+I. That no privilege of the Church can exempt her from
persecution.+--1. _From the consideration of the quality of the
persons here upon the stage, the one persecuting, the other
suffering._ (1) The persecuting--"born after the flesh." Like
Hannibal, they can part with anything but war and contention; they
can be without their native country, but not without an enemy. These
whet the sword, these make the furnace of persecution seven times
hotter than it would be. The flesh is the treasury whence these winds
blow that rage and beat down all before them. (2) The
suffering--"born after the Spirit." Having no security, no policy, no
eloquence, no strength, but that which lieth in his innocency and
truth, which he carrieth about as a cure, but it is looked upon as a
persecution by those who will not be healed. "For he must appear,"
said Seneca, "as a fool that he may be wise, as weak that he may be
strong, as base and vile that he may be more honourable." If thou be
an Isaac, thou shalt find an Ishmael.
2. _From the nature and constitution of the Church which in this
world is ever militant._--Persecution is the honour, the prosperity,
the flourishing condition of the Church. When her branches were
lopped off she spread the more, when her members were dispersed there
were more gathered to her, when they were driven about the world they
carried that sweet-smelling savour about them which drew in
multitudes to follow them.
3. _From the providence and wisdom of God who put this enmity between
these two seeds._--God's method is best. That is method and order
with Him which we take to be confusion, and that which we call
persecution is His art, His way of making saints. In Abraham's family
Ishmael mocketh and persecuteth Isaac, in the world the synagogue
persecuteth the Church, and in the Church one Christian persecuteth
another. It was so, it is so, and it will be so to the end of the
world.
+II. The lessons of persecution.+--1. _The persecution of the Church
should not create surprise._ 2. _Not to regard the Church and the
world as alike._ 3. _Build ourselves up in faith so as to be prepared
for the fiery trial._ 4. _Love the truth you profess._ 5. _Be renewed
in spirit.--A. Farindon._
Ver. 30. _Cast out the Bondwoman and her Son._--To cast out is an act
of violence, and the true Church evermore hath the suffering part.
How shall the Church cast out those of her own house and family?
1. By the vehemency of our prayers that God would either melt their
hearts or shorten their hands, either bring them into the right way,
or strike off their chariot wheels. 2. By our patience and
longsuffering. 3. By our innocency of life and sincerity of
conversation. 4. By casting our burden upon the Lord.--_Ibid._
_The Fate of Unbelievers._
+I. All hypocrites, mockers of the grace of God, shall be cast forth
of God's family,+ though for a time they bear a sway therein. This is
the sentence of God. Let us therefore repent of our mocking and
become lovers of the grace of God.
+II. The persecution of the people of God shall not be perpetual,+
for the persecuting bondwoman and her son must be cast out.
+III. All justiciary people and persons that look to be saved and
justified before God by the law,+ either in whole or in part, are
cast out of the Church of God, and have no part in the kingdom of
heaven. The casting out of Hagar and Ishmael is a figure of the
rejection of all such.--_Perkins._
* * * * * * * *
+CHAPTER V.+
_CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES._
Ver. 1. +Stand fast in.+--Stand up to, make your stand for. +The
liberty wherewith Christ has made you free.+--As Christ has given you
this liberty you are bound to stand fast in it. +Be not
entangled.+--Implicated in a way which involves violence to true
spontaneous life. +The yoke of bondage.+--Contrasted with the yoke of
Christ, which is compatible with the fullest spiritual freedom.
Ver. 2. +If ye be circumcised.+--Not simply as a national rite, but
as a symbol of Judaism and legalism in general; as necessary to
justification. +Christ shall profit you nothing.+--The Gospel of
grace is at an end. He who is circumcised is so fearing the law, and
he who fears disbelieves the power of grace, and he who disbelieves
can profit nothing by that grace which he disbelieves (_Chrysostom_).
Ver. 5 +Wait for the hope of righteousness.+--Righteousness, in the
sense of justification, is already attained, but the consummation of
it in future perfection is the object of hope to be waited for.
