PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Galatians
Findlay, George G. (George Gillanders) · 132,851 words · 186 reading sections
_The Address._
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662 wordsSECTION 2_The Address._
Of the four major Epistles, this one is superlatively characteristic of its author. It is _Paulinissima Paulinarum_--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…
749 wordsSECTION 3_The Address._
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 experience he touched the experience of his fellows, he seized on those universal truths that are latent in t…
657 wordsSECTION 4_The Address._
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 skilful combination of scene and incident brought to bear on the solution of the crucial question. The Apostle himself, the insidious Judaizers, and the wavering …
770 wordsSECTION 5_The Address._
[2] Compare Acts xiv. 4, 14 (_Barnabas and Paul_); 1 Thess. ii. 6 (_Paul and his comrades_); Rom. xvi. 7 (_Andronicus and Junias_); 2 Cor. viii. 23 (_Titus and others_, "apostles of the churches"); 2 Cor. xi. 13 ("false apostles": _Judean emissaries_); also Rev. ii. 2; Heb. iii. 1; John xiii. 16. On the N.T. use of…
661 wordsSECTION 6_The Address._
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 appointment took place by a Divine intervention, in which the ordinary …
749 wordsSECTION 7_The Address._
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 Pi…
529 wordsSECTION 8_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 L…
715 wordsSECTION 9_The Salutation._
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 …
661 wordsSECTION 10_The Salutation._
But now, to crown all, _He gave Himself_! "The Word became flesh." The Son of God planted Himself 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…
698 wordsSECTION 11_The Salutation._
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"--what for, and in what way? What was the errand that broug…
689 wordsSECTION 12_The Salutation._
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 Gethsemane. And …
687 wordsSECTION 13_The Salutation._
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.[4] The period that intervenes since His first appearing is transitional, bel…
739 wordsSECTION 14_The Salutation._
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.…
310 wordsSECTION 15_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 w…
658 wordsSECTION 16_The Anathema._
[9] 1 Cor. iv. 3, 4; 2 Cor. v. 9-12; xii. 19. 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…
908 wordsSECTION 17_The Anathema._
"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 …
706 wordsSECTION 18_The Anathema._
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 evi…
672 wordsSECTION 19_The Anathema._
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 opponen…
703 wordsSECTION 20_The Anathema._
[11] 2 Cor. x. 1-11; xiii. 1-10; 1 Cor. iv. 18-21. 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…
847 wordsSECTION 21_Paul'S Gospel Revealed By Christ._
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 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 …
752 wordsSECTION 22_Paul'S Gospel Revealed By Christ._
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 sym…
888 wordsSECTION 23_Paul'S Gospel Revealed By Christ._
[16] 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. 1 furnishes a prominent example of the _subjective_ genitive. [17] Acts ix. 1-19; xxii. 5-16; xxvi. 12-18. On the Damascus road the Apostle Paul found his mission. Th…
736 wordsSECTION 24_Paul'S Gospel Revealed By Christ._
This intimate relation of doctrine and experience gives to Paul's teaching a peculiar warmth and freshness, 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 f…
860 wordsSECTION 25_Paul'S Gospel Revealed By Christ._
[21] Acts vii. 58; viii. 1-3; ix. 1. 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 t…
669 wordsSECTION 26_Paul'S Gospel Revealed By Christ._
[22] _Les Apôtres_, p. 180, note 1. 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 nothin…
638 wordsSECTION 27_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; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood: neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me: bu…
799 wordsSECTION 28_Paul'S Divine Commission._
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 in…
940 wordsSECTION 29_Paul'S Divine Commission._
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 the reach of every human being. The Son of God whom he no…
810 wordsSECTION 30_Paul'S Divine Commission._
The manner in which Saul of Tarsus had been prepared 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 po…
747 wordsSECTION 31_Paul'S Divine Commission._
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…
876 wordsSECTION 32_Paul'S Divine Commission._
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 Damascus, "was come to Jerusalem," and "essayed to join himself to the disciples," they, we are told, "were al…
301 wordsSECTION 33_Paul And The Primitive Church._
"Then after 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 stil…
651 wordsSECTION 34_Paul And The Primitive Church._
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 opposition 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 st…
719 wordsSECTION 35_Paul And The Primitive Church._
"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 Alphæus;" nor in the lower, for he was, as far as we can learn, stationary at Jerusalem. But he s…
