Galatians 5

1 liberty. The best authorities connect the words with iv. 31, thus: “We are children . . . of the free with the liberty wherewith Christ makes His people free. Stand fast, therefore, and be not entangled,” etc. Cp. Rom. vi. 16-20, and notes.

bondage. See iv. 9, and note; Acts xv. 10.

2 if ye be circumcised, etc. If you give yourselves up to this Judaising perversion, you do in effect reject the Saviour, and place yourselves (3) under a covenant which offers life on no other condition than perfect obedience to the whole law.

3. For I testify. Rather, “But I testify”: viz., that every one who submits to be circumcised is bound, as a professed Jew, to keep all the institutions of Moses.

4. Christ is become of no effect unto you. Rather, “Ye were severed from Christ”; “your connexion with Him is annulled” (Meyer).

whosoever of you are justified. Lit., “ye who are justifying yourselves”; “you who are seeking acceptance with God through the Law” (Weymouth).

ye are fallen (away) from grace. Justification by works of law necessarily excludes grace.

5 we through the Spirit, etc. “By the assistance of the Holy Spirit we are enabled to cherish the hope of being justified; and the source out of which that hope springs is faith” (Efikoot).

6 nor uncircumcision. Circumcision being disparaged, some might wrongly argue that the mere fact of being uncircumcised was meritorious.

8. This persuasion, etc. i.e., the persuasion that circumcision is necessary. God had called you, and you were obediently following the truth; but you have suddenly stopped. It is clear that some one has “persuaded” you, and it is equally clear that whoever he be, he is not “of God.” The mischief, if not checked, will soon spread through you all (9).

10. I have confidence. The I here is emphatic. I, who know you so well, confidently hope that you will even yet be brought to hold the truth; but the teacher, be he who he may, who disturbs you by his false reports about me, will be punished (10-12).

11 if I yet preach circumcision, etc. A slander, fully refuted by my persecutions from the Jews, to whom the doctrine, that faith in a crucified Saviour avails for salvation, without Jewish rites, is a “stumbling-block.”

12. I would they were even cut off. Rather, “would mutilate themselves” (Lightfoot; Conybeare and Howson).

13 ye have been called unto (for) liberty, etc. You are brought more thoroughly under the influence of love, the higher law of the spirit of liberty: see Rom. viii.

14 fulfilled in one word. See Rom. xiii. 8. Word here means precept.

16. Walk in the Spirit.** Probably meaning the same as Rom. viii. 4; on which see note.

17 so that ye cannot, etc. Rather, “to the end that ye do not the things that ye would”; each striving to prevent the fulfilment of the desires which the other prompts. On this conflict, see Rom. vii. 14-23.

18 not under (the) law. “But under grace”; and therefore “sin [or ’the flesh’] shall not have dominion over you” (see Rom. vi. 14, and note); and you shall produce the “fruit of the Spirit,” which is in fact the fulfilling of law (23), and the crucifying of the flesh (24).

19 works of the flesh. All sin is man’s work, and it is “fruitless” of good (Eph. v. 11). All holiness (22) is the fruit of the Spirit, the result of the new life which He implants.

20 witchcraft. Properly, “drugging,” used for sorcery in general. “Strife” is rather intriguings; “seditions” are factions.

22 love. Love, as the chief, stands first (1 Cor. xiii. 13). “Faith” may here mean fidelity (Titus ii. 10; 1 Tim. vi. 11).

23 temperance. “Self-control”; the government of the desires.

against such (things) there is no law. See note on ver. 18.

24 crucified. See ii. 20; vi. 14; Rom. viii. 13, and notes.