CHAPTER XXX.

THE BRAND OF JESUS 448

_THE PROLOGUE._

CHAPTER i. 1-10.

CHAPTER I.

_THE ADDRESS._

"Paul, an apostle (not from men, neither through man, but

through Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised Him from

the dead), and all the brethren which are with me, unto the

Churches of Galatia."[1]--GAL. i. 1, 2.

[1] The text used in this exposition is, with very few

exceptions, that of the Revised English Version, or its margin.

Antiquity has nothing to show more notable in its kind, or more

precious, than this letter of Paul to the Churches of Galatia. It

takes us back, in some respects nearer than any other document we

possess, to the beginnings of Christian theology and the Christian

Church. In it the spiritual consciousness of Christianity first

reveals itself in its distinctive character and its full strength,

free from the trammels of the past, realizing the advent of the new

kingdom of God that was founded in the death of Christ. It is the

voice of the Church testifying "God hath sent forth the Spirit of His

Son into our hearts." Buried for a thousand years under the weight

of the Catholic legalism, the teaching of this Epistle came to life

again in the rise of Protestantism. Martin Luther put it to his lips

as a trumpet to blow the reveillé of the Reformation. His famous

Commentary summoned enslaved Christendom to recover "the liberty

wherewith Christ hath made us free." Of all the great Reformer's

writings this was the widest in its influence and the dearest to

himself. For the spirit of Paul lived again in Luther, as in no other

since the Apostle's day. The Epistle to the Galatians is the charter

of Evangelical faith.

The historical criticism of the present century has brought this

writing once more to the front of the conflict of faith. Born in

controversy, it seems inevitably to be born for controversy. Its

interpretation forms the pivot of the most thoroughgoing recent

discussions touching the beginnings of Christian history and the

authenticity of the New Testament record. The Galatian Epistle is,

in fact, the key of New Testament Apologetics. Round it the Roman

and Corinthian Letters group themselves, forming together a solid,

impregnable quaternion, and supplying a fixed starting-point and

an indubitable test for the examination of the critical questions

belonging to the Apostolic age. Whatever else may be disputed, it

is agreed that there was an apostle Paul, who wrote these four

Epistles to certain Christian societies gathered out of heathenism,

communities numerous, widely scattered, and containing men of

advanced intelligence; and this within thirty years of the death

of Jesus Christ. Every critic must reckon with this fact. The most

sceptical criticism makes a respectful pause before our Epistle.

Hopeless of destroying its testimony, Rationalism treats it with

an even exaggerated deference; and seeks to extract evidence from

it against its companion witnesses amongst the New Testament

writings. This attempt, however misdirected, is a signal tribute

to the importance of the document, and to the force with which the

personality of the writer and the conditions of the time have

stamped themselves upon it. The deductions of the Baurian criticism

appear to us to rest on a narrow and arbitrary examination of

isolated passages; they spring from a mistaken _à priori_ view of the

historical situation. Granting however to these inferences, which

will meet us as we proceed, their utmost weight, they still leave

the testimony of Paul to the supernatural character of Christianity

substantially intact.

Of the four major Epistles, this one is superlatively characteristic

of its author. It is _Paulinissima Paulinarum_--most Pauline of

Pauline things. It is largely autobiographical; hence its peculiar

value. Reading it, we watch history in the making. We trace the

rise of the new religion in the typical man of the epoch. The

master-builder of the Apostolic Church stands before us, at the

crisis of his work. He lets us look into his heart, and learn the

secret of his power. We come to know the Apostle Paul as we know

scarcely any other of the world's great minds. We find in him a man

of the highest intellectual and spiritual powers, equally great in

passion and in action, as a thinker and a leader of men. But at every

step of our acquaintance the Apostle points us beyond himself; he

says, "It is not I: it is Christ that lives in me." If this Epistle

teaches us the greatness of Paul, it teaches us all the more the

Divine greatness of Jesus Christ, before whom that kingly intellect

and passionate heart bowed in absolute devotion.

The situation which the Epistle reveals and the personal references

in which it abounds are full of interest at every point. They furnish

quite essential data to the historian of the Early Church. We could

wish that the Apostle, telling us so much, had told us more. His

allusions, clear enough, we must suppose, to the first readers, have

lent themselves subsequently to very conflicting interpretations.

But as they stand, they are invaluable. The fragmentary narrative

of the Acts requires, especially in its earlier sections, all the

illustration that can be obtained from other sources. The conversion

of Paul, and the Council at Jerusalem, events of capital importance

for the history of Apostolic times, are thereby set in a light

certainly more complete and satisfactory than is furnished in Luke's

narrative, taken by itself. And Paul's references to the Judean

Church and its three "pillars," touch the crucial question of New

Testament criticism, namely that concerning the relation of the

Gentile Apostle to Jewish Christianity and the connection between

his theology and the teaching of Jesus. Our judgement respecting

the conflict between Peter and Paul at Antioch in particular will

determine our whole conception of the legalist controversy, and

consequently of the course of Church history during the first two

centuries. Around these cursory allusions has gathered a contest only

less momentous than that from which they sprung.

The personal and the doctrinal element are equally prominent in

this Epistle; and appear in a combination characteristic of the

writer. Paul's theology is the theology of experience. "It pleased

God," he says, "to reveal His Son in me" (ch. i. 16). His teaching

is cast in a psychological mould. It is largely a record of the

Apostle's spiritual history; it is the expression of a living,

inward process--a personal appropriation of Christ, and a growing

realization of the fulness of the Godhead in Him. The doctrine of

Paul was as far as possible removed from being the result of abstract

deduction, or any mere combination of data externally given. In his

individual consciousness, illuminated by the vision of Christ and

penetrated by the Spirit of God, he found his message for the world.

"We believe, and therefore speak. We have received the Spirit of

God, that we may know the things freely given us of God:" sentences

like these show us very clearly how the Apostle's doctrine formed

itself in his mind. His apprehension of Christ, above all of the

cross, was the focus, the creative and governing centre, of all his

thoughts concerning God and man, time and eternity. In the light of

this knowledge he read the Old Testament, he interpreted the earthly

life and teaching of Jesus. On the ground of this personal sense

of salvation he confronted Peter at Antioch; on the same ground he

appeals to the vacillating Galatians, sharers with himself in the

new life of the Spirit. Here lies the nerve of his argument in this

Epistle. The theory of the relation of the Law to the Abrahamic

promise developed in the third chapter, is the historical counterpart

of the relation of the legal to the evangelical consciousness, as he

had experienced the two states in turn within his own breast. The

spirit of Paul was a microcosm, in which the course of the world's

religious evolution was summed up, and brought to the knowledge of

itself.

The Apostle's influence over the minds of others was due in great

part to the extraordinary force with which he apprehended the facts

of his own spiritual nature. Through the depth and intensity of his

personal experience he touched the experience of his fellows, he

seized on those universal truths that are latent in the consciousness

of mankind, "by manifestation of the truth commending himself to

every man's conscience in the sight of God." But this knowledge

of the things of God was not the mere fruit of reflection and

self-searching; it was "the ministration of the Spirit." Paul did not

simply _know_ Christ; he was one with Christ, "joined to the Lord,

one spirit" with Him. He did not therefore speak out of the findings

of his own spirit; the absolute Spirit, the Spirit of truth and of

Christ, spoke in him. Truth, as he knew it, was the self-assertion of

a Divine life. And so this handful of old letters, broken and casual

in form, with their "rudeness of speech," their many obscurities,

their rabbinical logic, have stirred the thoughts of men and swayed

their lives with a power greater perhaps than belongs to any human

utterances, saving only those of the Divine Master.

The features of Paul's style show themselves here in their most

pronounced form. "The style is the man." And the whole man is in this

letter. Other Epistles bring into relief this or that quality of the

Apostle's disposition and of his manner as a writer; here all are

present. The subtlety and trenchant vigour of Pauline dialectic are

nowhere more conspicuous than in the discussion with Peter in ch. ii.

The discourse on Promise and Law in ch. iii. is a master-piece of

exposition, unsurpassed in its keenness of insight, breadth of view,

and skill of application. Such passages as ch. i. 15, 16; ii. 19, 20;

vi. 14, take us into the heart of the Apostle's teaching, and reveal

its mystical depth of intuition. Behind the masterful dialectician we

find the spiritual seer, the man of contemplation, whose fellowship

is with the eternal and unseen. And the emotional temperament of

the writer has left its impress on this Epistle not less distinctly

than his mental and spiritual gifts. The denunciations of ch. i.

6-10; ii. 4, 5; iv. 9; v. 7-12; vi. 12-14, burn with a concentrated

intensity of passion, a sublime and holy scorn against the enemies of

the cross, such as a nature like Paul's alone is capable of feeling.

Nor has the Apostle penned anything on the other hand more amiable

and touching, more winningly frank and tender in appeal, than the

entreaty of ch. iv. 11-20. His last sentence, in ch. vi. 17, is an

irresistible stroke of pathos. The ardour of his soul, his vivacity

of mind and quick sensibility, are apparent throughout. Those sudden

turns of thought and bursts of emotion that occur in all his Epistles

and so much perplex their interpreters, are especially numerous in

this. And yet we find that these interruptions are never allowed to

divert the writer from his purpose, nor to destroy the sequence of

his thought. They rather carry it forward with greater vehemence

along the chosen course, as storms will a strong and well-manned

ship. The Epistle is strictly a unity. It is written, as one might

say, at a single breath, as if under pressure and in stress of mind.

There is little of the amplitude of expression and the delight in

lingering over some favourite idea that characterize the later

Epistles. Nor is there any passage of sustained eloquence to compare

with those that are found in the Roman and Corinthian letters. The

business on which the Apostle writes is too urgent, his anxiety too

great, to allow of freedom and discursiveness of thought. Hence this

Epistle is to an unusual degree closely packed in matter, rapid in

movement, and severe in tone.

In its construction the Epistle exhibits an almost dramatic

character. It is full of action and animation. There is a gradual

unfolding of the subject, and a skilful combination of scene and

incident brought to bear on the solution of the crucial question.

The Apostle himself, the insidious Judaizers, and the wavering

Galatians,--these are the protagonists of the action; with Peter

and the Church at Jerusalem playing a secondary part, and Abraham

and Moses, Isaac and Ishmael, appearing in the distance. The first

Act conducts us rapidly from scene to scene till we behold Paul

labouring amongst the Gentiles, and the Churches of Judea listening

with approval to the reports of his success. The Council of Jerusalem

opens a new stage in the history. Now Gentile liberties are at stake;

but Titus' circumcision is successfully resisted, and Paul as the

Apostle of the Uncircumcised is acknowledged by "the pillars" as

their equal; and finally Peter, when he betrays the truth of the

Gospel at Antioch, is corrected by the Gentile Apostle. The third

chapter carries us away from the present conflict into the region

of first principles,--to the Abrahamic Covenant with its spiritual

blessing and world-wide promise, opposed by the condemning Mosaic

Law, an opposition finally resolved by the coming of Christ and the

gift of His Spirit of adoption. At this point the Apostle turns the

gathered force of his argument upon his readers, and grapples with

them front to front in the expostulation carried on from ch. iv. 8

to v. 12, in which the story of Hagar forms a telling episode. The

fifth and closing Act, extending to the middle of ch. vi., turns on

the antithesis of Flesh and Spirit, bringing home the contention to

the region of ethics, and exhibiting to the Galatians the practical

effect of their following the Pauline or the Judaistic leadership.

