Welcome back to my study/review of The Epistle to the Galatians. If you missed the previous parts of this study, you can find them HERE.
Galatians 1:6-10
6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.
10 For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
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After Paul gives a short greeting, he jumps right into the reason for this letter. The Galatians had been entertaining and believing a version of Christianity that was not the real one. This short section of verses is cited often in regard to a couple of large religious sects in the world, but we’ll get to that in the commentary that follows. Let’s first dive into verse six, and in the note from Ellicott’s Commentary:
(6) Removed.—The Greek word is one regularly used for a “deserter,” “turn-coat,” or “apostate,” either in war, politics, or religion. The tense is strictly present: “You are now, at this moment, in the act of falling away.”
Him that called you.—The call of the Christian is attributed by St. Paul to God the Father; so even in Romans 1:6. The Christian, having been called by God, belongs to Christ. The part taken by Christ in the calling of the Christian is rather a mediate agency, such as is expressed in the next phrase.
Into the grace of Christ.—Rather, by the grace of Christ. The grace (i.e., the free love) of Christ becomes the instrument of the divine calling, inasmuch as it is through the preaching of that free love and free gift that the unbeliever is at first attracted and won over to the faith. The “grace of Christ” is His voluntary self-surrender to humiliation and death, from no other prompting than His own love for sinful men.
(6, 7) Unto another gospel: which is not another.—It is to be regretted that the English language hardly admits the fine shade of distinction which exists here in the Greek. The Greek has two words for “another:” one (the first of those which is here used) implying a difference in kind, the other implying mere numerical addition.
Another gospel do I call it? That would seem to concede its right to be called a gospel at all. It might be supposed to be some alternative theory, existing side by side with that which you originally heard; but this cannot be. This “other gospel” is not a second gospel; for there cannot be two gospels. The inference, therefore, to be drawn is that it is not a gospel in any sense of the word. This, then, may be dismissed. It is no true gospel, but only mischievous and factious meddling on the part of certain false teachers.
Do we know specifically what St. Paul is referring to here?
The letter that follows will give us some direction. However, we can say at the outset – and we’ll see in the verses that follow – that Paul is rebuking the “Judaizers” among the Galatians. This group insisted that new Christians embrace Old Testament law – including among other things that they get a circumcision – in order that they be saved. This is a key debate among the early Church. Christianity grew out of what it believed to be a fulfillment of the Jewish Old Covenant in the person of Jesus. What then are the obligations of the converts who are Gentiles?
Continuing on, now in The Pulpit Commentaries, Paul extends this rebuke to address authority. Not only is Paul rebuking the message given, he is rebuking the recipients of that message because they received it from those who lacks the authority to provide it. He admonishes them broadly here, regarding who does not actually possess the authority to give them a new Gospel (the answer is that nobody possesses this authority – and that includes “we” and even angels.)
Paul is communicating something about the nature of what the Gospel is, by expressing that it cannot be repealed or modified, by anyone. This statement implies that the crowd of “Judaizers” were making an appeal to their own authority.
