FOOTNOTES:
[1] The text used in this exposition is, with very few exceptions, that of the Revised English Version, or its margin.
[2] Compare Acts xiv. 4, 14 (Barnabas and Paul); 1 Thess. ii. 6 (Paul and his comrades); Rom. xvi. 7 (Andronicus and Junias); 2 Cor. viii. 23 (Titus and others, "apostles of the churches"); 2 Cor. xi. 13 ("false apostles": Judean emissaries); also Rev. ii. 2; Heb. iii. 1; John xiii. 16. On the N.T. use of apostle, see Lightfoot's Galatians, pp. 92-101; but especially Huxtable's Dissertation in the Pulpit Commentary (Galatians), pp. xxiii.-l., the most satisfactory elucidation of the subject we have met with. Prebendary Huxtable however presses his argument too far, when he insists that St. Paul held his higher commission entirely in abeyance until the crisis of the Judaic controversy.
[3] 1 Cor. xv. 10; 2 Cor. iv. 2; vi. 3-10; xi. 5, 16-xii. 13.
[4] 2 Thess. i. 5-7; 2 Tim. iv. 18; Heb. x. 12, 13; 1 Pet. v. 10.
[5] 1 Cor. x. 11; Heb. ix. 26.
[6] 1 Cor. vii. 31; 1 John ii. 17.
[7] Rom. viii. 18; Eph. i. 13, 14.
[8] 1 Cor. iv. 9-13; xv. 30, 32; 2 Cor. vi. 4, 10; xi. 16, 33.
[9] 1 Cor. iv. 3, 4; 2 Cor. v. 9-12; xii. 19.
[10] 2 Cor. i. 8-10; ii. 12, 13; iv. 8-11; vii. 5-7.
[11] 2 Cor. x. 1-11; xiii. 1-10; 1 Cor. iv. 18-21.
[12] Session vi., Can. xii.
[13] Session xxii., Can. vi.
[14] Comp. Rom. ix. 22; 1 Cor. xii. 3; xv. 1; 2 Cor. viii. 1.
[15] See ch. ii. 6-14; 1 Cor. i. 12; iii. 22; iv. 9; ix. 1-5; xv. 8-10.
[16] This genitive is, however, open to the other construction, which is unquestionable in 1 Cor. i. 7; 2 Thess. i. 7; also 1 Pet. i. 7, 13. Rev. i. 1 furnishes a prominent example of the subjective genitive.
[17] Acts ix. 1-19; xxii. 5-16; xxvi. 12-18.
[18] Ἐπιφανεία, a supernatural appearance, such as that of the Second Advent.
[19] Φωτίζω, comp. 2 Cor. iv. 6.
[20] Ch. v. 11; comp. 1 Cor. ix. 20; Acts xvi. 3; xxi. 20-26; xxiii. 6.
[21] Acts vii. 58; viii. 1-3; ix. 1.
[22] Les Apôtres, p. 180, note 1.
[23] 1 Cor. xiv. 18; 2 Cor. xii. 1-6; Acts xvi. 9; xviii. 8, 9; xxii. 17, 18.
[24]ἡμέραι ἱκαναί, a considerable time. The expression is indefinite.
[25] Ver. 18: that is, parts of "three years," according to ancient reckoning—say from 36 to 38 A.D., possibly less than two in actual duration.
[26] 2 Cor. xi. 13; iii. 1-3. See the remarks on the word Apostle in Chapter I. p. 12.
[27] See Rom. ix. 1; 2 Cor. i. 17, 18, 23; 1 Thess. ii. 5.
[28] Acts xi. 27-30. It is significant that this ministration was sent "to the Elders."
[29] For the ministry alluded to in Acts xxvi. 20 there were other, later opportunities, especially in the journey described in Acts xv. 3; see also Acts xxi. 15, 16.
[30] Ver. 22. It is arbitrary in Meyer to exclude from this category the Church of Jerusalem.
[31] We follow Lightfoot in reading the ποτὲ as in ch. i. 23, and everywhere else in Paul, as a particle of time.
[32] The writer is compelled in this instance to depart from the rendering of the English Version, for reasons given in the sequel. See also a paper on Paul and Titus at Jerusalem, in The Expositor, 3rd series, vol. vi., pp. 435-442. The last three words within the brackets agree with the R.V. margin.
[33] These fourteen years probably amounted to something less in our reckoning,—say, from 38 to 51 A.D. Some six years elapsed before Paul was summoned to Antioch.
[34] Acts xiii. 2, 7, 13, 43, 45, 46, 50; xiv. 12, 14; xv. 2, 12.
