"Weak and beggarly rudiments"--it is a hard sentence; and yet what

else were Jewish ceremonies and rules of diet, in comparison with

"righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost"? What was

circumcision, now that there was no longer "Jew and Greek?" What

was there in Saturday more than in any other day of the week, if it

ceased to be a sign between the Lord of the Sabbath and His people?

These things were, as Paul saw them, the cast-clothes of religion.

For Gentile Christians the history of the Jewish ordinances had

much instruction; but their observance was no whit more binding

than that of heathen ceremonies. Even in the ancient times God

valued them only as they were the expression of a devout, believing

spirit. "Your new moons and your appointed feasts," He had said

to an ungodly generation, "My soul hateth" (Isa. i. 14). And was

He likely to accept them now, when they were enforced by ambition

and party-spirit, at the expense of His Church's peace; when their

observance turned men's thoughts away from faith in His Son, and in

the power of His life-giving Spirit? There is nothing too severe,

too scornful for Paul to say of these venerable rites of Israel, now

that they stand in the way of a living faith and trammel the freedom

of the sons of God. He tosses them aside as the swaddling-bands of

the Church's infancy--childish fetters, too weak to hold the limbs

of grown men. "He brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had

made; for the children of Israel did burn incense to it; and he

called it _Nehushtan--a piece of brass_" (2 Kings xviii. 4). Brave

Hezekiah! Paul does the same with the whole ceremonial of Moses.

"Beggarly rudiments," he says. What divine refreshment there is in

a blast of wholesome scorn! It was their traditions, their ritual

that the Judaists worshipped, not the Holy One of Israel. "They

would compass sea and land to make one proselyte," and then "make

him twofold more the child of hell than themselves." This was the

only result that the success of the Judaistic agitation could have

achieved.

In thus decrying Jewish ordinances, the Apostle by implication

allows a certain value to the rites of Paganism. The Galatians were

formerly in bondage to "them that are no gods." Now, he says, they

are turning _again_ to the like servitude by conforming to Mosaic

legalism. They wish to come _again_ under subjection to "the weak and

poor rudiments." In Galatian heathenism Paul appears to recognise

"rudiments" of truth and a certain preparation for Christianity.

While Judaic rites amounted to no more than rudiments of a spiritual

faith, there were influences at work in Paganism that come under the

same category. Paul believed that "God had not left Himself without

witness to any." He never treated heathen creeds with indiscriminate

contempt, as though they were utterly corrupt and worthless. Witness

his address to the "religious" Athenians, and to the wild people

of Lycaonia (Acts xiv. 15-17; xvii. 22-31). He finds his text in

"certain of your own (heathen) poets." He appeals to the sense

of a Divine presence "not far from any one of us;" and declares

that though God was "unknown" to the nations, they were under His

guidance and were "feeling after Him." To this extent Paul admits

a _Preparatio evangelica_ in the Gentile world; he would have been

prepared, with Clement of Alexandria and Origen, and with modern

students of comparative religion, to trace in the poets and wise men

of Greece, in the lawgivers of Rome, in the mystics of the East,

presentiments of Christianity, ideas and aspirations that pointed to

it as their fulfilment. The human race was not left in total darkness

beyond the range of the light shining on Zion's hill. The old Pagans,

"suckled in a creed outworn," were not altogether God-forsaken. They

too, amid darkness like the shadow of death, had "glimpses that might

make them less forlorn." And so have the heathen still. We must not

suppose either that revealed religion was perfect from the beginning;

or that the natural religions were altogether without fragments and

rudiments of saving truth.

"Days you are scrupulously keeping, and months, and seasons, and

years,"--the weekly sabbath, the new moon, the annual festivals,

the sacred seventh year, the round of the Jewish Kalendar. On these

matters the Galatians had, as it seems, already fallen in with the

directions of the Jewish teachers. The word by which the Apostle

describes their practice, παρατηρεῖσθε, denotes, besides the fact,

the manner and spirit of the observance--an _assiduous, anxious

attention_, such as the spirit of legal exaction dictated. These

prescriptions the Galatians would the more readily adopt, because

in their heathen life they were accustomed to stated celebrations.

The Pagan Kalendar was crowded with days sacred to gods and divine

heroes. This resemblance justified Paul all the more in taxing them

with relapsing towards heathenism.

The Church of later centuries, both in its Eastern and Western

branch, went far in the same direction. It made the keeping of

holy days a prominent and obligatory part of Christianity; it has

multiplied them superstitiously and beyond all reason. Amongst the

rest it incorporated heathen festivals, too little changed by their

consecration.

Paul's remonstrance condemns in principle the enforcement of sacred

seasons as things essential to salvation, in the sense in which the

Jewish Sabbath was the bond of the ancient Covenant. We may not place

even the Lord's Day upon this footing. Far different from this is the

unforced and grateful celebration of the First Day of the week, which

sprang up in the Apostolic Church, and is assumed by the Apostles

Paul and John (1 Cor. xvi. 2; Rev. i. 10). The rule of the seventh

day's rest has so much intrinsic fitness, and has brought with it so

many benefits, that after it had been enforced by strict law in the

Jewish Church for so long, its maintenance could now be left, without

express re-enactment, as a matter of freedom to the good sense and

right feeling of Christian believers, "sons of the resurrection."

Its legislative sanction rests on grounds of public propriety and

national well-being, which need not to be asserted here. Wherever the

"Lord of the Sabbath" rules, His Day will be gladly kept for His sake.

The Apostle in protecting Gentile liberties is no enemy to order in

worship and outward life. No one can justly quote his authority in

opposition to such appointments as a Christian community may make,

for reasons of expediency and decorum, in the regulation of its

affairs. But he teaches that the essence of Christianity does not lie

in things of this kind, not in questions of meat and drink, nor of

time and place. To put these details, however important in their own

order, on a level with righteousness, mercy, and faith, is to bring

a snare upon the conscience; it is to introduce once more into the

Church the leaven of justification by works of law.

* * * * *

"Weak and poor" the best forms of piety become, without inward

knowledge of God. Liturgies, creeds and confessions, church music

and architecture, Sundays, fasts, festivals, are beautiful things

when they are the transcript of a living faith. When that is gone,

their charm, their spiritual worth is gone. They no longer belong to

_religion_; they have ceased to be a bond between the souls of men

and God. "According to our faith"--our actual, not professional or

"confessional" faith--"it shall be done unto us": such is the rule of

Christ. To cling to formularies which have lost their meaning and to

which the Spirit of truth gives no present witness, is a demoralising

bondage.

But this is not the only, nor the commonest way in which the sons of

God are tempted to return to bondage. "Whosoever _committeth sin_,"

Christ said, "is the servant of sin." And the Apostle will have to

warn his readers that by their abuse of liberty, by their readiness

to make it "an occasion to the flesh," they were likely to forfeit

it. "They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh" (ch. v. 24).

This warning must be balanced against the other. Our liberty from

outward constraint should be still more a liberty from the dominion

of self, from pride and desire and anger; or it is not the liberty

of God's children. Inward servitude is after all the vilest and worst.

* * * * *

"You make me afraid," at last the Apostle is compelled to say, "that

I have laboured in vain." His enemies had caused him no such fear.

While his children in the faith were true to him, he was afraid of

nothing. "Now we live," he says in one of his Epistles, "if ye stand

fast in the Lord!" But if they should fall away? He trembles for

his own work, for these wayward children who had already caused him

so many pangs. It is in a tone of the deepest solicitude that he

continues his expostulation in the following paragraph.

CHAPTER XVIII.

_PAUL'S ENTREATY._

"I beseech you, brethren, be as I _am_, for I _am_ as ye _are_.

Ye did me no wrong: but ye know that because of an infirmity of

the flesh I preached the gospel unto you the first time: and

that which was a temptation to you in my flesh ye despised not,

nor rejected; but ye received me as an angel of God, _even_ as

Christ Jesus. Where then is that gratulation of yourselves? for

I bear you witness, that, if possible, ye would have plucked out

your eyes and given them to me. So then am I become your enemy,

because I tell you the truth? They zealously seek you in no good

way; nay, they desire to shut you out, that ye may seek them.

But it is good to be zealously sought in a good matter at all

times, and not only when I am present with you,--my children, of

whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you.[118]

Yea, I could wish to be present with you now, and to change my

voice; for I am perplexed about you."--GAL. iv. 12-20.

[118] For the rendering of this clause, see the exposition which

follows.

The reproof of the last paragraph ended in a sigh. To see Christ's

freemen relapsing into bondage, and exchanging their Divine

birthright for childish toys of ceremonial, what can be more

saddening and disappointing than this? Their own experience of

salvation, the Apostle's prayers and toils on their behalf, are, to

all appearance, wasted on these foolish Galatians. One resource is

still left him. He has refuted and anathematized the "other gospel."

He has done what explanation and argument can do to set himself right

with his readers, and to destroy the web of sophistry in which their

minds had been entangled. He will now try to win them by a gentler

persuasion. If reason and authority fail, "for love's sake he will

rather beseech" them.

He had reminded them of their former idolatry; and this calls up

to the Apostle's mind the circumstances of his first ministry in

Galatia. He sees himself once more a stranger amongst this strange

people, a traveller fallen sick and dependent on their hospitality,

preaching a gospel with nothing to recommend it in the appearance

of its advocate, and which the sickness delaying his journey had

compelled him, contrary to his intention, to proclaim amongst them.

Yet with what ready and generous hospitality they had received the

infirm Apostle! Had he been an angel from heaven--nay, the Lord

Jesus Himself, they could scarcely have shown him more attention

than they did. His physical weakness, which would have moved the

contempt of others, called forth their sympathies. However severely

he may be compelled to censure them, however much their feelings

toward him have changed, he will never forget the kindness he then

received. Surely they cannot think him their enemy, or allow him to

be supplanted by the unworthy rivals who are seeking their regard. So

Paul pleads with his old friends, and seeks to win for his arguments

a way to their hearts through the affection for himself which he fain

hopes is still lingering there.

_Hoc prudentis est pastoris_, Calvin aptly says. But there is more in

this entreaty than a calculated prudence. It is a cry of the heart.

Paul's soul is in the pangs of travail (ver. 19). We have seen the

sternness of his face relax while he pursues his mighty argument. As

he surveys the working of God's counsel in past ages, the promise

given to Abraham for all nations, the intervening legal discipline,

the coming of Christ in the fulness of time, the bursting of the

ancient bonds, the sending forth of the Spirit of adoption--and

all this for the sake of these Galatian Gentiles, and then thinks

how they are after all declining from grace and renouncing their

Divine inheritance, the Apostle's heart aches with grief. Foolish,

fickle as they have proved, they are his children. He will "travail

over them in birth a second time," if "Christ may yet be formed in

them." Perhaps he has written too harshly. He half repents of his

severity.[119] Fain would he "change his voice." If he could only

"be with them," and see them face to face, haply his tears, his

entreaties, would win them back. A rush of tender emotion wells up

in Paul's soul. All his relentings are stirred. He is no longer the

master in Christ rebuking unfaithful disciples; he is the mother

weeping over her misguided sons.

[119] Comp. 2 Cor. ii. 4; vii. 8.

* * * * *

There are considerable difficulties in the exegesis of this passage.

We note them in succession as they arise:--(1) In ver. 12 we prefer,

with Meyer and Lightfoot, to read, "Be as I, for I _became_ (rather

than _am_) as you--brethren, I beseech you." The verses preceding and

following both suggest the past tense in the ellipsis. Paul's memory

is busy. He appeals to the "auld lang syne." He reminds the Galatians

of what he "had been amongst them for their sake,"[120] how he then

behaved in regard to the matters in dispute. He assumed no airs of

Jewish superiority. He did not separate himself from his Gentile

brethren by any practice in which they could not join. He "became

as they," placing himself by their side on the ground of a common

Christian faith. He asks for reciprocity, for "a recompense in like

kind" (2 Cor. vi. 13). Are they going to set themselves above their

Apostle, to take their stand on that very ground of Mosaic privilege

which he had abandoned for their sake? He implores them not to do

this thing. The beseechment, in the proper order of the words, comes

in at the close of the sentence, with a pathetic emphasis. He makes

himself a suppliant. "I beg you," he says, "by our old affection, by

our brotherhood in Christ, not to desert me thus."

