mind whose inspiration is its own. 
 
 Modern criticism even exaggerates Paul's originality. 
 It leaves the other Apostles little more than a negative 
 part to play in the development of Christian truth. In 
 some of its representations, the figure of Paul appears 
 to overshadow even that of the Divine Master. It 
 was Paul's creative genius, it is said, his daring idealism, 
 that deified the human Jesus, and transformed the 
 scandal of the cross into the glory of an atonement 
 reconciling the world to God. Such theories Paul 
 himself would have regarded with horror. " I received 
 of the Lord that which I delivered unto you : " such 
 is his uniform testimony. If he owed so little as a 
 minister of Christ to his brother Apostles, he felt with 
 the most sincere humility that he owed everything to 
 Christ. The agreement of Paul's teaching with that of 
 the other New Testament writers, and especially with 
 that of Jesus in the Gospels, proves that, however 
 
Il8 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 distinct and individual his conception of the common 
 gospel, none the less there was a common gospel of 
 Christ, and he did not speak of his own mind. The 
 attempts made to get rid of this agreement by post- 
 dating the New Testament documents, and by explain- 
 ing away the larger utterances of Jesus found in the 
 Gospels as due to Paulinist interpolation, are unavail- 
 ing. They postulate a craftiness of ingenuity on the 
 part of the writers of the incriminated books, and an 
 ignorance in those who first received them, alike in- 
 conceivable. Paul did not build up the splendid and 
 imperishable fabric of his theology on some speculation 
 of his own. Its foundation lies in the person and the 
 teaching of Jesus Christ, and was common to Paul with 
 James and Cephas and John. " Whether I or they," 
 he testifies, " so we preach, and so ye believed " 
 (l Cor. XV. Ii). Paul satisfied himself at this con- 
 ference that he and the Twelve taught the same gospel. 
 Not in its primary data, but in their logical develop- 
 ment and application, lies the specifically Pauline in 
 Paulinism. The harmony between Paul and the other 
 Apostolic leaders has the peculiar value which belongs 
 to the agreement of minds of different orders, working 
 independently. 
 
 The Judaizers, however, persistently asserted Paul's 
 dependence on the elder Apostles. " The authority of 
 the Primitive Church, the Apostolic tradition of Jeru- 
 salem " — this was the fulcrum of their argument. Where 
 could Paul, they asked, have derived his knowledge of 
 Christ, but from this fountain-head ? And the power 
 that made him, could unmake him. Those who com- 
 missioned him had the right to overrule him, or even 
 to revoke his commission. Was it not known that he 
 had from time to time resorted to Jerusalem ; that he 
 
U.6.I0.] PAUL AND THE THREE PILLARS. 119 
 
 had once publicly submitted his teaching to the 
 examination of the heads of the Church there ? The 
 words of ver. 6 contradict these malicious insinuations. 
 Hence the positiveness of the Apostle's self-assertion. 
 In the Corinthian Epistles his claim to independence is 
 made in gentler style, and with expressions of humihty 
 that might have been misunderstood here. But the 
 position Paul takes up is the same in either case : " I 
 am an Apostle. I have seen Jesus our Lord. You — 
 Corinthians, Galatians — are my work in the Lord." 
 That Peter and the rest were in the old days so near 
 to the Master, *' makes no difference " to Paul. They 
 are what they are — their high standing is universally 
 acknowledged, and Paul has no need or wish to ques- 
 tion it ; but, by the grace of God, he also is what he is 
 (i Cor. XV. 10). Their Apostleship does not exclude 
 or derogate from his. 
 
 The self-depreciation, the keen sense of inferiority 
 in outward respects, so evident in Paul's allusions to 
 this subject elsewhere, is after all not wantmg nerc 
 For when he says, " God regards not maris person^ it 
 is evident that in respect of visible qualifications Paul 
 felt that he had few pretensions to make. Appear- 
 ances were against him. And those who "glory in 
 appearance " were against him too (2 Cor. v. 12). Such 
 men could not appreciate the might of the Spirit that 
 wrought in Paul, nor the sovereignty of Divine election. 
 They *' reckoned " of the Apostle " as though he walked 
 according to flesh " (2 Cor. x. 2). It seemed to thera 
 obvious, as a matter of course, that he was far below 
 the Twelve. With men of worldly wisdom the Apostle 
 did not expect that his arguments would prevail. Hia 
 appeal was to " the spiritual, who judge all things." 
 
 So we come back to the declaration of the Apostle 
 
lao THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 in ch. i. II: "I give you to know, brethren, that my 
 gospel is not according to man." Man had no hand 
 either in laying its foundation or putting on the head- 
 stone. Paul's predecessors in Apostolic office did not 
 impart the gospel to him at the outset ; nor at a later 
 time had they attempted to make any addition to the 
 doctrine he had taught far and wide amongst the 
 heathen. His Apostleship was from first to last a 
 supernatural gift of grace. 
 
 II. Instead, therefore, of assuming to be his 
 superiors, or offering to bestow something of their own 
 on Paul, the three renowned pillars of the faith at fen*- 
 salem acknowledged him as a brother Apostle. 
 
 *' They saw that I am intrusted with the gospel of the 
 uncircumcision." The form of the verb implies a trust 
 given in the past and taking effect in the present, a 
 settled fact. Once for all, this charge had devolved 
 on Paul. He is " appointed herald and apostle " of 
 " Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, — 
 teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth" (i Tim. ii. 
 6, 7). That office Paul still holds. He is the leader 
 of Christian evangelism. Every new movement in 
 heathen missionary enterprise looks to his teaching 
 for guidance and inspiration. 
 
 The conference at Jerusalem in itself furnished 
 conclusive evidence of Paul's Apostolic commission. 
 The circumcision controversy was a test not only for 
 Gentile Christianity, but at the same time for its 
 Apostle and champion. Paul brought to this discus- 
 sion a knowledge and insight, a force of character, a 
 conscious authority and unction of the Holy Spirit, that 
 powerfully impressed the three great men who listened 
 to him. The triumvirate at Jerusalem well knew that 
 Paul had not received his marvellous gifts through 
 
il.6-io.] PAUL AND THE THREE PILLARS, 121 
 
 their hands. Nor was there anything lacking to him 
 which they felt themselves called upon to supply. 
 They could only say, " This is the Lord's doing ; and 
 it is marvellous in our eyes." Knowing, as Peter at 
 least, we presume, had done for many years,* the 
 history of Paul's conversion, and seeing as they now 
 did the conspicuous Apostolic signs attending his 
 ministry, James and Cephas and John could only come 
 to one conclusion. The gospel of the uncircumcision, 
 they were convinced, was committed to Paul, and his 
 place in the Church was side by side with Peter. 
 Peter must have felt as once before on a like occasion : 
 " If God gave unto him a gift equal to that He gave to 
 me, who am I, that I should be able to hinder God ? " 
 (Acts xi. 17). It was not for them because of their 
 elder rank and dignity to debate with God in this 
 matter, and to withhold their recognition from His 
 "chosen vessel." 
 
 John had not forgotten his Master's reproof for 
 banning the man that " foUoweth not with us " (Luke 
 ix. 49 ; Mark ix. 38). They " recognised," Paul says, 
 " the grace that had been given me ; " and by that he 
 means, to be sure, the undeserved favour that raised 
 him to his ApostoUc office.f This recognition was 
 given to Paul. Barnabas shared the " fellowship." His 
 hand was clasped by the three chiefs at Jerusalem, not 
 less warmly than that of his younger comrade. But 
 it is in the singular number that Paul speaks of " the 
 grace that was given w^," and of the " trust in the 
 gospel " and the " working of God unto Apostleship.'* 
 
 Why then does not Paul say outright, " they acknow- 
 ledged me an Apostle, the equal of Peter ? " Some are 
 
 • Ch. L 18. See Chapter V., p. 87. 
 
 t See Rom. L 5; i Cor. xv. 10; £ph. iii. 2, 7, 8; 1 Tim. L l> 
 
IM THE EPISTLB TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 bold enough to say — Holsten in particular — " Because 
 this is just what the Jerusalem chiefs never did, and 
 never could have done."* We will only reply, that if 
 this were the case, the passage is a continued suggestio 
 falsi. No one could write the words of vv. 7 — 9, with- 
 out intending his readers to believe that such a recogni- 
 tion took place. Paul avoids the point-blank assertion, 
 with a delicacy that any man of tolerable modesty will 
 understand. Even the appearance of " glorying " was 
 hateful to him (2 Cor. x. 17 ; xi. I ; xii. i — 5, ii). 
 
 The Church at Jerusalem, as we gather from w. 
 7, 8, observed in Paul " signs of the Apostle " 
 resembling those borne by Peter. His Gentile com- 
 mission ran parallel with Peter's Jewish commission. 
 The labours of the two men were followed by the same 
 kind of success, and marked by similar displays of 
 miraculous power. The like seal of God was stamped 
 on both. This correspondence runs through the Acts 
 of the Apostles. Compare, for example, Paul's sermon 
 at Antioch in Pisidia with that of Peter on the Day of 
 Pentecost ; the healing of the Lystran cripple and the 
 punishment of Elymas, with the case of the lame man 
 at the Temple gate and the encounter of Peter and 
 Simon Magus. The conjunction of the names of Peter 
 and Paul was familiar to the Apostolic Church. The 
 parallelism between the course of these great Apostles 
 was no invention of second-century orthodoxy, set up 
 in the interests of a " reconciling hypothesis ; " it 
 attracted public attention as early as 51 a.d., while 
 they were still in their mid career. If this idea so 
 strongly possessed the minds of the Jewish Christian 
 leaders and influenced their action at the Council of 
 
 * Zum Evangelun d. Paulus und d. Petrus^ p. 273. Holsten is th« 
 keenest and most logical of all the fiaurian succession 
 
U.6.IO.] PAUL AND THE THREE PILLARS, laj 
 
 Jerusalem, we need not be surprised that it should 
 dominate Luke's narrative to the extent that it does. 
 The allusions to Peter in I Corinthians * afford further 
 proof that in the lifetime of the two Apostles it was a 
 common thing to link their names together. 
 
 But had not Peter also a share in the Gentil 
 mission ? Does not the division of labour made at 
 this conference appear to shut out the senior Apostle 
 from a field to which he had the prior claim ? " Ye 
 know," said Peter at the Council, "how that a good 
 while ago God made choice among you, that by my 
 mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel, 
 and believe " (Acts xv. 7). To Peter was assigned the 
 double honour of " opening the door of faith " both to 
 Jew and Gentile. This experience made him the readier 
 to understand Paul's position, and gave him the greater 
 weight in the settlement of the question at issue. And 
 not Peter alone, but Philip the evangelist and other 
 Jewish Christians had carried the gospel across the 
 line of Judaic prejudice, before Paul appeared on the 
 scene. Barnabas and Silas were both emissaries of 
 Jerusalem. So that the mother Church, if she could 
 not claim Paul as her son, had nevertheless a large 
 stake in the heathen mission. But when Paul came to 
 the front, when his miraculous call, his incomparable 
 gifts and wonderful success had made themselves 
 known, it was evident to every discerning mind that he 
 was the man chosen by God to direct this great wprk. 
 Peter had opened the door of faith to the heathen, and 
 had bravely kept it open ; but it was for Paul to lead 
 the Gentile nations through the open door, and to make 
 a home for them within the fold of Christ, The men 
 
 * Ch. L 13 ; iii. M ; ix. 5. 
 
124 l\iIE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 
 
 who had laboured in this field hitherto were Paul's fore- 
 runners. And Peter does not hesitate to acknowledge 
 the younger Apostle's special fitness for this widei 
 province of their common work ; and with the con- 
 currence of James and John he yields the charge of it 
 to him. 
 
 Let us observe that it is two different provinces^ not 
 different gospels, that are in view. When the Apostle 
 speaks of '* the gospel of the uncircumcision " as com- 
 mitted to himself, and that "of the circumcision" to 
 Peter, he never dreams of any one supposing, as some 
 of his modern critics persist in doing, that he meant 
 two different doctrines. How can that be possible, 
 cvhen he has declared those anathema who preach any 
 other gospel ? He has laid his gospel before the heads 
 of the Jerusalem Church. Nothing has occurred there, 
 nothing is hinted here, to suggest the existence of a 
 '* radical divergence." If James and the body of the 
 Judean Church really sympathised with the Circum- 
 cisionists, with those whom the Apostle calls " false 
 brethren," how could he with any sincerity have come 
 to an agreement with them, knowing that this tremen- 
 dous gulf was lying all the while between the Pillars 
 and himself? Zeller argues that the transaction was 
 simply a pledge of "reciprocal toleration, a merely 
 external concordat between Paul and the original 
 Apostles." * The clasp of brotherly friendship was a 
 sorry farce, if that were all it meant — if Paul and the 
 Three just consented for the time to slur over irrecon- 
 cilable differences ; while Paul in turn has glossed over 
 the affair for us in these artful verses I Baur, with 
 characteristic finesse^ says on the same point : " The 
 
 • Tht Acts pftke ApasiUs eriiicallv investigated^ voL il., pp. a8, 30 1 
 Eng. Trans. 
 
U.6.I0.] PAUL AND THB THREE PILLARS. 125 
 
 Kotvoivla was always a division ; it could only be 
 brought into effect by one party going et? tA eOvrj, the 
 other ek rrji' TrepirofjLijv. As the Jewish Apostles could 
 allege nothing against the principles on which Paul 
 founded his evangelical mission, they were obliged to 
 recognise them in a certain manner ; but their recogni- 
 tion was a mere outward one. They left him to work 
 on these principles still further in the cause of the 
 gospel among the Gentiles ; but for themselves they 
 did not desire to know anything more about them." * 
 So that, according to the TQbingen critics, we witness in 
 ver. 9 not a union, but a divorce I The Jewish Apostles 
 recognise Paul as a brother, only in order to get rid of 
 him. Can misinterpretation be more unjust than this ? 
 Paul does not say, " They gave us the right hand of 
 fellowship on condition that" but, " in order that we should 
 go this way, they that." As much as to say : The 
 two parties came together and entered into a closer 
 union, so that with the best mutual understanding each 
 might go its own way and pursue its proper work in 
 harmony with the other. For Paul it would have been 
 a sacrilege to speak of the diplomatic compromise which 
 Baur and Zeller describe as " giving the right hand of 
 fellowship." 
 
 Never did the Church more deeply realise than at 
 her first Council the truth, that " there is one body 
 and one Spirit ; one Lord, one faith, one baptism ; one 
 God and Father of all, who is above all, and through 
 all, and in all " (Eph. iv. 4 — 6). Paul still seems to feel 
 his hand in the warm grasp of Peter and of John when 
 he writes to the Ephesians of " the foundation of the 
 Apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself for 
 
 • Ptmhu, vol i., p, 130: Eng. Traiuk 
 
ca6 THE EPISTLB TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 chief corner-stone ; in whom the whole building fitly 
 framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the 
 Lord"(ch. ii. 20, 21). Alas for the criticism that is 
 obliged to see in words like these the invention of 
 second-century churchmanship, putting into the mouth 
 of Paul catholic sentiments of which in reality he knew 
 nothing I Such writers know nothing of the power of 
 thai fellowship of the Spirit which reigned in thf 
 glorious company of the Apostles. 
 
 " Only they would have us remember the poor *' — a 
 circumstance mentioned partly by way of reminder to 
 the Galatians touching the collection for Jerusalem, 
 which Paul had already set on foot amongst them 
 (i Cor. xvi. i). The request was prompted by the 
 affectionate confidence with which the Jewish chiefs 
 embraced Paul and Barnabas. It awakened an eager 
 response in the Apostle's breast. His love to his 
 Jewish kindred made him welcome the suggestion. 
 Moreover every deed of charity rendered by the 
 wealthier Gentile Churches to " the poor saints in 
 Jerusalem," was another tie helping to bind the two 
 communities to each other. Of such liberality Antioch, 
 under the direction of the Gentile missionaries, had 
 already set the example (Acts xi. 29, 30). 
 
 JameSy Peter^ John, and Paul — it was a memorable 
 iay when these four men met face to face. What a 
 mighty quaternion I Amongst them they have virtually 
 made the New Testament and the Christian Church. 
 They represent the four sides of the one foundation of 
 the City of God. Of the Evangelists, Matthew holds 
 affinity with James ; Mark with Peter ; and Luke with 
 Paul. James clings to the past and embodies the 
 transition from Mosaism to Christianity. Peter ia the 
 
ii.6-io.l PAUL AND THE THREE PILLARS. lay 
 
 man of the present, quick in thought and action, eager, 
 buoyant, susceptible. Paul holds the future in his 
 grasp, and schools the unborn nations. John gathers 
 present, past, and future into one, lifting us into the 
 region of eternal life and love. 
 
 With Peter and James Paul had met before, and was 
 to meet again. But so far as we can learn, this was 
 the only occasion on which his path crossed that of 
 John. Nor is this Apostle mentioned again in Paul's 
 letters. In the Acts he appears but once or twice, 
 standing silent in Peter's shadow. A holy reserve 
 surrounds John's person in the earlier Apostolic history. 
 His hour was not yet come. But his name ranked 
 in public estimation amongst the three foremost 
 of the Jewish Church ; and he exercised, doubtless, a 
 powerful, though quiet, conciliatory influence in the 
 settlement of the Gentile question. The personality of 
 Paul excited, we may be sure, the profoundest interest 
 in such a mind as that of John. He absorbed, and yet 
 in a sense transcended, the Pauline theology. The 
 Apocalypse, although the most Judaic book of the Nev 
 Testament, is penetrated with the influence of Paulinism 
 The detection in it of a covert attack on the Gentile 
 Apostle is simply one of the mare's nests of a super- 
 subtle and suspicious criticism. John was to be the 
 heir of Paul's labours at Ephesus and in Asia Minor. 
 And John's long life, touching the verge of the second 
 century, his catholic position, his serene and lofty spirit, 
 blending in itself and resolving into a higher unity the 
 tendencies of James and Peter and Paul, give us the 
 best assurance that in the Apostolic age there was 
 indeed "One, holy, catholic, Apostolic Church." 
 
 Paul's fellowship with Peter and with James was 
 cordial and endeared. But to hold the hand of John, 
 
J2S THE EPISTLE TO TEE GALATIANS, 
 
 " the disciple whom Jesus loved/' was a yet higher satis- 
 faction. That clasp symbolized a union between men 
 most opposite in temperament and training, and brought 
 to the knowledge of Christ in very different ways, but 
 whose communion in Him was deep as the life eternal. 
 Paul and John are the two master minds of the New 
 Testament Of all men that ever lived, these two best 
 understood Jesus Christ. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 PAUL AND PETER AT ANTIOCn. 
 
 "But when Cephas came to Antioch, I resisted him to the fiioat, 
 fa*}cause he stood condemned. For before that certain came hoxm 
 [ames, he did eat with the Gentiles ; but when they came, he drew 
 back and separated himself, fearing them that were of the circumcision. 
 And the rest of the Jews dissembled likewise with him ; insomuch that 
 even Barnabas was carried away with their dissimulation. But when 
 I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the 
 gospel, I said unto Cephas before them all, If thou, being a Jew, 
 livest as do the Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, how compellest thott 
 the Gentiles to live as do the Jews ? We being Jews by nature, and 
 not sinners of the Gentiles, yet knowing that a man is not justified 
 by works of law, but only through faith in Jesus Christ, even we 
 believed on Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ, 
 and not by the works of the law : because by the works of the law 
 shjill no flesh be justified. But if, while we soiif^ht to be justified ia 
 Christ, we ourselves also were found sinners, is Christ a minister of 
 sin? God forbid. For if I build up again those things which I 
 destroyed, I prove myself a transgressor." — Gal. ii. II — 18. 
 
 THE conference at Jerusalem issued in the formaJ 
 recognition by the Primitive Church of Gentile 
 Christianity, and of Paul's plenary Apostleship. And 
 it brought Paul into brotherly relations with the 
 three great leaders of Jewish Christianity. But this 
 fellowship was not to continue undisturbed. The 
 same cause was still at work which had compelled the 
 Apostle to go up to Jerusalem, taking Titus with him. 
 
 9 
 
I30 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 The leaven of Pharisaic legalism remained in the 
 Church. Indeed, as time went on and the national 
 fanaticism grew more violent, this spirit of intolerance 
 became increasingly bitter and active. The address 
 of James to Paul on the occasion of his last visit to the 
 Holy City, shows that the Church of Jerusalem was at 
 this time in a state of the most sensitive jealousy in 
 regard to the Law, and that the legalistic prejudices 
 always existing in it had gained a strength with which 
 it was difficult to cope (Acts xxi. 17 — 25). 
 
 But for the present the Judaizing faction had 
 received a check. It does not appear that the party 
 ever again insisted on circumcision as a thing essential 
 to salvation for the Gentiles. The utterances of Peter 
 and James at the Council, and the circular addressed 
 therefrom to the Gentile Churches, rendered this 
 impossible. The Legalists made a change of front ; 
 and adopted a subtler and seemingly more moderate 
 policy. They now preached circumcision as the prero- 
 gative of the Jew within the Churchy and as a counsel 
 of perfection for the Gentile believer in Christ (ch. iii. 3). 
 To quote the rescript of Acts xv. against this altered 
 form of the circumcisionist doctrine, would have been 
 wide of the mark. 
 
 It is against this newer type of Judaistic teaching 
 that our Epistle is directed. Circumcision, its advocates 
 argued, was a Divine ordinance that must have its 
 benefit. God has given to Israel an indefeasible 
 pre-emintnce in His kingdom.! Law-keeping children 
 of Abraham enter the new Covenant on a higher 
 footing than " sinners of the Gentiles : " they are still 
 the elect race, the holy nation. If the Gentiles wish 
 
 • Rom. u. 25 — iii. i. 
 
 f Rom. i. 16 ; ii 9, 10 ; ix. 4, 5 ; zi. I, a. 
 
ii.li-l8.] PAUL AND PETER AT ANTIOCH. 131 
 
 to share with them, they must add to their faith 
 circumcision, they must complete their imperfect 
 righteousness by legal sanctity. So they might hope 
 to enter on the full heritage of the sons of Abraham ; 
 they would be brought into communion with the first 
 Apostles and the Brother of the Lord; they would 
 be admitted to the inner circle of the kingdom of 
 God. The new Legalists sought, in fact, to super- 
 impose Jewish on Gentile Christianity. They no 
 longer refused all share in Christ to the uncircumcised ; 
 they offered them a larger share. So we construe the 
 teaching which Paul had to combat in the second 
 stage of his conflict with Judaism, to which his 
 four major Epistles belong. And the signal for this 
 renewed struggle was given by the collision with Peter 
 at Antioch. 
 
 This encounter did not, we think, take place on the 
 return of Paul and Barnabas from the Council. The 
 compact of Jerusalem secured to the Church a few 
 years of rest from the Judaistic agitation. The 
 Thessalonian Epistles, written in 52 or 53 a.d., go to 
 show, not only that the Churches of Macedonia were 
 free from the legalist contention, but that it did not at 
 this period occupy the Apostle's mind. Judas Bar- 
 sabbas and Silas — not Peter — accompanied the Gentile 
 missionaries in returning to Antioch ; and Luke 
 gives, in Acts xv., a tolerably full account of the cir- 
 cumstances which transpired there in the interval 
 before the second missionary tour, without the slightest 
 hint of any visit made at this time by the Apostle 
 Peter. We can scarcely believe that the circum- 
 dision party had already recovered, and increased its 
 influence, to the degree that it must have done when 
 ** even Barnabas was carried away " ; still lest 
 
131 THB EPISTLB TO THB GALATIANS. 
 
 that Peter on the very morrow of the settlement at 
 Jerusalem and of his fraternal communion there with 
 Paul would show himself so far estranged. 
 
 When, therefore, did "Cephas come down to 
 Antioch?" The Galatians evidently knew. The 
 Judaizers had given their account of the matter, to 
 Paul's disadvantage. Perhaps he had referred to it 
 himself on his last visit to Galatia, when we know he 
 spoke explicitly and strongly against the Circum- 
 cisionists (ch. i. 9). Just before his arrival in Galatia 
 on this occasion he had *' spent some time " at Antioch 
 (Acts xviii. 22, 23), in the interval between the second 
 and third missionary journeys. Luke simply mentions 
 the fact, without giving any details. This is the Hke- 
 liest opportunity for the meeting of the two Apostles 
 in the Gentile capital. M. Sabatier,* in the following 
 sentences, appears to us to put the course of events in its 
 true light : — *' Evidently the Apostle had quitted Jeru- 
 salem and undertaken his second missionary journey full 
 of satisfaction at the victory he had gained, arxd free from 
 anxiety for the future. The decisive moment of the 
 crisis therefore necessarily falls between the . Thes- 
 salonian and Galatian Epistles. What had happened 
 in the meantime ? 77?^ violent discussion with Peter 
 at Antioch (Gal. ii. ii — 21), and all that this account 
 reveals to us, — the arrival of the emissaries from 
 James in the pagan-Christian circle, the counter- 
 mission organized by the Judaizers to rectify the 
 work of Paul. A new situation suddenly presents 
 itself to the eyes of the Apostle on his return from his 
 second missionary journey. He is compelled to throw 
 himself into the struggle, and in doing so to formulate 
 
 * In hit Vapdtrt Paul : esquisse tfun* hisioire dt sa pemitt an 
 admirable work, to which the writer is under great obligation. 
 
ii.ii-i8.] PAUL AND PETER AT ANTIOCH, 133 
 
 in all its rigour his principle of the abolishment of the 
 Law." 
 
 The " trou biers ** in this instance were " certain from 
 James.** Like the " false brethren " * who appeared at 
 Antioch three years before, they came from the mother 
 Church, over which James presided. The Judaizing 
 teachers at Corinth had their " commendatory letters " 
 (2 Cor. iii. i), denved assuredly from the same quarter. 
 In all likelihood, their confederates in Galatia brought 
 similar credentials. We have already seen that the 
 authority of the Primitive Church was the chief 
 weapon used by Paul's adversaries. These letters of 
 commendation were part of the machinery of the anti- 
 Pauline agitation. How the Judaizers obtained these 
 credentials, and in what precise relation they stood to 
 James, we can only conjecture. Had the Apostle held 
 James responsible for their action, he would not have 
 spared him any more than he has done Peter. James 
 held a quasi-pastoral relation to Christian Jews of the 
 Dispersion. And as he addressed his Epistle to them, 
 so he would be likely on occasion to send delegates 
 to visit them. Perhaps the Circumcisionists found 
 opportunity to pass themselves off in this character; 
 or they may have abused a commission really given 
 them, by interfering with Gentile communities. That 
 the Judaistic emissaries in some way or other adopted 
 false colours, is plainly intimated in 2 Cor. xL 13. 
 James, living always at Jerusalem, being moreover a 
 man of simple character, could have little suspected 
 the crafty plot which was carried forward under his 
 name. 
 
 These agents addressed themselves in the first 
 
 • See Chapter VIL pp. 109, iia 
 
134 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 instance to the JewSy as their commission from Jeru- 
 salem probably entitled them to do. They plead for 
 the maintenance of the sacred customs. They insist 
 y that the Mosaic rites carry with them an indelible 
 sanctity ; that their observance constitutes a Church 
 within the Church. If this separation is once esta- 
 blished, and the Jewish believers in Christ can be 
 induced to hold themselves aloof and to maintain the 
 " advantage of circumcision," the rest will be easy. 
 The way will then be open to " compel the Gentiles to 
 Judaize." For unless they do this, they must be content 
 to remain on a lower level, in a comparatively menial 
 .position, resembling that of uncircumcised proselytes in 
 V / the Synagogue. The circular of the Jerusalem Council 
 may have been interpreted by the Judaists in this 
 sense, as though it laid down the terms, not of full 
 communion between Jew and Gentile believers, but 
 only of a permissive, secondary recognition. At Antioch 
 the new campaign of the Legalists was opened, and 
 apparently with signal success. In Galatia and Corinth 
 we see it in full progress. 
 
 The withdrawal of Peter and the other Jews at 
 Antioch from the table of the Gentiles virtually 
 " compelled " the latter *' to Judaize." Not that the 
 Jewish Apostle had this intention in his mind. He 
 was made the tool of designing men. By " separating 
 himself" he virtually said to every uncircumcised 
 brother, ''Stand by thyself, I am hoher than thou." 
 Legal conformity on the part of the Gentiles was made 
 the conditioh of their communion with Jewish Christians 
 — a demand simply fatal to Christianity. It re- 
 ^ established the principle of salvation by works in a 
 more invidious form. To supplement the righteousness 
 of faith by that of law, meant to supplant it. To admit 
 
li. 11-18.] PAUL AND PETER AT ANTIOCS, 135 
 
 that the Israelite by virtue of his legal observances^ 
 stood in a higher position than "sinners of the Gentiles," \ / 
 was to stultify the doctrine of the cross, to make Christ's I 
 death a gratuitous sacrifice. Efiterlg^jsiXDr, pushed to j 
 its logical consequences, involved the overthrow of/ 
 the Gospel. This the Gentile Apostle saw at a glance. 
 The situation was one of imminent danger. Paul 
 needed all his wisdom, and all his courage and prompti- 
 tude to meet it. 
 
 It had been Peter's previous rule, since the vision of 
 Joppa, to lay aside Jewish scruples of diet and to live 
 in free intercourse with Gentile brethren. He "was 
 wont to eat with the Gentiles. Though a born Jew, 
 he lived in Gentile fashion " — words unmistakably 
 describing Peter's general habit in such circumstances. 
 This Gentile conformity of Peter was a fact of no 
 small moment for the Galatian readers. It contravenes 
 the assertion of a radical divergence between Petrine 
 and Pauline Christianity, whether made by Ebionites 
 or Baurians. 
 
 The Jewish Apostle's present conduct was an act 
 of " dissimulation." He was belying his known con- 
 victions, publicly expressed and acted on for years. 
 Paul's challenge assumes that his fellow-Apostle is 
 acting insincerely. And this assumption is explained 
 by the account furnished in the Acts of the Apostles 
 respecting Peter's earlier relations with Gentile 
 Christianity (ch. x. I — xi. 18; xv. 6 — ii). The \/ 
 strength of Paul's case lay in the conscience of Peter 
 himself. The conflict at Antioch, so often appealed 
 to in proof of the rooted opposition between the two 
 Apostles, in reality gives evidence to the contrary 
 effect. Here the maxim strictly applies, Exceptio probat 
 regulam. 
 
136 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 Peter's lapse is quite intelligible. No man who 
 figures in the New Testament is better known to us. 
 Honest, impulsive, ready of speech, full of contagious 
 enthusiasm, brave as a lion, firm as a rock against open 
 enemies, he possessed in a high degree the qualities 
 which mark out a leader of men. He was of the stuff 
 of which Christ makes His missionary heroes. But 
 there was a strain of weakness in P eter's nature. He 
 was ^iable . He was too much at the mercy of sur- 
 roundings. His denial of Jesus set this native fault 
 in a light terribly vivid and humihating. It was an act 
 of "dissimulation." In his soul there was a fervent 
 love to Christ. His zeal had brought him to the place 
 of danger. But for the moment he was alone. Public 
 opinion was all against him. A panic fear seized his brave 
 heart. He forgot himself; he denied the Master whom 
 he loved more than life. His courage had failed ; never 
 his faith. ** Turned back again" from his coward flight, 
 Peter had indeed ** strengthened his brethren " (Luke 
 xxii. 31, 32). He proved a tower of strength to the 
 infant Church, worthy of his cognomen of the rock. 
 For more than twenty years he had stood unshaken. 
 No name was so honoured in the Church as Peter's. 
 For Paul to be compared to him was the highest 
 possible distinction. 
 
 And yet, after all this lapse of time, and in the midst 
 of so glorious a career, the old, miserable weakness 
 >/ betrays him once more. How admonitory is the lesson 1 
 The sore long since healed over, the infirmity of nature 
 out of which we seemed to have been completely trained, 
 may yet break out again, to our shame and undoing. 
 Had Peter for a moment forgotten the sorrowful warn- 
 ing of Gethsemane ? Be it ours to '* watch and pray, 
 lest we enter into temptation." 
 
ii.u-i8.] PAUL AND PETER AT ANTIOCa. 137 
 
 We have reason to believe that, if Peter rashly erred, 
 he freely acknowledged his error, and honoured his 
 reprover. Both the Epistles that bear his name, in 
 different ways, testify to the high value which their 
 author set upon the teaching of *' our beloved brother 
 Paul." Tradition places the two men at Rome side by 
 side in their last days ; as though even in their death 
 these glorious Apostles should not be divided, despite 
 the attempts of faction and mistrust to separate them. 
 
 Few incidents exhibit more strongly than this the 
 grievous consequences that may ensue from a seemingly 
 trivial moral error. It looked a little thing that Peter 
 should prefer to take his meals away from Gentile 
 company. And yet, as Paul tells him, his withdrawal 
 was a virtual rejection of the Gospel, and imperilled 
 the most vital interests of Christianity. By this act 
 the Jewish Apostle gave a handle to the adversaries 
 of the Church which they have used for generations 
 and for ages afterwards. The dispute which it occa- 
 sioned could never be forgotten. In the second century / 
 it still drew down on Paul the bitter reproaches of the "^ 
 Judaizing faction. And in our own day the rationalistic 
 critics have been able to turn it to marvellous account. 
 It supplies the corner-stone of their '^ scientific recon- 
 struction" of Biblical theology. The entire theory of 
 Baur is evolved out of Peter's blunder. Let it be 
 granted that Peter in yielding to the '* certain from 
 JamesJ.' followed his genuine convictions and the tra- 
 dition of Jewish Christianity, and we see at once how 
 deep a gulf lay between Paul and the Primitive Church, v^ 
 All that Paul argues in the subsequent discussion only 
 tends, in this case, to make the breach more visible. 
 This false step of Peter is the thing that chiefly 
 lends a colour to the theory in question, with all the 
 
138 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 far-reaching consequences touching the origin and 
 import of Christianity, which it involves. So long 
 " the evil that men do lives after them " ! 
 
 Paul's rebuke of his brother Apostle extends to the 
 conclusion of the chapter. Some interpreters cut it 
 short at the end of ver. 14; others at ver. 16; others 
 again at ver. 18. But the address is consecutive and 
 germane to the occasion throughout. Paul does not, 
 to be sure, give a verbatim report, but the substance of 
 what he said, and in a form suited to his readers. The 
 narrative is an admirable prelude to the argument of 
 chap. iii. It forms the transition from the historical 
 to the polemical part of the Epistle, from the Apostle*^ 
 personal to his doctrinal apology. The condensed 
 form of the speech makes its interpretation difficult and 
 much contested. We shall in the remainder of this 
 Chapter trace the general course of Paul's reproof, pro- 
 posing in the following Chapter to deal more fully with 
 its doctrinal contents. 
 
 I. In the first place, Paul taxes the Jewish Apostle 
 with insincerity and unfaithfulness toward the gospel, 
 *' I saw," he says, " that they were not holding a straight 
 course, according to the truth of the gospel." 
 
 It is a moral, not a doctrinal aberration, that Paul 
 lays at the door of Cephas and Barnabas. They did not 
 hold a different creed from himself; they were disloyal 
 to the common creed. They swerved from the path of 
 rectitude in which they had walked hitherto. They 
 had regard no longer to " the truth of the gospel " — 
 the supreme consideration of the servant of Christ — 
 but to the favour of men, to the public opinion of 
 Jerusalem. "What will be said of us there?" they 
 whispered to each other, " if these messengers of James 
 report that we are discarding the sacred customs, and 
 
a. 11.18.] PAUL AND PETER AT ANTIOCR. 139 
 
 making no difference between Jew and Gentile ? We 
 shall alienate our Judean brethren. We shall bring a 
 scandal on the Christian cause in the eyes of Judaism." 
 
 This withdrawal of the Jews from the common fellow- 
 ship at Antioch was a public matter. It was an mjury s^ 
 to the whole Gentile-Christian community. If the 
 reproof was to be salutary, it must be equally public 
 and explicit. The offence was notorious. Every one 
 deplored it, except those who shared it, or profited by 
 it. Cephas "stood condemned." And yet his influ- 
 ence and the reverence felt toward him were so great, 
 that no one dared to put this condemnation into words. 
 His sanction was of itself enough to give to this 
 sudden recrudescence of Jewish bigotry the force of 
 authoritative usage. ** The truth of the gospel " was 
 again in jeopardy. Once more Paul's intervention 
 foiled the attempts. of the Judaizers and saved Gentile ^ 
 liberties. And this time he stood quite alone. Even 
 the faithful Barnabas deserted him. But what mattered 
 that, if Christ and truth were on his side ? Amicus 
 Cephas^ amicus Barnabas; sed magis amicus Veritas, 
 Solitary amid the circle of opposing or dissembling 
 Jews, Paul '* withstood " the chief of the Apostles of 
 Jesus " to the face." He rebuked him " before them 
 all." 
 
 II. Peter's conduct is reproved by Paul in the light 
 of their common knowledge of salvation in Christ, 
 
 Paul is not content with pointing out the inconsis- 
 tency of his brother Apostle. He must probe the 
 matter to the bottom. He will bring Peter's delinquency 
 to the touchstone of the Gospel, in its fundamental 
 principles. So he passes in ver. 15 from the outward 
 to the inward, from the circumstances of Peter's con- 
 duct to the inner world of spiritual consciousness, in 
 
t^ THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 which his offence finds its deeper condemnation. 
 " You and I," he goes on to say, " not Gentile sinners, 
 but men of Jewish birth — yet for all that, knowing 
 that there is no justification for man in works of law, 
 only * through faith in Christ — we too put our faith in 
 Christ, in order to be justified by faith in Him, not by 
 works of law ; for as Scripture taught us, in that way 
 no flesh wuU be justified." 
 
 y Paul makes no doubt that the Jewish Apostle's 
 experience of salvation corresponded with his own 
 Doubtless, in their previous intercourse, and especialh 
 when he first *'made acquaintance with Cephas" (ch. i 
 1 8) in Jerusalem, the hearts of the two men had beer, 
 opened to each other; and they had found that, although 
 brought to the knowledge of the truth in different ways^ 
 yet in the essence of the matter — in respect of the 
 personal conviction of sin, in the yielding up of self- 
 righteousness and native pride, in the abandonment of 
 every prop and trust but Jesus Christ — their histor} 
 had run the same course, and face answered to face. 
 Yes, Paul knew that he had an ally in the heart ol 
 his friend. He was not fighting as one that beateth 
 the air, not making a rhetorical flourish, or a parade 
 of some favourite doctrine of his own ; he appealed 
 from Peter dissembling to Peter faithful and consistent. 
 Peter's dissimulation was a return to the Judaic ground 
 
 V of legal righteousness. By refusing to eat w4th un- 
 circumcised men, he affirmed implicitly that, though 
 believers in Christ, they were still to him *' common and 
 unclean," that the Mosaic rites imparted a higher 
 sanctity than the righteousness of faith. Now the 
 
 • ^ ni) has the same partially exceptive force as «< /t^ in ch. L y, 
 19. Comp. Rom. xir. 14 ; also Luke iv. 36, 27. 
 
tt. 11-18.] PAUL AND PETER AT ANTIOCH, 141 
 
 principles of evangelical and legal righteousness, ol 
 salvation by faith and by law-works, are diametrically 
 opposed. It is logically impossible to maintain both. 
 Peter had long ago accepted the former doctrine. He 
 had sought salvation, just like any Gentile sinner, on 
 the common ground of human guilt, and with a faith 
 that renounced every consideration of Jewish privilege 
 and legal performance. By v^rhat right can any Hebrew 
 belieyer in Christ, after this, set himself above his v' 
 Gentile brother, or presume to be by virtue of his 
 circumcision and ritual law-keeping a holier man ? 
 Such we take to be the import of Paul's challenge 
 
 HI. Paul is met at this point by the stock objection 
 to the doctrine of salvation by faith — an objection 
 brought forward in the dispute at Antioch not, we 
 should imagine, by Peter himself, but by the Judaistic 
 advocates. To renounce legal righteousness was in effec^ 
 they urged, to promote sin — way, to make Christ Himselk \^ 
 a minister of sin (ver. 17). ^ 
 
 Paul retorts the charge on those who make it. They 
 promote sin, he declares, who set up legal righteousness 
 again (ver. 18). The objection is stated and met in the 
 form of question and answer, as in Rom. iii. 5. We 
 have in this sharp thrust and parry an example of the 
 sort of fence which Paul must often have carried on 
 in his discussions with Jewish opponents on these 
 questions. 
 
 We must not overlook the close verbal connection 
 of these verses with the two last. The phrase *' seek- 
 ing to be justified in Christ" carries us back to the time 
 when the two Apostles, self-condemned sinners, 
 severally sought and found a new ground of righteous- 
 ness in Him. Now when Peter and Paul did this, 
 
I4S TEB EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 they were " themselves also found * to be sinners," — 
 an experience how abasing to their Jewish pride ! 
 They made the great discovery that stripped them of 
 legal merit, and brought them down in their own esteem 
 to the level of common sinners. Peter's confession may 
 stand for both, when he said, abashed by the glory of 
 Christ, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O 
 Lord." Now this style of penitence, this profound 
 self-abasement in the presence of Jesus Christ, revolted 
 the Jewish moralist. To Pharisaic sentiment it was 
 contemptible. If justification by faith requires this, 
 if it brings the Jew to so abject a posture and makes 
 no difference between lawless and law-keeping, be- 
 tween pious children of Abraham and heathen outcasts 
 — if this be the doctrine of Christ, all moral distinctions i 
 are confounded, and Christ is " a minister of sin 1 " ^ 
 This teaching robs the Jew of the righteousness he 
 before possessed ; it takes from him the benefit and 
 honour that God bestowed upon his race I So, we 
 doubt not, many a Jew was heard angrily exclaiming 
 against the Pauline doctrine, both at Antioch and else- 
 where. This conclusion was, in the view of the 
 Legalist, a reduciio ad absurdum of Paulinism. v 
 
 The Apostle repels this inference with the indignant 
 /i^ yevoiTOf Far be it I His reply is indicated by the 
 very form in which he puts the question : " If we were 
 found sinners" (Christ did not make us such). *'The 
 complaint was this," as Calvin finely says : " Has 
 Christ therefore come to take away from us the right- 
 eousness of the Law, to make us polluted who were 
 holy ? Nay, Paul says ; — he repels the blasphemy with 
 
 • For this emphatic found, describing a process of moral conviction 
 and inward discovery, comp. Rom. vii. lo, i8, 21 ; the whole passage 
 ■trikinglj illustratet the reminiscence of our text 
 
Ii.il-i8.] PAUL AND PETER AT ANTIOCH. 143 
 
 detestation. For Christ did not introduce sin, but 
 revealed it. He did not rob them of righteousness, 
 but of the false show thereof." * The reproach of the 
 Judaizers was in reality the same that is urged against 
 evangelical doctrine still — that it is immoral^ placing 
 the virtuous and vicious in the common category of 
 " sinners." 
 
 Ver. 18 throws back the charge of promoting sin 
 upon the Legalist. It is the counterpart, not of ver. 19, 
 but rather of ver. i^ The *' transgressor" is the sinner 
 in a heightened ^d more specific sense, one who 
 bleaks known and admitted law. t This word bears, 
 in Paul's vocabulary, a precise and strongly marked 
 signification which is not satisfied by the common in- 
 terpretation. It is not that Peter in setting up the 
 Law which he had in principle overthrown, puts him- 
 self in the wrong; nor that Peter in re-establishing the 
 Law, contradicts the purpose of the Law itself (Chry- 
 sostom, Lightfoot, Beet). This is to anticipate the 
 next verse. In Paul's view and according to the 
 experience common to Peter with himself, law and 
 transgression are concomitant, every man ** under law" 
 is ipso facto a transgressor. He who sets up the first, 
 constitutes himself the second. And this is what Peter 
 is now doing ; although Paul courteously veils the ^ 
 fact by putting it hypothetically, in the first person. % 
 After dissolving, so far as in him lay, the validity of 
 legal righteousness and breaking down the edifice of 
 justification by works, Peter is now building it up 
 
 • Comnuntariis in loc. 
 
 t See Grimm's Lexicon^ or Trench's N. T Synonyms, on this word. 
 Comp. ch. iii. 19 ; Rom. ii. 23—27 ; iv. 15; v. 14. 
 
 X The / of this sentence is quite indefinite. On the other haud 
 war. 19, with its emphatic i^ii ydp, brings us into a new vein of thought 
 
144 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 again, and thereby constructing a prison-house for 
 himself. Returning to legal allegiance, he returns to 
 legal condemnation;* with his own hands he puts on 
 his neck the burden of the Law's curse, which through 
 faith in Christ he had cast off. By this act of timid 
 conformity he seeks to commend himself to Jewish 
 opinion ; but it only serves, in the light of the Gospel, 
 to "prove him a transgressor/* to " commend"! him 
 in that unhappy character. This is Paul's retort to the 
 imputation of the Judaist. It carries the war into the 
 enemies' camp. "No," says Paul, ^* Christ is no patron 
 of sin, in bidding men renounce legal righteousness. 
 But those promote sin— in themselves first of all — who 
 after knowing His righteousness, turn back again to 
 I/" legalism." 
 
 IV. The, conviction of PeterLisjP£t3g-Cg^mplete. From 
 the sad bondage to w-hich the Jewish Apostle, by his 
 compliance with the Judaizers, was preparing to sub- 
 mit himself, the Apostle turns to his own joyous sense oj 
 deliverance (vv. 1 9 — 2i). Those who resort to legalism, 
 he has said, ensure their own condemnation. It is, 
 on the other hand, by an entire surrender to Christ, by 
 realizing the import of His death, that we learn to 
 "live unto God." So Paul had proved it. At this 
 moment he is conscious of a union with the crucified 
 and living Saviour, which lifts him above the curse of 
 the law, above the power of sin. To revert to the 
 Judaistic state, to dream any more of earning righteous- 
 ness by legal conformity, is a thing for him incon- 
 ceivable. It would be to make void the cross of 
 Christ ! 
 
 And it was the Law itself that first impelled Paul 
 
 • Comp. ch. iii. 10 — 12, 19 : Rom. iii. 20 ; iv. 15. 
 \ This verb has, as Schott suggests, a tinge of irony 
 
a. ii-iS.] PAUL AND PETER AT ANTIOCH. 145 
 
 along this path. *' Through law " he '* died to law." 
 The Law drove him from itself to seek salvation in 
 Jesus Christ. Its accusations allowed him no shelter, 
 left him no secure spot on which to build the edifice of 
 his self-righteousness. It said to him unceasingly, 
 Thou art a transgressor.* He who seeks justification 
 by its means contradicts the Law. while he frustrate* 
 the grace of God. 
 
 * Rom. Tii. l—rm. t. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 TBB PRmCIPLES AT^ STAKR. 
 
 •* For I through law died unto law, that I might live unto God. I 
 kave been crucified with Christ ; and it is no longer I that live, but 
 Christ liveth in me : and that life which I now live in the flesh I live 
 in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and 
 gave Himself up for me. I do not make void the grace of God t 
 for if righteousness is through law, then Christ died for nought'* — 
 Gal. iL 19—21. 
 
 PAUL'S personal apology is ended. He has proved 
 his Apostolic independence, and made good his 
 declaration, " My Gospel is not according to man." If 
 he owed his commission to any man, it was to Peter ; 
 so his traducers persistently alleged. He has shown 
 that, first without Peter, then in equality with Peter, and 
 finally in spite of Peter, he had received and maintained 
 it. Similarly in regard to James and the Jerusalem 
 Church. Without their mediation Paul commenced his 
 work ; when that work was challenged, they could only 
 approve it ; and when afterwards men professing to act 
 in their name disturbed his work, the Apostle had 
 repelled them. He acted aD along under the conscious- 
 ness of a trust in the gospel committed to him directly 
 by Jesus Christ, and an authority in its administration 
 second to none upon earth. And events had justified 
 this jivniidence. 
 
fL 19-ai.] rff£ .c>RINCIPLSS AT STAKE. 147 
 
 Paul is compelled to say all this about himself. The 
 vindication of his ministry is forced from him by the 
 calumnies of false brethren. From the time of the 
 conference at Jerusalem, and still more since he with- 
 stood Peter at Antioch, he had been a mark for the 
 hatred of the Judaizing faction. He was the chief 
 obstacle to their success. Twice he had foiled them, 
 when they counted upon victory. They had now set 
 on foot a systematic agitation against him, with its 
 head-quarters at Jerusalem, carried on under some pre- 
 text of sanction from the authorities of the Church there. 
 At Corinth and in Galatia the legalist emissaries had 
 appeared simultaneously ; they pursued in the main the 
 same policy, adapting it to the character and disposition 
 of the two Churches, and appealing with no little suc- 
 cess to the Jewish predilections common even amongst 
 Gentile believers in Christ. 
 
 In this controversy Paul and the gospel he preached 
 were bound together. " I am set," he says, *' for the 
 defence of the gospel" (Ph. i. 16). He was the cham- 
 pion of the cross, the impersonation of the principle of 
 salvation by faith. It is "the gospel of Christ," the 
 " truth of the gospel," he reiterates, that is at stake. 
 If he wards off blows falling upon him, it is because 
 they are aimed through him at the truth for which he 
 lives — nay, at Christ who lives in him. In his self- 
 assertion there is no note of pride or personal anxiety. 
 Never was there a man more completely lost in the 
 greatness of a great cause, nor who felt himself in com- 
 parison with it more worthless. But that cause has 
 lifted Paul with it to imperishable glory. Of all names 
 named on earth, none stands nearer than his to that 
 which is " above every name." 
 
 While Paul in ch. i. and ii. is busy with his own 
 
I4S THE EPISTLE TO THE GILATIANS. 
 
 vindication, he is meantime behind the personal defence 
 preparing the doctrinal argument. His address to Peter 
 is an incisive outline of the gospel of grace. The three 
 closing verses — the Xpt>(rTS crwearavpiofiai in par- 
 ticular — are the heart of Paul's theology — summa ac 
 medulla Christianismi (Bengel). Such a testimony was 
 the Apostle's best defence before his audience at 
 Antioch ; it was the surest means of touching the heart 
 of Peter and convincing him of hrs error. And its re- 
 cital was admirably calculated to enlighten the G&latians 
 as to the true bearing of this dispute which had been 
 so much misrepresented. From ver. 15 onwards, Paul 
 has been all the while addressing, under the person 
 of Peter, the conscience of his readers,* and paving the 
 way for the assault that he makes upon them with so 
 much vigour in the first verses of ch. iii. Read in 
 the light of the foregoing narrative, this passage is a 
 compendium of the Pauline Gospel, invested with the 
 peculiar interest that belongs to a confession of personal 
 faith, made at a signal crisis in the author's life. Let 
 us examine this momentous declaration. 
 
 I. At the foundation of Paul's theology lies his 
 conception of the grace of God, 
 
 Grace is the Apostle's watchword. The word occurs 
 twice as often in his Epistles as it does in the rest of 
 the New Testament. Outside the Pauhne Luke and 
 Hebrews, and I Peter with its large k-ifusion of Paulin- 
 ism, it is exceedingly rare.f In this word the character, 
 spirit, and aim of the revelation of Christ, as Paul 
 
 • Hofmann U so far right when he miikes the Apostle turn to the 
 Galatians in ch. ii. 15, and draws at this point the line between the 
 historical and doctrinal sections of the Epistle. 
 
 f What ia said of x<^*'> applies also to its derivatives, x<i^^i'oM<u« 
 
U. 19-21.] THB PRINCIPLES AT STAKE. 149 
 
 understood it, aic summed up. "The grace of God" 
 is the touchstone to which Peter's dissimulation is 
 finally brought. Christ is the embodiment of Divine 
 grace— above all, in His death. So that it is one and 
 the same thing to " bring to nought thd grace of God," 
 and " the death of Christ." Hence God's grace is called 
 "the grace of Christ," — "of our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 From Romans to Titus and Philemon, "grace reigns" 
 in every Epistle. No one can counterfeit this mark of 
 Paul, or speak of grace in his style and accent. 
 
 God's grace is not His love alone; it is redeeming 
 love — love poured out upon the undeserving, love 
 coming to seek and save the lost, "bringing salvation 
 to all men" (Rom. v. I — 8; Tit. ii. ii). Grace decreed 
 redemption, made the sacrifice, proclaims the recon- 
 ciliation, provides and bestows the new sonship of the 
 Spirit, and schools its children into all the habits of 
 godliness and virtue that beseem their regenerate life, 
 which it brings finally to its consummation in the life 
 eternal.* 
 
 Grace in God is therefore the antithesis o! sin in 
 man, counterworking and finally triumphing over it. 
 Grace belongs to the last Adam as eminently as sin to 
 the first. The later thoughts of the Apostle on this 
 theme are expressed in Tit. iii. 4 — 7, a passage singu- 
 larly rich in its description of the working of Divine 
 grace on human nature. "We were senseless," he 
 says, " disobedient, wandering in error, in bondage to 
 lusts and pleasures of many kinds, living in envy and 
 malice, hateful, hating each other. But when the kind- 
 ness and love to man of our Saviour God shone forth," — 
 then all was changed : " not by works wrought in our 
 
 • Eph. i. 5—9; 2 Tim. i. 9 ; Rom. iii. 24 ; Heb. ii. 9 ; a Cor. ▼. «>— 
 fi I ; GaL iv. 5 ; Tit. iii 5—7; iL 11—14; Rom. t. ai. 
 
15© THB BPISTLB TO THB GALATIANS. 
 
 own righteousness, but according to His mercy He 
 saved us, through the washing of regeneration and re- 
 newing of the Holy Spirit, that, justified by His grace, 
 we might be made heirs in hope of life eternal." The 
 vision of the grace of God drives stubbornness, lust, and 
 hatred from the soul. It brings about, for man and 
 for society, the palingenesia^ the new birth of Creation, 
 rolling back the tide of evil and restoring the golden 
 age of peace and innocence ; and crowns the joy of a 
 renovated earth with the glories of a recovered heaven. 
 Being the antagonist of sin, grace conies of necessity 
 into contrast with the law. Law is intrinsically the 
 opposer of sin ; sin is *' lawlessness," with Paul as 
 much as with John.* But law was powerless to cope 
 with sin : it was ** weak through the flesh." Instead 
 of crushing sin, the interposition of law served to 
 inflame and stimulate it, to bring into play its latent 
 energy, reducing the man most loyally disposed to 
 moral despair. *' By the law therefore is the knowledge 
 of sin ; it worketh out wrath." Inevitably, it makes 
 men transgressors ; it brings upon them an inward 
 condemnation, a crushing sense of the Divine anger 
 and hostility.! That is all that law can do by itself. 
 " Holy and just and good," notwithstanding, to our 
 perverse nature it becomes death (Rom. vii. 13 ; I Cor. 
 XV. 56). It is actually " the strength of sin," lending 
 itself to extend and confirm its power. We find in it 
 a " law of sin and death." So that to be " under law " 
 and ''under grace " are two opposite and mutually ex- 
 clusive states. In the latter condition only is sin " no 
 longer our lord" (Rom. vi. 14). Peter and the Jews 
 of Antioch therefore, in building up the legal principle 
 
 * Rom. tU. 12, 14 ; a Thess. U. 4 — 8 ; comp. i John liL 4. 
 
 t Rom. iiL ao ; ir. 15 ; v. 20 ; vii. 5, 24 ; Gal. ii. 16 iii 10^11, i^ 
 
U.i9-ai.] THE PRINCIPLES AT STAKE, 151 
 
 again, were in truth " abolishing the grace of God." \i 
 the Galatians follow their example, Paul warns them that 
 they will " fall from grace." Accepting circumcision, 
 they become "debtors to perform the whole law/* — and 
 that means transgression and the curse (ch. v. I — ^4; 
 iii. 10 — 12; ii. 16 — 18). 
 
 While sin is the reply which man's nature makes to 
 the demands of law, jaith is the response elicited by 
 grace; it is the door of the heart opening to grace.* 
 Grace and Faith go hand in hand, as Law and Trans- 
 gression. Limiting the domain of faith, Peter virtually 
 denied the sovereignty of grace. He belied his con- 
 fession made at the Council of Jerusalem : *' By the grace 
 of the Lord Jesus we trust to be saved, even as the 
 Gentiles " (Acts xv. 1 1). With Law are joined such 
 terms as Works, Debt, Reward, Glorying, proper to a 
 " righteousness of one's own."t With Grace we asso- 
 ciate Gift, Promise, Predestination, Call, Election, Adop- 
 tion, Inheritance, belonging to the dialect of *^ the right- 
 eousness which is of God by faith." J Grace operates 
 in the region of '* the Spirit," making for freedom ; but 
 law, however spiritual in origin, has come to seek its 
 accomplishment in the sphere of the flesh, where it 
 " gendereth to bondage " (ch. iv. 23 — v. 5 ; 2 Cor. iii. 
 
 6k 17). 
 
 Grace appears, however, in another class of passages 
 in Paul's Epistles, of which ch. i. 15, iL 9 are 
 examples. To the Divine grace Paul ascribes his 
 personal salvation and Apostolic call The revelation 
 which made him a Christian and an Apostle, was above 
 
 • Rom. iii. 24, 25 ; Eph. ii. 8 ; etc 
 t Rom iv. I — 4 ; xi. 6 ; Gftl ii. 16 ; iii 13. 
 
 ^ Rom. It. 16; viiL 28—39; xL 5; Eph. L 4—6; Tit UL yi 
 Acts XX. 33 ; Gfftl. iiL 18 : ll IrayyeSiat Ktxdpiffrcu & dc6t. 
 
I5< THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 all things a manifestation of grace. Wearing this 
 aspect, "the glory of God" appeared to him "in the 
 face of Jesus Christ." The splendour that blinded and 
 overwhelmed Saul on his way to Damascus, was " the 
 glory of His grace." The voice of Jesus that fell on 
 the persecutor's ear spoke in the accents of grace. No 
 scourge of the Law, no thunders of Sinai, could have 
 smitten down the proud Pharisee, and beateri or 
 scorched out of him his strong self-will, like the com- 
 plaint of Jesus. All the circumstances tended to stamp 
 upon his soul, fused into penitence in that hour, the in- 
 effaceable impression of " the grace of God and of our 
 Saviour Jesus Christ." Such confessions as those of 
 I Cor. XV. 8 — 10, and Eph. ii. 7, iii. 7, 8, show how con- 
 stantly this remembrance was present with the Apostle 
 Paul and suffused his views of revelation, giving to his 
 ministry its peculiar tenderness of humility and ardour 
 of gratitude. This sentiment of boundless obligation 
 to the grace of God, with its pervasive effect upon the 
 Pauline doctrine, is strikingly expressed in the doxology 
 of I Tim. i. II — 17, — words which it is almost a 
 sacrilege to put into the mouth of difalsarius : "Accord- 
 ing to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God, 
 wherewith / was intrusted, . . . who was aforetime a 
 blasphemer and persecutor. . . But the grace of our 
 Lord abounded even more exceedingly. Faithful is 
 the saying, worthy to be received of all, * Christ Jesus 
 came into the world to save sinners' — of whom / am 
 chief. ... In me as chief Christ Jesus showed forth 
 all His long-suffering. . . Now to the King of the 
 ages be honour and glory for ever. Amen." Who, 
 reading the Apostle's story, does not echo that Amen ? 
 No wonder that Paul became the Apostle oi grace ; even 
 as John, *' the disciple whom Jesus loved," must per- 
 
It 19-21.] THE PRINCIPLES AT STAKE, 153 
 
 force be the Apostle of love. First to him was God*s 
 grace revealed in its largest affluence, that through him 
 it might be known to all men and to all ages. 
 
 II. Side by side with the grace of God, we find in 
 ver. 21 the death of Christ. He sets aside the former, 
 the Apostle argues, who by admitting legal righteous- 
 ness nullifies the latter. 
 
 While grace embodies Paul's fundamental conception 
 of the Divine character, the death of Christ is the 
 fundamental fact in which that character manifests 
 itself. So the cross becomes the centre of Paul's 
 theology. But it was, in the first place, the basis of 
 his personal life. *' Faith in the Son of God, who 
 loved me and gave Himself up for me," is the founda- 
 tion of " the life he now lives in the flesh." 
 
 Here lay the stumbling-block of Judaism. Theocratic 
 pride, Pharisaic tradition, could not, as we say, get 
 over it. A crucified Messiah I How revolting the bare 
 idea. But when, as in Paul's case, Judaistic pride did 
 surmount this huge scandal and in spite of the offence 
 of the cross arrive at faith in Jesus, it was at the cost 
 of a severe fall It was broken in pieces, — destroyed 
 once and for ever. With the elder Apostles the change 
 had been more gradual ; they were never steeped in 
 Judaism as Saul was. For him to accept the faith of 
 Jesus was a revolution the most complete and drastic 
 possible. As a Judaist, the preaching of the cross 
 was an outrage on his faith and his Messianic hopes ; 
 now it was that which most of all subdued and 
 entranced him. Its power was extreme, whether to 
 attract or repel. The more he had loathed and mocked 
 at it before, the more he is bound henceforth to exalt 
 the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. A proof of the 
 Divine anger against the Nazarene he had once deemed 
 
I $4 THR RPISTLB TO THB GALATIANS. 
 
 it ; now he sees in it the token of God's grace in Him 
 to the whole world. 
 
 For Paul therefore the death of Christ imported the 
 end of Judaism. " I died to law," he writes, — " I am 
 crucified with Christ." Once understanding what this 
 death meant, and realising his own relation to it, or 
 every account it was impossible to go back to Legalism 
 The cross barred all return. The law that put Hip , 
 the sinless One, to death, could give no life to sinf'-il 
 men. The Judaism that pronounced His doom, doomed 
 itself. Who would make peace with it over the 
 Saviour's blood ? From the moment that Paul knew 
 the truth about the death of Jesus, he had done with 
 Judaism for ever. Henceforth he knew nothing — 
 cherished no belief or sentiment, acknowledged no 
 maxim, no tradition, which did not conform itself to 
 His death. The world to which he had belonged 
 diedf self-slain, when it slew Him. From Christ's 
 grave a new world was rising, for which alone Paul 
 lived. 
 
 But why should the grace of God take expression in 
 a fact so appalling as Christ's death ? Vv^hat has 
 death to do with grace ? It is the legal penrlty of sin. 
 The conjunction of sin and death pervades tlie teaching 
 of Scripture, and is a principle fixed in the conscience 
 of mankind. Death, as man knows it, is the inevitable 
 consequence and the universal witness of his trans- 
 gression. He "carries about in his mortality the 
 testimony that God is angry with the wicked every 
 day " (Augustine). The death of Jesus Christ cannot 
 be taken out of this category. He died a sinner's 
 death. He bore the penalty of guilt. The prophetic 
 antecedents of Calvary, the train of circumstances 
 connected with it, His own explanations in chief — are 
 
li. 19-21.] THE PRINCIPLES AT STAKE. 155 
 
 all in keeping with this purpose. With amazement we 
 behold the Sinless '* made sin," the Just dying for the 
 unjust. He was " born of a woman, born under law " : 
 under law He lived — and died. Grace is no law-breaker. 
 God must above all things be *'just Himself," if He 
 is to justify others (Rom. iii. 26). The death of Jesus 
 declares it That sublime sacrifice is, as one might 
 say, the resultant of grace and law. Grace "gives 
 Him up for us all ; " it meets the law's claims in Him, 
 even to the extreme penalty, that from us the penalty 
 may be lifted off. He puts Himself under law, in order 
 " to buy out those under law " (ch. iv. 4, $)• In virtue 
 of the death of Christ, therefore, men are dealt with on 
 an extra-legal footing, on terms of grace ; not because 
 law is ignored or has broken down ; but because it is 
 satisfied beforehand. God has ** set forth Christ Jesus 
 a propitiation " ; and in view of that accomplished fact, 
 He proceeds "in the present time" to "justify him 
 who is of faith in Jesus " (Rom. iii. 22 — 26). LegaHsm 
 is at an end, for the Law has spent itself on our 
 Redeemer. For those that are in Him " there is now 
 no condemnation." This is to anticipate the fuller 
 teaching of ch. iii. ; but the vicarious sacrifice is already 
 implied when Paul says, " He gave Himself up for me 
 — gave Himself for our sins " (ch. i. 4). 
 
 The resurrection of Christ is, in Paul's thought, the 
 other side of His death. They constitute one event, 
 the obverse and reverse of the same reality. For Paul, 
 as for the first Apostles, the resurrection of Jesus gave 
 to His death an aspect wholly different from that it 
 previously wore. But the transformation wrought in 
 their minds during the *' forty days," in his case came 
 about in a single moment, and began from a different 
 ttarting-point Instead of being the merited punish- 
 
156 THE EPISTLB TO THE GALATIANS 
 
 ment of a blasphemer and false Messiah, the death of 
 Calvary became the glorious self-sacrifice of the Son 
 of God. The dying and rising of Jesus were blended 
 in the Apostle's mind ; he always sees the one in the 
 light of the other. The faith that saves, as he formu- 
 lates it, is at once a faith that Christ died for our sins, 
 and that God raised Him from the dead on the third 
 day.* Whichever of the two one may first apprehend, 
 it brings the other along with it. The resurrection is 
 not an express topic of this Epistle. Nevertheless it 
 meets us in its first sentence, where we discern that 
 Paul's knowledge of the gospel and his call to pro- 
 claim it, rested upon this fact. In the passage before 
 us the resurrection is manifestly assumed. If the 
 Apostle is " crucified with Christ," — and yet " Christ 
 lives in him," it is not simply the teaching, or the 
 mission of Jesus that lives over again in Paul ; the life 
 of the risen Saviour has itself entered into his soul. 
 
 III. This brings us to the thought of the union of the 
 believer with Christ in death and life^ which is expressed 
 in terms of peculiar emphasis and distinctness in 
 ver. 20. " With Christ I have been crucified ; and 
 / live no longer ; it is Christ that lives in me. My 
 earthly life is governed by faith in Him who loved 
 me and died for me." Christ and Paul are one. When 
 Christ died, Paul's former self died with Him. Now 
 it is the Spirit of Christ in heaven that lives within 
 Paul's body here on earth. 
 
 This union is first of all a communion with the dying 
 Saviour, Paul does not think of the sacrifice of Calvary 
 as something merely accomplished for him, outside 
 himself, by a legal arrangement in which one person 
 
 • I Cor. rr. 3, 4, 1 1 ; Rom. iv. 24, 25 ; x. 9 ; I Thesfc iv. 14. 
 
u. 19-21.] THE PRINCIPLES AT STAKE. 157 
 
 takes the place of another and, as it were, personates 
 him. The nexus between Christ and Paul is deeper 
 than this. Christ is the centre and soul of the race, 
 holding towards it a spiritual primacy of which Adam's 
 natural headship was a type, mediating between men 
 and God in all the relations which mankind holds to 
 God.* The death of Jesus was more than substitu- 
 tionary ; it was representative. He had every right 
 to act for us. He was the *' One " who alone could 
 *' die for all ; " in Him " all died " (2 Cor. v. 14, 1 5). He 
 carried us with Him to the cross ; His death was in 
 effect the death of those who sins He bore. There 
 was no legal fiction here ; no federal compact extem- 
 porised for the occasion. "The second Man from 
 heaven," if second in order of time, was first and 
 fundamental in the spiritual order, the organic Head 
 of mankind, " the root," as well as " the offspring " of 
 humanity.! The judgement that fell upon the race was 
 a summons to Him who held in His hands its interests 
 and destinies. Paul's faith apprehends and endorses 
 what Christ has done on his behalf, — " who loved me," 
 he cries, "and gave Himself up for me" When the 
 Apostle says, " I have been crucified with Christ," he 
 goes back in thought to the scene of Calvary; there, 
 potentially, all that was done of which he now realises 
 in himself the issue. His present salvation is, so to 
 speak, a rehearsal of the Saviour's death, a "hke- 
 ness " (Rom. vi. 5) of the supreme act of atonement, 
 which took place once for all when Christ died for 
 our sins. 
 
 Faith is the link between the past, objective sacrifice, 
 and the present, subjective apprehension of it, by which 
 
 • Rom. T. 14 ; I Cor. xv. 22, 45—48 ; i Tim. ii. 5, 
 
 t I Cor. XT. 45 — ^49; comp. CoL L 15 — 17 ; John i. 4, 9, 15, 16. 
 
158 THS EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 its virtue becomes our own. Without such faith, Christ 
 would have " died in vain." His death must then have 
 been a great sacrifice thrown away. Wilful unbelief 
 repudiates what the Redeemer has done, provisionally, 
 on our behalf. This repudiation, as individuals, we are 
 perfectly free to make. " The objective reconciliation 
 effected in Christ's death can after all benefit actually, 
 in their own personal consciousness, only those who 
 know and acknowledge it, and feel themselves in their 
 solidarity with Christ to be so much one with Him 
 as to be able to appropriate inwardly His death and 
 celestial life, and to Hve over again His hfe and death ; 
 those only, in a word, who truly believe in Christ. Thus 
 the idea of substitution in Paul receives its complement 
 and reahsation in the mysticism of his conception of 
 faith. While Christ objectively represents the whole 
 race, that relation becomes a subjective reality only 
 in the case of those who connect themselves with Him 
 in faith in such a way as to fuse together with Him 
 into one spirit and one body, as to find in Him their 
 Head, their soul, their Hfe and self, and He in them 
 His body, His members and His temple. Thereby the 
 idea of * one for all ' receives the stricter meaning of 
 'all in and with one.'"* 
 
 Partaking the death of Christ, Paul has come to 
 share in His risen life. On the cross he owned his 
 Saviour — owned His wounds, His shame. His agony 
 of death, and felt himself therein shamed, wounded, 
 slain to death. Thus joined to his Redeemer, as by 
 the nails that fastened Him to the tree, Paul is carried 
 
 • Pfleiderer, Hibbert Lectures^ pp. 65, 6. Dr. Pfleiderer's delicate and 
 sjrmpathctic interpretation of Paul's teaching (in these Lectures^ and 
 'still more in his Pauhnism) has made all students of the Apostle hij 
 debtors, however much they may quarrel with hi« historical chticism. 
 
A, 19.J1.J THB PRINCIPLES AT STAKE, 159 
 
 with Him down into the grave — into the grave, and 
 out again I Christ is risen from the dead : so therefore 
 is Paul. He '* died to sin once," and now " liveth to 
 God ; death lords it over Him no more : " this Paul 
 reckons equally true for himself (Rom. vi. 3 — 11). The 
 EgOf the " old man " that Paul once was, lies buried in 
 the grave of Jesus. 
 
