Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Galatians 1:6
I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
6 10. The subject and occasion of the Epistle
6. I marvel gospel ] The contrast between the form of address here adopted and that of other letters of St Paul is (as already noted) remarkable. In writing to the Philippians, Colossians and Thessalonians, his opening words are expressive of thankfulness for the constancy of their faith and the fervour of their love. Even for the Corinthians, notwithstanding the party spirit which prevailed among them and the grievous sin which called for sharp rebuke, he has words of affection and even thankfulness. But the case of the Galatians was different. They had departed from the faith. Their error was fundamental, and if persisted in, fatal.
so soon removed ] rather, so quickly passing over, transferring your allegiance.
‘So quickly’ is generally explained as, so soon after your conversion, or, after my recent visit. Commentators see an illustration of this expression in the fickleness of the national character, mentioned by Csar and Tacitus, and the intellectual restlessness noticed by Themistius, a writer of the 4th century a.d. But perhaps it only means ‘so readily’, with so little compunction, or resistance to the false teachers. Comp. 2Th 2:2.
from him that called you Christ ] Luther renders, “From Christ who called you in grace.” If the word Christ (omitted by some authorities) is to be retained, this is the best rendering of the passage for the reasons which he assigns. “It liketh me, that even as Paul a little before made Christ the Redeemer, who by His death delivereth us from this present evil world; also the giver of grace and peace equally with God the Father; so he should here make Him equally the caller in grace; for Paul’s special purpose is to beat into our minds the benefit of Christ, by whom we come unto the Father.”
Our calling is in grace, i.e. in His free and unmerited favour and goodness; as opposed to all notion of salvation by moral or ceremonial righteousness. “If it be by grace, then it is no more of works, otherwise grace ceases to be grace any longer.” Rom 11:6.
unto another gospel ] rather, ‘a different’ or ‘strange gospel’, a perverted gospel. I do not call it ‘another gospel’, for that would be to admit that there could be more than one.
This strange gospel appealed for authority to the other Apostles rather than to St Paul; and it insisted on the observance of the Jewish ceremonial law as a condition of salvation, ch. Gal 4:10-11, &c.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
I marvel – I wonder. It is remarked by Luther (his commentary at the place) that Paul uses as mild a word as possible here. He does not employ the language of severe reproof, but he expresses his astonishment that the thing should have occurred. He was deeply affected and amazed, that such a thing could have happened. They had cordially embraced the gospel; they had manifested the tenderest attachment for him; they had given themselves to God, and yet in a very short time they had been led wholly astray, and had embraced opinions which tended wholly to pervert and destroy the gospel. They had shown an instability and inconstancy of character, which was to him perfectly surprising.
That ye are so soon – This proves that the Epistle was written not long after the gospel was first preached to them. According to the general supposition, it could not have been more than from two to five years. Had it been a long and gradual decline; had they been destitute for years of the privileges of the gospel; or had they had time to forget him who had first preached to them, it would not have been a matter of surprise. But when it occurred in a few months; when their once ardent love for Paul, and their confidence in him had so soon vanished, or their affections become alienated, and when they had so soon embraced opinions tending to, set the whole gospel aside, it could not but excite Pauls wonder. Learn hence, that men, professedly pious, and apparently ardently attached to the gospel, may become soon perverted in their views, and alienated from those who had called them into the gospel, and whom they professed tenderly to love. The ardor of the affections becomes cool, and some artful, and zealous, and plausible teachers of error seduce the mind, corrupt the heart, and alienate the affections. Where there is the ardor of the first love to God, there is also an effort soon made by the adversary, to turn away the heart from him; and young converts are commonly soon attacked in some plausible manner, and by art and arguments adapted to turn away their minds from the truth, and to alienate the affections from God.
So soon removed – Luther remarks that this is also a mild and gentle term. It implies that foreign influence had been used to turn away their minds from the truth. The word used here ( metatithesthe) means, to transpose; to put in another place; and then, to go over from one party to another. Their affections had become transferred to other doctrines than those which they had at first embraced, and they had moved off from the only true foundation, to one which would give them no support.
From him that called you – There has been great difference of opinion in regard to the sense of this passage. Some have supposed, that it refers to God; others to Christ; others to Paul himself. Either supposition makes good sense, and conveys an idea not contrary to the Scriptures in other places. Doddridge, Chandler, Clarke, Macknight, Locke, and some others refer it to Paul; Rosenmuller, Koppe, and others, suppose it refers to God; and others refer it to the Redeemer. The Syriac renders it thus: I marvel that ye are so soon turned away from that Messiah (Christ) who has called you. etc. It is not possible, perhaps, to determine the true sense. It does not seem to me to refer to Paul, as the main object of the Epistle is, not to show that they had removed from him, but from the gospel – a far more grievous offence; and it seems to me that it is to he referred to God. The reasons are:
- That he who had called them, is said to have called them into the grace of Christ, which would be hardly said of Christ himself; and,
- That the work of calling people is usually in the Scriptures attributed to God; 1Th 2:12; 1Th 5:24; 2Th 2:14; 2Ti 1:9.
Into the grace of Christ – Locke renders this, into the covenant of grace which is by Christ. Doddridge understands it of the method of salvation which is by or through the grace of Christ. There is no doubt that it refers to the plan of salvation which is by Christ, or in Christ; and the main idea is, that the scheme of salvation which they had embraced under his instruction, was one which contemplated salvation only by the grace or favor of Christ; and that from that they had been removed to another scheme, essentially different, where the grace of Christ was made useless and void. It is Pauls object to show that the true plan makes Christ the great and prominent object; and that the plan which they had embraced was in this respect wholly different.
Unto another gospel – A gospel which destroys the grace of Christ; which proclaims salvation on other terms than simple dependence on the merits of the Lord Jesus; and which has introduced the Jewish rites and ceremonies as essential, in order to obtain salvation. The apostle calls that scheme the gospel, because it pretended to be; it was preached by those who claimed to be preachers of the gospel; who alleged that they had come direct from the apostles at Jerusalem, and who pretended to declare the method of salvation. It claimed to be the gospel, and yet it was essentially unlike the plan which he had preached as constituting the gospel. That which he preached, inculcated the entire dependence of the sinner on the merits and grace of Christ; that system had introduced dependence on the observance of the rites of the Mosaic system, as necessary to salvation.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Gal 1:6-7
I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him that called you.
The errors of the good and the follies of the wise are painful subjects of contemplation, and we are never more conscious of a sensitive and distressing recoil than when we witness the disappointment of our hopes in reference to those who had once given promise of attaining to distinguished excellence. Some, however, it is to be feared, are comparative strangers to any vivid apprehensions of this kind. They seem to be always on the watch to detect the canker in the rose, or the flaw in the gem, and love the fault that gives them an equal more than the virtue which makes another their superior. But men of nobler temper always delight in beholding the development of exalted worth; and these, far from laying bare with an untrembling hand the infirmities and defects of our common nature, never fail to experience a corresponding depression and regret when the lustre of a great name is tarnished, and especially when religion itself is seen to suffer from the inconsistency of its professed friends.
I. The early appearance of error and declension among the churches founded by the apostle. So soon removed. Our attention also is particularly arrested by the prevalence of these evils in the very outset of the history of the Christian Church; and not in the province of Galatia only, but in various other directions. We wonder to see the stream corrupted so near the fountain, the tares springing up with the wheat in the most favoured soils, and the fine gold of the sanctuary so soon becoming dim. To the Church of Thessalonica, St. Paul writes, in one of the earliest of his Epistles, The mystery of iniquity doth already work. St. Peter speaks of those who privily bring in damnable heresies. St. Jude refers to those who denied the Lord that bought them, and adds that these ungodly men crept in unawares, like the wolf into the fold, or the muffled traitor into the palace of the king, implying that they ought by all means to have been kept out!
II. The insidious manner in which the most dangerous corruptions are often introduced. ye are removed unto another gospel–which is not another. The enemy of souls is never more dangerous than when he assumes the aspect of an angel of light; and injury is more frequently sustained by the artful intermixture of truth with error, than by any temptation to renounce Christianity altogether. We are rarely invited to receive broad, palpable, unmixed falsehood, for from this the mind might naturally recoil, as we should shrink from taking, with our eyes open, undiluted poisons. But the great deceiver goes more skilfully to work, and incorporates false doctrines with some modification of the true. He knows how to wrap up his most deadly poisons in some leaves of the tree of life; as he quoted Scripture to our Lord Himself, and prefaced his fatal temptation to Eve, by the smooth inquiry, Yea, hath God said? All these should recollect that the perversion of evangelical truth is followed by melancholy consequences, and produces unhappiness in the mind. There be some that trouble you. Gospel perverters are soul-troublers. Like the mystic star of the Apocalypse, which, falling on the waters, turned the peaceful element into turbulence and blood, their course may be traced by the calamities they occasion.
III. The awful criminality and danger of perverting the gospel of Christ. From the greatness of the punishment denounced by the apostle, we learn his estimate of the aggravated guilt of the offence he condemns.
1. The great Protestant principle of the right and duty of private judgment. Though St. Paul proves his apostleship, and demands to be heard as the servant of Christ, he is far from claiming unlimited authority over the consciences of men, but makes a direct appeal to their judgment. If they were not to receive, even from him, another gospel, of course they had to decide what was, and what was not, another gospel. And this they had the means of doing.
2. If such be the danger of perverting, how important is it that we should receive the gospel for the purpose of our salvation. To reject or pervert robs God of His glory, the Church of its comfort, and the world of its hope.
3. The intimate connexion between the purity of the Christian Church and the happiness of its individual members. God reveals this religion, not only as a means of safety, but as an element of blessedness.
4. We may well rejoice in the perpetuity of religion itself, notwithstanding all the attacks of its foes, and all the imperfection of its friends. The gospel partakes of the immortality of its author. (The Evangelist.)
The wonder of a faithful apostle at the defection of faithless converts
I. The apostle wondered that they should have turned from God and the Saviour. When men turn to God expectations are fulfilled; but when they forsake Him astonishment is excited, because of the mystery of iniquity (Jer 2:12-13).
1. To the Galatians the human agency was the ministry of Paul.
2. There is a reference to the Divine power in the call of God. Him that called you in the grace of Christ.
II. Paul wondered that they should have changed so suddenly.
III. Paul marvelled that they should renounce the true for the false, the real for the unreal, the genuine for the sham.
IV. Paul wondered that they had been seduced by men whose characters ought to have been understood. Lessons:
1. The will of God in Christ Jesus concerning us should be the subject of our constant meditation.
2. We should beware of teaching that tends to withdraw Christ from our attention and confidence.
3. We should avoid the company of men who, under the pretence of doing us good, only seek to weaken our faith in the gospel. (R. Nicholls.)
Apostasy is easy
It is possible to begin in the Spirit, and to end in the flesh; it is possible to be seriously hindered; it is possible to come short of the promise of the grace of God. Clouds sometimes obscure the brightest evening and the sunniest morning. A slight atmospheric change may transform an Alpine ascent from a safe excitement into an imminent peril. It is thus in the natural world; and so is it in the realm of grace. There are numberless causes, arising from the circumstances of external things, or from the inbred and unsubdued corruption of our own traitorous hearts, which may endanger the constancy of the Christian, and cause his goodness to be even as the morning cloud and as the early dew, goodly and sparkling in promise, but, by the fierce heat of the sun, very speedily exhaled. (W. M. Punshon.)
Fickle Christians
Luther often, in his books, testified that he was much afraid lest, when he was dead, that sound doctrine of justification by faith alone would die also. It proved so in many places in Germany. Men fell to Popery as fast as leaves fall in autumn. The word here rendered removed signifieth properly transported or transplanted. He alludes, saith Jerome, to the word Galdi, to roll, as if he should say, You are Galatians, that is, rolling and changing from the gospel of Christ to the law of Moses. (J. Trapp.)
Different treatment for seducers and seduced
Ye see here how Paul handleth his Galatians, which were fallen away and seduced by the false apostles. He doth not at the first set upon them with vehemence and rigorous words, but after a very fatherly sort, not only patiently bearing their fall, but also in a manner excusing it,. Furthermore, he showeth towards them a motherly affection, and speaketh them very fair; and yet in such sort that he reproveth them notwithstanding, howbeit with very fit words, and wisely framed to the purpose. Contrariwise, he is very hot and full of indignation against those false apostles, their seducers, upon whom he layeth the whole fault; and therefore forthwith, even in the entrance of his Epistle, he bursteth out into plain thunderings and lightnings against them. So parents, when their child is hurt with the biting of a dog, are wont to pursue the dog only, but the weeping child they bemoan and speak fair unto it, comforting it with the most sweet words. (Luther.)
The apostles demeanour
1. Towards the misled. He makes a complaint and charge, but through it all the full tones of Compassion and love are heard.
2. Towards the misleaders. Unsparingly stern, even to denouncing a curse. To fall away from the gospel is bad, but to subvert the gospel is worse. (J. P. Lange, D. D.)
The earnestness with which St. Paul opposes the false teachers
The apostles earnestness is–
1. Well-founded;
2. Very significant for us.
(1) It should withhold us from the reception of any unevangelical doctrine.
(2) It should strengthen us in the certainty that the gospel which we have is the true one. (J. P. Lange, D. D.)
Lapsed Christians
In the first years of a Church, its members are willing to endure hardships, and to make great exertions; but, when once it is prosperous, they desire to take their ease; as one who builds a ship is willing to work all the way from keel to deck until she is launched, thenceforward he expects the ocean to buoy him up, and the winds to bear him on. The youth-time of Churches produces enterprise; their age, indolence. But even this might be borne, did not these dead men sit in the door of their sepulchres, crying out against every living man who refuses to wear the livery of death. I am almost tempted to think that if, with the end of every pastorate, the Church itself were disbanded and destroyed, to be gathered again by the succeeding teacher, we should thus secure an immortality of youth. (H. W. Beecher.)
Apostasy from the truth
1. How far apostasy is not to be wondered at.
2. How far it is to be wondered at. (J. P. Lange, D. D.)
Inconstancy a common fault
An apostatising tendency, or inconstancy, is a radical fault of the human heart.
1. Sluggish and immovable, where it is of moment that it should move and apply itself.
2. So moveable and unsteady, where it should abide firm. (J. P. Lange, D. D.)
Apostasy of believers
1. The apostasy of believers is, alas, sometimes a fact.
2. From what does it proceed?
3. How far is it to be remedied? (J. P. Lange, D. D.)
The Galatian revolt
I. The revolt. Different kinds of religious revolt.
1. Particular: dissent from some principal doctrines; the ten tribes; the Roman Church.
2. General: renunciation of the name and faith of Christ; Jews; Mahommedans.
3. Under strong pressure; when men compromise the faith from fear of persecution.
4. From obstinacy; as atheists. The Galatian revolt was of the first and third class. They were carried away from the doctrine of grace.
II. The time it occupied.
1. A brief period.
2. Showing mans inconstancy in the matter of religion (Hos 6:4; Joh 5:35).
3. Pointing a warning to the most privileged.
III. From what they revolted.
1. From Paul.
2. From the grace of God.
IV. To what they revolted.
1. To false teachers.
2. To another gospel compounded of grace and law.
(1) Men are discontented with the pure gifts of God. The Jews, beside the books of Moses, must have the Cabbala; the Papists, beside the written Word, must have tradition; hearers, beside the simple gospel, must have the skill of art and tongue.
(2) The other gospel is no gospel at all. There is only one way of salvation. News of another way, therefore, is bud news.
V. The authors of the revolt.
1. They are troublers, because
(1) they make divisions;
(2) disturb consciences at rest in Christ. Here is the touchstone of heresy. Justification by works is an unbearable yoke (Act 15:10). So is the teaching that assurance is impossible; so is the dogma of purgatory. The gospel, on the contrary, ends trouble and brings peace and joy (Joh 15:11; Rom 15:14).
2. They overthrow the gospel of Christ. They did not contest its truth, but, by adding to it, they turned it upside down. (W. Perkins.)
A group of marvels
1. That men should disbelieve the true and believe the false.
2. That men should forsake the proved and follow the speculative.
3. That men should refuse the possible salvation by faith in favour of earning an impossible salvation by works.
4. That men should reject the balm for a wounded conscience, and accept what can only trouble the conscience.
5. That men should turn away from the ambassador of the gospel, and attach themselves to perverters of the gospel. Yet these marvels are to be witnessed every day.
The religious instability of the Galatians
It was the too quick springing of the good seed on poor and shallow soil; the sudden flaming of fire among natures as light, brittle, and inflammable as straw. The modification of an old religion, the hearty adoption of a new, the combination of an antique worship with one recent and unlike, had already been illustrated in Galatian history As Celts, they had brought with them their old Druidism; yet they had already incorporated with this the wild nature worship of Cybele. But while this Phrygian cult was flourishing at Pessinus, and commanding the services of hosts of mutilated priests, and while at Tavium the main object of worship was a colossal bronze Zeus of the Greek type, at Ancyra was established the Roman deification of the Emperor Augustus. In passing through these capitals, Paul would see the epitome of their history and character, and as he ]had bitter cause to learn, the religious views of the Gauls were more or less a reflex of the impressions of the moment, and their favourite sentiments the echo of the language used by the last comer. (F. W. Farrar.)
The Judaizing antagonists of St. Paul
They asserted the exclusive authority of the apostles in Judea (2. Corinthians 11:5; Gal 2:6, etc.), a pretension which they would have repudiated, and which Paul makes bold to deny them (comp. 1Co 9:5). They claimed themselves further to be the only true disciples of Christ (1Co 1:12; 2Co 10:7), and in His name imposed, as a condition of salvation, circumcision and all the rites of the law (Gal 2:3; Gal 3:3; Gal 4:10-11; Gal 5:2, etc.; Rom 14:1, etc.; Php 3:2; Col 2:21, etc.), and they abruptly broke off all intercourse with uncircumcised Christians (Gal 2:2), whom Paul had welcomed, and the other apostles recognized, as brethren. Their hatred to Paul was not at all appeased by his heroic sufferings and sublime self-devotion. When the populace of Jerusalem laid homicidal hands upon him, not one of the many myriads of Christians lifted a finger in his defence. Carried to Rome during his two years anxious imprisonment, he has still reason to complain of those who preach Christ only of contention, thinking to add affliction to his bonds. (E. Reuss, D. D.)
The real question at issue
If the Judaizers had really believed in the divinity of Jesus, they could not have returned to systems which had died away before the glories of His advent, for that faith would have proved an insurmountable barrier to reactionary yearnings. Their attempt to re-introduce circumcision was a reflection on Christs finished work, and so, ultimately, on the dignity of His person. They knew not, or heeded not, that they were members of a kingdom in which circumcision and uncircumcision were insignificant accidents, and in which the new creation of the soul was the one matter of vital import. Although they had not denied Christ in terms; He had become of no effect unto them. They had practically rejected the plenary efficacy of Christs grace, and had implicitly denied that He was greater than Moses; and in opposing them, Paul is the apostolic representative of the cause and work of Athanasius. (Canon Liddon.)
The early Churches not pattern Churches
They had apostolic teaching; but beyond that they seem to have been in no respect above, and in many respects below, the level of subsequent ages. If we may judge of their morality by the exhortations they received, Corinth and Thessalonica were but beginners in holiness. If we may judge of their intelligence by the errors into which they fell, they had indeed need that one should teach them which were the first principles of the oracles of God. It could not be otherwise. They were but just rescued from heathenism, and bore the marks of their former bondage. They were like the communities fostered by modern missionaries. The same infantile simplicity, partial apprehensions of truth, danger of being lead astray by the low morality of their kindred, openness to strange heresy, and peril of blending the old with the new in opinion and practice, beset both. The history of the first theological difference in the early Churches is a striking confutation of the dream that they were perfect, and a striking illustration of the dangers to which they were exposed from the attempt, so natural to us all, to put new wine into old bottles. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The grace of Christ
It is not man climbing to heaven; it is God putting down His hand from heaven and raising him up. It is not man paying God for heaven; heaven is Gods free gift to man through Christ. The word grace is inscribed on the temple of salvation from the foundation to the top-stone. (Thomas Jones.)
Another gospel
We hear much of moving with the age. But the gospel is not to be changed to answer the opinions of any age. The pulpit is to lead the age, and not the age the pulpit. Let ministers, then, preach the gospel, whether men will bear or forbear. The gospel, in all its glorious doctrines, pure morality, and sweet promises, is the one power to save. (Thomas Jones.)
Rapid declension
Ha is the interjection of laughter; ah, the interjection of sorrow. The difference betwixt them is but small; the transposition of what is no substantial letter, but a bare aspirate. How quickly, in the age of a minute, in the very turning of a breath, is our mirth changed into mourning. (Thos. Fuller.)
Movement not progress
Rowland Hill, in a friends house, saw a child on a rocking-horse. Dear me, said the good man, how wondrously like some Christians; motion, motion, motion, but no progress. Covering sin with fair names:—Here we may learn to espy the crafty sleights and subtleties of the devil. No heretic cometh under the title of errors and of the devil, neither doth the devil himself come as a devil in his own likeness, but when he forceth men to manifest wickedness, maketh a cloak for them to cover that sin which they commit or purpose to commit. The murderer, in his rage, seeth not that murder is so great and horrible a sin as it is indeed, for that he hath a cloak to cover the same. Whoremongers, thieves, covetous persons, drunkards, and such other, have wherewith to flatter themselves, and cover their sins. So the devil also cometh out disguised and counterfeit in all his works and devices. In spiritual matter, where Satan cometh forth not black, but white, in the likeness of an angel, or of God Himself, there he passeth himself with most crafty dissimulation, and wonderful sleights, and is wont to set forth to sale his most deadly poison for the doctrine of grace, for the Word of God, for the gospel of Christ. For this cause, Paul calleth the doctrine of the false apostles, Satans ministers, a gospel also, saying, unto another gospel; but in derision, as though he would say, Ye Galatians have now other evangelists, and another gospel; my gospel is now despised of you; it is now no more in estimation among you. (Luther.)
A doctored gospel
In Babbages Economy of Manufactures, we are told that some years ago a mode of preparing old clover and trefoil seeds, by a process called doctoring, became so prevalent as to attract the attention of the House of Commons. By this process old and worthless seed was rendered in appearance equal to the best. One witness tried some doctored seed, and found that not above one grain in a hundred grew. Is it not to be feared that a doctored gospel is becoming very common among us; and if so, it is no wonder that conversions are but few. Only pure truth is living seed. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The dilettante gospel
The dilettante gospel has most attractions, of course, for people of a literary and aesthetic turn of mind. What they seek in the sermons they go to hear is not religion, but (as they are fond of styling it) the poetry and philosophy of religion. They would be the last to suspect that such a hearing of Gods word is superficial; but superficial it certainly is. It is a craving for an external thing which brings them to the church at all. They give to the accidental and unessential the respect which should only be accorded to the message of God. And the hurt to the cause of Christ, in yielding to such cravings, is that it dethrones the fact that God is speaking through the gospel to human souls. Christ is not in all the thoughts of such hearers. The outward construction of the word, its literary or artistic features, its pathos, simplicity, or force–these are canvassed and accepted or refused; but Gods message and meaning under all is left standing without. It is hardly possible to overstate the evil to which preaching which panders to this class must lead. For those who indulge in it, the Bible inevitably dwindles down into an uninspired book–at best, a book only more interesting than other books that could be named. The gospel which is proclaimed from its pages–the blessed gospel of the grace of God–passes utterly out of view; and hearers will listen to what is presented to them for a whole lifetime, and yet fail to receive one right-hearted impulse towards the work for which God is sustaining a Church in the world. (A. Macleod, D. D.)
No truce with heretics
They had, in fact, only introduced one or two commandments, circumcision and the observance of days, but he says that the gospel was perverted, in order to show that a slight adulteration vitiates the whole. For as he who but partially pares away the image on a royal coin renders the whole spurious, so he who swerves ever so little from the pure faith soon proceeds from this to graver errors, and becomes entirely corrupted. Let those who charge us with being contentious in separating from heretics, and say that there is no real difference between us except what arises from our ambition, hear Pauls assertion, that those who had but slightly innovated, subverted the gospel. Not that to say that the Son of God is a crested being [as the Aryans did] is a small matter. Know you not that even under the elder covenant, a man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath, and transgressed a single commandment, and that not a great one, was punished with death? and that Uzzah, who supported the ark, when on the point of being overturned, was struck suddenly dead, because he had intruded upon an office which did not pertain to him! Wherefore if to transgress the Sabbath, and to touch the falling ark, drew down the wrath of God so signally as to deprive the offender of even a momentary respite, shall he who corrupts unutterably awful doctrines find excuse and pardon! Assuredly not. A want of zeal in small matters is the cause of all our calamities; because slight errors escape fitting correction, greater ones creep in. As in the body a neglect of wounds generates fever, mortification, and death; so in the soul, slight evils overlooked open the door to graver ones. It is accounted a trivial fault that one man should neglect fasting; that another, who is established in the pure faith, should shrink from its bold profession, and be led by circumstances to dissemble; that a third should be irritated, and threaten to depart from the true faith, is excused on the plea of passion and resentment. Thus a thousand similar errors are daily introduced into the Church, which is divided into as many parties, and we are become a laughing-stock to Jews and Greeks. But if a proper rebuke had at first been given to those who attempted slight perversions, and a deflection from the Divine oracles, such a pestilence would not have been generated, nor such a storm have shaken the Church. You will now understand why Paul calls circumcision a perversion of the gospel. There are many of us now who fast on the same day as the Jews, and keep the Sabbaths in the same manner; and what shall I call our tolerance of this, noble or miserable? Again, many Gentile customs are observed by some among us; omens, auguries, presages, distinctions of days, a curious attention to the circumstances of their childrens birth, and, as soon as they are born, tablets with impious inscriptions placed upon their unhappy heads, thereby teaching them from the first to lay aside virtuous endeavours, and drawing them as much as possible under the false domination of fate. But if Christ profits nothing those that are circumcised, how shall faith hereafter avail to the salvation of those who have introduced such corruptions? (Chrysostom.)
The risks of revelation not such as to invalidate its accuracy
But as to the possibility of the mind of man being brought into practical working relations with external certainty, even at some distance in time and place, without claiming infallibility for the interpreter, we may refer to familiar facts, on a much lower plane, for a decisive illustration. At Greenwich Observatory there is an exact and absolutely certain knowledge of the true time of day. This certain knowledge of the time of day is made the basis of the safety and direction of the whole internal traffic of England, and of the direction of our whole navy, and vast commercial marine, on every sea. In the one case the time is transmitted from the infallible clock at Greenwich by telegraph, in the twinkling of an eye, to the extremities of the country, and all the railways sufficiently well set their time by that standard. In the other, the Nautical Almanac, a book-revelation, notwithstanding all the risks of printing, carries the results of the infallible science of Greenwich to sea in every craft that leaves our shores. There may be occasional and infinitesimal defects in the transmission of the time to London, Edinburgh, and Dublin. There may be occasional errors in the printing of the Nautical Almanac, and occasionally much ignorance and obtuseness in captains and lieutenants in taking observations of the sun and moon; whence errors in the working of the longitude and latitude, and awful catastrophes at sea. But surely no one would hence argue that the endeavour to enforce the infallible rule of Greenwich time upon railways and ship-masters was an interference with the liberties of modern intelligence, or in fact an endeavour which must needs practically fail, through the fallibility, or bad eyesight or arithmetic, of stationmasters and captains. No one would think of telling each such functionary that on the whole, since the use of an infallible authority would involve a claim to infallibility in the nautical observer, it was best for every one to make of the facts of nature what he could, and to guess the hour, each man according to his several ability. And if any of these people set up for rejectors of the message from Greenwich, or said that it required a commentary to make it a safe guide, they would be reckoned somewhat too intelligent for their situations. Now in this parable the Greenwich Observatory corresponds with the apostolic certainty in doctrinal teaching. There may be some risks in the transmission of its message. There may be errors in the attempt to interpret a book-revelation. But on the whole it is true that the apostolic certainty is effectually present, close at hand amongst us, and may be most correctly apprehended, no doubt in different degrees, by those who most simply and intelligently desire to receive its directions The difficulties resemble those which hinder the attainment of scientific certainty in nature. There are some risks in both cases. There are personal equations, as the astronomers say of each observers eye, to be eliminated; and the abstract difficulty might be made to appear enormous. But the parallel is complete between the laws of sound interpretation of nature and those of the sound interpretation of recorded revelation. And in neither case is it safe to throw overboard the standard of certainty, or to set up for free and independent investigators simply because of minor risks attending the effort to receive the Divine communications. The misfortune is, perhaps, that in religion there are so many more persons whose worldly interests, or intellectual twist, incline them not to see what the apostles wrote, than there are of station-masters and captains who do not desire to know the Greenwich time. (E. White.)
The unchangeable gospel
I take it that the gospel cannot be a changeable, variable, shifting gospel, a sort of sliding-scale gospel, because–
1. It is certain that man has not changed. Just to-day man is what he was in the days of Christ and the apostles.
2. I think nobody would have the hardihood to deny it–that truth in the very essence of it must always be the same. A fact, though it happened ten thousand years ago, is as much a fact as if it happened yesterday. Truth must be always the same. But there is a great advance made, says one. How? In the principles of things–in mathematical science, for instance. Certainly there are great masters of mathematics, and great advances have been made, but upon the principle that two and two are four, and twice three makes six, there has been no advance. A proposal for a new multiplication table would scarcely be entertained even in a board school. No; these fundamental principles stand the same, and so must the fundamental truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which are to all good mens thinking what these tables, these fixed facts in mathematics, are in all calculations. Truth must be the same. It cannot be altered; it is impossible.
3. The gospel is the same, because it was, and is, sufficient for all the purposes for which God sent it. What I mean is this, we want to give the people the gospel more by itself. There is a good story told of Caesar Malan. I should never forget my vision of that grave, reverend man, whom many at thief platform still remember. He was a man of strong idiosyncrasies, and of somewhat singular habits. Going once from Boulogne to Paris, he got into a coach; and he was no sooner seated, than he began reading out a chapter from the Bible. A Frenchman opposite strongly objected, and I think with some reason, as persons in public conveyances should remember that there are other people there. Caesar Malan, however, did not think of that, and he continued to read the chapter, and the Frenchman continued to object. He said he did not believe in the authority of the Bible, and that it was offensive to him to hear it read. At last Caesar Malans French deacon said, I think, dear pastor, that I differ from you about your doing this: this gentleman does not believe in the authority of the book, and you ought to prove to him its authority and then read it. Said he, If I was going out to fight and I bad my sword, and I met somebody on the other side, would you say, First prove that you have a sword before you fight? No; I will prove it is a sword. So he went on reading. He and his deacon supped together, and the waiter came in, and asked whether they were going on the next morning in the coach to Paris, because, he said, that the French gentleman who had ridden with them on the previous day was anxious to ride with Mr. Malan again. He afterwards became a communicant at Caesar Malans church, and was one of his best friends. It is the Word of God that does it–not our talking about Gods Word; it is the Word itself. Quote plenty of Scripture; put plenty of Divine words in. It is Gods Word, not mans comments on Gods Word, that saves souls. Furthermore, dear friends, we want no improved gospel, because there is nothing that requires that the gospel should be amended. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The mixture of truth and error dangerous
A friend of mine some time ago bought some coals; and as is natural to coals, having to deal with the earth, being earthy, there were some slates in them, and sitting in the drawing-room, the slates now and then exploded, somewhat to damage a persons eyes. Therefore he said to the coal merchant, My dear sir, the next lot of coals you sell me, would you mind selling me coals? I know, of course, that some bits of slate will get among them, and I am willing to take a fair proportion; but I should like to have the coals by themselves and the slates by themselves. That is precisely what I would have done with Holy Scripture. We will have so many books inspired–the coals–and so much marked off as being slates. It is a serious thing if you get a bit of slate into your common teaching, and your faith and daily life; you do not know what damage may be done by it. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Steadfast in the truth
There is a story told of Waterloo, that a certain regiment had been so set upon by the French that one of their officers wrote to the Duke and said they would be cut in pieces unless help was sent. All that the Duke said was Stand firm! and the officer galloped back with the order. Again the soldier said: It is all up with us, and we shall be destroyed; there are very few of us left even now. Again the officer went to the Duke, and again his order was Stand firm. They did stand finn and left their bodies on the place; but England was rid of the despot. Oh, sirs, the order to-day is, Be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The work of deception
I. Is easy.
II. Proceeds from a perversion of the truth.
III. Cannot escape punishment.
IV. Must be unsparingly exposed and condemned. (J. Lyth.)
The instability of many is
I. Matter of fact–they are easily swayed by false opinions and drawn away from God–through ignorance, pride, natural tendency to error.
II. Matter of surprise–we expect better things of those who have received the truth, because it is its own witness–it exposes and condemns error.
III. Matter of regret–it is to grieve God, who has called them; to forfeit the grace of Christ; to trust in another gospel which is not another. (J. Lyth.)
Another gospel
I. The pretensions of error.
II. The folly of them. (J. Lyth.)
Observe–
I. There is but one gospel; all others are delusions.
II. The gospel may be perverted by adding to, or taking from it; falsifying its meaning and application; converting it into a system of works or an occasion of license.
III. To pervert the gospel is to destroy it; it is no longer gospel–brings no salvation.
IV. Such perversion brings trouble–to the Church, to the individual. (J. Lyth.)
The perversion of the gospel is
I. Common.
II. Mischievous.
III. Foolish, because wicked; fatal. (J. Lyth.)
Soul troublers
Religious errors are soul troublers. Like the mystic star of the Apocalypse, which, falling into the waters, turned the peaceful element into turbulence and blood, they stir up the Church into distressing agitations. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
The gospel of Christ
What is meant by this?
(1) The gospel which speaks of Christ;
(2) the gospel which was delivered by Christ; or
(3) the gospel that belongs to Christ?
(4) Does it not combine all these meanings? (Bishop Lightfoot.)
The gospel is the Word of God: Christ is the Word of God. He is the Word containing all words. You need not go to a theologian to learn that religion should be called a gospel: go into the streets; do you not see in wretched faces that a gospel is wanted–good news from God? (T. T. Lynch.)
Perverting the gospel
If, at the tent door, the Arab offers to the thirsty passer-by a cup of water, clear, cool, and sparkling in the cup, but in which he has cleverly concealed a painful and deadly poison, he would deserve and receive the anathema of all honest men. Much more terrible shall be the doom of him who, pretending friendship with the souls of men, and offering them in their need, instead of the pure water of life the deadly, poison of false doctrine, shall bring down upon himself the righteous and unerring anathema of God. (R. Brewin.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 6. I marvel that ye are so soon removed] It was a matter of wonder to the apostle that a people, so soundly converted to God, should have so soon made shipwreck of their faith. But mutability itself has not a more apt subject to work upon than the human heart; the alternate workings of different passions are continually either changing the character, or giving it a different colouring. Reason, not passion, the word of God, not the sayings of men, should alone be consulted in the concerns of our salvation.
