Lessons.—1. There can be but one true and infallible Gospel. 2. The best human method for moral reformation is but a caricature of the true. 3. The false teacher will not escape punishment.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES.
Vers. 6, 7. Remonstrance with Revolters against the Gospel.
I. The apostle reproves with meekness and tenderness of heart.
II. He frames his reproof with great wariness and circumspection.—He says not, ye of yourselves do remove to another gospel, but ye are removed. He blames them but in part and lays the principal blame on others.
III. The revolt was a departure from the calling to the grace of Christ.—1. They were soon carried away. This shows the lightness and inconstancy of man’s nature, especially in religion. The multitude of people are like wax and are fit to take the stamp and impression of any religion; and it is the law of the land that makes the most embrace the Gospel, and not conscience. 2. That we may constantly persevere in the profession of the true faith we must receive the Gospel simply for itself. 3. We must be renewed in the spirit of our minds and suffer no by-corners in our hearts. 4. We must not only be hearers but doers of the Word in the principal duties to be practised.
IV. The Galatians revolt to another gospel, compounded of Christ and the works of the law.—Here we see the curious niceness and daintiness of man’s nature that cannot be content with the good things of God unless they be framed to our minds. If they please us for a time, they do not please us long, but we must have new things. The apostle shows that, though it be another gospel in the estimation of the false teachers, is not another, but a subversion of the Gospel of Christ. There is but one Gospel, one in number, and no more. There is but one way of salvation by Christ, whereby all are to be saved from the beginning of the world to the end.
V. The apostle charges the authors of this revolt with two crimes.—1. They trouble the Galatians, not only because they make divisions, but because they trouble their consciences settled in the Gospel of Christ. 2. They overthrow the Gospel of Christ. They did not reach a doctrine flat contrary. They maintained the Gospel in word and put an addition to it of their own out of the law—salvation by works. They perverted and turned upside-down the Gospel of Christ.—Perkins.
The Perversion of Truth—
- Supplants the Gospel with a valueless imitation.—“Another gospel which is not another.”
- Is contrary to the Divine purpose.—“From Him that called you into the grace of Christ.”
- Creates a gulf between the soul and God.—“I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him.”
- Unsettles the faith of new converts.—“There be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ.”