Paul and the Primitive Church; Judaism and Gentile-Christian

liberties; the Covenants of Promise and of Law; the circumcision or

non-circumcision of the Galatians; the dominion of Flesh or Spirit:

these are the contrasts through which the Epistle advances. Its

centre lies in the decisive question given in the _fourth_ of these

antitheses. If we were to fix it in a single point, ver. 2 of ch. v.

is the sentence we should choose:--

"Behold, I Paul say unto you,

If ye be circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing."

The above analysis may be reduced to the common threefold division,

followed in this exposition:--viz. (1) _Personal History_, ch. i.

11-ii. 21; (2) _Doctrinal Polemic_, ch. iii. 1-v. 12; (3) _Ethical

Application_, ch. v. 13-vi. 10.

The epistolary Introduction forms the _Prologue_, ch. i. 1-10; and an

_Epilogue_ is appended, by way of renewed warning and protestation,

followed by the concluding signature and benediction,--ch. vi. 11-18.

* * * * *

The Address occupies the first two verses of the Epistle.

I. On the one side is _the writer_: "Paul, an Apostle." In his

earliest Letters (to Thessalonica) the title is wanting; so also

in Philippians and Philemon. The last instance explains the other

two. To the Macedonian Churches Paul writes more in the style of

friendship than authority: "for love's sake he rather entreats." With

the Galatians it is different. He proceeds to define his apostleship

in terms that should leave no possible doubt respecting its character

and rights: "not from men," he adds, "nor through man; but through

Jesus Christ, and God the Father, that raised Him from the dead."

This reads like a contradiction of some statement made by Paul's

opposers. Had they insinuated that he _was_ "an apostle from men,"

that his office was derived, like their own, only from the mother

Church in Jerusalem? Such insinuations would very well serve their

purpose; and if they were made, Paul would be sure not to lose a

moment in meeting them.

The word _apostle_ had a certain latitude of meaning.[2] It was

already, there is reason to believe, a term of Jewish official

usage when our Lord applied it to His chosen Twelve. It signified

a _delegate_ or _envoy_, accredited by some public authority, and

charged with a special message. We can understand therefore its

application to the emissaries of particular Churches--of Jerusalem

or Antioch, for example--despatched as their messengers to other

Churches, or with a general commission to proclaim the Gospel. The

recently discovered "Teaching of the Apostles" shows that this use

of the title continued in Jewish-Christian circles to the end of the

first century, alongside of the restricted and higher use. The lower

apostleship belonged to Paul in common with Barnabas and Silas and

many others.

[2] Compare Acts xiv. 4, 14 (_Barnabas and Paul_); 1 Thess. ii. 6

(_Paul and his comrades_); Rom. xvi. 7 (_Andronicus and Junias_);

2 Cor. viii. 23 (_Titus and others_, "apostles of the churches");

2 Cor. xi. 13 ("false apostles": _Judean emissaries_); also Rev.

ii. 2; Heb. iii. 1; John xiii. 16. On the N.T. use of _apostle_,

see Lightfoot's Galatians, pp. 92-101; but especially Huxtable's

_Dissertation_ in the Pulpit Commentary (Galatians), pp.

xxiii.-l., the most satisfactory elucidation of the subject we

have met with. Prebendary Huxtable however presses his argument

too far, when he insists that St. Paul held his higher commission

entirely in abeyance until the crisis of the Judaic controversy.

In the earlier period of his ministry, the Apostle was seemingly

content to rank in public estimation with his companions in the

Gentile mission. But a time came when he was compelled to arrogate to

himself the higher dignity. His right thereto was acknowledged at

the memorable conference in Jerusalem by the leaders of the Jewish

Church. So we gather from the language of ch. ii. 7-9. But the full

exercise of his authority was reserved for the present emergency,

when all his energy and influence were required to stem the tide of

the Judaistic reaction. We can well imagine that Paul "gentle in the

midst" of his flock and "not seeking to be of weight" (1 Thess. ii.

6, 7), had hitherto said as little as need be on the subject of his

official rights. His modesty had exposed him to misrepresentations

both in Corinth and in Galatia. He will "have" these people "to

know" that his gospel is in the strictest sense Divine, and that he

received his commission, as certainly as any of the Twelve, from the

lips of Jesus Christ Himself (ver. 11).

"Not from men" excludes human derivation; "not through man," human

intervention in the conferment of Paul's office. The singular number

(_man_) replaces the plural in the latter phrase, because it stands

immediately opposed to "Jesus Christ" (a striking witness this to His

Divinity). The second clause carries the negation farther than the

first; for a call from God may be, and commonly is, imposed by human

hands. There are, says Jerome, four kinds of Christian ministers:

first, those sent neither from men nor through man, like the prophets

of old time and the Apostles; secondly, those who are from God, but

through man, as it is with their legitimate successors; thirdly,

those who are from men, but not from God, as when one is ordained

through mere human favour and flattery; the fourth class consists of

such as have their call neither from God nor man, but wholly from

themselves, as with false prophets and the false apostles of whom

Paul speaks. His vocation, the Apostle declares, was superhuman,

alike in its origin and in the channel by which it was conveyed. It

was no voice of man that summoned Saul of Tarsus from the ranks of

the enemies to those of the servants of Christ, and gave him the

message he proclaimed. Damascus and Jerusalem in turn acknowledged

the grace given unto him; Antioch had sent him forth on her behalf

to the regions beyond: but he was conscious of a call anterior to

all this, and that admitted of no earthly validation. "Am I not an

apostle?" he exclaims, "have I not seen Jesus our Lord?" (1 Cor. ix.

1). "Truly the signs of the Apostle were wrought in him," both in

the miraculous powers attending his office, and in those moral and

spiritual qualities of a minister of God in which he was inferior to

none.[3] For the exercise of his ministry he was responsible neither

to "those of repute" at Jerusalem, nor to his censurers at Corinth;

but to Christ who had bestowed it (1 Cor. iv. 3, 4).

[3] 1 Cor. xv. 10; 2 Cor. iv. 2; vi. 3-10; xi. 5, 16-xii. 13.

The call of the Apostle proceeded also from "God the Father, who

raised Jesus Christ from the dead." Christ was in this act the

mediator, declaring the Supreme will. In other places, more briefly,

he styles himself "Apostle by the will of God." His appointment

took place by a Divine intervention, in which the ordinary sequence

of events was broken through. Long after the Saviour in His bodily

presence had ascended to heaven, when in the order of nature it was

impossible that another Apostle should be elected, and when the

administration of His Church had been for several years carried on

by human hands, He appeared once more on earth for the purpose of

making this man His "minister and witness;" He appeared in the name

of "the Father, who had raised Him from the dead." This interposition

gave to Paul's ministry an exceptional character. While the mode of

his election was in one aspect humbling, and put him in the position

of "the untimely one," the "least of the Apostles," whose appearance

in that capacity was unlooked for and necessarily open to suspicion;

on the other hand, it was glorious and exalting, since it so richly

displayed the Divine mercy and the transforming power of grace.

But why does he say, _who raised Him from the dead_? Because it was

the _risen Jesus_ that he saw, and that he was conscious of seeing

in the moment of the vision. The revelation that arrested him before

Damascus, in the same moment convinced him that Jesus was risen, and

that he himself was called to be His servant. These two convictions

were inseparably linked in Paul's recollections. As surely as God

the Father had raised His Son Jesus from the dead and given Him

glory, so surely had the glorified Jesus revealed Himself to Saul

his persecutor to make him His Apostle. He was, not less truly than

Peter or John, a witness of His resurrection. The message of the

Resurrection was the burden of the Apostleship.

He adds, "and all the brethren which are with me." For it was Paul's

custom to associate with himself in these official letters his

fellow-labourers, present at the time. From this expression we gather

that he was attended just now by a considerable band of companions,

such as we find enumerated in Acts xx. 2-6, attending him on his

journey from Ephesus to Corinth during the third missionary tour.

This circumstance has some bearing on the date of the letter. Bishop

Lightfoot (in his Commentary) shows reason for believing that it was

written, not from Ephesus as commonly supposed, but at a somewhat

later time, from _Macedonia_. It is connected by numerous and close

links of internal association with the Epistle to the Romans, which

on this supposition speedily followed, and with 2 Corinthians,

immediately preceding it. And the allusion of the text, though of

no decisive weight taken by itself, goes to support this reasoning.

Upon this hypothesis, our Epistle was composed in Macedonia,

during the autumn of 57 (or possibly, 58) A.D. The emotion which

surcharges 2 Corinthians runs over into Galatians: while the theology

which labours for expression in Galatians finds ampler and calmer

development in Romans.

II. Of _the readers_, "the churches of Galatia," it is not necessary

to say much at present. The character of the Galatians, and the

condition of their Churches, will speak for themselves as we proceed.

_Galatian_ is equivalent to _Gaul_, or _Kelt_. This people was a

detached fragment of the great Western-European race, which forms the

basis of our own Irish and West-British populations, as well as of

the French nationality. They had conquered for themselves a home in

the north of Asia Minor during the Gaulish invasion that poured over

South-eastern Europe and into the Asiatic peninsula some three and

a half centuries before. Here the Gallic intruders stubbornly held

their ground; and only succumbed to the irresistible power of Rome.

Defeated by the Consul Manlius in 189 B.C., the Galatians retained

their autonomy, under the rule of native princes, until in the year

25 B.C., on the death of Amyntas, the country was made a province of

the Empire. The people maintained their distinctive character and

speech despite these changes. At the same time they readily acquired

Greek culture, and were by no means barbarians; indeed they were

noted for their intelligence. In religion they seem to have largely

imbibed the Phrygian idolatry of the earlier inhabitants.

The Roman Government had annexed to Galatia certain districts

lying to the south, in which were situated most of the cities

visited by Paul and Barnabas in their first missionary tour. This

has led some scholars to surmise that Paul's "Galatians" were

really Pisidians and Lycaonians, the people of Derbe, Lystra, and

Pisidian Antioch. But this is improbable. The inhabitants of these

regions were never called Galatians in common speech; and Luke

distinguishes "the Galatic country" quite clearly from its southern

borderlands. Besides, the Epistle contains no allusions, such as we

should expect in the case supposed, to the Apostle's earlier and

memorable associations with these cities of the South. Elsewhere he

mentions them by name (2 Tim. iii. 11); and why not here, if he were

addressing this circle of Churches?

The Acts of the Apostles relates nothing of Paul's sojourn in

Galatia, beyond the fact that he twice "passed through the Galatic

country" (Acts xvi. 6; xviii. 23), on the first occasion during the

second missionary journey, in travelling north and then westwards

from Pisidia; the second time, on his way from Antioch to Ephesus, in

the course of the third tour. Galatia lay outside the main line of

Paul's evangelistic career, as the historian of the Acts describes

it, outside the Apostle's own design, as it would appear from ch. iv.

13. In the first instance Galatia follows (in the order of the Acts),

in the second precedes Phrygia, a change which seems to indicate

some new importance accruing to this region: the further clause in

Acts xviii. 23, "strengthening all the disciples," shows that the

writer was aware that by this time a number of Christian societies

were in existence in this neighbourhood.

No _city_ is mentioned in the address, but the _country_ of Galatia

only--the single example of the kind in Paul's Epistles. The

Galatians were countryfolk rather than townsfolk. And the Church

seems to have spread over the district at large, without gathering

itself into any one centre, such as the Apostle had occupied in other

parts of his Gentile field.