[120] Comp. 1 Thess. i. 5; ii. 7, 8.

(2) Suddenly Paul turns to another point, according to his wont in

this emotional mood: "There is nothing in which you have wronged me."

Is he contradicting some allegation which had helped to estrange the

Galatians? Had some one been saying that Paul was affronted by their

conduct, and was actuated by personal resentment? In that case we

should have looked for a specific explanation and rebutment of the

charge. Rather he is anticipating the thought that would naturally

arise in the minds of his readers at this point. "Paul is asking us,"

they would say, "to let bygones be bygones, to give up this Judaistic

attachment for his sake, and to meet him frankly on the old footing.

But supposing we try to do so, he is very angry with us, as this

letter shows; _he thinks we have treated him badly_; he will always

have a grudge against us. Things can never be again as they were

between ourselves and him."

Such feelings often arise upon the breach of an old friendship, to

prevent the offending party from accepting the proffered hand of

reconciliation. Paul's protest removes this hindrance. He replies,

"I have no sense of injury, no personal grievance against _you_. It

is impossible I should cherish ill-will towards you. You know how

handsomely you treated me when I first came amongst you. Nothing can

efface from my heart the recollection of that time. You must not

think that I hate you, because I tell you the truth" (ver. 16).

(3) "Because of an infirmity of the flesh" (physical weakness), is

the truer rendering of ver. 13; and "your temptation in my flesh" the

genuine reading of ver. 14, restored by the Revisers. Sickness had

arrested the Apostle's course during his second missionary tour, and

detained him in the Galatic country. So that he had not only "been

with" the Galatians "in weakness," as afterwards when during the same

journey he preached at Corinth (1 Cor. ii. 3); but actually "_because

of_ weakness." His infirmities gave him occasion to minister there,

when he had intended to pass them by.

Paul had no thought of evangelizing Galatia; another goal was in

view. It was patent to them--indeed he confessed as much at the

time--that if he had been able to proceed, he would not have lingered

in their country. This was certainly an unpromising introduction.

And the Apostle's state of health made it at that time a trial for

any one to listen to him. There was something in the nature of his

malady to excite contempt, even loathing for his person. "That which

tried you in my flesh, ye did not _despise_, nor _spit out_:" such

is Paul's vivid phrase. How few men would have humility enough to

refer to a circumstance of this kind; or could do so without loss of

dignity. He felt that the condition of the messenger might well have

moved this Galatian people to derision, rather than to reverence for

his message.

At the best Paul's appearance and address were none of the most

prepossessing.[121] The "ugly little Jew" M. Renan calls him,

repeating the taunts of his Corinthian contemners. His sickness

in Galatia, connected, it would appear, with some constitutional

weakness, from which he suffered greatly during his second and

third missionary tours, assumed a humiliating as well as a painful

form. Yet this "thorn in the flesh," a bitter trial assuredly to

himself,[122] had proved at once a trial and a blessing to his

unintended hearers in Galatia.

[121] 1 Cor. ii. 3; 2 Cor. iv. 7; x. 1, 10; xi. 6.

[122] Comp. 2 Cor. xii. 7-10, referring apparently to the first

outbreak of this mysterious affliction.

(4) So far from taking offence at Paul's unfortunate condition,

they welcomed him with enthusiasm. They "blessed themselves" that

he had come (ver. 15). They said one to another, "How fortunate we

are in having this good man amongst us! What a happy thing for us

that Paul's sickness obliged him to stay and give us the opportunity

of hearing his good news!" Such was their former "gratulation." The

regard they conceived for the sick Apostle was unbounded. "For I bear

you witness," he says, "that, if possible, you would have _dug out

your eyes_ and given them me!"

Is this no more than a strong hyperbole, describing the almost

extravagant devotion which the Galatians expressed to the Apostle?

Or are we to read the terms more literally? So it has been sometimes

supposed. In this expression some critics have discovered a clue

to the nature of Paul's malady. The Galatians, as they read the

sentence, wished they could have taken out their own eyes and given

them to Paul, _in place of his disabled ones_. This hypothesis,

it is argued, agrees with other circumstances of the case and gives

shape to a number of scattered intimations touching the same subject.

Infirmity of the eyes would explain the "large characters" of Paul's

handwriting (ch. vi. 11), and his habit of using an amanuensis. It

would account for his ignorance of the person of the High Priest at

his trial in Jerusalem (Acts xxiii. 2-5). The blindness that struck

him on the way to Damascus may have laid the foundation of a chronic

affection of this kind, afterwards developed and aggravated by the

hardships of his missionary life. And such an affliction would

correspond to what is said respecting the "thorn" of 2 Cor. xii. 7,

and the "temptation" of this passage. For it would be excessively

painful, and at the same time disabling and disfiguring in its

effects.

This conjecture has much to recommend it. But it finds a very

precarious support in the text. Paul does not say, "You would have

plucked out _your own_ (A.V.) eyes and given them _me_," as though

he were thinking of an exchange of eyes; but, "You would have

plucked out your _eyes_ and given them me"--as much as to say, "You

would have done anything in the world for me then,--even taken out

your eyes and given them to me."[123] In the phrase "dug out" we

may detect a touch of irony. This was the genuine Galatian style.

The Celtic temperament loves to launch itself out in vehemencies

and flourishes of this sort. These ardent Gauls had been perfectly

enraptured with Paul. They lavished upon him their most exuberant

metaphors. They said these things in all sincerity; he "bears them

record" to this. However cool they have become since, they were

gushing enough and to spare in their affection towards him then. And

now have they "so quickly" turned against him? Because he crosses

their new fancies and tells them unwelcome truths, they rush to the

opposite extreme and even think him their enemy!

[123] Comp. Matt. xviii. 9.

(5) Suddenly the Apostle turns upon his opposers (ver. 17). The

Judaizers had disturbed his happy relations with his Galatian

flock; they had made them half believe that he was their enemy.

The Galatians must choose between Paul and his traducers. Let them

scrutinise the motives of these new teachers. Let them call to mind

the claims of their father in Christ. "They are courting you," he

says,--"these present suitors for your regard--dishonourably; they

want to shut you out and have you to themselves, that you may pay

court to them." They pretend to be zealous for your interests; but it

is their own they seek (ch. vi. 12).

So far the Apostle's meaning is tolerably clear. But ver. 18 is

obscure. It may be construed in either of two ways, as _Paul_ or _the

Galatians_ are taken for the subject glanced at in the verb _to be

courted_ in its first clause: "But it is honourable to be courted

always in an honourable way, and not only when I am present with

you." Does Paul mean that he has no objection to the Galatians making

other friends in his absence? or, that he thinks they ought not to

forget him in his absence? The latter, as we think. The Apostle

complains of their inconstancy towards himself. This is a text for

friends and lovers. Where attachment is honourable, it should be

lasting. "Set me as a seal upon thine heart," says the Bride of the

Song of Songs. With the Galatians it seemed to be, "Out of sight, out

of mind." They allowed Paul to be pushed out by scheming rivals.

He was far away; they were on the spot. He told them the truth; the

Judaizers flattered them. So their foolish heads were turned. They

were positively "bewitched" by these new admirers; and preferred

their sinister and designing compliments to Paul's sterling honour

and proved fidelity.

The connection of vv. 17, 18 turns on the words _honourable_ and

_court_,[124] each of which is thrice repeated. There is a kind of

play on the verb ζηλόω. In ver. 18 it implies a true, in ver. 17 a

counterfeit affection (an affectation). Paul might have said, "It is

good one should be _loved, followed with affection, always_," but for

the sake of the verbal antithesis. In ver. 17 he taxes his opponents

with unworthily courting the favour of the Galatians; in ver. 18

he intimates his grief that he himself in his absence is no longer

courted by them.

[124] Ζηλόω, _to have zeal_ towards a person or thing, _to

affect_ (A.V.: in its older English sense of _seeking_, _paying

regard to any one_).

(6) In the next verse this grief of wounded affection, checked at

first by a certain reserve, breaks out uncontrollably: "My children,

for whom again I am in travail, till Christ be formed in you!"[125]

This outcry is a pathetic continuance of his expostulation. He cannot

bear the thought of losing these children of his heart. He stretches

out his arms to them. Tears stream from his eyes. He has been

speaking in measured, almost playful terms, in comparing himself with

his supplanters. But the possibility of their success, the thought of

the mischief going on in Galatia and of the little power he has to

prevent it, wrings his very soul. He feels a mother's pangs for his

imperilled children, as he writes these distressful words.

[125] The _full stop_ placed in the English Version at the end of

ver. 18, on this view, is out of place.

There is nothing gained by substituting "little children" (John's

phrase) for "children," everywhere else used by Paul, and attested

here by the best witnesses. The sentiment is that of 1 Thess. ii. 7,

8; 1 Cor. iv. 14-16. The Apostle is not thinking of the littleness

or feebleness of the Galatians, but simply of their relation to

himself. His sorrow is the sorrow of bereavement. "You have not many

_mothers_," he seems to say: "I have travailed over you in birth;

and now a second time you bring on me a mother's pains, which I must

endure until Christ is formed in you and His image is renewed in your

souls."

* * * * *

Paul stands before us as an injured friend, a faithful minister

of Christ robbed of his people's love. He is wounded in his

tenderest affections. For the sake of the Gentile Churches he had

given up everything in life that he prized (ver. 12; 1 Cor. ix.

21); he had exposed himself to the contempt and hatred of his

fellow-countrymen--and this is his reward, "to be loved the less, the

more abundantly he loves!" (2 Cor. xii. 15).

But if he is grieved at this defection, he is equally perplexed. He

cannot tell what to make of the Galatians, or in what tone to address

them. He has warned, denounced, argued, protested, pleaded as a

mother with her children; still he doubts whether he will prevail. If

he could only see them and meet them as in former days, laying aside

the distance, the sternness of authority which he has been forced

to assume, he might yet reach their hearts. At least he would know

how matters really stand, and in what language he ought to speak. So

his entreaty ends: "I wish I could only be present with you now, and

speak in some different voice. For I am at a loss to know how to deal

with you."

This picture of estrangement and reproach tells its own tale, when

its lines have once been clearly marked. We may dwell, however, a

little longer on some of the lessons which it teaches:--

I. In the first place, it is evident that _strong emotions and warm

affections are no guarantee for the permanence of religious life_.

The Galatians resembled the "stony ground" hearers of our Lord's

parable,--"such as hear the word, and immediately with joy receive

it; but they have no root in themselves; they believe for a time."

It was not "persecution" indeed that "offended" them; but flattery

proved equally effectual. They were of the same fervid temper as

Peter on the night of the Passion, when he said, "Though I should

die with Thee, yet will I not deny Thee in anywise,"--within a few

hours thrice denying his Master, with "oaths and curses." They

lacked seriousness and depth. They had fine susceptibilities and a

large fund of enthusiasm; they were full of eloquent protestations;

and under excitement were capable of great efforts and sacrifices.

But there was a flaw in their nature. They were creatures of

impulse--soon hot, soon cold. One cannot help liking such people--but

as for _trusting_ them, that is a different matter.

Nothing could be more delightful or promising than the appearance

these Churches presented in the early days of their conversion. They

heard the Apostle's message with rapt attention; they felt its Divine

power, so strangely contrasting with his physical feebleness. They

were amazingly wrought upon. The new life in Christ kindled all the

fervour of their passionate nature. How they triumphed in Christ!

