The increasing efforts of false teachers whose endeavor was to put Christians under the law, was the occasion which the Lord used to lead the apostle, Paul, to write, and to send this epistle to the assemblies of the province of Galatia.
We see in Acts 15:23-31, how the apostles dealt with this evil in the letter they sent to the Gentile assemblies. In Acts 21:20, 21, we still find many of the Jewish converts in bondage to keep the law, and to circumcise their children. The God of all grace saw how much this Epistle would be needed in the history of the assembly on earth, and inspired His servant, Paul, to write it, that the grace of God, and the love of Christ might have their place in our hearts. Strange indeed it is, that so many of God’s dear children are entangled in this bondage, yet the Word is plain, “Ye are not under the law, but under grace.” (Rom. 6:14, 15).
Verse 1. Here Paul asserts his apostleship which some were questioning then, and some do so still, calling what he has written “his opinions.” They were the commandments of the Lord (1 Cor. 14:37; and 2 Tim. 3:14-17).
“Paul an apostle (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead).” In this parenthesis we see that his apostleship was neither of men, nor by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father. This is important. It was wholly independent of men. He was never, what men call, ordained, a thing for which there is no authority in Scripture. We are pointed to Acts 13:2-4, but both Paul and Barnabas were preaching the gospel before. It was fellowship in the work to which the Lord had called them (see Acts 9:15-17; 26:15-18). It was neither ordination, nor placing them over a congregation—that also is unknown in Scripture. In turning to Ephesians 4:8-11, we find that all true ministry of evangelists, pastors, or teachers, comes from the glorified Head, Christ Jesus. The apostles were His ambassadors sent by our Lord Jesus Christ. We are built on their foundation (Eph. 2:20).
Scripture speaks of men choosing their teachers, but only to rebuke it (2 Tim. 4:3), and in Revelation 2:6-15 the word “Nicolaitanes” has the meaning of “conquering the laity”, or men set up by themselves or others, over congregations, “which thing I hate”, the Lord says.
Eldership and Deacons were not gifts, but offices; they were appointed by the apostles or their delegates, not by the assembly, and with their passing away, we find no authority to appoint them.
Verses 2-5. All the brethren were with the apostle in writing, and join in sending to these assemblies gathered mostly from among the Gentiles. “Grace and peace from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of our God and Father; to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”
We see here two aspects of the death of Christ—the one is “for our sins,” the other is “for sin,” and in this aspect we are to learn that we are dead with Christ (see chap. 6:14 and 2:20). We see in His death at what a cost we are cleansed and delivered, and we may see how it also delivers us from the law (2:19). What love the Father bore to us is proved in His gift, “His unspeakable gift.” He spared not His own Son, that we might be cleansed and delivered from the power of sin.
Verses 6-12. The apostle wonders that they were so soon removed from Him who called them into the grace of Christ unto another gospel, which was really not another, as there was no good news in it, but bondage, trying to keep the law instead of simply following Christ, receiving strength and grace from Him all the way along. Those Judaizing teachers were troublers, who were perverting the gospel of Christ.
Ah! dear reader, if you are under the law, you are under the curse. If you are a true believer, you are forever freed from it (chap. 3:10-13). And so the apostle goes on— “But 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,” and again to emphasize it, he repeats it, “As we said before, so say I now again, ‘If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.’” He was not seeking to please men, but speaking as a servant of Christ. The gospel which he preached unto them was not after man, for he neither received it of man, nor was he taught it, but the Lord Himself revealed it to him (see 1 Cor. 15:3).
Verses 13, 14. They had heard of his zeal in the Jews religion, even to persecuting the assembly of God, how cruelly he had treated the saints—believers in Christ (Acts 26:10,11), and scattered them in his fleshly earnestness fulfilling John 16:2. He was away ahead of his contemporaries in his zeal of all the traditions of the Jews. Then the Lord met him, and the change came. He writes, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles (Nations), immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood, neither went I up to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus.”
Where he was or what he was doing during those three years, we are not told, but we can well believe that he was in the school of God that fitted him for the work, and suffering that was before him. All this is to show that he had not counseled with men, but was fitted by the Lord as His servant.
After three years he went to Jerusalem to see Peter for fifteen days; he saw also James, the Lord’s brother, but none other of the apostles. Then he was at Syria and Cilicia, but was still unknown by face unto the assemblies of Judea which were in Christ, but they had heard only, that the great persecutor of the assembly in times past, now preached the faith which once he destroyed. And they glorified God about him.