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THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. By Rev. Alexander Plummer,
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THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. By Rev. Prof. G. G.
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THE EPISTLES OP ST. JOHN. By Rt. Rev. W. Alexander,
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THE
EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.

BY THE REV. PROFESSOR
G. G. FINDLAY, B.A.f
144
Headingley College, Leeds.

NEW YORK:
A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON,
714, BROADWAY,

CONTENTS.

THE PROLOGUE.
Chapter i. I — 10.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
THE ADDRESS «---•-. --3
CHAPTER IL
1HE SALUTATION - - - • - 19
CHAPTER III.
1HE ANATHEMA -»-.-«.. ,..34
THE PERSONAL HISTORY.
Chapter i. n — 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 a • " - 83

CHAPTER VIL
PAUL AND THE FALSE BRETHREN - » s> . 98
CHAPTER VIII.
PAUL AND THE THREE PILLARS - - «= *. - - H3
CHAPTER IX.
PAUL AND PETER AT ANTI0CH - • ¦- - «, - 1 29
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 - - l8o
CHAPTER XIII.
THE COVENANT OF PROMISE - » » «¦ « -1 96
CHAPTER XIV.
THE DESIGN OF THE LAW - - - - - - -211

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XV. PAGE
THE EMANCIPATED SONS OF GOD - • . a . 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.
THK HINDERERS AND TROUBLERS - - - . . 316
THE ETHICAL APPLICATION.
Chapter v. 13 — vi. IO.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE PERILS OF LIBERTY - - . . . - 333
CHAPTER XXI IL
CHRIST'S SPIRIT AND HUMAN FLESH - 347

vni CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XXIV. PAGE
THE WORKS OF THE FLESH ...... 361
CHAPTER XXV.
THE 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 — 18.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE FALSE AND THE TRUE GLORYING «¦ .. - - 421
CHAPTER XXIX.
RITUAL NOTHING: CHARACTER EVERYTHING » 435
CHAPTER XXX.
THE BRAND OF JESUS ----... aa%

THE PROLOGUE.
Chapter i. I — 10.

CHAPTER I.
THE ADDRESS.
" Paul, 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 exceptions, that
of the Revised English Version, or its margin.

4 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
Christ 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
ment 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, widely 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 conditions of the time have

i. 1, 2.] 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 Paulinissima 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 us

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. 16). 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

i. I, 2.] THE 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 world. " 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 life 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 evangelical
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

8 THE EPISTLE 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 Pauline
dialectic are nowhere more conspicuous than in the
discussion with Peter in ch. ii. The discourse on
Promise and Law in ch. iii. is a master-piece of
exposition, unsurpassed in its keenness of insight,
breadth of view, and skill of application. Such passages
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. i.
6 — 10; ii. 4, 5 ; iv. 9 ; v. 7— -12 ; vi. 12 — 14, burn

i. 1, 2.] THE ADDRESS.

with a concentrated intensity of passion, a sublime and
holy scorn against the enemies of the cross, such as
a nature like 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. 1 1 — 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

io THE 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 effect of
their following the Pauline 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

i. 1,2.] THE ADDRESS.

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 we 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. i. II — ii. 21 ; (2) Doctrinal
Polemic, ch. iii. I — v. 12; (3) Ethical Application, ch.
v. 13 — vi. 10.
The epistolary Introduction forms the Prologue, ch.
i. 1 — 10 ; and an Epilogue is appended, by way of
renewed warning and protestation, followed by the
concluding signature and benediction, — ch. vi. 11 — 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 Pauls 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 " shows
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) ; 1 Thess. ii. 6
{Paul and his comrades) ; Rom. xvi. 7 {Andronicus and Juntas) ;
2 Cor. viii. 23 ( Titus and others, " apostles of the churches ") ; 2 Cor.
xi. 13 ("false apostles" : fudeatt emissaries'); also Rev. ii. 2; Heb.
iii. 1 ; John xiii. 16. On the N.T. use of apostle, see Lightfoot's
Galatians, pp. 92 — 101 ; but especially Huxtable's Dissertation in the
Pulpit Commentary (Galatians), pp. xxiii. — 1., the most satisfactory
elucidation of the subject we have met with. Prebendary Huxtable
however presses his argument too far, when he insists that St. Paul
held his higher commission entirely in abeyance until the crisis of the
Judaic controversy.

i. 1, 2.J THE ADDRESS. 13
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. ii. 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 " (1 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. 1 1).
" 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 of
Christian ministers : first, those sent neither from men
nor through man, like 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

14 THE 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?" (i 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 qualities 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 for
several years carried on by human hands, He appeared
once more on earth for the purpose of making this man
• I Cor xv. 10 ; 2 Cor. iv. 2 ; vi. 3 — 10 ; xi. $, 16 — xii. 13.

1,2.] THE ADDRESS.

'5

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 linked 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
time. 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
some bearing on the date of the letter. Bishop

16 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
Lightfoot (in his Commentary) shows reason for
believing that it was written, not from Ephesus as
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 nationality.
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

i. i. 2.] THE ADDRESS. i")
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 Government 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 them by
name (2 Tim. iii. ll); 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 xvi. 6;
xviii. 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,

i8 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 city 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 II.
THE SALUTATION.
" Grace to you and peace from God the Father, and our Lord Jesus
Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us out of
this present evil world, according to the will of our God and Father :
to 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
you, jeulpeiv changing to the kindred ^a/at?; 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;

20 The epistle to the galatians.
peace, 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. Grace 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 ! 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 is
confessed, till you submit to the Almighty and your
spirit bows at the Redeemer's cross, what hast thou

i. 3-5-3 THE SALUTATION. 21
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 why many a man is
old before his time ! 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
born, 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, who
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
grace 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-

THE 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 ! " 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 gift in its greatness, let us go a little
farther back; let us consider who the Christ is that

i. 3-5.] THE SALUTATION. 23
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 "the
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 life 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. Earlier
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 ! "
Giving us Him, surely He will give us grace and
peace.

24 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
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 Judaiziilg 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 strug
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

i. 3-S-] THE SALUTATION. 25
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 "
(1 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! 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 ! "
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 life was
shattered to its foundation. If it was to be saved, if
the race was to escape perdition, the fabric must be

i. 3-S-] THE SALUTATION. 27
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 must 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."

28 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.

i-3-5-] THE SALUTATION. 29
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 ! 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 infinite 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
should 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

30 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
enough, broken enough, bankrupt enough to stoop to
a Saviour " who gave Himself for our sins."
II. Sinful men have made an evil world. 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 "the coming age,"
in their view, commences with the Parousia, 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," f to which it appertains in its outward and
material relations ; % but under the perishing form 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. iv. 18 ; Heb. x. 12, 13 ; I Pet. v. 10.
f I Cor. x. 1 1 ; Heb. ix. 26.
J I Cor. vii. 31 ; 1 John ii. 17.
§ Rom. viii. 18 ; Eph. i. 13, 14.
|| I Cor. iv. 9—13 ; xv. 30, 32 ; 2 Cor. vi. 4, 10; xi. 16, 33.

¦ 3-S-] THE SALUTATION. 31

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 martyrs 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 limited 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 likely to remain in many
tempting and perilous forms until the world is burnt to

32 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 life 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 life 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 ri£ht-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 life immortal.
We shall attain our perfect consummation and bliss
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 lifted clean out for it of ever. " Father, I
will/' 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 out of this present evil world." This was

i. 3-5.] THE 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 III.
THE ANATHEMA.
" I marvel that ye are so quickly removing from him that called you
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. i. 6 — 10.
AFTER the Salutation in Paul's Epistles comes the
Thanksgiving. JEv%aptorw or EvKoyrjTos — 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
him be Anathema."

i. 6-io.] THE ANATHEMA. 35
These words were well calculated to startle the
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 called "
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

36 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. iv. 3, 4 ; 2 Cor. v. 9 — 12 ; xii. 19.
f 2 Cor. i. 8 — 10; ii. 12, 13 ; iv. 8 — 11 ; vii. 5 — 7.

i. 6-io.] 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
established 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. — aXKo) of vv. 6 and 7,
and the connection of the idiomatic " only " (et pJ\,
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 !
there is only one ; although there are men that falsify
it, and seek to foist something else upon you in its
name." Seven times in this context (vv. 6 — 11) does
the Apostle reiterate, in noun or verb, this precious

38 THE EPISTLE 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. 12; iv. 9, 10.)
I. In Paul's view, there is but one gospel for man
kind. The gospel of Jesus Christ bears a fixed, inviolable
character. 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 own 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 (1 Cor. iii. 5 — 11). 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-

i. 6-10.1 THE 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
age. 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. Tantum Religio potuit 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
blase 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, listless,
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 every
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

i.6-io. THE ANATHEMA. 41
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 Lest. Let us transport ourselves
into the fellowship of His first disciples ; and listen to
His gospel as it came fresh from the lips 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 life (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. 15).
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

42 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
apostasy. "Ye are deserting (like runaway soldiers),
turning renegades from Gcd : " 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. 21 — 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

i. 6-10.] THE ANATHEMA. 43
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 little 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.
II. 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 him
be anathema."
These are tremendous words. Commentators have
been shocked at the Apostle's damning his opponents
after 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 ecclesiastical

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
1 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

i.6-io.] THE ANATHEMA. 45
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 nssociated
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
* 2 Cor. *.. I— n ; xiii. I — 10 ; 1 Cor. iv 18—21.

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 he
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 anathemas.
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

i. 6-io.] THE ANATHEMA. 47
specimen : " If any one shall 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 vi., Can. xu. t Session xxii, Can. vi.

48 THE EPISTLE 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, peddling
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 anathema
the false minister, " who serves not the Lord Christ,
but his own belly."
But does 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

1.6-10.] THE 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 1 " 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 viii. 20 — 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. n — ii. 21.

CHAPTER IV.
PAUL'S GOSPEL REVEALED BY CHRIST.
"For I make known to you, brethren, as touching the gospel
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 countrymen,
being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers."
— Gal. i. ii — 14.
HERE the Epistle begins in its main purport.
What has gone before is so much exordium. The
sharp, stern sentences of vv. 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 God.

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 foimer 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
l he 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, one of the
most perfect self-portraitures that literature contains.
ihey 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

i. II-I4-] PAUL'S 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. n — 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 supernaturally conveyed to him,
by a personal intervention of Jesus Christ. This

56 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" (vv. 10, ll). 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

* Covnp. Rom. ix. 22 ; 1 Cor. xii. 3 ; xv. I ; 2 Cor. viii. I,

i. 11-14.] PAUL'S GOSPEL REVEALED 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 favour 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. 1 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
* See ch. ii. 6 — 14 ; 1 Cor. i. 12 ; iii. 22 ; iv. 9 ; ix. I — 5 ; xv. 8 — 10.
-j- This genitive is, however, open to the other construction, which
is unquestionable in 1 Cor. i. 7 ; 2 Thess. i. 7 ; also 1 Pet. i. 7, 13.
Rev. i. I furnishes a prominent example of the subjective gen'five.

58 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.

gospel is the object revealed; and Jesus Christ, 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 light 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 !
* Acts ix. I — 19 ; xxii. 5— 16 ; xxvi. 12 — 18.

H-I4-] PAUL'S 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
oast 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 dying for our
sins, Jesus Christ living to save and to rule — behold
" the good news " ! 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 Pauline 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 law, 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,

60 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 life 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 facit theologum. And this personal knowledge

i. n-14.] PAUL'S GOSPEL REVEALED BY CHRIST. 61
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), while 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 life aforetime,
when I followed Judaism."
Here ends the chain offors 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
* 'Eir upavela, a supernatural appearance, such as that of the Second
Advent. f $wrtfw, comp. 2 Cor. iv. 6.

62 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.! 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. v. II ; comp. I Cor. ix. 20; Acts xvi. 3 ; xxi. 20 — 26 ; xxiii. 6.
\ Acts vii. 58 ; viii. I — 3 ; ix. I.

i. 11-14.] PAUL'S GOSPEL REVEALED BY CHRIST. 63
he 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
offering 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 little 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, 5), 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 the
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
revelation of Christ which he received at the Damascus

64 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
between his Christian and pre-Christian life had only
teen 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 }'Oung 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 ! How his haughty spirit
chafed and tortured itself under the growing con
sciousness of its moral impotence ! The Law had
been truly his 7701^70)76? (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 — a
long and lonely journey — in a state of increasing dis-

i. 1I-I4-] PAUL'S 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 ! 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,"* what 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
* Les ApStres, p. 180, note I.

66 THE EPISTLE 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 lie 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 1 Cor. xii. and xiv., is a
model of shrewdness and good sense. He had ex
perience of trances and ecstatic visions ; and he knew,
perhaps as well as M. Renan, how to distinguish them

i. 11-14.] PAULS GOSPEL REVEALED BY CHRIST. 67
from bbjective 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. xiv. 18 ; 2 Cor. xii. 1 — 6 ; Acts xvi. 9 ; xviii. 8, 9 ; xxii. 17, iS

CHAPTER V.
PAUL'S DIVINE COMMISSION.
"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 ! 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

i- IS-»7-] PAUL'S 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 Jesus 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

70 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
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
inspiring breath of the new life of humanity issuing

i. 15-17.] PAUL'S 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

72 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."
II. 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

i.15-17-] PAULS DIVINE COMMISSION. 73
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 GALATIANS.
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. ii. ii). "Faith
ful is the saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that
Christ Jesus came into 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 different
a future was being prepared for him ! 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

i. 15-17.] PAUL'S DIVINE 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 I
knew thee ; and before thou earnest out of the womb
I sanctified thee. I appointed thee a prophet unto the
nations " (Jer. i. 5). Or like the Servant of the Lord
in Isaiah he might say, "The Lord hath called me

76 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" (1 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 "

i. 15-17.] PAULS DIVINE COMMISSION. 77
(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 ! "
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

78 THE 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 went 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 before me" 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-quarters 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

i. 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,f with a prolonged
* iifilpai iKavai, a considerable, time. The expression is indefinite.
f Ver. 18: that is, parts of "three years," according to ancient
reckoning — say from 36 to 38 a.d., possibly less than two in actual
duration.

8o 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. 2 1 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.] PAUL'S DIVINE COMMISSION. Si
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 of 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 believing that he was a disciple ! "
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

82 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
no public report had as yet reached Judasa of Saul's
return to that city and his renewed ministry there.
Barnabas now 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 him
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 his
bold confession in Damascus, won for Paul the place
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
Pants connection with the Church at Jerusalem and
its Apostles. Paul is maintaining his independence of
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 CHURCH.
"The nafter three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit 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 Judsea 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. 18—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. 1 — 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
Judeea 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 Lord
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 " of
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
hinderers 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 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 85
" 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
of 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; iii. 1 — 3. See the remarks on the word Apostle in
Chapter I. p. 12.

