Galatians 6

Notes

Ver. 1. According to the rule of Christian love already mentioned, if any one among you, through ignorance, unwatchfulness, human frailty, plausible temptations, or enticing examples, fall into an erroneous notion or immoral act, I beseech those of you who are more advanced and confirmed in knowledge and grace, to do your utmost in a meek, patient, and tender manner, for convincing and reclaiming him by repentance, and reducing him to his proper place in the mystical body of Christ:—and to induce you hereto, ponder seriously your own weakness and sinfulness, and the danger of meeting with and falling before temptations yourselves; and be not therefore too severe upon others. 2. Instead of imposing heavy yokes on the one hand, or refusing any offices of kindness on the other, sympathize with, pray for, and assist one another; and, by lightening and relieving one another under your burdens, grievances, trials, and exercises, practise Christ's great commandment of loving your neighbours as yourselves. 3. For if any of you have high thoughts of your own abilities to resist temptations and to do great things in religion, and so despise and insult others, ye dreadfully deceive your own souls. 4. But to prevent your being forward to judge and censure others and deceive yourselves, let every one of you narrowly search and try his own principles, motives, ends, temper, and behaviour; and if they be thus found correspondent to the truth of the gospel, and your profession of it, ye will have great matter of humble joy in what God has wrought in you, and enabled you to do, and on account of the testimony which the Holy Ghost and your own consciences bear to your sincerity, and God's acceptance of you through Christ; and you need not then regard the applause of others, your number of proselytes, or that your character is more exalted than that of others. 5. For at the judgment-seat of Christ every man will be adjudged to eternal happiness or misery, not according to what he thinks of himself, or what he is in comparison of others,—but according to what he really is in heart and life before God.—6. And as a standing ministry is necessary for your instruction and establishment in the truths and paths of the gospel, let every church-member who receives these spiritual instructions, cheerfully and liberally contribute of his worldly substance for the comfortable maintenance of his instructor, who spends his time and strength in preaching the gospel to him, and thus brings him blessings far better than anything temporal. 7. Never let a covetous temper or plausible suggestion seduce you from the faithful performance of this duty. God, who searches your hearts, and has a right to your obedience, will not suffer himself to be imposed on, or any of his commandments contemned. But (to allude to the crops of husbandmen and gardeners) your reward at his hand shall be according to the nature, quality, and extent of your work. 8. He who uses his temporal enjoyments, or spends his time and strength with selfish and corrupt views, shall have for his reward perishing things here and eternal destruction hereafter; but he who, through the power of God's grace on and in his heart, employs his substance and talents for promoting spiritual purposes, in subserviency to the work and design of the Holy Ghost, shall reap glorious fruits of holiness in this world, and eternal life as the free gift of God through Christ in the next. 9. Animated by these comfortable views, let us never grow remiss and negligent, far less cease from doing good to others by every mean in our power; for if not in this life, we shall in the next be rewarded with plentiful blessings, if we do not, through unbelief and discouragement, covetousness, impatience, or the like, desist from our duty as an irksome task. 10. While therefore God gives us abilities and proper opportunities, let us exercise ourselves in works of beneficence towards the necessitous, and all our fellow-creatures, especially to such as, in the judgment of charity, have cordially embraced the gospel of Christ and become his children and servants. 11. I hope ye will seriously ponder those things which I have written to you in this affectionate letter, and that not by an amanuensis, as ordinarily, but with my own hand. 12. And, believe me, your new preachers who attempt to recommend themselves by external flourishes of profession or zealous observation of carnal ceremonies, are not actuated in urging you to be circumcised by any true love to you, or concern for your salvation, but merely desire that they may escape that persecution and outrage from the unbelieving Jews to which the preaching of a full justification through Christ's imparted righteousness would expose them. 13. For, notwithstanding their being circumcised under an obligation thereby established to keep the whole law, they are not really careful to keep that law at all, but they would have you circumcised that they might boast of you as their proselytes, and thereby recommend themselves to the favour of the unbelieving Jews. 14. But God forbid that I should ever be ambitious of human applause, or boast of, or rely on, anything as the ground of my acceptance with God, except it be the atoning sacrifice of our crucified Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by faith in, and virtue derived from, which and whom, I am in conformity to him, dead to all the allurements, interests, and honours of this world, and to all its terrors, persecutions, and reproaches, so as to be little moved by the one or the other; and on account of my preaching of which, as the alone ground of justification and eternal life, the men of this world contemn me, and would gladly crucify me. 15. For, with regard to union with Christ, and justification to life through faith in him, circumcision, and all such external distinctions, are now under the gospel entirely useless. The only thing that can effectually prove our interest in him is the universal and almighty renovation of our heart and life, after the image of God, in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness.—16. And to all those professed Christians, Jews or Gentiles, who, according to the directions I have given, rely on the righteousness of Christ alone for justification, and improve it in a steadfast maintenance of gospel liberties, and study of gospel holiness—and to all those spiritual Israelites who have accepted Christ by faith—I earnestly wish and declare peace with God, their consciences, and one another, and all other mercies and blessings of the new kingdom. 17. Let no one give me any further trouble with injurious reproaches and angry quarrels about circumcision and other observances of the law: the persecutions which I have already endured, and of which I retain the marks in my body, are sufficient proofs of my being Christ's devoted servant, and faithful preacher of justification through his blood. 18. Finally, brethren, my hearty prayer to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is, that his free love and favour, with all its blessed manifestations, fruits, and effects, may plentifully abound towards you, and sensibly rest on your souls, to lead you in the way of faith, comfort, and holiness, till ye arrive at the complete possession of eternal life.

