The Pulpit Commentary — Galatians — Section 125

himself," by its bringin~ more distinctly upon the npostle's own soul. But the logicnl into new the notion of Christ's giving him- connection of the following clo.use is more self over into the hands of those who sought ensily shown by our reverting to the sense his life. before given to the vorb, which in the New Ver. 21.-I do not frustrate the grace of Testament is the more usual one. For i1 God (ob1e a.9,Tw T¾,v x&pw Tov e,oii); I do not righteousness come by the Law, then Christ reject the grace of God. As I should be doing, is dead in vain (,i -yap 61/l v&µou 811eo.t0- if, instead of resting with "glorified " .,.tv'll, lipo. Xp1a'TOs lio,p,a.11 a.1rl6av,11) ; for if (1 Pet. i. S) satisfaction in the fatherly love through the Law is righteouancss, then did and complacency with which God reg11rds Christ for nought die. This one reason is me in Christ, I began to give anxious heed decisive. The sole reason why the Son ot to what the Law prescribes touching things God came into the world to suffer death or persons clean or unclean, and to deem it wo.s to do away our sins and make us possible and needful to secure acceptable- righteous with God. But if sin cnn be ness with God through works of ceremonial purged by the purifications of the Law, and performance. If it were only for one single cleanness before God is procurable by reason alone, I do not, I cannot, thus slight Levitical ceremonies, then there was no need and set at nought the state of grace with all for this; then the Crucifixion, for this one its attendant blessings into which God has end ordained and from the beginning of in Christ Jesus brought me. The "grace time prepared for by the Father, and for of God " presents that entire notion of the this one end, of his own free choice gone kingdom of grace which the apostle sets forward to, brought about, and undergone forth, and on which he descants with such by Christ himself, was a simply superfluous glowing animation, in the fifth chapter of sacrifice. We might have been saved, nay, his Epistle to the Romans. The term of have perchnnce saved ourselves, without it. itself stands in vivid contrast to that It is impossible to find in all Scripture a slavish, anxious, never assured worlring for more decisive passage than this in proof acceptance, which characterized the Jewish both of the fact of the atonement and of its legalist, and characterizes the legalist supreme importance in the Christian system, Christian as well As the apostle does This is emphatically Christ's great work. not write i-yl.i ob1e a.9nw, which would mean, Compared with this, all besides is either " I do not set a.side, not I," he is not to be subsidiary or derivative. /l.o,p,av, (as a rend as if just now emphasizing a personal mere gift,) "for nought;" that is, with- contrast between himself, and either St. out cause, there being no call or just occa- Peter or the Juda.izers with whom St. Peter sion for it; thus, John xv. 25, "They hated was then to outward appearance taking me without cause;" I Sam. xix. 5, Septua- sides; he is at present simply winding up his gint, "Slay David without a cauae;" Ezek. recital of his remon.-;trance at .Antioch with vi. 10, Septuagint, "I have not said in vain the one terse argument, with which he then that I would do this evil unto them;" Ecclus. justified his own position, and, as if with a xxiL 6, "He bath got him an euemy with- sledge-hammer, at once demolished the out cause." The apostle adds nothing as position of the Judu.izers. The verb a.Bnw to the e.ffect of his remonstrance. It is 1nea11s " reject," " turn from as from a thing impossible, however, to doubt that, so in- unworthy or regard; " as in Mark vii. 9, stinct as it was with the power of the Holy "Ye reject the commandment of God, that Spirit, it proved successful, not only in the ye may keep your tradition ; " Luke vii. 30, healing of the mischief which had begun to ·• The Pharisees and lawyers rejected for show itself in the Antiochian Church, but themselves the counsel of God; " 1 These. also in its effect upon St, Peter. Nothing iv. 8, "He that rejectetl, [our testimony has transpired of any later intercourse touching this], rejecteth not ma.n, but God;" between the two apostles. But the thorough Heh. x. 28, "A man that hath set at nought houesty which in the main was one of St. Moses' Law;" iu which last passage it Peter's great characteristics, notwithstand- indicates, but without itself fully describ- ing the perplexed action in which from time ir,g, a more aggressive disobedience. The to time he got involved, through the warmth reuderiog " made void," adopted by the of his sympathetic affections and his some- Revisers, in the sense of "disannul," is times too hasty impulsiveness, would be doubtless fully authenticated by eh. iii. 15; sure to make him pre-eminently tractable to I Tim. v. 12; Heh. ix. 18. Since even an the voice of a true-speaking and holy friend; apostle could not "disannul" the" grace of and, moreover, in the present instance, St. God" viewed in ittielf, this sense of the Paul was appealing to sentiments which he word, if adopted, would, as well as the per- had himself recently proved at Jerusalem haps questionable rendeling of our Autho- to be deeply operative in his own bosom. rized Version, "frustrate," apply to the How deeply operative, is further evinced previoUB work of Divine grace wrought in his own two Epistles, writteu some eight (!II, It. 1-21.J THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 9:1.