From him that called you] The apostle seems here to mean himself. HE called them into the grace of Christ; and they not only abandoned that grace, but their hearts became greatly estranged from him; so that, though at first they would have plucked out their eyes for him, they at last counted him their enemy, Ga 4:14-16.
Another gospel] It is certain that in the very earliest ages of the Christian Church there were several spurious gospels in circulation, and it was the multitude of these false or inaccurate relations that induced St. Luke to write his own. See Lu 1:1. We have the names of more than seventy of these spurious narratives still on record, and in ancient writers many fragments of them remain; these have been collected and published by Fabricius, in his account of the apocryphal books of the New Testament, 3 vols. 8vo. In some of these gospels, the necessity of circumcision, and subjection to the Mosaic law in unity with the Gospel, were strongly inculcated. And to one of these the apostle seems to refer.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The apostle here beginneth the matter and substance of his Epistle, with a reprehension of this church; which in, some things is much qualified, in other things much aggravated. His expressing his reproof by the word marvel, hath in it something of mitigation, and signifieth his better hopes concerning them. The term removed, also, mollifies the reproof, the apostle thereby rather charging their apostacy upon their seducers, than upon them who were seduced; though they were not to be excused for their so yielding to the temptation, and that in so short a time, either after their first conversion, or after the first attempts upon them to seduce them; and herein was the aggravation of their guilt, that they very little resisted the temptation, but were presently overthrown by it. But it was a greater aggravation of their guilt, that they suffered themselves to be removed from him that called them. Interpreters doubt whether this be to be understood of God, or of Paul; and if of God, whether of the First or of the Second Person. That which inclineth some to think that Paul meant himself, was his instrumentality in the conversion of these Galatians; and his complaints of them in this Epistle, for their deserting his doctrine, and alienation from him; but then the substantive to the participle must be understood, and the call must be understood of the external call only, by the ministry of the word. It therefore seemeth rather to be understood of God; the apostles generally ascribing calling to God, Gal 5:8; 1Th 5:24; 2Th 2:14; 1Pe 1:2,15; 2Pe 1:3. Nor doth it seem proper to refer the action to Christ, because the apostles ordinarily ascribe calling to the First Person in the Trinity, calling us by Christ, as Rom 8:30; 2Th 2:13,14,16; 2Ti 1:9; 1Pe 5:10; besides, the grace of Christ is here made the term to which they are called. And though this would supply the participle with a substantive in the text, without understanding one, yet it seems both too remote, and also to alter the sense of the text; making it to run thus, from Christ that called you unto grace, instead of
him that called you into the grace of Christ. By which grace the apostle doubtless means not the doctrine of the gospel only, (though that be sometimes called grace), but all the benefits of the gospel, justification, reconciliation, adoption; which are all properly called the grace of Christ, as being the purchase of his blood.
Unto another gospel; that is, to the embracing of other doctrine, differing from the doctrine of the gospel, though it be brought to you by seducers under that notion; showing you another pretended way of salvation than by the merits of Jesus Christ, whereas God hath given no other name under heaven, neither is there salvation in any other, Act 4:12.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
6. Without the usual expressionsof thanksgiving for their faith, c., he vehemently plunges into hissubject, zealous for “the glory” of God (Ga1:5), which was being disparaged by the Galatians falling awayfrom the pure Gospel of the “grace” of God.
I marvelimplying thathe had hoped better things from them, whence his sorrowful surpriseat their turning out so different from his expectations.
so soonafter my lastvisit when I hoped and thought you were untainted by the Judaizingteachers. If this Epistle was written from Corinth, the intervalwould be a little more than three years, which would be “soon”to have fallen away, if they were apparently sound at the time of hisvisit. Gal 4:18; Gal 4:20may imply that he saw no symptom of unsoundness then, such ashe hears of in them now. But English Version isprobably not correct there. See see on Ga4:18; Ga 4:20; also seeIntroduction. If from Ephesus, theinterval would be not more than one year. BIRKSholds the Epistle to have been written from Corinth after his FIRSTvisit to Galatia; for this agrees best with the “so soon”here: with Ga 4:18, “It isgood to be zealously affected always in a good thing, and not onlywhen I am present with you.” If they had persevered in the faithduring three years of his first absence, and only turned aside afterhis second visit, they could not be charged justly with adhering tothe truth only when he was present: for his first absence was longerthan both his visits, and they would have obeyed longer in his”absence” than in his “presence.“But if their decline had begun immediately after he left them, andbefore his return to them, the reproof will be just. But see on Ga4:13.
removedTranslate, “arebeing removed,” that is, ye are suffering yourselves so soon(whether from the time of my last visit, or from the time of thefirst temptation held out to you) [PARUS]to be removed by Jewish seducers. Thus he softens the censureby implying that the Galatians were tempted by seducers from without,with whom the chief guilt lay: and the present, “ye are beingremoved,” implies that their seduction was only in process ofbeing effected, not that it was actually effected. WAHL,ALFORD, and others takethe Greek as middle voice. “ye are removing” or”passing over.” “Shifting your ground” [CONYBEAREand HOWSON]. But thus thepoint of Paul’s oblique reference to their misleaders is lost; and inHeb 7:12 the Greek isused passively, justifying its being taken so here. On theimpulsiveness and fickleness of the Gauls (another form of Kel-t-s,the progenitors of the Erse, Gauls, Cymri, and Belgians), whence theGalatians sprang, see Introductionand CSAR [Commentarieson the Gallic War, 3.19].
from him that called youGodthe Father (Gal 1:15; Gal 5:8;Rom 8:30; 1Co 1:9;1Th 2:12; 1Th 5:24).
intorather, as Greek,“IN the grace ofChrist,” as the element in which, and the instrumentby which, God calls us to salvation. Compare Note, see on1Co 7:15; Ro5:15, “the gift by (Greek, ‘in’) grace (Greek,‘the grace‘) of (the) one man.” “The grace ofChrist,” is Christ’s gratuitously purchased and bestowedjustification, reconciliation, and eternal life.
anotherrather, asGreek, “a second and different gospel,” thatis, into a so-called gospel, different altogether from theonly true Gospel.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
I marvel that ye are so soon removed,…. The apostle now enters on the subject matter of this epistle, and opens the occasion and design of it, which were to reprove the Galatians for their instability in the Gospel; and, if possible, to reclaim them, who were removed, or removing from the simplicity of it; and which was very surprising to the apostle, who had entertained a good opinion of them, looked upon them as persons called by the grace of God, well established in the doctrines of the Gospel, and in no danger of being carried away with the error of the wicked the person from whom he says they were removed is,
from him that called you into the grace of Christ; by whom is meant, not the apostle himself, who had been an instrument in the calling of them to the knowledge of Christ, and the participation of his grace, and from whose Gospel, or the Gospel as preached by him, in its clearness and purity, they were now departing; but either Christ, and so the Syriac and Arabic versions read the words, “from Christ who called you by own grace”; or rather God the Father, and some copies read, “into”, or “by the grace of God”: to whom calling is most commonly ascribed in the sacred writings: and which is to be understood, not of a ministerial call, or a call to preach the Gospel of Christ; though there might be some in these churches who were called both internally and externally to that sacred office; nor a mere outward call by the ministry: for though doubtless there might be some among them who were only so called, yet as much as they were under profession of Christ, and nothing appearing to the contrary, they were all in a judgment of charity looked upon as effectually called by the grace of God; which calling is here meant: for they were called “into the grace of Christ”; some read it, “in”, or “by the grace of Christ”: referring it either to the moving cause of calling, which is not the works and merits of men, but the free grace and favour of God in Christ; or to the efficient cause of it, which is not the power and will of man, but the efficacious grace of Christ, through the powerful operations of his Spirit: but the words are well rendered, “into the grace of Christ”; that is, to the enjoyment of the fulness of grace which is in Christ; of all the blessings of grace he has in his hands; such as justification, peace, pardon, atonement, wisdom, strength, joy, comfort, and every supply of grace; and particularly fellowship with him, into which the saints are called, and than which nothing is more desirable: but the difficulty is, how such persons can be said to be removed from God, who has thus called them to partake of grace in Christ. They are not, nor can they be removed from the everlasting and unchangeable love of God to them in Christ, of which their calling is a fruit, effect, and evidence; nor from their covenant interest in him, which is immovable and inviolable; nor from a state of justification, in which they openly are, who in the effectual calling have passed from death to life, and so shall never enter into condemnation; nor from the family and household of God, in which they are; no, nor from the grace of calling with which they are called by God, and which has eternal salvation inseparably connected with it; but this must be understood doctrinally of their removal from the Gospel of Christ, though not of a total and final one. It is observed by some, that the word used is in the present tense, and shows that they were not gone off from the Gospel, but were upon going, so that the apostle had some hopes, yea, confidence of their being restored, Ga 5:10. And besides, though such as are truly called by grace cannot be finally and totally deceived by false prophets and false teachers, yet they may be greatly unhinged by them, and may fall from some degree of steadfastness in the doctrine of faith, which was the case of these Galatians: but what increased the apostle’s surprise, and aggravated their sin and weakness, was, that they were “so soon” removed from the simplicity of the Gospel; he having been with them but a few years before, and preached the Gospel to them, which the means of their conversion, and of planting churches among them; at least he had lately paid them a visit, when he afresh strengthened them in the faith of the Gospel, Ac 18:23. Or this may regard that easiness of mind which appeared in them, who upon the first attack of them by the false teachers, were weakly and cowardly giving up their faith, and at once giving into the notions of these men, as soon as they were proposed unto them. That which they are said to be removed
unto is
another Gospel, different from that, and very unlike to what had been preached to them, and they had received; which had nothing of the grace of Christ, of the doctrines and blessings of grace that had, by which they were called; very different from the Gospel of Christ, and his apostles, insomuch that it did not deserve the name of a Gospel; and the apostle calls it so, not that he thought it to be one, but because it was in the opinion of others, and was so styled by the false apostles; wherefore, by way of concession, he so calls it, though he immediately corrects it.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| The Apostle’s Concern at Their Defection. | A. D. 56. |
6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: 7 Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. 9 As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.
Here the apostle comes to the body of the epistle; and he begins it with a more general reproof of these churches for their unsteadiness in the faith, which he afterwards, in some following parts of it, enlarges more upon. Here we may observe,
I. How much he was concerned at their defection: I marvel, c. It filled him at once with the greatest surprise and sorrow. Their sin and folly were that they did not hold fast the doctrine of Christianity as it had been preached to them, but suffered themselves to be removed from the purity and simplicity of it. And there were several things by which their defection was greatly aggravated as, 1. That they were removed from him that had called them; not only from the apostle, who had been the instrument of calling them into the fellowship of the gospel, but from God himself, by whose order and direction the gospel was preached to them, and they were invited to a participation of the privileges of it: so that herein they had been guilty of a great abuse of his kindness and mercy towards them. 2. That they had been called into the grace of Christ. As the gospel which had been preached to them was the most glorious discovery of divine grace and mercy in Christ Jesus; so thereby they had been called to partake of the greatest blessings and benefits, such as justification, and reconciliation with God here, and eternal life and happiness hereafter. These our Lord Jesus has purchased for us at the expense of his precious blood, and freely bestows upon all who sincerely accept of him: and therefore, in proportion to the greatness of the privilege they enjoyed, such were their sin and folly in deserting it and suffering themselves to be drawn off from the established way of obtaining these blessings. 3. That they were so soon removed. In a very little time they lost that relish and esteem of this grace of Christ which they seemed to have, and too easily fell in with those who taught justification by the works of the law, as many did, who had been bred up in the opinions and notions of the Pharisees, which they mingled with the doctrine of Christ, and so corrupted it; and this, as it was an instance of their weakness, so it was a further aggravation of their guilt. 4. That they were removed to another gospel, which yet was not another. Thus the apostle represents the doctrine of these judaizing teachers; he calls it another gospel, because it opened a different way of justification and salvation from that which was revealed in the gospel, namely, by works, and not by faith in Christ. And yet he adds, “Which is not another–you will find it to be no gospel at all–not really another gospel, but the perverting of the gospel of Christ, and the overturning of the foundations of that”–whereby he intimates that those who go about to establish any other way to heaven than what the gospel of Christ has revealed are guilty of a gross perversion of it, and in the issue will find themselves wretchedly mistaken. Thus the apostle endeavours to impress upon these Galatians a due sense of their guilt in forsaking the gospel way of justification; and yet at the same time he tempers his reproof with mildness and tenderness towards them, and represents them as rather drawn into it by the arts and industry of some that troubled them than as coming into it of their own accord, which, though it did not excuse them, yet was some extenuation of their fault. And hereby he teaches us that, in reproving others, as we should be faithful, so we should also be gentle, and endeavour to restore them in the spirit of meekness, ch. vi. 1.
II. How confident he was that the gospel he had preached to them was the only true gospel. He was so fully persuaded of this that he pronounced an anathema upon those who pretended to preach any other gospel (v. 8), and, to let them see that this did not proceed from any rashness or intemperate zeal in him, he repeated it, v. 9. This will not justify our thundering out anathemas against those who differ from us in minor things. It is only against those who forge a new gospel, who overturn the foundation of the covenant of grace, by setting up the works of the law in the place of Christ’s righteousness, and corrupting Christianity with Judaism, that Paul denounces this. He puts the case: “Suppose we should preach any other gospel; nay, suppose an angel from heaven should:” not as if it were possible for an angel from heaven to be the messenger of a lie; but it is expressed so the more to strengthen what he was about to say. “If you have any other gospel preached to you by any other person, under our name, or under colour of having it from an angel himself, you must conclude that you are imposed upon: and whoever preaches another gospel lays himself under a curse, and is in danger of laying you under it too.”
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Ye are so quickly removing ( ). The present middle indicative of , to change places, to transfer. “You are transferring yourselves” and doing it “so quickly” either from the time of their conversion or most likely from the time when the Judaizers came and tempted them. So easily some of them are falling victims to these perverters of the gospel. That is a continuous amazement () to Paul and to men today that so many are so silly and so gullible to modern as to ancient charlatans.
Unto a different gospel ( ). See on 2Co 11:4 for distinction between and as here. It is not here or there a mere difference in emphasis or spirit as in Php 1:18 so long as Christ is preached. These men as in 2Co 11:4 preach “another Jesus” and a “different gospel” and so have fallen away from grace and have done away with Christ (Ga 5:4). Hence the vehemence of Paul’s words.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
I marvel [] . Often by Greek orators of surprise as something reprehensible. So in New Testament Mr 6:6; Joh 7:21; Luk 11:38; Joh 4:27.
So soon [ ] . Better, so quickly. Paul does not mean so soon after a particular event, as their conversion, or his last visit, or the entry of the false teachers, – but refers to the rapidity of their apostasy; tacewv being used absolutely as always.
Removed [] . A. V. misses the sense of the middle voice, removing or transferring yourselves, and also the force of the continuous present, are removing or going over, indicating an apostasy not consummated but in progress. The verb is used in Class. of altering a treaty, changing an opinion, desertion from an army. For other applications see Act 7:16; Heb 7:12; Heb 11:5. Comp. LXX, Deu 27:17; Pro 23:10; Isa 29:17. Lightfoot renders are turning renegades.
Him that called [ ] . God. Not neuter and referring to the gospel. Calling, in the writings of the apostles, is habitually represented as God ‘s work. See Rom 8:30; Rom 9:11; 1Co 1:9; Gal 1:15; 1Th 2:12; 1Pe 1:15; 1Pe 2:9; 2Pe 1:3.
Into the grace [ ] . Into is wrong. It should be by.
Another gospel [] . Rather a different, another sort of gospel. See Mt 6:24; Luk 16:7; Luk 18:10. In illustration of the differences between allov another and eterov different, see 1Co 12:8 – 10; 1Co 14:40; 2Co 11:4; Rom 8:23.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
FICKLENESS – OCCASION FOR THE LETTER
1) “I marvel that ye are so soon removed,” (thaumazo hoti houtos tacheos metatithesthe) “I wonder, marvel, that you all are so rapidly removing, drifting,” and so soon after their conversion and his recent visit. The shocking, sharp expression indicates an almost disillusion, Paul had in their fickle turn or drift toward Judaism, as in 2Th 2:2.
2) “From him that called you into the grace of Christ,” (apo tou kalesantos humas en Chariti Christou) “From the one who called you by (the grace of Christ; The Galatians were giving ear to religious renegades, a drift that caused Paul alarm, though he had not lost faith in their personal loyalty or general soundness in the faith, Gal 4:11; Gal 4:20; Gal 5:9-10.
3) “Unto another gospel,” (eis heteron euangellion)”with reference to, or with regard toward another kind (of) gospel.” The (Gk. heteros) “another” gospel distinguishes it as a spurious, putrid one, in contrast and conflict with the gospel of Christ, Rom 1:16; 1Co 15:1-3.
Any gospel that mingles law, (ceremonials and rituals) with grace, as a means of acquiring or retaining justification, sanctification, or salvation is “another gospel.” The proclaimer (Preacher) of such is still under the curse (anathema) of God! Gal 1:8-9. Ceremonials and rituals and pictorial ordinances of Christ no more impart grace in obtaining or retaining salvation than did those of the Law. Those who preach that they to are under God’s anathema of preaching “another gospel today,” by perverting the gospel of Christ, Act 10:43; 2Jn 1:8-11; Rom 4:5; Eph 2:8-9; Rom 11:6.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
6. I wonder. He commences by administering a rebuke, though a somewhat milder one than they deserved; but his greatest severity of language is directed, as we shall see, against the false apostles. He charges them with turning aside, not only from his gospel, but from Christ; for it was impossible for them to retain their attachment to Christ, without acknowledging that he has graciously delivered us from the bondage of the law. But such a belief cannot be reconciled with those notions respecting the obligation of ceremonial observance which the false apostles inculcated. They were removed from Christ; not that they entirely rejected Christianity, but that the corruption of their doctrines was such as to leave them nothing more than an imaginary Christ.
Thus, in our own times, the Papists, choosing to have a divided and mangled Christ, have none, and are therefore “removed from Christ.” They are full of superstitions, which are directly at variance with the nature of Christ. Let it be carefully observed, that we are removed from Christ, when we fall into those views which are inconsistent with his mediatorial office; for light can have no fellowship with darkness.
On the same principle, he calls it another gospel, that is, a gospel different from the true one. And yet the false apostles professed that they preached the gospel of Christ; but, mingling with it their own inventions, (19) by which its principal efficacy was destroyed, they held a false, corrupt, and spurious gospel. By using the present tense, (“ye are removed”) he appears to say that they were only in the act of failing. As if he had said, “I do not yet say that ye have been removed; for then it would be more difficult to return to the right path. But now, at the critical moment, do not advance a single step, but instantly retreat.”
From Christ, who called you by grace. Others read it, “from him who called you by the grace of Christ,” understanding it to refer to the Father; but the reading which we have followed is more simple. When he says that they were called by Christ through grace, this tends to heighten the criminality of their ingratitude. To revolt from the Son of God under any circumstances, is unworthy and disgraceful; but to revolt from him, after being invited to partake salvation by grace, is more eminently base. His goodness to us renders our ingratitude to him more dreadfully heinous.
So soon. When it is considered how soon they had discovered a want of steadfastness, their guilt is still further heightened. A proper season, indeed, for departing from Christ cannot be imagined. But the fact, that no sooner had Paul left them than the Galatians were led away from the truth, inferred still deeper blame. As the consideration of the grace by which they had been called was adduced to aggravate their ingratitude, so the circumstance of the time when they were removed is now adduced to aggravate their levity.
(19) “ Leurs songes et inventions.” “Their dreams and inventions.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
THEOLOGICAL LIBERTY VS. THE LICENSE OF INFIDELITY
Gal 1:6-9
(Address before the Baptist Bible Union of North America, Milwaukee, Wis., May 27th, 1924. W. B. Riley.)
EVANGELICAL Christianity is passing through one of those spasms of doubt to which the Church of God has been subject since its birth. It is doubtful if past convulsions, including Socinianism, Arianism, Deism and Unitarianism, have in any case been more hurtful or even so threatening than is that fit of rationalism by which we are now diseased and distracted.
It is a good time to remember our Lords promise to His Church, The gates of hell shall not prevail against it, and yet to administer such corrective measures as may give promise of producing normalcy of faith.
Modern critics have increasingly repudiated and flung away the great cardinal doctrines, such as the inerrancy of the Scriptures, the personality and trinity of the God-head, the sinfulness of man and the necessity of an atoning Saviour, the Deity of Christ and its attending doctrines of the Ascension and Return; but many of these same modernists have majored upon liberty of conscience as the single remaining tenet in the new interpretation of Christianity.
The inanity of their arguments against the cardinal doctrines has been shown again and again, and it now seems a necessity to uncover their illogical, yea, their indefensible theories of personal liberty in matters of faith, by showing how that doctrine rapidly degenerates into the license of infidelity.
THE LIBERTIES OF FAITH
That there are certain liberties to be maintained in the matter of belief, is beyond dispute. In this as in all other points of real progress Christ Himself is our exemplar. He was not held by the mere traditions of man, nor bound by their blundering interpretations of Scripture. More than once He said, Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, * * but I say unto you, a remark followed by no discarding of Scripture, but by a higher and more meaningful interpretation of the same. Paul, easily His chief Apostle, claims a kindred right and resents the bringing in of false brethren privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus. But it is very important to discover what that liberty is and to what extent independence and freedom of thought can be defended or even tolerated.
Speaking from the standpoint of the Christian Scriptures, three things seem fairly clear. It is the liberty of believing what is written in the Law and the Prophets; the liberty of seeing in Christ the significance of symbol and ceremony, and the liberty of accepting and propagating all demonstrated truth.
The liberty of believing what is written in the Law and the Prophets. The Law and the Prophets constituted the Bible in our Lords day, but the men of that time, like modernists, were not content either with the content or extent of the Law and the Prophets. There were some things in the Law and the Prophets that they did not like, and they sought to tear them out. There were other things in the Law and the Prophets that they wanted and at their pleasure they wrote them in, so that by their traditions they made void the Word. From the beginning, Christ believed the Book and to the end of His days He taught the same, and it was the failure to believe all that was written in the Law and the Prophets that on the way to Emmaus He excoriated (Luk 24:25). It was by an appeal to the Law and the Prophets that He explained Himself (Luk 24:27) and by an appeal to the same that He demonstrated the meaning of His resurrection and the Gospel ministry of repentance and remission of sins (Luk 24:44-47).
The Psalmist said I will walk at liberty: for I seek Thy Precepts. Paul and his apostolic brethren seem to have found all needful personal liberties within the limitations of the same. There are few Books of the Bible so doctrinal and polemical as Romans, Corinthians and Galatians, and yet a careful study of those three Pauline Epistles will impress one with It is written, it is written, it is writtenthat phrase repeated thirty-four times. The battle of the New Testament Church was that of extricating an inspired and recorded Scripture from the heaps of human tradition, and established but uninspired custom. Those who had so lumbered the Word of God had doubtless done the same in the name of interpretation and at this moment Modernism is endangering the true liberty of every believer after a kindred manner.
Every man has a right to independent thought, but he who thinks above that which is written, apart from that which is revealed, is using his liberty for an occasion to the flesh and comes under the condemnation of the Scriptures.
Again, Christ and His Apostles exercised the liberty of seeing the true significance of symbol and ceremony. The Judaized were incapable of interpreting the Sabbath beyond the statement, in it thou shalt not do any work, and consequently condemned Christ for healing on that day, not seeing that He was Lord of the Sabbath. When His disciples, being hungry, plucked the corn on the Sabbath Day, they gave demonstration of the same incapacity to distinguish between symbol and substance. Neither Christ nor His Apostles abrogated the Sabbath, nor did they essentially disregard it, but rather sensibly and spiritually interpreted it. That is a liberty not to be denied to any saint.
Some of us believe baptism to be an immersion in water of a believer, but we have no notion that the ordinance is a saving one, or that the act is significant save to those who see its great object lesson, death to sin, burial with Christ, and resurrection to walk in newness of life with Him. Even greater revelations, divinely right in themselves, are made wrong by misunderstanding, by mean and paltry interpretation. Literalism may, and sometimes does, stand for littleness, and liberty in interpretation is not littleness in understanding.
I confess frankly that while I believe profoundly in the Baptist view of the ordinances so far as their physical form is concerned, I have no patience whatever with those individuals in our denomination who see only damnation for every man disobedient in that outward expression and every woman who mistakenly supposes she is to be utterly loyal to the second ordinance, The Lords Supper, but may treat with neglect the first, baptism. Disobedience to Gods plain Word is never a minor offense, but a thousand times better change even the form of a ceremony than to lose its significance. The man who practices Biblical baptism but denies the necessity of regeneration is far less a Christian than the man who accepts some human substitute for the ceremony but retains the spiritual intent and significance of the plain command.
Increasingly we are sympathetic with that Denver pastor who said, In my early life I was terribly worried to know what God would do with the pious unbaptized. In later years I am even more deeply concerned to know what He can do with the impious baptized. But the great fact remains, that we should retain and study the symbol in order to see clearly the thing signified, and with Christ and His Apostles, defend the latter in the light of the former. Ye are My friends if ye do whatsoever I have commanded you, and He might have added, You are My intelligent friends and My efficient friends if you see the objective of the performance and move through the symbol to the thing signified.
Once more, we are to exercise the liberty of accepting and propagating all demonstrated truth. When Christ said, Ye shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free, He was probably thinking of the Bible alone, for it was Christ who later said of Gods Book, Thy Word is Truth. To this hour it is doubtful if there is any fundamental or necessary truth that cannot be found within its sacred pages, and found there in more perfect form than human ingenuity will ever phrase it. If one would know the truth of history, read the Bible. If he would know the steps of creation and the law of succession, read the Bible. If he would make himself acquainted with sound philosophy, read the Bible. If he would discover the supreme sociology, look into the Scriptures. The remark applies to practically every known science.
But to allay the modernists fears lest we become bibliolaters, making Gods Book a fetish for our affections, and finding in it the only writings of interest, let us hasten to remark that we stand for utter academic freedom and feel an unwavering confidence that any truth and all truth is profitable. Orthodoxy has ever been the patron of learning, the defender of intellectual freedom, and the advocate of progress. Our refusal to cackle with every discoverer of dinosaur eggs ten million years old, or to enthuse over science falsely so-called has led some men to name us ignoramuses, call us reactionaries, and warn against us as light extinguishers, but is it not well to recall that the Christ of the Fundamentalists is to this hour the Light of the world; the Christianity of the Bible to this blessed moment the worlds most advanced religion, and the loyal devotees of the divinely inspired Book known as the Bible remain until now the pioneers in truth seeking and the patron saints of established science? But mark you, we say science, not speculation, not theory, nor guess, not philosophical imaginings, but demonstrated truth! Within that realm we applaud the unlimited privilege of accepting and propagating!
Science is as sacred as Scripturein fact as sacred as God, since both Scripture and Science are emanations of His Spirit. The truth in any realm and in all realms is desirable. It should be assiduously sought and when found, widely proclaimed. Such liberty no sane man will ever seek to restrict, but let us clearly understand the
LIMITATIONS OF THEOLOGY
Nothing could be more unjustifiable than that modernist definition of the task of theology as the attempt to think over our religious inheritance in the light of our present problems so as to formulate for today and to transmit to the coming generation an expression of faith vitally related to our actual life. The task of theology is to tell men the truth about God. If that be not true, then language loses its meaning and Greek roots convey no message. Theology, instead of being under the necessity of adjusting itself to the ever-changing experiences of men, is a fixed science, far more unchangeable than the science of astronomy. Sometimes a star wanders, but in the truth about God there is no possible variation.
This leads me to make three remarks.
The Christian believer is limited to a single name as Saviour. There is none other name under Heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved (Act 4:12). To those students who have made themselves familiar with the history of pretended Christs, or even of divinely (?) begotten sons of women, Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdicks declaration of kindred claims akin to those made for Jesus of Nazareth is nothing short of sacrilege. The absurdity of his argument was clearly revealed in the rejoinder by the venerable and scholarly Dr. Bates. He named the father and proved the human origin of every one of them and left our Christ the solitary non-contested son of God! Consequently when any man denies the Deity of Jesus Christ, he exceeds the limitations of a sound theology and puts himself outside the pale of the Christian profession, no matter what church membership he may hold, or what braggart claims of evangelical views he may boast.
Theodore Parker, when he remarked, It is absurd to maintain that Christ entertained no theological errors in matters of importance, treated all Biblical theology with contempt, and when he denied to Christ supernaturalism, did so deliberately understanding that he was thereby assaulting the citadel of Christianity itself, and when a Modernist tells us that no authority is to be given to the teachings of Jesus Christ beyond what every mans own mind or heart or conscience can give him he is not only tearing the crown of Deity from the brow of our Lord but deliberately doing so to place the same upon himself! And when the same modernist further says that in displacing Christ from the eminence given Him by the church we see only another idol shattered, he approaches perilously near that blasphemy of the Spirit which is pronounced unpardonable in this life or in the life to come!
It is little wonder indeed that such teaching has finally eventuated in an open break with the infallibility of the Book, and finds voice in sneers and slurs against the very term theology.
That capable scholar and facile writer, Samuel J. Andrews, in Christianity and Anti-Christianity justly remarks, That heathen enemies should have said like things in the first days of the church does not surprise us, but that these things should be said in Christendom after so many centuries by learned and accomplished scholars, and have been welcomed by many thousands of all classes, high and low, shows the workings of a spirit of hostility to Christ which, like a smouldering fire, is getting ready to burst into a fierce flame. But when did such flames of opposition, een though they reach the white heat of persecution, do else than drive believers back to Jesus of Nazareth as the solitary Saviour, and result in the centralization of all hope for the soul, the church and even for the world, in and upon Him?
Man may wander at his will in philosophy, but not in Biblical theology. There his bounds are fixed, forever settled in Heaven. In that Christ Jesus is the one only and sufficient Saviour, the Christian believer is limited to a single way of salvation. It is the way of grace, for by grace are ye saved. All other ways of salvation are but blind alleys. Paul, the Christian theologian of all the centuries, nearly two thousand years since sought by all the power of an inspired pen to put that fact clearly before us. Writing to the Galatians, he said,
I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some who trouble you, and would pervert the Gospel of Christ.
But though we, or an angel from Heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him he accursed.
As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed (Gal 1:6-9).
In the light of such a Scripture what shall we think and what can we say of those modernists who strike at the heart of grace itself, the vicarious atonement, and who hold the sacrificial idea to scorn subjecting the same to caricature and vilification? These are the men who would displace the Gospel by a Marxian socialism; who would substitute for inspired Scripture the philosophy of a Kant, or the psychology of a Ross or the superficial pratings of a Burch and Patterson. If the present generation continues to be taught by such superficial and anti-Christian teachers as now so often disgrace that noble profession, and by such shallow naturalistic and Bolshevistic textbooks as are now in use in State universities and increasingly imposed upon High Schools and even the grades, the highway of holiness will be blotted out, and the very path to righteousness and Heaven will become weed-grown and forgotten! Shall the Christian believer consent to such a procedure? Not unless he too is smitten with a deadly flu of unfaith, or with that even more destructive black death of indifference.
And yet again, the Christian believer is limited to a single book as a revelation. That book is the Bible, the Book of which Joseph Parker, author of The Peoples Bible, so eloquently wrote under the justified title None Like It; the Book which when compared with all other books, like its incarnate expression, Christ, is not only without competitor, but without kinship; the Book that, like its Master, speaks as never man spake and does the works that never other writing wrought.
A modernist dares to remark, We must be making our own religion, but logical lengths of modernism are now being reached by those who say, We must make our own revelation. Years since Dean Farrar, Dr. Horton and Marcus Dodds proposed a Bible for children and families, founded on the theories and alleged discoveries of the higher criticism. Prof. Kent tried his hand in abbreviating Gods Word and changing it at the point where Prophet and Apostle had so evidently made mistake, and leaving out those portions where the Master Himself slipped in memory and voiced Judaized impressions. Chicago University cannot afford to be behind Yale at any point, so one of its professors has taken the New Testament in hand to train it to modernistic molds. It is time for the Universalists to speak next and tell us the content of their Bible, and then for Unitarians to reduce and redact Divine Revelation a bit further, and finally for Van Loon and Wells to complete the job and give to the world an entirely new product but by the good old, and greatly honored name, the Bible! Who will say there are limitations in theology?
As Dr. Franklin Johnson once wrote, Suppose the Bible does teach that the human race once fell from a state of innocency, what of that? The Trinity, what of that? The substitutionary atonement, what matters it? The Second Coming of Christ in visible personal form, what of that?
Higher critics, recognizing no central or supreme source of authority, smilingly sweep it all aside, yet, strangely enough, turn about and in the next breath pay glowing tribute to the grand old Book as a most worth-while volume, all of which gives pith and point to his further comment, What a fall! In 1869 I saw the Emperor Napoleon III. He was at the summit of his career, a confident, strong and regal figure. Beside him sat Eugenie, fair as a lily and as little concerned for the future. A few months later he was hurled from his lofty station and shut up in captivity. He was still worth while, but the great world had ceased to care for him. That is the change higher criticism, where it is accepted, makes in the position of the Bible, whose robe of royalty it declares to be full of rents and stains, whose throne it overturns and whose sceptre it gives to the human soul, leaving it indeed worth-while but discrowned.
Is this the Bible of the believer? In Gods name, is this rag of a remnant the only revelation left to Baptists? We spit defiance in the face of such a suggestion and remind our auditors that it is as true today as when the poet wrote:
A glory gilds the Sacred pageMajestic like the sun,It gives a light to every age,It gives, but borrows none.
The hand that gave it, still suppliesThe gracious light and heat,Its truths upon the nations rise,They rise but never set.
That is the Book which every true Baptist believes and every true Baptist stands ready to declare, We hold it truth without any admixture of error, the only complete and final revelation of the will of God to man; the true center of Christian union and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds and opinions should be tried. It is this ignoring of the limitations of theology that has resulted in the
LICENSE OF INFIDELITY
It is that degeneracy from the liberty of believing in what was written in the Law and in the Prophets to the license of infidelity concerning the same, that has rent the modern church, dividing her membership into hostile camps and bringing on a war that for bitterness, suffering and far-reaching destruction will greatly exceed that which swept the world from 19141918. Every good student knows the forms in which that license has found expression.
It is the license of infidelity to substitute reason for revelation. Before the rise of Romanism, the recognition of Bible authority made for unanimity, power and conquest for the true Church of God, and when at last Roman errors forced a revolution on this matter of where authority lay, every Protestant body that ever came to power put itself on record as believing that that authority was in and with the Book Divine!
The French Confession said, We believe that the word contained in these books has proceeded from God. It is not lawful for men nor even for angels to add to it, to take away from it, nor even to change it.
The Belgic Confession declared, We believe that the Holy Scriptures fully contain the will of God and that whatsoever men ought to believe unto salvation is sufficiently contained therein.
The Westminster Confession asserted, The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, mans salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced therefrom, unto which nothing at any time is to be added.
