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Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Galatians 6:17

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From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.

17. As at the opening, so at the close of the Epistle, St Paul asserts his authority. Then it was as a duly commissioned Apostle, here it is as a tried and tested servant of his Heavenly Master. He has fully discussed the question at issue. He has said his last word upon it. From henceforth he claims exemption from the worry and distraction of controversy. As he said elsewhere, ‘If any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant’ (1Co 14:38).

for I bear the Lord Jesus ] All commentators agree in regarding this as having reference to St Paul’s suffering for Christ. ‘I, unlike these false teachers, can appeal to the marks of persecution which I have undergone as proofs of the depth of my convictions, the sincerity of my faith’. But the particular expression, ‘the marks of the Lord Jesus’, may either mean the ‘wounds of Christ’ or the marks of ownership branded on the Apostle’s body, which proved him to be the ‘slave of Christ’. Certain marks (stigmata) were affixed by means of a hot iron on two classes of slaves, (1) those who had run away from their masters or had otherwise misconducted themselves, in which case they were a badge of disgrace; and (2) on slaves attached to particular temples, as the property of the deity worshipped there. Of course St Paul cannot allude to the former of these cases. He may speak figuratively of the scars which he bore on his body, from wounds received at Lystra and elsewhere, as the proofs of his devotion to the service of Christ. Bp. Lightfoot adopts this view as most appropriate. “Such a practice at all events cannot have been unknown in a country which was the home of the worship of Cybele. A ‘ sacred slave ’ is mentioned in a Galatian inscription”. There is however, something to be said for the other explanation which makes the marks of the Lord Jesus to be the wheal of the stripes inflicted on His sacred body the print of the nails and of the spear. In confirmation of this view passages are adduced in which St Paul speaks of himself as a partaker of the sufferings of Christ, of bearing about in his body the dying of the Lord Jesus, of filling up in his flesh the sufferings of Christ, 2Co 1:5 ; 2Co 4:10; Col 1:24; nay more, of being crucified with Christ, Rom 6:6; Gal 2:20. On the whole, however, the former account of the phrase seems preferable. Most modern expositors notice the alleged ‘ stigmata ’ of St Francis of Assisi. The connexion is limited to the identity of the term, which has been adopted by Romish hagiologists from the Latin Vulgate. The stigmata of the Saint were not marks of persecution.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

From henceforth – For the remaining time; that is, during the remainder of my life.

Let no man trouble me – This implies that he had had trouble of some kind, and he earnestly desires that he may have no more. What particular trouble he here refers to, is not certainly known, and commentators have not been agreed. It seems to me that the connection requires us to understand it of the molestation which he had in regard to his call to the apostolic office, and his authority to explain and defend the religion of the Redeemer. This had been one principal subject of this Epistle. His authority had been called in question. He had felt it necessary to go into a vindication of it. His instructions had been departed from on the ground that he was not one of the original apostles, and that he differed from others; see Gal 1:11. Hence, all the anxiety and trouble which he had had in regard to their departure from the doctrines which he had taught them. He closes the whole subject of the Epistle by this tender and affecting language, the sense of which has been well expressed by Crellius: I have shown my apostolic authority, and proved that I am commisioned by the Lord Jesus. I have stated and vindicated the great doctrine of justification by faith, and shown that the Mosaic law is not necessarily binding. On these points may I have no more trouble. I have enough for my nature to bear of other kinds. I bear in my body the impressive proofs that I am an apostle, and the sufferings that require all my fortitude to sustain them. These marks, received in the service of the Lord Jesus, and so strongly resembling those which he himself received, prove that I am truly engaged in his cause, and am commissioned by him. These wounds and sorrows are so many, that I have need of the kindness and prayers of Christians rather than to be compelled to vindicate myself, and to rebuke them for their own wanderings.

For I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus – The word here rendered marks ( stigmata), means properly the marks or brands which are pricked or burnt in upon the body. So slaves were sometimes branded by their masters to prevent their escape; and so devotees to an idol god sometimes caused to be impressed on themselves the name or image of the divinity which they adored. Herodotus (ii. 113) mentions a temple of Hercules in Egypt, in which if any slave took refuge, and had the sacred brands or marks impressed on him ( stigmata), he thereby devoted himself to the god, and it was not lawful for anyone to injure him. Many have supposed that Paul here says, in allusion to such a custom, that he had the name of the Redeemer impressed on his body, and that he regarded himself as devoted to him and his cause. It seems to me that by these marks or brands he refers to the weals which he had received in his body; the marks of stripes and sufferings which he endured in the service of the Redeemer. Compare 2Co 11:24-25.

He had repeatedly been scourged. He bore the marks of that on his person now. They were the evidences that he was devoted to the Saviour. He had received them in his cause; and they were the proofs that he belonged to the Lord Jesus. He had suffered for him, and had suffered much. Having thus suffered, and having thus the evidence that he belonged to the Saviour, and having by his sufferings given ample proof of that to others, he asks to be freed from further molestation. Some had in their body the marks of circumcision, the evidence that they were disciples of the Law of Moses; others had perhaps in their persons the image and name of an idol to which they were devoted; but the marks which he bore were the weals which he had received by being again and again whipped publicly in the cause of the Redeemer. To that Redeemer, therefore, he felt himself united, and from that attachment he would not allow himself to be diverted.

How often has an old soldier shown his scars with pride and exultation as a proof of his attachment to his country! Numerous scars; the loss of an arm, an eye, or a leg, are thus the much valued and vaunted pledges of attachment to liberty, and a passport to the confidence of every man who loves his country. I prize this wound, said Lafayette, when struck in the foot by a musket ball at Germantown, as among the most valued of my honors. So Paul felt in regard to the scourges which he had received in the cause of the Lord Jesus. They were his boast and his glory; the pledge that he had been engaged in the cause of the Saviour, and a passport to all who loved the Son of God. Christians now are not subjected to such stripes and scourings. But let us have some marks of our attachment to the Lord Jesus. By a holy life; by self-denial; by subdued animal affections; by zeal in the cause of truth; by an imitation of the Lord Jesus; and by the marks of suffering in our body, if we should be called to it, let us have some evidence that we are his, and be able to say, when we look on death and eternity, we bear with us the evidence that we belong to the Son of God. To us that will be of more value than any ribbon or star indicating elevated rank; more valuable than a ducal coronet; more valuable than the brightest jewel that ever sparkled on the brow of royalty.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Gal 6:17

From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.

Freedom from human criticism

A man who is growing old claims for himself in these words the freedom and responsibility of his own life. He asks that he may work out his own career uninterfered with by the criticism of his brethren. He bids them stand aside and leave him to the Master whom he serves, and by whom he must be judged. How natural that demand is I How we all long at times to make it! How every man, even if he dare not claim it now, looks forward to some time when it must be made. He knows the time will come when, educated perhaps for that moment by what his brethrens criticism has done for him, he will be ready, and it will be his duty to turn aside and leave that criticism unlistened to and say: From henceforth let no man trouble me. Now I must live my own life. I understand it best. You must stand aside and let me go the way where God is leading me. When a man is heard saying that, his fellow-men look at him and they can see how he is saying it. They know the difference between a wilful and selfish independence, and a sober, earnest sense of responsibility. They can tell when the man really has a right to claim his life; and if he has, they will give it to him. They will stand aside and not dare to interfere while he works it out with God. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)

The cry of absolute self-devotion

Magnificent outburst of a heart filled to the overflow with the spirit of impassioned consecration. The man who utters it has made up his mind so firmly that he is conscious there is not the faintest possible chance of his ever changing his determination. He has come to so certain and final a conclusion that he tells those around: You may as well save yourselves the trouble of ever arguing with me or seeking to alter me. I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. And these marks are only so many seals upon a resolution deliberately taken, and so awfully intense in its nature, that you may as well argue with a rock, and expect to move it by force of your logic, as anticipate effecting the slightest alteration in my determined purpose. It is the language of a wholly consecrated man. He has now given himself up to his Master without reserve. All in Paul belongs to Christ. There is not an atom of his manhood now which he feels he can claim as his own. It is lost time, lost trouble, and lost energy, for any to attempt to change his decision, or make him swerve to the right hand or to the left. Let no man trouble me. I am given, up to Christ, and I bear His brand upon me. The word he uses is stigmata. I bear the stigmata of the Lord Jesus. This was the brand the slave used to wear, to show he was the property of his master. If you look at the context, you will see how magnificent a climax this verse forms. Throughout the Epistle St. Paul had been arguing with a Church that had yielded him but little joy. He seems now virtually to say, I have taught you the gospel, I have preached Christ to you. Yea, I have so preached Him that He has been evidently set forth crucified before your eyes. I have denounced the folly of circumcision in the flesh. I have used every possible means to lead you wholly, solely, to Christ. Now you must take your own way. I cannot do more. I cannot say more. But be it known unto you, O Galatians, whichever way you may go, I cannot follow you if you go adrift from the gospel; for God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The text is the language of a man who has not only hoisted his colours, but also deliberately nailed them to the mast. He has driven the nails right through. Pulled down those colours never can be. Displayed on any other masthead, never. Christ is my Master, and Christ alone. For Him I live; for Him, if necessary, I will die. Let none attempt to make me swerve. I am past hope of change. (A. G. Brown.)

The marks of the Lord Jesus.
Explanation of the figure

It was the custom, in those days of darkness and cruelty, to prick or brand upon the body of a slave some distinctive letter or other mark of ownership, by which he might be deterred from attempting flight, or quickly traced and reclaimed in the event of his escape. More especially was this brand used in eases of theft or crime; as a mark of disgrace, a perpetual badge of degradation and contempt. In either case it stamped a poor, fallen, outcast creature as what he was; a slave at least–a man who through the misfortune of his birth or his country had never possessed, or had forfeited, the right of free will and free agency; perhaps one who through his own fault had sunk lower still, and had added to the involuntary misery of servitude the culpable appendage of crime and ignominy. To bear in his body the marks of any one, was to carry about with him everywhere one or both of the two reproaches. This man is a slave, and, This man is a convict. And was St. Paul then not ashamed to apply to himself such a figure? Was St. Paul some poor degraded being, who cared not whether he was a slave or a freeman, an innocent man or a criminal? We must draw a distinction here. The essence of slavery is to have no free will; to be the possession, the property, of another; to enjoy nothing, to have nothing, to do nothing, and to be nothing, save at the beck, command, will, of another. A dreadful state, if that other be a man like myself. But suppose my master be my Creator, Redeemer, Lord, and God. Suppose me His by a right antecedent to my being, a right only to be set aside by my self-abandonment and self-ruin. Will it then be any disgrace to bear His mark in my body, or to be incapable of severing myself from His all-watchful and all-beneficent ownership? St. Paul thought not. (Dean Vaughan.)

I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.–The stigmata

He was growing an old man. Anybody who looked at him saw his body covered with the signs of pain and care. The haggard, wrinkled face, the bent figure, the trembling hands; the scars which he had worn since the day when they beat him at Philippi, since the day when they stoned him at Lystra, since the day when he was shipwrecked at Melita; all these had robbed him for ever of the fresh, bright beauty which he had had once when he sat, a boy, at the feet of old Gamaliel. He was stamped and marked by life. The wounds of his conflicts, the furrows of his years, were on him. And all these wounds and furrows had come to him since the great change of his life. They were closely bound up with the service of his Master, to whom he had given himself at Damascus. Every scar must have still quivered with the earnestness of the words of Christian loyalty which brought the blow that made it. See what he calls these scars, then. The marks of the Lord Jesus. He had a figure in his mind. He was thinking of the way in which a master branded his slaves. Burnt into their very flesh they carried the initial of their masters name, or some other sign that they belonged to him, that they were not their own. That mark on the slaves body forbade any other but his own master to touch him or compel his labour. It was the sign at once of his servitude to one master, and of his freedom from all others. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)

The marks of the Lord Jesus

I. The text is an expression of that rest in love which those alone can have whose life is hid with Christ in God. The immediate motive of its utterance here is a certain sense of powerlessness in swaying the minds of others. What is argument to him? What is the judgment of man? What is any outward evidence? Has he not within the surest of all proof, the experience of the highest faith? From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ.

II. What are the marks here signified? Whatever they are, no doubt they are proofs that he is Christs, and Christ is his. But what are they? Elsewhere, he speaks of his labours and sufferings in the cause of Christ; and that too on an occasion like the present, when some were disparaging him, and making invidious comparisons between himself and the earlier apostles. He is obliged to say in his own cause, I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles. Then he speaks of his severe sufferings as signs of his apostleship. Are these uppermost in his mind now? I think not. Again, he speaks to the Corinthians of the vision vouch-safed to him–How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. And he concludes, In nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing. Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds. Is it to the same that he is referring now? Or, once more, does he allude to the many converts whom he had made, signs, if there be any, that Christ is with him? Well might his heart rest in thoughts like this, as when he wrote to the Church at Corinth–Though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel; And the seal of my apostleship are ye in the Lord. Or when he calls the Philippians my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown. Is this the mark of the Lord Jesus which he looks at, and takes comfort at the sight? No. I think not. It is something closer to him than this. Sufferings may find a man and leave a man separate from Christ: Though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it is nothing. Of visions he says, It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory; and lest he should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given unto him a thorn in the flesh. Of miracles and mighty works, One greater than Paul said–Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven. And as to making converts, here is his own solemn caution, Lest when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. What are these marks? They are the stigmata, the marks (as the Greeks would say, whose word it was), burnt into a slave, the brand set on a runaway slave: a sign graven upon the very body, as inseparable as a birth-mark; one that has indeed been imposed in after years, and by another hand, but now become part and parcel of the man himself, as his own flesh and bone. They are the stigmata, the marks (as Christians would say, in memory of Him who bore them on Himself), of Christ their Master: His marks on their body, as signs that they are members of His Body, in all purity and chastity and holiness, as being temples of the Holy Ghost; His marks on their temper, as those who have taken up their cross and borne it after Him in self-denial and mortification, in patience, in forgiveness, in humility, in cheerfulness; His marks on their soul, as being set free from condemnation by the atoning mercy of the Saviour, as being made partakers of the precious fruits of His sacrifice upon the cross–the mark of justification, and the mark of sanctification–the imputed righteousness of Christ, the imparted and inherent righteousness wrought in them by the Holy Ghost: His marks on their spirit, being full of all spiritual affections–love, joy, peace, patience, amid the trials of earth, longing for the security of heaven, the present enjoyment of an almost perfect rest in the arms of God; in short, a life hid with Christ in God.

III. In the next place observe, that this is not an unusual thought with St. Paul, and will not admit of being explained away as a momentary instance of highly-wrought enthusiasm. It was his life! Did it seem to any a mischievous intrusion of imagination into holy things, to speak of love imagining the Saviours wounds to be traced in the Christians heart? Then how do you read St. Pauls words to the Colossians–I, Paul, who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh; or these to the Philippians–That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death; and again to the Galatians–I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ that liveth in me? These are the marks branded by the fire of Gods love upon his heart. What marks have I of the Lord Jesus? and again, Without these marks will Christ know me for His own? They are brands burnt into the very body, so no outward thing will satisfy; nothing that your hands have done, nothing that the world can measure, for it is beneath all the dress and apparel of a so-called religious life, of which the world takes cognizance. They are part and parcel of yourself, so they can be nothing which can be taken up and laid down at will. Think how great is the risk of self-deceit; because that mark is not genuine unless it be found in the very inmost circle of your life. (G. W. Furse, M. A.)

A branded body

What a testimony does the outward man give to the inner life–the body becomes the tell-tale of the soul! We bear in our body the brand of the master whom we serve. The horny hand of the labourer tells that he is the slave of unceasing, unpitying toil. The dinted brow of the merchant declares what master it is that sits over him in the counting-house as he pores over his ledger, and anxiously balances his gains and losses. The thoughtful features of the student reveal his servitude to a higher master–the love of knowledge and truth. The sailors weather-beaten brow, the soldiers scars or dismembered frame, tell of a more arduous service; and a grateful country can confer on them no decoration more honourable than those which they have already themselves acquired. On many a once robust and comely frame sickness and pain, or grief or anxiety, have wrought their work, have set their seal, too deeply as we are apt to think. In others the wrinkled countenance, the trembling hands, the whitening hair, the dim eye, the dull ear, are signs of the submission that we must all make to the universal law of God, the law of Nature–not to be repined at, not to be evaded, however heavily it may weigh upon us. But there are disfigurements of the poor body which betoken no such honourable or natural servitude. There are marks to be seen deeply stamped on cheek and lip and eye, signs of sottishness and sensuality, signs that the body, which was formed to be a temple of the Holy Spirit, is given over to be the slave of selfish indulgence, of appetites and passions that are meant to serve, not to rule. If the life has been given to Gods service, and the soul has been filled with the love of Christ, our will subjected to His will, our spirit pervaded by His Spirit, intent on the fulfilment of His gracious purposes towards ourselves and all mankind, there will scarcely fail to be some outward signs, in the meek and chastened deportment, in the melting voice and kindling eye–the doors and windows of the soul–through which even the careless observer may become aware of the purity of the spirit that dwells within, of the Master who rules it, and who in return for the service which He asks gives peace and joy, and the sense of perfect freedom. And we may be sure, however they may be overlooked or looked down upon by us, these ornaments of the outer man are in the sight of God of great price. They are in part a fulfilment of the command which the apostle gives us, that we should endeavour to glorify God in our body as well as our spirit, for both are Gods, created by Him for His glory, owned by Him now in their low estate, to be hereafter blessed and purified by Him, so as to partake of His glory. And they whose spirits are now increasing in grace and holiness, which shine through their earthly tabernacle, they make the poor body, be it ever so much a wreck from age, from sickness, or from pain–they make it more beautiful before God than the most perfect youthful form, marred as yet by no suffering, chastened by no trials, not convinced of sin, of righteousness, or of the judgment to come. (Prebendary Humphrey.)

Marks of the Lord Jesus

I. The word-picture here presented.

1. The figure, slave brands.

2. The facts (1Co 4:9; 1Co 4:15; 2Co 11:23; 2Co 11:30).

3. The challenge.

II. The suggestion the picture makes.

1. He who follows the Lord Jesus must expect that some will try to trouble him.

2. He whose marks are most conspicuous will be troubled the least.

3. He who has marks may take comfort in knowing how much his Master paid for him.

4. He who is owned may remember that his Master owns and recognizes the marks also.

5. He that has no marks is either a better or a poorer Christian than St. Paul.

6. Satan outwits himself when he gives a believer more marks.

7. A sure day is coming when the marks will be honourable. (American Homiletic Review.)

Signs of struggle in life

Here is a man whose body shows the signs of toil and care. I will not read the long, familiar catalogue. The whitened hair, the cautious step, the dulness in the eye, the forehead seamed with thought; you know them all, you watch their coming in your friend, you feel their coming in yourself. What do they mean? In the first and largest way they mean life. The difference between this man and the baby, in whose soft flesh there are no branded marks like these, is that this man has lived. But then they mean also all that life has meant; and life, below its special circumstances, always means the mastery in obedience to which all the actions have been done and all the character has taken shape. For instance, here among the white careworn features there are certain lines which tell, beyond all misunderstanding, that this man has struggled and has had to yield. Somewhere or other, sometime or other, he has tried to do something which he very much wanted to do, and failed. As clear as the scratches on the rock which make us sure that the glacier has ground its way along its face, so clearly this man lets us know that he has been pressed and crushed and broken by a weight which was too strong for him. What was that weight? If it were only disappointment, then these marks are the marks of simple failure. If the weight were laid on him as punishment, then these marks are marks of sin. If it were a weight of culture, then the marks are marks of education. If the weight was the personal hand of the Lord Jesus Christ teaching the man that his own will must be surrendered to the will of a Lord to whom he belonged; if the Lord Jesus Christ has been drawing him away from every other obedience to His obedience; then these marks which he bears in his body are the marks of the Lord Jesus. It is as if a master, seeking for his sheep, found him all snarled and tangled in a thicket, clinging to and clung to by the thorns and cruel branches. He unsnarls him with all tenderness, but the poor captive cannot escape without wounds. He even clings himself to the thorns that hold him, and so is wounded all the more. When the rescue is complete and the master stands with his sheep in safety, he looks down on him and says, I need not brand you more. These wounds which have come in your rescue will be for ever signs that you belong to me. No other sheep will carry scars just like them, for every sheeps wanderings, and so every sheeps wounds, are different from every others. Their pain will pass away, but the tokens of the trials through which I brought you to my service will remain. They shall declare that you are mine. You shall bear in your body my marks for ever. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)

Marks of ownership

These brands were used–

1. In the case of domestic slaves. With these, however, branding was not usual, at least among the Greeks and Romans, except to mark such as had attempted to escape, or had otherwise misconducted themselves, and such brands were held a badge of disgrace.

