CHAPTER III.] COMMENTARY ON GALATIANS. have done many mighty works, ye have effected miracles in raising the dead, in cleansing lepers, in prophesying, in speaking with tongues, did the Law confer this great power upon you? was it not rather Faith, seeing that, before, ye could do no such things? Is it not then the height of madness for these who have received such bene fits from Faith, to abandon it, and desert back to the Law which can offer you nothing of the same kind ? Ver. 3. " Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now perfected in the flesh?" Here again he seasonably interposes a rebuke ; time, he says, should have brought improve ment ; but, so far from advancing, ye have even retrograded. Those who start from small beginnings make progress to higher things; ye, who began with the high, have relapsed to the low. Even had your outset been carnal, your advance should have been spiritual, but now, after starting from things spiritual, ye have ended your journey in that which is carnal ; for to work miracles is spiritual, but to be circum cised is carnal. And after miracles ye have passed to circumcision, after having appre hended the truth ye have fallen back to types, after gazing on the sun ye seek a candle, after having strong meat ye run for milk. He says, " made perfect," 1 which means not "initiated" merely, but "sacrificed," signifying that their teachers took and slew them like animals, while they resigned themselves to suffer what those teachers pleased. As if some captain, or dis tinguished man, after a thousand victories and trophies, were to subject himself to infamy as a deserter, and offer his body to be branded at the will of others. Ver. 4. " Did ye suffer so many things in vain ?2 if it be indeed in vain." This remark is far more piercing than the former, for the remembrance of their miracles would not be so powerful as the exhibition of their contests and endurance of sufferings for Christ s sake. All that you have endured, says he, these men would strip you of, and would rob you of your crown. Then, lest he should dismay and unnerve, he proceeds not to a formal judgment, but subjoins, "if it be indeed in 1 [This distinction between reAeco and eTrireAew was not in the mind of the Apostle. The contrast with tVapfa/uei/oi. having be gun, shows that iir TtAeicrOe simply means are ye made perfect, " the compound involving the idea of bringing to a complete and perfect end." (Ellicott.) There maybe a slight tinge of irony in the compound word. G. A.] 2 ["As we know nothing of persecutions enduredby Galntians, it seems preferable to take the word in a neutral sense embracing all spiritual experiences (blessings and benefits as well) of the Galu- tians. (Comp.v.3 and 6.)" Schaff. I,ightfoot refers it to thepersecu tions endured by the Galatians from Jews citing Gal. v : n; and says " the i ye leaves a loophole for doubt which the <cai, following, widens." So Ellicott. Meyer says, " It refers toeverything which the false apostles in their Judaistic zeal had troubled and burdened the Galatians with. Theeiic<) then means " and all to no profit, all in vain." if indeed it be only (<ai) in vain and not to the positive risk of your Messianic salvation that ye have suffered." G. A.] vain ; " if you have but a mind to shake off drowsiness and recover yourselves, he says, it is not in vain. Where then be those who would cut off repentance3 ? Here were men who had received the Spirit, worked miracles, become confessors, encountered a thousand perils and persecutions for Christ s sake, and after somany achievements had fallen from grace ; neverthe less he says, if ye have the purpose, ye may recover yourselves. Ver. 5. " He therefore that supplieth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? " Have ye been vouchsafed, he says, so great a gift, and achieved such wonders, because ye observed the Law, or because ye adhered to Faith ? plainly on account of Faith. Seeing that they played this argument to and fro, that apart from the Law, Faith had no force, he proves the contrary, viz., that if the Command ments be added, Faith no longer avails; for Faith then has efficacy when things from the Law are not added to it. " Ye who would be justified by the Law, ye are fallen away from grace: " (Gal. v: 4.) This he says later, when his language has grown bolder, employ ing the vantage-ground by that time gained ; meanwhile while gaining it, he argues from their past experience. For it was when ye obeyed Faith, he says, not the Law, that ye re ceived the Spirit and wrought miracles. And here, as the Law was the subject of dis cussion, he moots another special point of con troversy, and very opportunely and with much cogency introduces a notice of Abraham. Ver. 6. "Even as Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteous ness." Even the miracles done by themselves, he says, declare the power of Faith, but I shall at tempt if you will suffer me to draw my proofs from ancient narratives also. Then, as they made great account of the Patriarch, he brings his example forward, and shows that he too was justified by Faith. 4 And if he who was before grace, was justified by Faith, although plentiful in works, much more we. For what loss was it to him, not being under the Law? None, for his faith sufficed unto righteousness. The Law did not then exist, he says, neither does it now exist, any more than then. In disproving the need of the Law, he introduces one who was justified before the Law, lest an objection should also be made to him ; for as then it was 3 The Novatians, who said the revealed covenant of grace did not provide for the case of the lapsed. ["The answer, obvious of itself, io the preceding question, H < aorj jricTTfa)?, from the hearing of faith, and to this Paul subjoins that great religious-historic argument forthe righteousness of faith which is presented in the justification of the progenitor of the theocratic people." Meyer. G. A.]