The Pulpit Commentary — Galatians — Section 40

The time Bnd _tM· lnffflner '.fn• w-htclt tha foot an· ·apostle ;th:rffll"gh· ~he• a~l!y 'Of' JeBU!I wns to become mmnifeet to others he would Obrist; be was not lffi •11,postle tlttough the seetn, in a spitit of tlomplio.nt 6bedienoe, to agency·of a human being;· thus nega,th•ing, ht1ve left to •the •ordering ~ his :Ma!iter. apparently, the manhood of Christ at leaet But by J'eswi Obrist, and God the :rather, as viewed in hiEJ present glorified dindition. who raioed him from th~ dead (.U~a. B,cli T_he inference, however, is plainly contra- 'h)O'oii Xpur-roii, teal '0•QD ,r6;-rpbt-roii ~-,dpmJ/-roJ dicted by both 1 Cor. xv. 21 and 1 Tim. ii. ab-rbv 11< ve,cpwv); "but' through Jesus Christ, 5; for the former passage points in "the and God fM Father, who raised him from· second Man" to the "Lord from heaven " the dead. 'fhe conjunction" neither" ( oba~), while the other refers to him as permane~t which comes before a.' d_v8prfnrau, marks the "Mediator between God and men " both clause it introduces as containing a distinctly therefore, speaking of Jesus in his' present different negation from the preceding, and glorified condition. To obviate this diffi- shows that the preposition "through" is culty some have proposed to take the" but" used in contradistinction to the "from" (&M&), not as ad1iersati-oe, but as ezceptive. (cl.1rb) of the foregoing clause in its proper But there is no justification for this-not sense of denoting the instrument or medium even Mark ix. 8 (see Winer's 'Gram. N. T.,' through which an act is done. St. Paul 53, 10, 1 b). A less precarious solution is affirms tho.t there was no human instrumen- arrived at by gathering out of the context tality or intermediation whatever at work in the precise shade of meaning in which the the act of delegation which constituted him word " man" is here need, Christ is indeed an apostle. This affirmation places him in "Man," and his true manhood is the sense this respect precisely on a level with the required in the two passages above cited; twelve; perhaps in making it he has an eye but he is also more than man; and it is to this. The notion has been frequently those qualities of his being and of bis state broached that the apostleship which St. of existence which distingubh him from Paul made claim to was conveyed to him at mere men, which the context shows to be Antioch through the brethren who there, now present to the apostle's mind. For the under the direction of the Holy Spirit, phrase, "through a man," is not contrasted formally set him apart, together with Barna- by the words," through Jesus Christ," a.lone, bas, for the missionary enterprise which they but by the whole cbusA, "through Jesus forthwith entered upon (Acts xiii. 1-3)~ Christ, and God the Father who raised him But words coulcl scarcely have been selected from the dead." That is to say, in penning which shoulcl more decisively negative any the former phrase, the apostle indicates by such notion than those do which St. Paul the word "man" one invested with the here makes use of. One form of apostleship ordinary qualities of an earthly human was no doubt then conferred upon Barnabas condition; whereas the "Jesus Christ" and Paul; but it was not the apostleship of through whom Heaven sent forth Saul as an which he is now thinking (see essay on apostle to the Gentiles was Jesus Christ "Apostles," 1-.,,. xxxi., xxxii.). In defining blended with, inconceivably near to, God tho precise import e.nd bearing of the expres- the Father, ono with him; his oneness sion, 6,, 0.118prfnrov, "through a man,11 we may with him not veiled, as it was when he compare it with its use in 1 Cor. xv. 21, wo.s upon earth, though really subsisting "Since 8, fLv8pcfnrov came death, Bi ci.v9pcfi1rou 1 even then (John x. 30), but to all the came also the resurrection of the dead:" universe manifested-manifested visibly to where in the second clause the word" man," us upon eo.rth by the resurrection of bis employed to recite the Lord Jesus, contom- body; in the spiritual, o.s yet noio to us plales that aspect of his twofold being which invisible world, by that sitting down on the places him as "the second Man" (1 Cor. xv. right hand of God which was 'the implietl 47) in correlation to Adam, "the first Man." ~equel and climax of his resurrection. Tht1 Similarly, the p11ral\el with Ado.m again in strong sense which tbo apostle has of the Rom. v. 12, 15 leads the apostle to adopt unspeo.ko.bly intimate conjunction subsisting. the expression, "the one Man Jesus Christ" since his resurrection, between Jesus Christ (cf. also ibid. 19). In 1 Tim. ii. 5, "There viewed in his whole incarnate being ancl is ono God, one Mediator also between God God the Father, explains how it comes to ancl men, himself Man [or,' a man'], Christ pass that the two nugust Names are com- Jesus," our Lord's manhood, in accordance bined together under one single preposition, with the requirement of the context, is put "through Jesus Christ, and God the Father." forward as a bond of connection linking We shall have to notice the same phenome- him with every human creature alike. non in ver. 3 in the apostle's formulo. of 'fhese passages present Christ in the greeting prayer, "Grace to you anci peace character simply of a human being. But from God the Father and the Lonl Jesus in the passage bofore us the npostlo at first Christ;" on which see the note. We have ,sight appears to imply that, hccau9e be was tho same conception of Christ's l)ersonality 4 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. [ CH, L 1-2,!,