Still more significant is the curtness of this designation. Paul does

not say, "To the Churches _of God_ in Galatia," or "to the saints

and faithful brethren in Christ," as in other Epistles. He is in no

mood for compliments. These Galatians are, he fears, "removing from

God who had called them" (ver. 6). He stands in doubt of them. It is

a question whether they are now, or will long continue, "Churches

of God" at all. He would gladly commend them if he could; but he

must instead begin with reproaches. And yet we shall find that, as

the Apostle proceeds, his sternness gradually relaxes. He remembers

that these "foolish Galatians" are his "children," once ardently

attached to him (ch. iv. 12-20). His heart yearns towards them; he

travails over them in birth again. Surely they will not forsake

him, and renounce the gospel of whose blessings they had enjoyed so

rich an experience (ch. iii. 3; v. 10). He calls them "brethren"

once and again; and with this kindly word, holding out the hand of

forgiveness, he concludes the letter.

CHAPTER II.

_THE SALUTATION._

"Grace to you and peace from God the Father, and our Lord Jesus

Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us

out of this present evil world, according to the will of our God

and Father: to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen."--GAL.

i. 3-5.

The greetings and benedictions of the Apostolic Letters deserve

more attention from us than they sometimes receive. We are apt to

pass over them as if they were a kind of pious formality, like the

conventional phrases of our own epistles. But to treat them in such

fashion is to do injustice to the seriousness and sincerity of Holy

Scripture. This salutation of "Grace and Peace" comes from Paul's

very heart. It breathes the essence of his gospel.

This formula appears to be of the Apostle's coining. Other writers,

we may believe, borrowed it from him. _Grace_ represents the common

Greek salutation,--_joy to you_, χαίρειν changing to the kindred

χάρις; while the more religious _peace_ of the Hebrew, so often heard

from the lips of Jesus, remains unaltered, only receiving from the

New Covenant a tenderer significance. It is as though East and West,

the old world and the new, met here and joined their voices to bless

the Church and people of Jesus Christ.

_Grace_ is the sum of all blessing bestowed by God; _peace_, in its

wide Hebraic range of meaning, the sum of all blessing experienced

by man. _Grace_ is the Father's goodwill and bounty in Christ to

His undeserving children; _peace_, the rest and reconcilement, the

recovered health and gladness of the child brought home to the

Father's house, dwelling in the light of his Father's face. _Grace_

is the fountain of redeeming love; _peace_ is the "river of life

proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb," that flows calm

and deep through each believing soul, the river whose "streams make

glad the city of God."

What could a pastor wish better for his people, or friend for the

friend he loves most, than this double blessing? Paul's letters are

perfumed with its fragrance. Open them where you will, they are

breathing out, "Grace to you and peace." Paul has hard things to

write in this Epistle, sorrowful complaints to make, grievous errors

to correct; but still with "Grace and peace" he begins, and with

"Peace and grace" he will end! And so this stern and reproachful

letter to these "foolish Galatians" is all embalmed and folded up in

grace and peace. That is the way to "be angry and sin not." So mercy

rejoices over judgement.

These two benedictions, we must remember, go together. Peace comes

through grace. The proud heart never knows peace; it will not yield

to God the glory of His grace. It scorns to be a debtor, even to Him.

The proud man stands upon his rights, upon his merits. And he will

have them; for God is just. But peace is not amongst them. No sinful

child of man deserves that. Is there wrong between your soul and God,

iniquity hidden in the heart? Till that wrong is confessed, till

you submit to the Almighty and your spirit bows at the Redeemer's

cross, what hast thou to do with peace? No peace in this world, or

in any world, for him who will not be at peace with God. "When I kept

silence," so the ancient confession runs (Ps. xxxii. 3-5), "my bones

waxed old through my moaning all the day long"--that is why many a

man is old before his time! because of this continual inward chafing,

this secret, miserable war of the heart against God. "Day and night

Thy hand was heavy upon me; my moisture was turned into the drought

of summer"--the soul withered like grass, all the freshness and pure

delight of life wasted and perishing under the steady, unrelenting

heat of the Divine displeasure. "Then I said"--I could bear it no

longer--"I said, I will confess my transgression unto the Lord; and

Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin." And then peace came to the

weary soul. The bitterness and hardness of life were gone; the heart

was young again. The man was new born, a child of God.

But while Paul gives this salutation to all his Churches, his

greeting is extended and qualified here in a peculiar manner. The

Galatians were falling away from faith in Christ to Jewish ritualism.

He does not therefore wish them "Grace and peace" in a general way,

or as objects to be sought from any quarter or by any means that

they might choose; but only "from God our Father, and our Lord Jesus

Christ, who gave Himself for our sins." Here is already a note of

warning and a tacit contradiction of much that they were tempted to

believe. It would have been a mockery for the Apostle to desire for

these fickle Galatians grace and peace on other terms. As at Corinth,

so in Galatia, he is "determined to know nothing save Jesus Christ

and Him crucified." Above the puerilities of their Jewish ritual,

above the pettiness of their wrangling factions, he directs his

readers' gaze once more to the sacrifice of Calvary and the sublime

purpose of God which it reveals.

Do _we_ not need to be recalled to the same sight? We live in a

distracted and distracting age. Even without positive unbelief, the

cross is too frequently thrust out of view by the hurry and press of

modern life. Nay, in the Church itself is it not in danger of being

practically set on one side, amidst the throng of competing interests

which solicit, and many of them justly solicit, our attention? We

visit Calvary too seldom. We do not haunt in our thoughts the sacred

spot, and linger on this theme, as the old saints did. We fail to

attain "the fellowship of Christ's sufferings;" and while the cross

is outwardly exalted, its inward meaning is perhaps but faintly

realised. "Tell us something new," they say; "that story of the

cross, that evangelical doctrine of yours we have heard it so often,

we know it all so well!" If men are saying this, if the cross of

Christ is made of none effect, its message staled by repetition, we

must be strangely at fault either in the hearing or the telling. Ah,

if we knew the cross of Christ, it would crucify us; it would possess

our being. Its supremacy can never be taken from it. That cross is

still the centre of the world's hope, the pillar of salvation. Let

the Church lose her hold of it, and she loses everything. She has no

longer any reason to exist.

I. So the Apostle's greeting invites his readers to contemplate anew

_the Divine gift bestowed upon sinful men_. It invokes blessing upon

them "from our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins."

To see this gift in its greatness, let us go a little farther back;

let us consider who the Christ is that thus "gives Himself." He is,

we are taught, the almoner of all the Divine bounties. He is not

the object alone, but the depositary and dispenser of the Father's

good pleasure to all worlds and all creatures. Creation is rooted

in "the Son of God's love" (Col. i. 15-18). Universal life has its

fountain in "the Only-begotten, which is in the bosom of the Father."

The light that dispelled the weltering gloom of chaos, the more

wondrous light that shone in the dawn of human reason, came from this

"outbeaming of the Father's glory." Countless gifts had He, "the

life of men, the Word that was from the beginning," bestowed on a

world that knew Him not. Upon the chosen race, the people whom on the

world's behalf he formed for Himself, He showered His blessings. He

had given them promise and law, prophet and priest and king, gifts of

faith and hope, holy obedience and brave patience and deep wisdom and

prophetic fire and heavenly rapture; and His gifts to them have come

through them to us, "partakers with them of the root and fatness of

the olive tree."

But now, to crown all, _He gave Himself_! "The Word became flesh."

The Son of God planted Himself into the stock of human life, made

Himself over to mankind; He became the Son of man. So in the fulness

of time came the fulness of blessing. Earlier bestowments were

instalments and prophecies of this; later gifts are its outcome and

its application. What could He have done more than this? What could

the Infinite God do more, even for the most worthy, than He has done

for us in "sending His Son, the Only-begotten, that we might live

through Him!" Giving us Him, surely He will give us grace and peace.

And if our Lord Jesus Christ "gave Himself," is not that sufficient?

What could Jewish ritual and circumcision add to this "fulness of the

Godhead?" Why hunt after the shadows, when one has the substance?

Such were the questions which the Apostle has to ask his Judaizing

readers. And what, pray, do _we_ want with modern Ritualism, and

its scenic apparatus, and its priestly offices? Are these things

designed to eke out the insufficiency of Christ? Will they recommend

Him better than His own gospel and the pure influence of His Spirit

avail to do in these latter days? Or has modern thought, to be sure,

and the progress of the 19th century carried us beyond Jesus Christ,

and created spiritual wants for which He has no supply? Paul at least

had no anticipation of this failure. All the need of hungry human

hearts and searching minds and sorrowing spirits, to the world's

latest ages, the God of Paul, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is

able to supply in Him. "We are complete in Him,"--if we but knew our

completeness. The most advanced thinkers of the age will still find

Jesus Christ in advance of them. Those who draw the most largely from

His fulness, leave its depths unsounded. There are resources stored

for the times to come in the revelation of Christ, which our age is

too slight, too hasty of thought, to comprehend. We are straitened in

ourselves; never in Him.

From this supreme gift we can argue down to the humblest necessities,

the commonest trials of our daily lot. It adapts itself to the small

anxieties of a struggling household, equally with the largest demands

of our exacting age. "Thou hast given us Thy Son," says some one,

"and wilt Thou not give us bread?" We have a generous Lord. His

only complaint is that we do not ask enough. "Ye are My friends,"

He says: "I have given My life for you. Ask what ye will, and it

shall be done unto you." Giving us Himself, He has given us all

things. Abraham and Moses, David and Isaiah, "Paul and Apollos and

Cephas--yea the world itself, life and death, things present and to

come--all are ours; and we are Christ's and Christ is God's" (1 Cor.

iii. 22, 23). Such is the chain of blessing that hangs on this single

gift.

Great as the gift is, it is not greater than our need. Wanting a

Divine Son of man, human life remains a baffled aspiration, a pathway

leading to no goal. Lacking Him, the race is incomplete, a body

without its head, a flock that has no master. By the coming of Christ

in the flesh human life finds its ideal realized; its haunting dream

of a Divine helper and leader in the midst of men, of a spiritual

and immortal perfection brought within its reach, has attained

fulfilment. "God hath raised up a horn of salvation for us in the

house of His servant David; as He spake by the mouth of His holy

prophets, which have been since the world began." Jacob's vision has

come true. There is the golden ladder, with its foot resting on the

cold, stony earth, and its top on heaven's starry platform, with its

angels ascending and descending through the darkness; and you may

climb its steps, high as you will! So humanity receives its crown of

life. Heaven and earth are linked, God and man reunited in the person

of Jesus Christ.

But Paul will not suffer us to linger at Bethlehem. He hastens on

to Calvary. The Atonement, not the Incarnation, is in his view the

centre of Christianity. To the cross of Jesus, rather than to His

cradle, he attaches our salvation. "Jesus Christ gave Himself"--what

for, and in what way? What was the errand that brought Him here,

in such a guise, and at such a time? Was it to meet our _need_, to

fulfil our human aspirations, to crown the moral edifice, to lead

the race onward to the goal of its development? Yes--ultimately, and

in the final issue, for "as many as receive Him"; it was to "present

every man perfect in Christ." But that was not the primary object of

His coming, of such a coming. Happy for us indeed, and for Him, if it

could have been so. To come to a world waiting for Him, hearkening

for the cry, "Behold thy God, O Israel," would have been a pleasant

and a fitting thing. But to find Himself rejected by His own, to be

spit upon, to hear the multitude shout, "Away with Him!" was this

the welcome that He looked for? Yea surely, nothing else but this.

