CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Galatians 1:11. Not after man.—Not according to man; not influenced by mere human considerations, as it would be if it were of human origin.
Galatians 1:12. But by the revelation of Jesus Christ.—Probably this took place during the three years, in part of which the apostle sojourned in Arabia (Galatians 1:17-18), in the vicinity of the scene of the giving of the law: a fit place for such a revelation of the gospel of grace which supersedes the ceremonial law. Though he had received no instruction from the apostles, but from the Holy Ghost, yet when he met them his gospel exactly agreed with theirs.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Galatians 1:10-12
The Superhuman Origin of the Gospel.
I. The gospel is not constructed on human principles.—“But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man” (Galatians 1:11). Its character is such as the human mind would never have conceived. When it was first proclaimed it was the puzzle of the religious and the ridicule of the learned—“unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness.” It is wholly opposed to the drift of human tendencies. Its supreme aim is to effect a complete transformation of human nature. Not to destroy that nature, but to renew, elevate, and sublimate it. By its principle of self-sacrificing love, its insistence of the essential oneness of the race, its methods in dealing with the world’s evils, its lofty morality, and its uncompromising claims of superiority the gospel transcends all the efforts of human ingenuity. Augustine, the father of Western theology in the fifth century, divided the human race into two classes—the one who lived according to man and the other who lived according to God. The gospel is the only revelation that teaches men how to live according to God.
II. The gospel does not pander to human tastes.—“For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10). The adversaries of the apostle insinuated that he was a trimmer, observing the law among the Jews and yet persuading the Gentiles to renounce it; becoming all things to all men that he might form a party of his own. Such an insinuation was based on an utter misconception of the gospel. So far from flattering, Paul preached a gospel that humbled men, demanding repentance and reform. It often came in collision with popular tastes and opinions; and though the apostle was a man of broad views and sympathies, he was ever the faithful and uncompromising servant of Christ. Public opinion may be hugely mistaken, and there is danger of over-estimating its importance. It is the lofty function of the preacher to create a healthy public opinion and Christianise it, and he can do this only by a scrupulous and constant representation of the mind of Christ, his divine Master. The wise Phocion was so sensible how dangerous it was to be touched with what the multitude approved that upon a general acclamation made when he was making an oration he turned to an intelligent friend and asked in a surprised manner, “What slip have I made?” George Macdonald once said, “When one has learned to seek the honour that cometh from God only, he will take the withholding of the honour that cometh by man very lightly indeed.”
III. The gospel has a distinctly superhuman origin.—“For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:12). Paul’s reception of the gospel was not only a revelation of Christ to him, but at the same time a revelation of Christ in him. The human vehicle was spiritually prepared for the reception and understanding of the divine message; and this moral transformation not only convinced him of the superhuman character of the gospel, but also empowered him with authority to declare it. The gospel carries with it the self-evidencing force of its divine origin in its effect upon both preacher and hearer. It is still an enigma to the mere intellectual student; only as it is received into the inmost soul, by the aid of the Holy Spirit, is its true nature apprehended and enjoyed.
Lessons.—
1. Man everywhere is in dire need of the gospel.
2. The human mind is incapable of constructing a saving gospel.
3. The gospel is inefficacious till it is received as a divine gift.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Galatians 1:10. Fidelity in the Ministry.
I. The proper nature of the ministry is not the word or doctrine of man but of God.—Ministers are taught to handle their doctrine with modesty and humility, without ostentation, with reverence, and with a consideration of the majesty of God, whose doctrine it is they utter
II. The dispensing of the word must not be for the pleasing of men but God.—Ministers must not apply and fashion their doctrine to the affections, humours, and dispositions of men, but keep a good conscience and do their office.
III. If we seek to please men we cannot be the servants of God.—He that would be a faithful minister of the gospel must deny the pride of his heart, be emptied of ambition, and set himself wholly to seek the glory of God in his calling.—Perkins.
The Servant of Christ.
