Brothers, I entreat you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You did me no wrong. You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. What then has become of your blessedness? For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me. Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth? They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them. It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose, and not only when I am present with you, my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you! I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you. Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?
become as I am, for I also have become as you are - "lit., 'become as I am, for I became as ye were,' i.e., 'I was zealous for the law [1:14], but I laid its supposed advantages, and my lifelong prejudice in its favor; [cp. Phil. 3:7], in order to take my place beside you Gentiles: now I appeal to you who have put yourselves under the law, or who contemplate doing so, to take your place beside me—be ye free as I am free,' cp. 1 Corinthians 9:12." (Vine)
"He [Paul] exhorts them, 'Be as I am, for I am as ye are.' The word 'be' is the ginomai which means literally 'to become.' His exhortation is therefore, 'Become as I am, because I also became as you are.' That is, 'become as I am, free from the bondage of the law. I became as you are, Gentile.' Paul exhorts the Galatians to free themselves from bondage to law as he had done. He appeals to them to do this because he who had possessed the advantages of the law, had foregone these advantages and had placed himself on the same level in relation to the law as Gentiles He tells them that he gave up all those time-honored Jewish customs and those dear associations of race to become like them. He has lived like a Gentile so that he might preach to Gentiles." (Wuest)
You did me no wrong - "—anticipating a possible suggestion that the vigor of the apostle's language was due to some personal grievance. The point tense show that he has in mind the occasion of his first visit to them. The emphasis is on 'no,' lit., 'in nothing did ye do me an injustice.' Cp. 2 Corinthians 12, 13 where the apostle is ironical. On the contrary, so far from doing him any injury that he might resent, he reminds them that the circumstances under which they first met were such as rather to put him under obligation to them, because of the kindness with which they treated him when his sickness might very well have repelled them." (Vine)
it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first - "His visit to the Galatian cities had not be premeditated, it was an indirect consequence of his illness." (Vine)
as Christ Jesus - "—there is an ellipsis to be supplied here, 'as ye would receive Christ Jesus,' the messenger of God and Lord of all the angels. When the apostle first visited the Galatians they knew nothing of God or His angels or of Christ Jesus; but they had received him as they would have received Them had they known of Them. This is an instance of the rhetorical figure 'climax,' the effect of the words is heightened by the ad 'angel' to 'Christ.'" (Vine)
What then has become of your blessedness? - "—makarismos, which is translated 'blessing' in Romans 4:6, 9. They had counted themselves happy when they heard the gospel from his lips. What had become of that spirit which animated them not so long ago? Cp. 1:6, above." (Vine)
"He [Paul] had preached and they had come to the services. They were so eager to hear Paul that they sat in the front seats and listened attentively as he spoke. But all that had changed. They were curse with fighting and bickering until Paul had to say, 'Take heed that ye be not devoured one of another' (Gal 5:15). Why this sad change? Had they denied the Scriptures? No, the legalists had come to them with Scriptures from the Old Testament. They had done what nine-tenths of the professing church is doing today. They took rites and ceremonies and forms and decrees from a former dispensation and added them to and mixed them with God's pure message of grace. The result: The apostle now had to ask the Galatians: 'Where is then the blessedness ye spake of?' (Gal 4:15) ... These Galatian believers did not lose their blessedness and become Paul's enemy through falling into sins of the flesh or through worldliness, but rather through that which seemed good. They 'desired' to be under the law again, to do more than God required. They sought to give to God that which he does not ask for and even refused to accept, since He has provided all the sinner needs in Christ ... We today should heed this lesson and learn what happens to the believer who becomes enamored of anything but Christ. The temptations to 'fall from grace,' are as great today as they ever were. It would be well, therefore, to read this letter to the Galatians often so that we might be among those who 'stand fast.'" (Stam)