Ver. 6. +Faith which worketh by love.+--Effectually worketh, exhibits
its energy by love, and love is the fulfilling of the law.
Ver. 9. +A little leaven.+--Of false doctrine, a small amount of evil
influence.
Ver. 10. +He that troubleth you.+--The leaven traced to personal
agency; whoever plays the troubler. +Shall bear his judgment.+--Due
and inevitable condemnation from God.
Ver. 11. +Then is the offence of the cross ceased.+--The offence, the
stumbling-block, to the Jew which roused his anger was not the shame
of Messiah crucified, but the proclamation of free salvation to all,
exclusive of the righteousness of human works.
Ver. 12. +I would they were cut off which trouble
you.+--Self-mutilated, an imprecation more strongly expressed in
chap. i. 8, 9. Christian teachers used language in addressing
Christians in the then heathen world that would be regarded as
intolerable in modern Christendom, purified and exalted by Christ
through their teachings.
Ver. 13. +Use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh.+--Do not give
the flesh the handle or pretext for its indulgence, which it eagerly
seeks for. +By love serve one another.+--If ye must be in bondage, be
servants to one another in love.
Ver. 15. +If ye bite and devour one another, . . .
consumed.+--Figures taken from the rage of beasts of prey. The
_biting_ of controversy naturally runs into the devouring of
controversial mood waxing fierce with indulgence. And the
controversialists, each snapping at and gnawing his antagonist,
forget the tendency is to _consume_ the Christian cause. Strength of
soul, health of body, character, and resources, are all consumed by
broils.
Ver. 18. +If ye be led by the Spirit, ye are not under the
law.+--Under no irksome restraint. To him who loves, law is not
irksome bondage but delightful direction. Active spiritual life is a
safeguard against lawless affection.
Ver. 19. +The works of the flesh.+--1. _Sensual vices_--"adultery
[omitted in the oldest MSS.], fornication, uncleanness,
lasciviousness." 2. _Theological vices_--"idolatry, witchcraft."
3. _Malevolent vices_--"hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife,
seditions, heresies, envyings, murders." 4. _Vices of
excess_--"drunkenness, revellings."
Ver. 22. +The fruit of the Spirit.+--The singular _fruit,_ as
compared with the plural _works,_ suggests that the effect of the
Spirit's inworking is one harmonious whole, while carnality tends to
multitudinousness, distraction, chaos. We are not to look for a
rigorous logical classification in either catalogue. Generally, the
fruit of the Spirit may be arranged as: I. _Inward graces_--"love,
joy, peace." II. _Graces towards man_--"longsuffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith." III. _A more generic form of inward
graces_--"meekness, temperance."
Ver. 23. +Against such there is no law.+--So far from being against
love, law commands it.
Ver. 24. +Have crucified the flesh.+--Not human nature, but depraved
human nature. +With the affections and lusts.+--Affections refer to
the general frame of mind; the lusts to special proclivities or
habits.
Ver. 26. +Not to be desirous of vainglory, provoking+ [challenging],
+envying one another.+--Vaingloriousness provokes contention;
contention produces envy.
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verse_ 1.
_Christian Liberty_--
+I. Should be valued considering how it was obtained.+--"The liberty
wherewith Christ hath made us free." It is a liberty purchased at a
great cost. Christ, the Son of God, became incarnated, suffered in a
degree unparalleled and incomprehensible, and died the shameful and
ignoble death of the crucified to win back the liberty man had
forfeited by voluntary sin. The redemption of man was hopeless from
himself, and but for the intervention of a competent Redeemer he was
involved in utter and irretrievable bondage. Civil liberty, though
the inalienable right of every man, has been secured as the result of
great struggle and suffering. "With a great sum," said the Roman
captain to Paul, "obtained I this freedom;" and many since his day
have had to pay dearly for the common rights of citizenship. But
Christian liberty should be valued as the choicest privilege,
remembering it was purchased by the suffering Christ, and that it has
been defended through the ages by a noble army of martyrs.