 Jesus Christ alone, "the Lord of the Spirit" has 
 risen from that sepulchre, — has risen in the spirit of 
 PauL " If any one should come to Paul's doors and 
 ask, Who lives here ? he would answer. Not Saul of 
 Tarsus, but Jesus Christ lives in this body of mine." 
 In this appropriation of the death and rising of the 
 Lord Jesus, this interpenetration of the spirit of Paul 
 and that of Christ, there are three stages corresponding 
 to the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of Eastertide. 
 " Christ died for our sins ; He was buried ; He rose 
 again the third day : " so, by consequence, " I am 
 crucified with Christ; no longer do I live; Christ 
 liveth in me." 
 
 This mystic union of the soul and its Saviour bears 
 fruit in the activities of outward life. Faith is no mere 
 abstract and contemplative affection ; but a working 
 energy, dominating and directing all our human facul- 
 ties. It makes even the flesh its instrument, which 
 defied the law of God, and betrayed the man to the 
 bondage of sin and death. There is a note of triumph 
 in the words, — " the life I now live in the fleshy I live in 
 faith I " The impossible has been accomplished. ** The 
 body of death " is possessed by the Spirit of life in 
 Christ Jesus (Rom. vi. 12; vii. 23 — viii. i). The 
 flesh — the despair of the law — has become the sancti- 
 fied vessel of grace. 
 
 Paul's entire theology of Redemption is contained 
 
i6o THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 in this mystery of union with Christ The office of 
 the Holy Sptrity whose communion holds together the 
 glorified Lord and His members upon earth, is implied 
 in the teaching of ver. 20. This is manifest, when in 
 ch. iiL 2 — 5 we find the believer's union with Christ 
 described as " receiving the Spirit, beginning in the 
 Spirit ; " and when a little later " the promise of the 
 Spirit " embraces the essential blessings of the new 
 hfe.* The doctrine of the Church is also here. For 
 those in whom Christ dwells have therein a common 
 life, which knows no " Jew and Greek ; all are c ne 
 man" in Him.t Justification and sanctificaiion ahke 
 are here ; the former being the realisation of our share 
 in Christ's propitiation for sin, the latter our participa- 
 tion in His risen life, spent *'to God." Finally, the 
 resurrection to eternal life and the heavenly glory of 
 the saints spring from their present fellowship with the 
 Redeemer. '^ The Spirit that raised Jesus from the 
 dead, dwelling in us, shall raise our mortal body " to 
 share with the perfected spirit His celestial life. The 
 resurrection of Christ is the earnest of that which all 
 His members will attain, — nay, the material creation 
 is to participate in the glory of the sons of God, made 
 like to Him, the " firstborn of many brethren" (Rom. 
 viiL II, 16—23, 29, 30; Phil. iii. 20, 21). 
 
 In all these vital truths Paul's gospel was traversed by 
 the Legalism countenanced by Peter at Antioch. The 
 Judaistic doctrine struck directly, if not avowedly, at tht 
 cross, whose reproach its promoters sought to escape. 
 This charge is the climax of the Apostle's contention 
 against Peter, and the starting-point of his expostula- 
 
 • Ch. iii. 14 ; iv. 6, 7 ; t. 5 ; i Cor, ri 17, 19 j Rom. iriii. 9— id 
 t Ch. iii 28 ; Col. iiL 11 ; Rom. xv. 5 — |. 
 
i. 19-21.] THE PRINCIPLES AT STAKB^ l6i 
 
 tion with the Galatians in the following chapter. " If 
 righteousness could be obtained by way of law, then 
 Christ died for nought I " What could one say worse 
 of any doctrine or policy, than that it led to this ? And 
 if works of law actually justify men, and circumcision 
 is allowed to make a difference between Jew and Greek 
 before God, the principle of legalism is admitted, and the 
 intolerable consequence ensues which Paul denounces. 
 What did Christ die for, if men are able to redeem 
 themselves after this fashion ? How can any one dare 
 to build up in face of the cross his paltry edifice of 
 self-wrought goodness, and say by doing so that the 
 expiation of Calvary was superfluous and that Jesus 
 Christ might have spared Himself all that trouble ! 
 
 And so, on the one hand. Legalism impugns 
 the gruce of God. It puts human relations to God 
 on the footing of a debtor and creditor account ; 
 it claims for man a ground for boasting in himself 
 (Rom. iv. I — 4), and takes from God the glory of His 
 grace. In its devotion to statute and ordinance, it 
 misses the soul of obedience — the love of God, only to 
 be awakened by the knowledge of His love to us (ch. v. 
 14 ; I John iv. 7 — li). It sacrifices the Father in God 
 to the King. It forgets that trust is the first duty of 
 a rational creature toward his Maker, that the law of 
 faith lies at the basis of all law for man. 
 
 On the other hand, and by the same necessity, 
 Legalism is fatal to the spiritual life in man. Whilst it 
 clouds the Divine character, it dwarfs and petrifies the 
 human. What becomes of the sublime mystery of the 
 life hid with Christ in God, if its existence is made 
 contingent on circumcision and ritual performance ? 
 To men who put '* meat and drink " on a level with 
 "righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost ** 
 
 II 
 
i62 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 or in their intercourse with fellow-Christians set points of 
 ceremony above justice, mercy, and faith, the very idea 
 of a spiritual kingdom of God is wanting. The religion 
 of Jesus and of Paul regenerates the heart, and from that 
 centre regulates and hallows the whole ongoing of life. 
 Legalism guards the mouth, the hands, the senses, and 
 imagines that through these it can drill the man into the 
 Divine order. The latter theory makes religion a me- 
 chanical system; the former conceives it as an inward, 
 organic life. 
 
THE DOCTRINAL POLEMIC, 
 Chap. iii. i — v. \%, 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE GALATIAN FOLLY. 
 
 ••O foolish Galatiani, who did bewitch you, before whose eyes Jesui 
 Christ was openly set forth crucified ? This only would I learn from 
 you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing 
 of feith ? Are ye so foolish ? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now 
 perfected in the flesh ? Did ye suffer so many things in vain ? if it be 
 indeed in vain. He therefore that supplieth to you the Spirit, and 
 worketh miracles among you, do€th he it \ij the works of the law, or 
 by the hearing of faith ? "—Gal. iii 1—5. 
 
 AT the beginning of ch. iii. falls the most marked 
 division of this Epistle. So far, since the ex- 
 ordium, its course has been strictly narrative. The 
 Apostle has been " giving " his readers *' to know " 
 many things concerning himself and his relations to 
 the Judean Church of which they had been ignorant or 
 misinformed. Now this preliminary task is over. From 
 explanation and defence he passes suddenly to the 
 attack. He turns sharply round upon the Galatians, 
 and begins to ply them with expostulation and argu- 
 ment It is for their sake that Paul has been telling 
 this story of his past career. In the light of the 
 narration just concluded, they will be able to see their 
 folly and to understand how much they have been 
 deceived. 
 
 Here also the indignation so powerfully expressed 
 in the Introduction, breaks forth again, directed this 
 
s66 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATJANS, 
 
 time, however, against the Galatians themselves and 
 breathing grief more than anger. And just as after 
 that former outburst the letter settled down into the 
 sober flow of narrative, so from these words of reproach 
 Paul passes on to the measured course of argument 
 which he pursues through the next two chapters. In 
 ch. iv. 8 — 20, and again in ch. v. I — 12, doctrine 
 g^ves way to appeal and warning. But these para- 
 graphs still belong to the polemical division of the 
 Epistle, extending from this point to the middle of 
 ch. V. This section forms the central and principal 
 part of the letter, and is complete in itself. Its last 
 words, in ch. v. 6 — 12, will bring us round to the 
 position from which we are now setting out. 
 
 This chapter stands, nevertheless, in close connection 
 of thought with the foregoing. The Apostle's doctrine 
 is grounded in historical fact and personal experience. 
 The theological argument has behind it the weight 
 of his proved Apostleship. The Judaistic dispute at 
 Antioch, in particular, bears immediately on the subject- 
 matter of the third chapter. Peter's vacillation had its 
 counterpart in the defection of the Galatians. The 
 reproof and refutation which the elder Apostle brought 
 upon himself, Paul's readers must have felt, touched 
 them very nearly. In the crafty intriguers who madf 
 mischief at Antioch, they could see the image of the 
 Judaists who had come into their midst. Above all, 
 it was the cross which Cephas had dishonoured, whose 
 efficacy he had virtually denied. His act of dissimula- 
 tion, pushed to its issue, nullified the death of Christ. 
 This is the gravamen of Paul's impeachment. And 
 it is the foundation of all his complaints against the 
 Galatians. Round this centre the conflict is waged. 
 By its tendency to enhance or diminish the glory of 
 
iii.1.5.] THE GALATIAN FOLLY. I«7 
 
 the Saviour's cross, Paul judges of the truth of every 
 teaching, the worth of every policy. Angel or Apostle, 
 it matters not — whoever disparages the cross of Jesus 
 Christ finds in Paul an unflinching enemy. The 
 thought of Christ " dying in vain " rouses in him the 
 strong emotion under which he indites the first verses 
 of this chapter. What greater folly, what stranger 
 bewitchment can there be, than for one who has seen 
 " Jesus Christ crucified " to turn away to some other 
 spectacle, to seek elsewhere a more potent and diviner 
 charm I *' O senseless Galatians I " 
 
 I. Here then was the beginning of their folly. The 
 Galatians forgot their Saviour's cross. 
 
 This was the first step in their backsliding. Had 
 their eyes continued to be fixed on Calvary, the LegaHsts 
 would have argued and cajoled in vain. Let the cross 
 of Christ once lose its spell for us, let its influence fail 
 to hold and rule the soul, and we are at the mercy of 
 every wind of doctrine. We are like sailors in a dark 
 night on a perilous coast, who have lost sight of the 
 lighthouse beacon. Our Christianity will go to pieces. 
 If Christ crucified should cease to be its sovereign 
 attraction, from that moment the Church is doomed. 
 
 This forgetfulness of the cross on the part of the 
 Galatians is the more astonishing to Paul, because at 
 first they had so vividly realised its power, and the 
 scene of Calvary, as Paul depicted it,* had taken hold 
 of their nature with extraordinary force. He was con- 
 scious at the time — so his words seem to intimate — 
 
 * The verb irpoeypd<t>r] {openly set forth) probably means painttd uf 
 rather than placarded. This more vivid meaning belongs to ypo^w, 
 and there is no suf5cient reason why it should not attach to vpo-ypo^ta. 
 It is entirely in place here. "Jesus Christ crucified " is not an anoounca- 
 ment to be maue, but an object to be delineated. 
 
i68 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 that it was given him, amongst this susceptible people, 
 to draw the picture with unwonted effect. The gaze 
 of his hearers was rivetted upon the sight. It was as 
 if the Lord Jesus hung there before their eyes. They 
 beheld the Divine sufferer. They heard His cries of 
 distress and of triumph. They felt the load which 
 crushed Him. Nor was it their sympathies alone and 
 their reverence, to which the spectacle appealed. It 
 stirred their conscience to its depths. It awakened 
 feelings of inward humiliation and contrition, of horror 
 at the curse of sin, of anguish under the bitterness and 
 blackness of its death. **It was jvo«/' Paul would say — 
 " you and I, for whom He died. Our sins laid on Him 
 that ignominy, those agonies of body and of spirit. 
 He died the Just for the unjust, that He might bring 
 us to God." They looked, they listened, till their 
 hearts were broken, till all their sins cried out against 
 them ; and in a passion of repentance they cast them- 
 selves before the Crucified, and took Him for their 
 Christ and King. From the foot of the cross they 
 rose new men, with heaven's light upon their brow, 
 with the cry Abba^ Father rising from their lips, with 
 the Spirit of God and of Jesus Christ, the consciousness 
 of a Divine sonship, filling their breast. 
 
 Has all this passed away ? Have the Galatians for- 
 gotten the shame, the glory of that hour — the tears 
 of penitence, the cries of joy and gratitude which the 
 vision of the cross drew from their souls, the new 
 creation it had wrought within them, the ardour of spirit 
 and high resolve with which they pledged themselves 
 to Christ's service ? Was the influence of that trans- 
 forming experience to prove no more enduring than 
 the morning cloud and early dew ? Foolish Galatians I 
 Had they not the wit to see that the teaching of the 
 
fiL 1.5.) THE GALA TIAN POLL K 169 
 
 Legalists ran counter to all they had then experienced, 
 that it " made the death of Christ of none effect," which 
 had so mighty and saving an effect upon themselves ? 
 Were they "so senseless," so bereft of reason and 
 recollection ? The Apostle is amazed. He cannot 
 understand how impressions so powerful should prove 
 so transient, and that truths thus clearly perceived and 
 realised should come to be forgotten. Some fatal spell 
 has been cast over them. They are " bewitched " to 
 act as they are doing. A deadly fascination, like that 
 of the " evil eye," has paralyzed their minds. 
 
 The ancient belief alluded to in the word the Apostle 
 uses here,* is not altogether a superstition. The 
 malignity that darts out in the glance of the " evil eye " 
 is a presage of mischief. Not without reason does it 
 cause a shudder. It is the sign of a demonic jealousy 
 and hate. " Satan has entered into " the soul which 
 emits it, as once into Judas. Behind the spite of the 
 Jewish false brethren Paul recognised a preternatural 
 malice and cunning, like that with which " the Serpent 
 beguiled Eve." t To this darker source of the fascina- 
 tion his question, " Who hath bewitched you ? " 
 appears to point. 
 
 II. Losing sight of the cross of Christ, the Galatians 
 were furthermore rejecting the Holy Spirit of God. 
 
 This heavy reproach the Apostles urges upon his 
 
 ♦ On paaKalvta see the note in Lightfoot's Commentary in he. ; also 
 Grimm's N. T. Lexicon. *' The Scripture caJleth envy an 'evil eye ; ' . . . 
 so there stJll seemeth to be acknowledged in the act of envy an ejacula- 
 tion or irradiation of the eye. Envy hath in it something of witchcraft. 
 ... It is the proper attribute of the Devil, who is called ' The envious 
 man, that soweth tares among the wheat by night' " — (Lord Bacon 1 
 Essay ix.) 
 
 t Comp. 2 Cor. xL I — 4, a passage closely parallel to this context, 
 Bontaining what is expreaaed here and in GaL L 6, 7 ; ir. II, 17, 18. 
 
17© THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS^ 
 
 readers through the rest of the paragraph, pausing only 
 for a moment in ver. 4 to recall their earlier sufferings 
 for Christ's sake in further witness against them. 
 •*I have but one question to put to you," he says — 
 " You received the Spirit : how did that come about ? 
 Was it through what you did according to law? or 
 w^hat you heard in faith? You know well that this 
 great blessing was given to your faith. Can you 
 expect to retain this gift of God on other terms than 
 those on which you received it ? Have you begun 
 with the Spirit to be brought to perfection by the 
 flesh ? (ver. 3). . . . Nay, God still bestows on you His 
 Spirit, with gifts of miraculous energy ; and I ask 
 again, whether these displays attend on the practice of 
 .aw-works, or upon faith's hearing ? " (ver. 5). 
 
 The Apostle wished the Galatians to test the com- 
 peting doctrines by their effects. The Spirit of God 
 had put His seal on the Apostle's teaching, and on 
 the faith of his hearers. Did any such manifestation 
 accompany the preaching of the Legalist ? That is all 
 he wants to know. His cause must stand or fall by 
 " the demonstration of the Spirit." By " signs and 
 wonders," and diverse gifts of the Holy Spirit, God 
 was wont to ^* bear witness with " the ministers and 
 witnesses of Jesus Christ (Heb. li. 3, 4 ; i Cor. xii. 
 4 — 11) : was this testimony on the side of Paul, or the 
 Circumcisionists ? Did it sustain the gospel of the grace 
 of God, or the *' other gospel " of Legalism ? 
 
 " He, the Spirit of truth, shall testify of Me," Christ 
 had said; and so John, at the end of the Apostolic age: 
 " It is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the 
 Spirit is truth." When the Galatians accepted the 
 message of the cross proclaimed by Paul's hps, '* the 
 Holy Spirit fell " on them, as on the Jewish Church at 
 
ai.i-5.] THE GALATIAN FOLLV, 171 
 
 the Pentecost, and the Gentile believers in the house 
 of Cornelius (Acts x. 44) ; " the love of God was poured 
 out in their hearts through the Holy Ghost that was 
 given them " (Rom v. 5). As a mighty, rushing wind 
 this supernatural influence swept through their souls. 
 Like fire from heaven it kindled in their spirit, con- 
 suming their lusts and vanities, and fusing their nature 
 into a new, holy passion of love to Christ and to God 
 the Father. It broke from their lips in ecstatic cries, 
 unknown to human speech ; or moved them to unutter- 
 able groans and pangs of intercession (Rom. viii. 26). 
 
 There were men in the Galatian Churches on whom 
 the baptism of the Spirit conferred besides miraculous 
 charismata, superhuman powers of insight and of heal- 
 ing. These gifts God continued to "minister amongst " 
 them {God is unquestionably the agent in ver. 5). Paul 
 asks them to observe on what conditions, and to whom, 
 those extraordinary gifts are distributed. For the " re- 
 ceiving of the Spirit " was an infallible sign of true 
 Christian faith. This was the very proof which in the 
 first instance had convinced Peter and the Judean 
 Church that it was God's will to save the Gentiles, 
 independently of the Mosaic law (Acts xi. 15 — 18). 
 
 Receiving the Spirit, the Galatian believers knew 
 that they were the sons of God. " God sent forth the 
 Spirit of His Son into their hearts, crying, Abba, Father" 
 (ch. iv. 6, 7). When Paul speaks of " receiving the 
 Spirit," it is this that he thinks of most of all. The 
 miraculous phenomena attending His visitations were 
 facts of vast importance ; and their occurrence is one 
 of the historical certainties of the Apostolic age. They 
 were "signs," conspicuous, impressive, indispensable 
 at the time — monuments set up for all time. But they 
 were in their nature variable and temporary. There 
 
lya THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAN& 
 
 are powers greater and more enduring than these. 
 The things that "abide" are "faith, hope, love;" love 
 chiefest of the three. Hence when the Apostle in a 
 later chapter enumerates the qualities that go to make 
 up " the fruit of the Spirit/' he says nothing of to7igues 
 or prophecies ^ or gifts of healing; he begins with love. 
 Wonder-working powers had their times and seasons, 
 their peculiar organs ; but every believer in Christ — 
 whether Jew or Greek, primitive or mediaeval or modern 
 Christian, the heir of sixty generations of faith or the 
 latest convert from heathenism — joins in the testimony, 
 *' The love of God is shed abroad in our heart by 
 the Holy Ghost given unto us." This mark of God's 
 indwelling Spirit the Galatians had possessed. They 
 were "sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus" 
 (ch. iii. 26). And with the filial title they had re- 
 ceived the filial nature. They were " taught of God to 
 love one another." Being sons of God in Christ, they 
 were also "heirs" (ch. iv. 7; Rom viii. 17). They 
 possessed the earnest of the heavenly inheritance 
 (Eph. i. 14), the pledge of their bodily redemption 
 (Rom. viii. 10 — 23), and of eternal life in the fellowship 
 of Christ. In their initial experience of " the salvation 
 which is in Jesus Christ " they had the foretaste of its 
 " eternal glory," of the " grace " belonging to " them that 
 love our Lord Jesus Christ," which is " in incorruption." * 
 No legal condition was laid down at this beginning 
 of their Christian life ; no " work " of any kind inter- 
 posed between the belief of the heart and the conscious 
 reception of the new life in Christ. Even their baptism, 
 significant and memorable as it was, had not been 
 required as in itself a precondition of salvation. Some- 
 
 • a Tim. ii. 10; Eph. ri. 34 (dipdapaLa is incotruptwn evcTTwhcm 
 ckc in Paul : why not here ?) 
 
■Li-SJ THE GALATIAN FOLLY. 173 
 
 times after baptism, but often — as in the case of 
 Cornelius' household — before the rite was admin- 
 istered, " the Holy Ghost fell " on believing souls 
 (Acts X. 44 — 48; xi. 15, 16). They " confessed with 
 their mouth the Lord Jesus ; " they " believed in their 
 hearts that God had raised Him from the dead," — and 
 they were saved. Baptism is, as Paul's teaching else- 
 where shows,* the expression, not the medium — the 
 symbol, and not the cause, of the new birth which it 
 might precede or follow. The Catholic doctrine of 
 the opus operatum in the sacraments is radically anti- 
 Pauline ; it is Judaism over again. The process by 
 which the Galatians became Christians was essentially 
 spiritual. They had begun in the Spirit. 
 
 And so they must continue. To begin in the Spirit, 
 and then look for perfection to the flesh, to suppose 
 that the work of faith and love was to be consummated 
 by Pharisaic ordinances, that Moses could lead them 
 higher than Christ, and circumcision effect for them 
 what the power of the Holy Ghost failed to do — this 
 was the height of unreason. " Are you so senseless ? " 
 the Apostle asks. 
 
 He dwells on this absurdity, pressing home his 
 expostulation with an emphasis that shows he is 
 touching the centre of the controversy between himself 
 and the Judaizers. They admitted, as we have shown 
 in Chapter IX., that Gentiles might enter the kingdom 
 of God through faith and by the baptism of the Spirit 
 This was settled at the Council of Jerusalem. Without 
 a formal acceptance of this evangelical principle, we do 
 not see how the Legalists could again have found en- 
 trance into Gentile Christian Churches, much less have 
 
 • Ch. UL a6, 27 ; Rom. vi. 2— -4; Col. ii. u— -13; Tit. iiL 5. 
 
174 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAH5. 
 
 carried Peter and Barnabas and the liberal Jews of 
 Ant loch with them, as they did. They no longer at- 
 tempted to deny salvation to the uncircumcised ; but 
 they claimed for the circumcised a more complete 
 salvation, and a higher status in the Church. '* Yes, 
 Paul has laid the foundation," they would say ; " now 
 we have come to perfect his work, to give you the more 
 advanced instruction, derived from the fountain-head 
 of Christian knowledge, from the first Apostles in 
 Jerusalem. If you would be perfect, keep the command- 
 ments; be circumcised, like Christ and His disciples, 
 and observe the law of Moses. If you be circumcised, 
 Christ will profit you much more than hitherto ; and 
 you will inherit all the blessings promised in Him to 
 the children of Abraham." 
 
 Such was the style of "persuasion" employed by 
 the Judaizers. It was well calculated to deceive Jewish 
 believers, even those best affected to their Gentile 
 brethren. It appeared to maintain the prescriptive 
 rights of Judaism and to satisfy legitimate national 
 pride, without excluding the Gentiles from the fold of 
 Christ Nor is it difficult to understand the spell which 
 the circumcisionist doctrine exerted over susceptible 
 Gentile minds, after some years of Christian training, 
 of familiarity with the Old Testament and the early 
 history of Israel. Who is there that does not feel the 
 charm of ancient memories and illustrious names? 
 Many a noble mind is at this present time " bewitched,' 
 many a gifted and pious spirit is "carried away" by 
 influences precisely similar. Apostolical succession, pa- 
 tristic usage, catholic tradition, the authority of the Church 
 — what words of power are these I How wilful and 
 arbitrary it appears to rely upon any present expe- 
 rience of the grace of God, upon one's own reading 
 
Uii-S.] THE GALATIAN FOLLY. 175 
 
 of the gospel of Christ, in contradiction to claims ad- 
 vanced under the patronage of so many revered and 
 time-honoured names. Th^ man, or the community, 
 must be deeply conscious of having *' received the 
 Spirit," that can feel the force of attractions of this 
 nature, and yet withstand them. It requires a cleai 
 view of the cross of Jesus Christ, an absolute faith in 
 the supremacy of spiritual principles, to enable one te 
 resist the fascinations of ceremonialism and tradition 
 They offer us a more " ornate worship," a more ** re* 
 fined " type of piety, " consecrated by antiquity ; " they 
 invite us to enter a selecter circle, and to place ourselves 
 on a higher level than that of the vulgar religionism of 
 faith and feeling. It is the Galatian " persuasion " over 
 again. Ceremony, antiquity, ecclesiastical authority are 
 after all poor substitutes for faith and love. If they 
 come between us and the living Christ, if they limit and 
 dishonour the work of His Spirit, we have a right to 
 say, and we will say with the Apostle Paul, Away with 
 them! 
 
 The men of tradition are well content that we should 
 "begin in the Spirit," provided they may have the 
 finishing of our faith. To prey upon the Pauline 
 Churches is their ancient and natural habit. An evan- 
 gelical beginning is too often followed by a ritualistic 
 ending. And Paul is ever begetting spiritual children, 
 to see himself robbed of them by these bewitching 
 Judaizers. " O foolish Galatians," he seems still to be 
 saying, What is it that charms you so much in all this 
 ritual and extemalism ? Does it bring you nearer to 
 the cross of Christ ? Does it give you more of His 
 Spirit ? Is it a spiritual satisfaction that you find in 
 these works of Church law, these priestly ordinances 
 and performances ? How can the sons of God return 
 
176 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 to such childish rudiments ? Why should a religion 
 which began so spiritually seek its perfection by means 
 •0 formal and mechanical ? 
 
 The conflict which this Epistle signalised is one 
 that has never ceased. Its elements belong to human 
 nature. It is the contest between the religion of the 
 Spirit and that of the letter, between the spontaneity 
 of personal faith and the rights of usage and pre- 
 scription. The history of the Church is largely the 
 record of this incessant struggle. In every Christian 
 community, in every earnest and devout spirit, it is 
 repeated in some new phase. When the Fathers of the 
 Church in the second and third centuries began to write 
 about " the new law " and to identify the Christian 
 ministry with the Aaronic priesthood, it was evident 
 that Legalism was regaining its ascendancy. Already 
 the foundations were laid of the Catholic Church- 
 system, which culminated in the Papacy of Rome. 
 What Paul's opponents sought to do by means of 
 circumcision and Jewish prerogatives, that the Catholic 
 legalists have done, on a larger scale, through the 
 claims of the priesthood and the sacramental offices. 
 The spiritual functions of the private Christian, one 
 after another, were usurped or carelessly abandoned. 
 Step by step the hierarchy interposed itself between 
 Christ and His people's souls, till its mediation became 
 the sole channel and organ of the Holy Spirit's influ- 
 ence. So it has come to pass, by a strange irony of 
 history, that under the forms of Pauline doctrine and 
 in the name of the Apostle of the Gentiles joined with 
 that of Peter, catholic Christendom, delivered by him 
 from the Jewish yoke, has been entangled in a bond- 
 age in some respects even heavier and more repres- 
 sive. If tradition and prescription are to regulate our 
 
BLi-Sl THE GALATIAN FOLLY. 177 
 
 Christian belief, they lead us infallibly to Rome^ as 
 they would have lead the Galatians to perishing Jeru- 
 salem. 
 
 III. Paul said he had but one question to ask his 
 readers, that which we have already discussed. And 
 yet he does put to them, by way of parenthesis, 
 another (ver. 4), suggested by what he has already called 
 to mind, touching the beginning of their Christian 
 course : " Have ye suffered so many things in vain ? '* 
 Their folly was the greater in that it threatened to deprive 
 them of the fruit of their past sufferings in the cause of 
 Christ. 
 
 The Apostle does not say this without a touch of 
 softened feeling. Remembering the trials these Galatians 
 had formerly endured, the sacrifices they had made in 
 accepting the gospel, he cannot bear to think of their 
 apostasy. Hope breaks through his fear, grief passes 
 into tenderness as he adds, " If it be indeed in vain." 
 The link of reminiscence connecting vv. 3 and 4 is the 
 same as that we find in I Thess. i. 6 : " Ye received 
 the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy 
 Ghost." ♦ 
 
 We need not seek for any peculiar cause of these 
 sufferings ; nor wonder that the Apostle does not 
 mention them elsewhere. Every infant Church had 
 its baptism of persecution. No one could come out 
 of heathen society and espouse the cause of Jesus, 
 without making himself a mark for ridicule and violence, 
 without the rupture of family and public ties, and many 
 painful sacrifices. The hatred of Paul's fellow-country- 
 men towards him was an additional cause of persecu- 
 tion to the Churches he had founded. They were 
 
 • Comp. a Thets. i. 4—6 ; Ph. i. 28—30 ; Rom. riii 17 ; 2 Tim. L 8 
 
 12 
 
i7« THE BPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 followers of the crucified Nazarene, of the apostate 
 Saul. And they had to suffer for it. With the joy of 
 their new life in Christ, there had come sharp pangs of 
 loss and grief, heart-wounds deep and lasting. This 
 slight allusion sufficiently reminds the Apostle's readers 
 of what they had passed through at the time of their 
 conversion. 
 
 And now were they going to surrender the faith won 
 by such a struggle ? Would they let themselves be 
 cheated of blessings which had cost them so dear? 
 ** So many things" he asks, "did you suffer in vain ?" 
 He will not believe it. He cannot think that this brave 
 beginning will have so mean an ending. If ^^God 
 counts them worthy of His kingdom for which they 
 suffered," let them not deem themselves unworthy. 
 Surely they have not escaped from the tyranny of 
 heathenism, in order to yield up their liberties to 
 Jewish intrigue, to the cozenage of false brethren who 
 seek to exalt themselves at their expense (ch. ii. 4 ; 
 iv. 17; vi. 12, 13). Will flattery beguile from them 
 the treasure to which persecution had made them ding 
 the more closely ? 
 
 Too often, alas, the Galatian defection is repeated. 
 The generous devotion of youth is followed by the 
 lethargy and formalism of a prosperous age ; and the 
 man who at twenty-five was a pattern of godly zeal, 
 at fifty is a finished worldling. The Christ whom he 
 adored, the cross at which he bowed in those early 
 days — he seldom thinks of them now. " I remember 
 thee, the kindness 0/ thy youth, the love of thine espousals; 
 how thou wentest after Me in the wilderness," Success 
 has spoiled him. The world's glamour has bewitched 
 him. He bids fair to " end in the flesh." 
 
 In a broader sense, the Apostle's question addresses 
 
liLl-S.] THE GALATIAN FOLLY, J79 
 
 itself to Churches and communities untrue to the 
 spiritual principles that gave them birth. The faith 
 of the primitive Church, that endured three centuries 
 of persecution, yielded its purity to Imperial blandish- 
 ments. Our fathers, Puritan and Scottish, staked their 
 lives for the crown-rights of Jesus Christ and the 
 freedom of faith. Through generations they endured 
 social and civil ostracism in the cause of religious 
 liberty. And now that the battle is won, there are 
 those amongst their children who scarcely care to know 
 what the struggle was about. Out of indolence of 
 mind or vanity of scepticism, they abandon at the 
 bidding of priest or sophist the spiritual heritage 
 bequeathed to them. Did they then suflfer so many 
 things in vain ? Was it an illusion that sustained 
 those heroic souls, and enabled them to ''stop the 
 mouths of lions and subdue kingdoms " ? Was it for 
 nought that so many of Christ's witnesses in these 
 realms since the Reformation days have suffered the 
 loss of all things rather than yield by subjection to 
 a usurping and worldly priesthood ? And can we, 
 reaping the fruit of their faith and courage, afford in 
 these altered times to dispense with the principles whose 
 maintenance cost our forefathers so dear a price ? 
 
 '' O foolish Galatians/' Paul in that case might well 
 say to us again I 
 
CHAPTER XII. / 
 
 ABRAHAM'S BLESSING AND THE LAW'S CURSE. 
 
 " Even as Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him 
 for righteousness. Know therefore that the)' which be of faith, the 
 same are sons of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God 
 justifieth the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand unto 
 Abraham, sayings In thee shall all the nations be blessed. So then 
 they which be of faith are blessed with the faithful Abraham. For 
 as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse : for it is 
 written. Cursed is every one which continueth not in all things that 
 are written in the book of the law, to do them. Now that no man is 
 justified in the law in the sight of God, is evident : for, The righteous 
 shall live by faith ; and the law is not of faith ; but, He that doeth 
 them shall live in them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the 
 law, having become a curse for us : for it is written, Cursed is every 
 one that hangeth on a tree : that upon the Gentiles might come the 
 blessing of Abraham in Christ Jesus ; that we might receive the 
 promise of the Spirit through faith." — Gal. iii. 6—14. 
 
 FAITH then, we have learnt, not works of law, was 
 the condition on which the Galatians received the 
 Spirit of Christ. By this gate they entered the Church 
 of God, and had come into possession of the spiritual 
 blessings common to all Christian believers, and of those 
 extraordinary gifts of grace which marked the Apostolic 
 days. 
 
 In this mode of salvation, the Apostle goes on to 
 show, there was after all nothing new. The righteous- 
 ness of faith is more ancient than legalism. It is as 
 old as Abraham, His religion rested on this ground. 
 
ffi.6.14.] ABRAHAM'S BLESSING, igi 
 
 " The promise of the Spirit," held by him in trust for 
 the world, was given to his faith. ** You received the 
 Spirit, God works in you His marvellous powers, by 
 the hearing of faith — even as Abraham believed God, 
 and it was reckoned to him for righteousness." In the 
 hoary patriarchal days as now, in the time of promise 
 as of fulfilment, faith is the root of religion ; grace 
 invites, righteousness waits upon the hearing of faith. 
 So Paul declares in w. 6 — 9, and re-affirms with 
 emphasis in ver. 14. The intervening sentences set 
 forth by contrast the curse that hangs over the man 
 who seeks salvation by way of law and personal merit 
 
 Thus the two standing types of religion, the two 
 ways by which men seek salvation, are put in contrast 
 with each other — faith with its blessing, law with its 
 curse. The former is the path on which the Galatians 
 had entered, under the guidance of Paul; the latter, 
 that to which the Judaic teachers were leading them. 
 So far the two principles stand only in antagonism. 
 The antinomy will be resolved in the latter part of the 
 chapter. 
 
 But why does Paul make so much of the faith of 
 Abraham t Not only because it furnished him with a 
 telling illustration, or because the words of Gen. xv. 6 
 supplied a decisive proof-text for his doctrine : he 
 could not well have chosen any other ground. Abra- 
 ham's case was the instantia pro bans in this debate. ''We 
 are Abraham's seed : " • this was the proud conscious- 
 ness that swelled every Jewish breast. *' Abraham's 
 bosom " was the Israelite's heaven : even in Hades his 
 guilty sons could claim pity from '* Father Abraham " 
 (Luke xvi. 19 — 31). In the use of this title was con- 
 
 • Matt, ill 9 ; John viiL 33—59. 
 
i8j the epistle to THE GALATIANS, 
 
 centrated all the theocratic pride and national bigotry 
 of the Jewish race. To the example of Abraham the 
 Judaistic teacher would not fail to appeal. He would teU 
 the Galatians how the patriarch was called, like them- 
 selves, out of the heathen world to the knowledge of the 
 true God; how he was separated from his Gentih 
 kindred, and received the mark of circumcision to bf 
 worn thenceforth by all who followed in his steps, and 
 who sought the fulfilment of the promise granted to 
 Abraham and his seed. 
 
 The Apostle holds, as strongly as any Judaist, that 
 the promise belongs to the children of Abraham. But 
 what makes a son of Abraham ? ^' Birth, true Jewish 
 blood, of course," replied the Judaist. The Gentile, in 
 his view, could only come into a share of the heritage 
 by receiving circumcision, the mark of legal adoption 
 and incorporation. Paul answers this question by 
 raising another. What was it that brought Abraham 
 his blessing ? To what did he owe his righteousness ? 
 It was faith : so Scripture declares — " Abraham be- 
 lieved God." Righteousness, covenant, promise, bless- 
 ing — all turned upon this. And the true sons of 
 Abraham are those who are like him : " Know then 
 that the men of faith, these are Abraham's sons." This 
 declaration is a blow, launched with studied effect full 
 in the face of Jewish privilege. Only a Pharisee, only 
 a Rabbi, knew how to wound in this fashion. Like the 
 words of Stephen's defence, such sentences as these 
 stung Judaic pride to the quick. No wonder that his 
 fellow-countrymen, in their fierce fanaticism of race, 
 pursued Paul with burning hate and set a mark upon 
 his Ufe. 
 
 But the identity of Abraham's blessing with that 
 enjoyed by Gentile Christians is not left to rest on mere 
 
iU. 6-14.) ABRAHAM'S BLESSING. 183 
 
 inference and analogy of principle. Another quotation 
 clinches the argument : " In thee," God promised to 
 the patriarch, ** shall be blessed " — not the natural seed, 
 not the circumcised alone — but "all the nations 
 (Gentiles)" I * And '* the Scripture " said this, *' fore- 
 seeing" what is now taking place, namely, "that God 
 justifieth the Gentiles by faith." So that in giving 
 this promise to Abraham it gave him his " gospel before 
 the time (7rpo€vr]yye\LcraTo)." Good news indeed it was 
 to the noble patriarch, that all the nations — of whom 
 as a wide traveller he knew so much, and over whose 
 condition he doubtless grieved — were finally to be 
 blessed with the light of faith and the knowledge of the 
 true God ; and thus blessed through himself. In this 
 prospect he " rejoiced to see Christ's day ; " nay the 
 Saviour tells us, like Moses and Elijah, ** he saw it and 
 was glad." Up to this point in Abraham's history, as 
 Paul's readers would observe, there was no mention 
 of circumcision or legal requirement (ver. 17; Rom. iv. 
 9 — 13). It was on purely evangelical principles, by 
 a declaration of God's grace listened to in thankful 
 faith, that he had received the promise which linked 
 him to the universal Church and entitled every true 
 believer to call him father. '* So that the men of faith 
 •re blessed, along with faithful Abraham." 
 
 I. What then, we ask, was the nature of Abraham's 
 blessing? In its essence, it was righteousness. The 
 ** blessing of vv. 9 and 14 is synonymous with the ^justi- 
 fication " of w. 6 and 8, embracing with it all its fruits 
 
 • Gen. xii. 3 : the first promise to Abraham. In this text the Hebrew 
 and the Greek (LXX) say, AU the trihts {families) of the earth. Ths 
 •jmonymous ^6vri, with its special Jewish connotation, suited PaulV 
 purpose better ; and it is used in the repetition of the promise ia G«ar 
 sviii. 18. 
 
i84 THB EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 and consequences. No higher benediction could come 
 to any man than that God should " count him right- 
 eous." 
 
 Paul and the Legalists agreed in designating righteous- 
 ness before God man's chief good. But they and he 
 intended different things by it. Nay, Paul's conceptioin 
 of righteousness, it is said, differed radically from that 
 of the Old Testament, and even of his companion writers 
 in the New Testament. Confessedly, his doctrine 
 presents this idea under a peculiar aspect. But there 
 is a spiritual identity, a common basis of truth, in all 
 the Biblical teaching on this vital subject. (Abraham's 
 righteousness was the state of a man who trustfully 
 accepts God's word of grace, and is thereby set right 
 with God, and put in the way of being and doing right 
 thenceforward. In virtue of his faith, God regardeid 
 and dealt with Abraham as a righteous man. Righteous- 
 ness of character springs out of righteousness of stand- 
 ing. God makes a man righteous by counting him so ! 
 This is the Divine paradox of Justification by Faith.J 
 When the Hebrew author says, "God counted it to 
 him for righteousness," he does not mean in lieu of 
 righieousnessy as though faith were a substitute for a 
 righteousness not forthcoming and now rendered 
 superfluous ; but so as to amount to righteousness, with a 
 view to righteousness. This *' reckoning " is the sovereign 
 act of the Creator, who gives what He demands, " who 
 maketh alive the dead, and calleth the things that are 
 not as though they were" (Rom. iv. 17 — 22). He sees 
 the fruit in the germ. 
 
 There is nothing arbitrary, or merely forensic in this 
 imputation. Faith is, for such a being as man, the 
 spring of all righteousness before God, the one act of 
 the soul which is primarily and supremely right. What 
 
iii,6-l4.] ABRAHAM'S BLESSING, 185 
 
 is more just than that the creature should trust his 
 Creator, the child his Father ? Here is the root of all 
 right understanding and right relations between men 
 and God — that which gives God, so to speak, a moral 
 hold upon us. And by this trust of the heart, yielding 
 itself in the '* obedience of faith " to its Lord and 
 Redeemer, it comes into communion with all those 
 energies and purposes in Him which make for 
 righteousness. Hence from first to last, alike in the 
 earlier and later stages of revelation, man's righteous- 
 ness is " not his own ; " it is '* the righteousness that 
 is of God, based upon faith" (Phil. iii. 9). Faith 
 unites us to the source of righteousness, from which 
 unbelief severs us. So that Paul's teaching leads us 
 to the fountain-head, while other Biblical teachers for 
 the most part guide us along the course of the same 
 Divine righteousness for man. His doctrine is required 
 by theirs; their doctrine is implied, and indeed more 
 than once expressly stated, in his.* 
 
 The Old Testament deals with the materials of 
 character, with the qualities and behaviour constituting 
 a righteous man, more than with the cause or process 
 that makes him righteous. All the more significant 
 therefore are such pronouncements as that of Gen. xv, 6, 
 and the saying of Hab. ii. 4, Paul's other leading quota- 
 tion on this subject. This second reference, taken from 
 the times of Israel's declension, a thousand years and 
 more after Abraham, gives proof of the vitality of the 
 righteousness of faith. The haughty, sensual Chaldean 
 is master of the earth. Kingdom after kingdom he 
 has trampled down. Judah lies at his mercy, and has 
 no mercy to expect. But the prophet looks beyond the 
 
 • Rom. Yiii. 4 ; i Cor. yL 9 ; Eph. ▼. 9 ; Tit ii la— 14 ; etc. 
 
i86 THE BPISTLB TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 ttorxn and ruin of the time. " Art Thou not from 
 everlasting, my God, my Holy One ? We shall not die " 
 (Hab. i. 12). The faith of Abraham lives in his breast. 
 The people in whom that faith is cannot die. While 
 empires fall, and races are swept away in the flood of 
 conquest, " The just shall live by his faith." * If faith 
 is seen here at a different point from that given before, 
 it is still the same faith of Abraham, the grasp of the 
 soul upon the Divine word — there first evoked, here 
 steadfastly maintained, there and here the one ground 
 of righteousness, and therefore of life, for man or for 
 people. Habakkuk and the " remnant " of his day 
 were " blessed with faithful Abraham ; " how blessed, 
 his splendid prophecy shows. Righteousness is of 
 faith ; life of righteousness : this is the doctrine of Paul, 
 witnessed to by law and prophets. 
 
 Into what a life of blessing the righteousness of faith 
 introduced " faithful Abraham," these Galatian students 
 of the Old Testament very well knew. Twice t is he 
 designated " the friend of God." The Arabs still call 
 him el khalil^ — the friend. His image has impressed 
 itself with singular force on the Oriental mind. He 
 is the noblest figure of the Old Testament, surpassing 
 Isaac in force, Jacob in purity, and both in dignity of 
 character. The man to whom God said, " Fear not, 
 Abraham: I am thy shield and thy exceeding great 
 reward;" and again, " I am God Almighty; walk 
 before me, and be thou perfect : " on how lofty a plat- 
 form of spiritual eminence was he set I The scene of 
 
 • Of fai'h qualifies live in the Hebrew of the prophet, and in th« 
 LXX, also in the quotation of Heb. x. 38. The presumption is that 
 it does so in Rom. i. 17, and Gal. iii. Ii. We can m« no aufficieat 
 reason in these passages to the contrary. 
 
 t a ChroD. zx. 7 ; Isai. x]i. 8 ; comp. Jas. ii. 13. 
 
dL 6-44.] ABRAHAM'S BLESSING. 187 
 
 Gen. xviii. throws into striking relief the greatness of 
 Abraham, the greatness of our human nature in him ; 
 when the Lord says, " Shall I hide from Abraham the 
 thing that I do?" and allows him to make his bold inter- 
 cession for the guilty cities of the Plain. Even the trial 
 to which the patriarch was subjected in the sacrifice of 
 Isaac, was a singular honour, done to one whose faith 
 was "counted worthy to endure" this unexampled strain. 
 His religion exhibits an heroic strength and firmness, 
 but at the same time a large-hearted, genial humanity, 
 an elevation and serenity of mind, to which the temper 
 of those who boasted themselves his children was 
 utterly opposed. Father of the Jewish race, Abraham 
 was no Jew. He stands before us in the morning light 
 of revelation a simple, noble, archaic type of man, true 
 " father of many nations." And his faith was the secret 
 of the greatness which has commanded for him the 
 reverence of four thousand years. His trust in God 
 made him worthy to receive so immense a trust for the 
 future of mankind. 
 
 With Abraham's faith, the Gentiles inherit his bless- 
 ing. They were not simply blessed in him, through his 
 faith which received and handed down the blessing, — 
 but blessed with him. Their righteousness rests on the 
 same principle as his. Religion reverts to its earlier 
 purer type. Just as in the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 Melchizedek's priesthood is adduced as belonging to 
 a more Christlike order, antecedent to and underlying 
 the Aaronic ; so we find here, beneath the cumbrous 
 structure of legalism, the evidence of a primitive 
 religious life, cast in a larger mould, with a happier 
 style of experience, a piety broader, freer, at once more 
 spiritual and more human. Reading the story of Abra- 
 ham, we witness the bright dawn of faith, its spring- 
 
i88 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 time of promise and of hope. These morning hours 
 passed away ; and the sacred history shuts us in to the 
 hard school of Mosaism, with its isolation, its mechaai- 
 cal routine and ritual drapery, its yoke of legal exaction 
 ever growing more burdensome. Of all this the Church 
 of Christ was to know nothing. It was called to enter 
 into the labours of the legal centuries, without the need 
 of sharing their burdens. In the *' Father of the faithful " 
 and the " Friend of God " Gentile believers were to see 
 their exemplar, to find the warrant for that sufficiency 
 and freedom of faith of which the natural children of 
 Abraham unjustly strove to rob them. 
 
 II. But if the Galatians are resolved to be under the 
 Law, they must understand what this means. The 
 legal state^ Paul declares, instead of the blessing of 
 Abraham, brings with it a curse : " As many as are of 
 law-works, are under a curse," 
 
 This the Apostle, in other words, had told Peter at 
 Antioch. He maintained that whoever sets up the law as 
 a ground of salvation, " makes himself a transgressor " 
 (ch. ii. i8) ; he brings upon himself the misery of having 
 violated law. This is no doubtful contingency. The 
 law in explicit terms pronounces its curse against every 
 man who, binding himself to keep it, yet breaks it in 
 any particular. 
 
 The Scripture which Paul quotes to this effect, forms 
 the conclusion of the commination uttered by the people 
 of Israel, according to the directions of Moses, from 
 Mount Ebal, on their entrance into Canaan : " Cursed 
 is every one that continueth not in all things written 
 in the book of the law to do them." * How terribly 
 
 • Deut xxvii. 26 ; Jos. viii. 32—35. All things, given by the LXX 
 in the former passage, is wanting in the Hebrew. But the phrase is true 
 to the spirit of thia text, and is read in the parallel Deut rxviil 15. 
 
iii. 6-14.1 TEE LAW'S CURSE. 189 
 
 had that imprecation been fulfilled I They had in truth 
 pledged themselves to the impossible. The Law had 
 not been kept — could not be kept on merely legal 
 principles, by man or nation. The confessions of the 
 Old Testament, already cited in ch. ii. 16, were proof 
 of this. That no one had ''continued in all things 
 written in the law to do them," goes without saying. 
 If Gentile Christians adopt the law of Moses, they must 
 be prepared to render an obedience complete and un- 
 faltering in every detail (ch. v. 3) — or have this curse 
 hanging perpetually above their heads. They will bring 
 on themselves the very condemnation which was lying 
 so heavily upon the conscience of Israel after the 
 flesh. 
 
 This sequence of law and transgression belonged to 
 Paul's deepest convictions. " The law," he says, 
 *'worketh out wrath" (Rom. iv. 14, 15). This is an 
 axiom of Paulinism. Human nature being what it is, 
 law means transgression ; and the law being what it is, 
 transgression means Divine anger and the curse (see p. 
 143). The law is just ; the penalty is necessary. The 
 conscience of the ancient people of God compelled them 
 to pronounce the imprecation dictated by Moses. The 
 same thing occurs every day, and under the most varied 
 moral conditions. Every man who knows what is right 
 and will not do it, execrates himself. The consciousness 
 of transgression is a clinging, inward curse, a witness 
 of ill-desert, foreboding punishment. The law of con- 
 science, like that of Ebal and Gerizim, admits of no 
 exceptions, no intermission. In the majesty of its 
 unbending sternness it can only be satisfied by our 
 continuing in all things that it prescribes. Every 
 instance of failure, attended with whatever excuse or 
 ;»ndonation, leaves upon us its mark of telf-reproach. 
 
190 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 And this inward condemnation, this consciousness of 
 guilt latent in the human breast, is not self-condemna- 
 tion alone, not a merely subjective state; but it proceeds 
 from God's present judgment on the man. It is the 
 shadow of His just displeasure. 
 
 What Paul here proves from Scripture, bitter expe- 
 rience had taught him. As the law unfolded itself to 
 his youthful conscience, he approved it as " holy and 
 just and good." He was pledged and resolved to 
 observe it in every point. He must despise himself 
 if he acted otherwise. He strove to be — in the sight 
 of men indeed he was — "touching the righteousness 
 which is in the law, blameless." If ever a man carried 
 out to the letter the legal requirements, and fulfilled the 
 moralist's ideal, it was Saul of Tarsus. Yet his failure 
 was complete, desperate I While men accounted him a 
 paragon of virtue, he loathed himself; he knew that 
 before God his righteousness was worthless. The 
 " law of sin in his members " defied " the law of his 
 reason," and made its power the more sensible the 
 more it was repressed. The curse thundered by the 
 six tribes from Ebal resounded in his ears. And there 
 was no escape. The grasp of the law was relentless, 
 because it was just, like the grasp of death. Against 
 all that was holiest in it the evil in himself stood up in 
 stark, immitigable opposition. " O wretched man that 
 I am," groans the proud Pharisee, ** who shall deliver 
 me ! '* From this curse Christ had redeemed him. 
 And he would not, if he could help it, have the Galatians 
 expose themselves to it again. On legal principles, 
 there is no safety but in absolute, flawless obedience, 
 such as no man ever has rendered, or ever will. Let 
 them trust the experience of centuries of Jewish 
 bondage. 
 
iii6.i4.) raB LAfV'S CURSB, 191 
 
 Verses II, 12 support the assertion that the Law 
 issues in condemnation, by a further, negative proof. 
 The argument is a syllogism, both whose premises are 
 dravn from the Old Testament. It may be formally 
 stated thus. Major premise (evangelical maxim) : " The 
 just man lives of faith " * (ver. ii ). Minor : The man of 
 law does not live of faith (for he lives by doing : legal 
 maxim, ver. 12). f Ergo: The man of law is not just 
 before God (ver. il). While therefore the Scripture 
 by its afore-cited commination closes the door of life 
 against righteousness of works, that door is opened to 
 the men of faith. The two principles are logical con- 
 tradictories. To grant righteousness to faith is to 
 deny it to legal works. This assumption furnishes our 
 minor premise in ver. 12. The legal axiom is, " He that 
 doeth them shall live in them : " that is to say, Thi law 
 gives life for doing — not therefore for believing; we get 
 no sort of legal credit for that. The two ways have 
 different starting-points, as they lead to opposite goals. 
 From faith one marches, through God's righteousness, 
 to blessing ; from works, through self-righteousness, to 
 the curse. 
 
 The two paths now lie before us — the Pauline and 
 the legal method of salvation, the Abrahamic and the 
 Mosaic scheme of religion. According to the latter, 
 one begins by keeping so many rules — ethical, cere- 
 monial, or what not ; and after doing this, one expects 
 to be counted righteous by God. According to the 
 former, the man begins by an act of self-surrendering 
 trust in God's word of grace, and God already reckons 
 him just on that account, without his pretending to 
 anything in the way of merit for himself. In short, 
 
 * Hab. ii. 4. For the constraction, see nott on p. i8di 
 t LcY, xviii 5. 
 
192 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAHS. 
 
 the Legalist tries to make God believe in him : Abraham 
 and Paul are content to believe in God, They do not 
 set themselves over against God, with a righteousness 
 of their own which He is bound to recognise ; they 
 commit themselves to God, that He may work out His 
 righteousness in them. Along this path lies blessing — 
 peace of heart, fellowship with God, moral strength, 
 life in its fulness, depth, and permanence. From this 
 source Paul derives all that was noblest in the Church 
 of the Old Covenant. And he puts the calm, grand 
 image of Father Abraham before us for our pattern, 
 in contrast with the narrow, painful, bitter spirit of 
 Jewish legalism, inwardly self-condemned. 
 
 III. But how pass from this curse to that blessing? 
 How escape from the nemesis of the broken law into 
 the freedom of Abraham's faith ? To this question ver, 
 1 3 makes answer : " Christ bought us out of the curse 
 of the law, having become a curse for us." Chrisfs 
 redemption changes the curse into a blessing. 
 
 We entered this Epistle under the shadow of the 
 cross. It has been all along the centre of the writer's 
 thought. He has found in it the solution of the 
 terrible problem forced upon him by the law. Law 
 had led him to Christ's cross ; laid him in Christ's 
 grave ; and there left him, to rise with Christ a new, 
 free man, living henceforth to God (ch. ii. 19 — 21). 
 So we understand the purpose and the issue of the 
 death of Jesus Christ ; now we must look more 
 narrowly at the fact itself. 
 
 ''Christ became a curse 1" Verily the Apostle was 
 not "seeking to please or persuade men." This 
 expression throws the scandal of the cross into the 
 strongest relief. Far from veiling it or apologizing for 
 it, Paul accentuates this offence. His experience taught 
 
a. 6-14.] THE LAWS CURSE. iy3 
 
 him that Jewish pride must be compelled to reckon with 
 it No, he would not have " the oft'ence of the cross 
 abolished" (ch. v. ii). 
 
 And did not Christ become a curse f Could the fact 
 be denied by any Jew ? His death was that of the 
 most abandoned criminals. By the combined verdict of 
 Jew and Gentile, of civil and religious authority, 
 endorsed by the voice of the populace, He was pro- 
 nounced a malefactor and blasphemer. But this was 
 not all. The hatred and injustice of men arc hard 
 to bear ; yet many a sensitive man has borne them in 
 a worthy cause without shrinking. It was a darker 
 dread, an infliction far more crushing, that compelled 
 the cry, "My God, why hast Thou forsaken Mel" 
 Against the maledictions of men Jesus might surely 
 at the worst have counted on the Father's^ good 
 pleasure. But even that failed Him. There fell upon 
 His soul the death of death, the very curse of sin — 
 abandonment by God/ Men "did esteem Him" — and for 
 tiie moment He esteemed Himself — " smitten of God." 
 He hung there abhorred of men, forsaken of His God ; 
 earth all hate, heaven all blackness to His view. Are 
 the Apostle's words too strong ? Delivering up His 
 Son to pass through this baptism, God did in truth 
 make Htm a curse for us. By His " determinate 
 counsel " the Almighty set Jesus Christ in the place of 
 condemned sinners, and allowed the curse of this 
 wicked world to claim Him for its victim. 
 
 The death that befell Him was chosen as if for the 
 purpose of declaring Him accursed. The Jewish people 
 have thus stigmatized Him. They made the Roman 
 magistrate and the heathen soldiery their instrument in 
 gibbeting their Messiah. " Shall I crucify your King ? " 
 said Pilate. " Yes," they answered, " crucify Him 1 " 
 
 1% 
 
194 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 Their rulers thought to lay on the hated Nazarene an 
 everlasting curse. Was it not written, " A curse of 
 God is every one that hangeth on a tree ? " * This 
 saying attached in the Jewish mind a peculiar loath- 
 ing to the person of the dead thus exposed. Once 
 crucified^ the name of Jesus would surely perish from 
 the lips of men ; no Jew would hereafter dare to pro- 
 fess faith in Him. His cause could never surmount 
 this ignominy. In later times the bitterest epithet that 
 Jewish scorn could fling against our Saviour (God 
 forgive them 1), was just this word of Deuteronomy, 
 hattaluy — the hanged one. 
 
 This sentence of execration, with its shame freshly 
 smarting, Paul has seized and twined into a crown of 
 glory. " Hanged on a tree, crushed with reproach — 
 accursed, you say. He was, my Lord, my Saviour I It 
 is true. But the curse He bore was ours. His death, 
 unmerited by Him, was our ransom-price, endured to 
 buy us out of our curse of sin and death." This is 
 the doctrine of the vicarious sacrifice. In speaking of 
 *' ransom " and '' redemption," using the terms of the 
 market, Christ and His Apostles are applying human 
 language to things in their essence unutterable, things 
 which we define in their effects rather than in them- 
 selves. *' We know, we prophesy, in part." We 
 know that we were condemned by God's holy law ; 
 that Christ, Himself sinless, came under the law's curse, 
 and taking the place of sinners, " became sin for us ; " 
 
 • The Hebrew of Deut. xxi. 23 reads "a curse 0/ God;' the LXX, 
 " cursed dy God " {KtKaTap7}fji,evoi however, not iwiKardpaTos as 
 in Paul's phrase). The Apostle omits the two last words, not inadver- 
 tently, as Meyer supposes, for he must have had a painfully vivid 
 remembrance of the wording of the original, but out of a reverence that 
 made it impossible to speak of the Redeemer as " accursed dy God." 
 
iii.6.14.] THE LAW'S CURSB, 195 
 
 and that His interposition has brought us out of con- 
 demnation into blessing and peace. How can we con- 
 ceive the matter otherwise than as it is put in His 
 own words : He " gave Himself a ransom — The Good 
 Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep ? " He suffers 
 in our room and stead ; He bears inflictions incurred by 
 our sins, and due to ourselves ; He does this at the 
 Divine Will, and under the Divine Law : what is this 
 but to '* buy us out," to pay the price which frees us 
 from the prison-house of death ? 
 
 "Christ redeemed us^ says the Apostle, thinking 
 questionless of himself and his Jewish kindred, on 
 whom the law weighed so heavily. His redemption 
 was offered "to the Jew first." But not to the Jew 
 alone, nor as a Jew. The time of release had come for 
 all men. "Abraham's blessing" long withheld, was 
 now to be imparted, as it had been promised, to "all 
 the tribes of the earth." In the removal of the legal 
 curse, God comes near to men as in the ancient days. 
 His love is shed abroad ; His spirit of sonship dwells 
 in human hearts. In Christ Jesus crucified, risen, 
 reigning — a new world comes into being, which re- 
 stores and surpasses the promise of the old. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE COVENANT OF PROMISE. 
 
 " Brethren, I speak after the manner of men : Though it be but a 
 man's testament, yet when it hath been confirmed, no one maketh it 
 void, or addeth thereto. Now to Abraham were the promises spoken, 
 and to his seed. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many, but as of one. 
 And to thy seed, which is Christ. Now this I say ; A testament con- 
 firmed beforehand by God, the law, which came four hundred and 
 thirty years after, doth not disannul, so as to make the promise of none 
 effect. For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no more of promise : 
 but God hath granted it to Abraham by promise." — Gal. iii. 15 — 18. 
 
 C^ ENTILE Christians, Paul has shown, are already 
 JT sons of Abraham. Their faith proves their 
 descent from the father of the faithful. The redemp- 
 tion of Christ has expiated the law's curse, and brought 
 to its fulfilment the primeval promise. It has conferred 
 on Jew and Gentile alike the gift of the Holy Spirit, 
 sealing the Divine inheritance. " Abraham's blessing " 
 has "come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus." What 
 can Judaism do for them more ? Except, in sooth, to 
 bring them under its inevitable curse. 
 
 But here the Judaist might interpose : " Granting 
 so much as this, allowing that God covenanted with 
 Abraham on terms of faith, and that believing Gentiles 
 arc entitled to hit blessing, did not God make a second 
 covenant with Moses^ promising further blessings upon 
 
iii. IS-18.] THE COVENANT OF PROMISE. 197 
 
 terms of law ? If the one covenant remains valid, why 
 not the other ? From the school of Abraham the 
 Gentiles must pass on to the school of Moses." This 
 inference might appear to follow, by parity of reasoning, 
 from what the Apostle has just advanced. And it 
 accords with the position which the legalistic opposition 
 had now taken up. The people of the circumcision, 
 they argued, retained within the Church of Christ their 
 peculiar calling; and Gentiles, if they would be perfect 
 Christians, must accept the covenant-token and the 
 unchangeable ordinances of Israel. Faith is but the 
 first step in the new life ; the discipline of the law will 
 bring it to completion. Release from the curse of the 
 law, they might contend, leaves its obligations still 
 binding, its ordinances unrepealed. Christ " came not 
 to destroy, but to fulfil." 
 
 So we are brought to the question of the relation 
 of law and promise^ which is the theoretical, as that of 
 Gentile to Jewish Christianity is the practical problem 
 of the Epistle. The remainder of the chapter is occu- 
 pied with its discussion. This section is the special 
 contribution of the Epistle to Christian theology — a 
 contribution weight}^ enough of itself to give to it a fore- 
 most place amongst the documents of Revelation. Paul 
 has written nothing more masterly. The breadth and 
 subtlety of his reason, his grasp of the spiritual realities 
 underlying the facts of history, are conspicuously 
 manifest in these paragraphs, despite the extreme 
 difficulty and obscurity of certain sentences. 
 
 This part of the Epistle is in fact a piece of inspired 
 historical criticism; it is a magnificent reconstruction of 
 the course of sacred history. It is Paul's theory of 
 doctrinal development, condensing into a few pregnant 
 sentences the rationale of Judaism, explaining the 
 
I9S THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 method of God's dealings with mankind from Abraham 
 down to Christ, and fitting the legal system into its 
 place in this order with an exactness and consistency 
 that supply an effectual verification of the hypothesis. 
 To such a height has the Apostle been raised, so com- 
 pletely is he emancipated from the fetters of Jewish 
 thought, that the whole Mosaic economy becomes to 
 his mind no more than an interlude, a passing stage in 
 the march of Revelation. 
 
 This passage finds its counterpart in Romans xi. 
 Here the past, there the future fortunes of Israel are 
 set forth. Together the two chapters form a Jewish 
 theodicy, a vindication of God's treatment of the chosen 
 people from first to last. Rom. v. 12 — 21 and i Cor. 
 XV. 20 — 57 supply a wider exposition, on the same 
 principles, of the fortunes of mankind at large. The 
 human mind has conceived nothing more splendid and 
 yet sober, more humbling and exalting, than the view 
 of man's history and destiny thus sketched out 
 
 The Apostle seeks to establish, in the first place, the 
 fixedness of the Abrahamic covenant. This is the main 
 purport of the passage. At the same time, in ver. 16, 
 he brings into view the Object of the covenant^ the 
 person designated by it — Christy its proper Heir. This 
 consideration, though stated here parenthetically, lies 
 at the basis of the settlement made with Abraham ; its 
 importance is made manifest by the after course of 
 Paul's exposition. 
 
 At this point, where the discussion opens out into its 
 larger proportions, we observe that the sharp tone of 
 personal feeling with which the chapter commenced has 
 disappeared. In ver. 15 the writer drops into a concilia- 
 tory key. He seems to forget the wounded Apostle in 
 
lit 1J-18.] THE COVENANT OF PROMISE. 199 
 
 the theologian and instructor in Christ. " Brethren," he 
 safys, " I speak in human fashion — I put this matter in 
 a way that every one will understand." He lifts himself 
 above the Galatian quarrel, and from the height of his 
 argument addresses himself to the common intelligence 
 of mankind. 
 
 But is it covenant^ or testament^ that the Apostle 
 intends here ? "I speak after the manner of men/* 
 he continues ; " if the case were that of a man's BiaOrjKfj, 
 once ratified, no one would set it aside, or add to it." The 
 presumption is that the word is employed in its accepted, 
 every-day significance. And that unquestionably was 
 "testament." It would never occur to an ordinary 
 Greek reader to interpret the expression otherwise. 
 Philo and Josephus, the representatives of contemporary 
 Hellenistic usage, read this term, in the Old Testament, 
 with the connotation of ZiadrjKr) in current Greek.* The 
 context of this passage is in harmony with their 
 usage. The " covenant " of ver. 1 5 corresponds to " the 
 blessing of Abraham," and " the promise of the Spirit " 
 in the two preceding verses. Again in ver. 17, 
 "promise" and "covenant" are synonymous. Now 
 a " covenant of promise " amounts to a " testament." 
 It is the prospective nature of the covenant, the bond 
 which it creates between Abraham and the Gentiles, 
 which the Apostle has been insisting on ever since 
 ver. 6. It belongs ** to Abraham and to his seed " ; 
 it comes by way of "gift" and "grace" (w. 18, 
 22) ; it invests those taking part in it with " son- 
 ship " and rights of " inheritance " (w. 18, 26, 29, 
 etc.) These ideas cluster round the thought of a 
 testament; they are not inherent in covenant^ strictly 
 
 * See the able and convincing elucidation of tfta^ikip in Cremer's 
 BMuo- TJuological Lcxicom of N. T. Grttk. 
 
dod THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 considered. Even in the Old Testament this latter 
 designation fails to convey all that belongs to the 
 Divine engagements there recorded. In a covenant 
 the two parties are conceived as equals in point of law, 
 binding themselves by a compact that bears on each 
 alike. Here it is not so. The disposition of affairs 
 is made by God, who in the sovereignty of His grace 
 "hath granted it to Abraham." It was surely a reve- 
 rent sense of this difference which dictated to the men 
 of the Septuagint the use of BiaOrjKTf rather than a-vvOrjfcrf, 
 the ordinary term for covenant or compact^ in their 
 rendering of the Hebrew berith. 
 
 This aspect of the covenants now becomes their 
 commanding feature. Our Lord's employment of this 
 word at the Last Supper gave it the affecting reference 
 to His death which it has conveyed ever since to the 
 Christian mind.* The Latin translators were guided by 
 a true instinct when in the Scriptures of the New Cove- 
 nant they wrote testamentum everywhere, not fadus or 
 pactum, for this word. The testament is a covenant — 
 and something more. The testator designates his heir, 
 and binds himself to grant to him at the predetermined 
 time (ch. iv. 2) the specified boon, which it remains 
 for the beneficiary simply to accept. Such a Divine 
 testament has come down from Abraham to his Gentile 
 sons. 
 
 I. Now when a man has made a testament, and it 
 has been ratified — " proved," as we should say — ii 
 stands good for ever. No one has afterwards any power 
 
 • See Heb. ix. 16 — 18, where to much ingenuity has been expended 
 to turn Ustamtnt into covenants 
 
 •• Sweet is the memory of His 
 IVho bUssed us in His wUL 
 
m. i5-i8.] Tir£ COVENANT OF PROMISE. aoi 
 
 to set it aside, or to attach to it a new codicil, modifying 
 its previous terms. There it stands — a document com- 
 plete and unchangeable (ver. 15). 
 
 Such a testament God gave "to Abraham and his 
 seed." It was " ratified " (or " confirmed ") by the 
 final attestation made to the patriarch after the 
 supreme trial of his faith in the sacrifice of Isaac: 
 " By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, that in 
 blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying multiply 
 thy seed as the stars of heaven ; . . . and in thy seed 
 shall all the nations of the earth be blessed."* In 
 human testaments the ratification takes place through 
 another; but God '^having no greater," yet "to show 
 to the heirs of the promise the immutability of His 
 counsel " confirmed it by His own oath. Nothing was 
 wanting to mark the Abrahamic covenant with an 
 indelible character, and to show that it expressed an 
 unalterable purpose in the mind of God. 
 
 With such Divine asseveration "were the promises 
 spoken to Abraham, and his seedy This last word 
 diverts the Apostle's thoughts for a moment, and he 
 gives a side-glance at the person thus designated in the 
 terms of the promise. Then he returns to his former 
 statement, urging it home against the Legalists : " Now 
 this is what I mean : a testament previously ratified by 
 God, the Law which dates four hundred and thirty years 
 later cannot annul, so as to abrogate the Promise " (ver. 
 17). The bearing of Paul's argument is now perfectly 
 clear. He is using the promise to Abraham to over- 
 throw the supremacy of the Mosaic law. The Promise 
 was, he says, the prior settlement. No subsequent 
 transaction could invalidate it or disqualify those 
 
 * Gtn. xxil. 8 16— i; Heb. tL 17. 
 
SQ9 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 entitled under it to receive the inheritance. That 
 testament lies at the foundation of the sacred history. 
 The Jew least of all could deny this. How could such 
 an instrument be set aside ? Or what right has any 
 one to limit it by stipulations of a later date ? 
 
 When a man amongst ourselves bequeaths his pro- 
 perty, and his will is publicly attested, its directions are 
 scrupulously observed ; to tamper with them is a crime. 
 Shall we have less respect to this Divine settlement, 
 this venerable charter of human salvation ? You say, 
 The Law of Moses has its rights : it must be taken into 
 account as well as the Promise to Abraham. True ; but 
 It has no power to cancel or restrict the Promise, older 
 by four centuries and a half. The later must be 
 adjusted to the earlier dispensation, the Law interpreted 
 by the Promise. God has not made two testaments — 
 the one solemnly committed to the faith and hope of 
 mankind, only to be retracted and substituted by some- 
 thing of a different stamp. He could not thus stultify 
 Himself. And we must not apply the Mosaic enact- 
 ments, addressed to a single people, in such a way as 
 to neutralise the original provisions made for the race 
 at large. Our human instincts of good faith, our 
 reverence for public compacts and established rights, 
 forbid our allowing the Law of Moses to trench upon 
 the inheritance assured to mankind in the Covenant 
 of Abraham. 
 
 This contradiction necessarily arises if the Law is 
 put on a level with the Promise. To read the Law as 
 a continuation of the older instrument is virtually to 
 efface the latter, to " make the promise of none effect." 
 The two institutes proceed on opposite principles. " If 
 the inheritance is of law, it is no longer of promise" 
 (ver. 1 8). Law prescribes certain things to be done, 
 
in. 15.18.] THE COVENANT OF PROMISE, 403 
 
 and guarantees a corresponding reward — so much pay 
 for so much work. That, in its proper place, is an 
 excellent principle. But the promise stands on another 
 footing : *' God hath bestowed it on Abraham by way of 
 grace'^ {ice^dpLaTai" ver. 18). It holds out a blessing 
 conferred by the Promiser's good will, to be conveyed 
 at the right time without demanding anything more 
 from the recipient than faith, which is just the will to 
 receive. So God dealt with Abraham, centuries before 
 any one had dreamed of the Mosaic system of law. 
 God appeared to Abraham in His sovereign grace ; 
 Abraham met that grace with faith. So the Covenant 
 was formed. And so it abides, clear of all legal con- 
 ditions and claims of human merit, an *' everlasting 
 covenant " (Gen. xvii. 7 ; Heb. xiii. 20). 
 