[35] Comp. Rom. xi. 13; xv. 16, 17.
[36] Hibbert Lectures, p. 103. This testimony is the more valuable as coming from the ablest living exponent of the Baurian theory.
[37] Acts xv. 28: "It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us." This was in the Early Church no mere pious official form.
[38] For this use of ἀλλ' οὐδὲ compare Acts xix. 2 (here also after a question); 1 Cor. iii. 2; iv. 3. We observe a similar instance of the phrase in Æschylus, Persæ, l. 792. Ἀλλ' opposes itself to the expectation of the Judaistic "compellers," present to the mind of Paul and his readers.
[39] This particle is a serious obstacle in the way of the ordinary punctuation, which attaches the following clause to ver. 3. The δὲ is similar to that of ver. 6 (ἀπὸ δὲ τ. δοκούντων); not of κατ' ἰδίαν δὲ in ver. 2, nor of θανάτον δὲ σταύρου (Phil. ii. 8), which are parenthetical qualifications. And to say, "Because of the false brethren Titus was not compelled to be circumcised," is simply an inconsequence. Would he have been compelled to be circumcised if they had not required it? This is the assumption implied by the above construction.
[40] For this rendering of ποτὲ comp. ch. i. 13, 23; and see Lightfoot, or Beet, in loc.
[41] Comp. Rom. ii. 11; 1 Cor. i. 27-31; xv. 9, 10; Eph. vi. 9; Col. iii. 25.
[42] We cannot explain προσανέθεντο here by the ἀναθέμην of ver. 2, as though Paul wished to say, "I imparted to them my gospel; they imparted to me nothing further." Forπρος- implies direction, rather than addition. See Meyer on this verb in ch. i. 16.
[43] Ch. i. 18. See Chapter V., p. 87.
[44] See Rom. i. 5; 1 Cor. xv. 10; Eph. iii. 2, 7, 8; 1 Tim. i. 13.
[45] Zum Evangelien d. Paulus und d. Petrus, p. 273. Holsten is the keenest and most logical of all the Baurian succession.
[46] Ch. i. 12; iii. 22; ix. 5.
[47] The Acts of the Apostles critically investigated, vol. ii., pp. 28, 30: Eng. Trans.
[48] Paulus, vol. i., p. 130: Eng. Trans.
[49] Rom. ii. 25-iii. 1.
[50] Rom. i. 16; ii. 9, 10; ix. 4, 5; xi. 1, 2.
[51] In his L'apôtre Paul: esquisse d'une histoire de sa pensée, an admirable work, to which the writer is under great obligation.
[52] See Chapter VII. pp. 109, 110.
[53] ἐὰν μὴ has the same partially exceptive force as εἰ μὴ in ch. i. 7, 19. Comp. Rom. xiv. 14; also Luke iv. 26, 27.
[54] For this emphatic found, describing a process of moral conviction and inward discovery, comp. Rom. vii. 10, 18, 21; the whole passage strikingly illustrates the reminiscence of our text.
[55] Commentarii, in loc.
[56] See Grimm's Lexicon, or Trench's N. T. Synonyms, on this word. Comp. ch. iii. 19; Rom. ii. 23-27; iv. 15; v. 14.
[57] The I of this sentence is quite indefinite. On the other hand ver. 19, with its emphatic ἐγώ γάρ, brings us into a new vein of thought.
[58] Comp. ch. iii. 10-12, 19; Rom. iii. 20; iv. 15.
[59] This verb has, as Schott suggests, a tinge of irony.
[60] Rom. vii. 7-viii. 1.
[61] Hofmann is so far right when he makes the Apostle turn to the Galatians in ch. ii. 15, and draws at this point the line between the historical and doctrinal sections of the Epistle.
[62] What is said of χάρις, applies also to its derivatives, χαρίζομαι, κ.τ.λ.
[63] Eph. i. 5-9; 2 Tim. i. 9; Rom. iii. 24; Heb. ii. 9; 2 Cor. v. 20-vi. 1; Gal. iv. 5; Tit. iii. 5-7; ii. 11-14; Rom. v. 21.
[64] Rom. vii. 12, 14; 2 Thess. ii. 4-8; comp. 1 John iii. 4.
[65] Rom. iii. 20; iv. 15; v. 20; vii. 5, 24; Gal. ii. 16; iii. 10, 11, 19.
[66] Rom. iii. 24, 25; Eph. ii. 8; etc.
[67] Rom. iv. 1-4; xi. 6; Gal. ii. 16; iii. 12.