The Church of England said, The Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man. The Congregationalists said, Like our Pilgrim fathers, we acknowledge no rule of faith but the Word of God, and declare our adherence to the faith and order of the apostolic and primitive churches.
The Baptists have never, unless it be now, stood elsewhere than on this ground, We believe that the Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is a perfect treasure of heavenly instruction; that it has God for its Author; salvation for its end and truth without any admixture of error for its matter.
If you please, even the Methodists, all their present unbelieving bishops to the contrary notwithstanding, and with all their shallow, superficial higher criticism, lack the temerity to attempt even to change their declaration that The Holy Scriptures contain all the things necessary to salvation, so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man. Tell me that men can depart from these teachings and yet remain in the denominations named 1 Tell me that foreign mission universities looking to Baptist support, can tear this position to tatters and yet be defended as evangelical! Tell me that men who hold in no respect whatever this uniform judgment of revelation may nevertheless sit in the council halls of rulership and pass out to independent Baptist churches decrees that must be adopted on the pain of preacher decapitation if they fail, and practical church exclusion should they not be cordially received, and I will answer, It is not only taking the license of infidelity so to do, but it is a license that heads for an atheism, the destiny of which is denominational death and even denominational damnation!
France once followed Reason, refusing Revelation, and the history of that movement was written in rivers of human blood! Russia for the last dozen years has listened to apostles of Reason for the most part, who are the bitterest conceivable opponents of revelation, and her wreck is the result. Germany sat at the feet of these apostles from the days of Wellhausen and his school, until those of Nietzsche, and his educational program paid for the price of that privilege a ruined monarchy which in its fall wrecked the world.
I think of the great men of yesterday, men like Carroll of Texas, Broadus of Kentucky, Strong and Pattison of New York, Franklin Johnson of Illinois; men like Weston, Goodspeed and Boyce and thank God my young life overlapped their mature and even ripened years; and then I look at their pigmied sons and successors and listen to their prattle about reason and science and am compelled to say, As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he, and that the license of infidelity can never make such spirits as were developed by love for Gods Revelation.
Once more, this license of infidelity seeks to substitute civilization for evangelization. The Denver Convention will go down in human history famed for one act that by a deliberate declaration, it shifted the motive and objective of missions from the basis of evangelization to that of civilization, and started the Baptist denomination on a program of education vs. salvation. How rapidly we have driven under the full sail of skeptical winds, out of Gods well marked and charted course of discipling nations, toward the world-reefs of civilization, the same on which Greece and Rome and Babylon went down, at the very time when their success seemed most complete, who can compute?
One of our greatest and most dependable foreign missionaries writes home, telling us that in a few years we have increased our educational forces on foreign lands 750% and our evangelical forces but 51%. It is an utter reversal of the convictions and policy of those great pioneers in mission work, Carey, Boardman, Judson, Clough and others; an utter reversal of the convictions of every mature and masterly mind now on a foreign field, such as Levering, Boggs, Young, Clark, and others of kindred age and competent experience.
The Baptist denomination was reborn and entered upon a history the like of which the world has seldom or never seen, or known any denomination to make, when William Carey heard the call of God to the foreign field. That glorious history closed when the Denver Convention decided in favor of civilization vs. evangelization, and though the advocates of that deadly policy cannot be expected to confess their mistake, the future historian will clearly record the sure and deadly results thereof.
Finally, It is the license of infidelity to substitute Unitarianism for Trinitarianism. For full two thousand years these doctrines have stood in the arena of conflict, eternal antagonists. For nearly sixty generations the truth of Trinitarianism has triumphed, and yet never once in that time has Unitarianism quit the contest. Why should it be expected so to do? Satan still lives; his millions of experiences have taught him the value of his trump card. Has he not temporarily triumphed with it again and again? Why should he not in the early days of the Twentieth Century fling it upon the worlds table afresh? Trace the history, if you please, of this camouflage of Christianity, this emasculated faith, this counterfeit of the truth. Our Presbyterian brethren closed their great Assembly but yesterday, an Assembly rife with debate. Over what? Over the very same subjects that once in Socinian form, more than a hundred years ago in England, came near sending that denomination to its doom. The only thing saving them was the Westminster Confession that clarified the air and called them back to the Book, the only basis of Christian faith and life.
How Congregationalists could again forget the time less than a hundred years removed when the Unitarian blight so ate into that New England body of Christians as to carry away at one time by the most infamous legalized plunder ever known to ecclesiasticism 125 of their churches, and leave them but a single evangelical body in all the city of old Boston. But no less amazing is it that Baptists should forget the consequences of the Arian teaching in England, and the wilting effect that reduced our forefathers from a prosperous people to a nonentity, sending paralysis into every part of the denomination until the new body purged itself of that leaven of error and came back to the Book as the basis of its belief and under the blessing of the Lord enjoyed more than a revival, truly a resurrection.
Look down yon Eastern sea-board and mark the havoc Unitarianism has wrought. Time was when Harvard University, by right of birth and breeding, belonged to the evangelicals; when Princeton was a mighty power, and when Rochester University was loyal to the Revelation of Gods Word. Time was when Union Theological Seminary enthroned Christ as the Son of God and exalted the Bible as an eternal and adequate Revelation of the Divine will and emphasized every cardinal doctrine of the Christian faith, making of men mighty ministers of the Word. Time was when even Andover was thronged with men who came from both sides of the sea to sit at the feet of the great souls who steeped these students in a knowledge of the Book and sent them out to all parts of the world as flaming evangels.
When today you call the roll of these schools you name the captains of the hosts of hell who marshal their forces to fight the authority of the Book, the Deity of Christ, the blood atonement and every Christian Fundamental! And in full line behind them stand those other schools made possible by the sacrifices of believing men, genuine Baptists of the old order, and as we believe of the Divine order, Crozer, Rochester, Newton Center, Brown, Colgate, Chicago Universityin fact the only objection to naming is the lack of limitations!
The majority of our schools are lost to God and the Gospel and today are the seats of unsound teachings and the prolific mothers of modernist preachers, all because Satan, having succeeded with his trump card, Unitarianism, so often in the past, knowing as he must know, the end of the age draws nigh, is working it now as he never worked it before.
Brethren of the Baptist denomination, a people made by loyalty to the Book, I conclude this address by begging youBack to God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth! Back to Christ, the atoning Saviour of sinful men! Back to the Bible, the only rule of Baptist faith and practice!
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
THE ANTIQUITY OF MODERNISM
Gal 1:6-9
This sermon was prompted by the appearance in Minneapolis of a certain famed evangelist who, after a popular evangelical ministry, turned to the championship of rationalism. It should be known, however, that following the address here referred to, he repented his error and died in the evangelical faith. His decease is a sufficient reason for withholding the name.
WHEN one reads this text he may find an explanation of modern opposition to the Apostle Paul. It would seem necessary to discredit that author of Scripture in the presence of the people to whom one proposes the preaching of another gospel. And yet, since Paul is in good standing with the majority of people, it may not be inappropriate to take this text for the starting point of this evenings discourse, on the theme, Why I have not changed my religion.
The time has passed when battles of blood are fought over the questions of religious faith; even that bitter controversy which descends to offensive personalities is more and more forsaken. Though the faith of men be as wide apart as the poles they may yet discuss the opinions of their opponents with calmness of spirit and kindness of speech. It would not become me tonight to make much of the unfortunate financial methods which have characterized certain meetings in the Twin Cities and their failure to fruit in salvation. Neither remissness in methods, nor partial failure in endeavor prove opinions to be wrong. But they do often account for the adoption of a philosophy of religion which makes less rigid demands for high living than do the Sacred Scriptures.
In this discussion it is only fair to assume that modernism spake sincerely in a recent Minneapolis address, and I propose, therefore, to consider what was said on that occasion concerning three fundamental subjects: The Fall of Man; Authority in Religion, and The Method in Salvation.
THE FALL OF MANUPWARD OR DOWNWARD?
This is necessarily the first point at which the modernist takes issue with the Sacred Scriptures. In the three reports now on my desk, including one made by a competent stenographer, the modernist is made to say substantially this, The fall of man is not a fact in the sense in which it is taught in Christian circles. * * * * Ever since we have known man on the earth he has been progressing mentally and morally. * * * * The ordinary mediaeval dogmas of all the orthodox confessions of faith became in themselves to me immoral and demoralizing, such as the failure of Godthe ruin of man, the fantastic unreal scheme of justification, salvation by opinions, and the existence of eternal evil and eternal torment.
In that statement there are three points at least at which the issue is clearly drawn.
Mr. M_____ denies the Fall; the Sacred Scriptures affirm it. Mr. M_____ affirms the improvement of the race; history disputes it. Mr. M charges orthodoxy with immorality and demoralization; experience disproves it.
(1) Mr. M_____ denies the Fall; the Sacred Scriptures affirm it. The Fall of man is not a fact in the sense in which it is taught in Christian circles, so Mr. M_____ asserts.
The third chapter of Genesis is devoted to the history of the Fall. The fourth chapter of Genesis records its first effect, in envy, hatred, murder. The sixth chapter of Genesis describes the flood sent to sweep man from the face of the earth because he had become so degenerate. The whole Book of Exodus is devoted to the history of a sinful people. Leviticus is full of symbols set for the remission of sins. And from that time until the work of Redemption is complete in the Apocalypse, the Scriptures everywhere present man as sinful, fallen, tending by nature away from God and consequently in the need of the grace that is in Christ.
The inner consciousness of which Mr. M_____ made so much, seems to consent to the truth of the Sacred writings. Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin (Pro 20:9)? Who can dispute the sacred sentence, There is no man that sinneth not (1Ki 8:46)? Who can doubt Johns delivery, If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1Jn 1:8)? The man who entertains the Evolution theorythat we are always rising to high thingsfinds it incumbent upon him to explain why it is that the sons of noble fathers are so seldom their equals. Henry van Dyke says, Man indeed is framed to live and rise by hope; but a hope which begins by denying the facts is a false hope, whose path leads upwarda few stepsto the edge of a precipice of deeper despair. The bridge builders in Rudyard Kiplings story would have been fools if they had tried to accomplish their work by ignoring the steady downward thrust of gravitation; or shutting their eyes to the destructive rage of the Ganges flood. No less foolish is the man who tries to build a life, or a theory of life, in forgetfulness of the steady downward thrust of human nature, or in the denial to reality, or universality of the evil that is in the world. When the publican, in the place of prayer, smote upon his breast saying, God be merciful to me a sinner, he stood infinitely nearer Divine approval than the man does, who, though sinful, asserts that he is better than his fathers and supposes himself to be acceptable.
Mr. M_____ affirms the improvement of the race; history disputes it. His speech is this, Ever since we have known man on the earth he has been progressing mentally and morally. Is that true? If so why are the laws of Moses still basal in all jurisprudence? Why has not some man, living three thousand years this side of Moses, proved the decalogue obsolete by giving to the world a decidedly better code? If that is true why does Mr. M. have to go back two thousand years to find in Jesus of Nazareth his model man? It is a little humiliating to the Evolution theory to admit that no man has improved upon the Ten Commandments; and no philosopher has bodied forth better things than the Beatitudes. It is slightly subversive of Mr. M_____s argument that he still gets his philosophy of high living from Jesus Sermon on the Mount rather than from the transcendentalism of his present patron saint, Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Mr. M_____ charges orthodoxy with immorality and demoralization; experience disproves it. He says, The ordinary mediaeval dogmas of all the orthodox confessions of faith became in themselves, to me immoral and demoralizing They did not satisfy my moral nature; they stultified sympathy because of their exclusive character. That is rather a serious charge to make against orthodoxy. Religion is to be judged by its fruits. If it produces immorality or demoralization it should be rejected. But one swallow doesnt make a spring; and the statement of one mans experience may suffice to prove him extremely peculiar. I dare to affirm that if orthodoxy ever produced immorality and demoralization in Mr. M_____ it was because he received it as an intellectual theory and never as a spiritual experience. That is the way Ananias and Sapphira received the Gospel, and it resulted in their immorality and demoralization. But when Saul, the persecutor, accepted it as a theory, and experienced it as a spiritual fact, it changed him into Paul, whose morals were as peerless as his ministry. And since Pauls day the experience of the orthodox faith has continued to accomplish kindred miracles. It changed Martin Luther from a Papist, consenting to the sale of indulgences, into a reformer who proved a firebrand for righteousness. It changed John Newton, the low-lived sailor, into the man of model morality and mighty ministry. It changed Bendigo, the prize-fighter, into the peaceful, yet forceful Christian citizen. It changed Jerry McAuley from the soul of nameless iniquities into the most sanctified spirit of New York City.
On his own confession, it once wrought in the breast of Mr. M_____ changing him in one night from a youth of dissolute habits and disgraceful conduct into a man of pure motive, exalted purposes and ennobling plans. Joseph Parker was right in affirming that all modern miracles, wrought upon the face of society, are traceable to orthodoxy. The wonders of home and foreign evangelization are wrought by the old doctrines and the men who were prepared to die for them. Parker said, I never heard of a new hypothesis founding a missionary society. The men who believe in the vicarious sacrifice of Christ, in Heaven and hell, in verbal inspiration, and in eternal punishment, prove their faith by their works. We are perfectly willing that Mr. M_____ or any other living man, should get up a better religion than that recorded in the Book. As Theodore Buyler once said, When one has produced it we are ready to foreswear the old, but seeing that a few thousand of these have risen to fade again into night, while the old Book, with its doctrines, has been living on, ever shining brighter, ever increasing the company of its believers, and ever affecting miraculous conquests, we should not be discredited for holding to it until the new has proved the right to live, and its power to more rapidly redeem a sinful world.
I confess when I read a statement like this, made by Mr. M_____ on Friday evening last, I have changed my theology but have kept my religion, and added to it and increased it a hundred thousandfold, I marvel that not more is heard of him. Peter, holding to the doctrines which M_____ has discarded, made his name immortal by his works of righteousness. A man who has increased upon Peter a hundred thousandfold, ought not only to turn the world upside down as the early Apostles did, but be equal to several worlds. Polycarp knew nothing better than the old faith and yet his name is enshrined forever in the memories of men. A man who has increased upon Polycarp a hundred thousandfold ought to make his influence felt around the globe; and in all the centuries to come. Wyclif was so ignorant that he also held to that which Mr. M has now discarded, and yet.
Wordsworth dares to say of his body which they dug up and burned:
Yea his dry bones to ashes are consumed
And flung into the brook that travels near
Forth with, that ancient Voice, which Streams can hear,
Thus speaks (that Voice which walks upon the wind,
Though seldom heard by busy human-kind)
As thou these ashes, little Brook! wilt bear
Into the Avon, Avon to the tide
Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas,
Into main Ocean they, this deed accurst
An emblem yields to friends and enemies
How the bold Teachers Doctrine, sanctified
By truth, shall spread, throughout the world dispersed.
It is a marvel that one who has increased upon all this a hundred thousandfold should not make himself more widely felt, and affect in all his fellows a more rapid rise in righteousness. But perhaps we should be patient; Mr. M_____ is a young man yet.
AUTHORITY FROM WITHOUT OR WITHIN
Mr. M_____ objects to the orthodox source of authority. He claims to have adopted a new principle of intellectual, moral and spiritual development. The principle is this: truth for authorityinstead of authority for truth. He quotes approvingly David Star Jordan as having said, There are just two types of religion, and religious character and thinking in the world, and only two. Those types may be divided thus. There is the type of man that has to get his religion from the outside from a church, a book or a man. We call that orthodoxysomeone to tell us what to think. Then, that one who receives his instruction from within himself and not from outside authority. Mr. M_____ has adopted the latter as against the former. He rejoices in having cast off the bondage of dominion of outside authority, and having adopted wholly the rational suggestions of his own mind.
All right, let us see how this plan will work! Appealing to outside authority I find this sentence in the Book, Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. I visit India, and consult the man who has cast himself upon the rational suggestions of his own mind. He repudiates the Book and worships many gods. Does Mr. M_____ favor that? Turning back to the Book I read, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.
I visit a Papal church tomorrow and see the people before the figure of Mary, prostrate and at prayer. Does Mr. M approve of that? Certainly they must be consulting the rational suggestions of their own mind. I turn back to the Book and read, Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain.
I visit brother, the blind pig, and I see an assembled crowd, each one of whom is pouring out a stream of profanity. That must be the rational suggestion of their own minds, since it is not according to the statements of Sacred Scripture. Does Mr. M_____ approve that?
Going back to the Book I read, Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy. Visiting the flour mills I find a lot of men who are either compelled to work the Sabbath through or lose their positions. This also must be behaving according to the rational suggestions of somebodys mind for it is opposed by the Book. Does Mr. M_____ approve of that? To the Book I go again and read, Thou shalt not kill. Yesterday mornings paper told of how a woman in Chicago took her poor, sick, blind husband and cast him from the window and he was shattered on the pavement below. That must have been according to the rational suggestions of her mind, for it is not according to the Book. Does Mr. M _____ approve of that?
I turn to the Book again and read the seventh commandment, Thou shalt not commit adultery and the tenth, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours wife, yet I find an indictment against David that he did both and God punished him for having violated the authority of the Book. Does Mr. M_______ resent the Divine act and insist that David had a right to consult his own inner consciousness and not have his religion determined by any outside authority?
Such a theory would produce moral chaos; affect in two generations, mental darkness, and in less than a hundred and twenty years, necessitate a second flood, or the more cleansing work of destructive fire.
Concerning this inner consciousness Mr. M_____ asserts that his inner consciousness has changed several times already and is liable to change again. The Catholic people of this city struck quick sand where they proposed to put their great cathedral, and by pile driving, made a firm foundation before a stone was laid in the building of the great church. Mr. M_____s proposition involves the erection of a new religion upon a foundation more shifting than the sands of the seas, for he himself likened it to the dissolving views of the magic lantern. The moving picture business is all right for an hours entertainment, but some of us beg to be excused from linking our eternal interests with the same, or even identifying it with abiding truth.
He displaces the Sacred Scriptures by Ralph Waldo Emerson. When asked at the close of his lecture concerning the text-book of his new movement, he replied, We use the Bible some, but employ Emerson as most people do the Bible.
There is nothing novel about this. Forty years ago I was a member of an Emerson club and gave one night a week to the study of the same. I found there a man who accepted Emerson instead of the Bible. It only went to prove his love of transcendentalism above the Truth, and its hold upon him was not sufficient to keep him from sin. Let no man who has made such a change as this seek to identify himself with the great souls of the past who have suffered as Heretics. Not a man of them ever surrendered the Book, or departed from its sacred teachings. John Tauler and the Mystics were loyal to the Word; Wyclif and Huss laid down their lives in its defense; Savonarola was its peerless preacher; Latimer, Cranmer and Melancthon loved it unto death. Knox, Calvin and Coligny refused to compromise with any man who dissented from its sacred teaching; while William Brewster and John Wesley lighted continents with the torches of its eternal truths.
It may not be comfortable to the flesh to find that God has told us what is right and demanded that we do it; has revealed what is wrong, and insists that we eschew it. But in the past it has been the way of moral progress; and at present those who put the sacred Scriptures aside are without a substitute worthy of suggestion.
SALVATION BY SUBSTITUTION OR SELF-RELIANCE
Here again Mr. M preaches another Gospel. He affirms that he has discovered that the way of spiritual unfoldment is through self-reliance.
According to M_____ the atonement is not a necessity. The man who is saved by self-reliance is not saved by a substitute. It obliterates such sentences of Scripture as these,
Without shedding of blood is no remission.
The Blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.
But this is no new heresy. Paul found it offensive in his day to preach the atonement; and wrote, We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness. But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. True, or false, it has somehow come to pass that the proclamation of this blessed doctrine of Christ dying for sinful men has wrought righteousness. It is such an evidence of the goodness of God that it has begotten repentance in the hearts of those who accept it. When Mr. M was in this city years ago, preaching the faith he now discards, a man turned to God and made restitution to those he had wronged to the extent of hundreds of dollars, and from that hour he has walked in the midst of this people, known to many of us, and beloved by all as a man of stainless character. We will wait and see whether the profane adopt pure speech, the dishonest make restitution, the lecherous quit their lusts as a result of Friday evenings sermon; or whether we must go back again and point men to the cross, and move their hearts Godward by the sight of One who came from Heaven to die for sinners from sheer love of them.
According to M_______ all men are Gods own and are safe. According to Christ wicked men are of their father the devil. Here then is a clean conflict between this apostle of a new faith, and the supreme founder of orthodoxy. But Mr. M_______ answers this by saying, If there be a devil God created him, and so God is his father; and when I get tired of the service of my father I will go live with my grandfatherGod.
Creation is not paternity. If I invent a machine tomorrow and start it running perfectly, and next day some foreign substance gets into it and breaks it to pieces and its pieces kill, I am not responsible for the conduct of the broken parts.
Again, a man who gets tired of his father is not always welcomed at the grandfathers house. The grandfather has to be consulted as to whom he will take in. And He has answered that by saying He will receive none except those who come in the name of His Son Jesus. If Satan was ever His son, he is now disinherited and there is no responsibility with God to look after his degenerate children. If He does it, it is of grace, and blessed be His holy Name! He has manifested just such grace, and the man who has served his fatherthe deviluntil the devil has occasion at least to be disgusted with his conduct, may still creep home to God, and so great is His heart of love that He will pardon his past, wash his stains in the Blood of Jesus, heal his wounds with His own tender touch, and love into him everlasting life.
But that is not this new fad of a faith; it is the old doctrine of the everlasting Book. It is the doctrine that Christ stood in your stead, and in mine, suffered that sin might not go unpunished, making it possible for God the Father, to be just and yet the justifier of them that had rebelled against Him.
Mr. M_______s method of saint-making has never been a success. The rejectors of Jesus have never yet given the world models in morals, men of spiritual might, conquerors against crime. I have read how a poverty stricken sculptor, after having wrought for weeks upon a clay model, found his unfurnished garret growing cold, and realized that before the morning the frost might spoil his ideal. To save it from freezing he took off his coat and wrapped it about the model, then coiled his body about it that the heat therefrom might also be felt. When the morning dawned, visitors to the garret found the sculptor dead, but the model was preserved. It is the way that you and I were saved. It was an awful pricethis that was paid for us the price of the life of the Son of God. But it showed how great was the Divine estimate of the souls worth. It revealed the Saviours unspeakable love. The heart that wont answer to the call of Him who laid down His life in love of it, is doomed and dead.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Gal. 1:6. I marvel that ye are so soon removed.So quickly removed; not so soon after your conversion, or soon after I left you, but so soon after the temptation came; so readily and with such little persuasion (cf. Gal. 1:7-9). It is the fickleness of the Galatians the apostle deplores. An early backsliding, such as the contrary view assumes, would not have been matter of so great wonder as if it had taken place later.
Gal. 1:8-9. Any other gospel.The apostle is here asserting the oneness, the integrity of his gospel. It will not brook a rival. It will not suffer any foreign admixture. Let him be accursed.Devoted to the punishment his audacity merits. In its spiritual application the word denotes the state of one who is alienated from God by sin.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Gal. 1:6-9
The One Gospel.
I. Is an introduction into the grace of Christ.I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ (Gal. 1:6). The true gospel is the emphatic call of God to man to participate and revel in the grace of Christ as the element and the only means by which his salvation can be secured. The grace of Christ, with its persuasive gentleness and vast redemptive resources, is in vivid contrast to the grim formalism and impossible demands of the yoke of bondage into which the Galatians were being so foolishly seduced. There is only one gospel that can introduce the soul into the midst of saving influences and bring it into contact with the living Christ. This one fact differentiates the gospel from all mere human methods, and gives it a unique character as the only remedial agency in dealing with human sin and sorrow.
II. The perversion of the one gospel is not a gospel.Unto another gospel which is not another (Gal. 1:6-7).
1. It is a caricature of the true gospel.And would pervert the gospel of Christ (Gal. 1:7). The perversion is not in the one gospel, which is impossible of perversion (for truth is an incorruptible unity), but in the mind of the false teacher. He distorts and misrepresents the true gospel by importing into it his own corrupt philosophy, as the wolf did with Baron Munchausens horse. Beginning at the tail, it ate its way into the body of the horse, until the baron drove the wolf home harnessed in the skin of the horse. The gospel has suffered more from the subtle infusion of human errors than from the open opposition of its most violent enemies.
2. It occasions distraction of mind.There be some that trouble you (Gal. 1:7). A perverted gospel works the greatest havoc among young converts. They are assailed before they reach the stage of matured stability. Their half-formed conceptions of truth are confused with specious ideas, attractive by their novelty, and mischief is wrought which in many cases is a lifelong injury. The spirit that aims at polluting a young beginner in the way of righteousness is worse than reckless; it is diabolical.
III. The propagator of a perverted gospel incurs an awful malediction.But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel, let him be accursed (Gal. 1:8-9). Let him be devoted to destruction, as one hateful to God and an enemy of the truth. The word denotes the condition of one alienated from God by persistent sin. He not only rejects the truth himself, but deliberately plots the ruin of others. He reaps the fruit of his own sowing. It is impossible to do wrong without suffering. The greater the wrong-doing, the more signal is the consequent punishment. All perversions of truth are fruitful in moral disasters. It is a mad, suicidal act for man to fight against God.
Lessons.
1. There can be but one true and infallible gospel.
2. The best human method for moral reformation is but a caricature of the true.
3. The false teacher will not escape punishment.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Gal. 1:6-7. Remonstrance with Revolters against the Gospel.
I. The apostle reproves with meekness and tenderness of heart.
II. He frames his reproof with great wariness and circumspection.He says not, ye of yourselves do remove to another gospel, but ye are removed. He blames them but in part, and lays the principal blame on others.
III. The revolt was a departure from the calling to the grace of Christ.
1. They were soon carried away. This shows the lightness and inconstancy of mans nature, especially in religion. The multitude of people are like wax, and are fit to take the stamp and impression of any religion; and it is the law of the land that makes the most embrace the gospel, and not conscience.
2. That we may constantly persevere in the profession of the true faith we must receive the gospel simply for itself.
3. We must be renewed in the spirit of our minds and suffer no by-corners in our hearts.
4. We must not only be hearers but doers of the word in the principal duties to be practised.
IV. The Galatians revolt to another gospel, compounded of Christ and the works of the law.Here we see the curious niceness and daintiness of mans nature that cannot be content with the good things of God unless they be framed to our minds. If they please us for a time, they do not please us long, but we must have new things. The apostle shows that, though it be another gospel in the estimation of the false teachers, it is not another, but a subversion of the gospel of Christ. There is but one gospel, one in number, and no more. There is but one way of salvation by Christ, whereby all are to be saved from the beginning of the world to the end.
V. The apostle charges the authors of this revolt with two crimes.
1. They trouble the Galatians, not only because they make divisions, but because they trouble their consciences settled in the gospel of Christ.
2. They overthrow the gospel of Christ. They did not teach a doctrine flat contrary. They maintained the gospel in word, and put an addition to it of their own out of the lawsalvation by works. They perverted and turned upside-down the gospel of Christ.Perkins.
The Perversion of Truth
I. Supplants the gospel with a valueless imitation.Another gospel which is not another.
II. Is contrary to the divine purpose.From Him that called you into the grace of Christ.
III. Creates a gulf between the soul and God.I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him.
IV. Unsettles the faith of new converts.There be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
Gal. 1:6. Disappointed Hopes in Christian Work.
1. It is the duty of Christian ministers, not only to hold out the pure truth of the gospel, but to defend it by convincing gainsayers and reproving solidly those who are carried away with contrary errors.
2. Ministers in all their reproofs are to use much wariness and circumspection, not omitting any circumstance which may justly extenuate the sin or furnish ground of hope of amendment. Hereby the bitter potion of a medicinal reproof is much sweetened and the guilty patient allured to the more thorough receiving of it.
3. The most quick-sighted may be deceived and disappointed in their expectation of good things from some eminent professors, and so may readily fall short of their hope.
4. As the dangerous consequences which follow upon error ought to be presented unto people that they may fly from it, so there are some errors in doctrine which do no less separate from God than profanity of life doth, of which errors this is onethe maintaining of justification by works.
5. It is ordinary for seducers to usher in their errors by some excellent designations, as of new lights, a more pure gospel way, and what not, as here they designate their error by the name of another gospel.Fergusson.
Gal. 1:7. The Inviolable Unity of the Gospel.
1. There is but one gospel, one in number and no more, and but one way to salvation, which is by faith.
2. The effect of error is to trouble the Churchs peace; peace among themselves, the patrons of error being zealous of nothing so much as to gain many followers, to attain which they scruple not to make woeful rents and deplorable schisms; inward peace of conscience, while some are perplexed and anxious what to choose and refuse until they question all truth, and others to embrace error for truth and so ground their peace on an unsure foundation.
3. The doctrine which maintains that justification is partly by Christ and partly by the merit of good works is a perverting and total overturning of the gospel, in so far as it contradicts the main scope of the gospel, which is to exalt Christ as our complete Saviour, Mediator, and Ransom, and not in part only.Fergusson.
Gal. 1:8. The Inviolability of Christianity.
I. The import and construction of the gospel cannot be vague and indeterminate.The character of the gospel was alleged to be its truth. This was, to the sophists of that era, a strange and novel pretension. To require faith to a testimony only so far as conformable to fact, only so far as supported by evidence, appeared to them a startling affectation. In the fixed character we recognise the true perfection of the gospel. It is the same through all ages, not changing to every touch and varying beneath every eye, but unfolding the same features and producing the same effects. Unless there was this invariableness in the Christian system, if a fixed determination of its purport is impossible, we should be at a loss in what manner to follow the conduct and imbibe the spirit of the early Christians. Those lights and examples of the Church would only ensnare us into a mien and attitude ridiculous as profane. It would be the dwarf attempting to bare a giants arm, a wayfaring man aspiring to a prophets vision. The truth as it is in Jesus is contained in that word which is the truth itself; there it is laid up as in a casket and hallowed as in a shrine. No change can pass upon it. It bears the character of its first perfection. Like the manna and the rod in the recess of the Ark, it is the incorruptible bread of heaven, it is the ever-living instrument of might, without an altered form or superseded virtue.
II. Its divine origin and authority cannot be controverted.The history of Saul of Tarsus has often been cited with happy success in confirmation of Christianity.
1. What must have been the strength and satisfaction of conviction entertained by the writer! The conviction has to do with facts. It pertains to no favourite theory, no abstract science, but occurrences which he had proved by sensible observation and perfect consciousness. Wonders had teemed around him; but his own transformation was the most signal wonder of all. Nothing without him could equal what he discerned within.
2. As we estimate the measure and force of his convictions, inquire what weight and credibility should be allowed them. Put his conduct to any rack, his design to any analysis, and then determine whether we are not safe where he is undaunted, whether we may not decide for that on which he perils all, whether the anathema which he dares pronounce does not throw around us the safeguard of a divine benediction.
III. Its efficacy cannot be denied.It was not called into operation until numberless expedients of man had been frustrated. Philosophy, rhetoric, art, were joined to superstitions, radicated into all habits and vices of mankind. The very ruins which survive the fall of polytheismthe frieze with its mythological tale, the column yet soaring with inimitable majesty, the statue breathing an air of divinityrecall the fascinations which it once might boast and of the auxiliaries it could command. Yet these were but the decorations of selfishness most indecently avowed, of licentiousness most brutally incontinent, of war the most wantonly bloody, of slavery the most barbarously oppressive. And Christianity subverted these foundations of iniquity; and yet so all-penetrating is its energy, that it did not so much smite them as that they sank away before it. It reaches the human will and renews the human heart. And a thousand blessings which may at first appear derived from an independent source are really poured forth from this.
IV. The authority and force of the present dispensation of divine truth cannot be superseded.It is final. In it He hath spoken whose voice shall be heard no more until it shake not the earth only but also heaven. No other sensible manifestation can be given, the doctrine is not to be simplified, the ritual is not to be defined to any further extent, nothing more will be vouchsafed to augment its blessings or ratify its credentials. We possess the true light, the perfect gift, the brightest illumination, the costliest boon. Such a dispensation, constituted to be coexistent with all future time, must resist every view which would impress a new form or foist a strange nature upon it.
V. No circumstance or agency can endanger the existence and stability of the Christian revelation.When the security of the gospel is to be most confidently predicted and most strongly ascertained, supernatural power is restraineda curse encloses it round about, a flaming sword turning every way guards this tree of life. It shall endure coevally with man. Feeble are our present thoughts, confused our perceptions; we see everything as from behind a cloud and in a disproportion. Our convictions are more like conjectures and our speculations dreams. But we shall soon emerge from this state of crude fancies and immature ideas. Worthy sentiments and feelings will fill up our souls. Each view shall be as a ray of light striking its object, and each song the very echo of its theme. Then shall we adequately understand why apostles kindled into indignation and shook with horror at the idea of another gospel, and why even angels themselves must have been accursed had it been possible for them to have divulged it.R. W. Hamilton.
A Supernatural Revelation.There can be no doubt whatever, as a matter of historic fact, that the apostle Paul claimed to have received direct revelation from heaven. He is so certain of that revelation that he warns the Galatians against being enticed by any apparent evidence to doubt it. It would be impossible to express a stronger, a more deliberate, and a more solemn conviction that he had received a supernatural communication of the will of God.Dr. Wace, Bampton Lectures.
The Best Authority to be obeyed.A dispute having arisen on some question of ecclesiastical discipline and ritual, King Oswi summoned in 664 a great council at Whitby. The one set of disputants appealed to the authority of Columba, the other to that of St. Peter You own, cried the puzzled king to Colman, that Christ gave to Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven: has He given such power to Columba? The bishop could but answer, No. Then I will obey the porter of heaven, said Oswi, lest when I reach its gates he who has the keys in his keeping turn his back on me, and there be none to open.
Latitudinarianism.Referring to Erasmuss temporising policy in the Reformation, Froude says: The question of questions is, what all this latitudinarian philosophising, this cultivated epicurean gracefulness, would have come to if left to itself, or rather, what was the effect which it was inevitably producing? If you wish to remove an old building without bringing it in ruin about your ears, you must begin at the top, remove the stones gradually downwards, and touch the foundation last. But latitudinarianism loosens the elementary principles of theology. It destroys the premises on which the system rests. It would beg the question to say that this would in itself have been undesirable; but the practical effect of it, as the world then stood, would have been only to make the educated into infidels, and to leave the multitude to a convenient but debasing superstition.
Gal. 1:9. The True Gospel to be preached and believed.
I. The repetition of these words by Paul signify that he had not spoken rashly but advisedly, whatsoever he had said before.
II. That the point delivered is an infallible truth of God.
III. That we may observe and remember what he had said as the foundation of our religionthat the doctrine of the apostles is the only infallible truth of God, against which we may not listen to Fathers, Councils, or to the very angels of God.
IV. They are accursed who teach otherwise than the Galatians had received.As Paul preached the gospel of Christ, so the Galatians received it. The great fault of our times is that whereas the gospel is preached it is not accordingly received. Many have no care to know it; and they who know it give not unto it the assent of faith, but only hold it in opinion.Perkins.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
2.