 Its permanence is emphasized by the tense of the 
 verb relating to it. The Greek perfect describes settled 
 facts, actions or events that carry with them finality. 
 Accordingly we read in vv. 15 and 17 of " a ratified 
 covenant" — one that stands ratified. In ver. 18, "God 
 hath granted it to Abraham" — a grace never to be 
 recalled. Again (ver. 19), " the seed to whom the 
 promise hath been made " — once for all. A perfect 
 participle is used of the Law in ver. 17 (yeyovco^), for 
 it is a fact of abiding significance that it was so much 
 later than the Promise ; and in ver. 24, " the Law hath 
 been our tutor," — its work in that respect is an endur- 
 ing benefit. Otherwise, the verbs relating to Mosaisra 
 in this context are past in tense, describing what is 
 now matter of history, a course of events that has come 
 and gone. Meanwhile the Promise remains, an im- 
 movable certainty, a settlement never to be disturbed. 
 The emphatic position of 6 O609 (ver. 18), at the very 
 end of the paragraph, serves to heighten this effect. 
 
204 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 " It is God that hath bestowed this grace on Abraham." 
 There is a challenge in the word, as though Paul asked, 
 " Who shall make it void ?" ♦ 
 
 Paul's chronology in ver. 17 has been called in 
 question. We are not much concerned to defend it 
 Whether Abraham preceded Moses by four hundred and 
 thirty years, as the Septuagint and the Samaritan text 
 of Exod. xii. 40, 41 affirm, and as Paul's contemporaries 
 commonly supposed ; or whether, as it stands in the 
 Hebrew text of Exodus, this was the length of time 
 covered by the sojourn in Egypt, so that the entire period 
 would be about half as long again, is a problem that 
 Old Testament historians must settle for themselves ; it 
 need not trouble the reader of Paul. The shorter period 
 is amply sufficient for his purpose. If any one had said, 
 " No, Paul ; you are mistaken. It was six hundred and 
 thirty, not four hundred and thirty years from Abraham 
 to Moses ; " he would have accepted the correction with 
 the greatest goodwill. He might have replied, "So 
 much the better for my argument."! It is possible to 
 "strain out" the "gnats" of Biblical criticism, and yet 
 to swallow huge " camels " of improbability. 
 
 II. Ver. 16 remains for our consideration. In prov* 
 ing the steadfastness of the covenant with Abraham, 
 the Apostle at the same time directs our attention to 
 the Person designated by it, to whom its fulfilment was 
 guaranteed. "To Abraham were the promises spoken, 
 and to his seed — * to thy seed,' which is Christ." 
 
 • Comp. Rom. viii. 33, 34; Acti n. ly ; • Cor. t 21, for a ■imilar 
 
 emphasis. 
 
 t We gain nothing, and we may lose much, in "trying to settle 
 questions of Old Testament historical criticism by casual allusions ia 
 the New Testament." (See Mr. Beet's sensible observations, in his Com* 
 mentaiy ad loc.) 
 
ULiS-iS.] THE COVENANT OP PROMISR. 105 
 
 This identification the Judaist would not question. 
 He made no doubt that the Messiah was the legatee 
 of the testament, "the seed to whom it hath been 
 promised." Whatever partial and germinant fulfilments 
 the Promise had received, it is on Christ in chief that 
 the inheritance of Israel devolves. In its true and full 
 intent, this promise, like all predictions of the triumph of 
 God's kingdom, was understood to be waiting for His 
 advent. 
 
 The fact that this Promise looked to Christ, lends 
 additional force to the Apostle's assertion of its indeli- 
 bility. The words " unto Christ," which were inserted 
 in the text of ver. 17 at an early time, are a correct 
 gloss. The covenant did not lie between God and 
 Abraham alone. It embraced Abraham's descendants 
 in their unity, culminating in Christ. It looked down 
 the stream of time to the last ages. Abraham was its 
 starting-point ; Christ its goal. " To thee — and to thy 
 seed : " these words span the gulf of two thousand years, 
 and overarch the Mosaic dispensation. So that the 
 covenant vouchsafed to Abraham placed him, even at 
 that distance of time, in close personal relationship with 
 the Saviour of mankind. No wonder that it was so 
 evangelical in its terms, and brought the patriarch an 
 experience of religion which anticipated the privileges of 
 Christian faith. God's covenant with Abraham, being 
 in effect His covenant with mankind in Christ, stands 
 both first and last The Mosaic economy holds a second 
 and subsidiary place in the scheme of Revelation. 
 
 The reason the Apostle gives for reading Christ 
 into the promise is certainly peculiar. He has been 
 taxed with false exegesis, with ''rabbinical hair- 
 splitting" and the like. Here, it is said, is a fine 
 example of the art, familiar to theologians, of torturing 
 
J06 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 out of a word a predetermined sense, foreign to its 
 original meaning. " He doth not say, and to seeds^ a' 
 referring to many ; but as referring to one, and to thy 
 seedf which is Christ." Paul appears to infer from the 
 fact that the word "seed" is grammatically singular, 
 and not plural, that it designates a single individual, 
 who can be no other than Christ. On the surface this 
 does, admittedly, look like a verbal quibble. The 
 word " seed," in Hebrew and Greek as in English, is 
 not used, and could not in ordinary speech be used 
 in the plural to denote a number of descendants. It is 
 a collective singular. The plural applies only to 
 different kinds of seed. The Apostle, we may presume, 
 was quite as well aware of this as his critics. It does 
 not need philological research or grammatical acumen 
 to establish a distinction obvious to common sense. 
 This piece of word-play is in reality the vehicle of an 
 historical argument, as unimpeachable as it is important 
 Abraham was taught, by a series of lessons,* to refer 
 the promise to the single line of Isaac. Paul else- 
 K'here lays great stress on this consideration ; he 
 brings Isaac into close analogy with Christ; for he 
 was the child of faith, and represented in his birth a 
 spiritual principle and the communication of a super- 
 natural life.f The true seed of Abraham was in the 
 first instance one, not many. In the primary realisation 
 of the Promise, typical of its final accomplishment, it 
 received a 'lingular interpretation ; it concentrated it- 
 self on the one, spiritual ott'spring, putting aside the 
 many, natural and heterogeneous (Hagarite or Keturitc) 
 descendants. And this sifting principle, this law of 
 
 • Gen. xii. 2, 3 ; rr. 1 — 6 ; xviL 4 — 8, 15—21 ; xxiL 16 — il 
 
 ♦ Ch. W. 21—31 ; Rom. iv. 17 — 22; comp. Hcb. xi. 11, la. 
 
fiLi5-i8.] THE COVENANT OF PROMISE. S07 
 
 election which singles out from the varieties of nature 
 the Divine type, comes into play all along the line 
 of descent, as in the case of Jacob, and of David. It 
 finds its supreme expression in the person of Christ. 
 The Abrahamic testament devolved under a law of 
 spiritual selection. By its very nature it pointed 
 ultimately to Jesus Christ. When Paul writes " Not 
 to seeds, as of many," he virtually says that the word of 
 inspiration was singular in sense as well as in form ; 
 in the mind of the Promiser, and in the interpretation 
 given to it by events, it bore an individual reference, 
 and was never intended to apply to Abraham's 
 descendants at large, to the many and miscellaneous 
 " children according to flesh." 
 
 Paul's interpretation of the Promise has abundant 
 analogies. All great principles of human history tend to 
 embody themselves in some " chosen seed." They find 
 at last their true heir, the one man destined to be their 
 fulfilment. Moses, David, Paul ; Socrates and Alexan- 
 der ; Shakespere, Newton, are examples of this. The 
 work that such men do belongs to themselves. Had 
 any promise assured the world of the gifts to be 
 bestowed through them, in each case one might have 
 said beforehand. It will have to be, " Not as of many, 
 but as of one." It is not multitudes, but men that rule 
 the world. " By one man sin entered into the world : 
 we shall reign in life through the one Jesus Christ." 
 From the first words of hope given to the repentant 
 pair banished from Eden, down to the latest predictions 
 of the Coming One, the Promise became at every 
 stage more determinate and individualising. The 
 finger of prophecy pointed with increasing distinctness, 
 now from this side, now from that, to the veiled form 
 of the Chosen of God — " the seed of the woman," the 
 
itii THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 '^seed of Abraham/' the " star out of Jacob/' the " Son of 
 David/' the " King Messiah/' the suffering " Serv^ant of 
 the Lord/* the " smitten Shepherd/' the " Son of man, 
 coming in the clouds of heaven." In His person all the 
 h"nes of promise and preparation meet ; the scattered 
 rays of Divine light are brought to a focus. And the 
 desire of all nations, groping, half-articulate, unites 
 with the inspired foresight of the seers of Israel to 
 find its goal in Jesus Christ. There was but One who 
 could meet the manifold conditions created by the 
 world's previous history, and furnish the key to the 
 mysteries and contradictions which had gathered round 
 the path of Revelation. 
 
 Notwithstanding, the Promise had and has a generic 
 application, attending its personal accomplishment. 
 " Salvation is of the Jews." Christ belongs " to the 
 Jew first." Israel was raised up and consecrated to 
 be the trustee of the Promise given to the world 
 through Abraham. The vocation of this gifted race, 
 the secret of its indestructible vitality, lies in its 
 relationship to Jesus Christ. They are " His own/' 
 though they " received Him not." Apart from Him, 
 Israel is nothing to the world — nothing but a witness 
 against itself. Premising its essential fulfilment in 
 Christ, Paul still reserves for his own people their 
 peculiar share in the Testament of Abraham — not a 
 place of exclusive privilege, but of richer honour and 
 larger influence. " Hath God cast away His people ? " 
 he asks : *' Nay indeed. For I also am an Israelite, of 
 the seed of Abraham" So that, after all, it is some- 
 thing to be of Abraham's children by nature. Despite 
 his hostility to Judaism, the Apostle claims for the 
 Jewish race a special office in the dispensation of the 
 Gospel, in the working out of God's ultimate designi 
 
iii. IS-18.] THE COVENANT OF PROMISE, ao9 
 
 for mankind.* Would they only accept their Messiah, 
 how exalted a rank amongst the nations awaits thera I 
 The title "seed of Abraham" with Paul, like the 
 " Servant of Jehovah " in Isaiah, has a double signifi- 
 cance. The sufferings of the elect people made them in 
 their national character a pathetic type of the great Suf- 
 ferer and Servant of the Lord, His supreme Elect. In 
 Jesus Christ the collective destiny of Israel is attained ; 
 its prophetic ideal, the spiritual conception of its calling, 
 is realised, — " the seed to whom it hath bee* promised." 
 
 Paul is not alone in his insistence on the relation 
 of Christ to Abraham. It is announced in the first 
 •entence of the New Testament : " the book of the 
 generation of Jesus Christ, son of Abraham^ son of 
 David." And it is set forth with singular beauty in 
 the Gospel of the Infancy. Mary's song and Zacharias' 
 prophecy recall the freedom and simplicity of an 
 inspiration long silenced, as they tell how " the Lord 
 hath visited and redeemed His people ; He hath shown 
 mercy to our fathers, in remembrance of His holy 
 covenant, the oath which He sware unto Abraham our 
 father^ And again, "He hath helped Israel His 
 servant in remembrance of His mercy, as He spake 
 to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed for ever."t 
 These pious and tender souls who watched over the 
 cradle of our Lord and stood in the dawning of His 
 new day, instinctively cast their thoughts back to the 
 Covenant of Abraham. In it they found matter for 
 their songs and a warrant for their hopes, such as 
 no ritual ordinances could furnish. Their utterances 
 breathe a spontaneity of faith, a vernal freshness of 
 
 • Rom. xL Luke i. 54, 55, 68—73. 
 
 14 
 
tio TEE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 joy and hope to which the Jewish people for ages had 
 been strangers. The dull constraint and stiffness, the 
 harsh fanaticism of the Hebrew nature, have fallen 
 from them. They have put on the beautiful garments 
 of Zion, her ancient robes of praise. For the time of 
 the Promise draws near. Abraham's Seed is now 
 to be born ; and Abraham's faith revives to meet 
 Him. It breaks forth anew out of the dry and 
 long-barren soil of Judaism ; it is raised up to a richer 
 and an enduring life. Paul's doctrine of Grace does 
 but translate into logic the poetry of Mary's and 
 Zacharias' anthems. The Testament of Abraham 
 supplies thek* common theme. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 THE DESIGN OP THE LA W, 
 
 * What then is the law ? It was added because of transgretsioas, till 
 the iced should come to whom the promise hath been made ; and it 
 ztms ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator. N»w a 
 mediator is not a mediator of one ; but God is one. Is the law tkea 
 against the promises of God ? God forbid : for if there had bce» a law 
 g^ren which could make alive, verily righteousness would have beea of 
 the law. Howbeit the Scripture hath shut up all thin^ under sia, tkat 
 the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to them that 
 believe. But before faith came, we were kept in ward under the law, 
 shut «p unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. So that 
 the law hath been our tutor /* bring us unto Christ, that we might be 
 justified by faith." — Gal. iii. 19 — 24. 
 
 J/fyHAT then is the lawl So the Jew might well 
 '^ '^ exclaim. Paul has been doing nothing but dis- 
 parage it. — " You say that the Law of Moses brings no 
 righteousness or blessing, but only a curse ; that the 
 covenant made with Abraham ignores it, and does not 
 admit of being in any way qualified by its provisions. 
 What then do you make of it ? Is it not God's voice 
 that we hear in its commands ? Have the sons of 
 Abraham ever since Moses' day been wandering from 
 the true path of faith ? " Such inferences might be 
 drawn, not unnaturally, from the Apostle's denunciation 
 of Legalism. They were actually drawn by Marcion 
 in the second century, in his extreme hostility to 
 Judaism and the Old Testament 
 
Jia THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 This question must indeed have early forced itself 
 upon Paul's mind. How could the doctrine of Salvation 
 by Faith and the supremacy of the Abrahamic Covenant 
 be reconciled with the Divine commission of Moses? 
 How, on the other hand, could the displacement of the 
 Law by the Gospel be justified, if the former too was 
 authorised and inspired by God ? Can the same God 
 have given to men these two contrasted revelations of 
 Himself ? The answer, contained in the passage before 
 us, is that the two revelations had different ends in 
 view. They are complementary, not competing insti- 
 tutes. Of the two, the Covenant of Promise has the 
 prior right ; it points immediately to Christ. The 
 Legal economy is ancillary thereto ; it never professed 
 to accomplish the work of grace, as the Judaists would 
 have it do. Its office was external, but nevertheless 
 accessory' to that of the Promise. It guarded and 
 schooled the infant heirs of Abraham's Testament, until 
 the time of its falling due, when they should be prepared 
 in the manhood of faith to enter on their inheritance. 
 '* The law hath been our tutor for Christ, with the 
 intent we should be justified by faith" (ver. 24). 
 
 This aspect of the Law, under which, instead of 
 being an obstacle to the life of faith, it is seen to 
 subserve it, has been suggested already. '' For I," the 
 Apostle said, *' through law died to law " (ch. il 19). 
 The Law first impelled him to Christ. It constrained 
 him to look beyond itself. Its discipline was a pre- 
 paration for faith. Paul reverses the relation in which 
 Faith and Law were set by the Judaists. They brought 
 in the Law to perfect the unfinished w^ork of faith 
 (ver. 3) : he made it preliminary and propaedeutic. 
 What they gave out for more advanced doctrine, he 
 treats as the '' weak rudiments," belonging to the infancy 
 
iii. 19-24-] THE DESIGN OF THE LA W. aij 
 
 of the sons of God (ch. iv. I — ii). Up to this point, 
 however, the Mosaic law has been considered chiefly 
 in a negative way, as a foil to the Covenant of grace. 
 The Apostle has now to treat of its nature more 
 positively and explicitly, first indeed in contrast with the 
 promise (w. 19, 20); and secondly, in its co-operation 
 with the promise {y^. 22 — 24). Ver. 21 is the transition 
 from the first to the second of these conceptions. 
 
 I. ^' For the sake of the transgressions (committed 
 against it) * the law was added." The" Promise, let us 
 remember, was complete in itself. Its testament of 
 grace was sealed and delivered ages before the Mosaic 
 legislation, which could not therefore retract or modify 
 it. The Law was " superadded," as something over 
 and above, attached to the former revelation for a 
 subsidiary purpose lying outside the proper scope of 
 the Promise. What then was this purpose ? 
 
 I. For the sake of transgressions. In other words, 
 the object of the law of Moses was to develope sin. 
 This is not the whole of the Apostle's answer; but 
 it is the key to his explanation. This design of the 
 Mosaic revelation determined its form and character. 
 Here is the standpoint from which we are to estimate 
 its working, and its relation to the kingdom of grace. 
 The saying of Rom. v. 20 is Paul's commentary upon 
 this sentence : " The law came in by the way, in order 
 that the trespass (of Adam) might multiply." The same 
 necessity is expressed in the paradox of I Cor. xv. 56 : 
 ** The strength of sin is the law." 
 
 This enigma, as a psychological question, is resolved 
 by the Apostle in Rom. vii. 13 — 24. The law acts as 
 a spur and provocative, rousing the power of sin to 
 
 * TuiP wapa^daeup : the definite article can scarcely mean leu thaa 
 
214 ^HS^ EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 conscious activity. However good in itself, coming 
 into contact with man's evil flesh, its promulgation is 
 followed inevitably by transgression. Its commands 
 are so many occasions for sin to come into action, 
 to exhibit and confirm its power. So that the Law 
 practically assumes the same relation to sin as that 
 in which the Promise stands to righteousness and life. 
 In its union with the Law our sinful nature perpetually 
 " brings forth fruit unto death." And this mournful 
 result God certainly contemplated when He gave the 
 Law of Moses. 
 
 But are we compelled to put so harsh a sense on the 
 Apostle's words ? May we not say that the Law was 
 imposed in order to restrain sin, to keep it within 
 bounds ? Some excellent interpreters read the verse 
 in this way. It is quite true that, in respect of public 
 morals and the outward manifestations of evil, the 
 Jewish law acted beneficially, as a bridle upon the 
 sinful passions. But this is beside the mark. The 
 Apostle is thinking only of inward righteousness, that 
 which avails before God. The wording of the clause 
 altogether excludes the milder interpretation. For the 
 sake of (x^P^^t Latin gratia) signifies promotion^ not 
 prevention. And the word transgression, by its Pauline 
 and Jewish usage, compels us to this view.* Trans- 
 gression presupposes law. It is the specific form which 
 sin takes under law — the re-action of sin against law. 
 What was before a latent tendency, a bias of disposition, 
 now starts to light as a flagrant, guilty fact. By bring- 
 ing about repeated transgressions the Law reveals the 
 true nature of sin, so that it "becomes exceeding 
 sinfuL** ■ It does not make matters worse ; but it show* 
 
 • Comp. the reference to this word in Chapter IX., p. 143. 
 
iiL 19.24.] THB DESIGN OF THE LA W. ti5 
 
 how bad they really are. It aggravates the disease, in 
 order to bring it to a crisis. And this is a necessary 
 step towards the cure. 
 
 2. The Law of Moses was therefore a provisional 
 dispensation^ — "added until the seed should come to 
 whom the promise hath been made." Its object was 
 to make itself superfluous. It *'is not made for a 
 righteous man; but for the lawless and unruly" (i 
 Tim. i. 9). Like the discipline and drill of a strictlj 
 governed boyhood, it was calculated to produce » 
 certain effect on the moral nature, after the attainment 
 of which it was no longer needed and its continuance 
 would be injurious. The essential part of this eflfect 
 lay, however, not so much in the outward regularity it 
 imposed, as in the inner repugnancy excited by it, the 
 consciousness of sin unsubdued and defiant. By its 
 operation on the conscience the Law taught man his 
 need of redemption. It thus prepared the platform for 
 the work of Grace. The Promise had been given. The 
 coming of the Covenant-heir was assured. But its fulfil- 
 ment was far off! " The Lord is not slack concerning 
 His promise," — and yet it was two thousand years 
 before ** Abraham's seed " came to birth. The degen- 
 eracy of the patriarch's children in the third and fourth 
 generation showed how little the earlier heirs of the 
 Promise were capable of receiving it. A thousand 
 years later, when the Covenant was renewed with 
 David, the ancient predictions seemed at last nearing 
 their fulfilment But no ; the times were still unripe ; 
 the human conscience but half-disciplined. The bright 
 dawn of the Davidic monarchy was overclouded. The 
 legal yoke is made more burdensome; sore chastise- 
 ments fall on the chosen people, marked out for suffering 
 as well as honour. Prophecy has many lessons yet to 
 
ai6 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALaTIANS, 
 
 inculcate. The world's education for Christ has another 
 millennium to run. 
 
 Nor when He came, did " the Son of man find faith 
 in the earth " ! The people of the Law had no sooner 
 seen than they hated **Him to whom the law and 
 the prophets gave witness." Yet, strangely enough, 
 the very manner of their rejection showed how 
 complete was the preparation for His coming. Two 
 features, rarely united, marked the ethical condition of 
 the Jewish people at this time — an intense moral con- 
 sciousness, and a deep moral perversion ; reverence for 
 the Divine law, combined with an alienation from its 
 spirit The chapter of Paul's autobiography to which 
 we have so often referred (Rom. viL 7 — 24) is typical 
 of the better mind of Judaism. It is the ne plus ultra 
 of self-condemnation. The consciousness of sin in 
 mankind has ripened. 
 
 3. And further, the Law of Moses revealed God's 
 will in a veiled and accommodated fashion^ while, the 
 Promise and the Gospel are its direct emanations. 
 This is the inference which we draw from w. 19, 20. 
 
 We are well aware of the extreme difficulty of 
 this passage. Ver. 20 has received, it is computed, 
 some four hundred and thirty distinct interpretations. 
 Of all the *'hard things our beloved brother Paul" 
 has written, this is the very hardest. The words 
 which make up the sentence are simple and familiar ; 
 and yet in their combination most enigmatic. And 
 it stands in the midst of a paragraph among the 
 most interesting and important that the Apostle ever 
 wrote. 
 
 Let us look first at the latter clause of ver. 19: 
 " ordained through angels, in the hand (i>. by means) 
 of a mediator." These circumstances, as the orthodox 
 
id. 19-34.] THE DESIGN OF TEE LAW. S17 
 
 Jew supposed, enhanced the glory of the Law. The 
 pomp and formality under which Mosaism was ushered 
 in, the presence of the angelic host to whose agency 
 the terrific manifestations attending the Law-giving were 
 referred, impressed the popular mind with a sense of 
 the incomparable sacredness of the Sinaitic revelation. 
 It was this assumption which gave its force to the 
 climax of Stephen's speech, of which we hear an echo 
 in these words of Paul : " who received the law at the 
 disposition of angels — and have not kept it I" * The 
 simplicity and informality of the Divine communion 
 with Abraham, and again of Christ's appearance in the 
 world and His intercourse with men, afford a striking 
 contrast to all this. 
 
 More is hinted than is expressly said in Scripture 
 of the part taken by the angels in the Law-giving. 
 Deut. xxxiii. 2 f and Ps. IxviiL 17 give the most 
 definite indications of the ancient faith of Israel on this 
 point But " the Angel of the Lord " is a familiar 
 figure of Old Testament revelation. In Hebrew thought 
 impressive physical phenomena were commonly asso- 
 ciated with the presence of spiritual agents. { The 
 language of Heb. i. 7 and ii. 2 endorses this belief, 
 which in no way conflicts with natural science, and is 
 in keeping with the Christian faith. 
 
 But while such intermediacy, from the Jewish stand- 
 point, increased the splendour and authority of the 
 Law, believers in Christ had learned to look at the 
 
 • Acts vU. 53 : comp. liar ay hi aryykXbiP and Staroyelj Jt' ay7eXa>j'. 
 Stephen's last words may well have lingered in the ear of SauL From 
 the lips of Stephen, they were something of an argumentutn ad hominem. 
 
 t A doubtful citation at the best : the reading of the LXX is more to 
 the point than the Hebrew text. 
 
 X See the quotations from Jewish writers to this effect given b; 
 Meyer or Ughtfoot. 
 
ai8 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 matter otherwise. ♦ A revelation " administered 
 through angelSf" spoke to them of a God distant and 
 obscured, of a people unfit for access to His presence. 
 This is plainly intimated in the added clause, " by 
 means of a mediator" — a title commonly given to Moses, 
 and recalling the entreaty of Exod xx. 19; Deut. v. 22 — 
 28 : " The people said, Speak thou with us, and we will 
 hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die." 
 These are the words of sinful men, receiving a law 
 given, as the Apostle has just declared, on purpose to 
 convict them of their sins. The form of the Mosaic 
 revelation tended therefore in reality not to exalt the 
 Law, but to exhibit its difference from the Promise and 
 the distance at which it placed men from God. 
 
 The same thought is expressed, as Bishop Lightfoot 
 aptly shows, by the figure of ** the veil on Moses' face," 
 which Paul employs with so much felicity Li 2 Cor. 
 iii. 13 — 18. In the external glory of the Sinaitic law- 
 giving, as on the illuminated face of the Law-giver, 
 there was a fading brightness, a visible lustre con- 
 cealing its imperfect and transitory character. The 
 theophanies of the Old Covenant were a magnificent 
 veil, hiding while they revealed. Under the Law, 
 angels^ Moses came between God and man. It was 
 God who in His own grace conveyed the promise to 
 justified Abraham (ver. i8).t 
 
 • Comp. Heb. ii. 2—4; also Col. ii. 15 : " 0«7. God) having stripped 
 oflF the principalities and powers " — the earlier forms of angelic media- 
 tion. The writer may refer on this latter passage to his note in the 
 Pulpit Commentary, also to The Expositor^ 1st series, x. 403—421. 
 
 t Bit the title " mediator " belongs to Christ, given by Paul him- 
 ■clf— the "one mediator between God and men, the man Christ 
 Jesus " (I Tim. ii. 5). (Comp. Heb. viii. 6 ; ix. 15 ; xii. 24.) Christ 
 is BO styled however under an aspect very different from that in which 
 the wojrd appears here. '* There is one mediator," the AposMe writes 
 
m. 19-24.] THE DESIGN OF THE LA W, S19 
 
 The Law employed a mediator ; the Promise did not 
 (ver. 19.). With this contrast in our minds we ap- 
 proach ver. 20. On the other side of it (ver. 2i), we find 
 Law and Promise again in sharp antithesis. The same 
 antithesis runs through the intervening sentence. The 
 two clauses of ver. 20 belong to the Law and Promise 
 respectively. " Now a mediator is not of one : " that is 
 an axiom which holds good of the Law, " But God is 
 one : " this glorious truth, the first article of Israel's 
 creed, applies to the Promise. Where "a mediator" 
 is necessary, unity is wanting, — not simply in a 
 numerical, but in a moral sense, as matter of feeling 
 and of aim. There are separate interests, discordant 
 views to be consulted. This was true of Mosaisrn. 
 Although in substance "holy and just and good," it 
 was by no means purely Divine. It was not the abso- 
 lute reUgioru Not only was it defective ; it contained, 
 in the judgement of Christ, positive elements of wrong, 
 precepts given " for the hardness of men's hearts."* It 
 largely consisted of ** carnal ordinances, imposed till 
 the time of rectification " (Heb. ix. 10). The theocratic 
 legislation of the Pentateuch is lacking in the unity 
 and consistency of a perfect revelation. Its disclosures 
 of God were refracted in a manifest degree by the 
 atmosphere through which they passed. 
 
 " But God is one." Here again the unity is moral 
 
 in I Timothy, " who gave Himself a ransom for all" the one atoning 
 mediator. But Christ's manifestation of God was direct, as that of 
 Moses was not. His Person does not come between men and God. 
 like that of the Sinaitic mediator ; it brings God into immediate contact 
 with men. Moses acted for a distant God : Christ is Immanuel, God 
 with us. On the human side Christ is mediator {Sj^dpurrss Hpiffrin 
 'li}€rovt') ; He acts for individual men ^nth God. On the Dmnu* side, 
 He is more than mediator, being God HimsclL 
 * Matt xiz. 8. Comp. Ezek. xx. 25. 
 
S30 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 and essential — of character and action, rather than of 
 number. In the Fromise God spoke immediately and 
 for Himself. There was no screen to intercept the 
 view of faith, no go-between like Moses, with God on 
 the mountain-top shrouded in thunder-clouds and the 
 people terrified or wantoning far below. Of all differ- 
 ences between the Abrahamic and Judaic types of piety 
 this was the chief. The man of Abraham's faith sees 
 God in His unity. The Legalist gets his religion at 
 second-hand, mixed with undivine elements. He be- 
 lieves that there is one God ; but his hold upon the 
 truth is formal. There is no unity, no simplicity of 
 faith in his conception of God. He projects on to the 
 Divine image confusing shadows of human imperfec- 
 tion. 
 
 God is One: this great article of faith was the 
 foundation of Israel's life. It forms the first sentence 
 of the Shem^, the '' Hear, O Israel " (Deut. vi. 4—9), 
 which every pious Jew repeats twice a day, and which 
 in literal obedience to the Law-giver's words he fixes 
 above his house-door, and binds upon his arm and 
 brow at the time of prayer. Three times besides has 
 the Apostle quoted this sentence. The first of these 
 passages, Rom. iii. 29, 30,* may help us to understand 
 its application here. In that place he employs it as 
 a weapon against Jewish exclusiveness. If there is 
 but " one God," he argues, there can be only one way 
 of justification, for Jew and Gentile alike. The in- 
 ference drawn here is even more bold and singular. 
 There is " one God," who appeared in His proper 
 character in the Covenant with Abraham. If the Law 
 of Moses gives us a conception of His nature in any 
 
 • Comp. I Cor. ▼iii 6 ; l Tim. iL 5 ; also Mark xiL 29, 30 j Jaa. 
 ii. I9< 
 
iii. I9-34-] THE DESIGN OF THE LAW. %i\ 
 
 wise different from this, it is because other and lower 
 elements found a place in it Through the whole 
 course of revelation there is one God — manifest to 
 Abraham, veiled in Mosaism, revealed again in His 
 perfect image in '* the face of Jesus Christ." 
 
 II. So far the Apostle has pursued the contrast 
 between the systems of Law and Grace. When finally 
 he has referred the latter rather than the former to 
 the ^' one God," we naturally ask, " Is the Law then 
 against the promises of God?" (ver. 21). Was the 
 Legal dispensation a mere reaction, a retrogression from 
 the Promise ? This would be to push Paul's argument 
 to an antinomian extreme. He hastens to protest. 
 — " The law against the promises ? Aw^ay with the 
 thought." Not on the Apostle's premises, but on those 
 of his opponents, did this consequence ensue. It is 
 they who set the two at variance, by trying to make 
 law do the work of grace. " For if a law had been 
 given that could bring men to life, righteousness would 
 verily in that case have been of law" (ver. 21). That 
 righteousness, and therefore hfe, is not of law, the 
 Apostle has abundantly shown (ch. ii. 16; iii. 10— 
 13). Had the Law provided some efficient means of 
 its own for winning righteousness, there would then 
 indeed have been a conflict between the two principles. 
 As matters stand, there is none. Law and Promise 
 move on different planes. Their functions are distinct. 
 Yet there is a connection between them. The design 
 of the Law is to mediate between the Promise and 
 its iiilfilment. " The trespass " must be " multiplied," 
 the knowledge of sin deepened, before Grace can do 
 its office. The fever of sin has to come to its crisis, 
 before the remedy can take effect. Law is therefore 
 Dot the enemy, but the minister of Grace. It was 
 
22« THE EPISTLR TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 charged with a purpose lying beyond itself. "Christ 
 is the end of the law, for righteousness" (Rom. x. 4). 
 
 I. For, in the first place, tht law cuts men off from all 
 other hope of salvation. 
 
 On the Judaistic hypothesis, "righteousness would 
 have been of law." But quite on the contrary, " the 
 Scripture shuts up everything under sin, that the 
 promise might be given in the way of faith in Jesus 
 Christ, to them that believe " (ver. 22). Condemnation 
 inevitable, universal, was pronounced by the Divine 
 word under the Law, not in order that men might 
 remain crushed beneath its weight, but that, abandoning 
 vain hopes of self-justification, they might find in Christ 
 their true deliverer. 
 
 The Apostle is referring here to the general purport 
 of " the Scripture." His assertion embraces the whole 
 teaching of the Old Testament concerning human 
 sinfulness, embodied, for example, in the chain of 
 citations drawn out in Rom. iii. 10 — 18. Wherever 
 the man looking for legal justification turned, the 
 Scripture met him with some new command which 
 drove him back upon the sense of his moral helpless- 
 ness. It fenced him in with prohibitions ; it showered 
 on him threatenings and reproaches ; it besieged him in 
 ever narrowing circles. And if he felt less the pressure 
 of its outward burdens, all the more was he tormented 
 by inward disharmony and self-accusation. 
 
 Now the judgement of Scripture is not uttered 
 against this class of men or that, against this type of 
 sin or that. Its impeachment sweeps the entire area of 
 human life, sounding the depths of the heart, searching 
 every avenue of thought and desire. It makes of the 
 world one vast prison-house, with the Law for gaoler, 
 and mankind held fast in chains of sin, waiting for 
 
iiii9-24-] THB DESIGN OF THE LAW, t33 
 
 death. In this position the Apostle had found himself 
 
 (Rom. vii. 24 — viii. 2) ; and in his own heart he saw a 
 
 mirror of the world. *' Every mouth was stopped, and 
 
 all the world brought in guilty before God " (Rom. iii. 
 
 19). This condition he graphically describes in terms 
 
 of his former experience, in ver. 23 : " Before faith came, 
 
 under law we were kept in ward, being shut up unto 
 
 the faith that was to be revealed." The Law was all 
 
 the while standing guard over its subjects, watching 
 
 and checking every attempt to escape, * but intending 
 
 to hand them over in due time to the charge of Faith. 
 
 The Law posts its ordinances, like so many sentinels, 
 
 round the prisoner's cell. The cordon is complete. 
 
 He tries again and again to break out ; the iron circle 
 
 will not yield. But deliverance will yet be his. The 
 
 day of Faith approaches. It dawned long ago in 
 
 Abraham's Promise. Even now its light shines into his 
 
 dungeon, and he hears the word of Jesus, '* Thy sins are 
 
 forgiven thee ; go in peace." Law, the stern gaoler, has 
 
 after all been a good friend, if it has reserved him for 
 
 this. It prevents the sinner escaping to a futile and 
 
 illusive freedom. 
 
 In this dramatic fashion Paul shows how the Mosaic 
 law by its ethical discipline prepared men for a life 
 which by itself it was incapable of giving. Where 
 Law has done its work well, it produces, as in the 
 Apostle's earlier experience, a profound sense of personal 
 demerit, a tenderness of conscience, a contrition of heart 
 which makes one ready thankfully to receive " the 
 righteousness which is of God by faith." In every 
 age and condition of life a like effect is wrought 
 
 • Hence the present participle, tfiry/cXet^^ierot (Revised reading 
 of rer. 23), in combinadoii with the impcrfut of the foregoing Terb, 
 
224 THB EPISTLB TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 upon men who honestly strive to live up to an exacting 
 moral standard. They confess their failure. They lose 
 self-conceit. They grow ** poor in spirit," willing to 
 accept " the abundance of the gift of righteousness " in 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 Faith is trebly honoured here. It is the condition of 
 the gift, the characteristic of its recipient (w. 22, 24), 
 and the end for which he was put under the charge of 
 Law (ver. 23). " To them that believe " is " given," as 
 it was in foretaste to Abraham (ver. 6), a righteousness 
 unearned, and bestowed on Christ's account (ch. iii. 
 13; Rom. V. 17, 18); which brings with it the in- 
 dwelling of the Holy Spirit, reserved in its conscious 
 possession for Abraham's children in the faith of Christ 
 (ch. iii. 14; iv. 4). These blessings form the com- 
 mencement of that true Hfe, whose root is a spiritual 
 union with Christ, and which reaches on to eternity 
 (ch. ii. 20 ; Rom. v. 21 ; vi 23). Of such life the Law- 
 could impart nothing; but it taught men their need 
 of it, and disposed them to accept it. This was the 
 purpose of its institution. It was the forerunner, not 
 the finisher, of Faith. 
 
 2. Paul makes use of a second figure to describe 
 the office of the Law ; under which he gives his final 
 answer to the question of ver. 19. The metaphor of the 
 gaoler is exchanged for that of the tutor, '* The law 
 hath been our Trai^ayoyyo^ for Christ." This Greek 
 word (boy-leader) has no English equivalent ; we have 
 not the thing it represents. The "pedagogue" was a 
 sort of nursery governor, — a confidential servant in the 
 Greek household, commonly a slave, who had charge of 
 the boy from his infancy, and was responsible for his 
 oversight. In his food, his clothes, his home-lessons, 
 his play, his walks — at every point the pedagogue was 
 
iii. I9-H-1 THB DESIGN OP THE LA W. 125 
 
 required to wait upon his young charge, and to control 
 his movements. Amongst other offices, his tutor might 
 have to conduct the boy to school ; and it has been 
 supposed that Paul is thinking of this duty, as though 
 he meant, "The Law has been our pedagogue, to 
 take us to Christ, our true teacher." But he adds, 
 *' That we might be justified of faith." The " tutor " or 
 ver. 24 is parallel to the "guard " of the last verse ; he 
 represents a distinctly disciplinary influence. 
 
 This figure implies not like the last the imprisoned 
 condition of the subject — but his childish^ undevelopea 
 state. This is an advance of thought. The Law was 
 something more than a system of restraint and condem- 
 nation. It contained an element of progress. Under 
 the tutelage of his pedagogue the boy is growing up to 
 manhood. At the end of its term the Law will hand 
 over its charge mature in capacity and equal to the 
 responsibihties of faith. " If then the Law is a 
 TraiBayoyyo^, it is not hostile to Grace, but its fellow- 
 worker ; but should it continue to hold us fast when 
 Grace has come, then it would be hostile" (Chrysostom). 
 
 Although the highest function, that of " giving life," 
 is denied to the Law, a worthy part is still assigned 
 to it by the Apostle. It was "a tutor to lead men to 
 Christ" Judaism was an education for Christianity. 
 It prepared the world for the Redeemers coming. It 
 drilled and moralised the religious youth of the human 
 race. It broke up the fallow-ground of nature, and 
 cleared a space in the weed-covered soil to receive 
 the seed of the kingdom. Its moral regimen 
 deepened the conviction of sin, while it multiplied its 
 overt acts. Its ceremonial impressed on sensuous 
 natures the idea of the Divine holiness ; and its sacri- 
 ficial rites gave definiteness and vividness to men's 
 
 15 
 
226 TEB EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 conceptions of the necessity of atonement, failing indeed 
 to remove sin, but awakening the need and sustaining 
 the hope of its removal (Heb. x. i — 18). 
 
 The Law of Moses has formed in the Jewish nation 
 a type of humanity like no other in the world. " They 
 dwell alone," said Balaam, *' and shall not be reckoned 
 amongst the nations." Disciplined for ages under their 
 harsh '^ pedagogue," this wonderful people acquired a 
 strength of moral fibre and a spiritual sensibility that 
 prepared them to be the religious leaders of mankind. 
 Israel has given us David and Isaiah, Paul and John. 
 Christ above all was "born under law — of David's 
 seed according to flesh." The influence of Jewish 
 minds at this present time on the world's higher 
 thought, whether for good or evil, is incalculable ; and 
 it penetrates everywhere. Thf; Christian Church may 
 with increased emphasis repeat Paul's anticipation, 
 *' What will the receiving of them be, but life from the 
 dead 1 " They have a great service still to do for the 
 Lord and for His Christ. It was well for them and 
 for U8 that they hctve " borne the yoke in their youth." 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE EMANCIPATED SONS OF GOD, 
 
 ** Bnt now that faith is come, we are no longer under a tutor. For 
 ye are all sons of God, through faith in Christ Je^us. For as many 
 of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ. There can be 
 neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can 
 be no male and female : for ye all are one man in Christ Jesus. And 
 if ye are Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, heirs according to 
 promise." — Gal. iiL 25 — 29. 
 
 " TTAITH has come!" At this announcement Law 
 J. the tutor yields up his charge ; Law the gaoler 
 sets his prisoner at liberty. The age of servitude has 
 passed. In truth it endured long enough. The iron 
 of its bondage had entered into the soul. But at last 
 Faith is come ; and with it comes a new world. The 
 clock of time cannot be put back. The soul of man 
 will never return to the old tutelage, nor submit again to 
 a religion of rabbinism and sacerdotalism. " We are 
 no longer under a pedagogue ; " we have ceased to be 
 children in the nursery, schoolboys at our tasks — " ye 
 are all sons of God." In such terms the newborn, free 
 spirit of Christianity speaks in Paul. He had tasted 
 the bitterness of the Judaic yoke ; no man more deeply. 
 He had felt the weight of its impossible exactions, 
 its fatal condemnation. This sentence is a shout of 
 deliverance. "Wretch tath I am," he had cried, *'who 
 
238 THS BPISTLB TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 shall deliver me ? — I give thanks to God through 
 Jesus Christ our Lord ; ... for the law of the Spirit 
 of life in Him hath freed me from the law of sin and 
 death " (Rom. vii. 24 — viii. 2). 
 
 Faith is the true emancipator of the human mind. It 
 comes to take its place as mistress of the soul, queen 
 in the realm of the heart ; to be henceforth its spring 
 of life, the norm and guiding principle of its activity. 
 " The life that I live in the flesh," Paul testifies, " I 
 live in faith." The Mosaic law — a system of ex- 
 ternal, repressive ordinances — is no longer to be the 
 basis of religion. Law itself, and for its proper pur- 
 poses, Faith honours and magnifies (Rom. iii. 31). 
 It is in the interests of Law that the Apostle insists on 
 the abolishment of its Judaic form. Faith is an essen- 
 tially just principle, the rightful, original ground of 
 human fellowship with God. In the age of Abraham, 
 and even under the Mosaic regime, in the religion of 
 the Prophets and Psalmists, faith was the quickening 
 element, the well-spring of piety and hope and moral 
 vigour. Now it is brought to light. It assumes its 
 sovereignty, and claims its inheritance. Faith is come 
 — for Christ is come, its '^ author and finisher." 
 
 The efficacy of faith lies in its object. " Works " 
 assume an intrinsic merit in the doer; faith has its 
 virtue in Him it trusts. It is the soul's recumbency 
 on Christ. "Through faith in Christ Jesus," Paul 
 goes on to say, "ye are all sons of God." Christ 
 evokes the faith which shakes off legal bondage, leaving 
 the age of formalism and ritual behind, and beginning 
 for the world an era of spiritual freedom. ** In Christ 
 Jesus " faith has its being ; He constitutes for the soul 
 a new atmosphere and habitat, in which faith awakens 
 to full existence, bursts the confining shell of legalism, 
 
Hi. 25-290 THB EMANCIPATED SONS Oh GOD. «S9 
 
 recognises itself and its destiny, and unfolds into the 
 glorious consciousness of its Divine sonship. 
 
 We prefer, with EUicott and Meyer, to attach the 
 complement "in Christ Jesus" * to "faith" (so in A.V.), 
 rather than to the predicate, " Ye are sons " — the con- 
 struction endorsed by the Revised comma after " faith." 
 The former connection, more obvious in itself, seems to 
 us to fail in with the Apostle's line of thought. And it 
 is sustained by the language of ver. 27. Faith in Christ, 
 baptism into Christ, and putting on Christ are connected 
 and correspondent expressions. The first is the spiritual 
 principle, the ground or element of the new Hfe ; the 
 second, its visible attestation ; and the third indicates 
 the character and habit proper thereto. 
 
 I. It is faith in Christ then which constitutes us sons 
 of God, This principle is the foundation-stone of the 
 Christian life. 
 
 In the Old Testament the sonship of believers lay in 
 shadow. Jehovah was " the King, the Lord of Hosts," 
 the " Shepherd of Israel." They are " His people, the 
 sheep of His pasture " — " My servant Jacob," He says, 
 " Israel whom I have chosen." If He is named Father, 
 it is of the collective Israel, not the individual ; other- 
 wise the title occurs only in figure and apostrophe. 
 The promise of this blessedness had never been expli- 
 citly given under the Covenant of Moses. The assur- 
 ance quoted in 2 Cor. vi. 18 is pieced together from 
 scattered hints of prophecy. Old-Testament faith 
 hardly dared to dream of such a privilege as this. It 
 is not ascribed even to Abraham. Only to the kingly 
 
 • The pbrase/a/M in Christ Jesus is ft link between this Epistle and 
 those of the third and fourth groups. Comp. Col. i. 4 ; Eph. L 1$ i 
 I Tim. iii. 13 ; 2 Tim. i. 13; iiL 15. More frequently in thia coa« 
 ' IB " represents cis {into\ not h as here. 
 
ajo THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATJANS. 
 
 ** Son of David " is it said, " I will be a Father unto 
 him ; and he shall be to me for a son" (2 Sam. vii. 14). 
 But ^' beloved, nov^r are we children of God" (i John 
 iii. 2). The filial consciousness is the distinction of 
 the Church of Jesus Christ. The Apostolic writings 
 are full of it. The unspeakable dignity of this relation- 
 ship, the boundless hopes which it inspires, have left 
 their fresh impress on the pages of the New Testa- 
 ment. The writers are men who have made a vast 
 discovery. They have sailed out into a new ocean. 
 They have come upon an infinite treasure. "Thou 
 art no longer a slave, but a son I " What exultation 
 filled the soul of Paul and of John as they penned 
 such words I " The Spirit of glory and of God " rested 
 upon them. 
 
 The Apostle is virtually repeating here what he said 
 in w. 2 — 5 touching the *' receiving of the Spirit," 
 which is, he declared, the distinctive mark of the 
 Christian state, and raises its possessor ipso facto above 
 the religion of externalism. The antithesis of flesh 
 and spirit now becomes that of sonship and pupilage. 
 Christ Himself, in the words of Luke xi. 13, marked 
 out the gift of '* the Holy Spirit " as the bond between 
 the "heavenly Father" and His human children. Ac- 
 cordingly Paul writes immediately, in ch. iv. 6, 7, of 
 "God sending forth the Spirit of His Son into our 
 hearts" to show that we "are sons," where we find 
 again the thought which follows here in ver. 27, viz. 
 that union with Christ imparts this exalted status. This 
 is after all the central conception of the Christian life, 
 Paul has already stated it as the sum of his own experi- 
 ence : " Christ lives in me " (ch. ii. 20). " I have put 
 on Christ " is the same thing in other words. In ch. 
 ii. 20 he contemplates the union as an inner, vitalising 
 
iii 35-29] THE EMANCIPATED SONS OF GOD, «3i 
 
 force ; heFe it is viewed as matter of status and con- 
 dition. The believer is invested with Christ, He enters 
 into the filial estate and endowments, since he is in Christ 
 Jesus. ** For if Christ is Son of God, and thou hast 
 put on Him, having the Son in thyself and being made 
 like to Him, thou wast brought into one kindred and 
 one form of being with Him " (Chrysostom). 
 
 This was true of "so many as were baptized into 
 Christ " — an expression employed not in order to limit 
 the assertion, but to extend it coincidently with the 
 *' all " of ver. 26. There was no difference in this respect 
 between the circumcised and uncircumcised. Every 
 baptized Galatian was a son of God. Baptism mani- 
 festly presupposes faith. To imagine that the opus 
 operatum, the mechanical performance of the rite apart 
 from faith present or anticipated in the subject, ''clothes 
 us with Christ," is to hark back to Judaism. It is to 
 substitute baptism for circumcision — a difference merely 
 of form, so long as the doctrine of ritual regeneration 
 remains the same. This passage is as clear a proof as 
 could well be desired, that in the Pauline vocabulary 
 " baptized " is synonymous with " believing." The 
 baptism of these Galatians solemnised their spiritual 
 union with Christ. It was the public acceptance, in 
 trust and submission, of God's covenant of grace — for 
 their children haply, as well as for themselves. 
 
 In the case of the infant, the household to which it 
 belongs, the religious community which receives it to be 
 nursed in its bosom, stand sponsors for its faith. On 
 them will rest the blame of broken vows and responsi- 
 bility disowned, if their baptized children are left to 
 lapse into ignorance of Christ's claims upon them. The 
 Church which practises infant baptism assumes a very 
 serious obligation. If it takes no sufficient care to 
 
23a THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 have the rite made good, if children pass through its 
 laver to remain unmarked and unshepherded, it is sin- 
 ning against Christ. Such administration makes His 
 ordinance an object of superstition, or of contempt. 
 
 The baptism of the Galatians signalised their en- 
 trance ** into Christ," the union of their souls with tht 
 dying, risen Lord. They were ** baptized," as Paul 
 phrases it elsewhere, " into His death," to " walk " 
 henceforth with Him " in newness of life." By its very 
 form — the normal and most expressive form of primi- 
 tive baptism, the descent into and rising from the 
 symbolic waters — it pictured the soul's death with 
 Christ, its burial and its resurrection in Him, its 
 separation from the life of sin and entrance upon the 
 new career of a regenerated child of God (Rom. vi. 
 3 — 14). This power attended the ordinance "through 
 faith in the operation of God who raised Christ from 
 the dead" (Col. ii. 11 — 13). Baptism had proved to 
 them " the laver of regeneration " in virtue of " the 
 renewing of the Holy Spirit," under those spiritual 
 conditions of accepted mercy and "justification by gract 
 through faith,"* without which it is a mere law- work, 
 as useless as any other. It was the outward and 
 visible sign of the inward transaction which made the 
 Galatian believers sons of God and heirs of life eternal. 
 It was therefore a "putting on of Christ," a veritable 
 assumption of the Christian character, the filial relation- 
 ship to God. Every such baptism announced to heaven 
 and earth the passage of another soul from servitude 
 to freedom, from death unto life, the birth of a brother 
 into the family of God. From this day the new convert 
 was a member incorporate of the Body of Christ, 
 
 • Rom. vi. I, 3; Tit ill 4^7 ("not of works. , . that we had 
 done)." 
 
ill. 25-29.] THE EMANCIPATED SONS OF GOD, 233 
 
 affianced to his Lord, not alone in the secret vows of 
 his heart, but pledged to Him before his fellow-men. 
 He had put on Christ— io be worn in his daily life, 
 while He dwelt in the shrine of his spirit. And men 
 would see Christ in him, as they see the robe upon 
 its wearer, the armour glittering on the soldier's breast. 
 By receiving Christ, inwardly accepted in faith, visibly 
 assumed in baptism, we are made sons of God. He 
 makes us free of the house of God, where He rules as 
 Son, and where no slave may longer stay. Those 
 who called themselves " Abraham's seed " and yet were 
 " slaves of sin," must be driven from the place in God's 
 household which they dishonoured, and must forfeit 
 their abused prerogatives. They were not Abraham's 
 children, for they were utterly unlike him ; the Devil 
 surely was their father, whom by their lusts they 
 featured. So Christ declared to the unbelieving Jews 
 (John viii. 31 — 44). And so the Apostle identifies the 
 children of Abraham with the sons of God, by faith 
 united to " the Son." Alike in the historical sonship 
 toward Abraham and the supernatural sonship toward 
 God, Christ is the ground of filiation. Our sonship is 
 grafted upon His. He is " the vine," we " branches " in 
 Him. He is the seed of Abraham, the Son of God ; we, 
 sons of God and Abraham's seed — "if we are Christ's." 
 Through Him we derive from God ; through Him all 
 that is best in the life of humanity comes down to us. 
 Christ is the central stock, the spiritual root of the 
 human race. His manifestation reveals God to man, 
 and man also to himself. In Jesus Christ we regain 
 the Divine image, stamped upon us in Him at our 
 creation (Col. i. 15, 16; iii. 10, ll), the filial like- 
 nesa to God which constitutes man's proper nature. 
 Its attainment is the essential blessing, the promise 
 
a34 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATJANS, 
 
 which descended from Abraham along the succession of 
 faith. 
 
 Now this dignity belongs universally to Christian 
 faith. *'Ye are c///' the Apostle says, '*sons of Go<? 
 through faith in Him." Sonship is a human, not a 
 Jewish distinction. The discipline Israel had endured, 
 it endured for the world. The Gentiles have no need 
 to pass through it again. Abraham's blessing, when it 
 came, was to embrace '* all the families of the earth." 
 The new life in Christ in which it is realised, is as 
 large in scope as it is complete in nature. " Faith in 
 Christ Jesus" is a condition that opens the door to 
 every human being, — ''Jew or Greek, bond or free, 
 male or female." If then baptized, believing Gentiles 
 are sons of God, they stand already on a level higher 
 than any to which Mosaism raised its professors. 
 " Putting on Christ," they are robed in a righteousness 
 brighter and purer than that of the most blameless 
 legalist. What can Judaism do for them more ? How 
 could they wish to cover their glorious dress with its 
 faded, worn-out garments ? To add circumcision to 
 their faith would be not to rise, but to sink from the 
 state of sons to that of serfs. 
 
 II. On this first principle of the new Hfe there rests 
 a second. The sons of God are brethren to each other. 
 Christianity is the perfection of society, as well as of the 
 individual. The faith of Christ restores the broken unity 
 of mankind. "In Christ Jesus there is no Jew or 
 Greek ; there is no bondman or freeman ; there is no 
 male and female. You are all one in Him." 
 
 The Galatian believer at his baptism had entered a 
 communion which ^ave him for the first time the sense 
 of a common humanity. In Jesus Christ he found a 
 bond of union with his fellows, an identity of interest 
 
ttLas-29.] THE EMANCIPATED SONS OF GOD. %il 
 
 and aim so commanding that in its presence secular 
 differences appeared as nothing. From the height to 
 which his Divine adoption raised him these things 
 were invisible. Distinctions of race, of rank, even that 
 of sex, which bulk so largely in our outward life and 
 are sustained by all the force of pride and habit, arc 
 forgotten here. These dividing lines and party-walls 
 have no power to sunder us from Christ, nor therefore 
 from each other in Christ. The tide of Divine love and 
 joy which through the gate of faith poured into the 
 souls of these Gentiles of " many nations," submerged 
 all barriers. They are one in the brotherhood of the 
 eternal life. When one says " I am a child of God," 
 one no longer thinks, " I am a Greek or Jew, rich or 
 poor, noble or ignoble — man or woman." A son oA 
 God I — that sublime consciousness fills his being. 
 
 Paul, to be sure, does not mean that these differences 
 have ceased to exist. He fully recognises them ; and 
 indeed insists strongly on the proprieties of sex, and on 
 the duties of civil station. He values his own Jewish 
 birth and Roman citizenship. But '* in Christ Jesus" 
 he " counts them refuse " (Phil. iii. 4 — 8). Our relations 
 to God, our heritage in Abraham's Testament, depend 
 on our faith in Christ Jesus and our possession of His 
 Spirit. Neither birth nor office affects this relationship 
 in the least degree. *'As many as are led by the 
 Spirit of God, they are the sons of God" (Rom. viii. 
 14). This is the Divine criterion of churchmanship, 
 applied to prince or beggar, to archbishop or sexton, 
 with perfect impartiality. " God is no respecter of 
 persons." 
 
 This rule of the Apostle's was a new principle in 
 religion, pregnant with immense consequences. The 
 Stoic cosmopolitan philosophy made a considerable 
 
236 THE EFISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 approach to it, teaching as it did the worth of the 
 moral person and the independence of virtue upon 
 outward conditions. Buddhism previously, and Moham- 
 medanism subsequently, each in its own way, addressed 
 themselves to man as man, declaring all believers equal 
 and abolishing the privileges of race and caste. To 
 their recognition of human brotherhood the marvellous 
 victories won by these two creeds are largely due. These 
 religious systems, with all their errors, were a signal 
 advance upon Paganism with its " gods many and lords 
 many," its local and national deities, whose worship 
 belittled the idea of God and turned religion into an 
 engine of hostility instead of a bond of union amongst 
 men. 
 
 Greek culture, moreover, and Roman government, as 
 it has often been observed, had greatly tended to unify 
 mankind. They diffused a common atmosphere of 
 thought and established one imperial law round the 
 circuit of the Mediterranean shores. But these con- 
 quests of secular civilization, the victories of arms and 
 arts, v,rere achieved at the expense of religion. Poly- 
 theism is essentially barbarian. It flourishes in division 
 and in ignorance. To bring together its innumerable 
 gods and creeds was to bring them all into contempt 
 The one law, the one learning now prevailing in the 
 world, created a void in the conscience of m.ankind, 
 only to be filled by the one faith. Without a centre of 
 spiritual unity, history shows that no other union Vv ill 
 endure. But for Christianity, the Grgeco- Roman civili- 
 zation would have perished, trampled out by the feet 
 of Goths and Huns. 
 
 The Jewish faith failed to meet the world's demand 
 for a universal religion. It could never have saved 
 European society. Nor was it designed for such a 
 
■I. 25-29-] THE EMANCIPATED SONS OF GOD. 237 
 
 purpose. True, its Jehovah was *' the God of the whole 
 earth." The teaching of the Old Testament, as Paul 
 easily showed, had a universal import and brought all 
 men within the scope of its promises. But in its actual 
 shape and its positive institutions it was still tribal and 
 exclusive. Mosaism planted round the family of Abra- 
 ham a fence of ordinances, framed of set purpose to 
 make them a separate people and preserve them from 
 heathen contamination. This system, at first main- 
 tained with difficulty, in course of time gained control 
 of the Israelitish nature, and its exclusiveness was 
 aggravated by every device of Pharisaic ingenuity. 
 Without an entire transformation, without in fact 
 ceasing to be Judaism, the Jewish religion was doomed 
 to isolation. Under the Roman Empire, in consequence 
 of the ubiquitous dispersion of the Jews, it spread far 
 and wide. It attracted numerous and influential con- 
 verts. But these proselytes never were, and never 
 could have been generally amalgamated with the sacred 
 people. They remained in the outer court, worshipping 
 the God of Israel '* afar off" (Eph. ii. 1 1 — 22 ; iii. 4 — 6). 
 This particularism of the Mosaic system was, to 
 Paul's mind, a proof of its temporary character. The 
 abiding faith, the faith of "Abraham and his seed," 
 must be broad as humanity. It could know nothing 
 of Jew and Gentile, of master and slave, nor even of 
 man and woman ; it knows only the soul and God. The 
 gospel of Christ allied itself thus with the nascent in- 
 stinct of humanity, the fellow-feeling of the race. It 
 adopted the sentiment of the Roman poet, himself an en- 
 franchised slave, who wrote : Homo sum, et humant 
 a me nil alienum puto. In our religion human kinship 
 at last receives adequate expression. The Son of man 
 lays the foundation of a world-wide fraternity. The 
 
138 THE EPISTLB TO THE GALATIAlfS, 
 
 one Father claims all men for His sons in Christ. A 
 new, tenderer, holier humanity is formed around His 
 cross. Men of the most distant climes and races, 
 coming across their ancient battle-fields, clasp each 
 other's hands and say, " Beloved, if God so loved us, 
 we ought also to love one another." 
 
 The practice of the Church has fallen far below the 
 doctrine of Christ and His Apostles. In this respect 
 Mohammedans and Buddhists might teach Christian 
 congregations a lesson of fraternity. The arrangements 
 of our public worship seem often designed expressly 
 to emphasize social distinctions, and to remind the poor 
 man of his inequality. Our native hauteur and con- 
 ventionality are nowhere more painfully conspicuous 
 than in the house of God. English Christianity 
 is seamed through and through with caste-feeling. 
 This lies at the root of our sectarian jealousies. It is 
 largely due to this cause that the social ideal of Jesus 
 Christ has been so deplorably ignored, and that a frank 
 brotherly fellowship amongst the Churches is at present 
 impossible. Sacerdotalism first destroyed the Christian 
 brotherhood by absorbing in the official ministry the 
 functions of the individual believer. And the Protestant 
 Reformation has but partially re-established these pre- 
 rogatives. Its action has been so far too exclusively 
 negative and protestant^ too little constructive and 
 creative. It has allowed itself to be secularised and 
 identified with existing national limitations and social 
 distinctions. How greatly has the authority of our 
 faith and the influence of the Church suffered from 
 this error. The filial consciousness should produce the 
 fraternal consciousness. With the former we may have 
 a number of private Christians ; with the latter only 
 can we have a Church. 
 
fil. 25-29] THE EMANCIPATED SONS OF GOD, 239 
 
 "Ye are all," says the Apostle, "one (man) in Christ 
 Jesus." The numeral is masculine, not neuter — otu 
 person (no abstract unity),* as though possessing one 
 mind and will, and that " the mind that was in Christ." 
 Just so far as individual men are '* in Christ " and He 
 becomes the soul of their life, do they realise this unity. 
 The Christ within them recognises the Christ without, 
 as " face answereth to face in a glass." In this recog- 
 nition social disparity vanishes. We think of it no 
 more than we shall do before the judgement-seat of 
 Christ. What matters it whether my brother wears 
 velvet or fustian, if Christ be in him ? The humbleness 
 of his birth or occupation, the uncouthness of his speech, 
 cannot separate him, nor can the absence of these 
 peculiarities separate his neighbour, from the love of 
 God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Why should these 
 differences make them strangers to each other in the 
 Church ? If both are in Christ, why are they not ont 
 in Christ ? A tide of patriotic emotion, a scene of pity 
 or terror — a shipwreck, an earthquake — levels all classes 
 and makes us feel and act as one man. Our faith in 
 Christ should do no less. Or do we love God less than 
 we fear death ? Is our country more to us than Jesus 
 Christ ? In rare moments of exaltation we rise, it may 
 be, to the height at which Paul sets our life. But until 
 we can habitually and by settled principle in our 
 Church-relations "know no man after the flesh," we 
 come short of the purpose of Jesus Christ (comp. 
 John xvii. 20 — 23). 
 
 The unity Paul desiderates would effectually counter- 
 act the Judaistic agitation. The force of the latter lay 
 in antipathy. Paul's opponents contended that there 
 
 * Comp. £ph. U. 15 ; iv. 13 ; but nettter in ii. 14. 
 
240 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 must be " Jew and Greek." They fenced off the Jewish 
 preserve from uncircumcised intruders. Gentile non- 
 conformists must adopt their ritual ; or they will remain 
 a lower caste, outside the privileged circle of the cove- 
 nant-heirs of Abraham. Compelled under this pressure 
 to accept the Mosaic law, it was anticipated that they 
 would add to the glory of Judaism and help to maintain 
 its institutions unimpaired. But the Apostle has cut 
 the ground from under their feet. It is faith, he affirms, 
 which makes men sons of God. And faith is equally 
 possible to Jew or Gentile. Then Judaism is doomed. 
 No system of caste, no principle of social exclusion has, 
 on this assumption, any foothold in the Church. Spiri- 
 tual life, nearness and likeness to the common Savioui 
 — ^in a word character, is the standard of worth in His 
 kingdom. And the range of that kingdom is made wide 
 as humanity ; its charity, deep as the love of God. 
 
 And " if you — whether Jews or Greeks — are Christ's, 
 then are you Abraham's seed, heirs in terms of the 
 Promise." So the Apostle brings to a close this part 
 of his argument, and links it to what he has said before 
 touching the fatherhood of Abraham. Since ver. i8 we 
 have lost sight of the patriarch ; but he has not been 
 forgotten. From that verse Paul has been conducting 
 us onward through the legal centuries which parted 
 Abraham from Christ. He has shown how the law oi 
 of Moses interposed between promise and fulfilment, 
 schooling the Jewish race and mankind in them for its 
 accomplishment. Now the long discipline is over. 
 The hour of release has struck. Faith resumes her 
 ancient sway, in a larger realm. In Christ a new, 
 universal humanity comes into existence, formed of 
 men who by faith are grafted into Him. Partakers of 
 
lii. 25-29-3 '^H^ EMANCIPATED SONS OF GOD. 241 
 
 Christ, Gentiles also are of the seed of Abraham ; the 
 wild scions of nature share "the root and fatness of 
 the good olive-tree." All things are theirs; for they 
 are Christ's (i Cor. iii. 21 — 23). 
 
 Christ never stands alone. "In the midst of the 
 Church — firstborn of many brethren " He presents Him- 
 self, standing " in the presence of God for us." He has 
 secured for mankind and keeps in trust its glorious 
 heritage. In Him we hold in fee the ages past and 
 to come. The sons of God are heirs of the universe. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE HEIR'S COMING OF AGS, 
 
 ** But I say that so long as the heir is a child, he differeth nothing fron 
 
 ■ bondservant, though he is lord of all ; but is under guardians and 
 stewards until the term appointed of the father. So we also, when we 
 were children, were held in bondage under the rudiments of the world : 
 but when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, bom of 
 a woman, bom under the law, that He might redeem them which were 
 under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because 
 ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, 
 crying, Abba Father. So that thou art no longer a bondbervant, but 
 a son ; and if a son, then an heir through God." — Gal. iv. i — 7. 
 
 THE main thesis of the Epistle is now established. 
 Gentile Christians, Paul has shown, are in the 
 true Abrahamic succession of faith. And this devolution 
 of the Promise discloses the real intent of the Mosaic 
 law, as an intermediate and disciplinary system. 
 Christ was the heir of Abraham's testament ; He was 
 therefore the end of Moses* law. And those who are 
 Christ's inherit the blessings of the Promise, while 
 they escape the curse and condemnation of the Law. 
 The remainder of the Apostle's polemic, down to 
 ch. V. 12, is devoted to the illustration and enforce- 
 ment of this position. 
 
 In this, as in the previous chapter, the pre-Christian 
 state is assigned to the Jew, who was the chief subject 
 of Divine teaching in the former dispensation ; it is sei 
 forth under the first person (ver. 3), in the language o' 
 
»▼. 1-7. THE HEIR'S COMING OF AGE, 143 
 
 recollection. Describing the opposite condition of son- 
 ship, the Apostle reverts from the first to the second 
 person, identifying his readers with himself (comp. 
 ch. iii. 25, 26). True, the Gentiles had been in 
 bondage (vv. 7, 8). This goes without sa3dng. Paul's 
 object is to show that Judaism is a bondage. Upon 
 this he insists with all the emphasis he can command. 
 Moreover, the legal system contained worldly, un- 
 spiritual elements, crude and childish conceptions of 
 truth, marking it, in comparison with Christianity, as 
 an inferior religion. Let the Galatians be convinced 
 of this, and they will understand what Paul is going 
 to say directly; they will perceive that Judaic conformity 
 is for them a backsliding in the direction of their 
 former heathenism (w. 8 — 10). But the foroe of this 
 latter warning is discounted and its effect weakened 
 when he is supposed, as by some interpreters, to 
 include Gentile along with Jewish '* rudiments " already 
 in ver. 3. His readers could not have suspected this. 
 The " So we also " and the " held in bondage " of this 
 verse carry them back to ch. iii. 23. By calling 
 the Mosaic ceremonies "rudiments of the world^* he 
 f^aves Jewish susceptibilities just such a shock as pre- 
 pares for the declaration of ver. 9, which puts them 
 on a level with heathen rites. 
 
 The difference between Judaism and Christianity, 
 historically unfolded in ch. iii., is here restated in 
 graphic summary. We see, first, the heir of God in 
 his minority ; and again, the same heir in possession of 
 his estate. 
 
 I. One can fancy the Jew replying to Paul's previous 
 argument in some such style as this. '*You pour 
 contempt," he would say, ''on the religion of your 
 fathers. You make them out to have been no better 
 
<44 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 than slaves. Abraham's inheritance, you pretend, 
 under the Mosaic dispensation lay dormant, and is 
 revived in order to be taken from his children and 
 conferred on aliens." No, Paul would answer : I admit 
 that the saints of Israel were sons of God ; I glory in 
 the fact — ** who are Israelites, whose is the adoption of 
 sons and the glory and the covenants and the law- 
 giving and the promises, whose are the fathers" 
 (Rom. ix. 4, 5). But they were sons in their minority. 
 " And I say that as long as the heir is (legally) an 
 infant, he differs in nothing from a slave, though (by 
 title) lord of all." 
 
 The man of the Old Covenant was a child of God 
 in posse, not in esse, in right but not in fact. The 
 " infant " is his father's trueborn son. In time he will 
 be full owner. Meanwhile he is as subject as any 
 slave on the estate. There is nothing he can command 
 for his own. He is treated and provided for as a 
 bondman might be ; put '* under stewards" who manage 
 his property, " and guardians " in charge of his person, 
 ''until the day fore-appointed of the father." This 
 situation does not exclude, it implies fatherly affectior 
 and care on the one side, and heirship on the other. 
 But it forbids the recognition of the heir, his investment 
 with filial rights. It precludes the access to the father 
 and acquaintance with him, which the boy will gain 
 in after years. He sees him at a distance and through 
 others, under the aspect of authority rather than of 
 love. In this position he does not yet possess the 
 spirit of a son. Such was in truth the condition of 
 Hebrew saints — heirs of God, but knowing it not. 
 
 This illustration raises in ver. 2 an interesting legal 
 question, touching the latitude given by Roman or 
 other current law to the father in dealing with bit 
 
It. I-M THE HEIR'S COMING OF AGE. S45 
 
 heirs. Paul's language is good evidence for the 
 existence of the power he refers to. In Roman and in 
 Jewish law the date of civil majority was fixed. Local 
 usage may have been more elastic. But the case 
 supposed, we observe, is not that of a dead father, into 
 whose place the son steps at the proper age. A grant 
 is made by a father still livings who keeps his son in 
 pupilage till he sees fit to put him in possession of the 
 promised estate. There is nothing to show that 
 paternal discretion was limited in these circumstances, 
 any more than it is in English law. The father might 
 fix eighteen, or twenty-one, or thirty years as the age 
 at which he would give his son a settlement, just as 
 he thought best. 
 
 This analogy, like that of the " testament " in ch. 
 iii., is not complete at all points ; nor could any human 
 figure of these Divine things be made so. The essential 
 particulars involved in it are first, the childishness of the 
 infant heir; secondly, the subordinate position in which 
 he is placed for the time; and thirdly, the right of the 
 father to determine the expiry of his infancy. 
 
