An Exposition, With Practical
Observations, of
THE EPISTLE OF ST. PAUL TO THE GALATIANS
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 18:23, 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 Co.
11:5. 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.
Excerpt from:
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible
Matthew Henry (1662 - 1714)
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