Occasion of the Epistle. Gal. 1:6-10
a)
Their removal unto a different gospel. Gal. 1:6-7
TEXT 1:6, 7
(6) I marvel that ye are so quickly removing from him that called you in the grace of Christ unto a different gospel; (7) which is not another gospel: only there are some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
PARAPHRASE 1:6, 7
6 I wonder that ye are so soon removed from me, who called you into the gospel of Christ, which promises to sinners justification through faith; and that ye have embraced another gospel, or pretended message from God, concerning your justification:
7 Which is not another gospel, or message from God: But some there are, who, on pretence that their doctrine of justification by the law of Moses is authorized by God, trouble you with doubts concerning my doctrine, and wish to pervert the gospel of Christ.
COMMENT 1:6
I marvel
1.
This is not awful condemnation, but surprise.
2.
This is a severe blow to one who believes as Paul expressed it in Rom. 8:35-38Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
3.
This is astonishing to one who believes in the Power of the Gospel and who has confidence in stability of man.
so quickly removing
1.
Pauls labors to train a church are being overthrown in a short while.
2.
Christianity is to be a thing of permanence, not a mushroom affair.
3.
This is the opposite of what is required for salvation.
a.
Be thou faithful unto death. Rev. 2:10
b.
If we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the end. Heb. 3:14
from him that called you
1.
They had changed their spiritual location by turning to another gospel.
2.
When men accept falsehood, they remove themselves from God.
3.
The calling is expressed in 1Th. 2:12; 1Th. 5:24; 2Ti. 1:9.
4.
Some insist that Paul is the one who called them, but Paul didnt say they were removed from him, but from Christ.
in the grace of Christ
1.
Truth had placed them in favor; now false teaching had made them unfavorable.
2.
This knocks the idea that sincerity alone is sufficient.
3.
They were removed from grace: he does not say peace.
4.
God surely does not save them if they are removed from His favor.
unto a different gospel
1.
This gospel was Judaism mixed with Christianity.
a.
The Jew insisted on Jewish ceremonies for Gentiles.
b.
Paul establishes in this book that Judaism is not ever essential for Christians.
2.
Think how awful then is Catholicism mixed with paganism and Judaism.
3.
Protestantism, which is a mixture of paganism, Judaism, Catholicism, and Christianity, is likewise a different gospel.
INTO THE GRACE OF CHRIST 1:6
Amazing grace! how sweet the sound,
that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
John Newton penned those words several years after his conversion. Blindness keeps men from seeing Gods love in Christ. Most of us are so nearsighted that we cannot really see how great is His love.
The death of Jesus formed the foundation of Gods mercy. Jesus was crucified, died, was buried, and resurrected by Gods awesome power. And believers reenact that divine drama in immersion. But we cannot say to God, Now that Ive been immersed, you owe me salvation! Those are the words of one attempting to make baptism an act of merit. The forgiveness of sins associated with baptism is an act of pure grace. And the new relationship it symbolizes also rests upon Gods mercy.
Cleansing is not a one time act.
Not only did the sacrifice of Christ initially save us from our former sins, but it continually cleanses us from our present daily sins (1Jn. 1:7-10). We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous (1Jn. 2:1).
The cross of Christ satisfied the judgment of God against sin, so we dont have to be good enough to merit Gods grace. Our salvation did not result from our own attainments; it came by Christs atonement (Eph. 2:8-9). And, once we become members of the family of God, we continue to walk by faith in Christ, through whom we have obtained this grace in which we stand (Rom. 5:2).
Just as the non-Christian cannot buy his way into Gods family, neither can the Christian repay God for His adoption of him. Let every guilt-burdened child of God, memorize Pauls words: For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life (Rom. 5:10).
ANOTHER GOSPEL 1:6, 7
The Galatians were guilty of accepting another Gospel, but it really wasnt gospel at all. The doctrine which was added was removing them from the simple faith.
The Gospel is good news, because Jesus died, was buried, and rose again for our salvation. The good news announced to the Galatians by the apostle was that the blessing of Abraham should in Christ Jesus be extended to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised spirit through faith (Gal. 3:14). It was this which delivered them from the written code of the law and set them free from the galling yoke of slavery. When Paul speaks of the truth of the gospel in this letter, he is not referring just to the veracity or integrity of the message. The truth means the basic elemental, foundational principle upon which the gospel is predicted. It is the core, the center, the kernel of the gospel. It is what makes the message gospel. The context shows that the truth of the gospel is justification by faith.
Paul was not saying that the Galatian letter was the Gospel.
By the time it was written the Galatians had already accepted the Gospel and turned from it. They had received the Spirit by believing the Gospel message (Gal. 3:2). The letter was written not to bring them into relationship with the Spirit, but to encourage them to walk in the Spirit. If the Spirit is the source of our life, let the Spirit also direct our course Gal. 5:25). Acceptance of the Gospel brings the Spirit as Gods gift to dwell in our bodies, guidance by epistles such as the letter to the Galatians enables the Spirit to direct our course.
WORD STUDY 1:6
The word for remove (metatithemimeh tah TITH a me) carries the connotation of treason and rebellion. When Dionysius deserted the Stoics and went over to the Epicureans, he was called the Turncoat or Traitor. This complete turnabout was no more drastic than the desertion of the Galatians from grace to legalism.
The King James Version obscures an important distinction between the different gospel of verse six and another gospel in verse seven. Verse six speaks of another of a different kind (heterosHEH ter oss), while verse seven speaks of another of the same kind (allosALL oss).
There is no other gospel of the same kind (alios). Any other gospel is necessarily one of a different (heteros) nature and has no saving power.
The Greek word for gospel is euangelion (you ahn GEL e on) (G as in go). It is seen in such English derivatives as evangelism, evangel, and evangelical. It seems literally good news.
In secular usage outside the New Testament, it is nearly always plural, meaning something like good tidings.
COMMENT 1:7
which is not another gospel
1.
There are not two gospels to choose from, for oneness is characteristic of God.
a.
I am the truth. Joh. 14:6
b.
There is one body, and one Spirit, even as also ye were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all. Eph. 4:4-6
c.
But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness, your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity that is toward Christ, For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we did not preach, or if ye receive a different spirit, which ye did not receive, or a different gospel, which ye did not accept, ye do well to bear with him. 2Co. 11:3
2.
These denominational folk who say it doesnt make any difference are either lying or they are terribly ignorant.
a.
If it doesnt matter, why do they not preach the message that will produce unity?
b.
It does make a difference to the preachers;
1)
Their pension is at stake.
2)
Their job is at stake.
3)
Their denominational reputation is at stake.
c.
It makes a difference to God. Cf. Gal. 1:8-9
only there are some that trouble you
1.
Urging circumcision and keeping of the law was a troublesome doctrine.
2.
Denominationalists are troublemakers in binding commandments of men.
and would pervert the gospel of Christ
1.
Division is the beguiling of Satan, drawing men away from the simplicity of the gospel.
2.
A creed is a perversion.
a.
If it is like the Bible, we do not need it.
b.
If it is unlike the Bible, it is erroneous.
3.
Infant baptism is an unscriptural doctrine, originated by an unscriptural church, practiced by unscriptural churches upon unscriptural candidates to save those unscriptural candidates from unscriptural sin.
STUDY QUESTIONS 1:6, 7
44.
What surprised Paul?
45.
Does this mean that the gospel lacks power?
46.
Define quickly removing.
47.
Is this characteristic of good Christians?
48.
Were they called?
49.
Who did it and by what method?
50.
What were they removed from?
51.
Is this falling from grace?
52.
Can you be in Gods Church and participate in false teaching at the same time?
53.
How different was the different gospel?
54.
Harmonize Pauls expression different gospel and not another gospel.
55.
Is corrupted truth to be considered truth?
56.
Is denominationalism wrong in the light of the Word of God?
57.
Are false teachers, party teachers, etc., to be considered troublemakers to God?
58.
If false teaching is troublesome, ought we to say that it doesnt make any difference what you believe as long as you are sincere?
b) Pronouncement of Divine Judgment upon Perverters of the Gospel. Gal. 1:8-9
TEXT 1:8, 9
(8) But though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be anathema. (9) As we have said before, so say I now again, If any man preacheth unto you any gospel other than that which ye received, let him be anathema.
PARAPHRASE 1:8, 9
8 They affirm that Peter preacheth, nay, that I myself preach justification by works of law. But even if we who write this, or an angel pretending to have come from heaven, should preach to you a method of justification contrary to, or different from, what we have formerly preached to you, let him be devoted to destruction.
9 To shew you how certain I am of the truth of the doctrine which I preach; As we who write this letter said before jointly, so now a second time I separately say, if any man or angel preach to you concerning your justification, contrary to what ye have learned from me, let him be devoted to destruction.
COMMENT 1:8, 9
but though we, or an angel from heaven
1.
Pauls fervency leads him to say that he, brethren, or angels of heaven should be accursed if they came with a perverted gospel.
2.
The we probably means Paul specifically, but could include all his preaching brethren.
should preach unto you any gospel other
1.
There is only one gospel, so there is no other gospel for us to hear.
2.
Let us have faith in the gospel once and for all delivered unto the saints. Jude Gal. 1:3
than that which we preached unto you
1.
Paul preached:
a.
The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. 1Co. 15:1-5
b.
Belief in, and confession of, the Christ. Rom. 10:9-10
c.
Repentance from sin. Act. 17:30-31
d.
Burial of sin repented-from. Rom. 6:4
e.
Resurrection from water to live in a new life. Rom. 6:5
2.
All gospel must be measured by this divine measure.
let him be anathema
1.
Let us examine the meaning of the word in the original language.
a.
The Greek word anathema and the Hebrew herem mean to accurse, to damn.
b.
Let him be anathema does not mean we are to curse him.
2.
Many scriptures show the awfulness of false teaching.
a.
For there are many unruly men, vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped; men who overthrow whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucres sake. Tit. 1:10-11
b.
Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them that are causing divisions and occasions of stumbling, contrary to the doctrine which ye learned: and turn away from them. Rom. 16:17
c.
If any one cometh unto you, and bringeth not this teaching, receive him not into your house, and give him no greeting. 2Jn. 1:10
d.
Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not . . . by thy name do many mighty works? Mat. 7:22
e.
The Word of God is not to be added to, nor subtracted from. Rev. 22:18-19
3.
In later years anathema came to mean excommunication (by the very ones who should have been accursed).
a.
Excommunication meant separation from the church.
b.
This is more than that, for angels were not in the church for man to excommunicate.
4.
Verse nine differs only in the fact that Paul says that they received a gospel and therefore should not receive another one.
WORD STUDY 1:8, 9
The word anathema (ah NATH eh mah) is the Greek word for that which is set up for destruction. When Joshua led Israel in the defeat of Jericho, everything in the city was to be destroyed. It was all set aside for God, devoted (anathema) for destruction (Jos. 6:18).
Anyone who preaches a different gospel is to be marked as under a curse of destruction.
There is a subtle difference in verse nine from the preceding verse. Verse eight speaks hypothetically in the future tense, but this verse deals with the present reality. The distinction, then, could be shown this way:
Gal. 1:8 : If we ever should preach contrary . . .
Gal. 1:9 : If someone is right now preaching contrary . . .
STUDY QUESTIONS 1:8, 9
59.
What does the word anathema mean?
60.
Who is included in the anathema?
61.
Do we have modern day religions claiming to be from angels?
62.
Name other verses that condemn false teachers.
63.
How does verse nine differ from verse eight?
64.
What may we assume by the emphasis of verse nine to verse eight?
c)
His passion to please God. Gal. 1:10
TEXT 1:10
(10) For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? or am I striving to please men? if I were still pleasing men, I should not be a servant of Christ.
PARAPHRASE 1:10
10 Having twice denounced destruction to myself and to all others, if we preach contrary to what was first preached to you, I now ask those who say I suit my doctrine to the humours of men, Do I by this denunciation make men my friends, or God? Or do I seek to please men? If indeed I still pleased men, as before my conversion, I should not be the servant of Christ.
COMMENT 1:10
seeking the favor of men
1.
He was not a time-serving, man-pleasing factionist, and such a condemnation was most unfounded.
a.
His former life as a Phariseepleasing the priest or the peopledirectly in contrast to his suffering for the gospel.
b.
In this connection, read 2Co. 6:4-10.
2.
He would not be a servant of Christ if he were in the business of pleasing men.
a.
On occasions however, he had conformed to mens customs.
1)
He had Timothy circumcised. Act. 16:1-3
2)
Paul and four others purified themselves at the temple. Act. 21:26
3)
Paul shaved his head when he was at Cenchrea. Act. 18:18
b.
These were done because of Pauls charitable disposition, but he never let down on doctrine.
WORD STUDY 1:10
Although we shy away from the word, the very best translation for doulos (DOO loss) is not servant, but slave. It is the same word used countless times in ancient literature to describe the slave class, who:
1.
Had no remaining rights of their own,
2.
Were owned by someone else,
3.
Were compelled to do the will of their master,
Imagine the results if every Christian would truly commit himself as a slave for his Master!
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(6) Removed.The Greek word is one regularly used for a deserter, turn-coat, or apostate, either in war, politics, or religion. The tense is strictly present: You are now, at this moment, in the act of falling away.
Him that called you.The call of the Christian is attributed by St. Paul to God the Father; so even in Rom. 1:6. The Christian, having been called by God, belongs to Christ. The part taken by Christ in the calling of the Christian is rather a mediate agency, such as is expressed in the next phrase.
Into the grace of Christ.Rather, by the grace of Christ. The grace (i.e., the free love) of Christ becomes the instrument of the divine calling, inasmuch as it is through the preaching of that free love and free gift that the unbeliever is at first attracted and won over to the faith. The grace of Christ is His voluntary self-surrender to humiliation and death, from no other prompting than His own love for sinful men.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
(6, 7) Unto another gospel: which is not another.It is to be regretted that the English language hardly admits the fine shade of distinction which exists here in the Greek. The Greek has two words for another: one (the first of those which is here used) implying a difference in kind, the other implying mere numerical addition.
Another gospel do I call it? That would seem to concede its right to be called a gospel at all. It might be supposed to be some alternative theory, existing side by side with that which you originally heard; but this cannot be. This other gospel is not a second gospel; for there cannot be two gospels. The inference, therefore, to be drawn is that it is not a gospel in any sense of the word. This, then, may be dismissed. It is no true gospel, but only mischievous and factious meddling on the part of certain false teachers.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
(6-10) The Apostle is surprised at their rapid defection. The doctrine to which they had at first given in their adhesion was a doctrine of salvation by grace: they now imagined that they were only hearing a different version of the same truths. A different version? How was that possible? There could not be any second gospel, nor was there really anything of the kind. It was not a new gospel, but only a factious perversion of the old. Those who do thisno matter who they beare accursed. That, at least, is plain speaking, and no one can accuse it of time-serving.
The Apostle had ended his address to the Galatians abruptly, and now he plunges abruptly, and without more preface, into the midst of his charges against them. He cannot understand their sudden apostasy.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
PART FIRST.
ST. PAUL’S HISTORY OF HIS APOSTLESHIP SUSTAINED, Gal 1:6 to Gal 2:21.
1. Points stated Paul’s apostleship, and Christ’s gospel of faith, Gal 1:6-10.
6. I marvel Rather, admire; spoken usually of admirable objects of notice; hence a more delicate word than marvel or wonder, and yet slightly suggestive of sarcasm. It was a brilliant fickleness, perhaps, yet a sad one.
So soon He admires not only their recession from the cross to the circumcision, but also the unexpected promptness with which it has been accomplished. But from what point of time is so soon (or more literally, so quickly) to be calculated? If from the time of their first conversion, that was probably a period of about four years. More likely, however, St. Paul refers to the suddenness of their conversion. They fell so quickly before the first assault as to take him by surprise. He had not time to wait for a personal intervention, but must interpose by a letter.
Him that called you The reference of this him to Paul, who, as apostle, called them to Christ, makes a very pointed meaning. But assuming that Galatians and Romans were written about the same period, then Rom 9:11 indicates a reference to God. So Wesley, and also the best modern commentators.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘I marvel that you are so quickly moving from him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different Gospel, which is not another. Only there are some who trouble you and would pervert the Gospel of Christ.’
He cannot understand why they are allowing themselves to be drawn away from God’s amazing love and purposes. They have been ‘called in the grace (gracious compassion towards them) of Christ.’ In other words, recognising the unmerited favour (grace) being shown to them through what He has done for them on the cross, and hearing in it the call of God, they have responded to Him, receiving forgiveness of sins and being declared righteous before God, thus being ‘engraced’ in Christ (Eph 1:6). For this is what the Gospel, the Good News of Christ is all about. But now almost unbelievingly they are turning to something else, something which is not really Good News at all. They are listening to men who are distorting the Gospel and robbing it of its glory, men who insist on following sterile religious observances rather than on loving response to Christ, and whose message will turn their glorious good news into a burden.
It was not necessarily the religious observances themselves that were the burden, although in the uncooperative society that they lived in they could be difficult enough, it was the fact that by making necessary for salvation their proper observance of every detail of the Law, they put men onto a treadmill of despair from which they could find no deliverance, as they fought and struggled and failed, and the consequence was that men became terrified because they recognised that they were coming short in them, and life became an endless and continual battle of struggling to dot the right i and cross the right t, a struggle which could in the end only result in failure.
‘Some who trouble you.’ The word for trouble is strong and means ‘disturbed’ and having ‘conflict of mind’ (compare Mat 2:3; Mat 14:26; Joh 14:1). They had previously been at peace as a result of the truth, but now these men have totally disturbed their way of life.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
He Expresses His Astonishment At How Quickly They Have Turned Away From God’s Active Grace ( Gal 1:6-10 ).
Paul now expresses his amazement that they have so quickly turned away from this good news of the free, unmerited favour of God to something else which is not really a Gospel at all, the slavish observance of the rituals of the Law of Moses (Gal 1:6-10).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Opening Rebuke – In Gal 1:6-10 Paul rebukes the Galatians for being brought back into bondage by embracing a false gospel. This false gospel was embraced because they were seeking to please men rather than God. Since Paul was dealing with Judaizers who were challenging Paul’s apostleship and message as well as attempting to bring these Gentiles under the Law of Moses, he launches a two-fold argument. He first explains his divine calling and authority (Gal 1:11 to Gal 2:21) and then explains the relationship of the Mosaic Law to the Church (Gal 3:1 to Gal 4:31).
Gal 1:6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
Gal 1:6
“I marvel that ye are so soon removed” – In a mood of reflection upon God’s divine and glorious plan for His church which he mentions in Gal 1:4-5, Paul marvels at how a believer could willfully walk away from the grace that rescued them. He states later in this epistle that those who has followed another gospel had “fallen from grace.”
Gal 5:4, “Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.”
This was not the first time that God’s people walked away from His grace. In Exodus 32, Israel made a golden calf and began to worship it soon after the Lord brought them out of Egyptian bondage.
Exo 32:1, “And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.”
“from him that called you” – Paul has just made a reference to his own personal through Jesus Christ calling in the opening verse. Now, he asks the Galatians to examine their calling. This question leaves them with the implied answer that they were being called away from the Gospel by men, and not by the Lord.
“unto another gospel: Which is not another” Two different Greek words ( and ) are translated using the English word “another” in Gal 1:6-7 a.
(1) BDAG says the first Greek word “another” ( ) (G2087) means, “different.” The Enhanced Strong expands this definition to mean, “one not of the same nature, form, class, kind, different.” Thus, the first word means, “another gospel of the different sort.”
(2) BDAG says the Greek word “another” ( ) (G243) means, “another (except, besides).” Zodhiates says, “Another, numerically but of the same kind in contrast to another qualitatively, other, different one.” It refers to something of the same kind or of similar nature. Thus, the second word (243) means, “another of the same sort.”
Illustration – Today there is another gospel, which talks about Jesus Christ, yet it is not according to the full Gospel of Jesus Christ as preached by Paul. It includes humanism, man’s teachings, etc. Extreme illustrations are Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Others are denominational teachings, which deny the gifts of Holy Spirit and the baptism and Holy Ghost. Some, like Catholicism, teach from the Bible, yet they often do not teach now to be born again through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Such teachers of the Holy Bible bring this curse into their lives that Paul prophesied here, because they are preaching “another gospel.”
2Co 11:4, “For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus , whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel , which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.”
Gal 1:7 Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
Gal 1:7
Gal 5:11, “And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offence of the cross ceased.”
Gal 6:12, “As many as desire to make a fair shew in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised; only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.”
Paul had experienced trouble from the Jews for years (Act 14:19; Act 15:1; Act 15:24; Act 17:13, 1Th 2:15).
Act 14:19, “And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead.”
Act 15:1, “And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.”
Act 15:24, “Forasmuch as we have heard, that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words , subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the law: to whom we gave no such commandment:”
Act 17:13, “But when the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the word of God was preached of Paul at Berea, they came thither also, and stirred up the people.”
1Th 2:15, “Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men:”
Gal 1:7 “and would pervert the gospel of Christ” Comments – Paul is referring to the Judaizers, whom he will describe in more detail later in this epistle. For now, Paul is explaining the genuine Gospel and the true servants of Christ before he shows them the counterfeit Judaizers.
Satan hinders the Gospel by trying to give a twisted and descriptive version, which perverts the truth.
Gal 1:8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
Gal 1:8
Gal 1:8 “let him be accused” – Comments – A curse lies upon anyone who preaches contrary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
1Co 16:22, “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha.”
Gal 1:9 As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.
Gal 1:9
The phrase “let him be accursed” is used in Gal 1:8 and repeated in Gal 1:9, so that this repetition is used as a method of emphasizing and reinforcing a statement. The Scriptures teach that a matter is confirmed in the mouth of two or three witnesses (Deu 17:6). Thus, Paul’s repetition of this phrase confirmed its validity as a warning.
Deu 17:6, “At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death.”
Gal 1:10 For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
Gal 1:10
Comments – Paul is obviously trying to please and appeal to God, not to man (1Th 2:4).
1Th 2:4, “But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts.”
If our actions are focused on pleasing man and being praised by them, rather than pleasing and being exalted by God, then we are not Christ’s servants.
Gal 1:10 “or do I seek to please men?” Comments The phrase reads “do I seek to please men (or God),” with the implied “or God” being carried from the previous statement.
Gal 1:10 “for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ” – Word Study on “servant” BDAG says the Greek word “servant” ( ) (1401) means “a slave.” The opposite of (slave) is (free). Paul uses to describe himself on four occasions in his epistles (Rom 1:1, Gal 1:10, Php 1:1, Tit 1:1).
Rom 1:1, “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God,”
Gal 1:10, “For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.”
Php 1:1, “Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ , to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:”
Tit 1:1, “Paul, a servant of God , and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness;”
Comments – Lev 25:39-40 makes a distinction between a hired servant and a bondservant (slave).
Lev 25:39-40, “And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee; thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bondservant : But as an hired servant , and as a sojourner, he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee:”
Comments – One reason why Paul uses the phrase “servant of Jesus Christ” often in his epistles is because many Old Testament people used this word in their relationship to God:
Abraham:
Gen 26:24, “And the LORD appeared unto him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham thy father: fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham’s sake .”
Job:
Job 42:7-8, “And it was so, that after the LORD had spoken these words unto Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath. Therefore take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job , and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you: for him will I accept: lest I deal with you after your folly, in that ye have not spoken of me the thing which is right, like my servant Job.”
Moses:
Jos 1:1, “Now after the death of Moses the servant of the LORD it came to pass, that the LORD spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ minister, saying,”
Samuel:
1Sa 3:9, “Therefore Eli said unto Samuel, Go, lie down: and it shall be, if he call thee, that thou shalt say, Speak, LORD; for thy servant heareth. So Samuel went and lay down in his place.”
David:
2Sa 3:18, “Now then do it: for the LORD hath spoken of David, saying, By the hand of my servant David I will save my people Israel out of the hand of the Philistines, and out of the hand of all their enemies.”
2Ki 19:34, “For I will defend this city, to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David’s sake .”
Solomon:
1Ki 3:9, “Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?”
Elijah:
2Ki 9:36, “Wherefore they came again, and told him. And he said, This is the word of the LORD, which he spake by his servant Elijah the Tishbite, saying, In the portion of Jezreel shall dogs eat the flesh of Jezebel:”
Hezekiah:
2Ch 32:16, “And his servants spake yet more against the LORD God, and against his servant Hezekiah .”
Israel and Jacob:
Isa 44:21, “Remember these, O Jacob and Israel; for thou art my servant : I have formed thee; thou art my servant : O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me.”
Daniel:
Dan 6:20, “And when he came to the den, he cried with a lamentable voice unto Daniel: and the king spake and said to Daniel, O Daniel, servant of the living God , is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions?”
Zerubbabel:
Hag 2:23, “In that day, saith the LORD of hosts, will I take thee, O Zerubbabel, my servant , the son of Shealtiel, saith the LORD, and will make thee as a signet: for I have chosen thee, saith the LORD of hosts.”
Jesus:
Isa 52:13, “Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high.”
Isa 53:11, “He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.”
Paul became a servant at his conversion in Damascus (Act 9:1-22), although Ananias prophesied of his future divine calling unto the nations. He spent about fourteen years evangelizing Damascus and the regions of Syria and Cilicia prior to being sent out with Barnabas as an apostle. Notice that Paul calls himself a servant before declaring himself an apostle. The Greek language often lacks our familiar word order of Subject-Verb-Object. Instead, the Greek places words in the order of their emphasis, or the order of importance to the thought being presented. Because Greek is so highly inflected, there is little or no confusion when distinguishing between the subject and the object to its respective verb.
Therefore, in Rom 1:1 we see Paul placing his servitude to Jesus Christ before his office of apostleship. Paul’s anointing to walk as an apostle is in direct proportion to his servitude to his Master. In the natural world, no business manager is worthy of his hire who is not first willing to carry out the will of the business owner. This is because the authority to rule over man is always based upon one’s willingness to yield to a higher authority. Paul knew that the secret to walking in the anointing as a apostle was to daily crucify his own will and serve his Master, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Illustration – If anyone has ever had a servant that lived and worked in their home, they know that a servant is a person who abandons his own pursuits, and daily takes care of the pursuits and needs of the master. A servant does not have great plans for his own life. He literally gives his life so that the master’s goals and plans may be achieved. This is the heart of a servant.
Illustration I was trying to comfort my precious wife one morning while we were serving the Lord in the mission field. After fifteen years working overseas, having left wonderful opportunities and a comfortable life in the United States, she said that she felt like a prisoner. She could not do what she wanted to do. She had her own dreams that she did not pursue. I then reminded her of Paul’s description of himself in his epistles as a slave and even a prisoner of Jesus Christ. We talked about our feelings and concluded that life is very short, and all that we have gained in this world is left behind when we die. Thus, we reconciled ourselves to our fate of serving the Lord at the cost of sacrificing our own will and desires. Paul must have felt the same on occasions, looking at his family and loved ones who were able to enjoy a normal lifestyle, and stable home, and the many comforts that a home and family brings to one’s life. While in the mission field planting churches in the Greco-Roman cities teaming with slavery, Paul identified himself with the life of a slave. While in prison, he called himself a prisoner of Jesus Christ. He gave himself daily to the will of God, often laying aside his own desires. (4 October 2012)
Gal 1:10 Comments (1) – Gal 1:10 contains a third class conditional clause “if, but I’m not.”
Gal 1:10 Comments (2) Pleasing men and pleasing God cannot work hand in hand. A choice has to be made; for no one can serve two masters (Luk 16:13, Joh 5:44; Joh 12:43, Rom 2:29).
Luk 16:13, “No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
Joh 5:44, “How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?”
Joh 12:43, “For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.”
Rom 2:29, “But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.”
When we become concerned about how others see us, we lose our authority. If authority becomes our goal, we will begin to lose genuine authority. We must seek to please Father, who gives authority. It does not come with man-made titles. In God’s kingdom, authority comes by obedience to God. It comes from who we are, not by a position or title in a denomination. In God’s kingdom, rank is earned by humility, service and love. [78]
[78] Rick Joyner, The Call (Charlotte, North Carolina: Morning Star Publications, 1999), 198.
One danger that ministers and pastors must avoid is to become so knitted together in fellowship that they seek to please one another rather than God. This often happens within denominational groups. When such a group of men seek the approval of one another they cease pleasing God. This is just the way that the Pharisees and Judaizers could be described.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Explaining Our Liberties in Christ In Gal 1:6 to Gal 4:31 Paul explains our liberties in Christ Jesus. After rebuking the Galatians for their double-minded faith (Gal 1:6-10) he reminds them of his divine calling which gave him the authority to proclaim the Gospel to the Gentiles (Gal 1:11 to Gal 2:21). He then explains the role of the Mosaic Law within the revelation of the new covenant in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:1 to Gal 4:31).
Outline Here is a proposed outline:
1. Opening Rebuke Gal 1:6-10
2. The Nature of Paul’s Calling Gal 1:11 to Gal 2:21
3. The Nature of the Mosaic Law Gal 3:1 to Gal 4:31
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Paul’s Reason for Writing the epistle.
v. 6. I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel;
v. 7. which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the Gospel of Christ.
v. 8. But though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
v. 9. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.
v. 10. For do I now persuade men or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I yet please men, I should not be the servant of Christ. Paul’s agitation is evident from the first, in every word which he writes. He had been startled by the intelligence which he received, he was intensely indignant at the attitude taken by the Galatians. Instead of offering general remarks, he immediately launches forth in a vehement discussion of the situation as it presented itself according to trustworthy accounts; for the perversion of the truth as practiced by the agitators struck at the very core of Christianity; in pretending to aim at the apostle, the enemies were really placing his office under suspicion and directly hurting the cause of the Gospel.
Like a mighty torrent the force of his resentment bursts forth: I am astonished, I marvel, that so quickly you are changing over from Him that called you in the grace of Christ to another gospel. The news which Paul had received had filled him with surprised astonishment, it had almost taken his breath away, since it indicated such a quick change of mind on the part of the Galatians. For although his opponents had not yet scored a definite success, the idea which they broached had found entrance, it had gained adherents with remarkable rapidity, a fact which in itself was a disgrace to the people that had shown such an encouraging interest in the true Gospel; they were being won over, and in this they were willingly lending their ear to the false teachers. Their apostasy (for it was that to which their fickleness was drawing them) to another gospel, to a message which purported to be a message of salvation, a different, a spurious gospel, was not so much from Paul, who had issued to them the Gospel-call, as from Christ and God; for the call proceeded in the grace of Christ, from the divine love. Note: That the call to grace goes forth is due to the free mercy and love of Christ, and it is issued through the Word, by the mouth of the messengers of Christ.
That it was a false lead to which the attention of the Galatians had been drawn in their fickleness is asserted by Paul with the greatest vehemence: Whereas there is no other; or: Which other sort of gospel can make no claim of genuineness, except there are some that are unsettling you and wanting to corrupt the Gospel of Christ. That was the apostle’s charge against the agitators, that they were attempting to pass off their false message as the only true and genuine Gospel, and that they were thus marketing a lie. The result of this deception was a twofold one: They were disturbing and troubling the minds and consciences of the Galatians, causing them to be doubtful as to the doctrine which they had been taught; and they were incidentally doing their best to distort and pervert the real Gospel of Christ, the glorious message of salvation through His name. If they had succeeded in their design, it would have meant the end of pure evangelical preaching in the congregations affected. Note: This verse must be kept in mind at all times against the perverters of the message of sin and grace, no matter in what guise they come, just as it was used by the reformers in rejecting the claims of the Romish Church.
In a ringing challenge the words of Paul sound forth: But now also, though we or an angel from heaven preach a gospel to you contrary to the Gospel which we preached to you, let God’s curse be on him! The word anathema, rendered “accursed” in the Authorized Version, was applied especially to all offerings devoted under a solemn oath to death or destruction, Lev 27:28; Jos 7:1; Act 13:14. It was not that Paul was arrogating to himself the right to excommunicate any individuals without the consent and resolution of the congregation, but that he was affirming general principles, which, on the part of God, hold true for all times. Speaking of himself and his coworkers, and therefore of all true ministers of the Gospel, he states that no doctrine has the right to exist in the Church which differs from, and contradicts, the Gospel as it has been proclaimed by him in all his work. It is not a matter of dispute between various teachers, all of whom may claim purity of truth for themselves, but the contrast is that between truth and falsehood. And there it holds good: Not Paul himself, not any of his assistants, not any minister of the Gospel, not even an angel from heaven can alter the truth in Christ. If anyone should, in spite of this principle, presume to substitute a spurious Gospel, any false doctrine, for the truth of redemption, then such a one should be subject to God’s curse, the end of which is eternal death. Note: This principle must be upheld by all Christians over against the claims of false teachers; any deviation from the sound doctrine as found in the Bible, any substitution of man-made philosophies and expositions, places the authors of such attempts under the curse of God. “The Word of God shall establish articles of faith, and no one else, not even an angel. ” “Therefore we shall confidently say with Paul: May all doctrine from heaven or from the earth or no matter whence it may have been brought, perish and be accursed, which teaches to rely upon other works, other righteousness, other merits than those which belong to Christ.”
For the sake of emphasis, Paul repeats this solemn statement: As we have lately forewarned you, so I say also again: If any one preaches a gospel to you which contradicts that which you have received, let God’s curse be upon him. Paul seems not only to have uttered general warnings against any doctrine at variance with the pure Gospel which he was preaching, but also to have pointed out specifically, also through Silas and Timothy, that any religion of works would remove the very foundation of the Gospel. These warnings may have been given particularly on the third journey, when the news of the activity of Judaizing teachers was spread. And he explains the severity of his expressions, of his double anathema, by asking indignantly: For is it men that I am now striving to please, to conciliate, or God? Or am I zealous about finding the favor of men? If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. If his object were to persuade men, to gain them for his own person, to seek their approval for selfish reasons, then his boasting about being an unselfish servant of Christ, for the purpose of advancing the glory of Christ only, would be hypocrisy and deception. But he insists that his sole aim and object in preaching the Gospel is the furtherance of God’s glory through the declaration of the entire counsel of salvation; this he does in his capacity as servant of Christ, whether it pleases men or not, for all men by nature are opposed to the truth and do not desire the vicarious atonement of Jesus. If he were speaking to please men, he would thereby admit that he had personal interests at stake, and his message would be bound to be influenced by that fact. But since he has in mind the glory of the Lord, he speaks after the manner and by the Spirit of God, in disinterested single-mindedness. It is the disposition which must animate and actuate every true servant of Christ at all times.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Gal 1:6. We have before observed, that St. Paul’s first endeavour in this epistle was to satisfy the Galatians, that the report spread of him, that he preached circumcision, was false. Till this obstruction which lay in his way was removed, it was to no purpose for him to go about to dissuade them from circumcision, though that be what he principallyaims at in this epistle. To shew them that he promoted not circumcision, he calls their hearkening to those who persuaded them to be circumcised, their being removed from him; and those that so persuaded them, perverters of the Gospel of Christ, Gal 1:6-7. He further assures them, that the Gospel which he preached every where, was that, and that only, which he had received by immediate revelation from Christ, and was no contrivance of man; nor did he vary it to please men; that would not consist with his being a servant of Christ, Gal 1:10. And he expresses such a firm adherence to what he had received from Christ, and had preached to them, that he pronounces an anathema upon himself, Gal 1:8-9 or any other man, or angel, that should preach any thing else to them. To make out this to have been all along his conduct, he gives an account of himself for many years backwards, even from the time before his conversion; wherein he shews, that from a zealous persecuting Jew he was made a Christian, and an Apostle by immediate revelation; and that having no communication with the Apostles, or with the churches of Judea, or any man in this sense for some years, he had nothing to preach but what he had received by immediate revelation. Nay, when fourteen years after he went up to Jerusalem, it was by revelation; and when he there communicated the Gospel which he preached among the Gentiles, Peter, James, and John approved of it without adding any thing, but admitted him as their fellow-apostle. So that in all this he was guided by nothing but divine revelation, which he inflexibly adhered to so far, that he openly opposed St. Peter for his Judaizing at Antioch. All which account of himself tends clearly to shew, that St. Paul made not the least step towards complying with the Jews in favour of the law; nor did, out of regard to man, deviate from the doctrine which he had received by revelation from God, ch. Gal 1:6.ii. 21.