For He gave Himself _for our sins_. He came to a world steeped in

wickedness, seething with rebellion against God, hating Him because

it hated the Father that sent Him, sure to say as soon as it saw Him,

"We will not have this man to reign over us." Not therefore by way

of incarnation and revelation alone, as it might have been for an

innocent race; but by way of _sacrifice_, as a victim on the altar of

expiation, "a lamb led to the slaughter," He gave Himself up for us

all. "To deliver us from an evil world," says the Apostle; to mend

a faulty and imperfect world, something less and other would have

sufficed.

Extreme diseases call for extreme remedies. The case with which

our good Physician had to deal was a desperate one. The world was

sick at heart; its moral nature rotting to the core. Human life was

shattered to its foundation. If it was to be saved, if the race was

to escape perdition, the fabric must be reconstructed upon another

basis, on the ground of a new righteousness, outside ourselves and

yet akin to us, near enough to take hold of us and grow into us,

which should draw to itself the broken elements of human life, and

as a vital organic force refashion them, "creating" men "anew in

Christ Jesus"--a righteousness availing before God, and in its depth

and width sufficient to bear a world's weight. Such a new foundation

Jesus Christ has laid in His death. "He laid down His life for us,"

the Shepherd for the sheep, the Friend for His perishing friends,

the Physician for sufferers who had no other remedy. It had come to

this,--either He must die, or we must die for ever. Such was the

sentence of the All-wise Judge; on that judgement the Redeemer acted.

"His judgements are a great deep"; and in this sentence there are

depths of mystery into which we tremble to look, "secret things that

belong unto the Lord our God." But so it was. There was no way but

this, no moral possibility of saving the world, and yet saving Him

the accursed death.

If there had been, would not the Almighty Father have found it out?

would He not have "taken away the cup" from those white, quivering

lips? No; He must _die_. He must consent to be "made sin, made a

curse" for us. He must humble His stainless innocence, humble His

glorious Godhead down to the dust of death. He must die, at the hands

of the men He created and loved, with the horror of the world's sin

fastened on Him; die under a blackened heaven, under the averting of

the Father's face. And He did it. He said, "Father, Thy will be done.

Smite the Shepherd; but let the sheep escape." So He "gave Himself

for our sins."

Ah, it was no easy march, no holiday pageant, the coming of the Son

of God into this world of ours. He "came to _save sinners_." Not to

help good men--this were a grateful task; but to redeem bad men--the

hardest work in God's universe. It tasked the strength and the

devotion of the Son of God. Witness Gethsemane. And it will cost His

Church something, more haply than we dream of now, if the work of

the Redeemer is to be made effectual, and "the travail of His soul

satisfied."

In pity and in sorrow was that gift bestowed; in deep humility and

sorrow must it be accepted. It is a very humbling thing to "receive

the atonement," to be made righteous on such terms as these. A man

who has done well, can with satisfaction accept the help given him

to do better. But to know that one has done very ill, to stand in

the sight of God and truth condemned, marked with the disgrace that

the crucifixion of the Son of God has branded on our human nature,

with every stain of sin in ourselves revealed in the light of His

sacrifice, is a sore abasement. When one has been compelled to cry

out, "Lord, save; or I perish!" he has not much left to plume himself

upon. There was Saul himself, a perfect moralist, "blameless in the

righteousness of the law." Yet he must confess, "How to perform that

which is good I find not. In me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no

good thing. Wretch that I am, who shall deliver me?" Was not this

mortifying to the proud young Pharisee, the man of strict conscience

and high-souled moral endeavour? It was like death. And whoever has

with sincerity made the same attempt to attain in the strength of his

will to a true virtue, has tasted of this bitterness.

This however is what many cannot understand. The proud heart says,

"No; I will not stoop to that. I have my faults, my defects and

errors, not a few. But as for what you call _sin_, as for guilt and

inborn depravity, I am not going to tax myself with anything of the

kind. Leave me a little self-respect." So with the whole herd of

the self-complacent, half-religious Laodiceans. Once a week they

confess themselves "miserable sinners," but their sins against God

never yet cost them one half hour of misery. And Paul's "gospel is

hid to them." If they read this Epistle, they cannot tell what it

is all about; why Paul makes so much ado, why these thunderings

of judgement, these cries of indignation, these beseechings and

protestings and redoubled arguments,--all because a parcel of

foolish Galatians wanted to play at being Jews! They are inclined

to think with Festus, that this good Paul was a little beside

himself. Alas! to such men, content with the world's good opinion

and their own, the death of Christ is made of none effect. Its moral

grandeur, its infinite pathos, is lost upon them. They pay it a

conventional respect, but as for _believing_ in it, as for making

it their own, and dying with Christ to live in Him--they have no

idea what it means. That, they will tell you, is "mysticism," and

they are practical men of the world. They have never gone out of

themselves, never discovered their moral insufficiency. These are

they of whom Jesus said, "The publicans and the harlots go into the

kingdom of God before you." It is our human independence, our moral

self-conceit, that robs us of the Divine bounty. How should God give

His righteousness to men so well furnished with their own? "Blessed"

then "are the poor in spirit"; blessed are the broken in heart--poor

enough, broken enough, bankrupt enough to stoop to a Saviour "who

gave Himself for our sins."

II. Sinful men have made an _evil world_. The world, as Paul knew

it, was evil indeed. "The existing evil age," he says, the world as

it then was, in contrast with the glory of the perfected Messianic

kingdom.

This was a leading distinction of the rabbinical schools; and

the writers of the New Testament adopt it, with the necessary

modification, that "the coming age," in their view, commences with

the _Parousia_, the full advent of the Messiah King.[4] The period

that intervenes since His first appearing is transitional, belonging

to both eras. It is the conclusion of "this world,"[5] to which it

appertains in its outward and material relations;[6] but under the

perishing form of the present there lies hidden for the Christian

believer the seed of immortality, "the earnest" of his future

and complete inheritance.[7] Hence the different and seemingly

contradictory ways in which Scripture speaks of the world that now is.

[4] 2 Thess. i. 5-7; 2 Tim. iv. 18; Heb. x. 12, 13; 1 Pet. v. 10.

[5] 1 Cor. x. 11; Heb. ix. 26.

[6] 1 Cor. vii. 31; 1 John ii. 17.

[7] Rom. viii. 18; Eph. i. 13, 14.

To Paul at this time the world wore its darkest aspect. There is a

touching emphasis in the order of this clause. "The present world,

_evil as it is_:" the words are a sigh for deliverance. The Epistles

to Corinth show us how the world just now was using the Apostle.

The wonder is that one man could bear so much. "We are made as the

filth of the world," he says, "the offscouring of all things."[8] So

the world treated its greatest living benefactor. And as for his

Master--"the princes of this world crucified the Lord of glory."

Yes, it was a bad old world, that in which Paul and the Galatians

lived--false, licentious, cruel. And that "evil world" still exists.

[8] 1 Cor. iv. 9-13; xv. 30, 32; 2 Cor. vi. 4, 10; xi. 16, 33.

True, the world, as we know it, is vastly better than that of Paul's

day. Not in vain have Apostles taught, and martyrs bled, and the

Church of Christ witnessed and toiled through so many ages. "Other

men have laboured; we enter into their labours." An English home

of to-day is the flower of the centuries. To those cradled in its

pure affections, endowed with health and honourable work and refined

tastes, the world must be, and was meant to be, in many aspects a

bright and pleasant world. Surely the most sorrowful have known days

in which the sky was all sunshine and the very air alive with joy,

when the world looked as when it came forth fresh from its Creator's

hand, "and behold, it was very good." There is nothing in the Bible,

nothing in the spirit of true religion to damp the pure joy of such

days as these. But there are "the days of darkness;" and they are

many. The Serpent has crept into our Paradise. Death breathes on it

his fatal blast.

And when we look outside the sheltered circles of home-life and

Christian brotherhood, what a sea of misery spreads around us. How

limited and partial is the influence of religion. What a mass of

unbelief and godlessness surges up to the doors of our sanctuaries.

What appalling depths of iniquity exist in modern society, under the

brilliant surface of our material civilization. And however far the

dominance of sin in human society may be broken--as, please God, it

shall be broken, still evil is likely to remain in many tempting

and perilous forms until the world is burnt to ashes in the fires

of the Last Judgement. Is it not an evil world, where every morning

newspaper serves up to us its miserable tale of disaster and of

crime, where the Almighty's name is "all the day blasphemed," and

every night drunkenness holds its horrid revels and the daughters

of shame walk the city streets, where great Christian empires tax

the poor man's bread and make his life bitter to maintain their huge

standing armies and their cruel engines of war, and where, in this

happy England and its cities teeming with wealth, there are thousands

of patient, honest working women, whose life under the fierce stress

of competition is a veritable slavery, a squalid, dreary struggle

just to keep hunger from the door? Ay, it is a world so evil that no

good and right-thinking man who knows it, would care to live in it

for a single day, but for the hope of helping to make it better.

Now it was the purpose of Jesus Christ, that for those who believe

in Him this world's evil should be brought absolutely to an end. He

promises a full deliverance from all that tempts and afflicts us

here. With sin, the root of evil, removed, its bitter fruits at last

will disappear. We shall rise to the life immortal. We shall attain

our perfect consummation and bliss both in body and soul. Kept from

the evil of the world while they remain in it, enabled by His grace

to witness and contend against it, Christ's servants shall then be

lifted clean out for it of ever. "Father, I will," prayed Jesus,

"that they also whom Thou hast given Me, may be with Me where I am."

To that final salvation, accomplished in the redemption of our body

and the setting up of Christ's heavenly kingdom, the Apostle's words

look forward: "that He might deliver us _out of_ this present evil

world." This was the splendid hope which Paul offered to the dying

and despairing world of his day. The Galatians were persuaded of it

and embraced it; he entreats them not to let it go.

The self-sacrifice of Christ, and the deliverance it brings, are

both, the Apostle concludes, "according to the will of God, even our

Father." The wisdom and might of the Eternal are pledged to the work

of human redemption. The cross of Jesus Christ is the manifesto of

Infinite Love. Let him therefore who rejects it, know against Whom he

is contending. Let him who perverts and falsifies it, know with what

he is trifling. He who receives and obeys it, may rest assured that

all things are working for his good. For all things are in the hands

of our God and Father; "to Whom," let us say with Paul, "be glory for

ever. Amen."

CHAPTER III.

_THE ANATHEMA._

"I marvel that ye are so quickly removing from him that called

you in the grace of Christ unto a different gospel; which is

not another _gospel_: only there are some that trouble you, and

would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel

from heaven, should preach unto you any gospel other than that

which we preached unto you, let him be anathema. As we have said

before, so say I now again, If any man preacheth unto you any

gospel other than that which ye received, let him be anathema.

For am I now persuading men, or God? or am I seeking to please

men? if I were still pleasing men, I should not be a servant of

Christ."--GAL. i. 6-10.

After the Salutation in Paul's Epistles comes the Thanksgiving.

Ἐυχαριστῶ or Εὐλογητός--these are the words we expect first to meet.

Even in writing to Corinth, where there was so much to censure and

deplore, he begins, "I give thanks to my God always for you." This

letter deviates from the Apostle's devout and happy usage. Not "I

give thanks," but "I marvel;" not blessing, but _anathema_ is coming

from his lips: a surprise that jars all the more upon one's ears,

because it follows on the sublime doxology of the preceding verse.

"I marvel to see you so quickly falling away to another gospel....

But if any one preach unto you any gospel other than that ye

received--ay, though it were ourselves, or an angel from heaven--I

have said once, and I say again, LET HIM BE ANATHEMA."