How they blessed the day when the gospel visited their land! They

almost worshipped the Apostle. They could not do enough for him.

Their hearts bled for his sufferings. Where are all these transports

now? Paul is far away. Other teachers have come, with "another

gospel." And the cross is already forgotten! They are contemplating

circumcision; they are busy studying the Jewish ritual, making

arrangements for feast-days and "functions", eagerly discussing

points of ceremony. Their minds are poisoned with mistrust of their

own Apostle, whose heart is ready to break over their folly and

frivolity. All this for the want of a little reflection, for want of

the steadiness of purpose without which the most genial disposition

and the most ardent emotions inevitably run to waste. Their faith had

been too much a matter of feeling, too little of principle.

II. Further, we observe _how prone are those who have put themselves

in the wrong to fix the blame on others_.

The Apostle was compelled in fidelity to truth to say hard things

to his Galatian disciples. He had previously, on his last visit,

given them a solemn warning on account of their Judaic proclivities

(ch. i. 9). In this Epistle he censures them roundly. He wonders at

them; he calls them "senseless Galatians"; he tells them they are

within a step of being cut off from Christ (ch. v. 4). And now they

cry out, "Paul is our enemy. If he cared for us, how could he write

so cruelly! We were excessively fond of him once, we could not do

too much for him; but that is all over now. If we had inflicted on

him some great injury, he could scarcely treat us more roughly."

Thoughtless and excitable people commonly reason in this way.

Personalities with them take the place of argument and principle.

The severity of a holy zeal for truth is a thing they can never

understand. If you disagree with them and oppose them, they put it

down to some petty animosity. They credit you with a private grudge

against them; and straightway enroll you in the number of their

enemies, though you may be in reality their best friend. Flatter

them, humour their vanity, and you have them at your bidding. Such

men it is the hardest thing in the world honestly to serve. They will

always prefer "the kisses of an enemy" to the faithful "wounds of a

friend."

III. Men of the Galatian type are _the natural prey of self-seeking

agitators_. However sound the principles in which they were trained,

however true the friendships they have enjoyed, they must have

change. The accustomed palls upon them. Giddy Athenians, they love

nothing so much as "to hear and tell some new thing." They ostracize

Aristides, simply because they are "tired of hearing him always

called the Just." To hear "the same things," however "safe" it may

be, even from an Apostle's lips is to them intolerably "grievous."

They never think earnestly and patiently enough to find the deeper

springs, the fresh delight and satisfaction lying hidden in the great

unchanging truths. These are they who are "carried about with divers

and strange doctrines," who run after the newest thing in ritualistic

art, or sensational evangelism, or well-spiced heterodoxy. Truth

and plain dealing, apostolic holiness and godly sincerity, are

outmatched in dealing with them by the craft of worldly wisdom. A

little judicious flattery, something to please the eye and catch the

fancy--and they are persuaded to believe almost anything, or to deny

what they have most earnestly believed.

What had the Legalists to offer compared with the gifts bestowed

on these Churches through Paul? What was there that could make them

rivals to him in character or spiritual power? And yet the Galatians

flock round the Judaist teachers, and accept without inquiry their

slanders and perversions of the gospel; while the Apostle, their true

friend and father, too true to spare their faults, stands suspected,

almost deserted. He must forsooth implore them to come down from the

heights of their would-be legal superiority, and to meet him on the

common ground of grace and saving faith. The sheep will not hear

their shepherd's voice; they follow strangers, though they be thieves

and hirelings. "O foolish Galatians!"

* * * * *

Whether the Apostle's entreaty prevailed to recall them or did not,

we cannot tell. From the silence with which these Churches are passed

over in the Acts of the Apostles, and the little that is heard of

them afterwards, an unfavourable inference appears probable. The

Judaistic leaven, it is to be feared, went far to leaven the whole

lump. Paul's apprehensions were only too well-grounded. And these

hopeful converts who had once "run well," were fatally "hindered" and

fell far behind in the Christian race. Such, in all likelihood, was

the result of the departure from the truth of the gospel into which

the Galatians allowed themselves to be drawn.

Whatever was the sequel to this story, Paul's protest remains to

witness to the sincerity and tenderness of the great Apostle's

soul, and to the disastrous issues of the levity of character which

distinguished his Galatian disciples.

CHAPTER XIX.

_THE STORY OF HAGAR._

"Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the

law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, one by the

handmaid, and one by the freewoman. Howbeit the _son_ by the

handmaid is born after the flesh; but the _son_ by the freewoman

_is born_ through promise. Which things contain an allegory: for

these _women_ are two covenants; one from mount Sinai, bearing

children unto bondage, which is Hagar. For Sinai is a mountain

in Arabia, and answereth to the Jerusalem that now is: for she

is in bondage with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above

is free, which is our mother. For it is written,

Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not;

Break forth and cry, thou that travailest not:

For more are the children of the desolate than of her which

hath the husband.

Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise. But

as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him _that

was born_ after the Spirit, even so it is now. Howbeit what

saith the scripture? Cast out the handmaid and her son; for

the son of the handmaid shall not inherit with the son of

the freewoman. Wherefore, brethren, we are not children of a

handmaid, but of the freewoman. For freedom did Christ set us

free: stand fast therefore, and be not entangled again in a yoke

of bondage."--GAL. iv. 21-v. 1.

The Apostle wished that he could "change his voice" (ver. 20).

Indeed he has changed it more than once. "Any one who looks closely

may see that there is much change and alteration of feeling in

what the Apostle has previously written" (Theodorus). Now he will

try another tone; he proceeds in fact to address his readers in a

style which we find nowhere else in his Epistles. He will tell his

"children" a story! Perhaps he may thus succeed better than by graver

argument. Their quick fancy will readily apprehend the bearing of the

illustration; it may bring home to them the force of his doctrinal

contention, and the peril of their own position, as he fears they

have not seen them yet. And so, after the pathetic appeal of the last

paragraph, and before he delivers his decisive, official protest

to the Galatians against their circumcision, he interjects this

"allegory" of the two sons of Abraham.

Paul cites the history of _the sons of Abraham_. No other example

would have served his purpose. The controversy between himself

and the Judaizers turned on the question, Who are the true heirs

of Abraham? (ch. iii. 7, 16, 29). He made faith in Christ, they

circumcision and law-keeping, the ground of sonship. So the

inheritance was claimed in a double sense. But now, if it should

appear that this antithesis existed in principle in the bosom of the

patriarchal family, if we should find that there was an elder son of

Abraham's flesh opposed to the child of promise, how powerfully will

this analogy sustain the Apostle's position. Judaism will then be

seen to be playing over again the part of Ishmael; and "the Jerusalem

that now is" takes the place of Hagar, the slave-mother. The moral

situation created by the Judaic controversy had been rehearsed in the

family life of Abraham.

"Tell me," the Apostle asks, "you that would fain be subject to the

law, do you not know what it relates concerning Abraham? He had two

sons, one of free, and the other of servile birth. Do you wish to

belong to the line of Ishmael, or Isaac?" In this way Paul resumes

the thread of his discourse dropped in ver. 7. Faith, he had told

his readers, had made them sons of God. They were, in Christ, of

Abraham's spiritual seed, heirs of his promise. God had sent His Son

to redeem them, and the Spirit of His Son to attest their adoption.

But they were not content. They were ambitious of Jewish privileges.

The Legalists persuaded them that they must be circumcised and

conform to Moses, in order to be Abraham's children in full title.

"Very well," the Apostle says, "you may become Abraham's sons in

this fashion. Only you must observe that Abraham had _two_ sons. And

the Law will make you his sons by Hagar, whose home is Sinai--not

Israelites, but _Ishmaelites_!"

Paul's Galatian allegory has greatly exercised the minds of his

critics. The word is one of ill repute in exegesis. _Allegory_

was the instrument of Rabbinical and Alexandrine Scripturists,

an infallible device for extracting the predetermined sense from

the letter of the sacred text. The "spiritualising" of Christian

interpreters has been carried, in many instances, to equal excess

of riot. For the honest meaning of the word of God anything and

everything has been substituted that lawless fancy and verbal

ingenuity could read into it. The most arbitrary and grotesque

distortions of the facts of Scripture have passed current under cover

of the clause, "which things are an allegory." But Paul's allegory,

and that of Philo and the Allegorical school, are very different

things, as widely removed as the "words of truth and soberness" from

the intoxications of a mystical idealism.

With Paul the spiritual sense of Scripture is based on the

historical, is in fact the moral content and import thereof; for

he sees in history a continuous manifestation of God's will. With

the Allegorists the spiritual sense, arrived at by _à priori_ means,

replaces the historical, destroyed to make room for it. The Apostle

points out in the story of Hagar a spiritual intent, such as exists

in every scene of human life if we had eyes to see it, something

other than the literal relation of the facts, but nowise alien from

it. Here lies the difference between legitimate and illegitimate

allegory. The utmost freedom may be given to this employment of the

imagination, so long as it is true to the _moral_ of the narrative

which it applies. In principle the Pauline allegory does not differ

from the type. In the type the correspondence of the sign and thing

signified centres in a single figure or event; in such an allegory as

this it is extended to a group of figures and a series of events. But

the force of the application depends on the actuality of the original

story, which in the illicit allegory is matter of indifference.

"Which things are allegorized"--so the Apostle literally writes

in ver. 24--_made matters of allegory_. The phrase intimates, as

Bishop Lightfoot suggests, that the Hagarene episode in Genesis (ch.

xvi., xxi. 1-21) was commonly interpreted in a figurative way. The

Galatians had heard from their Jewish teachers specimens of this

popular mode of exposition. Paul will employ it too; and will give

his own reading of the famous story of Ishmael and Isaac. Philo of

Alexandria, the greatest allegorist of the day, has expounded the

same history. These eminent interpreters both make Sarah the mother

of the spiritual, Hagar of the worldly offspring; both point out

how the barren is exalted over the fruitful wife. So far, we may

imagine, Paul is moving on the accepted lines of Jewish exegesis.

But Philo knows nothing of the correspondence between Isaac and

_Christ_, which lies at the back of the Apostle's allegory. And there

is this vital difference of method between the two divines, that

whereas Paul's comparison is the illustration of a doctrine proved on

other grounds--the painting which decorates the house already built

(Luther)--with the Alexandrine idealist it forms the substance and

staple of his teaching.

Under this allegorical dress the Apostle expounds once more his

doctrine, already inculcated, of the difference between the Legal

and Christian state. The former constitutes, as he now puts the

matter, a bastard sonship like that of Ishmael, conferring only an

external and provisional tenure in the Abrahamic inheritance. It

is contrasted with the spiritual sonship of the true Israel in the

following respects:--It is a state of _nature_ as opposed to grace;

of _bondage_ as opposed to freedom; and further, it is _temporary_

and soon to be ended by the Divine decree.

I. "He who is of the maid-servant is _after the flesh_; but he that

is of the free-woman is through promise.... Just as then he that

was _after the flesh_ persecuted him that was after the Spirit, so

now" (vv. 23, 29). The Apostle sees in the different parentage of

Abraham's sons the ground of a radical divergence of character. One

was the child of nature, the other was the son of a spiritual faith.

Ishmael was in truth the fruit of unbelief; his birth was due to a

natural but impatient misreading of the promise. The patriarch's

union with Hagar was ill-assorted and ill-advised. It brought its

natural penalty by introducing an alien element into his family life.

The low-bred insolence which the serving-woman, in the prospect of

becoming a mother, showed toward the mistress to whom she owed her

preferment, gave a foretaste of the unhappy consequences. The promise

of posterity made to Abraham with a childless wife, was expressly

designed to try his faith; and he had allowed it to be overborne

by the reasonings of nature. It was no wonder that the son of the

Egyptian slave, born under such conditions, proved to be of a lower

type, and had to be finally excluded from the house.

