Galatians 1

Galatians 1:1

Paul, an apostle, (that had not my commission from any mere man, (as some others, the secondary apostles, had,) but from God in heaven, and was not called by any other apostle of Christ, or assisted by any, but first called to the faith by the immediate voice of Jesus Christ speaking to me out of heaven, then by revelation from him, Acts ix. 15, authorized to preach among the Gentiles, and after, Acts xiii. 2, by special direction of the Holy Ghost separated to the apostleship, who also received all my instructions from him by vision to Ananias, and so in effect from God the Father, which by his power raised him from the dead, and gave all power unto him;)

Galatians 1:2

And all those that are constantly with me, (see Phil. iv. 22,) my fellow-labourers in the gospel, send greeting to all the several churches in the cities and regions of Galatia.

[b] brethren which are with me] The word ἀδελφοί, brethren, doth oft signify no more than believers, Christians; but here, being joined with Paul in the writing of the Epistle, οἱ σὺν ἐμοὶ πάντες ἀδελφοί, all

Galatians 1:4

Whose dying for us was purposely designed to work a reformation and mortification of sin in us, and to take us off from the corrupt practices of the men of this age, both idolatrous Gentiles and corrupt hypocritical Jews, which, with a zeal to circumcision, and the like Mosaical rites, live in all the impurity and impiety in the world; and wherein Christ hath done nothing but what is exactly according to the will and appointment of the eternal God and Father of us all, the God of Israel, whom the Jews acknowledge and profess to worship.

Galatians 1:6

Having so lately preached the gospel of Christ among you, Acts xviii. 23, and thereby either confirmed or first converted you to the faith, I wonder you should so suddenly forsake those infusions you received from me, and remove quite from the truth of the gospel to a new strange doctrine.

Galatians 1:7

Which indeed is far from being another gospel, or doctrine of Christ, fit to come in competition with what I preached to you, far from being taught, as is pretended, by other apostles; only there are some Gentiles that had lived in Judæa, of the sect of the Gnostics, such as were at Philippi, ch. iii. 3, teaching the Gentile converts that they must be circumcised, not out of any principle of piety or true zeal to the Mosaical law, but that they might curry favour with the Jews, and avoid the pressures that lay upon the Christians, whose persecutions were generally caused by them; and these do quite pervert and change that doctrine that I delivered you from Christ.

Galatians 1:8

And if any attempt to do that, though it were I myself, or even an angel from heaven, I proclaim unto you mine opinion and apostolical sentence, that you are to disclaim and renounce all communion with him, to look on him as on an excommunicated person, under the second degree of excommunication, that none is to have any commerce with in sacred matters.

Galatians 1:9

And that ye may take more heed to what I say, I repeat it again, Whosoever teaches you any new doctrine, contrary to what I at first preached to you, let him be cast out of the church by you.

Galatians 1:10

By this you may guess whose doctrine is most to be heeded; theirs sure that desire not to get the favour of men, to avert the displeasure of men, but to secure the favour of God, to approve themselves to him: and I hope it is clear, that is my only design, and not theirs, who labour to propitiate the persecuting Jews, as by their new infusions it is manifest your Gnostic teachers do. This if I did, I must profess, I should not faithfully discharge the trust reposed in me by Christ; or, if I had had a mind to this, I had never turned Christian, losing thereby all my interests among the Jews.