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 "to question
Cephas," as some render IcrTopfjaai, 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 listener 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 (1 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
sage 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 impor
tant a person, that if Paul had omitted the name of
James 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 so
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 (vv. 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 I
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. 1 1 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 1 "
But now we are confronted with the narrative of
the Acts (chap. ix. 26 — 30), which renders a very
different account of this passage in the Apostle's life.
* See Rom. ix. I ; 2 Coi. i. 17, 18, 23 ; 1 Thess. ii. 5.

i. 1824.] PAUL AND THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 89
(To vv. 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 Csesarea 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 (Acts xxii.

90 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
17 — 22). And they would not suffer him now to be
silent. He hoped that his testimony to Christ, delivered
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 not
take many words from Saul's lips to awaken against
him the same fury that hurried Stephen to his death.
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 his
kindred, that there needed a special command from
heaven (Acts xxii. 21), joined to the friendly compulsion
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
unto 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,
and afforded the best starting-paint 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
Antioch, the Syrian capital, Christianity was already
planted (Acts xi. 19 — 21). The close connection of the
Churches 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 xviii. 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
Antioch (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

92 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
higher authority, as yet held in reserve. He accom
panied Barnabas to Jerusalem in 44 (or 45) a.d., with
the contribution made by the Syrian Church for the
relief of the famine-stricken Judean brethren — a visit
which Paul seems here to forget.* But the Church at
Jerusalem was at that time undergoing a severe per
secution ; its leaders were either in prison or in flight.
The two delegates can have done little more than
convey the moneys entrusted to them, and that with
the utmost 'secrecy. Possibly Paul on this occasion
never set foot inside the city. In any case, the event
had no bearing on the Apostle's present contention.
Between this journey and the really important visit
to Jerusalem introduced in chap. ii. 1, Barnabas and
Paul undertook, at the prompting of the Holy Spirit
expressed through the Church of Antioch (Acts xiii.
1 — 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 Judasa."
* Acts xi. 27—30. It is significant that this ministration was sent
" to the Elders.''

i. 1S-24.] PAUL AND THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 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 Christians 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. 11 — 21).
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 xxvi. 20 there were other, later
opportunities, especially in the journey described in Acts xv. 3; see
also Acts xxi. 15, 16.

94 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
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 Tim. i. ll).
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 Gcd " (ver. 1 3). To
the end of his life this thought gave a poignancy to
the Apostle's recollection of his early days. To
" the Churches of Judasa " * he attaches the epithet in
Christ, a phrase of peculiar depth of meaning with
Paul, which he could never have conferred as matter
of formal courtesy, nor by way of mere distinction
between the Church and the Synagogue. From

Ver. 22. It is arbitrary in Meyer to exclude from this category
the Church of Jerusalem.

i. 18-24.] PAUL 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. II — 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 Epistle 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. 11-13), 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 1 Cor.
xv. IO. The suggestion that the repeated oi Sokovpt6<;
* We follow Lightfoot in reading the wori as in ch. i. 23, and
everywhere else in Paul, as a particle of time.

i. 18-24.] PAUL AND THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 97
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.
They 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 Jerusalem
with Barnabas, taking Titus also with me. And I went up by revela
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. But it
was*} 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 con
tinue with you." — Gal. ii. I — 5.
" T^OURTEEN years" had elapsed since Paul left
A 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 ti ace 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
a paper on Paul and I itus at Jerusalem, in The Expositor, 3rd series,
vol. vi., pp. 435 — 442. The last three words within the brackets agree
with the R.V. margin.
\ These fourteen years probably amounted to something less in our
reckoning, — say, from 38 to 51 a.d. Sume six years elapsed before
Paul was summoned to Antioch.

ii. I-5-] PAUL AND THE EALSE 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 — 11), 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 publicly embraced as their
equal.

too 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. 1).
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 xiii. 2, 7, 13, 43, 45, 46, 50 ; xiv. 12, 14 ; xv. 2, 12

ii. I-5-] PAUL AND THE FALSE BRETHREN. 101
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,f they " admirably supplement each
other. The agreement as to the chief points is in
* Comp. Rom. xi. 13 ; xv. 16, 17.
t Hibbert Lectures, p. 103. This testimony is the more valuable as
coming from the ablest living exponent of the Baurian theory.

102 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 lies, 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 unknown 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 (vv. 9, 10), are in
agreement with the earlier visit of charity mentioned
by Luke.
I. The emphasis of ver. 1 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 (ical) 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

ii. 1-5.] PAUL AND THE FALSE BRETHREN. 103
(aw-) 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 ! 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

104 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
 1
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 oivn 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,

ii. 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 ot Bokovvt€<}, 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
protege' 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 Cassarea; and another thing to see Titus standing
amongst them in his heathen uncleanness, on the

106 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 ! 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 official form.
f For this use of atX obSi compare Acts xix. 2 (here also after a ques
tion) ; I Cor. iii. 2 ; iv. 3. We observe a similar instance of the phrase in
jEschylus, Persee, 1. 792. 'AM opposes itself to the expectation of the
Judaistic " compellers," present to the mind of Paul and his readers.

ii. 1-5.] 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' circumcision
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. 2b, 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

108 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 ? — 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 But* from the issue of
Paul's second critical visit to Jerusalem (vv. 1 — 3) to
* This particle is a serious obstacle in the way of the ordinary
punctuation, which attaches the following clause to ver. 3. The Si is
similar to that of ver. 6 (aVi Si t. Sokovvtuv) ; not of Kaf ISiav Si in ver.

K. 1-5.] 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 aforesaid."
To know what Paul means by " false brethren," we
must turn to ch. i. 6 — 9, iii. 1, iv. 17, v. 7 — 12, vi. 12 — 14,
in this Epistle ; and again to 2 Cor. ii. 17 — iii. 1, 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
2, nor of davarov Si arabpov (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 ? This
is the assumption implied by the above construction.

no 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 was the serious thing.
They are the "certain who came down from Judasa,
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."

ii. 1-5.] PAUL AND THE FALSE BRETHREN.

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
tion 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, public 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

1 12 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 you.

CHAPTER VIII.
PAUL AND THE THREE PILLARS.
" But from those who were reputed to be somewhat (what they once
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, when they saw that I had been intrusted with the gospel of the
uncircumcision, even as Peter with the 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 unto the
circumcision ; only they would that we should remember the poor;
which very thing I was also zealous to do." — Gal. ii. 6 — 10.
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 vv. 2, 3, is involved and disputable. We
construe its clauses in the following way : — (1) Ver. 6
begins with a But, contrasting " those of repute " with
the "false brethren" dealt with in the last sentence.
It contains another anacoluthon (or incoherence of lan-
8

ii4 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 form : " For to me those of
repute imparted nothing." Here the me receives a
greater emphasis ; and for takes the place of but. The
fact that the first Apostles 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 irori comp. ch. i. 13, 23 ; and see Lightfoot,
or Beet, in loc.
f Comp. Rom. ii. 11 ; I Cor. i. 27 — 31 ; xv. 9, 10 ; Eph. vi. 9;
Col. iii. 25.

ii. 6-10.] 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 first 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

Ii6 THE 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. 16, 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 irpotrtxvidevTo here by the iveBi/x-qv of ver. 2,
as though Paul wished to say, "I imparted to them my gospel ; they
imparted to me nothing further." For wpos- implies direction, rather
than addition. See Meyer on this verb in ch. i. 16.

ii. 6-io.J 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 who 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

118 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 "
(i Cor. xv. ll). 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

ii. 6-10.] 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 humility
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
(1 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 wanting here.
For when he says, " God regards not mans 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 them
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. His
appeal was to " the spiritual, who judge all things."
So we come back to the declaration of the Apostle

120 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
in ch. i. 1 1 : "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 Jeru
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

ii. 6-10.] 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 " followeth 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 Apostolic office.t 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 me" 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. i. 18. See Chapter V., p. 87.
j- See Rom. i. 5; I Cor. xv. 10; Eph. iii. 2, 7, 8; 1 Tim. i. 13.

122 THE EPISTLE 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. 1 ; xii. 1 — $, 11).
The Church at Jerusalem, as we gather from vv.
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 Evangelien d. Paulus und d. Petrus, p. 273. Holsten is the
keenest and most logical of all the Baurian succession

ii. 6-io.] PAUL AND THE THREE PILLARS. 123
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 Gentile
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 work.
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, i. 12; iii. 22; ix. 5.

124 THE 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 wider
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,
when 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 ! Baur, with
characteristic finesse, says on the same point : " The
* The Acts of the Apostles critically investigated, vol. ii., pp. 28, 30 ;
Eng. Trans,

ii. 6-10.] PAUL AND THE THREE PILLARS. 125
KouHovla was always a division; it could only be
brought into effect by one party going efo ra Wvr], the
other eh rrjv ireptTop,riv. 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 Tubingen critics, we witness in
ver. 9 not a union, but a divorce ! 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
* Paulus, vol. i., p. 130 : Eng. Trans.

126 THE EPISTLE 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 ! Such writers know nothing of the power of
that fellowship of the Spirit which reigned in the
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
(1 Cor. xvi. 1). 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).
James, Peter, John, and Paul- — it was a memorable
day when these four men met face to face. What a
mighty quaternion ! 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 is the

ii.6-io.] PAUL AND THE THREE PILLARS. 127

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 New
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,

i;8 THE EPISTLE TO THE 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 ANTIOCH.
" But when Cephas came to Antioch, I resisted him to the face,
because he stood condemned. For before that certain came from
James, 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 thou
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
shall no flesh be justified. But if, while we so'jht to be justified in
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. n — 18.
THE conference at Jerusalem issued in the formal
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 Jerusalern, taking Titus with him.
9

130 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^aJyXtioTTfor 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 jnoderate
policyj They now preached circumcision as the prero
gative of the Jew within the Church, and as a counsel
of perfection for theJGenlik^ believer m Christ (ch. iii._3).
To quote the rescript of Acts xv. againslTtfiisaltered
form of the circumcisionist doctrine, would have been
wide of the mark.
It is against this newer— type_of Judaistic teaching
thaLour Epistle is directed. Circumcision, its advocates
argued, was a Divine ordinance that must have its
benefit. God has given to Israel an indefeasible
pre-eminence in His kingdom. t 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. ii. 25 — iii. i.
\ Rom. i. 16 ; ii. 9, 10 ; ix. 4, 5 ; xi. I, 2.

ii.n-i8.] 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 JLegahstssought, in fact, to super-
impose JewisTT'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 PeteT
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
cision party had already recovered, and increased its
influence, to the degree that it must have done when
" even Barnabas was carried away " ; still less

132 THE EPISTLE TO THE 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 like
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, and free from
anxiety for the future. The decisive moment of the
crisis therefore necessarily falls between the Thes-~
salonian and Galatiam Epistles. What had happened
in the meantime ? The violent discussion with Peteri
at Antioch (GaL h\ u— 2iJ,' and all that this account
reveals to us, — the arrival of the- emisliries ~ffofn~
James in the pagan-Christian circle, the counter^
misswrTTorganized 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 his L'apbtre Paul : esquisse a'une histoire de sa pensde, an
admirable work, to which the writer is under great obligation.

ii.u-18.] PAUL AND PETER AT ANTIOCH. 133
in all its rigour Jjis-principk-flf^he-abolishment-of the
Law." The " troublers " 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. 1), derived 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. xi. 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 VII. pp. 109, 1 10.

134 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
instance to the Jews, as their commission from Jeru
salem probably entitled them to do. They plead for
the maintenance of the sacred customs. They insist
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
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 G^nlIie~biKevers, 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 Jhe_other_JeHS_.at
Antioch from the table of the Gen.tues_jszktually
" 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 uncTrcumcised
brother, "Stand by thyself, I, am holier than- thou."
Legal conformity on the part of the Gentiles was made
the condition of their communion with Jewish Christians
— a demand simply fatal to Christianity. It re
established the principle Of salvation hy wnrks ia R
more invidious form. To supplement the righteousness
of faith by that of law, meant to supplant it. To admit

ii. 11-18.] PAUL AND PETER AT ANTIOCH. 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
death a gratuitous sacrifice. Peter's error, pushed to
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^sTde~Jewish scruples of diet andtojive
in fre¥Tntercourse~Jwitir Gentile brethren. He "was
wont to eat with the Gentiles. Though a born Jew,
he Jived in Gentile fashion " — words unmistakably
describing PefeT'sPgeneral 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 Ms 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. 1 — xi. 18; xv. 6 — 11). JThe
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 Peter's nature. He
was pliable. "He was too IrrmcTTat the mercy of sur
roundings. His denial of Jesus set this native fault
in a light terribly vivid and humiliating. 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 !
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. 11-18.] PAUL AND PETER AT ANTIOCH. 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 moraTerror. 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 virtu al__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
James " 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.
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 jnterpreters cut.Jt
shor^_at_J:he end of ver._i^_^thers__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, m] JTHErmi the transition from the historical
to the polemical part of the Epistle, from the Apostle's
personaT 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 tracethegeneral course of Paul's reproof, pro
posing in i^ie follpwing Chapter to deal-"mbre_fully with
^octrinal contents.
I. Jlii the first place, Paul taxes the Jewish Apostle
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, jiqt a doctrinal aberration, Jthat 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

ii. 11-18.] PAUL AND PETER AT ANTIOCH. 139
making no difference between Jew and Gentile ? We
shall alienate our Judean brethren. We shall bring a
sj^ad^l_oji_the Cliristian cause in the eyes of Judaism."
This withdrawalof the Jews from the common jellqw^
ship at Antioch was a public matter. It was an injury
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
alh" /ll) Peter's conduct_is „rej2r°ved_t>J 'fP^3\^ijtJheJighi_
oFiheir 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 wUl_bring Peter's delinquency
to the touchstone ofjthe_ Gospel, _in its fimdamental^
principles. So he passes in ver. 15 from the outward
to the inward, from the circumstances of Peter's con-
d^IcT^to~fHennner world of spiritual consciousness, in

HO THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
which his offence finds_its deeper condemnation.
" You and T," 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 will be justified."
Paul makes no doubt that the Jewish Apostle's
experience of salvation corresponded with his own.
Doubtless, in their previous intercourse, and especially
when he first "made acquaintance with Cephas" (ch. i.
1 8) in Jerusalem, the hearts of the twq^men had_been
opened to eachother; 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 history
had run the same course, and face answered to face.
Yes, Paul knew that he had an ally in the heart of
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
of legal rightenusnessT~~By refuMiig~to^aT~Wfr~h~~tm-
circumcised men, he affirmed .implicitly that, though
believers in Christ, they were still to him "common and
uncleanr'i_ that the Mosaic rites imparted a higher
sanctity than the righteousness of faith. Now the
* ihv /ii; has the same partially exceptive force as el /iij in ch. i. 7,
19. Ccmp. F cm. xiv. 14 ; also Luke iv. 26, 27.