But though we (ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐὰν ἡμεῖς); but even if we ourselves. This “but” (ἀλλὰ) is strongly adversative. What those disturbers of the believer’s peace would have been fain to do was a thing impossible. Heaven’s gospel could not be thus changed. And the attempt to thus change it, being in effect to fight against God, merited God’s curse. In the plural “we” the apostle intends principally his own self. A shrinking from unnecessary self-obtrusion, and tender respectful sympathy with his ministerial brethren, prompt him not unfrequently to veil his own individuality by associating in this way with himself those who were wont to share more or less in his evangelistic labours and sufferings, although in reality what he says may apply principally to himself and only in a very modified measure to them. A signal instance of this is furnished by that whole passage in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, which begins with the fourth chapter and goes on down to the eleventh verse of the sixth. Nevertheless, we should in all such cases imperfectly represent the spirit of his words, if we were to substitute the singular pronoun “I.“ In the present instance individuals of the evangelizing party which were wont to accompany him had, no doubt, been fellow-workers with him also in Galatia, and are therefore hero inclusively referred to. Compare the plural and the singular verbs in the next verse. The introduction of this reference to himself and his fellow-workers, as well as that to “an angel from heaven,” seems meant to make his readers feel that this was no question of distinguished personality, as if it mattered who it was that taught a different doctrine; whether (suppose) it were a James or a Cephas, for those revered names were often used to cloak the designs of Judaizers; or whether it was one of the Galatian Churchmen themselves especially looked up to (cf. Galatians 5:10 and note). An anathema was his due, whoever he might be. In the manner of its introduction we cannot fail to recognize an underlying consciousness on the writer’s part of the highly distinguished position which he himself held; but there is present the consciousness too that he was nothing more than the mere organ or channel of Christ’s teaching; from that teaching he himself may not swerve without justly incurring the “woe” which he told the Corinthians he should have to fear in case he preached not the gospel (1 Corinthians 9:16). Or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you (ἢἄγγελος ἐξ οὐρανοῦ εὐαγγελίζηται ὑμῖν παρ ὃ εὐηγγελισάμεθα ὑμῖν); or if an angel from heaven should set himself to preach unto you a gospel other than that we preached unto you. The construction of the entire sentence displays in the Greek a broken character not quite so apparent in our Authorized Version. The verb “should preach a gospel” is in the singular number (εὐαγγελίζηται); neglecting the “we,” it attaches itself to “an angel from heaven,” which latter, as being the higher, absorbs the previously named subject altogether, standing as sole subject, both in the hypothetical clause and in the concluding one, “let him be anathema.” It is, of course, apparent that, if the sentence of anathema would in the supposed case be the only proper one to pronounce upon “an angel from heaven,” it most certainly fastens upon any human being guilty of the same offence. The “angel from heaven” is like the “second man from heaven” in 1 Corinthians 15:47; the phrase,” from heaven,” denoting both coming down out of heaven and also the higher sphere of being to which the person spoken of appertains. Comp. also John 3:31, “He that is from earth … he that is from heaven.” The force of the preposition παρὰ in εὐαγγελίζηται παρ ὃ εὐηγγελισάμεθα may he illustrated by its use in 1 Corinthians 3:11, “Other foundation can no man lay than (παρὰ) that which is laid;” where it points to a new foundation, not to be by the side of, but to supersede, the former one. Taken thus, it would seem to follow up the before expressed notion of” another gospel” superseding, setting aside, the true gospel. This sense of the preposition readily passes on to that of “contrary to.” which is profusely illustrated by Liddell and Scott (‘Lexicon,’ in verb. παρά, c. I. 1 Corinthians 1:4, b), and which we have in Acts 18:13, “Worship God contrary to the Law [of Moses];” Romans 16:17,” Causing the divisions … contrary to the doctrine which ye learned;” Romans 1:26, “use which is against nature.” It cannot be doubted that the apostle is here thinking of a (pretended) gospel which was incompatible with the true one, and not of merely additional elements of Christian doctrine which should take their place alongside of those which they had already received. Additional information, we may be sure, was quite as necessary or desirable for the Galatians as it was for either the Corinthians or the “Hebrews;” neither of whom had as yet, as was intimated to them (1 Corinthians 3:2; Hebrews 5:12; Hebrews 