In Ishmael's relation to his father there was nothing but the

ordinary play of human motives. "The son of the handmaid was born

after the flesh." He was a _natural_ son. But Ishmael was not on that

account cut off from the Divine mercies. Nor did his father's prayer,

"O that Ishmael might live before Thee" (Gen. xvii. 18), remain

unanswered. A great career was reserved by Divine Providence for his

race. The Arabs, the fiery sons of the desert, through him claim

descent from Abraham. They have carved their name deeply upon the

history and the faith of the world. But sensuousness and lawlessness

are everywhere the stamp of the Ishmaelite. With high gifts and some

generous qualities, such as attracted to his eldest boy the love of

Abraham, their fierce animal passion has been the curse of the sons

of Hagar. Mohammedanism is a bastard Judaism; it is the religion of

Abraham sensualised. Ishmael stands forth as the type of the carnal

man. On outward grounds of flesh and blood he seeks inheritance in

the kingdom of God; and with fleshly weapons passionately fights its

battles.

To a similar position Judaism, in the Apostle's view, had now reduced

itself. And to this footing the Galatian Churches would be brought if

they yielded to the Judaistic solicitations. To be circumcised would

be for them to be born again after the flesh, to link themselves

to Abraham in the unspiritual fashion of Hagar's son. Ishmael was

the first to be circumcised (Gen. xvii. 23-26). It was to renounce

salvation by faith and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. This course

could only have one result. The Judaic ritualism they were adopting

would bear fruit after its kind, in a worldly, sensuous life. Like

Ishmael they would claim kinship with the Church of God on fleshly

grounds; and their claim must prove as futile as did his.

The persecution of the Church by Judaism gave proof of the Ishmaelite

spirit, the carnal animus by which it was possessed. A religion

of externalism naturally becomes repressive. It knows not "the

demonstration of the Spirit"; it has "confidence in the flesh."

It relies on outward means for the propagation of its faith; and

naturally resorts to the secular arm. The Inquisition and the

Auto-da-fé are a not unfitting accompaniment of the gorgeous

ceremonial of the Mass. Ritualism and priestly autocracy go hand in

hand. "So now," says Paul, pointing to Ishmael's "persecution" of the

infant Isaac, hinted at in Gen. xxi. 8-10.

The laughter of Hagar's boy at Sarah's weaning-feast seems but a

slight offence to be visited with the punishment of expulsion; and

the incident one beneath the dignity of theological argument. But

the principle for which Paul contends is there; and it is the more

easily apprehended when exhibited on this homely scale. The family

is the germ and the mirror of society. In it are first called

into play the motives which determine the course of history, the

rise and fall of empires or churches. The gravamen of the charge

against Ishmael lies in the last word of Gen. xxi. 9, rendered in

the Authorized Version _mocking_, and by the Revisers _playing_,

after the Septuagint and the Vulgate. This word in the Hebrew is

evidently a play on the name _Isaac_, _i.e._, _laughter_, given by

Sarah to her boy with genial motherly delight (vv. 6, 7). Ishmael,

now a youth of fourteen, takes up the child's name and turns it, on

this public and festive occasion, into ridicule. Such an act was not

only an insult to the mistress of the house and the young heir at a

most untimely moment, it betrayed a jealousy and contempt on the part

of Hagar's son towards his half-brother which gravely compromised

Isaac's future. "The wild, ungovernable and pugnacious character

ascribed to his descendants began to display itself in Ishmael,

and to appear in language of provoking insolence; offended at the

comparative indifference with which he was treated, he indulged in

mockery, especially against Isaac, whose very name furnished him with

satirical sneers."[126] Ishmael's jest cost him dear. The indignation

of Sarah was reasonable; and Abraham was compelled to recognise in

her demand the voice of God (vv. 10-12). The two boys, like Esau and

Jacob in the next generation, represented opposite principles and

ways of life, whose counterworking was to run through the course of

future history. Their incompatibility was already manifest.

[126] Kalisch, _Commentary_, on Genesis xxi. 9.

The Apostle's comparison must have been mortifying in the extreme

to the Judaists. They are told in plain terms that they are in the

position of outcast Ishmael; while uncircumcised Gentiles, without

a drop of Abraham's blood in their veins, have received the

promise forfeited by their unbelief. Paul could not have put his

conclusion in a form more unwelcome to Jewish pride. But without this

radical exposure of the legalist position it was impossible for him

adequately to vindicate his gospel and defend his Gentile children in

the faith.

II. From this contrast of birth "according to flesh" and "through

promise" is deduced the opposition between _the slave-born and

free-born sons_. "For these (the slave-mother and the free-woman) are

two covenants, one indeed bearing children unto bondage--which is

Hagar" (ver. 24). The other side of the antithesis is not formally

expressed; it is obvious. Sarah the princess, Abraham's true wife,

has her counterpart in the original covenant of promise renewed in

Christ, and in "the Jerusalem above, which is our mother" (ver. 26).

Sarah is the typical mother,[127] as Abraham is the father of the

children of faith. In the _systoichia_, or tabular comparison, which

the Apostle draws up after the manner of the schools, _Hagar_ and

_the Mosaic covenant_, _Sinai_ and _the Jerusalem that now is_ stand

in one file and "answer to" each other; _Sarah_ and _the Abrahamic

covenant_, _Zion_ and _the heavenly Jerusalem_ succeed in the same

order, opposite to them. "Zion" is wanting in the second file; but

"Sinai and Zion" form a standing antithesis (Heb. xii. 18-22); the

second is implied in the first. It was to _Zion_ that the words of

Isaiah cited in ver. 27, were addressed.

[127] Comp. Heb. xi. 11, 12; 1 Pet. iii. 6.

The first clause of ver. 25 is best understood in the shorter,

marginal reading of the R. V., also preferred by Bishop Lightfoot

(τὸ γὰρ Σινᾶ ὄρος ἐστίν κ.τ.λ.). It is a parenthesis--"for mount

Sinai[128] is in Arabia"--_covenant_ running on in the mind from

ver. 24 as the continued subject of ver. 25 _b_: "and it answereth

to the present Jerusalem." This is the simplest and most consistent

construction of the passage. The interjected geographical reference

serves to support the identification of the Sinaitic covenant

with Hagar, _Arabia_ being the well-known abode of the Hagarenes.

Paul had met them in his wanderings there. Some scholars have

attempted to establish a verbal agreement between the name of the

slave-mother and that locally given to the Sinaitic range; but this

explanation is precarious, and after all unnecessary. There was a

real correspondence between place and people on the one hand, as

between place and covenant on the other. Sinai formed a visible and

imposing link between the race of Ishmael and the Mosaic law-giving.

That awful, desolate mountain, whose aspect, as we can imagine, had

vividly impressed itself on Paul's memory (ch. i. 17), spoke to him

of bondage and terror. It was a true symbol of the working of the law

of Moses, exhibited in the present condition of Judaism. And round

the base of Sinai Hagar's wild sons had found their dwelling.

[128] Paul writes "the _Sinai_ mountain" (τὸ Σινᾶ ὄρος) in tacit

opposition to the other, familiar _Mount Zion_ (Hofmann _in

loc._). In Heb. xii. 22 the same inversion appears, with the same

significance.

Jerusalem was no longer the mother of freemen. The boast, "we are

Abraham's sons; we were never in bondage" (John viii. 33), was an

unconscious irony. Her sons chafed under the Roman yoke. They were

loaded with self-inflicted legal burdens. Above all, they were,

notwithstanding their professed law-keeping, enslaved to sin, in

servitude to their pride and evil lusts. The spirit of the nation

was that of rebellious, discontented slaves. They were Ishmaelite

sons of Abraham, with none of the nobleness, the reverence, the calm

and elevated faith of their father. In the Judaism of the Apostle's

day the Sinaitic dispensation, uncontrolled by the higher patriarchal

and prophetic faith, had worked out its natural result. It "gendered

to bondage." A system of repression and routine, it had produced

men punctual in tithes of mint and anise, but without justice,

mercy, or faith; vaunting their liberty while they were "servants of

corruption." The law of Moses could not form a "new creature." It

left the Ishmael of nature unchanged at heart, a child of the flesh,

with whatever robes of outward decorum his nakedness was covered. The

Pharisee was the typical product of law apart from grace. Under the

garb of a freeman he carried the soul of a slave.

But ver. 26 sounds the note of deliverance: "The Jerusalem above

is free; and she is our mother!" Paul has escaped from the prison

of Legalism, from the confines of Sinai; he has left behind the

perishing earthly Jerusalem, and with it the bitterness and gloom of

his Pharisaic days. He is a citizen of the heavenly Zion, breathing

the air of a Divine freedom. The yoke is broken from the neck of

the Church of God; the desolation is gone from her heart. There

come to the Apostle's lips the words of the great prophet of the

Exile, depicting the deliverance of the spiritual Zion, despised and

counted barren, but now to be the mother of a numberless offspring.

In Isaiah's song, "Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not" (ch.

liv.), the laughter of the childless Sarah bursts forth again, to

be gloriously renewed in the persecuted Church of Jesus. Robbed of

all outward means, mocked and thrust out as she is by Israel after

the flesh, her rejection is a release, an emancipation. Conscious

of the Spirit of sonship and freedom, looking out on the boundless

conquests lying before her in the Gentile world, the Church of the

New Covenant glories in her tribulations. In Paul is fulfilled

the joy of prophet and psalmist, who sang in former days of gloom

concerning Israel's enlargement and world-wide victories. No legalist

could understand words like these. "The veil" was upon his heart "in

the reading of the Old Testament." But with "the Spirit of the Lord"

comes "liberty." The prophetic inspiration has returned. The voice of

rejoicing is heard again in the dwellings of Israel. "If the Son make

you free," said Jesus, "ye shall be free indeed." This Epistle proves

it.

III. "And the bondman _abideth not in the house for ever_; the Son

abideth for ever" (John viii. 35). This also the Lord had testified:

the Apostle repeats His warning in the terms of this allegory.

Sooner or later the slave-boy was bound to go. He has no proper

birthright, no permanent footing in the house. One day he exceeds his

licence, he makes himself intolerable; he must begone. "What saith

the Scripture? Cast out the maidservant and her son; for the son of

the maidservant shall not inherit with the son of the freewoman"

(ver. 30). Paul has pronounced the doom of Judaism. His words echo

those of Christ: "Behold your house is left unto you desolate" (Matt.

xxiii. 38); they are taken up again in the language of Heb. xiii. 13,

14, uttered on the eve of the fall of Jerusalem: "Let us go forth

unto Jesus without the camp, bearing His reproach. We have here no

continuing city, but we seek that which is to come." On the walls

of Jerusalem _ichabod_ was plainly written. Since it "crucified our

Lord" it was no longer the Holy City; it was "spiritually Sodom and

Egypt" (Rev. xi. 8),--_Egypt_, the country of Hagar. Condemning Him,

the Jewish nation passed sentence on itself. They were slaves who in

blind rage slew their Master when He came to free them.

The Israelitish people showed more than Ishmael's jealousy towards

the infant Church of the Spirit. No weapon of violence or calumny was

too base to be used against it. The cup of their iniquity was filling

fast. They were ripening for the judgement which Christ predicted

(1 Thess. ii. 16). Year by year they became more hardened against

spiritual truth, more malignant towards Christianity, and more

furious and fanatical in their hatred towards their civil rulers.