[68] Rom. iv. 16; viii. 28-39; xi. 5; Eph. i. 4-6; Tit. iii. 7; Acts xx. 32; Gal. iii. 18: δι' ἐπαγγελίας κεχάρισται ὁ Θεός.
[69] 1 Cor. xv. 3, 4, 11; Rom. iv. 24, 25; x. 9; 1 Thess. iv. 14.
[70] Rom. v. 14; 1 Cor. xv. 22, 45-48; 1 Tim. ii. 5.
[71] 1 Cor. xv. 45-49; comp. Col. i. 15-17; John i. 4, 9, 15, 16.
[72] Pfleiderer, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 65, 6. Dr. Pfleiderer's delicate and sympathetic interpretation of Paul's teaching (in these Lectures, and still more in his Paulinism) has made all students of the Apostle his debtors, however much they may quarrel with his historical criticism.
[73] Ch. iii. 14; iv. 6, 7; v. 5; 1 Cor., vi. 17, 19; Rom. viii. 9-16.
[74] Ch. iii. 28; Col. iii. 11; Rom. xv. 5-7.
[75] The verb προεγράφη (openly set forth) probably means painted up rather than placarded. This more vivid meaning belongs to γράφω, and there is no sufficient reason why it should not attach to προ-γράφω. It is entirely in place here. "Jesus Christ crucified" is not an announcement to be made, but an object to be delineated.
[76] On βασκαίνω see the note in Lightfoot's Commentary in loc.; also Grimm's N. T. Lexicon. "The Scripture calleth envy an 'evil eye;' ... so there still seemeth to be acknowledged in the act of envy an ejaculation or irradiation of the eye. Envy hath in it something of witchcraft.... It is the proper attribute of the Devil, who is called 'The envious man, that soweth tares among the wheat by night.'"—(Lord Bacon: Essay ix.)
[77] Comp. 2 Cor. xi. 1-4, a passage closely parallel to this context, containing what is expressed here and in Gal. i. 6, 7; iv. 11, 17, 18.
[78] 2 Tim. ii. 10; Eph. vi. 24 (ἀφθαρσία is incorruption everywhere else in Paul: why not here?)
[79] Ch. iii. 26, 27; Rom. vi. 2-4; Col. ii. 11-13; Tit. iii. 5.
[80] Comp. 2 Thess. i. 4-6; Ph. i. 28-30; Rom. viii. 17; 2 Tim. i. 8.
[81] Matt. iii. 9; John viii. 33-59.
[82] Gen. xii. 3: the first promise to Abraham. In this text the Hebrew and the Greek (LXX) say, All the tribes (families) of the earth. The synonymous ἔθνη, with its special Jewish connotation, suited Paul's purpose better; and it is used in the repetition of the promise in Gen. xviii. 18.
[83] Rom. viii. 4; 1 Cor. vi. 9; Eph. v. 9; Tit. ii. 12-14; etc.
[84] Of faith qualifies live in the Hebrew of the prophet, and in the LXX, also in the quotation of Heb. x. 38. The presumption is that it does so in Rom. i. 17, and Gal. iii. 11. We can see no sufficient reason in these passages to the contrary.
[85] 2 Chron. xx. 7; Isai. xli. 8; comp. Jas. ii. 23.
[86] Deut. xxvii. 26; Jos. viii. 32-35. All things, given by the LXX in the former passage, is wanting in the Hebrew. But the phrase is true to the spirit of this text, and is read in the parallel Deut. xxviii. 15.
[87] Hab. ii. 4. For the construction, see note on p. 186.
[88] Lev. xviii. 5.
[89] The Hebrew of Deut. xxi. 23 reads "a curse of God;" the LXX, "cursed by God" (κεκαταρημένος however, not ἐπικατάρατος as in Paul's phrase). The Apostle omits the two last words, not inadvertently, as Meyer supposes, for he must have had a painfully vivid remembrance of the wording of the original, but out of a reverence that made it impossible to speak of the Redeemer as "accursed by God."
[90] See the able and convincing elucidation of διαθήκη in Cremer's Biblico-Theological Lexicon of N.T. Greek.
[91] See Heb. ix. 16-18, where so much ingenuity has been expended to turn testament into covenant.
"Sweet is the memory of His name,
Who blessed us in His will."
[92] Gen. xxii. 16-18; Heb. vi. 17.
[93] Comp. Rom. viii. 33, 34; Acts xi. 17; 2 Cor. i. 21, for a similar emphasis.
[94] We gain nothing, and we may lose much, in "trying to settle questions of Old Testament historical criticism by casual allusions in the New Testament." (See Mr. Beet's sensible observations, in his Commentary ad loc.)
