And let us not be weary in well doing for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. (10) As we have therefore opportunity, let where all the actions are like seed deposited in the field of which the owner and lord is the Spirit, the same Spirit will reward them in the world to come with the gift of everlasting life. (9) And.-Rather, But. There is something of a stress on "welldoing," which continues the idea of "sowing to the Spirit" in the verse before: "But in well-doing, &c." Be weary.-Rather, let us not be faint-hearted; lose heart. (10) As we have therefore opportunity. - "Therefore is emphatic, and should come first. It introduces a summary conclusion from the preceding argument. Therefore (or so then), as we have opportunity; wherever an opportunity offers. us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith. (11) Ye see how large a letter I have writ (11-18) Concluding section of the Epistle, written in the Apostle's own hand. These Judaising teachers only wish to have you circumcised as a matter of outside show, in order to disguise their own professed Christianity from their fellow Jews, and so escape persecution. They show that they really care nothing for circumcision, for they freely break the rest of the Law to which they affect to give in their adhesion. Their true object is to make capital out of their influence over you, to boast publicly of your submission to the rite. I, too, will boast, but of something very different. My boast is in the cross of Christ. When I attached myself to the crucified Messiah, from that Them who are of the house-moment the world became nothing hold of faith.-It would seem, to me. Circumcision and unon the whole, that this translation circumcision matter not. The might stand. It is true that the essential point is that total change Greek word, meaning originally which such a relation implies. On "a member of a household," came all who take this for their rule I to mean simply, "acquainted with," can invoke a blessing, for they are or belonging to," the idea of a the true Israel. Enough. I have "household" being dropped; still, a right to claim exemption from in view more especially of Eph. ii. these attacks. The scars that I 19" Fellow citizens with the bear upon me are marks of the saints, and of the household of place I hold in my Master's service. God"-where there seems to be a play upon the words "city" and 'house," it would appear as if it ought in the present phrase to be retained. The Church is represented as a household in 1 Tim. iii. 15; Heb. iii. 6; 1 Peter ii. 5; iv. 17. (11) Ye see. Rather, See. The Apostle calls the attention of his readers to the handwriting of these concluding paragraphs. How large a letter.-Rather, in what large letters: i.e., characters. The exact significance of these words is somewhat enigmatic, and can only be matter of conjecture. Two points, however, are clear ::(1) The latter part of the Greek phrase means "in" or "with" letters-i.e., characters of handwriting-and not a letter," an epistle," as it is taken in the Authorised version; (2) The former half of the phrase means "how large," strictly in respect of size. the Apostle, for some reason or other, points out that the characters in which he is writing are larger than usual. What is his reason? It is hard to say. Some have thought that the reference was to the shapelessness" of the letters, whether as due to the fact that the Apostle himself was not accustomed to the manual work of writing, or possibly to physical weakness from the hardships that he had undergone. The idea of "shapelessness," however, is not necessarily included in that of size. It seems, on the whole, most probable that the size of the characters express the emphasis and authority with which the Apostle is writing. He adds to the Epistle-which had so far been written by an amanuensis-a few bold and incisive strokes in his own hand, trenchantly exposing the motives of the Judaising faction, and re-asserting his own position. I have written. Must this be so taken: I have written? or may it be idiomatically translated: I write? In other words, does it flesh, they constrain you to be cirChap. vi. 12, 13. cumcised; A repeated warnonly lest they ing. should suffer persecution refer to the whole previous portion of the Epistle, or only to these concluding paragraphs? The question turns upon a nice point of Greek scholarship, on which such authorities as Bishop Ellicott and Dr. Lightfoot take different sides. It will only be possible in a Commentary like this to express a general conclusion, without going into the arguments on which it is based. That conclusion would be that the Greek may, quite fairly and tenably, be translated: I write; and that being so, considerations of exegesis would seem to tell somewhat decidedly in the same direction. The whole character of this concluding section is very much what we should expect if St. Paul followed his usual custom of taking the pen from the amanuensis to write it, and its brief weighty summarising style would correspond well with the "large letters" in which he says that it was written. If this description is to be applied to the whole Epistle, it must remain a riddle to which there is no clue. With mine own hand.-It was the Apostle's custom to make use of an amanuensis, and only to add a few final words in proof of the genuineness of the writing. (See especially 2 Thess. iii. 17; and comp. also Rom. xvi. 22; 1 Cor. xvi. 21; Col. iv. 18.) (12) To make a fair shew in the flesh.-To obtain a reputation for religiousness in externals, like the hypocrites, who "love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men" (Matt. vi. 5). The object of the Judaisers was by this means to keep in with their countrymen, the Jews, and even to gain favour amongst them by seeming to win over proselytes to the Mosaic law. Only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.