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Read Ebook: The Preacher's Complete Homiletic Commentary of the Books of the Bible: Volume 29 (of 32) The Preacher's Complete Homiletic Commentary of the Epistles of St. Paul the Apostle: Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossians and I-II Thessalonians by Barlow George
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+Transcriber's Notes+
- This book uses SMALL CAPS occasionally throughout. You might need to experiment with browsers and fonts to find a combination that shows SMALL CAPS correctly.
- The text of the series shifts among font sizes and between one and two column presentations, in an effort to maximize the amount of text that can appear on the printed page. This transcription will dispense with that formatting because costs are so much lower in the digital world.
- This book is a collection of men's opinions on six epistles of Apostle Paul: Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, First Thessalonians, and Second Thessalonians, in the Bible, the inspired Word of God. The book was printed toward the end of the 19th century. Some of the comments might be considered culturally insensitive today.
+THE PREACHER'S+
+COMPLETE HOMILETIC+
+COMMENTARY+
+ON THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE+
VOLUME 29
+The Preacher's Complete Homiletic+
COMMENTARY
ON THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY NEW YORK
THE
+PREACHER'S HOMILETICAL COMMENTARY.+
+GALATIANS.+
+INTRODUCTION.+
+The time of writing the epistle.+--Lightfoot, in disagreement from most earlier interpreters, maintained that this epistle was written between 2 Corinthians and Romans--that is, during the latter part of Paul's journey in Macedonia, or the earlier part of his sojourn at Corinth, towards the close of the year 57 or 58 A.D. Dr. Beet comes to the same conclusion. There is nothing in the letter itself to fix definitely either the place or time of its composition. From chap. i. 9, iv. 13, v. 3 we gather that St. Paul had now been in Galatia twice; the epistle was therefore subsequent to the journey which he took across Asia Minor in setting out on his third missionary tour . All students are agreed that it belongs to the period of the legalist controversy and to the second group of the epistles. On every account one is inclined to refer the letter to the last rather than to an earlier period of the third missionary tour. Comparison with the other epistles of the group raises this probability almost to a certainty and enables us to fix the date and occasion of this letter with confidence.
+The purpose and analysis of the epistle.+--It is intensely polemical. It is a controversial pamphlet rather than an ordinary letter. The matter of dispute is twofold: 1. Paul's apostleship; and 2. The nature of the Gospel and the sufficiency of faith in Christ for full salvation. This gives the order of the first two and main parts of the epistle. A third section is added of a moral and hortatory nature. The contents of the epistle may be thus analysed:--
Ver. 1. +Paul, an apostle.+--He puts his own name and apostleship prominent, because his apostolic commission needs to be vindicated against deniers of it. +Not of,+ or from, +men, but by,+ or from, +Jesus Christ and God the Father.+ The Divine source of his apostleship is emphatically stated, as also the infallible authority for the Gospel he taught.
Ver. 6. +I marvel that ye are so soon removed.+--So quickly removed; not so soon after your conversion, or soon after I left you, but so soon after the temptation came; so readily and with such little persuasion . It is the fickleness of the Galatians the apostle deplores. An early backsliding, such as the contrary view assumes, would not have been matter of so great wonder as if it had taken place later.
Vers. 8, 9. +Any other gospel.+--The apostle is here asserting the oneness, the integrity of his Gospel. It will not brook a rival. It will not suffer any foreign admixture. +Let him be accursed.+--Devoted to the punishment his audacity merits. In its spiritual application the word denotes the state of one who is alienated from God by sin.
Ver. 11. +Not after man.+--Not according to man; not influenced by mere human considerations, as it would be if it were of human origin.
Ver. 12. +But by the revelation of Jesus Christ.+--Probably this took place during the three years, in part of which the apostle sojourned in Arabia , in the vicinity of the scene of the giving of the law; a fit place for such a revelation of the Gospel of grace which supersedes the ceremonial law. Though he had received no instruction from the apostles, but from the Holy Ghost, yet when he met them his Gospel exactly agreed with theirs.
Ver. 16. +To reveal His Son in me that I might preach Him.+--The revealing of His Son by me to the Gentiles was impossible, unless He had first revealed His Son in me; at first on my conversion, but especially at the subsequent revelation from Jesus Christ , whereby I learnt the Gospel's independence of the Mosaic law.
Ver. 24. +They glorified God in me.+--He does not say, adds Chrysostom, they marvelled at me, they praised me, they were struck with admiration of me, but he attributes all to grace. They glorified God in me. How different, he implies to the Galatians, their spirit from yours.
"There is a Divinity that shapes our ends, Rough hew them as we may."
The Divine element in our lives becomes more evident as we faithfully do the duty imposed on us. Joseph recognised this when he declared to his brethren, "It was not you that sent me hither, but God" .