[95] Gen. xii. 2, 3; xv. 2-6; xvii. 4-8, 15-21; xxii. 16-18.
[96] Ch. iv. 21-31; Rom. iv. 17-22; comp. Heb. xi. 11, 12.
[97] Rom. xi.
[98] Luke i. 54, 55, 68-73.
[99] Τῶν παραβάσεων: the definite article can scarcely mean less than this.
[100] Comp. the reference to this word in Chapter IX., p. 143.
[101] Acts vii. 53: comp. διαταγὰς ἀγγέλων and διαταγεὶς δι' ἀγγέλων. Stephen's last words may well have lingered in the ear of Saul. From the lips of Stephen, they were something of an argumentum ad hominem.
[102] A doubtful citation at the best: the reading of the LXX is more to the point than the Hebrew text.
[103] See the quotations from Jewish writers to this effect given by Meyer or Lightfoot.
[104] Comp. Heb. ii. 2-4; also Col. ii. 15: "(scil. God) having stripped off the principalities and powers"—the earlier forms of angelic mediation. The writer may refer on this latter passage to his note in the Pulpit Commentary, also to The Expositor, 1st series, x. 403-421.
[105] But the title "mediator" belongs to Christ, given by Paul himself—the "one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. ii. 5). (Comp. Heb. viii. 6; ix. 15; xii. 24.) Christ is so styled however under an aspect very different from that in which the word appears here. "There is one mediator," the Apostle writes in 1 Timothy, "who gave Himself a ransom for all," the one atoning mediator. But Christ's manifestation of God was direct, as that of Moses was not. His Person does not come between men and God, like that of the Sinaitic mediator; it brings God into immediate contact with men. Moses acted for a distant God: Christ is Immanuel, God with us. On the human side Christ is mediator (ἄνθρωπος Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς); He acts for individual men with God. On the Divine side, He is more than mediator, being God Himself.
[106] Matt. xix. 8. Comp. Ezek. xx. 25.
[107] Comp. 1 Cor. viii. 6; 1 Tim. ii. 5; also Mark xii. 29, 30; Jas. ii. 19.
[108] Hence the present participle, συγκλειόμενοι (Revised reading of ver. 23), in combination with the imperfect of the foregoing verb, ἐφρονρουμεθα.
[109] The phrase faith in Christ Jesus is a link between this Epistle and those of the third and fourth groups. Comp. Col. i. 4; Eph. i. 15; 1 Tim. iii. 13; 2 Tim. i. 13; iii. 15. More frequently in this connection our "in" represents εἰς (into), not ἐν as here.
[110] Rom. vi. 1, 2; Tit. iii. 4-7 ("not of works ... that we had done)."
[111] Comp. Eph. ii. 15; iv. 13; but neuter in ii. 14.
[112] Surely the world of men, not the cosmical elements; comp. Col. ii. 8, 20 (where rudiments of the world is parallel to tradition of men); also Gal. vi. 14; Heb. ix. 1. 1 Cor. iii. 1-3 supplies an interesting parallel: those who are babes in Christ, are so far carnal and walk according to man, animated by the spirit of this world (1 Cor. ii. 12).
[113] Comp. Rom. i. 3, 4; ix. 5; 2 Cor. xiii. 4; Eph. iv. 9, 10; Ph. ii. 6-8; Col. i. 15, 18; ii. 9; 1 Tim. iii. 16.
[114] Matt. x. 20; Luke xi. 13; John xiv. 16; Acts i. 4, 5.
[115] John xiv. 17; the present (ἐστίν) is the preferable reading. See Westcott ad loc.
[116] Comp. Rom. viii. 31-35; Acts xi. 17.
[117] John xii. 26; xvii. 24; Rev. iii. 21; Phil. i. 23; Col. iii. 4; 1 Pet. v. 1.
[118] For the rendering of this clause, see the exposition which follows.
[119] Comp. 2 Cor. ii. 4; vii. 8.
[120] Comp. 1 Thess. i. 5; ii. 7, 8.
[121] 1 Cor. ii. 3; 2 Cor. iv. 7; x. 1, 10; xi. 6.
[122] Comp. 2 Cor. xii. 7-10, referring apparently to the first outbreak of this mysterious affliction.
[123] Comp. Matt. xviii. 9.
[124] Ζηλόω, to have zeal towards a person or thing, to affect (A.V.: in its older English sense of seeking, paying regard to any one).
[125] The full stop placed in the English Version at the end of ver. 18, on this view, is out of place.
