AN
EXPOSITION,
W I T H P R A C T I C A L O B S E R V A T I O N
S,
OF THE EPISTLE OF ST. PAUL TO
T H E G A L A T I A N S
THIS
epistle of Paul is directed not to the church or churches of a single city, as
some others are, but of a country or province, for so
Galatia
was. It is very probable that these Galatians were first
converted to the Christian faith by his ministry; or, if he was not the
instrument of planting, yet at least he had been employed in watering these
churches, as is evident from this epistle itself, and also from Acts xviii.
23, where we find him going over all the country of
Galatia
and
Phrygia
in order, strengthening all the disciples. While he was
with them, they had expressed the greatest esteem and affection both for his
person and ministry; but he had not been long absent from them before some
judaizing teachers got in among them, by whose arts and insinuations they were
soon drawn into a meaner opinion both of the one and of the other. That which
these false teachers chiefly aimed at was to draw them off from the truth as
it is in Jesus, particularly in the great doctrine of justification, which
they grossly perverted, by asserting the necessity of joining the observance
of the law of Moses with faith in Christ in order to it: and, the better to
accomplish this their design, they did all they could to lessen the character
and reputation of the apostle, and to raise up their own on the ruins of his,
representing him as one who, if he was to be owned as an apostle, yet was much
inferior to others, and particularly who deserved not such a regard as Peter,
James, and John, whose followers, it is likely, they pretended to be: and in
both these attempts they had but too great success. This was the occasion of
his writing this epistle, wherein he expresses his great concern that they had
suffered themselves to be so soon turned aside from the faith of the gospel,
vindicates his own character and authority as an apostle against the
aspersions of his enemies, showing that his mission and doctrine were both
divine, and that he was not, upon any account, behind the very chief of the
apostles, 2 Cor. xi. 5. He then sets himself to assert and maintain the
great gospel doctrine of justification by faith without the works of the law,
and to obviate some difficulties that might be apt to arise in their minds
concerning it: and, having established this important doctrine, he exhorts
them to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free,
cautions them against the abuse of this liberty, gives them several very
needful counsels and directions and then concludes the epistle by giving them
a just description of those false teachers by whom they had been ensnared,
and, on the contrary, of his own temper and behaviour. In all this his great
scope and design were to recover those who had been perverted, to settle those
who might be wavering, and to confirm such among them as had kept their
integrity.
Contents
|
Next
Section