861 wordsSECTION 36_Paul And The Primitive Church._
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 Jerusale…
730 wordsSECTION 37_Paul And The Primitive Church._
During this long period, the Apostle tells us, he "remained unknown by face to the Churches of Judæa." 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 woul…
726 wordsSECTION 38_Paul And The Primitive Church._
[30] Ver. 22. It is arbitrary in Meyer to exclude from this category the Church of Jerusalem. He speaks of the elder Apostles in terms of unfeigned respect. In his reference in ch. ii. 11-21 to the error of Peter, there is great plainness of speech, but no bitterness. When the Apostle says that he "went up to Jerusal…
766 wordsSECTION 39_Paul And The False Brethren._
[31] We follow Lightfoot in reading the ποτὲ as in ch. i. 23, and everywhere else in Paul, as a particle of _time_. "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 revelation; and I laid before them the gospel which I preach among the …
827 wordsSECTION 40_Paul And The False Brethren._
[34] Acts xiii. 2, 7, 13, 43, 45, 46, 50; xiv. 12, 14; xv. 2, 12. 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 (v…
796 wordsSECTION 41_Paul And The False Brethren._
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 Pau…
693 wordsSECTION 42_Paul And The False Brethren._
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 Churc…
716 wordsSECTION 43_Paul And The False Brethren._
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 sta…
991 wordsSECTION 44_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 emotion 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 …
402 wordsSECTION 45_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 contrariwise, when they saw that I had been intrusted with the gospel of the uncircumcision, even as Peter with _the gospel_ …
699 wordsSECTION 46_Paul And The Three Pillars._
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 nothi…
688 wordsSECTION 47_Paul And The Three Pillars._
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 darin…
744 wordsSECTION 48_Paul And The Three Pillars._
So we come back to the declaration of the Apostle in ch. i. 11: "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 headstone. Paul's predecessors in Apostolic office did not impart the gospel to him at the outset; nor at a later time…
724 wordsSECTION 49_Paul And The Three Pillars._
[45] _Zum Evangelien d. Paulus und d. Petrus_, p. 273. Holsten is the keenest and most logical of all the Baurian succession. 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 commission ran parallel with Peter's Jewish commission…
1,035 wordsSECTION 50_Paul And The Three Pillars._
[47] _The Acts of the Apostles critically investigated_, vol. ii., pp. 28, 30: Eng. Trans. [48] _Paulus_, vol. i., p. 130: Eng. Trans. 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…
674 wordsSECTION 51_Paul And Peter At Antioch._
Paul's fellowship with Peter and with James was cordial and endeared. But to hold the hand of John, "the disciple whom Jesus loved," was a yet higher satisfaction. 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 whos…
793 wordsSECTION 52_Paul And Peter At Antioch._
[49] Rom. ii. 25-iii. 1. [50] Rom. i. 16; ii. 9, 10; ix. 4, 5; xi. 1, 2. 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…
721 wordsSECTION 53_Paul And Peter At Antioch._
[52] See Chapter VII. pp. 109, 110. These agents addressed themselves in the first instance to _the Jews_, as their commission from Jerusalem 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 observanc…
807 wordsSECTION 54_Paul And Peter At Antioch._
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 und…
726 wordsSECTION 55_Paul And Peter At Antioch._
This withdrawal of the Jews from the common fellowship 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. Ce…
681 wordsSECTION 56_Paul And Peter At Antioch._
III. Paul is met at this point by the stock objection to the doctrine of salvation by faith--an objection brought forward in the dispute at Antioch not, we should imagine, by Peter himself, but by the Judaistic advocates. _To renounce legal righteousness was in effect_, they urged, _to promote sin--nay, to make Christ …
879 wordsSECTION 57_Paul And Peter At Antioch._
[56] See Grimm's _Lexicon_, or Trench's _N. T. Synonyms_, on this word. Comp. ch. iii. 19; Rom. ii. 23-27; iv. 15; v. 14. [57] The _I_ of this sentence is quite indefinite. On the other hand ver. 19, with its emphatic ἐγώ γάρ, brings us into a new vein of thought. [58] Comp. ch. iii. 10-12, 19; Rom. iii. 20; iv. 1…
300 wordsSECTION 58_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 mak…
732 wordsSECTION 59_The Principles At Stake._
[61] 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 historical and doctrinal sections of the Epistle. I. At the foundation of Paul's theology lies his conception of _the grace of God_. GRACE is the Apostle's watchword. The word occ…
794 wordsSECTION 60_The Principles At Stake._
[64] Rom. vii. 12, 14; 2 Thess. ii. 4-8; comp. 1 John iii. 4. [65] Rom. iii. 20; iv. 15; v. 20; vii. 5, 24; Gal. ii. 16; iii. 10, 11, 19. While sin is the reply which man's nature makes to the demands of law, _faith_ is the response elicited by grace; it is the door of the heart opening to grace.[66] Grace and Faith…
671 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
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Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.