[126] Kalisch, Commentary, on Genesis xxi. 9.
[127] Comp. Heb. xi. 11, 12; 1 Pet. iii. 6.
[128] Paul writes "the Sinai mountain" (τὸ Σινᾶ ὄρος) in tacit opposition to the other, familiar Mount Zion (Hofmann in loc.). In Heb. xii. 22 the same inversion appears, with the same significance.
[129] The reading of this clause is doubtful. The ancient witnesses disagree. Dr. Hort suggests that the Revised reading—the best attested, but scarcely grammatical—may be due to a primitive corruption, ΤΗ for ΕΠ (ἐλευθερίᾳ). This emendation gives an excellent and apposite sense: for (with a view to) freedom Christ set us free. The phrase ἐπ' ἐλευθερίᾳ is found in ver. 13, and would gain additional force there, if read as a repetition of what is affirmed here. The confusion of letters involved is a natural one; and once made at an early time in some standard copy, it would account for the extraordinary confusion of reading into which the verse has fallen. If conjectural emendation may be admitted anywhere in the N. T., it is legitimate in this instance.
[130] Comp. John xv. 5, 6, where in ἐβλήθη, ἐξηράνθη, there is a like summary aorist.
[131] Comp. 2 Pet. iii. 17; for the figure suggested, Eph. iv. 14; 1 Tim. i. 19.
[132] Acts xxiii. 6; xxiv. 15; xxvi. 6-8; comp. John vi. 39, 40, 44.
[133] "Working through love," not wrought (R.V. margin). The latter rendering of the participle is found in some of the Fathers, and is preferred by Romanist interpreters in the interest of their doctrine of fides formata. Paul's theology and his verbal usage alike require the middle sense of this verb, adopted by modern commentators with one consent. The middle voice implies that through love faith gets into action, is operative, efficacious, shows what it can do. Comp., for Pauline usage, Rom. vii. 5; 2 Cor. i. 6, iv. 12; Eph. iii. 20; Col. i. 29; 1 Thess. ii. 13; 2 Thess. ii. 7; and see Moulton's Winer's N. T. Grammar, p. 318 (note on dynamic middle).
[134] See Chapter I, pp. 15, 16, on the date of the Epistle.
[135] Comp. ch. iii. 4: "ye suffered so many things."
[136] Comp. Chapter XII, pp. 193-4.
[137] Compare Chapter IX, pp. 131-4. We refer this occurrence to the interval between the second and third of Paul's missionary journeys (Acts xviii. 22), A.D. 54.
[138] The rendering of the R.V. margin is that of all the Greek interpreters, and of Meyer, Lightfoot, Beet, and the strict grammatical commentators amongst the moderns. The form and usage of the verb do not allow of any other. Apart from its unseemliness, the expression is powerfully appropriate. This condemnation of the Old-Testament sacrament is not more severe than the language of Isa. lxvi. 3: "He that slaughtereth an ox is a man-slayer, he that bringeth a meal-offering—it is swine's blood."
[139] The construction of ch. vi. 16; Rom. iv. 12; Phil. iii. 16, is not strictly analogous.
[140] Comp. Jas. iv. 5: "The Spirit which He made to dwell in us, yearneth even unto jealous envy" (R. V. margin); also the double use of ζηλόω in ch. iv. 17, 18 (Chapter XVIII, pp. 279, 280.).
[141] See Rom. vi. 6, 12; vii. 4, 5, 23, 24; viii. 10-13; Col. ii. 11-13; iii. 5.
[142] Comp., 1 Tim. ii. 13-15: saved through the childbearing—i.e., surely, the bearing of the Child Jesus, the seed of the woman.
[143] For this pregnant force of έν see the grammarians: Moulton's Winer, pp. 514, 5; A. Buttmann, pp. 328, 9. (Eng. Ver.).
[144] 1 Tim. ii. 14: the expression is parallel in point of grammar, as well as sense; γέγονεν έν παραβάσει.
[145] 1 Cor. iv. 1-5; 2 Cor. i. 12; v. 10-12.
[146] See 2 Thess. iii. 17, 18; 1 Cor. xvi. 21-23. In ver. 22 of the latter passage we can trace a similar autographic message, on a smaller scale. Comp. also Philemon 19.
[147] ὁι περιτεμνόμενοι (Revised Text). On this idiom, see Winer's Grammar, p. 444; A. Buttmann's N. T. Grammar, p. 296. In ch. i. 23, and in ii. 2 (τ. δοκοῦσι), we have had instances of this usage.
[148] Στοιχήσουσιν; comp. ch. v. 25.