From him that called you into the grace of Christ These words might be rendered with equal propriety, called you by, or through the grace of Christ. The passage plainly points out St. Paul himself. See ch. Gal 5:8. But then one might wonder how he came to use there words; since at first light it might appear to have sounded better to have said, Removed from the Gospel I preached to you, to another Gospel, than, Removed from me who called you into the grace of Christ, unto another Gospel. But if it be remembered that St. Paul’s design here is to vindicate himself from the aspersion cast on him, that he preached circumcision, nothing could be more suitable to that purpose than this way of expressing himself.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Gal 1:6 . Without prefixing, as in other epistles, even in those to the Corinthians, a conciliatory preamble setting forth what was commendable in his readers, Paul at once plunges in mediam rem . He probably wrote without delay, immediately on receiving the accounts which arrived as to the falling away of his readers, while his mind was still in that state of agitated feeling which prevented him from using his customary preface of thanksgiving and conciliation, a painful irritation ( , 2Co 11:29 ), which was the more just, that in the case of the Galatians, the very foundation and substance of his gospel threatened to fall to pieces.
] often used by Greek orators in the sense of surprise at something blameworthy . Dem. 349. 3; Sturz, Lex. Xen . II. p. 511; Abresch, Diluc. Thuc . p. 309. In the N.T., comp. Mar 6:6 ; Joh 7:21 ; 1Jn 3:13 .
] so very quickly , so recently, may denote either the rapid development of the apostasy (comp. 2Th 2:2 ; 1Ti 5:22 ; Wis 14:28 ), as Chrysostom ( . . .), Theophylact, Koppe, Schott, de Wette, Windischmann, Ellicott, Hofmann, Reithmayr understand it; or its early occurrence (1Co 4:19 ; Phi 2:19 , et al. ), whether reckoned from the last visit of the apostle (Bengel, Flatt, Hilgenfeld, Wieseler) or from the conversion of the readers (Usteri, Olshausen). The latter is preferable, because it corresponds with . . ., whereby the time of the calling is indicated as the terminus a quo . Comp. Gal 3:1-3 . This view is not inconsistent with the fact that the epistle was written a considerable time after the conversion of the readers; for, at all events, they had been Christians for but a few years, which the as a relative idea still suits well enough. By their they showed themselves to be (Mat 13:21 ), and this surprises the apostle. As to , comp. on Gal 3:3 .
] , to transpose , in the middle, to alter one’s opinion , to become of another mind, and generally to fall away (with , App. Hisp . 17; Sir 6:8 ; with , Polyb. xxvi. 2. 6). See Wetstein in loc.; Kypke, II. p. 273; Ast. ad Plat. de Leg . p. 497; from the LXX., Schleusner, s.v.; and from Philo, Loesner, p. 325. It might also be understood in a passive sense (Theodoras of Mopsuestia, ., not , is used: ; Beza, “verbum passivum usurpavit, ut culpam in pseudo-apostolos derivet”). But the use of the middle in this sense is the common one; so that the passive sense, and the nicety which, according to Beza, is involved in it, must have been more definitely indicated to the reader in order to be recognised. The present tense denotes that the readers were still in the very act of the falling away, which began so soon after their conversion. According to Jerome, the word itself is intended to convey an allusion to the name Galatia: “Galatia enim translationem in nostra lingua sonat” ( ; hence , carrying away). Although approved by Bertholdt, this idea is nevertheless an empty figment, because the thing suggested the expression, and these Hebrew words denote the in the sense of exile (see Gesenius, Thes. I. p. 285). But from an historical point of view, the appeals of Grotius and Wetstein to the fickleness of the Gallic character (Caes. B. Gall. iii. 19, iv. 5, ii. 1, iii. 10) are not without interest as regards the Galatians.
.] On , away from, comp. 2Ma 7:24 ; and see generally, Khner, 622 c. The is not to be taken with , as Syr., Jerome, Erasmus (in the version, not in the paraphrase and annotations), Luther, Calvin, Grotius, Bengel, and others, also Morus and Flatt, understand it; against which may be urged, not (with Matthies and Schott) the want of the article before (see on Rom 9:5 ; comp. also 1Pe 1:15 ), but the fact that the calling into the kingdom of the Messiah is presented by Paul (and the apostles generally) so constantly as the work of God, that we must not deviate from this analogy in explaining the words (see on Rom 1:6 ; and Weiss, Bibl. Theol. p. 387). Thence, also, . is not to be taken as neuter, and referred to the gospel (Ewald); but is God, and belongs to , from Him who has called you through the grace of Christ. is instrumental; for the grace of Christ (Act 15:11 ; Rom 5:15 ; 2Co 8:9 ; Tit 3:6 : comp. also Rom 16:20 ; 2Co 12:9 ; 2Co 13:13 ; Phm 1:25 ), that is, the favour of Christ unmerited by sinful men, according to which He gave up His life to atone for them (comp. Gal 1:4 ), is that by which, that is, by the preaching of which, the divine calling reaches the subjects of it; comp. Act 14:3 ; Act 20:24 . So with , 1Co 7:15 ; Eph 4:4 ; 1Th 4:7 ; to which passages the interpretation “on the ground of grace” (Wieseler) is not suitable. Others take for (Vulgate, Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose, Beza and others, also Borger and Rckert); so that by brevity of language , indicating the result of the direction, includes within it this also; see Winer, p. 388 [E. T. 514]. This is unnecessarily forced, for such a constructio praegnans in Greek and in the N.T. is undisputed only in the case of verbs of motion (as , , , . . .). Comp. also Hartung, ber d. Kas. p. 68 f. In point of sense, moreover, this view is liable to the objection that the always refers to the Messianic kingdom (1Th 2:12 ; 1Ti 6:12 ; 2Th 2:14 ; 1Pe 5:10 ; Rev 19:9 , et al.; also 1Co 1:9 , and passages such as Col 3:15 ; 1Th 4:7 ), and the grace of Christ is that which procures the Messianic (Rom 5:15 , et al.), and not the itself. On the absence of the article before , see Winer, p. 118 f. [E. T. 147 f.]
Observe, moreover how the whole mode of setting forth the apostasy makes the readers sensible of its antagonism to God and salvation! Comp. Chrysostom and Theodoret.
.] to a gospel of a different quality, from that, namely, which was preached to you when God called you. Comp. 2Co 11:4 . The contrast is based on the previous designation of their calling as having taken place (not somehow by the law), a statement clearly enough indicating the specific nature of the Pauline gospel, from which the nature of the Judaistic teaching, although the Galatians had likewise received the latter as the gospel for which it had been passed off, was withal so different ( ). Comp. Gal 1:8 .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
Occasion of the Epistle:
APOSTASY OF THE GALATIANS FROM THE GOSPEL, WHICH PAUL HAD PREACHED TO THEM, TO THE FALSE DOCTRINE OF CERTAIN SEDUCERS, AGAINST WHOM HE THEREFORE UTTERS THE ANATHEMA
Gal 1:6-10.
6I marvel that ye are so soon removed [changing over]6 from him that called you into [in or by]7 the grace of Christ8 unto another [a different]9 gospel: 7Which is not another; but there be [except that there are] some that trouble you, and would 8[, wish to] pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach [should preach]10 any other gospel unto you11 than [or contrary to]12 that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed [anathema]. 9As we said before,13 so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than 10 [or contrary to] that ye have received, let him be accursed [anathema]. For do I now persuade [am I now conciliating]14 men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for [omit for]15 if I yet pleased men, I should not be the [a] servant of Christ.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Without any thanksgiving for the readers gifts of grace, as in other Epistles, the Apostle passes immediately from the invocation of a blessing to sharp rebuke which, however, strikes not so much the Galatians themselves as their seducing teaches. Gal 1:6-9.
Gal 1:6. I marvel that ye are so soon changing over.He finds it strange, since he has expected, and had reason to expect, something different. So soon refers rather to the entrance of the apostasy than to its course, as having so rapidly developed itself from its commencement. The latter view suits the connection the less, inasmuch as designates the apostasy as yet in process of development; , is therefore, we may say, equivalent toso soon after the last visit of the Apostle. [So soon either 1) after conversion, or 2) after his visit, or 3) after the false teachers came; all three may be included, and are true; which is the primary reference cannot be certainly determined. In any case in view of the middle force of (turning renegades, Lightfoot), it is a charge that the change was sudden and one for which they were to blame. Schaff: The Greek implies first that the apostasy was voluntary, hence their own guilt; secondly, that it was not yet completed, and hence might be averted. The passive rendering would transfer the guilt to the false teachers.R.]
From him that called you: most probably from God, who called you on the ground of the grace of Christ, which He has shown in His surrender of Himself to death; not=from Christ, who out of grace has called you. It is true that with the first explanation . . is difficult to render, but in any case it is not to be understood of the state of grace, as if=called you to the possession and enjoyment of grace.[By the grace of Christ.The E. V. renders -, into the grace, following the Vulgate, but is here used in its instrumental sense. Alford: Christs grace is the elementary medium of our calling of God; the sum of all that He has suffered and done for us to bring us to God;whereby we come to the Father,in which, as its element, the Fathers calling of us has place. Ellicott: The dogmatical consideration that the grace of Christ, in the sense it here appears used by St. Paul, denotes an active and energizing influence rather than a passive element, seems distinctly to suggest the instrumental sense. Comp. his notes in loco.R.] But it is God Himself who calls. The reference of ; to the Apostle has some support in the fact that he afterwards opposes so expressly his own preaching to that of others, yet must be rejected, as too constantly expresses an activity of God for this interpretation. The apostasy is described, doubtless not undesignedly, as an apostasy from a person, not from a doctrine, that it may appear as ingratitude.To a different gospel.More exactly: to another kind of gospel = . . (Gal 1:9). A gospel, either because the Galatians naturally took the doctrine which the false teachers brought them for the Gospel, or primarily in the general sense of Doctrine of Salvation, which the legal doctrine also claimed to be.
Gal 1:7. Yet Paul as it were at once corrects himself, and respecting that which he has just named gospel, denies again that this predicate in fact belongs to it, this false teaching is no gospel, but a subversion of the gospel. This is at all events the sense, if the most obvious constructionis referred to the immediately preceding . = which other sort of gospel is no other, by the side of that preached by me, except that there are, etc. [The more correct reference is to . So Meyer, Alford, Ellicott, Lightfoot, and Schmoller himself. See Alfords notes in loco for a full discussion and objections to the reference below.R.] The reference however to the whole sentence is possible=which is nothing else (that is, this turning to another gospel) than that you have let yourselves be seduced by such as wish to subvert the gospel.
There be some that trouble you.Paul is fond of calling his opposers: i.e., certain well known people, whom one for any reason whatever, in this case out of disparagement, will not designate more nearly. Wieseler.[Wordsworth suggests and defends an ironical meaning: unless they who are troubling you, are somebody, but this seems forced. Lightfoot paraphrases well: only in this sense is it another gospel, in that it is an attempt to pervert the one true gospel.R. ] = to disturb the conscience and thereby the feelings by exciting doubts whether the gospel preached to them were the true teaching or not.Wish to pervert = to have the will, to labor for; as the sequel plainly shows, it has not yet come to an actual perversion; =, funditus evertere.The gospel of Christ, probably=gospel respecting Christ, inasmuch as in the first place the gospel treats of Christ generally; especially, however, because the merit of Christ is the chief theme of the true gospel in distinction from the legal teaching. The gospel, of course, could not, in itself, be destroyed, but the evangelical preaching among the Galatians might be, if they received another teaching.
Gal 1:8. But though welet him be anathema.Certain persons wish to destroy the gospel of Christ among you, and bring you another, but () rather let every one who does that be , instead of passing for an evangelist.: first and chiefly the Apostle himself, then, however, also the brethren who are with me, in whose name he likewise writes.Angel from heaven, to be taken together=angel descended from heaven. If Paul repudiates his own and even angelic authority in the case assumed, as accursed, then every one, without exception (comp. , Gal 5:10), is subject to the same curse in the same case. Meyer. . =literally: beyond that, etc., maybe equivalent to praterquam, or to contra. Formerly dogmatic interest came here into play, the Lutherans, in opposition to tradition, contending for praterquam, and the Catholics in defence of it, for contra. Contra, or more exactly the sense of specific difference, is according to the context the right sense. (See Gal 1:6. .) Meyer. [This sense of , contrary to, is now generally conceded by Protestant commentators. Wordsworth and Lightfoot give it the sense of besides; the latter arguing from the context that Paul means, his gospel will brook no rival, will suffer no foreign admixture, but, as Ellicott remarks: the Apostle implies throughout the Epistle that the Judaical gospel was in the strict sense of the words an ., and in its very essence opposed to the true gospel. Both ideas may properly be included (Alford, Schaff).R.] : namely, I and my companions at the time of your conversion. Comp. . Gal 1:9.
Let him be anathema.A translation of = Dedicated to God without ransom=given over to annihilation, to death, in the Old Testament to bodily, in the New Testament to in opposition to , to eternal death. See in Wieseler a detailed elucidation and refutation of the explanation, excommunicated. [- is the common Hellenistic form of the classical and Attic word , which in both forms originally meant devoted to God. When the two forms were desynonymized, the Hellenistic word naturally took a meaning from the Hebrew (through the LXX.) in malam partem, while the Attic form was used in a good sense. Comp. Luk 21:5, where only it is found in N. T. This distinction was general, but not universal. Afterwards the common patristic sense of our word undoubtedly was excommunicated, though sometimes accompanied with distinct execration. It cannot have this meaning here, for an angel from heaven is not open to excommunication, nor does N. T. usage favor such a signification. Comp. Rom 9:3; 1Co 12:3. See also Trench, Syn. N. T. 5, Meyer, Ellicott, Lightfoot.This passage affords no warrant for ecclesiastical anathemas. Such a practice presupposes the milder meaning, which is incorrect, and as milder, in itself forbids such anathematizing. It is obviously unfair to find in St. Pauls language first, a reason for ecclesiastical excommunication, and then a warrant for anathematizing.R.]
Gal 1:9. As we said before.Referring probably to his last visit, not to Gal 1:8.The Apostle repeats the curse, which he has pronounced Gal 1:8, in order to show that he speaks deliberately. Bengel.[Notice that in Gal 1:8 the Apostle uses with the subjunctive: though we, or an angel, should preach, in Gal 1:9, with the indicative: if any man preach, appending the anathema in both cases. In the former, a pure hypothesis is put forward, in itself highly improbable; in the latter a fact which had actually occurred and was occurring (Lightfoot). There is additional force in the change of subject: even Paul or an angel from heaven-did they do sowould be anathema, much moreany man, neither Apostle nor angelis anathema, having done so.R.]
Gal 1:10. For am I now conciliating men?Explanation () of the severity with which he demeans himself towards the false teachers by this repeated . He does it, because he is concerned only for the favor of God, not that of men. It would be natural to understand now like Gal 1:9 of the time of the composition of the epistle. Yet on the other hand this limitation is not quite congruous to the general contents of the verse, it is therefore better to understand it more generally of the time of the Apostles conversion. [It seems more natural to regard now as an emphatic taking up of now in Gal 1:9now in what I have said. Paul had not been a man-pleaser before conversion. If he had been charged with it among the Galatians, he was not so sow in what he had been writing.R.]=to win over, to draw to ones side by persuasion, whether directly by words or otherwise; here, in view of the reference to God=to gain for ones self, to win for ones self as a friend.: sometimes to please, sometimes to be disposed to please, to live according to the pleasure of; the latter here. Yet goes back to the same time with now. [Yet, i.e., after my call to the apostleship, and all that has happened to me (Schaff). It is equivalent to at tins stage, at this late date (Lightfoot).R.]I should not be a servant of Christ=could make no claim to this title. As a true servant of Christ, who dares not act to please men, I must, even though it should not please men, judge with all sharpness and severity respecting those who subvert the gospel. Servant of Christ is here doubtless to be taken in its official sense=could make no claim to the name of a teacher. With how much right Paul could say so of himself is shown, e.g., by 2Co 11:23 sq.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Apostasy even in the early church. The glimpse of such scenes of the first Christian Church as our Epistle speaks of, and as are mentioned by anticipation in our section, is instructive. Even in such as had been brought to the faith by a Paul himself, a speedy lapse was possible, and yet he certainly fulfilled his office among them in the right way, and his activity was blessed. Even the best preaching cannot overcome the sinful nature of the human heart. This preserving and making steadfast in the truth, is a work of the Holy Ghost, and it goes on, just as growth is wont to do: through advances and fallings back on account of the opposing might of the flesh, according to the account of the Apostle himself. Gal 5:17.
2. The false teachers. Deflections from evangelical truth, however, are not on this account to be taken lightly; but on the contrary, very gravely, as the language of the Apostle in this passage shows. Paul had full justification in uttering a curse against the false teachers, and thus giving them over to everlasting destruction, in the wickedness they committed with their false teaching; which was a double one1) against persons: they perplexed their consciences and brought them in danger of losing the salvation of their souls; 2) against the cause: they went about to subvert the gospel of Christ. They made an attack on the sacred rights of believers, and their conduct was therefore worthy of a curse. That this curse does not flow from personal mortification, because they had rejected his teaching, Paul shows plainly by placing himself under the curse, in case he should teach differently. Besides, the anathema is, of course, aimed at this conduct of the false teachers in itself, and this sharp opposition by no means excluded the wish that they might themselves see the error of their way, and themselves come to the knowledge of the evangelical truth. But this was not the place for saying this. He expresses himself with thorough earnestness against the false teachers, only to open the eyes of the Galatians, and to release them from the snares in which they had allowed themselves to be taken. Although in this earnestness he comes in conflict with men, he must do what beseems a servant of Christ: be zealous for Christ and the salvation of His people.
3. Pleasing men. What Paul says, Gal 1:10, appears to be opposite to 1Co 10:33; but in 1 Cor. Paul speaks of things indifferent, in which a man may yield somewhat without wounding his conscience (comp. Rom 15:2). Here, however, he means sinful complaisance, where one fashions his doctrine and preaching according to the sense of men, in order thus to gain their favor. He only then is a servant of Christ, who subordinates unconditionally the favor of men to the favor of God, who in His official activity does not seek to make Himself pleasing to men, does not make this his object. When, however, from time to timefor uninterrupted it can never bethe favor of men falls to his lot, he is to receive it from Gods hand with thankfulness and humility, as a kind indulgence, which in his manifold conflicts may be of value. That the servant of Christ must be on his guard, not to draw upon himself deservedly the ill-will of the world through pride and self-will; that he is not in carnal temper to fly in the face of men, and hence that he must always examine well whether his zeal is a spiritual one, or is not becoming a carnal one, if it were not such from the beginning, is indeed self-evident, but cannot be carefully enough considered; as in general the theory of the relation of human and divine favor is tolerably simple, but the practice is very difficult.
[4. Wordsworth:Not to please men, be they never so many or great, out of flatness of spirit, so as, for the pleasing of them, either
1) To neglect any part of our duty towards God and Christ; or,
2) To go against our own consciences, by doing any dishonest or unlawful thing; or,
3) To do them harm whom we would please, by confirming them in their errors, flattering them in their sins, humoring them in their peevishness, or but even cherishing their weakness; for weakness, though it may be borne with, yet it must not be cherished.
But then, by yielding to their infirmities for a time, in hope to win them, by patiently expecting their conversion or strengthening, by restoring them with the spirit of meekness, with meekness instructing them that oppose themselves, should we seek to please all men.R.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Gal 1:1. I marvel:is a word of apostolic wisdom.Luther:St. Paul does not set upon the Galatians with vehement and terrifying words, but speaks in quite fatherly and friendly wise with them; and does not only soften down their fall and error, but excuses them also in a manner, yet so that he nevertheless also punishes them. Therefore, of all sweet and mild words, he could hardly have chosen one more fit than when he says, I marvel.Rieger:In itself the preservation and perseverance of a man in good is more to be wondered at than when there is a stumbling or falling. But the Apostle says, I marvel, in order to express to them thereby the confidence of something better, which he has retained on their behalf, and to let them discover something of the hope, in which he stands, of begetting them again through the gospel unto their first faith.
Wrt. Summ.:We are here reminded of our human weakness. We should endeavor to be so assured of divine truth in our own heart, as to be able to persevere therein, though even an angel would persuade us of something else, and the whole world would believe otherwise. Such perseverance is not in our power, however, but must be obtained from God through prayer and through diligent use of the divine word, which alone can make our walk steadfast.
From him that called you by the grace of Christ unto another gospel.Rieger:A tender description of the good work begun in them. A feeling contrast with the yoke which some would now lay upon their necks.Spener:Whosoever will no longer be saved simply through the grace of God in Christ falls away from the Father and the grace of Christ to another gospel, even though he holds the other articles of faith. For so soon as merit is mixed therewith, it is no more grace.
Apostasy from the truth: 1. how far not to be wondered at; 2. how far to be wondered at.So soon alienated! 1. a word of grief, true of so many; 2. a warning word, in relation to all.An apostatizing tendency, or inconstancy a radical fault of the human heart: 1. sluggish and immovable, where it is of moment that it should move and apply itself; 2. so movable and unsteady where it should abide firm.To turn ourselves from Him who hath called us: 1. so lightly done; 2. weighs yet so heavily.Another Gospel! is the worlds cry; no other! must forever remain our answering testimony.
Gal 1:7. Spener.:The gospel of Christ will not let itself be mixed with the doctrine of works, as if these were necessary to salvation; but as soon as this is done, the gospel is perverted.Hedinger:More taught than God has thought, is to the gospel quite athwart. The false teachers will have Christs grace, to be sure, but something of their own works therewith. Gross error! Adding more destroys the store.Starke:Where Satan cannot persuade men to open sins, he seeks to perplex their consciences, and pervert the gospel, which is the only means of salvation; in this too he very easily succeeds, because the doctrine of works appears quite agreeable to the reason.
Gal 1:8. Luther:It is not in vain that St. Paul sets himself first, and will, first of all, be accursed, if he shows himself herein worthy of it. For all excellent workmen are wont also thus to do, namely, to reprehend their own faults first, for then can they so much the more freely chide and censure the faults of others.Spener:No creature has authority to change anything in the gospel, or to add thereto, of however eminent rank, office, enlightenment, holiness, and miraculous power he may be. Not even the whole Church, nor her teachers, nor her councils and the like. If the change is made, no inquiry is needed; but it is to be reprobated, because it is new and another.Lange:As the blessing coming out of the gospel is the most weighty and noble of all, so is the curse which rests upon the hindering of the blessing through falsifying the gospel, the greatest of all, one which remains forever upon soul and body.
Gal 1:10. Luther:We cannot more hotly and bitterly anger the world than by attacking and condemning her wisdom, righteousness, ability, and powers. If we now reject and condemn these highest gifts of the world, that is truly not to behave feigningly to the world, but to strive after hate and ill luck, and, moreover, to get both our hands full of the same. For if we condemn men with all their doings, it can never fail but that we must soon take our chance and bring upon ourselves such scorn and envy that we shall be persecuted, hunted, banished, condemned, and, very likely, even murdered.Spener:The sincerity of a teacher, when men see that his concern is alone to please God, and not men, is a strong ground for believing that his teaching is sound and pure.Hedinger:Just so! Whoever in the church, in the state, in the family, serves men, fears and cowers before men, and, for their sake, bends the right, flatters and fawns, has trifled away his best titleChrists servant and disciple. A thunderstroke! Whose ears tingle not, when he hears it?Rieger:O God! preserve all thy servants, that no one, through pride and self-will, may draw persecution upon himself, and fly in the faces of men; but grant also that we may not count persecution, mocking, and contempt as tokens of our having betrayed the truth, but may view them and bear them as the marks in the foreheads of thine approved servants!
The earnestness with which Paul opposes the false teachers: 1. well founded, 2. very significant for us: should (a) withhold us from the reception of any unevangelical doctrine; (b) strengthen us in the certainty that the gospel, which we have, is the true one.A curse upon him who preaches a false doctrine! 1. A fearfully earnest utterance; 2. yet pressingly needful; 3. instructive for all that are wavering.Let not every man undertake to be a teacher, but whoever is, let him take heed what he teaches.The curse which Paul pronounces upon himself, if he should preach another gospel, is a token: 1. how high the gospel stands in his view; 2. how humbly he thinks of himself (viewing himself only as a mere instrument, as a servant, who has to accomplish what his Master has commanded him).Not the Church above the word, but the word above the Church!Two earnest questions: 1. Which seekest thou most, mans favor or Gods favor? 2. Which is weightier, mans favor or Gods favor?Mans favor or Gods favor? Choose: there is no third.The right union of unsparingness and forbearance in our intercourse with men: an art of difficult attainment.To be entirely unsparing, and entirely forbearing, each in the right way, is the Christians duty in dealing with men.Mans disfavor, compared with Gods favor, as insignificant as wholesome, perfects us in humility, and impels us the more to assure ourselves of the favor of God.
On the whole section.Lisco:The curse of the Apostle against the false apostles: I. Whom it strikes: 1. Necessarily every one, without exception, who changes the blessing of the gospel into mischief, and so out of good prepares for himself death; 2. those also who have deep insight, or other high qualities for serving the kingdom of God, and yet do not preach it purely; 3. even an angel himself, if he could preach another gospel. II. Why must it be uttered? 1. He who preaches the gospel must have a will thereby to serve, not men, but God; 2. through a false gospel men may, indeed, be attracted, but God views it as blasphemy; 3. therefore, he is placed under the curse, who will serve the gospel, and yet doing so as a man-pleaser, is found an unfruitful servant of Christ.
The apostasy of believers: 1. is, alas, sometimes a fact; 2. from what does it proceed? 3. how is it to be remedied?The Apostles demeanor: 1. towards the misled: he makes a complaint and charge; but through it all the full tones of compassion and love are heard; 2. towards the misleaders: unsparingly stern even to denouncing a curse.To fall away from the gospel is bad, but to subvert the gospel is worse.
Footnotes:
[6]Gal 1:6.[, middle, not passive, see exeg. notes.R.]
[7]Gal 1:6.[ cannot mean into, especially after .R.]
[8]Gal 1:6.[The many variations, such as the omission of ., the insertion of , the substitution of , all probably sprang from mistaken exegesis, joining . with . The reading is very well supported and now universally retained.R.]
[9]Gal 1:6.[, different in kind, not another of the same kind (, Gal 1:7). So Alford, Ellicott, Wordsworth, Lightfoot.R.]
[10]Gal 1:8.[The periphrasis of the E. V. is necessary to bring out the force of , in its reference to , Gal 1:6-7; but the subjunctive must not be overlooked, as marking the different conditional propositions of Gal 1:8-9.R.]
[11]Gal 1:8.. omits , 3. first adds it.
[12]Gal 1:8.[On the meaning of , here and Gal 1:9. See Exeg. Notes.R.]
[13]Gal 1:9.1.: .
[14]Gal 1:10.[Persuade is obviously inapplicable to God. here means to conciliate, to make friends of. So modern English commentators. The form: am I, etc., is required by the emphatic (Ellicott).R.]
[15]Gal 1:10.Rec. ; but is best omitted. [Rejected on preponderant MSS. authority by all modern editors.R.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
(6) I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: (7) Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. (8) But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. (9) As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. (10) For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. (11) But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. (12) For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.
I beg the Reader to observe, how Paul hath worded his expression, on God’s call of his people: Him that called you (he saith) into the grace of Christ. Not Paul! not ministers, not angels! There is nothing of human strength, or even angelic power, noticed; no, not even as instruments. We cannot be too jealous over our own hearts, how we look to men as instruments, lest in them we overlook the Lord. Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord. Zec 4:6 . It is blessed to keep unmixed, everything from the hallowed work, which is wholly the Lord’s. If God was so jealous in the old Church, that He would have the Altar made of earth; (for the earth is the Lord’s, Psa 24:1 .) and if of stone, which is also the Lord’s, not hewn stone; for the very lifting of the tool upon it, polluted it: Exo 20:25 . can we suppose, that in the new Church, under the Gospel, the Lord is less concerned for his honor, to give his glory to another, and his praise to graven images? Isa 42:8 . And is it not bordering upon this, when men talk of spiritual fathers, and begetting children to God, by their ministry?
Paul’s surprise is strongly expressed, in noticing the backsliding of the Galatians. That it is backsliding, which he meant, by saying they were removed from Him that called them is very clear; because Him that called them, (meaning the Lord,) must have made it an effectual call, and including regeneration. So that, though they were removed, as to certain points of faith, (and as it should seem by what follows in this Epistle on the method of justification,) yet were they still real, and not nominal followers of the Lord. It is highly proper to notice this, for the comfort of the Church in all ages. Backsliding departures, and the like, very painful, and distressing as they are in themselves, and reproachful to God’s people; yet they are consistent with the state of a truly regenerated child of God, The Church is described, in a cold, sleepy state, when Jesus called her; and even pleading excuses for not going to him, though she knew his voice. Son 5:2-3 . Oh! how certain it is, that we carry about with us a body of sin, and death, which often drags down the soul! Rom 7:18 , etc.
I never can say enough to the Reader, in begging him to notice what Paul saith, of another gospel. Not that the Apostle allowed it to be called another gospel, for he immediately corrected himself, and said, it was not another; meaning, it was no gospel at all. And this was then, and is now, and always must be the case. For whatever is set up, different from the faith once delivered to the saints, ceaseth to be the Gospel, by so much, as there is a departure, from that standard. The pure Gospel of Christ, reveals Jehovah, in his threefold character, as raising up a Church, for the divine glory in Christ: and this, before all worlds. And the whole Persons of the Godhead are represented in Scripture, as engaged in Covenant settlements, to make this Church everlastingly blessed, in Christ, and to all eternity. As such the Church had a Being given her in Christ, from the moment the Son of God stood up, at the call of the Father. And for the present time-state of the Church, foreviewed in the Adam-fall of nature, provision was made for her recovery, in a way, which should illustrate the divine glory, and give the Church a blessedness in Christ, to secure her from all future possibility of evil. In this plan, founded in infinite wisdom, and resulting from infinite love, Christ became the One, and the only One Ordinance of Jehovah; for salvation is in no other. And consequently, justification by Christ alone, was the true Gospel, preached to the Galatians. This the Apostle had set forth, and it was called the Gospel. And well might it be called so. For it proclaimed pardon, mercy, and peace, through the sole labors, sufferings, and death, of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It appears, however, that through some means, of preachers, or others, the Galatians had been tempted to remove from this faith, unto what for the moment the Apostle called, though he allowed not the expression, another gospel. They still preached Christ as the Head, and thereby deceived the unwary; but they did not preach Christ as the whole of salvation. To the Jews (as should seem by what Paul said in another part of this Epistle, Gal 5:2-4 .) they taught, that it was necessary to add circumcision to a faith in Christ; and to the Gentiles they contended, that the works of the law were essential to salvation. (Gal 4:21 .)
Reader! let us pause over the state of the Galatian Church, for a moment; and see, whether there have not been Churches, as well as in Galatia, tinctured with this leaven. Yea, it may be well to enquire, whether the Church to which we belong, is altogether free from it. Gal 5:9 . Paul’s account of himself, and of the freeness, and fullness of salvation, may serve as a standard, to form our conclusions, of what in his view was, and is, truly Gospel. This is a faithful saying, (saith Paul,) and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. 1Ti 1:15 . And worthy of all acceptation it is, (for all stand in need of it,) if we have nothing to do but accept it, as a free gift, from free grace. But if it be clogged with doings, and workings of ours; if, with the merits, and blood-shedding of the Savior, there must be the minglings of the labors and merits of the sinner; if we are saved only in part, and we are to make up the deficiency in ourselves; if Christ hath only brought my poor soul into a salvable state, by procuring me favor to my sincere endeavors; and God’s acceptance of me after all, will depend upon my tears, and repentance, and faith: this is no gospel, no glad tidings of good things, neither joy to all people; for sure I am, the whole Church of God, would be as certainly lost, in coming short of these things, as though Christ had not died; neither given his soul an offering for sin!
Reader! I beseech you to pause, again and again, over the important subject; for it is important. To talk of the sincerity of the heart in a man’s best endeavors, when God, the searcher of hearts, declares, that the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; and that none but Himself can know it: Jer 17:9 . To talk of suspending the grace of God, and the merits of Christ in redemption, upon the endeavors of man; leaving the event at a peradventure, whether God’s grace, or man’s will, shall triumph: these things are not simply rendering matters uncertain; but totally making the whole blessings of the Gospel ineffectual. And, to call this another gospel, is a false name, as the Apostle saith; for it is no gospel at all. And, though the advocates of such doctrine, put Christ at the head of it, and seem to pay him the compliment, of calling him Savior, while robbing him of his glory, in not allowing him to be wholly so; yet such a religion is neither law nor Gospel, nor can it lay claim to either. It is not law, for the law pronounceth a curse upon everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. See Deu 27:26 ; Gal 3:10 ; Jas 2:10 . And it is not gospel, for the Gospel saith, that by grace we are saved through faith, and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast. Eph 2:8-9 . And very certain it is, according to Scripture testimony, that as to law, all the world is become guilty before God. Rom 3:19 , And, but for Christ’s interposition, in redeeming from the curse of the law, every mouth must be stopped. For, as the Apostle in this same Epistle saith; if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. Gal 2:21 .
The Reader ought not to wonder therefore, that Paul speaks so pointedly, against the awfulness of preaching such a doctrine. If an angel from Heaven were to preach it, let him be accursed, saith the Apostle. Paul doth not mean by this expression, to suppose such a thing possible; and everyone knows that the thing is impossible. For when the birth of Christ was made known on earth, Angels of Heaven, ambitious to be the first preachers of the wonderful event, posted down with the glad tidings. So that if an host of angels were to come again, they would only preach the same. But, saith Paul, if you could suppose it possible, for an angel to come from Heaven, and preach any other gospel than that I have preached, let him be accursed. And the Apostle repeats it, that no one might suppose he spake it from the warmth of the moment, or from inadvertency. But, as Paul very properly adds, it is not I, that seek to please, or to persuade men, but it is God!