2. Slaves attached to some temple, or persons devoted to the service of some deity were so branded.

3. Captives were so treated in very rare eases.

4. Soldiers sometimes branded the name of their commander on some part of their body. The metaphor here is most appropriate, if referred to the second of these classes. Such a practice at all events cannot have been unknown in a country which was the home of the worship of Cybele. (Bishop Lightfoot.)

The language of a true-hearted veteran

Although the first and the chief meaning of stigmata is the brand the slave bore to show that he was the property of another, yet the word also meant any scar, and I am inclined to think that the apostle had this also in his mind when he said, Dont you trouble me. I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus. There were the weals–the red lines-through the scourgings. There were the bruises through the stonings. I think Paul says to all, It is no use your trying to turn me back. You are not talking to any young recruit. I have fought in the battle. I have been wounded in the conflict. I have tried and tested my Captain in actual war. Look at the scars I have on me. And methinks his eyes would flash as he would say, Yes, I have scars already, and I am willing to have a great many more. Why, look at what I have suffered for Him. Do you think I am going to give Him up now? Look at what I have endured for Him. Do you think that, after bearing all the scourgings and buffetings and loneliness that I have, I am likely to be turned on one side now? He was proud of his scars. Do you see what a beautiful expression it is–the marks of the Lord Jesus? We may say, Paul, it is a most disgraceful thing to be whipped. Why, you have on your back the brand of infamy. He only smiles and says, No, I have on my back the marks of the Lord Jesus. Why, Paul, look at your wrist; there is a deep, blue line round it where the manacle has been. You have the mark of the fetter on you. Says the apostle: You mistake it; I have the mark of the Lord Jesus. He looked upon these scars as so many badges of honour. Go, walk through Greenwich Hospital tomorrow, or go down to Chelsea and talk to some of the old pensioners. Are they ashamed of their scars? Why, I remember how a few months back we had, at one of our meetings, a brother who had served in the Crimean war, and he showed me how a bayonet had gone in here and come out there; how there was a mark in his arm where a ball had gone right through, and a scar in his face where the sword had cut. I think he told me that he had about twenty scars on him, and his eyes flashed fire as he told the story. And have not you, brethren, some marks of the Lord Jesus of this sort? Have not you been wounded in conflicts willingly endured for the Masters sake? Have not you known what it is to be jeered at for Christs sake? Have you not had to stand a rattling artillery of scoffs in your workshop? Have not some of you deep scars now through being cruelly misrepresented, and you knew it was for Christs sake? I will say to you as Paul said to the Church at Galatia, Have you suffered so many things in vain, if it be yet in vain? Oh, by the scars of the past, I pray you be heroes in the present. I demand of you a complete consecration. Will you yield to the demand which He here makes by me? If some of us have had to say, Lord, I am afraid that the mark is not as clear as it used to be, then I will tell you what we had better do. We had better go and kneel down at His feet, and say, Lord Jesus, brand us anew. Put Thy mark on us again. Thine we are, and on Thy side. Brand us. Put the iron upon us, though it burn us. Oh, do not listen to our cries, but put a deep indelible mark, so that in business life, in home life, in church life, men and women shall say, Lo, there are men who carry the stigmata of their Lord upon them. May God fill us with this holy impassioned earnestness–this sense of having taken an irretrievable step, which shall lead us to say to all about us, From henceforth let no man trouble me. From henceforth clear the road, for I bear in my body the brand of the Lord Jesus. The Lord put His brand on us afresh for His names sake. Amen. (A. G. Brown.)

Marks of servitude

A slave once carried a message written in punctures on the skin of his head, which had been previously shaved bare to receive the writing. When his hair was grown so as to hide the letter, he went unsuspected; and the person to whom the message was sent, having shaved the letter-carriers head, read the message. The slave in old times often carried in his body (as the poor slave does still where slavery is rampant) the marks of his master, just as the sailor in our own time loves to have printed on his arm the initials of his own name and ship, the figure of his crucified Redeemer, or the anchor and cable. St. Paul carried in his body the marks of the master to whom he belonged. The weals made by the Roman lictors rods, with which he was thrice beaten; the red lines of those two hundred stripes which had been laid on him in the Jewish synagogues; the scars left by the stones which had bruised and beaten him down, so that he was left for dead,–these marks of the Lord Jesus he carried with him, the proofs as to whose he was and whom he served.

Legend of St. Francis

The biographer of St. Francis of Assisi says, that after having fasted for forty days in his solitary cell, and passed the time in a fervour of prayer and ecstatic contemplation, transported almost to heaven by the ardour of his desires–then he beheld, as it were, a seraph with six shining wings, bearing down upon him from above, and between his wings was the form of a man crucified. By this he understood to be figured a heavenly and immortal intelligence, subject to death and humiliation. And it was manifested to him that he was to be transformed into a resemblance to Christ, not by the martyrdom of the flesh, but by the might and fire of Divine love. When the vision had disappeared, and he had recovered a little from its effects, it was seen that in his hands, feet, and side, he carried the wounds of the Saviour.

Service the road to honour

When the Spartan king advanced against the enemy, he had always with him some one that had been crowned in the public games of Greece. And they tell us that a Lacedaemonian, when large sums were offered him on condition that he would not enter the Olympic lists, refused them. Having with much difficulty thrown his antagonists in wrestling, one put this question to him, Spartan, what will you get by this victory? He answered with a smile, I shall have the honour to fight foremost in the ranks of my prince. The honour which appertains to office in the Church of God lies mainly in this–that the man who is set apart for such service has the privilege of being first in holiness of example, abundance of liberality, patience of long-suffering, zeal in effort, and self-sacrifice in service. ( C. H. Spurgeon.)

The marks of the Lord Jesus

I. The marks–slave brands.

1. The body of the Christian is itself a badge of servitude to Christ.

2. Baptism is another.

3. So is bodily persecution and mental.

II. The inference to be drawn.

1. No man can legitimately doubt our Christianity and therefore need not be told about it.

2. We need not trouble ourselves, we ever bear the incontestible evidences of being Christs.

In conclusion:

1. Let no man infer that singularity makes a Christian.

2. The reward of bearing the marks.

(1) Hope.

(2) Happiness. (Dean Vaughan.)

Every believing Christian hath these

1. The crown of thorns pierces his head when his sinful conceits are mortified.

2. His lips are drenched with vinegar and gall, when sharp and severe restraints are given to his tongue.

3. His hands and feet are nailed when he is, by the power of Gods Spirit, disabled to the wonted courses of sin.

4. His body is stripped when all colour and pretences are taken away from him.

5. His heart is pierced when the life-blood of his formerly reigning corruptions is let out. (Bishop Hall.)

The broad-arrow of service

When North America was merely an English colony the very timber of the country was sorted out, and wherever a valiant pine or noble oak, fit for the masts or for the ribs of ships was found, the arrow–the Broad Arrow as it was called–was stamped upon it. The tree was in no respect different, dendrologically speaking, after the arrow was put on from what it was before; but when people saw the Broad Arrow on the tree they said, That is the kings; or, It does not belong to us: it belongs to the king; and it had attached to it a sense of royalty, a sense of appropriation; and it took to itself something of the dignity which belongs to real royalty. Now it is not an arrow; it is a cross that is stamped on us–the sign and symbol of the purchase of suffering, by which we are Christs and manifest it to the world. (H. W. Beecher.)

The glory of the marks of the Lord Jesus

As it is a glory to a soldier to have received many wounds and to have many scars in his princes quarrel, and for the defence of his country; so it is a glory for the Christian soldier to have the marks of the Lord Jesus in his body, as of wounds, scourges, and imprisonments for the truth. But if these be the glory of Christs servants, what shall we say of those who not only have their consciences seared as with a hot iron, but have the marks of Bacchus and Venus in their bodies. (R. Cudworth.)

Entire consecration best

The well-defined spiritual life is not only the highest life, but it is also the most easily lived. The whole cross is more easily carried than the half. It is the man who tries to make the best of both worlds who makes nothing of either. And he who seeks to serve two masters misses the benediction of both. But he who takes his stand, who has drawn a boundary line, sharp and deep, about his religious life, who has marked off all beyond as for ever forbidden ground to him, finds the yoke easy and the burden light. So even here to die is gain. (H. Drummond, M. A.)

Honourable marks

John Clark, of Meldon, in France, being for Christs sake whipped three several days, and afterwards having a mark set in his forehead, as a note of infamy, his mother beholding it, encouraged her son, crying with a loud voice, Vivet Christus ajusque insignia, Blessed be Christ, and welcome be these prints and marks of Christ. I conclude this discourse with that saying of Pericles, It is not gold, precious stones, statues, that adorn a soldier, but a torn buckler, a cracked helmet, a blunt sword, a scarred face. Sceva is renowned for this, that at the siege of Dyrrachium he so long alone resisted Pompeys army that he had two hundred and twenty darts sticking in his shield, and lost one of his eyes, and yet gave not over till Caesar came to his rescue. (Trapp.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 17. From henceforth let no man trouble me] Put an end to your contentions among yourselves; return to the pure doctrine of the Gospel; abandon those who are leading you astray; separate from the Church those who corrupt and disturb it; and let me be grieved no longer with your defections from the truth.

I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.] The , stigmata, of which the apostle speaks here, may be understood as implying the scars of the wounds which he had received in the work of the ministry; and that he had such scars, we may well conceive, when we know that he had been scourged, stoned, and maltreated in a variety of ways. The writer could show such scars himself, received in the same way. Or, the apostle may allude to the stigmata or marks with which servants and slaves were often impressed, in order to ascertain whose property they were. A Burman servant often has indelible marks on his thighs and elsewhere, which ascertain to whose service he belongs. “Do not trouble me; I bear the marks of my Lord and Master, Jesus; I am his, and will remain so. You glory in your mark of circumcision; I glory in the marks which I bear in my body for the testimony of the Lord; I am an open, professed Christian, and have given full proof of my attachment to the cause of Christianity.”

The first sense appears to be the best: “I have suffered already sufficiently; I am suffering still; do not add any more to my afflictions.”

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Let no man trouble me, either with questions about circumcision, or with imputations as if I were a friend to their opinion, of the necessity of adding to the doctrine of faith, circumcision and other observances of the law.

For I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus; I sufficiently declare my judgment to the world, suffering for my profession, and preaching the gospel. These sufferings he calls

the marks of the Lord Jesus, because he endured them in testimony to the gospel, as well against the Jews its against the Gentiles.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

17. let no man trouble mebyopposing my apostolic authority, seeing that it is stamped by a sureseal, namely, “I (in contrast to the Judaizing teachers whogloried in the flesh) bear (as a high mark of honor from the King ofkings).”

the marksproperly,marks branded on slaves to indicate their owners. So Paul’s scars ofwounds received for Christ’s sake, indicate to whom he belongs, andin whose free and glorious service he is (2Co11:23-25). The Judaizing teachers gloried in the circumcisionmark in the flesh of their followers: Paul glories in themarks of suffering for Christ on his own body (compare Gal 6:14;Phi 3:10; Col 1:24).

the Lordomitted in theoldest manuscripts.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

From henceforth let no man trouble me,…. Having so clearly stated and explained the doctrine of justification, and so largely proved that it is not by works, but by faith, and that circumcision and other rituals of the ceremonial law were not necessary to it, he desires, nay, in an authoritative way he requires, that they give him no further trouble on that head; signifying, that he expected they would be satisfied with what he had wrote, and abide by the truth and obey it, as they had formerly done; that he should hear no more objections from them, or complaints of them: nor need they further inquire his sense of these things; by this they would fully know his faith and practice; as indeed they might also by his suffering persecutions on the account of his faith, and his preaching the Gospel of Christ, and particularly this part of it:

for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus; by which he means, not the marks in Christ’s hands, feet, and side; but the reproachful characters the apostle was stigmatized with; or the real scars in his body, made by beating, scourging, and stoning of him; or his sufferings and persecutions in general, which he endured for the sake of Christ and his Gospel; see 2Co 11:23. The allusion is either to servants and soldiers, who, when taken into service, used to have some particular mark put upon them, that they might be known to be such an one’s servant, or soldier c; as the Hebrew servant, who was willing to serve his master, had his ear bored through with an awl, Ex 21:6 so the apostle was known to be a firm and faithful servant, and a good soldier of Christ, by the reproaches and afflictions which he underwent for his sake; or else to those marks which, by way of reproach and punishment, were made upon fugitive servants, or soldiers, that deserted; as the sufferings of the apostle were designed as reproaches to him, and punishments of him, for preaching the Gospel of Christ; but these he gloried in, and bore and carried as trophies and marks of honour. Just as veteran soldiers show the scars and wounds they have received in battle, as tokens of their valour and courage, in facing and fighting the enemy in greatest danger: these he is said to bear “in his body”; not in the bodies of others, he gloried not in their flesh, as the false apostles did; nor in the circumcision of his own flesh, the scar that left there the mark of Moses and of a Jew; but in those things which were marks of his being a disciple of Christ, and not of Moses, and which he bore for his sake; and since therefore it was so easy to discern on which side of the question he was, from his suffering persecution for the cross of Christ; and since he had so many and such great trials and exercises, he, with apostolical gravity and authority, commands them to give him no more trouble, from the time of their reception of the epistle, henceforward.

c Vid. Lydium de re militare, l. 1. c. 6.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

From henceforth ( ). Usually , the accusative of general reference, “as for the rest” (Phil 3:1; Phil 4:8). The genitive case (as here and Eph 6:10) means “in respect of the remaining time.”

The marks of Jesus ( ). Old word from , to prick, to stick, to sting. Slaves had the names or stamp of their owners on their bodies. It was sometimes done for soldiers also. There were devotees also who stamped upon their bodies the names of the gods whom they worshipped. Today in a round-up cattle are given the owner’s mark. Paul gloried in being the slave of Jesus Christ. This is probably the image in Paul’s mind since he bore in his body brandmarks of suffering for Christ received in many places (2Cor 6:4-6; 2Cor 11:23), probably actual scars from the scourgings (thirty-nine lashes at a time). If for no other reason, listen to me by reason of these scars for Christ and “let no one keep on furnishing trouble to me.”

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Henceforth [ ] . Only here and Eph 6:10. Commonly to loipon. The genitive is temporal; at any time in the future as distinguished from throughout the future.

Trouble me [ – ] . Lit. give me troubles; make it necessary for me to vindicate my apostolic authority and the divine truth of my gospel.

Bear in my body. Comp. 2Co 4:10.

Marks [] . N. T. o. The wounds, scars, and other outward signs of persecutions and sufferings in the service of Christ. Comp. 2Co 11:23 ff. The metaphor is the brands applied to slaves in order to mark their owners. Hence Rev., I bear branded. Brands were also set upon soldiers, captives, and servants of temples. See on Rev 13:16, and comp. Rev 7:3; Rev 14:1, 9, 11. The scars on the apostle ‘s body marked him as the bondservant of Jesus Christ. The passage naturally recalls the legend of Francis of Assisi.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

FINAL GREETING

1) “From henceforth,” (tou loipou) “For the rest,” for the remaining, time, space, and council.

2) “Let no man trouble me,” (kopous moi medeis parecheto) “Let no one cause me trouble,” or disturb me regarding what the true gospel is, but how I or they should stand for it.

3) “For I bear in my body,” (ego gar en to somati mou bastazo) “Because I bear in my (own) body;” wherever I go, I carry with me, visible, evident testimony of my fidelity to the cross of Christ, the one way of redemption, Act 4:12; Act 20:21; Rom 1:16; 2Co 12:7-10.

4) “The marks of the Lord Jesus,” (ta stigmata tou lesou) “The stigma brands (scars) of the Lord Jesus.” As slaves were branded that if they ran away they might be detected, returned to their master, so Paul was branded by wounds and scars from enemies; yet he received these scars and wore them as badges of honor, received in allegiance to his Master; just as a true soldier is not ashamed of battle scars for his country, so was Paul not ashamed of body scars received in labor for his Master, 2Co 4:10; 2Co 11:23-25; Col 1:24. Scars from stoning, scars from stripes of whippings, and scars from shipwreck he bore with gratitude for his Master. No stigma is too great to bear, if it be to the glory of Jesus Christ.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

17. Let no man trouble me. He now speaks with the voice of authority for restraining his adversaries, and employs language which his high rank fully authorized. “Let them cease to throw hinderances in the course of my preaching.” He was prepared, for the sake of the church, to encounter difficulties, but does not choose to be interrupted by contradiction. Let no man trouble me. Let no man make opposition to obstruct the progress of my work.

As to everything else, ( τοῦ λοιποῦ,) that is, as to everything besides the new creature. “This one thing is enough for me. Other matters are of no importance, and give me no concern. Let no man question me about them.” He thus places himself above all men, and allows to none the power of attacking his ministry. Literally, the phrase signifies, as to the rest or the remainder, which Erasmus, in my opinion, has improperly applied to time.

For I bear (102) in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. This accounts for his bold, authoritative language. And what were those marks? Imprisonment, chains, scourging, blows, stoning, and every kind of injurious treatment which he had incurred in bearing testimony to the gospel. Earthly warfare has its honors, in conferring which a general holds out to public view the bravery of a soldier. So Christ our leader has his own marks, of which he makes abundant use, for conferring on some of his followers a high distinction. These marks, however, differ from the other in one important respect, that they partake of the nature of the cross, and in the sight of the world are disgraceful. This is suggested by the word translated marks, ( στίγματα,) for it literally denotes the marks with which barbarian slaves, or fugitives, or malefactors, were usually branded. Paul, therefore, can hardly be said to use a figure, when he boasts of shining in those marks with which Christ is accustomed to honor his most distinguished soldiers, (103) which in the eye of the world were attended by shame and disgrace, but which before God and the angels surpass all the honors of the world. (104)

(102) Οὐκ εἴπε δὲ ἔχω ἀλλὰ βαστάζω ὣσπερ τι τρόπαιον ἢ σημεῖον βασιλικὸν καὶ τούτοις ἐναβρύνομαι. “He does not say, I have, but, I bear, as some trophy or royal symbol; and I deck myself with them.” — Theophylact

(103) “There is no warlike weapon, οὖγε οὐκ ἴχνη ἐν ἐμαυτῷ φέρω, of which I do not bear the marks upon me.” — Arrian.

(104) “So far am I from being liable to be torn away from the truth of the gospel, by any reproaches or afflictions, that the disgrace inflicted on me for Christ’s sake, and the imprisonment, and scourging, and bonds, and stonings, and other distresses which I have endured for the name of Christ, shall be carried about with me, in my body, wherever I go, as marks and tokens of my Lord Jesus Christ. I will exhibit them as so many trophies, and will reckon it to be my glory, that I am counted worthy to imitate, in any manner, the cross of Christ which I preach.”-Erasmus’s Paraphrase.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

CONCLUSION

Token of Authorship. (Cf. 2Th. 3:17) Gal. 6:11

A refutation of the charges by the Judaizers Gal. 6:17

TEXT 6:17, 18

(17) Henceforth let no man trouble me; for I bear branded on my body the marks of Jesus. (18) The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brethren. Amen.

PARAPHRASE 6:17, 18

17 Henceforth, let no one give me trouble, by calling my commission, my doctrine, or my faithfulness in question: For I bear the marks of the Lord Jesuss servant in my body.
18 May the love of our Lord Jesus Christ be always felt in your mind, brethren. Amen.

COMMENT 6:17

Henceforth let no man trouble me

Let no man give me trouble. (Catholic Bible)

Put an end to your troublesyour contentions. Turn back to the pure doctrine and all will be well.

Church trouble is the kind that Christians ought not to have.

I bear branded on my body the marks of Jesus

One who has suffered for Jesus like Paul, can see only foolishness in the mark of circumcision.

This probably refers to marks on his body from persecution.

God hath set forth us the apostles last of all, as men doomed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, both to angels and men. 1Co. 4:9

In stripes . . . in deaths . . . beaten . . . stoned. 2Co. 11:23-25

Benediction Gal. 6:18

COMMENT 6:18

Brethren

This is a contrast to Foolish Galatians.

Paul felt the letter would make brethren of them.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit

The grace of God can only work with the spirit of man.

This is his benediction upon them.

If their spirit would work in harmony with the grace of God, they could be restored to grace.

Unto the Galatians written from Rome (King James)

This part does not appear in the best manuscripts.

The Syriac says, The end of the epistle to the Galatians which was written from Rome.

The Ethiopic says, To the Galatians.

The Vulgate says nothing additional.

The Arabic says, Written from the city of Rome by Titus and Luke.

STUDY QUESTIONS 6:17, 18

1033.

Does this verse imply that the false teachers had bothered Paul?

1034.

Does it mean that his erring brethren were bothering him?

1035.

Is this an exhortation to follow truth or suggesting to them to let him forget them?

1036.

Is he comparing his sufferings, beating, stripes, etc., to shame them for submitting to circumcision?

1037.

What are the marks of Jesus upon him?

1038.

Did anyone use a branding iron on him?

1039.

Does Paul claim them as Christians even though they have fallen from grace?

1040.

Is it possible that he counted on the letter to restore them, so that by the time they had read this far, they would be brethren again?

1041.

Are the final words considered a benediction?

1042.

How could he wish grace upon them, when he has accused them of being out of it?

1043.

If Paul believed in the power of the word, could he not believe that this divine epistle would restore them?

1044.

What did he mean with your spirit?

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(17) The Apostle has done. He will not dally with these vexatious attacks upon himself and his authority any more. He dismisses them with an appeal which ought to be final. He points to the scars of wounds which he had received in his Masters service. The branding-irons of Christ, he says, have imprinted these upon me. They show that I, like the slaves of a heathen temple, am devoted and consecrated to His service. They are my credentials, and I shall produce no others. My assailants must leave me in peace.

The marks.The stigmata, or marks inflicted with branding-irons, such as those which show that a slave is attached to a particular temple or to the service of some particular deity. Branding was applied in some other cases, but especially to temple slaves. Those with which the Galatians were most familiar would be engaged in the worship of Cybele.

There does not seem to be evidence to connect this passage directly with the incident of the stigmata in the life of St. Francis of Assisi, but it would seem very probable that the use of the word, which was left untranslated in the Latin versions, suggested, whether by a more or by a less distant association, the idea which took so strong a hold upon his mind that in a moment of extreme spiritual tension the actual marks of the Passion seemed to imprint themselves upon his body.

Of the Lord Jesus.The true text is simply, of Jesus.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

17. From henceforth From the time-point of the laying down once for all of this unmovable canon.

Trouble me I move above all molestation and obstacles in my apostolic course; for the trueness of my adherence to Christ is placed above question by my scars in his service.

Marks , stigmata, derived from , to prick, to brand; hence a brand or mark of ownership or disgrace, (as our English word stigma,) either pricked in or burnt upon the body of man or beast. Two kinds of stigmata are, 1. Upon slaves, more usually those who had tried to escape, and then the marks were not only a security to the owner but a disgrace to the slave. 2. Temple slaves, or persons dedicated to some duty, were branded upon hand or neck, and then they were held too sacred to be touched. We might suppose that it was to this last class that the apostle alludes, and proclaims that his scars for Christ are his brands of dedication and ownership, and that no annoying hand should touch him.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘From henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear branded on my body the marks (stigmata) of Jesus.’

He has finished what he wanted to say. Let them make their choice. They must choose either those who are branded with the mark of circumcision, or he who has been crucified with Christ and is branded with the marks of Jesus. If they choose circumcision they should have nothing more to do with him, for they will bear the brand that has cut them off from Christ.

It may well be that Paul is here not thinking just of metaphorical marks, but of physical marks. He had suffered much for Christ, enduring beatings and other ill-treatment, and he may well have seen the marks so obtained as a faint reflection and reminder of the marks that Jesus bore. He had shared in Christ’s crucifixion (Col 1:24). And there may here be the suggestion that the marks he bore were greater far, and more significant, than the mark of circumcision, for they pointed to the crucified Christ and the scandal of the cross.

Alternately the thought may be that the marks he bore marked him off as a devotee of Jesus Christ, and that therefore they must beware how they treated him. Herodotus wrote, ‘If any man receives holy stigmata (marks), giving himself to a god, it is not lawful to touch him.’ Thus Paul may be declaring his invulnerability to all that they could do.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Gal 6:17. I bear in my body Archbishop Potter thinks, that the Apostle here alludes to the , or brands, with which the Greeks used to mark those who were appointed to serve in the wars, lest they should attempt to make their escape. Others suppose, that the reference may be to those marks by which the votaries of particular heathen deities were distinguished. Mr. Blackwall considers it as an allusion to an Egyptian custom; according to which, any man’s servant who fled to the temple of Hercules, and had the sacred brands or marks of that Pagan deity impressed upon him, was supposed to be under his immediate care and protection, and by that to be privileged from all violence and harsh treatment. In this view St. Paul’s words are to be understood thus: “Let no man who professes veneration and faith in our common Saviour, give me, his fellow-servant,any disturbance or vexation, in the course of my ministry, and discharge of my duty, since I bear in my body his sacred marks:the bruises and impressions of violence and cruelty, which I have received in his glorious service, will be upon me till I go down to the grave; therefore I esteem myself as sacred and devoted to my divine Master; and may as justly claim the civility and charityof all the worshippers and lovers of the Lord Jesus in sincerity, as I firmly hope and depend on the gracious acceptance and protection of our great Lord himself.”*

* See Locke, Taylor, Michaelis, Lardner, Wall, Hammond, Calmet, Henry, Tillotson, Heylin, Clarke, Grotius, Wells, Bengelius, Lyttleton, Doddridge, Whitsius, Whitby, Hardouin, Jefferys, Wolsius, Wetstein, Beza, Baxter, Warburton, Peter Whitfield, Diodati, Howe, Burnet, Bedford, Mintert, Mill, Castalio, Selden, Dr. Chandler, Bishop Chandler, Markland, Bowyer, Peirce, Sharpe, Sykes, Le Clerc, Hallett, Weston, Blackwall, Ward, Jortin, and Potter.

Inferences.The exhortations here urged by the Apostle cannot be expressed in more lively terms, and it is scarcely possible to present them in clearer and plainer language. The great difficulty here, and in other such instances, is, to bring our hearts to submit to what our understandings must so readily apprehend and approve. Let us earnestly pray, that God would diffuse more of his Spirit on all professing Christians; that, beholding each other with undissembled and fervent love, every one may affectionately endeavour to advance the happiness of all: and, instead of severely censuring one another, let us endeavour for mutual reformation, by such exhortations and advices as different circumstances may require, doing all in the spirit of Christian meekness, and in a humble sense of our own infirmities.

There is as certain a connection between our conduct here and our state hereafter, as there is between the kind of grain sown and the harvest to be reaped from it. The generality, alas! are sowing to the flesh, and the harvest to such will be shame and corruption. Let us, then, for our parts, sow to the Spirit, liberally and largely, and have our fruit unto holiness, that so we may at length inherit everlasting life: and whenever we may be ready to faint under our toil, let us encourage ourselves and each other with the blessed prospect of that day, when, though the seed-time may be attended with tears, we may come again rejoicing, and bring with us rich sheaves of honour and of joy. Psa 126:5-6. It is in due season, it is at the time which God hath wisely appointed, that we shall, if faithful, receive this reward of grace; let us then wait for it, as we well may, with patience and humility.

The day is coming, when every one shall bear his own burden, and each of us shall answer for himself:that awful day, when every one shall reap the fruit of his own way, and receive according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad, 2Co 5:10. Be it our care, therefore, not to deceive ourselves with a vain imagination, that we are something when we are nothing; and not be so satisfied to rest in the good opinion which others have of us, as to have our rejoicing in them. Whatever duty may be required of us, let us not amuse ourselves with trifling excuses, which never can deceive that GOD who is not to be mocked; but earnestly set ourselves continually to cultivate true inward religion, even that of the heart, in the sight of Him who searcheth it; so will the testimony of our conscience be a source of joy, and we shall find that joy solid and permanent.

Nor, if God bless the ministers of his gospel, as the instruments of bringing this joy to the soul, will it fail of being attended with that readiness which the Apostle requires, to communicate to them in all good things? while, if they understand their character and office, there will be in them that moderation and desire, on the one hand, and that zeal and love for souls on the other, which will render it a thousand times more pleasant to communicate spirituals, than to receive temporals, even from those who give with the most willing mind, and so double the gift, whether it be greater or less.

What meanness is there in those views, or objects, in which the generality of mankind are so apt to glory! How little satisfaction can there be in making proselytes to a party, and spreading forms and notions, when compared with the joy of promoting true religion in the hearts of men, and thereby advancing the glory of God, and the salvation of immortal souls! And of what little service will it be to make a fair appearance, and to be zealous for the externals of religion, so as to gain the applause of men, and to have many followers, if, at the same time, we have so little veneration for the cross of Christ, as to be afraid or ashamed of owning the necessity of relying on his crosshis sufferings unto death, and infinite merit alone, for justification, lest we should suffer persecution upon that account, or be exposed to the reproaches of the world about us!

May divine grace teach us to esteem the cross of Christ more highly, and to glory in nothing but our knowledge of it, and our hopes and expectations from it! May we all feel its vital efficacy, to crucify us to the world, and the world to us; that we may look upon the world but as a thing dead and worthless, which neither can afford us any advantage, nor yield any pleasure to engage our hearts to choose it for our portion. Thus, being crucified and dead to all things in it, may we be so entirely weaned from all affection thereto, as to make it no more our principal design and study to pursue it: but, being indifferent both to its smiles and frowns, may we be neither moved by any prospect of self-interest on the one hand, nor terrified by the fear of persecution on the other!

Nor let us lay the stress of our religion on the name we bear, or ground the hope of our acceptance on being of this or that denomination of Christians.Let it rather be our chief concern to experience a thorough change of heart and life, and to obtain that renovation of soul, that new creation, without which neither circumcision nor uncircumcision can avail any thing, and with which the one as well as the other will be accepted of God.

It is the written word of God which is the rule that we are to go by, both in the doctrines and precepts of it: let us be careful to walk according to it, and perseveringly regulate our principles and conduct by its sacred institutes: then will God acknowledge us as his true Israel, and mercy and peace shall crown our Christian warfare. And surely, how diligently soever we observe this rule, how exactly soever we conform to its direction, how much soever we may suffer for our adherence to it, yet still we depend upon mercy for the communication of peace, and must ascribe all our hopes of happiness to pardoning clemency and free grace. May that grace ever be with our spirit, to sanctify, to quicken, and to cheer us; and may we always be ready to maintain the honour of that, which is, indeed, our very life. Amen.

REFLECTIONS.1st. As he had so warmly recommended to them that love which would engage them to serve one another, he passes on to the exercise of it, in several instances.

1. Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, through surprise, temptation, or human frailty, ye which are spiritual, and strong in the grace which is in Jesus Christ, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness, with all the tenderness with which an able surgeon handles a dislocated joint, in order to reduce it; using, not rough reproaches, but tender expostulations; considering thyself, as no man is secure, lest thou also be tempted, and suffered to fall, to punish the undue severity you may have used towards others, and justly to smart under the same scourge. Note; (1.) A sense of our own weakness will make us compassionate an offending brother. (2.) Peculiar tenderness is needful, when the soul is already vexed and grieved by sin, lest we drive those to despair whom we should lead to repentance. (3.) Angry reproofs, however great the provocation may be, never can do good.

2. Bear ye one another’s burdens, sympathizing with the afflicted, patient with the infirmities of the weak, and desirous to alleviate every grief under which your brethren groan, by your prayers, your counsel, or your substance; and so fulfil the law of Christ, that law of love, which he has taught both by precept and example.

3. In humility, every man should watch over, and examine himself. For if a man think himself to be something extraordinary, and self-sufficient to withstand every temptation, when, in fact, he is nothing, and has no strength of his own which he does not derive from Christ, he deceiveth himself, as he will find, by dire experience, when he comes to be tried. But let every man prove his own work, examining into his principles and practice according to the gospel rule; and then, if he find a happy correspondence between them, shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another; he will exult in the blessed testimony of the Spirit and his own conscience, ascribing to the grace of God what has been wrought in him; and will seek no glory from human applause, nor desire to rake up the faults of others, as a foil to set off his own excellencies; satisfied, if God in Christ Jesus accepts and approves his services. For every man shall bear his own burden, and stand or fall, not according to the opinion he has entertained of himself, or which others form of him, but according to the decision of the eternal Judge. Note; (1.) A high opinion of ourselves ever argues great ignorance of our own hearts. (2.) The testimony of a good conscience is matter of solid satisfaction.

4. Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things, contributing liberally and cheerfully to the support of a gospel ministry, for the labourer is worthy of his hire. Be not deceived by your deluding teachers, who would engross your regard, nor by the covetousness of your own hearts, which would divert you from this or any other instance of liberality; God is not to be mocked by vain pretences; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap, according to his work will be his wages. For he that soweth to his flesh, making provision for it to fulfil the lusts thereof, or inordinately anxious to hoard up worldly wealth, to the defrauding of God’s cause, or the poor, such a man shall of the flesh reap corruption; his perishing acquisitions will soon be fled, and endless misery succeed: but he that soweth to the Spirit, in every instance of bounty and benevolence, under the Spirit’s guidance, laying out himself, his time, his talents, perseveringly, for the glory of Christ, and the good of his people, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting, and, in eternity, receive the blessed recompence of his deeds. And let us not be weary in well-doing, though we may not see all the happy effects that we expected; for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. Nothing can be lost which is employed in God’s service; though, like the seed under the clod, it may seem to be buried for a while, it will surely spring up, and afford a plenteous increase, often in this world, and to the faithful soul always in a better.

5. This is the day for labour; therefore we should diligently improve it. And, as we have opportunity, let us, according to our abilities, do good unto all men, with liberal hearts and open hands, not restraining our charity to any party, or nation; though especially exercising it unto them who are of the household of faith, for whom we are bound, by peculiar ties of love and duty, particularly to interest ourselves, as children of the same family, and heirs of the same inheritance.

2nd, Though in his other Epistles he usually employed an amanuensis, yet, out of his great affection to the church of Galatia, he wrote this long letter on so important a subject with his own hand. And now, being about to conclude, he
1. Marks out to them the true character of their seducing teachers, that they may beware of them. As many as desire to make a fair shew in the flesh, and, by their pompous professions and zeal for the ceremonials of religion, would insinuate themselves into your confidence, they constrain you to be circumcised, and urge this upon you as necessary to salvation, when, in fact, their design is not your good, but their own ease and honour; for they do it only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ, from the furious zealots for Judaism, who cannot bear the doctrine of free justification through faith in Christ alone, without circumcision or the works of the law: for, eager as their are for your submitting to this rite, neither they themselves, who are circumcised, keep the law in its moral purity, rigidly as they are attached to the ceremonials of it; but they desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh, and make a merit of it with their countrymen, that you are their proselytes to circumcision. Note; (1.) They who are ashamed of the cross, are assuredly the enemies of Christ. (2.) Many make their boast of the form of religion, who are the greatest strangers to the power of it.

2. He declares to them his own temper and conduct. What the false teachers were ashamed of, he gloried in: God forbid that I should glory in external privileges, attainments, gifts, duties, or any thing else, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in that atoning sacrifice which he there offered, as my whole dependance for pardon and acceptance with God; by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world; through faith in him I am mortified to all its allurements, honours, and interests, and content to be treated with that contempt and virulent enmity which, for the truth’s sake, I suffer from a world that lieth in wickedness. Note; (1.) The cross is the glorious object ever in the Christian’s eye; for to the sacrifice there offered he is indebted for all his hopes in time and eternity. (2.) Faith in a crucified Jesus is the victory that overcometh the world, and nothing else can enable us to do it.

3. He lays down the essential point of true Christianity. For in Christ Jesus, with regard to the salvation which is in and from him, neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; the one is no advantage, the other no obstruction: but that which must prove our interest in Christ, and that we are partakers of the grace of God in truth, is our becoming new creatures, having our principles, tempers, and conduct, cast into the mould of the gospel, through the mighty energy of faith, which worketh by love.

4. He offers up his prayers for those who held fast the truth, and gives them encouragement. As many as walk according to this rule, laid down in this Epistle, with regard to justification by faith, and the new creature, without respect to circumcision, or uncircumcision, peace be on them, or peace shall be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God; may they enjoy peace with God, and in their own consciences, and every divine mercy which is purchased by the crucified Jesus for his faithful people, who, whether Jews or Gentiles, are God’s spiritual Israel. See the Annotations.

5. He, with authority, enjoins them to give him no farther trouble on this point, but to submit to his apostolic warnings and reproofs. From henceforth let no man trouble me with farther disputes and contentions, or with injurious reproaches, as if I had ever countenanced the doctrine of these Judaizing teachers; the contrary of which is most evident: I have ever opposed them, and severely suffered for it; for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus, the scars of the wounds and stripes endured for his sake, the signs of my conformity to him, and of my adherence to the offensive doctrines of his cross, and particularly of Justification by faith alone. Note; It is a proof that we believe the doctrines we preach, when we dare boldly suffer for them, and can produce the glorious scars received in the service of the Captain of our salvation.

6. He concludes with his usual benediction. Brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, Amen! The treatment which he had received from them, did not quench his love towards them. Earnest to promote their salvation, he prays that they may experience the inestimably precious love of a dying Redeemer, and partake of all the invaluable privileges which he freely bestows on his faithful saints, even pardon, peace, comfort, holiness, and eternal life.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Gal 6:17 . ] occurring only here in the N.T., very frequent in other authors; not ceterum , so that it would be a formula abrumpendi (Bengel, Zachariae, and others), equivalent to (2Co 13:11 ; Eph 6:10 ; Phi 3:1 , et al .), but the genitive of time (Khner, II. p. 189): posthac, henceforward (Xen. Anab . v. 7. 34, vi. 4. 11; Plat. Legg . vii. p. 816 D, Demos , p. 385 B; Herod. ii. 109; and the passages in Wetstein); and that as denoting “ repetitionem ejusdem facti reliquo tempore ” (Hermann ad Viger . p. 706). The sense posthac might also have been expressed by the accusative ( , Mat 26:41 ; Mar 14:41 ; 1Co 7:29 ; Xen. Anab . ii. 2. 5, iii. 2. 8; Soph. Trach . 907, 917); but in this case a repetitio perpetua would be meant (Hermann, l.c .). Comp. Khner, ad Xen. Anab , ii. 2. 5. Calvin explains: “ as for the rest,” i.e. praeter novam creaturam . Comp. Wieseler: “ quod restat .” In this case, either the genitive would stand absolutely: “as concerns what remains ” ( , 1Co 4:2 ), see Heind. ad Charm . p. 89; Matthiae, p. 815; or it would be dependent on . But, looking at the frequent use of as a particle of time, both these explanations would be very unnecessarily far-fetched. This remark also applies to the view of Hofmann, who strangely attaches , notwithstanding the want of an antithetical particle, as genitive of the object to , and conceives as again supplied: on account of the Israel, which is not the Israel of God . Respecting that Israel, in the apostle’s view, he has not to inquire whether it will be injured through the labour to which he is called. As if any such cold, remorseless renunciation could be justly attributed to the apostle who held his so painfully dear (Rom 9:1 ff; Rom 10:1 ), and strove in every possible way to gain them (1Co 9:20 ). But from the hostile annoyances and vexations, which the reader would readily understand to be referred to in these words, the apostle desires to remain henceforward exempt; and this he demands with apostolic sternness.

. . .] the emphasis is on : it is not the teachers who are hostile to me, these men afraid to suffer (Gal 6:12 ), but I who bear, etc. ( is paroxytone; see Lobeck, Paralip . p. 406) signifies marks branded or etched in , which, usually consisting of letters (Lev 19:28 ), were put on the body (especially on the forehead and hands) in the case of slaves, as the device of their masters; [272] of soldiers, as the badge of their general; of criminals, as a sign of their offence; and among some oriental nations also, as a token of the divinity which they worshipped ( 3Ma 2:29 ; and Grimm in loc ). See Wetstein, p. 237 f.; Lipsius, Elect . ii. 15; Deyling, Obss . III. p. 423 ff.; Spencer, Legg. rit . ii. 14. 1; Ewald, in Apocal . p. 151 f. Here Paul has had in view the marks borne by slaves: [273] for, according to the immediate context (Gal 6:14 ; Gal 6:18 ), Christ is present to his mind as the Lord; and also in 2Co 11:23 he discerns, in the ill treatment which he has suffered, the proof that he is . Comp. also Rev 7:3 . The genitive denotes therefore the Ruler , whose servant Paul is indicated to be by his ; and because in this case the feeling of fellowship with the concrete person of his Master has thoroughly pervaded him, he does not write , but (comp. on 2Co 4:10 ). Others have explained: “notae corporis tales, quales ipse Christus gestavit ” (Morus, comp. Borger); but against this it may be urged that Paul has not made use of a word which of itself conveys a complete idea (such as , 2Co 4:10 ), but has used the significant , which necessarily prompts the reader to ask to whom the person marked ( , also , Polyaen. Strat . i. 24) is described as belonging . Therefore is not (with Gomarus and Rckert) to be considered as genitive auctoris .

But what was it that Paul bore in his body as the ? The scars and other traces of the wounds and mal-treatment, which he had received on account of his apostolic labours . [274] For in the service of Christ he had been maltreated (2Co 11:23 ), and that so that he must have retained scars or similar indications (see 2Co 11:24-25 ). Some expositors have, however, believed that Paul adduces these by way of contrast to the scar of circumcision (Erasmus in his Annot ., Beza, Schoettgen, Grotius; comp. Bengel and Michaelis); but this idea is arbitrarily introduced, and in its paltriness alien to the lofty self-consciousness which these words breathe.

Lastly, as regards the sense in which the reference of is to be taken, many expositors explain it, with Grotius: “ satis aliunde habeo, quod feram .” So, in substance, Vatablus, Bengel (“afflicto non est addenda afflictio”), Morus, Winer. But what a feeble reason to assign would this be, either as fretful or as even bespeaking compassion, and wholly repugnant at all events to the proud feeling of being marked as the of Christ! (comp. 2Co 11:23 ff.) And the , so full of self-consciousness in opposition to the false teachers, is inconsistent with this view. No; Paul means (“veluti trophaea quaedam ostentans,” Erasmus, Paraphr .) to say: for I am one who, by being marked as the servant of Christ, is in possession of a dignity , which may justly exempt him from any repetition of molestations (such as had vexed him on the part of the Galatian churches).

On , comp. Chrysostom: , , .

[272] In the East; but among the Romans only in the case of slaves who were suspected or had run away (as a sign of the latter offence, they were by way of punishment branded with or F.U.G.).

[273] Not of soldiers , as Grotius (comp. Calvin), and Potter, Arch . II. p. 7, think; for this must have been suggested by the context. Wetstein understands sacras notas (Herod. ii. 113: ), so that Paul represents Christ “ ut Deum , quem vocat.” But these sacrae notae are only found among particular nations, such as the Persians and Assyrians (Plut. Lucull . p. 507 E; Lucian, de Dea Syra , 59; comp. also what is related in Herod. ii. 113 about a temple of Hercules in Egypt, and in the Asiatic Researches , vii. p. 281 f., about the Indians); hence so foreign a custom would not be likely to suggest itself to the apostle, nor could it be understood by his readers without some more special indication.

[274] Not as Luther, 1519 and 1524, following Augustine, thought: the taming of the flesh and the fruits of the Spirit; against which the is itself decisive. In the Commentary of 1538, he understands “ plagas corpori suo impressas et passiones, deinde ignita tela diaboli, tristitiam et pavores animi ,” which thus throws together very different elements outward and inward.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

17 From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.

Ver. 17. From henceforth let no man ] Here he takes upon him as an apostle, and speaks with authority, .

I bear in my body the marks ] As scars of honour. Paul had been whipped, stocked, stoned, &c. The marks of these he could better boast of than those false apostles of their circumcision. And hereby it appeared that he refused not, as they did, to suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. In the year 1166, the Synod held at Oxford in the reign of Henry II banished out of England 30 Dutch doctors (which taught the right use of marriage, and of the sacraments), after they had first stigmatized or branded them with hot irons. (Alsted Chron.) John Clerk of Melden, in France, being for Christ’s sake whipped three different days, and afterwards having a mark set in his forehead, as a note of infamy, his mother beholding it (though his father was an adversary) encouraged her son, crying with a loud voice, Vivat Christus eiusque insignia, ” Blessed be Christ, and welcome be these prints and marks of Christ.” The next year after, sc. A. D. 1524, he brake the images without the city, which his superstitious countrymen were to worship the next day. For the which he was apprehended, and had his right hand cut off, his nose pulled off with pincers, both his arms and both his breasts torn with the same instrument; and after all he was burned at a stake. In his greatest torments he pronounced that of the Psalmist, “Their idols are silver and gold, the works of men’s hands,” &c. (Scultet. Annul.) I conclude this discourse with that saying of Pericles, “It is not gold, precious stones, statues, that adorns a soldier, but a torn buckler, a cracked helmet, a blunt sword, a scarred face.” Of these Biron, the French marshal, boasted at his death. And Sceva is renowned for this, that at the siege of Dyrrachium, he so long alone resisted Pompey’s army, that he had 220 darts sticking in his shield, and lost one of his eyes, and yet gave not over till Caesar came to his rescue. a Mr Prinne’s Stigmata Laudis are better known than that they need here to be related.

a Densamque ferens in pectore silvam. Lucan.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

17 .] , as E. V., henceforth : scil., . So Herod. iii. 15, : see numerous other examples in Wetstein. “ continuum et perpetuum tempus significat, ut apud Xen. Cyr. viii. 5. 24; autem repetitionem ejusdem facti reliquo tempore indicat, ut apud Aristoph. in Pace, v. 1684 (1050 Bekk.).” Hermann ad Viger., p. 706. But the above example from Herod. hardly seems to bear this out. Rather is a thing happening in time regarded as belonging to the period including it, and the genitive is one of possession. Against this Ellic., viewing the gen. as simply partitive, refers to Donalds. Gram. 451: who however defines his meaning by saying “partitive, or, what is the same thing, possessive.” This indeed must be the clear and only account of a partitive genitive.

. . ] How? Thdrt. (hardly Chrys.), al., understand it of the trouble of writing more epistles , , , . . But it seems much more natural to take it of giving him trouble by rebellious conduct and denying his apostolic authority, seeing that it was stamped with so powerful a seal as he proceeds to state.

] for it is I (not the Judaizing teachers) who carry (perhaps as in Gal 6:5 , and ch. Gal 5:10 , bear, as a burden: but Chrys.’s idea seems more adapted to the ‘ feierlich ’ character of the sentence: , , , , : see reff. (2)) in (on) my body the marks of Jesus .

, the marks branded on slaves to indicate their owners. So Herod. vii. 233, , , : and in another place (ii. 113) is a passage singularly in point: , , . See many more examples in Wetst. These marks, in St. Paul’s case, were of course the scars of his wounds received in the service of his Master cf. 2Co 11:23 ff.

is the genitive of possession, answering to the possessive in the extract above. There is no allusion whatever to any similarity between himself and our Lord, ‘the marks which Jesus bore;’ such an allusion would be quite irrelevant: and with its irrelevancy falls a whole fabric of Romanist superstition which has been raised on this verse, and which the fair and learned Windischmann, giving as he does the honest interpretation here, yet attempts to defend in a supplemental note.

Neither can we naturally suppose any comparison intended between these his as Christ’s servant, and circumcision : for he is not now on that subject, but on his authority as sealed by Christ : and such a comparison is alien from the majesty of the sentence.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Gal 6:17 . In deprecating any renewal of the present agitation Paul treats with contempt the prospect of serious danger from it. It had disturbed his peace and the peace of the Church, and must be got rid of, but he describes it as a wearisome annoyance rather than a real peril. . These were indelible marks branded on the flesh. They might be self-inflicted: instances are recorded of soldiers branding themselves with the name of their general in token of their absolute devotion to his cause. But they were as a rule inflicted for a badge of lifelong service; the figure in the text is borrowed from the latter, which were either penal or sacred . The penal were stamped on malefactors, runaway slaves, sometimes on captives; but it is clear from the context that the author has in mind the mentioned by Herodotus in ii., 113, with which the Galatians also were familiar in Phrygian temples. A class of slaves ( ) attached for life to the service of a temple were branded with the name of the deity. Paul likens himself to these in respect of his lifelong dedication to the name of Jesus, and of the marks imprinted on his body, by which he was sealed for a servant of Jesus in perpetuity. These were doubtless the scars left by Jewish scourging, by the stones of Lystra and the Roman rods at Philippi, all tokens of faithful service to his Master in which he gloried.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Galatians

THE OWNER’S BRAND

Gal 6:17 .

The reference in these words is probably to the cruel custom of branding slaves as we do cattle, with initials or signs, to show their ownership. It is true that in old times criminals, and certain classes of Temple servants, and sometimes soldiers, were also so marked, but it is most in accordance with the Apostle’s way of thinking that he here has reference to the first class, and would represent himself as the slave of Jesus Christ, designated as His by the scars and weaknesses which were the consequences of his apostolic zeal. Imprisonment, beating by the Jewish rod, shipwrecks, fastings, weariness, perils, persecutions, all these he sums up in another place as being the tokens by which he was approved as an apostle of Jesus Christ. And here he, no doubt, has the same thought in his mind, that his bodily weakness, which was the direct issue of his apostolic work, showed that he was Christ’s. The painful infirmity under which, as we learn, he was more especially suffering, about the time of writing this letter, may also have been in his mind.

All through this Epistle he has been thundering and lightning against the disputers of this apostolic authority. And now at last he softens, and as it were, bares his thin arm, his scarred bosom, and bids these contumacious Galatians look upon them, and learn that he has a right to speak as the representative and messenger of the Lord Jesus.

So we have here two or three points, I think, worth considering. First, think for a moment of the slave of Christ; then of the brands which mark the ownership; then of the glory in the servitude and the sign; and then of the immunity from human disturbances which that service gives. ‘From henceforth let no man trouble me. I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.’

I. First, then, a word or two about that conception of the slave of Christ.

It is a pity that our Bible has not rendered the title which Paul ever gives himself at the beginning of his letters, by that simple word ‘slave,’ instead of the feebler one, ‘servant.’ For what he means when he calls himself the ‘servant of Jesus Christ’ is not that he bore to Christ the kind of relation which servants among us bear to those who have hired and paid them, and to whom they have come under obligations of their own will which they can terminate at any moment by their own caprice; but that he was in the roughest and simplest sense of the word, Christ’s slave.

What lies in that metaphor? Well, it is the most uncompromising assertion of the most absolute authority on the one hand, and claim of unconditional submission and subjection on the other.

The slave belonged to his master; the master could do exactly as he liked with him. If he killed him nobody had anything to say. He could set him to any task; he could do what he liked with any little possession or property that the slave seemed to have. He could break all his relationships, and separate him from wife and kindred.

All that is atrocious and blasphemous when it is applied to the relations between man and man, but it is a blessed and magnificent truth when it is applied to the relations between a man and Christ. For this Lord has absolute authority over us, and He can do what He likes with everything that belongs to us; and we, and our duties, and our circumstances, and our relationships, are all in His hands, and the one thing that we have to render to Him is utter, absolute, unquestioning, unhesitating, unintermittent and unreserved obedience and submission. That which is abject degradation when it is rendered to a man, that which is blasphemous presumption when it is required by a man, that which is impossible, in its deepest reality, as between man and man, is possible, is blessed, is joyful and strong when it is required by, and rendered to, Jesus Christ. We are His slaves if we have any living relationship to Him at all. Where, then, in the Christian life, is there a place for self-will; where a place for self-indulgence; where for murmuring or reluctance; where for the assertion of any rights of my own as against that Master? We owe absolute obedience and submission to Jesus Christ.

And what does the metaphor carry as to the basis on which this authority rests? How did men acquire slaves? Chiefly by purchase. The abominations of the slave market are a blessed metaphor for the deep realities of the Christian life. Christ has bought you for His own. The only thing that gives a human soul the right to have any true authority over another human soul is that it shall have yielded itself to the soul whom it would control. We must first of all give ourselves away before we have the right to possess, and the measure in which we give ourselves to another is the measure in which we possess another. And so Christ our Lord, according to the deep words of one of Paul’s letters, ‘gives Himself for us, that He might purchase unto Himself a people for His possession.’ ‘Ye are not your own; ye are bought with a price.’

Therefore the absolute authority, and unconditional surrender and submission which are the very essence of the Christian life, at bottom are but the corresponding and twofold effects of one thing, and that is love. For there is no possession of man by man except that which is based on love. And there is no submission of man to man worth calling so except that which is also based therein.

‘Thou hearts alone wouldst move; Thou only hearts dost love.’

The relation in both its parts, on the side of the Master and on the side of the captive bondsman, is the direct result and manifestation of that love which knits them together.

Therefore the Christian slavery, with its abject submission, with its utter surrender and suppression of mine own will, with its complete yielding up of self to the control of Jesus, who died for me; because it is based upon His surrender of Himself to me, and in its inmost essence it is the operation of love, is therefore co-existent with the noblest freedom.

This great Epistle to the Galatians is the trumpet call and clarion proclamation of Christian liberty. The breath of freedom blows inspiringly through it all. The very spirit of the letter is gathered up in one of its verses, ‘I have been called unto liberty,’ and in its great exhortation, ‘Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free.’ It is then sufficiently remarkable and profoundly significant that in this very letter, which thus is the protest of the free Christian consciousness against all limitations and outward restrictions, there should be this most emphatic declaration that the liberty of the Christian is slavery and the slavery of the Christian is freedom. He is free whose will coincides with his outward law. He is free who delights to do what he must do. He is free whose rule is love, and whose Master is Incarnate Love. ‘If the Son make you free, ye shall be free indeed.’ ‘O Lord, truly I am Thy servant, Thou hast loosed my bands.’ ‘I bear in my body’ the charter of my liberty, for I bear in my body the ‘brand of the Lord Jesus.’

II. And so now a word in the next place about these marks of ownership.

As I have said, the Apostle evidently means thereby distinctly the bodily weaknesses, and possibly diseases, which were the direct consequences of his own apostolic faithfulness and zeal. He considered that he proved himself to be a minister of God by his stripes, imprisonments, fastings, by all the pains and sufferings and their permanent consequences in an enfeebled constitution, which he bore because he had preached the Cross of Christ. He knew that these things were the result of his faithful ministry. He believed that they had been sent by no blundering, blind fate; by no mere secondary causes; but by his Master Himself, whose hand had held the iron that branded into the hissing flesh the marks of His ownership. He felt that by means of these he had been drawn nearer to his Master, and the ownership had been made more perfect. And so in a rapture of contempt of pain, this heroic soul looks upon even bodily weakness and suffering as being the signs that he belonged to Christ, and the means of that possession being made more perfect.

Now, what is all that to us Christian people who have no persecutions to endure, and none of whom I am afraid have ever worked hard enough for Christ to have damaged our health by it? Is there anything in this text that may be of general application to us all? Yes! I think so. Every Christian man or woman ought to bear, in his or her body, in a plain, literal sense, the tokens that he or she belongs to Jesus Christ. You ask me how? ‘If thy foot or thine hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee.’

There are things in your physical nature that you have to suppress; that you have always to regulate and coerce; that you have sometimes entirely to cast away and to do without, if you mean to be Jesus Christ’s at all. The old law of self-denial, of subduing the animal nature, its passions, appetites, desires, is as true and as needful to-day as it ever was; and for us all it is essential to the loftiness and purity of our Christian life that our animal nature and our fleshly constitution should be well kept down under heel and subdued. As Paul himself said in another place, ‘I bring under my body, and I keep it in subjection, lest by any means I should myself, having proclaimed to others the laws of the contest, be rejected from the prize.’ Oh, you Christian men and women! if you are not living a life of self-denial, if you are not crucifying the flesh, with its affections and lusts, if you are not bearing ‘about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Christ may be manifested in your mortal body,’ what tokens are there that you are Christ’s slaves at all?

Then, besides this, we may expand the thought even further, and say that, in a very real sense, all the pains and sorrows and disappointments and afflictions that mainly touch our mortal part should be taken by us as, and made by us to be, the tokens that we belong to the Master.

But it is not only in limitations and restrictions and self-denials and pains that Christ’s ownership of us ought to be manifested in our daily lives, and so by means of our mortal bodies, but if there be in our hearts a deep indwelling possession of the grace and sweetness of Christ, it will make itself visible, ay! even in our faces, and ‘beauty born of’ our communion with Him ‘shall pass into’ and glorify even rugged and care-lined countenances. There may be, and there ought to be, in all Christian people, manifestly visible the tokens of the indwelling serenity of the indwelling Christ. And it should not be left to some moment of rapture at the end of life, for men to look upon us, to behold our faces, ‘as it had been the face of an angel,’ but by our daily walk, by our countenances full of a removed tranquillity, and a joy that rises from within, men ought to take knowledge of us that we have been with Jesus, and it should be the truth–I bear in my body the tokens of His possession.

III. Now, once more notice the glorying in the slavery and its signs.

‘I bear,’ says Paul; and he uses, as many of you may know, a somewhat remarkable word, which does not express mere bearing in the sense of toleration and patient endurance, although that is much; nor mere bearing in the sense of carrying, but implies bearing with a certain triumph as men would do who, coming back victorious from conflict, and being received into the city, were proud to show their scars, the honourable signs of their courage and constancy. So, with a triumph that is legitimate, the Apostle solemnly and proudly bears before men the marks of the Lord Jesus. Just as he says in another place:–’Thanks be unto God, which always leadeth us about in triumph in Jesus Christ,’ He was proud of being dragged at the conqueror’s chariot wheels, chained to them by the cords of love; and so he was proud of being the slave of Christ.

It is a degradation to a man to yield abject submission, unconditional service to another man. It is the highest honour of our natures so to bow before that dear Lord. To prostrate ourselves to Him is to lift ourselves high in the scale of being. The King’s servant is every other person’s master. And he that feels that he is Christ’s, may well be, not proud but conscious, of the dignity of belonging to such a Lord. The monarch’s livery is a sign of honour. In our old Saxon kingdom the king’s menials were the first nobles. So it is with us. The aristocracy of humanity are the slaves of Jesus Christ.

And let us be proud of the marks of the branding iron, whether they come in the shape of sorrows and pains, or otherwise. It is well that we should have to carry these. It is blessed, and a special mark of the Master’s favour that He should think it worth His while to mark us as His own, by any sorrow or by any pain. Howsoever hot may be the iron, and howsoever deeply it may be pressed by His firm, steady, gentle hand upon the quivering flesh and the shrinking heart, let us be thankful if He, even by it, impresses on us the manifest tokens of ownership. Oh, brethren! if we could come to look upon sorrows and losses with this clear recognition of their source, meaning and purpose, they change their nature, the paradox is fulfilled that we do ‘gather grapes of thorns and figs of thistles.’ ‘I bear in my body,’ with a solemn triumph and patient hope, ‘the marks of the Lord Jesus.’

IV. And now, lastly, the immunity from any disturbance which men can bring, which these marks, and the servitude they express, secure.

‘From henceforth let no man trouble me.’ Paul claims that his apostolic authority, having been established by the fact of his sufferings for Christ, should give him a sacredness in their eyes; that henceforth there should be no rebellion against his teaching and his word. We may expand the thought to apply more to ourselves, and say that, in the measure in which we belong to Christ, and hear the marks of His possession of us, in that measure are we free from the disturbance of earthly influences and of human voices; and from all the other sources of care and trouble, of perturbation and annoyance, which harass and vex other men’s spirits. ‘Ye are bought with a price,’ says Paul elsewhere. ‘Be not the servants of men.’ Christ is your Master; do not let men trouble you. Take your orders from Him; let men rave as they like. Be content to be approved by Him; let men think of you as they please. The Master’s smile is life, the Master’s frown is death to the slave; what matters it what other people may say? ‘He that judgeth me is the Lord.’ So keep yourselves above the cackle of ‘public opinion’; do not let your creed be crammed down your throats even by a consensus of however venerable and grave human teachers. Take your directions from your Master, and pay no heed to other voices if they would command. Live to please Him, and do not care what other people think. You are Christ’s servant; ‘let no man trouble’ you.

And so it should be about all the distractions and petty annoyances that disturb human life and harass our hearts. A very little breath of wind will ruffle all the surface of a shallow pond, though it would sweep across the deep sea and produce no effect. Deepen your natures by close union with Christ, and absolute submission to Him, and there will be a great calm in them, and cares and sorrows, and all the external sources of anxiety, far away, down there beneath your feet, will ‘show scarce so gross as beetles,’ whilst you stand upon the high cliff and look down upon them all. ‘From henceforth no man shall trouble me.’ ‘I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.’

My brother! Whose marks do you bear? There are only two masters. If an eye that could see things as they are, were to go through this congregation, whose initials would it discern in your faces? There are some of us, I have no doubt, who in a very horrid sense bear in our bodies the marks of the idol that we worship. Men who have ruined their health by dissipation and animal sensualism–are there any of them here this morning? Are there none of us whose faces, whose trembling hands, whose diseased frames, are the tokens that they belong to the flesh and the world and the devil? Whose do you bear?

Oh! when one looks at all the faces that pass one upon the street–this all drawn with avarice and earthly-mindedness; that all bloated with self-indulgence and loose living–when one sees the mean faces, the passionate faces, the cruel faces, the vindictive faces, the lustful faces, the worldly faces, one sees how many of us bear in our bodies the marks of another lord. They have no rest day nor night who worship the beast; and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.

I pray you, yield yourselves to your true Lord, so on earth you may bear the beginnings of the likeness that stamps you His, and hereafter, as one of His happy slaves, shall do priestly service at His throne and see His face, and His name shall be in your foreheads.

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Gal 6:17

17From now on let no one cause trouble for me, for I bear on my body the brand-marks of Jesus.

Gal 6:17 “From now on let no one cause trouble for me” The verb is a present active imperative. To whom this is addressed or why is not known. Paul appealed to his service for Christ as the reason that this should not happen again. It possibly refers to the personal attacks that the false teachers used to alienate the Galatian believers from the gospel. The Galatian believers allowed this to happen!

“for I bear on my body the brand-marks of Jesus” As the false teachers were emphasizing circumcision as a mark of God’s covenant, Paul asserted that he also had an outward sign. They were the scars

1. of his physical persecution for preaching the good news of Christ (i.e., 2Co 4:7-12; 2Co 6:4-6; 2Co 11:23-28)

2. from his Damascus road encounter with the risen Christ

3. as a sign Paul was a slave/servant of Christ and under His protection

I think #1 fits the context best.

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

no man = no one. Greek. medeis.

marks. Greek. stigma. Only here. Slaves were branded. So Paul, as the slave of the Lord, bore His marks. The initials of Mithra were branded, as Hindus mark themselves with the trident of Vishnu today. Compare Note on 2Ch 36:8.

Lord. The texts omit.

Jesus. App-98.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

17.] , as E. V., henceforth: scil., . So Herod. iii. 15, :-see numerous other examples in Wetstein. continuum et perpetuum tempus significat,-ut apud Xen. Cyr. viii. 5. 24; autem repetitionem ejusdem facti reliquo tempore indicat, ut apud Aristoph. in Pace, v. 1684 (1050 Bekk.). Hermann ad Viger., p. 706. But the above example from Herod. hardly seems to bear this out. Rather is a thing happening in time regarded as belonging to the period including it, and the genitive is one of possession. Against this Ellic., viewing the gen. as simply partitive, refers to Donalds. Gram. 451: who however defines his meaning by saying partitive, or, what is the same thing, possessive. This indeed must be the clear and only account of a partitive genitive.

. .] How? Thdrt. (hardly Chrys.), al., understand it of the trouble of writing more epistles-, , , . . But it seems much more natural to take it of giving him trouble by rebellious conduct and denying his apostolic authority, seeing that it was stamped with so powerful a seal as he proceeds to state.

] for it is I (not the Judaizing teachers) who carry (perhaps as in Gal 6:5, and ch. Gal 5:10,-bear, as a burden: but Chrys.s idea seems more adapted to the feierlich character of the sentence: , , , , : see reff. (2)) in (on) my body the marks of Jesus.

,-the marks branded on slaves to indicate their owners. So Herod. vii. 233, , , : and in another place (ii. 113) is a passage singularly in point: , , . See many more examples in Wetst. These marks, in St. Pauls case, were of course the scars of his wounds received in the service of his Master-cf. 2Co 11:23 ff.

is the genitive of possession,-answering to the possessive in the extract above. There is no allusion whatever to any similarity between himself and our Lord, the marks which Jesus bore; such an allusion would be quite irrelevant: and with its irrelevancy falls a whole fabric of Romanist superstition which has been raised on this verse, and which the fair and learned Windischmann, giving as he does the honest interpretation here, yet attempts to defend in a supplemental note.

Neither can we naturally suppose any comparison intended between these his as Christs servant, and circumcision: for he is not now on that subject, but on his authority as sealed by Christ: and such a comparison is alien from the majesty of the sentence.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Gal 6:17. , from henceforth) The mode of breaking off the discourse.-, labours [trouble]) Polemic theology, seriously discussed, is a laborious task to godly men; Gal 6:11, note; and Gal 4:20. See the second Antisturmius of L. Osiander, p. 87, 107: , labour and anxiety of mind, Mat 26:10 [Why trouble ( ) ye the woman?].- , let no man cause me) Herein there is , severity, by virtue of his authority as an apostle.- , for I) Affliction should not be added to the afflicted.- , the marks) from the lash, Act 16:23. These marks of stripes rendered Paul infamous in the eyes of the world, but in reality conferred on him great dignity, for by these he was known to be a servant of Christ. Marks in the body are opposed to the mark of circumcision, the body of Paul [himself] to the flesh of others, Gal 6:13 [the false teachers glorying in the flesh of their followers when circumcised].- , of the Lord) Col 1:24, of the afflictions of Christ.-, I bear) so that I consider it an honour to me, Gal 6:14. Therefore they will be disagreeable to me, who please themselves in any other way.[68]

[68] Who seek occasion for glorying in anything but the Cross of Christ.-ED.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Gal 6:17

Henceforth let no man trouble me;-The Judaizers had troubled him by calling in question his apostolic authority, and by perverting his teaching. He had vindicated these, and set forth the true teaching of God. [He was often oppressed by the care of all the churches, and especially when any of them were rent by factions, or were in danger of being led away from the truth by false teachers. Such conditions imposed heavy burdens upon him, filled his spirit with anxiety, and would have been insuperable but for the strength which Christ imparted to him. (Php 4:13).]

for I bear branded on my body the marks of Jesus.-Marks made upon his body when he was scourged, stoned, and drawn out of the city for dead. (Act 14:19). Of himself he says: Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself) I more; in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in details oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my countrymen, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. (2Co 11:23-27). No doubt he had marks and brands upon him made because of his fidelity to Christ.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

The Marks of Jesus

From henceforth let no man trouble me; for I bear branded on my body the marks of Jesus.Gal 6:17.

The Apostle was growing an old man. He was stamped and marked by life. The wounds of his conflicts, the furrows of his years, were on him. And all these wounds and furrows had come to him since the great change of his life. They were closely bound up with the service of his Master. Every scar must still have quivered with the earnestness of the words of Christian loyalty which brought the blow that made it. See what he calls these scars, then. I bear branded on my body the marks of Jesus. He had a figure in his mind. He was thinking of the way in which a master branded his slaves. Burnt into their very flesh, they carried the initial of their masters name, or some other sign that they belonged to him, that they were not their own. That mark on the slaves body kept any other but his own master from touching him or compelling his labour. It was the sign at once of his servitude to one master and of his freedom from all others. St. Paul says that these marks in his flesh, which signify his servitude to Jesus, are the witnesses of his freedom from every other service. Since he is responsible to his Master, he is responsible to no one else.

The stigmata are the marks of ownership branded on the Apostles body. These stigmata were used: (1) In the case of domestic slaves. With these, however, branding was not usual, at least among the Greeks and Romans, except to mark out such as had attempted to escape or had otherwise misconducted themselves, hence called stigmatized (literati), and such brands were held to be a badge of disgrace. (2) Slaves attached to some temple or persons devoted to the service of some deity were so branded. (3) Captives were so treated in very rare cases. (4) Soldiers sometimes branded the name of their commander on some part of their body. The metaphor here is most appropriate, if referred to the second of these classes. Such a practice at all events cannot have been unknown in a country which was the home of the worship of Cybele. A temple slave is mentioned in a Galatian inscription. The brands of which the Apostle speaks were doubtless the permanent marks which he bore of persecution undergone in the service of Christ.1 [Note: J. B. Lightfoot, St. Pauls Epistle to the Galatians, 225.]

In the Roman Empire when a slave ran away, if he was caught, his owner might have him stripped, the irons heated, and the letters FVG. (fugitivus) branded upon him. Perhaps the owners initials might be burnt on the slave, too. The practice long survived in France, where convicts were branded V (voleur), or TF (travail forc), and people took their children to see it done as a lesson in virtue. The historian, Herodotus, tells us that in Egypt, if a slave were dissatisfied with his master, he might go to the temple of Herakles and take on him the stigmata of the god, and be free for ever of his master and belong to the god. Such marks were indelible.2 [Note: T. R. Glover, Vocation, 36.]

The branding was a mark of shame. No man was branded of his own free willapart from slaves taking on them such a brand as that of Herakles, which was to exchange one servitude for another. To be the slave of Jesus Christ had not been Pauls intention. The shame of bearing Christs nameof being made as the filth of the world, the off-scouring of all things (1Co 4:13)the loss of home and family and friendships, of everything (Php 3:8)the squalid life of privation, insult, persecution and dangerhumiliation from beginning to endno man would have chosen it, and Paul did not choose it. It was a vocation: Necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel! For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will, I am entrusted with a stewardship (1Co 9:16-17). A steward was very often a slave, if not always. Paul is at the beck and call of another whom he never chose to make his Master. He must have no will of his own. Go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do (Act 9:6),so far was he from choosing a vocation, he has to wait for his orders.

The two responsibilities go togetherthe servant is responsible to the Master, and the Master to the servant. The very stigmata themselves become so many promises. The body is marked all over with signs of the Masters use, as a favourite book, which a man reads often, shows most signs of wearpencilled in here and there, crushed, worn and shabby, and in all these things identified with the reader who cannot do without it. The battered body and the tried and weary spirit are reminders themselves to Paul that Christ liveth in me.1 [Note: T. R. Glover, Vocation, 37.]

Outward Marks

Every Christian man or woman ought to bear in his or her body, in a plain, literal sense, the tokens that he or she belongs to Jesus Christ. You ask how? If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee. There are things in our physical nature that we have to suppress; that we have always to regulate and coerce; that we have sometimes entirely to cast away and do without, if we mean to be Jesus Christs at all. The old law of self-denial, of subduing the animal nature, its passions, appetites, desires, is as true and as needful to-day as it ever was; and for us all it is essential to the loftiness and purity of our Christian life that our animal nature and our fleshly constitution should be well kept down under heel and subdued. If we are not living a life of self-denial, if we are not crucifying the flesh with its affections and lusts, if we are not bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Christ may be manifested in our body, what tokens are there that we are Christs slaves at all?

The marks of Christ are brands burnt into the very body, so no outward thing will satisfy; nothing that your hands have done, nothing that the world can measure, for it is beneath all the dress and apparel of a so-called religious life, of which the world takes cognizance. They are part and parcel of yourself, so they can be nothing which can be taken up and laid down at will. They are inseparable, like flesh of your flesh and bone of your bone. You may be stripped of all else, like a body washed ashore, but by these shall it be known whether you are Christs or no.2 [Note: Canon Furse.]

At the Cross, Bunyan tells us, Christian received four gifts from the angelspeace, new raiment, a mark, and a sealed roll. The mark, like the raiment, has to do with the outward appearance, but it is more intimately connected with the individuality of the man than the new garments. It seems to stand for something distinguishable by others, which is in a stricter sense ourselves than even our character isa subtle change wrought upon the very personality by the Cross of Christ, as the marks of the Cross were printed upon St. Francis of Assisi in the familiar incident of the stigmata. In the Bible there are such references as the mark of Cain; the mark of Ezekiels man with the slaughter-weapon; the mark of the beast and the mark in the foreheads of the chosen ones, recorded in Revelation. All these illustrate in various ways the subtle change in men, recognizable by others, produced by supreme experiences of good and evil.1 [Note: John Kelman, The Road, i. 72.]

1. Here is a man whose restless spirit, whose keen hungry eye, whose hard face, whose metallic voice, tells the story of a sordid soul. Do we need to ask anything about his master? We know, as we listen to him, as we look into his face, that he has a craving for money; that his life is spent in following the god of gold, and worshipping in the temple of mammon. Mammon is his master, and he bears branded upon his body the stigmata of the master he serves. Here is one whose bloated face, feverish lips, and furtive glance tell of sensuality. The vice seems to have petrified on the countenance. Not a finger-touch of God seems to be left there. We know the name of the master that man serves. He bears branded upon his sensual face the marks of the master whose slave he is. The name of his master is lust. Here is another whose mien betokens a lofty indifference and a contemptuous disregard for others, and an unquestioning appropriation of the best of everything. Those haughty looks tell the story of a life completely dominated by pride. Here is another whose face is scarred and marred with anguish. It says, as you look at it, I am a man who has seen affliction. The furrowed face, wrinkled brow, and sunken cheeks tell of a life that has been trodden by the hoof of sorrow. We know that the man has spent long years in the school of sorrow; he bears on his body the stigmata of pain.

We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar. The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jeffersons play, excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, I wont count this time! Well! he may not count it, and a kind Heaven may not count it; but it is being counted none the less. Down among his nerve cells and fibres the molecules are counting it, registering it, and storing it up to be used against him when the next temptation comes. Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out. Of course, this has its good side as well as its bad one. As we become permanent drunkards by so many separate drinks, so we become saints in the moral, and authorities and experts in the practical and scientific, spheres by so many separate acts and hours of work.1 [Note: W. James, Principles of Psychology, i. 127.]

In one of Tolstoys books he represents an ideal Czar who keeps open house and table for all comers. But the guests had to face one conditioneach man had to show his hands before sitting down to the feast. Those whose hands were rough and hard with honest toil were welcomed to the best of the board, but those whose hands were soft and white had only the crusts and crumbs. The hands were the index of the soul. The hard rough hands told the story of toil, sacrifice, and suffering, and it was for these the best of the feast was spread.2 [Note: J. G. Mantle, Gods To-morrow, 38.]

2. The face of a Christian disciple should testify to the grace of God within. It is a matter of constant observation that strong ruling emotions of heart do come, in time, to stamp themselves upon the countenance. Sometimes we see a face that speaks of beaming kindliness, or of sweet, devout, and holy peace. What God wants is that His character should be so stamped upon the lives of all His children that every observer of their daily walk should recognize in them what is really Divine.

After the death of the saintly McCheyne, a letter addressed to him was found in his locked desk, a letter he had shown to no one while he lived. It was from one who wrote to tell him that he had been the means of leading him to Christ, and in it were these words, It was nothing that you said that first made me wish to be a Christian, it was the beauty of holiness which I saw in your very face.3 [Note: G. H. Knight, Divine Upliftings, 159.]

Spiritual Marks

1. While it is true that the primary reference of the text is to the scars of old and recent wounds which St. Paul had endured in the service of Christ, these were not the only marks of Jesus that he bore. After all, the true marks of Jesus are not outward but inward, not physical but spiritual. It was the Apostle Paul himself who said, If any man hath not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And in St. Pauls own case, the wounds he bore, while in some respects the most striking, were not the deepest and most convincing marks of Jesus. The final and absolutely decisive proof that St. Paul belonged to Christ was that he had the spirit of Christ and that Christ lived over again in him.

The brand of Christ may be upon the mind and heart as truly as upon the body: on the mind, in the effort we make to subdue our natural arrogance and pride into humbleness and faith; on the heart, in the loving pity we have for the misfortunes of others. Are our minds no longer conformed to the spirit of the world, but transformed to the image of the Son; so that the mind that was in Christ is the mind that is in us? Are our hearts thus quick to suffer in the suffering of others, as His was, who by force of sympathy bore our grief and carried our sorrows? Therein only can we rest, thus only be at peace about ourselves; and as we pass through the detractions and misunderstandings of this world, and as we journey down the long road whose goal is death, we can learn to say, Let no man trouble melet me not even be troubled for myselfI have the marks of Christ, I know whom I have believed, and who shall separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, my Lord? To have the marks, the brands, the stigmata, the open proofs of self-surrender and self-sacrificethat alone counts.

There is a tendency, even in these days, to think Christs marks are external and mechanical. We think sometimes that the mark of a Christian is that he observes the Sabbath and attends church services and belongs to some ecclesiastical organization. I do not disparage the Sabbath and church attendance and membership. But these external things are not the real marks of Jesus. Did not Jesus Himself say that a man may have all manner of Church guarantees and certificates and be none of His? Did He not say, Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out devils, and by thy name do many mighty works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. No, it is not the crucifix on the watch-chain, or the S.A. on the collar, or the name on the church roll that constitutes the marks of Jesus. The marks are inward and spiritual. They are certain features of character, and especially these three, obedience, love, sacrifice. Indeed, our Lord Himself emphasized and underlined these three things as being, above all others, the marks of His servants. First, obedience. Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother. Secondly, love. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. And thirdly, sacrifice. If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. Have we got these marks? Is our life characterized by an utter obedience to God, a great passion for souls, a remorseless sacrifice of self? We ask sometimes, Hath He marks to lead me to Him, if He be my guide? And we answer, Yes, He has certain infallible marks: In His feet and hands are wound-prints, and His side. But there is another question: Have we the marks that single us out as His? Does the world recognize Christs marks on us? Life always leaves its mark. The life of greed leaves its mark. The life of frivolous self-pleasing leaves its mark. The life of sin leaves its mark. And the life of Christian service leaves its mark. They took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus. The world, in their courage and devotion and self-sacrifice, saw the marks of Jesus. But more important still, does Jesus see the marks? The Lord knoweth them that are his. How? By the marks. We read how, in the last great day, there will be a division and a discrimination. The great Shepherd will then gather and fold His sheep. And that is how He will know themby the marks. Shall we then be amongst the sheep on the right hand? It all comes back to this: Do we bear branded upon us the marks of Jesusthe infallible signs and tokens of His service? Do we possess that spirit of obedience to God, and love to men, and utter self-sacrifice which a real surrender of ourselves to Jesus Christ always produces? For if any man hath not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his.1 [Note: J. D. Jones, The Gospel of Grace, 249.]

As in the Christ, though men beheld no beauty

Only the marks of suffering and care,

God, from the first, beheld His own bright image

Rejoicing in the revelation fair.

So, where His children, looking on each other,

See forms and faces marred by pain and woe,

God, looking on the depths and not the surface,

Sees oftentimes His likeness formed below.2 [Note: Edith H. Divall, A Believers Rest, 35.]

2. The stigmata, the marks of Christ their Master, cannot be mistaken. His followers have His marks on their body, as signs that they are members of His Body, in all purity and chastity and holiness, as being temples of the Holy Ghost. But they also have His marks on their temper, as those who have taken up their cross and borne it after Him in self-denial and mortification, in patience, in forgiveness, in humility, in cheerfulness; His marks on their soul, as being set free from condemnation by the atoning mercy of the Saviour, as being made partakers of the precious fruits of His sacrifice upon the Crossthe mark of justification, and the mark of sanctification, the imputed righteousness of Christ, the imparted and inherent righteousness wrought in them by the Holy Ghost; His marks on their spirit; being full of all spiritual affectionslove, joy, peace, patience amid the trials of earth, longing for the security of Heaven, the present enjoyment of an almost perfect rest in the arms of God; in short, a life hid with Christ in God.

I would not miss one sigh or tear,

Heart-pang, or throbbing brow;

Sweet was the chastisement severe,

And sweet its memory now.

Yes! let the fragrant scars abide,

Love-tokens in Thy stead,

Faint shadows of the spear-pierced side

And thorn-encompassd head.

And such Thy tender force be still,

When self would swerve or stray,

Shaping to truth the froward will

Along Thy narrow way.

Deny me wealth; far, far remove

The lure of power or name;

Hope thrives in straits, in weakness love,

And faith in this worlds shame.1 [Note: J. H. Newman, Verses on Various Occasions.]

III

Stigmata of the Saints

1. The Apostle, it may be added, may have used the word stigmata with special reference to those marks in the body of his blessed Lord which were in the eyes of faith the symbol of salvation, and which love imagined to be reproduced in the disciple; those marks on which Thomas looked, and cried aloud, My Lord, and my God. For in the heat of his love of Christ, and in the certainty of his oneness with Him, what image was more natural than that of his own heart bearing the traces of the wounds of Christ? Such a thought must have passed into the minds of many saints of God; and where legendary fancy has expressed it outwardly, in the figures of holy men receiving actually in their bodies the print of their Saviours wounds, can we not read in the painters art the spiritual truth, I bear branded on my body the marks of Jesus?

St. Francis of Assisi in the year 1224 a.d. received in a trance the wound-prints of the Saviour on his body; and from that time to his death, it is reported, the saint had the physical appearance of one who had suffered crucifixion. Other instances, to the number of eighty, have been recorded in the Roman Catholic Church of the reproduction, in more or less complete form, of the five wounds of Jesus and the agonies of the cross; chiefly in the case of nuns. The last was that of Louise Lateau, who died in Belgium in the year 1883. That such phenomena have occurred there is no sufficient reason to doubt. It is difficult to assign any limits to the power of the human mind over the body in the way of sympathetic imitation. Since St. Francis day many Romanist divines have read the Apostles language in this sense; but the interpretation has followed rather than given rise to this fulfilment. In whatever light these manifestations may be regarded, they are a striking witness to the power of the cross over human nature. Protracted meditation on the sufferings of our Lord, aided by a lively imagination and a susceptible physique, has actually produced a rehearsal of the bodily pangs and the wound-marks of Calvary.1 [Note: G. G. Findlay, The Epistle to the Galatians, 457.]

The name of a well-known scientific man having been mentioned, who, forbidden to work, occupies himself in closely watching his own case, Sir James Paget said, It is a most dangerous thing to do that; people, by dwelling upon symptoms which they have not got, are very apt to produce them. I said: I have been told that the stigmata might quite well be produced in that way. Undoubtedly, he replied.2 [Note: M. E. Grant-Duff, Notes from a Diary, 189295, 44.]

2. There is something far better for us to do than so to contemplate the sufferings of our Lord as depicted by human art, that the stigmata may literally appear on our hands and feet. It is so to contemplate our Lord in the whole spirit of His life and service and sacrifice, and so to come under His influence, that the spirit of His life and cross shall enter into us, and we shall go away from the secret place of contemplation to reproduce His image and likeness in conduct and characterthat we, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, may be changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

In all art and literature, in every great and new creation, the impulse seems to lie in a new and vivid experience which makes a new knowledge. The man who was branded FVG., like the woman in Hawthornes novel who wore the scarlet letter or the man who did not, knew something of those letters of the alphabet in quite a different way from all the rest. A burning experience and a burning memory indelible from flesh and spirit gave him those. It is somehow so that the poet learns his peculiar alphabetsomething is burnt in upon him, perhaps in pain, perhaps in joy, for the joy of insight may go with pain and overwhelm itand you get a new man, a God-intoxicated man, like Spinoza, perhapsor a Jacob Behmen. All knowledge is changed for him; he knew before;no, he thought he did; but he knows nownot so many things, but the one thing in a new way that alters all. If any man be in Christ, said Paul, it is a new creation. All things are made newthey have new values in the new light, and none is ever again what it was before; it cannot be. Life has a new intensity, a new direction a new purpose. It becomes a vocation.1 [Note: T. R. Glover, Vocation, 45.]

I saw in Siena pictures,

Wandering wearily;

I sought not the names of the masters,

Nor the works men care to see;

But once in a low-ceiled passage

I came on a place of gloom,

Lit here and there with halos

Like saints within the room.

The pure, serene, mild colours

The early artists used

Had made my heart grow softer,

And still on peace I mused.

Sudden I saw the Sufferer,

And my frame was clenched with pain;

Perchance no throe so noble

Visits my soul again.

Mine were the stripes of the scourging;

On my thorn-pierced brow blood ran;

In my breast the deep compassion

Breaking the heart for man.

I drooped with heavy eyelids,

Till evil should have its will;

On my lips was silence gathered;

My waiting soul stood still.

I gazed, nor knew I was gazing;

I trembled, and woke to know

Him whom they worship in heaven

Still walking on earth below.

Once have I borne His sorrows

Beneath the flail of fate!

Once in the woe of His passion,

I felt the soul grow great!

I turned from my dead Leader;

I passed the silent door;

The grey-walled street received me:

On peace I mused no more.1 [Note: G. E. Woodberry.]

Christs Ownership

The ownership of Christ is one of the great realities of the Christian life. We speak of Christ as our Saviour, our Friend, our Example, our Teacher, but how seldom do we think and speak of Him as our Owner! And yet He is. We belong not to ourselves, but to Him. Our time, our talents, our money, our business, our homeall that we call our own is not so much ours as His. We were bought with a price, and we belong to Him who bought us.

That which is abject degradation when it is rendered to a man, that which is blasphemous presumption when it is required by a man, that which is impossible, in its deepest reality, as between man and man, is possible, is blessed, is joyful and strong when it is required by, and rendered to, Jesus Christ. We are His slaves if we have any living relationship to Him at all. Where, then, in the Christian life, is there a place for self-will; where a place for self-indulgence; where for murmuring or reluctance; where for the assertion of any rights of our own as against that Master? We owe absolute obedience and submission to Jesus Christ. The Christian slavery, with its abject submission, with its utter surrender and suppression of our own will, with its complete yielding up of self to the control of Jesus, who died for us; because it is based upon His surrender of Himself to us, and its inmost essence it is the operation of love, is therefore co-existent with the noblest freedom.

The Hebrews had a scheme of qualified slavery. A man might sell his service for six years, but at the end of that time he was scot-free. On the New Years morning of the seventh year he was granted his full liberty, and given some grain and oil to begin life with anew. But if on that morning he found himself reluctant to leave all his ties binding him to his masters home, this was the custom among them. He would say to his master, I dont want to leave you. This is home to me. I love you and the mistress. I love the place. All my ties and affections are here. I want to stay with you always. His master would say, Do you mean this? Yes, the man would reply, I want to belong to you forever. Then his master would call in the leading men of the village or neighbourhood to witness the occurrence. And he would take his servant out to the door of the home, and standing him up against the door-jamb, would pierce the lobe of his ear through with an awl. Then the man became, not his slave, but his bond-slave, forever. It was a personal surrender of himself to his master; it was voluntary; it was for loves sake; it was for service; it was after a trial; it was for life. Now, that was what Jesus did. The scar-mark of Jesus surrender was not in His ear, as with the old Hebrew slave. It was on His cheek, and brow, on His back, in His side and hands and feet. The scar-marks of His surrender wereareall over His face and form. Everybody who surrenders bears some scar of it because of sin, his own or somebody elses. Referring to the suffering endured in service, Paul tenderly reckons it as a mark of Jesus ownershipI bear the scars, the stigmata, of the Lord Jesus. Even of the Master Himself is this so. And that scarred Jesus, whose body told and tells of His surrender to His Father, comes to us. And with those hands eagerly outstretched, and eyes beaming with the earnestness of His great passion for men, He says, Yoke up with Me. Let Me have the control of all your splendid powers, in carrying out our Fathers will for a world.1 [Note: 1 S. D. Gordon, Quiet Talks on Service, 85.]

Some scars are ornaments. I do not know a more splendid word in all the supremely splendid Epistles of St. Paul than I bear branded on my body the marks of Jesus. Do you see this? he said, I was stoned there; and then he would pull up his sleeve and say, Do you see that?it is the mark of the scourge. If you could only see my back, I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus; he exhibited them as some men parade their degrees. His scars were his crown.2 [Note: J. H. Jowett.]

Walk through Greenwich Hospital, or go down to Chelsea and talk to some of the old pensioners. Are they ashamed of their scars? Why, I remember how, a few months back, we had, at one of our meetings, a brother who had served in the Crimean War, and he showed me how a bayonet had gone in here and come out therehow there was a mark in his arm where a ball had gone right through and a scar in his face where the sword had cut. I think he said that he had about twenty scars on him, and his eyes flashed fire as he told the story.3 [Note: 3 Archibald G. Brown.]

The marks of valour that the soldier obtains on the field of battle are invariably a matter of pride to himself and his friends. Lord Raglans orderly officer, Lieutenant Leslie, was wounded at the battle of Alma. On the evening of that day Lord Raglan said to another officer, Do you know Tom Leslies mother? She is a charming woman. I must write to her. How proud she will be to hear that her son has a bullet in his shoulder! At the battle of Busaco in Portugal, in 1810, Sir Charles Napier, afterwards the conqueror of Scinde, was shot through the face. His two brothers had been wounded a short time before, and when he wrote to his mother he said, You have the pride of saying your three sons have been wounded and are all alive. How this would have repaid my father for all his anxieties, and it must do so for you. Why, a Roman matron would not have let people touch her garment in such a case. There is no shame for such wounds. The scars on my face will be as good as medals; better, for they were not gained by hiding behind a wall.4 [Note: The Morning Watch, 1895, p. 62.]

If Thou, my Christ, to-day

Shouldst speak to me and say,

What battles hast thou fought for Me?

Show Me thy scars; I fain would see

Loves depth of victory;

If Thou shouldst speak, my Christ,

My Leader and my King,

And bid me lay my wounds in sight,

The scars borne just for Thee in fight,

What love-scars could I bring?

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

let: Gal 1:7, Gal 5:12, Jos 7:25, Act 15:24, Heb 12:15

I bear: Gal 5:11, 2Co 1:5, 2Co 4:10, 2Co 11:23-25, Col 1:24

Reciprocal: Mat 26:10 – Why Luk 11:7 – Trouble Gal 5:10 – but

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

SHOWING THE MARKS

The marks of the Lord Jesus.

Gal 6:17

In the literal sense these were marks of bodily suffering, and St. Paul gloried in them. I bear, I wear these marks as badgesa slave branded with the Masters mark. Some may now bear the marks literally, sick, worn, saddened, constitution undermined, vital powers exhausted, worn out in Masters service. But there is something better, higher, more blessed than this. The spiritual marksthe Christ-like face, aspect, and body. What are the spiritual marks of the Lord Jesus?

I. Prayer.The root and ground of alllikeness to Christ, must be won upon our knees. Oh! to be like Jesus in prayer.

II. Meekness.A grace despised by the world, honoured of heaven. He was as a sheep before her shearers is dumb. How soon we are offended and lose our temper at provocations. Where are the marks?

III. Love.Jesus is love because He is God. His love was patient, pitying, tender, forgiving, generous. All giving, no receiving. It was disappointed love to those who rejected Him and would not receive Him, but still loved on.

IV. Self-sacrifice.He gave Himself. His life and death was one long self-sacrifice. Dare we lay our lives down by His and compare them together? Let us ask ourselves, Where, in all I look upon, are the marks of the Lord Jesus?

Bishop Walsham How.

Illustration

However dim might be the firelight of their turf cabins, the Apostle was determined they should be able to read at any rate the postscript of the Epistle. It should not be the fault of his handwriting if they did not. His amanuensis had written so far in small, cursive hand, but at the eleventh verse of this sixth chapter St. Paul takes up the reed pen and begins, Ye see with what large letters I have written unto you with mine own handas much as to say, whatever else of the letter escapes your eyes, at least you shall see what I think of the insincerity of these Judaising Christians. At least they shall hear that I at any rate have my mind made up on the question in dispute between us, and am careless of what all the world may say against me. Henceforth let none trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. What a triumph there is about these words, and how the echo of that brave saying from the first chapter of this same Epistle, For if I yet pleased men I should not be the servant of Christ, sounds in this final declaration of the Apostles truest liberty! Henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Master Whose I am, Whom I serve, the brand of the Lord Jesus.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

Gal 6:17. , -Henceforth let no one cause troubles to me. The phrase occurs only here, and is simply the genitive of time, and not the same as or , which also occurs. It means at any time in the future- signifying simply during the future. Hermann, ad Viger. p. 706. Let no one cause me troubles or annoyance, doubting his apostolical authority, neutralizing his preaching or misrepresenting its import, and obliging him to write again in so large characters with his own hand. His apostolical authority he had asserted in full, striking, and unqualified terms in the first chapter; and he has it at this point also especially in view, as he adds-

-for I bear in my body the marks of Jesus. The Received Text inserts before on authority which, though good, is not, owing to other variations, free from suspicion. emphatic, it is I who, not , but , not I have, but I carry them (Chrysostom). The are the brands printed upon slaves-and sometimes on captives and soldiers-burnt into them, to indicate their owners. Herod. 7.233; Rev 7:3; Rev 13:16; Rev 14:1; Rev 14:9; Rev 14:11; Vegetius, De Re Militari, 2.5; Spencer, De Leg. Heb 20:1; Deyling, Observat. Sacr. vol. iii. p. 423; Wetstein in loc. Slaves attached to temples were tattooed, bore brands upon them. Herod. 2.113; Lucian, De Dea Syr. 59. This practice in the worship of Cybele might be common in Galatia, though there is little probability that the apostle is referring to it. The genitive is that of possession, not that of author (Gomar, Rckert). He bore on his body the brands of Christ his Master. Indelible marks on his person showed that he belonged to Jesus as His servant. The meaning is not, such marks as Jesus Himself bore (Morus, Borger). Webster and Wilkinson admit the possibility of an allusion to Joh 20:25. But such an idea is foreign to the simple statement. The marks of the crucifixion are said to have been borne by St. Francis; and his biographer Bonaventura addresses him in words similar to those of this verse. The wounds are said to have been reproduced in other persons. Windischmann renders the words correctly, and says that the stigmatization of St. Francis has no connection with the real meaning of this clause, though he proceeds to defend the possibility and value of such a phenomenon. Bisping rejects also the idea that the apostle’s stigmata were in any way connected with the five wounds, especially as tradition is silent about it. The reader may see a long Catholic note on St. Francis in the commentary of a-Lapide, and as long a Protestant note in that of Crocius. Nor is the meaning, marks borne on account of Christ (Grotius, Flatt, Rosenmller). The marks are . His body bore such marks of suffering that no one could mistake his owner. 2Co 11:23. Any allusion to circumcision as one kind of is not to be thought of. The warning, then, is not, Let no man henceforward trouble me, for I have enough to bear already-the view of Bengel and Winer; but, let no man impugn or doubt my authority,-the of Jesus which I carry are the seal of my apostleship, the visible vouchers of my connection with Jesus. The Judaists insisted on circumcision that they might avoid persecution, but he had suffered many things: the stoning must have disfigured him, the scourge must have left its weals on his back-cicatrices plagarum (Ambros.),-and the fetter its scars on his limbs. The idea of Chrysostom, that he prided himself in those marks as a trophy and regal ensign, is not suggested by the solemn mandate of the previous clause. Nor can the notion of Chandler be at all accepted, that the words conveyed a threatening of spiritual punishment to his enemies, as though he had said, Be it at their peril to give me any further trouble or disturbance on this account.

Then comes the parting benediction-

Fuente: Commentary on the Greek Text of Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and Phillipians

Gal 6:17. Paul’s apostolic authority had been questioned by some of the Judaizers. They made great claim on the ground of the fleshly mark of circumcision. In that respect they had no advantage over the apostle since he was circumcised also, but he had that mark as a Jew and a lineal descendant of Abraham. However, he was not claiming any special connection with Christ on that account, for the time had come when being in Him did not depend upon whether a man was circumcised or not. (See verse 15.) But Paul had other marks in the flesh that were significant, and that proved his close relationship as a servant (slave) of Christ. Marks is from STIGMA, and Thayer defines it, “a mark pricked in or branded upon the body.” He then gives the following historical information: “According to ancient oriental [eastern] usage, slaves and soldiers bore the name or stamp of their master or commander branded or pricked (cut) into their bodies to indicate what master or general they belonged to . . . hence the marks of (the Lord) Jesus, which Paul in Gal 6:17 says he bears branded on his body, are the traces left there by the perils, hardships, imprisonments, scourgings, endured by him for the cause of Christ, and which mark him as Christ’s faithful and approved votary [one devoted], servant, soldier.” If a man was suspected of being a run-away slave, or for any other reason his identity should be questioned, the matter could be settled by unclothing him and looking for the brands. Paul is making the point that it is unnecessary for any man to trouble about examining him; he freely adimts that he is a servant of Christ, and that the brands could be seen on his body. As in many illustrations, there are some points that are exceptions. In the case of temporal slaves, the brands were stamped on their bodies by their masters, while Paul’s marks were inflicted by the enemies of his Master. Also, Paul was not a run-away slave but was happy to admit his relationship of service to Jesus Christ.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Gal 6:17. From henceforth let no man trouble me. Directed against the Judaizing troublers.

For I bear in my body the marks of Jesus. Marks (stigmata) were usually letters burnt upon the arm or forehead of slaves, soldiers, criminals, also devotees of a divinity, to indicate the master, the captain, the crime, the divinity. (Comp. Rev 7:3; Rev 13:16). Paul means the wounds and scars of persecution and suffering which he endured in the service of his Master, and which proved him to be a faithful bondman of Christ. (Comp. 2Co 11:23-25.) They were his credentials and his trophies. Of Jesus, as the owner, the master (the genitive of possession). Much Romish superstition has been built upon the term stigmata, as signifying the prints of Christs wounds, as in the case of St. Francis of Assist.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

The apostle having thus fully declared the mind of God in the matter controverted betwixt himself and the false apostles, touching the necessity of circumcision; he now makes use of his apostolic authority, and charges his adversaries to give him no farther trouble or disturbance, either by gainsaying his doctrine, or detracting from his authority; because he bare in his body the marks of his sufferings for Christ Jesus; namely, the stripes and wounds which he patiently received for the name of Christ, and his holy religion, 2Co 11:23.

Learn hence, That whatever hard measure we meet with for the sake of Christ, what wounds and marks we receive for professing faith in him, and persevering in obedience to him, he will own them for his own, and give us leave to look upon them as our own; yea, to call them his own, as our apostle did here: I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Gal 6:17-18. Henceforth let no man trouble me By calling my commission, my doctrine, or my faithfulness in question; or with contentions against my office, quarrels and disputes on account of my renouncing circumcision and the ceremonies of the Mosaic law; for I bear (and affliction ought not to be added to the afflicted!) in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus That is, of my being his persecuted servant; marks of far more importance, and which I think much more honourable, than circumcision; even the scars which I have received by stripes, blows, bruises, and chains, endured in his service, which ought to endear me to all who have a due regard to him. Because the word denotes marks made by burning, some suppose that the apostle had in his eye those servants in the heathen temples on whose foreheads the name of the god to whom they belonged was in that way imprinted, and under the immediate protection of which god such servants were supposed to be. Hence the worshippers of the beast (Rev 13:16) are represented as having a mark on their right hands, or on their foreheads, whereby they were known to be its worshippers. In like manner the servants of God are said to have his name on their foreheads, Rev 22:4. In allusion to these customs, it is thought that the apostle calls the scars of the wounds which he received in Christs service, the marks of the Lord Jesus. For besides his having been stoned and left for dead in the streets of Lystra, as he was five times scourged by the Jews, and thrice beaten with rods by the Romans, (2Co 11:24-25,) it is probable he had suffered some of these punishments before this epistle was written, and that they had left scars in his body, by which he was distinguished as the servant of the Lord Jesus. Brethren, the grace The unmerited favour, and the enlightening, quickening, sanctifying, and comforting influences of his Spirit; be with your spirit To guide, animate, renew, purify, and comfort you in the ways of truth and peace, of wisdom, piety, and virtue. Thus, although the apostles rebukes in the former part of this epistle were sharp and cutting, and although he seems to have treated the Galatians with some severity; yet having expressed his persuasion, that after reading what he had written they would not think differently from him in the principal articles of the Christian doctrine, (chap. Gal 5:10,) he here shows his love

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Henceforth let no man trouble me; for I bear branded on my body the marks of Jesus. [We have here a figure taken from the life of a slave, who, in that day, was often branded with his master’s name, so as to insure his recovery should he attempt to escape. Now, Paul had been troubled by the Judaizers, who asserted that he was teaching their doctrine, and was as they were (Gal 5:10-11). But this, in Paul’s eyes, was an assertion that he was free from Christ (Gal 5:4). Now, it troubled him to be thus accused of being no longer the servant of Christ, and, to silence such calumny, he appeals to the scars on his body, which showed that he was indeed the branded servant of Christ, and not a time-pleasing, persecution-evading (Gal 6:12) servant of the world.]

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

Gal 6:17. Final personal message. Let no one dare henceforth to trouble Christs slave, branded (by persecutions; cf. 2Co 11:23 ff.) as his masters property.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

Verse 17

The marks; the proofs that I am his. He refers, doubtless, to the marks of bodily injury which he had sustained in the service of Christ.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

SECTION 24. FAREWELL.

CH. 6:17, 18.

Henceforth let no one cause me trouble. For I bear the brandmarks of Jesus in my body. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your Spirit, Brethren, Amen.

Henceforth: the past troubles being more than sufficient. Let no one trouble me: literally, labours let no one afford me, viz. such toil and weariness as that imposed on Paul by his opponents.

The marks: a technical term for tattoo or brand marks, which were frequent with slaves, criminals, soldiers, and even votaries of some particular deity. E.g. Herodotus (bk. vii. 233) says of the Thebans who at Thermopylae turned to the Persians; the more part of them, by Xerxes command, they marked with royal marks. So 3 Macc. ii. 29, marked in the body by fire with the ivy-leaf sign of Dionysus. Such marks were forbidden to Israel: Lev 19:28. Since these marks were evidently a badge of honour, and since there is no reference here to military life, whereas Paul ever rejoices to call himself a servant or slave of Christ and speak of him in Gal 6:14; Gal 6:18 as his Lord, it is easier to understand the word here in this last sense.

In my body; suggests that he refers to the scars received in the many scourgings, imprisonments, and other hardships, (2Co 11:24,) endured in the service of Christ. These scars proclaimed, in contrast to the disturbers whose chief thought was to escape persecution, how faithful that service had been. Therefore, as insignia of his Master, Paul bore them in triumph. And, because of the sufferings of which these marks were witnesses, he claimed immunity from the weariness caused him by the contention of the Judaizers.

The advocates of circumcision point with pride to the circumcised bodies of their converts. Paul points to his own body which bears marks of hardships endured for Christ, these hardships testifying the faithfulness of his service. This was no mere exultation in the flesh: for these scars in the flesh had deep spiritual significance, inasmuch as they reveal the work in Pauls spirit of the Spirit of God. They place Paul and his career in significant contrast to his opponents. Than this silent comparison, no appeal could be more forceful.

Gal 6:18. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: as in ( 1Co 16:23;) 2Co 13:13.

Your spirit: as in Rom 1:9; Rom 8:10; Rom 8:16; 1Co 2:11; 1Co 5:3-5; 1Co 14:14-16; 1Co 14:32; 1Co 16:18, 2Co 2:13; 2Co 7:13. It is perhaps suggested here by the contrast of my body: although in 2Ti 4:22; Phm 1:25 we have similar words without any such contrast. Paul desires that in the noblest element of his readers nature, in that part of them which is nearest to God and most like God and on which the Spirit of God directly operates, the smile of Christ may shine upon them. Parting with them, after a letter of severe condemnation, he calls them brothers. And with a concluding Amen he confirms his parting benediction.

THE DISTURBERS IN GALATIA. The letter before us is evidently an attempt to recall the Galatian Christians from an apostacy already making progress among them and threatening to destroy utterly the Churches of Galatia. Such a letter can be understood only so far as we understand the errors it was designed to correct. We will therefore gather together, before reviewing the Epistle, all indications, which are found chiefly in the Epistle itself, of these errors; and endeavour thus to gain a view of the teaching which Paul here combats.

Beside the errors prevalent in Galatia, we meet in this Epistle with three types of Jewish error, viz. in certain false brethren at Jerusalem, Gal 2:4; in some men who came from Jerusalem to Antioch, Gal 2:11-12; and in the Jews resident at Antioch, Gal 2:13. (1) That the false brethren at Jerusalem are said to have crept secretly into the Church in order to understand the Gospel that thus they might overthrow it, proves that their Christian profession was only a mask, that they were simply traitors in the camp. They were Jews who rejected Christianity and used against it weapons of deceit. Similar men, apparently connected with the Church at Corinth, are described and denounced in 2Co 11:13 ff. (2) That the Jews whose arrival at Antioch (cp. Act 15:1) wrought so marked and evil a change there were guilty of like deception, Paul gives no hint. They may have been men who, after Jewish birth and training, finding the Law insufficient to save them, had accepted Jesus as the promised Messiah, had bowed to Him as their Lord and still clung to Him as their Saviour; but who nevertheless felt themselves bound by their ancient Law and believed that without obedience to its prescriptions they could not enjoy the favour of God or obtain the Eternal Life promised by Christ. Possibly, sincerity of belief and purity of life gave weight to their influence. Of the terrible logical consequence of such belief, their Jewish training and surroundings and their sincerity would easily make them unconscious. They looked up to James as their leader: for his teaching was in less marked opposition to their views than was that of Paul. Similar men we find on a visit to Antioch in Act 15:1; and others at Jerusalem in Act 15:5, these latter being called believers. But their faith was evidently immature. (3) From these we must distinguish the Jews already at Antioch, who yielded, under Peters example, to the influence of the new comers. These last, Paul calls hypocrites. For, living as they did among uncircumcised Gentile Christians, they knew in their hearts that the distinction of meats had passed away; and yet acted as though it were still binding. They did so apparently without any definite aim, influenced merely by the Jewish Christians lately come from Jerusalem who represented, and by their presence brought to bear at Antioch, the weight of the entire Jewish nation.

The foregoing varieties of error had in common the assertion that circumcision and the prescriptions of the Law were still binding on all Christians.

Pauls condemnatory description of these Jewish Christians at Jerusalem and Antioch was evidently designed to be a mirror in which the Christians of Galatia should see reflected the Jewish teachers who were leading them astray. By these teachers they were treated with (Gal 4:17) the greatest attention, were led to observe (Gal 5:10) Jewish festivals, and were strenuously urged (Gal 6:12) to receive circumcision. But in all this the false teachers were simply endeavouring to shield themselves from persecution. That they were in danger of it, proves that they were, in some imperfect and vain sense, believers in Christ. For against mere hypocrites, like those mentioned in Gal 2:4, no persecution would be directed. Or, certainly, they might at once have escaped it by proclaiming themselves enemies of Christ. Their danger suggests that in their heart of hearts they believed that Jesus is the Messiah and were hoping for the blessings He promised to bestow. Their religion seems to have been a compromise between desire for the favour of Christ and a wish to propitiate His enemies. The former they sought by professing themselves Christians: the latter by eager advocacy (Gal 6:12) of Jewish prerogatives. And Paul declares (Gal 5:11) that he might escape persecution in the same way.

That even in heathen countries the hostility of Jews was an element of danger to Christians, is proved by the ill treatment Paul received, at the instigation of Jews, at Antioch in Pisidia, at Iconium, and at Lystra, cities on the borders of Galatia. And the motive mentioned in Gal 6:12 suggests that this hostility arose from jealousy for the peculiar spiritual prerogatives claimed by the Jews on the ground of the Old Covenant and strenuously asserted, of which prerogatives circumcision was a conspicuous badge. These prerogatives, the Gospel as preached by Paul utterly trampled under foot.

This motive also suggests that, like the Jewish Christians residing at Antioch, the disturbers in Galatia did not themselves believe their own teaching that circumcision was needful for salvation. Or possibly the convenience of the compromise gradually perverted their judgment. If so their religious belief, and in any case their action, were controlled by care for their bodily life, i.e. by the flesh. That their zeal for circumcision was not prompted by genuine loyalty to the Law, Paul proves by their converts practical disregard of its requirements, which they evidently tolerated.

Pauls assertion and careful proof of his apostolic authority and of his independence of the earlier apostles can be explained only by supposing that these were denied by the disturbers in Galatia. And this we can easily understand. For the Gospel he preached repudiated utterly the compromise by which they hoped to escape persecution: and his teaching and influence could be withstood only by saying that he had himself perverted the Gospel of Christ. The distance of the other apostles made possible an insinuation that his authority as a Christian teacher was derived from them, and that he had been unfaithful to the charge thus received. The men before us were thus compelled, by the false position they had taken up, to place themselves in opposition to the greatest of the Apostles.

Paul declares in Gal 1:7; Gal 5:10; Gal 5:12 that his opponents were unsettling the Christians in Galatia, and were wishing to overturn the Gospel. They even threaten to destroy (Gal 4:10) the Churches he had planted. For, by asserting the perpetual validity of the Law they proclaimed implicitly a universal curse which shuts out all men from the blessings promised by Christ and renders the death of Christ meaningless and useless. Against such teaching and teachers Paul pronounces a tremendous and repeated Anathema; and almost hopes that they will join the ranks of heathendom. This proves that their conduct was inexcusable and sinful, that their faith in Christ did not influence their inner life, and that their profession of Christianity was an empty name. That Paul, while writing about them, never speaks to them, but only to their victims, proves that in his view their case was utterly hopeless.

All this we can best harmonise by supposing that the disturbers in Galatia had honestly accepted Jesus of Nazareth as the foretold Messiah, had believed His promise of eternal life, and had enrolled themselves among His professed followers. But the words and Spirit of Jesus had not permeated and renovated their heart and thought and life; or had ceased to do so. Consequently, as the first impulse which led them into the Church waned, they yielded to fear of the hostility of their fellow-countrymen. And the Gospel, which would have given them victory over all adverse surroundings had they accepted it without reserve, itself fell, in their conception of it, under the control of the needs of their bodily life and sank into an empty profession powerless to save. Yet the first influence did not altogether leave them. While pursuing eagerly a course subversive of the Church of Christ, they nevertheless called themselves His servants and hoped for a place in His eternal Kingdom. How vain were their hopes, the whole tenor of the Epistle afford tremendous proof. They are to us an abiding monument of the peril of permitting our belief and practice to be moulded by the needs or convenience of our present bodily life; of all compromises between the Spirit and the flesh, between truth and error.

REVIEW OF THE EPISTLE. To a Church in which it had been questioned, Paul begins his letter by asserting his independent apostolic authority; and in the greeting of an Epistle devoted chiefly to the doctrine of justification by faith he weaves the correlative historical fact of Christs resurrection and the doctrine that He gave Himself for the sins of men. The gratitude with which in other Epistles he turns to his readers gives place here to wonder that they are so soon turning away from God, and to a repeated curse on any who lead them astray. And, in view of the secret motive of the false guides, he declares that to make the favour of men our aim is to renounce the service of Christ.

Paul then proves from known facts that the Gospel he preaches is independent of human authority. His previous life attests the divine source of the revelation which has wrought in him so great a change. For three years after his conversion he did not so much as see the other apostles; and then saw only Peter and James, and for a short time. And when, many years later, he went up to Jerusalem and expounded to the apostles his teaching among the Gentiles, they desired no change in it, but recognised at once his independent mission. Indeed, some time afterwards, at Antioch, he publicly reproved Peter for action similar to that of the disturbers in Galatia; and supported his reproof by an appeal to the past inward experience of Peter and of himself and to his own present life in Christ.

Having thus proved by known facts that his teaching is independent of human authority, Paul now comes to defend the teaching itself. That salvation is by faith, he proves from his readers own experience, which he shows to be in harmony with the story of Abraham. The Law cannot save: for it pronounces a universal curse, from which Christ saved us by Himself bearing it. Had God made obedience to law a condition of the fulfilment of His promise to Abraham, He would have invalidated the promise by a subsequent addition to it; which even human morality forbids. Yet the Law must have a worthy purpose. It was designed to force us to Christ for salvation by faith. And this purpose has in us been accomplished. The Law belongs to spiritual childhood, which is a state of bondage. But now the set time has come, and we are free: for in our hearts the Spirit proclaims that we are sons of God. Yet, by seeking salvation in sacred seasons, the Galatian Christians are turning back to the bondage of childhood.

This complete argument is followed by a direct appeal recalling the joyous founding of the Galatian Churches and revealing the unworthy motive of the earnestness of the disturbers. This again is followed by an historical application of the main argument. Since the Law brings bondage, they who look to it for salvation are in the position of the children of Hagar. And the expulsion of Hagar and her son from the family of Abraham proclaims the exclusion of these their modern representatives from the blessings promised to Abrahams seed.

The entire foregoing argument, Paul then brings to bear on the matter of circumcision by asserting that to receive the rite is to accept obligation to keep the whole Law. With such obligation he contrasts his own religious life; and concludes the matter of circumcision by sundry appeals.

The doctrine of justification by faith apart from works renders absolutely needful an exposition of Christian morals: and this exposition Paul throws into a form specially suitable to the case of his readers. To advocates of the abiding validity of the Mosaic Law, who yet needed to be warned against mutual conflict, he points out the sum of that Law, viz. love to our neighbour: and, in the presence of men whose teaching was moulded by care for the flesh, he proclaims the ceaseless antagonism of the flesh and the Spirit. These two great principles of Christian morality he applies to sundry details.

A mark of his earnestness Paul gives by recurring, at the end of the Epistle, in his own hand-writing, to its chief matter; and reveals the real and specific motive of these eager advocates of circumcision. This evokes an exultant boast in that cross of Christ which his opponents practically trampled under foot.

Fuente: Beet’s Commentary on Selected Books of the New Testament

From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.

This seems to be a declaration that he has done his best with them and that he is finished trying to work with the situation – accept my word or reject it but don’t bother me with it anymore. I know some pastors that know just how he felt at this point. They, like Paul had the marks of the Lord in their bodies.

I was asked to a missions conference in California and on the first night I found that the pastor had just resigned from his position. I talked with him about it for awhile and I asked him if he was glad to be leaving or if he had mixed feelings. He smiled and said that he was very glad to be moving on and that the ministry was finished. He explained that he had struggled with the people for years, trying to get them to mature in the Lord, but that little had been accomplished over the years.

He went on to tell me of some of the trouble he had with his deacons. Some had just been hateful to him, I won’t go into detail, but hateful seems a very impotent word. One of them could deserve the terms very nasty.

You can do so much with a people before you have done all that you can – then it is time to move on to other possibilities.

Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson

6:17 {11} From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the {o} marks of the {p} Lord Jesus.

(11) Continuing still in the same metaphor, he opposes his miseries and the marks of those stripes which he bore for Christ’s sake, against the scar of the outward circumcision, as a true mark of his apostleship.

(o) Marks which are burnt into a man’s flesh, as they used to do in ancient times, to mark their servants that had run away from them.

(p) For it very important whose marks we bear: for the cause makes the martyr, and not the punishment.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

In closing, Paul appealed to his readers to end the controversy in Galatia that had caused him so much trouble and distraction as Christ’s bond-slave. He cited the scars he had received as the target of persecution, in contrast to circumcision, as his final proof of his devotion to Christ (cf. Deu 15:17). He may have received some of these scars when the people of Lystra stoned him during his preaching tour of Galatia (Act 14:19-20; cf. 2Co 11:25). Paul was not a "people pleaser."

"If a thing costs us nothing men will value it at nothing." [Note: Barclay, p. 11.]

"These genuine and honorable marks in the body contrast strikingly with the ritualistic and now meaningless mark (circumcision) the legalizers wished to impose on the Galatians." [Note: Boice, p. 508.]

". . . Paul’s readers immediately would have identified the branding of the flesh with slavery, for slaves in the ancient world frequently were marked with the insignia of their master as a badge of identification." [Note: George, p. 442.]

Paul finally appealed for God’s grace to be the portion of the Galatians (cf. Gal 1:3). "Your spirit" means "you." As in no other of his epistles, he bid farewell by referring to his readers tenderly as "brethren."

Whereas this epistle began very solemnly and harshly (Gal 1:6-9), Paul’s tone mellowed as he proceeded (e.g., Gal 4:19). It ends on an uncommonly loving note (cf. Phm 1:25; Php 4:23).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Chapter 30

THE BRAND OF JESUS.

Gal 6:17-18

THE Apostles pen lingers over the last words of this Epistle. His historical self-defence, his theological argument, his practical admonitions, with the blended strain of expostulation and entreaty that runs through the whole-now rising into an awful severity, now sinking into mother-like tenderness have reached their conclusion. The stream of deep and fervent thought pouring itself out in these pages has spent its force. This prince of the Apostles in word and doctrine has left the Church no more powerful or characteristic utterance of his mind. And Paul has marked the special urgency of his purpose by his closing message contained in the last six verses, an Epistle within the Epistle, penned in large, bold strokes from his own hand, in which his very soul transcribes itself before our eyes.

It only remains for him to append his signature. We should expect him to do this in some striking and special way. His first sentence {Gal 1:1-10} revealed the profound excitement of spirit under which he is labouring; not otherwise does he conclude. Gal 6:17 sharply contrasts with the words of peace that hushed our thoughts at the close of the last paragraph. Perhaps the peace he wishes these troubled Churches reminds him of his own troubles. Or is it that in breathing his devout wishes for “the Israel of God,” he cannot but think of those who were “of Israel,” but no sons of peace, in whose hearts were hatred and mischief toward himself? Some such thought stirs anew the grief with which he has been shaken; and a pathetic cry breaks from him like the sough of the departing tempest.

Yet the words have the sound of triumph more than of sorrow. Paul stands a conscious victor, though wounded and with scars upon him that he will carry to his grave. Whether this letter will serve its immediate purpose, whether the defection, in Galatia will be stayed by it, or not, the cause of the cross is sure of its triumph; his contention against its enemies has not been in vain. The force of inspiration that uplifted him in writing the Epistle, the sense of insight and authority that pervades it, are themselves an earnest of victory. The vindication of his authority in Corinth, which, as we read the order of events, had very recently occurred, gave token that his hold on the obedience of Gentile Churches was not likely to be destroyed, and that in the conflict with legalism the gospel of liberty was certain to prevail. His courage rises with the danger. He writes as though he could already say, “I have fought the good fight. Thanks be to God, which always leadeth us in triumph”. {2Ti 4:7; 2Co 2:14}

The warning of Gal 6:17 has the ring of Apostolic dignity. “From henceforth let no man give me trouble!” Paul speaks of himself as a sacred person. Gods mark is upon him. Let men beware how they meddle with him. “He that toucheth you,” the Lord said to His people after the sorrows of the Exile, “toucheth the apple of Mine eye”. {Zec 2:8} The Apostle seems to have had a similar feeling respecting himself. He announces that whosoever from this time lays an injurious hand upon him does so at his peril. Henceforth- for the struggle with Legalism was the crisis of Pauls ministry. It called forth all his powers, natural and supernatural, into exercise. It led him to his largest thoughts respecting God and man, sin and salvation; and brought him his heaviest sorrows.

The conclusion of this letter signalises the culmination of the Judaistic controversy, and the full establishment of Pauls influence and doctrinal authority. The attempt of Judaism to strangle the infant Church is foiled. In return it has received at Pauls hands its death-blow. The position won in this Epistle will never be lost; the doctrine of the cross, as the Apostle taught it, cannot be overthrown. Looking back from this point to “prove his own work,” he can in all humility claim this “glorying in regard to himself” (Gal 6:4). He stands attested in the light of Gods approval as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. He has done the cause of truth an imperishable service. He takes his place henceforth in the front rank amongst the spiritual leaders of mankind. Who now will bring reproach against him, or do dishonour to the cross which he bears? Against that man Gods displeasure will go forth. Some such thoughts were surely present to the Apostles mind in writing these final words. They cannot but occur to us in reading them. Well done, we say, thou faithful servant of the Lord! Ill must it be for him who henceforth shall trouble thee.

“Troubles” indeed, and to spare, Paul had encountered. He has just passed through the darkest experience of his life. The language of the Second Epistle to Corinth is a striking commentary upon this verse. “We are pressed on every side,” he writes, “perplexed, pursued, smitten down.” {2Co 4:8-9} His troubles came not only from his exhausting labours and hazardous journeys; he was everywhere pursued by the fierce and deadly hatred of his fellow country-men. Even within the Church there were men who made it their business to harass him and destroy his work. No place was safe for him-not even the bosom of the Church. On land or water, in the throngs of the city or the solitudes of the desert, his life was in hourly jeopardy. {1Co 15:30; 2Co 11:26}

Beside all this, “the care of the Churches” weighed on his mind heavily. There was “no rest” either for his flesh or spirit. {2Co 2:13; 2Co 7:5} Recently Corinth, then Galatia, was in a ferment of agitation. His doctrine was attacked, his authority undermined by the Judaic emissaries, now in this quarter, now in that. The tumult at Ephesus, so graphically described by Luke, happening at the same time as the broils in the Corinthian Church and working on a frame already overstrung, had thrown him into a prostration of body and mind so great that he says, “We despaired even of life. We. had the answer of death in ourselves”. {2Co 1:8-9} The expectation that he would die before the Lords return had now, for the first time, it appears, definitely forced itself on the Apostle, and cast over him a new shadow, causing deep ponderings and searchings of heart. {2Co 5:1-10} The culmination of the legalistic conflict was attended with an inner crisis that left its ineffaceable impression on the Apostles soul.

But he has risen from his sick bed. He has been “comforted by the coming of Titus” with better news from Corinth. {2Co 7:6-16} He has written these two letters-the Second to the Corinthians, and this to the Galatians. And he feels that the worst is past. “He who delivered him out of so great a death, will yet deliver”. {2Co 1:10} So confident is he in the authority which Christ gave and enabled him to exercise in utter weakness, so signally is he now stamped as Gods Apostle by his sufferings and achievements, that he can dare any one from this time forth to oppose him. The anathema of this Epistle might well make his opponents tremble. Its remorseless logic left their sophistries no place of refuge. Its passionate entreaties broke down suspicion and sullenness. Let the Circumcisionists beware how they slander him. Let fickle Galatians cease to trouble him with their quarrels and caprices. So well assured is he for his part of the rectitude of his course and of the Divine approval and protection, that he feels bound to warn them that it will be the worse for those who at such a time lay upon him fresh and needless burdens.

One catches in this sentence too an undertone of entreaty, a confession of weariness. Paul is tired of strife. “Woe is me,” he might say, “that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell among the tents of Kedar! My soul hath long had her dwelling with him that hateth peace.” “Enmities, ragings, factions, divisions”-with what a painful emphasis he dwells in the last chapter on these many forms of discord. He has known them all. For months he has been battling, with the hydra-headed brood. He longs for an interval of rest. He seems to say, “I pray you let me be at peace. Do not vex me any more with your quarrels. I have suffered enough.” The present tense of the Greek imperative verb () brings it to bear on the course of things then going on: as much as to say, “Let these weapons be dropped, these wars and fightings cease.” For his own sake the Apostle begs the Galatians to desist from the follies that, caused him so much trouble, and to suffer him to share with them Gods benediction of peace.

But what an argument is this with which Paul enforces his plea, -“for I bear the brand of Jesus in my body!”

“The stigmata of Jesus”-what does he mean? It is “in my body”-some marks branded or punctured on the Apostles person, distinguishing him from other men, conspicuous and humiliating, inflicted on him as Christs servant, and which so much resembled the inflictions laid on the Redeemers body that they are called “the marks of Jesus.” No one can say precisely what “these brands consisted in. But we know enough of the previous sufferings of the Apostle to be satisfied that he carried on his person many painful marks of violence and injury. His perils endured by land and sea, his imprisonments, his “labour and travail, hunger and thirst, cold and nakedness,” his three shipwrecks, the “night and day spent in the deep,” were sufficient to break down the strength of the stoutest frame; they had given him the look of a worn and haggard man. Add to these the stoning at Lystra, when he was dragged out for dead. “Thrice” also had he “been beaten with the Roman rods; “five times” with the thirty-nine stripes of the Jewish scourge. {2Co 11:23-27}

Is it to these last afflictions, cruel and shameful as they were in the extreme, that the Apostle specially refers as constituting “the brand of Jesus”? For Jesus was scourged. The allusion of 1Pe 2:24 -“by whose stripes (literally, bruise or weal) ye were healed” shows how vividly this circumstance was remembered, and how strongly it affected Christian minds. With this indignity upon Him-His body lashed with the torturing whip, scored with livid bruises-our Blessed Lord was exposed on the cross. So He was branded as a malefactor, even before His crucifixion. And the same brand Paul had received, not once, but many times, for his Masters sake. As the strokes of the scourge fell on the Apostles shuddering flesh, he had been consoled by thinking how near he was brought to his Saviours passion: “The servant,” He had said, “shall be as his Lord.” Possibly some recent infliction of the kind, more savage than the rest, had helped to bring on the malady which proved so nearly-fatal to him. In some way he had been marked with fresh and manifest tokens of bodily suffering in the cause of Christ. About this time he writes of himself as “always bearing about in his body the dying of the Lord Jesus”; {2Co 4:10} for the corpse-like state of the Apostle, with the signs of maltreatment visible in his frame, pathetically imaged the suffering Redeemer whom he preached. Could the Galatians have seen him as he wrote, in physical distress, labouring under the burden of renewed and aggravated troubles, their hearts must have been touched with pity. It would have grieved them to think that they had increased his afflictions, and were “persecuting him whom the Lord had smitten.”

His scars were badges of dishonour to worldly eyes. But to Paul himself these tokens were very precious. “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you,” he writes from his Roman prison at a later time: “and am filling up what is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh”. {Col 1:24} The Lord had not suffered everything Himself. He honoured His servants by leaving behind a measure of His afflictions for each to endure in the Churchs behalf. The Apostle was companion of his Masters disgrace. In him the words of Jesus were signally fulfilled: “They have hated Me; they will also hate you.” He was following, closely as he might, in the way that led to Calvary. All men may know that Paul is Christs servant; for he wears His livery, the worlds contempt. Of Jesus they said, “Away with Him, crucify Him”; and of Paul, “Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live”. {Act 22:22} “Enough for the disciple to be as his Master”: what could he wish more?

His condition inspired reverence in all who loved and honoured Jesus Christ. Pauls Christian brethren were moved by feelings of the tenderest respect at the sight of his wasted and crippled, form. “His bodily presence is weak: {2Co 10:10} he looks like a corpse!” said his despisers. But under that physical feebleness there lay an immense fund of moral vigour. How should he not be weak, after so many years of wearying toil and relentless persecution and torturing pain? Out of this very weakness came a new and unmatched strength; he “glories in his infirmities,” for there rests upon him the strength of Christ. {2Co 12:9}

Under the expression “stigmata of Jesus” there is couched a reference to the practice of marking criminals and runaway slaves with a brand burnt into the flesh, which is perpetuated in our English use of the Greek words stigma and stigmatise. A man so marked was called stigmatias, i.e., a branded scoundrel; and such the Apostle felt himself to be in the eyes of men of the world. Captain Lysias of Jerusalem took him for an Egyptian leader of banditti: Honourable men, when they knew him better, learned to respect him; but such was the reputation that his battered appearance, and the report of his enemies, at first sight gained for him.

The term stigmata had also another and different signification. It applied to a well-known custom of religious devotees to puncture, or tattoo, upon themselves the name of their God, or other sign expressive of their devotion. {Isa 44:5; Rev 3:12} This signification may be very naturally combined with the former in the employment of the figure. Pauls stigmata, resembling those of Jesus and being of the same order, were signs at once of reproach and of consecration. The prints of the worlds insolence were witnesses of his devotion to Christ. He loves to call himself “the slave of Christ Jesus.” The scourge has written on his back his Masters name. Those dumb wounds proclaim him the bondman of the Crucified. At the lowest point of personal and official humiliation, when affronts were heaped upon him, he felt that he was raised in the might of the Spirit to the loftiest dignity, even as “Christ was crucified through weakness, yet liveth through the power of God”. {2Co 13:4}

The words I bear- not united, as in our own idiom, but standing the pronoun at the head and the verb at the foot of the sentence-have each of them a special emphasis. I-in contrast with his opponents, manpleasers, shunning Christs reproach; and bear he says exultantly-“this is my burden, these are the marks I carry,” like the standard-bearer of an army who proudly wears his scars (Chrysostom). In the profound and sacred joy which the Apostles tribulations brought him, we cannot but feel even at this distance that we possess a share. They belong to that richest treasure of the past, the sum of

“Sorrow which is not sorrow, but delight To hear of, for the glory that redounds There from to human kind and what we are.”

The stigmatisation of Paul, his puncturing with the wounds of Jesus, has been revived in later times in a manner far remote from anything that he imagined or would have desired. Francis of Assisi in the year 1224 A.D. received in a trance the wound-prints of the Saviour on his body; and from that time to his death, it is reported, the saint had the physical appearance of one who had suffered crucifixion. Other instances, to the number of eighty, have been recorded in the Roman Catholic Church of the reproduction, in more or less complete form, of the five wounds of Jesus and the agonies of the cross; chiefly in the case of nuns. The last was that of Louise Lateau, who died in Belgium in the year 1883. That such phenomena have occurred, there is no sufficient reason to doubt. It is difficult to assign any limits to the power of the human mind over the body in the way of sympathetic imitation. Since St. Francis day many Romanist divines have read the Apostles language in this sense; but the interpretation has followed rather than given rise to this fulfilment. In whatever light these manifestations may be regarded, they are a striking witness to the power of the cross over human nature. Protracted meditation on the sufferings of our Lord, aided by a lively imagination and a susceptible physique, has actually produced a rehearsal of the bodily pangs and the wound-marks of Calvary.

This mode of knowing Christs sufferings “after the flesh,” morbid and monstrous as we deem it to be, is the result of an aspiration which, however misdirected by Catholic asceticism, is yet the highest that belongs to the Christian life. Surely we also desire, with Paul, to be “made conformable to the death of Christ.” On our hearts His wounds must be impressed. Along the pathway of our life His cross has to be borne. To all His disciples, with the sons of Zebedee, He says, “Ye shall indeed drink of My cup; and with the baptism that I am baptised withal shall ye be baptised.” But “it is the Spirit that quickeneth,” said Jesus; “the flesh profiteth nothing.” The pains endured by the body for His sake are only of value when, as in Pauls case, they are the result and the witness of an inward communion of the Spirit, a union of the will and the intelligence with Christ.

The cup that He would have us drink with Him is one of sorrow for the sins of men. His baptism is that of pity for the misery of our fellows, of yearning over souls that perish. It will not come upon us without costing many a pang. If we receive it there will be ease to surrender, gain and credit to renounce, self to be constantly sacrificed. We need not go out of our way to find our cross; we have only not to be blind to it, not to evade it when Christ sets it before us. It may be part of the cross that it comes in a common, unheroic form; the service required is obscure; it consists of a multitude of little, vexing, drudging sacrifices in place of the grand and impressive sacrifice, which we should be proud to make. To be martyred by inches, out of sight-this to many is the cruellest martyrdom of all. But it may be Christs way, the fittest, the only perfect way for us, of putting His brand upon us and conforming us to His death.

Yes, conformity of spirit to the cross is the mark of Jesus. “If we suffer with Him”-so the Apostolic Churches used to sing-“we shall also be glorified together.” In our recoil from the artificial penances and mortifications of former ages, we are disposed in these days to banish the idea of mortification altogether from our Christian life. Do we not study our personal comfort: in an un-Christlike fashion? Are there not many in these days, bearing the name of Christ, who without shame and without reproof lay out their plans for Winning the utmost of selfish prosperity, and put Christian objects in the second. place? How vain for them to cry “Lord! Lord!” to the Christ who “pleased not Himself!” They profess at the Lords Table to “show His death”; but to show that death in their lives, to “know” with Paul “the fellowship of His sufferings,” is the last thing that enters into their minds. How the scars of the brave Apostle put to shame the self-indulgence, the heartless luxury, the easy friendship with the world, of fashionable Christians! “Be ye followers of me,” he cries, “as I also of Christ.” He who shuns that path cannot, Jesus said, be My disciple.

So the blessed Apostle has put his mark to this Epistle. To the Colossians from his prison he writes, “Remember my bonds.” And to the Galatians, “Look on my wounds.” These are his credentials; these are the armorial bearings of the Apostle Paul. He places the seal of Jesus, the sign-manual of the wounded hand upon the letter written in His name.

THE BENEDICTION.

ONE benediction the Apostle has already uttered in Gal 6:16. But that was a general wish, embracing all who should walk according to the spiritual rule of Christs kingdom. On his readers specifically he still has his blessing to pronounce. He does it in language differing in this instance very little from that he is accustomed to employ.

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ” is the distinctive blessing of the New Covenant. It is to the Christian the supreme good of life, including or carrying with it every other spiritual gift. Grace is Christs property. It descended with the Incarnate Saviour into the world, coming down from God out of heaven. His life displayed it; His death bestowed it on mankind. Raised to His heavenly throne, He has become on the Fathers behalf the dispenser of its fulness to all who will receive it. There exalted, thence bestowing on men “the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness,” He is known and worshipped as our Lord Jesus Christ.

What this grace of God in Christ designs, what it accomplishes in believing hearts, what are the things that contradict it and make it void, this Epistle has largely taught us. Of its pure, life-giving stream the Galatians already had richly tasted. From “Christs grace” they were now tempted to “remove”. {Gal 1:6} But the Apostle hopes and prays that it may abide with them.

“With your spirit,” he says; for this is the place of its visitation, the throne of its power. The spirit of man, breathed upon by the Holy Spirit of God, receives Christs grace and becomes the subject and the witness of its regenerating virtue. This benediction contains therefore in brief all that is set forth in the familiar threefold formula – “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost.”

After all his fears for his wayward flock, all his chidings and reproofs, forgiveness and confidence are the last thoughts in Pauls heart: “Brethren” is the last word that drops from the Apostles pen, – followed only by the confirmation of his devout Amen.

To his readers also the writer of this book takes leave to address the Apostle Pauls fraternal benediction: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brethren. Amen.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary

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