Ver. 6. μετατίθεσθε: ye are removing (not vemoved asin A.V.). The agitators had not yet achieved any decisive suc- cess, though the Galatians were disposed to lend too ready an ear to their sugges- tions. It was not so much their actual progress, as the evidence afforded of the instability of the Galatian faith, that ex- cited misgivings in the mind of Paul (cf. iv. 11, 20); he regarded the move- ment as merely a little leaven, and had not lost his confidence in the personal loyalty of his converts and the general soundness of their faith (v. 9, 10, vi. 17. See Introd., p. 147).---τοῦ καλέσαντος, sc. Θεοῦ. The Gospel call proceeded from God, like those to Abraham and the ancient servants and people of God; the Epistles of Paul invariably attribute it to Him (cf. i. 15), not to His human instru- ments.—év χάριτι. This is evidently not = εἰς τὴν χάριν (into the grace of Christ, A.V.), but records the spirit of Divine love which prompted the call. God, of His grace in Christ, sent forth the Gospel to the Galatians by the hands of Paul
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ὑμᾶς ἐν χάριτι Χριστοῦ εἰς ἕτερον εὐαγγέλιον " 7. ὃ οὐκ ἔστιν ἄλλο, εἰ μή τινές εἰσιν οἱ ταράσσοντες ὑμᾶς, καὶ θέλοντες μεταστρέψαι τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ Χριστοῦ. 8. ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐὰν ἡμεῖς ἢ ἄγγελος ἐξ οὐρανοῦ εὐαγγελίσηται ὑμῖν παρ᾽ ὃ εὐηγγελισάμεθα ὑμῖν, ἀνάθεμα
” εστω.
9. ὡς προειρήκαμεν καὶ ἄρτι, πάλιν λέγω, Εἴ τις ὑμᾶς
εὐαγγελίζεται παρ᾽ ὃ παρελάβετε, ἀνάθεμα ἔστω.
and Barnabas.—érepov. This passage brings out forcibly the different meaning of ἕτερος and os. €repos is primarily the other of two, ἄλλος another of several. Hence ἕτερος fixes attention on two ob- jects exclusively (cf. note on τὸν ἕτερον in vi. 4); here it marks the essential dif- ference between the true and the spurious Gospel, distinguishing the latter as quite a different Gospel.
Ver. 7. ὃ οὐκ ἔστιν ἄλλο. The trans- lation of this clause in A.V. and R.V. (which is not another) has caused great embarrassment by its apparent identifica- tion of the spurious Gospel with the true. Lightfoot pleads ingeniously that ἄλλο may mean another besides the true Gos- pel, and so interprets the clause to mean that it is no Gospel at all; but this will hardly be accepted by most other scholars. The American revisers suggest the ren- dering which is nothing else than. _But these difficulties arise from making 8 the subject of the sentence: surely it is in fact a connecting adverb (touching which, as to which, whereas), as it is again in ii. 10, and probably in ii. 2ο. If the clause be rendered, whereas there is no other Gospel (i.c., than the true), the sense be- comes perfectly clear, and it forms an appropriate introduction to the succeed- ing anathemas by its emphatic testimony to the one true Gospel.—el py... This clause qualifies the former ‘‘ there is no other Gospel,” only a spurious semblance (on the use of εἰ μή see note on ver. 19). —tivés. There is a studied vagueness in this and other references to the agita- tors. They were evidently not Galatian Christians, but strangers from abroad, whom the Apostle treats with real or affected contempt.
Ver. 8. ἡμεῖς. Paul here associates with himself the colleagues Barnabas, Silas, Timothy, who had combined with him to preach the Gospel. He desires to impress on his disciples that the con- troversy is not between one teacher and another, but between truth and false- hood: no minister of Christ, not even an angel, can alter the truth in Christ.— ἀνάθεμα. The two derivatives, ἀνάθημα and ἀνάθεμα, are both employed in the
LXX and N.T. in different senses. ἀνά- θημα serves, as in other Greek authors, to denote a temple offering, statue, or ornament (cf. 2 Macc. ix. 16, Luke xxi. 5), while ἀνάθεμα is restricted to the Hebrew conception of an offering devoted under a solemn vow to death or destruc- tion (Lev. xxvii. 28, Josh. vii. 1, Acts xxiii. 14). The Epistles of Paul attach to the word the idea of spiritual death. The significant addition ἀπὸ τοῦ Χρισ- τοῦ in Rom. ix. 3 associates with it the further idea of separation from Christ, and consequent loss of all Christian blessings and means of grace. It does not, like excommunication, pronounce a judicial sentence on particular convicted offenders, but solemnly affirms general laws of the spiritual kingdom, e.g., in 1 Cor. xvi. 22, any who love not the Lord, here any who tamper with the truth of the Gospel, are pronounced outcasts from the faith, and dead to the Spirit of Christ.