I. There is nothing dishonourable in the idea of a servant absolutely considered.—On the contrary, there may be much in it that is noble and venerable. Nothing can be more contemptible than an affectation of independence which resents or is ashamed of a servant’s name. And many who despise servants should be told that they themselves are so worthless that nobody would think of honouring them with hiring them for service. It was Christ’s honour that His Father so employed Him for the work of our salvation, and said, “Behold My Servant, whom I have chosen”; and the highest honour of the preachers of the gospel is that they are the ministers, that is, the servants, both of Christ and His Church. There are cases, no doubt, in which servitude is degrading. The master may be infamous; though even then the servant’s condition is not dishonourable, unless he be employed in infamous work. Many servants have wrought out most honourable names for themselves in doing good work under bad masters. Matthew Henry has said well that there is nothing mean but sin, and with such meanness and dishonour is every man affected who is not a servant of Christ. There is for us all the choice of only two conditions; there is not a third and neutral one. The alternative is a servant of the Son of God or a slave of sin. It may not be of sin in its most hideous forms, in the form in which it tyrannises over the drunkard, the lewd man, or the ambitious, but even in its milder and less-offensive form, when it may reign only with the power which it exercises over the worshipper of wealth or of human applause; still, it is a degrading vassalage. Let no worldly man, then, affect to pity or scorn the disciple of the gospel as being one whom superstition enslaves, though it were admitted to be a slavery; he himself labours under one infinitely more oppressive and degrading. Whose appears the greater liberty and the least oppression, his who is governed by the salutary laws of the gospel, or his who is the sport and victim of his own ignorance and passions, or of the opinion of the world, to which, at the expense of the violation of his own conscience, he feels himself compelled ignominiously to submit? The question needs not an answer. There is everything honourable in the one service, everything dishonourable in the other. Only that man is truly a free man who is a servant of Christ.
II. The servant of Christ.—Others profess that they are servants of God; the Christian replies that he is a servant of Christ. There is perhaps nothing by which his faith is more distinctly characterised than this. “Is he not, then, a servant of God?” some one may ask, either in the spirit of a scorning objector or in that of an astonished inquirer who is as yet ignorant of the beautiful mystery of Christian salvation. When others profess that they are the servants of God, and when the Christian replies that he is a servant of Christ, does it signify that he is not a servant of the eternal Father? Such is the question; and our reply is, that in serving Christ he approves himself not only the best servant of God, but the only one whose service is genuine. In serving Christ he serves God, because God has so appointed and ordained. He has ordained that we be the servants of His Son; and if we serve not His Son, then we resist His ordination, so that we serve neither His Son nor Himself.
III. The Christian is Christ’s servant, not by hire, but by purchase.—This is a circumstance which claims our most thoughtful consideration. In the case of a servant who is hired there is a limitation of the master’s right, by the terms of the agreement, in respect of the kind and amount of labour to be exacted. There is also a definite term, at the expiry of which the right of service ceases, and the remuneration of the service is exigible by law. There is a vast difference in the case of a purchased servant, or, as otherwise expressed, a slave. He is his master’s property, to be treated entirely according to his master’s discretion. There is no limitation either to the amount or nature of the work which he may exact. The period of service is for life, and no remuneration can be claimed for the labour, howsoever heavy and protracted. Our servant-condition in relation to Christ is of this character: He does not hire us, but has purchased us—purchased us by His blood, and made us His property, to be used according to His sovereign will. But this is far from being all. Our gracious Master often sinks, as it were, the consideration of His past services—of His humiliation, His privation, His wounds and agony by which he saved us from punishment and woe—and reasons and deals with us as if we were hired servants and could merit something at His hand, animating us in our work by exhibiting to our hope that crown of glory which He will confer on all who are faithful unto death. Blessed servitude—the servitude of the Christian! Servitude of peace! Servitude of honour! Servitude of liberty! Servitude of victory and everlasting glory!
1. The Christian, as a servant, submits his mind to the authority of Christ—submits it to Him in respect of his opinions; at the utterance of His word renounces its own judgments and prejudices, and turns away from the teaching of the world’s philosophy and priesthood in scorn, saying, “You have no part in me. Christ is the Lord of my conscience; I will listen to Him.”
