The Pulpit Commentary — Galatians — Section 277

alone can make oven the love of Christ thus pation of attaining hereafter the a.wards to influential with our souls, which but for his be rendered to the justified. Compare the quickening grace remain, even in sight of general strain of thought, strikin;;ly similar the cross, still numbed and cold. The accord- to that in the present context, pursued in llnce of the notion of "faith through love Phil. iii. 12-14. Obviously, one important oper11tive and influential" with tllllt of a element in the comparison is the Christian's "new creCLture" has been already indicated; forward advance in self-improvement, as llnd no other principle than this can enable well as his continuing prosecution of work us for the" keeping of the commandments of for Christ's ea.use. These characteristics God ; " and this does, and even conslrainB had, and not long before, marked the manner the soul to keep them. " Dut," it may be of life of the Ga.la.tian Christians. U pan asked, "does the ordinary experience of the recurrence of this recollection, here Cluistian men and women as we see them again, as in eh. iii. 1-4; iv. U---16, the bear out this representation? Is faith in their apostle bewails the change that had taken case thus operative and influential?" It place. They had been so full of joy and or would be foolish to say that it is; with the love in believing (eh. iv. 14, 15). But now average, even of those Christians who make an incipient relinquishment of their hope in a religious life their moat serious concern, Christ had left them cheerless, and, in con- it is not. And the c1LBe was no doubt the sequence, ready to look abroad in quest of so.me with the average of Christian believers other grounds of assured confidence; while in the apostle's own time. But this we can also the thence ensuing conflicts of con- affirm : in proportion as our faith in Christ's troversy and faction had marred their once being our reconciling Redeemer is vivid happy mutual concord (ver. 15). The form and real, in that proportion is it energizing of Christian life which the Galatian Church- and transforming. It is in its own nature men had in those days presented to view 1 essentially love-inspiring and consecrating. was apparently similar to that which at an: It argues a miserable defect in our faith earlier date he had described as marking when we have to supplement, as we so often the Thessalonian Church (1 Thess. i. 3), must, its vitalizing power by injunctions and at a later time applauds in the Colossian. 11nd restraints of "the letter" and " the (Col. i. 4-6, 8). Who did hinder you; or,· Law ; " so far ns it is so with us, so far we who did drive you back (-r!s oµa.s ev<Ko,j,c,.. live as "bondmen" and not us " free." If [Receptus, aveKol/,e]). The lweKOl/,E of th1a '' the Son makes us free, then are we free Textus Receptus would mean, as in the indeed ; " and this is how he makes us free- margin of our English Bibles, "Wb.o has he imparts to us the gift of love to himself; driven [ or, • beaten, struck'] you back," and. and that makes obedience to be no longer e. would be illustrated by the use of the verb· constrained service, but a very instinct of in Wisd. :xviii. 23, "Standing between, he our nature. beat back the wrath," as Aaron did. But. Vera. 7-12.-In these verses the language eveKo,/,• is the reading of all recent editors., is remarkably curt and disjointed. Their The precise meaning of i-yK61rT., does not style seems to betoken, either the mind of seem to be, as some suppose, "to stop," but the writer musing in painful enbarrassment, mther "to hamper, shackle, impede." It uncert11in how best to grapple with the case occuxs .Acts niv. 4, "be tedious;" 1 Thess. before him through imperfect knowledge of ii. 18, "So.tau hindered;" Rom. :xv. 22 and tb.e circumstances(" Who did hinder you?");. 1 Pet. iii. 7, "hindered." So the substantive or, possibly, the painful effort which it cost e-yK01r-f,, 1 Cor. ix. 12, '' That we may cau~e the apostle to "write with his own hand." no hiudmnce to [ clog the success of] the In ver. 13 he at length takes up a line of gospel." Possibly this sense is derived thought which he is able to follow on with from the hindrance cuused to the tr-J. veller fulness and fluency. by the roatl being "cut into" or cut up Ver. 7.-Ye did run well (l-rpex•-r• Kall.ols); before I.le goes over it. Bnt it is more full well ye ioBTe running. "To run" is a probably counected with the use of 1<01rTw favourite figure with St. Pe.ul,clrawn from the in the sense of" worry," Ill! in Demosthenes, foot-races of the Isthmian Go.mes or other 'Olyuth.,' ii. p. 22, "Worried from time to publio games common throughout the Roman time by these expeditions up and down." So empire, and applied above (oh. ii. 2) to his here, "Who was it that clogged your steps own course of apostolic service, but here, as in running your ruoe?" Not positively in 1 Oor. i:x, 24-27 ; 2 Tim. iv. 17; and "arrested your steps:" thiB clisastrou~ Phil. iii. 14, in a wider reference to the result, it was to be hoped, was not yet course of general Christian obeclieuce. Iu brought about; they were only as yet lagging vers. 5, 6 the apostle has indicated the in their course. 'l'his interrogation '·who" 1 proper oharacter of a Christian believer's does not so much demo.nd that the evil' life, as one which is animated by a faith worker shall be named all(\ brought to; energizing through love, and by the antioi- light, as express the pity of it, that cmy one 1  244 'l'I:lE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. [cE. V, 1-26,