The Pulpit Commentary — Galatians — Section 204

Introducing e. blessed order such e.s would realize the golden aae, As men we are essentially equal. "God bath made of one blood all nations of men° that dwell upon the earth." We lay aside this and that and all the other unlikenesses, till we come to that which refuses to be taken away. .And this, we say, is man, the same as to kind under all conditions. The apostle pointed to the everlasting common humanity, when he quoted to the Athenians the words, "For we are also his offspring." Adam, the source of humanity, is declared to be the son of God, i.e. by constitution. "Which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God." What Christianity does is, not to add a new element of sonship to our constitution, but to bring us back into the reality and forward into the full flood of this relationship. It is after establishing our sonshi p iu Christ that Paul proceeds here to lay down his doctrine of Christian equality. And by it he means that, in regard to this most es.~ential element, there are no classes, no dis- tinctions. There are not some in the position of superiors and others in the position of inferiors, but all are placed on the same platform, and that the highest platform of sonship. All are sons of God, therefore all are equal. (2) Specimens of earthly dis- tinctions which are obliterated in Christ. "There can be neither Jew nor Greek." The Greek is the weaker member in this coupling, but he was by no means to be despised. As there was greater natural inventiveness among the descendants of Cain than among the descendants of Seth, so there was greater intellectal force and culture among the Greeks than among the Jews. Not to speak of their art, their poetry, their philosophy, their language itself, slowly formed, was a magnificent product of mind. Significant of a widespread Greek influence, that language had mastered even the Jews. The mob at Jerusalem were prepared to hear a Greek oration from Paul, only they gave the more silence when he spoke in the Jewish vernacular. And, what was more, the Greek language was chosen by God as the medium of conveying the Christian revelation. And yet the Jew, thus inferior, was of more consequence than the Greek. In the wise purposes of God, which looked beyond one nation, the Jew was raised to very high religious privilege, and any Greek could only share in the same privilege by being naturalized as a Jew. But what was Jewish was at best only ezternal and subject to removal, and was actually removed when the Divine pnrposes were matured. And now, in and through Christ, the universal Mediator, the Gentile is as near and dear to God as is the Jew. We are so much accustomed to the Gentile being in Christian privilege that it is more to the point now to say that the Jew is as near and dear to God as is the Gentile. Under Christianity there is no privileged nation. In Colossians it is said that there is neither barbarian nor Scythian in Christ. The Scythians were those who appeared barbarians to the barbarians. In Christ there is no barbarian far down in the scale of civilization. 'l'here is not even the Scythian, down at the very bottom and only too readily despised by the despised. Christ does not belong to the white skin; but even under the black skin and crisp hair and imperfect conliguration there may be the same consciousness of sonship that the finest of Europeans has, in Christ. There is a common ground, upon which all peoples and nations and tribes can meet, deep down below all distinctions of colour and figure and civilization, which thus appear as unessential. "There can be neither bond nor free." There can be no greater diversity in social position than between the bondman and the freeman. It may be said to be infinite; for the freeman has rights-rights to bestow his labour where he thinks be can get most for it, rights to demand redress if he thinks himself injured, to be judged if he is complained of. But the bondman has no rights, being classed as a chattel. Cato, censor-general of morals, a Roman more virtuous than the Romans, gives written advice to the farmers "to sell worn-out iron implements, old slaves, sick slaves, and other odds and ends that have no further use on the farm I " But, though thus put out of the ranks and trampled upon by men, he could be conscious in his own mind of his rights as a man, and, what availed more, through the gospel of the grace of God preached to and received by him, he, a man, the equal at bottom of his master and of that master's master, the august Cresar,-he could be ranked as a son of God, without any super- added badge of inferiority, as much a son of God as Paul himself. There is a most touching, most becrntiful exemplification of this in Paul's brief Epistle to Philemon. Paul takes as much interest in Onesimus, a runaway slave, converted by him at Rome, as thongh he had been a noble born. He calls him his very heart, and, more than a servlmt, even a brother beloved to Philemou, both in the flesh and in the Lord. 'l'he  170 THE EPISTLE TO 'l'llE GALA.TIAN$, [cnt. nr. 1-29,