6:1-20. l), been fed with “solid food,” but only with “milk,” and whom it behoved to “go on to fuller maturity” of knowledge. The point in the apostle’s view was this: what he had himself taught them was, so far, certainly true and to be depended upon, and could not without treason against Christ be set aside or superseded or essentially qualified; whereas the teaching which was now being foisted upon their previous convictions did infringe upon what he had taught them, seriously and even fundamentally. The tenor of the whole Epistle shows what were the especial features of this gospel which were now in question. The present question concerned the “good news” that God, through the cross of Christ, had emancipated his servants from bondage to ceremonialism; that God adopted them as simply believing in Christ to be his sons in full possession of his fatherly love; and that by the Holy Spirit he endued them with the consciousness of this adoption. There has been at times much discussion as to the bearing of the passage before us upon our controversy with Romanists respecting tradition. If what has been above stated is just, it follows that these words of the apostle forbid our adding, on any ground whatever, to the dogma or Church practice sanctioned by Scripture, any such dogma or Church practice as would transform or essentially modify the former, but, on the other hand, the addition of dogma or Church practice which is not out of harmony with that sanctioned by Scripture, these words do not forbid. Let him be accursed (ἀνάθεμα ἔστω); let him be anathema, that is, a thing doomed to destruction. The word ἀνάθεμα is originally identical with ἀνάθημα (anathema), a thing devoted, which in Luke 21:5 is rendered “offering;” but in Hellenistic Greek the former diverges from the latter by being ordinarily applied to “a thing devoted to destruction.” In all languages it sometimes occurs that a word, one and the same originally, diverges into two slightly differing forms, used severally to express different phases of the original notion. Archbishop Trench, in his ‘Study of Words,’ p. 156, referred to by Bishop Lightfoot in his note on this passage, instances “cant” and “chant,” “human” and “humane,” and others. In the LXX. anathema is used to render the Hebrew word cherem, which in our Authorized Version is translated “cursed” or “accursed thing.” Living things that were cherem were to be put to death; inanimate objects that were cherem were to be destroyed. Thus in Deuteronomy 13:1-18. directions are given as to what was to be done in the ease of an Israelite city which should have given itself to idolatry: the inhabitants and the cattle thereof were to be smitten with the edge of the sword; and the spoil of the city was to be brought together and burned, and the city itself” to be a heap for ever, never to be built again.” And then (Deuteronomy 13:18), “There shall cleave nought of the cursed [or, ‘devoted’] thing (cherem, ἀνάθεμα) to thine hand.” Similarly, in Deuteronomy 7:26, of the idols and the silver or gold on them, of the Canaanites, “Thou shalt not take it unto thee, neither shalt thou bring an abomination unto thine house, lest thou be a cursed thing [‘be cherem,’ or ‘be anathema,’ ἔση ἀνάθεμα] like it; but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing (ἀνάθεμά ἐστι).“ See also ibid., Deuteronomy 7:23-25; Leviticus 27:28, Leviticus 27:29; Joshua 6:17, “The city shall be accursed [or, ‘ devoted;‘ cherem, ἀνάθεμα], and all that are therein; only Rahab the harlot shall live;” Joshua 7:1, Joshua 7:12. In the New Testament anathema occurs in four other passages.
1. 1 Corinthians 12:3, “No man speaking in the Spirit of God saith, Jesus is anathema.” Here the apostle, no doubt, refers to the manner in which the unbelieving Jews allowed themselves, already then, to speak of our Lord. Clearly they meant thereby more than merely “excommunicate,” which palliated sense some have endeavoured to give to “anathema;” they cannot be supposed to have intended less than an object which merited that utter extinction to which he who was cherem was under the Law doomed: their blaspheming thought, no doubt, taking into its view not this world only, but that also which is to come.
2.Romans 9:3Romans 9:3, “I could pray that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren’s sake.” The reader naturally casts about to find some qualification to give to an utterance which seems at first sight to express a wish such as one who loved Christ so ardently as Paul did could not possibly have entertained. Yet the’ words, “anathema from Christ,” can mean nothing less than being separated from Christ by a curse consigning him to perdition. The desiderated qualification must be sought in the phrase, “I could pray;” this renders an imperfect verb (ηὐχόμην), which expresses a turn of thought similar to that denoted in the (ἤθελον), “I could wish,” of Galatians 4:20, on which see note. In each case the tense betokens a mere glance (so to speak) of wish which is instantly withdrawn.