ii. 1 1-18.] PAUL AND PETER AT ANTIOCH. 141

principles of evangelical and legal righteousness, of
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 what right can any Hebrew
believer in Christ, after this, set himself above his
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
in. vv. 15, 16.
i III. JPaul is met at^ this point by the stock objection
to— the doctrine of salvation by .faith — an objection
brought torwardin the dispute at Antioch not, we
should imagine, by Peter himself, but by the/^Judaistic
"a"dvQca|;5p To renounce legal righteousness was in effect,
they^urgedjjo^frqmotesin — -nay, to make Christ Himself
a minister, of sin (ver. 17).
Paul retorts the charge on those whojnake it. They
promote sin, he declares, who set up legal righteousness
again (ver. 18). Thejobjection is-Slated and met inthe
form of qjiestion^and_ajiswer, as in Rom, iii. 5. We
have in this sharp thrust and parry an example of the
sort_ of Jisnce.. 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 TEFpTTrase "seek

ing toTSe 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,

142 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
they were. " themselves also found * to beginners," —
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^qmmon 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
ccr.t:mptible. 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
are confounded, and Christ is " a minister of sin ! "
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 ! 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 reductio ad absurdum of Paulinism.
The Apostle-repels^ this inference with the indignant
p,r] ryevoiTo,^Far be it !^ His reply is indicated bythe
very fc£m_mj»hlcirhe 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 repelsjhe blasphemy with
* For this emphatic found, describing a process of moral conviction
and inward discovery, comp. Rom. vii. 10, 18, 21 ; the whole passage
strikingly illustrates the reminiscence of our text.

ii. 11-18.] 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
Judajzers 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
- " sinne;ps^' Ver. 18 ^hrows back the charge of promoting sin
upon the Legalist. It is the coiinter-part,-not of ver. 19,
but rather (of ver. \j\ The '*<tcansgressorj>is the sinner
in a heightenedand more specific sense, one who
breaks known and admitted law. f 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 tEe"
experience common to Peter with himself, law^aaei.
transgression are concomitantj_every man " under Jaw"
is ipso facto a transgressor. He. who sets up the first,
constitutes himself the second. And this is what Peter
iiT now doing ; although Paul roiirtejou^^^gihigjlfee-
fact by puttingkhypothetically, in the (first person^
'ATfer dissolving^ so TaT~"aT7ri"hTmTay, the validity of
legal righteousness and Breaking down the edifice of
justificatioh^by works, Peter is now building it up
* CommentaHi. in loc.
f See Grimm's Lexicon, or Trench's N. T. Synonyms, on this word.
Comp. cl>-iii. 19 ; Rom. ii. 23 — 27 ; iv. 15 ; v. 14.
J Tbfllt this sentence is quite indefinite. On the other haud
ver. 19, with its emphatic iyuiydp, brings us into a new vein of thought.

i44 The epistLe to the galatians.
again, and thereby constructing a prison-house for
himself. Returning no legal allegiance, he returns to
legal condemnationQj with his own hands he puts on
his neck the burden of the Law's curse, which through
faith in Christ TTe~TiacT_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 " f 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
'The conviction of Peter is now complete. From
the sad bondage to which the Jewish Apostle, by his
compliance with the Judaizers, was preparing to sub
mit himself, the Apostle turns Jo his own joyous sense of
deliverance (vv. 19 — 2\). 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 I
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_hnpelled Paul
* Comp. ch. iii. 10 — 12. 19 : Rom. iii. 20 ; iv. 15.
¦f This verb has, as Scliott suggests, a tinge of irony.

;!. n-18.] Paul and peter at antioch. 145
alpj^dTJl.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. , Lt said to him unceasingly,
Thou art a transgressQi\*y He who seeks justification
by its meaiijTcontradicts the Law, whfle~Tie frustrates
the grace of God. • Rom. vii. 7 — viii. 1.

CHAPTER X.
THE PRINCIPLES AT STAKE.
" For I through law died unto law, that I might live unto God. I
have 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 :
for if righteousness is through law, then Christ died for nought " —
Gal. ii. 19 — 21.
PAUL'S personal apology isjended. He_hasjroved
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 zwT/TPeter, 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 all 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 confidence.

ii. 19-21.] THE PRINCIPLES 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 boundtogether. ~rT7am~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 stakeL
If he wards off bl_offis_Xauiri& upon him, it is because
they are aimed through him at thirtrulrTTcTwhich 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 ^compjetely lost in_the_
greatness of a great cause, nor who felt himself in com
parison" with If 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_jL_is Jbusy with .his own

148 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
vindication, he is meantime behind the r^rsonaljl.efeiice
preparing the doctrinal argument. His address to Peter
is an incisive outline of the gospel of grace. The three
closing verses — the Xpio-Tw avvearavpcofiai 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 hhn of his error. And its re
cital was admirably calculated to enlighten the Galatians
as to the true bearing of this dispute which had been
so much misrepresented. Frorruxex,JL5.. onwards, , j^aul
has been all the while addressjng, under the_j)erson
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
peciiliaT^interest that belongs to a confession of personal
faith, made at a signal crisis in the author's lite. Let
us examine this momentous declaration.
f l.JhX the foundation of___Pj;urs_ theology lies his
cWfpeption of the grace ofjGod.
(URAcg 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 Pauline Luke and
Hebrews, and I Peter with its large infusion of Paulin
ism, it is exceedingly rare.f In this word the character,
spirit, and aim of the revelation of Christ, as Paul

* Hofmann is so far right when he makes the Apostle turn to the
Galatians in ch. ii. 15, and draws at this point the line between the
historicaljnd doctrinal sections of the Epistle. . .
— fWhat is said of x&pis, applies also to its derivatives, x<ty>'f°y««>
K.T.\.

ii. 19-21.] THE PRINCIPLES AT STAKE. 149

understood it, are summed up. " TJje_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 the 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 thisniafk~bf
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. 1 — 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 01 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 tCu^Jy. 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. '.. 5—9; 2 Tim. i. 9 ; Rom. iii. 24 ; Heb. ii. 9 ; 2 Cor. v. 20 —
vi, 1; Gal. iv. 5 ; Tit. iii. 5—7; ii. H— 14; Rom. v, 21.

150 THE EPISTLE TO THE 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 "Testonng the goTden
age of peace and innocence ; and crowns the joy of a
renovated earth with the glories of a recovered heaven.
Being the antaj2£njstja£_sin, grace_comes of necessity
intc^^contrast with Hhe /azei/\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, f That is all that law can do by itself.
" Holy and just and good," notwithstanding, to our
perverse nature it becomes deathQRom. vii. 13; 1 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. vii. 12, 14 ; 2 Thess. ii.4 — 8 ; comp. 1 John iii. 4.
¦f Rom. iii. 20 ; iv. 15 ; v. 20 ; vii. 5, 24 ; Gal. ii. 16 iii. 10, ii, 19.

ii. I9-2I-] THE PRINCIPLES AT STAKE. 151
agamLjyereJriJJ3ith_" abolishing the grace of God." If
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, faith is the response elicited by
grace.uii._is the door. oTTEe heart opening to grace.*
.Grace and^aithgfr hand in hand, as(Taw and Trans-^
g¥ession7 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." % 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
"gcndereth to bondage" (ch. iv. 23 — v. 5 ; 2 Cor. iii.
6,17). Grace appears, however, in another^class of jjassages
in_JP_aul's Epistles, "oT which, ch. i. 15, ii. 9 are
examples. To the Divine grace Paul ascribes Jiis
personal salvation and Apostolk__£alL_ The revelation
which made him a Christian and an Apostle, was above
 Crm^n^ i-.;
* Rom. iii. 24, 25 ; Eph. ii. 8 ; etc.
V t Romi-y. I — 4 ; xi. 6 ; Gal ii. 16 ; iii. 12.
^t-Rom^v. 16; viii. 28—39; xi. . 5 ; Eph. i. 4 — 6; Tit. iii. 7;
Acts xx. 32 ; Gal. iii. 18 : Si ^7ra77eXfas KexdpitTTcu 6 Qeis.

152 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 beaten 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 — IO, 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
Paul^ne~cTcctrihe, 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 afalsarius : "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 hejarnethe Apostle of grace; even
as(,Johri, "the disciple whom Jesus loved,"~must per-

ii. 19-21.] THE PRINCIPLES AT STAKE. 153

force be the Apostle of love. First to him was God's
grace revealed in its largest affluenceTthat through him
itjnight be known to all men and to all ages.
II. Side by side with the grace of God, we find in
ver. 21 t^dea^^bf ClirisL "He sets aside the former,
the Apostle argues, who by admitting legal righteous
ness nullifies the latter.
Whilegrace 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 thejirst place, the basis of
h7s~personal life. " Faith in the Son of God, who
lovecTme 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 ! 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

154 THE EPISTLE TO THE 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, on
every account it was impossible to go back to Legalism.
The cross barred all return. The law that put Him,
the sinless One, to death, could give no life" to sinful
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. Th^__jWjarId_Jo_wJaicJi_he_had belonged
died, self-slain, when Jt_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 arpalling as Christ's death? WJiat^hjas.
death to do with grace ? It is the legal penalty of sin.
The conjunction of sin and death pervades the 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

ii. 19 21.] THE PRINCIPLES AT STAKE. 155
all in keeping with this purpose. WTith 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 !tnusj_aboye alL things. b.£_" 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 kiw. 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, 5). 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 propitiatiofT"7~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). Legalism
is_^t_an__end, for the Law has spent itself on our
Redeemer. For those that are in Him " there is now
no condemnation." T"RTs~~isr~tor anticipate the fuller
teaching qTclT. iiI7; but the vicano"us sacrifice Js already
implied when Paul says, " He gave Himself up forjne
— gaveTTrmself for our sins " (ch. i. 4).
T^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
starting-point. Instead of being the merited punish-

156 THE EPISTLE 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 ApostlelTmind ;' 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 \\\xi\ 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,
(ill. This brings us_to the thought of the union of the
believer with~Clmsi 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. xv. 3, 4, 1 1 ; Rom. iv. 24, 25 ; x. 9 ; 1 Thess. iv. 14.

H. 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. Chri^t_js_Jhe_ce^jtre_iLniLsOTal p£,.th£.J_ace,
holding towards it a spiritual primacy of which Adam's
natural.Jieadship 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 everj' 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, t 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 hawbeen 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 "like
ness " (Rom. vi. 5) of the supreme act of atonement,
which took place once for all when Christ died for
our—sins. f Faith)is jhejinkjbetween the past, objective sacrifice,
ancTtne present, subjective apprehension of it, by which
* Rom. v. 14 ; I Cor. xv. 22, 45 — 48 ; I Tim. ii. 5.
f I Cor. xv. 45—49 ; comp. Col. i. 15 — 17 j John i. 4, 9, 15, 16.

158 THE 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 live over again His life and death ;
those only, in a word, who truly believe in Christ. Thus
the idea of substitution in Paul receives its complement
and realisation 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 life and self, and He in them
His body, His members and His temple. Thereby the
idea of ' one for all ' receiv£s_Jhe_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
sympathetic interpretation of Paul's teaching (in these Lectures, and
still more in his Paulinism) has made all students of the Apostle his
debtors, however much they may quarrel with his historical criticism.

ii. 19-21.] THE PRINCIPLES AT STAKE. 159
with Him down into the grave — into the grave, and
out again ! 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
Ego, 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 flesh, I live in
faith ! " 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. 1). The-
flesh — the despair of the law — has become the sancti-
fied vessel of.grace.
Paul's entire theology__of Redemption is contained

160 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
in this mystery of union with Christ. The office of
the~HoIy Spirit, 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. iii. 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
life.* 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 one
man" in Him.t Justification and sanctification alike
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.
viii. II, 16 — 23, 29, 30; Phil. iii. 20, 21).
In all Jdiej5e_vjtal truths Paul's gospel was traversed by
the Legalism countenanced by Peter at Antioch. The
Judaistic doctrine struck directly, if not avowedly, at the
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 ; v. 5 ; 1 Cor, vi. 17, 19 ; Rom. viii. 9 — 16.
+ Ch. iii. 28 ; Col. iii. 1 1 ; Rom. xv. 5 — 7.

ii. 19-21.] THE PRINCIPLES AT STAKE. 161
tion with the Galatians in the;' following chapterTj " If
righteousness could be obtained by way of law, then
Christ died for nought ! " 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 1
And .sar_..on the one hand, Legalism impugns
the grace 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; 1 John iv. 7 — ll). 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 tEe 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

162 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 mechanical system; ..th&llarmeT"~c07reetves-~-it as an.
inward, organic life.

THE DOCTRINAL POLEMIC.
Chap. iii. i — v. 12.

CHAPTER XI.
THE GALATIAN FOLLY.
" O foolish Galatians, who did bewitch you, before whose eyes Jesus
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 faith ? 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, doeth he it by the works of the law, or
by the hearing of faith? " — Gal. iii. I — 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

166 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
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
gives 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 made
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. I-5-] THE GALATIAN FOLLY. 167
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 ! " O senseless Galatians ! "
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 Legalists
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 irpoeypdtpr) {openly set forth) probably means painted up
rather than placarded. This more vivid meaning belongs to ypdtpa,
and there is no sufficient reason why it should not attach to irpo-ypatpui.
It is entirely in place here. "Jesus Christ crucified " is not an announce
ment to be made, but an object to be delineated.

1 68 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 you," 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' svs,esrvice ? Was the influence of that trans
forming experience to prove no more enduring than
the morning cloud and early dew ? Foolish Galatians 1
Had they not the wit to see that the teaching of the

"i 1-5-3 THE GALATIAN FOLLY. 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 PatTKalvto see the note in Lightfoot's Commentary in loc. ; also
Grimm's N. T. Lexicon. " The Scripture calleth envy an 'evil eye ; ' . . .
so there still 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 caltR 'The envious
man, that soweth tares among the wheat by night.' " — (Lord Bacon :
Essay ix.)
f Comp. 2 Cor. xi. 1 — 4, a passage closely parallel to this context,
containing what is expressed here and in Gal. i. 6, 7 ; iv. II, 17, 18.

170 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
what 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
law-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. ii. 3, 4 ; 1 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 lips, " the
Holy Spirit fell" on them, as on the Jewish Church at

iii. i -5-] THE GALATIAN FOLLY. 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

172 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
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 tongues
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-
* 2 Tim. ii. 10; Eph. vi. 24 {dtpBapaia is incorruption everywhere
else in Paul : why not here ?)

iii. 1-5.] 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. iii. 26, 27; Rom. vi. 2 — 4; Col. ii. 11 — 13; Tit. iii. 5.