It were earnestly to be wished, that Paul’s faithfulness and zeal, were more followed than it is. When we look round, and behold, in the present awful day of the Church, what a mixture, of law and gospel, grace and works, make up for the most part, what is called evangelical preaching; how much the creature is cried up, and the Person, glory, and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, put down; how men are taught to live upon themselves, and their attainments, instead of living upon the Lord Jesus Christ; we have cause to tremble for the eventual consequences. And, although it would be highly unbecoming, and improper, in any, unless inspired as Paul was, to pronounce the Anathema he pronounced; (see Commentary on 1Co 16:22 .) yet this methinks I would do: wheresoever, and whensoever I hear the free will of man extolled, and the grace of God little regarded, I would do as holy men of old did, rent my garment, and pluck off my hair, in token of indignation, for the foul ingratitude offered to my God. I would look up to God, and say in language like his, who fell down astonied at the mingling of the holy seed, in direct defiance of God’s law: O my God! I am ashamed, and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the Heaven. Ezr 9 throughout.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
Ver. 6. That ye are so soon ] Giddy headed hearers have religionem ephemeram, are whirred about with every wind of doctrine, being constant only in their inconstancy, as Ecebolus, Balduinus, and our modern sects. The bishops and doctors of England (said that martyr) in their book against the pope’s supremacy, spoke as much as Luther or any Lutheran ever did or could. If they dissembled, who could ever so deeply, speaking so pithily? if not, who could ever turn head to tail so suddenly and so shortly as these did?
Removed from him, &c. ] From Christ and me his apostle. Luther often in his books testifieth that he was much afraid, lest when he was dead, that sound doctrine of justification by faith alone would die also. It proved so in various places in Germany. Men fell to Popery as fast as leaves fall in autumn. The word here rendered removed, signifieth properly transported or transplanted. He alludes (saith Jerome) to the word Galal, to roll, as if he should say, You are Galatians, that is, rolling and changing, falling from the gospel of Christ to the law of Moses.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
6 10 .] ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE OCCASION OF THE EPISTLE, IN HIS AMAZEMENT AT THEIR SPEEDY FALLING AWAY FROM THE GOSPEL. ASSERTION OF THAT GOSPEL’S EXCLUSIVE CLAIM TO THEIR ADHESION, AS PREACHED BY HIM, WHO SERVED GOD IN CHRIST, AND NOT POPULARITY AMONG MEN. We have none of the usual expressions of thankfulness for their faith, &c.; but he hurries vehemently into his subject, and, as Chrys. says, , .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
6 .] in this sense (see reff.) is a word of mildness, inasmuch as it imports that better things were expected of them, and of condescension, as letting down the writer to the level of his readers and even challenging explanation from them. Still, like many other such mild words, it carries to the guilty conscience even sharper rebuke than a harsher one would.
] either (1) ‘ so soon after your conversion ’ (Calv., Olsh., Meyer, &c.), or (2) ‘ so quickly ,’ ‘ after so little persuasion ,’ when the false teachers once came among you (Chr., De W., &c.), or (3) ‘ so soon after my recent visit among you ’ (Bengel, &c.). Of these I prefer (1), as more suiting the dignity of the passage, and as the more general and comprehensive reason. But it does not exclude (2) and (3): ‘so soon,’ might be, and might be intended to be, variously supplied. See Prolegomena, on the time and place of writing this Epistle.
. ] are passing over , pres.: not as E. V. ‘ are removed ,’ which is doubly wrong, for . is not passive but middle , in the common usage of the word, according to which the Galatians would understand it. So Plato, Theog. 122 C, , ‘I am beginning somewhat to change my opinion:’ see also Gorg. 493 c: Demosth. 379. 10: , , Appian, Hisp. c. 17; &c. See also examples in Wetst. Chrys. says well, , , , .
It is interesting to notice, in connexion with , the character given by Csar of the Gauls: “ut ad bella suscipienda Gallorum alacer ac promtus est animus: sic mollis ac minime resistens ad calamitates mens ipsorum est.” B. G. iii. 19: “Csar infirmitatem Gallorum veritus, quod sint in consiliis capiendis mobiles, et novis plerumque rebus student:” ib. iv. 5: see also ib. ii. 8; iii. 10.
. . ] not to be taken with , as Syr., Jer., Luth. (gives both constructions, but prefers this), Calv., Grot., Bengel, &c., nor understood of Paul, as al. and recently by Bagge, but, as almost always with the Apostle (see note on Rom 1:6 ), of GOD the Father see Gal 1:15 ; and cf. Rom 8:30 ; Rom 9:24-25 ; 1Co 1:9 ; 1Co 7:15 ; 1Co 7:17 ; 1Th 2:12 ; 2Th 2:14 ; 2Ti 1:9 . Also 1Pe 5:10 ).
. . ] in (as the element , and hence the medium ; not into, as E. V.; see for construction 1Co 7:15 . In the secondary transferred sense of local prepositions, so often found in later Greek, it is extremely difficult to assign the precise shade of meaning: see Jowett’s and Ellic.’s notes here. But we may safely lay down two strongly marked regions of prepositional force, which must never be confounded, that of motion , and that of rest . , for example, can never be strictly rendered ‘ into ,’ nor , ‘ in .’ Where such appears to be the case, some logical consideration has been overlooked, which if introduced would right the meaning) the grace of Christ . Christ’s grace is the elementary medium of our ‘calling of God,’ as is set forth in full, Rom 5:15 , ( ) . . .: see also Act 15:11 . And ‘Christ’s grace’ is the sum of all that He has suffered and done for us to bring us to God; whereby we come to the Father, in which, as its element, the Father’s calling of us has place.
. . ] to a different ( in kind : not , another of the same kind , which title he denies it, see below) gospel (so called by its preachers; or said by way of at once instituting a comparison unfavourable to the new teachers, by the very etymology of ).
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Gal 1:6-9 . THE APOSTLE EXPRESSES SURPRISE AT THE SUDDEN DEFECTION OF HIS CONVERTS FROM THE ONLY TRUE GOSPEL, AND PRONOUNCES ANATHEMAS ON ALL PERVERTERS OF THE TRUTH. Paul is evidently startled at the tidings of a sudden revolution in Galatian feeling. His intense indignation is evinced by the vehemence of his language and the solemnity of his anathema. There could be but one true Gospel; this new doctrine was no Gospel at all, but only a heretical perversion of the truth by foreign agitators. They were probably emissaries of a Pharisaic party in the Church, which advocated circumcision and legal observances for all converts alike.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Gal 1:6 . : ye are removing (not removed as in A.V.). The agitators had not yet achieved any decisive success, though the Galatians were disposed to lend too ready an ear to their suggestions. It was not so much their actual progress, as the evidence afforded of the instability of the Galatian faith, that excited misgivings in the mind of Paul ( cf. Gal 4:11 ; Gal 4:20 ); he regarded the movement as merely a little leaven , and had not lost his confidence in the personal loyalty of his converts and the general soundness of their faith (Gal 5:9-10 , Gal 6:17 . See Introd., p. 147). , sc. . The Gospel call proceeded from God, like those to Abraham and the ancient servants and people of God; the Epistles of Paul invariably attribute it to Him ( cf. Gal 1:15 ), not to His human instruments. . This is evidently not = ( into the grace of Christ , A.V.), but records the spirit of Divine love which prompted the call. God, of His grace in Christ, sent forth the Gospel to the Galatians by the hands of Paul and Barnabas. . This passage brings out forcibly the different meaning of and . is primarily the other of two, another of several. Hence fixes attention on two objects exclusively ( cf. note on in Gal 6:4 ); here it marks the essential difference between the true and the spurious Gospel, distinguishing the latter as quite a different Gospel .
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Gal 1:6-10
6I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; 7which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! 9As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you have received, he is to be accursed! 10For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.
Gal 1:6 “I am amazed” Instead of a thanksgivingso common in Pauline writingsPaul observed with astonishment (the verb is found only here and 2Th 1:10 in Paul’s writings) that the Galatians had been too easily wooed away from the pure, simple, majestic gospel of justification by grace through faith by the false teachers.
“so quickly” Two senses are possible: (1) so soon after they accepted the gospel that Paul preached, or (2) so soon after the false teachers came.
“deserting Him” This verb is present tense, indicating the Galatians were in the process of turning away. “deserting” is a military term for revolt. Note the emphasis is on the personal element of turning away from God Himself by rejecting Paul’s gospel. It can be a present passive verbal form, but the larger context (cf. Gal 3:1 ff; Gal 5:7) implies a present middle form. This emphasizes that although the false teachers instigated the deserting, the Galatians willingly participated in it.
“who called you by the grace of Christ” The phrase “called you” usually refers to an action of God the Father (cf. Rom 8:30; Rom 9:24; 1Co 1:9). This is significant because of the textual problem with the addition of the phrase “of Christ.” It is not found in the papyrus P46, F*, or G, but it is found in the papyrus P51, and the uncial manuscripts , A, B, K and F2. “Of Jesus Christ” is found in MS D. This may be an early addition to clarify that it is the Father who calls us through Christ. It must be stated again: God always takes the initiative in human salvation (cf. Joh 6:44; Joh 6:65; Romans 9; Eph 1:3-14). See SPECIAL TOPIC: ELECTION/PREDESTINATION AND THE NEED FOR A THEOLOGICAL BALANCE at 1Th 1:4 and SPECIAL TOPIC: CALLED at 2Th 1:11.
“for a different gospel” “Different” [heteros] is sometimes used in the sense of “another of a different kind,” (cf. 2Co 11:4). In Gal 1:7 allos (i.e., “another of the same kind”) is used; it can be translated “another of the same kind in a series.” However, in Koine Greek these terms were becoming synonymous and a distinction should not be insisted upon too strongly. But, in this context, Paul obviously used both for contrast.
Gal 1:7
NASB”which is really not another”
NKJV”which is not another”
NRSV”not that there is another gospel”
TEV”there is no other gospel'”
NJB”Not that there can be more than one Good News”
There are not two gospels, though the one true gospel is often perverted. The KJV translation of Gal 2:7 has been often interpreted as referring to two gospels, one for the Greeks and one for the Jews. This is an unfortunate and untrue inference, although it may have been a statement of the false teachers.
NASB”only there are some who are disturbing you”
NKJV”but there are some who trouble you”
NRSV”but there are some who are confusing you”
TEV”there are some people who are upsetting you”
NJB”it is merely that some troublemakers among you”
“Disturbing” refers to a purposeful action like a military revolt (i.e., this context has several military terms). “False teachers” is plural in Gal 5:12, but possibly only the leader of the false teachers is actually meant because of the use of the singular in Gal 5:7 and twice in Gal 5:10. They are called “agitators” in Gal 5:12. Many assume the Judaizers of Galatians are synonymous with the converted Pharisees or priests of Act 15:1; Act 15:5; Act 15:24. They emphasized the necessity of becoming a Jew before one could become a Christian. The Judaizers’ emphasis on the Jewish Law can be seen in:
1. the necessity of circumcision (cf. Gal 2:3-4; Gal 5:1; Gal 6:12-15)
2. their keeping of special days (cf. Gal 4:10)
3. a possible inclusion of keeping the food laws which is implied in Paul’s confrontation with Peter (cf. Gal 2:11-14)
This was probably the same group of false teachers mentioned in 2Co 11:26 and 1Th 2:14-16. Their problem was not that they denied the central place of Christ in salvation, but that they also required the Mosaic Law, which confuses grace and human performance. The New Covenant does not focus on human merit (cf. Jer 31:31-34; Eze 36:22-38).
The theological and practical problem of how to relate the OT and NT remains even today. Here are some possible options suggested through the years.
1. ignore the OT
2. magnify the OT
3. continue the ethics, but not the cultus of Israel
4. read the NT through the eyes of the OT categories
5. read the OT through the new message of Jesus
6. see it as a promise (OT) and fulfillment (NT)
I have struggled with this issue! It seems to me the OT is surely revelation (Mat 5:17-19; 2Ti 3:15-16). One cannot understand the Bible without Genesis. The OT surely reveals God in marvelous ways, however, it seems to me that Judaism mishandled the Mosaic covenant by emphasizing the human aspect of covenant! I prefer to emphasize the divine universal aspect (i.e., Gen 3:15; Gen 12:3; Exo 19:5-6) with a mandated covenantal human response!
The NT universalizes the national promises to Israel whereby the original intent of God to redeem fallen mankind, made in His image and likeness (cf. Gen 1:26-27) is fully realized! One God, one world, one way to restored fellowship (i.e., Isaiah’s message)!
SPECIAL TOPIC: YHWH’s ETERNAL REDEMPTIVE PLAN
NASB”and want to distort the gospel of Christ”
NKJV, NRSV”and want to pervert the gospel of Christ”
TEV”and trying to change the gospel of Christ”
NJB”want to change the Good News of Christ”
“To distort” is an aorist infinitive meaning “to reverse,” possibly another military term. Although morality is a significant element of the gospel, it always follows salvation. It does not precede it as the Judaizers asserted (cf. Eph 2:8-10). Paul’s gospel was Christ, then Christlikeness; their gospel was works righteousness (Mosaic Law) and then God’s righteousness in Christ.
Gal 1:8 “but even if” This third class conditional sentence with an aorist middle subjunctive which shows a hypothetical situation (cf. 2Co 11:3-4). Paul asserted that if he, or an angel from heaven, should preach a different gospel, they should be judged and separated from God.
NASB”he is to be accursed!”
NKJV”let him be accursed”
NRSV”let that one be accursed”
TEV”may he be condemned to hell”
NJB”he is to be condemned”
“Curse” (anathema, cf. Mat 18:7; Rom 9:3; 1Co 12:3; 1Co 16:22) may reflect the Hebrew word herem which was employed in the sense of dedicating something to God. Herem developed a negative connotation from its use in the case of Jericho being dedicated to God for destruction (cf. Joshua 6-7). God’s curse is a natural result of His people breaking a covenant (cf. Deu 27:11-26). However, Paul specifically used this term to show the seriousness of the false teachers’ gospel by consigning them to God’s wrath
Syntactically, Gal 1:8-9 are parallel. However, the third class condition sentence of Gal 1:8 shows potential action (i.e., hypothetical), while the first class condition sentence of Gal 1:9 shows current, assumed action (i.e., the preaching of the false teachers).
SPECIAL TOPIC: CURSE (ANATHEMA)
Gal 1:9 “as we have said before” This is a perfect active indicative plural, which refers to the previous teaching and preaching of Paul’s mission team.
“a gospel contrary to that which you have received” The verb “received” (paralamban, aorist active indicative) is a technical term in rabbinical writings for passing on “the Oral Tradition,” indicating Paul was passing on the gospel tradition (cf. Gal 1:12; 1Co 11:23; 1Co 15:3; Php 4:9; 1Th 2:13; 1Th 4:1; 2Th 3:6)), but the context is emphatic that he did not receive this tradition from other humans (cf. Gal 1:12).
To become a Christian one must receive (cf. Joh 1:12) or to put it another way, believe (cf. Joh 3:16) the gospel. Christian conversion has three aspects, all of which are crucial (all three correspond to the three uses of pistis – pistell, see note at Gal 1:23-24):
1. welcome Jesus personally (a person to believe in)
2. believe the NT truths about Him (truths about that person to affirm)
3. live a life like His (a life to live like that person’s)
It must be clarified that the central elements of Paul’s gospel came from Jesus directly (cf. Gal 1:12). Paul contemplated and developed them for several years before he went to visit the Mother Church and its leaders in Jerusalem (cf. Gal 1:18; Gal 2:1). However, Paul also learned much about the words and actions of Jesus from those who knew Him in the flesh:
1. those he persecuted witnessed to him
2. he saw and heard the defense of Stephen (cf. Act 7:58)
3. Ananias witnessed to him (cf. Act 9:10-19)
4. he visited with Peter for 15 days (cf. Gal 1:18)
Additionally, Paul also quotes many creeds or hymns of the early Church in his writings (cf. Gal 1:4-5; 1Co 15:3-4; Eph 5:14; Php 2:6-11; Col 1:15-20; 1Ti 3:16); and mentions Christian traditions several times (cf. 1Co 11:2; 2Th 3:6). Paul was speaking in very specific terms and in a guarded sense because of the accusations of the false teachers.
Gal 1:10 “For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God” This is a development and continuation of the theme which began in Gal 1:1. Paul’s strong words to the false teachers proved that he was not trying to please men which they had apparently alleged. Possibly Paul was being criticized for his statement that he became all things to all men similar to 1Co 9:19-27; Act 21:17-26. This was misinterpreted as:
1. compromising with pagan culture
2. his preaching two gospels, one for Jews and another easier one for pagans
“If” Gal 1:10 is a second class conditional sentence which expresses a statement “contrary to fact.” Amplified, the sentence would read: “If I were still trying to please men, which I am not, then I would not be a bond-servant of Christ, which I am.” See Appendix One, VII.
“I were still trying to please men” There has been much discussion about the word “still.” Does this imply that he never appealed to men or that it was a confession that as a zealous Pharisee in his earlier days he did attempt to please men (i.e., Pharisees, cf. Gal 1:14)?
“I would not be a bond-servant of Christ” This is an allusion to Christ’s teaching that one cannot serve two masters (cf. Mat 6:24). “Bond-servant” may have been used by Paul to refer to
1. Jesus as Lord and Paul as slave
2. an honorific title of leadership from the OT used of Moses (cf. Deu 34:5; Jos 8:31; Jos 8:33), Joshua (cf. Jos 24:29; Jdg 2:8), and to David (cf. 2Sa 7:5; title, Psalms 18)
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
removed. Read “removing”. Greek. metatithemi. The Mid. and Pass. with apo, mean “to desert”. Him. i.e. God. Compare Rom 8:30. 1Th 2:12. 2Th 2:14.
into. Greek. en. App-104.
Christ. App-98.
unto. Greek. eis. App-104.
another. Greek. heteros. App-124.
gospel. See App-140.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
6-10.] ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE OCCASION OF THE EPISTLE, IN HIS AMAZEMENT AT THEIR SPEEDY FALLING AWAY FROM THE GOSPEL. ASSERTION OF THAT GOSPELS EXCLUSIVE CLAIM TO THEIR ADHESION, AS PREACHED BY HIM, WHO SERVED GOD IN CHRIST, AND NOT POPULARITY AMONG MEN. We have none of the usual expressions of thankfulness for their faith, &c.; but he hurries vehemently into his subject, and, as Chrys. says, , .
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Gal 1:6. , I marvel) Paul, writing to all the other churches, begins with an expression of thanksgiving and praise to God, which, although the subject here requires something different, has however been virtually expressed, [has been represented by an equivalent] Gal 1:5. He also delays giving them the appellation of brethren. We give this summary of the epistle. There are three divisions.
I.The Inscription, Gal 1:1-5.
II.The Recalling of the Gentiles to the true Gospel, where
i.He reproves them, Gal 1:6-10.
ii.He asserts the divine authority of the Gospel preached by himself: because he
1)From a persecutor has become an apostle by heavenly calling, Gal 1:11-17.
2)Never acted as if he had not been Peters equal, Gal 1:18-19; Gal 1:21-22.
iii.He vindicates justification by faith, anew reproaching the Galatians, Gal 3:1-2; Gal 3:15 – Gal 4:11.
iv.He explains the same subject to the Galatians, with the most tender affection, by the allegory of the son of the bond maid and of the son of the free woman, Gal 4:12.
v.He then exhorts them to maintain their liberty, Gal 5:1-12, dissuades them from its abuse, and admonishes them not to walk after the flesh, but after the Spirit, Gal 5:13-14; Gal 5:16 – Gal 6:5, Gal 6:6-10.
III.Conclusion, Gal 5:11-12; Gal 5:17-18.
See also the note at Gal 2:16.
– , so quickly) Paul had been with the Galatians not long before. See Ordo temp. (arrangement of dates) p. 281 [Ed. ii., p. 242, No. 6.]-, you are removed) transferred [you have changed your place from Him] A weighty expression, having an excuse blended with it. Jerome says: Galatia in our language implies transference, [removal from one place to another].- , from Him, who called you) Ones calling, is therefore the channel of grace, the rule for the future; ch. Gal 5:8; Gal 5:13. We have here, Gal 1:6-10, a Proposition [statement of the subject, viz. the calling] and a sort of Division of it into parts []; and the calling in [into the] grace [Gal 1:6] is treated of in continuation from Gal 1:11 : the words there be some that trouble you are treated of, ch. Gal 5:7, etc.- , in grace [Engl. Vers., into the grace] Act 15:11.-, of Christ) The construction is with from.1[1])
[1] 1 This word itself, although it is not considered as a reading fully established by the margin of both Ed., is, however, expressed in the Germ. Ver.-E. B.
Gg Cypr. Lucif. omit . But ABHD [adding with f] Vulg. support it;- agreeing with , and both governed by ; but Engl. Vers. and Vulg. make be governed by .-ED.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Gal 1:6
Gal 1:6
I marvel-The change which is taking place among the Galatian Christians is so utterly inconceivable to Paul that he marvels. [The whole truth concerning the gospel plan of salvation had been so clearly set before them, their reception of the truth had been so hearty, his own personal influence over them had been so strong, that the change seemed like some unaccountable fascination. (Gal 3:1).]
that ye are so quickly removing-Their defection from the truth was not yet complete and would continue, unless they were brought to a better state of mind by this epistle. Whether or not this was the case it is not known. The word quickly may mean either that their action had been hasty, taken without due consideration, or but little time had elapsed between the acceptance of the gospel and their defection. On the whole, it seems the more probable that the reference is to the time rather than the manner of their defection; then soon after the arrival of the false teachers is more likely than so soon after their conversion. Paul may have intended to hint that he had not found them so ready to accept the true gospel as the false teachers had found them ready to accept a perversion of it.
from him that called you-From God to whom Paul attributes the call to salvation. (2Th 2:13-14). In harmony with the words of the Lord Jesus (Joh 6:44; Joh 6:65) the calling of men out of darkness is always referred to God the Father (Rom 8:28-30). These words reveal the gravity of the situation in which they were placing themselves.
in the grace of Christ-The grace of Christ is the instrument of the divine calling inasmuch as it is through the preaching his love and the gift that the unbeliever is at first attracted and won over to the faith. The grace of Christ is expressed in these words: For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might become rich. (2Co 8:9). His grace is his voluntary self-surrender to humiliation and death, from no other prompting than his own love for man.
unto a different gospel;-It seems that the Judaizers explained that theirs was a gospel with a difference.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Lecture 2
No Other Gospel
Gal 1:6-9
I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed, (vv. 6-9)
Those are very strong words, and I can quite understand that some people may have difficulty in reconciling them with the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Twice the apostle pronounces a curse upon those who preach any other gospel than that which he himself had proclaimed to these Galatians when they were poor sinners, and which had been used of God to lead them to the Lord Jesus Christ. Some might ask, Is this the attitude of the Christian minister, to go about cursing people who do not agree with him? No, and it certainly was not Pauls attitude. Why, then, does he use such strong language? It is not that he himself is invoking a curse upon anyone, but he is declaring, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God, that divine judgment must fall upon any one who seeks to pervert the gospel of Christ or to turn people away from that gospel. In other words, the apostle Paul realizes the fact that the gospel is Gods only message to lost man, and that to pervert that gospel, to offer people something else in place of it, for a man to attempt to foist upon them an imitation gospel is to put in jeopardy the souls of those who listen to him. Our Lord Jesus Christ emphasized this when He pointed out that those men who taught people to trust in their own efforts for salvation were blind leaders of the blind, and that eventually both leader and led would fall into the ditch. It is a very serious thing to mislead men along spiritual lines; it is a terrible thing to give wrong direction when souls are seeking the way to heaven.
I remember reading a story of a woman who with her little babe was on a train going up through one of the eastern states. It was a very wintry day. Outside a terrific storm was blowing, snow was falling, and sleet covered everything. The train made its way along slowly because of the ice on the tracks and the snowplow went ahead to clear the way. The woman seemed very nervous. She was to get off at a small station where she would be met by some friends, and she said to the conductor, You will be sure and let me know the right station, wont you?
Certainly, he said, just remain here until I tell you the right station.
She sat rather nervously and again spoke to the conductor, You wont forget me?
No, just trust me. I will tell you when to get off.
A commercial man sat across the aisle, and he leaned over and said, Pardon me, but I see you are rather nervous about getting off at your station. I know this road well. Your station is the first stop after such-and-such a city. These conductors are very forgetful; they have a great many things to attend to, and he may overlook your request, but I will see that you get off all right. I will help you with your baggage.
Oh, thank you, she said. And she leaned back greatly relieved.
By-and-by the name of the city she mentioned was called, and he leaned over and said, The next stop will be yours.
As they drew near to the station she looked around anxiously for the conductor, but he did not come. You see, said the man, he has forgotten you. I will get you off, and he helped her with her baggage, and as the conductor had not come to open the door, he opened it, and when the train stopped he stepped off, lifted her bag, helped her off, and in a moment the train moved on.
A few minutes later the conductor came and looking all about said, Why, that is strange! There was a woman here who wanted to get off at this station. I wonder where she is.
The commercial man spoke up and said, Yes, you forgot her, but I saw that she got off all right.
Got off where? the conductor asked.
When the train stopped.
But that was not a station! That was an emergency stop! I was looking after that woman. Why, man, you have put her off in a wild country district in the midst of all this storm where there will be nobody to meet her!
There was only one thing to do, and although it was a rather dangerous thing, they had to reverse the engine and go back a number of miles, and then they went out to look for the woman. They searched and searched, and finally somebody stumbled upon her, and there she was frozen on the ground with her little dead babe in her arms. She was the victim of wrong information.
If it is such a serious thing to give people wrong information in regard to temporal things, what about the man who misleads men and women in regard to the great question of the salvation of their immortal souls? If men believe a false gospel, if they put their trust in something that is contrary to the Word of God, their loss will be not for time only but for eternity. And that is why the apostle Paul, speaking by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, uses such strong language in regard to the wickedness, the awfulness of misleading souls as to eternal things. These Galatians were living in their sins, they were living in idolatry, in the darkness of pagan superstition, when Paul came to them and preached the glorious gospel that tells how Christ died for our sins and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures (1Co 15:3-4). They were saved, for you know the gospel of the grace of God works. It is wonderful when you see a man who has been living in all kinds of sin, and God by the Holy Spirit brings him to repentance and leads him to believe the gospel; everything changes, old habits fall off like withered leaves, a new life is his. He has power to overcome sin, he has hope of heaven, and he has assurance of salvation. That is what Gods gospel gives.
These Galatians, after Paul had been used to bring them into the liberty of grace, were being misled by false teachers, men who had come down from Judea, who professed to be Christians but had never been delivered from legality. They said to these young Christians, You have only a smattering of the gospel; you need to add to this message that you have received, the teaching of the law of Moses, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved (Act 15:1). Thus they threw them back on self-effort, turning their eyes away from Christ and fixing them upon themselves and their ability to keep the law. Paul says, This thing will ruin men who depend upon their own self-efforts to get to heaven; they will miss the gates of pearl. No matter how earnest they are, if they depend upon their own works they will never be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. So far as these Galatians who were really born again were concerned, this false doctrine could not be the means of their eternal perdition, yet it would rob them of the joy and gladness that the Christian ought to have. How could any one have peace who believed that salvation depended on his own efforts? How could he be certain that he had paid enough attention to the demands of the law or ritual? It is the gospel of the grace of God which believed gives men full assurance. And so the apostle Paul was very indignant to find people bringing in something else instead of the gospel of the grace of God, and he is surprised that these Galatians who rejoiced in the liberty of Christ should be so ready to go back to the bondage of law.
I marvel, he says, that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel. He marvels that they should so soon be turned aside from the message of grace. What is grace? It is Gods free, unmerited favor to those who have merited the very opposite. These Galatians, like ourselves, had merited eternal judgment, they deserved to be shut away from the presence of God forever, as you and I deserve to be, but through the preaching of grace they had been brought to see that God has a righteousness which He offers freely to unrighteous sinners who put their faith in His blessed Son. But now, occupied with legal ceremonies, laws, rules, and regulations, they had lost the joy of grace and had become taken up with self-effort. Paul says, I cannot understand it, and yet after all, it is very natural for these poor hearts of ours. How often you see people who seem to be wonderfully converted, and then they lose it all as they get occupied with all kinds of questions, rules, ceremonies, and ritual. God would have each heart occupied with His blessed Son, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col 2:3).
I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel. In our King James Version we read, Another gospel, and then verse 7 continues, Which is not another. That sounds like a contradiction, but there are two different Greek words used here. The first is the word heteron, something contrary to sound teaching, something different. The apostle says, I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ [to a different] gospel. This mixture of law and grace is not Gods gospel, not something to be added to what you have already received, not something to complete the gospel message; it is opposed to that, it is a heterodox message, one opposed to sound teaching. There is only one gospel.
Go through the Book from Genesis to Revelation and there is only one gospel-that first preached in the Garden of Eden when the message went forth that the Seed of the woman should bruise Satans head. That was the gospel, salvation through the coming Christ, the Son of God born of a woman. It is the same gospel preached to Abraham. We read in this Book that the gospel was before preached to Abraham. God took him out one night and said, Look at the stars; count them.
And Abraham said, I cannot count them. He said, Look at the dust of the earth, and count the dust.
Abraham said, I cannot count it. Well, think of the sand at the seashore; count the grains of sand. And Abraham said, I cannot count them.
And God answered, In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed (Gen 22:18). And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth (Gen 13:16). Abraham might have said, Impossible! My seed! I have no child, and I am already a man advanced in years, and my wife is an elderly woman. Impossible! But God had given the word, In thy seed [which is Christ] shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. That was the gospel-all nations to be blessed through Christ, the Seed of Abraham. And Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness (Rom 4:3). He was justified by faith because he believed the gospel. It is the same gospel that we find running through the book of Psalms. David, stained with sin, the twin sins of adultery and murder, cries, Thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise (Psa 51:16-17). Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow (Psa 51:7). And there is only one way a poor sinner can be purged, and that is by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. David looked on in faith to the Christ, the Son of God, and his hope was in this one gospel.
It is the gospel that Isaiah proclaimed when he looked down through the ages and cried, He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed (Isa 53:5). It was the gospel that Jeremiah preached when he said, This is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS (Jer 23:6). It was the gospel of Zechariah, Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered (Zec 13:7).
This was the gospel that John the Baptist preached. He came preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and as he pointed to Jesus he said, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world (Joh 1:29). And this was the gospel that Jesus Himself proclaimed when He said, For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life (Joh 3:16). This was Peters gospel when he spoke of Jesus, saying, To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins (Act 10:43). This was the gospel of the apostle John who said, If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin (1Jn 1:7). This was the gospel of the apostle James who said, Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth (Jam 1:18). This is the gospel that they will celebrate through all the ages to come as millions and millions of redeemed sing their song of praise, Unto him that loveth us, and loosed us from our sins in his own blood (Rev 1:5 RV). And this was Pauls gospel when he declared, Through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: and by him all that believe are justified from all things (Act 13:38-39). One gospel! And there is no other!
I have often felt sorry when I have heard some of my brethren whom I have learned to love in the truth, and with whom I hold a great deal in common, try to explain some apparent differences throughout the gospel centuries and talk as though there are a number of different gospels. Some say when Christ was on earth and in the early part of the book of Acts, they preached the gospel of the kingdom but did not know the grace of God. I wonder whether they remember the words of Joh 3:16 and Joh 1:29, and recollect that it was the Lord who said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life (Joh 5:24). How short our memories are sometimes, if we say that Jesus was not preaching grace when here on earth when Scripture says, The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ (Joh 1:17). Can we say that Peter and his fellow apostles in the early part of Acts were not preaching grace when it was Peter who declared, To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins (Act 10:43). There is only one gospel!
They say there is one gospel of the kingdom, another gospel of the grace of God, then there is the gospel of the glory, and some day there will be the everlasting gospel, and that these are all different gospels. If such statements were true, these words of Paul would fall to the ground, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. Someone wrote me that she was surprised that a man who ought to know better should talk about there being only one gospel. Why, she said, even Dr. C. I. Scofield would teach you better, because in his Bible he shows that there are four gospels. I want to read you what Dr. Scofield says, in his notes on Rev 14:6:
This great theme may be summarized as follows:
1. In itself the word gospel means good news.
2. Four forms of the gospel are to be distinguished:
(1) The gospel of the kingdom. This is the good news that God purposes to set up on the earth, in fulfilment of the Davidic Covenant, a kingdom, political, spiritual, Israelitish, universal, over which Gods Son, Davids heir, shall be King, and which shall be, for one thousand years, the manifestation of the righteousness of God in human affairs.
Two preachings of this gospel are mentioned, one past, beginning with the ministry of John the Baptist, continued by our Lord and His disciples, and ending with the Jewish rejection of the King. The other is yet future, during the great tribulation, and immediately preceding the coming of the King in glory.
(2) The gospel of the grace of God. This is the good news that Jesus Christ, the rejected King, has died on the cross for the sins of the world, that He was raised from the dead for our justification, and that by Him all that believe are justified from all things. This form of the gospel is described in many ways. It is the gospel of God because it originates in His love; of Christ because it flows from His sacrifice, and because He is the alone Object of gospel faith; of the grace of God because it saves those whom the law curses; of the glory because it concerns Him who is in the glory, and who is bringing the many sons to glory; of our salvation because it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; of the uncircumcision because it saves wholly apart from forms and ordinances; of peace because through Christ it makes peace between the sinner and God, and imparts inward peace.
(3) The everlasting gospel. This is to be preached to the earth-dwellers at the very end of the great tribulation and immediately preceding the judgment of the nations. It is neither the gospel of the kingdom, nor of grace. Though its burden is judgment, not salvation, it is good news to Israel and to those who, during the tribulation, have been saved.
(4) That which Paul calls, my gospel. This is the gospel of the grace of God in its fullest development, but includes the revelation of the result of that gospel in the outcalling of the Church, her relationships, position, privileges, and responsibility. It is the distinctive truth of Ephesians and Colossians, but interpenetrates all of Pauls writings.
These words are very clear. There is only one gospel, and that is Gods good news concerning His Son; but it takes on different aspects at different times according to the circumstances and conditions in which men are found. In Old Testament times they looked on to the coming of the Savior, but they proclaimed salvation through His atoning death. In the days of John the Baptist stress was laid upon the coming kingdom, and the King was to lay down His life. In the days of the Lords ministry on earth He presented Himself as King, but was rejected and went to the cross, for He Himself declared that He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many (Mat 20:28). During the early chapters of the book of Acts we find this gospel proclaimed to Jews and Gentiles alike, offering free salvation to all who turn to God in repentance, but when God raised up the apostle Paul, He gave him a clearer vision of the gospel than any one had yet had. He showed that not only are men forgiven through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, but that they are justified from all things, and stand in Christ before God as part of a new creation. This is a fuller revelation of the good tidings, but the same gospel.