3. 1 Corinthians 16:22, “If any man loveth not the Lord, let him be anathema.” Here, too, the notion of Church excommunication, whether by formal exclusion or by the withdrawal of brotherly recognition, is not satisfactory. The Israelite notion of being anathema, cherem, points to a no mere negation, but to a condition of positive accursedness linked with exposure to utter destruction. Moreover the apostle refers to a man’s interior sentiments with respect to Christ—a matter not within the cognisance of human judgments. Who can in many cases, or perhaps in any, determine whether another loves Christ or not? It is in truth a warning against a soul’s disloyalty to the Lord Jesus, clothing itself in the form of an execration—an execration which, it is true, is an impetuous flashing forth of the apostle’s own flaming sense of what is due to Christ from every human being, but which is nowise chargeable with extravagance. Its perfect justness, as well as the verification which awaits it in the future judgment, is evinced, as by other considerations, so also by our Lord’s own words in Matthew 25:41-46.
4.Acts 23:1-35Acts 23:1-35. Acts 23:14, “We have bound ourselves under a great curse;” literally, “We have anathematized [or, ‘solemnly bound’] ourselves with anathema (ἀναθέματι ἀνεθεματίσαμεν ἑαυτούς).“ They had sat, I, no doubt, some such words as these: “May we be anathema if we taste aught till we have killed Paul!” with which we may conjoin Mark 14:71, “He began to pronounce a curse (ἀναθεματίζειν) and to swear”—not, to be sure, pronouncing a curse upon Jesus, but wishing himself to be anathema if he knew that Man. There can be little doubt that the anathema in both these cases involved a reference to eternal perdition. That no less is intended by the term in the present verse and, therefore, also in that next to it, is further proved by reference to the hypothetical “angel from heaven” who should be found preaching a different gospel. Being anathema must involve for such a one excision from the kingdom of light, together with whatever destruction properly attends thereupon. What, it will be asked, is the precise force of the “let him be,” both here and in 1 Corinthians 16:22? It cannot denote less than a complacent satisfied acquiescence. The apostle-prophet not only foresees that, at the final judgment, such will be the doom of the wilful perverter of the gospel, but foresees it with a mind at one with the Judge who shall pronounce it; he can himself desire, he does desire, no ether. It is his loyal sympathy with Christ as Saviour, as caring for the souls of men, that prompts him to proclaim aloud for the warning of the false teachers themselves as well as for the warning of those inclined to hearken to their false teaching, his own solemn Amen to the terrible sentence awaiting them. But if so, why not allow the imperative its full force, and understand the utterance as an imperative? It is granted that the apostle was apt at times to be carried away by the fervid impetuosity of his feelings, even when writing, to the utterance of words which in calmer mood he would be ready to a certain extent to retract. We have a clear example of such retractation in 1 Corinthians 6:4, 1 Corinthians 6:5 (see note below on Galatians 5:12). But, in the case before us, that the vehemence of the apostle’s language is a deliberate vehemence, and no mere momentary outburst of excited feeling, is proved by the solemn measured iteration in the next verse. And if we suppose, what seems to be most probable, that that verse refers to a similar denunciation uttered among the Galatians a good while before, the proof is all the stronger that his language is no sudden exorbitancy of passionate emotion, but expresses an abiding sentiment. We are to remember that it is the very substance of the gospel which the apostle feels to be assailed. The gospel, he knew, both by inspired insight and by his own experience, to be “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. “Of this gospel Christ had himself declared that “he that believed it should be saved, and he that disbelieved it should be condemned” (Mark 16:16). Wherein does “being anathema” differ from “being condemned”? And if the disbelieving “shall be condemned,” can a less guiltiness be supposed to attach to one who not only disbelieved the gospel himself, but was also plucking it out of the hearts of others and palming off upon them instead a false gospel which was no salvation? “But could St. Paul, being such a lover of souls as he was, imprecate a doom of perdition to fall upon any soul of man?” Absolutely, we may say he could not; but conditionally, he might, and that in perfect consistency with his usual habits of feeling—conditionally, on the supposition, that is, that the sin was not repented of and forsaken. It was his very love of souls that would impel him thus to speak, not only on behalf of the souls which the bringer-in of a false doctrine might destroy, but on behalf of the