you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me - "Paul is saying that he has had a good relationship with the Galatians: you have in the past been ready to 'pluck out your eyes for me' (a common expression of the time for giving up everything for another, not an indication of eye trouble). Though he was ill on his former visit, they had not scorned him but had treated him as Christ had treated them. Now he wanted them to hold firm to the truth he had taught them." (Ryrie)
"—sufficient proof, indeed, of their gratitude to the apostle and of their consequent love for him. The words have been understood as suggesting that the 'infirmity' of which he speaks was an affection of the eyes, and some have found support for this theory in the blindness that ensued on the vision at the time of his conversion, and also in the incident recorded in Acts 23:1-5. All this is precarious and highly speculative at the best. Nor does it matter either way. The same is to be said of the identification of this 'infirmity' with the 'thorn in the flesh' of 2 Corinthians 12:7. Had 'ye' been the emphasized word, as it is not, the sentence might have been understood to suggest an affection of the eyes, but the emphasis is on 'eyes'; they would have parted with their most precious possession, see Deuteronomy 32:10, had there been any possibility of his profiting by the gift. As to the blindness on the way to Damascus, that was supernaturally inflicted and was complete; so with the cure, that also was the direct act of God, and so cannot have been other than complete." (Vine)
They make much of you, but for no good purpose. - "This is just the difference between proselytizing and evangelizing; in the one there is zeal for a creed, in the other for a person. The Judaizers paid court to the Galatians in order to attach them to a part; Paul took an interest in them in order that he might win them to, and preserve them for, Christ." (Vine)
They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them. - "—If the Judaizers could persuade the converts, who had been taught that faith in Christ alone was necessary for salvation, that circumcision and submission to the law were also essential, the effect would inevitably be just what the apostle here describes. They must turn to their new teachers for that assurance of salvation which, they would suppose, the gospel as preached by Paul could not supply." (Vine)
"This passage seems obscure until we take into account the fact that the word 'affect' here means to affect the emotions. It is used by Paul in 2 Corinthians 11:2, where he writes to the Corinthians: 'I am jealous over you..' Thus, the idea is that the legalizer were courting the Galatians, as it were, to win them away from Paul and his message of grace. Indeed, they were seeking to 'exclude' the Galatians—from him; to 'cut him out,' as we say, so that the Galatians might court them. To this the apostle responds that it is always good to be 'affected,' to have deep feelings, about any good thing—as they had previously had about Paul's God-given message of grace. And then, as a rebuke: 'and not only when I am present with you.' ... The Judaizers had been largely successful in courting the Galatians, so that the Galatians were now charmed with the personalities of these legalizers rather than with Christ. Paul had drawn their hearts to Christ; the Judaizers drew their affections to themselves and charmed them as true 'holy' people." (Stam)
until Christ is formed in you! - "—morphoo. When the apostle brought the gospel to the Galatian cities, his aim was not merely to induce men to change their religion, to forsake polytheism, the worship of many gods, for monotheism, the worship of one God; it was that they might receive life in Christ. So now his anxiety on their account was not merely that they should be intellectually persuaded of, and confirmed in, the true nature of the gospel and its conditions, but that the new life therein imparted might grow in them. Doctrine is not something alien from life. What a man believes affects his character and his conduct. Doctrine that exalts Christ makes for holiness; doctrine that detracts from the excellence of His person, OR FROM THE COMPLETENESS AND SUFFICIENCY OF HIS SACRIFICE, hinders, or prevents, the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer, which work is carried on by presentation of Christ, in His essential deity, in His true manhood, in His perfect salvation; see John 16:13-15. The fatal defect of the doctrine of the Judaizers was that, by making something besides acceptance of Christ necessary to obtaining of the promises, they presented a defective Savior. That Christ is supreme, Romans 9:5; sufficient, Colossians 1:19; 'all and in all,' 3:11, nothing less than this is the apostle's claim. But if on this point the Galatians were