OF THE EPISTLE OF ST. PAUL TO
T H E G A L A T I A N S.
THIS
epistle of Paul is directed not to the church or churches of a single
city, as some others are, but of a country or province, for so Galatia
was. It is very probable that these Galatians were first converted to
the Christian faith by his ministry; or, if he was not the instrument
of planting, yet at least he had been employed in watering these
churches, as is evident from this epistle itself, and also from
Acts 18:23,
where we find him going over all the country of Galatia and Phrygia in
order, strengthening all the disciples. While he was with them, they
had expressed the greatest esteem and affection both for his person and
ministry; but he had not been long absent from them before some
judaizing teachers got in among them, by whose arts and insinuations
they were soon drawn into a meaner opinion both of the one and of the
other. That which these false teachers chiefly aimed at was to draw
them off from the truth as it is in Jesus, particularly in the great
doctrine of justification, which they grossly perverted, by asserting
the necessity of joining the observance of the law of Moses with faith
in Christ in order to it: and, the better to accomplish this their
design, they did all they could to lessen the character and reputation
of the apostle, and to raise up their own on the ruins of his,
representing him as one who, if he was to be owned as an apostle, yet
was much inferior to others, and particularly who deserved not such a
regard as Peter, James, and John, whose followers, it is likely, they
pretended to be: and in both these attempts they had but too great
success. This was the occasion of his writing this epistle, wherein he
expresses his great concern that they had suffered themselves to be so
soon turned aside from the faith of the gospel, vindicates his own
character and authority as an apostle against the aspersions of his
enemies, showing that his mission and doctrine were both divine, and
that he was not, upon any account, behind the very chief of the
apostles,
2 Corinthians 11:5.
He then sets himself to assert and maintain the great gospel doctrine
of justification by faith without the works of the law, and to obviate
some difficulties that might be apt to arise in their minds concerning
it: and, having established this important doctrine, he exhorts them to
stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free, cautions
them against the abuse of this liberty, gives them several very needful
counsels and directions and then concludes the epistle by giving them a
just description of those false teachers by whom they had been
ensnared, and, on the contrary, of his own temper and behaviour. In all
this his great scope and design were to recover those who had been
perverted, to settle those who might be wavering, and to confirm such
among them as had kept their integrity.
Matthew Henry "Verse by Verse Commentary for 'Galatians' Matthew Henry Bible Commentary".
.