For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself ( εἰ γὰρ δοκεῖ τις εἶναί τι μηδὲν ὤν φρεεναπατᾷ ἑαυτόν [Receptus, ἑαυτὸν φρεναπατᾷ); for if a man is nothing and thinketh himself to be something, he is deceiving his own soul.
The conjunction "for" points back to the practical direction just given to the "spiritual;" meaning that for those who wished to be, and also perhaps to be thought to be, fulfilling Christ's law, this was the behaviour which they were to carry out, and without which their claim was mere self-delusion.
The phrase, δοκεῖ εἶναί τι μηδὲν ὤν, is well illustrated by the passage cited by critics from Plato's 'Apologia,' p. 41, E: ἐὰν δοκῶσί τι εἶναι μηδὲν ὄντες ὀνειδίζετε αὐτοῖς … ὅτι,… οἴονταί τι εἶναι ὄντες οὐδενὸς ἄξιοι "Something" is, by a common meiosis, put for "something considerable" (cf.
Galatians 2:6). The especial form of eminence, the claim to which is here referred to, is eminence in spirituality and consistency as a servant of Christ. Possibly the apostle has in his eye certain individuals among the Galatians that he had heard of, who, professing much, were, however, self-complacently bitter and contemptuous towards brethren who had gone wrong in moral conduct or who differed from themselves in the disputes then rife in those Churches.
The phrase, μηδὲν ὤν, "being nothing," is a part of the hypothesis relative to the individual case spoken of, not a statement putting forth the aphorism that no one is really anything. The passage quoted above from Plato shows, that in the latter case we should have had οὐδὲν and not μηδέν.
Some men, by the grace of God, are "something;" but these persons only fancy themselves to be so. Whether any man is really "something" or not is determined by his practical conduct—his "work" as the apostle expresses it in the next verse.
The verb φρεναπατᾷν occurs in the New Testament only here, though we have the substantive φρεναπάτης, deceivers, in Titus 1:10. St. James (James 1:26) speaks of a man "deceiving his heart ' in seemingly just the same sense.
In both passages it appears to be meant that a man palms off upon his own mind fancies as if they were just apprehensions of real facts; in both also these fancies are but illusive notions of one's own religious character—here, as being "spiritual;" in James, as being "religious" or "devout" ( θρῆσκος)—the activity of practical benevolence being in both cases wanting; for "the bridling not his tongue" in verse 26 is proved by the contrasted behaviour spoken of in the next verse to refer to those sins of the tongue which are implicitly condemned in vers.
19-21.