174 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
carried Peter and Barnabas and the liberal Jews of
Antoch 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
Jeru-alem. 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 ! How wilful and
arbitrary it appears to rely upon any present expe
rience of the grace of God, upon one's own reading

iii. I -5.] 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. The 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 clear
view of the cross of Jesus Christ, an absolute faith in
the supremacy of spiritual principles, to enable one to
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 externalism ? 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 7 HE GALATIANS.
to such childish rudiments ? Why should a religion
which began so spiritually seek its perfection by means
so 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 legulate our

iii. 1-5-3 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 1 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. 2 Thess. i. 4 — 6 ; Ph. i. 28 — 30 : Rom. viii. 17 ; 2 Tim. i. 8
12

178 THE EPISTLE 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 cling
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 of 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 hids fair to " end in the flesh."
In a broader sense, the Apostle's question addresses

iii. 1-5.] THE GALATIAN FOLLY. 179
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 suffer 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 LAWS CURSE.
" Even as Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for
righteousness. Know therefore that they 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,
saying, 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.
FWAITH 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.

iii. 6-14.] ABRAHAM'S BLESSING. 181
" 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 vv. 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 1 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 probans 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. iii. 9 ; John viii. 33 — 59.

1 82 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 tell
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 Gentile
kindred, and received the mark of circumcision to be
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 life.
But the identity of Abraham's blessing with that
enjoyed by Gentile Christians is not left to rest on mere

iii. 6-14.] ABRAHAM'S BLESSING. 183
inference and analogy of principle. Another quotation
clinches the argument : " In thee," God promised to
the pati iarch, " 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 (7rpoevrjjyeXicraTo)." 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
are 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 vv. 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, All the tribes (families) of the earth. The
synonymous £6vt\, with its special Jewish connotation, suited Paul's
purpose better ; and it is used in the repetition of the promise in Gen.
xviii. 18.

184 THE 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 conception
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 regarded
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.
When the Hebrew author says, "God counted it to
him for righteousness," he does not mean in lieu of
righteousness, 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, 6-14.] 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. viii. 4 ; I Cor. vi. 9 ; Eph. v. 9 ; Tit. ii. 12—14 : etc.

1 86 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.

storm 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 \ 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 ! The scene of
* Of faith qualifies live in the Hebrew of the prophet, and in the
LXX, also in the quotation of Heb. x. 38. The presumption is that
it does so in Rom. i. 17, and Gal. iii. 11. We can see no sufficient
reason in these passages to the contrary.
t 2 Chron. xx. 7 ; Isai. xii. 8 ; comp. Jas. ii. 23.

iii 6-14.] 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-

1 88 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 mechani
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. 1 8) ; he brings upon himself the miseiy 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 this text, and is read in the parallel Deut. xxviii. 15.

iii. 6-14.3 THE LAW'S CURSE. 189
had that imprecation been fulfilled ! 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
condonation, leaves upon us its mark of self-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 judgement 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 ! 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.

iii. 6-14.] THE LAW'S CURSE. 191
Verses 11, 12 support the assertion that the Law
issues in condemnation, by a further, negative proof.
The argument is a syllogism, both whose premises are
drawn from the Old Testament. It may be formally
stated thus. Major premise (evangelical maxim) : " The
just man lives of faith"* (ver. 11). 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. 11). 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, The 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 construction, see note on p. 186.
f Lev. xviii. 5.

192 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
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.
13 makes answer : " Christ bought us out of the curse
of the law, having become a curse for us." Christs
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

iii. 6-14.] THE LAW'S CURSE. 193

him that Jewish pride must be compelled to reckon with
it. No, he would not have " the offence of the cross
abolished" (ch. v. 11).
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 are 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 Me!"
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
the 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 Him 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 ! "
13

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 !), 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 ! 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 of God;" the LXX,
"cursed by God" {KtKaTa.pt]pkvo% 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 by God."

iii. 6-14.] THE LAWS CURSE. 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
an'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.
GENTILE Christians, Paul has shown, are already
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
are entitled to his blessing, did not God make a second
covenant with Moses, promising further blessings upon

iii. 15-18.] 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 weighty 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

198 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. l6,
he brings into view the Object of the covenant, the
person designated by it — Christ, 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. 1 5 the writer drops into a concilia
tory key. He seems to forget the wounded Apostle in

iii. 15-18.] THE COVENANT OF PROMISE. 199
the theologian and instructor in Christ. " Brethren," he
says, " 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 8ia6ijicr),
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 SiadrjicT) in current Greek.* The
context of this passage is in harmony with their
usage. The "covenant " of ver. 15 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" (vv. 18,
22); it invests those taking part in it with "son-
ship " and rights of " inheritance " (vv. 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 fiiaflij/oj in Cremer's
Biblico- 1 heological Lexicon of A.I'. Greek.

200 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 hiadrjicq rather than avvQt)Kr),
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 iias 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 fcedus 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 — it
stands good for ever. No one has afterwards any power

* See Heb. ix. 16 — 18, where so much ingenuity has been expended
to turn testament into covenant.
" Sweet is the memory of His name,
Who blessed us in His will.

iii. 15-18.] THE COVENANT OF PROMISE.

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. 1 5).
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 seed!' 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
* Gen. xxii. 8 16— 1; Heb. vi. 17,

202 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 b}7 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,

iii. 15-18.] THE COVENANT OF PROMISE. 203
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" (icej(dpurrai" 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 (yeyovm), 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 Mosaism
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 ©e6<s (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."f 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; Acts xi. 17 ; 2 Cor. i. 21, for a similar
emphasis. f We gain nothing, and we may lose much, in "trying to settle
questions of Old Testament historical criticism by casual allusions in
the N ew Testament." ( See Mr. Beet's sensible observations, in his Com
mentary ad loc.)

iii. 15-18.] THE COVENANT OF PROMISE. 205
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

206 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
out of a word a predetermined sense, foreign to its
original meaning. " He doth not say, and to seeds, as
referring to many ; but as referring to one, and to thy
seed, 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
where 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 singular interpretation ; it concentrated it
self on the one, spiritual offspring, putting aside the
many, natural and heterogeneous (Hagarite or Keturite)
descendants. And this sifting principle, this law of
* Gen. xii. 2, 3 ; xv. 2 — 6 ; xvii. 4 — 8, 15 — 21 ; xxii. 16 — 18
t Ch. iv. 21 — 31 ; Rom. iv. 17 — 22 : comp Heb. xi. 11, 12.

iii. 15-18.] THE COVENANT OF PROMISE. 207
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

2o8 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
"seed of Abraham," the " star out of Jacob," the " Son of
David," the " King Messiah," the suffering " Servant of
the Lord," the " smitten Shepherd," the " Son of man,
coming in the clouds of heaven." In His person all the
lines 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 cffice in the dispensation of the
Gospel, in the working out of God's ultimate designs

iii. 15-18.] THE COVENANT OP PROMISE. 209
for mankind.* Would they only accept their Messiah,
how exalted a rank amongst the nations awaits them !
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 been promised."
Paul is not alone in his insistence on the relation
of Christ to Abraham. It is announced in the first
sentence 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."f
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. xi Luke i. 54, 55, 68—73. 14

210 THE 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 their common theme.

CHAPTER XIV.
THE DESIGN OF THE LA W.
" What then is the law ? It was added because of transgressions, till
the seed should come to whom the promise hath been made ; and it
was ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator. Now a
mediator is not a mediator of one ; but God is one. Is the law then
against the promises of God ? God forbid : for if there had been a law
given which could make alive, verily righteousness would have been of
the law. Howbeit the Scripture hath shut up all things under sin, that
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 up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. So that
the law hath been our tutor to bring us unto Christ, that we might be
justified by faith." — Gal. iii. 19 — 24.
TyfyHA T then is the law ? 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.

212 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. ii. 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 work of faith
(ver. 3) : he made it preliminary and propasdeutic.
What they gave out for more advanced doctrine, he
treats as the " weak rudiments," belonging to thfc infancy

iii. 19-24.] THE DESIGN OF THE LAW. 213
of the sons of God (ch. iv. 1 — 11). 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 (vv. 19, 20) ; and secondly, in its co-operation
with the promise (vv. 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 ?
1. 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
* TSk irapapdaeuv : the definite article can scarcely mean less than
this.

214 THE 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 (%dpiv, 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 shows
* Comp. the reference to this word in Chapter IX., p. 143.

iii. 19-24.] THE DESIGN OF THE LAW. 215
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" (1
Tim. i. 9). Like the discipline and drill of a strictly
governed boyhood, it was calculated to produce a
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 effect
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

216 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. vii. 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 vv. 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.e. by means)
of a mediator," These circumstances, as the orthodox

iii. 19-24.] THE DESIGN OF THE LAW. 217
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 ! " * 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 + and Ps. lxviii. 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. J 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 vii. 53 : comp. Sia.Ta.ybs ayyeXtov and Siarayels Si dyyektav.
Stephen's last words may well have lingered in the ear of Saul. From
the lips of Stephen, they were something of an argumentum ad hominem.
t A doubtful citation at the best : the reading of the LXX is more to
the point than the Hebrew, text.
% See the quotations from Jewish writers to this effect given by
Meyer or Lightfoot.

218 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
matter otherwise. * A revelation " administered
through angels" 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 in 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).f
* Comp. Heb. ii. 2—4; also Col. ii. 15 : " {scil. God) having stripped
off 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, ist series, j.. 403 — 421.
f But the title " mediator " belongs to Christ, given by Paul him
self—the "one mediator between God and men, the man Christ
Jesus " (1 Tim. ii. 5). (Comp. Heb. viii. 6 ; ix. 15 ; xii. 24.) Christ
is so styled however under an aspect very different from that in which
the word appears here. " There is one mediator," the Apostle writes

iii. 19-24.] THE DESIGN OF THE LAW. 219
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. 2 1), 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 Mosaism.
Although in substance "holy and just and good," it
was by no means purely Divine. It was not the abso
lute religion. 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 {AvSpuwos Xpitrrbs
'Iijo-oOs) ; He acts for individual men with God. On the Divine side,
He is more than mediator, being God Himself.
* Matt. xix. 8. Comp. Ezek. xx, 25.

220 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
and essential — of character and action, rather than of
number. In the Promise 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 Shema, 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. 1 Cor. viii. 6 ; I Tim. ii. 5 ; also Mark xii. 29, 30 ; Jas.
ii. 19.

iii. 19-24.] THE DESIGN OF THE LAW. 221
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 ? Away 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 life, 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 fulfilment. " 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
not the enemy, but the minister of Grace. It was

222 THE EPISTLE 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, the 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

iii. 19-24.] THE DESIGN OF THE LAW. 223
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, ovyK\eibp.evot (Revised reading
of ver. 23), in combination with the imperfect of the foregoing verb,
itppovpobpx$a.

224 THE EPISTLE 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 (vv. 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 life, 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 iraib'aycoyb'; 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. 19-24.3 THE DESIGN OF THE LAW. 225
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 " 01
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, undeveloped
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
responsibilities of faith. " If then the Law is a
TraiBayaryos, 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 Redeemer's 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
IS

226 THE 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. The Christian Church may
with increased emphasis repeat Paul's anticipation,
" What will the receiving of them be, but life from the
dead ! " They have a great service still to do for the
Lord and for His Christ. It was well for them and
for us that they have " borne the yoke in their youth."

CHAPTER XV.
THE EMANCIPATED SONS OF GOD.
" But now that faith is come, we are no longer under a tutor. For
ye are all sons of God, through faith in Christ Jesus. 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. iii. 25 — 29.
" Ij'AITH has come!" At this announcement Law
JL. 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

228 THE EPISTLE 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 re$»gion. 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,

iii. 25-29.] THE EMANCIPATED SONS OF GOD. 229
recognises itself and its destiny, and unfolds into the
glorious consciousness of its Divine sonship.
We prefer, with Ellicott 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 fall 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 life ; 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 phrase faith in Christ Jesus is a link between this Epistle and
those of the third and fourth groups. Comp. Col. i. 4 ; Eph. i. 15 ;
I Tim. iii. 13; 2 Tim. i. 13; iii. 15. More frequently in this con
nection our " in " represents ds {into), not iv as here.

230 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
" 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, now are we children of God " (1 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 ! " What exultation
filled the soul of Paul and of John as they penned
such words ! " 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. 25-29.] THE EMANCIPATED SONS OF GOD. 231
force ; here 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

232 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 the
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 grace
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 memler incorporate of the Body of Christ,
* Rom. vi. I, 2; Tit. iii. 4—7 ("not of works. . . that we had
done)."

iii. 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 — to 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, 11), the filial like
ness to God which constitutes man's proper nature.
Its attainment is the essential blessing, the promise

234 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
which descended from Abraham along the succession of
faith. Now this dignity belongs universally to Christian
faith. "Ye are all," the Apostle says, "sons of God
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 life 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 gave 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

iii. 25-29.] THE EMANCIPATED SONS OF GOD. 235
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, are
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 "lama child of God,"
one no longer thinks, " I am a Greek or Jew, rich or
poor, noble or ignoble — man or woman." A son of
God ! — 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 EPISTLE 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, were achieved at the expense of religion. Poly
theism is essentially barbarian. It flourishes in division
and ia 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 mankind,
only to be filled by the one faith. Without a centre of
spiritual unity, history shows that no other union will
endure. But for Christianity, the Graeco-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

iii. 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 humani
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

238 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
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 protectant, 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.

iii. 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 — one
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 one
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. Eph. ii. 15 ; iv. 13 ; but neuter 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 Saviour
— 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. 1 8 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 of
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

iii. 25-29.] THE 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 (1 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.

16

CHAPTER XVI.
THE HEIR'S COMING OF AGE.
" But I say that so long as the heir is a child, he differeth nothing from
si 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, born 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 bondservant, 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 set
forth under the first person (ver. 3), in the language of

v. 1-7. THE HEIR'S COMING OF AGE. 243
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 saying. 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 (vv. 8— 10). But the force 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
gives 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

244 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 affection
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 his

iv. 1-7.] THE HEIR'S COMING OF AGE. 245
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 living, 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.
1. "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

246 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. 1, 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 men, not the cosmical elements ; comp.
Col. ii. 8. 20 (where rudiments of the world is paiallel to tradition of
men) ; also Gal. vi. 14; Heb. ix. I. I Cor. iii. 1 — 3 supplies an interesting
parallel : those who are babes in Christ, are so far carnal and walk
according to man, animated by the spirit of this world (1 Cor. ii. 12).

iv. 1-7.] THE HEIR'S COMING OF AGE. 247
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 infeiior to the Covenant of grace in Christ,
has rendered invaluable service to it (comp. ver. 24 :
Chapter XIV, p. 225).
3. The will 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 THE 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. It is Christ's
mission to constitute men sons of God (vv. 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,

iv. 1-7.] THE HEIR'S COMING OF AGE. 249
I. The sending of the Son brought the world's servitude
to an end. " Henceforth," said Jesus, " I call you not
servants" (John xv. 15). 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 character of
God's Son, bringing His sonship with Him. He 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

250. THE EPISTLE 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. 18) : 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
born of a woman, born 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. 1 ; Matt. xi. 11). 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 ! *
Nor is "born under law" a distinction intended to
limit the previous term, as though it meant a born 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 ; 2 Cor. xiii. 4 ; Eph. iv. 9, 10 ; Ph. ii.
6—8; Col. i. 15, 18 ; ii. 9 ; I Tim. iii. 16.

iv. 1-7.] THE HEIR'S COMING OF AGE. 251
" 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
already 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

252 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 vv. 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" their
individual " hearts." The second act matches the first,
and crowns it. Pentecost is the sequel of the Incarna
tion (John ii. 21 ; 1 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 Chris'.,
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

iv. 1-7.3 THE HEIR'S COMING OF AGE. 253
Father ! " 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 bestowment 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 come. 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
familiar 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. i. 20 j Luke xi. 13 ; John xiv. 16 ; Acts i. 4, 5.

