(Notes Taken of Lectures.) Chap. 1.
THE Epistle to the Romans and the Epistle to the Galatians both treat of the same great subject. The Epistle to the Galatians was written before the Epistle to the Romans, and the Apostle most strongly asserts his authority, and uses stern language which is not found in the Epistle to the Romans; and the reason is this; he had not been instrumental in the conversion of the saints in Rome, they were not the fruit of his ministry, but the Galatians were. He bears them record, that the time was, when they would have plucked out their eyes, and have given them to him, neither did they despise his infirmity in the flesh; but almost immediately after their conversion they became the prey of false Judaizing teachers whom he reprehends so severely. They were turned aside from grace, by seeking to add to it the deeds of the law. Almost all the Lord’s people, at some time or other of their experience, have been guilty of the same thing; they have been just in the Galatian state. That modification of the Gospel which teaches persons that they are now placed in a salvable state, and if they take care, they shall perhaps be saved by-and-bye, Paul condemns here. Persons naturally prefer this self-dependence, to the feeling that they have had nothing to do with their salvation, but that it is of God, from the beginning to the end. Let us test ourselves by this Epistle, and see whether we are holding fast grace, or whether like these bewitched (fascinated) Galatians, we are getting off the ground of grace, by the addition of something else.
Another thing I would desire to mention. This is the only instance in which several congregations in a large province were written to by Paul. He addressed “the saints that be at Rome,” “the saints at Ephesus,” “the saints at Corinth,” &c., but Galatia was not a city, but a province, a part now of Asiatic Turkey.
In Acts 16:6,6Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia, (Acts 16:6) the first mention is made of Paul’s visiting Galatia. In ch. 18, we find him going through Galatia “strengthening all the disciples.” Peter also addresses “the strangers (the elect remnant) scattered throughout Galatia.” There were several congregations in the province of Galatia. They were formerly from Gaul, and like the French, their peculiar characteristic was fickleness. He took therefore their national character into account. I believe most nations have their characteristic failings. “The Cretians were always liars,” &c. The Spirit of God skews how national peculiarities manifest themselves in God’s dear people.
There is no place in the Scriptures in which Paul so strongly asserts his Apostleship, and rests everything on having received the gospel immediately from Christ Himself, and not from man, as in this Epistle. They spoke of him as having been sent by man, and this assertion he had to contradict. God seems to have anticipated the fiction of the present day, by breaking any semblance of Apostolic succession, in choosing the Apostle Paul. Paul did not go up to Jerusalem to those that were Apostles before him, until some years after his conversion. He insists on it that his gift for ministry was directly from the Lord Jesus Christ; he did not receive it from man, neither was he taught it by man. But as the Lord Himself said, “He is a chosen vessel unto Me,” &c. (Acts 9:1515But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: (Acts 9:15).)
“Paul an Apostle....by Jesus Christ, and God the Father.” He here insists on the specialty of his Apostleship. None of the twelve were made Apostles in this same way. His commission was direct from the risen Jesus. It came fresh from heaven after Jesus had finished His work, as the Apostle himself states to the elders of Ephesus― “That I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.”
Ver. 2. “All the brethren which are with me unto the churches of Galatia.” Fellowship in labor was very precious to Paul; he delighted to associate persons with him as co-workers, thus sheaving their perfect sympathy and concurrence with him in what he states here. “Grace be to you,” &c.
In the first few verses of the Apostolic Epistles the subject is first introduced, and afterward amplified. Ver. 4. “That He might deliver (rescue) us from this present evil world.” What then has the law to do with us, if Jesus has given Himself to get us out of this present evil world? A person needs quite as much to be rescued out of professing Christianity, as to be rescued from idolatry―he needs to be redeemed from the religion, which he has received by tradition from his fathers. It has struck me in my own experience that I have received many things from tradition, and not from God’s word. If any say, “I hold to the Scriptures, and to tradition also,” do not deceive yourselves. Tradition will swamp the Scriptures. “He gave Himself for us.” The moment I believe in substitution, and see that the Lord Jesus has stood in my place, I am “delivered (or rescued)” out of this present evil world, according to the will of God, and our Father.”
Ver. 6. The apostle had to minister the gospel of the grace of God. It is a most difficult thing to keep one’s standing in grace. Natural men always say, “If I were to know that I was to stand still and see His salvation, I should be happy.” Ah! but those who do, continually find a tendency in them to be turned aside from the grace of God unto “another gospel.” I may put devotedness, or the best of’ my good works, in the place of Christ, and it is no gospel at all. The Christian’s Magna Charts is Acts 15. There we see that false teachers said, “Except ye be circumcised, after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.” The gospel is independent of all “ifs.” Where there is an “if,” I immediately stand on another ground. We often hear it said, “I know what the Lord has done for me, if I,” &c. James, in this chapter of the Acts, teaches the same truth as Paul, that this thought subverts the soul. If I say to any, “Except you do so and so,” &c., I put him off the ground of grace. There are no glad tidings of great joy for man as a sinner, unless it be a finished work on which the soul can repose. It is God who tells us how precious the work of Christ is; and He knows its value as we know it not. He sets it forth as meeting all that God Himself knows concerning the sinner; for if the omniscient God searches the heart, and trieth the reins, the omniscient God knows also the preciousness of the blood of Christ, and testifies of it to us. The religion of Christendom, like the Galatian error, perverts the gospel of the grace of God, and substitutes in its place a modified covenant of works.