Ver. 4. Rejoicing in himself—on account of what grace has wrought.—Not in another, upon whose opinion or applause grace has rendered him independent. C.

Ver. 5. His own burden. Being judged according to his work. C.

Ver. 10. Let us do good unto all men. Even Julian the Apostate, while reviling the Christians, was compelled to leave his testimony to that unrestricted spirit of charity by which they were actuated both towards friends and strangers. (As cited by Wetstein.) C.

Ver. 11. The apostle was accustomed to dictate his letters to an amanuensis—this he wrote with his own hand. Why he notices the circumstance it is not easy to conjecture, perhaps impossible to discover. Some suppose it is noted as an evidence of special affection; but what peculiar evidence it could furnish is not very apparent. Is it not rather intended to intimate that he felt so great anxiety for their Christian character that he hoped to wean them from their errors without any one being made acquainted with his rebukes either to individuals or the churches? C.—This verse must be literally rendered as follows: 'Ye see in how large characters (or letters) I have written to you with my own hand.' Two things are here indicated: (1) That the epistle was written in letters of an unusually large size, probably on account of the defective sight of the apostle. (2) That it was unusual for the apostle to write himself, as he generally employed an amanuensis. Whether he wrote with his own hand as a special mark of favour, or because of the absence of his amanuensis, cannot now be ascertained. P.

Ver. 17. The marks of the Lord Jesus. The scourgings, wounds, and stoning he had endured, after the example and for the love of Jesus, Ac. 20. 23; 2 Co. 4. 10; 11. 23, 24. C.

Reflections.—With meekness, humility, and compassionate sympathy, ought Christians of superior attainments to recover their offending brethren. A sense of their own sinfulness, weakness, and readiness to slip, should induce them to it. And a regard to their deliverance from the law as a covenant, and the law of ceremonies, and their being still under Christ's law of liberty and love, should constantly animate them to it.—It is dreadful to deceive our souls through self-conceit and hypocritical mocking of that God who neither will nor can be imposed upon. But it is delightful to have our consciences attesting us as approved of God in Christ; and to be enabled to improve our worldly substance in acts of piety and charity. It is highly necessary to be active and exact in our conduct, when our eternal happiness or misery is so closely connected with it; and very unprofitable to make fair shows of religion while we remain ignorant of its power; or while, to shun persecution, we are afraid or ashamed to own a crucified Christ, and the doctrine of salvation through faith only. It is Christ crucified in whom we must boast, and from whom we must derive all grace to wean us from worldly things. And no profession, denomination, or external privilege will avail to our salvation unless our hearts be renewed and planted with a living principle of grace. Nor must we expect spiritual or eternal happiness unless we walk according to the gospel in our dealings with God and men, and are ready to suffer for the doctrines of Christ which we profess.

Concluding Remarks on the Epistle to the Galatians.

No one can attentively read and consider the Epistle to the Galatians without discovering the early germs of Popery budding, nay springing, into vigorous and almost irrepressible growth, even under the eye of apostolic inspection, and, as it were, in defiance of the apostolic pruning-knife. Popery does not consist in the rejection of the great fundamental doctrines of Christianity. On the contrary, it retains most of them, but at the same time so overlays them, as to render them nearly or altogether invisible; so loads them with ceremonial ornament, as to disfigure or destroy their beauty; and so combines them with extraneous and traditionary inventions, as literally to render them of 'none effect.'—The two great errors which the apostle labours to correct among the Galatians were the adoption of Jewish rites as essential to salvation, and the combining of human merit with the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. In both these propensities they have been followed by Popery. One high-priest—one pope—one family succession—one traditionary succession—holy vestments—altars—lamps—candles—washings—sprinklings—attitudes. These bear such resemblance to each other, that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between them. But injurious to spiritual feeling and vital godliness as these 'beggarly elements' undoubtedly are, their evil is far outrun by the doctrine of justification by works alone, or by human merit conjoined with the works of Christ, and of other mediators, which invariably accompanies them. Both indeed profess alike to have 'begun in the Spirit,' but both alike labour, and expect to be 'made perfect by the flesh,' ch. 3. 3. Truly has Solomon declared that 'there is no new thing under the sun.' Even ritualism, with all its fertile ingenuity, has been unable to become an inventor; and, when casting off 'the simplicity of the gospel,' has been compelled to deck herself in the ancient but condemned garments of the judaizing, 'the foolish Galatians.' Wherefore 'let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.' Justification by faith, and by faith alone, is the article by which the church must stand in truth; but the 'faith that is not alone,' but 'worketh by love,' is the principle by which she must stand in holiness. C.