254 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
utterance of this word, expressing the attitude of
His life of prayer and breathing the whole spirit of
His religion, profoundly 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
office 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 born 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 (itrrly) is the preferable reading. See
Westcott ad 'oc.

iv. 1-7.] THE HEIR'S COMING OF AGE. 255
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 GW— this is the true reading, and is
greatly to the point. It carries to a climax the emphatic
repetition of " God " observed in vv. 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 yours
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.

256 The epistle to the galatians.
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. * John xii. 26; xvii. 24; Rev. iii. 21 ; Phil. i. 23; Col. iii. 4;
1 Pet. v. I.

CHAPTER XVII.
THE 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 — n.
" O ONS of God, whom He made His heirs in Christ,
vJ3 how are you turning back to legal bondage 1 "
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

258 THE EPISTLE 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 God, 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 ! 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,

iv.8-u.] THE RETURN TO BONDAGE.

259

they sacrifice to demons, and not to God " (1 Cor. viii.
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 "damned 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

26o THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
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 "in 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 born in him. Like the dawn
of self-consciousness, it may be gradual. There are
those, the happy few, who were " born 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 life. 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 of
life were innocent, and even possessed religious value,

v.8-u.] THE RETURN TO BONDAGE. 261
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.

262 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 light
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

iv. 8-u.] THE RETURN TO BONDAGE. 263
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"

264 THE 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 that 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).

v.8-ii.] 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 Israeli tish 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

266 THE EPISTLE TO THE 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 of
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
faith and trammel the freedom of the sons of God.

iv. 8-1 1.] THE RETURN TO BONDAGE. 267
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 !
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
implication 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,
irapaTripeiaOe, 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

iv. 8-nJ THE RETURN TO BONDAGE. 269
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 (1 Cor. xvi. 2 ; Rev. i. 10). 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

270 THE 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 cling 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 liberty, 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 more a liberty from the
dominion of self, from pride and desire and anger; or

iv.8-n.] THE RETURN TO BONDAGE. 271
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 ! " 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 XVIII.
PAUL'S ENTREATY.
" I beseech you, brethren, be as I am, for I am as ye are. Ye did me
no wrong : but ye know that because of an infirmity of the flesh I
preached the gospel unto you the first time : and that which was 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 — 20.
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 saddening 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, see the exposition which follows.

iv. 12-20.] PAULS ENTREATY. 273
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 leady and
generous hospitality they had received the infirm
Apostle ! 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 prudenlis 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 GALATIANS.
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
am) 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. 2 Cor. ii. 4 ; vii. 8.
f Comp. 1 Thess. i. 5 ; ii. 7, 8.

iv. 12-20.] PAULS ENTREATY. 275

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.
vi. 1 3). 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 3'ou," 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-

276 THE 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-will towards you. 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. 16).
(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 (1 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 spit
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

iv. 12-20.] PAULS ENTREATY. 277
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, t 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 ! " 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. ii. 3 ; 2 Cor. iv. 7 ; x. I, 10 ; xi. 6.
•f Comp 2 Cor. xii. 7 — 10, referring apparently to the first outbreak
of this mysterious affliction.

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
"large 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, and 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
metaphors. They said these things in all sincerity;
he "bears them record" to this. However cool they

• Comp. Matt, xviii. 9.

iv. 12-20.] PAUL'S ENTREATY. 279
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 !
(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 jn 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

280 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 ^rfKoco. 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. 1 7 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 ! " 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.
* Zi/\6a>, to have zeal towards a person or thing, to affect (A. V. . in
its older English sense of seeking, faying regard to any one).
| The full stop placed in the English Version at the end of ver. 18,
on this view, is out of place.

iv. 12-20.] PAUL'S ENTREATY. 281
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 1 Thess. ii. 7, 8 ; 1 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 mothers" 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 ; 1 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
with you now, and speak in some different voice, for
I am at a loss to know how to deal with you."

282: THE 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 •'
How they blessed the day when the gospel visited theii

iv. 12-20.] PAUL'S ENIREATY. 283

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 !
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 ! 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 is

284 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
a thing 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 anything, or to deny what they have most
earnestly believed.
What had the Legalists to offer compared with the

iv. 12-20.] PAUL'S ENTREATY. 285
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 superiority, 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 ! "
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 cf
the great Apostle's soul, and to the disastrous issues
of the levity of character which distinguished his
Galatian disciples.

CHAPTER XIX.
THE STORY OF HA GAR.
"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 born
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 travailest not :
For more are the children of the desolate than of her which
hath the husband.
Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise. But as
then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that 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. J'or freedom did
Christ set us free : stand fast therefore, and be not entangled again in
a yoke of bondage." — Gal. iv. 21 — v. I.
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 " (Theodorus).

iv.2l-v. I.] THE STORY OF HAGAR. 287
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, 16, 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 ! "
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 riot. 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

iv. 2i-v. I.] THE STORY OP HAGAR 289
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 Pauline
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.
1 — 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.
19

290 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
But Philo knows nothing of the correspondence between
Isaac and Christ, 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 like 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, in
the prospect of becoming a mother, showed toward

v.2i-v. I.] THE STORY OF HAGAR. 291
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 live 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

292 the epistle to the galatians.
them to be born 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.
xxi. 8 — IO.
The laughter of Hagar's boy at Sarah's weaning-
feast 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.2i-v. I.] THE STORY OF HAGAR. 293
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 (vv. 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 life, 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 Abra-
* Kaliscli, Commentary, on Genesis xxi. 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-born 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 systoichia, 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. 2"] , 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 yap Siva opo<; ecrriv k.t.X.). It
* Comp. Heb. xi. II, 12 ; I Pet. iii. 6.

v. 2i-v. i.] THE STORY OF HAGAR. 295
is a parenthesis — " for mount Sinai * is in Arabia " —
covenant running on in the mind from ver. 24 as the
continued subject of ver. 256: " 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 '' {rb 2icS 6pos) in tacit opposi
tion to the other, familiar Mount Zion (Hofmann in loc). In Heb.
xii. 22 the same inversion appears, with the same significance.

296 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 ! "
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

. 2i-v. i.] THE STORY OF HAGAR. 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
warning 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 are 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 Pie 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 (1 Thess. ii. 16). 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. 21-v. i.] THE STORY OF HAGAR. 299
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 ? "
Is 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 to con
vince his readers of this, to make them sensible 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. 1 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
was for 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 like 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 EII (iXevtieplv). This emendation gives an excellent and
apposite sense : for {with a view to) freedom Christ set us free. The
phrase itr' 4\ev0eplf 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.

iv. 2i-v. ij THE STORY OF HAGAR. 301
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. v. 2 — 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. 10 ;
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

v. 2-6.] SHALL THE GALATIANS BE CIRCUMCISED? 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 interdict. 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 ! 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 tho
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. Christ — or Circumcision : which shall it be ?
This declaration is no less authoritative and judicially
threatening than the anathema of ch. i. 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

v.2-6.] SHALL THE GALATIANS BE CIRCUMCISED t 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. 1 — 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 legalist 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 Galatians
entertaining this Judaic " persuasion " ? Was it to
make them sons of God and heirs of His kingdom?
This was the object with which " God sent forth His
Son ; " and the Spirit of sonship assured them that it
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 EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
Redeemer's cross and their confidence in it weakened
(ch. iii. i). To be circumcised would be to rest their
salvation fo:r 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's 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 ! " 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, if
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

v.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 what 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: "I 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. 1 8). 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 ver. 4.

308 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
The pregnant force of Paul's Greek is untranslatable.
Literally his words run, " You were nullified from Christ
(KaTrjpyrjdrjTe atrb XpiaTov) — 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 (i 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 off 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 (e^etriaaTe) is commonly applied (four
times e.g. in Acts xxvii.) to a ship driven out of her
* Comp. John xv. 5, 6, where in i^kfjBr), Qijpdvdri, there is a like
summary aorist.

v.2-6.] SHALL THE GALATIANS BE CIRCUMCISED? 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. iii. 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 quality 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
proselytes ; but they will cease to be Christians.
* Comp. 2 Pet. iii. 17; for the figure suggested, Eph. iv. 14;
I Tim. i. 19.

310 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; iii. 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 by 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-

v.2-6.] SHALL THE GALATIANS BE CIRCUMCISED t 311
ably compounded verb (air-eic-§e'xpp.t8a) that concludes
this verse. It implies an intent expectancy, sure of its
object and 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 xxiii. 6 ; xxiv. 15 ; xxvi. 6—8 ; comp. John vi. 39, 40, 44.

312 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
of despair. "Of faith," the Apostle says, "we look
out!" 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 " (1
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 f
* " Working through love," not wrought (R.V. margin). The latter
rendering of the participle is found in some of the Fathers, and is pre
ferred by Romanist interpreters in the interest of their doctrine of fides
formata. Paul's theology and his verbal usage alike require the middle
sense of this verb, adopted by modern commentators with one con-

v.2-6.] SHALL THE GALATIANS BE CIRCUMCISED? 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 ; 1 Thess. ii.
13 ; 2 Thess. ii. 7 ; and see Moulton's Winer's N. T. Grammar,
p. 318 (note on dynamic middle).

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 qualities, 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-sided ness 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-

v.2-6.] 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 little essential to the
Church's life as that of circumcision in the Apostolic
age. The evil is 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 simplicity 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.
THE 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 I
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 arrows

v.7-t2.] the hinderers and troublers. 317
remaining in his quiver. Its prevailing tone is that of
conciliation towards the Galatians (comp. Chapter xviii.),
with increasing severity towards the legalist teachers.
" See 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 cuts
off" (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
(ver. 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
Judaizers in their proper light. They will think about

318 THE 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 well — 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 life (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 date of the Epistle.
f Comp. ch. iii. 4: "ye shffered so many things."

v.7-i2.] THE HINDERERS AND TROUBLERS. 319
out, will corrupt you utterly (vv. 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. ii:" 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. 1 — 3). And Paul valued his
Hebrew birth. He loved his Jewish brethren more
than his own salvation (Rom. ix. 1 — 5 ; xi. 1). There
was nothing of the revolutionary or the inconoclast

320 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. 18; xxi. 17 — 26). It was
false that he " taught the Jews not to cireumcise 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
(/cr]pvcro-(o : ver. 1 1) 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 hostility 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 ! 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 ' liberty
which we have in Christ Jesus ; ' he is ready to ' become

v.7-i2.] 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.
iii. 7; ix. 19 : " If I still (notwithstanding my pro
fessions as a Gentile apostle) preach circumcision, why
am I still (notwithstanding my so preaching) perse-
21

322 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
cuted i" 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. n), 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 ! " 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 1 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 of
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-

v. 7-12.] THE HINDERERS AND TROUBLERS. 323
dalous, offensive cross, the stumbling-block of Jewish
pride (1 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
unto Jesus without the camp." Paul had seen from
the 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 THE EPISTLE TO THE 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. 10, 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. 21 : %eo/M? vop.ov). 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 Christian 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,

v.7-12.] 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. Within 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 civilise 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 like the cross of Jesus Christ. He
who "makes it of none effect," whether in the name

326 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
of Jewish tradition or of modern progress, takes away
the one practicable hope of the moral regeneration of
mankind. III. We are now in a position to estimate more
precisely the character and motives of the Judaistic
party, the hinderers 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. 10 ; 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

v.7-12.] THE HINDERERS 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. 7) ; 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. 1). 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
interval between the second and third of Paul's missionary journeys
(Acts xviii. 22), a.d. 54.

328 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. io). 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 !
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 Cybeld? (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. 1).
* 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
sacrament is not more severe than the language of Isa. lxvi. 3 : " He
that slaughtereth an ox is a man-slayer, he that bringeth a meal-offering
— it is swine's blood,"

v.7-12.] THE HINDERERS AND TROUBLERS. 329
This mockery, though not to be judged by modern
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, not merely as
"troublers" and "hinderers," but as "those that
unsettle you" — or more strongly still, "overthrow you."
The Greek word (av out at km) occurs in Acts xvii. 6,
xxi. 38, where it is rendered, turn upside down, 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 scorn.

THE ETHICAL APPLICATION.
Chapter v. 13 — vi. 10.

CHAPTER XXII.
THE PERILS OF LIBERTY.
" 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-
nomianism, while they guard Christians from giving

334 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
occasion to the charge. They protect from exaggera
tion and abuse the liberty 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. 13a 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 flesh."
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
sponsibility. 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 will 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 !
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

333 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 " (dtpopp,^)
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

v. 13-15.] THE PERILS OF 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 (vv. 136, 14). Where faith has this
operation, liberty is safe ; not otherwise. Love's 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
22

338 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.

under external pressure, by an intelligent application
of law. Modern 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
ethics. It was in fact the application of a highly deve
loped and elaborate traditional code of law, enforced by
the strongest outward sanctions, without personal loyalty
to 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."

v. 13-15.] THE 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 believing 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,
breathihg 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. iii. 10). 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
death. Love esteems it bondage to be prevented, liberty
only to be allowed to serve.

v. 13-15.] THE PERILS OF 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 ;
bu t of the bringing of law to its completion, its realisa-

342 THE 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 shall love thy neighbour as thyself (Levit,
xix. 1 8). 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

v. I3-I5-] THE PERILS OF LIBERTY. 343
the 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 GALATIANS.
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 are incapable of being a law unto themselves.
They have not faith enough to make them steadfast,

v. 13-15.] THE PERILS OF LIBERTY. 34S

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

346 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
is met no longer by a merely outward opposition, but
by a repugnance proceeding from within. " The Spirit
lusteth 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
Christ.