 I. "When we were children," says the Apostle. 
 This implies, not a merely formal and legal bar, but an 
 intrinsic disqualification. To treat the child as a man 
 is preposterous. The responsibilities of property are 
 beyond his strength and his understanding. Such 
 powers in his hands could only be instruments of 
 mischief, to himself most of all. In the Divine order, 
 calling is suited to capacity, privilege to age. The 
 coming of Christ was timed to the hour. The world 
 of the Old Testament, at its wisest and highest, was 
 unripe for His gospel. The revelation made to Paul 
 could not have been received by Moses, or David, or 
 Isaiah. His doctrine was only possible after and in 
 
a46 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 consequence of theirs. There was a training of faculty, 
 a deepening of conscience, a patient course of instruction 
 and chastening to be carried out, before the heirs of the 
 promise were fit for their heritage. Looking back to 
 his own youthful days, the Apostle sees in them a 
 reflex of the discipline which the people of God had 
 required. The views he then held of Divine truth 
 appear to him low and childish, in comparison with the 
 manly freedom of spirit, the breadth of knowledge, the 
 fulness of joy which he has attained as a son of 
 God through Christ 
 
 2. But what is meant by the "stewards and guardians" 
 of this Jewish period of infancy ? Ver. 3 tells us this, 
 in language, however, somewhat obscure : '' We were 
 held in bondage under the rudiments (or elements) of 
 the world" — a phrase synonymous with the foregoing 
 '' under law " (ch. iii. 23). The '' guard " and *' tutor " 
 of the previous section re-appears, with these " rudi- 
 ments of the world " in his hand. They form the 
 system under which the young heir was schooled, up 
 to the time of his majority. They belonged to ** the 
 world " * inasmuch as they were, in comparison with 
 Christianity, unspiritual in their nature, uninformed 
 by '* the Spirit of God's Son " (ver. 6). The language 
 of Heb. ix. i, 10 explains this phrase : ** The first 
 covenant had a worldly sanctuary," with "ordinances 
 of flesh, imposed till the time of rectification." The 
 sensuous factor that entered into the Jewish revelation 
 formed the point of contact with Paganism which Paul 
 
 • Surely the world of merty not the cosmical elements ; comp. 
 Col. ii. 8. 20 (where rud'nuents of the world is parallel to tradition of 
 men) ; also Gal. vi. 14; Heb. ix. I. I Cor. iii. i — 3 supplies an interesting 
 parallel : those who are babes in Christy are so far carnal and walk 
 according to tnan, animated by the spirit of this world (l Cor. iu 12). 
 
hr.i-y.J THB HEIR'S COMING OF AGS, M7 
 
 brings into view in the next paragraph. Yet rude 
 and earthly as the Mosaic system was in some of 
 its features, it was Divinely ordained and served an 
 essential purpose in the progress of revelation. It 
 shielded the Church's infancy. It acted the part of 
 a prudent steward, a watchful guardian. The heritage 
 of Abraham came into possession of his heirs enriched 
 by their long minority. Mosaism therefore, while 
 spiritually inferior to the Covenant of grace in Christ, 
 has rendered invaluable service to it (comp. ver. 24: 
 Chapter XIV., p. 225). 
 
 3. The mil of the Father determined the period of 
 this guardianship. However it may be in human law, 
 this right of fore-ordination resides in the Divine 
 Fatherhood. In His unerring foresight He fixed the 
 hour when His sons should step into their filial place. 
 All such " times and seasons," Christ declared, " the 
 Father hath appointed on His own authority "(Acts i. 7). 
 He imposed the law of Moses, and annulled it, when 
 He would. He kept the Jewish people, for their own 
 and the world's benefit, tied to the legal " rudiments," 
 held in the leading-strings of Judaism. It was His 
 to say when this subjection should cease, when the 
 Church might receive the Spirit of His Son. If this 
 decree appeared to be arbitrary, if it was strange that 
 the Jewish fathers — men so noble in faith and character 
 — were kept in bondage and fear, we must remind 
 ourselves that "so it seemed good in the Father's 
 sight" Hebrew pride found this hard to brook. To 
 think that God had denied this privilege in time past 
 to His chosen people, to bestow it all at once and by 
 mere grace on Gentile sinners, making them at ** the 
 eleventh hour" equal to those who had borne for so 
 long the burden and heat of the day ! that the children 
 
248 THB EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 of Abraham had been, as Paul maintains, for centuries 
 treated as slaves^ and now these heathen aliens are 
 made sons just as much as they ! But this was God's 
 plan ; and it must be right, " Who art thou, O man, 
 that repliest against God ? " 
 
 II. However, the nonage of the Church has passed. 
 God's sons are now to be owned for such. // is Chrisfs 
 mission to constitute men sons of God (w. 4, 5). 
 
 His advent was the turning-point of human affairs, 
 " the fulness of time." Paul's glance in these verses 
 takes in a vast horizon. He views Christ in His 
 relation both to God and to humanity, both to law and 
 redemption. The appearance of " the Son of God, 
 woman-born," completes the previous course of time ; 
 it is the goal of antecedent revelation, unfolding " the 
 mystery kept secret through times eternal," but now 
 '' made known to all the nations " (Rom. xvi. 25, 26). 
 Promise and Law both looked forward to this hour. 
 Sin had been " passed by " in prospect of it, receiv- 
 ing hitherto a partial and provisional forgiveness. The 
 aspirations excited, the needs created by earlier religion 
 demanded their satisfaction. The symbolism of type 
 and ceremony, with their rude picture-writing, waited 
 for their Interpreter. The prophetic soul of ** the wide 
 world, dreaming of things to come," watched for this day. 
 They that looked for Israel's redemption, the Simeons 
 and Annas of the time, the authentic heirs of the 
 promise, knew by sure tokens that it was near. Their 
 aged eyes in the sight of the infant Jesus descried its 
 rising. The set time had come, to which all times 
 looked since Adam's fall and the first promise. At the 
 moment when Israel seemed farthest from help and 
 hope, the *' horn of salvation was raised up in the house 
 of David," — God sent forth His Son, 
 
hr. I.;.] THE HEIR'S COMING OP AGS. 249 
 
 I. The sending of the Son brought the world's servitude 
 to an end. " Henceforth," said Jesus, *' I call yo^ not 
 servants" (John xv. 1$). Till now "servant of God" 
 had been the highest title men could wear. The 
 heathen were enslaved to false gods (ver. 8). And 
 Israel, knowing the true God, knew Him at a distance, 
 serving too often in the spirit of the elder son of the 
 parable, who said, "Lo these many years do I slave 
 for thee " (Luke xv. 29). None could with free soul lift 
 his eyes to heaven and say, " Abba, Father." Men had 
 great thoughts about God, high speculations. They 
 had learnt imperishable truths concerning His unity, 
 His holiness. His majesty as Creator and Lawgiver. 
 They named Him the " Lord," the " Almighty," the " I 
 AM." But His Fatherhood as Christ revealed it, they 
 had scarcely guessed. They thought of Him as humble 
 bondmen of a revered and august master, as sheep 
 might ot a good shepherd. The idea of a personal 
 sonship towards the Holy One of Israel was incon- 
 ceivable, till Christ brought it with Him into the world, 
 till God sent forth His Son. 
 
 He sent Him as " His Son." To speak of Christ, 
 with the mystical Germans, as the ideal Urmensch — 
 the ideal Son of man, the foretype of humanity — is to 
 express a great truth. Mankind was created in Christ, 
 who is "the image of God, firstborn of all creation." 
 But this is not what Paul is saying here. The doubly 
 compounded Greek verb at the head of this sentence 
 (repeated with like emphasis in ver. 6) signifies " sent 
 forth from" Himself: He came in the chtiracter )f 
 Gods Son, bringing His sonship with Him. rie was 
 the Son of God before He was sent out. He did not 
 become so in virtue of His mission to mankind. His 
 relations with men, in Paul's conception, rested upon 
 
ISO TEB BPISTLB TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 His pre-existing relationship to God. "The Word" 
 who " became flesh, was with God, was God in the 
 beginning." ** He called God His own Father, making 
 Himself equal with God " (John v. i8) : so the Jews 
 had gathered from His own declarations. Paul admitted 
 the claim when " God revealed His Son " to him, and 
 affirms it here unequivocally. 
 
 " The Son of God," arriving " in the fulness of time," 
 enters human life. Like any other son of man, He is 
 bom of a woman, horn under law. Here is the kenosis^ 
 the emptying of Divinity, of which the Apostle speaks 
 in Phil. ii. 5 — 8. The phrase " born of woman," does 
 not refer specifically to the virgin-birth; this term 
 describes human origin on the side of its weakness and 
 dependence " (Job xiv. I ; Matt. xi. ii). Paul is think- 
 ing not of the difference, but of the identity of Christ's 
 birth and our own. We are carried back to Bethlehem. 
 We see Jesus a babe lying in His mother's arms — God^s 
 Son a human infant, drawing His life from a weak 
 woman I * 
 
 Nor is "bom under law" a distinction intended to 
 limit the previous term, as though it meant a bom Jew, 
 and not a mere woman's son. This expression, to the 
 mind of the reader of ch. iii., conveys the idea of sub- 
 jection, of humiliation rather than eminence. "Though 
 He was (God's) Son," Christ must needs "learn His 
 obedience" (Heb. v. 8). The Jewish people experi- 
 enced above all others the power of the law to chasten 
 and humble. Their law was to them more sensibly, 
 what the moral law is in varying degree to the world 
 everywhere, an instrument of condemnation. God's 
 Son was now put under its power. As a man He was 
 
 • Comp. Rom. i. 3, 4 ; ix. 5 ; a Cor. xiiL 4 \ Eph. iy. 9, 10 ; Ph. ii 
 ^—8 ; Col. i. 15, 18 ; ii 9 ; I Tim. iii. 16. 
 
iY. 1-7.] THE HEIR'S COMING OF ACS. aji 
 
 "under law;" as a Jew He came under its most 
 stringent application. He declined none of the burdens 
 of His birth. He submitted not only to the general 
 moral demands of the Divine law for men, but to all 
 the duties and proprieties incident to His position as 
 a man, even to those ritual ordinances which His 
 coming was to abolish. He set a perfect example of 
 loyalty. '* Thus it becometh us," He said, " to fulfil 
 all righteousness." 
 
 The Son of God who was to end the legal bondage, 
 was sent into it Himself. He wore the legal yoke that 
 He might break it. He took " the form of a servant," 
 to win our enfranchisement. '' God sent forth His Son, 
 human, law-bound — that He might redeem those under 
 law." 
 
 Redemption was Christ's errand. We have learned 
 «C.-eady how ** He redeemed us from the curse of the 
 law," by the sacrifice of the cross (ch. iii. 13). This 
 was the primary object of His mission : to ransom men 
 from the guilt of past sin. Now we discern its further 
 purpose — the positive and constructive side of the 
 Divine counsel. Justification is the preface to adoption. 
 The man "under law" is not only cursed by his 
 failure to keep it ; he lives in a servile state, debarred 
 from filial rights. Christ " bought us out " of this 
 condition. While the expiation rendered in His death 
 clears off the entail of human guilt. His incarnate life 
 and spiritual union with believing men sustain that 
 action, making the redemption complete and permanent. 
 As enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death 
 of His Son;" now "reconciled, we shall be saved by 
 His life " (Rom. v. 10). Salvation is not through the 
 death of Christ alone. The Babe of Bethlehem, the 
 crowned Lord of glory is our Redeemer, as well as the 
 
aS« THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 Man of Calvary. The cross is indeed the centre of 
 His redemption ; but it has a vast circumference. All 
 that Christ is, all that He has done and is doing as the 
 Incarnate Son, the God-man, helps to make men sons 
 of God. The purpose of His mission is therefore 
 stated a second time and made complete in the words 
 of ver. 5 b\ "that we might receive the adoption oj 
 sons." The sonship carries everything else with it — 
 **if children, then heirs" (ver. 7). There is no room 
 for any supplementary office of Jewish ritual. That 
 is left behind with our babyhood. 
 
 2. So much for the ground of sonship. Its proof 
 lay in the sending forth of the Spirit of the Son, 
 
 The mission of the Son and that of the Spirit are 
 spoken of in w. 3 — 6 in parallel terms : *' God sent 
 forth His Son — sent forth the Spirit of His Son," the 
 former into the world of men, the latter '' into " theii 
 individual " hearts." The second act matches the first, 
 and crowns it. Pentecost is the sequel of the Incarna- 
 tion (John ii. 21 ; I Cor. vi. 19, 20). And Pentecost 
 is repeated in the heart of every child of God. The 
 Apostle addresses himself to his readers* experience 
 (" because ye are sons ") as in ch. iii. 3 — 6, and on 
 the same point. They had " received the Spirit : " this 
 marked them indubitably as heirs of Abraham (ch. iii. 
 14) — and what is more, sons of God. Had not the 
 mystic cry, Abba, Father^ sounded in their hearts? 
 The filial consciousness was born within them, super- 
 naturally inspired. When they believed in Christ, 
 when they saw in Him the Son of God, their Redeemer, 
 they were stirred with a new, ecstatic impulse ; a 
 Divine glow of love and joy kindled in their breasts ; 
 a voice not their own spoke to their spirit — their soul 
 leaped forth upon their lips, crying to God, *' Father, 
 
!▼. 1-7] THE HEIR'S COMING OF AGE. 153 
 
 Father I " They were children of God, and knew it. 
 "The Spirit Himself bore them witness" (Rom. 
 viii. 15). 
 
 This sentiment was not due to their own reflection, 
 not the mere opening of a buried spring of feeling in 
 their nature. God sent it into their hearts. The out- 
 ward miracles which attended the first bestovvment of 
 this gift, showed from what source it came (ch. iii. 5). 
 Nor did Christ personally impart the assurance. He 
 had gone, that the Paraclete might conie. Here was 
 another Witness, sent by a second mission from the 
 Father (John xvi. 7). His advent is signalised in 
 clear distinction from that of the Son. He comes in 
 the joint name of Father and of Son. Jesus called Him 
 " the Spirit of the Father ; " * the Apostle, " the Spirit 
 of God's Son." 
 
 To us He is " the Spirit of adoption," replacing the 
 former " spirit of bondage unto fear." For by His 
 indwelling we are ''joined to the Lord " and made " one 
 spirit " with Him, so that Christ lives in us (ch. ii. 20). 
 And since Christ is above all things the Son, His Spirit 
 is a spirit of sonship ; those who receive Him are sons 
 of God. Our sonship is through the Holy Spirit derived 
 from His. Till Christ's redemption was effected, such 
 adoption was in the nature of things impossible. This 
 filial cry of Gentile hearts attested the entrance of a 
 Divine life into the world. The Spirit of God's Son 
 had become the new spirit of mankind. 
 
 Abba, the Syrian vocative for father^ was a word 
 famihar to the lips of Jesus. The instance of its use 
 recorded in Mark xiv. 36, was but one of many such. 
 No one had hitherto approached God as He did. His 
 
 • Matt, X. ao ; Luke xi 13 ; John xiy. 16 ; Acts i. 4, 5. 
 
^54 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 itterance of this word, expressing the attitude oi 
 His hfe of prayer and breathing the whole spirit of 
 His religion, profoundiy affected His disciples. So that 
 the Abba of Jesus became a watchword of His Church, 
 being the proper name of the God and Father of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ. Gentile believers pronounced it, 
 conscious that in doing so they were joined in spirit to 
 the Lord who said, '* My Father, and your Father ! " 
 Greek-speaking Christians supplemented it by their 
 own equivalent, as we by the English Father. This 
 precious vocable is carried down the ages and round 
 the whole world in the mother-tongue of Jesus, a 
 memorial of the hour when through Him men learned 
 to call God Father. 
 
 " Because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit," 
 with this cry. The witness of sonship follows on the 
 adoption, and seals it. The child is born, then cries ; 
 the cry is the evidence of life. But this is not the first 
 ofiice of the Holy Spirit to the regenerate soul. Many 
 a silent impulse has He given, frequent and long con- 
 tinued may have been His visitations, before His 
 presence reveals itself audibly. From the first the new 
 life of grace is implanted by His influence. " That which 
 is bom of the Spirit^ is spirit." "He dwelleth with you, 
 and is in you^* * said Jesus to His disciples, before the 
 Pentecostal effusion. Important and decisive as the 
 witness of the Holy Spirit to our sonship is, we must 
 not limit His operation to this event. Deeply has He 
 wrought already on the soul in which His work reaches 
 this issue ; and when it is reached. He has still much 
 to bestow, much to accomplish in us. All truth, all 
 holiness, all comfort are His ; and into these He leads 
 
 * John xiv. 17 ; the present {ivrlv) is the prefers>.ble reading. Se« 
 Wettcott ad loc. 
 
iv. i-y.] THE HEIR'S COMING OF AGS, 155 
 
 the children of God. Living by the Spirit, in Him we 
 proceed to walk (ch. v. 25). 
 
 The interchange of person in the subject of w. 
 5 — 8 is very noticeable. This agitated style betrays 
 high-strung emotion. Writing first, in ver. 3, in the 
 language of Jewish experience, in ver. 6 Paul turns upon 
 his readers and claims them for witnesses to the same 
 adoption which Jewish believers in Christ (ver. 5) had 
 received. Instantly he falls back into the first person ; 
 it is his own joyous consciousness that breaks forth in 
 the filial cry of ver. 6 b. In the more calm concluding 
 sentence the second person is resumed ; and now in the 
 individualising singular, as though he would lay hold of 
 his readers one by one, and bid them look each into 
 his own heart to find the proof of sonship, as he writes : 
 " So that thou art no longer a slave, but a son ; and if 
 a son, also an heir through God." 
 
 An heir through God — this is the true reading, and is 
 greatly to the point. It carries to a climax the emphatic 
 repetition of " God " observed in w. 4 and 6. *' God 
 sent His Son " into the world ; '* God sent " in turn 
 " His Son's Spirit into your hearts." God then, and 
 no other, has bestowed your inheritance. It is youn> 
 by His fiat. Who dares challenge it ? * Words how 
 suitable to reassure Gentile Christians, browbeaten by 
 arrogant Judaism ! Our reply is the same to those 
 who at this day deny our Christian and churchly 
 standing, because we reject their sacerdotal claims. 
 
 What this inheritance includes in its final attainment, 
 " doth not yet appear." Enough to know that " now 
 are we children of God." The redemption of the body, 
 the deliverance of nature from its sentence of dissolu- 
 
 * Comp. Rom. viii. 31 — 35 ; Acts xi. 17. 
 
S56 THE BPISTLB TO THE GALATJANSL 
 
 tion, the abolishment of death — these are amongst its 
 certainties. Its supreme joy lies in the promise of 
 being with Christ, to witness and share His glory.* 
 '* Heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ " — a destiny like 
 this overwhelms thought and makes hope a rapture. 
 God's sons may be content to wait and see how their 
 heritage will turn out Only let us be sure that we are 
 His sons. Doctrinal orthodoxy, ritual observance, 
 moral propriety do not impart, and do not supersede 
 *' the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." The religion 
 of Jesus the Son of God is the religion of the filial 
 consciousness. 
 
 * Joho xii. 26; xvil. 24; Rer. iii. ai ; Phil L SJ ; CoL UL 4} 
 I Pet ▼. I. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THR RETURN TO BONDAGE. 
 
 ** Howbeit at that time, not knowing God, ye were in bondage to 
 them which by nature are no gods : but now that ye have come to know 
 God, or rather to be known of God, how turn ye back again to the 
 weak and beggarly rudiments, whereunto ye desire to be in bondage over 
 again? Ye observe days, and months, and seasons, and years. I am 
 afraid of you, lest by any means I have bestowed labour upon you in 
 vain"— Gal. iv. 8— ii. 
 
 " Q ONS of God, whom He made His htxrs in Christ, 
 v3 how are you turning back to legal bondage I" 
 Such is the appeal with which the Apostle follows up 
 his argument. " Foolish Galatians," we seem to hear 
 him say again, " who has bewitched you into this ? " 
 They forget the call of the Divine grace; they turn 
 away from the sight of Christ crucified; nay, they 
 are renouncing their adoption into the family of God. 
 Paul knew something of the fickleness of human 
 nature ; but he was not prepared for this. How can 
 men who have tasted liberty prefer slavery, or full- 
 grown sons desire to return to the ** rudiments" of child- 
 hood ? After knowing God as He is in Christ, is it 
 possible that these Galatians have begun to dote on 
 ceremonial, to make a religion of " times and seasons ; " 
 that they are becoming devotees of Jewish ritual? 
 What can be more frivolous, more irrational than this ? 
 On such people Paul's labours seem to be thrown away. 
 
 17 
 
tS$ THR BPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 "You make me fear/* he says, " that I have toiled for 
 you in vain." 
 
 In this expostulation two principles emerge with 
 especial prominence. 
 
 I. First, that knowledge of Gody bringing spiritual 
 freedom^ lays upon us higher responsibilities. '* Then 
 indeed," he says, "not knowing God, you were in 
 bondage to false gods. Your heathen life was in a 
 sense excusable. But now something very different 
 is expected from you, since you have come to know 
 God." 
 
 We are reminded of the Apostle's memorable words 
 spoken at Athens : " The times of ignorance God over- 
 looked " (Acts xvii. 30). "Ye say, We see," said 
 Jesus ; "your sin remaineth" (John ix. 41). Increased 
 light brings stricter judgement. If this was true of 
 men who had merely heard the message of Christ, how 
 much more of those who had proved its saving power. 
 Ritualism was well enough for Pagans, or even for 
 Jews before Christ's coming and the outpouring of His 
 Spirit — but for Christians 1 For those into whose 
 hearts God had breathed the Spirit of His Son, who 
 had learned to " worship God in the Spirit and to have 
 no confidence in the flesh " — for Paul's Galatians to 
 yield to the legalist " persuasion " was a fatal relapse. 
 In principle, and in its probable issue, this course was 
 a reverting toward their old heathenism. 
 
 The Apostle again recalls them, as he does so often 
 his children in Christ, to the time of their conversion. 
 They had been, he reminds them, idolaters ; ignorant 
 of the true God, they were "enslaved to things that 
 by nature are no gods." Two definitions Paul has 
 given of idolatry : " There is no idol in the world ; " 
 and again, "The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, 
 
W.8-II.] THR RETURN TO BOND AGS. 159 
 
 they sacrifice to demons, and not to God" (i Cor. viiL 
 4 ; X. 20). Half lies, half devilry : such was the 
 popular heathenism of the day. " Gods many and lords 
 many" the Galatian Pagans worshipped — a strange 
 Pantheon. There were their old, weird Celtic deities, 
 before whom our British forefathers trembled. On 
 this ancestral faith had been superimposed the frantic 
 rites of the Phrygian Mother, Cybele, with her muti- 
 lated priests; and the more genial and humanistic 
 cultus of the Greek Olympian gods. But they were 
 gone, the whole 'Mamn^d crew/' as Milton calls 
 them ; for those whose eyes had seen the glory in the 
 face of Jesus Christ, their spell was broken ; heaven 
 was swept clear and earth pure of their foul presence. 
 The old gods are dead. No renaissance of humanism, 
 no witchcraft of poetry can re-animate them. To us 
 after these eighteen centuries, as to the Galatian 
 believers, " there is one God the Father, of whom are 
 all things, and we for Him ; and one Lord Jesus 
 Christ, through whom are all things, and we through 
 Him." A man who knew the Old Testament, to say 
 nothing of the teaching of Christ, could never sacrifice to 
 Jupiter and Mercurius any more, nor shout ** Great is 
 Diana of the Ephesians." They were painted idols, 
 shams; he had seen through them. They might 
 frighten children in the dark ; but the sun was up. 
 Christianity destroyed Paganism as light kills dark- 
 ness. Paul did not fear that his readers would slide 
 back into actual heathenism. That was intellectually 
 impossible. There are warnings in his Epistles 
 against the spirit of idolatry, and against conformity 
 with its customs; but none against return to its 
 beliefs. 
 
 The old heathen life was indeed a slavery^ full of fear 
 
t6o THB SPISTLB TO THB GALATJANS. 
 
 and degradation. The religious Pagan could never be 
 sure that he had propitiated his gods sufficiently, or 
 given to all their due. They were jealous and revenge- 
 ful, envious of human prosperity, capable of infinite 
 wrongdoing. In the worship of many of them acts were 
 enjoined revolting to the conscience. And this is true 
 of Polytheism all over the world. It is the most 
 shameful bondage ever endured by the soul of man. 
 
 But Paul's readers had " come to know God." They 
 had touched the great Reality. The phantoms had 
 vanished ; the Living One stood before them. His 
 glory shone into their hearts 'Mn the face of Jesus 
 Christ." This, whenever it takes place, is for any man 
 the crisis of his life — when he comes to know God^ when 
 the God-consciousness is bom in him. Like the dawn 
 of self-consciousness, it 'may be gradual. There are 
 those, the happy few, who were ** bom again " so soon 
 as they were born to thought and choice ; they cannot 
 remember a time when they did not love God, when they 
 were not sensible of being " known of Him." But with 
 others, as with Paul, the revelation is made at an instant, 
 coming like a lightning-flash at midnight. But unlike 
 the lightning it remained. Let the manifestation of 
 God come how or when it may, it is decisive. The man 
 into whose soul the Almighty has spoken His / AM, 
 can never be the same afterwards. He may forget ; he 
 may deny it : but he has known God; he has seen the 
 light of Ufe. If he returns to darkness, his darkness 
 is blacker and guiltier than before. On his brow there 
 rests in all its sadness " Sorrow's crown of sorrow, 
 remembering happier things." 
 
 Offences venial, excusable hitherto, from this time 
 assume a graver hue. Things that in a lower stage oi 
 life were innocent, and even possessed religious value, 
 
T.8-11.] THE RETURN TO BONDAGE, a6a 
 
 may now be unlawful, and the practice of them a declen- 
 sion, the first step in apostasy. What is delightful in a 
 child, becomes folly in a grown man. The knowledge 
 of God in Christ has raised us in the things of the 
 spirit to man's estate, and it requires that we should 
 *' put away childish things," and amongst them ritual 
 display and sacerdotal officiations. Pagan, Jewish, or 
 Romish. These things form no part of the knowledge 
 of God, or of the ^' true worship of the Father." 
 
 The Jewish " rudiments " were designed for men 
 who had not known God as Christ declares Him, who 
 had never seen the Saviour's cross. Jewish saints 
 could not worship God in the Spirit of adoption. They 
 remained under the spirit of servitude and fear. Their 
 conceptions were so far " weak and poor " that they 
 supposed the Divine favour to depend on such matters 
 as the ''washing of cups and pots," and the precise 
 number of feet that one walked on the Sabbath. These 
 ideas belonged to a childish stage of the religious 
 life. Pharisaism had developed to the utmost this 
 lower element of the Mosaic system, at the expense of 
 everything that was spiritual in it. Men who had been 
 brought up in Judaism might indeed, after conversion 
 to Christ, retain their old customs as matters of social 
 usage or pious habit, without regarding them as vital 
 to religion. With Gentiles it was otherwise. Adopt- 
 ing Jewish rites de novo, they must do so on grounds 
 of distinct religious necessity. For this very reason the 
 duty of circumcision was pressed upon them. It was a 
 means, they were told, essential to their spiritual per- 
 fection, to the attainment of full Christian privileges. 
 But to know God by the witness of the Holy Spirit of 
 Christ, as the Galatians had done, was an experience 
 sufficient to show that this ''persuasion" was false« 
 
i6t THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 It did not "come of Him that called them." It intro- 
 duced them to a path the opposite of that they had 
 entered at their conversion, a way that led downwards 
 and not upwards, from the spiritual to the sensuous, 
 from the salvation of faith to that of self-wrought work 
 of law. 
 
 " Known God," Paul says, — " or rather were known 
 of God" He hastens to correct himself. He will not 
 let an expression pass that seems to ascribe anything 
 simply to human acquisition. *'Ye have not chosen 
 Me," said Jesus ; " I have chosen you." So the Apostle 
 John : *' Not that we loved God, but that He loved us." 
 This is true through the entire range of the Christian 
 life. " We apprehend that for which we were appre- 
 hended by Christ Jesus." Our love, our knowledge — 
 what are they but the sense of the Divine love and 
 knowledge in us ? Religion is a bestowment, not an 
 achievement. It is ** God working in us to will and 
 work for the sake of His good pleasure." In this Hght 
 the gospel presented itself at first to the Galatians. 
 The preaching of the Apostle, the vision of the cross 
 of Christ, made them sensible of God's living presence. 
 They felt the gaze of an Infinite purity and compassion, 
 of an All-wise, All-pitiful Father, fixed upon them. He 
 was calling them, slaves of idolatry and sin, " into the 
 fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ." The illuminating 
 glance of God pierced to their inmost being. In that 
 light God and the soul met, and knew each other. 
 
 And now, after this profound, transforming revelation, 
 this sublime communion with God, will they turn back 
 to a life of puerile formalities, of slavish dependence 
 and fear ? Is the strength of their devotion to be 
 spent, its fragrance exhaled in the drudgery of legal 
 service? Surely they know God better than to think 
 
W.8.II.1 THB RETURN TO BONDAGE. S63 
 
 that He requires this. And He who knew them, as 
 they have proved, and knows what was right and 
 needful for them, has imposed no such burden. He 
 granted them the rich gifts of His grace — the Divine 
 sonship, the heavenly heirship — on terms of mere faith 
 in Christ, and without legal stipulation of any kind. 
 Is it not enough that God knows them, and counts 
 them for His children ! 
 
 So knowing, and so known, let them be content. 
 Let them seek only to keep themselves in the love of 
 God, and in the comfort of His Spirit. Raised to this 
 high level, they must not decline to a lower. Their 
 heathen " rudiments " were excusable before ; but now 
 even Jewish *' rudiments " are things to be left behind. 
 
 II. It further appears that the Apostle saw an element 
 existing in Judaism common to it with the ethnic religions. 
 For he says that his readers, formerly "enslaved to 
 idols," are " now turning back to the weak and beggarly 
 rudiments, to which they would fain be in bondage 
 over again." 
 
 " The rudiments " of ver. 9 cannot, without exegetical 
 violence, be detached from " the rudiments of the 
 world " of ver. 3. And these latter plainly signify the 
 Judaic rites (see Chapter XVI.). The Judaistic practices 
 of the Galatians were, Paul declares, a backsliding toward 
 their old idolatries. We can only escape this construc- 
 tion of the passage at the cost of making the Apostle's 
 remonstrance inconsequent and pointless. The argu- 
 ment of the letter hitherto has been directed with 
 concentrated purpose against Judaic conformity. To 
 suppose that just at this point, in making its application, 
 he turns aside without notice or explanation to an 
 entirely different matter, is to stultify his reasoning. 
 The only ground for referring the *'days and seasons'^ 
 
THB EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 of ver. 10 to any other than a Jewish origin, lies in 
 the apprehension that such reference disparages the 
 Christian Sabbath. 
 
 But how, we ask, was it possible for Paul to use 
 language which identifies the revered law of God with 
 rites of heathenism, which he accounted a " fellowship 
 with demons"? Bishop Lightfoot has answered this 
 question in words we cannot do better than quote : 
 "The Apostle regards the higher element in heathen 
 religion as corresponding, however imperfectly, to the 
 lower in the Mosaic law. For we may consider both 
 the one and the other as made up of two component 
 parts, the spiritual and the ritualistic. Now viewed in 
 their spiritual aspect, there is no comparison between 
 the one and the other. In this respect the heathen 
 religions, so far as they added anything of their own 
 to that sense of dependence on God which is innate 
 in man and which they could not entirely crush, were 
 wholly bad. On the contrary, in the Mosaic law the 
 spiritual element was most truly divine. But this does 
 not enter into our reckoning here. For Christianity 
 has appropriated all that was spiritual in its pre- 
 decessor. . . , The ritualistic element alone remains to 
 be considered, and here is the meeting-point of Judaism 
 and Heathenism. In Judaism this was as much lower 
 than its spiritual element, as in Heathenism it was 
 higher. Hence the two systems approach within such 
 a distance that they can, under certain limitations, be 
 classed together. They have at least so much in 
 common thai a lapse into Judaism can be regarded as a 
 relapse into the position of unconverted Heathenism. 
 Judaism was a system of bondage like Heathenism, 
 Heathenism had been a disciplinary training like 
 Judaism " (Commentary in loc). 
 
▼ .8-11.] THE RETURN TO BONDAGE. 265 
 
 This line of explanation may perhaps be carried a 
 step further. Judaism was rudimentary throughout. 
 A religion so largely ritualistic could not but be spiri- 
 tually and morally defective. In its partial apprehension 
 of the Divine attributes, its limitation of God's grace to 
 a single people, its dim perception of immortality, there 
 were great deficiencies in the Jewish creed. Its ethical 
 code, moreover, was faulty; it contained ''precepts 
 given for the hardness of men's hearts" — touching, 
 for example, the laws of marriage, and the right of 
 revenge. There was not a little in Judaism, especially 
 in its Pharisaic form, that belonged to a half-awakened 
 conscience, to a rude and sensuous religious faculty. 
 Christ came to " fulfil the law ; " but in that fulfilment 
 He did not shrink from correcting it He emended 
 the letter of its teaching, that its true spirit might be 
 elicited. For an enlightened Christian who had learned 
 of Jesus the " royal law, the law of liberty," to conform 
 to Judaism was unmistakably to " turn back." More- 
 over, it was just the weakest and least spiritual part of 
 the system of Moses that the legalist teachers inculcated 
 on Gentile Christians ; while their own lives fell short 
 of its moral requirements (ch. vi. 12). 
 
 Mosaism had been in the days of its inspiration and 
 creative vigour the great opponent of idolatry. It was 
 the Lord's witness throughout long centuries of heathen 
 darkness and oppression, and by its testimony has ren- 
 dered splendid service to God and man. But from the 
 standpoint of Christianity a certain degree of resemblance 
 begins to be seen underlying this antagonism. The 
 faith of the Israelitish people combatted idolatry with 
 weapons too much like its own. A worldly and servile 
 element remained in it To one who has advanced in 
 front, positions at an earlier stage of his progress lying 
 
i66 THE BPISTLB TO THB GALATIANS, 
 
 apart and paths widely divergent now assume the 
 same general direction. To resort either to Jewish or 
 heathen rites, meant to turn back from Christ. It was 
 to adopt principles of religion obsolete and unfit for 
 those who had known God through Him. What in its 
 time and for its purpose was excellent, nay indispens- 
 able, in doctrine and in worship, in time also had 
 "decayed and waxed old." To tie the living spirit o( 
 Christianity to dead forms is to tie it to corruption. 
 
 " Weak and beggarly rudiments " — it is a hard sen- 
 tence ; and yet what else were Jewish ceremonies and 
 rules of diet, in comparison with " righteousness and 
 peace and joy in the Holy Ghost " ? What was cir- 
 cumcision, now that there was no longer "Jew and 
 Greek ? " What was there in Saturday more than in 
 any other day of the week, if it ceased to be a sign 
 between the Lord of the Sabbath and His people? 
 These things were, as Paul saw them, the cast-clothes 
 of religion. For Gentile Christians the history of the 
 Jewish ordinances had much instruction; but their 
 observance was no whit more binding than that of 
 heathen ceremonies. Even in the ancient times God 
 valued them only as they were the expression of a 
 devout, believing spirit. " Your new moons and your 
 appointed feasts," He had said to an ungodly genera- 
 tion, " My soul hateth " (Isa. i. 14). And was He 
 likely to accept them now, when they were enforced by 
 ambition and party -spirit, at the expense of His Church's 
 peace; when their observance turned men's thoughts 
 away from faith in His Son, and in the power of His 
 life-giving Spirit ? There is nothing too severe, too 
 scornful for Paul to say of these venerable rites of 
 Israel, now that they stand in the way of a living 
 fiaith and trammel the freedom of the sons of God. 
 
IT. 8-11.] THE RETURN TO BONDAGE. 167 
 
 He tosses them aside as the swaddling-bands of the 
 Church's infancy — childish fetters, too weak to hold the 
 limbs of grown men. *' He brake in pieces the brazen 
 serpent that Moses had made ; for the children of Israel 
 did burn incense to it ; and he called it Nehushtan — a 
 piece of brass " (2 Kings xviii. 4). Brave Hezekiah I 
 Paul does the same with the whole ceremonial of Moses. 
 " Beggarly rudiments," he says. What divine refresh- 
 ment there is in a blast of wholesome scorn ! It was 
 their traditions, their ritual that the Judaists worshipped, 
 not the Holy One of Israel. " They would compass 
 sea and land to make one proselyte," and then " make 
 him twofold more the child of hell than themselves." 
 This was the only result that the success of the Judaistic 
 agitation could have achieved. 
 
 In thus decrying Jewish ordinances, the Apostle by 
 imphcation allows a certain value to the rites of Pagan- 
 ism. The Galatians were formerly in bondage to 
 " them that are no gods." Now, he says, they are 
 turning again to the like servitude by conforming to 
 Mosaic legalism. They wish to come again under 
 subjection to *' the weak and poor rudiments." In 
 Galatian heathenism Paul appears to recognise "rudi- 
 ments " of truth and a certain preparation for Christi- 
 anity. While Judaic rites amounted to no more than 
 rudiments of a spiritual faith, there were influences 
 at work in Paganism that come under the same 
 category. Paul believed that ^* God had not left Him- 
 self without witness to any." He never treated heathen 
 creeds with indiscriminate contempt, as though they 
 were utterly corrupt and worthless. Witness his 
 address to the ** religious " Athenians, and to the wild 
 people of Lycaonia (Acts xiv. 15 — 17; xvii. 22 — 31). 
 He finds his text in ^'certain of your own (heathen) 
 
268 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 poets." He appeals to the sense of a Divine presence 
 " not far from any one of us ; " and declares that though 
 God was " unknown " to the nations, they were under 
 His guidance and were " feeling after Him." To 
 this extent Paul admits a Preparatio evangelica in 
 the Gentile world ; he would have been prepared, with 
 Clement of Alexandria and Origen, and with modern 
 students of comparative religion, to trace in the poets 
 and wise men of Greece, in the lawgivers of Rome, in 
 the mystics of the East, presentiments of Christianity, 
 ideas and aspirations that pointed to it as their fulfil- 
 ment The human race was not left in total darkness 
 beyond the range of the light shining on Zion's hilL 
 The old Pagans, ''suckled in a creed outworn," were 
 not altogether God-forsaken. They too, amid darkness 
 like the shadow of death, had " glimpses that might 
 make them less forlorn." And so have the heathen 
 still. We must not suppose either that revealed 
 religion was perfect from the beginning; or that the 
 natural religions were altogether without fragments and 
 rudiments of saving truth. 
 
 " Days you are scrupulously keeping, and months, 
 and seasons, and years," — the weekly sabbath, the 
 new moon, the annual festivals, the sacred seventh 
 year, the round of the Jewish Kalendar. On these 
 matters the Galatians had, as it seems, already fallen 
 in with the directions of the Jewish teachers. The 
 word by which the Apostle describes their practice, 
 'irapaTfjp€l(r6e, denotes, besides the fact, the manner 
 and spirit of the observance — an assiduous, anxious 
 attention, such as the spirit of legal exaction dictated. 
 These prescriptions the Galatians would the more 
 readily adopt, because in their heathen life they were 
 accustomed to stated celebrations. The Pagan Kalendar 
 
»▼. 8-11.1 THE RETURN TO BONDAGE. slf 
 
 was crowded with days sacred to gods and divine 
 heroes. This resemblance justified Paul all the more 
 in taxing them with relapsing towards heathenism. 
 
 The Church of later centuries, both in its Eastern 
 and Western branch, went far in the same direction. 
 It made the keeping of holy days a prominent and 
 obligatory part of Christianity ; it has multiplied them 
 superstitiously and beyond all reason. Amongst the 
 rest it incorporated heathen festivals, too little changed 
 by their consecration. 
 
 Paul's remonstrance condemns in principle the 
 enforcement of sacred seasons as things essential to 
 salvation, in the sense in which the Jewish Sabbath 
 was the bond of the ancient Covenant. We may not 
 place even the Lord's Day upon this footing. Far 
 different from this is the unforced and grateful celebration 
 of the First Day of the week, which sprang up in the 
 Apostolic Church, and is assumed by the Apostles Paul 
 and John (i Cor. xvi. 2 ; Rev. i. lo). The rule of the 
 seventh day's rest has so much intrinsic fitness, and 
 has brought with it so many benefits, that after it had 
 been enforced by strict law in the Jewish Church for 
 so long, its maintenance could now be left, without 
 express re-enactment, as a matter of freedom to the 
 good sense and right feeling of Christian believers, 
 " sons of the resurrection." Its legislative sanction 
 rests on grounds of public propriety and national well- 
 being, which need not to be asserted here. Wherever 
 the "Lord of the Sabbath" rules, His Day will be 
 gladly kept for His sake. 
 
 The Apostle in protecting Gentile liberties is no 
 enemy to order in worship and outward life. No one 
 can justly quote his authority in opposition to such 
 appointments as a Christian community may make, for 
 
370 TEB EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 reasons of expediency and decorum, in the regulation 
 of its affairs. But he teaches that the essence of Christ- 
 ianity does not lie in things of this kind, not in 
 questions of meat and drink, nor of time and place. 
 To put these details, however important in their own 
 order, on a level with righteousness, mercy, and faith, 
 is to bring a snare upon the conscience; it is to 
 introduce once more into the Church the leaven of 
 justification by works of law. 
 
 " Weak and poor " the best forms of piety become, 
 without inward knowledge of God. Liturgies, creeds 
 and confessions, church music and architecture, 
 Sundays, fasts, festivals, are beautiful things when they 
 are the transcript of a living faith. When that is gone, 
 their charm, their spiritual worth is gone. They no 
 longer belong to religion; they have ceased to be a 
 bond between the souls of men and God. " According 
 to our faith " — our actual, not professional or " con- 
 fessional" faith — *' it shall be done unto us": such is 
 the rule of Christ. To ciing to formularies which have 
 lost their meaning and to which the Spirit of truth 
 gives no present witness, is a demoralising bondage. 
 
 But this is not the only, nor the commonest way 
 in which the sons of God are tempted to return to 
 bondage. " Whosoever committeth sin" Christ said, 
 " is the servant of sin." And the Apostle will have to 
 warn his readers that by their abuse of Uberty, by their 
 readiness to make it "an occasion to the flesh," they 
 were likely to forfeit it '* They that are Christ's have 
 crucified the flesh" (ch. v. 24). This warning must be 
 balanced against the other. Our liberty from outward 
 constraint should be still m.ore a liberty from the 
 dominion of self, from pride and desire and anger ; or 
 
iT.8.ii.] THE RETURN TO BONDAGE. vjx 
 
 it is not the liberty of God's children. Inward servitude 
 is after all the vilest and worst 
 
 " You make me afraid," at last the Apostle is com- 
 pelled to say, " that I have laboured in vain." His 
 enemies had caused him no such fear. While his 
 children in the faith were true to him, he was afraid 
 of nothing. '* Now we live," he says in one of his 
 Epistles, " if ye stand fast in the Lord 1 " But if they 
 should fall away ? He trembles for his own work, 
 for these wayward children who had already caused 
 him so many pangs. It is in a tone of the deepest 
 solicitude that he continues his expostulation in the 
 following paragraph. 
 
CHAPTER XVIIL 
 
 PAUVS ENTREATY. 
 
 ** I beseech you, brethren, be as I am, for I am as ye are. Ye did me 
 Qe wrong : but ye know that because of an infirmity of the flesh 1 
 preached the gospel unto you the first time : and that which W3s a 
 temptation to you in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected ; but ye 
 received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. Where then is 
 that gratulation of yourselves ? for I bear you witness, that, if possible, 
 ye would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me. So then 
 am I become your enemy, because I tell you the truth ? They zeal- 
 ously seek you in no good way ; nay, they desire to shut you out, that 
 ye may seek them. But it is good to be zealously sought in a good 
 matter at all times, and not only when I am present with you, — my 
 children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you.* 
 Yea, I could wish to be present with you now, and to change my 
 voice; for I am perplexed about you." — Gal. iv. 12 — 2a 
 
 THE reproof of the last paragraph ended in a sigh. 
 To see Christ's freemen relapsing into bondage, 
 and exchanging their Divine birthright for childish toys 
 of ceremonial, what can be more sa.ddening and disap- 
 pointing than this ? Their own experience of salva- 
 tion, the Apostle's prayers and toils on their behalf, are, 
 to all appearance, wasted on these foolish Galatians. 
 One resource is still left him. He has refuted and 
 anathematized the " other gospel" He has done what 
 explanation and argument can do to set himself right 
 with his readers, and to destroy the web of sophistry 
 
 • For the rendering of this clause. «« the exposition which follows 
 
iv. ia.20.] PAULS ENTREATY. «73 
 
 in which their minds had been entangled. He will 
 now try to win them by a gentler persuasion. If 
 reason and authority fail, " for love's sake he will rather 
 beseech" them. 
 
 He had reminded them of their former idolatry ; and 
 this calls up to the Apostle's mind the circumstances 
 of his first ministry in Galatia. He sees himself once 
 more a stranger amongst this strange people, a traveller 
 fallen sick and dependent on their hospitality, preaching 
 a gospel with nothing to recommend it in the appear- 
 ance of its advocate, and which the sickness delaying 
 his journey had compelled him, contrary to his intention, 
 to proclaim amongst them. Yet with what ready and 
 generous hospitality they had received the infirm 
 Apostle I Had he been an angel from heaven — nay, 
 the Lord Jesus Himself, they could scarcely have shown 
 him more attention than they did. His physical weak- 
 ness, which would have moved the contempt of others, 
 called forth their sympathies. However severely he 
 may be compelled to censure them, however much their 
 feelings toward him have changed, he will never forget 
 the kindness he then received. Surely they cannot 
 think him their enemy, or allow him to be supplanted 
 by the unworthy rivals who are seeking their regard. 
 So Paul pleads with his old friends, and seeks to win 
 for his arguments a way to their hearts through the 
 affection for himself which he fain hopes is still linger- 
 ing there. 
 
 Hoc prudeniis est pastoris^ Calvin aptly says. But 
 there is more in this entreaty than a calculated pru- 
 dence. It is a cry of the heart. Paul's soul is in the 
 pangs of travail (ver. 19). We have seen the stern- 
 ness of his face relax while he pursues his mighty 
 argument. As he surveys the working of God's 
 
 18 
 
274 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATJANS. 
 
 counsel in past ages, the promise given to Abraham 
 for all nations, the intervening legal discipline, the 
 coming of Christ in the fulness of time, the bursting 
 of the ancient bonds, the sending forth of the Spirit of 
 adoption — and all this for the sake of these Galatian 
 Gentiles, and then thinks how they are after all 
 declining from grace and renouncing their Divine 
 inheritance, the Apostle's heart aches with grief. 
 Foolish, fickle as they have proved, they are his 
 children. He will " travail over them in birth a second 
 time," if " Christ may yet be formed in them." Per- 
 haps he has written too harshly. He half repents of 
 his severity. * Fain would he " change his voice." If 
 he could only '*be with them," and see them face to 
 face, haply his tears, his entreaties, would win them 
 back. A rush of tender emotion wells up in Paul's 
 soul. All his relentings are stirred. He is no longer 
 the master in Christ rebuking unfaithful disciples; he 
 is the mother weeping over her misguided sons. 
 
 There are considerable difficulties in the exegesis 
 of this passage. We note them in succession as they 
 arise: — (i) In ver. 12 we prefer, with Meyer and 
 Lightfoot, to read, " Be as I, for I became (rather than 
 ani) as you — brethren, I beseech you." The verses 
 preceding and following both suggest the past tense 
 in the ellipsis. Paul's memory is busy. He appeals 
 to the *' auld lang syne." He reminds the Galatians of 
 what he **had been amongst them for their sake,"t 
 how he then behaved in regard to the matters in dis- 
 pute. He assumed no airs of Jewish superiority. He 
 
 • Comp. a Cor. ii. 4 ; vil t. 
 t Comp. I Thess- t 5 ; ii. 7, 8. 
 
iv.ia.2a] PAWS ENTREATY, 175 
 
 did not separate himself from his Gentile brethren 
 by any practice in which they could not join. He 
 '* became as they/' placing himself by their side on 
 the ground of a common Christian faith. He asks for 
 reciprocity, for *' a recompense in like kind " (2 Cor. 
 VL 13). Are they going to set themselves above their 
 Apostle, to take their stand on that very ground of 
 Mosaic privilege which he had abandoned for their 
 sake ? He implores them not to do this thing. The 
 beseechment, in the proper order of the words, comes 
 in at the close of the sentence, with a pathetic emphasis. 
 He makes himself a suppliant " I beg you," he says, 
 " by our old affection, by our brotherhood in Christ, 
 not to desert me thus." 
 
 (2) Suddenly Paul turns to another point, according 
 to his wont in this emotional mood : ** There is nothing 
 in which you have wronged me." Is he contradicting 
 some allegation which had helped to estrange the 
 Galatians ? Had some one been saying that Pau 
 was affronted by their conduct, and was actuated by 
 personal resentment? In that case we should have 
 looked for a specific explanation and rebutment of the 
 charge. Rather he is anticipating the thought that would 
 naturally arise in the minds of his readers at this point. 
 "Paul is asking us," they would say, "to let bygones 
 be bygones, to give up this Judaistic attachment for his 
 sake, and to meet him frankly on the old footing. But 
 supposing we try to do so, he is very angry with 
 us, as this letter shows ; he thinks we have treated 
 him badly ; he will always have a grudge against us. 
 Things can never be again as they were between 
 ourselves and him." 
 
 Such feelings often arise upon the breach of an old 
 friendship, to prevent the offending party from accept- 
 
«7« TEE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 ing the proffered hand of reconciliation. Paul's protest 
 removes this hindrance. He replies, ^' I have no sense 
 of injury, no personal grievance against you. It is 
 impossible I should cherish ill-viill towards _yo«. You 
 know how handsomely you treated me when I first came 
 amongst you. Nothing can efface from my heart the 
 recollection of that time. You must not think that I 
 hate you, because I tell you the truth" (ver. i6). 
 
 (3) '' Because of an infirmity of the flesh " (physical 
 weakness), is the truer rendering of ver. 13 ; and 
 "your temptation in my flesh" the genuine reading 
 of ver. 14, restored by the Revisers. Sickness had 
 arrested the Apostle's course during his second mis- 
 sionary tour, and detained him in the Galatic country. 
 So that he had not only "been with" the Galatians 
 "in weakness," as afterwards when during the same 
 journey he preached at Corinth (l Cor. ii. 3) ; but 
 actually " because of weakness." His infirmities gave 
 him occasion to minister there, when he had intended 
 to pass them by. 
 
 Paul had no thought of evangelizing Galatia ; 
 another goal was in view. It was patent to them — 
 indeed he confessed as much at the time — that if he 
 had been able to proceed, he would not have lingered 
 in their country. This was certainly an unpromising 
 introduction. And the Apostle's state of health made 
 it at that time a trial for any one to listen to him. 
 There was something in the nature of his malady to 
 excite contempt, even loathing for his person. " That 
 which tried you in my flesh, ye did not despise^ nor spii 
 out : " such is Paul's vivid phrase. How few men 
 would have humility enough to refer to a circumstance 
 of this kind ; or could do so without loss of dignity. 
 He felt that the condition of the messenger might well 
 
ir. I2-20.] PAULS ENTREATY, 177 
 
 have moved this Galatian people to derision; rather 
 than to reverence for his message. 
 
 At the best Paul's appearance and address were 
 none of the most prepossessing.* The ''ugly little 
 Jew " M. Renan calls him, repeating the taunts of his 
 Corinthian contemners. His sickness in Galatia, con- 
 nected, it would appear, with some constitutional weak- 
 ness, from which he suffered greatly during his second 
 and third missionary tours, assumed a humiliating as 
 well as a painful form. Yet this " thorn in the flesh," 
 a bitter trial assuredly to himself, f had proved at once a 
 trial and a blessing to his unintended hearers in Galatia. 
 
 (4) So far from taking offence at Paul's unfortunate 
 condition, they welcomed him with enthusiasm. They 
 " blessed themselves" that he had come (ver. 15). They 
 said one to another, ** How fortunate we are in having 
 this good man amongst us ! What a happy thing for 
 us that Paul's sickness obliged him to stay and give us 
 the opportunity of hearing his good news 1 " Such was 
 their former ''gratulation." The regard they conceived 
 for the sick Apostle was unbounded. " For I bear you 
 witness," he says, " that, if possible, you would have 
 dug out your eyes and given them me !" 
 
 Is this no more than a strong hyperbole, describing 
 the almost extravagant devotion which the Galatians 
 expressed to the Apostle ? Or are we to read the 
 terms more literally ? So it has been sometimes sup- 
 posed. In this expression some critics have discovered 
 a clue to the nature of Paul's malady. The Galatians, 
 as they read the sentence, wished they could have 
 taken out their own eyes and given them to Paul, in 
 
 • I Cor. H. 3 ; a Cor. iv. 7 ; x« I, 10 ; xi, 6. 
 
 t Comp 2 Cor. xii. 7 — 10, referring apparently to tke first outbreak 
 of this mysterious afiiictUMU 
 
278 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 place of his disabled ones. This hypothesis, it is argued, 
 agrees with other circumstances of the case and gives 
 shape to a number of scattered intimations touching the 
 same subject. Infirmity of the eyes would explain the 
 'Marge characters" of Paul's handwriting (ch. vi. Ii), 
 and his habit of using an amanuensis. It would account 
 for his ignorance of the person of the High Priest at 
 his trial in Jerusalem (Acts xxiii. 2 — 5). The blindness 
 that struck him on the way to Damascus may have 
 laid the foundation of a chronic affection of this kind, 
 afterwards developed and aggravated by the hardships 
 of his missionary life. And such an affliction would 
 correspond to what is said respecting the " thorn " of 
 .2 Cor. xii. 7, arid the "temptation" of this passage. 
 For it would be excessively painful, and at the same 
 time disabling and disfiguring in its effects. 
 
 This conjecture has much to recommend it But it 
 finds a very precarious support in the text. Paul 
 does not say, ** You would have plucked out your own 
 (A.V.) eyes and given them me" as though he were 
 thinking of an exchange of eyes; but, "You would 
 have plucked out your eyes and given them me" — as 
 much as to say, " You would have done anything in 
 the world for me then, — even taken out your eyes and 
 given them to me." * In the phrase " dug out " we 
 may detect a touch of irony. This was the genuine 
 Galatian style. The Celtic temperament loves to launch 
 itself out in vehemencies and flourishes of this sort. 
 These ardent Gauls had been perfectly enraptured with 
 Paul. They lavished upon him their most exuberant 
 metaphor*. They said these things in all sincerity; 
 he " bears them record " to this. However cool they 
 
 • Comp. Matt, xriil. 9, 
 
Iv.ia-aa] PAULS ENTREATY, S79 
 
 have become since, they were gushing enough and to 
 spare in their affection towards him then. And now 
 have they *' so quickly " turned against him ? Because 
 he crosses their new fancies and tells them unwelcome 
 truths, they rush to the opposite extreme and even 
 think him their enemy I 
 
 (5) Suddenly the Apostle turns upon his opposers 
 (ver. 17). The Judaizers had disturbed his happy rela- 
 tions with his Galatian flock ; they had made them half 
 believe that he was their enemy. The Galatians must 
 choose between Paul and his traducers. Let them 
 scrutinise the motives of these new teachers. Let them 
 call to mind the claims of their father in Christ. " They 
 are courting you," he says, — " these present suitors for 
 your regard— dishonourably ; they want to shut you out 
 and have you to themselves, that you may pay court to 
 them." They pretend to be zealous for your interests ; 
 but it is their own they seek (ch. vi. 12). 
 
 So far the Apostle's meaning is tolerably clear. But 
 ver. 18 is obscure. It may be construed in either of 
 two ways, as Paul or the Galatians are taken for the 
 subject glanced at in the verb to be courted in its first 
 clause : *' But it is honourable to be courted always in 
 an honourable way, and not only when I am present 
 with you." Does Paul mean that he has no objection 
 to the Galatians making other friends in his absence ? 
 or, that he thinks they ought not to forget him in his 
 absence ? The latter, as we think. The Apostle com- 
 plains of their inconstancy towards himself. This is 
 a text for friends and lovers. Where attachment is 
 honourable, it should be lasting, '* Set me as a seal 
 upon thine heart," says the Bride of the Song of Songs. 
 With the Galatians it seemed to be, "Out of sight, 
 out of mind," They allowed Paul to be pushed out by 
 
ate THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 scheming rivals. He was far away ; they were on the 
 spot. He told them the truth ; the Judaizers flattered 
 them. So their foolish heads were turned. They 
 were positively "bewitched" by these new admirers; 
 and preferred their sinister and designing compliments 
 to Paul's sterling honour and proved fidelity. 
 
 The connection of w. 17, 18 turns on the words 
 honourable and court^* each of which is thrice repeated. 
 There is a kind of play on the verb ^rjXoa). In ver. 18 
 it implies a true, in ver. 17 a counterfeit affection (an 
 affectation). Paul might have said, "It is good one 
 should be loved, followed with affection, always,*' but for 
 the sake of the verbal antithesis. In ver. 17 he taxes 
 his opponents with unworthily courting the favour of 
 the Galatians; in ver. 18 he intimates his grief that he 
 himself in his absence is no longer courted by them, 
 
 (6) In the next verse this grief of wounded affection, 
 checked at first by a certain reserve, breaks out uncon- 
 trollably : " My children, for whom again I am in travail, 
 till Christ be formed in you 1 " f This outcry is a 
 pathetic continuance of his expostulation. He cannot 
 bear the thought of losing these children of his heart. 
 He stretches out his arms to them. Tears stream from 
 his eyes. He has been speaking in measured, almost 
 playful terms, in comparing himself with his supplanters. 
 But the possibility of their success, the thought of the 
 mischief going on in Galatia and of the little power 
 he has to prevent it, wrings his very soul. He feels 
 a mother's pangs for his imperilled children, as he 
 writes these distressful words. 
 
 • Z>>\6w, fo kctoe ual towards a person or thing, U affect (A.V. j in 
 Its older English sense of seeking^ paying regard to any om). 
 
 t Tat full stop pkced in the Ev^li&h Version at the end of ym. 18, 
 on this riew, is out of place. 
 
iv. 12-20.] PAULS ENTREATY. a8i 
 
 There is nothing gained by substituting "little chil- 
 dren " (John's phrase) for " children," everywhere else 
 used by Paul, and attested here by the best witnesses. 
 The sentiment is that of I Thess. ii. 7, 8 ; I Cor. iv. 
 14 — 16. The Apostle is not thinking of the littleness or 
 feebleness of the Galatians, but simply of their relation 
 to himself. His sorrow is the sorrow of bereavement. 
 '* You have not many moihers,^^ he seems to say : " I 
 have travailed over you in birth ; and now a second 
 time you bring on me a mother's pains, which I must 
 endure until Christ is formed in you and His image 
 is renewed in your souls." 
 
 Paul stands before us as an injured friend, a faithful 
 minister of Christ robbed of his people's love. He is 
 wounded in his tenderest affections. For the sake of 
 the Gentile Churches he had given up everything in 
 life that he prized (ver. 12 ; I Cor. ix. 21); he had ex- 
 posed himself to the contempt and hatred of his fellow- 
 countrymen — and this is his reward, " to be loved the 
 less, the more abundantly he loves ! " (2 Cor. xii. 15). 
 
 But if he is grieved at this defection, he is equally 
 perplexed. He cannot tell what to make of the Gala- 
 tions, or in what tone to address them. He has warned, 
 denounced, argued, protested, pleaded as a mother with 
 her children; still he doubts whether he will prevail. 
 If he could only see them and meet them as in former 
 days, laying aside the distance, the sternness of authority 
 which he has been forced to assume, he might yet 
 reach their hearts. At least he would know how matters 
 really stand, and in what language he ought to speak 
 So his entreaty ends : " I wish I could only be presert 
 ^mth. you now, and speak in some different voice. For 
 I am at a loss to know how to deal with you," 
 
sSa THB EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 This picture of estrangement and reproach tells its 
 own tale, when its lines have once been clearly marked. 
 We may dwell, however, a little longer on some of the 
 lessons which it teaches : — 
 
 I. In the first place, it is evident that strong emotions 
 and warm affections are no guarantee for the permanence 
 of religious life. 
 
 The Galatians resembled the " stony ground " hearers 
 of our Lord's parable, — " such as hear the word, and 
 immediately with joy receive it ; but they have no root 
 in themselves ; they believe for a time." It was not 
 " persecution " indeed that '* offended " them ; but 
 flattery proved equally effectual. They were of the 
 same fervid temper as Peter on the night of the Passion, 
 when he said, " Though I should die with Thee, yet 
 will I not deny Thee in anywise," — within a few hours 
 thrice denying his Master, with "oaths and curses." 
 They lacked seriousness and depth. They had fine 
 susceptibilities and a large fund of enthusiasm ; they 
 were full of eloquent protestations ; and under excite- 
 ment were capable of great efforts and sacrifices. But 
 there was a flaw in their nature. They were creatures 
 of impulse — soon hot, soon cold. One cannot help 
 liking such people — but as for trusting them, that is 
 a different matter. 
 
 Nothing could be more delightful or promising than 
 the appearance these Churches presented in the early 
 days of their conversion. They heard the Apostle's 
 message with rapt attention ; they felt its Divine 
 power, so strangely contrasting with his physical 
 feebleness. They were amazingly wrought upon. The 
 new life in Christ kindled all the fervour of their 
 passionate nature. How they triumphed in Christ I 
 How they blessed the day when the gospel visited theii 
 
W. I2-20.] PAUL'S ENTREATY. aSj 
 
 land ! They almost worshipped the Apostle. They 
 could not do enough for him. Their hearts bled for 
 his sufferings. Where are all these transports now ? 
 Paul is far away. Other teachers have come, with 
 "another gospel." And the cross is already forgotten I 
 They are contemplating circumcision ; they are busy 
 studying the Jewish ritual, making arrangements for 
 feast-days and "functions", eagerly discussing points 
 of ceremony. Their minds are poisoned with mistrust of 
 their own Apostle, whose heart is ready to break over 
 their folly and frivolity. All this for the want of a little 
 reflection, for want of the steadiness of purpose without 
 which the most genial disposition and the most ardent 
 emotions inevitably run to waste. Their faith had been 
 too much a matter of feeling, too little of principle. 
 
 II. Further, we observe how prone are those who 
 have put themselves in the wrong to fix the blame on 
 others. 
 
 The Apostle was compelled in fidelity to truth to 
 say hard things to his Galatian disciples. He had 
 previously, on his last visit, given them a solemn 
 warning on account of their Judaic proclivities (ch. i. 9). 
 In this Epistle he censures them roundly. He wonders 
 at them ; he calls them " senseless Galatians " ; he tells 
 them they are within a step of being cut off from 
 Christ (ch. v. 4). And now they cry out, " Paul is our 
 enemy. If he cared for us, how could he write so 
 cruelly I We were excessively fond of him once, we 
 could not do too much for him ; but that is all over 
 now. If we had inflicted on him some great injury, 
 he could scarcely treat us more roughly." Thoughtless 
 and excitable people commonly reason in this way. 
 Personalities with them take the place of argument 
 and principle. The severity of a holy zeal for truth U 
 
-484 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 a tiling they can never understand. If you disagree 
 with them and oppose them, they put it down to some 
 petty animosity. They credit you with a private grudge 
 against them ; and straightway enroll you in the number 
 of their enemies, though you may be in reality their 
 best friend. Flatter them, humour their vanity, and you 
 have them at your bidding. Such men it is the hardest 
 thing in the world honestly to serve. They will always 
 prefer " the kisses of an enemy " to the faithful ** wounds 
 of a friend." 
 
 III. Men of the Galatian type are the natural prey 
 of self-seeking agitators. However sound the principles 
 in which they were trained, however true the friendships 
 they have enjoyed, they must have change. The 
 accustomed palls upon them. Giddy Athenians, they 
 love nothing so much as ^' to hear and tell some new 
 thing." They ostracize Aristides, simply because they 
 are "tired of hearing him always called the Just." To 
 hear " the same things," however " safe " it may be, 
 even from an Apostle's lips is to them intolerably 
 " grievous." They never think earnestly and patiently 
 enough to find the deeper springs, the fresh delight 
 and satisfaction lying hidden in the great unchanging 
 truths. These are they who are " carried about with 
 divers and strange doctrines," who run after the newest 
 thing in ritualistic art, or sensational evangelism, or 
 well-spiced heterodoxy. Truth and plain dealing, 
 apostolic holiness and godly sincerity, are outmatched 
 in dealing with them by the craft of worldly wisdom. 
 A little judicious flattery, something to please the eye 
 and catch the fancy — and they are persuaded to believe 
 almost any tiling, or to deny what they have most 
 earnestly believed. 
 
 What had the Legalists to offer compared with the 
 
IV. la-aa] PAULS ENTREATY, tSs 
 
 gifts bestowed on these Churches through Paul ? What 
 was there that could make them rivals to him in 
 character or spiritual power ? And yet the Galatians 
 flock round the Judaist teachers, and accept without 
 inquiry their slanders and perversions of the gospel ; 
 while the Apostle, their true friend and father, too true 
 to spare their faults, stands suspected, almost deserted. 
 He must forsooth implore them to come down from the 
 heights of their would-be legal superiorit}', and to meet 
 him on the common ground of grace and saving faith. 
 The sheep will not hear their shepherd's voice ; they 
 follow strangers, though they be thieves and hirelings. 
 " O foolish Galatians I " 
 
 Whether the Apostle's entreaty prevailed to recall 
 them or did not, we cannot tell. From the silence with 
 which these Churches are passed over in the Acts of the 
 Apostles, and the little that is heard of them afterwards, 
 an unfavourable inference appears probable. The 
 Judaistic leaven, it is to be feared, went far to leaven 
 the whole lump. Paul's apprehensions were only too 
 well-grounded. And these hopeful converts who had 
 once " run well," were fatally *' hindered " and fell far 
 behind in the Christian race. Such, in all likelihood, 
 was the result of the departure from the truth of the 
 gospel into which the Galatians allowed themselves to 
 be drawn. 
 
 Whatever was the sequel to this story, Paul's protest 
 remains to witness to the sincerity and tenderness o/ 
 the great Apostle's soul, and to the disastrous issues 
 of the levity of character which distinguished his 
 Gaiatian disciples. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE STORY OF HAG AX, 
 
 "Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law ? 
 For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, one by the handmaid, 
 and one by the freewoman. Howbeit the son by the handmaid is bom 
 after the flesh ; but the son by the freewoman is born through promise. 
 Which things contain an allegory : for these women are two covenants ; 
 one from mount Sinai, bearing children unto bondage, which is Hagar. 
 For Sinai is a mountain in Arabia, and answereth to the Jerusalem 
 that now is : for she is in bondage with her children. But the Jerusalem 
 that is above is free, which is our mother. For it is written. 
 
 Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not ; 
 Break forth and cry, thou that travail est not : 
 For more are the children of the desolate than of her which 
 hath the husband. 
 
 Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are childreH of promise. But as 
 then he that was bom after the flesh persecuted him thai was born after 
 the Spirit, even so it is now. Howbeit what saith the scripture? Cast 
 out the handmaid and her son ; for the son of the handmaid shall not 
 inherit with the son of the freewoman. Wherefore, brethren, we are 
 not children of a handmaid, but of the freewoman. For freedom did 
 Christ set us free : stand fast therefore, and be not entangled again in 
 a yoke of bondage." — Gal. iv. 21 — v. l. 
 
 THE Apostle wished that he could "change his 
 voice " (ver. 20). Indeed he has changed it more 
 than once. ** Any one who looks closely may see that 
 there is much change and alteration of feeling in what 
 the Apostle has previously written " (1 heodorus). 
 
iv.ai-v. 1.] THE STORY OP HAGAR, a«7 
 
 Now he will try another tone ; he proceeds in fact to 
 address his readers in a style which we find nowhere 
 else in his Epistles. He will tell his ** children " a 
 story ! Perhaps he may thus succeed better than by 
 graver argument. Their quick fancy will readily appre- 
 hend the bearing of the illustration ; it may bring home 
 to them the force of his doctrinal contention, and the 
 peril of their own position, as he fears they have not 
 seen them yet. And so, after the pathetic appeal of the 
 last paragraph, and before he delivers his decisive, 
 official protest to the Galatians against their circum- 
 cision, he interjects this '* allegory " of the two sons of 
 Abraham. 
 
 Paul cites the history of the sons of Abraham. No 
 other example would have served his purpose. The 
 controversy between himself and the Judaizers turned 
 on the question. Who are the true heirs of Abraham ? 
 (ch. iii. 7, 1 6, 29). He made faith in Christ, they cir- 
 cumcision and law-keeping, the ground of sonship. So 
 the inheritance was claimed in a double sense. But 
 now, if it should appear that this antithesis existed in 
 principle in the bosom of the patriarchal family, if we 
 should find that there was an elder son of Abraham's 
 flesh opposed to the child of promise, how powerfully 
 will this analogy sustain the Apostle's position. 
 Judaism will then be seen to be playing over again the 
 part of Ishmael ; and "the Jerusalem that now is " takes 
 the place of Hagar, the slave-mother. The moral 
 situation created by the Judaic controversy had been 
 rehearsed in the family life of Abraham. 
 
 ** Tell me," the Apostle asks, " you that would fain 
 be subject to the law, do you not know what it relates 
 concerning Abraham ? He had two sons, one of free, 
 and the other of servile birth. Do you wish to belong 
 
288 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 to the line of Ishmael, or Isaac ? " In this way Paul 
 resumes the thread of his discourse dropped in ver. 7. 
 Faith, he had told his readers, had made them sons of 
 God. They were, in Christ, of Abraham's spiritual 
 seed, heirs of his promise. God had sent His Son to 
 redeem them, and the Spirit of His Son to attest their 
 adoption. But they were not content. They were 
 ambitious of Jewish privileges. The Legalists per- 
 suaded them that they must be circumcised and conform 
 to Moses, in order to be Abraham's children in full 
 title. ''Very well," the Apostle says, "you may be- 
 come Abraham's sons in this fashion. Only you must 
 observe that Abraham had two sons. And the Law 
 will make you his sons by Hagar, whose home is Sinai 
 — not Israelites, but Ishmaelites I " 
 
 Paul's Galatian allegory has greatly exercised the 
 minds of his critics. The word is one of ill repute in 
 exegesis. Allegory was the instrument of Rabbinical 
 and Alexandrine Scripturists, an infallible device for 
 extracting the predetermined sense from the letter of 
 the sacred text. The " spiritualising " of Christian in- 
 terpreters has been carried, in many instances, to equal 
 excess of rioL For the honest meaning of the word of 
 God anything and everything has been substituted that 
 lawless fancy and verbal ingenuity could read into it. 
 The most arbitrary and grotesque distortions of the 
 facts of Scripture have passed current under cover of 
 the clause, " which things are an allegory." But Paul's 
 allegory, and that of Philo and the Allegorical school, 
 are very different things, as widely removed as the 
 "words of truth and soberness" from the intoxications 
 of a mystical idealism. 
 
