I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
Without the usual thanksgivings for their faith, etc., he vehemently plunges into his subject, zealous for the "glory" of God (Galatians 1:5), which was being disparaged by the Galatians' falling away from the pure Gospel of the "grace" of God.
I marvel - implying that he had hoped better things from them; whence his sorrowful surprise at their turning out so different. So soon - after my last visit, when I believed you untainted by Judaism. If this letter was written from Corinth, the interval would be little more than three years from his second visit, which would be "soon" to have fallen away, if they were then apparently sound. Galatians 4:18; Galatians 4:20 may imply that he saw no symptom of unsoundness then, such as he hears of now. But the English version is probably not correct there (see note, also 'Introduction'). If from Ephesus, the interval would be not more than one year. I prefer, with Chrysostom, to explain "so soon" after the entry of the Judaizing teachers. So Ellicott. Birks holds the letter to have been written from Corinth after his FIRST visit to Galatia; for this agrees best with the "so soon" and Galatians 4:18, "It is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you." If they had persevered in the faith during three years of his first absence, and only turned aside after his second visit, they could not be charged justly with adhering to the truth only when he was present; for his first absence was longer than both his visits, and they would have obeyed longer in his 'absence' than in his 'presence.' But if their decline had begun immediately after he left them, and before his return, the reproof will be just. But see note, Galatians 4:13.
Removed, х metalithesthe (G3346)] - 'are being removed;' i:e., ye are suffering yourselves so soon to be removed by Jewish seducers. Thus he softens the censure by implying that the Galatians were tempted by seducers from without, with whom the chief guilt lay; and the present, 'ye are being removed,' implies that their seduction was only in process of being effected, not actually so. Wahl, etc., take the Greek as middle voice, 'ye are changing your position'-`shifting your ground.' But thus Paul's oblique reference to their misleaders is lost; and Hebrews 7:12 uses the Greek passively, as here. On the impulsiveness and fickleness of the Gauls, whence the Galatians sprang (another form of Kel-t-s, the progenitors of the Erse, Gauls, and Cymri), see 'Introduction.'
From him that called you - God the Father (Galatians 1:15; Romans 8:30; 1 Corinthians 1:9; Galatians 5:8; 1 Thessalonians 2:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:24). Calling belongs to the Father; the cause of the calling to the Son;
Into - rather, as Greek, 'IN the grace of Christ;' in the exercise of it, as the element in which, and the instrument by which, God calls us to salvation. 'Immanent [permanently inhering] instrumentality' (Jelf). Ephesians 2:13, "made nigh by (Greek, IN) the blood of Christ." (Compare note, Romans 5:15; 1 Corinthians 7:15, 'the gift by (Greek, 'in') grace (Greek, 'the grace') of (the) one man.' "The grace of Christ" is Christ's gratuitously-purchased and bestowed justification.
Another, х heteron (G2087), 'heterogeneous'] - 'a different kind of gospel;' i:e., a so-called gospel, different altogether from the only true Gospel