The cause of Judaism was hopelessly lost. In Rom. ix.-xi., written

shortly after this Epistle, Paul assumes this as a settled thing,

which he has to account for and to reconcile with Scripture. In the

demand of Sarah for the expulsion of her rival, complied with by

Abraham against his will, the Apostle reads the secret judgement of

the Almighty on the proud city which he himself so ardently loved,

but which had crucified his Lord and repented not. "Cut it down,"

Jesus cried; "why cumbereth it the ground?" (Luke xiii. 7). The

voice of Scripture speaks again: "Cast her out; she and her sons are

slaves. They have no place amongst the sons of God." Ishmael was in

the way of Isaac's safety and prosperity. And the Judaic ascendency

was no less a danger to the Church. The blow which shattered

Judaism, at once cleared the ground for the outward progress of

the gospel and arrested the legalistic reaction which hindered its

internal development. The two systems were irreconcilable. It was

Paul's merit to have first apprehended this contradiction in its

full import. The time had come to apply in all its rigour Christ's

principle of combat, "He that is not with Me, is against Me." It is

the same rule of exclusion which Paul announces: "If any man hath

not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His" (Rom. viii. 9). Out of

Christ is no salvation. When the day of judgement comes, whether for

men or nations, this is the touchstone: Have we, or have we not "the

Spirit of God's Son?" Is our character that of sons of God, or slaves

of sin? On the latter falls inevitably the sentence of expulsion, "He

will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them that

do iniquity" (Matt. xiii. 41).

This passage signalises the definite breach of Christianity with

Judaism. The elder Apostles lingered in the porch of the Temple;

the primitive Church clung to the ancient worship. Paul does not

blame them for doing so. In their case this was but the survival

of a past order, in principle acknowledged to be obsolete. But the

Church of the future, the spiritual seed of Abraham gathered out

of all nations, had no part in Legalism. The Apostle bends all his

efforts to convince his readers of this, to make them sensible of

the impassable gulf lying between them and outworn Mosaism. Again he

repeats, "We are not children of a maidservant, but of her that is

free" (ver. 31). The Church of Christ can no more hold fellowship

with Judaism than could Isaac with the spiteful, mocking Ishmael.

Paul leads the Church across the Rubicon. There is no turning back.

Ver. 1 of ch. v. is the application of the allegory. It is a

triumphant assertion of liberty, a ringing summons to its defence.

Its separation from ch. iv. is ill-judged, and runs counter to

the ancient divisions of the Epistle. "Christ set us free," Paul

declares; "and it was _for freedom_[129]--not that we might fall

under a new servitude. _Stand fast_ therefore; do not let yourselves

be made bondmen over again." Bondmen the Galatians had been before

(ch. iv. 8), bowing down to false and vile gods. Bondmen they will

be again, if they are beguiled by the Legalists to accept the yoke

of circumcision, if they take "the Jerusalem that now is" for their

mother. They have tasted the joys of freedom; they know what it is to

be sons of God, heirs of His kingdom and partakers of His Spirit; why

do they stoop from their high estate? Why should Christ's freemen put

a yoke upon their own neck? Let them only know their happiness and

security in Christ, and refuse to be cheated out of the substance of

their spiritual blessings by the illusive shadows which the Judaists

offer them. Freedom once gained is a prize never to be lost. No care,

no vigilance in its preservation can be too great. Such liberty

inspires courage and good hope in its defence. "Stand fast therefore.

Quit yourselves like men."

[129] The reading of this clause is doubtful. The ancient

witnesses disagree. Dr. Hort suggests that the Revised

reading--the best attested, but scarcely grammatical--may be

due to a primitive corruption, ΤΗ for ΕΠ (ἐλευθερίᾳ). This

emendation gives an excellent and apposite sense: _for (with a

view to) freedom Christ set us free_. The phrase ἐπ' ἐλευθερίᾳ

is found in ver. 13, and would gain additional force there, if

read as a repetition of what is affirmed here. The confusion of

letters involved is a natural one; and once made at an early time

in some standard copy, it would account for the extraordinary

confusion of reading into which the verse has fallen. If

conjectural emendation may be admitted anywhere in the N. T., it

is legitimate in this instance.

* * * * *

How the Galatians responded to the Apostle's challenge, we do not

know. But it has found an echo in many a heart since. The Lutheran

Reformation was an answer to it; so was the Scottish Covenant. The

spirit of Christian liberty is eternal. Jerusalem or Rome may strive

to imprison it. They might as well seek to bind the winds of heaven.

Its home is with God. Its seat is the throne of Christ. It lives by

the breath of His Spirit. The earthly powers mock at it, and drive it

into the wilderness. They do but assure their own ruin. It leaves the

house of the oppressor desolate. Whosoever he be--Judaist or Papist,

priest, or king, or demagogue--that makes himself lord of God's

heritage and would despoil His children of the liberties of faith,

let him beware lest of him also it be spoken, "Cast out the bondwoman

and her son."

CHAPTER XX.

_SHALL THE GALATIANS BE CIRCUMCISED_

"Behold, I Paul say unto you, that, if ye receive circumcision,

Christ will profit you nothing. Yea, I testify again to every

man that receiveth circumcision, that he is a debtor to do

the whole law. Ye are severed from Christ, ye who would be

justified by the law; ye are fallen away from grace. For we

through the Spirit by faith wait for the hope of righteousness.

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor

uncircumcision; but faith working through love."--GAL. v. 2-6.

Shall the Galatians be circumcised, or shall they not? This is the

decisive question. The denunciation with which Paul begins his

letter, the narrative which follows, the profound argumentation, the

tender entreaty of the last two chapters, all converge toward this

crucial point. So far the Galatian Churches had been only dallying

with Judaism. They have been tempted to the verge of apostasy; but

they are not yet over the edge. Till they consent to be circumcised,

they have not finally committed themselves; their freedom is not

absolutely lost. The Apostle still hopes, despite his fears, that

they will stand fast (ver. 10; ch. iv. 11; iii. 4). The fatal step

is eagerly pressed on them by the Judaizers (ch. vi. 12, 13), whose

persuasion the Galatians had so far entertained, that they had begun

to keep the Hebrew sabbath and feast-days (ch. iv. 10). If they

yield to this further demand, the battle is lost; and this powerful

Epistle, with all the Apostle's previous labour spent upon them, has

been in vain. To sever this section from the polemical in order to

attach it to the practical part of the Epistle, as many commentators

do, is to cut the nerve of the Apostle's argument and reduce it to an

abstract theological discussion.

This momentous question is brought forward with the greater emphasis

and effect, because it has hitherto been kept out of sight. The

allusion to Titus in ch. ii. 1-5 has already indicated the supreme

importance of the matter of circumcision. But the Apostle has delayed

dealing with it formally and directly, until he is able to do so with

the weight of the foregoing chapters to support his interdict. He has

shattered the enemies' position with his artillery of logic, he has

assailed the hearts of his readers with all the force of his burning

indignation and subduing pathos. Now he gathers up his strength for

the final charge home, which must decide the battle.

I. LO, I PAUL TELL YOU! When he begins thus, we feel that the

decisive moment is at hand. Everything depends on the next few words.

Paul stands like an archer with his bow drawn at full stretch and the

arrow pointed to the mark. "Let others say what they may; this is

what _I_ tell you. If my word has any weight with you, give heed to

this:--IF YOU BE CIRCUMCISED, CHRIST WILL PROFIT YOU NOTHING."

Now his bolt is shot; we see what the Apostle has had in his mind all

this time. Language cannot be more explicit. Some of his readers will

have failed to catch the subtler points of his argument, or the finer

tones of his voice of entreaty; but every one will understand this.

The most "senseless" and volatile amongst the Galatians will surely

be sobered by the terms of this warning. There is no escaping the

dilemma. Legalism and Paulinism, the true and the false gospel, stand

front to front, reduced to their barest form, and weighed each in the

balance of its practical result. _Christ--or Circumcision_: which

shall it be?

This declaration is no less authoritative and judicially threatening

than the anathema of ch. i. That former denouncement declared

the false teachers severed from Christ. Those who yield to their

persuasion, will be also "severed from Christ." They will fall into

the same ditch as their blind leaders. The Judaizers have forfeited

their part in Christ; they are false brethren, tares among the wheat,

troublers and hinderers to the Church of God. And Gentile Christians

who choose to be led astray by them must take the consequences. If

they obey the "other gospel," Christ's gospel is theirs no longer. If

they rest their faith on circumcision, they have withdrawn it from

His cross. Adopting the Mosaic regimen, they forego the benefits of

Christ's redemption. "Christ will profit you nothing." The sentence

is negative, but no less fearful on that account. It is as though

Christ should say, "Thou hast no part with Me."

Circumcision will cost the Galatian Christians all they possess in

Jesus Christ. But is not this, some one will ask, an over-strained

assertion? Is it consistent with Paul's professions and his policy

in other instances? In ver. 6, and again in the last chapter,

he declares that "Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision

nothing"; and yet here he makes it _everything_! The Apostle's

position is this. In itself the rite is valueless. It was the

sacrament of the Old Covenant, which was brought to an end by the

death of Christ. For the new Church of the Spirit, it is a matter

of perfect indifference whether a man is circumcised or not. Paul

had therefore circumcised Timothy, whose mother was a Jewess (Acts

xvi. 1-3), though neither he nor his young disciple supposed that

it was a religious necessity. It was done as a social convenience;

"uncircumcision was nothing," and could in such a case be surrendered

without prejudice. On the other hand, he refused to submit Titus to

the same rite; for he was a pure Greek, and on him it could only have

been imposed on religious grounds and as a passport to salvation.

For this, and for no other reason, it was demanded by the Judaistic

party. In this instance it was needful to show that "circumcision

is nothing." The Galatians stood in the same position as Titus.

Circumcision, if performed on them, must have denoted, not as in

Timothy's case, the fact of Jewish birth, but _subjection to the

Mosaic law_. Regarded in this light, the question was one of life or

death for the Pauline Churches. To yield to the Judaizers would be

to surrender the principle of salvation by faith. The attempt of the

legalist party was in effect to force Christianity into the grooves

of Mosaism, to reduce the world-wide Church of the Spirit to a sect

of moribund Judaism.

With what views, with what aim were the Galatians entertaining this

Judaic "persuasion"? Was it to make them sons of God and heirs of His

kingdom? This was the object with which "God sent forth His Son;"

and the Spirit of sonship assured them that it was realised (ch.

iv. 4-7). To adopt the former means to this end was to renounce the

latter. In turning their eyes to this new bewitchment, they must be

conscious that their attention was diverted from the Redeemer's

cross and their confidence in it weakened (ch. iii. 1). To be

circumcised would be to rest their salvation formally and definitely

on works of law, in place of the grace of God. The consequences of

this Paul has shown in relating his discussion with Peter, in ch. ii.

15-21. They would "make" themselves "transgressors;" they would "make

Christ's death of none effect." In the soul's salvation Christ will

be all, or nothing. If we trust Him, we must trust Him altogether.

The Galatians had already admitted a suspicion of the power of His

grace, which if cherished and acted on in the way proposed, must

sever all communion between their souls and Him. Their circumcision

would be "the sacrament of their excision from Christ" (Huxtable).

The tense of the verb is _present_. Paul's readers may be in the act

of making this disastrous compliance. He bids them look for a moment

at the depth of the gulf on whose brink they stand. "Stop!" he cries,

"another step in that direction, and you have lost Christ."

And what will they get in exchange? They will saddle themselves with

all the obligations of the Mosaic law (ver. 3). This probably was

more than they bargained for. They wished to find a _via media_, some

compromise between the new faith and the old, which would secure to

them the benefits of Christ without His reproach, and the privileges

of Judaism without its burdens. This at least was the policy of the

Judaic teachers (ch. vi. 12, 13). But it was a false and untenable

position. "Circumcision verily profiteth, _if thou art a doer of

the law_" (Rom. ii. 25); otherwise it brings only condemnation.

