PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Galatians
Findlay, George G. (George Gillanders) · 132,851 words · 186 reading sections
_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…
756 wordsSECTION 122_Shall The Galatians Be Circumcised_
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 consistent 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 uncircumci…
833 wordsSECTION 123_Shall The Galatians Be Circumcised_
Now this is a proved impossibility. Whoever "sets up the law," he had avouched to Cephas, "makes himself a transgressor" (ch. ii. 18). Nay, it was established of set purpose to "multiply transgressions," to deepen and sharpen the consciousness of sin (ch. iii. 19; Rom. iii. 20; iv. 15; v. 20). Jewish believers in Chris…
817 wordsSECTION 124_Shall The Galatians Be Circumcised_
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…
819 wordsSECTION 125_Shall The Galatians Be Circumcised_
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_;[133] and love is its working energy. Love …
775 wordsSECTION 126_Shall The Galatians Be Circumcised_
* * * * * "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…
256 wordsSECTION 127_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 …
702 wordsSECTION 128_The Hinderers And Troublers._
[134] See Chapter I, pp. 15, 16, on the _date_ of the Epistle. 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,[135] the zeal with which they pursued the Christian course, until this d…
769 wordsSECTION 129_The Hinderers And Troublers._
Paul's position was a delicate one, and open to misrepresentation. 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 …
724 wordsSECTION 130_The Hinderers And Troublers._
[136] Comp. Chapter XII, pp. 193-4. 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…
773 wordsSECTION 131_The Hinderers And Troublers._
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 sugges…
689 wordsSECTION 132_The Hinderers And Troublers._
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 …
473 wordsSECTION 133_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 co…
845 wordsSECTION 134_The Perils Of Liberty._
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 of the Law, joined in Paul's campaign against it, imagining that Grace would give him larger freedom. If "where sin abounded grace did superabound," he would say …
748 wordsSECTION 135_The Perils Of Liberty._
Judaism is a proof that this scheme of life is impracticable. 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 developed and elaborate traditional code of law, enforced by the strongest outward sanctions, _without per…
675 wordsSECTION 136_The Perils Of Liberty._
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 i…
755 wordsSECTION 137_The Perils Of Liberty._
"What law could not do," with all its multiplied enactments and redoubled threats, faith "working by love" has accomplished at a stroke. "The righteousness of the law is fulfilled in those who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" (Rom. viii. 3, 4). Gentile Christians have been raised to the level of a righte…
792 wordsSECTION 138_Christ'S Spirit And Human Flesh._
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 chil…
738 wordsSECTION 139_Christ'S Spirit And Human Flesh._
[139] The construction of ch. vi. 16; Rom. iv. 12; Phil. iii. 16, is not strictly analogous. This conception of the indwelling Spirit of God as the actuating power of the Christian's moral life predominates in the rest of this chapter. We shall pursue the general line of the Apostle's teaching on the subject in the p…
661 wordsSECTION 140_Christ'S Spirit And Human Flesh._
This war of Spirit and Flesh is first ostensibly 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 …
929 wordsSECTION 141_Christ'S Spirit And Human Flesh._
II. These two principles in their development lead to entirely opposite results. (1) _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" (…
703 wordsSECTION 142_Christ'S Spirit And Human Flesh._
(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. P…
727 wordsSECTION 143_Christ'S Spirit And Human Flesh._
"They who are Christ's did crucify the flesh." This is the moral application of Paul's mystical doctrine, 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, …
657 wordsSECTION 144_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 pr…
726 wordsSECTION 145_The Works Of The Flesh._
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. K…
830 wordsSECTION 146_The Works Of The Flesh._
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. 1 Cor. x. 6-8). Peter's Firs…
697 wordsSECTION 147_The Works Of The Flesh._
"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 deeds were evil." These are terrible accusations. But the history of natural religion confirms their truth. _Sorcery_ is the attendant of idolatr…
702 wordsSECTION 148_The Works Of The Flesh._
_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. …
787 wordsSECTION 149_The Works Of The Flesh._
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 appe…
286 wordsSECTION 150_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. "The tree is known by its fruits." Such was the criterion of religious profession laid down by the Founder of Christianity. This test His religion applies …