deceiver’s own self. He pronounces the doom in order to deter and thus save. We have to remember, too, that the apostle is not, at the dictate of his own passionate zeal for the truth, constituting either a new sin or a new measure of penalty. He simply, as prophet and apostle, utters forth the mind of him who is Lawgiver and Judge. This last consideration suggests the limits within which only can the apostle’s action in this matter be regarded as an example for imitation. It is lawful to us to recite, as the Church of England speaks in her Commination Office: “the general sentences of God’s cursing against impenitent sinners gathered out of Scripture”—and by “general sentences” we are to understand sentences pronounced upon classes of offenders, not sentences upon individual persons, to whom we may conjecture them to be applicable. It is lawful also to us individually and right, that we should add to the utterance of each sentence our hearty “Amen,” and thus take part with God and his Law, not only against sins committed by our neighbours, but most especially and above all against wilful transgressions of our own. But beyond this, none who are not special organs of inspiration may venture to go, whether acting individually or in any corporate capacity. An anathema is a bolt of doom such as the Almighty alone can fashion or make operative; and we are invading the Divine prerogative and working mischief and peril for ourselves if, on the one hand, we venture to enlarge and make more specific than he has done his “general sentences of cursing,” or, on the other, dilute the force of these solemn warnings of his, and treat them with disregard.
Verse 8 here is among the more consequential verses in Christianity because it seems to directly contradict a couple of large religious sects that exist within the modern world today. Islam’s foundational story involves the Prophet Muhammed being given a revelation by the angel Gabriel. This occurred in 610 AD. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints hold a foundational story that involves the Prophet Joseph Smith being visited by the Angel Moroni, first on September 21, 1823. Both Islam and the LDS Church believe that Christianity (as originally understood and practiced) became corrupted and/or apostate, thus requiring an additional revelation.
The debate then in both cases is whether the Gospel being preached is different than the one provided by Apostles to the early Church. If not, then that’s a substantial part of humanity who falls under the “accursed” umbrella provided here by Paul. (So it’s an important debate.)
Ellicott has the following to say regarding verse 8:
(8) Though.—The Greek is, strictly, even though, marking an extreme and improbable supposition.
We.—It seems, perhaps, too much to say, in the face of 2 Thessalonians 2:2 (“by letter as from us”), that St. Paul never used the plural in speaking of himself alone. Still there may, both there and here, be some thought of associating his more immediate companions (“the brethren which are with me,” Galatians 1:2) with himself, the more so as he knew them to be entirely at one with him in doctrine.
Than that.—The Greek has here, not a conjunction, but a preposition, the precise sense of which is ambiguous. It may mean “besides,” “in addition,” or it may mean “contrary to.” The first of these senses has met with the most favour from Protestant, the second from Roman Catholic commentators, as, on the one hand, it seemed to exclude, and on the other to admit, the appeal to tradition. Looking at it strictly in connection with the context, the sense “contrary” seems best, because the gospel taught by the Judaising teachers was “another,” in the sense of being different from that of St. Paul. It was a fundamental opposition of principles, not merely the addition of certain new doctrines to the old.
Accursed.—See 1 Corinthians 16:22. The original Greek word is retained in the translation, Let him be Anathema. The word exists in two forms, with a long e and a short e respectively; and whereas its original meaning was simply that of being “devoted to God,” the form with the long vowel came by gradual usage to be reserved for the good side of this: “devoted, in the sense of consecration; “while the form with the short vowel was in like manner reserved for the bad sense: “devoted to the curse of God.” Attempts have been made to weaken its significance in this passage by restricting it to “ex-communication by the Church;” but this, though a later ecclesiastical use of the word, was not current at such an early date.
In considering the dogmatic application, it is right to bear in mind the nature of the heretical doctrines which it was the Apostle’s object to denounce. They made no profession to be deduced from his own, but were in radical and avowed opposition to them. Still, there is room to believe that if the Apostle could have reviewed his own words at a calmer moment he might have said of himself: “I spake as a man.”
