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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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.

Ver. 19. +Wherefore then serveth the law?+--As it is of no avail for justification, is it either useless or contrary to the covenant of God? +It was added because of transgressions.+--To bring out into clearer view the transgression of the law; to make men more fully conscious of their sins, by being perceived as transgression of the law, and so make them long for the promised Saviour. +It was ordained by angels in the hand of a Mediator.+--As instrumental enactors of the law. In the giving of the law the angels were representatives of God; Moses, as mediator, represented the people.

Ver. 20. +Now a Mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one.+--The very idea of mediation supposes two persons at least, between whom the mediation is carried on. The law then is of the nature of a contract between two parties--God on the one hand, and the Jewish people on the other. It is only valid so long as both parties fulfil the terms of the contract. It is therefore contingent and not absolute. Unlike the law, the promise is absolute and unconditional. It depends on the sole decree of God. There are not two contracting parties. There is nothing of the nature of a stipulation. The Giver is everything, the recipient nothing .

Ver. 22. +The Scripture hath concluded all under sin.+--The written letter was needed so as permanently to convict man of disobedience to God's command. He is shut up under condemnation as in a prison.

Ver. 24. +The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ.+--As a tutor, checking our sinful propensities, making the consciousness of the sinful principle more vivid, and showing the need of forgiveness and freedom from the bondage of sin.

Ver. 26. +Ye are all the children of God.+--No longer children requiring a tutor, but sons emancipated and walking at liberty.

Ver. 28. +Ye are all one in Christ Jesus.+--No class privileged above another, as the Jews under the law had been above the Gentiles. Difference of sex makes no difference in Christian privileges. But under the law the male sex had great privileges.

Ver. 29. +If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs.+--Christ is Abraham's seed, and all who are baptised into Christ, put on Christ , and are one in Christ , are children entitled to the inheritance of promise.

Ver. 1 +The heir, as long as he is a child.+--An infant, one under age. +Differeth nothing from a servant.+--A slave. He is not at his own disposal. He could not perform any act but through his legal representative.

Ver. 2. +Under tutors and governors.+--Controllers of his person and property.

Ver. 3. +Under the elements of the world.+--The rudimentary religious teaching of a nonreligious character. The elementary lessons of outward things.

Ver. 5. +The adoption of sons.+--Receive as something destined or due. Herein God makes of sons of men sons of God, inasmuch as God made of the Son of God the Son of man .

Ver. 9. +How turn ye again+ ?--Making a new beginning in religion, lapsing from Christianity just in as far as they embrace legalism. +To the weak and beggarly elements.+--Weak is contrasted with power as to effects, and beggarly with affluence in respect of gifts. The disparaging expression is applied; not to the ritualistic externalism of heathen religions, but rather to that God-given system of ritualistic ordinances which had served the Church in her infancy. That which was appropriate food for a babe or sick man is feeble and poor for a grown man in full health.

Ver. 12. +Be as I am, for I am as ye are.+--Paul had become as a Gentile, though he was once a passionate Jew. Their natural leanings towards Judaism they ought to sacrifice as well as he.

Ver. 13. +Ye know how through infirmity of flesh I preached.+--The weakness may have been general debility, resulting from great anxieties and toils. It has been supposed that Paul was feeble-eyed, or blear-eyed , and that this special weakness had been aggravated at the time now in question.

Ver. 17. +They zealously affect you, but not well.+--They keenly court you, but not honourably. +They would exclude you+--from everything and every one whose influence would tend to bring the Galatians back to loyalty to the Gospel.

Ver. 20. +I desire to be present with you, and to change my voice.+--To speak not with the stern tones of warning, but with tender entreaties. +I stand in doubt of you.+--I am sorely perplexed, nonplussed, bewildered, as if not knowing how to proceed.

Ver. 24. +Which things are an allegory.+--Under the things spoken of--the two sons, with their contrast of parentage and position--there lies a spiritual meaning.

Ver. 25. +Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.+--Judaism as rejecting the light and liberty of the new dispensation.

Ver. 26. +But Jerusalem which is above is free.+--Is the spiritual reality which, veiled under the old dispensation, is comparatively unveiled in the dispensation of grace, and destined to be fully and finally manifested in the reign of glory. Christians are very different in standing to slave-born slaves.

Ver. 27. +The desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.+--The special purpose of the quotation appears to be to show that the idea of a countless Church, including Gentiles as well as Jews, springing out of spiritual nothingness, was apprehended under the Old Testament as destined for realisation under the New.

Ver. 30. +Cast out the bondwoman and her son.+--Even house-room to Judaism is not matter of right, but only by sufferance, and that so long and so far as it leaves the Gospel undisturbed in full possession.

Ver. 1. +Stand fast in.+--Stand up to, make your stand for. +The liberty wherewith Christ has made you free.+--As Christ has given you this liberty you are bound to stand fast in it. +Be not entangled.+--Implicated in a way which involves violence to true spontaneous life. +The yoke of bondage.+--Contrasted with the yoke of Christ, which is compatible with the fullest spiritual freedom.

Ver. 2. +If ye be circumcised.+--Not simply as a national rite, but as a symbol of Judaism and legalism in general; as necessary to justification. +Christ shall profit you nothing.+--The Gospel of grace is at an end. He who is circumcised is so fearing the law, and he who fears disbelieves the power of grace, and he who disbelieves can profit nothing by that grace which he disbelieves .