[c] persuade] What πείθειν ἀνθρώπους and Θεόν, to persuade men and God signifies, must be taken from the like phrase in the Old Testament, 1 Sam. xxiv. 7, where the Greek hath these words, Ἔπεισε Δαβὶδ τοὺς ἄνδρας αὐτοῦ ἐν λόγοις, David persuaded his men with words, where we read, David stayed his servants with these words. The men that were with David were very eager to have him take the advantage against Saul, and kill him, ver. 4, and were ready to rise up against him to kill him, ver. 7, and David’s speech to them took them off from this bloody purpose, and that is expressed by ἕπεισε, persuading them, appeasing, pacifying them. Thus is it the office of a rhetor or advocate, πείθειν, to persuade, that is, to appease the judge to the client whose cause is pleaded, to propitiate him. So Matt. xxviii. 14. If the governor hear of it, that is, of the soldiers being so negligent as to let Christ be stolen out of the grave which they were set to watch, πείσομεν αὐτόν, we will persuade him, that is, appease him, obtain his pardon for you, and, as it follows, ὑμᾶς ἀμερίμνους ποιήσομεν, we will free you from all solicitude of securing yourselves from that heavy punishment that by the Roman laws martial was due to the watchman that fell asleep. By which it is clear that πείθειν is to propitiate, or gain one’s favour, to appease wrath or punishment, to avert displeasure; and so it is here, to persuade men, that is, to say or teach those doctrines which will avert the displeasure of the persecuting Jews, which the Gnostic teachers did; and to persuade God is to endeavour to say and preach that which may avert God’s wrath, be acceptable to him, obtain and secure his favour. And this is in the next words explained by ἀρίσκειν, to please men, as that is contrary to, and unreconcilable with, the service, or approving himself to God.

Galatians 1:11

And whereas it is objected to me, that being none of Christ’s immediate retinue, I have received the gospel from men, and not from Christ, and therefore may be thought to have made some change in it, I now declare to you, that the gospel preached unto you by me hath a more than human authority, and so is not to receive prejudice by the lateness of my vocation.

Galatians 1:12

For as it is not pretended to be any tradition of the Jews, nor taught me by my instructors in the Jewish religion, ver. 13, (which if it were, there were reason that now their verdict should be taken in it,) so it is evident that I had it not from those that were Christians and apostles before me, but by call from heaven, and by immediate revelation from Christ, in opposition to that way that had been taught me among the Jews.

13, 14. For ye cannot but have been told what I did, how I employed myself when I was a Jew, that I was the most zealous persecutor of Christianity, and maintainer of the Jewish customs (and traditions, superadded to the law) of any man.

15, 16. But when God, who had from an infant determined to make use of me, and to set me apart for his service, had in his good time, Acts ix, actually called me, and that when I deserved no such dignity or favour from him, (nay when I was bloodily set on persecuting Christianity,) and soon after that expressed his pleasure by Ananias that I should preach the gospel to the Gentiles, and gave me authority to do so, Acts ix. 15, immediately I set about my work, not thinking it needful for me, who had it from heaven, to receive my mission from any mortal man (see note [e] Matt. xvi),

Galatians 1:15

[d] separated me from my mother’s womb] Ἀφορίζειν, to separate, in this place signifies, in the same manner as Acts xiii. 2, (spoken of this apostle,) a consecration to the apostolical office, only with this difference, that there it is spoken of it as instantly to be performed by the ministry of men, here only in the designation or decree of God, which is therefore said to be ἐκ κοιλίας, from the womb, to denote the no-contribution made by him toward this decree of giving him a commission to be an apostle, or the no-merit considered in him by God, when he designed him to this office. This further includes a purpose of God’s to call him from heaven, in the midst of his madness against Christians, (which mercy of God’s to him was founded in his doing it ignorantly, 1 Tim. i. 13,) and his foresight that he would immediately convert upon that call; which two being first supposed, (in God’s

HAMMOND ANNOTT. VOL. II. N

Galatians 1:17

Or to go up to Jerusalem to Peter, James, &c. as to those that were instated to that office before me, and consequently might instruct me in the Christian doctrine; but without applying myself to any, after my mission from Christ, I went presently from Damascus into Arabia, and after returned again to Damascus, Acts ix. 19, and there preached Christ in their synagogues, ver. 20.

Galatians 1:18

Then being in danger of treachery from the Jews, I escaped their hands, Acts ix. 25, and I came