+II. Should remind us of the oppression from which it
delivers.+--"And be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."
The Galatians had been bondmen, enslaved by the worship of false and
vile deities. If they rush into the snare of the legalists, they will
be bondmen again, and their bondage will be the more oppressive now
they have tasted the joys of freedom. Disobedience involves us in
many entanglements. It is among the most potent of the energies of
sin that leads astray by blinding and blinds by leading astray; that
the soul, like the strong champion of Israel, must have its eyes put
out, when it would be bound with fetters of brass and condemned to
grind in the prisonhouse (Judg. xvi. 21). Redemption from the slavery
of sin should fill the heart with gratitude. A wealthy and kind
Englishman once bought a poor Negro for twenty pieces of gold. He
presented him with a sum of money that he might buy a piece of land
and furnish himself a home. "Am I really free? May I go whither I
will?" cried the Negro in the joy of his heart. "Well, let me be your
slave, massa; you have redeemed me, and I owe all to you." The
gentleman took him into his service, and he never had a more faithful
servant. How much more eagerly should we do homage and service to the
divine Master, who Himself has made us free!
+III. Should be rigorously maintained.+--"Stand fast therefore." The
price of freedom is incessant vigilance; once gained it is a prize
never to be lost, and no effort or sacrifice should be grudged in its
defence. "As far as I am a Christian," said Channing, "I am free. My
religion lays on me not one chain. It does not hem me round with a
mechanical ritual, does not enjoin forms, attitudes, and hours of
prayer, does not descend to details of dress and food, does not put
on me one outward badge. It teaches us to do good but leaves us to
devise for ourselves the means by which we may best serve mankind."
The spirit of Christian liberty is eternal. Jerusalem and Rome may
strive to imprison it. They might as well seek to bind the winds of
heaven. Its seat is the throne of Christ. It lives by the breath of
His Spirit. Not to be courageous and faithful in its defence is
disloyalty to Christ and treachery to our fellow-men.
+Lessons.+--1. _Christ is the true Emancipator of men._ 2. _Christian
liberty does not violate but honours the law of love._ 3. _Liberty is
best preserved by being consistently exercised._
_GERM NOTES ON THE VERSE._
Ver. 1. _Freedom from Bondage._--1. Every man by nature is a
bondslave, being under the bondage of sin. The Jews were under
bondage to the ceremonial law, involving great trouble, pain in the
flesh, and great expense. 2. Jesus Christ by His obedience and death
has purchased freedom and liberty to His Church--liberty not to do
evil, nor from the yoke of new obedience, nor from the cross, nor
from that obedience and reverence which inferiors owe to superiors;
but from the dominion of sin, the tyranny of Satan, the curse and
irritating power of the law, and from subjecting our consciences to
the rites, doctrines, ceremonies, and laws of men in the matter of
worship. 3. Though civil liberty be much desired, so ignorant are we
of the worth of freedom from spiritual bondage that we can hardly be
excited to seek after it, or made to stand to it when attained, but
are in daily hazard of preferring our former bondage to our present
liberty.--_Fergusson._
_Bondage and Liberty._
+I. We are in bondage under sin.+
+II. We are subject to punishment.+--Implying: 1. Bondage under
Satan, who keeps unrepentant sinners in his snare. 2. Bondage under
an evil conscience, which sits in the heart as accuser and judge, and
lies like a wild beast at a man's door ready to pluck out his throat.
3. Bondage under the wrath of God and fear of eternal death.
+III. We are in bondage to the ceremonial law.+--To feel this bondage
is a step out of it; not to feel it is to be plunged into it.
+IV. We have spiritual liberty by the grace of God.+--1. Christian
liberty is a deliverance from misery. (1) From the curse of the law
for the breach thereof. (2) From the obligation of the law whereby it
binds us to perfect righteousness in our own persons. (3) From the
observance of the ceremonial law of Moses. (4) From the tyranny and
dominion of sin. 2. Christian liberty is freedom in good things.