He who receives the sacrament of Mosaism, by doing so pledges

himself to "keep and do" every one of its "ordinances, statutes,

and judgements"--a yoke which, honest Peter said, "Neither we nor

our fathers were able to bear" (Acts xv. 10). Let the Galatians

read the law, and consider what they are going to undertake. He

who goes with the Judaists a mile, will be compelled to go twain.

They will not find themselves at liberty to pick and choose amongst

the legal requirements. Their legalist teachers will not raise a

finger to lighten the yoke (Luke xi. 46), when it is once fastened

on their necks; nor will their own consciences acquit them of its

responsibilities. This obligation Paul, himself a master in Jewish

law, solemnly affirms: "I protest (I declare before God) to every man

that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to perform the whole law."

Now this is a proved impossibility. Whoever "sets up the law," he

had avouched to Cephas, "makes himself a transgressor" (ch. ii. 18).

Nay, it was established of set purpose to "multiply transgressions,"

to deepen and sharpen the consciousness of sin (ch. iii. 19; Rom.

iii. 20; iv. 15; v. 20). Jewish believers in Christ, placed under its

power by their birth, had thankfully found in the faith of Christ

a refuge from its accusations (ch. ii. 16; Rom. vii. 24-viii. 4).

Surely the Galatians, knowing all this, will not be so foolish as to

put themselves gratuitously under its power. To do this would be an

insult to Christ, and an act of moral suicide. This further warning

reinforces the first, and is uttered with equal solemnity. "I tell

you, Christ will profit you nothing; and again I testify, the law

will lay its full weight upon you." They will be left, without the

help of Christ, to bear this tremendous burden.

This double threatening is blended into one in ver. 4. The pregnant

force of Paul's Greek is untranslatable. Literally his words run,

"You were nullified from Christ (κατηργήθητε ἀπὸ Χριστοῦ)--brought

to nought (being severed) from Him, you that in law are seeking

justification." He puts his assertion in the past (_aorist_)

tense, stating that which ensues so soon as the principle of legal

justification is endorsed. From that moment the Galatians cease to be

Christians. In this sense they "are abolished," just as "the cross

is" virtually "abolished" if the Apostle "preaches circumcision"

(ver. 11), and "death is being abolished" under the reign of Christ

(1 Cor. xv. 26). He has said in ver. 2 that Christ will be made of

none effect to them; now he adds that they "are made of none effect"

in relation to Christ. Their Christian standing is destroyed. The

joyous experiences of their conversion, their share in Abraham's

blessing, their Divine sonship witnessed to by the Holy Spirit--all

this is nullified, cancelled at a stroke, if they are circumcised.

The detachment of their faith "from Christ" is involved in the

process of attaching it to Jewish ordinances, and brings spiritual

destruction upon them. The root of the Christian life is faith in

Him. Let that root be severed, let the branch no longer "abide in the

vine"--it is dead already.[130]

[130] Comp. John xv. 5, 6, where in ἐβλήθη, ἐξηράνθη, there is a

like _summary_ aorist.

Cut off from Christ, they "have fallen from grace." Paul has already

twice identified _Christ_ and _grace_, in ch. i. 6 and ii. 21. The

Divine mercies centre in Jesus Christ; and he who separates himself

from Him, shuts these out of his soul. The verb here used by the

Apostle (ἐξερέσατε) is commonly applied (four times _e.g._ in Acts

xxvii.) to a ship driven out of her course. Some such image seems

to be in the writer's mind in this passage. These racers made an

excellent start, but they have stumbled (ver. 7; ch. iii. 3); the

vessel set out from harbour in gallant style, but she is drifting

fast upon the rocks. This sentence "is the exact opposite of 'stand

in the grace,' Rom. v. 2" (Beet).[131]

[131] Comp. 2 Pet. iii. 17; for the figure suggested, Eph. iv.

14; 1 Tim. i. 19.

That he who "seeks justification in _law_ has fallen from _grace_,"

needs no proof after the powerful demonstration of ch. ii. 14-21.

The moralist claims quittance on the ground of his deservings. He

pleads the quality of his "works," his punctual discharge of every

stipulated duty, from circumcision onwards. "I fast twice a week,"

he tells his Divine Judge; "I tithe all my gains. I have kept all

the commandments from my youth up." What can God expect more than

this? But with these performances Grace has nothing to do. The man is

not in its order. If he invokes its aid, it is as a make-weight, a

supplement to the possible shortcomings in a virtue for the most part

competent for itself. Now the grace of God is not to be set aside

in this way; it refuses to be treated as a mere _succedaneum_ of

human virtue. Grace, like Christ, insists on being "all in all." "If

salvation is by grace, it is no longer of works;" and "if of works,

it is no more grace" (Rom. xi. 6). These two methods of justification

imply different moral tempers, an opposite set and direction of

the current of life. This question of circumcision brings the

Galatians to the parting of the ways. _Grace_ or _Law_--which of

the two roads will they follow? Both they cannot. They may become

Jewish proselytes; but they will cease to be Christians. Leaving

behind them the light and joy of the heavenly Zion, they will find

themselves wandering in the gloomy desolations of Sinai.

II. From this prospect the Apostle bids his readers turn to that

which he himself beholds, and which they erewhile shared with him.

Again he seems to say, "Be ye as I am, brethren" (ch. iv. 12); not

in outward condition alone, but still more in inward experience and

aspiration. "For _we_ by the Spirit, on the ground of faith, are

awaiting the hope of righteousness" (ver. 5).

Look on this picture, and on that. Yonder are the Galatians, all in

tumult about the legalistic proposals, debating which of the Hebrew

feasts they shall celebrate and with what rites, absorbed in the

details of Mosaic ceremony, all but persuaded to be circumcised and

to settle their scruples out of hand by a blind submission to the

Law. And here, on the other side, is Paul with the Church of the

Spirit, walking in the righteousness of faith and the communion of

the Holy Spirit, joyfully awaiting the Saviour's final coming and the

hope that is laid up in heaven. How vexed, how burdened, how narrow

and puerile is the one condition of life; how large and lofty and

secure the other. "We," says the Apostle, "are looking _forwards_ not

backwards, to Christ and not to Moses."

Every word in this sentence is full of meaning. _Faith_ carries

an emphasis similar to that it has in ch. ii. 16; iii. 22; and in

Rom. iv. 16. Paul supports by contrast what he has just said: "Your

share in the kingdom of grace is lost who seek a legal righteousness

(ver. 4); it is _by faith_ that we look for our heritage." _Hope_ is

clearly _matter of hope_, the future glory of the redeemed, described

in Rom. viii. 18-25, Phil. iii. 20, 21, in both of which places

there appears the remarkably compounded verb (ἀπ-εκ-δεχόμεθα) that

concludes this verse. It implies an intent expectancy, sure of its

object and satisfied with it. The hope is "righteousness' hope"--the

hope of the righteous--for it has in righteousness its warrant. The

saying of Psalm xvi., verified in Christ's rising from the dead,

contains its principle: "Thou wilt not leave my soul to death; nor

suffer Thine holy one to see the pit." This was the secret "hope of

Israel,"[132] that grew up in the hearts of the men of faith, whose

accomplishment is the crowning glory of the redemption of Christ. It

is the goal of faith. Righteousness is the path that leads to it. The

Galatians had been persuaded of this hope and embraced it; if they

accept the "other gospel," with its phantom of a legal righteousness,

their hope will perish.

[132] Acts xxiii. 6; xxiv. 15; xxvi. 6-8; comp. John vi. 39, 40,

44.

The Apostle is always true to the order of thought here indicated.

Faith saves from first to last. The present righteousness and future

glory of the sons of God alike have their source in faith. The act

of reliance by which the initial justification of the sinner was

attained, now becomes the habit of the soul, the channel by which

its life is fed, rooting itself ever more deeply into Christ and

absorbing more completely the virtue of His death and heavenly life.

Faith has its great ventures; it has also its seasons of endurance,

its moods of quiet expectancy, its unweariable patience. It can wait

as well as work. It rests upon the past, seeing in Christ crucified

its "author;" then it looks on to the future, and claims Christ

glorified for its "finisher." So faith prompts her sister Hope and

points her to "the glory that shall be revealed." If faith fails,

hope quickly dies. Unbelief is the mother of despair. "Of faith,"

the Apostle says, "we look out!"

A second condition, inseparable from the first, marks the hope proper

to the Christian righteousness. It is sustained "by the Spirit." The

connection of faith and hope respectively with the gift of the Holy

Spirit is marked very clearly by Paul in Eph. i. 13, 14: "Having

believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit, who is _the earnest

of our inheritance_." The Holy Spirit seals the sons of God--"sons,

then heirs" (ch. iv. 6, 7; Rom. viii. 15-17). This stamps on

Christian hope a _spiritual_ character. The conception which we form

of it, the means by which it is pursued, the temper and attitude in

which it is expected, are determined by the Holy Spirit who inspires

it. This pure and celestial hope is therefore utterly removed from

the selfish ambitions and the sensuous methods that distinguished the

Judaistic movement (ch. iv. 3, 9; vi. 12-14). "Men of worldly, low

design" like Paul's opponents in Galatia, had no right to entertain

"the hope of righteousness." These matters are spiritually discerned;

they are "the things of the Spirit, the things which God hath

prepared for them that love Him" (1 Cor. ii. 9-14).

If faith and hope are in sight, _love_ cannot be far off. In the

next verse it comes to claim its place beside the other two: "faith

working through love." And so the blessed trio is complete, _Fides,

amor, spes: summa Christianismi_ (Bengel). Faith waits, but it also

_works_;[133] and love is its working energy. Love gives faith

hands and feet; hope lends it wings. Love is the fire at its heart,

the life-blood coursing in its veins; hope the light that gleams

and dances in its eyes. Looking back to the Christ that hath been

manifested, faith kindles into a boundless love; looking onward to

the Christ that shall be revealed, it rises into an exultant hope.

[133] "_Working_ through love," not _wrought_ (R.V. _margin_).

The latter rendering of the participle is found in some of

the Fathers, and is preferred by Romanist interpreters in the

interest of their doctrine of _fides formata_. Paul's theology

and his verbal usage alike require the _middle_ sense of this

verb, adopted by modern commentators with one consent. The middle

voice implies that through love faith _gets into action_, _is

operative_, _efficacious_, _shows what it can do_. Comp., for

Pauline usage, Rom. vii. 5; 2 Cor. i. 6, iv. 12; Eph. iii. 20;

Col. i. 29; 1 Thess. ii. 13; 2 Thess. ii. 7; and see Moulton's

Winer's _N. T. Grammar_, p. 318 (note on _dynamic middle_).

These closing words are of no little theological importance. "They

bridge over the gulf which seems to separate the language of Paul and

James. Both assert a principle of practical energy, as opposed to a

barren, inactive theory" (Lightfoot). Had the faith of Paul's readers

been more practical, had they been of a diligent, enterprising

spirit, "ready for every good word and work," they would not have

felt, to the same degree, the spell of the Judaistic fascination.

Idle hands, vain and restless minds, court temptation. A manly,

energetic faith will never play at ritualism or turn religion into a

round of ceremonial, an æsthetic exhibition. Loving and self-devoting

faith in Christ is the one thing Paul covets to see in the Galatians.

This is the working power of the gospel, the force that will lift

and regenerate mankind. In comparison with this, questions of

Church-order and forms of worship are "nothing." "The body is more

than the raiment." Church organization is a means to a certain end;

and that end consists in the life of faith and love in Christian

souls. Each man is worth to Christ and to His Church just so much as

he possesses of this energy of the Spirit, just so much as he has of

love to Christ and to men in Him. Other gifts and qualities, offices

and orders of ministry, are but instruments for love to employ,

machinery for love to energize.