These words were well calculated to startle the Galatians out of

their levity. They are like a lightning-flash which shows one to be

standing on the edge of a precipice. We see at once the infinite

seriousness of the Judaic controversy, the profound gulf that lies

between Paul and his opposers. He is for open war. He is in haste

to fling his gage of defiance against these enemies of the cross.

With all his tact and management, his readiness to consult the

susceptibilities and accommodate the scruples of sincere consciences,

the Apostle can find no room for conciliation here. He knows the

sort of men he has to deal with. He perceives that the whole truth

of the Gospel is at stake. Not circumstantials, but essentials; not

his personal authority, but the honour of Christ, the doctrine of the

cross, is involved in this defection. He must speak plainly; he must

act strongly, and at once; or the cause of the Gospel is lost. "If

I continued any longer to please men," he says, "I should not be a

servant of Christ." To stand on terms with such opponents, to palter

with this "other gospel," would be treason against Him. There is but

one tribunal at which this quarrel can be decided. To Him "who had

called" the Galatian believers "in Christ's grace," who by the same

grace had called the Apostle to His service and given him the message

he had preached to them--to _God_ he appeals. In His name, and by the

authority conferred upon him and for which he must give account, he

pronounces these troublers "anathema." They are enemies of Christ, by

their treachery excluded from His kingdom.

However unwelcome, however severe the course the Apostle takes,

he has no alternative. "For now," he cries, "is it _men_ that I

persuade, or _God_?" He must do his duty, let who will condemn.

Paul was ready to go all lengths in pleasing men in consistence

with loyalty to Christ, where he could do it "for their good, unto

edification." But if their approval clashed with God's, then it

became "a very small thing:"[9] he did not heed it one jot. Such is

the temper of mind which the Epistles to Corinth disclose in Paul

at this juncture. In the same spirit he indites these trenchant and

displeasing words.

[9] 1 Cor. iv. 3, 4; 2 Cor. v. 9-12; xii. 19.

With a heavy heart Paul has taken up his pen. If we judge rightly

of the date of this letter, he had just passed through the darkest

hour of his experience, when not his life alone, but the fate of his

Gentile mission hung in the balance. His expulsion from Ephesus,

coming at the same time as the Corinthian revolt, and followed by a

prostrating attack of sickness, had shaken his soul to its depths.

Never had his heart been so torn with anxiety, never had he felt

himself so beaten down and discomfited, as on that melancholy journey

from Ephesus to Macedonia.[10] "Out of anguish of heart and with

many tears" and after-relentings (2 Cor. ii. 4; vii. 8) he wrote

his First letter to Corinth. And this Epistle is even more severe.

There runs through it a peculiar mental tension, an exaltation of

feeling such as prolonged and deep suffering leaves behind in a

nature like Paul's. "The marks of Jesus" (ch. vi. 17) are visible,

impressed on his spirit no less than on his body. The Apostle's

heart is full to overflowing. Its warm glow is felt under the calmer

course of narrative and argument: while at the beginning and end of

the Epistle it breaks forth in language of burning indignation and

melting pathos. Before advancing a single step, before entering on

any sort of explanation or discussion, his grief at the fickleness of

his Galatian children and his anger against their seducers must find

expression.

[10] 2 Cor. i. 8-10; ii. 12, 13; iv. 8-11; vii. 5-7.

These sentences demand, before we proceed further, a few words of

exegetical definition. For the reference of "so quickly" it is

needless to go beyond the verb it qualifies. The Apostle cannot

surely mean, "_so soon_ falling away (after your conversion)." For

the Galatian Churches had been founded five, if not seven, years

before this time; and the backsliding of recent converts is less, and

not more, surprising than of established believers. What astonishes

Paul is the _suddenness_ of this movement, the facility with which

the Galatians yielded to the Judaizing "persuasion," the rapid spread

of this new leaven. As to the double "other" (ἕτερον, _different_,

R.V.--ἄλλο) of vv. 6 and 7, and the connection of the idiomatic

"only" (εἰ μή, _except_),--we regard the second _other_ as an abrupt

correction of the first; while the _only_ clause, extending to the

end of ver. 7, mediates between the two, qualifying the statement

"There is no other gospel," by showing in what sense the writer at

first had spoken of "another." "Ye are falling away," says he, "to

another sort of gospel--which is not another, except that there

are certain that trouble you and would fain pervert the gospel of

Christ." The word _gospel_ is therefore in the first instance applied

ironically. Paul yields the sacred title up to his opponents, only

to snatch it out of their false hands. "_Another_ gospel! there

is only one; although there are men that falsify it, and seek to

foist something else upon you in its name." Seven times in this

context (vv. 6-11) does the Apostle reiterate, in noun or verb, this

precious word, as though he could not let it go. A strange sort

of "good news" for the Galatians, that they must be circumcised

forsooth, and observe the Jewish Kalendar! (ch. v. 2, 3; vi. 12; iv.

9, 10.)

I. In Paul's view, there is but one gospel for mankind. _The gospel

of Jesus Christ bears a fixed, inviolable character._

On this position the whole teaching of Paul rests,--and with it, may

we not add, Christianity itself? However variously we may formulate

the essentials of a Christian man's faith, we are generally agreed

that there are such essentials, and that they are found in Paul's

gospel to the Gentiles. With him the good tidings about Christ

constituted a very definite and, as we should say, _dogmatic_ body of

truth. In whatever degree his gospel has been confused and overlaid

by later teachings, to his own mind its terms were perfectly clear,

and its authority incontestable. With all its breadth, there is

nothing nebulous, nothing limp or hesitating about the theology of

Paul. In its main doctrines it is fixed and hard as adamant; and at

the challenge of this Judaistic perversion it rings out an instant

and peremptory denial. It was the ark of God on which the Jewish

troublers laid their unholy hands. "Christ's grace" is lodged in

it. God's call to mankind was conveyed by these "good tidings." The

Churches which the Apostle had planted were "God's husbandry, God's

building;" and woe to the man who tampered with the work, or sought

to lay another foundation than that which had been laid (1 Cor.

iii. 5-11). To distort or mutilate "the word of the truth of the

gospel," to make it mean now one thing and now another, to disturb

the faith of half-instructed Christians by captious reasonings and

self-interested perversions, was a capital offence, a sin against

God and a crime against humanity. Paul possesses in his gospel truth

of unspeakable value to mankind, the supreme revelation of God's

mercy to the world. And he is prepared to launch his anathema against

every wilful impugner, no matter what his pretensions, or the quarter

from which he comes.

"Well," it may be said, "this is sheer religious intolerance. Paul is

doing what every dogmatist, every ecclesiastical bigot has done in

his turn. His beliefs are, to be sure, _the_ truth; and accordingly

he unchurches and anathematizes those who cannot agree with him.

With all his nobility of mind, there is in Paul a leaven of Jewish

rancour. He falls short of the sweet reasonableness of Jesus." So

some will say, and in saying claim to represent the mild and tolerant

spirit of our age. But is there not in every age an intolerance that

is just and necessary? There is a logical intolerance of sophistry

and trifling. There is a moral intolerance of impurity and deceit.

And there is a religious intolerance, which includes both these and

adds to them a holy jealousy for the honour of God and the spiritual

welfare of mankind. It is mournful indeed to think how many crimes

have been perpetrated under the cloak of pious zeal. _Tantum Religio

potuit suadere malorum._ The corruption of Christianity by human

pride and cruelty has furnished copious illustrations of the terrible

line of Lucretius. But the perversion of this noblest instinct of

the soul does not take away either its reasonableness or its use.

The quality of a passion is one thing; the mode of its expression is

another. The hottest fires of bigotry are cold when compared with the

scorching intolerance of Christ's denunciations of the Pharisees.

The anathemas of Jesus and of Paul are very different from those of

arrogant pontiffs, or of narrow sectaries, inflamed with the idolatry

of their own opinions. After all, the zeal of the rudest fanatic in

religion has more in it of manly worth and moral capability than

the languors of a blasé scepticism, that sits watching with amused

contempt the strife of creeds and the search of human hearts after

the Living God. There is an idle, listless, cowardly tolerance, as

there is an intolerance that is noble and just.

The _one gospel_ has had many interpreters. Their voices, it must

be confessed, sound strangely discordant. While the teachings of

Christianity excite so intensely a multitude of different minds, of

every variety of temper and capacity, contradiction will inevitably

arise. Nothing is easier than to scoff at "the Babel of religious

opinions." Christian truth is necessarily refracted and discoloured

in passing through disordered natures and defective minds. And, alas,

that Church which claims to hold the truth without possibility of

error or variation, has perverted Christ's gospel most of all.

But notwithstanding all differences, there exists a large and an

increasing measure of agreement amongst the great body of earnest

Christians. Slowly, yet surely, one debate after another comes to

its settlement. The noise and publicity with which discussion on

matters of faith is carried on in an age of religious freedom, and

when liberty of thought has outrun mental discipline, should not

lead us to exaggerate the extent of our disagreements. In the midst

of human controversy and error, the Spirit of truth is carrying on

His work. He is the supreme witness of Jesus Christ. And He abides

with us for ever. The newly awakened historical conscience of our

times is visibly making for unity. The Church is going back to the

New Testament. And the more thoroughly she does this, the more

directly and truthfully she addresses herself to the original record

and comes face to face with Christ and His Apostles there, so much

the more shall we realize the oneness and certainty of "the faith

once delivered to the saints." Beneath the many superstructures,

faulty and changing in their form, we reach the one "foundation of

the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief

corner-stone." There we touch solid rock. "The unity of the faith"

lies in "the knowledge of the Son of God." Of Him we shall learn most

from those who knew Him best. Let us transport ourselves into the

fellowship of His first disciples; and listen to His gospel as it

came fresh from the lips of Peter and John and Paul, and the Divine

Master Himself. Let us bid the voices of the centuries be silent,

that we may _hear Him_.

For the Galatian readers, as for Paul, there could be but _one

gospel_. By his voice the call of God had reached their hearts, (ver.

6; ch. v. 8). The witness of the Spirit of God and of Christ in the

supernatural gifts they had received, and in the manifold fruit of

a regenerate life (ch. iii. 2-5; v. 22, 23), was evidence to them

that the Apostle's message was "the true gospel of the grace of God."

This they had gratefully acknowledged at the time of his first visit

(ch. iv. 15). The proclamation of the crucified and risen Christ had

brought to them unspeakable blessing. Through it they received the

knowledge of God; they were made consciously sons of God, heirs of

life eternal (ch. iii. 26; iv. 6-9; vi. 8). To entertain any other

gospel, after this experience and all these professions, was an act

of apostasy. "Ye are deserting (like runaway soldiers), _turning

renegades_ from God:" such is the language in which Paul taxes

his readers. In listening to the persuasion of the Judaists, they

were "disobeying the truth" (ch. v. 7, 8). They were disloyal to

conscience; they were trifling with the most sacred convictions of

their lives, and with the testimony of the Spirit of God. They were

forgetting the cross of Christ, and making His death of none effect.

Surely they must have been "bewitched" to act thus; some deadly spell

was upon them, which had laid memory and conscience both to sleep

(ch. ii. 21-iii. 3).

The nature and the contents of the two "gospels" current in Galatia

will be made clear in the further course of the Epistle. They were

the gospels of Grace and of Law respectively; of Salvation by Faith,

and by Works; of life in the Spirit, and in the Flesh; of the Cross

and the Resurrection on the one hand, and of Circumcision and the

Kalendar and "Clean meats" on the other; the gospels of inwardness,

and of externalism--of Christ, and of self. The conflict between

these two was the great struggle of Paul's life. His success was,

historically speaking, the salvation of Christianity.

