CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Galatians 1:14. Exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.—St. Paul seems to have belonged to the extreme party of the Pharisees (Acts 22:3; Acts 23:7; Acts 26:5; Philippians 3:5-6), whose pride it was to call themselves “zealots of the law, zealots of God.” A portion of these extreme partisans, forming into a separate sect under Judas of Galilee, took the name of zealots par excellence, and distinguished themselves by their furious opposition to the Romans.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Galatians 1:13-14
A Zealous Ritualist—
I. Is conspicuous for his adherence to religious formalities.—“For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews’ religion” (Galatians 1:13)—of my manner of life formerly in Judaism. Saul of Tarsus was a full-blown ritualist, and a master-leader in the art, setting the pattern to all his contemporaries. He did not play at forms and ceremonies. Their observance was to him a matter of life and death. An intense nature like his could do nothing by halves. The listlessness and pictorial parade of modern ritualism he would have denounced with withering scorn. Religious formality has for some minds an irresistible fascination. It appeals to the instinct of worship which is latent in all, and to the love of æstheticism which is shared by most in varying degrees. The votary deludes himself into the belief that signs and symbols represent certain great truths; but the truths soon fade away into the background, and he is in turn deluded in regarding the outward ceremonies as everything. Formality is the tendency of the mind to rest in the mere externals of religion to the neglect of the inner life of religion itself. It is the folly of valuing a tree for its bark instead of its goodly timber, of choosing a book for its ornate binding irrespective of its literary genius, of admiring the finished architecture of a building regardless of its accommodation or the character of its inmates. “There are two ways of destroying Christianity,” says D’Aubigné; “one is to deny it, the other is to displace it.” Formality seeks to displace it. Ritualism may be of use in the infantile stage, either of the world or the individual. It is a reversion to the petrifaction of ancient crudities. A robust and growing spiritual manhood is superior to its aids.
II. Violently opposes the representatives of genuine piety.—“How that beyond measure I persecuted the Church of God, and wasted it” (Galatians 1:13). Animated by extravagant zeal for the religion of his forefathers, the bigoted Pharisee became the deadliest enemy of the Church of Christ in its infant days. Indifferent to personal peril or to the feelings of the oppressed, he prosecuted his work of destruction with savage energy. He was a type of the Jewish fanatics who afterwards thirsted and plotted for his life, and the forerunner of the cruel zealots of the Inquisition and the Star Chamber in later times. The curse of ritualism is excessive intolerance. Blinded and puffed up with its unwarrantable assumptions, it loses sight of the essential elements of true religion. It sees nothing good in any other system but its own, and employs all methods that it dare, to compel universal conformity. It admits no rival. It alone is right; everything else is wrong, and all kinds of means are justifiable in crushing the heresy that presumes to deny its supreme claims. “Christ and Ritualism,” says Horatius Bonar, “are opposed to each other, as light is to darkness. The cross and the crucifix cannot agree. Either ritualism will banish Christ or Christ will banish ritualism.”
III. Is distinguished by his ardent study and defence of traditional religionism.—“And profited in the Jews’ religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers” (Galatians 1:14). The apostle had studied the Mosaic law under the ablest tutors of his day. He knew Judaism by heart, and won a distinguished reputation for learning and for his strict adherence to the minutest details of traditional legalism. He was one of the ablest champions of the Mosaic system. The zealous ritualist spends his days and nights in studying, not the word of God, but the sayings of men and the rules of the Church handed down by the traditions of past generations. Divine revelation is ignored, and human authority unduly exalted. His studies are misdirected, and his zeal misspent. He is wasting his energy in defending a lifeless organism. No man can honestly and prayerfully study God’s word and catch its meaning, and remain a mere ritualist.
Lessons.—
1. Ritualism, is the worship of external forms.
2. It breeds a spirit of intolerance and persecution.
3. It supplants true religion.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Galatians 1:13-14. Mistaken Zeal—
I. May create a reputation for religious devotion.—“Ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews’ religion” (Galatians 1:13).
II. Breeds the spirit of violent persecution.—“How that beyond measure I persecuted the Church of God, and wasted it” (Galatians 1:13).
III. Makes one ambitious for superiority.—“Profited … above many my equals, … being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers” (Galatians 1:14).
IV. Is neither good nor wise.
V. Stores up a retrospect of bitter and humiliating regret.
Review of a Misspent Life.—
1. A sincere convert will not shun to make confession of his wicked life, not omitting anything which may tend to a just aggravation of it, not in a boasting manner, but that the freedom of God’s grace may be commended.
2. That the Scriptures were indited by the Spirit of God, and the penmen not actuated with human policy, appears from this, with other evidences in the Scripture itself, that they concealed not their own faults, but blazed them to the world when the glory of God did so require.
3. Though the Church of God, as to the inward estate, cannot be utterly wasted, neither can the outward state be so far decayed as to cease to be, yet the Lord may so far give way to the rage of persecutors that the outward face and beauty of the Church may be totally marred, the members partly killed, partly scattered, the public ordinances suppressed, and the public assemblies interrupted.
4. The life and way of some engaged in a false religion may be so blameless and, according to the dictates of their deluded conscience, so strict, as that it may be a copy unto those who profess the true religion and a reproof for their palpable negligence.
5. As our affections of love, joy, hatred, anger, and grief are by nature so corrupt that even the choicest of them, if not brought in subjection to the word by the Spirit, will lay forth themselves upon forbidden and unlawful objects, so our zeal and fervency of spirit will bend itself more toward the maintenance of error than of truth. Error is the birth of our own invention; so is not truth.—Fergusson.
True and False Zeal.
I. Zeal is a certain fervency of spirit arising out of a mixture of love and anger, causing men earnestly to maintain the worship of God and all things pertaining thereto, and moving them to grief and anger when God is in any way dishonoured.
II. Paul was zealous for the outward observance of the law and for Pharisaical unwritten traditions.
III. He himself condemns his zeal because it was against the word, and tended to maintain unwritten traditions, and justification by the works of the law, out of Christ. What Paul did in his religion we are to do in the profession of the gospel.
1. We are to addict and set ourselves earnestly to maintain the truth of the gospel.
2. We are to be angry in ourselves and grieved when God is dishonoured and His word disobeyed.
3. We are not to give liberty to the best of our natural affections as to zeal, but mortify and rule them by the word.—Perkins.