CHAPTER XXIII.
CHRISTS SPIRIT AND HUMAN FLESH.
[He showeth the battel! of the flesh and the Spirit ; and the fruits of
them both. Heading in Genevan Bible.]
" But I say, Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust 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. If we live by the
Spirit, by the Spirit let us also walk. Let us not be vainglorious,
provoking one another, envying one another." — Gal. v. 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 liberty, and
yet did not give purity. The Spirit of love and of
sonship bestows both, establishing a happy, ordered
freedom, the liberty cf 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-

348 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
tion. " 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 yoke ; to " fulfil the desire of the flesh "
will then be for you a thing impossible.
The word Spirit (Trvevfiart) 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, qualitative 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 in, 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 vv. 18 and 25. To
"walk in the Spirit" is to be "led by the Spirit" ; it
is so to "live 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 life pre-
* The construction of ch, vi. 16 ; Rom, iv, 12 ; Phil, iii, 16, is not
Strictly analogous,

v. 16-26.] CHRISTS 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 vv. 19 — 23. This
antithesis of Flesh and Spirit presents the following
considerations : — (1) the diametrical opposition of 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 replies,
the Spirit and the flesh are opposites (ver. 17). 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, nor
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 of
* Comp. Jas. iv. .5 : " The Spirit which He made to dwell in us,
yearneth even unto jealous envy " (R. V. margin) ; also the double use
of jft\6w in ch. iv. 17, 18 (Chapter XVIII, pp. 279, 280.).

350 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
the Holy Spirit, whose influence redeems our speech
and purges the uncleanness of our lips.
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,
which 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 " believe in
the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life."
This war of Spirit and Flesh is first ostensibly

v. 16-26.] CHRIST'S 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 vv. 20, 21, are not bodily vices only, but

352 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, flesh is the sensible, the bodily nature
as such. When spirit rises into the supernatural and
superhuman, flesh 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, flesh 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 that
the antagonism of the Flesh and Spirit is fundamental.
They can never come to terms with each other, nor
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. 1 1).
* See Rom. vi. 6, 12 ; vii. 4, 5, 23, 24 ; viii. 10 — 13 ; Col. ii.
n— 13; iii. 5.

v. 16-26.] CHRIST'S SPIRIT AND HUMAN FLESH. 353

The last clause of ver. 1 7, " that ye may not do the
things that ye would," has been variously interpreted.
The rendering of the Authorized Version ("so that ye
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. 1). 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 equilibrium, 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. 23

354 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATLANS.
(i) 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 I have
already told you : they who practise such things will
not inherit God's kingdom " (v. 2l).
This warning is essential to Paul's gospel (Rom. ii.
1 6) ; 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 all, righteousness. Men of
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. 1, 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

v. 16-26.] CHRJSTS SPIRIT AND HUMAN FLESH. 355
another," they resemble Ishmael the persecutor (ch. iv.
29), rather than the gentle Isaac, heir of the Covenant.
" If children, then heirs." 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 (1 Cor. vi. 9, 10 ;
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 religion 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

356 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
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 1 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

v. 16-26.] 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 " (Rorii.
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. iii. 21). 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. viii. 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
fills my soul with the love in which its fulfilment is

358 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 of
the Spirit. This deliverance, promised in ver. 16, 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
the 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

v. 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 life. 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

360 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
hour. De jure it is dead — dead in the reckoning of
faith. It may die a lingering, 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 up;:: their nature. Let
them know how truly they were called to liberty, and
in good earnest were made sons <A God. They have
only to continue as heretofore to be ltd by the Spirit of
Christ and to march forward alo-g the path on which
they had entered, and neither Jewish law nor then-
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 FLESH.
"Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, fornication,
uncleanness, 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. v. 19 — 21.
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 first 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

362 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 lists, are
not found in this. From these vices the Galatic nature
was comparatively free. Sensual sins and sins of
passion — unchastity, vindictiveness, intemperance — occupy
the field. To these must be added idolatry, 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— fornication,
uncleanness, lasciviousness." A dark, beginning ! Sins
of impurity find a place in ever}' picture of Gentile
morals given by the Apostle. In whatever direction he
writes — to Romans or Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians,
or Thessalonians — it is always necessary to warn
against these evils. They are equally " manifest " in
heathen literature. 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 civilisation, due
to the extinction of manly virtues in the dominant race,

v. I9-2L] 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, 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 explicitly 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"
(1 Cor. vi. 13—20).
On this subject it is difficult to speak faithfully and
yet directly. There are many happily in our sheltered
Christian 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
feehng 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., 1 Tim. ii. 13 — 15 : saved through the childbearing — i.e.,
surely, the bearing of the Child Jesus, the seed of the woman.

v. 19-21.] THE WORIiS OP THE FLESH. 365
tity of wedded life (1 Thess. iv. 1—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 liar — 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"
(1 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 like 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

366 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 " lasciviousness, lusts, winebibbings, revel-
lings, carousings, and abominable 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. I9-2I.] THE WORKS OF 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 follies as well as of excellencies, changing with
every climate 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 different
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 licence. 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

368 THE EPISTLE 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. 18). 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 in
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

v. 19-21.3 THE WORKS OF 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
enmities. 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 THE EPISTLE TO THE 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

v. 19-21.] THE WORKS OF THE FLESH. 371
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).
Envyings (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 rankling 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
in 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
Shy lock, 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 (vv. 13 — 15). He tells the Galatians that
their vainglorious and provoking attitude towards each

3?2 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 (vv. 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, revellings, 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
"lusts" on the one hand, and "abominable idolatries"
on the other, had in Asia Minor swelled into a "cataclysm
of riot," overwhelming the Gentile world (1 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 lives under another sun ;
the world's wealth is his. He wakes up to find himself
a sot ! With racked head and unstrung frame he
returns to the toil and squalor of his life, adding new

I9-2I.] THE WORKS OF THE FLESH. 373

wretchedness to that he had striven to forget. Anon
he says, " I will seek it yet again ! " 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 stern 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 than perhaps to any other social evil.
They are setting themselves sternly against drunken
ness, and none 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 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
With fornication at the beginning and drunkenness at
the end, Paul's description of " the works of the flesh "
is, alas ! 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 !
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.
THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT.
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering,
kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance : against such there
is no law." — Gal. v. 22, 23.
" ' I "HE tree is known by its fruits." Such was the
-L 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 of fruit,
of moral issue and effects. For character is the true
summum 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 fife 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

v.22,23.] THE 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
dt. 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

378 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
ethics of Naturalism know love as a passion, a sensuous
instinct (epco?) ; or again, as the personal affection
which binds friend to friend through common interest
or resemblance of taste and disposition (<j>t\La). Love
in its highest sense (aydtTTj) 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 solidarity 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

v.22, 23.] THE 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, longsuffering, 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.
1. 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
affection, 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" (1 Cor. xiii. 1 — 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
formance — dead as the body without the spirit. In all

3S0 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. 16 ; 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 know
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 " (1 Cor. i. 23 ; ii. 8 ;
viii. 1, 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, 10). It
is not love without 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,

v. 22 23.] THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT. 381
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 puffeth 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 like 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— -11).

3S2 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 them
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. 22, 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. 1, 2). It is the bequest of Jesus Christ
(John xiv. 27). He " made peace for us through the
blood of His cross." He has reconciled 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 ! "
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 THE 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 " (1 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;

v.22, 23.] THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT. 3S5
kindness more delicate and discriminating. The former
looks to the benefit conferred, seeking 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, faith — that is, trustfulness,
confidence — is called into exercise.
The Authorised rendering "faith" seems to us in
this instance preferable to the " faithfulness " of the
Revisers. " Possibly," says Bishop Lightfoot, " 7ria-Ti<;
may here signify ' trustfulness, reliance,' in one's
dealings with others ; comp. 1 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 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
fulness, and nothing else, appears to be in place. The
parallel expression of I Cor. xiii., of which chapter we
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 ; "love 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 not," which "imputeth not evil, nor rejoiceth
in unrighteousness," which " beareth, believeth, hopeth,
endureth all things." They needed more faith in man,
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 goodness ever
pays to goodness.

v.22,23.] THE FRUIT OF 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 ! " 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 self-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 THE 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 hand, 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. " I keep
my body under," cries the Apostle, " I make it my
slave and not my master; lest, having preached to

v.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 "
(i Cor. ix. 27; Rom. xiv. 21).
Temperance is the guarded step, the sober, measured
walk in which Chriotian goodness keeps the way of life,
and makes straight paths for stumbling and sciaying
feet

CHAPTER XXVI.
OUR BROTHER'S BURDEN AND OUR OWN.
" Brethren, even if a man be overtaken in any trespass, ye which
are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of meekness ; looking to
thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Bear ye one another's burdens,
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 glorying 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 themselves upon it. Even spiritual gifts were
made matter of ostentation ; and display on the part

vi. 1-5.] OUR BROTHERS BURDEN AND OUR OWN. 391
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 ! " 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

392 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
leading sentences, sharply clashing with each other
in the style of paradox in which the Apostle loves to
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 in committing the
trespass. Winer, Lightfoot, and some other inter
preters, read the words in the latter sense : " surprised,
detected in 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 " (iv), 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 Iv see the grammarians : Moulton's
Winer, pp. 514, 5; A. Buttmann, pp. 328, 9. (Eng. Ver,).

vi. 1-5.] OUR BROTHER'S BURDEN AND OUR 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 common
danger (comp. 1 Cor. x. 13). Let us remember 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 Tim. ii. 14 : the expression is parallel in point of grammar, as
well as sense ; yiyovev h Trapafidtjei.

394 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
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. 10; 2 Cor. xiii.
ii; I Thess. iii. 10, where, as in other places, the
English verb " perfect " enters into the rendering of
learaprt^co, 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 "
(1 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 bearing 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. 1-5.] . OUR BROTHER'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. xiii. 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. 1 — 5).
This exhortation begins in general terms ; but in the
latter clause of ver. 1 it passes into the individualising
singular — " looking to thyself, lest even thou be tempted."
The disaster befalling one reveals the common peril ;

3?6 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 wrongdoer 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 Christian 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 difficulty, of business embarrassment, 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 liking 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,

vi.i-5j OUR BROTHERS BURDEN AND OUR OWN. 397
" 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. 1 — 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. 1 — 8). Justly is the inference
drawn, " We also ought to lay down our lives for the
brethren " (1 John iii. 16). There is no limit 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 requires the nicest discernment

398 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 vv. i, 2 the need of others, in vv. 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 ((ppevaTrarS, eavrov). 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.

vi.1-5.] 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 ! " " 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 Church
in their turn of the manifold help due to them from
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 vv. 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

vi.1-5.] 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" (1 Cor. xv. 10; Rom. xv.
16—19). So that this boast of the Apostle, in which he
invites 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 (1 Cor. iii. 10 — 15), Christ only was to be
praised for this. Paul's glorying is the opposite of the
• I Cor. iv. 1 — 5 ; 2 Cor. i. 12 ; v. 10 — 12.
26

402 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 " (1 Pet. iv. Ii).
" 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
soul's ear the message of the future, *he summons to

vi.1-5.] OUR BROTHERS 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, tpopTiov (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 we 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 THE 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 responsibility 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 XXVII.
SOWING AND REAPING.
"But let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him
that 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 — 10.
C ACH shall bear his own burden (ver. 5) — but let there
be communion of disciple with teacher in all that is
good. 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 are harsh in their

406 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 very com
prehensive sense. "All good things" cannot surely
be limited to the "carnal things" of I Cor. ix. ii. 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

vi.6-io.] 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 whatever
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-

408 THE 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 every
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. IO 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

vi.6-io.] SOWING AND REAPING. 4°9
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 minister 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

410 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 vv. 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 !
How unspeakably mean their quarrels appear in the
light of the solemn issues opening out before them I
It was God 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

vi.6-io.] SOWING AND REAPING. 4"
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. Thisgreat axiom deserves to be lookedat 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 !
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 ! 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

412 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
like children. We shall become men, 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 chrysalis 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 like. There is a glorious, everlasting kingdom
of heaven, a world which in its duration, its range of
action and experience, its style of equipment and
occupation, 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 !
It is March, not August yet. " In due season we shall

vi.6-io.3 SOWING AND REAPING. 4>3
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 ! "
II. 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 sower'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 life. 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

vi.6-io.] SOWING AND REAPING. 415
eternity ; and youth is 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
upon 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-

4i6 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATlAN'S.

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 ! "
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."

vi.6-io.] 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, tothe 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
27

4i 8 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 comes directly into con
tact with the Living God, its fountain ; 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"
(i 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 life of faith,
from the lowliest acts of love and service, God in due
season will raise up a glorious harvest for which heaven
itself will be the richer.

THE EPILOGUE.
Chapter vi. ii — 18.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE FALSE AND THE TRUE GLORYING.
" See 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 may 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. 1 1 — 14.
THE rendering of ver. 11 in the Authorised Version
is clearly erroneous (see how 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 word " look " is a kind of nota
bene. It marks something new, designed by its form
and appearance in the manuscript to arrest the eye.

422 THE EPISTLE 10 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 :
eypa-^ra) 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. n 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 finale' the interest of the Epistle, so
powerfully sustained and carried through so many
stages, is raised to a yet higher pitch. Its pregnant
* See 2 Thess. iii. 17, 18; I Cor. xvi. 21—23. In ver. 22 of the
latter passage we can trace a similar autographic message, on a smaller
scale. Comp. also Philemon 19,

vi. 11-14.] THE FALSE AND THE TRUE GLORYING. 423
sentences give m.s— first, another and still severer
denunciation of "the troublers" (vv. 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 (vv. 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 Apostle 's 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

424 . THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
last chapter. Paul does 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 worldly
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

vi. n-i4.] THE FALSE AND THE TRUE GLORYING. 425
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 truth 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 surrendering, as this Epistle shows, all that

426 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 " the 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. 13a
who in ver. 136 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
* 0! ireptTefiv6fi.evoi {Revised Text). On this idiom, see Winer's
Grammar, p. 444; A. Buttmann's N. T. Grammar, p. 296. In ch. i.
23, and in ii. 2 (r. Sokouoi), v. e have had instances of this usage.

vi. H-I4-] THE FALSE AND THE TRUE GLORYING. 427
passes into an abiding characteristic, so that the ex
pression acquires the form of a title. " The circum
cised" are the 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 entree into
some select and envied circle — such are the things for
which creeds are bartered, for which men put their

428 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
• religious 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
ashamed 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. it-14.] THE FALSE AND THE TRUE GLORYING. 429
in the universe. Its message is the good news of God
to all mankind. It is the centre of faith and religion,
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 Calvary 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 moral
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 !
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 GALATIANS.
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?
We 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 1" If the misery of our
bondage was acute its darkness extreme, how great

vi. 11-14.] THE FALSE AND THE TRUE GLORYING. 43>
is the joy with which we hail our Redeemer 1 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 life and superhuman teaching of
Jesus, 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,
so spend ourselves in serving it, that we may justly

432 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 of
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 Him, 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 flash
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

vi. n-14.] the false ANd the true glorying. 433
other. The cross stands between them. In ch. ii. 2Q
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. 11). 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 be
upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God." — Gal. vi. 15, 16.
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 element of
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 uncircumcision 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 valid : the new world of
"the kingdom of God," with its "righteousness and
peace and joy in the Holy Ghost," was there to
justify it.
I. For neither is circumcision anything. — Judaism is
abolished at a stroke ! With it circumcision was
everything. " The circumcision " and " the people of
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 Pauline
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. 21). In truth Paul did nothing of

438 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
amongst 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 shows 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
fervently, 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. 2 1 — 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. 439
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

44° THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
standpoint. The essential thing is " keeping the com
mandments of God" (i Cor. vii. 18, 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, which 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, uncircumcision 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."
So Paul seeks to protect Israel after the flesh, in
its rejection and sorrowful exile from the fold of Christ,
against Gentile insolence. Alas ! that his protection has

vi. 15, 16.] 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

442 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"
(i 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 ! 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

vi. 15, 16.] 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
in 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.
W hat 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. 13). 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

vi. 15, 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 I
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 ,f 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 life. His "life is in the right," because his
heart is right with God. All attempts to divorce
morality 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

vi. 15, 16.] 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).
* Stoixvoovoiv : comp. ch. v. 25.