But this contention did not end with his victory. The Judaistic

perversion appealed to tendencies too persistent in our nature to

be crushed at one blow. The gospel of externalism is dear to the

human heart. It may take the form of culture and moralities; or of

"services" and sacraments and churchly order; or of orthodoxy and

philanthropy. These and such things make themselves our idols; and

trust in them takes the place of Faith in the living Christ. It is

not enough that the eyes of our heart should once have seen the

Lord, that we should in other days have experienced "the renewing of

the Holy Ghost." It is possible to forget, possible to "remove from

Him that called us in the grace of Christ." With little change in

the form of our religious life, its inward reality of joy in God,

of conscious sonship, of fellowship in the Spirit, may be utterly

departed. The gospel of formalism will spring up and flourish on the

most evangelical soil, and in the most strictly Pauline Churches.

Let it be banned and barred out never so completely, it knows how to

find entrance, under the simplest modes of worship and the soundest

doctrine. The serried defence of Articles and Confessions constructed

against it will not prevent its entrance, and may even prove its

cover and intrenchment. Nothing avails, as the Apostle says, but a

constant "new creation." The life of God in human souls is sustained

by the energy of His Spirit, perpetually renewed, ever proceeding

from the Father and the Son. "The life that I live in the flesh, I

live by the Faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself

for me." This is the true orthodoxy. The vitality of his personal

faith in Christ kept Paul safe from error, faithful in will and

intellect to the _one gospel_.

II. We have still to consider the import of _the judgement pronounced

by Paul upon those who pervert the gospel of Christ_. "Let him be

anathema. Even should it be ourselves, or an angel from heaven, _let

him be anathema_."

These are tremendous words. Commentators have been shocked at the

Apostle's damning his opponents after this fashion, and have sought

to lighten the weight of this awful sentence. It has been sometimes

toned down into an act of excommunication or ecclesiastical

censure. But this explanation will not hold. Paul could not think

of subjecting "an angel" to a penalty like that. He pronounced

excommunication against disorderly members of the Thessalonian

Church; and in 1 Cor. v. 1-8 he gives directions for the carrying

out of a similar decree, attended with severe bodily affliction

supernaturally adjudged, against a sinner whose presence grossly

stained the purity of the Church. But this sentence goes beyond

either of those. It contemplates the exclusion of the offenders from

the Covenant of grace, their loss of final salvation.

Thrice besides has Paul used this ominous word. The cry "Jesus is

anathema," in 1 Cor. xii. 3, reveals with a lurid effect the frenzied

malignity towards Christ of which the spirit of evil is sometimes

capable. In a very different connection the word appears in Rom. ix.

3; where Paul "could wish himself anathema from Christ," if that were

possible, for his brethren's sake; he could find it in his heart

to be cut off for ever from that love of God in Christ of which

he has just spoken in terms of unbounded joy and confidence (Rom.

viii. 31-39), and banished from the heavenly kingdom, if through his

exclusion his Jewish kindred might be saved. Self-sacrifice can go no

further. No heavier loss than this could be conceived for any human

being. Nearest to our passage is the imprecation at the end of 1

Corinthians: "If any man love not the Lord, let him be anathema,"--a

judgement proclaimed against cold and false hearts, knowing His love,

bearing His name, but with no true love to Him.

This Greek word in its Biblical use has grown out of the _chérem_ of

the Old Testament, the _ban_ declared against that which was cut off

from the Divine mercies and exposed to the full sweep of judgement.

Thus in Deut. xiii. 12-18, the city whose people should "go and

serve other gods," is declared _chérem (anathema)_, an "accursed,"

or "devoted thing" (R.V.), on which ensues its destruction by sword

and fire, leaving it to remain "a ruin-heap for ever." Similarly in

Joshua vi., vii., the spoil of Jericho is _anathema_, Achan's theft

is therefore _anathema_, and Israel is made by it _anathema_ until

"the accursed thing is destroyed" from among the people. Such were

the recollections associated with this word in the Mosaic law, which

it would inevitably carry with it to the minds of those against whom

it was now directed. And there is nothing in later Jewish usage to

mitigate its force.

Now the Apostle is not writing like a man in a passion, who flings

out his words as missiles, eager only to wound and confound his

opponents. He repeats the sentence. He quotes it as one that he

had already affirmed in the hearing of his readers. The passage

bears the marks of well-weighed thought and judicial solemnity. In

pronouncing this judgement on "the troublers," Paul acts under the

sense of Apostolic responsibility. We must place the sentence in

the same line as that of Peter against Ananias and Sapphira, and

of Paul himself against Elymas the Cypriot sorcerer, and against

the incestuous Corinthian. In each case there is a supernatural

insight and authorization, "the authority which the Lord gave" and

which is wielded by His inspired Apostle. The exercise of this

judicial function was one of "the signs of the Apostle." This was

the proof of "Christ speaking in him" which Paul was so loth to give

at Corinth,[11] but which at this crisis of his ministry he was

compelled to display. And if he "reckons to be bold against" his

adversaries in Galatia, he knows well the ground on which he stands.

[11] 2 Cor. x. 1-11; xiii. 1-10; 1 Cor. iv. 18-21.

His anathema struck at men who were the worst enemies of Christ. "We

can do nothing against the truth," he says; "but for the truth" he

was ready to do and dare everything,--to "come with a rod," as he

tells the proud Corinthians. There was no authority, however lofty,

that he was not warranted to use on Christ's behalf, no measure,

however severe, from which he would shrink, if it were required

in defence of the truth of the Gospel. "He possesses weapons, not

fleshly, but mighty through God"; and he is prepared to bring them

all into play rather than see the gospel perverted or overthrown.

Paul will hurl his anathema at the prince of the archangels, should

He come "preaching another gospel," tempting his children from their

allegiance to Christ. This bolt was not shot a moment too soon.

Launched against the legalist conspiracy, and followed up by the

arguments of this and the Roman Epistle, it saved the Church from

being overpowered by reactionary Judaism. The Apostle's judgement

has marked the gospel of the cross for all time as God's inviolable

truth, guarded by lightnings.

The sentences of judgement pronounced by the Apostles present a

striking contrast to those that have fulminated from the Chair of

their self-styled successors. In the Canons of the Council of Trent,

for example, we have counted one hundred and thirty-five anathemas.

A large proportion of these are concerned with the rights of the

priesthood; others with complicated and secondary points of doctrine;

some are directed virtually against the teaching of Paul himself.

Here is one specimen: "If any one shall say that justifying faith

is nothing else but a trust in the Divine mercy, remitting sins

for Christ's sake, or that it is this trust alone by which we are

justified: let him be anathema."[12] Again, "If any one shall say

that the Canon of the Mass contains errors, and therefore should be

abrogated: let him be anathema."[13] In the closing session, the

final act of the presiding Cardinal was to pronounce, "Anathema to

all heretics;" to which the assembled prelates shouted in response,

"Anathema, anathema." With this imprecation on their lips the Fathers

of the Church concluded their pious labours. It was the Reformation,

it was "the liberty of the sons of God" that Rome anathematized.

Paul's censure holds good against all the Conciliar Canons and Papal

Bulls that contravene it. But twice has he pronounced this awful

word; once against any that "love not the Lord," a second time

upon those who wilfully pervert His gospel. The Papal anathemas

sound like the maledictions of an angry priesthood, jealous for its

prerogatives; here we have the holy severity of an inspired Apostle,

concerned only for the truth, and for his Master's honour. There

speaks the conscious "lord over God's heritage," wearing the triple

crown, wielding the powers of Interdict and Inquisition, whose

word sets armies in motion and makes kings tremble on their seats.

Here a feeble, solitary man, "his bodily presence weak, his speech

contemptible," hunted from place to place, scourged and stoned,

shut up for years in prison, who could not, except for love's sake,

command the meanest service. How conspicuous in the one case, how

wanting in the other, is the might of the Spirit and the dignity of

the inspired word, the transcendence of moral authority.

[12] Session vi., Can. xii.

[13] Session xxii., Can. vi.

It is _the moral conduct_ of those he judges that determines in

each case the sentence passed by the Apostle. For a man knowing

Jesus Christ, as we presume the members of the Corinthian Church did

know Him, not to love Him, argues a bad heart. Must not we count

_ourselves_ accursed, if with our knowledge of Christ we had no love

for Him? Such a man is already virtually _anathema_. He is severed

as a branch from its vine, ready to be gathered for the burning

(John xv. 6). And these Galatian disturbers were something worse

than mere mistaken enthusiasts for their native Jewish rites. Their

policy was dishonourable (ch. iv. 17). They made the gospel of Christ

subservient to factious designs. They sought to win credit with

their fellow-countrymen and to escape the reproach of the cross by

imposing circumcision on the Gentiles (ch. ii. 4; vi. 12, 13). They

prostituted religion to selfish and party purposes. They sacrificed

truth to popularity, the glory of Christ and the cross to their

own. They were of those whom the Apostle describes as "walking in

craftiness and handling the word of God deceitfully," who "traffic"

in the gospel, peddling with it as with petty wares, cheapening and

adulterating it like dishonest hucksters to make their own market by

it (2 Cor. ii. 17; iv. 2). Did not Paul do well to smite them with

the rod of his mouth? Justly has he marked with the brand of this

fiery anathema the false minister, "who serves not the Lord Christ,

but his own belly."

But does this declaration preclude in such a case the possibility of

repentance? We trow not. It declares the doom which is due to any,

be he man or angel, who should do what these "troublers" are doing.

It is a general sentence, and has for the individuals concerned

the effect of a warning, like the announcement made concerning the

Traitor at the Last Supper. However unlikely repentance might be in

either instance, there is nothing to forbid it. So when Peter said to

Simon Magus, "Thy money perish with thee!" he nevertheless continued,

"Repent, therefore, of this thy wickedness, and pray the Lord, if

perhaps the thought of thy heart shall be forgiven thee" (Acts viii.

20-22). To his worst opponents, on any sign of contrition, Paul, we

may be sure, would have gladly said the same.

_THE PERSONAL HISTORY._

CHAPTER i. 11-ii. 21.

CHAPTER IV.

_PAUL'S GOSPEL REVEALED BY CHRIST._

"For I make known to you, brethren, as touching the gospel which

was preached by me, that it is not after man. For neither did

I receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but _it came to

me_ through revelation of Jesus Christ. For ye have heard of

my manner of life in time past in the Jews' religion, how that

beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and made havock

of it: and I advanced in the Jews' religion beyond many of mine

own age among my countrymen, being more exceedingly zealous for

the traditions of my fathers."--GAL. i. 11-14.

Here the Epistle begins in its main purport. What has gone before is

so much exordium. The sharp, stern sentences of vv. 6-10 are like the

roll of artillery that ushers in the battle. The mists rise from the

field. We see the combatants arrayed on either side. In due order and

with cool self-command the Apostle proceeds to marshal and deploy

his forces. His truthful narrative corrects the misrepresentations

of his opponents, and repels their attack upon himself. His

powerful dialectic wrests from their hands and turns against them

their weapons of Scriptural proof. He wins the citadel of their

position, by establishing the claim of the men of faith to be the

sons of Abraham. On the ruins of confuted legalism he builds up an

impregnable fortress for Christian liberty, an immortal vindication

of the gospel of the grace of God.

