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CHRIST LIVETH IN ME.

[GALATIANS. live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which

afterwards proper to say of the baptized person that he was buried with Christ through his baptism into His Death, that "like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so he also should walk in newness of life" (Rom. vi. 1-4).

But is this crucifixion with Christ the same as that alluded to in chapter v. 24: "They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts "? In the Apostle it was. He was crucified with Christ at the very beginning of his Christian career, and now, after long abiding in Christ, he could say, "I am Christ's, for I have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts; " but few, however, of the Galatians, as far as we can judge from the tone and tenour of his letter to them, could say this. The mystical Death and Burial with Christ had taken place, but it had to be worked out in the after life (Phil. ii. 12). At the beginning grace was given to work it out, but the grace had to be realized and used.

"Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." This is a still more remarkable way of speaking, that it should be said that Christ liveth in the true Christian. Its root is in the words of Christ in John vi. 56: “He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him." A continuation of the idea is to be found in the parable of the vine and the branches (John xv. 1-10). Just as the branch lives and bears fruit, because being a branch of the vine, it lives by the life and bears fruit by the goodness of the stem, so the true Christian lives the spiritual life, not from his partaking of the life of the first, but because of his partaking of the life of the Second Adam.

The life of the Apostle (together with that of his brethren) was so extraordinary a phenomenon in this world of sin and death, it was so different from any other human life, Jewish or Gentile, so above the world, so above nature, so above philosophy or human wisdom, that it must be accounted for; and the way in which the Apostle accounts for it is the only reasonable way-that God had given to the world a new Life in His Son, that this Life being the life of an Adam, a federal Head could be communicated, so that as the life of the Old Man was in men working sin and death, so the Life of the New Man could be, and was in men, working righteousness and life.

CHAP. II.] THE SON OF GOD, WHO LOVED ME.

I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, 'who loved me, and gave himself for me.

21 I do not frustrate the grace of God: for

41 2 Cor. v. 15.

1 Thess. v. 10.

i Pet. iv. 2.

1 ch. i. 4. Eph. v. 2. Titus ii. 14.

“And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son." "In the flesh," i.e., in the present state of things, whilst my renewed soul is encased in an unrenewed body.

"I live by the faith of the Son of God." The life of his soul or spirit was a life of constant looking to Christ as the Son of God, crucified, risen and ascended. His faith, the evidence of things not seen, constantly evidenced to him the presence, and the power, and the love of the Son of God.

Mark the use of the term "Son of God."

His belief in Christ is

a belief in Christ in His highest Nature as the Son of God. This was the source of the supernatural life. As the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself (John v. 26).

"Who loved me, and gave himself for me." "I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee." Known unto God are all His works from the foundation of the world, and therefore Christ's love to Paul as a chosen vessel to exhibit the power of God aud of Christ, could not be a matter of yesterday, but must have been in the mind of God from eternity.

He loved me before the foundation of the world. He gave Himself for me before I knew Him, and whilst I was His bitter enemy He yet pursued me with His love, as said Ananias: "The God of our fathers hath chosen thee that thou shouldst know His will, and see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of his mouth (Acts xxii. 14).

"I do not frustrate the grace of God." "I do not frustrate the grace of God as do the Judaizers." If the law could bestow upon men that reconciliation to God and that new Life which Christ alone imparts, why should Christ have humbled Himself, and been obedient to death? If the world could have had righteousness without Him, why should He come and die for us?

What more im

"What can be more heinous than this error? pressive than these words? For if Christ died, plainly it was on account of the inability of the law to justify us; if the law does

42

WHO HATH BEWITCHED YOU. [GALATIANS.

"if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in

justify, then is His Death needless. Yet with what pretence can that work be called vain which is so awful, so surpassing human reason, and a mystery so ineffable, with which patriarchs travailed, which prophets foretold, which angels gazed on with consternation, which all confess to be the summit of the Divine tenderness" (Chrysostom).

CHAP. III.

a

FOOLISH Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth,

b

1. "That ye should not obey the truth." So C., E., K., L., P., most Cursives, Vulg., Goth., &c.; but N, A., B., D., F., G., d, e, f, g, Syr., Copt., omit.

1. "O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you," &c. “O foolish Galatians." The Galatians were by no means a dull or stupid race, but rather a versatile and inconstant one (Ellicott), and so likely to be led away by follies and extravagances.

