The Pulpit Commentary — Galatians — Section 349

muet bnve left upon him-patent evidence poW'et-would-be po;vet they meant-of bia to nil who looked upon him of the manner letters, and the meanness and fee blenees In' whioh his fellow-men regarded &nd Of his personal appearance and his pereon,.i treatGd him; this onl:t, npa.rt from any e.dd-rese (2 Cor. x. I, 10). His personnl pre- qualifying idea, whether of ownership, or sence may, originally and by natural make, ol military 11.llegie.nce, or of religious con- not have been oalculated to beepeak respect. aeoration, n is in this genera.I eense that But whatever disadvantages he lay under Ohryeoetom appears to have read the clause: originally, must, beyond all question, have 11.nd •this genero.1 sense eatiefle& all the r~ been vastly aggravated by the bodily bard- 9uirements of the context. A strong lighfl ~hipe to which he had been subjected. 1a thro-wn upon this matter by what the These must have left effects (this, perhaps, apostle, near about this ile.me time, wrote being the "stake in the flesh" which he to the Corinthians, in 2 Cor. xi. 22--27. groaned under-" Se.tan's mesaenger to buff'et 'fhe passage, as indeed does the whole him," the fruits, certainly, of Se.tan's working Epistle, with muoh also of the former Epistle in the hearts of godless men) which he felt nddl'essed to the same Church, betokens a to be not only fraught with personal hu- strong feeling at this partionlar time rest- miliation in whatever intercourse he held ing on-bis mind, of the grievous, oonntless, with his fellow-men, but al1JO likely greatly hardships which marked his career-a feel- to mar his efficiency in bis ministerial work. ing; very snppose.bly; just then freshened by The only consolation remaining to him was some very pe.infu'1 ,experiences recently gone that, in the lltter extinction of all self-love, through, from the effects of which hi& he rejoiced to know that Christ's gre.ce bad, bodily fOl'ni was still suffering. " In stripes in this enhanced feebleness of his instru- above measure, . , . i.rl deaths oft. Of the ment, the clearer field wherein to manifest Jews, five times received I forty stripes save its own Divine potency (2 Cor. xii. 9, 10). one; thrice was I beaten with rods, once "The flesh-ma.rks of Jesus." This may be wwi I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, 11 understood as meaning that they were in- night and a day have I been in the deep." curred in Jesus' service. In part it may Such are some pa;rtfoulars which he speci- be so taken ; but the rele.tion expressed by fies: e.'nd the enumeration is very suggestive this genitive appears to go deeper than with reference to our present point. Could that. The apostle means, the marks which he- have undergone that "stoning" at disfigured the body of Jesus e.s now repro- Lystra, after which he was dragged out of duced in his body. The genitive is used the city as deed to be left to lie without in just the so.me way as it is in the strikingly buri1d, and have carried a.way no enduring similar ole.nse in 2 Cor. iv. 10, "always disfigurement? Whether any marks would bee.ring about in the body the dying of be likely to remain upon him from the five Jesus (,r11VTM'E 'N/V v<Kp"'<T,v ...;; 'I11<Tov ,,, Jewish whippings, we cannot tell; but we ..,; <T,:,,,.,,..,., 1r•p•rf>•pov.,..r)," where ;, veKpw<Tir may be assured that the three floggings Tov 'I1J<Toii means· apparently "the deadness inflicted,with the crnel flitia of the Roman or corpse-condition of Jesus" (compare tbo soldiery must have eoarred hi& flesh with use of the Greek noun in Rom. iv. 19); the 11eame of permanent disfigurement. Perh&.pa state of Jesus' v•v•1<p01,,.,vov <To,µ.a, while while he wrote, sores remaining' from some yet hanging a corpse on the cross. By e. one ,of those eight punishments were me.king strong hyperbole, prompted by the intense themselves •painfully ,felt. These judicial feeling then on his mind of his own bodily inflictions, h_owever, severe as some of them sufferings and the almost ever-present ini- may, have been 1 were nevertheless regulated minenoy of death (comp. vers. 7-12 of tbo by-: law and custom. There were in all same chapter), the apostle, in those words, probability other, much more be.rbe.rou1 refers to "Jesus' corpse--00ndition " as re- aud altogether unregulated, violences, which produced in his own bodily condition, ad,1- came often upon him from the brutality ot ing the expression of his e.ssured conviction mobs, from the assaults of "robbers," from thnt all was to this end-that "the life also accidents iu shipwreck. It could not fail of Jesus," that is, the life which Jesus him- but that his person presented, wherever he self lives, should be all the more clearly went, oonspicuously to view, tokens that manifested by what be was working in tho he was one wont to be both regarded and world, in and through a body appt1.rent.ly dealt with as if be were, no doubt de- so death-bound as the apostle's was. The servedly, a wretohed outcast; in hie own use of the phrase, thus interpreted, coheres forcible, moat deeply pathetic ph.ro.!e, '"~ well with the feeling which, in ihe writing 1rEp111;116dp11-11n 'TOV Kdu,,.ou, 71'Cll"TCIIV 1repl,j,11p.a, o( this Epistle, was very nesr to his soul, "as tl!e :filth of the world, the offsoouring of of his being "crucified t!.long with Christ." all things" (1 Cor. iv. 13). The apostle's The phrase, then, glo.nces at those swollen, eriemiee taunted him with the contrast livid, blood-fl.ecked, we.lea and bruises ( nj which subsisted between the solemnity and µ,I,;,.r,nri 11u.-oii, 1 Pet. ii. 2!) which the  318 THE EPISTLE TO THE OALA'l'IANS, [011. VI, 1-18,