The cause of Gentile freedom at this crisis was bound up with the

person of the Apostle Paul. His Gospel and his Apostleship must stand

or fall together. The former was assailed through the latter. He was

himself just now "the pillar and stay of the truth." If his character

had been successfully attacked and his influence destroyed, nothing,

humanly speaking, could have saved Gentile Christendom at this

decisive moment from falling under the assaults of Judaism. When he

begins his crucial appeal with the words, "Behold, _I Paul_ say unto

you" (ch. v. 2), we feel that the issue depends upon the weight which

his readers may attach to his personal affirmation. He pits his own

truthfulness, his knowledge of Christ, his spiritual discernment and

authority, and the respect due to himself from the Galatians, against

the pretensions of the new teachers. The comparison is not indeed

so open and express as that made in 2 Corinthians; none the less it

tacitly runs through this Epistle. Paul is compelled to put himself

in the forefront of his argument. In the eyes of his children in the

faith, he is bound to vindicate his Apostolic character, defamed by

Jewish malice and untruth.

The first two chapters of this Epistle are therefore Paul's _Apologia

pro vita sua_. With certain chapters in 2 Corinthians, and scattered

passages in other letters, they form the Apostle's autobiography, one

of the most perfect self-portraitures that literature contains. They

reveal to us the man more effectively than any ostensible description

could have done. They furnish an indispensable supplement to the

external and cursory delineations given in the Acts of the Apostles.

While Luke skilfully presents the outward framework of Paul's life

and the events of his public career, it is to the Epistles that we

turn--to none more frequently than this--for the necessary subjective

data, for all that belongs to his inner character, his motives and

principles. This Epistle brings into bold relief the Apostle's moral

physiognomy. Above all, it throws a clear and penetrating light on

the event which determined his career--the greatest event in the

history of Christianity after the Day of Pentecost--Paul's conversion

to faith in the Lord Jesus.

This was at once the turning-point in the Apostle's life, and the

birth-hour of his gospel. If the Galatians were to understand his

teaching, they must understand this occurrence; they must know why he

became a Christian, how he had received the message which he brought

to them. They would, he felt sure, enter more sympathetically into

his doctrine, if they were better acquainted with the way in which

he had arrived at it. They would see how well-justified was the

authority, how needful the severity with which he writes. Accordingly

he begins with a brief relation of the circumstances of his call

to the service of Christ, and his career from the days of his

Judaistic zeal, when he made havoc of the faith, till the well-known

occasion on which he became its champion against Peter himself, the

chief of the Twelve (ch. i. 11-ii. 21.) His object in this recital

appears to be threefold: to refute the misrepresentations of the

Circumcisionists; to vindicate his independent authority as an

Apostle of Christ; and further, to unfold the nature and terms of his

gospel, so as to pave the way for the theological argument which is

to follow, and which forms the body of the Epistle.

I. _Paul's gospel was supernaturally conveyed to him, by a personal

intervention of Jesus Christ._ This assertion is the Apostle's

starting-point. "My gospel is not after man. I received it as Jesus

Christ revealed it to me."

That the initial revelation was made to him by Christ in person, was

a fact of incalculable importance for Paul. This had made him an

Apostle, in the august sense in which he claims the title (ver. 1).

This accounts for the vehemence with which he defends his doctrine,

and for the awful sentence which he has passed upon its impugners.

The Divine authorship of the gospel he preached made it impossible

for him to temporize with its perverters, or to be influenced by

human favour or disfavour in its administration. Had his teaching

been "according to man," he might have consented to a compromise;

he might reasonably have tried to humour and accommodate Jewish

prejudices. But the case is far otherwise. "I am not at liberty

to please men," he says, "for my gospel comes directly from Jesus

Christ" (vv. 10, 11). So he "gives" his readers "to know," as if by

way of formal notification.[14]

[14] Comp. Rom. ix. 22; 1 Cor. xii. 3; xv. 1; 2 Cor. viii. 1.

The gospel of Paul was inviolable, then, because of its superhuman

character. And this character was impressed upon it by its superhuman

origin: "not according to man, for neither _from man_ did I receive

it, nor was I taught it, but by a revelation of Jesus Christ." The

Apostle's knowledge of Christianity did not come through the ordinary

channel of tradition and indoctrination; Jesus Christ had, by a

miraculous interposition, taught him the truth about Himself. He

says, "Neither did _I_," with an emphasis that points tacitly to the

elder Apostles, whom he mentions a few sentences later (ver. 17). To

this comparison his adversaries forced him, making use of it as they

freely did to his disparagement.[15] But it comes in by implication

rather than direct assertion. Only by putting violence upon himself,

and with strong expressions of his unworthiness, can Paul be brought

to set his official claims in competition with those of the Twelve.

Notwithstanding, it is perfectly clear that he puts his ministry on

a level with theirs. He is no Apostle at second-hand, no disciple of

Peter's or dependant of the "pillars" at Jerusalem. "Neither did I,"

he declares, "any more than they, take my instructions from other

lips than those of Jesus our Lord."

[15] See ch. ii. 6-14; 1 Cor. i. 12; iii. 22; iv. 9; ix. 1-5; xv.

8-10.

But what of this "revelation of Jesus Christ," on which Paul lays

so much stress? Does he mean a revelation made _by_ Christ, or

_about_ Christ? Taken by itself, the expression, in Greek as in

English, bears either interpretation. In favour of the second

construction--viz. that Paul speaks of a revelation by which Christ

was made known to him--the language of ver. 16 is adduced: "It

pleased God to reveal His Son in me." Paul's general usage points in

the same direction. With him Christ is the _object_ of manifestation,

preaching, and the like. 2 Cor. xii. 1 is probably an instance to the

contrary: "I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord."[16]

But it should be observed that wherever this genitive is objective

(a revelation revealing Christ), _God_ appears in the context, just

as in ver. 16 below, to Whom the authorship of the revelation is

ascribed. In this instance, _the gospel_ is the object revealed;

and _Jesus Christ_, in contrast with man, is claimed for its Author.

So at the outset (ver. 1) Christ, in His Divine character, was the

_Agent_ by whom Paul, as veritably as the Twelve, had received his

Apostleship. We therefore assent to the ordinary view, reading this

passage in the light of the vision of Jesus thrice related in the

Acts.[17] We understand Paul to say that no _mere man_ imparted to

him the gospel he preached, but _Jesus Christ revealed it_.

[16] This genitive is, however, open to the other construction,

which is unquestionable in 1 Cor. i. 7; 2 Thess. i. 7; also 1

Pet. i. 7, 13. Rev. i. 1 furnishes a prominent example of the

_subjective_ genitive.

[17] Acts ix. 1-19; xxii. 5-16; xxvi. 12-18.

On the Damascus road the Apostle Paul found his mission. The vision

of the glorified Jesus made him a Christian, and an Apostle. The act

was a _revelation_--that is, in New Testament phrase, a supernatural,

an immediately Divine communication of truth. And it was a revelation

not conveyed in the first instance, as were the ordinary prophetic

inspirations, through the Spirit; "Jesus Christ," in His Divine-human

person, made Himself known to His persecutor. Paul had "seen that

Just One and heard a voice from His mouth."

The appearance of Jesus to Saul of Tarsus was in itself a gospel,

an earnest of the good tidings he was to convey to the world. "Why

persecutest thou Me?" that Divine voice said, in tones of reproach,

yet of infinite pity. The sight of Jesus the Lord, meeting Saul's

eyes, revealed His grace and truth to the persecutor's heart. He

was brought in a moment to the obedience of faith; he said, "Lord,

what wilt Thou have me to do?" He "confessed with his mouth the Lord

Jesus"; he "believed in his heart that God had raised Him from the

dead." It was true, after all, that "God had made" the crucified

Nazarene "both Lord and Christ;" for this was He!

The cross, which had been Saul's stumbling-block, deeply affronting

his Jewish pride, from this moment was transformed. The glory of the

exalted Redeemer cast back its light upon the tree of shame. The

curse of the Law visibly resting upon Him, the rejection of men,

marked Him out as God's chosen sacrifice for sin. This explanation at

once presented itself to an instructed and keenly theological mind

like Saul's, so soon as it was evident that Jesus was not accursed,

as he had supposed, but approved by God. So Paul's gospel was given

him at a stroke. Jesus Christ dying for our sins, Jesus Christ living

to save and to rule--behold "the good news"! The Apostle had it on no

less authority than that of the risen Saviour. From Him he received

it to publish wide as the world.

Thus Saul of Tarsus was born again. And with the Christian man, the

Christian thinker, the theologian, was born in him. The Pauline

doctrine has its root in Paul's conversion. It was a single, organic

growth, the seed of which was this "revelation of Jesus Christ."

Its creative impulse was given in the experience of the memorable

hour, when "God who said, Light shall shine out of darkness, in the

face of Jesus Christ shined" into Saul's heart. As the light of

this revelation penetrated his spirit, he recognised, step by step,

the fact of the resurrection, the import of the crucifixion, the

Divinity of Jesus, His human mediatorship, the virtue of faith, the

office of the Holy Spirit, the futility of Jewish ritual and works

of law, and all the essential principles of his theology. Given the

genius of Saul and his religious training, and the Pauline system of

doctrine was, one might almost say, _a necessary deduction_ from the

fact of the appearance to him of the glorified Jesus. If that form

of celestial splendour was Jesus, then He was risen indeed; then He

was the Christ; He was, as He affirmed, the Son of God. If He was

Lord and Christ, and yet died by the Father's will on the cross of

shame, then His death could only be a propitiation, accepted by God,

for the sins of men, whose efficacy had no limit, and whose merit

left no room for legal works of righteousness. If this Jesus was

the Christ, then the assumptions of Saul's Judaism, which had led

him into blasphemous hatred and outrage towards Him, were radically

false; he will purge himself from the "old leaven," that his life may

become "a new lump." From that moment a world of life and thought

began for the future Apostle, the opposite in all respects of that

in which hitherto he had moved. "The old things," he cries, "passed

away; lo, they have become new" (2 Cor. v. 17). Paul's conversion was

as complete as it was sudden.

This intimate relation of doctrine and experience gives to

Paul's teaching a peculiar warmth and freshness, a vividness of

human reality which it everywhere retains, despite its lofty

intellectualism and the scholastic form in which it is largely

cast. It is theology alive, trembling with emotion, speaking words

like flames, forming dogmas hard as rock, that when you touch them

are yet glowing with the heat of those central depths of the human

spirit from which they were cast up. The collision of the two great

Apostles at Antioch shows how the strength of Paul's teaching lay

in his inward realization of the truth. There was _life_ behind his

doctrine. He was, and for the time the Jewish Apostle was not, acting

and speaking out of the reality of spiritual conviction, of truth

personally verified. Of the Apostle Paul above all divines the saying

is true, _Pectus facit theologum_. And this personal knowledge of

Christ, "the master light of all his seeing," began when on the way

to Damascus his eyes beheld Jesus our Lord. His farewell charge to

the Church through Timothy (2 Tim. i. 9-12), while referring to the

general manifestation of Christ to the world, does so in language

coloured by the recollection of the peculiar revelation made at the

beginning to himself: "God," he says, "called us with a holy calling,

according to His purpose and grace, which hath now been manifested by

the appearing[18] of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished death

and brought life and immortality to light[19] through the gospel,

whereunto _I_ was appointed a preacher and apostle. For which cause

I also suffer these things. But I am not ashamed: for I _know_ Him

in whom I have believed." This manifestation of the celestial Christ

shed its brightness along all his path.

[18] Ἐπιφανεία, a supernatural appearance, such as that of the

Second Advent.