CHAPTER XXX.

THE BRAND OF fESUS.

" 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." — Gal. 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 — 10) revealed
the profound excitement of spirit under which he is
labouring; not otherwise does he conclude. Ver. 17

vi. 17, 18.] The brand op jesus. 449
sharply contrasts with the words of peace that hushed
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 of
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 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
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 of
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 ! Ill must
it be for him who henceforth shall trouble thee.

vi. 17, 18.] THE BRAND OF JESUS. 45»
" 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 journeys ; 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 (1 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. 1 — 10). The culmination
of the legalistic conflict was attended with an inner crisis
that left its ineffaceable impression on the Apostle's soul.

452 THE EPISTLE 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. io). 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 of
entreaty, 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 ! 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."

vi. 17, 18.] THE BRAND OF JESUS. 453
The present tense of the Greek imperative verb
(irapexerm) 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 follies 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 ! "
" 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

454 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
refers as constituting " the brand of Jesus " ? For Jesus
was scourged. The allusion of I Pet. ii. 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 eyes.
But to Paul himself these tokens were very precious.
"Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you," he writes

vi. 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 1" 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 stigmatize. A man so marked was

456 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
called stigmatias, i.e., 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

vi. 17, 18.] 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 stigmatisation 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 Assisi in the year
1 224 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
tracted meditation on the sufferings of our Lord, aided

45? THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
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
intelligence 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

vi. 17, 18.] THE BRAND OF IESUS. 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 suffer 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 ! " 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 I " 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 ;
these are the armorial bearings of the Apostle Paul.
He places the seal of Jesus, the sign-manual of the
wounded hand upon the letter written in His name.

460 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 Httle 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 Spirit of God,

vi. 17, 18.] THE BENEDICTION. 461
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
of 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.

REV. DR. ALEXANDER BRUCE'S WORKS.
THE MIRACULOUS ELEMENT IN THE GOSPELS.
By Alexander Balmain Bruce, D.D., Author of "The Parabolic
Teaching of Christ." 8vo, cloth. $2.50.
This work, though constructed on a different method, may be regarded as a com
panion to my work on The Parabolic Teaching of Christ, published a few years
ago. In the Fifth and Sixth Lectures I have considered from my point of view, at
considerable length, a large number of the miraculous narratives, and made observa
tions on nearly the whole of the narratives of this character contained in the Gospels.
My object in these portions of the work is not to expound homiletically the whole
narrative in which a miracle is recorded, but to inquire whether the event recorded be
indeed a miracle.
1 ' It will take rank at once among the standard treatises upon its always impor
tant and engrossing theme. It is an elaborate study — the fruit of wide-reaching and
Profound research and patient reflection. The result of these studies is that the
¦volume is a powerful defense of the miracles as an essential feature of the religion 0/
Christ. It is a cause of congratulation to the whole Christian public that so -valuable
course of lectures has been given to the whole world in so available shape" — Boston
CONGREGATIONALIST. c( An exhaustive discussion of the New Testament Miracles. The topics are
candidly, lucidly, and very ably considered. The volume is a rich addition to our
apologetic literature, which every Biblical student will desire to add to his library,"—
Zion's Herald.

The Parabolic Teaching of Christ
A Systematic and Critical Study of the Parables of our Lord. By Rev.
Prof. A. B. Bruce, D.D. i vol., 8vo, cloth, 527 pp. Price, $2.50.
"A work which will at once take its place as a classic on the Parables of our Sa
viour. No minister should think of doing witho ut it." — American Presbyterian Review.
American Literary Churchman says : " We recommend this book with the most
confident earnestness. It is a book to be bought and kept; it has both depth and
breadth and minute accuracy ; it has a living sympathy with the teaching of the Para
bles and with the spirit of the Master." ENGLISH NOTICES.
" Prof. Bruce brings to his task the learning and the liberal and finely sympathetic
spirit which are the best gifts of an expositor of Scripture. His treatment of his subject
is vigorous and original, and he avoids the capital mistake of overlaying his exegesis
with a mass of other men's views." — Spectator.
"The studies of the Parables are thorough, scholarly, suggestive and practical.
Fullness of discussion, reverence of treatment, and sobriety of judgment, mainly char
acterize this work." — Christian World.
*' Each Parable is most thoughtfully worked out, and much new light is thus thrown
on the difficulties which surround many of these beautiful and suggestive examples of
Divine teaching." — Clergymen's Magazine.
"This volume has only to be known to be welcomed, not by students alone, but by
all earnest students oi-Christ's oracles. On no subject has Dr. Bruce spoken more
wisely than on the question why Jesus spoke in parables. The one end the author sets
before himself is, to find out what our Lord really meant. And this he does with a
clearness and fullness worthy of all praise. Familiar as we are with some of
the best and most popular works on the Parables, we do not know any to
which we could look for so much aid in our search after the very meaning
which Christ would nave us find in His words."— Nonconformist.

Copies sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt of price,
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5

STANDARD RELIGIOUS WORKS.
IS THERE SALVATION AFTER DEATH?
A Treatise on the Gospel in the Intermediate State.
By E. D. Morris, D.D., LL.D., Professor in Lane Theological Sem
inary, Cincinnati. Crown 8vo, cloth, $1.25. 2d Edition.
N. Y. Observer says : "The various views are stated with fairness and precision,
the specific passages of Scripture, bearing upon the subject, are carefully considered,
as well as the general testimony of Scripture in relation to it. We commend the
volume to ministers and teachers."
N. Y. Evangelist : " Clear in method and cogent in argument, it is saturated
throughout with the large literature of its subject, is free from all acerbity and un
fairness, and is loyal to God's Word as the final test of Christian truth. It will settle
doubt and confirm faith ,"
THE HUMILIATION OF CHRIST
In its Physical, Ethical, and Official Aspects.
(Being the Sixth of the Cunningham Lectures.) By Rev. A. B. Bruce,
D.D. Octavo, cloth, gilt top, $2.50. Uniform with the same
author's "Parabolic Teaching of Christ" and "Miraculous
Element in the Gospels."
'* These lectures are well worthy of the name they bear, and of their precursors
in the series ; and the book in "which they are published, with ample notes and refer
ences, will be valuable to theologians, supplying a want in the literature of the subject,
and containing many fruitful germs of thought. Dr. Bruce* s style is uniformly
clear and vigorous, and this book has the rare advantage of being at once stimulating
and satisfying to the mind in a high degree. He has given us a book that will really
advance the theological understanding of the great truth that forms its subject,'"'—
British and Foreign Evangelical Review.
The English Churchman says : "The title of the book gives but a faint concep
tion of the value and wealth of its contents  Dr. Bruce's work is really one
of exceptional value ; and no one can read it without perceptible gain- in theological
knowledge," 
BY REV. DR. A. B. BRUCE.
THE TRAINING OF THE TWELVE,
Or, PASSAGES OUT OP THE GOSPELS.
Exhibiting the twelve Disciples of Jesus under Discipline for the Apostle
ship. Uniform with same Author's "The Humiliation of Christ"
&c. Octavo, nearly 600 pages, cloth, gilt top, $2.50.
" A really great book on an important, large, and attractive subject — a book full of
loving, wholesome, profound thoughts about the fundamentals of Christian faith and
practice." — British and Foreign Evangelical Review.
" Full of suggestion and savour. It should be the companion of the minister, for the
theme is particularly related to himself, and he would find it a very pleasant and profit
able companion." — Sfiurgeon's Sword and Trowel.
" A more wise, scholarly, and more helpful work has not been published for many
years past." — Wesleyan Magazine.
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4

DR. WM. M. TAYLOR'S LATEST WORK.
THE PARABLES OF OUR SAVIOUR.
£XPOUNDED AND ILLUSTRATED. By WM. M. TAYLOR, D.D., LL.D.
Uniform with same author's " Limitations of Life," and " Contrary
Winds," and other Sermons. Crown 8vo, cloth. $1.75 • net'
" To Archbishop Trench, who more than any other English writer has brought
patristic lore to bear upon the illustration of the parables, every later author must l
express his peculiar obligations; but the recent works of Prof. Bruce and Goebel-
have broken new ground tn this department, and my aim has been to turn their fruit
ful suggestions to good homiletical account. The little vols, cf Dr. Dod's — only the
first tf which was in my hands when these discourses were prepared — are full of
richest nuggets; and the Expositions of William Arnot are characterized by the
masculine sense, rich Christian experience, and striking illustrations for which he
was so remarkable. But the present work, while indebted in different respects to all
these authors* will be found to be in others independent of them all." — From Author's
Preface. N. Y. Observer says: "Dr. Taylor shows in this work his large acquaintance
with this portion of religious literature. A better book for the study, the Sunday
school, and the Christian has not been issued this season."
Methodist Recorder : " Dr. Taylor's style is clear and strong, ana ne brings out
with great distinctness the leading thoughts contained in each parable. It will be read
with pleasure and profit by thoughtful Christians, The volume is one of more than
ordinary richness."
Cincinnati Herald and Presbyter : "They are rich in truth, simple and plain in
style, and give evidence of ripe scholarship. They are suitable for all classes of read
ers, and cannot be read without profit."
Lutheran Quarterly: "They are clear and direct in style, abound inapt illus
\rations, are textually faithful, and breathe a devout and scholarly spirit."
Christian World : " One cannot help but be struck with the feet, as he reads these
discourses, that the author has brought to bear on their exposition an acute and yet
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Christian Leader : "Recent research has opened up great wealth of fresh lore,
bearing upon the suggestions of the parables, and these Dr, Taylor has not only
mastered, but assimilated."
Congregationalist ; "The whole series is characterized in a remarkable degree
by strong common sense and a shrewd insight into human nature and needs, as well as
by the loyal purpose to lead men and women to God."
NEW WORK BY REV. W. M. TAYLOR, D.D., LL.D.
JOHN KNOX.
With a fine Steel Portrait. Engraved by Holl, from a Painting in the
possession of Lord Somerville. i2mo, cloth. $1.25. net.
This work gives a vivid, comprehensive and accurate account of the life and work
of the great Scottish Reformer. It includes a careful and well ordered summary of the
career of Knox in England, as that has been brought to light by the recent investiga
tions of Lorimer and others. Particular attention has been given to the course oi
¦events in Scotland -during the last thirteen years of the Reformer's life, and his inter
views with Queen Mary, as well as his work in the reconstruction of the Scottish
Church, are described with fullness of detail and independence of judgment. The story
isadmirably told, the interest being maintained from first to last, so that the booli
will be at once delightful to the young and instructive to those of maturer years.
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Contrary Winds and Other Sermons.
Crown 8vo Volume, Cloth. $1.75 net. $a Edition.
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SHOWS A WIDE RANGE OF READING AND CLOSE GRAPPLE WITH THE
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trials and conquer temptations and achieve victory." — N. Y. Christian
at Work. The Congregationalist says : "Its variety of theme and the never.
failing intellectual power which it illustrates, the author's reverent posi-
tiveness of faith, his broad and intimate knowledge of human nature,
and the richness of his personal spiritual experiences — never obtruded
but always underlying his words — render it a volume of rare and precious
value to the Christian believer, and A CAPITAL SPECIMEN OF MANLY,
business-like discussion to all others who care to read
what a Christian has to say for his religion."
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Now Ready— 4th Edition of
THE LIMITATIONS OF LIFE
AND OTHER SERMONS.
By WM. M. TAYLOR, D.D.
With a Fine Portrait on Steel by Ritchie. Crown 8vo
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"In variety of theme, in clearness and penetration of vision, in
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REV, PR, HENRY B, SMITH'S WORKS-
SYSTEMofCHRISTIAN theology
By Henry B. Smith, D.D., LL.D. Edited by Wm. S. Karr, D.D.
Octavo vol. 650 pages. Cloth. (3d Edition.) $3.50.
"The importance of this publication can hardly be
over-estimated. Dr. Smith, while living, exerted an
influence on Christian thought second to that of no
one in this country. And to-day his opinions and ut
terances on points of Christian doctrine are quoted as
of the highest authority."
" We hazard little in saying that Prof. Smith's * System of Christian Theology ' will
take its place at once in the very foremost rank of the great American treatises on
dogmatics. It is in a peculiar sense representative in its combination of keen analytical,
philosophic power and vivid perception of the imperative wants of the human heart.
. . . The book, as a whole, is a monument of profound Christian thought. No one
could have composed it who was not impressed, as Prof. Smith was, with the supreme
dignity and value of the science to which the best years of his life were devoted, and at
the same time with the infinite possibilities of that sphere of divine knowledge into
which this science aims to penetrate." — N. Y. Evangelist.
The Herald and Presbyter says : "There is no part of this work that is not a valu
able addition to the theological literature of the subject which it treats. The whole
volume is a product of theological ability of the very first order, and of wide and thor
ough scholarship. . . . Its style is clear and sparkling. In those portions of the
work in which the theme is elaborated, it rises to heights of real eloquence. . . .
We have been given an elaborate theological treatise, which must take a place abreast
of the ablest treatises in divinity to be found in our language."
INTRODUCTION TO CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY— LECTURES ON
APOLOGETICS. By Henry B. Smith, D.D. Edited by Wm.
S. Karr, D.D. 2 vols, in one. Price reduced to $1.50.
" As these two works properly belong together, it has been thought
advisable to publish them as one volume, giving the author's complete
survey of the field, as well as his earlier and later treatment of some of
the subjects."
" No teacher in this country, and few anywhere, had a more thorough acquaintance
with this large and abstruse subject, and with its enormous literature. His severe and
carefully trained logical faculty, his cool and dispassionate judgment, his extensive
learning, and his nervous and transparent style, lend to this, as to all his other produc
tions, a profound interest and a peculiar charm. It "will be an invaluable manual, not
only to the professional student, but to every thoughtful reader who seeks to justify the
ways of God to man." — N. Y. Tribune.
HENRY BOYNTON SMITH— His Life and Work. Edited by his
Wife. With a fine Portrait on steel by Ritchie. Octavo vol.,
cloth. $2.50.
This Memoir of the lamented Prof. Smith gives a faithful picture of
his character and public career. The story is deeply interesting, and
while it fully justifies his reputation as one of the most accomplished
scholars and theologians, it also shows him to have been a man of very
rare personal attractions.
N.Y. Observer: "Dr. Smith'slife was full of incident and adventure. Hiseducation
was splendid. Foreign travel in youth broadened his view, enlarged his acquaintance
with universities, with men, books, and life. The brightest intellects discerned his great
ness. As a pastor, preacher, teacher, lecturer and professor, as a reviewer and editor,
he always made the mark of a first-rate workman, doing everything well. The loving
hand of the wife has fitly held out to the eyes of the world, and bound up in this bundle
such evidence of his greatness and worth, that the present generation and posterity will
know something of what the Church lost when this light went out before eventide."
Copies sent on receipt of price, post paid.
A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON, 714 Broadway, New York.
13

A DICTIONARY OF RELIGIOUS SUBJECTS.
CLASSIFIED GEMS OF THOUGHT
FROM THE GREAT WRITERS AND PREACHERS OF ALL AGES.
In convenient form for use as a Dictionary of Ready Reference on
Religious Subjects. Edited by Rev. F. B. Proctor, supervised
in proof by Principal Henry Wace, D.D., both of King's College,
London. Royal octavo volume, 850 pages, including a full index of
32 pages. Strongly bound in cloth, $5.50 ; in half morocco, $6.50.