Ver. 8. It is a solemn thought, that the apostle Paul should thus speak of an angel. Angels heralded the birth of Jesus, beautifully tracked His footsteps, were at His grave, followed Him into heaven, but they never tasted of His grace. They do say, “Worthy is the Lamb,” &c., but cannot add, for “Thou hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood.” The experience of such grace brings us in a greater nearness to God than they. A poor lost redeemed sinner is thus brought nearer to God than an angel. Paul the Apostle adds, (5:13,) “I persecuted the church of God,” &c.; and, to show what grace was, “He revealed His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen.” God’s ordained ministry is, that His ministers must be first reconciled to Himself, and then they can go and tell others, and show them that the grace that met their need can also meet the same need in others, even as Paul could speak to blasphemers, &c., having been himself a blasphemer. But he adds, “If an angel,” &c., “let him be accursed.” Is there such a sense now of the value of the gospel? Is there such a jealousy for the gospel in our day? The jealousy of the apostle for the gospel was not, that he could say, “Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.” Will this gospel, this faithfulness, be pleasing to meat No; “Do I now persuade men?” The gospel oats from under man every possible assumption. The denial of self must be the denial of bad self, good self, and religious self; and this is impossible with men, though it is possible with God to save sinners. But, in order to be put into a place where the grace of God can reach the sinner, everything must be taken from under himself as self.
“If I seek to please men,” &c. In preaching, there is no occasion to attempt singularity. The gospel will not please the carnal mind when preached simply, and all refuges of lies are taken away.
“The gospel which was preached of me is not after man,” &c. No; God’s thoughts are higher than man’s thoughts. The most experienced Christians find a constant battle, and struggle to beat down their carnal thoughts, and bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. His thoughts towards us are thoughts of grace, of love, and peace; but we often think Him a hard master, and an austere man. You must not expect that the gospel will flow according to the current of your thoughts, you must expect conflict, the casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself, &c.
“I was not taught but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Go, He says, and tell them “what thou hast seen and heard,” with a promise of future revelations. (See Acts 26:16-1816But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; 17Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, 18To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. (Acts 26:16‑18).) We never get anything but by revelation, and we need to pray for the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus. Paul then shows himself to have been a most unlikely person to receive the gospel of the grace of God. He says “I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it.” This shows how everything is entirely of God’s grace. The most religious man of the day, and the chief of sinners, received the gospel on the same ground. Paul was both. He profited beyond many of his equals in the Jews’ religion. Persons are apt to say, “Look at this zealous person; must he not be sincere?” Certainly, and so was Paul, when, in persecuting the church, he thought he did God service. The greatest opposers of the doctrines of grace are those who receive their religion from tradition, and not from the Word of God.
“Called me by His grace,” &c. There is an allusion here to Jeremiah. He was the prophet of the nations. Paul was the Apostle of the nations. Of Jeremiah, God says, “Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee,” &c. (ch. 2:5.) Paul alludes to this in vs. 15, “When it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, &c., to reveal His Son in me.” Remember the outward revelation was of such an astounding character, that his companions were struck down as he was, but there was only one to whom He was revealed inwardly. This was accomplished by an inward revelation, by the Spirit, of the glory of the person of the Son. It was inward: “The world seeth Me no more, but ye see Me.” Christ’s manifestation to the world is future, and will be “in flaming fire;” but to believers He is at present manifested inwardly. All Paul’s old traditional religion fell to the ground whoa he received this inward revelation. The Lord takes the sinner apart, and makes him feel as if he were the only sinner in the whole world, and he wants not to go to others for evidences, ―he has them. Paul says, “He commended himself to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” It is just suited to the poor sinner to have such a manifestation revealed to the soul. The moment I confer with my intellect I get darkness. It is a dangerous thing to confer with flesh and blood. Neither did he go to Jerusalem, nor to Rome, he got it from the Lord Jesus, and needed no other credentials.
Here is a remarkable thing mentioned. He “went into Arabia”―into the desert. It is a good thing when a young convert is driven into privacy. Paul needed the Arabian desert in order to digest all that had been given to him. Young Christians need privacy. Do not, young friends, think you are called here and there, but seek what you can do in your own houses. It has been my experience to see young people running here and there, and forgetting to show piety at home. Paul returns to Damascus three years after he went to Jerusalem. We find the roaring lion, by the revelation of the Lord Jesus, changed into a lamb. The bitterest persecutor preaches the faith which once he destroyed. The more we study the conversion of Paul, the more shall we understand the gospel which he preached.