(1) In the voluntary service of God. (2) In the free use of all the
creatures of God. (3) Liberty to come to God and in prayer to be
heard. (4) To enter heaven.
+V. Christ is the great Liberator.+--He procured this liberty: 1. By
the merit of His death. The price paid--His precious blood--shows the
excellence of the blessing, and that it should be esteemed. 2. By the
efficacy of His Spirit--assuring us of our adoption and abating the
strength and power of sin.
+VI. We are to hold fast our liberty in the day of trial.+--1. We
must labour that religion be not only in mind and memory but rooted
in the heart. 2. We must join with our religion the soundness of a
good conscience. 3. We must pray for all things needful.--_Perkins._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 2-6.
_Christianity Superior to External Rites._
+I. External rites demand universal obedience.+--"Every man that is
circumcised is a debtor to do the whole law" (ver. 3). The Galatians
were in a state of dangerous suspense. They were on the brink of a
great peril. Another step and they would be down the precipice. That
step was circumcision. Seeing the imminence of the danger the apostle
becomes more earnest and emphatic in his remonstrance. He warns them
that circumcision, though a matter of indifference as an external
rite, would in their case involve an obligation to keep the whole
law. This he has shown is an impossibility. They would submit
themselves to a yoke they were unable to bear, and from whose galling
tyranny they would be unable to extricate themselves. Knowing this,
surely they would not be so foolish as, deliberately and with open
eyes, to commit such an act of moral suicide. There must be a strange
infatuation in ritualistic observances that tempts man to undertake
obligations he is powerless to perform, utterly heedless of the most
explicit and faithful warnings.
+II. Dependence on external rites is an open rejection of
Christ.+--"Christ shall profit you nothing; . . . is become of no
effect unto you; ye are fallen from grace" (vers. 2, 4). Here the
result of a defection from the Gospel is placed in the most alarming
aspect and should give pause to the wildest fanatic. It is the
forfeiture of all Christian privileges, it is a complete rejection of
Christ, it is a loss of all the blessings won by faith, it is a fall
into the gulf of despair and ruin. It cannot be too plainly
understood, nor too frequently iterated, that excessive devotion to
external rites means the decline and extinction of true religion.
Ritualism supplants Jesus Christ. "It is evident that the disciples
of the Church of Rome wish to lead us from confession and absolution
to the doctrine of transubstantiation, thence to the worship of
images, and thence to all the abuses which at the end of the
fifteenth century and at the beginning of the sixteenth excited the
anger and scorn of Luther, Calvin, Zwinglius, and others. The primary
faith of the Reformers is in the words of Christ. The primary faith
of the ritualists is in Aristotle. If the British nation is wise, it
will not allow the Roman Church with its infallible head, or the
ritualists with their mimic ornaments, or those who are deaf to the
teachings of Socrates and Cicero, of Bacon and Newton, to deprive
them of the inestimable blessings of the Gospel."
+III. Christianity as a spiritual force is superior to external
rites.+--1. _It bases the hope of righteousness on faith._ "For we
through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith" (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; how large, lofty, and secure the
other! 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 (_Findlay_).
2. _Faith is a spiritual exercise revealing itself in active
love._--"Faith worketh by love" (ver. 6). In ver. 5 we have the
_statics_ of the religion of Christ; in ver. 6 its _dynamics._ Love
is the working energy of faith. "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." In the presence of an active spiritual Christianity, animated
by love to Christ and to men, ritualism diminishes into
insignificance. "In Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth
anything nor uncircumcision" (ver. 6). The Jew is no better or worse
a Christian because he is circumcised; the Gentile no worse or better
because he is not. Love, which is the fulfilling of the law, is the
essence of Christianity, and gives it the superiority over all
external rites.
+Lessons.+--1. _Externalism in religion imposes intolerable burdens._
2. _To prefer external rites is an insult to Christ._ 3. _The
superiority of Christianity is its spiritual character._
_GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES._