Epistle to the Galatians

“ Although the Galatians had fallen away from the doctrine of Paul, baptism, the Gospel, and the name of Christ continued among them. Not all the Galatians had become perverted. There were some who clung to the right view of the Word and the Sacraments. These means cannot be contaminated. They remain divine regardless of men's opinion. Wherever the means of grace are found, there is the Holy Church, even though Antichrist reigns there. So much for the title of the epistle. ”

“ The long addition to the greeting in Galatians is absolutely unique. It is a summary of the second and central main division of the epistle, Paul's defense of his gospel. "Christ has died to free you. The Judaizers in bringing you into bondage are making of none effect the grace of Christ, manifested on the cross." That is the very core of the letter. In all of the Pauline epistles there is scarcely a passage more characteristic of the man than the first five verses of Galatians. ”

“ Lightfoot first wrote, that the Epistle was addressed to the people in the southern part of the Roman province called Galatia, who were not Galatians at all; and was not addressed to those in the northern part, who were Galatians proper, and occupied the whole of the country named from them Galatia. But I use the illustration, notwithstanding this. The controversy is not quite ended yet; and I do not feel sure that the difficulties of the Epistle itself, from Professor Ramsay’s point of view, are very much less considerable than those which Dr. Lightfoot’s view undoubtedly has to face. ”

“ The degree of elementary Greek culture needful for the understanding of Galatians cannot be shown to have been foreign to the inhabitants of north Galatia. So far as any trustworthy evidence is available, such Hellenic notions as are presupposed in this epistle might well have been intelligible to the Galatians of the northern provinces. Still less does the acquaintance with Roman jurisprudence in iii. 15–iv. 2 imply, as Halmel contends (Über röm. Recht im Galaterbrief, 1895) , not merely that Paul must have acquired such knowledge in Italy but that he wrote the epistle there. ”

“ Galatia, a high-lying Roman province in Asia Minor that had been invaded and taken possession of by a horde of Gauls in the 3rd century B.C., whence the name.
Galatians, Epistle to the, an epistle of St. Paul to the churches in Galatia, which was an especial favourite with Luther, as, with its doctrine of spiritual freedom in Christ, it might well be, for it corroborated the great revelation first made to him by a neighbour monk; "man is not saved by singing masses, but by the grace of God" ”

“ I. "The works of the flesh are these—fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness." A dark beginning! Sins of impurity find a place in every picture of Gentile morals given by the Apostle. In whatever direction he writes—to Romans or Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, or Thessalonians—it is always necessary to warn against these evils. They are equally "manifest" in heathen literature. The extent to which they stain the pages of the Greek and Roman classics sets a heavy discount against their value as instruments of Christian education. ”

“ We learn, too, from the book of the Acts, that the early Christians were known as "the heresy of the Nazarenes." [200:4] But very soon the word began to be employed to denote something which the gospel could not sanction; and accordingly, in the Epistle to the Galatians, heresies are enumerated among the works of the flesh. [200:5] It is not difficult to explain why Christian writers at an early date were led to attach such a meaning to a term which had hitherto been understood to imply nothing reprehensible. ”

“ To us after these eighteen centuries, as to the Galatian believers, "there is one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through Him." ”

“ On this point, however, we dwell no longer, since it is the same Paul who, in his Epistle to the Galatians, counts “heresies” among “the sins of the flesh,” [1] who also intimates to Titus, that “a man who is a heretic” must be “rejected after the first admonition,” on the ground that “he that is such is perverted, and committeth sin, as a self-condemned man.” ”

“ The Galatians were formerly in bondage to "them that are no gods." Now, he says, they are turning again to the like servitude by conforming to Mosaic legalism. They wish to come again under subjection to "the weak and poor rudiments." In Galatian heathenism Paul appears to recognise "rudiments" of truth and a certain preparation for Christianity. While Judaic rites amounted to no more than rudiments of a spiritual faith, there were influences at work in Paganism that come under the same category. Paul believed that "God had not left Himself without witness to any." ”

“ Suddenly the Apostle turns upon his opposers (ver. 17) . The Judaizers had disturbed his happy relations with his Galatian flock; they had made them half believe that he was their enemy. The Galatians must choose between Paul and his traducers. Let them scrutinise the motives of these new teachers. Let them call to mind the claims of their father in Christ. "They are courting you," he says,—"these present suitors for your regard—dishonourably; they want to shut you out and have you to themselves, that you may pay court to them." They pretend to be zealous for your interests ”

“ The sons of God are brethren to each other. Christianity is the perfection of society, as well as of the individual. The faith of Christ restores the broken unity of mankind. "In Christ Jesus there is no Jew or Greek; there is no bondman or freeman; there is no male and female. You are all one in Him."
The Galatian believer at his baptism had entered a communion which gave him for the first time the sense of a common humanity. ”

“ Paul does not here make any mention of his bonds, as he does in all his epistles written from Rome. He says, indeed, [8] : 'I bear about in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus;' but he had often suffered before he came to Rome. Some learned chronologers think that it was written between the third and fourth journey of St. Paul to Jerusalem, and between his first and second into Galatia; which opinion appears very probable; for, since the apostle says, he wonders that they were so soon turned to another gospel, this epistle must have been written a short time after he had preached in Galatia. ”

“ They have not faith enough to make them steadfast, [345] nor love enough to be an inward guide, nor the Spirit of God in measure sufficient to overcome the vanity and self-indulgence of the flesh. But the Apostle still hopes to see his Galatian disciples worthy of their calling as sons of God. He points out to them the narrow but sure path that leads between the desert of legalism on the one hand, and the gulf of anarchy and licence on the other.
The problem of the nature and conditions of Christian liberty occupies the Apostle's mind in different ways in all the letters of this period. ”

“ They forget the call of the Divine grace; they turn away from the sight of Christ crucified; nay, they are renouncing their adoption into the family of God. Paul knew something of the fickleness of human nature; but he was not prepared for this. How can men who have tasted liberty prefer slavery, or fullgrown sons desire to return to the "rudiments" of childhood? After knowing God as He is in Christ, is it possible that these Galatians have begun to dote on ceremonial, to make a religion of "times and seasons;" that they are becoming devotees of Jewish ritual? ”

“ By the infirmity of his flesh Paul meant these afflictions and not some chronic disease. He reminds the Galatians how he was always in peril at the hands of the Jews, Gentiles, and false brethren, how he suffered hunger and want.
Now, the afflictions of the believers always offend people. Paul knew it and therefore has high praise for the Galatians because they overlooked his afflictions and received him like an angel. Christ forewarned the faithful against the offense of the Cross, saying: "Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me." ”

“ Thus the two standing types of religion, the two ways by which men seek salvation, are put in contrast with each other—faith with its blessing, law with its curse. The former is the path on which the Galatians had entered, under the guidance of Paul; the latter, that to which the Judaic teachers were leading them. ”

“ The consequences of this Paul has shown in relating his discussion with Peter, in ch. ii. 15-21. They would "make" themselves "transgressors;" they would "make Christ's death of none effect." In the soul's salvation Christ will be all, or nothing. If we trust Him, we must trust Him altogether. The Galatians had already admitted a suspicion of the power of His grace, which if cherished and acted on in the way proposed, must sever all communion between their souls and Him. Their circumcision would be "the sacrament of their excision from Christ" (Huxtable) .
The tense of the verb is present. ”

“ Quit yourselves like men."
How the Galatians responded to the Apostle's [301] challenge, we do not know. But it has found an echo in many a heart since. The Lutheran Reformation was an answer to it; so was the Scottish Covenant. The spirit of Christian liberty is eternal. Jerusalem or Rome may strive to imprison it. They might as well seek to bind the winds of heaven. Its home is with God. Its seat is the throne of Christ. It lives by the breath of His Spirit. The earthly powers mock at it, and drive it into the wilderness. They do but assure their own ruin. ”