2. As the servant of Christ, the Christian subjects his body to His control and regulation in the gratifying of its appetites, and in providing for its comfort and adornment; his lips in what they speak; his hands in what they do; his ears in what they listen to; his eyes in what they read and look at; and his feet in all their journeyings and movements.
3. As the servant of Christ, he regulates his family according to his Master’s mind and law.
4. As a servant of Christ, he conducts his business according to Christ’s law, with the strictest honesty, and for Christ’s end, distributing his profits in a proportion—I shall say a large proportion; nay, I shall say a very large proportion—to the maintenance and education of his family, and some provision of an inheritance for them, and even a considerable proportion for the gratification of his own tastes. Is not that a large allowance for a slave? But oh, some of you! you seize on all—wickedly appropriate all to yourselves, or part, and that with a grudge, a murmur, and a scowl, with but the smallest fraction to the Master’s poor and the Master’s Church! Slaves indeed! Slaves of Avarice and his daughter, Cruelty!
5. As a servant of Christ, the country of the Christian is Christ’s, to be regulated, so far as his influence and vote may extend, by Christ’s rule, for Christ’s ends.—W. Anderson, LL. D.
Galatians 1:11-12. The Gospel and the Call to preach it.
I. It is necessary that men should be assured and certified that the doctrine of the gospel and the Scripture is not of man but of God.—That the Scripture is the word of God there are two testimonies.
1. One is the evidence of God’s Spirit imprinted and expressed in the Scriptures, and this is an excellence of the word of God above all words and writings of men and angels.
2. The second testimony is from the prophets and apostles, who were ambassadors of God extraordinarily to represent His authority unto His Church, and the penmen of the Holy Ghost to set down the true and proper word of God.
II. It is necessary that men should be assured in their consciences that the calling and authority of their teachers are of God.—To call men to the ministry and dispensation of the gospel belongs to Christ, who alone giveth the power, the will, the deed; and the Church can do no more than testify, publish, and declare whom God calleth.
III. The gospel which Paul preached was not human—he did not receive it, neither was he taught it by man; and preached it not by human but by divine authority.
1. Christ is the great prophet and doctor of the Church. His office is:
(1) To manifest and reveal the will of the Father touching the redemption of mankind.
(2) To institute the ministry of the word and to call and send ministers.
(3) To teach the heart within by illuminating the mind and by working a faith of the doctrine taught.
2. There are two ways whereby Christ teaches those who are to be teachers.
(1) By immediate revelation.
(2) By ordinary instruction in schools by the means and ministry of men.
IV. They who are to be teachers must first be taught, and they must teach that which they have first learned themselves. They are first to be taught, and that by men where revelation is wanting. This is the foundation of the schools of the prophets. All men should pray that God would prosper and bless all schools of learning where this kind of teaching is in use.—Perkins.
The Gospel a Divine Revelation.
I. It is not constructed by human ingenuity.—“The gospel which was preached of me is not after man” (Galatians 1:11).
II. It derives no authority from man.—“For I neither received it of man” (Galatians 1:12).
III. It is not acquired by mere mental culture.—“Neither was I taught it.”
IV. It is a direct and special revelation from heaven.—“But by the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
Apostolic Assurance of the Supernatural Character of the Gospel.—
1. It is the custom of the adversaries of the truth, when they have nothing to say in reason against the doctrine itself, to cast reproach on those who preach it, and to question their call and authority to preach, that so they may indirectly at least reflect upon the doctrine.
2. As none may take upon him to dispense the word of God publicly unto others without a call from God, so there are several sorts of callings: one of men and ordinary when God calls by the voices and consent of men; another of God and extraordinary, the call of the Church not intervening.
3. It is required of an apostle to have the infallible knowledge of the truth of the gospel, and this not wholly by the help of human means, as we learn at schools and by private study, but mainly by immediate inspiration from the Spirit of God. Paul shows that the gospel was not taught him of man; and this he saith, not to depress human learning, but that he may obviate the calumny of his adversaries who alleged he bad the knowledge of the gospel by ordinary instruction from men only, and so was no apostle.—Fergusson.