By-and-by, during the days of the great tribulation, the everlasting gospel will be proclaimed, telling men that the once-rejected Christ shall come again to set up His glorious kingdom, but even in that day men will be taught that salvation is through His precious blood, for as the result of that preaching a great multitude will be brought out of all kindreds and tongues who have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb (Rev 7:14).
Yes, there is only one gospel and if any one comes preaching any other gospel, telling you there is any other way of salvation save through the atoning work of the Lord Jesus, it is a heterodox gospel. Some such had come to Galatia and perverted the gospel of Christ, and it is this that led Paul in the intensity of his zeal for that gospel to exclaim, as guided by the Holy Spirit who inspired him, Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be [Anathema] (let him be devoted to judgment), if he is substituting anything for the precious gospel of the grace of God. Notice, if the angel who proclaims the everlasting gospel in the days of the great tribulation preaches any other gospel than that of salvation through faith in Christ alone, that angel comes under the curse, for Paul says, Though an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
Out West I often met disciples of Joseph Smith, and when I got them in a corner with the Word of God and they could not wiggle out, they would say, Well, we have what you do not have. An angel came to Joseph Smith and gave him the book of Mormon. And so they reasoned that the Bible is not enough, because an angel had revealed something different. I do not believe in the prophet Joseph Smith, and I do not believe that an angel ever appeared to him, unless it was in a nightmare. But if he did, then that angel was from the pit and he is under the curse, because, Though an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. People may say, But Paul, you are all worked up, you are losing your temper. You know, if you become very fervent for the truth, folks say you are losing your temper. If you say strong things in defense of the truth, they will declare you are unkind; but men will use very fervent language about politics and other things, and yet no one questions their loss of temper, but they think we should be very calm when people tear the Bible to pieces! If anything calls for fervent and intense feelings it is the defense of the gospel against false teaching.
Lest any one should say, Well, Paul, you would not have written that if you had been calmer; you would not have used such strong language, Paul repeats himself in verse 9, and says, As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be [Anathema]. That is cool enough. He is not speaking now as one wrought up. He has had time to think it over and has weighed his words carefully. Yes, on sober, second thought he again insists on what he declared before, that the divine judgment hangs over any man who seeks to mislead lost humanity by telling them of any other way of salvation save through the precious atoning blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In closing I put the question to you: On what are you resting your hope for eternity? Are you resting on the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you trusting the gospel of the grace of God? By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God (Eph 2:8).
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
Chapter 2
The Singularity of the Gospel
I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
(Gal 1:6-10)
It is utterly astonishing to a believer that anyone, having heard and having professed to believe the gospel of Gods free, sovereign, saving grace in Christ, could be enticed to abandon it for another gospel (Which is no gospel at all!) of legality, works, or a mixture of grace and works (Rom 11:5-6) But that is exactly what had happened in Galatia. Pauls purpose in writing this epistle was to expose and reprove those as heretics who attempt to mix the works of men with the work of Christ, and to establish Gods elect in the gospel of Gods grace and glory in Christ.
False teachers had crept into the Galatian churches perverting the gospel of Christ. While professing to be followers of Christ, they sought to mingle the works of the law with faith in Christ. They were persuading the people to abandon the gospel Paul had taught them, adding to faith in Christ the works of the law. The apostle Paul had taught them that Christ crucified is the only, all-sufficient, and effectual Savior of men, and that faith in him is the only way we can receive his finished salvation (Rom 5:11). He had proved the truth of all his declarations by miracles. These Galatians professed to believe the gospel as it was preached and confirmed by the apostle. They had been so thankful for Paul bringing the gospel to them that they received him as an angel of God, and would have, had it been possible, plucked out their own eyes and given them to him. Yet, within a short time, these converts were induced by the eloquent discourses of false teachers to renounce Paul and the gospel of Christ, and to receive in its place a message contrary to the glorious gospel Paul had taught them. Therefore, he wrote this letter by divine inspiration, filled with indignation, sorrow, and astonishment.
One Gospel
Here Paul declares that there is only one gospel and he proceeds to show the singularity of that gospel. This message is one of dogmatism, finality, and authoritarianism, which is a rare message in our day of broadminded compromise. Our generation is taught not to believe anything, not really. One certainly is not to be dogmatic about anything. But the gospel of Christ is, in its very essence, a non-compromising, authoritarian message of absolutes. The very reason for the flourishing of Christianity in the pagan Roman world in which it was born was the non-compromising spirit of our forefathers in the faith. Rather than relinquishing or adding to one article of faith, they would die! We must return to this dogmatism about the gospel.
The church is in desperate need of a clarion message ringing once again from her pulpits. There is too much silence regarding the message that passes for the gospel in this day. There is only one gospel. It must not be altered. It must not be mixed and diluted with human conjectures. We must uphold the gospel in its purity. Men are in a helpless, hopeless, mad dash to hell; and they will not be rescued unless Christ, the crucified Redeemer, sovereignly bestows his grace upon them. The gospel is good news from heaven of how that God sent his Son to save his people. It is the declaration of what God has done for sinful, helpless humanity. It is never a proposition. It is a declaration, a declaration of redemption accomplished by Christ.
The Galatian Christians had been seduced from the pure gospel of Gods grace to a gospel mixed with Gods grace and mans merit. Such a gospel is really no gospel (good news) at all, but a perverted system of self-righteousness (1Co 1:30; Col 1:19-22; Col 2:8-23). The gospel is a declaration of what God has done for sinners in the person of his Son, apart from anything done by men. Anything other than a declaration of Gods work is a perversion of the gospel. Paul here calls upon them to return to, and maintain the gospel in its purity.
Amazement
It was Pauls custom to give grateful acknowledgement of divine grace bestowed upon those he addressed, whereby they had been enabled to grow in knowledge, faith, and love. It was very common for him to express his inner satisfaction with the work of God upon them, and to give forth a prayer that they may continue to persevere in the faith. That is what we might expect to find at this point in his epistle. But, in this epistle to the Galatians, we are confronted with the exact opposite. What we find here is not satisfaction, but overwhelming amazement and painful perplexity.
The first thing we see in this book is their removal from the gospel. A Change had taken place among them, and this disturbed their spiritual father. As a rule Paul was a very tolerant man. He showed great tolerance in his epistles to the Corinthians, who had behaved so shamefully in so many ways. He showed great tolerance in writing to the Philippians about those preachers who, because of envy, opposed him (Php 1:15-18). He was usually very tactful and expressed words of encouragement before dealing with faults and failures.
But here the very essence of the gospel is at stake. Gods glory and mans salvation is the issue; and here there is no place for tolerance. The Galatians were in the process of apostasy. They were forsaking liberty in Christ for the bondage of Moses. Paul was utterly amazed. He says, I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel (Gal 1:6).
Theirs was not merely changing theological positions. They were abandoning Christ, who in his grace and mercy had called them, and turning to another gospel, which was different from his in its very essence.
Called You
By and large, Paul appears to have been convinced that those to whom he was writing had been truly born of God, called by the effectual, irresistible power and grace of God the Holy Spirit to life and faith in Christ. The One who had called them was Christ himself. It was Christ from whom they were in danger of turning, not just Paul.
There is a general call and an effectual call. The Lord Jesus Christ calls sinners by his Spirit in a general way, externally, whenever the gospel is proclaimed to them. This call is made effectual by the power of God. The efficacy of the gospel call is ascribed to all three Persons of the Trinity, though specifically it is a part of the mediation of Christ (Joh 10:2-3; Joh 10:16; Rom 1:6). The Galatians were replacing the gospel of Christ with another gospel and were being removed from Christ.
The gospel of Christ is good news from a far land. It is the message of grace from God in heaven for men of the earth. It is a message of what God has done and is doing for sinners in Christ (1Co 15:1-4; 2Co 5:19-21). It is a message of salvation alone in Christ. He is the Door. He is the Way. He is the Truth. He is the Life. In all that concerns the salvation of sinners, from start to finish, Christ is all (1Co 1:30). The gospel is not good advice, but good news, the good news of Christs finished work whereby he has made all Gods elect accepted with God. It is the good news of redemption, forgiveness, justification, reconciliation, and sanctification accomplished by the blood of Christ, our crucified Substitute (Rom 5:10-11; 2Co 5:17-21; Eph 1:6-7; Col 1:12-14; Heb 1:1-3; Heb 9:12; Heb 9:10-14).
Another Gospel
Neither the Galatians nor their Judaizing teachers had openly denied the gospel. Heretics are almost always more subtle than that. They did openly deny the gospel, but their perversion of the gospel (adding obedience to the Mosaic law to the finished work of Christ) was a total denial of it (Gal 5:1-4).
Martin Luther was right when he wrote, They made good works, which are the effect of justification, its cause. But the Galatian error extended beyond the subtle evil of mixing works with grace in the matter of justification. Paul addresses that issue in chapters one and two. But, in chapter three, he deals with an even more subtle and more bewitching form of the heresy, that had been embraced by many at Galatia, and is embraced almost universally today. That is the mixing of grace with works in the accomplishment of sanctification (Gal 3:1-3).
It is a hazardous thing to tamper with the gospel of Christ. It must neither be abridged nor enlarged. Any gospel that makes righteousness before God to be dependent upon the works or will of man is no gospel at all. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth (Rom 10:4). Christ is all our righteousness. He is our Righteousness in redemption, in justification, and in sanctification.
Neither our faith, nor our works make us righteous before God. By faith in Christ we receive the righteousness he accomplished for us. By our works, our obedience to our God, we manifest the righteousness he has wrought in us by his Spirit.
Accursed
As Satan transformed himself into an angel of light, his ministers transform themselves into ministers of righteousness (2Co 11:3; 2Co 11:13-15). These “deceitful workers, as Paul calls them, beguile the souls of men, persuading them that they can make themselves righteous before God (or at least contribute something to the work), and thereby teaching them not to trust Christ as THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS (Jer 23:6; Jer 33:16). It is for this reason that Paul uses the strong, bold language of verses eight and nine to denounce all who preach any other gospel.
But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed (Gal 1:8-9).
Here the apostle tells us how those who corrupt the gospel ought to be regarded. He includes himself and all others in this stern, clear word of condemnation. If anyone comes preaching any gospel other than the gospel of full, complete, effectual redemption and eternal salvation in and by Christ alone, let him be forever consigned to hell.
The revelation of God is final, complete, and perfect. It cannot be improved upon. Christ is Gods final Word to men (Heb 1:1-3). He is the full revelation of the Father. He came on a mission to perform the work of redemption. He has finished the work. The Book of God is final. It tells us his whole revealed will. It reveals the totality of his work. The Word of God alone has authority in his house (Isa 8:20; Rev 22:18-19). The gospel is final, revealing Christ, only Christ, and Christ alone as the Savior of our souls (Act 4:12; 1Jn 5:10-11).
Those who would pervert the gospel, those who preach another gospel, which is no gospel at all, are to be regarded as accursed men (2Jn 1:10-11). We should be very cautious in charging any man with preaching another gospel. But when anyone comes preaching another Christ and another gospel, (anyone who preaches that salvation is to any degree or at any one point dependent upon what you do rather than upon what God does) our responsibility is crystal clear. We must not acknowledge them as Gods servants. We must not receive their instruction. And we must not be partakers of their evil deeds by assisting them in any way.
Men or God?
In verse ten Paul states plainly that as the servant of God he could not concern himself with pleasing men. For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
He did not try to persuade (that is conciliate) men, or make the gospel appealing to men. All such efforts arise from corrupt motives and result in the destruction of mens souls, not the salvation of them. Paul never courted the favor of men. He was concerned about the favor of God. It was not his ambition to impress, please and win the favor of men. He was concerned for and motivated by the glory of God. His only principle of life was to please his one Master, Christ Jesus the Lord. The simple fact is, no one can have two masters (Mat 6:24). Any man who, for the sake of human favor, or out of fear for human resentment, will keep back any part of sacred truth is not the servant of Christ.
Those who teach believers to live by law misuse the law (1Ti 1:8-9), and attempt to place upon Gods people an oppressive yoke of bondage that no man can bear. Let us use the law lawfully. We must never allow ourselves to be brought back under the bondage of the law from which Christ has set us free (Gal 5:1-4). To do so is to abandon all hope of salvation, for it is to abandon Christ altogether. Let us hold forth the gospel in its purity. It is the work of Christ, which alone saves sinners. The church of God has no other purpose for existence. We have no other mission.
Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible
grace
The test of the Gospel is grace. If the message excludes grace, or mingles law with grace as the means of either of justification or sanctification Gal 2:21; Gal 3:1-3 or denies the fact or guilt of sin which alone gives grace its occasion and opportunity, it is “another” gospel, and the preacher of it is under the anathema of God Gal 1:8; Gal 1:9.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
marvel: Mar 6:6, Joh 9:30
so: Gal 3:1-5, Gal 4:9-15, Gal 5:4, Gal 5:7, Psa 106:13, Isa 29:13, Jer 2:12, Jer 2:13
that called: Gal 5:8, 1Co 4:15, 2Th 2:14, 2Ti 1:9, 1Pe 1:15, 2Pe 1:3
the grace: Act 15:11, Rom 5:2, 1Ti 1:14, 2Ti 2:1, Rev 22:21
unto: Rom 10:3, 2Co 11:4
Reciprocal: Gen 32:30 – I have Deu 9:12 – are quickly Jdg 2:17 – quickly Eze 3:21 – if thou Act 2:42 – they Act 15:2 – Paul Rom 1:6 – the called 1Co 15:1 – I declare 2Co 10:14 – the gospel 2Co 11:3 – I fear Gal 4:13 – at Eph 4:5 – one faith Eph 4:14 – tossed Col 2:19 – not 1Th 3:5 – lest 1Ti 1:3 – charge 1Ti 1:19 – concerning 1Ti 5:12 – their 1Ti 6:3 – any Tit 1:10 – specially Heb 13:9 – carried
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
NO OTHER GOSPEL
I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
Gal 1:6-8
The right of interpretation is embodied for us in what we call dogma. Many of us do not see the need of dogma, just because we are too apt to miss the true secret of Christian authority. If you are tempted to treat it as one among many influences, perhaps the best and sweetest of all, but still only a moral force working in concert with other forces, then you will find yourself pulled up short by something in it which claims an absolute title, an original and unique authority. This holds ever aloof, supreme and solitary. What is this undying kernel which repels delusion? We know well it is the personality of Jesus Christ. His authoritative personality, His permanent claims, this it is which accounts for the permeating influence exercised over the world by Christianity.
I. The heart and core of Christianity.Dogma simply puts into words this indissoluble and unique element, which makes it impossible to account for Christianity as an appendage or element of something else. Dogma declares that the Person of the Lord and Master of Christianity holds in it all that is wanted to explain its rise, growth, power, demands, promises. Christianity is Christ, and Christ is Christianity: Christ, to the Jews, a stumbling-block, to the Greeks foolishness, but to all who believe, Christ, the sole foundation, the Author and Finisher of the faith, the one Head, the one rock, the wisdom and power of God.
II. The danger against which St. Paul fought, in its simpler form sweeps in upon us through the great width and variety of our travelling. Our tours now take us so easily far outside the frontiers of Christianity that we rub shoulders with a dozen religions; and, by the sheer force of an unguarded instinct, Christianity slips somehow into a subordinate place in our imagination. We look upon it as one religion among many, and we talk as if it had grown as the others grow. Or here at home, without travel at all, we are terribly liable to the habit of letting Christianity sink down to the level of a social influence. Christianity does so much good, and does it so much better than philanthropy, that we see and feel what a loss to the general well-being it would be if this were withdrawn, we feel that we ourselves are the better for the influence it has had over us. All this is so true, only we are observing it as a phenomenon which impresses us favourably, and never once perhaps have we gone behind the phenomenon, and asked, Whence does this excellent influence spring? What does it assert? Does it simply spring out of the belief that in Christ Jesus there is to be found an authoritative supremacy which nothing short of absolute allegiance of heart to the heart and will of God can ever satisfy? Is that the motive, the cause of these effects? If so, what am I about? Can I accept and face the influence, and not accept the challenge of the creed: Whom sayest thou that I, the Son of Man, am?
III. There is the challenge.The creed is proclaimed aloud; we have heard it; what are we going to do? This will stand over against us with an importunate inquiry. Oh that with St. Peter our hearts may burn within us until passionate words break from our lips, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God! God grant us that to-day, by the help of the Holy Ghost, we may deliver out our faith with a new emphasis, a new force of conviction. Yes, it is true; I see it; this religion is no outgrowth of human relations; no! there is but one who can explain it; I see Thee and know Thee Who Thou art; Thou art the Christ, the Holy One of God!
Rev. Canon Scott Holland.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Gal 1:6. , -I marvel that you are so soon turning away (are removing yourselves) from Him who called you in the grace of Christ.
The apostle now rushes, as one may say, on the main subject of the epistle, disclosing in a moment the feeling of disappointment which he could not repress or modify. By a sharp and sudden he shows his surprise, not unmingled with anger and sorrow. The result had not been as he had fondly anticipated; nay, it was so contrary to previous manifestations on which he seems to have trusted, that his censure and chagrin are expressed by his amazement. Rebuke lurks under his surprise. The verb often from the context gathers into itself the ethical notion of what is culpable-surprise excited by what is object of censure. Mar 6:6. Sometimes it is followed by , when what is thought of is matter of doubt, and by , as here, when it is matter of fact. 1Jn 3:13. Sturz, Lex. Xen. sub voce.
, the present middle-not the aorist-will not bear the rendering, ye are removed, nor, as Dr. Brown gives it, ye have removed yourselves; but, ye are removing yourselves. Gal 4:9; Gal 4:11; Gal 5:10. The falling off was in process, not completed, as Chrysostom says: , , . The verb cannot be aoristic in sense, for it is not a historical present (Matthies). Bernhardy, p. 372. Nor is it passive, as Beza, Erasmus, and others take it-ut culpam in pseudapostolos derivet. The Vulgate gives also transferimini. The verb signifies to transfer or put in another place locally, as Heb 11:5, Sept. Gen 5:24; and then tropically, to put to another use, or to change place ideally. Jud 1:4. In the middle voice it signifies to change what belongs to one- , Xen. Mem. 4.2, 18, or , Joseph. Vita, 33, Herodotus, 7:18; then to fall away from one party- or , 2Ma 7:24 -to another, or , Polybius, 3.118, 8, and often in the Sept. 1Ki 21:25. Dionysius of Heraclea, who became an Epicurean from being a Stoic, rejoiced to be called -transpositus sive translatus (Jerome). Athenaeus, vii. p. 25, vol. iii. ed. Schweighaser; Rost und Palm, sub voce.
There was special surprise that this changing of sides was going on , so quickly. These words have been taken either in a positive or a relative sense. In the first sense, or as referring to manner, they have been supposed to signify (Koppe), parum considerate (Schott, Chrysostom), gewiss zu rasch (Rckert), or so readily, so rashly (Lightfoot, Gwynne, and Hofmann). But relatively they have been taken as signifying so soon after-
1. The last visit of the apostle to them, as Bengel, Hilgenfeld, and Wieseler. No chronological inference can indeed be based on this exegesis, for it is untenable. The idea of his own visit is not in his mind, so far as his language implies, for does not refer to him;-
2. Or so soon after their conversion, as Usteri, Olshausen, Meyer, Alford, Trana, Bisping, Jatho. This is no doubt true; but such a terminus does not seem directly in the apostle’s eye. The points before his mind are: the one from which they are changing away-Him who called them; and that into which they were sinking-another gospel. His mind turns at once to the false teachers, and their seductive influence; and therefore the meaning may be,
3. So soon after the intrusion of the false teachers among them. Chrysostom describes it as (De Wette, and Ellicott). The apostle refers at once to these men, and to their disturbing and dangerous power. The Galatians had not the courage or constancy to resist the fascination of these unscrupulous Judaizers. But if the false teachers came among them after the apostle’s recent visit (Act 18:23), these two last opinions may so far coalesce. Their conversion, however, was a point further back, and connected with an earlier visit. But though, if one adopt the relative sense, the last opinion be preferable, yet probably the apostle had no precise point of time in his reference. The unexpectedness of the apostasy-involving, it is true, some latent temporal reference-appears to be his prominent element of rebuke. Taking in the whole crisis, so sudden and speedy,-so contrary to earlier auspicious tokens,-he might well say, without any distinct allusion to a precise date, . While the remark of Jerome, Galatia translationem in nostra lingua sonat, is without basis, this fickleness was quite in keeping with the Gallic character. See Introduction.
-from Him that called you in the grace of Christ. The words are not to be construed thus, – (from Him that called you-Christ), as the Syriac, Jerome, Calvin, Bengel, a-Lapide, and Brown. As Meyer remarks, however, against Schott and Matthies, the absence of the article would be no objection to this exegesis. Rom 9:5; 1Pe 1:15. The calling of believers is uniformly represented as the work of the Father in the Pauline theology, Rom 8:30; Rom 9:24, 1Co 1:9, Gal 1:15, 1Th 5:24; and therefore . cannot be understood of the apostle, as Piscator, Balduin, Paulus, Bagge, Olearius, Gwynne, and even Doddridge. Their defection was all the more sinful, as the calling was from God. He alone effectually summons the soul to forgiveness and life, for He has access to it, and as His love yearns over it, His power is able to work the blessed change. God called them, and there is emphasis in the omission of ; as they needed not to be told who the Caller was, their defection was no sin of ignorance. It would be very strange if the apostle should in this place arrogate to himself what everywhere else he ascribes to God. Reuss, Theol. Chret. 2.144. His own special work is thus characterized by him-.
.-in the grace of Christ. is wanting in F, G, and in some of the Latin fathers, and is wrongly rejected by Griesbach. The phrase is neither to be identified with , nor ; Vulgate, in gratiam, that is, to a participation of that grace, as Borger and Rckert explain it. The preposition denotes the element-that element here viewed as possessing instrumental power. Eph 2:13; Eph 6:14. It may thus be the instrumental adjunct (Wunder, Sophocles, Philoct. 60; Donaldson, 47, 6), but the instrumentality is here regarded as immanent. Jelf, 622. In some other passages with the preposition has its usual force. 1Co 7:18; 1Th 4:7. It is only or chiefly after verbs of motion that as result combines the sense of (Winer, 50, 5), though originally they were the same word, related to each other; as , -, . Donaldson, New Cratylus, p. 318. They were called in the grace of Christ; for the call of God works only in that grace, never apart from it. Rom 5:15. That call, sphering itself in Christ, and thus evincing its power, is on this account opposed to the , to the entire substance and spirit of the Judaizing doctrine. This grace of Christ, so rich and free, crowned in His atoning death and seen in all the blessings springing out of it, seems to be suggested by, or connected in the apostle’s mind with, the phrase just used-gave Himself for our sins. But they are falling off-
-to a different gospel-the ruling element of which was not the grace of Christ, nor was its leading doctrine that He gave Himself for our sins. No moral feature is expressed by the adjective, though it may be implied-not corruptum et adulterinum, as Calvin has it. The adjective marks distinction, indicates addition. 2Co 11:4. This signification of difference is seen in such compounds as , Psa 113:1; , Deu 22:11; , Lev 19:19. It represents the Hebrew , H2543, new, in Exo 1:8, and , H2424, alienus, in Exo 30:9, strange incense. It is found with an ethical sense also, Exo 21:2, Num 14:24; often as applied to false divinities, Dan 7:5-6; Dan 7:8. The adjective thus generally denotes distinction of kind. Even in Mat 11:3, adduced by Ellicott to show that does not always keep its distinctive meaning, it may signify not simply another individual, but one different in position and function. But is used in the parallel passage, Luk 7:20. Tittmann, De Synon. p. 155. The Judaizing gospel, for it might be named gospel by its preachers and receivers too, was of a totally different genus from that proclaimed by the apostle, differing from it as widely as and , and , bondage and liberty, flesh and spirit. But the apostle at once checks himself, lest the phrase . should be misinterpreted, on the plea that by its use he had admitted the possibility of another and different gospel. Therefore he abruptly adds,
Fuente: Commentary on the Greek Text of Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and Phillipians
Gal 1:6. Up to this place the verses constitute Paul’s introduction for his epistle. He now begins on the main subject of the letter, namely, the corruptions that had entered among the churches of Galatia through the activities of Judaizers. The reader should again consult the comments on these false teachers in “general remarks” at the beginning of this epistle. Him that called you refers to God (1Co 1:9), who had called them by the preaching of Paul, to receive the grace or favor of Christ. So soon removed indicates the fickleness of these brethren, for it had not been such a long time since they had been taught the truth. Gospel is always from EUAG-GELION, and its primary meaning according to Thayer is, “good tidings,” and it can have special applications only by the connection in which it is used. Hence if some pretended good news should be offered to persons, it would be a form of gospel regardless of whether it were true or false. That explains why Paul uses the phrase another gospel. The first word is from HETEROS, which means another kind of gospel or supposed good news. The false doctrine was the claim that Christians could obtain salvation by observing the ordinances of the law of Moses, especially that of circumcision; this is clearly shown in Act 15:1. But since such “good news” was false, Paul calls it another kind of gospel.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Gal 1:6. I marvel. A sharp rebuke in a mild word, which challenges explanation, and intimates that better things were expected from the Galatians.
So quickly, namely, either after your conversion, which is alluded to in who called you, or after my second and last visit to you, or after the arrival of the false teachers. The first is the most probable. In any case the word points to an early date of the Epistle. (See Introd., 5.) Even the best preaching cannot prevent apostasy. Grotius cites in illustration of the Galatian character what Csar says of the Gauls (the ancestors of the French): They are quick and resolute, and fond of change and novelties.
Turning away; changing over; here and often in a bad sense, turning renegades, deserters. The Greek (middle voice) implies first that the apostasy was voluntary on their part, and hence their own guilt; secondly, that it was not yet completed, but still in progress, and hence might be arrested. (The passive rendering of the Latin Vulgate and English Version would transfer the guilt to the false teachers, and soften the censure of the Galatians.)
From him, not Paul, but God the Father, from whom the gospel call always proceeds (comp. Gal 1:15; 1Co 1:9; 1Co 7:15; 1Co 7:17; Rom 8:30; Rom 9:11; Rom 9:24; 1Th 2:12; 2Th 2:14; 2Ti 1:9; 1Pe 1:15; 1Pe 2:9; 1Pe 5:10).
In (not into, as the English Version has it, following the Vulgate) the grace of Christ. The grace, i.e., the whole work, of Christ as a manifestation of His redeeming love is both the element in which and the medium by or through which the Father draws to the Son (Joh 6:44) and effects the call (comp. Act 15:11; Rom 5:15).
Unto a different gospel, different in kind, another sort of gospel, which is undeserving of the name, since there is but one gospel, namely, that to which you were called by God. Hence Paul immediately adds a correction of this paradoxical expression, which he uses simply in accommodation to the language of the Judaizing pseudo-evangelists (comp. 2Co 11:4).
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Observe here, 1. The heavy charge which St. Paul brings in against the false apostles or Judiazing teachers, they perverted the gospel which St. Paul preached, and taught a new gospel of their own; yet not absolutely so, but by compounding and mingling the gospel with the cermonial law, and by making circumcision and other things, necessary to salvation, which our Saviour never made so, this the apostle calls another gospel.
Whence learn, 1. That it is no new or strange thing to hear of new gospels, of true gospel perverters, and of false gospel teachers. We find such in the primitive and purest churches, planted even by the apostles themselves; no wonder they are found in our days, who are fallen into the very dregs of time and error together.
Learn, 2. That the addition of any thing to the Christian religion, as necessary to be believed and practiced in order to salvation, is a perverting the gospel of Christ, and preaching another gospel. These Galatians did not renounce Christianity, and go over to another religion, but they received circumcision, and the observation of the law of Moses; as an essential part of the Christian religion, and as a condition of eternal salvation: whereas the death of Christ having put an end to the Jewish dispensation, there was neither then, nor now, any obligation upon Christians to observe the law of Moses; and consequently, the addition of any thing to the Christian doctrine, as necessary to be believed and practiced in order to salvation, is preaching another gospel, and a manifest perverting of the gospel of Christ.
Learn, 3. That there is no authority in the Christian church, in any, or in all the guides of it, to impose upon Christians any thing, as of necessity to salvation, which the gospel has not made necessary. The apostles themselves had no authority to add any thing to the gospel, much less can any that come after them pretend to it: Christ commanded them, Mat 28:19, to teach all nations, to observe all things whatsoever he commaded them: and head the apostles themselves added any point of faith and practice, not given them in charge by Christ himself, they had fallen under that curse themselves, which here they denounced against false teachers.
Observe, 2. The artifice which these false teachers used to draw the Galatians into these new errors, and that was hastily and suddenly to avow and own them before the world; I marvel that ye are so soon removed. Seducers are for clapping up a hasty match between the mind and error, and press the seduced to quick resolutions; a hasty dispatch being their great advantage, before they consult their spiritual guides, or weigh matters in the balance of impartial judgments. What says the apostle, are ye so soon removed? Yes, might the false teachers have said, if not so soon, it might never; if not so soon removed, they might never be at all: for errors are like fish, they must be eaten fresh and new, or they’ll quickly stink, and be thrown away.
Observe, 3. The true cause from which the Galatians fall into error did proceed: they trusted themselves with themselves; they trusted to the clearness of their own unassisted eyes, and to the strength of their own reason and judgment, without consulting their spiritual guide. Had not these Galatians a Paul to consult with, before they gave their consent to false teachers? Or if he was at a distance from them, about the work of the Lord in remote places, could not they have written to him, or advised with others besides him? Woe to him that is alone, when assaulted by seducers!
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Gal 1:6-9. I marvel that ye are so soon After my leaving you; removed from him that called you into the grace Or rather, by, or through the grace; of Christ His gracious gospel, and his gracious power. God is generally said to call men into the grace of Christ, but the phraseology seems here to point out Paul, and not God, as the person spoken of. For as he wrote this chapter to prove himself an apostle, his success in calling the Galatians to the Christian faith was fitly mentioned as one of the proofs of his apostleship, as it implied that he was assisted in that work by God. Unto another gospel Or pretended revelation from God, concerning the way of attaining justification and salvation, a way entirely inconsistent with the very fundamental principles of that doctrine which you were first taught. As these Galatians were descendants of the Gauls, as has been observed in the preface, it is the less to be wondered at that they were so unstable; the inhabitants of France, as M. Saurin observes, having been always reproached with taking impressions easily, and as easily suffering them to be effaced. Which is not indeed properly another gospel For what ye have now received is no gospel at all. It is not glad, but heavy tidings, as setting your acceptance with God upon terms impossible to be performed. But there are some Who, on pretence that their doctrine of justification by the law of Moses is authorized by God; trouble you With doubts concerning my doctrine, and disturb the peace of the church; and would If they were able; pervert and overthrow the gospel of Christ This the Judaizing teachers effectually did by teaching that justification could not be obtained purely by faith in Christ, but that circumcision and the observation of the Jewish ceremonies were necessary thereto; and the better to effect their purpose, they suggested that the other apostles, yea, and Paul himself, insisted on the observance of the law. But though we I and all the apostles; or an angel from heaven If it were possible; should preach any other gospel unto you Any other method of obtaining justification and salvation; than that which we have formerly preached unto you And confirmed by such evident and uncontrolled miracles; let him, be accursed Greek, anathema: let him be cut off from God, and Christ, and his people, and devoted to a perpetual and most dreadful curse. The apostle speaks thus, because he was absolutely certain of his own inspiration, and that the gospel which he had preached was the only true and genuine gospel of Christ. Of the word anathema, see on Rom 9:3; 1Co 16:22. As we I and the brethren who are with me; said before Many times in effect, if not in the same terms; or he refers to the declaration made in the preceding verse, and speaks upon mature deliberation, after pausing, it seems, between the two verses; so say I now again I solemnly repeat it, as my deliberate judgment; if any man Or, any one (for the word man is not in the original) whatever, whether man or angel; preach any other gospel than that ye have received Already from our lips, and which ye have been taught by us from Christ himself; let him be accursed Set apart for destruction, which, if he repent not, and do not receive and maintain the truth as it is in Jesus, will undoubtedly be his portion.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
I marvel that ye are so quickly removing from him that called you in the grace of Christ unto a different gospel [The word translated “marvel” conveys the idea of admiration rather than of wonder. Their fickleness was sufficiently striking to be brilliant. Since, if Paul wrote this letter from Corinth on his third missionary tour, it was three years since he had been with them, commentators have been tempted to choose some other date comporting better with “quickly,” for three years is rather a long period. But Paul refers to moral speed. The Galatians were changing their position hastily and without due consideration. In doing this they were withdrawing from the God who called them (for “him” refers to God, and not to Paul– Gal 1:15; Gal 5:8; Rom 8:30; 1Co 1:9; 1Th 2:12; 1Th 5:24; 2Ti 1:9) and from the grace, or liberty, peace, etc., of the kingdom into which they had been called, for what? for a new gospel which was not worthy of the name. There can be but one gospel; that there might be two, between which men might choose, is something which the apostle denies in the next verse]
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
Gal 1:6-10. Most of Pauls letters open with thanks to God for the Christianity of the readers. Nothing of that kind is possible here! Quicklynot soon after their conversion; that were no wonder; but with indecent haste and levity, such as one laments in George Eliots abandonment of faiththey are turning away from God who called them towards a different gospel which is no gospel at all. (Some doubt whether this paraphrase is grammatically warranted, but reach a similar senseunto a different gospel which is nothing else than that some would trouble you, etc.) What he had said (on his second and third visits, probably; Acts 16, 18) he now repeats; neither Paul nor an angel should be listened to if his words subvert the old teaching. It had carried its credentials with it. They must adhere to it not because it was Pauls, but because it was Gods and they knew it as such. If his enemies say that he is a persuasive fellow and pleases men, he protests that God and Christ are the lodestars governing his behaviour. (In a different sense he tells us elsewhere how Christ-like it is to please others; Rom 15:2 f., 1Co 10:33.) Persuade God is hardly what he means; he allows the word to stand because of the charge against him that he persuades men.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
Verse 6
From him that called you; from him who was the instrument of calling you; referring apparently to himself, as the subsequent train of remark seems to imply. The calling of the sinner is generally, in the writings of Paul, ascribed directly to God; though it may not improperly be ascribed to the human instrument through whose agency it is done.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
SECTION 2 . THE EARLY APOSTACY OF THE GALATIAN CHRISTIANS. CH. 1:6-10.
I wonder that ye are so quickly removing from Him that called you in the grace of Christ, to another kind of good tidings; which is not another good tidings, except that there are some who are disturbing you and wishing to overturn the good tidings of Christ. But even if we or an angel out of heaven announce good tidings to you other than the good tidings we announced to you, let him be anathema. As we have before said, also now again I say, if any one is announcing to you good tidings other than ye received, let him be anathema. For, now, is it men I am persuading, or God? Or am I seeking to please men? If I were still pleasing men, Christs servant I should not be.