Who hath fascinated you, who

66

"Who hath bewitched you?" hath cast upon you an evil eye? They deserved much severer words. Observe too, I pray, how soon he stays his arm from striking: for he adds not 'Who has seduced you, who has perverted you, who has misled you by sophistry?' but 'Who has cast an envious eye upon you?' Thus tempering his reprimand with somewhat of praise. For it implies that their previous actions had excited jealousy, and that the present occurrence arose from the spitefulness of a demon, whose breath had blasted their prosperous estate" (Chrysostom).

"That ye should not obey the truth." Probably an interpolation here from v. 7 (see critical note).

"Before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth."

CHAP. III.]

CRUCIFIED AMONG YOU.

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before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?

d

2 This only would I learn of you, Received ye by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

1. "Among you." So D., E., F., G., K., L., P., most Cursives, d, e, f; but N, A., B., C., some Cursives, Vulg. (Cod. Amiat.), Syriac, Copt., Sah., omit.

Jesus Christ is "openly set forth" in the preaching of the crucifixion and in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

He was set forth before the Galatians in the preaching of the Crucifixion. This implies much more than a doctrinal declaration of the abstract truth of the Atonement as consummated in the Crucifixion. It necessarily implies that graphic and circumstantial account of the Crucifixion itself which we have in each one of the Evangelists. Each Evangelist describes the Crucifixion itself in its attendant circumstances of horror and distress, and not only in its dogmatic significance.

If they had the Eucharist celebrated amongst them, then they had that celebrated amongst them by which they showed forth the Lord's death till He came. "He says not crucified, but evidently set forth crucified, signifying that by the eye of faith they saw more distinctly than some who were present as spectators. For many of the latter, though they were spectators, yet received no benefit; but the former, though they were not eye-witnesses, yet saw by faith more clearly. These words convey both praise and blame : praise for their implicit acceptance of the truth; blame, for that Him Whom they had seen for their sakes stripped naked, transfixed, nailed to the Cross, spit upon, mocked, fed with vinegar, upbraided by thieves, pierced with a spear (for all this is implied in the words evidently set forth crucified), Him they had left, and untouched by these His sufferings betaken themselves to the law. Here observe how Paul, leaving all mention of heaven, earth, and sea, everywhere preaches the power of Christ, and bears about His Cross for this is the sum of the Divine love towards us" (Chrysostom.)

2. "This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works," &c. "This only would I learn of you." The answer

44

ARE YE SO FOOLISH?

[GALATIANS.

3 Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by 'the flesh?

e ch. iv. 9.

f Heb. vii. 16. & ix. 10.

to one question will settle the whole matter.

"By what means

did ye receive the Spirit? was it whilst ye attempted to obey the law, or was it whilst ye listened to and believed the Gospel?" As long as men were under the law the Spirit was not yet given; but when Christ had died and risen again, then He sent the Spirit; then appeared among men a righteousness such as they had never seen before, and a power of speaking with tongues, and prophecy, and healing, and working miracles, such as abundantly evidenced that the Gospel and its mode of salvation, and the liberty which it proclaimed, were all from God.

3. "Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect," &c. The Spirit is power, the flesh is weakness; the Spirit is righteousness, the flesh is sin; the Spirit is liberty, the flesh is under bondage; the Spirit is immortality, the flesh is corruption.

Having begun in the Spirit by a repentance which severed your affections from sin and the world, and by a faith which realized to you God and His Son, and His Church and kingdom, and the powers of the unseen and eternal world, and the sacraments by which you were engrafted into His Body and fed with His very Flesh and Blood

"Are ye now made perfect in the flesh?" Are ye made perfect by a law which is outward, and by ordinances, such as circumcision, which have no grace attached to them, and other elements weak and beggarly to which ye desire to be enslaved ?

This passage has an important bearing upon the nature of sacraments. What are sacraments? Are they things of the flesh or of the Spirit? They are things of the flesh if they are outward things, betokening or typifying things which we should have within us, but not primarily through them as instruments. Thus circumcision had no gift of the Spirit connected with it, but merely symbolized a circumcision of the heart. If then the sacraments are merely types or figures, betokening what is absent rather than what is present, then "converted" persons need not-rather should not -use them. If baptism is merely circumcision under another form, as vast numbers amongst us, even in the Church of England,