 With Paul the spiritual sense of Scripture is based 
 on the historical, is in fact the moral content and import 
 
iT.3i-v.I.) THE STORY OF HA GAR «89 
 
 thereof; for he sees in history a continuous manifesta- 
 tion of God's will With the Allegorists the spiritual 
 sense, arrived at by a priori means, replaces the histori- 
 cal, destroyed to make room for it. The Apostle points 
 out in the story of Hagar a spiritual intent, such as 
 exists in every scene of human life if we had eyes to 
 see it, something other than the literal relation of the 
 facts, but nowise alien from it. Here lies the difference 
 between legitimate and illegitimate allegory. The 
 utmost freedom may be given to this employment of 
 the imagination, so long as it is true to the moral of 
 the narrative which it applies. In principle the Paulin.? 
 allegory does not differ from the type. In the type 
 the correspondence of the sign and thing signified 
 centres in a single figure or event ; in such an allegory 
 as this it is extended to a group of figures and a series 
 of events. But the force of the application depends on 
 the actuality of the original story, which in the illicit 
 allegory is matter of indifference. 
 
 " Which things are allegorized " — so the Apostle 
 literally writes in ver. 24 — made matters of allegory. 
 The phrase intimates, as Bishop Lightfoot suggests, 
 that the Hagarene episode in Genesis (ch. xvi., xxi. 
 I — 21) was commonly interpreted in a figurative way. 
 The Galatians had heard from their Jewish teachers 
 specimens of this popular mode of exposition. Paul 
 will employ it too ; and will give his own reading of the 
 famous story of Ishmael and Isaac. Philo of Alexan- 
 dria, the greatest allegorist of the day, has expounded 
 the same history. These eminent interpreters both 
 make Sarah the mother of the spiritual, Hagar of the 
 worldly offspring; both point out how the barren is 
 exalted over the fruitful wife. So far, we may imagine, 
 Paul is moving on the accepted lines of Jewish exegesis. 
 
 10 
 
a90 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 But Philo knows nothing of the correspondence between 
 Isaac and Christy which lies at the back of the Apostle's 
 allegory. And there is this vital difference of method 
 between the two divines, that whereas Paul's com- 
 parison is the illustration of a doctrine proved on other 
 grounds — the painting which decorates the house 
 already built (Luther) — with the Alexandrine idealist it 
 forms the substance and staple of his teaching. 
 
 Under this allegorical dress the Apostle expounds 
 once more his doctrine, already inculcated, of the differ- 
 ence between the Legal and Christian state. The 
 former constitutes, as he now puts the matter, a bastard 
 sonship Hke that of Ishmael, conferring only an 
 external and provisional tenure in the Abrahamic in- 
 heritance. It is contrasted with the spiritual sonship 
 of the true Israel in the following respects : — It is a 
 state of nature as opposed to grace ; of bondage as 
 opposed to freedom ; and further, it is temporary and 
 soon to be ended by the Divine decree. 
 
 I. " He who is of the maid-servant is after the flesh; 
 but he that is of the free-woman is through promise. 
 . . , Just as then he that was after the flesh persecuted 
 him that was after the Spirit, so now" (vv. 23, 29). 
 The Apostle sees in the different parentage of Abraham's 
 sons the ground of a radical divergence of character. 
 One was the child of nature, the other was the son of 
 a spiritual faith. 
 
 Ishmael was in truth the fruit of unbelief; his birth 
 was due to a natural but impatient misreading of the 
 promise. The patriarch's union with Hagar was ill- 
 assorted and ill-advised. It brought its natural penalty 
 by introducing an alien element into his family life. 
 The low-bred insolence which the serving-woman, b 
 the prospect of becoming a mother, showed toward 
 
▼.ai-v. i.j in A s'JUKr Of ualtAA. •91 
 
 the mistress to whom she owed her preferment, gave 
 a foretaste of the unhappy consequences. The promise 
 of posterity made to Abraham with a childless wife, 
 was expressly designed to try his faith ; and he had 
 allowed it to be overborne by the reasonings of nature. 
 It was no wonder that the son of the Egyptian slave, 
 born under such conditions, proved to be of a lower 
 type, and had to be finally excluded from the house. 
 
 In Ishmael's relation to his father there was nothing 
 but the ordinary play of human motives. " The son 
 of the handmaid was born after the flesh." He was 
 a natural son. But Ishmael was not on that account 
 cut off from the Divine mercies. Nor did his father's 
 prayer, " O that Ishmael might hve before Thee " 
 (Gen. xvii. 18), remain unanswered. A great career 
 was reserved by Divine Providence for his race. The 
 Arabs, the fiery sons of the desert, through him claim 
 descent from Abraham. They have carved their 
 name deeply upon the history and the faith of the 
 world. But sensuousness and lawlessness are every- 
 where the stamp of the Ishmaelite. With high gifts and 
 some generous qualities, such as attracted to his eldest 
 boy the love of Abraham, their fierce animal passion 
 has been the curse of the sons of Hagar. Mohamme- 
 danism is a bastard Judaism ; it is the religion of 
 Abraham sensualised. Ishmael stands forth as the 
 type of the carnal man. On outward grounds of flesh 
 and blood he seeks inheritance in the kingdom of 
 God ; and with fleshly weapons passionately fights its 
 battles. 
 
 To a similar position Judaism, in the Apostle's view, 
 had now reduced itself. And to this footing the Gala- 
 tian Churches would be brought if they yielded to the 
 Judaistic solicitations. To be circumcised would be for 
 
S93 lUA AtiyrLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 them to be bom again after the flesh, to link them- 
 selves to Abraham in the unspiritual fashion of Hagar's 
 son. Ishmael was the first to be circumcised (Gen. 
 xvii. 23 — 26). It was to renounce salvation by faith 
 and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. This course 
 could only have one result. The Judaic ritualism they 
 were adopting would bear fruit after its kind, in a 
 worldly, sensuous life. Like Ishmael they would 
 claim kinship with the Church of God on fleshly 
 grounds ; and their claim must prove as futile as did 
 his. 
 
 The persecution of the Church by Judaism gave 
 proof of the Ishmaelite spirit, the carnal animus by 
 which it was possessed. A religion of externalism 
 naturally becomes repressive. It knows not " the 
 demonstration of the Spirit"; it has "confidence in 
 the flesh." It relies on outward means for the propa- 
 gation of its faith ; and naturally resorts to the secular 
 arm. The Inquisition and the Auto-da-fe are a not 
 unfitting accompaniment of the gorgeous ceremonial of 
 the Mass. Ritualism and priestly autocracy go hand 
 in hand. " So now," says Paul, pointing to Ishmael's 
 "persecution" of the infant Isaac, hinted at in Gen. 
 xxL 8 — 10. 
 
 The laughter of Hagar's boy at Sarah's weaning- 
 least seems but a slight offence to be visited with the 
 punishment of expulsion ; and the incident one beneath 
 the dignity of theological argument. But the principle 
 for which Paul contends is there ; and it is the more 
 easily apprehended when exhibited on this homely 
 scale. The family is the germ and the mirror of 
 society. In it are first called into play the motives 
 which determine the course of history, the rise and fall 
 of empires or churches. The gravamen of the charge 
 
iv.2l.v.i.] THB STORY OF HAGAR. 993 
 
 against Ishmael lies in the last word of Gen. xxi. 9, 
 rendered in the Authorized Version mocking^ and by 
 the Revisers playing^ after the Septuagint and the 
 Vulgate. This word in the Hebrew is evidently a play 
 on the name Isaac ^ i.e.^ laughter ^ given by Sarah to her 
 boy with genial motherly delight (w. 6, 7). Ishmael, 
 now a youth of fourteen, takes up the child's name and 
 turns it, on this public and festive occasion, into 
 ridicule. Such an act was not only an insult to the 
 mistress of the house and the young heir at a most 
 untimely moment, it betrayed a jealousy and con- 
 tempt on the part of Hagar's son towards his half- 
 brother which gravely compromised Isaac's future. 
 "The wild, ungovernable and pugnacious character 
 ascribed to his descendants began to display itself in 
 Ishmael, and to appear in language of provoking 
 insolence ; offended at the comparative indifference 
 with which he was treated, he indulged in mockery, 
 especially against Isaac, whose very name furnished 
 him with satirical sneers." * Ishmael's jest cost him 
 dear. The indignation of Sarah was reasonable ; and 
 Abraham was compelled to recognise in her demand 
 the voice of God (vv. 10 — 12). The two boys, like 
 Esau and Jacob in the next generation, represented 
 opposite principles and ways of hfe, whose counter- 
 working was to run through the course of future 
 history. Their incompatibility was already mani- 
 fest. 
 
 The Apostle's comparison must have been mortifying 
 in the extreme to the Judaists. They are told in plain 
 terms that they are in the position of outcast Ishmael ; 
 while uncircumcised Gentiles, without a drop of Abnfc- 
 
 * Kftliich, Ccmmentaiy^ on Genesis zzL 9. 
 
294 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 ham's blood in their veins, have received the promise 
 forfeited by their unbelief. Paul could not have put 
 his conclusion in a form more unwelcome to Jewish 
 pride. But without this radical exposure of the legal- 
 ist position it was impossible for him adequately to 
 vindicate his gospel and defend his Gentile children in 
 the faith. 
 
 II. From this contrast of birth '* according to flesh " 
 and " through promise " is deduced the opposition 
 between the slave-born and free-bom sons. ** For these 
 (the slave-mother and the free-woman) are two cove- 
 nants, one indeed bearing children unto bondage — 
 which is Hagar" (ver. 24). The other side of the 
 antithesis is not formally expressed ; it is obvious. 
 Sarah the princess, Abraham's true wife, has her 
 counterpart in the original covenant of promise re- 
 newed in Christ, and in " the Jerusalem above, which 
 is our mother " (ver. 26). Sarah is the typical mother,* 
 as Abraham is the father of the children of faith. In 
 the systotchia, or tabular comparison, which the Apostle 
 draws up after the manner of the schools, Hagar and 
 the Mosaic covenant, Sinai and the Jerusalem that now is 
 stand in one file and " answer to " each other ; Sarah 
 and the Abrahamic covenant, Zion and the heavenly 
 Jerusalem succeed in the same order, opposite to them. 
 " Zion " is wanting in the second file ; but " Sinai and 
 Zion" form a standing antithesis (Heb. xii. 18 — 22); 
 the second is implied in the first. It was to Zion that 
 the words of Isaiah cited in ver. 27, were addressed. 
 
 The first clause of ver. 25 is best understood in the 
 shorter, marginal reading of the R. V., also preferred 
 by Bishop Lightfoot (to 70^ ^Lva opa iariv k.t.X.). It 
 
 * Comp. Heb. xi 11, 12 ; i Pet iii. 6. 
 
r. 3I.T. I.] THE STORY OF HAGAR, 995 
 
 is a parenthesis — " for mount Sinai * is in Arabia " — 
 covenant running on in the mind from ver. 24 as the 
 continued subject of ver. 25 ^ : '* and it answereth to 
 the present Jerusalem." This is the simplest and most 
 consistent construction of the passage. The interjected 
 geographical reference serves to support the identifica- 
 tion of the Sinaitic covenant with Hagar, Arabia being 
 the well-known abode of the Hagarenes. Paul had 
 met them in his wanderings there. Some scholars 
 have attempted to establish a verbal agreement between 
 the name of the slave-mother and that locally given to 
 the Sinaitic range ; but this explanation is precarious, 
 and after all unnecessary. There was a real corre- 
 spondence between place and people on the one 
 hand, as between place and covenant on the other. 
 Sinai formed a visible and imposing link between the 
 race of Ishmael and the Mosaic law-giving. That 
 awful, desolate mountain, whose aspect, as we can 
 imagine, had vividly impressed itself on Paul's memory 
 (ch. i. 17), spoke to him of bondage and terror. It 
 was a true symbol of the working of the law of Moses, 
 exhibited in the present condition of Judaism. And 
 round the base of Sinai Hagar's wild sons had found 
 their dwelling. 
 
 Jerusalem was no longer the mother of freemen. 
 The boast, " we are Abraham's sons ; we were never in 
 bondage " (John viii. 33), was an unconscious irony. 
 Her sons chafed under the Roman yoke. They were 
 loaded with self-inflicted legal burdens. Above all, 
 they were, notwithstanding their professed law-keeping, 
 enslaved to sin, in servitude to their pride and evil 
 
 * Paul writes "the Sinai mountain* (ri Ztro tpo%) in tacit opposi- 
 tion to the other, famihar Mount Zion (Hofmann in loc.). In Heb. 
 zii. 22 the same inversion appears, with the same significance. 
 
i9« THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 lusts. The spirit of the nation was that of rebellious^ 
 discontented slaves. They were Ishmaelite sons of 
 Abraham, with none of the nobleness, the reverence, 
 the calm and elevated faith of their father. In the 
 Judaism of the Apostle's day the Sinaitic dispensation^ 
 uncontrolled by the higher patriarchal and prophetic 
 faith, had worked out its natural result. It " gendered 
 to bondage." A system of repression and routine, it 
 had produced men punctual in tithes of mint and anise, 
 but without justice, mercy, or faith; vaunting their 
 liberty while they were '* servants of corruption." 
 The law of Moses could not form a "new creature." 
 It left the Ishmael of nature unchanged at heart, a 
 child of the flesh, with whatever robes of outward 
 decorum his nakedness was covered. The Pharisee 
 was the typical product of law apart from grace. 
 Under the garb of a freeman he carried the soul of a 
 slave. 
 
 But ver. 26 sounds the note of deliverance: "The 
 Jerusalem above is free ; and she is our mother 1 " 
 Paul has escaped from the prison of Legalism, from the 
 confines of Sinai ; he has left behind the perishing 
 earthly Jerusalem, and with it the bitterness and gloom 
 of his Pharisaic days. He is a citizen of the heavenly 
 Zion, breathing the air of a Divine freedom. The 
 yoke is broken from the neck of the Church of God ; 
 the desolation is gone from her heart There come to 
 the Apostle's lips the words of the great prophet of the 
 Exile, depicting the deliverance of the spiritual Zion, 
 despised and counted barren, but now to be the mother 
 of a numberless offspring. In Isaiah's song, " Rejoice, 
 thou barren that bearest not " (ch. liv.), the laughter of 
 the childless Sarah bursts forth again, to be gloriously 
 renewed in the persecuted Church of Jesus. Robbed 
 
iv.li.v. I.] THE STORY OF HA GAR, 297 
 
 of all outward means, mocked and thrust out as she 
 is by Israel after the flesh, her rejection is a release, 
 an emancipation. Conscious of the Spirit of sonship 
 and freedom, looking out on the boundless conquests 
 lying before her in the Gentile world, the Church of 
 the New Covenant glories in her tribulations. In Paul 
 is fulfilled the joy of prophet and psalmist, who sang 
 in former days of gloom concerning Israel's enlarge- 
 ment and world-wide victories. No legalist could 
 understand words like these. ** The veil " was upon 
 his heart *' in the reading of the Old Testament." But 
 with " the Spirit of the Lord " comes " liberty." The 
 prophetic inspiration has returned. The voice of re- 
 joicing is heard again in the dwellings of Israel. " If 
 the Son make you free," said Jesus, '^ ye shall be free 
 indeed." This Epistle proves it. 
 
 III. " And the bondman abideth not in the house for 
 ever; the Son abideth for ever" (John viii. 35). This 
 also the Lord had testified : the Apostle repeats His 
 warnmg in the terms of this allegory. 
 
 Sooner or later the slave-boy was bound to go. He 
 has no proper birthright, no permanent footing in the 
 house. One day he exceeds his licence, he makes 
 himself intolerable ; he must begone. " What saith the 
 Scripture ? Cast out the maidservant and her son ; 
 for the son of the maidservant shall not inherit with 
 the son of the freewoman " (ver. 30). Paul has pro- 
 nounced the doom of Judaism. His words echo those 
 of Christ : " Behold your house is left unto you deso- 
 late " (Matt, xxiii. 38) ; they Bie taken up again in 
 the language of Heb. xiii. 13, 14, uttered on the eve 
 of the fall of Jerusalem : "Let us go forth unto Jesus 
 without the camp, bearing His reproach. We have 
 here no continuing city, but we seek that which is to 
 
298 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 come." On the walls of Jerusalem ichabod was plainly 
 written. Since it *' crucified our Lord " it was no 
 longer the Holy City ; it was *' spiritually Sodom and 
 Egypt" (Rev. xi. 8), — Egypt, the country of Hagar. 
 Condemning Him, the Jewish nation passed sentence 
 on itself. They were slaves who in blind rage slew 
 heir Master when He came to free them. 
 
 The Israelitish people showed more than Ishmael's 
 jealousy towards the infant Church of the Spirit. No 
 weapon of violence or calumny was too base to be 
 used against it The cup of their iniquity was filling 
 fast. They were ripening for the judgement which 
 Christ predicted (i Thess. ii. i6). Year by year they 
 became more hardened against spiritual truth, more 
 malignant towards Christianity, and more furious and 
 fanatical in their hatred towards their civil rulers. The 
 cause of Judaism was hopelessly lost. In Rom. ix. — 
 xi., written shortly after this Epistle, Paul assumes this 
 as a settled thing, which he has to account for and to 
 reconcile with Scripture. In the demand of Sarah for 
 the expulsion of her rival, complied with by Abraham 
 against his will, the Apostle reads the secret judgement 
 of the Almighty on the proud city which he himself so 
 ardently loved, but which had crucified his Lord and 
 repented not. " Cut it down," Jesus cried ; " why 
 cumbereth it the ground ? " (Luke xiii. 7). The voice 
 of Scripture speaks again : " Cast her out ; she and 
 her sons are slaves. They have no place amongst 
 the sons of God." Ishmael was in the way of Isaac's 
 safety and prosperity. And the Judaic ascendency was 
 no less a danger to the Church. The blow which 
 shattered Judaism, at once cleared the ground for the 
 outward progress of the gospel and arrested the 
 legalistic reaction which hindered its internal develop- 
 
iv.ai-T.i.] THE STORY OF HAG A A, 399 
 
 ment. The two systems were irreconcilable. It was 
 Paul's merit to have first apprehended this contradiction 
 in its full import. The time had come to apply in all its 
 rigour Christ's principle of combat, " He that is not with 
 Me, is against Me." It is the same rule of exclusion 
 which Paul announces : " If any man hath not the Spirit 
 of Christ, he is none of His" (Rom. viii. 9). Out of Christ 
 is no salvation. When the day of judgement comes, 
 whether for men or nations, this is the touchstone : 
 Have we, or have we not ** the Spirit of God's Son ? " 
 !s our character that of sons of God, or slaves of sin ? 
 On the latter falls inevitably the sentence of expulsion, 
 "He will gather out of His kingdom all things that 
 offend, and them that do iniquity" (Matt. xiii. 41). 
 
 This passage signalises the definite breach of Christ- 
 anity with Judaism. The elder Apostles lingered in 
 the porch of the Temple ; the primitive Church clung 
 to the ancient worship. Paul does not blame them for 
 doing so. In their case this was but the survival of 
 a past order, in principle acknowledged to be obsolete. 
 But the Church of the future, the spiritual seed of 
 Abraham gathered out of all nations, had no part in 
 Legalism. The Apostle bends all his efforts te con- 
 vince his readers of this, to make them sensiole of 
 the impassable gulf lying between them and outworn 
 Mosaism. Again he repeats, " We are not children 
 of a maidservant, but of her that is free"(ver. 31). 
 The Church of Christ can no more hold fellowship with 
 Judaism than could Isaac with the spiteful, mocking 
 Ishmael. Paul leads the Church across the Rubicon. 
 There is no turning back. 
 
 Ver. I of ch. v. is the application of the allegory. It 
 is a triumphant assertion of liberty, a ringing summons 
 to its defence. Its separation from ch. iv. is ill-judged, 
 
300 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 and runs counter to the ancient divisions of the 
 Epistle. " Christ set us free," Paul declares ; *' and it 
 vf2is /or freedom* — not that we might fall under a new 
 servitude. Stand fast therefore ; do not let your- 
 selves be made bondmen over again." Bondmen the 
 Galatians had been before (ch. iv. 8), bowing down to 
 false and vile gods. Bondmen they will be again, if 
 they are beguiled by the Legalists to accept the yoke 
 of circumcision, if they take *' the Jerusalem that now 
 is" for their mother. They have tasted the joys of 
 freedom ; they know what it is to be sons of God, heirs 
 of His kingdom and partakers of His Spirit ; why do 
 they stoop from their high estate ? Why should 
 Christ's freemen put a yoke upon their own neck ? Let 
 them only know their happiness and security in Christ, 
 and refuse to be cheated out of the substance of their 
 spiritual blessings by the illusive shadows which the 
 Judaists offer them. Freedom once gained is a prize 
 never to be lost. No care, no vigilance in its preserva- 
 tion can be too great. Such liberty inspires courage 
 and good hope in its defence. " Stand fast therefore. 
 Quit yourselves Uke men." 
 
 How the Galatians responded to the Apostle's 
 
 * The reading of this clause is doubtful. The ancient witnesses 
 disagree. Dr. Hort suggests that the Revised reading — the best at- 
 tested, but scarcely grammatical — may be due to a primitive corruption, 
 TH for En {i\«vdepl(^). This emendation gives an excellent and 
 apposite sense : for {with a view to) freedom Christ set us free. The 
 phrase iv iXevBepiq, is found in ver. 13, and would gain additional 
 force there, if read as a repetition of what is affirmed here. The con- 
 fusion of letters involved is a natural one ; and once made at an early 
 time in some standard copy, it would account for the extraordinary 
 confusion of reading into which the verse has fallen. If conjectural 
 emendation may be admitted anywhere in the N. T., it is legitimate in 
 this instance. 
 
hr.si-T. I.] THE STORY OF HA GAR, 304 
 
 challenge, we do not know. But it has found an echo 
 in many a heart since. The Lutheran Reformation 
 was an answer to it; so was the Scottish Covenant. 
 The spirit of Christian liberty is eternal. Jerusalem or 
 Rome may strive to imprison it. They might as well 
 seek to bind the winds of heaven. Its home is with 
 God. Its seat is the throne of Christ. It lives by 
 the breath of His Spirit The earthly powers mock 
 at it, and drive it into the wilderness. They do but 
 assure their own ruin. It leaves the house of the 
 oppressor desolate. Whosoever he be — Judaist or 
 Papist, priest, or king, or demagogue — that makes 
 himself lord of God's heritage and would despoil His 
 children of the liberties of faith, let him beware lest 
 of him also it be spoken, " Cast out the bondwoman 
 and her son." 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 SHALL THE GALATIANS BE CIRCUMCISED 
 
 •• Behold, I Paul say unto you, that, if ye receive circumcision, Christ 
 will profit you nothing. Yea, I testify again to every man that receiveth 
 circumcision, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Ye are severed 
 from Christ, ye who would be justified by the law ; ye are fallen away 
 from grace. For we through the Spirit by faith wait for the hope 
 of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth 
 anything, nor uncircumcision ; but faith working through love." — 
 Gal. t. 3 — 6. 
 
 SHALL the Galatians be circumcised, or shall they 
 not ? This is the decisive question. The denun- 
 ciation with which Paul begins his letter, the narrative 
 which follows, the profou and rgumentation, the tender 
 entreaty of the last two chapters, all converge toward 
 this crucial point. So far the Galatian Churches had 
 been only dallying with Judaism. They have been 
 tempted to the verge of apostasy ; but they are not 
 yet over the edge. Till they consent to be circumcised, 
 they have not finally committed themselves ; their 
 freedom is not absolutely lost. The Apostle still hopes, 
 despite his fears, that they will stand fast (ver. lO; 
 ch. iv. 1 1 ; iii. 4). The fatal step is eagerly pressed 
 on them by the Judaizers (ch. vi. 12, 13), whose per- 
 suasion the Galatians had so far entertained, that they 
 had begun to keep the Hebrew sabbath and feast-days 
 (ch. iv. 10). If they yield to this further demand, the 
 battle is lost ; and this powerful Epistle, with all the 
 
w.a-€.] SHALL THE GALATIANS BE CIRCUMCISED t 303 
 
 Apostle's previous labour spent upon them, has been 
 in vain. To sever this section from the polemical in 
 order to attach it to the practical part of the Epistle, 
 as many commentators do, is to cut the nerve of the 
 Apostle's argument and reduce it to an abstract 
 theological discussion. 
 
 This momentous question is brought forward with 
 the greater emphasis and effect, because it has hitherto 
 been kept out of sight. The allusion to Titus in 
 ch. ii. I — 5 has already indicated the supreme import- 
 ance of the matter of circumcision. But the Apostle 
 has delayed dealing with it formally and directly, until 
 he is able to do so with the weight of the foregoing 
 chapters to support his inierdict. He has shattered 
 the enemies' position with his artillery of logic, he has 
 assailed the hearts of his readers with all the force of 
 his burning indignation and subduing pathos. Now 
 he gathers up his strength for the final charge home, 
 which must decide the battle. 
 
 I. Lo, I Paul tell you I When he begins thus, 
 we feel that the decisive moment is at hand. Every- 
 thing depends on the next few words. Paul stands 
 like an archer with his bow drawn at full stretch 
 and the arrow pointed to the mark. *' Let others 
 say what they may ; this is what / tell you. If 
 my word has any weight with you, give heed to this : 
 
 IF YOU BE CIRCUMCISED, ChRIST WILL PROFIT YOU 
 
 NOTHING." 
 
 Now his bolt is shot ; we see what the Apostle has 
 had in his mind all this time. Language cannot be 
 more explicit Some of his readers will have failed to 
 catch the subtler points of his argument, or the finer 
 tones of his voice of entreaty ; but every one will under- 
 stand this. The most " senseless " and volatile 
 
304 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 amongst the Galatians will surely be sobered by the 
 terms of this warning. There is no escaping th > 
 dilemma. Legalism and Paulinism, the true and the 
 false gospel, stand front to front, reduced to their barest 
 form, and weighed each in the balance of its practical 
 result. Chnst — or Circumcision : which shall it be ? 
 
 This declaration is no less authoritative and judicially 
 threatening than the anathema of ch. L That former 
 denouncement declared the false teachers severed from 
 Christ. Those who yield to their persuasion, will be 
 also *' severed from Christ." They will fall into the 
 same ditch as their blind leaders. The Judaizers have 
 forfeited their part in Christ ; they are false brethren, 
 tares among the wheat, troublers and hinderers to the 
 Church of God. And Gentile Christians who choose 
 to be led astray by them must take the consequences. 
 If they obey the ** other gospel," Christ's gospel is 
 theirs no longer. If they rest their faith on circum- 
 cision, they have withdrawn it from His cross. Adopt- 
 ing the Mosaic regimen, they forego the benefits of 
 Christ's redemption. ** Christ will profit you nothing." 
 The sentence is negative, but no less fearful on that 
 account. It is as though Christ should say, "Thou 
 hast no part with Me." 
 
 Circumcision will cost the Galatian Christians all 
 they possess in Jesus Christ. But is not this, some 
 one will ask, an over-strained assertion ? Is it con- 
 sistent with Paul's professions and his policy in other 
 instances ? In ver. 6, and again in the last chapter, 
 he declares that '* Circumcision is nothing, and uncir- 
 cumcision nothing " ; and yet here he makes it every- 
 thing / The Apostle's position is this. In itself the 
 rite is valueless. It was the sacrament of the Old 
 Covenant, which was brought to an end by the death 
 
¥.2.6.] SHALL THE GALATIANS BE CIRCUMCISED} 305 
 
 of Christ. For the new Church of the Spirit, it is a 
 matter of perfect indifference whether a man is circum- 
 cised or not. Paul had therefore circumcised Timothy, 
 whose mother was a Jewess (Acts xvi. i — 3), though 
 neither he nor his young disciple supposed that it was 
 a religious necessity. It was done as a social con- 
 venience ; " uncircumcision was nothing," and could in 
 such a case be surrendered without prejudice. On the 
 other hand, he refused to submit Titus to the same 
 rite ; for he was a pure Greek, and on him it could only 
 have been imposed on religious grounds and as a 
 passport to salvation. For this, and for no other reason, 
 it was demanded by the Judaistic party. In this instance 
 it was needful to show that '* circumcision is nothing." 
 The Galatians stood in the same position as Titus, 
 Circumcision, if performed on them, must have denoted, 
 not as in Timothy's case, the fact of Jewish birth, 
 but subjection to the Mosaic law. Regarded in this 
 light, the question was one of life or death for the 
 Pauline Churches. To yield to the Judaizers would 
 be to surrender the principle of salvation by faith. 
 The attempt of the legahst party was in effect to force 
 Christianity into the grooves of Mosaism, to reduce the 
 world-wide Church of the Spirit to a sect of moribund 
 Judaism. 
 
 With what views, with what aim were the Galatiani 
 entertaining this Judaic '' persuasion " ? Was it to 
 make them sons of God and heirs of His kingdom^ r 
 This was the object with which " God sent forth Hi^ 
 Son ; " and the Spirit of sonship assured them that ii 
 was realised (ch. iv. 4 — 7). To adopt the former means 
 to this end was to renounce the latter. In turning 
 their eyes to this new bewitchment, they must be con- 
 scious that their attention was diverted from the 
 
 20 
 
306 THE EPISTLB TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 Redeemer's cross and their confidence in it weakened 
 (ch. iii. i). To be circumcised would be to rest their 
 salvation forr^ lly and definitely on works of law, in 
 place of the grace of God. The consequences of this 
 Paul has shown in relating his discussion with Peter, 
 in ch. ii. 15 — 21. They would "make" themselves 
 " transgressors ; " they would '* make Christ'b death of 
 none effect." In the soul's salvation Christ will be 
 all, or nothing. If we trust Him, we must trust Him 
 altogether. The Galatians had already admitted a 
 suspicion of the power of His grace, which if cherished 
 and acted on in the way proposed, must sever all 
 communion between their souls and Him. Their cir- 
 cumcision would be " the sacrament of their excision 
 from Christ" (Huxtable). 
 
 The tense of the verb is present, Paul's readers may 
 be in the act of making this disastrous compliance. 
 He bids them look for a moment at the depth of the 
 gulf on whose brink they stand. " Stop I " he cries, 
 ** another step in that direction, and you have lost 
 Christ." 
 
 And what will they get in exchange? They will 
 saddle themselves with all the obligations of the Mosaic 
 law (ver. 3). This probably was more than they 
 bargained for. They wished to find a via media^ some 
 compromise between the new faith and the old, which 
 would secure to them the benefits of Christ without 
 His reproach, and the privileges of Judaism without 
 its burdens. This at least was the policy of the Judaic 
 teachers (ch. vi. 12, 13). But it was a false and 
 untenable position. ''Circumcision verily profiteth, i^ 
 thou art a doer of the law " (Rom. ii. 25) ; otherwise it 
 brings only condemnation. He who receives the sacra- 
 ment of Mosaism, by doing so pledges himself to " keep 
 
r.2-6.] SHALL THE GALATIANS BE CIRCUMCISED i 307 
 
 and do ** every one of its " ordinances, statutes, and 
 judgements" — a yoke which, honest Peter said, ** Neither 
 we nor our fathers were able to bear" (Acts xv. 10). 
 Let the Galatians read the law, and consider w^hat they 
 are going to undertake. He who goes with the Judaists 
 a mile, will be compelled to go twain. They will not 
 find themselves at liberty to pick and choose amongst 
 the legal requirements. Their legalist teachers will 
 not raise a finger to lighten the yoke (Luke xi. 46), 
 when it is once fastened on their necks ; nor will their 
 own consciences acquit them of its responsibilities. 
 This obligation Paul, himself a master in Jewish law, 
 solemnly affirms : " 1 protest (I declare before God) to 
 every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to 
 perform the whole law." 
 
 Now this is a proved impossibility. Whoever " sets 
 up the law," he had avouched to Cephas, " makes him- 
 self a transgressor " (ch. ii. 18). Nay, it was established 
 of set purpose to ** multiply transgressions," to deepen 
 and sharpen the consciousness of sin (ch. iii. 19 ; Rom 
 iii. 20; iv. 15; v. 20). Jewish believers in Christ, 
 placed under its power by their birth, had thankfully 
 found in the faith of Christ a refuge from its accusations 
 (ch. ii. 16 ; Rom. vii. 24 — viii. 4). Surely the Galatians, 
 knowing all this, will not be so foolish as to put them- 
 selves gratuitously under its power. To do this would 
 be an insult to Christ, and an act of moral suicide. 
 This further warning reinforces the first, and is 
 uttered with equal solemnity. " I tell you, Christ will 
 profit you nothing ; and again I testify, the law 
 will lay its full weight upon you." They will be left, 
 without the help of Christ, to bear this tremendous 
 burden. 
 
 This double threatening is blended into one in vo 4, 
 
3o8 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 The pregnant force of Paul's Greek is untranslatable. 
 Literally his words run, " You were nullified from Christ 
 {fcaTr)pyi]6i]r€ airo Xpiarov) — brought to nought (being 
 severed) from Him, you that in law are seeking justifi- 
 cation." He puts his assertion in the past {aorist) 
 tense, stating that which ensues so soon as the principle 
 of legal justification is endorsed. From that moment 
 the Galatians cease to be Christians. In this sense 
 they " are abolished," just as '* the cross is " virtually 
 " abolished " if the Apostle ** preaches circumcision " 
 (ver. ii), and "death is being abolished" under the 
 reign of Christ (l Cor. xv. 26). He has said in ver. 2 
 that Christ will be made of none effect to them ; now 
 he adds that they " are made of none effect " in relation 
 to Christ. Their Christian standing is destroyed. The 
 joyous experiences of their conversion, their share in 
 Abraham's blessing, their Divine sonship witnessed to 
 by the Holy Spirit — all this is nullified, cancelled at a 
 stroke, if they are circumcised. The detachment of 
 their faith *' from Christ " is involved in the process of 
 attaching it to Jewish ordinances, and brings spiritual 
 destruction upon them. The root of the Christian life 
 is faith in Him. Let that root be severed, let the 
 branch no longer " abide in the vine " — it is dead 
 already.* 
 
 Cut ofif from Christ, they " have fallen from grace." 
 Paul has already twice identified Christ and grace, in 
 ch. i. 6 and ii. 21. The Divine mercies centre in 
 Jesus Christ ; and he who separates himself from Him, 
 shuts these out of his soul. The verb here used by 
 the Apostle (efeTrecrare) is commonly applied (four 
 times e.g. in Acts xxvii.) to a ship driven out of her 
 
 * Comp. John xv. $, 6, where in ifiXvOrj, i^ript{v0ri, there is « like 
 iumunary aorLit 
 
r.a-6.) SHALL THE GALATIANS BE CIRCUMCISED f 309 
 
 course. Some such image seems to be in the writer's 
 mind in this passage. These racers made an excellent 
 start, but they have stumbled (ver. 7 ; ch. iil 3) ; the 
 vessel set out from harbour in gallant style, but she is 
 drifting fast upon the rocks. This sentence *' is the 
 exact opposite of * stand in the grace/ Rom. v. 2 " 
 (Beet).* 
 
 That he who *' seeks justification in law has fallen 
 from grace" needs no proof after the powerful demon- 
 stration of ch. ii. 14 — 21. The moralist claims quit- 
 tance on the ground of his deservings. He pleads 
 the quahty of his " works," his punctual discharge of 
 every stipulated duty, from circumcision onwards. *' I 
 fast twice a week," he tells his Divine Judge ; " I tithe 
 all my gains. I have kept all the commandments from 
 my youth up." What can God expect more than this ? 
 But with these performances Grace has nothing to do. 
 The man is not in its order. If he invokes its aid, it is 
 as a make-weight, a supplement to the possible short- 
 comings in a virtue for the most part competent for 
 itself. Now the grace of God is not to be set aside in 
 this way ; it refuses to be treated as a mere succeda- 
 neum of human virtue. Grace, like Christ, insists on 
 being '* all in all." " If salvation is by grace, it is no 
 longer of works ; " and *' if of works, it is no more 
 grace " (Rom. xi. 6). These two methods of justifica- 
 tion imply different moral tempers, an opposite set and 
 direction of the current of life. This question of cir- 
 cumcision brings the Galatians to the parting of the 
 ways. Grace or Law — which of the two roads will they 
 follow ? Both they cannot. They may become Jewish 
 prosel^^tes ; but they will cease to be Christians. 
 
 • Comp. 3 Pet iii. 17; for the figure suggested, Eph. iv. 14; 
 I Tim. i. 19. 
 
3IO THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 Leaving behind them the light and joy of the heavenly 
 Zion, they will find themselves wandering in the 
 gloomy desolations of Sinai. 
 
 II. From this prospect the Apostle bids his readers 
 turn to that which he himself beholds, and which they 
 erewhile shared with him. Again he seems to say, 
 " Be ye as I am, brethren " (ch. iv. 12) ; not in outward 
 condition alone, but still more in inward experience 
 and aspiration. '* For we by the Spirit, on the ground 
 of faith, are awaiting the hope of righteousness " (ver. 5). 
 Look on this picture, and on that. Yonder are the 
 Galatians, all in tumult about the legalistic proposals, 
 debating which of the Hebrew feasts they shall cele- 
 brate and with what rites, absorbed in the details of 
 Mosaic ceremony, all but persuaded to be circumcised 
 and to settle their scruples out of hand by a blind sub- 
 mission to the Law. And here, on the other side, is 
 Paul with the Church of the Spirit, walking in the 
 righteousness of faith and the communion of the Holy 
 Spirit, joyfully awaiting the Saviour's final coming and 
 the hope that is laid up in heaven. How vexed, how 
 burdened, how narrow and puerile is the one condition 
 of life ; how large and lofty and secure the other. 
 "We," says the Apostle "are looking forwards not 
 backwards, to Christ and not to Moses." 
 / Every word in this sentence is full of meaning. 
 Faith carries an emphasis similar to that it has in 
 ch. ii. 16; ill. 22; and in Rom. iv. 16. Paul supports 
 by contrast what he has just said : " Your share in the 
 kingdom of grace is lost who seek a legal righteousness 
 (ver. 4) ; it is hy faith that we look for our heritage." 
 Hope is clearly matter of hope^ the future glory of the 
 redeemed, described in Rom. viii. 18 — 25, Phil. iii. 20, 
 21, in both of which places there appears the remark- 
 
r.a^.) SHALL THE GALATIANS BE CIRCUMCISED t 311 
 
 ably compounded verb {a'J^-€K-Zexo^Ji'^Oa) that concludes 
 this verse. It implies an intent expectancy, sure of its 
 object 1 nd satisfied with it The hope is *' righteous- 
 ness' hope " — the hope of the righteous — for it has in 
 righteousness its warrant. The saying of Psalm xvi., 
 verified in Christ's rising from the dead, contains its 
 principle : " Thou wilt not leave my soul to death ; nor 
 suffer Thine holy one to see the pit." This was the 
 secret *' hope of Israel," * that grew up in the hearts of 
 the men of faith, whose accomplishment is the crowning 
 glory of the redemption of Christ. It is the goal of 
 faith. Righteousness is the path that leads to it. The 
 Galatians had been persuaded of this hope and embraced 
 it ; if they accept the ** other gospel," with its phantom 
 of a legal righteousness, their hope will perish. 
 
 The Apostle is always true to the order of thought 
 here indicated. Faith saves from first to last. The 
 present righteousness and future glory of the sons of 
 God alike have their source in faith. The act of reli- 
 ance by which the initial justification of the sinner was 
 attained, now becomes the habit of the soul, the channel 
 by which its life is fed, rooting itself ever more deeply 
 into Christ and absorbing more completely the virtue of 
 His death and heavenly life. Faith has its great 
 ventures ; it has also its seasons of endurance, its 
 moods of quiet expectancy, its unweariable patience. 
 It can wait as well as work. It rests upon the past, 
 seeing in Christ crucified its "author ;" then it looks 
 on to the future, and claims Christ glorified for its 
 "finisher." So faith prompts her sister Hope and 
 points her to " the glory that shall be revealed." If 
 faith fails, hope quickly dies. Unbelief is the mother 
 
 • Acts wdii 6 i ixiT. IS ; ncvi 6 — 8 ; comp. John vi. 39, 40, 44. 
 
3ia THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 of despair. " Of faith," the Apostle says, " we look 
 out I" 
 
 A second condition, inseparable from the first, marks 
 the hope proper to the Christian righteousness. It is 
 sustained ** by the Spirit." The connection of faith 
 and hope respectively with the gift of the Holy Spirit 
 is marked very clearly by Paul in Eph. i. 13, 14: 
 " Having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit, 
 who is the earnest of our inheritance,*^ The Holy Spirit 
 seals the sons of God — '* sons, then heirs" (ch. iv. 6, 7 ; 
 Rom. viii. 15 — 17). This stamps on Christian hope a 
 spiritual character. The conception which we form of 
 it, the means by which it is pursued, the temper and 
 attitude in which it is expected, are determined by the 
 Holy Spirit who inspires it. This pure and celestial 
 hope is therefore utterly removed from the selfish 
 ambitions and the sensuous methods that distinguished 
 the Judaistic movement (ch. iv. 3, 9; vi. 12 — 14). 
 " Men of worldly, low design " like Paul's opponents 
 in Galatia, had no right to entertain ^' the hope of 
 righteousness." These matters are spiritually dis- 
 cerned ; they are *' the things of the Spirit, the things 
 which God hath prepared for them that love Him " (l 
 Cor. ii. 9 — 14). 
 
 If faith and hope are in sight, love cannot be far off. 
 In the next verse it comes to claim its place beside the 
 other two : ** faith working through love." And so the 
 blessed trio is complete, Fides^ amor, spes : summa 
 Christianismi (Bengel). Faith waits, but it also works;* 
 
 ♦ " Working through love," not wrought (R. V. margin). The latter 
 rendering of the participle is found in some of the Fathers, and b pre- 
 ferred by Romanist interpreters in the interest of their doctrine o{ Jida 
 fffrmaia. Paul's theology and his verbal usage alike require the middlt 
 ■ense of this verb, adopted by modem commentators with one con- 
 
t.2-6.] SHALL THE GALATIANS BE CIRCUMCISED t 313 
 
 and love is its working energy. Love gives faith 
 hands and feet ; hope lends it wings. Love is the fire 
 at its heart, the life-blood coursing in its veins ; hope 
 the light that gleams and dances in its eyes. Looking 
 back to the Christ that hath been manifested, faith 
 kindles into a boundless love ; looking onward to the 
 Christ that shall be revealed, it rises into an exultant 
 hope. 
 
 These closing words are of no little theological 
 importance. " They bridge over the gulf which seems 
 to separate the language of Paul and James. Both 
 assert a principle of practical energy, as opposed to a 
 barren, inactive theory " (Lightfoot). Had the faith of 
 Paul's readers been more practical, had they been of 
 a diligent, enterprising spirit, ''ready for every good 
 word and work," they would not have felt, to the same 
 degree, the spell of the Judaistic fascination. Idle hands, 
 vain and restless minds, court temptation. A manly, 
 energetic faith will never play at ritualism or turn 
 religion into a round of ceremonial, an aesthetic exhibi- 
 tion. Loving and self-devoting faith in Christ is the one 
 thing Paul covets to see in the Galatians. This is the 
 working power of the gospel, the force that will lift and 
 regenerate mankind. In comparison with this, ques- 
 tions of Church-order and forms of worship are 
 " nothing." " The body is more than the raiment." 
 Church organization is a means to a certain end ; and 
 that end consists in the life of faith and love in 
 Christian souls. Each man is worth to Christ and to 
 
 sent. The middle voice implies that through love faith gets into action^ 
 is operative, efficacious, shows what it can do. Comp., for Pauline usage, 
 Rom. vii. 5 ; 2 Cor. i. 6. iv. 12 ; Eph. iii. 20 ; Col. i. 29 ; i Thess. ii 
 13 ; 2 Thess. iL 7 ; and see Moulton'» Winer'» N, T, Grammar ^ 
 p. 318 (note on dynamic middUV 
 
314 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 His Church just so much as he possesses of this energy 
 of the Spirit, just so much as he has of love to Christ 
 and to men in Him. Other gifts and quahties, offices 
 and orders of ministry, are but instruments for love to 
 employ, machinery for love to energize. 
 
 The Apostle wishes it to be understood that he does 
 not condemn circumcision on its own account, as though 
 the opposite condition were in itself superior. If " cir- 
 cumcision does not avail anything, neither does uncir^ 
 cumcision." The Jew is no better or worse a Christian 
 because he is circumcised ; the Gentile no worse or better, 
 because he is not. This difference in no way affects the 
 man's spiritual standing or efficiency. Let the Galatians 
 dismiss the whole question from their minds. " One 
 thing is needful," to be filled with the Spirit of love. 
 ** God's kingdom is not meat and drink ; " it is not 
 " days and seasons and years ; " it is not circumcision, 
 nor rubrics and vestments and priestly functions ; it is 
 " righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." 
 These are the true notes of the Church ; " by love/* 
 said Christ, "all men will know that you are My 
 disciples." 
 
 In these two sentences (w. 5 and 6) the religion 
 
 . of Christ is summed up. Ver. 5 gives us its statics ; 
 ver. 6 its dynamics. It is a condition, and an occupa- 
 tion ; a grand outlook, and an intent pursuit ; a Divine 
 hope for the future, and a sovereign power for the 
 
 ^ present, with an infinite spring of energy in the love of 
 Christ. The active and passive elements of the Christian 
 life need to be justly balanced. Many of the errors of 
 the Church have arisen from one-sidedness in this 
 respect. Some do nothing but sit with folded hands 
 till the Lord comes ; others are too busy to think of 
 His coming at all. So waiting degenerates into in- 
 
T.a-6.) SHALL THE GALATIANS BE CIRCUMCISED^ 315 
 
 dolence ; and serving into feverish hurry and anxiety, 
 or mechanical routine. Let hope give calmness and 
 dignity, buoyancy and brightness to our work ; let work 
 make our hope sober, reasonable, practical. 
 
 "These three abide — faith, hope, and love." They 
 cannot change while God is God and man is man. 
 Forms of dogma and of worship have changed and 
 must change. There is a perpetual " removing of the 
 things that are shaken, as of things that are made ; " 
 but through all revolutions there " remain the things 
 which are not shaken." To these let us rally. On 
 these let us build. New questions thrust themselves 
 to the front, touching matters as Httle essential to the 
 Church's life as that of circumcision in the Apostolic 
 age. The evil js that we make so much of them. In 
 the din of controversy we grow bewildered ; our eyes 
 are blinded with its dust ; our souls chafed with its 
 fretting. We lose the sense of proportion ; we fail to 
 see who are our true friends, and who our foes. We 
 need to return to the simphcity that is in Christ. Let 
 us *' consider Him" — Christ incarnate, dying, risen, 
 reigning — till we are changed into the same image, till 
 His life has wrought itself into ours. Then these 
 questions of dispute will fall into their proper place. 
 They will resolve themselves ; or wait patiently for 
 their solution. Loyalty to Jesus Christ is the only 
 solvent of our controversies. 
 
 Will the Galatians be true to Christ ? Or will they 
 renounce their righteousness in Him for a legal status, 
 morally worthless, and which will end in taking from 
 them the hope of eternal life ? They have nothing to 
 gain, they have everything to lose in submitting to 
 circumcision. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 THB HINDERERS AND TROUBLERS, 
 
 •• Ye were running well ; who did hinder you that ye should not obey 
 the truth ? This persuasion came not of him that calleth you. A little 
 leaven leaveneth the whole lump. I have confidence to you-ward, in 
 the Lord, that ye will be none otherwise minded : but he that troubleth 
 you shall bear his judgement, whosoever he be. But I, brethren, if 1 
 still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted ? then hath the 
 stumblingblock of the cross been done away, I would that they 
 which unsettle you would even mutilate themselves." — Gal. v. 7 — 12. 
 
 THE Apostle's controversy with the Legalists is 
 all but concluded. He has pronounced on the 
 question of circumcision. He has shown his readers, 
 with an emphasis and clearness that leave nothing 
 more to be said, how fearful is the cost at which they 
 will accept the "other gospel," and how heavy the 
 yoke which it will impose upon them. A few further 
 observations remain to be made — of regret, of re- 
 monstrance, blended with expressions of confidence 
 more distinct than any the Apostle has hitherto 
 employed. Then with a last contemptuous thrust, a 
 sort of coup de grace for the Circumcisionists, Paul 
 passes to the practical and ethical part of his letter. 
 
 This section is made up of short, disconnected 
 sentences, shot off in various directions ; as though the 
 writer wished to have done with the Judaistic debate, 
 and would discharge at a single volley the arrowa 
 
T.7-ia.J THE HINDERERS AND TROUBLERS. 317 
 
 remaining in his quiver. Its prevailing tone is that of 
 concihation towards the Galatians (comp. Chapter xviii.), 
 with increasing seventy towards the legalist teachers. 
 " Sec how bitter he is against the^ deceivers. For 
 indeed at the beginning he directed his censures against 
 the deceived, calling them * senseless ' both once and 
 again. But now that he has sufficiently chastened and 
 corrected them, for the rest he turns against their 
 deceivers. And we should observe his wisdom in both 
 these things, in that he admonishes the one party and 
 brings them to a better mind, being his own children 
 and capable of amendment ; but the deceivers, who 
 are a foreign element and incurably diseased, he cutj 
 oflf" (Chrysostom). 
 
 There lie before us therefore in this paragraph the 
 following considerations : — Paul's hope concerning the 
 Galatian Churches^ his protest on his own behalf^ and 
 finally, his judgement respecting the troublers, 
 
 I. The more hopeful strain of the letter at this point 
 appears to be due to the effect of his argument upon 
 the writer's own mind. As the breadth and grandeur 
 of the Christian faith open out before him, and he 
 contrasts its spiritual glory with the ignoble aims of 
 the Circumcisionists, Paul cannot think that the readers 
 will any longer doubt which is the true gospel. Surely 
 they will be disenchanted. His irrefragable reasonings, 
 his pleading entreaties and solemn warnings are bound 
 to call forth a response from a people so intelligent and 
 so affectionate. " For my part," he says, *' / am confi- 
 dent in the Lord that you will be no otherwise minded 
 (ytr. 10), that you will be faithful to your Divine calling, 
 despite the hindrances thrown in your way." They 
 will, he is persuaded, come to see the proposals of the 
 Judaizcrs in their proper light They will think about 
 
3i8 THR EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 the Christian life — its objects and principles — as he 
 himself does ; and will perceive how fatal would be the 
 step they are urged to take. They will be true to 
 themselves and to the Spirit of sonship they have 
 received. They will pursue more earnestly the hope 
 set before them and give themselves with renewed 
 energy to the work of faith and love (w. 5, 6), and 
 forget as soon as possible this distracting and unprofit- 
 able controversy. 
 
 " In the Lord " Paul cherishes this confidence. " In 
 Christ's grace " the Galatians were called to enter the 
 kingdom of God (ver. 8; ch. i. 6) ; and He was concerned 
 that the work begun in them should be completed 
 (Phil. i. 6). It may be the Apostle at this moment 
 was conscious of some assurance from his Master that 
 his testimony in this Epistle would not prove in vain. 
 The recent * submission of the Corinthians would tend 
 to increase Paul's confidence in his authority over the 
 Gentile Churches. 
 
 Another remembrance quickens the feeling of hope 
 with which the Apostle draws the conflict to a close. 
 He reminds himself of the good confession the Galatians 
 had aforetime witnessed,! the zeal with which they 
 pursued the Christian course, until this deplorable 
 hindrance arose : " You were running wgW— finely. 
 You had fixed your eyes on the heavenly prize. Filled 
 with an ardent faith, you were zealously pursuing the 
 great spiritual ends of the Christian hfe (comp. vv. 5, 6). 
 Your progress has been arrested. You have yielded 
 to influences which are not of God who called you, 
 and admitted amongst you a leaven that, if not cast 
 
 • See Chapter I, pp. 15, 16, on the datt of the Epistle 
 t Comp. ch, iii. 4: *^ ye suffered so many things.** 
 
V. 7-12.1 THE EINDERERS AND TROUBLERS. 319 
 
 out, will corrupt you utterly (w. 8, 9). But I trust 
 that this result will be averted. You will return to 
 better thoughts. You will resume the interrupted race, 
 and by God's mercy will be enabled to bring it to a 
 glorious issue " (ver. 10). 
 
 There is kindness and true wisdom in this encourage- 
 ment. The Apostle has " told them the truth ; " he has 
 '* reproved with all authority ; " now that this is done, 
 their remains nothing in his heart but good-will and 
 good wishes for his Galatian children. If his chiding 
 has wrought the effect it was intended to produce, then 
 these words of softened admonition will be grateful 
 and healing. They have '* stumbled, but not that they 
 might fall. ' ' The Apostle holds out the hand of restora- 
 tion ; his confidence animates them to hope better 
 things for themselves. He turns his anger away from 
 them, and directs it altogether upon their injurers. 
 
 II. The Judaizers had troubled the Churches of 
 Galatia ; they had also maligned -the Apostle Paul, 
 From them undoubtedly the imputation proceeded 
 which he repudiates so warmly in ver. 1 1 : " And I 
 brethren, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am 
 I still persecuted ? " This supposition a moment's 
 reflection would suffice to refute. The contradiction 
 was manifest. The persecution which everywhere 
 followed the Apostle marked him out in all men's eyes 
 as the adversary of Legalism. 
 
 There were circumstances, however, that lent a 
 certain colour to this calumny. The circumcision of 
 Timothy, for instance, might be thought to look in this 
 direction (Acts xvi. i — 3). And Paul valued his 
 Hebrew birth. He loved his Jewish brethren more 
 than his own salvation (Rom. ix. I — 5 ; xi. i). There 
 was nothing of the revolutionary or the inconoclast 
 
330 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 about him. Personally he preferred to conform to the 
 ancient usages, when doing so did not compromise the 
 honour of Christ (Acts xviii. i8; xxi. 17 — 26). It was 
 false that he *' taught the Jews not to circumcise their 
 children, nor to walk by the customs" (Acts xxi. 20 — 26). 
 He did teach them that these things were *'of no avail 
 in Christ Jesus ;" that they were in no sense necessary 
 to salvation ; and that it was contrary to the will of 
 Christ to impose them upon Gentiles. But it was 
 no part of his business to alter the social customs of 
 his people, or to bid them renounce the glories of their 
 past. While he insists that " there is no difference " 
 between Jew and Gentile in their need of the gospel 
 and their rights in it, he still claims for the Jew the 
 first place in the order of its manifestation. 
 
 This was an entirely different thing from " preaching 
 circumcision " in the legalist sense, from heralding 
 {Kr)pvaa(i} : ver, ll) and crying up the Jewish ordinance, 
 and making it a religious duty. This difference the 
 Circumcisionists affected not to understand. Some of 
 Paul's critics will not understand it even now. They 
 argue that the Apostle's hostiUty to Judaism in this 
 Epistle discredits the narrative of the Acts of the 
 Apostles, inasmuch as the latter relates several instances 
 of Jewish conformity on his part. What pragmatical 
 narrowness is this 1 Paul's adversaries said, " He 
 derides Judaism amongst you Gentiles, who know 
 nothing of his antecedents, or of his practice in other 
 places. But when he pleases, this liberal Paul will be 
 as zealous for circumcision as any of us. Indeed he 
 boasts of his skill in ' becoming all things to all men ; ' 
 he trims his sail to every breeze. In Galatia he is all 
 breadth and tolerance ; he talks about our ' Uberty 
 V hich we have in Christ Jesus ; ' he is ready to * become 
 
▼.7*".] THE HINDERERS AND TROUBLERS. 321 
 
 as you are ; ' no one would imagine he had ever been 
 a Jew. In Judea he makes a point of being strictly 
 orthodox, and is indignant if any one questions his 
 devotion to the Law." 
 
 Paul's position was a delicate one, and open to mis- 
 representation. Men of party insist on this or that 
 external custom as the badge of their own side; 
 they have their party-colours and their uniform. Men 
 of principle adopt or lay aside such usages with a 
 freedom which scandalizes the partisan. What right, 
 he says, has any one to wear our colours, to pronounce 
 our shibboleth, if he is not one of ourselves ? If the 
 man will not be with us, let him be against us. Had 
 Paul renounced his circumcision and declared himself 
 a Gentile out and out, the Judaists might have under- 
 stood him. Had he said. Circumcision is evil, they could 
 have endured it better ; but to preach that Circumcision 
 is nothing, to reduce this all-important rite to insignifi- 
 cance, vexed them beyond measure. It was in their 
 eyes plain proof of dishonesty. They tell the Galatians 
 that Paul is playing a double part, that his resistance 
 to their circumcision is interested and insincere. 
 
 The charge is identical with that of *' man-pleasing " 
 which the Apostle repelled in ch. i. 10 (see Chapter III). 
 The emphatic " still " of that passage recurs twice in 
 this, bearing the same meaning as it does there. Its 
 force is not temporal, as though the Apostle were 
 thinking of a former time when he did " preach circum- 
 cision : " no such reference appears in the context, and 
 these terms are inappropriate to his pre-Christian career. 
 The particle points a logical contrast, as e.g. in Rom. 
 iiL 7; ix. 19: "If I still (notwithstanding my pro- 
 fessions as a Gentile apostle) preach circumcision, wh}' 
 am I still (notwithstanding my so preaching) perse- 
 
 21 
 
SM THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATJANS. 
 
 cuted ? " Had Paul been known by the Jews to be 
 in other places a promoter of circumcision, they would 
 have treated him very differently. He could not then 
 have been, as the Galatians knew him everywhere to 
 be, " in perils from his fellow-countrymen." 
 
 The rancour of the Legalists was sufficient proof of 
 Paul's sincerity. They were themselves guilty of the 
 baseness with which they taxed him. It was in order 
 to escape the reproach of the cross (ver. ii), to atone 
 for their belief in the Nazarene, that they persuaded 
 Gentile Christians to be circumcised (ch. vi. ii, 12). 
 They were the man-pleasers. The Judaizers knew 
 perfectly well that the Apostle's observance of Jewish 
 usage was no endorsement of their principles. The 
 print of the Jewish scourge upon his back attested his 
 loyalty to Gentile Christendom (ch. vi. 17 ; 2 Cor. xi. 
 24). A further consequence would have ensued from 
 the duplicity imputed to Paul, which he resents even 
 more warmly : " Then," he says, ** if I preach circum- 
 cision, the offence of the cross is done away I " He is 
 charged with treason against the cross of Christ. He 
 has betrayed the one thing in which he glories (ch. vi. 14), 
 to which the service of his life was consecrated I For 
 the doctrine of the cross was at an end if the legal 
 ritual were re-established and men were taught to trust 
 in the saving efficacy of circumcision — above all, if the 
 Apostle of the Gentiles had preached this doctrine ' 
 The Legalists imputed to him the very last thing ol 
 which he was capable. This was in fact the error into 
 which Peter had weakly fallen at Antioch. The Jewish 
 Apostle had then acted as though " Christ died in vain " 
 (ch. ii. 21). For himself Paul indignantly denies that 
 his conduct bore any such construction. 
 
 But he says, ** the scandal of the cross " — that scan- 
 
ir.7-ia.] THR HINDRRRRS AND TROUBLRRS, 333 
 
 dalous, offensive cross, the stumbling-block of Jewish 
 pride (i Cor. i. 23). The death of Christ was not only 
 revolting in its form to Jewish sentiment ; * it was a 
 fatal event for Judaism itself. It imported the end of 
 the Mosaic economy. The Church at Jerusalem had 
 not yet fully grasped this fact ; they sought, as far as 
 possible, to live on good terms with their non-Christian 
 Jewish brethren, and admitted perhaps too easily into 
 their fellowship men who cared more for Judaism than 
 for Christ and His cross. For them also the final 
 rupture was approaching, when they had to " go forth 
 \into Jesus without the camp." Paul had seen from 
 ihe first that the breach was irreparable. He deter- 
 mined to keep his Gentile Churches free from Judaic 
 entanglements. In his view, Calvary was the terminus 
 of Mosaism. 
 
 This was true historically. The crime of national 
 Judaism in slaying its Messiah was capital. Its spiritual 
 blindness and its moral failure had received the most 
 signal proof. The congregation of Israel had become 
 a synagogue of Satan. And these were '' the chosen 
 people," the world's elite, who " crucified the Lord of 
 glory ! " Mankind had done this thing. The world 
 has " both seen and hated both Him and the Father." 
 Now to set up circumcision again, or any kind of 
 human effort or performance, as a ground of justifica- 
 tion before God, is to ignore this judgement ; it is to 
 make void the sentence which the cross of Christ has 
 passed upon all ''works of righteousness which we 
 have done." This teaching sorely offends moralists 
 and ceremonialists, of whatever age or school ; it is 
 '* the offence of the cross." 
 
 * Comp. Chapter XII, pp. 193 — 4. 
 
324 TER BPISTLB TO THB GALATIANS. 
 
 And further, as matter of Divine appointment the 
 sacrifice of Calvary put an end to Jewish ordinances. 
 Their significance was gone. The Epistle to the 
 Hebrews developes this consequence at length in other 
 directions. For himself the Apostle views it from a 
 single and very definite standpoint. The Law, he says, 
 had brought on men a curse ; it stimulated sin to its 
 worst developments (ch. iii. lO, 19). Christ's death 
 under this curse has expiated and removed it for us 
 (ch. iii. 13). His atonement met man's guilt in its 
 culmination. The Law had not prevented — nay, it gave 
 occasion to the crime ; it necessitated, but could not 
 provide expiation, which was supplied *' outside the 
 law" (Rom. iii. 31 : %a»/}t9 pofiov). The ''offence" of 
 the doctrine of the cross lay just here. It reconciled 
 man with God on an extra-legal footing. It provided 
 a new ground of justification and pronounced the old 
 worthless. It fixed the mark of moral impotence and 
 rejection upon the system to which the Jewish nature 
 clung with passionate pride. To preach the cross was 
 to declare legalism abolished : to preach circumcision 
 was to declare the cross and its offence abolished. 
 
 This dilemma the Circumcisionists would fain escape. 
 They fought shy of Calvary. Like some later moralists, 
 they did not see why the cross should be always 
 pushed to the front, and its offence forced upon the world. 
 Surely there was in the wide range of Chrisiian truth 
 abundance of other profitable topics to discuss, without 
 wounding Jewish susceptibilities in this way. But 
 this endeavour of theirs is just what Paul is determined 
 to frustrate. He confronts Judaism at every turn with 
 that dreadful cross. He insists that it shall be realised 
 in its horror and its shame, that men shall feel the 
 tremendous shock which it gives to the moral conceit, 
 
».7-i2.J THE HINDERERS AND TROUBLERS. 325 
 
 the self-justifying spirit of human nature, which in the 
 Jew of this period had reached its extreme point. " If 
 law could save, if the world were not guilty before God," 
 he reiterates, *' why that death of the cross ? God 
 hath set Him forth a propitiation." And whoso accepts 
 Jesus Christ must accept Him crucified^ with all the 
 offence and humiliation that the fact involves. 
 
 In later days the death of Christ has been made void 
 in other ways. It is veiled in the steam of our incense. 
 It is invested with the halo of a sensuous glorification. 
 The cross has been for many turned into an artistic 
 symbol, a beautiful idol, festooned with garlands, 
 draped in poetry, but robbed of its spiritual meaning, 
 its power to humble and to save. Let men see it ** openly 
 set forth," in its naked terror and majesty, that they 
 may know what they are and what their sins have done. 
 
 We rely on birth and good breeding, on art and 
 education as instruments of moral progress. Improved 
 social arrangements, a higher environment, these, we 
 think, will elevate the race. Withti their limits these 
 forces are invaluable; they are ordained of God. But 
 they are only law at the best. When they have done 
 their utmost, they leave man still unsaved — proud, 
 selfish, unclean, miserable. To rest human salvation 
 on self-improvement and social reform, is legalism over 
 again. To civihse is not to regenerate. These 
 methods were tried in Mosaism, under circumstances 
 in many respects highly favourable. " The scandal 
 of the cross" was the result Education and social 
 discipline may produce a Pharisee, nothing higher. 
 Legislation and environment work from the outside. 
 They cannot touch the essential human heart Nothing 
 has ever done this hke the cross of Jesus Christ He 
 who " makes it of none effect," whether in the name 
 
ia6 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 of Jewish tradition or of modern progress, takes away 
 the one practicable hope of the moral regeneration o/ 
 mankind. 
 
 III. We are now in a position to estimate more 
 precisely the character and motives of the Judaistic 
 party, the htnderers and troublers of this Epistle. 
 
 In the first place, it appears that they had entered 
 the Galatian communities from without. The fact that 
 they are called troublers {disturbers) of itself suggests 
 this (ver. lO ; ch. i. 7). They came with a professed 
 ^'gospel,'* as messengers bringing new tidings; the 
 Apostle compares them to himself, the first Galatian 
 evangelist, " or an angel from heaven " (ch. i. 8, 9). 
 He glances at them in his reference to " false brethren " 
 at an earlier time " brought into (the Gentile Church) 
 unawares" (ch. ii. 4). These men are ''courting" the 
 favour of Paul's Galatian disciples, endeavouring to 
 gain them over in his absence (ch. iv. 17, 18). They 
 have made misleading statements respecting his early 
 career and relations to the Church, which he is at 
 pains to correct. They professed to represent the 
 views of the Pillars at Jerusalem, and quoted their 
 authority against the Apostle Paul. 
 
 From these considerations we infer that " the 
 troublers " were Judaistic emissaries from Palestine. 
 The second Epistle to Corinth, contemporaneous with 
 this letter, reveals the existence of a similar propaganda 
 in the Greek capital at the same period. Paul had 
 given the Galatians warning on the subject at his last 
 visit (ch. i. 9). There were already, we should suppose, 
 in the Galatian societies, before the arrival of the 
 Judaizers, Jewish believers in Christ of legalistic 
 tendencies, prepared to welcome and support the new 
 teachers. But it was the coming of these agitators from 
 
▼.7-ia.] THE HINDERRRS AND TROUBLERS, 327 
 
 without that threw the Churches of Galatia into such 
 a ferment, and brought about the situation disclosed in 
 this Epistle. 
 
 The allusion made in chap. ii. 12 to ** certain from 
 James,"* taken in connection with other circumstances, 
 points, as we think, to the outbreak of a systematic 
 agitation against the Apostle Paul, which was carried 
 on during his third missionary tour, and drew from 
 him the great evangelical Epistles of this epoch. This 
 anti-Pauline movement emanated from Jerusalem and 
 pretended to official sanction. Set on foot at the time 
 of the collision with Peter at Antioch, the conflict is 
 now in full progress. The Apostle's denunciation of 
 his opponents is unsparing. They " hinder " the 
 Galatians " from obeying truth " (ver. f) ; they entice 
 them from the path in which they had bravely set out, 
 and are robbing them of their heritage in Christ It 
 was a false, a perverted gospel that they taught (ch. i. 
 7). They cast on their hearers an envious spell which 
 drew them away from the cross and its salvation (ch. 
 ii. 21 ; iii. l). Not truth, but self-interest and party- 
 ends were the objects they pursued (ch. iv. 17 ; vi. 
 12, 13). Their "persuasion" was assuredly not of 
 God, " who had called " the Galatians through the 
 Apostle's voice. If God had sent Paul amongst them, 
 as the Galatians had good reason to know, clearly He 
 had not sent these men, with their " other gospel." 
 
 The vitiating " leaven" at work in the spiritual life of 
 the Galatians, if not arrested, would soon " leaven the 
 whole lump." The Apostle applies to the Judaistic 
 doctrine the same figure under which he described the 
 
 • Compare Chapter IX, pp. 131 — ^4. We refer this occurrence to the 
 interral between the second and third of Paul's missionary jonmeyi 
 (Acts xYiii 22), A.D. 54. 
 
32« THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 taint of immorality found in the Church of Corinth 
 (i Cor. V. 6 — 8). So zealous and unscrupulous, so 
 deadly in its effect on evangelical faith and life was the 
 spirit of Jewish legalism. The Apostle trusts that his 
 Galatians will after all escape from this fatal infection, 
 that they will leave " the troublers " alone to " bear the 
 judgement " which must fall upon them (ver. lo). The 
 Lord is the Keeper, and the Avenger of His Church. 
 No one, " whosoever he be," will injure it with impunity. 
 Let the man that makes mischief in the Church of 
 Jesus Christ take care what he is about. The tempted 
 may escape ; sins of ignorance and weakness can be 
 forgiven. But woe unto the tempter I 
 
 Against the wilful perverters of the gospel the 
 Apostle at the outset delivered his anathema. For 
 these Circumcisionists in particular he has one further 
 wish to express. It is a grim sort of suggestion, to 
 be read rather by way of sarcasm than in the strict 
 letter of fulfilment. The devotees of circumcision, he 
 means to say, might as well go a step farther. If the 
 physical mark of Judaism, the mere surgical act, is so 
 salutary, why not **cut off" the member altogether, 
 like the emasculated priests of Cybel6? (ver. 12).* This 
 mutilation belonged to the worship of the great heathen 
 goddess of Asia Minor, and was associated with her 
 debasing cultus. Moreover it excluded its victim from 
 a place in the congregation of Israel (Deut xxiii. i). 
 
 • The rendering of the R.V. margin is that of all the Greek inter- 
 preters, and of Meyer, Lightfoot, Beet, and the strict grammatical 
 commentators amongst the moderns. The form and usage of the verb 
 do not allow of any other. Apart from its unseemliness, the expression 
 is powerfully appropriate. This condemnation of the Old-Testament 
 lacrament i« not more severe than the language of Iml IxvL 3 : " H« 
 chat slaughtereth an ox is a man-slayer, he that bhngeth a meal<offering 
 — it is swings bleod,** 
 
r.7-12.] THE HINDERERS AND TROUBLERS. 329 
 
 This mockery, though not to be judged by modem 
 sentiment, in any case went to the verge of what 
 charity and decency permit. It breathes a burning 
 contempt for the Judaizing policy. It shows how 
 utterly circumcision had lost its sacredness for the 
 Apostle. Its spiritual import being gone, it was now 
 a mere "concision" (Phil, iii 2), a cutting of the 
 body — nothing more. 
 
