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. 14. God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross.—The great object of shame to them, and to all carnal men, is the great object of glorying to me. By whom the world is crucified unto me.—By His cross, the worst of deaths, Christ has destroyed all kinds of death. Legal and fleshly ordinances are merely outward and elements of the world. To be crucified to the world is to be free from worldliness, and all that makes men slaves to creature fascinations.
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.”