You’ll notice from the comment above that this verse is applicable to the now 500 year old schism between Protestants and Catholics as well. The implication of that for everyone is the importance of a serious understanding of the Gospel as originally presented and taught, and a serious understanding of one’s own beliefs about the Gospel in the present. This is serious business. Another line from Paul, in another Letter, thus comes to mind:
Philippians 2: 12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Continuing on next to verse 9, again in Ellicott:
(9) As we said before.—Probably, upon his last (i.e., his second) visit, at the beginning of this, his third, great missionary journey (Acts 18:23). The germs of the apostasy in the Galatian Church would be already visible.
Paul reiterates this point one more time. He asks the Galatians to follow the truth and authority of what they were taught originally. The note speculates that this refers to Paul’s earlier visit.
We’ll close this section with a look at verse 10 – this time from TPC:
For do I now (ἄρτι γάρ); for at this hour. This “for” points back either to the fact of the apostle’s having now so solemnly pronounced afresh the awful anathema which at some former time he had uttered; or which, in effect, is nearly the same thing, to the tone of feeling which he in so doing evinced, and to his method of apostolic action which he therein exemplified. The adverb ἄρτι, as used in the New Testament, is distinguished from the more common “now” (νῦν), as denoting that space of time which is most closely present. This shade of meaning is conspicuous, e.g. in the “Suffer it to be so just now” of Matthew 3:15, that is, during that brief, quickly vanishing moment in which the Messiah was by Divine appointment to appear subordinate in position to his forerunner. So Matthew 26:53, “Thinkest thou that I cannot beseech my Father, and he shall (ἄρτι) at this very moment send me more than twelve legions of angels?” John 16:12, “Ye cannot bear them (ἄρτι) just now;” in a very short while they would be enabled to bear them. 1 Corinthians 13:12, “Just now (ἄρτι) we see in a mirror, darkly;” words written under a vivid sense of how brief the interval is which separates the present state of things from that of the life to come. 1 Peter 1:8, “On whom, though just now (ἄρτι) ye see him not “—another outcome of the same feeling. Similarly, in 1 Corinthians 4:13; 1 Corinthians 8:7, ἔως ἄρτι means “until this very hour;” and, on the other side of the point of time indicated ἀπ ἄρτι is “from this very hour” in Matthew 26:64; Joh 1:1-51 :52. Many have supposed that the apostle is speaking of certain characteristics of his present course of behaviour as a believer and a servant of Christ, viewed in contrast with the life which he had once lived when an ardent disciple of Judaism. But the narrowly restrictive form of the adverb resists this interpretation, he could hardly with this reference in view have used the phrase “just now,” or “at this very hour,” of a tenor of life which he had been pursuing for now more than twenty years. Some eminent critics (Alford, Ellicott, Lightfoot, Sanday) take this ἄρτι as pointing to the style of language which the apostle is “just now” adopting: “Now, when I use such uncompromising language;” or, “There! is that the language of a man-pleaser? Now do I,” etc. It is an objection to this view that it gives the adverb a somewhat diverse sense to that which it bears in John 1:9; for whereas in John 1:9 ἄρτι, points to the circumstances of the present hour as prompting the apostle to the utterance of his anathema, according to the view referred to it here points to the present hour as exhibiting the apostle himself in a certain aspect. It is more obvious, and indeed gives the present use of the adverb more force, to take it in both verses with the like reference. In both the apostle refers to the present hour as a juncture in which he felt that it had become necessary to depart from his customary manner of using a winning style of address. At other times he will persuade and please; just now he cannot. Persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? (ἀνθρώπους πείθω ἢτὸν Θεόν ἢζητῶ ἀνθρώποις ἀρέσκειν); do I persuade men or God? or do I seek to please men? Expositors have endeavoured to establish, as one sense of the Greek verb rendered “persuade,” that of “making So-and-so one’s friend.” No doubt it often means to prevail, or endeavour to prevail, upon others, by coaxing, persuasion, bribery, or anyhow, to go along with you in some particular course of thinking or acting indicated by the context; but it can nowhere. be shown to mean, when standing alone, “to win So-and-so’s friendship.” In Acts 12:20, “Having