 Such language was well calculated to disgust Gentile 
 Christians with the rite of circumcision. It helps to 
 account for the implacable hatred with which Paul was 
 regarded by orthodox Jews. It accords with what 
 he intimated in ch. iv. 9, to the effect that Jewish 
 conformity was for the Gentiles in effect heathenish. 
 Apart from its relation to the obsolete Mosaic covenant, 
 circumcision was in itself no holier than the deformities 
 inflicted by Paganism on its votaries. 
 
 The Judaizers are finally described, net merely as 
 "troublers" and "hinderers," but as "those that 
 unsettle you " — or more strongly still, " overthrow you." 
 The Greek word (avcwTareo)) occurs in Acts xvii. 6, 
 xxi. 38, where it is rendered, turn upside downy stir to 
 sedition. These men were carrying on a treasonable 
 agitation. False themselves to the gospel of Christ, 
 they incited the Galatians to belie their Christian 
 professions, to betray the cause of Gentile liberty, and 
 to desert their own Apostle. They deserved to suffer 
 some degrading punishment. " Full " as they were 
 "of subtlety and mischief, perverting the right ways 
 of the Lord," Paul did well to denounce them and 
 to turn their zeal for circumcision to derisive scoria 
 
THE ETHICAL APPLICATION. 
 
 Chapter v. 13 — vi. 10. 
 
CHAPTER XXIL 
 
 THE PERILS OF ZIBERTY, 
 
 ** For ye, brethren, were called for freedom ; only use not your freedom 
 for an occasion to the flesh, but through love be servants one to another. 
 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, even in this ; Thou shalt love 
 thy neighbour as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take 
 heed that ye be not consumed one of another." — Gal. v. 13 — 15. 
 
 OUR analysis has drawn a strong line across the 
 middle of this chapter. At ver. 13 the Apostle 
 turns his mind in the ethical direction. He has dis- 
 missed " the troublers" with contempt in ver. 12 ; and 
 until the close of the Epistle does not mention them 
 again ; he addresses his readers on topics in which they 
 are left out of view. But this third, ethical section of 
 the letter is still continuous with its polemical and 
 doctrinal argument. 
 
 It applies the maxim of ver. 6, ** Faith works through 
 love " ; it reminds the Galatians how they had ** re- 
 ceived the Spirit of God " (ch. iii. 2, 3 ; iv. 6). The 
 rancours and jealousies opposed to love, the carnal 
 mind that resists the Spirit — these are the objects of 
 Paul's dehortations. The moral disorders which the 
 Apostle seeks to correct arose largely out of the mischief 
 caused by the Judaizers. And his exhortations to love 
 and good works are themselves indirectly polemical 
 They vindicate Paul's gospel from the charge of anti- 
 nomianisra, while they guard Christiana from giving 
 
334 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 occasion to the charge. They protect from exaggera- 
 tion and abuse the Uberty already defended from 
 legalistic encroachments. The more precious and 
 sacred is the freedom of Gentile believers, the more 
 on the one hand do those deserve punishment who 
 would defraud them of it ; and the more earnestly 
 must they on their part guard this treasure from mis- 
 use and dishonour. In this sense ver. I3« stands be- 
 tween the sentence against the Circumcisionists in ver. 
 12 and the appeal to the Galatians that follows. It 
 repeats the proclamation of freedom made in ver. I, 
 making it the ground at once of the judgement pro- 
 nounced against the foes of freedom and the admoni- 
 tion addressed to its possessors. ^^ For you were called 
 (summoned by God to enter the kingdom of His Son) 
 with a view to liberty — not to legal bondage ; nor, on 
 the other hand, that you might run into licence and 
 give the reins to self-will and appetite — not liberty for 
 an occasion to the Jlesh.^* 
 
 I. Here lies the danger of liberty ^ especially when 
 conferred on a young, untrained nature, and in a newly 
 emancipated community. 
 
 Freedom is a priceless boon; but it is a grave re- 
 _sponsjbility. It has its temptations, as well as its joys 
 and dignities. The Apostle has spoken at length of 
 the latter : it is the former that he has now to urge. 
 Keep your liberties, he seems to say ; for Christ's sake 
 and for truth's sake hold them fast, guard them well. 
 You are God's regenerated sons. Never forego your 
 high calling. God is on your side ; and those who 
 assail you shall feel the weight of His displeasure. 
 Yes, " stand fast " in the liberty wherewith *^ Christ 
 made you free." But take care how you employ your 
 freedom ; " only use not liberty for an occasion to the 
 
V. 13-15.] THE PERILS OF LIBERTY. 335 
 
 flesh.** This significant only turns the other side of 
 the medal, and bids us read the legend on its reverse 
 front. On the obverse we have found it written, ** The 
 Lordknoweth them that are His" (2 Tim. ii. 19; comp. 
 Gal. iv. 6, 9). This is the side of privilege and of 
 grace, the spiritual side of the Christian life. On the 
 reverse it bears the motto, '* Let every one that nameth 
 the name of the Lord depart from iniquity." This is 
 the second, the ethical side of our calling, the side of 
 duty^ to which we have now to turn. 
 
 The man, or the nation that has won its freedom, has 
 won but half the battle. It has conquered external 
 foes ; it has still to prevail over itself. And this is the 
 harder task. Men clamour for liberty, when they mean 
 licence ; what they seek is the liberty of the flesh, not 
 of the Spirit, freedom to indulge their lusts and to 
 trample on the rights of others, the freedom of outlaws 
 and brigands. The natural man defines freedom as the 
 power to do as he likes ; not the right of self-regula- 
 tion, but the absence of regulation is what he desires. 
 And this is just what the Spirit of God wifl never 
 allow (ver. 17). When such a man has thrown off 
 outward constraint and the dread of punishment, there 
 is no inward law to take its place. It is his greed, his 
 passion, his pride and ambition that call for freedom ; 
 not his conscience. And to all such libertarians our 
 Saviour says, " He that committeth sin is the slave of 
 sin." No tyrant is so vile, so insatiable as our own 
 self-indulged sin. A pitiable triumph, for a man to 
 have secured his religious liberty only to become the 
 thrall of his vices I 
 
 It is possible that some men accepted the gospel 
 under the delusion that it afforded a shelter for sin. 
 The sensualist, deterred from his indulgences by fear 
 
336 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 of the Law, joined in Paul's campaign against it, imagin- 
 ing that Grace would give him larger freedom. If 
 "where sin abounded grace did superabound," he 
 would say in his heart, Why not sin the more, so that 
 grace might have a greater victory? This is no fanciful 
 inference. Hypocrisy has learned to wear the garb of 
 evangelical zeal ; and teachers of the gospel have not 
 always guarded sufficiently against this shocking per- 
 version. Even the man whose heart has been truly 
 touched and changed by Divine grace, when the fresh- 
 ness of his first love to Christ has passed away and 
 temptation renews its assaults, is liable to this decep- 
 tion. He may begin to think that sin is less perilous, 
 since forgiveness was so easily obtained. He may 
 presume that as a son of God, sealed by the Spirit of 
 adoption, he will not be allowed to fall, even though he 
 stumble. He is one of " God's elect " ; what " shall 
 separate him " from the Divine love in Christ ? In this 
 assurance he holds a talisman that secures his safety. 
 What need to "watch and pray lest he enter into temp- 
 tation," when the Lord is his keeper? He is God's 
 enfranchised son; "all things are lawful" to him; 
 " things present " as well as " things to come " are his 
 in Christ. By such reasonings his liberty is turned 
 into an occasion to the flesh. And men who before 
 they boasted themselves sons of God were restrained 
 by the spirit of bondage and fear, have found in this 
 assurance the occasion, the "starting-point" (dipopfii]) 
 for a more shameless course of evil. 
 
 In the view of Legalism, this is the natural outcome 
 of Pauline teaching. From the first it has been charged 
 with fostering lawlessness. In the Lutheran Reforma- 
 tion Rome pointed to the Antinomians, and moralists 
 of our own day speak of " canting Evangelicals," just 
 
r. 13-15.] THE PERILS OP LIBERTY, 337 
 
 as the Judaists alleged the existence of immoral Paulin- 
 ists, whose conduct, they declared, was the proper fruit 
 of the preaching of emancipation from the Law. These, 
 they would say to the Apostle, are your spiritual chil- 
 dren ; they do but carry your doctrine to its legitimate 
 issue. This reproach the gospel has always had to 
 bear ; there have been those, alas, amongst its pro- 
 fessors whose behaviour has given it plausibility. 
 Sensualists will ** turn the grace of our God into 
 lasciviousness ; " swine will trample under their feet 
 the pure pearls of the gospel. But they are pure and 
 precious none the less. 
 
 This possibility is, however, a reason for the utmost 
 watchfulness in those who are stewards in the adminis- 
 tration of the gospel. They must be careful, like Paul, 
 to make it abundantly clear that they ** establish " and 
 do not **make void law through faith" (Rom. iii. 31). 
 There is an evangelical Ethics, as well as an evange- 
 lical Dogmatics. The ethics of the Gospel have been 
 too little studied and applied. Hence much of the 
 confessed failure of evangelical Churches in preserving 
 and building up the converts that they win. 
 
 II. Faith in Christ gives in truth a new efficacy to the 
 moral law. For it works through love ; and love fulfils 
 all laws in one (w. 13^, 14). Where faith has this 
 operation, liberty is safe ; not otherwise. Lovers slaves 
 are the true freemen. 
 
 The legalist practically takes the same view of human 
 nature as the sensualist. He knows nothing of " the 
 desire of the Spirit " arrayed against that of the flesh 
 (ver. 17), nothing of the mastery over the heart that 
 belongs to the love of Christ. In his analysis the soul 
 consists of so many desires, each blindly seeking its 
 own gratification, which must be drilled into order 
 
 2J 
 
338 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 under external pressure, by an intelligent application 
 of law. Modem Utilitarians agree with the ancient 
 Judaists in their ethical philosophy. Fear of punish- 
 ment, hope of reward, the influence of the social 
 environment — these are, as they hold, the factors which 
 create character and shape our moral being. " Pain 
 and pleasure," they tell us, " are the masters of human 
 life." Without the faith that man is the child of God, 
 formed in His image, we are practically shut up to this 
 suicidal theory of morals. Suicidal we say, for it robs 
 our spiritual being of everything distinctive in it, of all 
 that raises the moral above the natural ; it makes duty 
 and personality illusions. 
 
 Judaism is a proof that this scheme of life is imprac- 
 ticable. For the Pharisaic system which produced such 
 deplorable moral results, was an experiment in external 
 
 tithics. It was in fact the application of a highly deve- 
 oped and elaborate traditional code of law, enforced by 
 ithe strongest outward sanctions, without personal loyalty 
 j/o the Divine Lawgiver. In the national conscience of 
 the Jews this was wanting. Their faith in God, as the 
 Epistle of James declares, was a ** dead " faith, a bundle 
 of abstract notions. Loyalty is true law-keeping. And 
 loyalty springs from the personal relationship of the 
 subject and the law-making power. This nexus Christ- 
 ian sonship supplies, in its purest and most exalted 
 form. When I see in the Lawgiver my Almighty 
 Father, when the law has become incarnate in the 
 person of my Saviour, my heart's King and Lord, it 
 wears a changed aspect. '* His commandments are not 
 grievous." Duty, required by Him, is honour and 
 delight. No abstract law, no *' stream of tendency" can 
 command the homage or awaken the moral energy that 
 is inspired by "the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" 
 
/. 13-15.I THR PERILS OF LIBERTY, 339 
 
 Here the Apostle traverses antinomian deductions 
 from his doctrine of liberty. In the Epistle to the 
 Romans (ch. vi.) he deals at length with the theoretical 
 objection to his teaching on this subject. He shows 
 there that salvation by faith, rightly understood and 
 experienced, renders continuance in sin impossible. 
 For faith in Christ is in effect the union of the soul with 
 Christ, first in His death, and then consequently in His 
 risen life, wherein He lives only "to God.^ Nay, 
 Christ Himself lives in the beHeving man (Gal. ii. 20). 
 Instead of our sinning " because we are not under the 
 law, but under grace," this is precisely the reason why 
 we need not and must not sin. Faith joins us to the 
 risen Christ, whose life we share — so Paul argues — and 
 we should not sin any more than He. Here, from the 
 practical standpoint, he lays it down that faith works 
 by love; and love casts out sin, for it unites all laws in 
 itself Faith links us to Christ in heaven (Romans); 
 faith fills us with His love on earth (Galatians). So 
 love, marked out in ver. 6 as the energy of faith, now 
 serves as the guard of liberty. Neither legalist nor 
 law-breaker understands the meaning of faith in Christ. 
 
 At this point Paul throws in one of his bold para- 
 doxes. He has been contending all through the Epistle 
 for freedom, bidding his readers scorn the legal yoke, 
 breathing into them his own contempt for the pettiness 
 of Judaistic ceremonial. But now he turns round 
 suddenly and bids them be slaves : *' but let love," he 
 says, "make you bondmen to each other" (ver. 13). 
 Instead of breaking bonds, he seeks to create stronger 
 bonds, stronger because dearer. Paul preaches no 
 gospel of individualism, of egotistic salvation-seeking. 
 The self-sacrifice of Christ becomes in turn a principle 
 of sacrifice in those who receive it Paul's own ideal 
 
340 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 is, to be '* conformed to His death " (Phil. ill. lO). There 
 is nothing anarchic or self-asserting in his plea for 
 freedom. He opposes the law of Pharisaic externalism 
 in the interests of the law of Christian love. The yoke 
 of Judaism must be broken, its bonds cast aside, in 
 order to give free play to " the law of the Spirit of life 
 in Christ Jesus." Faith transfers authority from flesh 
 to spirit, giving it a surer seat, a more effective, and in 
 reality more lawful command over man's nature. It 
 restores the normal equipoise of the soul. Now the 
 Divine law is written on "the tablets of the heart"; 
 and this makes it far more sovereign than when en- 
 graved on the stone slabs of Sinai. Love and law for 
 the believer in Christ are fused into one. In this union 
 law loses nothing of its holy severity ; and love nothing 
 of its tenderness. United they constitute the Christian 
 sense of duty^ whose sternest exactions are enforced by 
 gratitude and devotion. 
 
 And love is ever conqueror. To it toil and endurance 
 that mock the achievement of other powers, are a light 
 thing. Needing neither bribe nor threat, love labours, 
 waits, braves a thousand dangers, keeps the hands busy, 
 the eye keen and watchful, the feet running to and fro 
 untired through the longest day. There is no industry, 
 no ingenuity like that of love. Love makes the mother 
 the slave of the babe at her breast, and wins from the 
 friend for his friend service that no compulsion could 
 exact, rendered in pure gladness and free-will. Its 
 power alone calls forth what is best and strongest in 
 us all. Love is mightier than death. In Jesus Christ, 
 love has " laid down life for its friends " ; the fulness 
 of life has encountered and overcome the uttermost of 
 Jeath. Love esteems it bondage to be prevented, liberty 
 only to be allowed to serve. 
 
r.i3-iS.l THB PERILS OP LIBERTY. 341 
 
 Without love, freedom is an empty boon. It brings 
 no ease, no joy of heart. It is objectless and listless. 
 Bereft of faith and love, though possessing the most 
 perfect independence, the soul drifts along like a ship 
 rudderless and masterless, with neither haven nor 
 horizon. Wordsworth, in his Ode to Duty, has finely 
 expressed the weariness that comes of such liberty, 
 unguided by an inward law and a Divine ideal : 
 
 " Me this unchartered freedom tires ; 
 I feel the weight of chance desires : 
 My hopes no more must change their name ; 
 
 I long for a repose that ever is the same,** 
 
 But on the other hand, 
 
 " Serene will be our days and bright, 
 And happy will our nature be, 
 When love is an unerring light, 
 And joy its own security." 
 
 This "royal law" (Jam. ii. 8) blends with its sove- 
 reignty of power the charm of simplicity. " The whole 
 law," says the Apostle, " hath been fulfilled in one 
 word — Love" (ver. 14). The Master said, "I came 
 not to destroy the law, but to fulfil." The key to His 
 fulfilment was given in the declaration of the twofold 
 command of love to God and to our neighbour. " On 
 these two hang all the law and the prophets." Hence 
 the Apostle's phrase, hath been fulfilled. This unifica- 
 tion of the moral code is accomplished. Christ's life 
 and death have given to this truth full expression and 
 universal currency. Love's fulfilment of law stands 
 before us a positive attainment, an incontestable fact. 
 Paul does not speak here, as in Rom. xiii. 9, of the 
 comprehending, the " summing up " of all laws in one ; 
 but of the bringing of law to its completion, its realisa- 
 
c 
 
 34a THB EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 tion and consummation in the love of Christ. " O how 
 I love Thy law," said the purer spirit of the Old 
 Testament. '* Thy love is my law/' says the true spirit 
 of the New. 
 
 It is remarkable that this supreme principle of 
 Christian ethics is first enunciated in the most legal 
 part of the Old Testament Leviticus is the Book of 
 the Priestly Legislation. It is chiefly occupied with 
 ceremonial and civil regulations. Yet in the midst of 
 the legal minutiae is set this sublime and simple rule, 
 than which Jesus Christ could prescribe nothing more 
 Divine ; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself (Levit. 
 xix. 18). This sentence is the conclusion of a series 
 of directions (vv. 9 — 18) forbidding unneighbourly con- 
 duct, each of them sealed with the declaration, "I 
 am Jehovah." This brief code of brotherly love 
 breathes a truly Christian spirit ; it is a beautiful ex- 
 pression of " the law of kindness '* that is on the lips 
 and in the heart of the child of God. We find in the 
 law-book of Mosaism, side by side with elaborate rules 
 of sacrificial ritual and the homeliest details touching 
 the life of a rude agricultural people, conceptions of God 
 and of duty of surpassing loftiness and purity, such as 
 meet us in the religion of no other ancient nation. 
 
 The law, therefore, opposed and cast out in the name 
 of faith, is brought in again under the shield of love. 
 " If ye love Me," said Jesus, " keep my commandments'' 
 Love reconciles law and faith. Law by itself can but 
 prohibit this and that injury to one's neighbour, when 
 they are likely to arise. Love excludes the doing of 
 any injury ; it " worketh no ill to its neighbour, therefore 
 love is the fulfilling of the law" (Rom. xiii. 10). That 
 which law restrains or condemns after the fact, love 
 renders impossible beforehand. It is not content with 
 
/. I3-I5.1 THE PERILS OP LIBERTY, 343 
 
 tlie negative prevention of wrong ; it " overcomes " and 
 displaces " evil with good." 
 
 "What law could not do," with all its multiplied 
 enactments and redoubled threats, faith "working by 
 love " has accomplished at a stroke. " The righteous- 
 ness of the law is fulfilled in those who walk not after 
 the flesh, but after the Spirit " (Rom. viii. 3, 4). Gen- 
 tile Christians have been raised to the level of a 
 righteousness "exceeding that of scribes and phari- 
 sees" (Matt. v. 20). The flesh which defied law's 
 terrors and evaded its control, is subdued by the love 
 of Christ. Law created the need of salvation; it 
 defined its conditions and the direction which it must 
 take. But there its power ceased. It could not change 
 the sinful heart. It supplied no motive adequate to 
 secure obedience. The moralist errs in substituting 
 duty for love, works for faith. He would make the 
 rule furnish the motive, the path supply strength to 
 walk in it. The distinction of the gospel is that it is 
 ^^the power of God unto salvation," while the law is 
 " weak through the flesh." 
 
 Paul does not therefore override the law in the 
 interest of faith. Quite the contrary, he establishes, 
 he magnifies it. His theology rests on the idea of 
 Righteousness, which is strictly a legal conception. 
 But he puts the law in its proper place. He secures 
 for it the alliance of love. The legalist, desiring to 
 to exalt law, in reality stultifies it. Striving to make 
 it omnipotent, he makes it impotent. In the Apostle's 
 teaching, law is the rule, faith the spring of action. 
 Law marks the path, love gives the will and power to 
 follow it Who then are the truest friends of law — 
 Legalists or Paulinists, moralists or evangelicals ? 
 
 III. Alas, the Galatians at the present moment afford 
 
344 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATJANS, 
 
 a spectacle far different from the ideal which Paul has 
 drawn. Instead of *' serving each other in love," they 
 are " biting and devouring one another." The Church 
 is in danger of being " consumed " by their jealousies 
 and quarrels (ver. 15). 
 
 These Asiatic Gauls were men of a warm tempera- 
 ment, quick to resent wrong and prone to imagine it 
 The dissensions excited by the Judaic controversy had 
 excited their combative temper to an unusual degree. 
 " Biting " describes the wounding and exasperating 
 effect of the manner in which their contentions were 
 carried on; "devour" warns them of its destructive- 
 ness. Taunts were hurled across the field of debate ; 
 vituperation supplied the lack of argument. Differences 
 of opinion engendered private feuds and rankling inju- 
 ries. In Corinth the spirit of discord had taken a fac- 
 tious form. It arrayed men in conflicting parties, with 
 their distinctive watchwords and badges and sectional 
 platforms. In these Churches it bore fruit in personal 
 affronts and quarrels, in an angry, vindictive temper, 
 which spread through the Galatian societies and broke 
 out in every possible form of contention (v. 20). If 
 this state of things continued, the Churches of Galatia 
 would cease to exist. Their liberty would end in 
 complete disintegration. 
 
 Like some other communities, the Galatian Christ- 
 ians were oscillating between despotism and anarchy ; 
 they had not attained the equilibrium of a sober, ordered 
 liberty, the freedom of a manly self-control. They had 
 not sufficient respect either for their own or for each 
 other's rights. Some men must be bridled or they will 
 ''bite/ they must wear the yoke or they run wild. 
 They arc incapable of being a law unto themselves. 
 They have not faith enough to make them stcadfa»tj 
 
V. 13* 1 5-1 ^£^£ PERILS OF LIBERTY. 345 
 
 nor love enough to be an inward guide, nor the Spirit 
 of God in measure sufficient to overcome the vanity 
 and self-indulgence of the flesh. But the Apostle still 
 hopes to see his Galatian disciples worthy of their 
 calling as sons of God. He points out to them the 
 narrow but sure path that leads between the desert 
 of legalism on the one hand, and the gulf of anarchy 
 and licence on the other. 
 
 The problem of the nature and conditions of Christian 
 liberty occupies the Apostle's mind in different ways 
 in all the letters of this period. The young Churches 
 of the Gentiles were in the gravest peril. They had 
 come out of Egypt to enter the Promised Land, the 
 heritage of the sons of God. The Judaists sought to 
 turn them aside into the Sinaitic wilderness of Mosaism ; 
 while their old habits and associations powerfully tended 
 to draw them back into heathen immorality. Legalism 
 and licence were the Scylla and Charybdis on either 
 hand, between which it needed the most firm and 
 skilful pilotage to steer the bark of the Church. The 
 helm of the vessel is in Paul's hands. And, through 
 the grace of God, he did not fail in his task. It is in 
 the love of Christ that the Apostle found his guiding 
 light. " Love," he has written, " never faileth." 
 
 Love is the handmaid of faith, and the firstborn fruit 
 of the Spirit of Christ (vv. 6, 22). Blending with the 
 law, love refashions it, changing it into its own image. 
 Thus moulded and transfigured, law is no longer an 
 exterior yoke, a system of restraint and penalty; it 
 becomes an inner, sweet constraint. Upon the child 
 of God it acts as an organic and formative energy, the 
 principle of his regenerated being, which charges with 
 its renovating influence all the springs of life. Evil 
 
34i THE EPISTLB TO THB GALATIANS, 
 
 18 met no longer by a merely outward opposition, but 
 by a repugnance proceeding from within. " The Spirit 
 iusteth against the flesh" (v. 17). The law of the 
 Spirit of life in Christ Jesus becomes the law of the 
 man's new nature. God known and loved in Christ 
 is the central object of his life. Within the Divine 
 kingdom so created, the realm of love and of the Spirit, 
 the soul henceforth dwells ; and under that kingdom it 
 places for itself all other souls, loved like itself in 
 Chnst 
 
CHAPTER XXIIl. 
 
 CHRISTS SPIRIT AND HUMAN FLRSB, 
 
 \He showeth the battell of tht flesh and the Spirit; and thtfruiU #/ 
 thim both. Heading in Genevan Bible.] 
 
 " But I say, Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lurt of the 
 flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against 
 the flesh ; for these are contrary the one to the other ; that ye may not 
 do the things that ye would. But if ye are led by the Spirit, ye are 
 not under the law. , . . And they that are of Christ Jesus have crucified 
 the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof. Jf we live by the 
 Spirit, by the Spint let us idso walk. Let us not be vainglorious, 
 provoking one another, envying one another." — Gal. t. 16—26. 
 
 LOVE is the guard of Christian freedom. The Holy 
 Spirit is its guide. These principles accomplish 
 what the law could never do. It withheld hberty, and 
 yet did not give purity. The Spirit of love and of 
 sonship bestows both, establishing a happy, ordered 
 freedom, the liberty of the sons of God. 
 
 From the first of these two factors of Christian ethics 
 the Apostle passes in ver. 16 to the second. He con- 
 ducts us from the consequence to the cause, from the 
 human aspect of spiritual freedom to the Divine. Love, 
 he has said, fulfils all laws in one. It casts out evil 
 from the heart ; it stays the injurious hand and tongue ; 
 and makes it impossible for liberty to give the rein to 
 any wanton or selfish impulse. But the law of love is 
 no natural, automatic impulse. It is a Divine inspira- 
 
34« THE EPISTLB TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 don. " Love is of God." It is the characteristic " fruit 
 of the Spirit " of adoption (ver. 22), implanted and 
 nourished from above. When I bid you " by love 
 serve each other/' the Apostle says, I do not expect 
 you to keep this law of yourselves, by force of native 
 goodness : I know how contrary it is to your Galatic 
 nature ; " but I say, walk in the Spirit," and this will 
 be an easy 3'oke ; to " fulfil the desire of the flesh " 
 will then be for you a thing impossible. 
 
 The word Spirit (irveviJbaTt) is written indefinitely ; 
 but the Galatians knew well what Spirit the Apostle 
 meant. It is " the Spirit " of whom he has spoken so 
 often in this letter, the Holy Spirit of God, who had 
 entered their hearts when they first believed in Christ 
 and taught them to call God Father. He gave them 
 their freedom : He will teach them how to use it. The 
 absence of the definite article in Pneuma does not 
 destroy its personal force, but allows it at the same 
 time a broad, quahtative import, corresponding to that 
 of the opposed " desire of the flesh." The walk 
 governed ** by the Spirit " is a spiritual walk. As for 
 the interpretation of the dative case (rendered variously 
 by, or i«, or even for the Spirit), that is determined by 
 the meaning of the noun itself. " The Spirit " is not 
 the path " in " which one walks ; rather He supplies 
 the motive principle, the directing influence of the new 
 life.* Ver. 16 is interpreted by w. 18 and 25. To 
 "walk in the Spirit" is to be "led by the Spirit" ; it 
 is so to "five in the Spirit" that one habitually 
 "moves" (marches: ver. 25) under His direction. 
 
 This conception of the indwelling Spirit of God as 
 the actuating power of the Christian's moral hfe pre- 
 
 * The construction of ch. Ti. 16 : Rom. iy. la ; Phil. Ui. 16, b not 
 vbrietly analogouB. 
 
w. 1^26.1 CHRISrS SPIRIT AND HUMAN FLESH. 349 
 
 dominates in the rest of this chapter. We shall pursue 
 the general line of the Apostle's teaching on the subject 
 in the present Chapter, leaving for future exposition the 
 detailed enumeration of the " fruit of the Spirit '* and 
 "works of the flesh" contained in w. 19 — 23. This 
 antithesis of Flesh and Spirit presents the following 
 considerations : — (i) the diametrical opposition 0/ the two 
 forces ; (2) the effect of the predominance of one or the 
 other; (3) the mastery over the flesh which belongs to 
 those who are Christ's. In a word, Christ's Spirit is 
 the absolute antagonist and the sure vanquisher of our 
 sinful human flesh. 
 
 I. " I say, Walk by the Spirit, and you will verily 
 not fulfil the lust of the flesh." On what ground does 
 this bold assurance rest ? Because, the Apostle rephes, 
 the Spirit and the flesh are opposites (ver. 1 7). Each is 
 bent on destroying the ascendency of the other. Their 
 cravings and tendencies stand opposed at every point 
 Where the former rules, the latter must succumb. 
 *' For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit 
 against the flesh." 
 
 The verb lust in Greek, as in English, bears 
 commonly an evil sense ; but not necessarily so, noi 
 by derivation. It is a sad proof of human corruption 
 that in all languages words denoting strong desire tend 
 to an impure significance. Paul extends to " the 
 desire of the Spirit " the term which has just been used 
 of " the lust of the flesh," in this way sharpening the 
 antithesis.* Words appropriated to the vocabulary of 
 the flesh and degraded by its use, may be turned some- 
 times to good account and employed in the service rA 
 
 ♦ Comp. Jas. iv. 5 : " The Spirit which He made to Hw*»*i in us, 
 yearneth even nnta jeaJous envy " (^ V. margin) ; also tb' double use 
 of i"^X<i« ip cb tv 17, <3 fCluipt«r /^''iU, pn. ^79, ifco,). 
 
350 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 the Holy Spirit, whose influence redeems our speech 
 and purges the uncleanness of our hps. 
 
 The opposition here affirmed exists on the widest 
 scale. All history is a battlefield for the struggle 
 between God's Spirit and man's rebellious flesh. In 
 the soul of a half-sanctified Christian, and in Churches 
 like those of Corinth and Galatia whose members are 
 " yet carnal and walk as men," the conflict is patent. 
 The Spirit of Christ has established His rule in the 
 heart ; but His supremacy is challenged by the insur- 
 rection of the carnal powers. The contest thus revived 
 in the soul of the Christian is internecine ; it is that of 
 the kingdoms of light and darkness, of the opposite 
 poles of good and eviL It is an incident in the war 
 of human sin against the Holy Spirit of God, which 
 extends over all time and all human life. Every lust, 
 every act or thought of evil is directed, knowingly or 
 unknowingly, against the authority of the Holy Spirit, 
 against the presence and the rights of God immanent 
 in the creature. Nor is there any restraint upon evil, 
 any influence counteracting it in man or nation or race, 
 vv'hich does not proceed from the Spirit of the Lord. 
 The spirit of man has never been without a Divine 
 Paraclete. ** God hath not left Himself without 
 witness " to any ; and *' it is the Spirit that beareth 
 witness, because the Spirit is truth." The Spirit of 
 truth, the Holy Spirit, is the Spirit of all truth and 
 holiness. In the *' truth as it is in Jesus " He possesses 
 His highest instrument. But from the beginning it 
 was His office to be God's Advocate, to uphold law, to 
 convict the conscience, to inspire the hope of mercy, to 
 impart moral strength and freedom. We ** beheve in 
 the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of hfe." 
 
 This war of Spirit and Flesh is fa%X ostensibl}' 
 
•. 16-26.] CHRISrS SPIRIT AND HUMAN FLESH, 351 
 
 declared in the words of Gen. vi 3. This passage 
 indicates the moral reaction of God's Spirit against the 
 world's corruption, and the protest which in the darkest 
 periods of human depravity He has maintained. God 
 had allowed men to do despite to His good Spirit, But 
 it cannot always be so. A time comes when, outraged 
 and defied, He withdraws His influence from men and 
 from communities ; and the Flesh bears them along 
 to swift destruction. So it was in the world before 
 the Flood. So largely amongst later heathen peoples, 
 when God ** suffered all nations to walk in their own 
 ways." Even the Mosaic law had proved rather a 
 substitute than a medium for the free action of the 
 Spirit of God on men. " The law was spiritual," but 
 "weak through the flesh." It denounced the guilt 
 which it was powerless to avert 
 
 With the advent of Christ all this is changed. The 
 Spirit of God is now, for the first time, sent forth in 
 His proper character and His full energy. At last His 
 victory draws near. He comes as the Spirit of Christ 
 and the Father, ** poured out upon all flesh." "A new 
 heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within 
 you. I will put My Spirit within you" (Ezek. xxxvi. 
 25 — 27) : this was the great hope of prophecy ; and it 
 is realised. The Spirit of God's Son regenerates the 
 human heart, subdues the flesh, and establishes the 
 communion of God with men. The reign of the Spirit 
 on earth was the immediate purpose of the manifestation 
 of Jesus Christ. 
 
 But what does Paul really mean by ** the flesh ? " 
 It includes everything that is not '* of the Spirit" It 
 signifies the entire potency of sin. It is the contra- 
 spiritual, the undivine in man. Its *' works," as we 
 find in w. 20, 21, are not bodily vices only, but 
 
3S« THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 include every form of moral debasement and aberration. 
 Flesh in the Apostle's vocabulary follows the term 
 spirit^ and deepens and enlarges its meaning precisely 
 as the latter does. Where spirit denotes the super- 
 sensible in man, Jlesh is the sensible, the bodily nature 
 as such. When spirit rises into the supernatural and 
 superhuman, yZ^s/i becomes the natural, the human by 
 consequence. When spirit receives its highest signifi- 
 cation, denoting the holy Effluence of God, His personal 
 presence in the world, Jlesh sinks to its lowest and 
 represents unrenewed nature, the evil principle oppug- 
 nant and alien to God. It is identical with sin. But 
 in this profound moral significance the term is more 
 than a figure. Under its use the body is marked out, 
 not indeed as the cause, but as the instrument, the 
 vehicle of sin. Sin has incorporated itself with our 
 organic life, and extends its empire over the material 
 world. When the Apostle speaks of " the body of sin " 
 and '* of death," and bids us *' mortify the deeds of the 
 body" and ^' the members which are upon the earth," * 
 his expressions are not to be resolved into metaphors. 
 On this definition of the terms, it is manifest tha( 
 the antagonism of the Flesh and Spirit is fundamental. 
 They can never come to terms with each other, noi 
 dwell permanently in the same being. Sin must be 
 extirpated, or the Holy Spirit will finally depart. The 
 struggle must come to a definitive issue. Human 
 character tends every day to a more determinate form ; 
 and an hour comes in each case when the victory of 
 flesh or spirit is irrevocably fixed, when *' the filthy " 
 will henceforth "be filthy still," and ''the holy, holy 
 still" (Rev. xxii. ii). 
 
 • See Rom. tL 6» 11} Tid. 4, 5, 33, 24 ; riiL 10—13; ^^^ **• 
 11—13; ui. $. 
 
w. 16.26.] CHRISTS SPIRIT AND HUMAN FLESH, 353 
 
 The last clause of ver. 17, " that ye may not do the 
 
 things that ye would/' has been variously interpreted. 
 The rendering of the Authorized Version ("so that yc 
 cannot ") is perilously misleading. Is it that the flesh 
 prevents the Galatians doing the good they would ? Or 
 is the Spirit to prevent them doing the evil they other- 
 wise would ? Or are both these oppositions in existence 
 at once, so that they waver between good and evil, 
 leading a partly spiritual, partly carnal life, consistent 
 neither in right nor wrong? The last is the actual 
 state of the case. Paul is perplexed about them (ch. 
 iv. 20) ; they are in doubt about themselves. They 
 did not "walk in the Spirit," they were not true to 
 their Christian principles ; the flesh was too strong 
 for that Nor would they break away from Christ 
 and follow the bent of their lower nature; the Holy 
 Spirit held them back from doing this. So they have 
 two wills, — or practically none. This state of things 
 was designed by God, — " in order that ye may not do the 
 things ye haply would ; " it accords with the methods 
 of His government. Irresolution is the necessary effect 
 of the course the Galatians had pursued. So far they 
 stopped short of. apostasy ; and this restraint witnessed 
 to the power of the Holy Spirit still at work in their 
 midst (ch. iii. 5 ; vi. i). Let this Divine hand cease to 
 check them, and the flesh would carry them, with the 
 full momentum of their will, to spiritual ruin. Their 
 condition is just now one of suspense. They are poised 
 in a kind of moral equihbrium, which cannot continue 
 long, but in which, while it lasts, the action of the 
 conflicting forces of Flesh and Spirit is strikingly 
 manifest. 
 
 II. These two principles in their development lead 
 to entirely opposite results. 
 
 33 
 
154 THR EPirTLS TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 (l) The works of the flesh — " manifest '* alas, both 
 then and now — exclude from the kingdom of God. " I 
 tell you beforehand," the Apostle writes, ''as 1 have 
 already told you : they who practise such things will 
 not inherit God's kingdom " (v. 2i), 
 
 This warning is essential to Paul's gospel (Rom. ii. 
 l6) ; it is good news for a world where wrong so often 
 and so insultingly triumphs, that there is a judgement 
 to come. Whatever may be our own lot in the great 
 award, we rejoice to believe that there will be a right- 
 eous settlement of human affairs, complete and final; 
 and that this settlement is in the hands of Jesus Christ. 
 In view of His tribunal the Apostle goes about " warning 
 and teaching every man." And this is his constant 
 note, amongst profligate heathen, or hypocritical Jews, 
 or backsliding and antinomian Christians, — " The un- 
 righteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God." For 
 that kingdom is, above ail, righteousness. Men ol 
 fleshly minds, in the nature of things, have no place 
 in it. They are blind to its light, dead to its influence, 
 at war with its aims and principles. ** If we say that 
 we have fellowship with Him — the Father of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ — and walk in darkness, we lie " (i John i. 6). 
 " Those who do such things " forfeit by doing them 
 the character of sons of God. His children seek to 
 be " perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect." They 
 are "blameless and harmless, imitators of God, walking 
 in love as Christ loved us " (Phil. ii. 15 ; Eph. v. I, 2). 
 The Spirit of God's Son is a spirit of love and peace, 
 of temperance and gentleness (v. 22). If these fruits 
 are wanting, the Spirit of Christ is not in us and we 
 are none of His. We are without the one thing by 
 which He said all men would know His disciples (John 
 xiii. 35). When the Galatians "bite and devour one 
 
». i6.a6.] CHRISrS SPIRIT AND HUMAN FLESH. S5S 
 
 another/* they resemble Ishmael the persecutor (ch. iv. 
 29), rather than the gentle Isaac, heir of the Covenant 
 
 " If children, then hetrs." Future destiny turns upon 
 present character. The Spirit of God's Son, with His 
 fruit of love and peace, is " the earnest of our inherit- 
 ance, sealing us against the day of redemption" (Eph. 
 i. 14; iv. 30). By selfish tempers and fleshly indul- 
 gences He is driven from the soul ; and losing Him, it 
 is shut out from the kingdom of grace on earth, and 
 from the glory of the redeemed. " There shall in no 
 wise enter into it anything unclean ; " such is the 
 excommunication written above the gate of the Heavenly 
 City (Rev. xxi. 27). This sentence of the Apocalypse 
 puts a final seal upon the teaching of Scripture. The 
 God of revelation is the Holy One; His Spirit is the 
 Holy Spirit ; His kingdom is the kingdom of the saints, 
 whose atmosphere burns like fire against all impurity. 
 Concerning the men of the flesh the Apostle can only 
 say, "Whose end is perdition " (Phil. iii. 19). 
 
 Writing to the Corinthians, Paul entreats his readers 
 not to be deceived upon this point (i Cor. vi. 9, lO ; 
 Eph. V. 5). It seems so obvious, so necessary a prin- 
 ciple, that one wonders how it should be mistaken, 
 why he is compelled to reiterate it as he does in this 
 place. And yet this has been a common delusion. No 
 form of rehgion has escaped being touched by Anti- 
 nomianism. It is the divorce of piety from morality. 
 It is the disposition to think that ceremonial works on 
 the one hand, or faith on the other, supersede the 
 ethical conditions of harmony with God. Foisting 
 itself on evangelical doctrine this error leads men to 
 assume that salvation^is the mere pardon of sin. The 
 sinner appears to imagine he is saved in order to 
 remain a sinner. He treats God's mercy as a kind 
 
THB EPISTLE TO THE (tALAHANS, 
 
 of bank, on which he may draw as often as his offences 
 past or future may require. He does not understand 
 that sanctification is the sequel of justification, that 
 the evidence of a true pardon lies in a changed heart 
 that loathes sin. 
 
 (2) Of the opposite principle the Apostle states not 
 the ultimate, but the more immediate consequences. 
 "Led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law" (ver. 
 18); and "Against such things — love, peace, goodness, 
 and the like — there is no law " (ver. 23). 
 
 The declaration of ver. 18 is made with a certain 
 abruptness. Paul has just said, in ver. 17, that the 
 Spirit is the appointed antagonist of the flesh. And 
 now he adds, that if we yield ourselves to His in- 
 fluence we shall be no longer under the law. This 
 identification of sin and the law was established in 
 ch. ii. 16 — 18 ; iii. 10 — 22. The law by itself, the 
 Apostle showed, does not overcome sin, but aggra- 
 vates it; it shuts men up the hopeless prisoners of 
 their own past mis-doing. To be " under law " is to 
 be in the position of Ishmael, the slave-born and finally 
 outcast son, whose nature and temper are of the flesh 
 (ch. iv. 21 — 31). After all this we can understand his 
 writing law for sin in this passage, just as in I Cor. xv. 
 56 he calls " the law the power of sin." To be under 
 law was, in Paul's view, to be held consciously in the 
 grasp of sin. This was the condition to which Legalism 
 would reduce the Galatians. From this calamity the 
 Spirit of Christ would keep them free. 
 
 The phrase "under law" reminds us once more of 
 the imperilled liberty of the Galatians. Their spiritual 
 freedom and their moral safety were assailed in 
 common. In ver. 16 he had said, *' Let the Holy 
 Spirit guide you, and you will vanquish sin " ; and 
 
r. 16.26.J CHRIST'S SPIRIT AND HUMAN FLESH, 357 
 
 now, " By the same guidance you will escape the 
 oppressive yoke of the law." Freedom from sin, 
 freedom from the Jewish law — these two liberties 
 were virtually one. " Sin shall not lord it over you, 
 because ye are not under law, but under grace " (Rom. 
 vi. 14). Ver. 23 explains this double freedom. Those 
 who possess the Spirit of Christ bear His moral fruits. 
 Their life fulfils the demands of the law, without being 
 due to its compulsion. Law can say nothing against 
 them. It did not produce this fruit ; but it is bound 
 to approve it It has no hold on the men of the Spirit, 
 no charge to bring against them. Its requirements 
 are satisfied; its constraints and threatenings are laid 
 aside. 
 
 Law therefore, in its Judaistic sense and application, 
 has been abolished since " faith has come." No 
 longer does it rule the soul by fear and compulsion. 
 This office, necessary once for the infant heirs of the 
 Covenant, it has no right to exercise over spiritual 
 men. Law cannot give life (ch. iiL 2i). This is 
 the prerogative of the Spirit of God. Law says, 
 " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God ; " but it never 
 inspired such love in any man's breast. If he does so 
 love, the law approves him, without claiming credit to 
 itself for the fact If he does not love his God, law 
 condemns him and brands him a transgressor. But 
 " the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the 
 Holy Ghost" The teaching of this paragraph on the 
 relation of the believer in Christ to God's law is 
 summed up in the words of Rom. viiL 2 : " The law 
 of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from 
 the law of sin and death." Law has become my friend, 
 instead of my enemy and accuser. For God's Spirit 
 fiUg my soul with the love in which its fulfilment is 
 
^58 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 contained. And now eternal life is the goal that 
 stands in my view, in place of the death with the 
 prospect of which, as a man of the flesh, the law 
 appalled me. 
 
 III. We see then that deliverance from sin belongs 
 not to the subjects of the law, but to the freemen oj 
 the Spirit. This deliverance, promised in ver. 1 6, is 
 declared in ver. 24 as an accomplished fact " Walk 
 by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the 
 flesh. . . . They that are of Christ Jesus have crucified 
 che flesh with its passions and its lusts." The tyranny 
 of the flesh is ended for those who are '* in Christ 
 Jesus." His cross has slain their sins. The entrance 
 of His Spirit imports the death of all carnal affec 
 tions. 
 
 "They who are Christ's did crucify the flesh." 
 This is the moral application of Paul's mystical doc- 
 trine, central to all his theology, of the believer's union 
 with the Redeemer (see Chapter X, pp. 156 — 160). 
 "Christ in me — I in Him:" there is Paul's secret. 
 He was " one spirit " with Jesus Christ — dying, risen, 
 ascended, reigning, returning in glory. His old self, 
 his old world was dead and gone — slain by Christ's 
 cross, buried in His grave (ch. ii. 20 ; vi. 14). And 
 the flesh, common to the evil world and the evil self— 
 that above all was crucified. The death of shame and 
 legal penalty, the curse of God had overtaken it in the 
 death of Jesus Christ Christ has risen, the " Lord of 
 the Spirit " (2 Cor. iii. 1 8), who " could not be holden " 
 by the death which fell on '* the body of His flesh." 
 They who are Christ's rose with Him ; while " the 
 flesh of sin " stays in His grave. Faith sees it there, 
 and leaves it there. We " reckon ourselves dead unto 
 sin, and living unto God, in Christ Jesus." For such 
 
f. 16.26.] CHRIST S SPIRIT AND HUMAN FLESH. 359 
 
 men, the flesh that was once — imperious, importunate, 
 law-defying — is no more. It has received its death- 
 stroke. " God, sending His own Son in the likeness 
 of sinful flesh and a sacrifice for sin, condemned sin 
 in the flesh" (Rom. viii. 3). Sin is smitten with the 
 lightning of His anger. Doom has taken hold of it 
 Destroyed already in principle, it only waits for men to 
 know this and to understand what has been done, till 
 it shall perish everywhere. The destruction of the 
 sinful flesh — more strictly of " sin in the flesh " — 
 occurred, as Paul understood the matter, virtually and 
 potentially in the moment of Christ's death. It was 
 our human flesh that was crucified in Him— slain on 
 the cross because, though in Him not personally 
 sinful, yet in us with whom He had made Himself 
 one, it was steeped in sin. Our sinful flesh hung upon 
 His cross; it has risen, cleansed and sanctified, from 
 His grave. 
 
 What was then accomplished in principle when 
 " One died for all," is realised in point of fact when 
 we are " baptized into His death " — when, that is to 
 say, faith makes His death ours and its virtue passes 
 into the soul. The scene of the cross is inwardly 
 rehearsed. The wounds which pierced the Redeemer's 
 flesh and spirit now pierce our consciences. It is a 
 veritable crucifixion through which the soul enters into 
 communion with its risen Saviour, and learns to live 
 His fife. Nor is its sanctification complete till it is 
 " conformed unto His death" (Phil. iii. 10). So with 
 all his train of "passions and of lusts," the "old man" is 
 fastened and nailed down upon the new, interior Calvary, 
 set up in each penitent and believing heart. The 
 flesh may still, as in these Galatians, give mournful 
 evidence of life. But it has no right to exist a single 
 
36o THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 hour. De jure it is dead — dead in the reckoning of 
 faith. It may die a hngering, protracted death, and 
 make convulsive struggles ; but die it must in all who 
 are of Christ Jesus. 
 
 Let the Galatians consider what their calling of God 
 signified. Let them recall the prospects which opened 
 before them in the days of their first faith in Christ, 
 the love that glowed in their hearts, the energy with 
 which the Holy Spirit wrought upon their nature. Let 
 them know how truly they were called to Hberty, and 
 in good earnest were made sons of God. They have 
 only to continue as heretofore to be led by the Spirit of 
 Christ and to march forward along the path on which 
 they had entered, and neither Jewish law nor their 
 own lawless flesh will be able to bring them into 
 bondage. *' Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is 
 liberty." Where He is not, there is legalism, or 
 licence ; or, it may be, both at once. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 THE WORKS OF THE FLESB. 
 
 " Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are thest, fomicAtioB, 
 
 andeanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousies, 
 wraths, factions, divisions, parties, envyings, drunkenness, revellings, 
 and such like : of the which I forewarn you, even as I did forewarn 
 you, that they which practise such things shall not inherit the kingdom 
 of God."— Gal. ▼. 19— ai. 
 
 THE tree is known by its fruits : the flesh by its 
 " works." And these works are *' manifest." The 
 field of the world — " this present evil world " (ch. i. 4) 
 — exhibits them in rank abundance. Perhaps at no 
 time was the civilised world so depraved and godless 
 as in the fii-st century of the Christian era, when Tiberius, 
 Caligula, Nero, Domitian, wore the imperial purple and 
 posed as masters of the earth. It was the cruelty and 
 vileness of the times which culminated in these deified 
 monsters. By no accident was mankind cursed at this 
 epoch with such a race of rulers. The world that wor- 
 shipped them was worthy of them. Vice appeared in 
 its most revolting and abandoned forms. Wickedness 
 was rampant and triumphant. The age of the early 
 Roman Empire has left a foul mark in human history 
 and literature. Let Tacitus and Juvenal speak for it 
 
 Paul's enumeration of the current vices in this pas- 
 sage has however a character of its own. It differs 
 
36j the epistle TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 from the descriptions drawn by the same hand in other 
 Epistles ; and this difference is due doubtless to the 
 character of his readers. Their temperament was 
 sanguine ; their disposition frank and impulsive. Sins 
 of lying and injustice, conspicuous in other Hsts, are 
 not found in this. From these vices the Galatic nature 
 was comparatively free. Sensual sins and sins of 
 passion — unchasttiy, vindicttveness, intemperance — occupy 
 the field. To these must be added idolattVy common to 
 the Pagan world. Gentile idolatry was allied with the 
 practice of impurity on the one side ; and on the other, 
 through the evil of " sorcery/' with " enmities " and 
 "jealousies. So that these works of the flesh belong 
 to four distinct types of depravity ; three of which come 
 under the head of immorality, while the fourth is the 
 universal principle of Pagan irreligion, being in turn 
 both cause and effect of the moral debasement connected 
 with it 
 
 I. " The works of the flesh are these— /omicationf 
 uncleanness, lascivwusness." A dark beginning 1 Sins 
 of impurity find a place in every picture of Gentile 
 morals given by the Apostle. In whatever direction he 
 writes — to Romans or Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, 
 or Thessal|onians — it is always necessary to warn 
 against these evils. They are equally " manifest " in 
 heathen Hterature. The extent to which they stain the 
 pages of the Greek and Roman classics sets a heavy 
 discount against their value as instruments of Christian 
 education. Civilised society in Paul's day was steeped 
 in sexual corruption. 
 
 Fornication was practically universal. Few were 
 found, even among severe moralists, to condemn it. 
 The overthrow of the splendid classical civihsation, due 
 to the extinction of manly virtues in the dominant race. 
 
«. 19-21.] THE WORKS OF THE FLESH. 363 
 
 may be traced largely to this cause. Brave men are 
 the sons of pure women. John in the Apocalypse has 
 written on the brow of Rome, " the great city which 
 reigneth over the kings of the earth," this legend : " Baby- 
 lon the great y mother of harlots " (Rev. xvii. 5). Whatever 
 symbolic meaning the saying has, in its literal sense 
 it was terribly true. Our modern Babylons, unless 
 they purge themselves, may earn the same title and 
 the same doom. 
 
 In writing to Corinth, the metropolis of Greek licen- 
 tiousness, Paul deals very solemnly and exphcitly with 
 this vice. He teaches that this sin, above others, is 
 committed " against the man's own body." It is a 
 prostitution of the physical nature which Jesus Christ 
 wore and still wears, which He claims for the temple 
 of His Spirit, and will raise from the dead to share 
 His immortality. Impurity degrades the body, and it 
 affronts in an especial degree " the Holy Spirit which 
 we have from God." Therefore it stands first amongst 
 these '' works of the flesh " in which it shows itself 
 hostile and repugnant to the Spirit of our Divine son- 
 ship. "Joined to the harlot" in " one body," the vile 
 offender gives himself over in compact and communion 
 to the dominion of the flesh, as truly as he who is 
 " joined to the Lord " is ** one spirit with Him " 
 (i Cor. VL 13 — 20). 
 
 On this subject it is difficult to speak faithfully and 
 yet directly. There are many happily in our sheltered 
 Chrisiian homes who scarcely know of the existence of 
 this heathenish vice, except as it is named in Scripture. 
 To them it is an evil of the past, a nameless thing of 
 darkness. And it is well it should be so. Knowledge 
 of its horrors may be suitable for seasoned social re- 
 formers, and necessary to the publicist who must under- 
 
364 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 Stand the worst as well as the best of the world he has 
 to serve; but common decency forbids its being put 
 within the reach of boys and innocent maidens. News- 
 papers and novels which reek of the divorce-court and 
 trade in the garbage of human life, in " things of which 
 it is a shame even to speak," are no more fit for ordinary 
 consumption than the air of the pest-house is for 
 breathing. They are sheer poison to the young ima- 
 gination, which should be fed on whatsoever things 
 are honourable and pure and lovely. But bodily self- 
 respect must be learned in good time. Modesty of 
 feeling and chastity of speech must adorn our youth. 
 " Let marriage be honourable in the eyes of all," let 
 the old chivalrous sentiments of reverence and gentle- 
 ness towards women be renewed in our sons, and our 
 country's future is safe. Perhaps in our revolt from 
 Mariolatry we Protestants have too much forgotten the 
 honour paid by Jesus to the Virgin Mother, and the 
 sacredness which His birth has conferred on mother- 
 hood. " Blessed," said the heavenly voice, " art thou 
 among women." All our sisters are blessed and 
 dignified in her, the holy ** mother of our Lord " 
 (Luke i. 42, 43).* 
 
 Wherever, and in whatever form, the offence exists 
 which violates this relationship, Paul's fiery interdict 
 is ready to be launched upon it The anger of Jesus 
 burned against this sin. In the wanton look He dis- 
 cerns the crime of adultery, which in the Mosaic law 
 was punished with death by stoning. "The Lord is 
 an avenger in all these things " — in everything that 
 touches the honour of the human person and the sanc- 
 
 * Comp., I Tim. ii. 13 — 15 i saved through th* childbearin^—i^^ 
 prcly, the bearing of the Child Jesus, the seed ofthi woptatu 
 
r. i9-ai.] THB WORKS OF THE FLESH. 365 
 
 tity of wedded life (i Thess. iv. i — 8). The interests 
 that abet whoredom should find in the Church of Jesus 
 Christ an organization pledged to relentless war against 
 them. The man known to practise this wickedness is 
 an enemy of Christ and of his race. He should be 
 shunned as we would shun a notorious har — or a fallen 
 woman. Paul's rule is explicit, and binding on all 
 Christians, concerning '* the fornicator, the drunkard, 
 the extortioner — with such a one no, not to eat" 
 (i Cor. V. 9 — 11). That Church little deserves the 
 name of a Church of Christ, which has not means of 
 discipline sufficient to fence its communion from the 
 polluting presence of " such a one." 
 
 Uncleanness and lasciviousness are companions of the 
 more specific impurity. The former is the general 
 quality of this class of evils, and includes whatever is 
 contaminating in word or look, in gesture or in dress, 
 in thought or sentiment. " Lasciviousness " is unclean- 
 ness open and shameless. The filthy jest, the ogling 
 glance, the debauched and sensual face, these tell their 
 own tale ; they speak of a soul that has rolled in cor- 
 ruption till respect for virtue has died out of it. In 
 this direction " the works of the flesh " can go no 
 further. A lascivious human creature is loathsomeness 
 itself. To see it is Uke looking through a door into 
 helL 
 
 A leading critic of our own times has, under this 
 word of Paul's, put his finger upon the plague-spot in 
 the national life of our Gallic neighbours — Aselgeia, or 
 Wantonness. There may be a certain truth in this 
 charge. Their disposition in several respects resembles 
 that of Paul's Galatians. But we can scarcely afford to 
 reproach others on this score. English society is none 
 too clean. Home is for our people everywhere, thank 
 
3«6 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 God, the nursery of innocence. But outside its shelter, 
 and beyond the reach of the mother's voice, how many 
 perils await the weak and unwary. In the night-streets 
 of the city the "strange woman" spreads her net, 
 *' whose feet go down to death." In workshops and 
 business-offices too often coarse and vile language goes 
 on unchecked, and one unchaste mind will infect a 
 whole circle. Schools, wanting in moral discipline, may 
 become seminaries of impurity. There are crowded 
 quarters in large towns, and wretched tenements in 
 many a country village, where the conditions of life are 
 such that decency is impossible ; and a soil is prepared 
 in which sexual sin grows rankly. To cleanse these 
 channels of social life is indeed a task of Hercules ; but 
 the Church of Christ is loudly called to it. Her voca- 
 tion is in itself a purity crusade, a war declared against 
 " all filthiness of flesh and spirit." 
 
 II. Next to lust in this procession of the Vices comes 
 idolatry. In Paganism they were associated by many 
 ties. Some of the most renowned and popular cults 
 of the day were open purveyors of sensuality and lent 
 to it the sanctions of religion. Idolatry is found here 
 in fit company (comp. I Cor. x. 6 — 8). Peter's First 
 Epistle, addressed to the Galatian with other Asiatic 
 Churches, speaks of '* the desire of the Gentiles " as 
 consisting in 'Masciviousness, lusts, winebibbings, revel- 
 lings, carousings, and abomiyiable idolatries^* (ch. iv. 3). 
 
 Idolatry forms the centre of the awful picture of Gentile 
 depravity drawn by our Apostle in his letter to Rome 
 (ch. i.). It Is, as he there shows, the outcome of man's 
 native antipathy to the knowledge of God. Willingly 
 men "took lies in the place of truth, and served the 
 creature rather than the Creator." They merged God 
 in nature, debasing the spiritual conception of the 
 
V. 19-21.] THB WORKS OP THE FLESH. 367 
 
 Deity with fleshly attributes. This blending of God 
 with the world gave rise, amongst the mass of man- 
 kind, to Polytheism; while in the minds of the more 
 reflective it assumed a Pantheistic shape. The manifold 
 of nature, absorbing the Divine, broke it up into " gods 
 many and lords many " — gods of the earth and sky and 
 ocean, gods and goddesses of war, of tillage, of love, of 
 art, of statecraft and handicraft, patrons of human vices 
 and foUies as well as of excellencies, changing with 
 every chmate and with the varying moods and condi- 
 tions of their worshippers. No longer did it appear 
 that God made man in His image ; now men made 
 gods in "the likeness of the image of corruptible man, 
 and of winged and four-footed and creeping things." 
 
 When at last under the Roman Empire the diff"erent 
 Pagan races blended their customs and faiths, and " the 
 Orontes flowed into the Tiber/' there came about a 
 perfect chaos of religions. Gods Greek and Roman, 
 Phrygian, Syrian, Egyptian jostled each other in the 
 great cities — a colluvies deorum more bewildering even 
 than the colluvies gentium^ — each cultus striving to 
 outdo the rest in extravagance and Hcence. The 
 system of classic Paganism was reduced to impotence. 
 The false gods destroyed each other The mixture of 
 heathen religions, none of them pure, produced com- 
 plete demoralisation. 
 
 The Jewish monotheism remained, the one rock of 
 human faith in the midst of this dissolution of the old 
 nature-creeds. Its conception of the Godhead was not 
 so much metaphysical as ethical. ** Hear O Israel," 
 says every Jew to his fellows, '* the Lord our God is 
 one Lord." But that " one Lord " was also " the Holy 
 One of Israel." Let his holiness be sullied, let the 
 thought of the Divine ethical transcendence suffer 
 
$68 THE SPJSTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 eclipse, and He sinks back again into the manifold of 
 nature. Till God was manifest in the flesh through 
 the sinless Christ, it was impossible to conceive of a 
 perfect purity allied to the natural. To the mind of 
 the Israelite, God's holiness was one with the aloneness 
 in which he held Himself sublimely aloof from all 
 material forms, one with the pure spirituality of His 
 being. " There is none holy save the Lord ; neither 
 is there any rock like our God : " such was his lofty 
 creed. On this ground prophecy carried on its inspired 
 struggle against the tremendous forces of naturalism. 
 When at length the victory of spiritual religion was 
 gained in Israel, unbelief assumed another form ; the 
 knowledge of the Divine unity hardened into a sterile 
 and fanatic legalism, into the idolatry of dogma and 
 tradition ; and Scribe and Pharisee took the place of 
 Prophet and of Psalmist. 
 
 The idolatry and immorality of the Gentile world 
 had a common root. God's anger, the Apostle declared, 
 blazed forth equally against both (Rom. i. 1 8). The 
 monstrous forms of uncleanness then prevalent were a 
 fitting punishment, an inevitable consequence of heathen 
 impiety. They marked the lowest level to which 
 human nature can fall in its apostasy from God. Self- 
 respect in man is ultimately based on reverence for the 
 Divine. Disowning his Maker, he degrades himself. 
 Bent on evil, he must banish from his soul that 
 warning, protesting image of the Supreme Holiness io 
 which he was created. 
 
 « He tempts his reason to deny 
 God whom his passions dare defy.* 
 
 " They did not like to retain God in their knowledge." 
 " They loved darkness rather than light, because their 
 
1. 19-21.] THE WORKS OP THE FLESH. 369 
 
 deeds were evil." These are terrible accusations. 
 But the history of natural religion confirms their truth. 
 
 Sorcery is the attendant of idolatry. A low, natural- 
 istic conception of the Divine lends itself to immoral 
 purposes. Men try to operate upon it by material 
 causes, and to make it a partner in evil. Such is the 
 origin of magic. Natural objects deemed to possess 
 supernatural attributes, as the stars and the flight of 
 birds, have divine omens ascribed to them. Drugs of 
 occult power, and things grotesque or curious made 
 mysterious by the fancy, are credited with influence 
 over the Nature-gods. From the use of drugs in 
 incantations and exorcisms the word pharmakeia^ here 
 denoting sorcery ^ took its meaning. The science of 
 chemistry has destroyed a world of magic connected 
 with the virtues of herbs. These superstitions formed 
 a chief branch of sorcery and witchcraft, and have 
 flourished under many forms of idolatry. And the 
 magical arts were common instruments of malice. The 
 sorcerer's charms were in requisition, as in the case of 
 Balaam, to curse one's enemies, to weave some spell 
 that should involve them in destruction. Accordingly 
 sorcery finds its place there between idolatry and 
 tnmities. 
 
 III. On this latter head the Apostle enlarges with 
 edifying amplitude. Enmities^ strife ^ jealousies ^ ragings^ 
 factions^ divisions^ parties^ envyings — what a list ! 
 Eight out of fifteen of ** the works of the flesh manifest " 
 to Paul in writing to Galatia belong to this one 
 category. The Celt all over the world is known for a 
 hot-tempered fellow. He has high capabilities ; he is 
 generous, enthusiastic, and impressionable. Meanness 
 and treachery are foreign to his nature. But he is 
 irritable. And it is in a vain and irritable disposition 
 
 24 
 
370 THB BPISTLB TO THB GALATIANS. 
 
 that these vices are engendered. Strife and division 
 have been proverbial in the history of the Gallic 
 nations. Their jealous temper has too often neutralised 
 their engaging qualities ; and their quickness and 
 cleverness have for this reason availed them but little 
 in competition with more phlegmatic races. In High- 
 land clans, in Irish septs, in French wars and Revolu- 
 tions the same moral features reappear which are found 
 in this delineation of Galatic life. This persistence of 
 character in the races of mankind is one of the most 
 impressive facts of history. 
 
 *' Enmities " are private hatreds or family feuds, 
 which break out openly in " strife." This is seen in 
 Church affairs, when men take opposite sides not so 
 much from any decided difference of judgement, as from 
 personal dislike and the disposition to thwart an 
 opponent. *^ Jealousies " and " wraths " (or " rages ") 
 are passions attending enmity and strife. There is 
 jealousy where one's antagonist is a rival, whose 
 success is felt as a wrong to oneself. This may be a 
 silent passion, repressed by pride but consuming the 
 mind inwardly. Rage is the open eruption of anger 
 which, when powerless to inflict injury, will find vent 
 in furious language and menacing gestures. There are 
 natures in which these tempests of rage take a perfectly 
 demonic form. The face grows livid, the limbs move 
 convulsively, the nervous organism is seized by a storm 
 of frenzy ; and until it has passed, the man is literally 
 beside himself. Such exhibitions are truly appalling. 
 They are " works of the flesh " in which, yielding to 
 its own ungoverned impulse, it gives itself up to be 
 possessed by Satan and is " set on fire of hell." 
 
 Factions, divisions^ parties are words synonymous. 
 " Divisions " is the more neutral term, and represents 
 
1. 19-21.] THE WORKS OP THE FLESH. jyi 
 
 the state into which a community is thrown by the 
 working of the spirit of strife. " Factions " imply more 
 of self-interest and policy in those concerned ; " parties " 
 are due rather to self-will and opinionativeness. The 
 Greek word employed in this last instance, as in I Cor. 
 xi. 19, has become our heresies. It does not imply of 
 necessity any doctrinal difference as the ground of the 
 party distinctions in question. At the same time, this 
 expression is an advance on those foregoing, pointing 
 to such divisions as have grown, or threaten to grow 
 into *' distinct and organized parties " (Lightfoot), 
 
 Envytngs (or grudges) complete this bitter series. 
 This term might have found a place beside "enmities" 
 and "strife." Standing where it does, it seems to denote 
 the rankliijg anger, the persistent ill-will caused by 
 party-feuds. The Galatian quarrels left behind them 
 grudges and resentments which became inveterate. 
 These " envyings," the fruit of old contentions, were 
 .n turn the seed of new strife. Settled rancour is the 
 last and worst form of contentiousness. It is so much 
 more culpable than ''jealousy" or '* rage," as it has not 
 the excuse of personal conflict ; and it does not subside, 
 as the fiercest outburst of passion may, leaving room 
 for forgiveness. It nurses its revenge, waiting, like 
 Shylock, for the time when it shall '* feed fat its ancient 
 grudge." 
 
 " Where jealousy and faction are, there," says James, 
 " is confusion and every vile deed." This was the 
 state of things to which the Galatian societies were 
 tending. The Judaizers had sown the seeds of discord, 
 and it had fallen on congenial soil. Paul has already 
 invoked Christ's law of love to exorcise this spirit of 
 destruction (w. 13 — 15). He tells the Galatians that 
 their vainglorious and provoking attitude towards each 
 
37a THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 other and their envious disposition are entirely con- 
 trary to the life in the Spirit which they professed to 
 lead (w. 25, 26), and fatal to the existence of the 
 Church. These were the " passions of the flesh " 
 which most of all they needed to crucify. 
 
 IV. Finally, we come to sins of intemperance — 
 drunkenness^ revellingSy and the like. 
 
 These are the vices of a barbarous people. Our 
 Teutonic and Celtic forefathers were alike prone to 
 this kind of excess. Peter warns the Galatians against 
 '* wine-bibbings, revellings, carousings." The passion 
 for strong drink, along with " lasciviousness " and 
 'Musts " on the one hand, and *' abominable idolatries" 
 on the other, had in Asia Minor swelled into a "cataclysm 
 of riot," overwhelming the Gentile world (l Pet. iv. 
 3, 4). The Greeks were a comparatively sober people. 
 The Romans were more notorious for gluttony than 
 for hard drinking. The practice of seeking pleasure 
 in intoxication is a remnant of savagery, which exists 
 to a shameful extent in our own country. It appears 
 to have been prevalent with the Galatians, whose 
 ancestors a few generations back were northern 
 barbarians. 
 
 A strong and raw animal nature is in itself a tempta- 
 tion to this vice. For men exposed to cold and hard- 
 ship, the intoxicating cup has a potent fascination. The 
 flesh, buffeted by the fatigues of a rough day's work, 
 finds a strange zest in its treacherous delights. The 
 man " drinks and forgets his poverty, and remembers 
 his misery no more." For the hour, while the spell 
 is upon him, he is a king ; he hves under another sun ; 
 the world's wealth is his. He wakes up to find himself 
 a sot I With racked head and unstrung frame he 
 returns to the toil and squalor of his life, adding new 
 
V. 19-21.] THR WORKS OF THE FLESH. 373 
 
 wretchedness to that he had striven to forget. Anon 
 he says, *' I will seek it yet again 1 " When the craving 
 has once mastered him, its indulgence becomes his only 
 pleasure. Such men deserve our deepest pity. They 
 need for their salvation all the safeguards that Christian 
 sympathy and wisdom can throw around them. 
 
 There are others " given to much wine," for whom 
 one feels less compassion. Their convivial indulgences 
 are a part of their general habits of luxury and sen- 
 suality, an open, flagrant triumph of the flesh over the 
 Spirit. These sinners require stem rebuke and warn- 
 ing. They must understand that " those who practise 
 such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God," that 
 '*he who soweth to his own flesh, shall of the flesh 
 reap corruption." Of these and their like it was that 
 Jesus said, *'Woe unto you that laugh now; for ye 
 shall mourn and weep." 
 
 Our British Churches at the present time are more 
 alive to this th'. i perhaps to any other social evil. 
 They are setti' ^ themselves sternly against drunken- 
 ness, and noil . too soon. Of all the works of the flesh 
 this has been, if not the most potent, certainly the most 
 conspicuous in the havoc it has wrought amongst us. 
 Its ruinous effects are '* manifest " in every prison and 
 asylum, and in the private history of innumerable 
 families in every station of life. Who is there that 
 has not lost a kinsman, a friend, or at least a neighbour 
 or acquaintance, whose life was wrecked by this ac- 
 cursed passion ? Much has been done, and is doing, to' 
 check its ravages. But more remains to be accom- 
 plished before civil law and public opinion shall furnish 
 all the protection against this evil necessary for a 
 people so tempted by climate and by constitution as 
 our own. 
 
