The apostle's explanation of his severity.
"For do I now conciliate men, or God? or do I seek to please men?" Let them judge after his anathemas whether he would make concessions to please or conciliate the Judaists.
I. IT IS WRONG TO BE MEN-PLEASERS. Perhaps the apostle had been charged by his enemies with a too accommodating spirit in being a Gentile to Gentiles and a Jew to Jews. He says, "I please all men in all things" (l Corinthians 10:33); but this referred to circumstances in which he sought "the profit of men that they might be saved," and in which there was no principle involved. The true principle is," Let every one please his neighbour for his good to edification; for even Christ pleased not himself." But corrupt men-pleasing is that sinful complaisance to the humours and prejudices of men which sacrifices truth, righteousness, and honour. This sentence of the apostle is a rebuke to time-serving ministers who attenuate the claims of the gospel or conceal its doctrines to avert the displeasure or catch the applause of their hearers.
II. THE SERVICE OF CHRIST DEMANDS A COMPLETE INDEPENDENCE. "For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ." The friendship of men would be dearly bought at the cost of the Lord's friendship. "No man can serve two masters." To Christ he owes obedience, reverence, diligence, faithfulness; for he bore the "brands of his slavery." Therefore his subjection to him implied the rejection of all human authority in matters of faith. Yet it was not inconsistent with his being "a Jew to Jews," and" all things to all men," so long as he refused to compromise the truth of the gospel. The teacher who gives evidence that he pleases God rather than men, gives evidence likewise that his teaching is just and pure.
The true origin of the apostle's gospel.
Here he begins the apologetic portion of his Epistle, vindicating his independent apostolic authority. The phrase with which he prefaces his statement, "I declare unto you, brethren," is at once solemn and emphatic, as if he could allow of no misunderstanding affecting "the truth of the gospel," and is a sign that, in spite of their aberrations, the Galatians are still dear to him. He calls them "brethren" after his first grave censure, as if he indulged the hope of winning them back to the truth.
I. HIS GOSPEL WAS NOT HUMAN IN ITS CHARACTER. "The gospel which was preached of me is not alter man." He refers here, not to its origin, but to its character.
1. It is not discoverable by man. Human reasoning or human intuition could not have discovered its facts, its truths, its blessings.
2. It is not constructed on the principles or ideas of human wisdom, which is carnal in its instincts, and therefore it is a "foolishness to the Greeks" of speculative thought.
3. It is unchangeable in its great principles; unlike the systems of men, which are constantly varying with the spirit of each age.
II. HIS GOSPEL WAS NOT HUMAN IN ITS ORIGIN. "For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it."
1. He did not receive it from man, any more than the twelve. Men receive most of their knowledge from one another, yet he was no more man-taught than Peter, or James, or John. He received exactly what they received—he by apocalyptic communications, they by personal communications in the days of Christ's life.
2. He was not taught the gospel by man, much less by any apostle. In that case the fact of his agreement with the other apostles proved that his knowledge of Divine truth was in no sense derivative. It might be urged that Ananias gave the apostle full instructions at his baptism. But there is no evidence that Ananias gave him any instructions; his errand was that Saul should receive his sight and receive the Holy Ghost. Saul had, in fact, before this time, received his instructions on the way to Damascus (Acts 26:15-18).
3. In matters of religious moment especially affecting the foundation of a sinner's hopes, human teaching, human traditions, and human authority, are of slight importance.
III. HIS GOSPEL CAME TO HIM BY DIVINE REVELATION. His gospel was not human, but Divine, for he received it by revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. It had, therefore, a Christly origin. The revelation is not to be identified with the visions of 2 Corinthians 12:1-21., nor with the appearance of the Lord to him in Acts 22:18, nor with the period of the sojourn in Arabia; but with the appearance of Christ, as the Son of God, on the way to Damascus, as "the fundamental central illumination," which was followed by a progressive development. The apostle might, therefore, well describe his gospel as not of man. We know nothing of the mode of the Divine communications; the actual results are contained in the writings of the apostle. Thus it was that he spoke of "his gospel," which exhibited, as no other inspired writer did, "the mystery hid from generations," which forms the distinguishing glory of the Ephesian and Colossian Epistles. He sees in the gospel a Divine plan of salvation, whose centre is Christ, and whose end is the revelation of God's glorious perfection (Romans 11:36). The revelation from Christ was thus a revelation of Christ. He was at once the Source and Subject of it.
A retrospect of his career as a Jew.
This would be the best proof that he had not received his gospel from man.
I. HIS ENMITY TO THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. "I was beyond measure persecuting the Church of God, and destroying it." His past career was notorious. "He persecuted unto death" (Acts 22:4), "beyond measure"—by no feeble or spasmodic effort, limited to one spot, but by a persistent scheme of violence wrought with a fierce energy that knew no weariness. He could not then have been learning the gospel of the very saints he was hunting to death; there could he no possible association between the persecutor and his victims that would allow of his learning the gospel. On the contrary, at this time he cherished the strongest prejudices and the fiercest hatred against Christianity.