persuaded Blastus” means “Having got Blastus to concur with them.” Similarly, Matthew 28:14, “We will persuade him,” and 2 Macc. 4:45, “With a view to persuade the king.” The verb is used here, in 2 Corinthians 5:11, “Knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men.” In that passage the apostle states it to be his practice to make use of all means of persuasion in order to induce men to accept the gospel message. He was not content with merely, as an ambassador, delivering the message and there leaving the matter; but made it his anxious concern to gain for the message acceptance, by the use of arguments addressed to the reason, and appeals addressed to the feelings, by putting himself, as it were, by the side of those he was addressing as one who sympathized to a large extent with their ways of thought, for the purpose of conducting them onward to concurrence with more perfect views. Among many examples which might be cited, illustrating his skill in persuasion, it will suffice to refer to the manner in which he dealt with the Athenians, with the Jews when speaking to them from the stairs, with King Agrippa (Acts 17:22-31; Acts 22:1-21; Acts 26:2, Acts 26:3, Acts 26:26, Acts 26:27), and to his Epistle to Philemon. Another feature, closely connected with the one now mentioned, and here likewise referred to, is the care which the apostle took to “please men;” such a care as produced a manner towards his fellow-men far exceeding the courtesy and shows of respectful consideration which the law of charity ordinarily prescribes. For example, instead of thrusting forward into notice, as the spirit of unsympathetic pride naturally prompts us to do, the points on which he differed from others, and in reference to which he knew himself to he standing on higher ground than they, he chose rather to make prominent any points of agreement which he could find already subsisting, conciliating their candid interest by thus fraternally putting himself on a level with them. If this did not suffice for the purpose of enlisting their sympathies on behalf of himself and his views, he did not hesitate, in matters morally indifferent, to mortify and snub his own tastes, and forego the dissenting judgments of his. own superior enlightenment, “to buffet his body, as he expresses himself in 1 Corinthians 9:27, “and bring it into bondage,” by following, how ever distasteful to himself, such practices as should get those whose spiritual improvement he was seeking, to feel, so to speak, comfortably at home with himself. In writing to the Corinthians the apostle in one passage (1 Corinthians 9:19-23) dwells at stone length upon this feature of his ministerial conduct, not ashamed of it, but manifestly glorying in it as a triumph of Christ’s grace in his soul. Presently after, at the close of the following chapter, he distinctly propounds himself, as in this respect a Christ-like pattern, for their imitation, “Even [he writes] as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of the many, that they may be saved: be ye imitators of me, even as! also am of Christ.” Both of these strongly marked features of his ministerial character were liable to he misunderstood, and by his detractors could be easily misconstrued as grave faults, lie was, in fact, accused of speciousness and insincerity, of double faced dealings, of simulation and dissimulation. We can easily understand how readily such accusations would be set on foot, and holy colourable they could be made to appear. That they painfully affected the apostle’s mind is evidenced by the frequency of the references he makes to them, and by the earnestness and deep pathos of feeling which not seldom mark those references. It is to such sinister criticism that he alludes, when in 2 Corinthians 5:11, cited above, after saying, “we persuade men,” he adds, “but we are become manifest unto God,” meaning that, though he did make a habit of laying himself out to persuade, yet the entire sincerity of his action, however misconstrued by men, was patent to the Divine eye. Now, we have reason to believe that the apostle had been apprised, or at least that he suspected, that in Galatia also such misrepresentation of these characteristics of his ministry was rife. The Epistle supplies at least one token of such having probably been the case, We gather from Galatians 5:11 that he had been said to be still “preaching circumcision.” They who said this did so apparently in the sense that his having hitherto kept back this point of his doctrine in preaching to them was only an artifice of “persuasion;” that, in order to prevail upon them to accept the Christian faith, he had thought it expedient not at first to press upon them the observances of