374 TEE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 VJiih fomtcatt'on at the beginning and drunkenness at 
 the end, Paul's description of " the works of the flesh" 
 is, alas 1 far indeed from being out of date. The dread 
 procession of the Vices marches on before our eyes. 
 Races and temperaments vary ; science has transformed 
 the visible aspect of life; but the ruling appetites of 
 human nature are unchanged, its primitive vices are with 
 us to-day. The complicated problems of modern life, 
 the gigantic evils which confront our social reformers, 
 are simply the primeval corruptions of mankind in a 
 new guise — the old lust and greed and hate. Under 
 his veneer of manners, the civilized European, untouched 
 by the grace of the Holy Spirit of God, is still apt to 
 be found a selfish, cunning, unchaste, revengeful, super- 
 stitious creature, distinguished from his barbarian pro- 
 genitor chiefly by his better dress and more cultivated 
 brain, and his inferior agility. Witness the great 
 Napoleon, a very " god of this world," but in all that 
 gives worth to character no better than a savage I 
 
 With Europe turned into one vast camp and its 
 nations groaning audibly under the weight of their 
 armaments, with hordes of degraded women infesting 
 the streets of its cities, with discontent and social 
 hatred smouldering throughout its industrial popula- 
 tions, we have small reason to boast of the triumphs of 
 modern civilisation. Better circumstances do not make 
 better men. James' old question has for our day a 
 terrible pertinence: ''Whence come wars and fightings 
 among you ? Come they not hence, even of your 
 pleasures that war in your members ? Ye lust, and 
 have not : ye kill, and covet, and cannot obtain. Ye 
 ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may 
 spend it on your pleasures." 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THR FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 "But tke fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering^ 
 kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance i against such there 
 is no law." — Gal. v. 22, 23. 
 
 "'npHE tree is known by its fruits." Such was the 
 X criterion of religious profession laid down by 
 the Founder of Christianity. This test His religion 
 applies in the first instance to itself. It proclaims a 
 final judgement for all men ; it submits itself to the 
 present judgement of all men — a judgement resting in 
 each case on the same ground, namely that oi fruity 
 of moral issue and effects. For character is the true 
 summunt bonum; it is the thing which in our secret 
 hearts and in our better moments we all admire and 
 covet. The creed which produces the best and purest 
 character, in the greatest abundance and under the most 
 varied conditions, is that which the world will believe. 
 
 These verses contain the ideal of character furnished 
 by the gospel of Christ Here is the religion of Jesus 
 put in practice. These are the sentiments and habits, 
 the views of duty, the temper of mind, which faith in 
 Jesus Christ tends to form. Paul's conception of the 
 ideal human life at once "commends itself to every 
 man's conscience." And he owed it to the gospel of 
 Christ His ethics are the fruit of his dogmatic faith. 
 What other system of belief has produced a like result, 
 
376 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 or has formed in men's minds ideas of duty so reason- 
 able and gracious, so just, so balanced and perfect, and 
 above all so practicable, as those inculcated in the 
 Apostle's teaching ? 
 
 "Men do not gather grapes of thorns, or figs of 
 thistles." Thoughts of this kind, lives of this kind, are 
 not the product of imposture or delusion. The " works " 
 of systems of error are " manifest " in the moral wrecks 
 they leave behind them, strewing the track of history. 
 But the virtues here enumerated are the fruits which 
 the Spirit of Christ has brought forth, and brings forth 
 at this day more abundantly than ever. As a theory 
 of morals, a representation of what is best in conduct, 
 Christian teaching has held for 1 800 years an unrivalled 
 place. Christ and His Apostles are still the masters 
 of morality. Few have been bold enough to offer any 
 improvements on the ethics of Jesus ; and smaller still 
 has been the acceptance which their proposals have 
 obtained. The new idea of virtue which Christianity 
 has given to the world, the energy it has imparted to 
 the moral will, the immense and beneficial revolu- 
 tions it has brought about in human society, supply a 
 powerful argument for its divinity. Making every 
 deduction for unfaithful Christians, who dishonour 
 " the worthy name " they bear, still " the fruit of the 
 Spirit " gathered in these eighteen centuries is a 
 glorious witness to the virtue of the tree of life from 
 which it grew. 
 
 This picture of the Christian life takes its place side 
 by side with others found in Paul's Epistles. It recalls 
 the figure of Charity in I Cor. xiii., acknowledged by 
 moralists of every school to be a master-piece of 
 characterization. It stands in line also with the oft- 
 quoted enumeration of Phil. iv. 8 : *' Whatsoever things 
 
w.M2,2s.] THB FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT, 377 
 
 are true, whatsoever things are reverend, whatsoever 
 things are just, whatsoever things are chaste, whatso- 
 ever things are lovely, whatsoever things are kindly 
 spoken, if there be any virtue, and if there be any 
 praise, think on these things." These representations 
 do not pretend to theoretical completeness. It would 
 be easy to specify important virtues not mentioned 
 in the Apostle's categories. His descriptions have a 
 practical aim, and press on the attention of his readers 
 the special forms and qualities of virtue demanded 
 from them, under the given circumstances, by their 
 faith in Christ. 
 
 It is interesting to compare the Apostle's definitions 
 with Plato's celebrated scheme of the four cardinal 
 virtues. They are wisdom^ courage^ temperance^ with 
 righteousness as the union and co-ordination of the 
 other three. The difference between the cast of the 
 Platonic and Pauline ethics is most instructive. In the 
 Apostle's catalogue the first two of the philosophical 
 virtues are wanting ; unless " courage " be included, as 
 it properly may, under the name of *' virtue " in the 
 Philippian list With the Greek thinker, wisdom is 
 the fundamental excellence of the soul. Knowledge is 
 in his view the supreme desideratum, the guarantee for 
 moral health and social well-being. The philosopher 
 is the perfect man, the proper ruler of the common- 
 wealth. Intellectual culture brings in its train ethical 
 improvement. For " no man is knowingly vicious : " 
 such was the dictum of Socrates, the father of Philo- 
 sophy. In the ethics of the gospel, love becomes the 
 chief of virtues, parent of the rest. 
 
 Love and humility are the two features whose 
 predominance distinguishes the Christian from the 
 purest classical conceptions of moral worth. The 
 
37« THE EPISTLB TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 ethics of Naturalism know love as a passion, a sensuouf 
 instinct (epcDfi) ; or again, as the personal affectioii 
 which binds friend to friend through common interest 
 or resemblance of taste and disposition (0iX,wi). Love 
 in its highest sense (aryaTrrj) Christianity has re-dis- 
 covered, finding in it a universal law for the reason 
 and spirit. It assigns to this principle a like place to 
 that which gravitation holds in the material universe, 
 as the attraction which binds each man to his Maker 
 and to his fellows. Its obligations neutralise self- 
 interest and create a spiritual soUdarity of mankind, 
 centring in Christ, the God-man. Pre-Christian 
 philosophy exalted the intellect, but left the heart cold 
 and vacant, and the deeper springs of will untouched. 
 It was reserved for Jesus Christ to teach men how to 
 love, and in love to find the law of freedom. 
 
 If love was wanting in natural ethics, humility was 
 positively excluded. The pride of philosophy regarded 
 it as a vice rather than a virtue. " Lowliness " is 
 ranked with ** pettiness " and ** repining " and " des- 
 pondency" as the product of "littleness of soul." 
 On the contrary, the man of lofty soul is held up 
 to admiration, who is " worthy of great things and 
 deems himself so," — who is '* not given to wonder, for 
 nothing seems great to him," — who is "ashamed to 
 receive benefits," and *' has the appearance indeed of 
 being supercilious" (Aristotle). How far removed is 
 this model from our Example who has said, " Learn of 
 Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart." The classical 
 idea of virtue is based on the greatness of man ; the 
 Christian, on the goodness of God. Before the Divine 
 glory in Jesus Christ the soul of the believer bows 
 in adoration. It is humbled at the throne of grace, 
 chastened into self-forgetting. It gazes on this Image 
 
w.22,23.] THB FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT. 379 
 
 of love and holiness, till it repeats itself within the 
 heart. 
 
 Nine virtues are woven together in this golden chain 
 of the Holy Spirit's fruit. They fall into three groups 
 of three, four, and two respectively — according as they 
 refer primarily to ,God, love, joy ^ peace ; to one's fellow- 
 men, longsufferingj kindness, goodness ^ faith; and to 
 oneself, meekness ^ temperance. But the successive 
 qualities are so closely linked and pass into one 
 another with so little distance, that it is undesirable to 
 emphasize the analysis ; and while bearing the above 
 distinctions in mind, we shall seek to give to each of 
 the nine graces its separate place in the catalogue. 
 
 I. The fruit of the Spirit is love. That fitliest first. 
 Love is the Alpha and Omega of the Apostle's thoughts 
 concerning the new life in Christ. This queen of 
 graces is already enthroned within this chapter. In 
 ver. 6 Love came forward to be the minister of Faith ; 
 in ver. 14 it reappeared as the ruling principle of Divine 
 law. These two offices of love are united here, where 
 it becomes the prime fruit of the Holy Spirit of God, 
 to whom the heart is opened by the act of faith, and 
 who enables us to keep God's law. Love is ^' the 
 fulfilling of the law;" for it is the essence of the 
 gospel ; it is the spirit of sonship ; without this Divine 
 afifection, no profession of faith, no practice of good 
 works has any value in the sight of God or intrinsic 
 moral worth. Though I have all other gifts and merits 
 — wanting this, "I am nothing" (i Cor. xiiL i — 3). 
 The cold heart is dead. Whatever appears to be 
 Christian that has not the love of Christ, is an unreality 
 — a matter of orthodox opinion or mechanical per- 
 (Acmance — dead as the body without the spirit. In al] 
 
38o THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 true goodness there is an element of love. Here then 
 is the fountain-head of Christian virtue, the ** well of 
 water springing up into eternal life" which Christ 
 opens in the believing soul, from which flow so many 
 bounteous streams of mercy and good fruits. 
 
 This love is, in the first instance and above all, love 
 to God, It springs from the knowledge of His love to 
 man. " God is love," and " love is of God " (i John iv. 
 7, 8). All love flows from one fountain, from the One 
 Father. And the Father's love is revealed in the Son. 
 Love has the cross for its measure and standard. 
 " He sent the Only-begotten into the world, that we 
 might live through Him. Herein is love: hereby know 
 we love " (i John iii. i6 ; iv. 9, 10). The man who 
 knows this love, whose heart responds to the manifes- 
 tation of God in Christ, is " born of God." His soul 
 is ready to become the abode of all pure affections, his 
 life the exhibition of all Christ-like virtues. For the 
 love of the Father is revealed to him ; and the love of 
 a son is enkindled in his soul by the Spirit of the Son. 
 
 In Paul's teaching, love forms the antithesis to knoiv- 
 ledge. By this opposition the wisdom of God is dis- 
 tinguished from " the wisdom of this world and of its 
 princes, which come to nought" (i Cor. i. 23; ii. 8; 
 viii. I, 3). Not that love despises knowledge, or seeks 
 to dispense with it It requires knowledge beforehand 
 in order to discern its object, and afterwards to under- 
 stand its work. So the Apostle prays for the Philip- 
 pians " that their love may abound yet more and more 
 in knowledge and all discernment" (ch. i. 9, lO). It 
 is not love wUhout knowledge^ heat without light, the 
 warmth of an ignorant, untempered zeal that the 
 Apostle desiderates. But he deplores the existence of 
 knowledge without love, a clear head with a cold heart. 
 
9. m 23.] THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT. 3«» 
 
 an intellect whose growth has left the affections starved 
 and stunted, with enlightened apprehensions of truth 
 that awaken no corresponding emotions. Hence comes 
 the pride of reason, the " knowledge that putfeth up." 
 Love alone knows the art of building up. 
 
 Loveless knowledge is not wisdom. For wisdom is 
 lowly in her own eyes, mild and gracious. What the 
 man of cold intellect sees, he sees clearly ; he reasons 
 on it well. But his data are defective. He discerns 
 but the half, the poorer half of life. There is a whole 
 heaven of facts of which he takes no account. He has 
 an acute and sensitive perception of phenomena coming 
 within the range of his five senses, and of everything 
 that logic can elicit from such phenomena. But he 
 " cannot see afar off." Above all, " he that loveth not, 
 knoweth not God" He leaves out the Supreme Factor 
 in human life; and all his calculations are vitiated. 
 " Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world ? " 
 
 If knowledge then is the enlightened eye, love is the 
 throbbing, living heart of Christian goodness. 
 
 2. The fruit of the Spirit is joy. Joy dwells in the 
 house of Love ; nor elsewhere will she tarry. 
 
 Love is the mistress both of joy and sorrow. 
 Wronged, frustrated, hers is the bitterest of griefs. 
 Love makes us capable of pain and shame ; but equally 
 of triumph and delight. Therefore the Lover of man- 
 kind was the " Man of sorrows," whose love bared its 
 breast to the arrows of scorn and hate ; and yet " for 
 the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, 
 despising the shame." There was no sorrow like that 
 of Christ rejected and crucified ; no joy Uke the joy of 
 Christ risen and reigning. This joy, the delight of 
 love satisfied in those it loves, is that whose fulfilment 
 He has promised to His disciples (John xv. 8 — li). 
 
38a THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 Such joy the selfish heart never knows. Life's 
 choicest blessings, heaven's highest favours fail to bring 
 it happiness. Sensuous gratification, and even in- 
 tellectual pleasure by itself wants the true note of 
 gladness. There is nothing that thrills the whole 
 nature, that stirs the pulses of life and sets thera 
 dancing, like the touch of a pure love. It is the pearl 
 of great price, for which " if a man would give all 
 the substance of his house, he would be utterly con- 
 temned." But of all the joys love gives to life, that 
 is the deepest which is ours when ** the love of God 
 is shed abroad in our heart." Then the full tide 
 of blessedness pours into the human spirit. Then 
 we know of what happiness our nature was made 
 capable, when we know the love that God hath 
 toward us. 
 
 This joy in the Lord quickens and elevates, while 
 it cleanses, all other emotions. It raises the whole 
 temperature of the heart. It gives a new glow to life. 
 It lends a warmer and a purer tone to our natural 
 affections. It sheds a diviner meaning, a brighter 
 aspect over the common face of earth and sky. It 
 throws a radiance of hope upon the toils and weariness 
 of mortality. It " glories in tribulation." It triumphs 
 in death. He who "lives in the Spirit" cannot be a 
 dull, or peevish, or melancholy man. One with Christ 
 his heavenly Lord, he begins already to taste His joy, 
 — a joy which none taketh away and which many 
 sorrows cannot quench. 
 
 Joy is the beaming countenance, the elastic step, the 
 singing voice of Christian goodness. 
 
 3. But joy is a thing of seasons. It has its ebb and 
 flow, and would not be itself if it were constant. It 
 is crossed, varied, shadowed unceasingly. On earth 
 
v.12,23.] THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT. 383 
 
 sorrow ever follows in its track, as night chases day. No 
 one knew this better than Paul. ** Sorrowful/' he says 
 of himself (2 Cor. vi. 10), **yet always rejoicing:" a 
 continual alternation, sorrow threatening every moment 
 to extinguish, but serving to enhance his joy. Joy 
 leans upon her graver sister Peace, 
 
 There is nothing fitful or febrile in the quality of 
 Peace. It is a settled quiet of the heart, a deep, 
 brooding mystery that " passeth all understanding," 
 the stillness of eternity entering the spirit, the Sabbath 
 of God (Heb. iv. 9). It is theirs who are ''justified by 
 faith " (Rom. v. I, 2). It is the bequest of Jesus Christ 
 (John xiv. 27). He " made peace for us through the 
 blood of His cross." He has reconcifed us with the 
 eternal law, with the Will that rules all things without 
 effort or disturbance. We pass from the region of 
 misrule and mad rebellion into the kingdom of the 
 Son of God's love, with its ordered freedom, its clear 
 and tranquil light, its " central peace, subsisting at the 
 heart of endless agitation." 
 
 After the war of the passions, after the tempests of 
 doubt and fear, Christ has spoken, *' Peace, be still I " 
 A great calm spreads over the troubled waters ; wind 
 and wave lie down hushed at His feet. The demonic 
 powers that lashed the soul into tumult, vanish before 
 His holy presence. The Spirit of Jesus takes posses- 
 sion of mind and heart and will. And His fruit is 
 peace — always peace. This one virtue takes the place 
 of the manifold forms of contention which make life a 
 chaos and a misery. While He rules, ** the peace of 
 God guards the heart and thoughts " and holds them 
 safe from inward mutiny or outward assault ; and the 
 dissolute, turbulent train of the works of the flesh 
 find the gates of the soul barred against them. 
 
384 THR EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 Peace is the calm, unruffled brow, the poised and 
 even temper which Christian goodness wears. 
 
 4. The heart at peace with God has patience with 
 men. " Charity suffereth long.** She is not provoked 
 by opposition ; nor soured by injustice; no, nor crushed 
 by men's contempt She can afford to wait ; for truth 
 and love will conquer in the end. She knows in whose 
 hand her cause is, and remembers how long He has 
 suffered the unbelief and rebellion of an insensate 
 world ; she '* considers Him that endured such contra- 
 diction of sinners against Himself." Mercy and long- 
 suffering are qualities that we share with God Himself, 
 in which God was, and is, " manifest in the flesh." In 
 this ripe fruit of the Spirit there are joined " the love 
 of God, and the patience of Christ " (2 Thess. iii. 5). 
 
 Longsuffering is the patient magnanimity of Christ- 
 ian goodness, the broad shoulders on which it " beareth 
 all things " (i Cor. xiii. 7). 
 
 5. " Charity suffereth long and is kind!* 
 Gentleness (or kindness, as the word is more fre- 
 quently and better rendered,) resembles "longsuffering" 
 in finding its chief objects in the evil and unthankful. 
 But while the latter is passive and self-contained, kind- 
 ness is an active, busy virtue. She is moreover of a 
 humble and tender spirit, stooping to the lowest need, 
 thinking nothing too small in which she may help, 
 ready to give back blessing for cursing, benefit for 
 harm and wrong. 
 
 Kindness is the thoughtful insight, the delicate tact, 
 the gentle ministering hand of Charity. 
 
 6. Linked with kindness comes goodness^ which is its 
 other self, differing from it only as twin sisters may, 
 each fairer for the beauty of the other. Goodness 
 is perhaps more affluent, more catholic in its bounty ; 
 
▼.33,23.] ^^S FRUIT OP THE SPIRIT. 385 
 
 kindness more delicate and discriminating. The former 
 looks to the benefit conferred, ceeking to make it as 
 large and full as possible ; the latter has respect to the 
 recipients, and studies to suit their necessity. While 
 kindness makes its opportunities, and seeks out the 
 most needy and miserable, goodness throws its doors 
 open to all comers. Goodness is the more masculine 
 and large-hearted form of charity ; and if it errs, errs 
 through blundering and want of tact. Kindness is 
 the more feminine ; and may err through exclusiveness 
 and narrowness of view. United, they are perfect. 
 
 Goodness is the honest, generous face, the open hand 
 of Charity. 
 
 7. This procession of the Virtues has conducted us, 
 in the order of Divine grace, from the thought of a 
 loving, forgiving God, the Object of our love^ our joy 
 and peace, to that of an evil-doing, unhappy world, with 
 its need of longsuffering and kindness; and we now 
 come to the inner, sacred circle of brethren beloved in 
 Christ, where, with goodness, /c/Z/f — that is, trustfulness^ 
 confidence — is called mto exercise. 
 
 The Authorised rendering "faith" seems to us in 
 this instance preferable to the " faithfulness " of the 
 Revisers. " Possibly," says Bishop Lightfoot, " TriVrt? 
 may here signify * trustfulness, reliance,' in one's 
 dealings with others ; comp. i Cor. xiii. 7 ; " we should 
 prefer to say " probably," or even " unmistakably," to 
 this. The use of pistis in any other sense is rare and 
 doubtful in Paul's Epistles. It is true that " God " or 
 " Christ " is elsewhere implied as the object of faith ; 
 but where the word stands, as it does here, in a series 
 of qualities belonging to human relationships, it finds, 
 in agreement with its current meaning, another applica- 
 tion. As a link between goodness and meekness, trust'- 
 
 25 
 
386 THB BPISTLB TO THB GALATIANS, 
 
 fulness^ and nothing else, appears to be in place. The 
 parallel expression of I Cor. xiii., of which chapter wc 
 find so many echoes in the text, we take to be decisive : 
 '* Charity believeth all things." 
 
 The faith that unites man to God, in turn joins man 
 to his fellows. Faith in the Divine Fatherhood becomes 
 trust in the human brotherhood. In this generous 
 attribute the Galatians were sadly deficient " Honour 
 all men," wrote Peter to them ; 'Move the brotherhood" 
 (l Pet. ii 17). Their factiousness and jealousies were 
 the exact opposite of this fruit of the Spirit. Little was 
 there to be found in them of the love that " envieth and 
 vaunteth rot," which " imputeth not evil, nor rejoiceth 
 in unrighteousness," which " beareth, believeth, hopeth, 
 endureth all things." They needed more faith in waw, 
 as well as in God. 
 
 The true heart knows how to trust. He who doubts 
 every one is even more deceived than the man who 
 blindly confides in every one. There is no more miser- 
 able vice than cynicism ; no man more ill-conditioned 
 than he who counts all the world knaves or fools except 
 himself. This poison of mistrust, this biting acid of 
 scepticism is a fruit of irreligion. It is one of the surest 
 signs of social and national decay. 
 
 The Christian man knows not only how to stand 
 alone and to *' bear all things," but also how to lean 
 on others, strengthening himself by their strength and 
 supporting them in weakness. He delights to " think 
 others better" than himself; and here "meekness" is 
 one with " faith." His own goodness gives him an eye 
 for everything that is best in those around him. 
 
 Trustfulness is the warm, firm clasp of friendship, 
 the generous and loyal homage which goodnew ever 
 pays to goodness. 
 
v.22,23.1 THE FRUIT OP THE SPIRIT. 387 
 
 8. Meekness^ as we have seen, is the other side of 
 faith. It is not tameness and want of spirit, as those 
 who "judge after the flesh" are apt to think. Nor is 
 meekness the mere quietness of a retiring disposition. 
 "The man Moses was very meek, above all the men 
 which were upon the face of the earth." It comports, 
 with the highest courage and activity ; and is a qualifi- 
 cation for public leadership. Jesus Christ stands before 
 us as the perfect pattern of meekness. '* I intreat you," 
 pleads the Apostle with the self-asserting Corinthians, 
 " by the meekness and gentleness of Christ I " Meek- 
 ness is self-repression in view of the claims and needs 
 of others ; it is the " charity " which " seeketh not her 
 own, looketh not to her own things, but to the things 
 of others." For her, self is of no account in comparison 
 with Christ and His kingdom, and the honour of His 
 brethren. 
 
 Meekness is the content and quiet mien, the willing 
 self-effacement that is the mark of Christlike goodness. 
 
 9. Finally temperance^ or selj-control^ — third of Plato's 
 cardinal virtues. 
 
 By this last link the chain of the virtues, at its higher 
 end attached to the throne of the Divine love and 
 mercy, is fastened firmly down into the actualities of 
 daily habit and bodily regimen. Temperance^ to change 
 the figure, closes the array of the graces, holding the 
 post of the rear-guard which checks all straggling and 
 protects the march from surprise and treacherous over- 
 throw. 
 
 If meekness is the virtue of the whole man as he 
 stands before his God and in the midst of his fellows, 
 temperance is that of his body, the tenement and instru- 
 ment of the regenerate spirit. It is the antithesis of 
 " drunkenness and revellings," which closed the list of 
 
388 rfi» EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 " works of the flesh," just as the preceding graces, from 
 "peace" to "meekness," are opposed to the multiplied 
 forms of " enmity " and " strife." Amongst ourselves 
 very commonly the same limited contrast is implied. But 
 to make "temperance" signify only or chiefly the 
 avoidance of strong drink is miserably to narrow its 
 significance. It covers the whole range of moral dis- 
 cipline, and concerns every sense and passion of our 
 nature. Temperance is a practised mastery of self. It 
 holds the reins of the chariot of life. It is the steady 
 and prompt control of the outlooking sensibilities and 
 appetencies, and inwardly moving desires. The tongue, 
 the hand and foot, the eye, the temper, the tastes and 
 affections, all require in turn to feel its curb. He is a 
 temperate man, in the Apostle's meaning, who holds 
 himself well in handy who meets temptation as a dis- 
 ciplined army meets the shock of battle, by skill and 
 alertness and tempered courage baffling the forces that 
 outnumber it. 
 
 This also is a " fruit of the Spirit " — though we may 
 count it the lowest and least, yet as indispensable to 
 our salvation as the love of God itself. For the lack of 
 this safeguard how many a saint has stumbled into 
 folly and shame ! It is no small thing for the Holy 
 Spirit to accomplish in us, no mean prize for which we 
 strive in seeking the crown of a perfect self-control. 
 This mastery over the flesh is in truth the rightful 
 prerogative of the human spirit, the dignity from which 
 it fell through sin, and which the gift of the Spirit of 
 Christ restores. 
 
 And this virtue in a Christian man is exercised for 
 the behoof of ethers, as well as for his own. " 1 keep 
 my body under," cries the Apostle, '* I make it my 
 •lave and not my master; lest, having preached to 
 
». 22,23.] THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT 389 
 
 Others, I myself should be a castaway " — that is self- 
 regard, mere common prudence ; but again, '' It is good 
 not to eat flesh, nor drink wine, nor to do anything 
 whereby a brother is made to stumble or made weak " 
 (l Cor. ix. 27; Rom. xiv. 21). 
 
 Temperance is the guarded step, the sober, measured 
 walk in which Christian goodness keeps the way of life, 
 and makes straight paths for stumbling and saaying 
 feef. 
 
CHAPTER XXVL 
 
 OUR BROTHER'S BURDEN AND OUR OWlf, 
 
 • Brethren, even if a man be overtaken in any trespass, ye which 
 •re spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of meekness ; looking to 
 thjTself, lest thou also be tempted. Bear ye one another's burdeni, 
 and so fulfil the law of Christ. For if a man thinketh himself to be 
 something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. But let each 
 man prove his own work, and then shall he have his glorjdng in 
 regard of himself alone, and not of his neighbour. For each man 
 shall bear his own burden." — Gal. vi. i — 5. 
 
 THE division of the chapters at this point is almost 
 as unfortunate as that between chaps, iv. and v. 
 The introductory '* Brethren " is not a form of transi- 
 tion to a new topic ; it calls in the brotherly love of 
 the Galatians to put an end to the bickerings and 
 recriminations which the Apostle has censured in the 
 preceding verses. How unseemly for brethren to be 
 " vainglorious " towards each other, to be *' provoking 
 and envying one another ! " If they are spiritual men, 
 they should look more considerately on the faults of 
 their neighbours, more seriously on their own responsi- 
 bilities. 
 
 The Galatic temperament, as we have seen, was 
 prone to the mischievous vanity which the Apostle 
 here reproves. Those who had, or fancied they had, 
 some superiority over others in talent or in character, 
 prided tliemselves upon it. Even spiritual gifts weni 
 made matter of ostentation ; and display on the part 
 
tL i-s.] our brothers burden and our OWa. 39« 
 
 of the more gifted excited the jealousy of inferior 
 brethren. The same disposition which manifests itself 
 in arrogance on the one side, on the other takes the 
 form of discontent and envy. The heart-burnings and 
 the social tension which this state of things creates, 
 make every chance collision a danger ; and the 
 slightest wound is inflamed into a rankling sore. The 
 stumbling brother is pushed on into a fall; and the 
 fallen man, who might have been helped to his feet, 
 is left to lie there, the object of unpitying reproach. 
 Indeed, the lapse of his neighbour is to the vain- 
 glorious man a cause of satisfaction rather than of 
 sorrow. The other's weakness serves for a foil to his 
 strength. Instead of stooping down to " restore such 
 a one," he holds stiffly aloof in the eminence of con- 
 scious virtue ; and bears himself more proudly in the 
 lustre added to his piety by his fellow's disgrace. 
 " God, I thank Thee," he seems to say, " that I am 
 not as other men, — nor even as this wretched back- 
 slider 1" The compellation "Brethren" is itself a 
 rebuke to such heartless pride. 
 
 There are two reflections which should instantly 
 correct the spirit of vain-glory. The Apostle appeals 
 in the first place to brotherly love^ to the claims that an 
 erring fellow-Christian has upon our sympathy, to the 
 meekness and forbearance which the Spirit of grace 
 inspires, in fine to Christ's law which makes compas- 
 sion our duty. At the same time he points out to 
 us our own infirmity and exposure to temptation. He 
 reminds us of the weight of our individual respon- 
 sibility and the final account awaiting us. A proper 
 sense at once of the rights of others and of our own 
 obligations will make this shallow vanity impossible. 
 
 This double-edged exhortation takes shape in two 
 
.193 TEE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 leading sentences, sharply clashing with each other 
 in the style of paradox in which the Apostle loves tc 
 contrast the opposite sides of truth : " Bear ye one 
 another's burdens" (ver. 2); and yet "Every man 
 shall bear his own burden" (ver. 5). 
 
 I. What then are the considerations that commend 
 the burdens of others for our bearing ? 
 
 The burden the Apostle has in view is that of a 
 brother's trespass : " Brethren, if a man be overtaken 
 in some trespass/* 
 
 Here the question arises as to whether Paul means 
 overtaken by the temptation^ or by the discovery of his 
 sin — surprised into committing, or tn committing the 
 trespass. Winer, Lightfoot, and some other inter- 
 preters, read the words in the latter sense : " surprised^ 
 detected \n the act of committing any sin, so that his 
 guilt is placed beyond a doubt " (Lightfoot). We are 
 persuaded, notwithstanding, that the common view of 
 the text is the correct one. The manner of the 
 offender's detection has little to do with the way in 
 which he should be treated ; but the circumstances of 
 his fall have everything to do with it. The sudden- 
 ness, the surprise of his temptation is both a reason 
 for more lenient judgment, and a ground for hope of 
 his restoration. The preposition '* in " (eV), it is 
 urged, stands in the way of this interpretation. We 
 might have expected to read '* (surprised) by*^ or 
 perhaps ^^into (any sin)." But the word is "trespass," 
 not " sin." It points not to the cause of the man's 
 fall, but to the condition in which it has placed him. 
 The Greek preposition (according to a well known 
 idiom of verbs of motion)* indicates the result of the 
 
 • For this pregnant force of iw see the grammarians : Moulton'i 
 fViM4r, pp. 514, 5; A. Butttttann, pp. 328, 9. (Eng. Ver.>. 
 
Hl-S.] OUR BROTHER'S BURDEN AND CUR OWN, 393 
 
 unexpected assault to which the man has been subject. 
 A gust of temptation has caught him unawares ; and 
 we now see him lying overthrown and prostrate, in- 
 volved " in some trespass." 
 
 The Apostle is supposing an instance — possibly an 
 actual case — in which the sin committed was due to 
 weakness and surprise, rather than deliberate inten- 
 tion ; like that of Eve, when *' the woman being 
 beguiled fell into transgression."* Such a fall deserves 
 commiseration. The attack was unlooked for ; the 
 man was off his guard. The Gallic nature is heedless 
 and impulsive. Men of this temperament should make 
 allowance for each other. An offence committed in a 
 rash moment, under provocation, must not be visited 
 with implacable severity, nor magnified until it become 
 a fatal barrier between the evil-doer and society. And 
 Paul says expressly, " If a man be overtaken " — a 
 delicate reminder of our human infirmity and rommon 
 danger (comp. I Cor. x. 13). Let us remernber that 
 it is a man who has erred, of like passions with 
 ourselves ; and his trespass will excite pity for him, 
 and apprehension for ourselves. 
 
 Such an effect the occurrence should have upon " the 
 spiritual," on the men of love and peace, who "walk 
 in the Spirit." The Apostle's appeal is qualified by 
 this definition. Vain and self-seeking men, the 
 irritable, the resentful, are otherwise affected by a 
 neighbour's trespass. They will be angry with him, 
 lavish in virtuous scorn ; but it is not in them to 
 " restore such a one." They are more likely to aggra- 
 vate than heal the wound, to push the weak man down 
 when he tries to rise, than to help him to his feet. 
 
 • I TinL U. 14 : the expression is parallel in point of gri 
 well %M Mnse ; 7^00'cy h wapa^dcu. 
 
394 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAHS, 
 
 The work of restoration needs a knowledge of the 
 human heart, a self-restraint and patient skill, quite 
 beyond their capability. 
 
 The restoration here signified, denotes not only, or 
 not so much, the man's inward, spiritual renewal, as 
 his recovery for the Church, the mending of the rent 
 caused by his removal. In I Cor. i. lo; 2 Cor. xiii. 
 II; I Thess. iii. lo, where, as in other places, the 
 English verb ** perfect " enters into the rendering of 
 Karaprl^oDf it gives the idea of re-adjustment, the right 
 fitting of part to part, member to member, in some 
 larger whole. Writing to the Corinthian Church at 
 this time respecting a flagrant trespass committed 
 there, for which the transgressor was now penitent, 
 the Apostle bids its members ** confirm their love" 
 to him (2 Cor, ii. 5 — 11). So here "the spiritual" 
 amongst the Galatians are urged to make it their 
 business to set right the lapsed brother, to bring him 
 back as soon and safely as might be to the fold of 
 Christ. 
 
 Of all the fruits of the Spirit, meekness is most 
 required for this office of restoration, the meekness 
 of Christ the Good Shepherd-— of Paul who was 
 "gentle as a nurse" amongst his children, and even 
 against the worst offenders preferred to " come in love 
 and a spirit of meekness," rather than " with a rod " 
 (i Thess. ii. 7 ; I Cor. iv. 21), To reprove without 
 pride or acrimony, to stoop to the fallen without the 
 air of condescension, requires the " spirit of meekness " 
 in a singular degree. Such a beanng lends peculiar 
 grace to compassion. This " gentleness of Christ ** is 
 one of the finest and rarest marks of the spiritual man. 
 The moroseness sometimes associated with religious 
 zeal, the disposition to judge hardly the failings of 
 
vi.i-5.1 OUR BROTHEF'S BURDEN AND OUR OWN 395 
 
 weaker men is anything but according to Christ. 
 It is written of Him, '*A bruised reed shall He not 
 break, and the smoking flax shall He not quench" 
 ( Isa. xlii. 3 ; Matt. xii. 20). 
 
 Meekness becomes sinful men dealing with fellow- 
 sinners. " Considering thyself" says the Apostle, 
 " lest thou also be tempted." It is a noticeable thing 
 that men morally weak in any given direction are apt 
 to be the severest judges of those who err in the same 
 respect, just as people who have risen out of poverty 
 are often the harshest towards the poor. They wish 
 to forget their own past, and hate to be reminded of a 
 condition from which they have suffered. Or is the 
 judge, in sentencing a kindred offender, seeking to rein- 
 force his own conscience and to give a warning to 
 himself ? One is inclined sometimes to think so. But 
 reflection on our own infirmities should counteract, 
 instead of fostering censoriousness. Every man knows 
 enough of himself to make him chary of denouncing 
 others. " Look to thyself,'* cries the Apostle. " Thou 
 hast considered thy brother's faults. Now turn thine 
 eye inward, and contemplate thine own. Hast thou 
 never aforetime committed the offence with which he 
 stands charged ; or haply yielded to the like tempta- 
 tion in a less degree ? Or if not even that, it may be 
 thou art guilty of sins of another kind, though hidden 
 from human sight, in the eyes of God no less heinous." 
 ** Judge not," said the Judge of all the earth, " lest ye 
 be judged. With what measure ye mete, it shall be 
 measured unto you" (Matt. vii. i — 5). 
 
 This exhortation begins in general terms ; but in the 
 latter clause of ver. i it passes into the individualising 
 singular — ** looking to thyself lest even thou be tempted." 
 The disaster befalling one reveals the common peril ; 
 
J96 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 it is a signal for every member of the Church to take 
 heed to himself. The scrutiny which it calls for be- 
 longs to each man's private conscience. And the faith- 
 fulness and integrity required in those who approach 
 the w^rongdoer with a view to his recovery, must be 
 chastened by personal solicitude. The fall of a Christ- 
 ian brother should be in any case the occasion of 
 heart-searching, and profound humiliation. Feelings of 
 indifference towards him, much more of contempt, will 
 prove the prelude of a worse overthrow for ourselves. 
 
 The burden of a brother's trespass is the most pain- 
 ful that can devolve upon a Christiar man. But this is 
 not the only burden we bring upon each other. There 
 are burdens of anxiety and sorrow, of personal infirmity, 
 of family difliculty, of business embarrassm^ent, infinite 
 varieties and complications of trial in which the re- 
 sources of brotherly sympathy are taxed. The injunc- 
 tion of the Apostle has an unlimited range. That which 
 burdens my friend and brother cannot be otherwise 
 than a solicitude to me. Whatever it be that cripples 
 him and hinders his running the race set before him, 
 I am bound, according to the best of my judgement and 
 ability, to assist him to overcome it. If I leave him to 
 stagger on alone, to sink under his load when my 
 shoulder might have eased it for him, the reproach 
 will be mine. 
 
 This is no work of supererogation, no matter of 
 mere hking and choice. I am not at liberty to 
 refuse to share the burdens of the brotherhood. 
 " Bear ye one another's burdens," Paul says, "and so 
 fulfil the law of Christ^ This law the Apostle has 
 already cited and enforced against the contentions and 
 jealousies rife in Galatia (ch. v. 14, 15). But it has a 
 further application. Christ's law of love not only says, 
 
'tL i-SJ our brothers burden and our own, 357 
 
 " Thou shalt not bite and devour ; thou shalt not pro- 
 voke and envy thy brother;" but also, *'Thou shalt 
 help and comfort him, and regard his burden as thine 
 own." 
 
 This law makes of the Church one body, with a 
 solidarity of interests and obligations. It finds employ- 
 ment and discipline for the energy of Christian freedom, 
 in yoking it to the service of the over- burdened. It 
 reveals the dignity and privilege of moral strength, 
 which consist not in the enjoyment of its own supe- 
 riority, but in its power to bear " the infirmities of the 
 weak." This was the glory of Christ, who "pleased 
 not Himself" (Rom. xv. I — 4). The Giver of the law 
 is its great Example. " Being in the form of God," He 
 "took the form of a servant," that in love He might 
 serve mankind ; He " became obedient, unto the death 
 of the cross" (Phil. ii. i — 8). Justly is the inference 
 drawn, " We also ought to lay down our hves for the 
 brethren" (i John iii. 16). There is no Hmit to the 
 service which the redeemed brotherhood of Christ may 
 expect from its members. 
 
 Only this law must not be abused by the indolent 
 and the overreaching, by the men who are ready to 
 throw their burdens on others and make every generous 
 neighbour the victim of their dishonesty. It is the 
 need not the demand of our brother which claims our 
 help. We are bound to take care that it is his neces- 
 sity to which we minister, not his imposture or his 
 slothfulness. The warning that " each man shall bear 
 his own burden " is addressed to those who receive^ as 
 well as to those who render aid in the common burden- 
 bearing of the Church. 
 
 II. The adjustment of social and individual duty is 
 often far from easy, and requues the nicest discemmeni 
 
39« THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 and moral tact. Both are brought into view in this 
 paragraph, in its latter as well as in its former section. 
 But in w. I, 2 the need of others, in w. 3 — 5 our 
 personal responsibility forms the leading consideration. 
 We see on the one hand, that a true self-regard teaches 
 us to identify ourselves with the moral interests of 
 others: while, on the other hand, a false regard to 
 others is excluded (ver. 4) which disturbs the judgement 
 to be formed respecting ourselves. The thought of his 
 own burden to be borne by each man now comes to 
 the front of the exhortation. 
 
 Ver. 3 stands between the two counterpoised esti- 
 mates. It is another shaft directed against Galatian 
 vain-glory, and pointed with Paul's keenest irony. *' For 
 if a man thinketh he is something, being nothing he 
 deceiveth himself." 
 
 This truth is very evident. But what is its bearing 
 on the matter in hand ? The maxim is advanced to 
 support the foregoing admonition. It was their self- 
 conceit that led some of the Apostle's readers to treat 
 with contempt the brother who had trespassed ; he tells 
 them that this opinion of theirs is a delusion^ a kind of 
 mental hallucination {(ppevaTrara cavrov). It betrays 
 a melancholy ignorance. The " spiritual " man who 
 ** thinks himself to be something," says to you, ** I am 
 quite above these weak brethren, as you see. Their 
 habits of life, their temptations are not mine. Their sym- 
 pathy would be useless to me. And I shall not burden 
 myself with their feebleness, nor vex myself with their 
 ignorance and rudeness." If any man separates himself 
 from the Christian commonalty and breaks the ties of 
 religious fellowship on grounds of this sort, and yet 
 imagines he is following Christ, he " deceives himself." 
 Others will see how little his affected eminence is worth. 
 
fii-5.1 OUR BROTHERS BURDEN AND OUR OWN. 399 
 
 Some will humour his vanity; many will ridicule or 
 pity it ; few will be deceived by it 
 
 The fact of a man's " thinking himself to be some- 
 thing " goes far to prove that he " is nothing." " Woe 
 unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent 
 in their own sight." Real knowledge is humble ; it 
 knows its nothingness. Socrates, when the oracle 
 pronounced him the wisest man in Greece, at last dis- 
 covered that the response was right, inasmuch as he 
 alone was aware that he knew nothing, while other 
 men were confident of their knowledge. And a greater 
 than Socrates, our All-wise, All-holy Saviour, says to 
 us, " Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart." 
 It is in humility and dependence, in self-forgetting that 
 true wisdom begins. Who are we, although the most 
 refined or highest in place, that we should despise plain, 
 uncultured members of the Church, those who bear 
 life's heavier burdens and amongst whom our Saviour 
 spent His days on earth, and treat them as unfit for our 
 company, unworthy of fellowship with us in Christ ? 
 
 They are themselves the greatest losers who neglect 
 to fulfil Christ's law. Such men might learn from their 
 humbler brethren, accustomed to the trials and tempta- 
 tions of a working life and a rough world, how to bear 
 more worthily their own burdens. How foolish of 
 " the eye to say to the hand " or " foot, I have no need 
 of thee I " *' God hath chosen the poor of this world 
 rich in faith." There are truths of which they are our 
 best teachers — priceless lessons of the power of Divine 
 grace and the deep things of Christian experience 
 This isolation robs the poorer members of the Churcl 
 in their turn of the manifold help due to them fronr 
 communion with those more happily circumstanced 
 How many of the evils around us would be ameliorated 
 
400 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 how many of our difficulties would vanish, if we could 
 bring about a truer Christian fraternisation, if caste- 
 feeling in our English Church-life were once destroyed, 
 if men would lay aside their stiffness and social hau" 
 teur^ and cease to think that they " are something " on 
 grounds of worldly distinction and wealth which in 
 Christ are absolutely nothing. 
 
 The vain conceit of their superiority indulged in by 
 some of his readers, the Apostle further corrects by 
 reminding the self-deceivers of their own responsibility. 
 The irony of ver. 3 passes into a sterner tone of 
 warning in w. 4 and 5. ** Let each man try his 
 own work," he cries. " Judge yourselves, instead of 
 judging one another. Mind your own duty, rather 
 than your neighbours' faults. Do not think of your 
 worth or talents in comparison with theirs ; but see to 
 it that your work is right." The question for each of us 
 is not, What do others fail to do ? but. What am I 
 myself really doing ? What will my life's work amount 
 to, when measured by that which God expects from 
 me? 
 
 This question shuts each man up within his own 
 conscience. It anticipates the final judgement-day. 
 *^ Every one of us must give account of himself to God " 
 (Rom. xiv. 12). Reference to the conduct of others is 
 here out of place. The petty comparisons which feed 
 our vanity and our class-prejudices are of no avail at 
 the bar of God. I may be able for every fault of my 
 own to find some one else more faulty. But this makes 
 me no whit better. It is the intrinsic, not the compara- 
 tive worth of character and daily work of which God 
 takes account If we study our brother's work, it 
 should be with a view to enable him to do it better, or 
 to learn to improve our own by his example; not 
 
ri-I-S.] OUR BROTHERS BURDEN AND OUR OWN. 401 
 
 in order to find excuses for ourselves in his short- 
 comings. 
 
 " And then " — if our work abide the test — " we shall 
 have our glorying in ourselves alone, not in regard to 
 our neighbour." Not his flaws and failures, but my own 
 honest work will be the ground of my satisfaction. 
 This was Paul's " glorying " in face of the slanders 
 by which he was incessantly pursued. It lay in the 
 testimony of his conscience. He lived under the 
 severest self-scrutiny. He knew himself as the man 
 only can who " knows the fear of the Lord," who 
 places himself every day before the dread tribunal of 
 Christ Jesus. He is " made manifest unto God ; " and 
 in the light of that searching Presence he can affirm 
 that he ** knows nothing against himself." * But this 
 boast makes him humble. ^^ By the grace of God'^ he 
 is enabled to " have his conversation in the world in 
 holiness and sincerity coming of God." If he had 
 seemed to claim any credit for himself, he at once 
 corrects the thought : " Yet not I," he says, " but God's 
 grace that was with me. I have my glorying in Christ 
 Jesus in the things pertaining to God, in that which 
 Christ hath wrought in me " (l Cor. xv. 10 ; Rom. xv. 
 16—19). 
 
 So that this boast of the Apostle, in which he 
 uivites the vainglorious Galatians to secure a share, 
 resolves itself after all into his one boast, ** in the cross 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ" (ver. 14). If his work on 
 trial should prove to be gold, " abiding " amongst the 
 world's imperishable treasures and fixed foundations 
 of truth (i Cor. iii. 10 — 15), Christ only was to be 
 praised for this. Paul's glorying is the opposite of the 
 
 • I Cor. iv. i~5 ; 2 Cor. I la ; r. 10— i a. 
 
 26 
 
403 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 Legalist's, who presumes on his " works " as his own 
 achievements, commending him for righteous before 
 God. ''Justified by works," such a man hath ''whereof 
 to glory, but not toward God " (Rom. iv. 2). His boast- 
 ing redounds to himself. Whatever glory belongs to the 
 work of the Christian must be referred to God. Such 
 work furnishes no ground for magnifying the man at the 
 expense of his fellows. If we praise the stream, it is to 
 commend the fountain. If we admire the lives of the 
 saints and celebrate the deeds of the heroes of faith^ 
 it is ad majorem Dei gloriam — " that in all things God 
 may be glorified through Jesus Christ " (i Pet. iv. n). 
 
 " For each will bear his own load.'* Here is the 
 ultimate reason for the self-examination to which the 
 Apostle has been urging his readers, in order to restrain 
 their vanity. The emphatic repetition of the words 
 each man in vv. 4 and 5 brings out impressively the 
 personal character of the account to be rendered. At 
 the same time, the deeper sense of our own burdens 
 thus awakened will help to stir in us sympathy for 
 the loads under which our fellows labour. So that this 
 warning indirectly furthers the appeal for sympathy 
 with which the chapter began. 
 
 Faithful scrutiny of our work may give us reasons 
 for satisfaction and gratitude towards God. But it 
 will yield matter of another kind. It will call to 
 remembrance old sins and follies, lost opportunities, 
 wasted powers, with their burden of regret and humili- 
 ation. It will set before us the array of our obligations, 
 the manifold tasks committed to us by our heavenly 
 Master, compelling us to say, "Who is sufficient for 
 these things ? " And beside the reproofs of the past and 
 the stern demands of the present, there sounds in the 
 Boul's ear the message of the future, *he summons tc 
 
fi 1-5.3 OUR BROTHER'S BURDEN AND OUR OWN 403 
 
 our final reckoning. Each of us has his own life-load, 
 made up of this triple burden. A thousand varying 
 circumstances and individual experiences go to consti- 
 tute the ever-growing load which we bear with us from 
 youth to age, like the wayfarer his bundle, like the 
 soldier his knapsack and accoutrements — the indivi- 
 dual lot, the peculiar untransferable vocation and 
 responsibility fastened by the hand of God upon our 
 shoulders. This burden we shall have to carry up to 
 Christ's judgement-seat. He is our Master ; He alone 
 can give us our discharge. His lips must pronounce 
 the final " Well done "—or, " Thou wicked and slothful 
 servant ! " 
 
 In this sentence the Apostle employs a different 
 word from that used in ver. 2. There he was thinking 
 of the weight, the burdensomeness of our brother's 
 troubles, which we haply may lighten for him, and 
 which is so far common property. But the second 
 word, (\>opriov (applied for instance to a ship's lading)^ 
 indicates that which is proper to each in the burdens 
 of life. There are duties that we have no power to 
 devolve, cares and griefs that w^e must bear in secret, 
 problems that we must work out severally and for 
 ourselves. To consider them aright, to weigh well the 
 sum of our duty will dash our self-complacency ; it will 
 surely make us serious and humble. Let us wake 
 up from dreams of self-pleasing to an earnest, manly 
 apprehension of life's demands — "while," like the 
 Apostle, '' we look not at the things which are seen, 
 but at the things which are not seen and eternal" 
 (2 Cor. iv. 18). 
 
 After all, it is the men who have the highest standard 
 for themselves that as a rule are most considerate in 
 
404 TUB EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 their estimate of others. The holiest are the most 
 pitiful. They know best how to enter into the struggles 
 of a weaker brother. They can appreciate his un- 
 successful resistance to temptation ; they can discern 
 where and how he has failed, and how much of genuine 
 sorrow there is in his remorse. From the fulness of 
 their own experience they can interpret a possibility of 
 better things in what excites contempt in those who 
 judge by appearance and by conventional rules. He 
 who has learned faithfully to " consider himself" and 
 meekly to *' bear his own burden," is most fit to do 
 the work of Christ, and to shepherd His tempted and 
 straying sheep. Strict with ourselves, we shall grow 
 wise and gentle in our care for others. 
 
 In the Christian conscience the sense of personal 
 and that of social responsibiUty serve each to stimulate 
 and guard the other. Duty and sympathy, love and 
 law are fused into one. For Christ is all in all ; and 
 these two hemispheres of life unite in Him. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIL 
 
 SOWING AND REAPING, 
 
 "But let him that is taught in the word communicate unto Urn 
 >h%^ teacheth in all good things. Be not deceived ; God is not 
 mocked : for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For 
 he that soweth unto his own flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption ; 
 but he that soweth unto the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap eternal life. 
 And let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due season we shall 
 reap, if we faint not. So then, as we have opportunity, let us work 
 that which is good toward all men, and especially toward them that 
 are of the household of the faith " — Gal. vi. 6 — la 
 
 C ACH shall bear his own burden (ver. 5) — but lei there 
 "-^ be communton of disciple with teacher in all that is 
 ^ood. The latter sentence is clearly intended to balance 
 the former. The transition turns upon the same 
 antithesis between social and individual responsibility 
 that occupied us in the foregoing Chapter. But it is 
 now presented on another side. In the previous 
 passage it concerned the conduct of ** the spiritual " 
 toward erring brethren whom they were tempted to 
 despise ; here, their behaviour toward teachers whom 
 they were disposed to neglect There it is inferiors, 
 here superiors that are in view. The Galatian " vain- 
 glory" manifested itself alike in provocation toward 
 the former, and in envy toward the latter (ch. v. 26). 
 In both ways it bred disaffection, and threatened to 
 break up the Church's unity. The two effects are 
 perfectly consistent. Those who arc harsh is their 
 
4o6 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 dealings with the weak, are commonly rude and insub- 
 ordinate toward their betters, where they dare to be 
 so. Self-conceit and self-sufficiency engender in the 
 one direction a cold contempt, in the other a jealous 
 independence. The former error is corrected by a due 
 sense of our own infirmities; the latter by the con- 
 sideration of our responsibility to God. We are 
 compelled to feel for the burdens of others when we 
 realise the weight of our own. We learn to respect 
 the claims of those placed over us, when we remember 
 what we owe to God through them. Personal responsi- 
 bility is the last word of the former paragraph ; social 
 responsibility is the first word of this. Such is the 
 contrast marked by the transitional But, 
 
 From this point of view ver. 6 gains a vei"y com- 
 prehensive sense. "All good things" cannot surely 
 be limited to the " carnal things " of I Cor. ix. 1 1. As 
 Meyer and Beet amongst recent commentators clearly 
 show, the context gives to this phrase a larger scope. 
 At the same time, there is no necessity to exclude the 
 thought of temporal good. The Apostle designedly 
 makes his appeal as wide as possible. The reasoning 
 of the corresponding passage in the Corinthian letter 
 is a deduction from the general principle laid down 
 here. 
 
 But it is spiritual fellowship that the Apostle chiefly 
 desiderates. The true minister of Christ counts this 
 vastly more sacred, and has this interest far more at 
 heart than his own temporalities. He labours for the 
 unity of the Church ; he strives to secure the mutual 
 sympathy and co-operation of all orders and ranks 
 teachers and taught, officers and private members — " in 
 every good word and work." He must have the heart 
 of his people with him in his work, or his joy will be 
 
d.6-lo.l SOWING AND REAPING. 407 
 
 faint and his success scant indeed. Christian teaching 
 is designed to awaken this sympathetic response. And 
 it will take expression in the rendering of whatevel 
 kind of help the gifts and means of the hearer and 
 the needs of the occasion call for. Paul requires every 
 member of the Body of Christ to make her wants and 
 toils his own. We have no right to leave the burdens 
 of the Church's work to her leaders, to expect her 
 battles to be fought and won by the officers alone. 
 This neglect has been the parent of innumerable 
 mischiefs. Indolence in the laity fosters sacerdotalism 
 in the clergy. But when, on the contrary, an active, 
 sympathetic union is maintained between " him that is 
 taught " and " him that teacheth," that other matter of 
 the temporal support of the Christian ministry, to which 
 this text is so often exclusively referred, comes in as 
 a necessary detail, to be generously and prudently 
 arranged, but which will not be felt on either side as 
 a burden or a difficulty. Everything depends on the 
 fellowship of spirit, on the strength of the bond of love 
 that knits together the members of the Body of Christ 
 Here, in Galatia, that bond had been grievously 
 weakened. In a Church so disturbed, the fellowship 
 of teachers and taught was inevitably strained. 
 
 Such communion the Apostle craves from his children 
 in the faith with an intense yearning. This is the one 
 fruit of God's grace in them which he covets to reap 
 for himself, and feels he has a right to expect. " Be 
 ye as I am," he cries — *' do not desert me, my children, 
 for whom I travail in birth. Let me not have to toil 
 for you in vain " (ch. iv. 12 — 19). So again, writing to 
 the Corinthians : '* It was / that begat you in Christ 
 Jesus ; I beseech you then, be followers of me. Let me 
 remind you of my ways in the Lord . . O ye Cor- 
 
4o8 TkE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 inthians, to you our mouth is open, our heart enlarged 
 Pay me back in kind (you are my children), and be ye 
 too enlarged" (i Cor. iv. 14 — 17 ; 2 Cor. vi. 11 — 13) 
 He "thanks God" for the Philippians "on ever\ 
 remembrance of them/' and " makes his supplication " 
 for them "with joy, because of their fellowship in 
 regard to the gospel from the first day until now" 
 (Phil. i. 3 — 7). Such is the fellowship which Paul 
 wished to see restored in the Galatian Churches. 
 
 In ver. 10 he extends his appeal to embrace in it all 
 the kindly offices of life. For the love inspired by the 
 Church, the service rendered to her, should quicken all 
 our human sympathies and make us readier to meet 
 every claim of pity or affection. While our sympathies, 
 like those of a loving family, will be concerned " espe- 
 cially " with " the household of faith," and within that 
 circle more especially with our pastors and teachers in 
 Christ, they have no limit but that of " opportunity ; " 
 they should " work that which is good toward all men." 
 True zeal for the Church widens instead of narrowing, 
 our charities. Household affection is the nursery, not 
 the rival, of love to our fatherland and to humanity. 
 
 Now the Apostle is extremely urgent in this matter 
 of communion between teachers and taught. It con- 
 cerns the very life of the Christian community. The 
 welfare of the Church and the progress of the kingdom 
 of God depend on the degree to which its individual 
 members accept their responsibility in its affairs. Ill- 
 will towards Christian teachers is paralyzing in its 
 effects on the Church's life. Greatly are they to blame, 
 if their conduct gives rise to discontent. Only less 
 severe is the condemnation of those in lower place who 
 harbour in themselves and foster in the minds of others 
 sentiments of disloyalty. To cherish this mistrust, to 
 
d.6.io.] SOWING AND REAPING. 409 
 
 withhold our sympathy from him who serves us in 
 spiritual things, this, the Apostle declares, is not merely 
 a wrong done to the man, it is an affront to God 
 Himself. If it be God's Word that His servant teaches, 
 then God expects some fitting return to be made for 
 the gift He has bestowed. Of that return the pecuniary 
 contribution, the meed of " carnal things " with which 
 so many seem to think their debt' discharged, is often 
 the least and easiest part How far have men a right 
 to be hearers — profited and believing hearers — in the 
 Christian congregation, and yet decline the duties of 
 Church fellowship ? They eat the Church's bread, 
 but will not do her work. They expect like children 
 to be fed and nursed and waited on ; they think that 
 if they pay their miniver tolerably well, they have 
 " communicated with " him quite sufficiently. This 
 apathy has much the same effect as the Galatian 
 bickerings and jealousies. It robs the Church of the 
 help of the children whom she has nourished and 
 brought up. Those who act thus are trying in reality 
 to '* mock God." They expect Him to sow his bounties 
 upon them, but will not let Him reap. They refuse 
 Him the return that He most requires for His choicest 
 benefits. 
 
 Now, the Apostle says, God is not to be defrauded 
 in this way. Men may wrong each other ; they may 
 grieve and affront His ministers. But no man is clever 
 enough to cheat God. It is not Him, it is themselves 
 they will prove to have deceived. Vain and selfish 
 men who take the best that God and man can do for 
 them as though it were a tribute to their greatness, 
 envious and restless men who break the Church's 
 fellowship of peace, will reap at last even as they sow. 
 The mischief and the loss may fall on others now ; but 
 
4IO THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 in its full ripeness it will come in the end upon them- 
 selves. The final reckoning awaits us in another world. 
 And as we act by God and by His Church now, in our 
 day, so He will act hereafter by us in His day. 
 
 Thus the Apostle, in w. 6 and 7, places this matter 
 in the searching light of eternity. He brings to bear 
 upon it one of the great spiritual maxims characteristic 
 of his teaching. Paul's unique influence as a religious 
 teacher lies in his mastery of principles of this kind, 
 in the keenness of insight and the incomparable vigour 
 with which he applies eternal truths to commonplace 
 occurrences. The paltriness and vulgarity of these 
 local broils and disaffections lend to his warning a more 
 severe impressiveness. With what a startling and 
 sobering force, one thinks, the rebuke of these verses 
 must have fallen on the ears of the wrangling Galatians I 
 How unspeakably mean their quarrels appear in the 
 light of the solemn issues opening out before them ! 
 It was Ged whom their folly had presumed to mock. 
 It was the harvest of eternal life of which their factious- 
 ness threatened to defraud them. 
 
 The principle on which this warning rests is stated 
 in terms that give it universal application : Whatso- 
 ever a man soweth^ that shall he also reap. This is 
 in fact the postulate of all moral responsibility. It 
 asserts the continuity of personal existence, the connec- 
 tion of cause and effect in human character. It makes 
 man the master of his own destiny. It declares that 
 his future doom hangs upon his present choice, and is 
 in truth its evolution and consummation. The twofold 
 lot of " corruption " or '* life eternal " is in every case 
 no more, and no less, than the proper harvest of the 
 kind of sowing practised here and now. The use made 
 
n.6.ia] SOWmG AND REAPING, 411 
 
 of our seed-time determines exactly, and with a moral 
 certainty greater even than that which rules in the 
 natural field, what kind of fruitage our immortality will 
 render. 
 
 This great axiom deserves to be looked at in its broadest 
 aspect. It involves the following considerations : — 
 
 I. Our present life is the seed-time of an eternal harvest. 
 
 Each recurring year presents a mirror of human 
 existence. The analogy is a commonplace of the 
 world's poetry. The spring is in every land a picture 
 of youth — its morning freshness and innocence, its 
 laughing sunshine, its opening blossoms, its bright 
 and buoyant energy; and, alas, oftentimes its cold 
 winds and nipping frosts and early, sudden blight I 
 Summer images a vigorous manhood, with all the 
 powers in action and the pulses of life beating at full 
 swing ; when the dreams of youth are worked out in 
 sober, waking earnest ; when manly strength is tested 
 and matured under the heat of mid-day toil, and 
 character is disciplined, and success or failure in life's 
 battle must be determined. Then follows mellow 
 autumn, season of shortening days and slackening 
 steps and gathering snows ; season too of ripe experi- 
 ence, of chastened thought and feeling, of widened 
 influence and clustering honours. And the story ends 
 in the silence and winter of the grave I Ends ? Nay, 
 that is a new beginning 1 This whole round of earthly 
 vicissitude is but a single spring-time. It is the mere 
 childhood of man's existence, the threshold of the vast 
 house of life. 
 
 The oldest and wisest man amongst us is only a 
 little child in the reckoning of eternity. The Apostle 
 Paul counted himself no more. ** We know in part," 
 he says; "we prophesy in part — talking, reasoning 
 
411 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 like children. We shall become mefiy seeing face to 
 face, knowing as we are known " (i Cor. xiii. 8, II, 12). 
 Do we not ourselves feel this in our higher moods ? 
 There is an instinct of immortality, a forecasting of 
 some ampler existence, " a stirring of blind life " within 
 the soul ; there are visionary gleams of an unearthly 
 Paradise haunting at times the busiest and most un- 
 imaginative men. We are intelligences in the germ, 
 lying folded up in the chrysaHs stage of our existence. 
 Eyes, wings are still to come. "It doth not yet appear 
 what we shall be," no more than he who had seen but 
 the seed-sowing of early spring and the bare wintry 
 furrows, could imagine what the golden, waving harvest 
 would be hke. There is a glorious, everlasting kingdom 
 of heaven, a world which in its duration, its range of 
 iction and experience, its style of equipment and 
 Dccupation, will be worthy of the elect children of God. 
 Worship, music, the purest passages of human affection 
 and of moral elevation, may give us some foretaste of 
 Its joys. But what it will be really like, '* Eye hath 
 not seen, nor ear heard ; nor heart of man conceived." 
 Think of that, struggling heart, worn with labour, 
 broken by sorrow, cramped and thwarted by the pres- 
 sure of an unkindly world. " The earnest expectancy 
 of the creation" waits for your revealing (Rom. viii. 
 19). You will have your enfranchisement; your soul 
 will take wing at last. Only have faith in God, and 
 in righteousness ; only " be not weary in well-doing." 
 Those crippled powers will get their full play. Those 
 baffled purposes and frustrated affections will unfold 
 and blossom into a completeness undreamed of now, in 
 the sunshine of heaven, in " the liberty of the glory of 
 the sons of God." Why look for your harvest here I 
 It is March, not August yet. " In due season we shall 
 
vi.6.io.j SOWING AND REAPING, 4U 
 
 
 
 reap, if we faint not." See to it that you '* sow to 
 the Spirit," that your life be of the true seed of the 
 kingdom ; and for the rest, have no care nor fear 
 What should we think of the farmer who in winter, 
 when his fields were frost-bound, should go about 
 wringing his hands and crying that his labour was all 
 lost' Are we wiser in our despondent moods ? How- 
 ever dreary and unpromising, however poor and paltry 
 in its outward seeming the earthly seed-time, your 
 life's work will have its resurrection. Heaven lies 
 hidden in those daily acts of humble, difficult duty, 
 even as the giant oak with its centuries of growth and 
 all its summer glory sleeps in the acorn-cup. No eye 
 may see it now ; but " the Day will declare it I " 
 
 n. In the second place, the quality of the future 
 harvest depends entirely on the present sowing. 
 
 In quantity^ as we have seen, in outward state and 
 circumstance, there is a complete contrast. The 
 harvest surpasses the seed from which it sprang, by 
 thirty, sixty or a hundred-fold. But in quality we find 
 a strict agreement. In degree they may differ in- 
 finitely ; in kind they are one. The harvest multiplies 
 the effect of the sov/er's labour ; but it multiplies 
 exactly that effect, and nothing else. This law runs 
 through all life. If we could not count upon it, labour 
 would be purposeless and useless ; we should have to 
 yield ourselves passively to nature's caprice. The 
 farmer sows wheat in his cornfield, the gardener plants 
 and trains his fig-tree ; and he gets wheat, or figs, for 
 his reward — nothing else. Or is he a "sluggard" 
 that ** will not plow by reason of the cold ? " Does he 
 let weeds and thistledown have the run of his garden- 
 plot ? Then it yields him a plentiful harvest of thistles 
 and of weeds ! What could he expect ? " Men do not 
 
414 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles." From 
 the highest to the lowest order of living things, each 
 grows and fructifies " after its kind." This is the rule 
 of nature, the law which constituted Nature at the 
 beginning. The good tree brings forth good fruit ; 
 and the good seed makes the good tree. 
 
 All this has its moral counterpart. The law of re- 
 production in kind holds equally true of the relation of 
 this life to the next Eternity for us will be the multi- 
 plied, consummated outcome of the good or evil of the 
 present Hfe. Hell is just sin ripe — rotten ripe. Heaven 
 is the fruitage of righteousness. There will be two kinds 
 of reaping, the Apostle tells us, because there are two 
 different kinds of sowing. " He that soweth to his flesh, 
 shall of the flesh reap corruption : " there is nothing 
 arbitrary or surprising in that. " Corruption " — the 
 moral decay and dissolution of the man's being — is the 
 natural retributive effect of his carnality. And ** he 
 that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life 
 everlasting." Here, too, the sequence is inevitable. 
 Like breeds its like. Life springs of life ; and death 
 eternal is the culmination of the soul's present death to 
 God and goodness. The future glory of the saints is 
 at once a Divine reward, and a necessary development 
 of their present faithfulness. And eternal life lies 
 germinally contained in faith's earliest beginning, when 
 it is but as ** a grain of mustard seed." We may 
 expect in our final state the outcome of our present 
 conduct, as certainly as the farmer who puts wheat into 
 his furrows in November will count on getting wheat 
 out of them again next August. 
 
 Under this law of the harvest we are living at this 
 moment, and sowing every day the seed of an immor- 
 tality of honour or of shame. Life is the seed-plot of 
 
n.6.ia] SOWING AND RBAPING, 415 
 
 eternity; and youth ts above all the seed-time of life. 
 What are our children doing with these precious, vernal 
 years ? What is going into their minds ? What 
 ideas, what desires are rooting themselves in these 
 young souls ? If it be pure thoughts and true affections, 
 love to God, self-denial, patience and humility, courage 
 to do what is right — if these be the things that are 
 sown in their hearts, there will be for them, and for us, 
 a glorious harvest of wisdom and love and honour in 
 the years to come, and in the day of eternity. But if 
 sloth and deceit be there, and unholy thoughts, vanity 
 and envy and self-indulgence, theirs will be a bitter 
 harvesting. Men talk of " sowing their wild oats," as 
 though that were an end of it ; as though a wild and 
 prodigal youth might none the less be followed by 
 a sober manhood and an honoured old age. But it is 
 not so. If wild oats have been sown, there will be 
 wild oats to reap, as certainly as autumn follows 
 spring. For every time the youth deceives parent 
 or teacher, let him know that he will be deceived 
 by the Father of lies a hundred times. For every 
 impure thought or dishonourable word, shame will come 
 up>on him sixty-fold. If his mind be filled with trash 
 and refuse, then trash and refuse are all it will be able 
 to produce. If the good seed be not timely sown in 
 his heart, thorns and nettles will sow themselves there 
 fast enough ; and his soul will become like the sluggard's 
 garden, rank with base weeds and poison-plants, a place 
 where all vile things will have their resort, — ** rejected 
 and nigh unto a curse.** 
 
 Who is "he that soweth to his own flesh ?" It is, 
 in a word, the selfish man. He makes his personal 
 interest, and as a rule his bodily pleasure, directly or 
 ultimately, the object of life. The sense of responsi- 
 
416 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATJANS, 
 
 bility to God; the thought of life as a stewardship of 
 which one must give account, have no place in his 
 mind. He is a '* lover of pleasure rather than a lover 
 of God." His desires, unfixed on God, steadily tend 
 downwards. Idolatry of self becomes slavery to the 
 flesh. Every act of selfish pleasure-seeking, untouched 
 by nobler aims, weakens and worsens the soul's life. 
 The selfish man gravitates downward into the sensual 
 man ; the sensual man downward into the bottom- 
 less pit 
 
 This is the ** minding of the flesh " which " is death " 
 (Rom. viii. 5 — 8, 13). For it is ** enmity against God" 
 and defiance of His law. It overthrows the course of 
 nature, the balance of our human constitution ; it brings 
 disease into the frame of our being. The flesh, unsub- 
 dued and uncleansed by the virtue of the Spirit, breeds 
 " corruption." Its predominance is the sure presage of 
 death. The process of decay begins already, this side 
 the grave; and it is often made visible by appalling 
 signs. The bloated face, the sensual leer, the restless, 
 vicious eye, the sullen brow tell us what is going on 
 within. The man's soul is rotting in his body. Lust 
 and greed are eating out of him the capacity for good. 
 And if he passes on to the eternal harvest as he is, if 
 that fatal corruption is not arrested, what doom can 
 possibly await such a man but that of which our 
 merciful Saviour spoke so plainly that we might 
 tremble and escape — " the worm that dieth not, and the 
 fire that is not quenched I " 
 
 III. And finally, God Himself is the Lord of the moral 
 harvest. The rule of retribution, the nexus that binds 
 together our sowing and our reaping, is not some- 
 thing automatic and that comes about of itself; it is 
 directed by the will of God, who ** worketh all in all" 
 
Ti.6.io.3 SOWING AND REAPING. 417 
 
 Even in the natural harvest we look upwards to Him. 
 The order and regularity of nature, the fair procession 
 of the seasons waiting on the silent and majestic march 
 of the heavens, have in all ages directed thinking and 
 grateful men to the Supreme Giver, to the creative Mind 
 and sustaining Will that sits above the worlds. As 
 Paul reminded the untutored Lycaonians, " He hath 
 not left Himself without witness, in that He gave us 
 rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts 
 with food and gladness." It is " God " that " gives 
 the increase" of the husbandman's toil, of the merchant's 
 forethought, of the artist's genius and skill. We do 
 not sing our harvest songs, with our Pagan forefathers, 
 to sun and rain and west wind, to mother Earth and 
 the mystic powers of Nature. In these poetic idolatries 
 were yet blended higher thoughts and a sense of Divine 
 beneficence. But *' to us there is one God, the Father, 
 of whom are all things, and we for Him ; and one Lord, 
 Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we 
 through Him." In the harvest of the earth man is a 
 worker together with God. The farmer does his part, 
 fulfilling the conditions God has laid down in nature ; 
 " he putteth in the wheat in rows, and the barley in its 
 appointed place ; for his God doth instruct him aright, 
 and doth teach him." He tills the ground, he sows 
 the seed — and there he leaves it to God. ** He sleeps 
 and rises night and day; and the seed springs and 
 grows up, he knows not how." And the wisest man 01 
 science cannot tell him how. "God giveth it a body, 
 as it hath pleased Him." But how — that is His own 
 secret, which He seems likely to keep. All life in its 
 growth, as in its inception, is a mystery, hid with Christ 
 in God. Every seed sown in field or garden is a deposit 
 committed to the faithfulness of God ; which He honours 
 
 a/ 
 
4l8 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 by raising it up again, thirty, sixty, or a hundred-fold, 
 in the increase of the harvest 
 
 In the moral world this Divine co-operation is the 
 more immediate, as the field of action lies nearer, if one 
 may so say, to the nature of God Himself. The earthly 
 harvest may, and does often fail. Storms waste it; 
 blights canker it ; drought withers, or fire consumes it. 
 Industry and skill, spent in years of patient labour, are 
 doomed not unfrequently to see their reward snatched 
 from them. The very abundance of other lands deprives 
 our produce of its value. The natural creation ** was 
 made subject to vanity." Its frustration and disappoint- 
 ment are over-ruled for higher ends. But in the 
 spiritual sphere there are no casualties, no room for 
 accident or failure. Here life conu,* directly into con- 
 tact with the Living God, its fountvin ; and its laws 
 partake of His absoluteness. 
 