"This is what makes him the crowd-drawing preacher, There's a background of God to each hard-working feature; Every word that he speaks has been fierily furnaced In a blast of a life which has struggled in earnest."
The vigorous and faithful maintenance of the truth brings glory to God.
Ver. 1. +Then fourteen years after.+--From Paul's conversion inclusive. +I went again to Jerusalem.+--The same visit referred to in Acts xv., when the council of the apostles and Church decided that Gentile Christians need not be circumcised.
Ver. 2. +I went up by revelation.+--Quite consistent with the fact that he was sent as a deputy from the Church at Antioch . The revelation suggested to him that this deputation was the wisest course. +Communicated privately to them which were of reputation.+--It was necessary that the Jerusalem apostles should know beforehand that the Gospel Paul preached to the Gentiles was the same as theirs, and had received Divine confirmation in the results it wrought on the Gentile converts.
Ver. 4. +False brethren unawares+ +brought in privily to spy out.+--As foes in the guise of friends, wishing to destroy and rob us of our liberty--from the yoke of the ceremonial law.
Ver. 5. +To whom we gave place by subjection not for an hour.+--We would willingly have yielded for love, if no principle was at issue, but not in the way of subjection. Truth precise, unaccommodating, abandons nothing that belongs to itself, admits nothing that is inconsistent with it .
Ver. 6. +They in conference added nothing to me.+--As I did not by conference impart to them aught at my conversion, so they now did not impart aught additional to me above what I already knew. Another evidence of the independence of his apostleship.
Ver. 9. +They gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship.+--Recognising me as a colleague in the apostleship, and that the Gospel I preached to the Gentiles by special revelation was the same as theirs.
Ver. 10. +Remember the poor.+--Of the Jewish Christians in Judea then distressed. Paul's past care for their poor prompted this request. His subsequent zeal in the same cause was the answer to their appeal .
Ver. 11. +When Peter was come to Antioch I withstood him to the face.+--The strongest proof of the independence of his apostleship in relation to the other apostles, and an unanswerable argument against the Romish dogma of the supremacy of St. Peter.
Ver. 13. +The other Jews dissembled likewise with him.+--The question was not whether Gentiles were admissible to the Christian covenant without becoming circumcised, but whether the Gentile Christians were to be admitted to social intercourse with the Jewish Christians without conforming to the Jewish institution. It was not a question of liberty and of bearing with others' infirmities, but one affecting the essence of the Gospel, whether the Gentiles are to be virtually compelled to live as do the Jews in order to be justified.
Ver. 14. +Walked not uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel.+--Which teaches that justification by legal works and observances is inconsistent with redemption by Christ. Paul alone here maintained the truth against Judaism, as afterwards against heathenism .
Ver. 17. +Is therefore Christ the minister of sin?+--Thus to be justified by Christ it was necessary to sink to the level of Gentiles--to become sinners, in fact. But are we not thus making Christ a minister of sin? Away with the profane thought! No; the guilt is not in abandoning the law, but in seeking it again when abandoned. Thus, and thus alone, we convict ourselves of transgression .
Ver. 21. +If righteousness came by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.+--Died needlessly, without just cause. Christ's having died shows that the law has no power to justify us, for if the law can justify or make us righteous, the death of Christ is superfluous.
"Every human tie may perish, Friend to friend ungrateful prove, Mothers cease their own to cherish, Heaven and earth at last remove; But no changes Can attend the Saviour's love."
"Why was I made to hear Thy voice And enter while there's room, While thousands made a wretched choice, And rather starve than come? 'Twas the same love that spread the feast, That gently forced me in, Else I had still refused to taste, And perished in my sin."
Ver. 3. +Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?+--What monstrous folly is this! Will you so violate the Divine order of progress? The flesh may be easily mistaken for the Spirit, even by those who have made progress, unless they continue to maintain a pure faith .
Ver. 4. +Have ye suffered so many things in vain?+--Since ye might have avoided them by professing Judaism. Will ye lose the reward promised for all suffering?
Ver. 5. +He that worketh miracles among you.+--In you, at your conversion and since.
Ver. 6. +Even as Abraham believed God.+--Where justification is there the Spirit is, so that if the former comes by faith the latter must also.
Ver. 8. +Preached before the Gospel unto Abraham.+--Thus the Gospel in its essential germ is older than the law, though the full development of the former is subsequent to the latter. The promise to Abraham was in anticipation of the Gospel, not only as announcing the Messiah, but also as involving the doctrine of righteousness by faith.
Ver. 10. +As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse.+--This the Scripture itself declares. It utters an anathema against all who fail to fulfil every single ordinance contained in the book of the law .
Ver. 17. +The covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law cannot disannul.+--From the recognised inviolability of a human covenant , the apostle argues the impossibility of violating the Divine covenant. The law cannot set aside the promise.
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