II. HIS INTENSE ZEAL FOR THE JEWISH RELIGION. He could appeal to the Galatians themselves as having once heard "of his conversation in time past in Judaism," and how he "was making progress in Judaism above many of his contemporaries in his own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of his fathers."
1. His zeal was manifest in his earnest study of Judaism. He studied it under Gamaliel, with the best advantages of instruction, and he excelled many of the young Pharisees of his own age in the ardour and in the results of his studies. He could not have made progress without study.
2. It was still more manifest in his extraordinary devotion to the traditions of his fathers. This was the natural token of an enthusiastic Pharisaism. "He was a Pharisee, and the son of a Pharisee" (Acts 23:6).
III. A BELIEVER OUGHT NOT TO BE ASHAMED TO CONFESS HIS SINS. The apostle makes an almost remorseful confession of his crimes against the Church of God. Once and again the dark recollection of ',his mad violence against the saints comes up in the midst of his grateful remembrances of God's forgiving mercy. But all that wild persecution only too clearly proved how little he was indebted to apostle or saint for the gospel he gave to the Galatians.
After his conversion he took no counsel with men as to his doctrine or career.
The apostle is most emphatic in asserting his independence of man. Mark—
I. HIS HIGH DESTINATION FROM BIRTH. "Who separated me from my mother's womb." Here is an instance of prevenient grace. From his very birth, and therefore before he could have any impulses or ideas of his own, God destined him to apostleship, no matter how wayward or inconsistent may have been the career of his youth. Looking back now upon his full history, we can see the marks of that momentous "separation." We see the working of prevenient, formative, restraining, preparatory grace. We see it:
1. In the splendid intellect with which he was endowed. God did verily prepare this large brain to be touched in his own time with heavenly fire.
2. In his education. He was a pure Jew, not half Greek, half Jew, but thoroughly versed in all the traditions of the Jews, and so trained in rabbinical traditions that he could afterwards thoroughly understand and confront the Judaist spirit everywhere, while he was led through inward struggles and fightings out of the darkness of Judaism into the full light of the gospel.
3. In his thoroughness of character. He could be nothing by halves; as a sinner, he was the very chief of sinners. Conversion made no change in his temperament and in the force of his character.
II. HIS CALL TO GRACE AND APOSTLESHIP. "And called me by his grace." In evident allusion to the scene on the way to Damascus. The call of the Redeemer was in the same moment a call to conversion and to apostleship (Romans 1:5). That call was not on the ground of his Pharisaic strictness and fastings and prayers; much less on the ground of his mad violence as a persecutor. It had its origin wholly in grace, It was of grace, not of works,
III. THE REVELATION OF GOD'S SON IN THE APOSTLE. "It pleased God to reveal his Son in me."
1. Revelation is here opposed to the method of patient and prolonged study.
2. The gospel is a revelation of the Son in his person, life, death, resurrection, and ascension. It reveals him to poor sinners as "Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption."
3. It is a revelation in individual lives. "In me." God revealed his Son to Paul and in Paul as "the Hope of glory," showed him what is "the riches of the glory of this mystery." It was a wonderful thing that the apostle should have all his fixed ideas unhinged in a moment, all his deeply rooted prejudices destroyed, and the most comprehensive views of a singularly glorious system established in his soul, not by a process of gradual inquiry or slow conviction, but instantaneously by the revelation of the Son in him. It was this revelation which enabled him ever afterwards to hold forth the Son as the one transcendently glorious and loving Redeemer.
IV. THE DESIGN OF THIS REVELATION. "That I might preach him among the Gentiles."
1. It was not for his own individual salvation, but that he might be able to make known to others what had been so graciously conveyed to himself.
2. It was the Son who was to be preached to the Gentiles, not the Law, or circumcision, or holy days; not the righteousness of works, but "the righteousness of faith." This was the true scope of his apostleship.
V. THE MOVING CAUSE ALIKE OF CALL AND REVELATION—THE GOOD PLEASURE OF GOD. "It pleased God." We see in his career, first and last, the sole agency of God, and therefore there could be no dependence upon man or self for either call or apostleship.
VI. THE PROMPTNESS AND INDEPENDENT ACTION OF THE APOSTLE AFTER HIS CALL. "Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood." He took no counsel with mortal man; he did not take the usual methods of men in determining their conduct in critical eases; therefore there was no reason for the Judaists to affirm that, after he had received his revelation, it underwent modification at the hands of men. There are times for thoughtful and even prolonged consideration, but where God's will is perfectly clear there is no need to consult man. Our first duty to Christ is a prompt obedience.