Ver. 5 +Wait for the hope of righteousness.+--Righteousness, in the sense of justification, is already attained, but the consummation of it in future perfection is the object of hope to be waited for.

Ver. 6. +Faith which worketh by love.+--Effectually worketh, exhibits its energy by love, and love is the fulfilling of the law.

Ver. 9. +A little leaven.+--Of false doctrine, a small amount of evil influence.

Ver. 10. +He that troubleth you.+--The leaven traced to personal agency; whoever plays the troubler. +Shall bear his judgment.+--Due and inevitable condemnation from God.

Ver. 11. +Then is the offence of the cross ceased.+--The offence, the stumbling-block, to the Jew which roused his anger was not the shame of Messiah crucified, but the proclamation of free salvation to all, exclusive of the righteousness of human works.

Ver. 12. +I would they were cut off which trouble you.+--Self-mutilated, an imprecation more strongly expressed in chap. i. 8, 9. Christian teachers used language in addressing Christians in the then heathen world that would be regarded as intolerable in modern Christendom, purified and exalted by Christ through their teachings.

Ver. 18. +If ye be led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law.+--Under no irksome restraint. To him who loves, law is not irksome bondage but delightful direction. Active spiritual life is a safeguard against lawless affection.

Ver. 23. +Against such there is no law.+--So far from being against love, law commands it.

Ver. 24. +Have crucified the flesh.+--Not human nature, but depraved human nature. +With the affections and lusts.+--Affections refer to the general frame of mind; the lusts to special proclivities or habits.

Ver. 26. +Not to be desirous of vainglory, provoking+ , +envying one another.+--Vaingloriousness provokes contention; contention produces envy.

"He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, And all are slaves besides."

We know no truth, no privilege, no power, no blessing, no right, which is not abused. But is liberty to be denied to men because they often turn it into licentiousness? There are two freedoms--the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where a man is free to do what he ought. Love is the safeguard of the highest liberty.

Ver. 1. +Overtaken in a fault.+--Be caught red-handed in any transgression, the result of some sudden and overpowering gust of evil impulse. +Restore such an one.+--The same word used of a dislocated limb reduced to its place. Such is the tenderness with which we should treat a fallen member in restoring him to a better state. +In the spirit of meekness.+--Meekness is that temper of spirit towards God whereby we accept His dealings without disputing; then towards men whereby we endure meekly their provocations, and do not withdraw ourselves from the burdens which their sins impose upon us .

Ver. 3. +He deceiveth himself.+--He is misled by the vapours of his own vanity, he is self-deceived.

Ver. 4. +Rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another.+--In that his own work stands the test after severe examination, and not that he is superior to another.

Ver. 6. +Communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things.+--Go shares with him in the good things of this life. While each bears his own burden he must think of others, especially in ministering out of his earthly goods to the wants of his spiritual teacher .

Ver. 7. +God is not mocked.+--The verb means to sneer with the nostrils drawn up in contempt. Excuses for illiberality may seem valid before men but are not so before God.

Ver. 8. +He that soweth to his flesh.+--Unto his own flesh, which is devoted to selfishness. +Shall reap corruption.+--Destruction, which is not an arbitrary punishment of fleshly-mindedness, but is its natural fruit; the corrupt flesh producing corruption, which is another word for destruction. Corruption is the fault, and corruption the punishment.

Ver. 9. +Let us not be weary: we shall reap, if we faint not.+--"Weary" refers to the will; "faint" to relaxation of the powers. No one should faint, as in an earthly harvest sometimes happens.

Ver. 11. +Ye see how large a letter I have written with mine own hand.+--At this point the apostle takes the pen from his amanuensis, and writes the concluding paragraph with his own hand. Owing to the weakness of his eyesight he wrote in large letters. He thus gives emphasis to the importance of the subjects discussed in the epistle.

Ver. 12. +Lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.+--They would escape the bitterness of the Jews against Christianity and the offence of the cross, by making the Mosaic law a necessary preliminary.

Ver. 13. +For neither they themselves keep the law.+--So far are they from being sincere that they arbitrarily select circumcision out of the whole law, as though observing it would stand instead of their non-observance of the rest of the law. +That they may glory in your flesh.+--That they may vaunt your submission to the carnal rite, and so gain credit with the Jews for proselytising.

Ver. 15. +But a new creature.+--All external distinctions are nothing. The cross is the only theme worthy of glorying in, as it brings about a new spiritual creation.

Ver. 16. +As many as walk according to this rule.+--Of life: a straight rule to detect crookedness. +Upon the Israel of God.+--Not the Israel after the flesh, but the spiritual seed of Israel by faith.

Ver. 17. +I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.+--The Judaising teachers gloried in the circumcision marks in the flesh of their followers; St. Paul in the scars or brands of suffering for Christ in his own body--the badge of an honourable servitude.

Ver. 18. +Brethren.+--After much rebuke and monition, he bids them farewell with the loving expression of brotherhood as his last parting word, as if Greatheart had meant to say, "After all, my last word is, I love you, I love you."

+Transcriber's Notes+

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