The Apostle wishes it to be understood that he does not condemn

circumcision on its own account, as though the opposite condition

were in itself superior. If "circumcision does not avail anything,

_neither does uncircumcision_." The Jew is no better or worse a

Christian because he is circumcised; the Gentile no worse or better,

because he is not. This difference in no way affects the man's

spiritual standing or efficiency. Let the Galatians dismiss the whole

question from their minds. "One thing is needful," to be filled with

the Spirit of love. "God's kingdom is not meat and drink;" it is not

"days and seasons and years;" it is not circumcision, nor rubrics and

vestments and priestly functions; it is "righteousness and peace and

joy in the Holy Spirit." These are the true _notes_ of the Church;

"by love," said Christ, "all men will know that you are My disciples."

In these two sentences (vv. 5 and 6) the religion of Christ is

summed up. Ver. 5 gives us its _statics_; ver. 6 its _dynamics_. It

is a condition, and an occupation; a grand outlook, and an intent

pursuit; a Divine hope for the future, and a sovereign power for the

present, with an infinite spring of energy in the love of Christ.

The active and passive elements of the Christian life need to be

justly balanced. Many of the errors of the Church have arisen from

one-sidedness in this respect. Some do nothing but sit with folded

hands till the Lord comes; others are too busy to think of His coming

at all. So waiting degenerates into indolence; and serving into

feverish hurry and anxiety, or mechanical routine. Let hope give

calmness and dignity, buoyancy and brightness to our work; let work

make our hope sober, reasonable, practical.

* * * * *

"These three abide--faith, hope, and love." They cannot change while

God is God and man is man. Forms of dogma and of worship have changed

and must change. There is a perpetual "removing of the things that

are shaken, as of things that are made;" but through all revolutions

there "remain the things which are not shaken." To these let us

rally. On these let us build. New questions thrust themselves to the

front, touching matters as little essential to the Church's life as

that of circumcision in the Apostolic age. The evil is that we make

so much of them. In the din of controversy we grow bewildered; our

eyes are blinded with its dust; our souls chafed with its fretting.

We lose the sense of proportion; we fail to see who are our true

friends, and who our foes. We need to return to the simplicity that

is in Christ. Let us "consider Him"--Christ incarnate, dying, risen,

reigning--till we are changed into the same image, till His life

has wrought itself into ours. Then these questions of dispute will

fall into their proper place. They will resolve themselves; or wait

patiently for their solution. Loyalty to Jesus Christ is the only

solvent of our controversies.

Will the Galatians be true to Christ? Or will they renounce their

righteousness in Him for a legal status, morally worthless, and

which will end in taking from them the hope of eternal life? They

have nothing to gain, they have everything to lose in submitting to

circumcision.

CHAPTER XXI.

_THE HINDERERS AND TROUBLERS._

"Ye were running well; who did hinder you that ye should not

obey the truth? This persuasion _came_ not of him that calleth

you. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. I have confidence

to you-ward, in the Lord, that ye will be none otherwise minded:

but he that troubleth you shall bear his judgement, whosoever

he be. But I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why am

I still persecuted? then hath the stumblingblock of the cross

been done away. I would that they which unsettle you would even

mutilate themselves."--GAL. v. 7-12.

The Apostle's controversy with the Legalists is all but concluded.

He has pronounced on the question of circumcision. He has shown his

readers, with an emphasis and clearness that leave nothing more to be

said, how fearful is the cost at which they will accept the "other

gospel," and how heavy the yoke which it will impose upon them. A few

further observations remain to be made--of regret, of remonstrance,

blended with expressions of confidence more distinct than any the

Apostle has hitherto employed. Then with a last contemptuous thrust,

a sort of _coup de grace_ for the Circumcisionists, Paul passes to

the practical and ethical part of his letter.

This section is made up of short, disconnected sentences, shot off in

various directions; as though the writer wished to have done with the

Judaistic debate, and would discharge at a single volley the arrows

remaining in his quiver. Its prevailing tone is that of conciliation

towards the Galatians (comp. Chapter XVIII.), with increasing

severity towards the legalist teachers. "See how bitter he is against

the deceivers. For indeed at the beginning he directed his censures

against the deceived, calling them 'senseless' both once and again.

But now that he has sufficiently chastened and corrected them, for

the rest he turns against their deceivers. And we should observe his

wisdom in both these things, in that he admonishes the one party and

brings them to a better mind, being his own children and capable of

amendment; but the deceivers, who are a foreign element and incurably

diseased, he cuts off" (Chrysostom).

There lie before us therefore in this paragraph the following

considerations:--_Paul's hope concerning the Galatian Churches, his

protest on his own behalf_, and finally, _his judgement respecting

the troublers_.

I. The more hopeful strain of the letter at this point appears to

be due to the effect of his argument upon the writer's own mind. As

the breadth and grandeur of the Christian faith open out before him,

and he contrasts its spiritual glory with the ignoble aims of the

Circumcisionists, Paul cannot think that the readers will any longer

doubt which is the true gospel. Surely they will be disenchanted. His

irrefragable reasonings, his pleading entreaties and solemn warnings

are bound to call forth a response from a people so intelligent and

so affectionate. "For my part," he says, "_I am confident in the

Lord that you will be no otherwise minded_ (ver. 10), that you will

be faithful to your Divine calling, despite the hindrances thrown

in your way." They will, he is persuaded, come to see the proposals

of the Judaizers in their proper light. They will think about the

Christian life--its objects and principles--as he himself does; and

will perceive how fatal would be the step they are urged to take.

They will be true to themselves and to the Spirit of sonship they

have received. They will pursue more earnestly the hope set before

them and give themselves with renewed energy to the work of faith and

love (vv. 5, 6), and forget as soon as possible this distracting and

unprofitable controversy.

"In the Lord" Paul cherishes this confidence. "In Christ's grace"

the Galatians were called to enter the kingdom of God (ver. 8; ch.

i. 6); and He was concerned that the work begun in them should be

completed (Phil. i. 6). It may be the Apostle at this moment was

conscious of some assurance from his Master that his testimony in

this Epistle would not prove in vain. The recent[134] submission

of the Corinthians would tend to increase Paul's confidence in his

authority over the Gentile Churches.

[134] See Chapter I, pp. 15, 16, on the _date_ of the Epistle.

Another remembrance quickens the feeling of hope with which the

Apostle draws the conflict to a close. He reminds himself of the

good confession the Galatians had aforetime witnessed,[135] the zeal

with which they pursued the Christian course, until this deplorable

hindrance arose: "You were running well--_finely_. You had fixed your

eyes on the heavenly prize. Filled with an ardent faith, you were

zealously pursuing the great spiritual ends of the Christian life

(comp. vv. 5, 6). Your progress has been arrested. You have yielded

to influences which are not of God who called you, and admitted

amongst you a leaven that, if not cast out, will corrupt you utterly

(vv. 8, 9). But I trust that this result will be averted. You will

return to better thoughts. You will resume the interrupted race, and

by God's mercy will be enabled to bring it to a glorious issue" (ver.

10).

[135] Comp. ch. iii. 4: "_ye suffered so many things_."

There is kindness and true wisdom in this encouragement. The Apostle

has "told them the truth;" he has "reproved with all authority;" now

that this is done, their remains nothing in his heart but good-will

and good wishes for his Galatian children. If his chiding has wrought

the effect it was intended to produce, then these words of softened

admonition will be grateful and healing. They have "stumbled, but not

that they might fall." The Apostle holds out the hand of restoration;

his confidence animates them to hope better things for themselves. He

turns his anger away from them, and directs it altogether upon their

injurers.

II. The Judaizers had troubled the Churches of Galatia; _they had

also maligned the Apostle Paul_. From them undoubtedly the imputation

proceeded which he repudiates so warmly in ver. 11: "And I, brethren,

if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still persecuted?"

This supposition a moment's reflection would suffice to refute. The

contradiction was manifest. The persecution which everywhere followed

the Apostle marked him out in all men's eyes as the adversary of

Legalism.

There were circumstances, however, that lent a certain colour to this

calumny. The circumcision of Timothy, for instance, might be thought

to look in this direction (Acts xvi. 1-3). And Paul valued his Hebrew

birth. He loved his Jewish brethren more than his own salvation

(Rom. ix. 1-5; xi. 1). There was nothing of the revolutionary or the

iconoclast about him. Personally he preferred to conform to the

ancient usages, when doing so did not compromise the honour of Christ

(Acts xviii. 18; xxi. 17-26). It was false that he "taught the Jews

not to circumcise their children, nor to walk by the customs" (Acts

xxi. 20-26). He did teach them that these things were "of no avail

in Christ Jesus;" that they were in no sense necessary to salvation;

and that it was contrary to the will of Christ to impose them upon

Gentiles. But it was no part of his business to alter the social

customs of his people, or to bid them renounce the glories of their

past. While he insists that "there is no difference" between Jew and

Gentile in their need of the gospel and their rights in it, he still

claims for the Jew the first place in the order of its manifestation.

This was an entirely different thing from "preaching circumcision"

in the legalist sense, from heralding (κηρύσσω: ver. 11) and crying

up the Jewish ordinance, and making it a religious duty. This

difference the Circumcisionists affected not to understand. Some

of Paul's critics will not understand it even now. They argue that

the Apostle's hostility to Judaism in this Epistle discredits the

narrative of the Acts of the Apostles, inasmuch as the latter relates

several instances of Jewish conformity on his part. What pragmatical

narrowness is this! Paul's adversaries said, "He derides Judaism

amongst you Gentiles, who know nothing of his antecedents, or of his

practice in other places. But when he pleases, this liberal Paul will

be as zealous for circumcision as any of us. Indeed he boasts of his

skill in 'becoming all things to all men;' he trims his sail to every

breeze. In _Galatia_ he is all breadth and tolerance; he talks about

our 'liberty which we have in Christ Jesus;' he is ready to 'become

as you are;' no one would imagine he had ever been a Jew. In _Judea_

he makes a point of being strictly orthodox, and is indignant if any

one questions his devotion to the Law."

Paul's position was a delicate one, and open to misrepresentation.

Men of party insist on this or that external custom as the badge of

their own side; they have their party-colours and their uniform.

Men of principle adopt or lay aside such usages with a freedom

which scandalizes the partisan. What right, he says, has any one to

wear our colours, to pronounce our shibboleth, if he is not one of

ourselves? If the man will not be with us, let him be against us.

Had Paul renounced his circumcision and declared himself a Gentile

out and out, the Judaists might have understood him. Had he said,

_Circumcision is evil_, they could have endured it better; but to

preach that _Circumcision is nothing_, to reduce this all-important

rite to insignificance, vexed them beyond measure. It was in their

eyes plain proof of dishonesty. They tell the Galatians that Paul is

playing a double part, that his resistance to their circumcision is

interested and insincere.

The charge is identical with that of "man-pleasing" which the

Apostle repelled in ch. i. 10 (see Chapter III). The emphatic

"still" of that passage recurs twice in this, bearing the same

meaning as it does there. Its force is not _temporal_, as though

the Apostle were thinking of a former time when he did "preach

circumcision:" no such reference appears in the context, and these

terms are inappropriate to his pre-Christian career. The particle

points a _logical_ contrast, as _e.g._ in Rom. iii. 7; ix. 19: "If I

still (notwithstanding my professions as a Gentile apostle) preach

circumcision, why am I still (notwithstanding my so preaching)

persecuted?" Had Paul been known by the Jews to be in other places

a promoter of circumcision, they would have treated him very

differently. He could not then have been, as the Galatians knew him

everywhere to be, "in perils from his fellow-countrymen."

The rancour of the Legalists was sufficient proof of Paul's

sincerity. They were themselves guilty of the baseness with which

they taxed him. It was in order to escape the reproach of the cross

(ver. 11), to atone for their belief in the Nazarene, that they

persuaded Gentile Christians to be circumcised (ch. vi. 11, 12).