Judaism, while nevertheless he knew them to be necessary and was prepared by-and-by to insist upon their being attended to. St. Paul is conscious, therefore, of the existence on the part of some of the Galatian Churchmen of unfriendly suspicions with regard to his straightforwardness and uprightness. It is this stinging consciousness that occasions both the substance and the sharp abrupt tone of what he here says. The substance of the verse may be paraphrased thus: “I have written decisively and sternly; for at such a critical juncture as the present is it men that I can make it my business to ‘persuade,’ as they sneeringly but not un-truly say I love to do? or is it God that I care, so to speak, to persuade, to wit of my fidelity to the gospel which he has committed to my trust? They scoffingly say I love to ‘please men;’ and I thank God I have been wont to ‘please men’ to the very utmost of my power for their good; but is it my work just now to be pleasing men by ways of sweet tenderness and forbearance? If at this time I were still laying myself out to ‘please men,’ these men, to wit, who are making havoc of the gospel message, and you who are ignorantly listening to them,—then were I no true servant of Christ.” The interrogative form into which the apostle’s language suddenly breaks is apparently, here also as in 2 Corinthians 3:1, due to his that moment bethinking himself of those malicious censurers of him. We have here an example of the form of sentence which the grammarians call zeugma; that is to say, “God” is named in conjunction with “men,” as an object to the action of the verb “persuade,” whereas this verb, suitable enough with relation to men, can only by a strain upon its proper sense be employed with relation to God. The sentence would possibly have expressed what appears to have been the apostle’s real meaning with less ruggedness, but certainly with less intensity, if its second clause had been (perhaps), “or commend myself to God’s approval? (ἢσυνιστάνω ἐμαυτὸν τῷ Θεῷ;).” (For other instances of zeugma, see Luke 1:64; 1 Corinthians 3:2.) The addition of the article before Θεόν, while it is wanting before ἀνθρώπους, gives the noun a more grandiose tone, as if it were, “Do I persuade men or GOD?” For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ (εἰ ἔτι ἀνθρώποις ἤρεσκον Χριστοῦ δοῦλος οὐκ ἄν ἤμην); if I still were pleasing men, I were no servant (Greek, bondservant) of Christ’s. The received text of the Greek has “For if I still (εἰ γὰρ ἔτι);” but the “for” is omitted by recent editors. It makes no difference in the sense whether we retain it or not, for, retaining the “for,” we should have to understand before it, “I trow not,” or the like. The word “bondservant” here expresses the official relation of a Christian minister, one especially at his Divine Owner’s beck and call. So Romans 1:1; Philippians 1:1; 2 Timothy 2:24; Titus 1:1; James 1:1; 2 Peter 1:1. The apostle means, “I were no servant of Christ in spirit and reality, whatever I might call myself.” A good many expositors suppose the “still” to be said with reference to the time before the apostle’s conversion: “I were no apostle or Christian at all.” But
(1) there is no indication either in this passage or anywhere that the apostle regarded his life before his conversion as characterized by the desire to please men;
(2) with the sense thus given to it, the thought, as Meyer observes, seems excessively tame;
(3) as thus explained, it would not harmonize with the apostle’s explicit and repeated declaration that, in the discharge of his high office, he did make a point of pleasing men.
Ellicott makes the following note regarding verse 10:
(10) Now.—In speaking thus.
Persuade.—Conciliate, seek to win favour with, or to make friends of.
For.—This word is omitted by all the best MSS. and editors. It is characteristic of the Apostle, especially in animated passages like the present, to omit the connecting particles which are so common in Greek. He has a simple answer to give to the accusation of time-serving, and he states it roundly: “If my present conduct was really that of a man-pleaser I should be something very different from what I am.”
Yet.—Still; at this late period of my career. The Apostle has cut himself adrift from the current of his age too thoroughly and too long for him to be still floating with the tide.
You get a sense that in this verse, Paul is communicating his role as an Apostle, to speak and lead on behalf of God, but also that his life would be easier and less full of conflict if he were attempting to please men rather than God.
You might infer (or I do at least) that Paul is communicating to the Galatians that he knows this rebuke is unpleasant, but also that it is necessary.