[19] Φωτίζω, comp. 2 Cor. iv. 6.

II. His assertion of the Divine origin of his doctrine Paul

sustains by referring to _the previous course of his life_. There

was certainly nothing in that to account for his preaching Christ

crucified. "For you have heard," he continues, "of my manner of life

aforetime, when I followed Judaism."

Here ends the chain of _fors_ reaching from ver. 10 to 13--a

succession of explanations linking Paul's denunciation of the

Christian Judaizers to the fact that he had himself been a violent

anti-Christian Judaist. The seeming contradiction is in reality a

consistent sequence. Only one who had imbibed the spirit of legalism

as Saul of Tarsus had done, could justly appreciate the hostility of

its principles to the new faith, and the sinister motives actuating

the men who pretended to reconcile them. Paul knew Judaism by

heart. He understood the sort of men who opposed him in the Gentile

Churches. And if his anathema appear needlessly severe, we must

remember that no one was so well able to judge of the necessities of

the case as the man who pronounced it.

"You have heard"--from whom? In the first instance, probably,

from Paul himself. But on this matter, we may be pretty sure, his

opponents would have something to say. They did not scruple to assert

that he "still preached circumcision"[20] and played the Jew even now

when it suited him, charging him with insincerity. Or they might say,

"Paul is a renegade. Once the most ardent of zealots for Judaism, he

has passed to the opposite extreme. He is a man you cannot trust.

Apostates are proverbially bitter against their old faith." In these

and in other ways Paul's Pharisaic career was doubtless thrown in his

teeth.

[20] Ch. v. 11; comp. 1 Cor. ix. 20; Acts xvi. 3; xxi. 20-26;

xxiii. 6.

The Apostle sorrowfully confesses "that above measure he persecuted

the Church of God and laid it waste." His friend Luke makes the same

admission in similar language.[21] There is no attempt to conceal

or palliate this painful fact, that the famous Apostle of the

Gentiles had been a persecutor, the deadliest enemy of the Church

in its infant days. He was the very type of a determined, pitiless

oppressor, the forerunner of the Jewish fanatics who afterwards

sought his life, and of the cruel bigots of the Inquisition and the

Star-chamber in later times. His restless energy, his indifference

to the feelings of humanity in this work of destruction, were due to

religious zeal. "I thought," he says, "I ought to do many things

contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth." In him, as in so many

others, the saying of Christ was fulfilled: "The time cometh, when

whoso killeth you will think that he is offering a sacrifice to

God." These Nazarenes were heretics, traitors to Israel, enemies of

God. Their leader had been crucified, branded with the extremest

mark of Divine displeasure. His followers must perish. Their success

meant the ruin of Mosaism. God willed their destruction. Such were

Saul's thoughts, until he heard the protesting voice of Jesus as he

approached Damascus to ravage His little flock. No wonder that he

suffered remorse to the end of his days.

[21] Acts vii. 58; viii. 1-3; ix. 1.

Saul's persecution of the Church was the natural result of his

earlier training, of the course to which in his youth he committed

himself. The Galatians had heard also "how proficient he was in

Judaism, beyond many of his kindred and age; that he was surpassed

by none in zeal for their ancestral traditions." His birth (Phil.

iii. 4, 5), education (Acts xxii. 3), temperament, circumstances,

all combined to make him a zealot of the first water, the pink and

pattern of Jewish orthodoxy, the rising hope of the Pharisaic party,

and an instrument admirably fitted to crush the hated and dangerous

sect of the Nazarenes. These facts go to prove, not that Paul is a

traitor to his own people, still less that he is a Pharisee at heart,

preaching Gentile liberty from interested motives; but that it must

have been some extraordinary occurrence, quite out of the common run

of human influences and probabilities, that set him on his present

course. What could have turned this furious Jewish persecutor all at

once into the champion of the cross? What indeed but the revelation

of Christ which he received at the Damascus gate? His previous

career up to that hour had been such as to make it impossible that

he should have received his gospel through human means. The chasm

between his Christian and pre-Christian life had only been bridged by

a supernatural interposition of the mercy of Christ.

Our modern critics, however, think that they know Paul better than

he knew himself. They hold that the problem raised by this passage

is capable of a natural solution. Psychological analysis, we are

told, sets the matter in a different light. Saul of Tarsus had

a tender conscience. Underneath his fevered and ambitious zeal,

there lay in the young persecutor's heart a profound misgiving, a

mortifying sense of his failure, and the failure of his people, to

attain the righteousness of the Law. The seventh chapter of his

Epistle to the Romans is a leaf taken out of the inner history of

this period of the Apostle's life. Through what a stern discipline

the Tarsian youth had passed in these legal years! How his haughty

spirit chafed and tortured itself under the growing consciousness

of its moral impotence! The Law had been truly his παιδαγωγός (ch.

iii. 24), a severe tutor, preparing him unconsciously "for Christ."

In this state of mind such scenes as the martyrdom of Stephen could

not but powerfully affect Saul, in spite of himself. The bearing of

the persecuted Nazarenes, the words of peace and forgiveness that

they uttered under their sufferings, stirred questionings in his

breast not always to be silenced. Self-distrust and remorse were

secretly undermining the rigour of his Judaic faith. They acted like

a "goad" (Acts xxvi. 14), against which he "kicked in vain." He rode

to Damascus--a long and lonely journey--in a state of increasing

disquiet and mental conflict. The heat and exhaustion of the desert

march, acting on a nervous temperament naturally excitable and

overwrought, hastened the crisis. Saul fell from his horse in an

access of fever, or catalepsy. His brain was on fire. The convictions

that haunted him suddenly took form and voice in the apparition of

the glorified Jesus, whom Stephen in his dying moments had addressed.

From that figure seemed to proceed the reproachful cry which the

persecutor's conscience had in vain been striving to make him hear.

A flash of lightning, or, if you like, a sunstroke, is readily

imagined to fire this train of circumstances,--and the explanation

is complete! When, besides, M. Renan is good enough to tell us that

he has himself "experienced an attack of this kind at Byblos," and

"with other principles would certainly have taken the hallucinations

he then had for visions,"[22] what more can we desire? Nay, does not

Paul himself admit, in ver. 16 of this chapter, that his conversion

was essentially a spiritual and subjective event?

[22] _Les Apôtres_, p. 180, note 1.

Such is the diagnosis of Paul's conversion offered us by rationalism;

and it is not wanting in boldness nor in skill. But the corner-stone

on which it rests, the hinge of the whole theory, is imaginary and in

fatal contradiction with the facts of the case. Paul himself _knows

nothing_ of the remorse imputed to him previously to the vision of

Jesus. The historian of the Acts knows nothing of it. In a nature so

upright and conscientious as that of Saul, this misgiving would at

least have induced him to desist from persecution. From first to last

his testimony is, "I did it _ignorantly_, in unbelief." It was this

ignorance, this absence of any sense of wrong in the violence he

used against the followers of Jesus, that, in his view, accounted for

his "obtaining mercy" (1 Tim. i. 13). If impressions of an opposite

kind were previously struggling in his mind, with such force that on

a mere nervous shock they were ready to precipitate themselves in the

shape of an over-mastering hallucination, changing instantly and for

ever the current of his life, how comes it that the Apostle has told

us nothing about them? That he should have _forgotten_ impressions

so poignant and so powerful, is inconceivable. And if he has of set

purpose ignored, nay, virtually denied this all-important fact, what

becomes of his sincerity?

The Apostle was manifestly innocent of any such predisposition

to Christian faith as the above theory imputes to him. True, he

was conscious in those Judaistic days of his failure to attain

righteousness, of the disharmony existing between "the law of his

reason" and that which wrought "in his members." His conviction

of sin supplied the moral precondition necessary in every case to

saving faith in Christ. But this negative condition does not help

us in the least to explain the vision of the glorified Jesus. By no

psychological process whatever could the experience of Rom. vii.

7-24 be made to project itself in such an apparition. With all his

mysticism and emotional susceptibility, Paul's mind was essentially

sane and critical. To call him _epileptic_ is a calumny. No man so

diseased could have gone through the Apostle's labours, or written

these Epistles. His discussion of the subject of supernatural gifts,

in 1 Cor. xii. and xiv., is a model of shrewdness and good sense.

He had experience of trances and ecstatic visions; and he knew,

perhaps as well as M. Renan, how to distinguish them from objective

realities.[23] The manner in which he speaks of this appearance

allows of no reasonable doubt as to the Apostle's full persuasion

that "in sober certainty of waking sense" he had seen Jesus our Lord.

[23] 1 Cor. xiv. 18; 2 Cor. xii. 1-6; Acts xvi. 9; xviii. 8, 9;

xxii. 17, 18.

It was this sensible and outward revelation that led to the inward

revelation of the Redeemer to his soul, of which Paul goes on to

speak in ver. 16. Without the latter the former would have been

purposeless and useless. The objective vision could only have

revealed a "Christ after the flesh," had it not been the means

of opening Saul's closed heart to the influence of the Spirit of

Christ. It was the means to this, and in the given circumstances the

indispensable means.

To a history that "knows no miracles," the Apostle Paul must remain

an enigma. His faith in the crucified Jesus is equally baffling to

naturalism with that of the first disciples, who had laid Him in

the grave. When the Apostle argues that his antecedent relations

to Christianity were such as to preclude his conversion having

come about by natural human means, we are bound to admit both the

sincerity and the conclusiveness of his appeal.

CHAPTER V.

_PAUL'S DIVINE COMMISSION._

"But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me,

_even_ from my mother's womb, and called me through His grace,

to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the

Gentiles; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:

neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles

before me: but I went away into Arabia; and again I returned

unto Damascus."--GAL. i. 15-17.

_It pleased God to reveal His Son in me_: this is after all the

essential matter in Paul's conversion, as in that of every Christian.

The outward manifestation of Jesus Christ served in his case to

bring about this result, and was necessary to qualify him for his

extraordinary vocation. But of itself the supernatural vision had no

redeeming virtue, and gave Saul of Tarsus no message of salvation

for the world. Its glory blinded and prostrated the persecutor; his

heart might notwithstanding have remained rebellious and unchanged.

"I am Jesus," said the heavenly Form,--"Go, and it shall be told thee

what thou shalt do";--that was all! And that was not salvation. "Even

though one rose from the dead," still it is possible not to believe.

And faith is possible in its highest degree, and is exercised to-day

by multitudes, with no celestial light to illumine, no audible voice

from beyond the grave to awaken. The sixteenth verse gives us the

inward counterpart of that exterior revelation in which Paul's

knowledge of Christ had its beginning,--but only its beginning.

The Apostle does not surely mean by "in me," _in my case, through me

(to others)_. This gives a sense true in itself, and expressed by

Paul elsewhere (ver. 24; 1 Tim. i. 16), but unsuitable to the word

"reveal," and out of place at this point of the narrative. In the

next clause--"that I might preach Him among the Gentiles"--we learn

what was to be the issue of this revelation for the world. But in

the first place it was a Divine certainty _within the breast of Paul

himself_. His Gentile Apostleship rested upon the most assured basis

of inward conviction, upon a spiritual apprehension of the Redeemer's

person. He says, laying emphasis on the last two words, "to reveal

His Son _within me_." So Chrysostom: Why did he not say _to me_,

but _in me_? Showing that not by words alone he learned the things

concerning faith; but that he was also filled with the abundance of

the Spirit, the revelation shining through his very soul; and that he

had Christ speaking in himself.

I. _The substance of Paul's gospel was, therefore, given him by the

unveiling of the Redeemer to his heart._