 Each act of faith, of worship, of duty and integrity, 
 is a compact between the soul and God. We " commit 
 our souls in well-doing unto a faithful Creator" 
 (l Pet. iv. 19). By every such volition the heart is 
 yielding itself to the direction of the Divine Spirit. It 
 ** sows unto the Spirit," whenever in thought or deed 
 His prompting is obeyed and His will made the law 
 of life. And as in the soil, by the Divine chemistry 
 of nature, the tiny germ is nursed and fostered out of 
 sight, till it lifts itself from the sod a lovely flower, a 
 perfect fruit, so in the order of grace it will prove 
 that from the smallest seeds of goodness in human 
 hearts, from the feeblest beginnings of the hfe of faith, 
 from the lowliest acts of love and service, God in due 
 season will raise up a glorious harvest for which heaveo 
 itself will be the richer. 
 
THE EPILOGUE, 
 Chapter vi. ii — 18. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIIL 
 
 THE FALSE AND THE TRUE GLORYING. 
 
 ** Sec with how large letters I write unto you with mine own 
 hand. As many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they 
 compel you to be circumcised ; only that they may not be persecuted 
 for the cross of Christ. For not even they who receive circumcision 
 do themselves keep the law ; but they desire to have you circumcised, 
 that they maj' glory in your flesh. But far be it from me to glory, 
 save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world 
 hath been crucified unto me. and I unto the world." — Gal. vi. Ii — 14. 
 
 THE rendering of ver. 1 1 in the Authorised Version 
 is clearly erroneous {sea ho da large a letter). 
 Wickliff, guided by the Latin Vulgate — with what maner 
 lettris — escaped this error. It is a plural term the 
 Apostle uses, which occasionally in Greek writers 
 denotes an epistle (as in Acts xxviii. 21), but nowhere 
 else in Paul. Moreover the noun is in the dative (in- 
 strumental) case, and cannot be made the object of 
 the verb. 
 
 Paul draws attention at this point to his penmanship, 
 to the size of the letters he is using and their autogra- 
 phic form. ** See," he says, " I write this in large 
 characters, and under my own hand." But does this 
 remark apply to the whole Epistle^ or to its concluding 
 paragraph from this verse onwards ? To the latter 
 only, as we think. The woiJ "look" is a kind of nota 
 bene. It marks something new, designed by its form 
 and appearance in the manuscript to arrest the eye. 
 
4M THE EPISTLE 70 THE GALATIANS, 
 
 It was Paul's practice to write through an amanuensis, 
 adding with his own hand a few final words of greeting 
 or blessing, by way of authentication.* Here this 
 usage is varied. The Apostle wishes to give these 
 closing sentences the utmost possible emphasis and 
 solemnity. He would print them on the very heart 
 and soul of his readers. This intention explains the 
 language of ver. 1 1 ; and it is borne out by the contents 
 of the verses that follow. They are a postscript, or 
 Epilogue^ to the Epistle, rehearsing with incisive brevity 
 the burden of all that it was in the Apostle's heart to 
 say to these troubled and shaken Galatians. 
 
 The past tense of the verb (literally, / have written : 
 hfpay^a) is in accordance with Greek epistolary idiom. 
 The writer associates himself with his readers. When 
 the letter comes to them, Paul has written what they 
 now peruse. On the assumption that the whole Epistle 
 is autographic it is hard to see what object the large 
 characters would serve, or why they should be referred 
 to just at this point. 
 
 Ver. II is in fact a sensational heading. The last 
 paragraph of the Epistle is penned in larger type and 
 in the Apostle's characteristic hand, in order to fasten 
 the attention of these impressionable Galatians upon 
 his final deliverance. This device Paul employs but 
 once. It is a kind of practice easily vulgarised and 
 that loses its force by repetition, as in the case of 
 " loud " printing and declamatory speech. 
 
 In this emphatic finals the interest of the Epistle, so 
 powerfully sustained and carried through so many 
 stages, is raised to a yet hig'ier pitch. Its pregnant 
 
 • See 3 Thess. iii. 17, 18; i Cor. xvi. 21—23. In ver. 22 of the 
 Utter passage we can trace a similar autographic message, on a unaller 
 •calc Comp. also Philemon 19. 
 
vl. 11.14.] THE FALSE AND THE TRUE GLORYING. 423 
 
 sentences give us— /rs/, another and still severer 
 denunciation of '*the troublers" (w. 12, 13); secondly ^ 
 a renewed protestation of the Apostle's devotion to the 
 cross of Christ (vv. 14, 15); thirdly^ a repetition in 
 animated style of the practical doctrine of Christianity, 
 and a blessing pronounced upon those who are faithful 
 to it (w. 15, 16). A pathetic reference to the writer's 
 personal sufferings, followed by the customary benedic- 
 tion, brings the letter to a close. The first two topics 
 of the Epilogue stand in immediate contrast with each 
 other. 
 
 I. The glorying of the Apostles adversaries, " They 
 would have you circumcised, that they may glory in 
 your flesh " (ver. 12). 
 
 This is the climax of his reproach against them. It 
 gives us the key to their character. The boast measures 
 the man. The aim of the Legalists was to get so many 
 Gentiles circumcised, to win proselytes through Christ- 
 ianity to Judaism. Every Christian brother persuaded 
 to submit himself to this rite was another trophy for 
 them. His circumcision, apart from any moral or 
 spiritual considerations involved in the matter, was of 
 itself enough to fill these proselytizers with joy. They 
 counted up their *' cases ; " they rivalled each other in 
 the competition for Jewish favour on this ground. To 
 " glory in your flesh — to be able to point to your 
 bodily condition as the proof of their influence and 
 their devotion to the Law — this," Paul says, "is the 
 object for which they ply you with so many flatteries 
 and sophistries." 
 
 Their aim was intrinsically low and unworthy. 
 They "want to make a fair show (to present a good 
 face) in the flesh." Flesh in this place (ver. 12) recalls 
 the contrast between Flesh and Spirit expounded in the 
 
4^4 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 last chapter. Paul dpes not mean that the Judaizers 
 wish to '* make a good appearance in outward respects, 
 in human opinion : " this would be little more than 
 tautology. The expression stamps the Circumcisionists 
 as " carnal *• men. They are "not in the Spirit," but 
 "in the flesh;" and "after the flesh" they walk. It 
 is on worldly principles that they seek to commend 
 themselves, and to unspiritual men. What the Apostle 
 says of himself in Phil. iii. 3, 4, illustrates by contrast 
 his estimate of the Judaizers of Galatia : " We are the 
 circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and 
 glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the 
 flesh." He explains " having confidence in the flesh " 
 by enumerating his own advantages and distinctions 
 as a Jew, the circumstances which commended him in 
 the eyes of his fellow-countrymen — " which were gain 
 to me," he says, " but I counted them loss for Christ " 
 (ver. 7). In that realm of fleshly motive and estimate 
 which Paul had abandoned, his opponents still remained. 
 They had exchanged Christian fidelity for w^orldly 
 favour. And their religion took the colour of their 
 moral disposition. To make a fair show, an imposing, 
 plausible appearance in ceremonial and legal observance, 
 was the mark they set themselves. And they sought to 
 draw the Church with them in this direction, and to 
 impress upon it their own ritualistic type of piety. 
 
 This was a worldly, and in their case a cowardly 
 policy. "They constrain you to be circumcised, only 
 that for the cross of Christ they may not suffer per- 
 secution " (ver. 12). This they were determined by 
 all means to avoid. Christ had sent His servants 
 forth "as sheep in the midst of wolves." The man 
 that would serve Him, He said, must " follow Him, 
 taking up his cross." But the Judaists thought they 
 
vL 11.14.] THE FALSE AND THE TRUE GLORYING. 4*5 
 
 knew better than this. They had a plan by which 
 they could be the friends of Jesus Christ, and yet keep 
 on good terms with the world that crucified Him. 
 They would make their faith in Jesus a means for 
 winning over proselytes to Judaism. If they succeeded 
 in this design, their apostasy might be condoned. The 
 circumcised Gentiles would propitiate the anger of their 
 Israelite kindred, and would incline them to look more 
 favourably upon the new doctrine These men, Paul 
 says to the Galatians, are sacrificing you to their 
 cowardice. They rob you of your liberties in Christ 
 in order to make a shield for themselves against the 
 enmity of their kinsmen. They pretend great zeal 
 on your behalf; they are eager to introduce you into 
 the blessings of the heirs of Abraham : the tmth is, 
 they are victims of a miserable fear of persecution. 
 
 The cross of Christ, as the Apostle has repeatedly 
 declared (comp. Chapters XII and XXI), carried with 
 it in Jewish eyes a flagrant reproach ; and its accept- 
 ance placed a gulf between the Christian and the 
 orthodox Jew. The depth of that gulf became in- 
 creasingly apparent the more widely the gospel spread, 
 and the more radically its principles came to be ap- 
 plied. To Paul it was now sorrowfully evident that 
 the Jewish nation had rejected Christianity. They 
 would not hear the Apostles of Jesus any more than 
 the Master. For the preaching of the cross they had 
 only loathing and contempt. Judaism recognised in 
 the Church of the Crucified its most dangerous enemy, 
 and was opening the fire of persecution against it all 
 along the line. In this state of affairs, for a party of 
 men to compromise and make private terms for them- 
 selves with the enemies of Christ was treachery. 
 They were aurrendering, as this Epistle shows, all that 
 
4^6 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 was most vital to Christianity. They gave up the 
 honour of the gospel, the rights of faith, the salvation 
 of the world, rather than face the persecution in store 
 for those " who will live godly in Christ Jesus." 
 
 Not that they cared so much for the law in itself. 
 Their glorying was insincere^ as well as selfish : " For 
 neither do the circumcised themselves keep the law. 
 — These men who profess such enthusiasm for the law 
 of Moses and insist so zealously on your submission to 
 it, dishonour it by their own behaviour." The Apostle 
 is denouncing the same party throughout Some in- 
 terpreters make the first clause of ver. 13 a parenthesis, 
 supposing that " th^ circumcised " (participle present : 
 those being circumcised) are Gentile perverts now being 
 gained over to Judaism, while the foregoing and 
 following sentences relate to the Jewish teachers. But 
 the context does not intimate, nor indeed allow such a 
 change of subject. It is " the circumcised " of ver. 13 a 
 who in ver. 13 ^ wish to see the Galatians circumcised, 
 " in order to boast over their flesh," — the same who, in 
 ver. 12, " desire to make a fair show in the flesh" and 
 to escape Jewish persecution. Reading this in the 
 light of the previous chapters, there seems to us no 
 manner of doubt as to the persons thus designated. 
 They are the Circumcisionists, Jewish Christians who 
 sought to persuade the Pauline Gentile Churches to 
 adopt circumcision and to receive their own legalistic 
 perversion of the gospel of Christ. The present tense 
 of the Greek participle, used as it is here with the 
 definite article,* has the power of becoming a substan- 
 tive, dropping its reference to time ; for the act denoted 
 
 • ol TtpirtfJufSfitPOi {Revistd Ttxf). On this idiom, sec Winer*! 
 Grammar, p. 444 ; A. Buttmann's N. T. Grammar, p. 296. In ch. L 
 t3, and in IL t (r. ioKoGai), we have had instaoces of this uiafo. 
 
ft 11-14.] THB FALSE AND THE TRUE GLORYING. 42? 
 
 passes into an abiding characteristic, so that the ex- 
 pression acquires the form of a title. " The circum- 
 cised" are ike men of the circumcision^ those known 
 to the Galatians in this character. 
 
 The phrase is susceptible, however, of a wider appli- 
 cation. When Paul writes thus, he is thinking of 
 others besides the handful of troublers in Galatia. In 
 Rom. ii. 17 — 29 he levels this identical charge of hypo- 
 critical law-breaking against the Jewish people at large : 
 " Thou who gloriest in the law," he exclaims, " through 
 thy transgression of the law dishonourest thou God ? " 
 This shocking inconsistency, notorious in contemporary 
 Judaism, was to be observed in the conduct of the 
 legalist zealots in Galatia. They broke themselves the 
 very law which they tried to force on others. Their 
 pretended jealousy for the ordinances of Moses was 
 itself their condemnation. It was not the glory of the 
 law they were concerned about, but their own. 
 
 The policy of the Judaizers was dishonourable both 
 in spirit and in aim. They were false to Christ in 
 whom they professed to believe ; and to the law which 
 they pretended to keep. They were facing both ways, 
 studying the safest, not the truest course, anxious in 
 truth to be friends at once with the world and Christ. 
 Their conduct has found many imitators, in men who 
 " make godliness a way of gain," whose religious course 
 is dictated by considerations of worldly self-interest. 
 A little persecution, or social pressure, is enough to 
 *'turn them out of the way." They cast off their 
 Church obligations as they change their clothes, to 
 suit the fashion. Business patronage, professional ad- 
 vancement, a tempting family alliance, the entrde into 
 some select and envied circle — such are the things for 
 which creeds are bartered, for which men put their 
 
43$ THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 souls and the souls of their children knowingly in peril. 
 Will it pay? — this is the question which comes in 
 with a decisive weight in their estimate of matters of 
 rehgious profession and the things pertaining to God. 
 But " what shall it profit ? " is the question of Christ 
 
 Nor are they less culpable who bring these motives 
 into play, and put this kind of pressure on the weak 
 and dependent. There are forms of social and 
 pecuniary influence, bribes and threats quietly applied 
 and well understood, which are hardly to be distinguished 
 morally from persecution. Let wealthy and dominant 
 Churches see to it that they be clear of these offences, 
 that they make themselves the protectors, not the 
 oppressors of spiritual liberty. The adherents that a 
 Church secures by its worldly prestige do not in truth 
 belong to the ** kingdom that is not of this world." 
 Such successes are no triumphs of the cross. Christ 
 repudiates them. The glorying that attends proselytism 
 of this kind is, like that of Paul's Judaistic adversaries, 
 a " glorying in the flesh." 
 
 II. " But as for me," cries the Apostle, " far be it to 
 glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ " (ver. 
 14). Paul knows but one ground of exultation, one 
 object of pride and confidence — his Saviour's cross. 
 
 Before he had received his gospel and seen the cross 
 in the light of revelation, like other Jews he regarded it 
 with horror. Its existence covered the cause of Jesus 
 with ignominy. It marked Him out as the object 
 of Divine abhorrence. To the Judaistic Christian the 
 cross was still an embarrassment. He was secretly 
 asham.ed of a crucified Messiah, anxious by some means 
 to excuse the scandal and make amends for it in the 
 face of Jewish public opinion. But now this disgraceful 
 cross in the Apostle's eyes is the most glorious thing 
 
vi 11-14.] THE FALSE AND THE TRUE GLORYING, ^ 
 
 in the universe. Its message is the good news of God 
 to all mankind. It is the centre of faith and religioni 
 of all that man knows of God or can receive from Him. 
 Let it be removed, and the entire structure of revela- 
 tion falls to pieces, like an arch without its keystone. 
 The shame of the cross was turned into honour and 
 majesty. Its foolishness and weakness proved to be 
 the wisdom and the power of God. Out of the gloom 
 in which CaJvary was shrouded there now shone forth 
 the clearest light of holiness and love. 
 
 Paul gloried in the cross of Christ because it mani- 
 fested to him the character of God, The Divine love 
 and righteousness, the entire range of those mora-J 
 excellences which in their sovereign perfection belong 
 to the holiness of God, were there displayed with a 
 vividness and splendour hitherto inconceivable. '* God 
 so loved the world," and yet so honoured the law of 
 right, that " He spared not His own Son, but delivered 
 Him up for us all." How stupendous is this sacrifice, 
 which baffles the mind and overwhelms the heart I 
 Nowhere in the works of creation, nor in any other 
 dispensation of justice or mercy touching human affairs, 
 is there a spectacle that appeals to us with an effect to 
 be compared with that of the Sufferer of Calvary. 
 
 Let me look, let me think again. Who is He that 
 bleeds on that tree of shame ? Why does the Holy 
 One of God submit to these indignities ? Why those 
 cruel wounds, those heart-breaking cries that speak of 
 a soul pierced by sorrows deeper than all that bodily 
 anguish can inflict ? Has the Almighty indeed forsaken 
 Him ? Has the Evil One sealed his triumph in the 
 blood of the Son of God ? Is it God's mercy to the 
 world, or is it not rather Satan's hate and man's utter 
 wickedness that stand here revealed ? The issue 
 
430 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAITS. 
 
 shows with whom victory lay in the dread conflict 
 fought out in the Redeemer's soul and flesh. ** God 
 was in Christ" — living, dying, rising. And what 
 was He doing in Christ? — ''reconciling the world unto 
 Himself." 
 
 Now we know what the Maker of the worlds is like 
 *' He that hath seen Me," said Jesus on Passion Eve, 
 " hath seen the Father. From henceforth ye know 
 Him, and have seen Him." What the world knew 
 before of the Divine character and intentions towards 
 man was but " poor, weak rudiments." Now the 
 believer has come to Peniel; like Jacob, he has ^* seen 
 the face of God." He has touched the centre of things. 
 He has found the secret of love. 
 
 Moreover, the Apostle gloried in the cross because 
 it was the salvation of men. His love for men made 
 him boast of it, no less than his zeal for God. The 
 gospel burning in his heart and on his lips, was " God's 
 power unto salvation, both to Jew and Greek." He 
 says this not by way of speculation or theological 
 inference, but as the testimony of his constant expe- 
 rience. It was bringing men by thousands from 
 darkness into light, raising them from the slough of 
 hideous vices and guilty despair, taming the fiercest 
 passions, breaking the strongest chains of evil, driving 
 out of human hearts the demons of lust and hate. 
 This message, wherever it went, was saving men, as 
 nothing had done before, as nothing else has done 
 since. What lover of his kind would not rejoice in this? 
 
 Wc are members of a weak and suffering race, 
 groaning each in his own fashion under " the law of 
 sin and death," crying out ever and anon with Paul, 
 " O wretched man that I am I" If the misery of our 
 bondage was acute its darkness extreme, how great 
 
fi.ii-14.] THE FALSE AND THE TRUE GLORYING, 43> 
 
 is the joy with which we hail our Redeemer I It is the 
 gladness of an immense relief, the joy of salvation. 
 And our triumph is redoubled when we perceive that 
 His grace brings us not deliverance for ourselves alone, 
 but commissions us to impart it to our fellow-men, 
 " Thanks be to God," cries the Apostle, '* who always 
 leadeth us in triumph, and maketh known the savour 
 of His knowledge by us in every place " (2 Cor. ii. 14). 
 
 The essence of the gospel revealed to Paul, as we 
 have observed more than once, lay in its conception 
 of the office of the cross of Christ. Not the Incarnation 
 — the basis of the manifestation of the Father in the 
 Son ; not the sinless hfe and superhuman teaching of 
 lesus, which have moulded the spiritual ideal of faith 
 and supplied its contents ; not the Resurrection and 
 Ascension of the Redeemer, crowning the Divine edifice 
 with the glory of life eternal ; but the sacrifice of the 
 cross is the focus of the Christian revelation. This 
 gives to the gospel its saving virtue. Round this 
 centre all other acts and offices of the Saviour revolve, 
 and from it receive their healing grace. From the 
 hour of the Fall of man the manifestations of the 
 Divine grace to him ever looked forward to Calvary; 
 and to Calvary the testimony of that grace has looked 
 backward ever since. " By this sign " the Church has 
 conquered; the innumerable benefits with which her 
 teaching has enriched mankind must all be laid in 
 tribute at the foot of the cross. 
 
 The atonement of Jesus Christ demands from us a 
 faith like Paul's, a faith of exultation^ a boundless en- 
 thusiasm of gratitude and confidence. If it is worth 
 believing in at all, it is worth believing in heroically. 
 Let us so boast of it, so exhibit in our lives its power, 
 80 spend ourselves in serving it, that we may justly 
 
43« THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 claim from all men homage toward the Crucified. Let 
 us lift up the cross of Christ till its glory shines world- 
 wide, till, as He said, it " draws all men unto Him." 
 If we triumph in the cross, we shall triumph by it. It 
 will carry the Church to victory. 
 
 And the cross of Jesus Christ is the salvation oi 
 men, just because it is the revelation of God. It is 
 *' life eternal," said Jesus to the Father, " to know Thee " 
 The gospel does not save by mere pathos, but by 
 knowledge — by bringing about a right understanding 
 between man and his Maker, a reconciliation. It brings 
 God and man together in the light of truth. In this 
 revelation we see Htm, the Judge and the Father, the 
 Lord of the conscience and the Lover of His children ; 
 and we see ourselves — what our sins mean, what they 
 have done. God is face to face with the world. Holi- 
 ness and sin meet in the shock of Calvary, and flasli 
 into light, each illuminated by contrast with the other. 
 And the view of what God is in Christ — how He judges, 
 how He pities us — once fairly seen, breaks the heart, 
 kills the love of sin. " The glory of God in the face 
 of Jesus Christ," sitting on that thorn-crowned brow, 
 clothing that bleeding Form rent with the anguish of 
 Mercy's conflict with Righteousness on our behalf — it 
 is this which *^ shines in our hearts " as in Paul's, and 
 cleanses the soul by its pity and its terror. But this 
 is no dramatic scene, it is Divine, eternal fact. "We 
 have beheld and do testify that the Father sent the Son 
 to be the Saviour of the world. We know and have 
 believed the love that God hath to us" (i John iv. 14, 16). 
 
 Such is the relation to God which the cross has 
 established for the Apostle. In what position does it 
 place him toward the world ? To it, he tells us, he has 
 bidden farewell. Paul and the world are dead to each 
 
ft 11-14.] THE FALSE AND THE TRUE GLORYING. 433 
 
 Other. The cross stands between them. In ch. ii. 20 
 he had said, " / am crucified with Christ ; " in ch. v. 
 24, that his ^^ flesh with its passions and lusts" had 
 undergone this fate ; and now he writes, ** Through 
 the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ the world is 
 crucified to me, and I to the world." 
 
 Literally, a world — a whole world was crucified for 
 Paul when his Lord died upon the cross. The world 
 that slew Him put an end to itself, so far as he is 
 concerned. He can never believe in it, never take 
 pride in it, nor do homage to it any more. It is 
 stripped of its glory, robbed of its power to charm or 
 govern him. The death of shame that old " evil world " 
 inflicted upon Jesus has, in Paul's eyes, reverted to 
 itself; while for the Saviour it is changed into a life 
 of heavenly glory and dominion. The Apostle's life 
 is withdrawn from it, to be ^' hid with Christ in God." 
 
 This "crucifixion" is therefore mutual. The Apostle 
 also "is crucified to the world." Saul the Pharisee 
 was a reputable, religious man of the world, recognised 
 by it, alive to it, taking his place in its affairs. But 
 that "old man" has been "crucified with Christ." 
 The present Paul is in the world's regard another 
 person altogether — " the filth of the world, the off- 
 scouring of all things," no better than his crucified 
 Master and worthy to share His punishment. He is 
 dead — " crucified " to it. Faith in Jesus Christ placed 
 a gulf, wide as that which parts the dead and living, 
 between the Church of the Apostles and men around 
 them. The cross parted two worlds wholly different 
 He who would go back into that other world, the world 
 of godless self-pleasing and fleshly idolatry, must step 
 over the cross of Christ to do it 
 
 " To me!* testifies Paul, " the world is crucified." 
 
 28 
 \ 
 
434 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 And the Church of Christ has still to witness this 
 confession. We read in it a prophecy. Evil must die. 
 The world that crucified the Son of God, has written 
 its own doom. With its Satanic Prince it ** has been 
 judged" (John xii. 31; xvi. ii). Morally, it is dead 
 already. The sentence has passed the Judge's lips. 
 The weakest child of God may safely defy it, and scorn 
 its boasting. Its visible force is still immense ; its 
 subjects multitudinous ; its empire to appearance hardly 
 shaken. It towers like Goliath confronting " the armies 
 of the living God." But the foundation of its strength 
 is gone. Decay saps its frame. Despair creeps over 
 its heart. The consciousness of its impotence and 
 misery grows upon it 
 
 Worldliness has lost its old serenity irrecoverably. 
 The cross incessantly disturbs it, and haunts its very 
 dreams. Antichristian thought at the present time 
 is one wide fever of discontent. It is sinking into 
 the vortex of pessimism. Its mockery is louder and 
 more brilliant than ever ; but there is something 
 strangely convulsive in it all ; it is the laughter of 
 despair, the dance of death. 
 
 Christ the Son of God has come down from the 
 cross, as they challenged Him. But coming down, He 
 has fastened there in His place the world that taunted 
 Him. Struggle as it may, it cannot unloose itself from 
 its condemnation, from the fact that it has killed its 
 Prince of Life. The cross of Jesus Christ must save — 
 or destroy. The world must be reconciled to God, or 
 it will perish. On the foundation laid of God in Zion 
 men will either build or break themselves for ever. 
 The world that hated Christ and the Father, the world 
 that Paul cast from him as a dead thing, cannot endure. 
 It " passeth away, and the lust thereof." 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 RITUAL NOTHING: CHARACTER EVERYTHING, 
 
 ** For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but 
 a new creation. And as many as shall walk by this rule, peace ht 
 upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God." — Gau vi 15, l6. 
 
 VERSE 14 comprehends the whole theology of the 
 Epistle, and ver. 15 brings to a head its practical 
 and ethical teaching. This apophthegm is one of the 
 landmarks of religious history. It ranks in importance 
 with Christ's great saying: "God is a Spirit; and they 
 that worship Him, must worship in spirit and truth " 
 (John iv. 21 — 24). These sentences of Jesus and of 
 Paul taken together mark the dividing line between the 
 Old and the New Economy. They declare the nature of 
 the absolute religion, from the Divine and human side 
 respectively. God's pure spiritual being is affirmed 
 by Jesus Christ to be henceforth the norm of religious 
 worship. The exclusive sacredness of Jerusalem, or 
 of Gerizim, had therefore passed away. On the other 
 hand, and regarding religion from its psychological 
 side, as matter of experience and attainment, it is set 
 forth by our Apostle as an inward life, a spiritual con- 
 dition, dependent on no outward form or performance 
 whatsoever. Paul's principle is a consequence of that 
 declared by his Master. If " God is a Spirit," to be 
 known and approached as such, ceremonial at once 
 loses its predominance ; it sinks into the accidental 
 
436 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 the merely provisional and perishing clement ol 
 religion. Faith is no longer bound to material con- 
 ditions; it passes inward to its proper seat in the 
 spirit of man. And the dictum that " Circumcision is 
 nothing, and uncircum.cision nothing" (comp. ch. v. 6; 
 I Cor. vii. 19), becomes a watchword of Christian 
 theology. 
 
 This Pauline axiom is advanced to justify the con- 
 fession of the Apostle made in ver. 14 ; it supports the 
 protest of vv. 12 — 14 against the devotees of circum- 
 cision, who professed faith in Christ but were ashamed 
 of His cross. "That Judaic rite in which you glory," 
 he says, " is nothing. Ritual qualifications and dis- 
 qualifications are abolished. Life in the Spirit, the 
 new creation that begins with faith in Christ crucified 
 — that is everything." The boasts of the Judaizers 
 were therefore folly : they rested on " nothing." The 
 Apostle's glorying alone was vahd : the new world of 
 "the kingdom of God," with its "rigl.teousness and 
 peace and joy in the Holy Ghost," was there to 
 justify it, 
 
 I. For neither is ctrcumcision anything, — ^Judaism is 
 aboHshed at a stroke ! With it circumcision was 
 everything. " The circumcision " and " the people oi 
 God" were in Israelitish phrase terms synonymous. 
 " Uncircumcision " embraced all that was heathenish, 
 outcast and unclean. 
 
 The Mosaic polity made the status of its subjects, 
 their relation to the Divine covenant, to depend on this 
 initiatory rite. "Circumcised the eighth day," the 
 child came under the rule and guardianship of the 
 sacred Law. In virtue of this mark stamped upon his 
 body, he was ipso facto a member of the congregation 
 of the Lord, bound to all its duties, so far as his age 
 
vi 15, 16.] RITUAL NOTHING, 437 
 
 permitted, and partner in all its privileges. The con- 
 stitution of Mosaism — its ordinances of worship, its 
 ethical discipline, its methods of administration, and 
 the type of character which it formed in the Jewish 
 nation — rested on this fundamental sacrament, and took 
 their complexion therefrom. 
 
 The Judaists necessarily therefore made it their first 
 object to enforce circumcision. If they secured this, 
 they could carry everything ; and the complete Judaizing 
 of Gentile Christianity was only a question of time. 
 This foundation laid, the entire system of legal obliga- 
 tion could be reared upon it (ch. v. 3). To resist 
 the imposition of this yoke was for the PauUne 
 Churches a matter of life and death. They could not 
 afford to "yield by subjection — no, not for an hour." 
 The Apostle stands forth as the champion of their 
 freedom, and casts all Jewish pretensions to the 
 winds when he says, " Neither is circumcision any- 
 thing." 
 
 This absolute way of putting the matter must have 
 provoked the orthodox Jew to the last degree. The 
 privileges and ancestral glories of his birth, the truth 
 of God in His covenants and revelations to the fathers, 
 were to his mind wrapped up in this ordinance, and 
 belonged of right to " the Circumcision." To say that 
 circumcision is nothing seemed to him as good as 
 saying that the Law and the Prophets were nothing, 
 that Israel had no pre-eminence over the Gentiles, no 
 right to claim " the God of Abraham " as her God. 
 Hence the bitterness with which the Apostle was per- 
 secuted by his fellow-countrymen, and the credence 
 given, even by orthodox Jewish Christians, to the 
 charge that he '* taught to the Jews apostasy from 
 Moses " (Acts xxi. 2 1). In truth Paul did nothing oi 
 
4^8 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 the kind, as James of Jerusalem very well knew. But 
 a sentence like this, torn from its context, and repeated 
 among^st Jewish communities, naturally gave rise to 
 such imputations. 
 
 In his subsequent Epistle to the Romans the Apostle 
 is at pains to correct erroneous inferences drawn from 
 this and similar sayings of his concerning the Law. 
 He shov/s that circumcision, in its historical import, 
 was of the highest value. "What is the advantage of 
 the Jew? What the benefit of circumcision ? Much 
 every way," he acknowledges. " Chiefly in that to 
 them were entrusted the oracles of God " (Rom. iii. I, 
 2). And again : " Who are Israelites ; whose is the 
 adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the 
 lawgiving, and the service of God, and the promises ; 
 whose are the fathers, — and of whom is the Christ as 
 concerning the flesh, who is over all, God blessed for 
 ever " (Rom. ix. 4, 5). Eloquently has Paul vindicated 
 himself from the reproach of indifference to the ancient 
 faith. Never did he love his Jewish kindred more 
 ferv^ently, nor entertain a stronger confidence in their 
 Divine calling, than at the moment when in that 
 Epistle he pronounced the reprobation that ensued on 
 their rejecting the gospel of Christ. He repeats in 
 the fullest terms the claim which Jesus Himself was 
 careful to assert, in declaring the extinction of Judaism 
 as a local and tribal religion, that '* Salvation is of the 
 Jews" (John iv. 21 — 24). In the Divine order of 
 history it is still "to the Jew first." But natural 
 relationship to the stock of Abraham has in itself no 
 spiritual virtue ; "circumcision of the flesh" is worth- 
 less, except as the symbol of a cleansed and consecrated 
 heart. The possession of this outward token of God's 
 covenant with Israel, and the hereditary blessings it 
 
vi. 15,16^] RITUAL NOTHING, 4)9 
 
 conferred, brought with them a higher responsibility, 
 involving heavier punishment in case of unfaithfulness 
 (Rom. ii. 17 — iii. 8). This teaching is pertinent to 
 the case of children of Christian families, to those 
 formally attached to the Church by their baptism in 
 infancy and by attendance on her public rites. These 
 things certainly have *'much advantage every way." 
 And yet in themselves, without a corresponding inner 
 regeneration, without a true death unto sin and life 
 unto righteousness, these also are nothing. The 
 limiting phrase " in Christ Jesus " is no doubt a 
 copyist's addition to the text, supplied from ch. v. 6; 
 but the qualification is in the Apostle's mind, and is 
 virtually given by the context. No ceremony is of the 
 essence of Christianity. No outward rite by itself 
 makes a Christian. We are "joined to the Lord "in 
 " one Spirit." This is the vital tie. 
 
 Nor is uncircumcision anything. This is the counter- 
 balancing assertion, and it makes still clearer the bear- 
 ing of the former saying. Paul is not contending 
 against Judaism in any anti-Judaic spirit. He is not 
 for setting up Gentile in the place of Jewish customs 
 in the Church ; he excludes both impartially. Neither, 
 he declares, have any place "in Christ Jesus," and 
 amongst the things that accompany salvation. Paul 
 has no desire to humiliate the Jewish section of the 
 Church; but only to protect the Gentiles from its 
 aggressions. He lays his hand on both parties and by 
 this evenly balanced declaration restrains each of them 
 from encroaching on the other. " Was any one called 
 circumcised " ? he writes to Corinth : ** let him not 
 renounce his circumcision. Hath any one been called 
 in uncircumcision ? Let him not be circumcised." The 
 two states alike are " nothing " from the Christian 
 
440 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 Standpoint. The essential thing is " keeping the com- 
 mandments of God" (i Cor. vii. i8, 19). 
 
 Christian Gentiles retained in some instances, doubt- 
 less, their former antipathy to Jewish practices. And 
 while many of the Galatians were inclined to Legalism, 
 others cherished an extreme repugnance to its usages. 
 The pretensions of the Legalists were calculated to 
 excite in the minds of enlightened Gentile believers a 
 feeling of contempt, Avhich led them to retort on Jewish 
 pride with language of ridicule. Anti-Judaists would 
 be found arguing that circumcision was a degradation, 
 the brand of a servile condition ; and that its possessor 
 must not presume to rank with the free sons of God. 
 In their opinion, uncircumciston was to be preferred 
 and had "much advantage every way." Amongst 
 Paul's immediate followers there may have been some 
 who, like Marcion in the second century, would fain be 
 more Pauline than the Apostle himself, and replied to 
 Jewish intolerance with an anti-legal intolerance of 
 their own. To this party it was needful to say, " Neither 
 is uncircumcision anything." 
 
 The pagan in his turn has nothing for which to 
 boast over the man of Israel. This is the caution which 
 the Apostle urges on his Gentile readers so earnestly 
 in Rom. xi. 13 — 24. He reminds them that they owe 
 an immense debt of gratitude to the ancient people of 
 God. Wild branches grafted into the stock of Abraham, 
 they were " partaking of the root and fatness " of the 
 old "olive-tree." If the "natural branches" had been 
 " broken off through unbelief," much more might they 
 It became them " not to be high-minded but to fear." 
 Sc Paul seeks to protect Israel after the flesh, in 
 its rejection and sorrowful exile from the fold of Christ, 
 against Gentile insolence. Alas I that his protection hai 
 
ft IS, i6.] RITUAL NOTHING. 44> 
 
 been so little availing. The Christian persecutions of 
 the Jews are a dark blot on the Church's record. 
 
 The enemies of bigotry and narrowness too often 
 imbibe the same spirit. When others treat us with 
 contempt, we are apt to pay them back in their own 
 coin. They unchurch us, because we cannot pronounce 
 their shibboleths ; they refuse to see in our communion 
 the signs of Christ's indwelling. It requires our best 
 charity in that case to appreciate their excellencies and 
 the fruit of the Spirit manifest in them. " I am of 
 Cephas," say they ; and we answer with the challenge, 
 " I of Paul." Sectarianism is denounced in a sectarian 
 spirit. The enemies of form and ceremony make a 
 religion of their Anti-ritualism. Church controversies 
 are proverbially bitter; the love which '^hopeth and 
 believeth all things," under their influence suffers a 
 sad eclipse. On both sides let us be on our guard. 
 The spirit of partisanship is not confined to the 
 assertors of Church prerogative. An obstinate and 
 uncharitable pride has been known to spring up in the 
 breasts of the defenders of liberty, in those who deem 
 themselves the exponents of pure spiritual religion. 
 " Thus I trample on the pride of Plato," said the Cynic, 
 as he trod on the philosopher's sumptuous carpets ; and 
 Plato justly retorted, *' You do it with greater pride." 
 
 The Apostle would fain lift his readers above the 
 level of this legalist contention. He bids them dismiss 
 their profitless debates respecting the import of circum- 
 cision, the observance of Jewish feasts and sabbaths. 
 These debates were a mischief in themselves, destroying 
 the Church's peace and distracting men's minds from 
 the spiritual aims of the Gospel ; they were fatal to the 
 dignity and elevation of the Christian life. When men 
 allow themselves to be absorbed by questions of this 
 
44t THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 kind, and become Circumcisionist or Uncircumcisionist 
 partisans, eager Ritualists or Anti-ritualists, they lose 
 the sense of proportion in matters of faith and the poise 
 of a conscientious and charitable judgement. These 
 controversies pre-eminently ** minister questions" to no 
 profit but to the subverting of the hearers, instead of 
 furthering " the dispensation of God, which is in faith " 
 (l Tim. i. 4). They disturb the City of God with intes- 
 tine strife, while the enemy thunders at the gates. 
 Could we only let such disputes alone, and leave them 
 to perish by inanition I So Paul would have the 
 Galatians do ; he tells them that the great Mosaic rite 
 is no longer worth defending or attacking. The best 
 thing is to forget it. 
 
 II. What then has the Apostle to put in the place of 
 ritual, as the matter of cardinal importance and chief 
 study in the Church of Christ ? He presents to view 
 a new creation. 
 
 It is something new that he desiderates. Mosaism 
 was effete. The questions arising out of it were dying, 
 or dead. The old method of revelation which dealt 
 with Jew and Gentile as different religious species, and 
 conserved Divine truth by a process of exclusion and 
 prohibition, had served its purpose. " The middle wall 
 of partition was broken down." The age of faith 
 and freedom had come, the dispensation of grace and of 
 the Spirit. The Legalists minimised, they practically 
 ignored the significance of Calvary. Race-distinctions 
 and caste-privileges were out of keeping with such a 
 religion as Christianity. The new creed set up a new 
 order of life, which left behind it the discussions of 
 rabbinism and the formularies of the legal schools as 
 survivals of bygone centuries. 
 
 The novelty of the religion of the gospel was most 
 
ftis,i6.1 CHARACTER EVERYTHING. 443 
 
 conspicuous in the new type of character that it created. 
 The faith of the cross claims to have produced not a 
 new style of ritual, a new system of government, but 
 new men. By this product it must be judged. The 
 Christian is the ^'new creature" which it begets. 
 
 Whatever Christianity has accomplished in the outer 
 world — the various forms of worship and social life 
 m which it is embodied, the changed order of thought 
 and of civilisation which it is building up — is the 
 result of its influence over the hearts of individual men. 
 Christ, above all other teachers, addressed Himself 
 directly to the heart, whence proceed the issues of life. 
 There His gospel establishes its seat The Christian is 
 the man with a *' new heart** The prophets of the Old 
 Testament looked forward to this as the essential bless- 
 ing of religion, promised for the Messianic times (Heb. 
 viii. 8 — 13). Through them the Holy Spirit uttered 
 His protest against the mechanical legalism to which 
 the religion of the temple and the priesthood was 
 already tending. But this witness had fallen on deaf 
 ears ; and when Christ proclaimed, " It is the Spirit 
 that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing," when He 
 said, " The things that defile a man come out of his 
 heart," He preached revolutionary doctrine. It is the 
 same principle that the Apostle vindicates. The 
 religion of Christ has to do in the first place with the 
 individual man, and in man with his heart 
 
 What then, we further ask, is the character of this 
 hidden man of the heart, "created anew in Christ 
 Jesus " ? Our Epistle has given us the answer. In 
 him " faith working by love " takes the place of circum- 
 cision and uncircumcision — that is, of Jewish and 
 Gentile ceremonies and moralities, powerless alike to 
 save (ch, v. 6). Love comes forward to guarantee the 
 
444 THE EPISTLE TO THE GAlATIANS. 
 
 " fulfilling of the law," whose fulfilment legal sanctions 
 failed to secure (ch. v. 14). And the Spirit of Christ 
 assumes His sovereignty in this work of new creation; 
 calling into being His array of inward graces to 
 supersede the works of the condemned flesh that no 
 longer rules in the nature of God's redeemed sons 
 (ch. V. 16 — 24). 
 
 The Legalists, notwithstanding their idolatry of the 
 law, did not keep it. So the Apostle has said, without 
 fear of contradiction (ver. 1 3). But the men of the Spirit, 
 actuated by a power above law, in point of fact do keep 
 it, and *' law's righteousness is fulfilled " in them (Rom. 
 viii. 3, 4). This was a new thing in the earth. Never 
 had the law of God been so fulfilled, in its essentials, as 
 it was by the Church of the Crucified. Here were men 
 who truly " loved God with all their soul and strength, 
 and their neighbour as themselves." From Love the 
 highest down to Temperance the humblest, all "the 
 fruit of the Spirit " in its clustered perfection flourished 
 in their lives. Jewish discipline and Pagan culture 
 were both put to shame by this "new creation" of 
 moral virtue. These graces were produced not in 
 select instances of individuals favoured by nature, in 
 souls disposed to goodness, or after generations of 
 Christian discipline ; but in multitudes of men of every 
 grade of life — Jews and Greeks, slaves and freemen, 
 wise and unwise — in those who had been steeped in 
 infamous vices, but were now " washed, sanctified, 
 justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the 
 Spirit of our God." 
 
 Such regenerated men were the credentials of Paul's 
 gospel. As he looked on his Corinthian converts, 
 drawn out of the very sink of heathen corruption, he 
 could say, ** The seal of my apostleship are ye in the 
 
*i. IS. 16.] CHARACTER EVERYTHING. 445 
 
 Lord." The like answer Christianity has still to give 
 to its questioners. If it ever ceases to render this 
 answer, its day is over; and all the strength of its 
 historical and philosophical evidences will not avail it 
 The Gospel is " God's power unto salvation " — or it 
 is nothing t 
 
 Such is Paul's canon, as he calls it in ver. 16 — the 
 rule which applies to the faith and practice of every 
 Christian man, to the pretensions of all theological and 
 ecclesiastical systems. The true Christianity, the true 
 churchmanship, is that which turns bad men into good, 
 which transforms the slaves of sin into sons of God. 
 A true faith is a saving faith. The " new creation " is 
 the sign of the Creator's presence. It is God "who 
 quickeneth the dead" (Rom. iv. 17). 
 
 When the Apostle exalts character at the expense 
 of ceremonial, he does this in a spirit the very opposite 
 of religious indifference. His maxim is far removed 
 from that expressed in the famous couplet of Pope : 
 
 *For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; 
 His can't be wrong whose life is in the right." 
 
 The gospel of Christ is above all things a mode of 
 faith. The " new creature " is a son of God, seeking 
 to be like God. His conception of the Divine cha- 
 racter and of his own relationship thereto governs his 
 whole Ufe. His 'Mife is in the right," because his 
 heart is right with God. All attempts to divorce 
 morahty from religion, to build up society on a secular 
 and non-religious basis, are indeed foredoomed to 
 failure. The experience of mankind is against them. 
 As a nation's religion has been, so its morals. The 
 ethical standard in its rise or fall, if at some interval 
 of time, yet invariably, follows the advance or decline 
 
446 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 of spiritual faith. For practical purposes, and for 
 society at large, religion supplies the mainspring of 
 ethics. Creed is in the long run the determinant of 
 character. The question with the Apostle is not in the 
 least whether religion is vital to morals ; but whether 
 this or that formality is vital to religion. 
 
 One cannot help wondering how Paul would have 
 applied his canon to the Church questions of our own 
 day. Would he perchance have said, " Episcopacy is 
 nothing, and Presbyterianism is nothing; — but keeping 
 the commandments of God " ? Or might he have 
 interposed in another direction, to testify that '* Church 
 Establishments are nothing, and Disestablishment is 
 nothing ; charity is the one thing needful ? " Nay, 
 can we even be bold enough to imagine the Apostle 
 declaring, " Neither Baptism availeth anything, nor 
 the Lord's Supper availeth anything, — apart from the 
 faith that works by love"? His rule at any rate 
 conveys an admonition to us when we magnify ques- 
 tions of Church ordinance and push them to the front, 
 at the cost of the weightier matters of our common 
 faith. Are there not multitudes of Romanists on the 
 one hand who have, as we believe, perverted sacra- 
 ments, and Quakers on the other hand who have no 
 sacraments, but who have, nothwithstanding, a penitent, 
 humble, loving faith in Jesus Christ ? And their faith 
 saves them : who will doubt it ? Although faith must 
 ordinarily suffer, and does in our judgement manifestly 
 suffer, when deprived of these appointed and most 
 precious means of its expression and nourishment 
 But what authority have we to forbid to such believers 
 a place in the Body of Christ, in the brotherhood of 
 redeemed souls, and to refuse them the right hand of 
 
ft 15, 161) CHARACTER EVERYTHING, 447 
 
 fellowship, " who have received the Holy Ghost as 
 well as we " ? " It is the Spirit that beareth witness : ** 
 who is he that gainsayeth ? Grace is more than the 
 means of grace. 
 
 ** And as many as shall walk by this rule, peace be 
 on them and mercy, and upon the Israel of God." 
 Here is an Apostolic benediction for every loyal 
 Church. The *^ walk " that the Apostle approves is the 
 measured, even pace, the steady march * of the redeemed 
 host of Israel. On all who are thus minded, who are 
 prepared to make spiritual perfection the goal of their 
 endeavours for themselves and for the Church, Paul 
 invokes God's peace and mercy. 
 
 Peace is followed by the mercy which guards and 
 restores it. Mercy heals backslidings and multiplies 
 pardons. She loves to bind up a broken heart, or a 
 rent and distracted Church. Like the pillar of fire and 
 cloud in the wilderness, this twofold blessing rests day 
 and night upon the tents of Israel. Through all their 
 pilgrimage it attends the children of Abraham, who 
 follow in the steps of their father's faith. 
 
 With this tender supplication Paul brings his warn- 
 ings and dissuasives to an end. For the betrayers 
 of the cross he has stern indignation and alarms of 
 judgement. Towards his children in the faith nothing 
 but peace and mercy remains in his heart. As an 
 evening calm shuts in a tempestuous day, so this 
 blessing concludes the Epistle so full of strife and 
 agitation. We catch in it once more the chime of 
 the old benediction, which through all storm and peril 
 ever rings in ears attuned to its note : Peace shall be 
 upon Israel (Ps. cxxv. 5). 
 
 * 'LtqixA^ovcim : comp. cb. v. 25. 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 TEE BRAND OF /ESUS. 
 
 ** From henceforth let no man trouble me : for I bear branded on 
 my body the marks of Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be 
 with your spirit, brethren. Amen." — Gau vi 17, 18. 
 
 THE Apostle's pen lingers over the last words 
 of this Epistle. His historical self-defence, his 
 theological argument, his practical admonitions, with 
 the blended strain of expostulation and entreaty that 
 runs through the whole — now rising into an awful 
 severity, now sinking into mother-like tenderness — 
 have reached their conclusion. The stream of deep 
 and fervent thought pouring itself out in these pages 
 has spent its force. This prince of the Apostles in 
 word and doctrine has left the Church no more powerful 
 or characteristic utterance of his mind. And Paul has 
 marked the special urgency of his purpose by his closing 
 message contained in the last six verses, an Epistle 
 within the Epistle, penned in large, bold strokes from 
 his own hand, in which his very soul transcribes itself 
 before our eyes. 
 
 It only remains for him to append his signature. 
 
 We should expect him to do this in some striking and 
 
 . special way. His first sentence (ch. i. I — lO) revealed 
 
 the profound excitement of spirit under which he is 
 
 labouring; not otherwise does he conclude. Ver. 17 
 
rL 17, 18.1 THE BRAND OF JESUS. «49 
 
 sharply contrasts with the words of peace that hu-hed 
 our thoughts at the close of the last paragraph. 
 Perhaps the peace he wishes these troubled Churches 
 reminds him of his own troubles. Or is it that in 
 breathing his devout wishes for " the Israel of God," 
 he cannot but think of those who were " of Israel/' but 
 no sons of peace, in whose hearts was hatred and 
 mischief toward himself? Some such thought stirs 
 anew the grief with which he has been shaken ; and a 
 pathetic cry breaks from him like the sough of the 
 departing tempest 
 
 Yet the words have the sound of triumph more than 
 of sorrow. Paul stands a conscious victor, though 
 wounded and with scars upon him that he will carry 
 to his grave. Whether this letter will serve its imme- 
 diate purpose, whether the defection in Galatia will be 
 stayed by it, or not, the cause of the cross is sure of its 
 triumph; his contention against its enemies has not 
 been in vain. The force of inspiration that uplifted 
 him in writing the Epistle, the sense of insight and 
 authority that pervades it, are themselves an earnest o( 
 victory. The vindication of his authority in Corinth, 
 which, as we read the order of events, had very recently 
 occurred, gave token that his hold on the obedience of 
 the Gentile Churches was not likely to be destroyed, 
 and that in the conflict with legalism the gospel of 
 liberty was certain to prevail. His courage rises with 
 the danger. He writes as though he could already 
 say, *' I have fought the good fight. Thanks be to 
 God, which always leadeth us in triumph " (2 Tim. iv. 
 7; 2 Cor. ii. 14). 
 
 The warning of ver. 17 has the ring of Apostolic 
 dignity. ** From henceforth let no man give me trouble I " 
 Paul speaks of himself as a sacred person. God's mark 
 
 29 
 
450 THB MPISTLB TO THE GALATIA/TS. 
 
 IS upon him. Let men beware how they meddle with 
 him. " He that toucheth you," the Lord said to His 
 people after the sorrows of the Exile, ** toucheth the 
 apple of Mine eye " (Zech. ii. 8). The Apostle seems 
 to have had a similar feeling respecting himself. He 
 announces that whosoever from this time lays an 
 injurious hand upon him does so at his peril. Hence- 
 forth — for the struggle with Legalism was the crisis 
 of Paul's ministry. It called forth all his powers, 
 natural and supernatural, into exercise. It led him to 
 his largest thoughts respecting God and man, sin and 
 salvation ; and brought him his heaviest sorrows. The 
 conclusion of this letter signalises the culmination of 
 the Judaistic controversy, and the full establishment of 
 Paul's influence and doctrinal authority. The attempt 
 of Judaism to strangle the infant Church is foiled. In 
 return it has received at Paul's hands its death-blow. 
 The position won in this Epistle will never be lost ; 
 the doctrine of the cross, as the Apostle taught it, 
 cannot be overthrown. Looking back from this point 
 to " prove his own work," he can in all humility claim 
 this "glorying in regard to himself" (ver. 4). He stands 
 attested in the light of God's approval as a good soldier 
 of Christ Jesus. He has done the cause of truth an 
 imperishable service. He takes his place henceforth 
 in the front rank amongst the spiritual leaders 0/ 
 mankind. Who now will bring reproach against 
 him, or do dishonour to the cross which he bears? 
 Against that man God's displeasure will go forth. 
 Some such thoughts were surely present to the 
 Apostle's mind in writing these final words. They 
 cannot but occur to us in reading them. Well done, 
 we say, thou faithful servant of the Lord I 111 must 
 it ^t for ' PI who henceforth shall trouble thee 
 
fi 17, iS.] THE BRAND OF JESUS. 451 
 
 *' Troubles " indeed, and to spare, Paul had encoun- 
 tered. He has just passed through the darkest 
 experience of his life. The language of the Second 
 Epistle to Corinth is a striking commentary upon this 
 verse. " We are pressed on every side," he writes, 
 " perplexed, pursued, smitten down " (ch. iv. 8, 9). 
 His troubles came not only from his exhausting labours 
 and hazardous joume3'S ; he was everywhere pursued 
 by the fierce and deadly hatred of his fellow-country- 
 men. Even within the Church there were men who 
 made it their business to harass him and destroy his 
 work. No place was safe for him — not even the bosom 
 of the Church. On land or water, in the throngs of 
 the city or the solitudes of the desert, his life was in 
 hourly jeopardy (i Cor. xv. 30; 2 Cor. xi. 26). 
 
 Beside all this, " the care of the Churches " weighed 
 on his mind heavily. There was ** no rest " either for 
 his flesh or spirit (2 Cor. ii. 13 ; vii. 5). Recently 
 Corinth, then Galatia was in a ferment of agitation. 
 His doctrine was attacked, his authority undermined 
 by the Judaic emissaries, now in this quarter, now in 
 that. The tumult at Ephesus, so graphically described 
 by Luke, happening at the same time as the broils in 
 the Corinthian Church and working on a frame already 
 overstrung, had thrown him into a prostration of body 
 and mind so great that he says, " We despaired even 
 of life. We had the answer of death in ourselves" 
 (2 Cor. i. 8, 9). The expectation that he would die 
 before the Lord's return had now, for the first time it 
 appears, definitely forced itself on the Apostle, and cast 
 over him a new shadow, causing deep ponderings and 
 searchings of heart (2 Cor. v. i — 10). The culmination 
 of the legalistic conflict was attended with an inner crisis 
 that left its ineffaceable impression on the Apostle's souL 
 
45a THE EPISTLB TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 But he has risen from his sick bed. He has been 
 ** comforted by the coming of Titus " with better news 
 from Corinth (2 Cor. vii. 6 — 16). He has written 
 these two letters — the Second to the Corinthians, and 
 this to the Galatians. And he feels that the worst is 
 past " He who delivered him out of so great a death, 
 will yet deliver " (2 Cor. i. 10). So confident is he in 
 the authority which Christ gave and enabled him to 
 exercise in utter weakness, so signally is he now 
 stamped as God's Apostle by his sufferings and achieve- 
 ments, that he can dare any one from this time forth to 
 oppose him. The anathema of this Epistle might well 
 make his opponents tremble. Its remorseless logic left 
 their sophistries no place of refuge. Its passionate 
 entreaties broke down suspicion and sullenness. Let 
 the Circumcisionists beware how they slander him. 
 Let fickle Galatians cease to trouble him with their 
 quarrels and caprices. So well assured is he for his 
 part of the rectitude of his course and of the Divine 
 approval and protection, that he feels bound to warn 
 them that it will be the worse for those who at such a 
 time lay upon him fresh and needless burdens. 
 
 One catches in this sentence too an undertone oj 
 entreaty y a confession of weariness. Paul is tired of 
 strife. " Woe is me," he might say, " that I sojourn in 
 Meshech, that I dwell among the tents of Kedar I My 
 soul hath long had her dwelling with him that hateth 
 peace." " Enmities, ragings, factions, divisions " — with 
 what a painful emphasis he dwells in the last chapter on 
 these many forms of discord. He has known them alL 
 For months he has been battling with the hydra-headed 
 brood. He longs for an interval of rest. He seems to 
 say, " I pray you, let me be at peace. Do not vex me 
 any more with your quarrels. I have suffered enough." 
 
yi. 17, 18.] THB BRAND OF JESUS, 453 
 
 The present tense of the Greek imperative verb 
 (irapexeToa) brings it to bear on the course of things 
 then going on : as much as to say, ** Let these weapons 
 be dropped, these wars and fightings cease." For his 
 own sake the Apostle begs the Galatians to desist from 
 the folHes that caused him so much trouble, and to 
 suffer him to share with them God's benediction of 
 peace. 
 
 But what an argument is this with which Paul en- 
 forces his plea, — ''for I bear the brand of Jesus in 
 my body 1 ' 
 
 " The stigmata of Jesus " — what does he mean ? It 
 is "in my body" — some marks branded or punctured 
 on the Apostle's person, distinguishing him from other 
 men, conspicuous and humiliating, inflicted on him as 
 Christ's servant, and which so much resembled the 
 inflictions laid on the Redeemer's body that they are 
 called " the marks of Jesus." No one can say precisely 
 what these brands consisted in. But we know enough 
 of the previous sufferings of the Apostle to be satisfied 
 that he carried on his person many painful marks of 
 violence and injury. His perils endured by land and 
 sea, his imprisonments, his " labour and travail, hunger 
 and thirst, cold and nakedness," his three shipwrecks, 
 the " night and day spent in the deep," were sufficient 
 to break down the strength of the stoutest frame ; they 
 had given him the look of a worn and haggard man. 
 Add to these the stoning at Lystra, when he was 
 dragged out for dead. " Thrice " also had he been 
 beaten with the Roman rods ; " five times " with the 
 thirty-nine stripes of the Jewish scourge (2 Cor. xi. 
 23—27). 
 
 Is it to these last afflictions, cruel and shameful as 
 they were in the extreme, that the Apostle specially 
 
4S4 TBS EPISTLE TO THE GALATIAtfS. 
 
 refers as constituting '* the brand of Jesus " ? For Jesus 
 was scourged. The allusion of I Pet. il 24 — " by 
 whose stripes (literally, bruise or weal) ye were healed " 
 — shows how vividly this circumstance was remembered, 
 and how strongly it affected Christian minds. With 
 this indignity upon Him — His body lashed with the 
 torturing whip, scored with livid bruises — our Blessed 
 Lord was exposed on the cross. So He was branded 
 as a malefactor, even before His crucifixion. And the 
 same brand Paul had received, not once but many 
 times, for his Master's sake. As the strokes of the 
 scourge fell on the Apostle's shuddering flesh, he had 
 been consoled by thinking how near he was brought to 
 his Saviour's passion : " The servant," He had said, 
 " shall be as his Lord." Possibly some recent inflic- 
 tion of the kind, more savage than the rest, had helped 
 to bring on the malady which proved so nearly fatal to 
 him. In some way he had been marked with fresh 
 and manifest tokens of bodily suffering in the cause 
 of Christ. About this time he writes of himself as 
 "always bearing about in his body the dying of the 
 Lord Jesus" (2 Cor. iv. 10); for the corpse-like state 
 of the Apostle, with the signs of maltreatment visible in 
 his frame, pathetically imaged the suffering Redeemer 
 whom he preached. Could the Galatians have seen 
 him as he wrote, in physical distress, labouring under 
 the burden of renewed and aggravated troubles, their 
 hearts must have been touched with pity. It would 
 have grieved them to think that they had increased his 
 afflictions, and were " persecuting him whom the Lord 
 had smitten." 
 
 His scars were badges of dishonour to worldly eyea 
 But to Paul himself these tokens were very precious. 
 "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you," he writes 
 
fl.17, 18.] THE BRAND OF JESUS, 455 
 
 from his Roman prison at a later time : " and am filling 
 up what is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my 
 flesh " (Col. i. 24). The Lord had not suffered every- 
 thing Himself. He honoured His servants by leaving 
 behind a measure of His afflictions for each to endure 
 in the Church's behalf. The Apostle was companion 
 of his Master's disgrace. In him the words of Jesus 
 were signally fulfilled : " They have hated Me ; they 
 will also hate you." He was following, closely as he 
 might, in the way that led to Calvary. All men may 
 know that Paul is Christ's servant ; for he wears His 
 livery, the world's contempt Of Jesus they said, 
 " Away with Him, crucify Him ; " and of Paul, " Away 
 with such a fellow from the earth : for it is not fit that 
 he should live " (Acts xxii. 22). " Enough for the 
 disciple to be as his Master:" what could he wish 
 more ? 
 
 His condition inspired reverence in all who loved and 
 honoured Jesus Christ. Paul's Christian brethren were 
 moved by feelings of the tenderest respect by the sight 
 of his wasted and crippled form. ''His bodily presence 
 is weak (2 Cor. x. 10) : he looks like a corpse ! " said 
 his despisers. But under that physical feebleness there 
 lay an immense fund of moral vigour. How should he 
 not be weak, after so many years of wearying toil and 
 relentless persecution and torturing pain ? Out of this 
 very weakness came a new and unmatched strength ; he 
 " glories in his infirmities," for there rests upon him the 
 strength of Christ (2 Cor. xii. 9). 
 
 Under the expression " stigmata of Jesus " there is 
 couched a reference to the practice of marking criminals 
 and runaway slaves with a brand burnt into the flesh, 
 which is perpetuated in our English use of the Greek 
 words stigma and siigmatizt. A man so marked was 
 
456 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 
 
 called sttgmattaSy i>., a branded scoundrel ; and such 
 the Apostle felt himself to be in the eyes of men of the 
 world. Captain Lysias of Jerusalem took him for an 
 Egyptian leader of banditti. Honourable men, when 
 they knew him better, learned to respect him ; but 
 such was the reputation that his battered appearance, 
 and the report of his enemies, at first sight gained 
 for him. 
 
 The term stigmata had also another and different 
 signification. It applied to a well-known custom of 
 religious devotees to puncture^ or tattoo, upon them- 
 selves the name of their God, or other sign expressive 
 of their devotion (Isa. xliv. 5 ; Rev. iii. 12). This 
 signification may be very naturally combined with 
 the former in the employment of the figure. Paul's 
 stigmata, resembling those of Jesus and being of the 
 same order, were signs at once of reproach and of con- 
 secration. The prints of the world's insolence were 
 witnesses of his devotion to Christ. He loves to call 
 himself *' the slave of Christ Jesus." The scourge has 
 written on his back his Master's name. Those dumb 
 wounds proclaim him the bondman of the Crucified. 
 At the lowest point of personal and official humiliation, 
 when affronts were heaped upon him, he felt that he 
 was raised in the might of the Spirit to the loftiest 
 dignity, even as *' Christ was crucified through weak- 
 ness, yet liveth through the power of God" (2 
 Cor. xiii. 4.) 
 
 The words / bear — not united, as in our own idiom, 
 but standing the pronoun at the head and the verb at 
 the foot of the sentence — have each of them a special 
 emphasis. / — in contrast with his opponents, man- 
 pleasers, shunning Christ's reproach ; and bear he says 
 exultantly — "this is my burden, these are the marks 
 
?i. 17, 18.1 THE BRAND OF JESUS. 457 
 
 I carry," like the standard-bearer of an army who 
 proudly wears his scars (Chrysostom). In the pro- 
 found and sacred joy which the Apostle's tribulations 
 brought him, we cannot but feel even at this distance 
 that we possess a share. They belong to that richest 
 treasure of the past, the sum of 
 
 " Sorrow which is not sorrow, but delight 
 To hear of, for the glory that redounds 
 Therefrom to human kind and what we are." 
 
 The stigmatization of Paul, his puncturing with the 
 wounds of Jesus, has been revived in later times in a 
 manner far remote from anything that he imagined or 
 would have desired. Francis of Assist in the year 
 1224 A.D. received in a trance the wound-prints of the 
 Saviour on his body ; and from that time to his death, 
 it is reported, the saint had the physical appearance 
 of one who had suffered crucifixion. Other instances, 
 to the number of eighty, have been recorded in the 
 Roman Catholic Church of the reproduction, in more 
 or less complete form, of the five wounds of Jesus and 
 the agonies of the cross ; chiefly in the case of nuns. 
 The last was that of Louise Lateau, who died in 
 Belgium in the year 1883. That such phenomena 
 have occurred, there is no sufficient reason to doubt. 
 It is difficult to assign any limits to the power of the 
 human mind over the body in the way of sympathetic 
 imitation. Since St. Francis' day many Romanist 
 divines have read the Apostle's language in this sense ; 
 but the interpretation has followed rather than given 
 rise to this fulfilment. In whatever light these mani- 
 festations may be regarded, they are a striking witness 
 to the power of the cross over human nature. Pro- 
 Uracted meditation on the sufferings of our Lord, aided 
 
458 THB BPISTLE TO THE GALATIAITS, 
 
 by a lively imagination and a susceptible physique, has 
 actually produced a rehearsal of the bodily pangs and 
 the wound-marks of Calvary. 
 
 This mode of knowing Christ's sufferings " after the 
 flesh/' morbid and monstrous as we deem it to be, is 
 the result of an aspiration which however misdirected 
 by Catholic asceticism, is yet the highest that belongs 
 to the Christian life. Surely we also desire, with Paul, 
 to be " made conformable to the death of Christ." On 
 our hearts His wounds must be impressed. Along the 
 pathway of our life His cross has to be borne. To all 
 His disciples, with the sons of Zebedee, He says, " Ye 
 shall indeed drink of My cup ; and with the baptism 
 that I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized." But 
 *' it is the Spirit that quickeneth," said Jesus ; " the 
 flesh profiteth nothing." The pains endured by the 
 body for His sake are only of value when, as in Paul's 
 case, they are the result and the witness of an inward 
 communion of the Spirit, a union of the will and the 
 inteUigence with Christ. 
 
 The cup that He would have us drink with Him, is 
 one of sorrow for the sins of men. His baptism is that 
 of pity for the misery of our fellows, of yearning over 
 souls that perish. It will not come upon us without 
 costing many a pang. If we receive it there will be 
 ease to surrender, gain and credit to renounce, self to 
 be constantly sacrificed. We need not go out of our 
 way to find our cross ; we have only not to be blind 
 to it, not to evade it when Christ sets it before us. It 
 may be part of the cross that it comes in a common, 
 unheroic form ; the service required is obscure ; it 
 consists of a multitude of little, vexing, drudging sacri- 
 fices in place of the grand and impressive sacrifice, 
 which we should be proud to make. To be martyred 
 
fi. 17, 18.) THB BRAND OF JRSUS, 459 
 
 by inches, out of sight — this to many is the cruellest 
 martyrdom of all. But it may be Christ's way, the 
 fittest, the only perfect way for us, of putting His 
 brand upon us and conforming us to His death. 
 
 Yes, conformity of spirit to the cross is the mark of 
 Jesus, " If we suflfer with Him " — so the Apostolic 
 Churches used to sing — "we shall also be glorified 
 together." In our recoil from the artificial penances 
 and mortifications of former ages, we are disposed in 
 these days to banish the idea of mortification altogether 
 from our Christian life. Do we not study our personal 
 comfort in an un-Christlike fashion ? Are there not 
 many in these days, bearing the name of Christ, who 
 without shame and without reproof lay out their plans 
 for winning the utmost of selfish prosperity, and put 
 Christian objects in the second place ? How vain 
 for them to cry " Lord, Lord ! " to the Christ who 
 " pleased not Himself 1 " They profess at the Lord's 
 Table to " show His death ; " but to show that death 
 in their lives, to "know" with Paul "the fellowship 
 of His sufferings," is the last thing that enters into 
 their minds. How the scars of the brave Apostle put 
 to shame the self-indulgence, the heartless luxury, the 
 easy friendship with the world, of fashionable Christ- 
 ians ! " Be ye followers of me," he cries, " as I also 
 of Christ." He who shuns that path cannot, Jesus 
 said, be My disciple. 
 
 So the blessed Apostle has put his mark to this 
 Epistle. To the Colossians from his prison he writes, 
 " Remember my bonds." And to the Galatians, 
 " Look on my wounds." These are his credentials j 
 these are the armorial bearings of the Apostle Paul. 
 He places the seal of Jesus, the sign-manual of thi 
 wounded fuxnd upon the letter written in His name. 
 
46o THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 
 
 THE BENEDICTION. 
 
 One benediction the Apostle has already uttered, in 
 ver. 1 6. But that was a general wish, embracing all 
 who should walk according to the spiritual rule of 
 Christ's kingdom. On his readers specifically he still 
 has his blessing to pronounce. He does it in language 
 differing in this instance very little from that he is 
 accustomed to employ. 
 
 "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ" is the dis- 
 tinctive blessing of the New Covenant. It is to the 
 Christian the supreme good of life, including or carry- 
 ing with it every other spiritual gift. Grace is Christ's 
 property. It descended with the Incarnate Saviour 
 into the world, coming down from God out of heaven. 
 His life displayed it ; His death bestowed it on man- 
 kind. Raised to His heavenly throne, He has become 
 on the Father's behalf the dispenser of its fulness to 
 all who will receive it. There exalted, thence bestow- 
 ing on men " the abundance of grace and of the gift of 
 righteousness," He is known and worshipped as our 
 Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 What this grace of God in Christ designs, what it 
 accomplishes in believing hearts, what are the things 
 that contradict it and make it void, this Epistle has 
 largely taught us. Of its pure, life-giving stream the 
 Galatians already had richly tasted. From ''Christ's 
 grace " they were now tempted to " remove " (ch. i. 6). 
 But the Apostle hopes and prays that it may abide 
 with them. 
 
 "With your spirit," he says; for this is the place 
 of its visitation, the throne of its power. The spirit 
 of man, breathed upon by the Holy Spu-it of God, 
 
Wi. 17, 18. J THB BENEDICTION, ^\ 
 
 receives Christ's grace and becomes the subject and the 
 witness of its regenerating virtue. This benediction 
 contains therefore in brief all that is set forth in the 
 familiar three-fold formula — *'the grace of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion 
 cf the Holy Ghost." 
 
 After all his fears for his wayward flock, all his 
 chidings and reproofs, forgiveness and confidence are 
 the last thoughts in Paul's heart : *' Brethren " is the 
 last word that drops from the Apostle's pen, — followed 
 only by the confirmation of his devout Amen, 
 
 To his readers also the writer of this book takes 
 leave to address the Apostle Paul's fraternal benedic- 
 tion : The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with 
 
 YOUR SPIRIT, brethren. AmEN. 
 
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BS2685 .F494 
 
 The epistle to the Galatians. 
 
 Princeton Theological Semmary-Speer Library 
 
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