Happy Structure of This Epistle

And in the happy structure of this epistle, the Apostle ends with himself, as he begins with himself. We have seen how he told them, at the first, of the peculiarities of his apostleship, how he had received both his commission and his instructions immediately from God, and how he had then, with a faith that was an answer to such grace, at once conducted himself in full, personal confidence in Christ, and independently of all the resources of flesh and blood. And now, at the close, he tells them, that, as for himself, he knew no glorying but in the cross of the Lord Jesus, by whom the world was crucified to him and he to the world. And he tells them, further, that no one need meddle with him or trouble him with their thoughts about circumcision and the law or the doings of a carnal religiousness, the rudiments of a world to which he was now crucified, for he bore in his body the marks of the Lord. He belonged to Jesus by personal, individual tokens, immediately impressed on him, as by the appropriating hand of Christ Himself, and no one had any right to touch the Lord's treasure.
Precious secret of the grace of God, precious simplicity in the faith of a heaven-taught sinner! It is not knowledge of Scripture, or the ability to talk of it, or even to teach it from Genesis to Revelation; it is not the orderly services of religion; it is not devout feelings, but it is that guileless action of the soul that attaches our very selves to Jesus in the calm and certainty of a believing mind.
Things New and Old