782 wordsSECTION 151_The Fruit Of The Spirit._
_Love_ and _humility_ are the two features whose predominance distinguishes the Christian from the purest classical conceptions of moral worth. The ethics of Naturalism know love as a passion, a sensuous instinct (ἔρως); or again, as the personal affection which binds friend to friend through common interest or resembl…
673 wordsSECTION 152_The Fruit Of The Spirit._
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" (1 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.…
746 wordsSECTION 153_The Fruit Of The Spirit._
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 rad…
713 wordsSECTION 154_The Fruit Of The Spirit._
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; kindne…
793 wordsSECTION 155_The Fruit Of The Spirit._
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 fi…
526 wordsSECTION 156_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 h…
855 wordsSECTION 157_Our Brother'S Burden And Our Own._
[143] For this pregnant force of έν see the grammarians: Moulton's _Winer_, pp. 514, 5; _A. Buttmann_, pp. 328, 9. (Eng. Ver.). The Apostle is supposing an instance--possibly an actual case--in which the sin committed was due to weakness and surprise, rather than deliberate intention; like that of Eve, when "the wom…
851 wordsSECTION 158_Our Brother'S Burden And Our Own._
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; it is a signal for every member of the Church to take heed to himself. The scrutiny which it…
752 wordsSECTION 159_Our Brother'S Burden And Our Own._
Ver. 3 stands between the two counterpoised estimates. 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 ad…
693 wordsSECTION 160_Our Brother'S Burden And Our Own._
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 …
849 wordsSECTION 161_Our Brother'S Burden And Our Own._
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, φορτίον (applied for instance to _a ship's lading_), indicate…
355 wordsSECTION 162_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 r…
780 wordsSECTION 163_Sowing And Reaping._
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…
781 wordsSECTION 164_Sowing And Reaping._
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 incompara…
748 wordsSECTION 165_Sowing And Reaping._
Think of that, struggling heart, worn with labour, broken by sorrow, cramped and thwarted by the pressure 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 righteou…
718 wordsSECTION 166_Sowing And Reaping._
Under this law of the harvest we are living at this moment, and sowing every day the seed of an immortality of honour or of shame. Life is the seed-plot of 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,…
670 wordsSECTION 167_Sowing And Reaping._
Even in the natural harvest we look upwards to Him. The order and regularity of nature, the fair procession of the seasons waiting on the silent and majestic march of the heavens, have in all ages directed thinking and grateful men to the Supreme Giver, to the creative Mind and sustaining Will that sits above the world…
641 wordsSECTION 168_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 ci…
663 wordsSECTION 169_The False And The True Glorying._
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 p…
650 wordsSECTION 170_The False And The True Glorying._
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 acceptance placed a gulf between the Christian and the orthodox Jew. The depth of that gulf became increasingly apparent the more widely the gospel spread, and the more r…
822 wordsSECTION 171_The False And The True Glorying._
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 Church…
702 wordsSECTION 172_The False And The True Glorying._
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 inferenc…
806 wordsSECTION 173_The False And The True Glorying._
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 other. The cross stands between them. In ch. ii. 20 he had said, "_I_ am crucified with Christ;" in ch. v. 2…
667 wordsSECTION 174_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 teachi…
650 wordsSECTION 175_Ritual Nothing: Character Everything._
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 cir…
742 wordsSECTION 176_Ritual Nothing: Character Everything._
Christian Gentiles retained in some instances, doubtless, 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 …
701 wordsSECTION 177_Ritual Nothing: Character Everything._
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 revelati…
744 wordsSECTION 178_Ritual Nothing: Character Everything._
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 Lord." The like answer Christianity has still to give to its questioners. If it ever ceases to render this answer…
651 wordsSECTION 179_Ritual Nothing: Character Everything._
* * * * * "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_[148] of the redeemed host of Israel. On all who are thus minded, who a…
256 wordsSECTION 180_The Brand Of Jesus._
"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 admo…
830 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.