“Be as I am, for I also am as ye, brethren, I beseech you; ye have not at all wronged me. But ye know that in weakness of the flesh I announced the glad tidings to you at the first; and my temptation which was in my flesh ye did not slight nor reject with contempt; but ye received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. What then was your blessedness? (or, what blessedness was then yours!) for I bear you witness that, if possible, plucking out your own eyes ye would have given them to me.
“So I have become your enemy in speaking the truth to you? They are not rightly zealous after you, but desire to shut you out from us, that ye may be zealous after them. But it is right to be zealous at all times in what is right, and not only when I am present with you—my children, of whom I again travail in birth until Christ shall have been formed in you; and I should wish to be present with you now, and change my voice, for I am perplexed as to you” (verses 12-31, JND).
In the twelfth verse the apostle turns to his relations with the Galatian saints and answers charges made against him by the persons referred to in verse 17 who were influencing them toward keeping the law of Moses. The law had formerly claimed obedience from Paul, but he had become free of its claim through the death of Christ; as Gentiles, the Galatians had not been under law. “Be as I am, for I also am as ye, brethren,” is his answer; that is, be free from the law, as being dead to it in Christ; you are Gentiles, and have never been, and are not, under the law at all, and “I am as ye are.”
Apparently the Galatians thought that in charging Paul with not living according to the law, they were hurting his feelings, and so he says in verse 12, “ye have not at all wronged me”; he fully acknowledged that whatever he was by birth, and as a man, he had given up. The cross of Christ was the end of both the law and the flesh in God’s sight.
Verses 13-15. When he came into Galatia, Paul carried with him something—he does not tell what—connected with his bodily state that made him, or might make him, contemptible to his hearers. It was the thorn in the flesh of 2 Corinthians 12:77And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. (2 Corinthians 12:7). But those to whom the Apostle writes received the word which he spoke, received him as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. What had become of the blessedness they then spoke of?
Verses 16-18. The false teachers had succeeded, in measure at least, in alienating the affections of the Galatians from the Apostle.
“So I have become your enemy in speaking the truth to you?” They would, if they could, shut out the Apostle from any contact with the Galatian saints, in order that they might attach them to themselves. Verse 18 suggests a reference to Philippians 2:1212Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. (Philippians 2:12), where the Apostle writes in far happier terms of the saints at Philippi:
“Ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence.”
In Galatia, on the contrary, the saints, when deprived of the apostle’s presence, had soon slipped from the sense of dependence upon God, and taken up with a fleshly use of the law.
Verses 19-20 bring out touchingly the Apostle’s affection for the saints, a love not weakened by their ingratitude, because that love was, in its source, divine. Perplexed as to them, he wanted to be present with them so as to deal with these believers as their condition of soul might be found to be.
“Tell me, ye who are desirous of being under law, do ye not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one of the maidservant (or bondmaid) and one of the freewoman. But he that was of the maidservant was born according to flesh, and he that was of the free woman through the promise. Which things have an allegorical sense, for these are two covenants, one from Mount Sinai, gendering to bondage, which is Hagar. For Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which is now, for she is in bondage with her children, but the Jerusalem above is free, which is our mother.
“For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break out and cry, thou that travailest not; because the children of the desolate, are more numerous than those of her that has a husband.
“But ye, brethren, after the pattern of Isaac, are children of promise. But as then he that was born according to flesh persecuted him that was born according to Spirit, so also it is now. But what says the Scripture? Cast out the maidservant (or bond-maid) and her son, for the son of the maidservant shall not inherit with the son of the free woman. So then, brethren, we are not maidservant’s children, but children of the free woman” (verses 21-31, JND).
In these verses the Galatian saints are first referred to Genesis 21, verses 9-12, and what light is thrown upon that passage here! A striking contrast is seen between the child “according to flesh” and the child of the free-woman; the one connected with the principle of law embodied in the covenant of Sinai (Ex. 19, 20), and the other, the child of promise, of the Spirit, connected with the unconditional promise to Abraham in Genesis 22, verses 16-18.
“Jerusalem which is now,” full of religion, but in bondage to sin as well as to the Romans, is no longer the mother of the Jew who has believed; he belongs to Jerusalem which is above; he belongs to Christ and thus to the heavenly Jerusalem. In support of this the apostle next quotes Isaiah 54:11Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord. (Isaiah 54:1), wherein Jerusalem is looked at as restored to God’s favor, as it will be in the Millennium. Therein the statement is made that the children of the desolate are more numerous than those of her that has a husband, referring to the period of Israel’s being set aside as the people of God, and viewing all that have received the offer of salvation since the day of Pentecost as children of desolate Jerusalem. At the time of which Isaiah 54 speaks, the Christians will be in their promised heavenly place, and the Jews, or the believing remnant of them, will have experienced their great spiritual awakening.
Verses 28 to 31 seem to call for no comment. The law, it is plain, was designed for man in the flesh, but we, believers, are called of God to another condition; we are children of the free woman.