(Chap. 1:6-10.)

(Continued from page 185.)

The apostle had visited Galatia twice before he wrote this epistle. The record of his first visit is in Acts 16:6, which was early in his second missionary journey, when Christianity was first introduced in the province of Galatia. It was probably on the occasion of that visit that the greater part of the believers there, who were now the objects of so much solicitude and concern to Paul, were called into the grace of Christ. This was by the means of the gospel he had preached among them.

We know what that gospel was (i Cor. 15:3, 4). It proclaimed a work undertaken and accomplished by Jesus Christ in order to establish His righteous title to deliver guilty sinners from the age that is characterized by evil, upon their repentance. Having heard and believed the gospel that the apostle preached, they became participants in the deliverance it announced. They realized and enjoyed it.

His second visit is recorded in Acts 18:23. This was at the beginning of his third journey-probably not more than three or four years after the first visit. The apparent object of this second visit was to strengthen and confirm in the truth of Christianity the churches formed during his former one. How their souls must have been enlarged in the salvation by grace through faith of which they were partakers, as he, with apostolic authority, unfolded it to them!

It was probably not more than three or four years after the second visit that this epistle was written. In this short interval of time a very serious defection from the gospel they had received from him had taken place. A gospel of a different type, of a different character altogether, had been introduced among them. It was the gospel of the legalist. It was not the gospel of grace, but of works. It is needful that we should realize the difference between the gospel the apostle preached and the gospel proclaimed by those who had risen up among the Galatians, if indeed they had not come to them from elsewhere.

The two gospels are mutually antagonistic. The gospel which Paul authoritatively proclaimed, of which he was the exponent, was a plan of salvation in which there was no allowance whatever of the principle of self-help. It addressed itself to men as being victims of sin, as being in a bondage out of which deliverance is absolutely impossible by self-effort. The new gospel that had come among the Galatians since the apostle's last visit was in contrast with this. It was a gospel of works. It insisted on self-help and the value and merit of human effort.

The Galatians, in giving their adherence to this gospel, were accepting as truth a system of salvation that God had exposed as false. He had shown by the law of Moses that any system whose underlying principle is self-help is weak through the flesh (Rom. 8:3); that every such system is devised by fallen, sinful man; and that it cannot secure deliverance out of the age of evil. It was the fundamental element in the system of Cain. It is the fundamental element in every plan man has ever devised by which to effect his redemption.

Self-effort therefore is a human principle-a principle of the world; a principle common to all classes of men. It is the principle on which all men act wherever they do not abandon themselves to the bondage of sin or to despair as to escaping it. Now God Himself has in the law of Moses taken up this fundamental element of man's, this foundation-principle which is not of God, but of the world (Gal. 4:3), and He has demonstrated what a weak and beggarly principle it is (Gal. 4:9). He has proved its weakness and unprofitableness (Heb. 7:18).

In giving their adherence to this gospel of works, the Galatians had abandoned the system which is of God for that which is of the world-of man. It was taking up a system which God had proved to be weak and unprofitable, and had cast off. It was a fall from the ground of God's grace to that of man's works.

Paul realized the seriousness of this defection. It raised questions in his mind. Were they in fact Christians? "I stand in doubt of you," he tells them. He is perplexed in his mind about them (chap. 4:20). He fears the labor he had bestowed on them was in vain (chap. 4:11). It was impossible for him to come to that conclusion, however. He remembers the way they received his gospel at the beginning, and he cannot think that they are not children of God. In spite of his perplexities as to them, he still calls them brethren and his children.

But even so, even if he can still regard them as being sons of God (chap. 4:6), he feels how seriously their apprehension of the grace in which they really stand is affected by their defection from the truth- from the true gospel. While Christ had given them liberty, they were not subjectively standing fast in it. They had lost the inward realization of it. They needed to have Christ formed in them; to have established in their souls the apprehension of the true character of His grace.

To this end the apostle is laboring in writing to them. He is seeking the recovery in their souls of the sense of their deliverance from the present age of evil which Christ, by the right of His death for their sins, had bestowed upon them. It will, I trust, be edifying and profitable to follow the apostle's method with them. I shall now address myself to it.

The first thing he does is to acquaint them with the consternation with which his soul was seized when he realized what had taken place among them, and how surprised he was at the suddenness with which it had occurred (verse 6). It must have been a powerful appeal to them to be accused by him of giving up the gospel they had heard from him, especially as he insists that the gospel to which they had turned was so different from his that it was not a gospel at all (verse 7).

But he knows how to account for what had so quickly taken place. He tells them the preachers to whom they have been listening are "troublers" and "perverters" of the gospel of Christ. Furthermore, he lets them know that their perversion of the gospel is not through mere weak apprehension of it, but is designed. They have a fixed purpose in doing it. They are deliberately and wilfully doing it. How keenly the apostle must have felt his Galatian converts becoming a prey to such men-men actuated with such a wicked purpose!

