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 (ver. 27), and are one in Christ (ver. 28), are children entitled to the inheritance of promise.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Verses 1–5.

The Deceptive Glamour of Error—

I. Diverts the gaze of the soul from the most suggestive truth.—“Before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified” (ver. 1). The cross of Christ was the great theme of Paul’s preaching. He depicted it in such vivid colours and dwelt on every detail of the story with such intense earnestness and loving emphasis, that the Galatians were arrested, excited, charmed. They were smitten with a sense of sin. They seemed to be actors in the scene, as if their own hands had driven in the nails that pierced the sacred Victim. They were bowed with shame and humiliation, and in an agony of repentance they cast themselves before the Crucified and took Him for their Christ and King. While they looked to Jesus they were secure, but when they listened to the deceptive voice of error, their gaze was diverted, and the deep significance of the cross became obscured. Then backsliding began. Like mariners losing sight of their guiding star, they drifted into strange waters. The cross is the central force of Christianity; when it fades from view Christianity declines. “As the sun draws the vapours of the sea, and then paints a rainbow on them, so Christ draws men and then glorifies them. His attraction is like that of the sun. It is magnetic too, like that of the magnet to the pole. It is not simply the Christ that is the magnet; it is the crucified Christ. It is not Christ without the cross, nor the cross without Christ; it is both of them together.”

II. Confuses the mind as to the nature and value of spiritual agencies.—1. Concerning the method of their first reception.—“Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” (ver. 2). Making it appear that spiritual blessings were acquired by outward observance rather than by inward contemplation and faith. Confusing the true method of moral regeneration, it arrests all growth and advancement in the spiritual life. It throws back the soul on the weary round of toilsome and hopeless human effort.

2. Concerning the purpose for which they were given.—“Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” (ver. 3). It was a reversal of the Divine order. Having begun in the Spirit, so they must continue, or they would be undone. It was absurd to look for perfection in the flesh, especially when they had discovered its helplessness and misery. Pharisaic ordinances could do nothing to consummate the work of faith and love; Moses could not lead them higher than Christ; circumcision could never effect what the Holy Ghost failed to do. Spiritual results can be brought about only by spiritual agencies.