“ When the Gospel is preached unto faith, hope, love, and patience, God gives His wonder-working Spirit. Paul reminds the Galatians of this. "God had not only brought you to faith by my preaching. He had also sanctified you to bring forth the fruits of faith. And one of the fruits of your faith was that you loved me so devotedly that you were willing to pluck out your eyes for me." To love a fellow-man so devotedly as to be ready to bestow upon him money, goods, eyes in order to secure his salvation, such love is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. ”

“ Jerome thinks that Paul is playing upon the name Galatians, deriving it from the Hebrew word Galath, which means fallen or carried away, as though Paul wanted to say, "You are true Galatians, i.e., fallen away in name and in fact." Some believe that the Germans are descended from the Galatians. There may be something to that. For the Germans are not unlike the Galatians in their lack of constancy. At first we Germans are very enthusiastic, but presently our emotions cool and we become slack. ”

“ Peter probably occasioned those differences among the Galatian converts, which induced St. Paul to write this epistle, in which he takes pains to establish his own character as an apostle, which had been disputed by some, with a view of placing him below Peter, who preached generally to the Jews only, and observed the law. See Calmet and the New Encyclopedia, article Galatia. That St. Peter thought at first that the Gospel should be confined to the Jews is sufficiently evident from the Acts of the Apostles ”

“ He also shows that he had, on this very question of Judaical rituals, conferred with the apostles at Jerusalem, and had received the sanction of their approbation in that course of open communion which he had before followed, on his own inspired authority, and had ever since maintained, in the face of what he deemed inconsistencies in the conduct of Peter. He then attacks the Galatians themselves, in very violent terms, for their perversion of that glorious freedom into which he had brought the Christian doctrine, and fills up the greater part of the epistle with reproofs of these errors. ”

“ The importance of this Commentary on Galatians for the history of Protestantism is very great. It presents like no other of Luther's writings the central thought of Christianity, the justification of the sinner for the sake of Christ's merits alone. ”

“ With Antioch for the centre of their operations, these mischief-makers disturbed the whole field of Paul and Barnabas' labours in Syria and Cilicia (Acts xv. 23; comp. Gal. i. 21) . For the Galatian readers, the terms of this sentence, coming after the anathema of ch. i. 6-9, threw a startling light on the character of the Judean emissaries busy in their midst. This description of the former "troublers" strikes at the Judaic opposition in Galatia. ”

“ The great principles, moreover, which he lays down in meeting the particular wants of the Corinthian church remain valid for all time; shedding from age to age a clear and steady light, by which every tempest-tossed church may, God helping it by his grace, steer its way into the haven of peace and prosperity.
13. The reader cannot fail to notice the remarkable contrast between the tone of this epistle and that to the Galatians, which belongs in the order of time to the same group. See above, No. 6. The errors of the Corinthians were not fundamental, like those of the Galatians. ”

“ In all these vital truths Paul's gospel was traversed by the Legalism countenanced by Peter at Antioch. The Judaistic doctrine struck directly, if not avowedly, at the cross, whose reproach its promoters sought to escape. This charge is the climax of the Apostle's contention against Peter, and the starting-point of his expostulation [161] with the Galatians in the following chapter. "If righteousness could be obtained by way of law, then Christ died for nought!" ”

“ It is “a sensational heading” (Findlay) , but it may either refer [12] to the whole epistle (so Augustine, Chrysostom, &c., followed by Zahn) or, as most hold (with Jerome) to the postscript (vi. 11-18) . Paul commonly dictated his letters. His use of the autograph here may have been to prevent any suspicion of a forgery or to mark the personal emphasis of his message. In any case it is assumed that the Galatians knew his handwriting. ”