_They_ were the man-pleasers. The Judaizers knew perfectly well that

the Apostle's observance of Jewish usage was no endorsement of their

principles. The print of the Jewish scourge upon his back attested

his loyalty to Gentile Christendom (ch. vi. 17; 2 Cor. xi. 24). A

further consequence would have ensued from the duplicity imputed

to Paul, which he resents even more warmly: "Then," he says, "if I

preach circumcision, the offence of the cross is done away!" He is

charged with treason against the cross of Christ. He has betrayed the

one thing in which he glories (ch. vi. 14), to which the service of

his life was consecrated! For the doctrine of the cross was at an end

if the legal ritual were re-established and men were taught to trust

in the saving efficacy of circumcision--above all, if the Apostle of

the Gentiles had preached this doctrine! The Legalists imputed to

him the very last thing of which he was capable. This was in fact

the error into which Peter had weakly fallen at Antioch. The Jewish

Apostle had then acted as though "Christ died in vain" (ch. ii. 21).

For himself Paul indignantly denies that his conduct bore any such

construction.

But he says, "_the scandal_ of the cross"--that scandalous,

offensive cross, the stumbling-block of Jewish pride (1 Cor. i.

23). The death of Christ was not only revolting in its form to

Jewish sentiment;[136] it was a fatal event for Judaism itself. It

imported the end of the Mosaic economy. The Church at Jerusalem had

not yet fully grasped this fact; they sought, as far as possible,

to live on good terms with their non-Christian Jewish brethren, and

admitted perhaps too easily into their fellowship men who cared

more for Judaism than for Christ and His cross. For them also the

final rupture was approaching, when they had to "go forth unto Jesus

without the camp." Paul had seen from the first that the breach

was irreparable. He determined to keep his Gentile Churches free

from Judaic entanglements. In his view, Calvary was the terminus of

Mosaism.

[136] Comp. Chapter XII, pp. 193-4.

This was true _historically_. The crime of national Judaism in

slaying its Messiah was capital. Its spiritual blindness and its

moral failure had received the most signal proof. The congregation of

Israel had become a synagogue of Satan. And these were "the chosen

people," the world's _élite_, who "crucified the Lord of glory!"

_Mankind_ had done this thing. The world has "both seen and hated

both Him and the Father." Now to set up circumcision again, or any

kind of human effort or performance, as a ground of justification

before God, is to ignore this judgement; it is to make void the

sentence which the cross of Christ has passed upon all "works of

righteousness which we have done." This teaching sorely offends

moralists and ceremonialists, of whatever age or school; it is "the

offence of the cross."

And further, as matter of _Divine appointment_ the sacrifice of

Calvary put an end to Jewish ordinances. Their significance was gone.

The Epistle to the Hebrews developes this consequence at length in

other directions. For himself the Apostle views it from a single

and very definite standpoint. The Law, he says, had brought on men

a curse; it stimulated sin to its worst developments (ch. iii. 10,

19). Christ's death under this curse has expiated and removed it for

us (ch. iii. 13). His atonement met man's guilt in its culmination.

The Law had not prevented--nay, it gave occasion to the crime; it

necessitated, but could not provide expiation, which was supplied

"outside the law" (Rom. iii. 21: ὥρις νόμου). The "offence" of the

doctrine of the cross lay just here. It reconciled man with God on an

extra-legal footing. It provided a new ground of justification and

pronounced the old worthless. It fixed the mark of moral impotence

and rejection upon the system to which the Jewish nature clung

with passionate pride. To preach the cross was to declare legalism

abolished: to preach circumcision was to declare the cross and its

offence abolished.

This dilemma the Circumcisionists would fain escape. They fought

shy of Calvary. Like some later moralists, they did not see why the

cross should be always pushed to the front, and its offence forced

upon the world. Surely there was in the wide range of Christian

truth abundance of other profitable topics to discuss, without

wounding Jewish susceptibilities in this way. But this endeavour of

theirs is just what Paul is determined to frustrate. He confronts

Judaism at every turn with that dreadful cross. He insists that

it shall be realised in its horror and its shame, that men shall

feel the tremendous shock which it gives to the moral conceit, the

self-justifying spirit of human nature, which in the Jew of this

period had reached its extreme point. "If law could save, if the

world were not guilty before God," he reiterates, "why that death

of the cross? God hath set Him forth _a propitiation_." And whoso

accepts Jesus Christ must accept Him _crucified_, with all the

offence and humiliation that the fact involves.

In later days the death of Christ has been made void in other ways.

It is veiled in the steam of our incense. It is invested with the

halo of a sensuous glorification. The cross has been for many turned

into an artistic symbol, a beautiful idol, festooned with garlands,

draped in poetry, but robbed of its spiritual meaning, its power to

humble and to save. Let men see it "openly set forth," in its naked

terror and majesty, that they may know what they are and what their

sins have done.

We rely on birth and good breeding, on art and education as

instruments of moral progress. Improved social arrangements, a higher

environment, these, we think, will elevate the race. Within their

limits these forces are invaluable; they are ordained of God. But

they are only _law_ at the best. When they have done their utmost,

they leave man still unsaved--proud, selfish, unclean, miserable.

To rest human salvation on self-improvement and social reform, is

legalism over again. To civilise is not to regenerate. These methods

were tried in Mosaism, under circumstances in many respects highly

favourable. "The scandal of the cross" was the result. Education

and social discipline may produce a Pharisee, nothing higher.

Legislation and environment work from the outside. They cannot touch

the essential human heart. Nothing has ever done this like the cross

of Jesus Christ. He who "makes it of none effect," whether in the

name of Jewish tradition or of modern progress, takes away the one

practicable hope of the moral regeneration of mankind.

III. We are now in a position to estimate more precisely the

character and motives of the Judaistic party, _the hinderers and

troublers_ of this Epistle.

In the first place, it appears that they had entered the Galatian

communities from without. The fact that they are called _troublers_

(_disturbers_) of itself suggests this (ver. 10; ch. i. 7). They

came with a professed "gospel," as messengers bringing new tidings;

the Apostle compares them to himself, the first Galatian evangelist,

"or an angel from heaven" (ch. i. 8, 9). He glances at them in his

reference to "false brethren" at an earlier time "brought into (the

Gentile Church) unawares" (ch. ii. 4). These men are "courting" the

favour of Paul's Galatian disciples, endeavouring to gain them over

in his absence (ch. iv. 17, 18). They have made misleading statements

respecting his early career and relations to the Church, which he is

at pains to correct. They professed to represent the views of the

Pillars at Jerusalem, and quoted their authority against the Apostle

Paul.

From these considerations we infer that "the troublers" were

_Judaistic emissaries from Palestine_. The second Epistle to Corinth,

contemporaneous with this letter, reveals the existence of a similar

propaganda in the Greek capital at the same period. Paul had given

the Galatians warning on the subject at his last visit (ch. i. 9).

There were already, we should suppose, in the Galatian societies,

before the arrival of the Judaizers, Jewish believers in Christ

of legalistic tendencies, prepared to welcome and support the new

teachers. But it was the coming of these agitators from without that

threw the Churches of Galatia into such a ferment, and brought about

the situation disclosed in this Epistle.

The allusion made in chap. ii. 12 to "certain from James,"[137]

taken in connection with other circumstances, points, as we think,

to the outbreak of a systematic agitation against the Apostle Paul,

which was carried on during his third missionary tour, and drew from

him the great evangelical Epistles of this epoch. This anti-Pauline

movement emanated from Jerusalem and pretended to official sanction.

Set on foot at the time of the collision with Peter at Antioch, the

conflict is now in full progress. The Apostle's denunciation of his

opponents is unsparing. They "hinder" the Galatians "from obeying

truth" (ver. 7); they entice them from the path in which they had

bravely set out, and are robbing them of their heritage in Christ.

It was a false, a perverted gospel that they taught (ch. i. 7). They

cast on their hearers an envious spell which drew them away from

the cross and its salvation (ch. ii. 21; iii. 1). Not truth, but

self-interest and party-ends were the objects they pursued (ch. iv.

17; vi. 12, 13). Their "persuasion" was assuredly not of God, "who

had called" the Galatians through the Apostle's voice. If God had

sent Paul amongst them, as the Galatians had good reason to know,

clearly He had not sent these men, with their "other gospel."

[137] Compare Chapter IX, pp. 131-4. We refer this occurrence to

the interval between the second and third of Paul's missionary

journeys (Acts xviii. 22), A.D. 54.

The vitiating "leaven" at work in the spiritual life of the

Galatians, if not arrested, would soon "leaven the whole lump." The

Apostle applies to the Judaistic doctrine the same figure under which

he described the taint of immorality found in the Church of Corinth

(1 Cor. v. 6-8). So zealous and unscrupulous, so deadly in its effect

on evangelical faith and life was the spirit of Jewish legalism. The

Apostle trusts that his Galatians will after all escape from this

fatal infection, that they will leave "the troublers" alone to "bear

the judgement" which must fall upon them (ver. 10). The Lord is the

Keeper, and the Avenger of His Church. No one, "whosoever he be,"

will injure it with impunity. Let the man that makes mischief in the

Church of Jesus Christ take care what he is about. The tempted may

escape; sins of ignorance and weakness can be forgiven. But woe unto

the tempter!

Against the wilful perverters of the gospel the Apostle at the outset

delivered his anathema. For these Circumcisionists in particular he

has one further wish to express. It is a grim sort of suggestion,

to be read rather by way of sarcasm than in the strict letter of

fulfilment. The devotees of circumcision, he means to say, might

as well go a step farther. If the physical mark of Judaism, the

mere surgical act, is so salutary, why not "cut off" the member

altogether, like the emasculated priests of Cybelé? (ver. 12).[138]

This mutilation belonged to the worship of the great heathen goddess

of Asia Minor, and was associated with her debasing cultus. Moreover

it excluded its victim from a place in the congregation of Israel

(Deut. xxiii. 1).

[138] The rendering of the R.V. _margin_ is that of all the

Greek interpreters, and of Meyer, Lightfoot, Beet, and the

strict grammatical commentators amongst the moderns. The form

and usage of the verb do not allow of any other. Apart from its

unseemliness, the expression is powerfully appropriate. This

condemnation of the Old-Testament sacrament is not more severe

than the language of Isa. lxvi. 3: "He that slaughtereth an ox is

a man-slayer, he that bringeth a meal-offering--it is _swine's

blood_."

This mockery, though not to be judged by modern sentiment, in any

case went to the verge of what charity and decency permit. It

breathes a burning contempt for the Judaizing policy. It shows how

utterly circumcision had lost its sacredness for the Apostle. Its

spiritual import being gone, it was now a mere "concision" (Phil.

iii. 2), a cutting of the body--nothing more.

Such language was well calculated to disgust Gentile Christians with

the rite of circumcision. It helps to account for the implacable

hatred with which Paul was regarded by orthodox Jews. It accords with

what he intimated in ch. iv. 9, to the effect that Jewish conformity

was for the Gentiles in effect _heathenish_. Apart from its relation

to the obsolete Mosaic covenant, circumcision was in itself no holier

than the deformities inflicted by Paganism on its votaries.

The Judaizers are finally described, not merely as "troublers" and

"hinderers," but as "those that _unsettle_ you"--or more strongly

still, "_overthrow_ you." The Greek word (ἀναστατέω) occurs in Acts

xvii. 6, xxi. 38, where it is rendered, _turn upside down, stir to

sedition_. These men were carrying on a treasonable agitation. False

themselves to the gospel of Christ, they incited the Galatians to

belie their Christian professions, to betray the cause of Gentile

liberty, and to desert their own Apostle. They deserved to suffer

some degrading punishment. "Full" as they were "of subtlety and

mischief, perverting the right ways of the Lord," Paul did well to

denounce them and to turn their zeal for circumcision to derisive

scorn.