From Centre to Circumference.
I. We have, first, the great central fact named last, but round which all the Christian life is gathered: "The Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." (1) Christ's death is a great act of self-surrender, of which the one motive is His own pure and perfect love. (2) That great act of self-surrendering love which culminates on the Cross is regarded as being for man in a special and peculiar sense. (3) We have here brought into vivid prominence the great thought that Jesus in His death has regard to single souls.
II. Note the faith which makes that fact the foundation of our own personal life. True faith is personal faith, which appropriates and, as it were, fences in as my very own the purpose and benefit of Christ's giving of Himself.
III. Note the life which is built upon this faith. The true Christian life is dual. It is a life in the flesh, and it is also a life in faith. It has its surface amidst the shifting mutabilities of earth, but its root in the silent eternities and the centre of all things, which is Christ in God.
A. Maclaren, The Unchanging Christ,p. 192.
I. St. Paul's words imply two chief elements in this new life, which thus by faith he lived in the Son of God. (1) One of these two points is love, for it was our Lord's love towards him that he here dwells upon. He had embraced the love of Christ towards himself, and love in his own soul towards his Lord was the result. It is to be observed that our Lord's individualising love is what he speaks of: "The Son of God, who loved me."This individuality gives intensity to love, causing it to be a personal, as distinguished from a mere general, love. (2) The second element of life on which St. Paul dwells in the text is the consciousness of mercy in being redeemed. This consciousness is intimately connected with love; but yet they are to be distinguished: "The Son of God, who gave Himself for me."This conviction embraced in his soul was the assurance of the forgiveness of his sins. St. Paul's words assume the fact of the Atonement in the sense of a substitution of Another sacrificed and accepted for himself.
II. The text, moreover, touches on one of the deep, practical questions of Christianity, namely, whether its aim be to make Christ and His example the standard and guide of our life or to establish us in the freedom and power of an illuminated reason, which supersedes the necessity of an appeal to our Lord's life as a standard. St. Paul's words prove that Christ was to him the living mould and pattern of his life in its most advanced stage.
III. We here see one reason of the difference between the righteous men of the old and those of the new covenant, a difference manifest to every one who reads even cursorily the book of God. There is in the great men of the New Testament a completeness, a consistency, a steadfastness, a maturity of formed character, which marks a different era.
IV. There are conditions of mind which must cooperate with the grace of God in order to attain any measure of such likeness to our Lord. There must be (1) a yielded will, (2) a contrite sense of the sinfulness which is past, with (3) a rejoicing thankfulness that the precious blood has touched it and cleansed it away.
T. T. Carter, Sermons,p. 386.
I. We may see in the principles involved in the text the chief characteristic note of sanctity. What forms the spirit is the ready compliance of the soul with the influences of the indwelling presence of God. He moves the springs of life, gives them their bent, endues them with power, and directs them to their appointed end. Saintliness always exhibits a likeness to Christ. As the streams of water that gush upward are identified with the spring from which they issue, even so there is a likeness in the saint to Christ, because it is Himself reproducing Himself in the individual forms of character of the separate persons in whom He dwells.
II. We may also here learn how there exists a perpetual power of revival in the Church's life, and by what means it may be quickened. The indwelling of Christ is the source of faith. Now there is a twofold presence on which the Church's life hangs. There is a presence common to the whole body, external to every individual member, which centres in the blessed Eucharist; and there is a presence which is personal, confined to each individual soul, and centred in its own hidden life, for it is not the presence of God simply as God which constitutes the life of the Church this is the creed of nature but the presence of God incarnate, of God in Christ, revealing Himself according to express covenant. As faith in this twofold presence rises or falls, so may we expect that the life of the Church and its members will rise or fall also. (1) It is manifestly so with regard to the Church. Is not each revival in the Church the very awakening of the Lord in the ship on the sea of Galilee, where He had slept for awhile, but where He had never ceased to be? And is it not reasonable to believe that as faith in that presence revives, and we cry unto Him in the prayer of such a faith, we have the surest hope of the revival of the Church's life? (2) Is it not the same in each individual's life? Must it not be the looking off from all secondary motives, all intervening objects, and looking direct on the Divine will that impels us forward, and by faith in Him who commands it going forth to fulfil it?
T. T. Carter, Sermons,p. 222.
References: Galatians 2:20. C. Vince, Christian World Pulpit,vol. v., p. 56; G. E. L. Cotton, Sermons to English Congregations in India,p. 44; Preacher's Monthly,vol. ix., p. 306; Homilist,2nd series, vol. iv., p. 380; R. Tuck, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xix., p. 261; H. W. Beecher, Ibid.,vol. xxv., p. 276; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., p. 24,7; vol. ii., p. 249; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xiii., No. 781; vol. xxvii., No. 1599; Ibid., Evening by Evening,p. 351; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. i., p. 28; vol. iii., p. 113; vol. iv., p. 87. Galatians 2:21. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxvi., No. 1534; Tyng, American Pulpit of the Day,p. 364; H. W. Beecher, Plymouth Pulpit Sermons,4th series, p. 526; Ibid.,5th series, p. 57; Parker, City Temple,vol. III., p. 373; A. Jessopp, Norwich School Sermons,p. 183; S. Macnaughton, Real Religion and Real Life,p. 50; J. Vaughan, Sermons,13th series, p. 13.Galatians 3:1. A. Barry, Sermons for Passiontide and Easter,p. 21; J. Irons, Thursday Penny Pulpit,vol. ix., p. 177; T. Arnold, Sermons,vol. iv., p. 254; Preacher's Monthly,vol. ii., p. 248; Christian World Pulpit,vol. v., p. 182; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxvi., No. 1546; Homilist,3rd series, vol. iii., p. 287; Ibid.,vol. ix., p. 61.Galatians 3:2. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxix., No. 1705.Galatians 3:2-24. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. iii., p. 87. Galatians 3:3. Ibid.,vol. iv., No. 178.