In 2 we have the subject-matter of the Epistle, viz. an early defection in Galatia and efforts there to overturn the Gospel; Gal 1:6-7 : Pauls condemnation of the false teaching; Gal 1:8-9 : his justification of the disregard of human approval which this condemnation involves; Gal 1:10.
Instead of thanks to God, as in all his other letters to Churches, Pauls salutation is at once followed by severe blame. His wonder (cp. Mar 6:6; 1Jn 3:13) tells how unusual is the conduct blamed; and thus adds severity to this rebuke.
So quickly; denotes either (cp. Luk 14:21) a rapid defection now going on; or defection after ( 1Co 4:19) a short interval, measured here either from the arrival of the false teachers, or from Pauls last visit, or from his readers conversion. Pauls exact thought, we cannot determine with certainty. Even the last measurement would give a space of seven years at most. And this is a very short time for steadfastness which is worthless unless it endure till death and for a Church designed long to outlive the longest lived of its members. Consequently, this word affords no sure note of the time when the Epistle was written. See Diss. iii. 3.
Removing: migration from place to place, or change of opinion. So Act 7:16; Heb 11:5 : also 2 Macc. vii. 24, of an apostate Jew; and Sirach vi. 9, of a friend turned to an enemy.
Ye-are-removing: defection now going on while Paul writes, and not yet complete. This agrees with the present tense in Gal 3:3, are being-made perfect; Gal 4:9, are-turning; Gal 1:4, are-being-justified; and throughout the Epistle, e.g. Gal 4:21; Gal 5:1-3; Gal 5:12; Gal 6:12-13. These present tenses and Pauls expression of wonder, suggest that he wrote while the sad news was still fresh; and while the apostacy was still going on, hoping thus to stay its progress.
Him that called you: God, as always with Paul: cp. Gal 5:8; Gal 1:15; 1Co 7:17; Rom 8:30. These words remind us that the Gospel is the voice of God calling men to Himself; and imply that to forsake Gospel truth is to forsake God. For the Gospel call is the medium through which God presents Himself to us, and the instrument by which He draws us and binds us to Himself.
In the grace of Christ: Rom 5:15 : cp. Gal 6:18; 2Co 8:9; 2Co 12:9; 2Co 13:13. The Gospel call comes to us accompanied and surrounded by the undeserved favour which moved Christ to give Himself for our salvation. Apart from this favour, there had been no Gospel. Thus these words bring Gal 1:4 to bear upon the apostacy of the Galatians.
To another-kind-of Gospel, or a different Gospel: 2Co 11:4 : point towards which, while forsaking God, they are moving. The call of God was good news of coming deliverance: and nothing less than this could meet the case of men carried helplessly to ruin by the present evil age. Therefore, since his readers are turning from God who spoke to them these good tidings, Paul assumes in irony that they must have heard other good news. And, if so, it must have been of a kind quite different from that which they heard from Paul. He thus compares his own teaching with that which his opponents would put in its place, each being looked upon as good news.
In the words called you, in the grace of Christ, another Gospel, we trace at once the pen of the author of the Epistles to the Romans and Corinthians.
Gal 1:7. Explanation of the foregoing veiled comparison.
Which other kind of good tidings, as I have ventured to call this false teaching, is not really another good tidings, as though there could be two announcements of coming deliverance between which we might choose. It is, therefore, no Gospel at all. My own words are not correct except as pointing to the fact that there are some who disturb you, etc.
Disturb: to destroy ones peace: so Gal 1:10; Act 15:24; Act 17:8; Joh 5:7; Joh 12:27; Joh 13:21; Joh 14:1; Joh 14:27. Who and how many the disturbers were, we are not told: simply the fact of disturbance is asserted.
Gospel of Christ: Rom 15:19; (Gal 1:9); 1Co 9:12; 2Co 2:12; 2Co 9:13; 2Co 10:14 : the good news about Christ. For Christ is present to our thought rather as the Great Matter, than as Author or Herald, of the Gospel. Cp. Rom 1:2; 2Co 4:4.
Overturn the Gospel: the tendency, if not the deliberate aim, of the false teachers; so utterly opposed is their teaching to the good news about Christ. They were already disturbing Pauls readers; and were wishing to overturn the Gospel. This last, they endeavour to do by putting in its place something quite different from it. The new teaching, in order to contrast it with the teaching it was designed to supersede, Paul calls in Gal 1:6 another kind of Gospel. And only in this sense does he use this phrase.
The matter of the Epistle is now fairly before us, viz. an early defection in Galatia. And the teaching which caused it, Paul declares to be an attempt to overturn the Gospel. To prove this assertion, will be the chief purpose of his argument.
Gal 1:8-9. This argument, Paul delays for a moment in order to pronounce, and to repeat, against the false teachers in Galatia the most tremendous condemnation possible. He thus reveals the greatness of the issues at stake in the argument he is about to begin.
Even if we, etc.: an almost inconceivable supposition, giving to the condemnation which follows the widest application possible, and thus greatly increasing its force.
We: Paul and the brethren with him.
Angel out of heaven: graphic picture of the appearance of an angel.
Other than, etc.: limited, by Pauls reference to men who desired to overturn the Gospel, to teaching contrary to, and therefore subversive of, the Gospel preached by Paul. This fearful condemnation therefore does not bear upon merely defective teaching. Even the man who builds ( 1Co 3:15) with straw may himself be saved; so long as he does not endeavour to overturn the foundation.
Anathema: see under Rom 9:3. It can denote no less than the actual curse of God. Under this curse Paul declares that the false teachers lie; and approves this. To this terrible condemnation, the repetition in Gal 1:9 adds great force.
The contrast with I say now implies that as we said before, does not refer to Gal 1:8, and must therefore refer to words spoken by Paul and his companions either in an earlier letter or on an earlier visit. It is perhaps most easily explained as recalling Pauls second visit to Galatia, recorded in Act 18:23. But the prevalence of the error in question, and the important discussion of it at Jerusalem shortly before (Act 16:6) Pauls first visit, and the decrees which (Gal 1:4) on that journey he circulated, make it quite possible that this warning was given by him even when founding the Galatian Churches. That if any one is announcing, etc. states actual fact, we infer confidently from Gal 1:7. It is thus a contrast to the inconceivable supposition of Gal 1:8. [Hence the change in the Greek moods.] The changed ending of the conditional clause, that which ye received, brings as evidence against themselves the readers own previous acceptance of Pauls teaching. Cp. 1Co 15:1. It is thus a forerunner of Gal 3:1.
That this tremendous condemnation is due to narrow intolerance of opinions different from his own, Pauls breadth of view disclosed throughout the Epistles to the Romans and Corinthians forbids us to believe. We are therefore compelled to accept it as proof of the greatness of the error and the guilt of the men referred to. And we wait, with bated breath, to know what their teaching was. We expect to find it directly subversive (Gal 1:7) of the Gospel, thus tending to rob the world of the blessings therein proclaimed and conveyed; and to find that it implied wilful rejection of the teaching of Christ. For, only against error involving moral guilt could this fearful curse be pronounced. Thus Pauls words of condemnation raise our expectation, on the threshold of the Epistle, to the highest point.
The nature of the error here referred to can be gathered only. by inference from the Epistle itself. It will be discussed fully at the close of our exposition. See note there.
Gal 1:10. Now: in emphatic prominence, revealing the importance of the present moment, and the mighty issues now at stake.
Persuade: win over to our side as friends; same word in Act 12:20. Is it at this present time the favour of men or of God I am securing?
To please men: 1Th 2:4 : method by which we persuade them. While seeking to please them we are actually engaged in the work of winning them to our side. That Paul actually persuaded (2Co 5:11) men and sought (Rom 15:2; 1Co 10:33) to please them, in order to save them, implies that he refers here to the favour of men sought only for our own selfish ends. To seek the favour of men in order to save them, and only so far as this motive leads us, is itself one of the best means of obtaining the favour of God. Between these two modes of pleasing men, the ultimate aim places an infinite difference.
To the question of Gal 1:10 a, 10b gives both an answer and a reason for it.
Still; suggests that Paul, like all men, had once the favour of men his main purpose. Apart from Christ, in life depends more or less on men around us. Consequently, the favour of some of them must at all costs be obtained. Consciousness of this is bondage to the caprice of those on whom our supposed welfare depends. But Christs servants know that their welfare depends only on their Masters smile. They are therefore independent of men, and have no need to seek mans favour except so far as by doing so they are serving and pleasing Christ. Consequently, to please men as we did in days gone by, is to abandon the liberty of a servant of Christ. Compare carefully 1Co 7:23. The conspicuous contrast of men and Christ involves, as in Gal 1:1, the superhuman dignity of Christ.
Gal 1:10 is given to support Gal 1:9. The support thus rendered, our ignorance of details somewhat obscures. But a clue is found in Gal 6:12, where Paul declares that zeal for the Law was a mask under which the disturbers were endeavouring to escape from persecution. If so, they were mutilating the Gospel in order to conciliate its enemies. Such conduct is doubly incompatible with the service of Christ; and justifies the severe condemnation of Gal 1:10. By using the first person, and thus expounding the principles of his own action, in words which his readers knew were true, Paul brings his own contrary example to bear on the matter at issue. Cp. 1Co 8:13; 1Co 9:26; 1Co 10:33; 1Co 11:1. He also reveals by silent contrast the selfish motives of the seducers. His reference to himself is also a suitable stepping-stone to DIV. I.
Fuente: Beet’s Commentary on Selected Books of the New Testament
I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
It isn’t a large surprise that these new believers were led astray, but that they were persuaded by another gospel. It isn’t uncommon for someone to be sidetracked or to take on another life after accepting the Gospel, but to be taken in by a false gospel is not that common.
When first a believer, I was not discipled and for about five years I continued on in my normal course of life not knowing of the Christian life. I entered the Navy and became a typical sailor.
After several years the Lord turned me around and I began to learn of Christianity and its requirements. During this time I was confronted with other spiritual overtures, but none made any sense to me nor did they have any draw.
The word translated “removed” has the idea of something taking the place of another or substituting one for another, thus the thought of leaving Christ and following another gospel. These folks were leaving the gospel of grace, and replacing it with a gospel of another sort – in this case a gospel of works.
Our calling to salvation is shown here to be a one time calling, an aorist tense is used – called at a point in time, not something that continues on and on every time you hear a stirring message, but once and for all time we are called into the gospel that brings us to Christ.
Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson
1:6 {3} I marvel that ye are so soon {e} removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
(3) The first part of the epistle, in which he witnesses that he is an apostle, nothing inferior to those chief disciples of Christ, and wholly agreeing with them, whose names the false apostles abused. And he begins with chiding, reproving them of unsteadiness, because they gave ear so easily to those who perverted them and drew them away to a new gospel.
(e) He uses the passive voice to cast the fault upon the false apostles, and he uses the present voice to show them that it was not completely done, but in the process of being done.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
B. Denunciation 1:6-10
In these opening words Paul rebuked his readers for turning away from the gospel that he had preached to them and for turning toward a different "gospel." He accused them of being religious turncoats. He did so to impress them with the great folly of their action. The fiery opening of this epistle presents it "like a lion turned loose in the arena of Christianity." [Note: Longenecker, p. lvii.]
"The general proposition or causa of the letter is to persuade the Galatians to reject the Judaizers’ nongospel and to continue in the true gospel Paul had preached to them." [Note: Walter B. Russell III, "Rhetorical Analysis of the Book of Galatians, Part 2," Bibliotheca Sacra 150:600 (October-December 1993):436. His previous article in this two-part series, "Rhetorical Analysis of the Book of Galatians, Part 1," Bibliotheca Sacra 150:599 (July-September 1993):341-58, describes rhetorical analysis as an interpretive tool. See also Longenecker, pp. cv-cxiv, for rhetorical analyses and outlines.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
In every other one of his canonical epistles Paul commended his readers before launching into the main subject of his letter regardless of his general purpose in writing. Here he recorded no such praise. Its absence stressed the seriousness of his readers’ error and the urgency of his appeal.
The best evidence points to Paul’s writing Galatians before the Jerusalem Council, held in A.D. 49, and after he and Barnabas evangelized Asia Minor on their first missionary journey (Acts 13-14). I am assuming the South Galatia destination of the epistle. Consequently it had been only a few months since his readers had accepted the gospel that he had preached to them and had turned from it. The Greek word thaumazo ("I am amazed") was a conventional expression in Greek letters that signaled astonishment, rebuke, disapproval, and disappointment. [Note: Ibid., p. 11.] The Greek word tacheos ("quickly") also has the sense of easily (cf. 2Th 2:2; 1Ti 5:22). The one who had called the Galatians was God (cf. Gal 1:15; Gal 5:8).
"Gospel," of course, means good news. However, the "gospel" that fascinated his readers was not good news. The Greek word heteros, meaning "another of a different kind," appears in Gal 1:6 while allos, meaning "another of the same kind" occurs in Gal 1:7. Sometimes these words are interchangeable (e.g., 2Co 11:4), but here and elsewhere they indicate significant differences. This new gospel was bad news. Teachers of false doctrine who were stirring up unrest had followed Paul. The root of the word translated "disturbing" (Gal 1:7) is one that describes the opposite of what the word translated "peace" (Gal 1:3) means. These teachers were distorting the good news of Christ.
"The modern church has become less clear about the nature of the gospel, but it would do well to ponder the importance that Paul here attaches to distinctions between the true and false gospel." [Note: Guthrie, Galatians, p. 62.]
Paul consistently referred to the Galatian troublemakers in the third person but addressed his readers in the second person. This strongly suggests that the false teachers originated outside the church rather than from within it. We must deduce who they were from what Paul wrote about them in this epistle (cf. Gal 1:6-9; Gal 2:4-5; Gal 3:1; Gal 4:17; Gal 5:10; Gal 5:12; Gal 6:12-13). Probably they were Jews who were putting pressure on Gentiles to believe and to live as religious Jews. This is the traditional view as contrasted with the two-opponent view (i.e., Judaizers and libertinistic "pneumatics") and the Gnostic/syncretistic Jewish Christians view (i.e., one group of opponents within Judaism with both Judaistic and libertinistic traits). [Note: For further study of these views, see Walter B. Russell III, "Who Were Paul’s Opponents in Galatia?" Bibliotheca Sacra 147:587 (July-September 1990):329-50.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Chapter 3
THE ANATHEMA.
Gal 1:6-10
AFTER the Salutation in Pauls Epistles comes the Thanksgiving. or -these are the words we expect first to meet. Even in writing to Corinth, where there was so much to censure and deplore, he begins, “I give thanks to my God always for you.” This letter deviates from the Apostles devout and happy usage. Not “I give thanks,” but “I marvel: “not blessing, but anathema, is coming from his lips: a surprise that jars all the more upon ones ears, because it follows on the sublime doxology of the preceding verse. “I marvel to see you so quickly falling away to another gospel. But if any one preach unto you any gospel other than that ye received-aye, though it were ourselves, or an angel from heaven-I have said once, and I say again, Let him be Anathema.”
These words were well calculated to startle the Galatians out of their levity. They are like a lightning-flash which shows one to be standing on the edge of a precipice. We see at once the infinite seriousness of the Judaic controversy, the profound gulf that lies between Paul and his opposers. He is for open war. He is in haste to fling his gage of defiance against these enemies of the cross. With all his tact and management, his readiness to consult the susceptibilities and accommodate the scruples of sincere consciences, the Apostle can find no room for conciliation here. He knows the sort of men he has to deal with. He perceives that the whole truth of the Gospel is at stake. Not circumstantials, but essentials; not his personal authority, but the honour of Christ, the doctrine of the cross, is involved in this defection. He must speak plainly; he must act strongly, and at once; or the cause of the Gospel is lost. “If I continued any longer to please men,” he says, “I should not be a servant of Christ.” To stand on terms with such opponents, to palter with this “other Gospel,” would be treason against Him. There is but one tribunal at which this quarrel can be decided. To Him “who had called” the Galatians believers “in Christs grace,” who by the same grace had called the Apostle to His service and given him the message he had preached to them-to God he appeals. In His name, and by the authority conferred upon him and for which he must give account, he pronounces these troublers “anathema.” They are enemies of Christ, by their treachery excluded from His kingdom.
However unwelcome, however severe the course the Apostle takes, he has no alternative. “For now,” he cries, “is it men that I persuade, or God?” He must do his duty, let who will condemn. Paul was ready to go all lengths in pleasing men in consistence with loyalty to Christ, where he could do it “for their good, unto edification.” But if their approval clashed with Gods, then it became “a very small thing”: {1Co 4:3-4; 2Co 5:9-12; 2Co 12:19} he did not heed it one jot. Such is the temper of mind which the Epistles to Corinth disclose in Paul at this juncture. In the same spirit he indites these trenchant and displeasing words.
With a heavy heart Paul has taken up his pen. If we judge rightly of the date of this letter, he had just passed through the darkest hour of his experience, when not his life alone, but the fate of his Gentile mission hung in the balance. His expulsion from Ephesus, coming at the same time as the Corinthian revolt, and followed by a prostrating attack of sickness, had shaken his soul to its depths. Never had his heart been so torn with anxiety, never had he felt himself so beaten down and discomfited, as on that melancholy journey from Ephesus to Macedonia. {2Co 1:8-10; 2Co 2:12-13; 2Co 4:8-11; 2Co 7:5-7} “Out of anguish of heart and with many tears” and after-relentings {2Co 2:4; 2Co 7:8} he wrote his First Letter to Corinth. And this Epistle is even more severe. There runs through it a peculiar mental tension, an exaltation of feeling such as prolonged and deep suffering leaves behind in a nature like Pauls. “The marks of Jesus” {Gal 6:17} are visible, impressed on his spirit no less than on his body. The Apostles heart is full to overflowing. Its warm glow is felt under the calmer course of narrative and argument: while at the beginning and end of the Epistle it breaks forth in language of burning indignation and melting pathos. Before advancing a single step, before entering on any sort of explanation or discussion, his grief at the fickleness of his Galatian children and his anger against their seducers must find expression. These sentences demand, before we proceed further, a few words of exegetical definition. For the reference of “so quickly” it is needless to go beyond the verb it qualifies. The Apostle cannot surely mean, “so soon falling away (after your conversion).” For the Galatian Churches had been founded five, if not seven, years before this time; and the backsliding of recent converts is less, and not more, surprising than of established believers. What astonishes Paul is the suddenness of this movement, the facility with which the Galatians yielded to the Judaising “persuasion,” the rapid spread of this new leaven. As to the double “other” (, different, R. V. – ) of Gal 2:6-7, and the connection of the idiomatic “only” ( , except), – we regard the second other as an abrupt correction of the first; while the only clause, extending to the end of Gal 1:7, mediates between the two, qualifying the statement “There is no other gospel,” by showing in what sense the writer at first had spoken of “another.” “Ye are falling away, says he, to another sort of gospel-which is not another, except that there are certain that trouble you and would fain pervert the gospel of Christ.” The word gospel is therefore in the first instance applied ironically. Paul yields the sacred title up to his opponents, only to snatch it out of their false hands. “Another gospel!” there is only one; although there are men that falsify it, and seek to foist something else “upon you in its name.” Seven times in this context (Gal 1:6-11) does the Apostle reiterate, in noun or verb, this precious word, as though he could not let it go. A strange sort of “good news” for the Galatians, that they must be circumcised forsooth, and observe the Jewish Calendar! {Gal 5:2-3; Gal 6:12; Gal 4:9-10}
1. In Pauls view, there is but one gospel for mankind. The gospel of Jesus Christ bears a fixed, inviolable character.
On this position the whole teaching of Paul rests, -and with it, may we not add, Christianity itself? However variously we may formulate the essentials of a Christian mans faith, we are generally agreed that there are such essentials, and that they are found in Pauls gospel to the Gentiles. With him the good tidings about Christ constituted a very definite and, as we should say, dogmatic body of truth. In whatever degree his gospel has been confused and overlaid by later teachings, to his own mind its terms were perfectly clear, and its authority incontestable. With all its breadth, there is nothing nebulous, nothing limp or hesitating about the theology of Paul. In its main doctrines it is fixed and hard as adamant; and at the challenge of this Judaistic perversion it rings out an instant and peremptory denial. It was the ark of God on which the Jewish troublers laid their unholy hands. “Christs grace” is lodged in it. Gods call to mankind was conveyed by these “good tidings.” The Churches which the Apostle had planted were “Gods husbandry, Gods building”; and woe to the man who tampered with the work, or sought to lay another foundation than that which had been laid. {1Co 3:5-11} To distort or mutilate “the word of the truth of the gospel,” to make it mean now one thing and now another, to disturb the faith of half-instructed Christians by captious reasonings and self-interested perversions, was a capital offence, a sin against God and a crime against humanity. Paul possesses in his gospel truth of unspeakable value to mankind, the supreme revelation of Gods mercy to the world. And he is prepared to launch his anathema against every wilful impugner, no matter what his pretensions, or the quarter from which he comes.
“Well,” it may be said, “this is sheer religious intolerance. Paul is doing what every dogmatist, every ecclesiastical bigot has done in his turn. His beliefs are, to be sure, the truth; and accordingly he unchurches and anathematises those who cannot agree with him. With all his nobility of mind, there is in Paul a leaven of Jewish rancour. He falls short of the sweet reasonableness of Jesus.” So some will say, and in saying claim to represent the mild and tolerant spirit of our age. But is there not in every age an intolerance that is just and necessary? There is a logical intolerance of sophistry and trifling. There is a moral intolerance of impurity and deceit. And there is a religious intolerance, which includes both these and adds to them a holy jealousy for the honour of God and the spiritual welfare of mankind. It is mournful indeed to think how many crimes have been perpetrated under the cloak of pious zeal. Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum. The corruption of Christianity by human pride and cruelty has furnished copious illustrations of the terrible line of Lucretius. But the perversion of this noblest instinct of the soul does not take away either its reasonableness or its use. The quality of a passion is one thing; the mode of its expression is another. The hottest fires of bigotry are cold when compared with the scorching intolerance of Christs denunciations of the Pharisees. The anathemas of Jesus and of Paul are very different from those of arrogant pontiffs, or of narrow sectaries, inflamed with the idolatry of their own opinions. After all, the zeal of the rudest fanatic in religion has more in it of manly worth and moral capability than the languors of a blase scepticism, that sits watching with amused contempt the strife of creeds and the search of human hearts after the Living God. There is an idle, listless, cowardly tolerance, as there is an intolerance that is noble and just.
The one gospel has had many interpreters. Their voices, it must be confessed, sound strangely discordant. While the teachings of Christianity excite so intensely a multitude of different minds, of every variety of temper and capacity, contradiction will inevitably arise. Nothing is easier than to scoff at “the Babel of religious opinions.” Christian truth is necessarily refracted and discoloured in passing through disordered natures and defective minds. And, alas! that Church which claims to hold the truth without possibility of error or variation, has perverted Christs gospel most of all.
But notwithstanding all differences, there exists a large and an increasing measure of agreement amongst the great body of earnest Christians. Slowly, yet surely, one debate after another comes to its settlement. The noise and publicity with which discussion on matters of faith is carried on in an age of religious freedom, and when liberty of thought has outrun mental discipline, should not lead us to exaggerate the extent of our disagreements. In the midst of human controversy and error, the Spirit of truth is carrying on His work. He is the supreme witness of Jesus Christ. And He abides with us for ever. The newly awakened historical conscience of our times is visibly making for unity. The Church is going back to the New Testament. And the more thoroughly she does this, the more directly and truthfully she addresses herself to the original record and comes face to face with Christ and His Apostles there, so much the more shall we realise the oneness and certainty of “the faith once delivered to the saints.” Beneath the many superstructures, faulty and changing in their form, we reach the one “foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone.” There we touch solid rock. “The unity of the faith” lies in “the knowledge of the Son of God.” Of Him we shall learn most from those who knew Him best. Let us transport ourselves into the fellowship of His first disciples; and listen to His gospel as it came fresh from the lips of Peter and John and Paul, and the Divine Master Himself. Let us bid the voice of the centuries be silent, that we may hear Him.
For the Galatian readers, as for Paul, there could be but one gospel. By his voice the call of God had reached their hearts (Gal 1:6; Gal 5:8). The witness of the Spirit of God and of Christ in the supernatural gifts they had received, and in the manifold fruit of a regenerate life, {Gal 3:2-5; Gal 5:22-23} was evidence to them that the Apostles message was “the true gospel of the grace of God.” This they had gratefully acknowledged at the time of his first visit. {Gal 4:15} The proclamation of the crucified and risen Christ had brought to them unspeakable blessing. Through it they received the knowledge of God; they were made consciously sons of God, heirs of life eternal. {Gal 3:26; Gal 4:6-9; Gal 6:8} To entertain any other gospel, after this experience and all these professions, was an act of apostasy. “Ye are deserting (like runaway soldiers), turning renegades from God”: such is the language in which Paul taxes his readers. In listening, to the persuasion of the Judaists, they were “disobeying the truth”. {Gal 5:7-8} They were disloyal to conscience; they were trifling with the most sacred convictions of their lives, and with the testimony of the Spirit of God. They were forgetting the cross of Christ, and making His death of none effect. Surely they must have been “bewitched” to act thus; some deadly spell was upon them, which had laid memory and conscience both to sleep. {Gal 2:21 – Gal 3:1-3}
The nature and the contents of the two “gospels” current in Galatia will be made clear in the further course of the Epistle. They were the gospels of Grace and of Law respectively; of Salvation by Faith, and by Works; of life in the Spirit, and in the Flesh; of the Cross and the Resurrection on the one hand, and of Circumcision and the Calendar and “Clean meats” on the other; the gospels of inwardness, and of externalism-of Christ, and of self. The conflict between these two was the great struggle of Pauls life. His success was, historically speaking, the salvation of Christianity.
But this contention did not end with his victory. The Judaistic perversion appealed to tendencies too persistent in our nature to be crushed at one blow. The gospel of externalism is dear to the human heart. It may take the form of culture and moralities; or of “services” and sacraments and churchly order; or of orthodoxy and philanthropy. These and such things make themselves our idols; and trust in them takes the place of faith in the living Christ. It is not enough that the eyes of our heart should once have seen the Lord, that we should in other days have experienced “the renewing of the Holy Ghost.” It is possible to forget, possible to “remove from Him that called us in the grace of Christ.” With little change in the form of our religious life, its inward reality of joy in God, of conscious sonship, of fellowship in the Spirit, may be utterly departed. The gospel of formalism will spring up and flourish on the most evangelical soil, and in the most strictly Pauline Churches. Let it be banned and barred out never so completely, it knows how to find entrance, under the simplest modes of worship and the soundest doctrine. The serried defence of Articles and Confessions constructed against it will not prevent its entrance, and may even prove its cover and intrenchment. Nothing avails, as the Apostle says, but a constant “new creation.” The life of God in human souls is sustained by the energy of His Spirit, perpetually renewed, ever proceeding from the Father and the Son. “The life that I live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” This is the true orthodoxy. The vitality of his personal faith in Christ kept Paul safe from error, faithful in will and intellect to the one gospel.
2. We have still to consider the import of the judgment pronounced by Paul upon those who pervert the gospel of Christ. “Let him be anathema. Even should it be ourselves, or an angel from heaven, let him be anathema.”
These are tremendous words. Commentators have been shocked at the Apostles damning his opponents after this fashion, and have sought to lighten the weight of this awful sentence. It has been sometimes toned down into an act of excommunication or ecclesiastical censure. But this explanation will not hold. Paul could not think of subjecting “an angel” to a penalty like that. He pronounced excommunication against disorderly members of the Thessalonian Church; and in 1Co 5:1-8 he gives directions for the carrying out of a similar decree, attended with severe bodily affliction supernaturally adjudged, against a sinner whose presence grossly stained the purity of the Church. But this sentence goes beyond either of those. It contemplates the exclusion of the offenders from the Covenant of grace, their loss of final salvation. Thrice besides has Paul used this ominous word. The cry “Jesus is anathema,” in 1Co 12:3, reveals with a lurid effect the frenzied malignity towards Christ of which the spirit of evil is sometimes capable. In a very different connection the word appears in Rom 9:3; where Paul “could wish himself anathema from Christ,” if that were possible, for his brethrens: sake; he could find it in his heart to be cut off for ever from that love of God in Christ of which he has just spoken in terms of unbounded joy and confidence, {Rom 8:31-39} and banished from the heavenly kingdom, if through his exclusion his Jewish kindred might be saved. Self-sacrifice can go no further. No heavier loss than this could be conceived for any human being. Nearest to our passage is the imprecation at the end of 1 Corinthians: “If any man love not the Lord, let him be anathema,”-a judgment proclaimed against cold and false hearts, knowing His love, bearing His name, but with no true love to Him.
This Greek word in its Biblical use has grown, out of the cherem of the Old Testament, the ban declared against that which was cut off from the Divine mercies and exposed to the full sweep of judgment. Thus in Deu 13:12-18, the city whose people should “go and serve other gods,” is declared cherem (anathema), an “accused,” or “devoted thing” (R. V), on which ensues its destruction by sword and fire, . leaving it to remain “a ruin-heap for ever.” Similarly in Jos 6:1-27; Jos 7:1-26, the spoil of Jericho is anathema, Achans theft is therefore anathema, and Israel is made by it anathema until “the accused thing is destroyed” from among the people. Such were the recollections associated with this word in the Mosaic law, which it would inevitably carry with it to the minds of those against whom it was now directed. And there is nothing in later Jewish usage to mitigate its force.
Now the Apostle is not writing like a man in a passion, who flings out his words as missiles, eager only to wound and confound his opponents. He repeats the sentence. He quotes it as one that he had already affirmed in the hearing of his readers. The passage bears the marks of well-weighed thought and judicial solemnity. In pronouncing this judgment on “the troufflers,” Paul acts under the sense of Apostolic responsibility. We must place the sentence in the same line as that of Peter against Ananias and Sapphira, and of Paul himself against Elymas the Cypriot sorcerer, and against the incestuous Corinthian. In each case there is a supernatural insight and authorisation, “the authority which the Lord gave” and which is wielded by His inspired Apostle. The exercise of this judicial function was one. of “the signs of the Apostle.” This was the proof of “Christ speaking in him” which Paul was so loth to give at Corinth, but which at this crisis of his ministry he was compelled to display. {2Co 10:1-11; 2Co 13:1-10; 1Co 4:18-21} And if he “reckons to be bold against” his adversaries in Galatia, he knows well the ground on which he stands.
His anathema struck at men who were the worst enemies of Christ. “We can do nothing against the truth,” he says; “but for the truth” he was ready to do and dare everything, – to “come with a rod,” as he tells the proud Corinthians. There was no authority, however lofty, that he was not warranted to use on Christs behalf, no measure, however severe, from which he would shrink, if it were required in defence of the truth of the Gospel. “He possesses weapons, not fleshly, but mighty through God”; and he is prepared to bring them all into play rather than see the gospel perverted or overthrown. Paul will hurl his anathema at the prince of the archangels, should He come “preaching another gospel,” tempting his children from their allegiance to Christ. This bolt was not shot a moment too soon. Launched against the legalist conspiracy, and followed up by the arguments of this and the Roman Epistle, it saved the Church from being overpowered by reactionary Judaism. The Apostles judgment has marked the gospel of the cross for all time as Gods inviolable truth, guarded by lightnings.
The sentences of judgment pronounced by the Apostles present a striking contrast to those that have fulminated from the Chair of their self-styled successors. In the Canons of the Council of Trent, for example, we have counted one hundred and thirty-five anathemas. A large proportion of these are concerned with the rights of the priesthood; others with complicated and secondary points of doctrine; some are directed virtually against the teaching of Paul himself. Here is one specimen: “If any one shall say that justifying faith is nothing else but a trust in the Divine mercy, remitting sins for Christs sake, or that it is this trust alone by which we are justified: let him be anathema.” Again, “If any one shall say that the Canon of the Mass contains errors, and therefore shall be abrogated: let him be anathema.” In the closing session, the final act of the presiding Cardinal was to pronounce, “Anathema to all heretics”; to which the assembled prelates shouted in response, “Anathema, anathema.” With this imprecation on their lips the Fathers of the Church concluded their pious labours. It was the Reformation, it was “the liberty of the sons of God,” that Rome anathematised. Pauls censure holds good against all the Conciliar Canons and Papal Bulls that contravene it. But twice has he pronounced this awful word; once against any that “love not the Lord,” a second time upon those who wilfully pervert His gospel. The Papal anathemas sound like the maledictions of an angry priesthood, jealous for its prerogatives; here we have the holy severity of an inspired Apostle, concerned only for the truth, and for his Masters honour. There speaks the conscious “lord over Gods heritage,” wearing the triple crown, wielding the power of Interdict and Inquisition, whose word sets armies in motion and makes kings tremble on their seats. Here a feeble, solitary man, “his bodily presence weak, his speech contemptible,” hunted from place to place, scourged and stoned, shut up for years in prison, who could not, except for loves sake, command the meanest service. How conspicuous in the one case, how wanting in the other, is the might of the Spirit and the dignity of the inspired word, the transcendence of moral authority.
It is the moral conduct of those he judges that determines in each case the sentence passed by the Apostle. For a man knowing Jesus Christ, as we presume the members of the Corinthian Church did know Him, not to love Him argues a bad heart. Must not we count ourselves accursed, if with our knowledge of Christ we had no love for Him? Such a man is already virtually anathema. He is severed as a branch from its vine, ready to be gathered for the burning. {Joh 15:6} And these Galatian disturbers were something worse than mere mistaken enthusiasts for their native Jewish rites. Their policy was dishonourable. {Gal 4:17} They made the gospel of Christ subservient to factious designs. They sought to win credit with their fellow-countrymen and to escape the reproach of the cross by imposing circumcision on the Gentiles. {Gal 2:4; Gal 6:12-13} They prostituted religion to selfish and party purposes. They sacrificed truth to popularity, the glory of Christ and the cross to their own. They were of those whom the Apostle describes as “walking in craftiness and handling the word of God deceitfully,” who “traffic” in the gospel, peddling with it as with petty wares, cheapening and adulterating it like dishonest hucksters to make their own market by it. {2Co 2:17; 2Co 4:2} Did not Paul do well to smite them with the rod of his mouth? Justly has he marked with the brand of this fiery anathema the false minister, “who serves not the Lord Christ, but his own belly.”
But does this declaration preclude in such a case the possibility of repentance? We trow not. It declares the doom which is due to any, be he man or angel, who should do what these “troublers” are doing. It is a general sentence, and has for the individuals concerned the effect of a warning, like the announcement made concerning the Traitor at the Last Supper. However unlikely repentance might be in either instance, there is nothing to forbid it. So when Peter said to Simon Magus, “Thy money perish with thee!” he nevertheless continued, “Repent, therefore, of this thy wickedness, and pray the Lord, if perhaps the thought of thy heart shall be forgiven thee”. {Act 8:20-22} To his worst opponents, on any sign of contrition, Paul, we may be sure, would have gladly said the same.