His soul is thoroughly roused. In verses 8 and 9 he bursts out with fiery indignation. What a solemn fulmination against these troublers! What an indignant protest against their perversion of the gospel of Christ! A burning zeal consumes him. His feeling is most intense. His fervency is at the very highest pitch. It is impossible for him to repress the repugnance of his spirit to their evil, destructive work. He must denounce them in the strongest way possible.

And yet we must not think of the apostle as under some uncontrollable impulse. He is not speaking inconsiderately. He is not using exaggerated expressions. He is not speaking like a frenzied man. He is speaking calmly, deliberately, soberly; fully realizing the meaning of what he says, and as conscious of being the exponent of the truth. He knows he is the authoritative interpreter of the gospel of Christ-that gospel which he had preached in Galatia, of which Christ is the author and substance. He understood how serious it was not to apprehend its character. How much more serious, therefore, it was to designedly and wilfully pervert it. This was wicked and blasphemous. "Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached," is language calmly and designedly used to awaken in the Galatians (in us as well) a sense of the seriousness of the matter; and '' let him be anathema " is God's sentence on those carrying on the wicked and blasphemous work. It is pronounced by one authorized to speak as His mouthpiece. The repetition of it emphasizes both the seriousness and the sentence pronounced. The change in the repetition from "that which we have preached" to "that ye have received " emphasizes the fact that they had received the real gospel of Christ from him; that he had delivered it to them authoritatively, and that consequently it was their responsibility to treat the wicked perverters of it as under the anathema of God. Since the age of the apostles there has been no one clothed with authority to pronounce an anathema. This does not mean that wicked perverters of the gospel are not now "anathema." The apostolic pronouncement here applies to them. In treating them as being anathema (accursed) we are acting under apostolic authority. If neither the Church collectively nor the saints individually have authority to declare any one anathema, both are subject to the authoritative declaration of the apostle. His pronouncement should be the end of all controversy. Here is the wisdom of God for us. Let us accept it as such.

As one who was authorized to speak for God, to declare the mind of God, the apostle's concern was to do it faithfully. He was acting on that which the Lord required of Jeremiah, " He that hath My word, let him speak My word faithfully" (Jer. 23:28). In verse 10 Paul insists that he is not seeking the favor of men. He does not in the least aspire to that. His one thought is to please God. He does not consult the pleasure of men. To do that would be to be untrue to his divinely-given trust. A servant of Christ is duty-bound to be faithful. If he altered the word of God given to him-if he toned it down to suit the pleasure of men-if he nullified it by suiting it to the thoughts of men, he would not speak faithfully, as one called to be the exponent of the truth and interpreter of the mind of God.

What reason we have to thank God for the apostle's faithfulness! Through it we have the mind and will of God in a form which is absolute. There is no uncertainty about it. God has spoken by one whom He has. Himself commissioned to speak for Him, and who has faithfully declared His word as given to him. It therefore comes to us as it came to men in apostolic times, claiming our own complete adherence, as it did that of those to whom it first came.

While considering the question of authority, a few further remarks may be in place. There is very evidently innate in the souls of men a craving for authority to Which to appeal; on which to rest; with which to leave all responsibility without a question. It is this craving in the soul that leads men to rest on the word of a priest or minister; that leads people to trust in and submit to the voice of the Church. But no priest or minister, or any individual other than a prophet or apostle, has authority to define what is or is not the mind and will of God. We are responsible to judge of that by what God has given as being His mind and will through prophets or apostles authorized by Himself to speak for Him. Is what I hear according to what God has spoken by His prophets and apostles ? is to be asked always.

It is true that certain duties in connection with the administration of the kingdom of heaven are put into the hands of the disciples of the kingdom (Matt. 16:19; John 20:23). But these duties are strictly defined. They are in no sense legislative:they are strictly administrative. They do not include the authoritative affirmation of what is and what is not the mind of God.

There are also certain matters of administration put into the hands of the Church; but here again there is the same limitation. The Church is not clothed with legislative power. She is nowhere authorized to teach. She is under the responsibility of administering what the authorized prophets and apostles have taught. Her administration, so far as it is according to the revealed mind of God, is sanctioned by God (Matt. 18:18).

Neither disciples in connection with the administration of the kingdom of heaven that is committed to them, nor the Church in connection with the administrative duties given to her, have been authorized to speak as the mouthpiece of God. The usurpation of the functions of prophets and apostles is prohibited to both.

But the authority that can alone satisfy the innate craving of the soul, and forever settle and silence its questions, is found in the written word of God. Here is where God Himself speaks. He speaks the truth, and by it settles the deepest perplexities of every soul that appeals to it. It gives a sure foundation to the soul. Reliance on it will never be betrayed. When the soul is concerned as to its most momentous interests-those in relation to eternity- the sure word of God settles everything for it; puts everything in the light, and gives a certainty altogether divine. It is the same Word that will be the judge of men in the last day (John 12:48).

But we must return to our consideration of the apostle's method with the Galatians in seeking to recover in their souls the sense of the true character of the grace of Christ by which they had been called, and from which they had departed. C. Crain

(To be continued.)