-What aroused the antagonism of the Jews against the Christians was evidently not so much the confession of the Messiahship of Jesus as the declared abolition of the Law of Moses. By suppressing this side of Christian teaching, the Judaisers could easily obtain toleration for their own tenets. If, on the other hand, they were to emphasise it, the full weight of persecution would fall upon them-its ostensible ground being the doctrine of a crucified Messiah. Accordingly, they persuaded as many of the Galatians as they could to accept circumcision, and made the most of this propagandist zeal to their Jewish neighbours. (13) Their insincerity is shown by the fact that they are not really careful to observe the Law. What they do is only to serve as a blind, that they may be able to point to your mutilated flesh as the visible sign of their success in gaining proselytes. They themselves who are circumcised. The expression in the Greek includes, not only those who were circumcised themselves, but also those who were for circumcising others. Glory in your flesh.-Make boast of getting this rite performed upon your bodies. a (14) God forbid that I should glory.-There is a stress upon the pronoun "I," which, in the Greek, stands first, in emphatic contrast to the party who had been the subjects of the last verse. They make their boast in a mere external; but for me-far be it from me to make my boast in anything but the cross of Christ. The cross of our Lord Jesus Christi.e., "in the death and passion which Christ underwent for me.' "The Apostle is aware that in this he is putting forward a startling paradox. The cross of Christ was to the Jews a stumbling-block." They attached to it only ideas of ignominy and shame, and yet it is precisely this of which the Apostle is most proud. He is proud of it as the ground of his salvation, and therefore as the cardinal object of all his hopes and aims. By whom.-It seems better, on the whole, to adopt the marginal rendering: whereby. The antecedent is thus not Christ, but more especially the cross of Christ. It is the intense contemplation of the fied unto me, and I unto the world. (15) For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, crucified Saviour through which the Christian dies to the world. but a new creature. ated." The Authorised version apparently takes it in the latter sense, which perhaps is to be preferred. The world. By this is meant here the world of sense, the sphere of outward and sensible things, (16) According to this rule. at once with its manifold tempta--The word for "rule" is the tions to sin and with its inadequate same that afterwards received a methods of escaping from them- special application in the phrase, mere external rites, such as circum- "Canon of Scripture." It meant cision. originally a carpenter's rule, or the (15) In Christ Jesus.-These line that a carpenter works by words are omitted by the Vatican-hence, a rule or standard; and, MS. and by the best editors. They from that, the list of books coming would seem to have come in from up to a certain standard-not (as the parallel passage in chap. v. 6. might be thought) which themselves supplied a standard. Neither circumcision -We have had almost the same words in chap. v. 6 and in 1 Cor. vii. 19. It is interesting to note the different ways in which the sentence is completed : Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but : Faith which work eth by love (chap. vi. 15). The Apostle confines his benediction to those who hold the fundamental truths of Christianityie., here more especially, the doctrine of justification by faith and the spiritual view of Christianity connected with it, as opposed to the merely external and mechanical system of the Judaisers. And upon the Israel of God. The benediction is addressed, not to two distinct sets of persons ("those who walk by this rule and "the Israel of God"), but to the same set of persons described in different ways. "And" is therefore equivalent to "namely:" Yea, upon the Israel of God. By the "Israel of God" is here meant the "spiritual Israel;" not converts from Judaism alone, but all who prove their real affinity to A new creature.-The Greek Abraham by a faith like Abraham's. may mean either the "act of new Comp. chap. iii. 7-9, 14, 29; Rom. creation" or the "person newly cre- | iv. 11, 12; ix. 6—8.) The first is an analytical statement of the process which takes place in the Christian; the second is the state resulting from that process; the last is the visible sign and expression of the presence of that state. (17) The Apostle has done. He will not dally with these vexatious attacks upon himself and his authority any more. He dismisses them with an appeal which ought to be final. He points to the scars of wounds which he had received in his Master's service. The branding-irons of Christ, he says, have imprinted these upon me. They show that I, like the slaves of a heathen temple, am devoted and consecrated to His service. They are my credentials, and I shall produce no others. My assailants must leave me in peace. The marks. The stigmata, or marks inflicted with branding-irons, such as those which show that a slave is attached to a particular temple or to the service of some particular deity. Branding was applied in some other cases, but especially to temple slaves. Those with which the Galatians were most familiar would be engaged in the worship of Cybele. There does not seem to be evidence to connect this passage di thren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen. ¶ Unto the Galatians written from Rome. rectly with the incident of the "stigmata" in the life of St. Francis of Assisi, but it would seem very probable that the use of the word, which was left untranslated in the Latin versions, suggested, whether by a more or by a less distant association, the idea which took so strong a hold upon his mind that in a moment of extreme spiritual tension the actual marks of the Passion seemed to imprint themselves upon his body. Of the Lord Jesus.-The true text is simply, "of Jesus." (18) With your spirit.-The grace of God works especially on the "spirit," or highest part, of man. [The subscription, as it stands in our Bibles, appears for the first time in MSS. dating from about the beginning of the ninth century, though before this the Epistle had been described as written from Rome by Theodoret, Euthalius, and Jerome. We have seen that the choice really lies between Ephesus and Macedonia, or Corinth, and that the probability seems to be somewhat in favour of the latter.] |