The Pulpit Commentary — Galatians — Section 262

endangering the gospel; thev were forgetting their privileges as sons. ('Y) We are to understand the language of the apostle to have ,·efe1·ence to Jewish institutions in so far as lhey were Jewish. The sabbath was not a purely Jewish institution; it existed from the beginning. The essential idea of it was a proportion of time devoted to God in acknowledgment of his sovereign right to all our time. 'l'ho proportion was soverei~nly fixed at one-seventh, and there is reason to believe that it was fixed in relation to our physical constitution. Under the Law the sabbath, while retainincr its original character, received certain ceremonial adjnncts. It was numbered among the moa.deem, or feasts; and was, indeed, placed at the head of them. "Concerning the feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be for holy convocations, even these are my feasts. Six days shall work be done; but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest." The special services appointeJ for the sabbath in ihe sanctuary were these: first, the doubling of the daily burnt offering-two lambs instead of one, with a corresponding increase in the meat offering; and then the presenting of the fresh loaves of shewbread on the Lord's table. When, then, the apostle says that we are not to be judged in respect of the sabbath day in the same way in which we are not to be judged in respect of the feast day and in respect of the new moon, this meaning is plainly suggested-that we, as Christians, are freed from all the ceremonial adjuncts of the sabbatb. But, more than that, there was a practical question as to the observance of what was called the sa.bbatb as distinguished from the Lord's day-the observance of the seventh day as dis- tinguished from the first. The connecting of God's time with the seventh was from the beginning, bnt it bad been very much bound up with the Jewish ceremonial. It also came to be regarded as the Jewish day as distinguished from the Christian day; and it had a certain position as such during the period of transition. The apostle, then, may be understood as deciding for the Christian Church that they were under no obligation to observe two sacred days in the week. Now that they observed the Lord's day they were freed from the observance of the sabbath. But at the same time, the sabbath had a broad human aspect. This Christ declared when legalism was expiring, and not certainly as though the sabbath were expiring with it. He said that the sabbath was made for man. It lies embedded in om deepest nature. It is needed under all earthly conditions and dispensations; and is not certainly to be numbered, like the feast day and the observance connected with the new moon, among things Jewish, from which as Christians we are freed. ·whether it is the seventh day or the first is matter of Divine arrangement for the time being; but underneath both there is the obligation laid in our nature, from which we cannot be freed, to devote a proportion of our time to God. (b) There is a statement made regarding the transitory nature of cere- monial institutions in which the sabbath is included. There is not much difficulty presented by the statement in this Epistle, that ceremonial institutions are weak and beggarly elements. This language is to be applied to them in respect of their having served their purpose. They had been, with certain drawbacks, very helpful and rich in blessing to God's people. They may have been once so to some of these Galatian Christians, but, now that the Divine authority bad been removed from them, now that the gospel had come in their place, to turn to them was indeed to turn to the weak and beggarly elements. So it was with the sabbath, or seventh day. It once had .he Divine sanction. It once was one of the channels through which the Divine blessing flowed. But, now that it was no longer to be observed as the sacred day, now that tha Lord's day had come in its place, to turn to it was to tum to one of the weak and beggarly elements. Nor is there much difficulty presented by the corresponding state- ment in Colossians that ceremonial institutions are the shadow of things to come, whereas the body is of Christ. That does not exclude the possibility of there ~eing a ~im to represent the substance, the reality, after it had come. We know that c1rcnm- ci~ion represented regeneration, the putting away of the sin of the flesh. And tho Divine blessing accompanied it as the shadow of the coming reality. But when the reality came tl,at corresponded to circumcision, it was put by Christ into the New 'l'estameut institution of baptism. In the context here the two ordinances aro closely interwoven in tlie apostolic thought. "In whom ye were, also circumcised" (the relerence, says Alford bein" to the historical fact of their baptism)" with a circumcision not made with hand;, in tl1e putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of UL.rist: havio~ Leen buried with him in baptism." We know, too, that the l'as:;ovcl' CU, IV, 1-31.] THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 229