A Ready Means of Comparing Views (Critical
and Suggestive) with the Great Writers of All
Ages. Treating Upward of 3, 000 Subjects.

OCCUPYING A FIELD COVERED BY NO OTHER PUBLICATION.
A thoroughly critical and suggestive classification of the lest religious
thought — ancient and modern — including also, as a special feature, pas
sages remarkable for lucidity in the treatment of difficult themes.
As a ready means of comparing views with eminent writers and
preachers on a wide range of subjects, it occupies a field entirely its own.
Upward of 3,000 subjects (in alphabetical order) appear in the list of
titles, and among the large number of authorities quoted are many not
readily accessible in other forms.
The plan adopted in the preparation of the work adds much 'to its
utility in securing just the ends desired. Each important subject receives
careful analysis at the hands of the author, and the citations are so placed
as to develop each phase of the subject separately. In this way the best
thought of many writers is applied directly to the elucidation of the great
problems of the day, and in a form to be available for immediate use.

ENGLISH NOTICES OF THIS WORK.
"Incomparably one of the most useful books of the kind recently published.1'
— Nonconform ist.
"One of the best of the many collections of choice literary extracts now in circula
tion. It is not a book of anecdotes, but a casket filled with gems of thought.'1 — Prim
itive Methodist.
" It contains innumerable quotations from authors and divines of all ages. . . .
To preachers whose libraries are limited, or who are too much occupied for extensive
reading, these 'Gems1 will prove invaluable.1' — Christian World Pulpit.
"This book of thoughts and pregnant sayings asks for a place as a book of refer
ence, which may be opened anywhere and at anv time, that it may furnish a train of
thought, and help to elucidate and interpret that Word which is able to make us wise
unto salvation. We think it will not ask in vain." — The Rock.
" No one supplied with ' Gems of Thought ' should be guilty of a dry sermon.'* —
Ecclesiastical Gazette.
"Ministers are sure to value it, and find it of great service in their work.1'— The
Freeman. " Entitled to very high praise. . . . The selections are for the most part admir
able. . . . It is likely to prove one of the most useful volumes that has been issued
from the press for some time,'' — The Commonwealth.

Codies sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt of price.

STANDARD RELIGIOUS BOOKS 
<£he Clerical Cibratrj.
JITHIS SERIES of volumes is specially intended for the Clergy, Stu-
¦*¦ DENTS AND SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHERS OF ALL DENOMINATIONS,
and is meant to furnish them with stimulus and suggestion in the variour
departments of their work. Amongst the pulpil thinkers from whoa
these sermon outlines have been drawn are leading men of almost every
denomination in Great Britain and America, the subjects treated of being
of course practical rather than controversial. The best thoughts of the
oest religious writers of the day are here furnished in a condensed form
and at a moderate price.
Eight volumes in crown 8vo are now ready (each volume complete in
itself). Price, $1.50. NOW READY— FOURTH EDITION.
300 OUTLINES OF SERMONS ON THE NEW TESTAMENT.
By 73 Eminent English and American Clergymen, including
Archbishop Tait.
Bishop Alexander.
Bishop Browne.
Bishop Lightfoot.
Bishop Magee.
Bishop Ryle.
Dean Church.
Dean Vaughan.
Canon Farrar.
Canon Knox-Little.

Canon LlDDON.
Canon Westcott.
Rev. Prin. Cairns.
Rev. Dr. M. Punshon
Rev. Dr.W. M.Taylor.
Rev. Phillips Brooks.
Rev. Dr. R. S. Storrs.
Rev. Dr.W.G.T.SHEDD.
Rev. Dr. T. L. Cuyler.
Rev. Dr. J. T. Duryea.

Rev. Dr. H. Crosby.
Rev. Dr. Pies. McCosh.
Rev. Dr. M. R.Vincent.
Rev. Dr. Jno. Peddie.
Rev. Dr. C. T. Deems.
Rev. C. H. Spurgeon.
Rev. Dean Stanley.
Rev. Dr. A. Raleigh.*
And many other*

OUTLINES OF SERMONS ON THE OLD TESTAMENT.

G. S. Barrett, B.A.
Dean E. Bickersteth.
Bishop E. H. Browne.
J. Bald. Brown, B.A.
T.P. Boultbee, LL.D.
J. P. Chown.
Dean R.W. Church.
E. R. Couder, D.D.
T. L. Cuyler, D.D.
A. B. Davidson, D.D.
Robert Rainy, D.D.
Alex'r Raleigh, D.D.
C. P. Reichel, D.D.
Chas. Stanford, D.D.
Dean A. P. Stanley.
W. M. Stratham.B.A.

a uthors of sermons.
J.Oswald Dykes,D.D,
E. Herber Evans.
Canon F.W. FARRAR.
Donald Fraser, D.D.
J.G.Greenhough.B.A W. F. Hook, D.D.
Bishop W.Basil Jones.
John Kerr, D.D.
Canon Edward King.
Bp. J. B. Lightfoot.
Wm. M.Taylor, D.D.
S. A. Tipple, B.A.
H. J. VanDyke, D.D.
Dean C. J. VAUGHAN.
James Vaughan, B.A.

Canon Liddon.
J. A. Macfayden, D. D.
Alex. M aclaren, D. D.
Bishop W. C. Magee.
Theodore Monod.
Arthur Mursell.
Joseph Parker, D.D.
Dean E. H. Plumptre,
ohn Pulsford. [D.D.
W. Morley- Punshon
M. R.Vincent, D.D.
W. J. Woods, B.A.
C. Wadsworth, D.D
G. H. Wilkinson.
Bp. C. Wordsworth

Copies sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt of price.

THE CLERICAL LIBRARY- (Continued;.
OUTLINES OF SERMONS TO CHILDREN.
With numerous Anecdotes. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. (Being the
3d vol. of the Clerical Library.)
" These sermons are by men of acknowledged eminence in possessing the happy
faculty of preaching interestingly to the young. As an evidence of this, as well as
of the character of the teaching, it is only necessary to mention such names as
those of William. Arnot, the Bonars, Principal Cairns, John Edmond, D.D.,
Drs. Oswald Dykes and}. Marshall Lang, besides many others "—Canada Pres
byterian. "This book contains a very high grade of thinking, with enough illustrations and
anecdotes to stock the average preacher for many years of children's sermons." — Epis
copal Register.
' ' They are full of suggestions which will be found exceedingly helpful ; the habit of
using apt and simple illustrations, and of repeating good anecdotes, begets a faculty
and power which are of value. This volume is a treasure which a hundred pastors will
find exceedingly convenient to draw upon." — N. Y. Evangelist.
PULPIT PRAYERS BY EMINENT PREACHERS.
Crown 8vo. Cloth, $1.50. (Being the 4th vol. of the Clerical Library.)
The British Quarterly says: " These prayers are fresh and strong; the or
dinary ruts of conventional forms are left and the fresh thoughts of living hearts
are uttered. The excitement of devotional thought and sympathy must be great in
the offering of such prayers, especially when, as here, spiritual intensity and de-
voutness are as marked as freshness and strength. Such prayers have their char'
acteristic aaoantages"
London Literary World ; "Used aright, this volume is likely to be of great ser
vice to ministers. It will show them how to put variety, freshness and literary beauty,
as well as spirituality of tone, into their extemporaneous prayers."

Anecdotes Illustrative of New Testament Texts.
With 600 Anecdotes. • Crown 8vo, 400 pages. Cloth, $1.50. (Being
the 5th vol. of the Clerical Library.)
London Christian Leader says : " This is one of the most valuable books of
anecdote that we have ever seen. Tltere is hardly one anecdote that is not of first-
rate quality. They have been selected by one who has breadth and vigor of mind
as well as keen spiritual insight, and some of the most effective illustrations of
Scripture texts have a rich vein tf humor of exquisite quality."
The London Church Bells: "The anecdotes are given in the order of the texts
which they illustrate. There is an ample index. The book is one which those who
have to prepare sermons and addresses will do well to have at the.r elbow.
N.-Y. Christian at Work: "As an apt illustration often proves the nail
WHICH FASTENS THE TRUTH IN THE MIND, THIS VOLUME WILL PROVE AN ADMIRABLE
AND VALUABLE AID, NOT ONLY TO CLERGYMEN, BUT TO SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHERS
and Christian workers generally."
. N. Y. Observer : "A book replete with incident and suggestion applicable to every
occasion/1 Copies sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt of price.

THE CLERICAL LIBRARY-(Continued).

EXPOSITORY SERMONS AND OUTLINES ON
THE OLD TESTAMENT.
Crown 8vo, cloth. $1.50. Being the 6th vol. of the Clerical Library.

W. Alexander, D.D.,
Bishop of Derry.
A. Barry, D.D,, Primate
of Australia.
Dean Bradley, of West
minster.
Stopford A. Brooke.

Containing Sermons by
Prof. A. B. Davidson,
D.D., LL.D.
Ven. Archdeacon Farrar.
Canon W.J. Knox-Little.
Canon H. P. Liddon, D.D.
Alexander M aclaren ,
D.D.

George Matheson, D.D.
Joseph Parker, D.D.
Dean J. J. S. Perowne.
C. Stanford, D.D.
Lord Bishop of Chester.
Dean Vaughan.

"Rich in practical application, these Sermons will be an education and an inspi
ration to many" — N. Y. Christian Advocate and Journal.

PLATFORM AND PULPIT AIDS.
Consisting of Striking Speeches, Home Work, Foreign Missions,
the Bible, Sunday School, Temperance, and Kindred Sub
jects, with Illustrative Anecdotes from Addresses. Crown
8vo, cloth. $1.50. Being the 7th vol. of the Clerical Library.

By

Prebendary Ainslie.
W. Arthur.
Bishop of Bedford.
Dean of Canterbury.
Bishop of Carlisle.
Bishop Boyd Carpenter.
Dean of Chester.
Dean Close.
R. W. Dale, D.D.

J. C. Edghill, D.D.
Dean of Bangor.
Bishop Ellicott, D.D.
Archdeacon Farrar.
Canon Fleming.
Newman Hall.
Dr. Livingstone.
Bishop of London.
J. A. Macfadyen, D.D.

R Moffat, D.D.
Sir W. Muir, K.C.S.I.
J. Parker, D.D.
W. M. Punshon, D.D.
Principal Rainy, D.D.
C H. Spurgeon.
A. Moody Stuart, D.D.
Archbishop Tait.
Canon Tristram.
" And others*
"fust the book to give to some overworked pastor who has many speeches to make.
with little time for study, and less money to spare for new books. We have here a
collection of some of the best speeches qf many of the great platform speakers of our
time*'' — Christian.
ANECDOTES ILLUSTRATIVE OF OLD TESTA
MENT TEXTS.
With over 500 Illustrations and Index of Texts. Crown 8vo, cloth.
$1.50. Being the 8th vol. of the Clerical Library.
"It will be found invaluable to all preachers, teachers, and public speakers as
Placing at their command a vast storehouse of incidents with which to enforce and
fasten an idea or point a moral,"-*- N. Y. Christian at Work.

Copies sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt of price.

NEW AND IMPORTANT HOMILETIC WORK.
Now ready 2 Vols.— Genesis to 2d Samuel, Volume I.,
and Kings to Psalm LXXVI, Volume II.
THE SERMON BIBLE.
EMBRACING THE WHOLE OF THS SACRED SCRIPTURES.
This Series of Volumes will give in convenient form the
essence of the best homiletic literature of this generation. As
yet, the preacher desirous cf knowing the best that has been
said on a text has had nothing to turn to but a very meagre
and inadequate Homiletical Index. In this he is often referred
to obsolete or second-rate works, while he misses references to
the best sources. The new Sermon Bible will take account of
the best and greatest preachers, and will be compiled from
manuscript reports and fugitive periodical sources as well as
from books. Many of the best sermons preached by eminent
men are never printed in book form. It will thus contain much
that will be new to its readers.
UNDER EVERY TEXT WILL BE GIVEN:—
1. Outlines if important sermons by eminent preachers existing only
in manuscript or periodicals, and thus inaccessible.
2. Less full outlines of sermons which have appeared in volumes -which
are not well known or easily obtained.
3. References to or very brief outlines of sermons which appear in
popular volumes such as are likely to be in a preacher 's library.
4. Full references to theological treatises, commentaries, etc. , where any
help is given to the elucidation of the text.
Thus the preacher, having chosen his text, has only to refer to the Sermon
Bible, to find some of the best outlines and suggestions on it and full refer
ences to all the helps available.
The range of books consulted will be far wider than in any Homiletical
Index — we cannot say than in any work of the kind, because no work of the
kind is in existence.
The Series will be under the general supervision of the Editor of the
" Clerical Library," who will be assisted by specialists in each department.
It will extend to 12 vols., of about 500 pages, with 24 blank pages for
memorandum notes at end of each vol. Price $1.50 each, and will be pub
lished at the rate of at least two vols, a year.
Great care will be taken to observe due proportion in the volumes — the
space given to each book of the Bible depending on the number of sermons
that have been preached from it.
As the volumes will be indispensable to every preacher, and as they
will be in constant use, they will be issued well bound, and at an exceedingly
moderate price when the amount of matter is considered.
Copies sent, postpaid, on receipt of price, by
A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON, 714 Broadway, N. Y.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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