Biblical commentary on the New Testament - The Christian ...

THE PAULINE EPISTLES. IxVU
tions. The Galatian cliurches, wliicli Paul, on his second visit to
Galatia (Gal. iv. 13), had found walking in the true faith, had been
misled by these men in regard to the requirements of religion.
Through the idea that the observance of the Jewish ceremonial law
was essential to salvation, the Galatian Christians were led to regard
circumcision, the solemnization of the Sabbath and of the Jewish
feasts, and other ordinances of the Old Testament, which the New
Testament valued only from their spiritual signification, as of worth
in an external view, and in this way suffered themselves to lose sight
of the interior life of faith. The object of the apostle, therefore, in
his Epistles, was to develope thoroughly to the Galatians the rela-
tion between the law and the Gospel, and to show that, in the spir-
itual freedom conferred by the latter, the external rites of the
former might, indeed, be observed, but that they must be observed
in a higher manner, i. e., spiritually. Previously, however, he makes
some remarks respecting himself personally. For, as the Jewish
Christians presumed to dispute Paul's apostolic authority, he found
himself compelled to ^dndicate it by a historical account of himself.
He states (i. 12 seq.), that he did not receive his Gospel from man,
but immediately from God ; that at first he had persecuted the
church of God, but that God, who had called him from his mother's
womb, had been pleased to reveal his Son in him, that he might
preach him to the heathen, through the Gospel. This evidently refers
to the event of our Lord's appearance to Paul near Damascus,
on which occasion the Lord said to him, " I am Jesus, whom thou
persecutest. But rise, and stand upon thy feet : for I have ap-
peared 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 aj^pear unto thee ; delivering thee from
the people and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, .to
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 xxvi. 15—18.) This reference to so pe-
culiar occurrences in Paul's life exhibits a sufficient security for the
genuineness of this Epistle ; and, in connection with its entire con-
tents, as also with its style, has sufficed to place it for ever beyond
susi^icion.
An occasion equally sad in respect to the apostle gave rise to the
first Epistle to the Corinthians, -which- v^as likewise written from
Ephesus. Before the first of the Epistles which are in our possession,
Paul had written another to Corinth (1 Cor. v. 9), which, however,
has perished. We have, indeed, a pretended E2)istle of Paul
to the Corinthians, which claims to be this lost Epistle, but a slight
examination is sufficient to manifest its spuriousness. Moreover,