misled, how could they experience the power of truth they denied? To submit to circumcision, to seek justification by law, was to be severed from Christ and to lose all that the gospel offered, see 5:2-4, below. To trust Christ, and to trust Him alone, was to be justified from all things indeed, see Romans 3:28; 8:31-34; but more, it was to be 'a new creation,' 2 Corinthians 5:17, to live in Christ, and to have Christ living in the heart. Growth, moreover, is the evidence of life, and this the apostle desired for his converts that they might 'all attain ... unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,' that they might 'grow up in all things into ... Christ,' Ephesians 4:13-15. How this is to be accomplished may be learned from his prayer that Christ might dwell in their hearts through faith, 3:17, and from the exhortation of Philippians 2:5, 'Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus.' For as the exercise of faith occupies the heart with Christ, the mind of Christ develops in the believers, and as a direct result of these inward processes his conduce is increasingly conformed to the example of Christ. 'That Christ may be formed in you' is, then, the desire of the apostle for the moral conformity of the believer to Christ here and now. The thought is similar to, or identical with, that of Philippians 3:10, 'becoming conformed to His death.' But conformity to Christ, though it begins in the moral sphere, does not end there. In due time, that which is now inward and spiritual will extend also to that which is outward and physical, for 'the body of our humiliation' will, at the coming of the Lord, be 'conformed to the body of His glory,' Philippians 3:21. The apostle's mind here, however, is not so much on the future, and the final outcome in them of faith in Christ, as it is that he longs for some present and satisfying evidence to confirm his confidence that God had indeed begun a good work in them; if he were only assured of that the ultimate issue would not be in doubt; see Philippians 1:6. But the ordinance of God is that the believer must enter into willing cooperation with Him for his own perfecting into the image of His Son; see Romans 8:28-29. The formation of Christ in the believer is at once the purpose of God and the ambition, inwrought by the Spirit, of all who are taught of Him." (Vine)
do you not listen to the law? - "—the story to which the apostle is about to refer is related in Genesis 16—18:15 and 21:1-21. 'The Law' here, then, is not the moral and ceremonial code contained in the other books of the Pentateuch, but is either, a, the Pentateuch itself, as in Romans 3:21, or, b, the Old Testament as a whole, as in v. 19; it does not seem to make any material difference whether the word is understood here in its wider or in its more limited sense." (Vine)
"The words 'ye that desire to be under the law,' imply that the Galatians had not adopted, but were on the point of adopting the law. The idea is, 'ye who are bent on being under law.' The article is absent before law in the Greek text. The word law here REFERS TO LAW AS A PRINCIPLE OF LIFE, NOT ONLY TO THE MOSAIC LAW, 'Are ye not hearing the law?' This is a remonstrance to these Galatians who are bent on upholding the authority of the law, but who are not heeding the full significance of the law." (Wuest)
"This is the second time that the apostle has said in this epistle that they 'desired to be under the law.' In the same chapter (chapter 4), verse 9, he said, 'Ye desire again to be in bondage,' Think of that! They desired to put themselves under the bondage, the yoke of the law. Peter had called the law of Moses 'a yoke...which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear' (Acts 15:10). The Galatians certainly have their counterpart in many believers today, true believers in Christ, who nevertheless think that they will please and honor God more by putting themselves under the law of Moses, even though God has abolished it and revealed His grace. Perhaps I should explain here that God has not abolished the law as the written standard of righteousness or of His moral principles, but He has abolished the law as a covenant. Now that it has been done away, God calls it the old covenant. To those who desired to be under the law Paul said 'Do ye not hear the law?'" (Stam)
become as I am, for I also have become as you are - "lit., 'become as I am, for I became as ye were,' i.e., 'I was zealous for the law [1:14], but I laid its supposed advantages, and my lifelong prejudice in its favor; [cp. Phil. 3:7], in order to take my place beside you Gentiles: now I appeal to you who have put yourselves under the law, or who contemplate doing so, to take your place beside me—be ye free as I am free,' cp. 1 Corinthians 9:12." (Vine)
"He [Paul] exhorts them, 'Be as I am, for I am as ye are.' The word 'be' is the ginomai which means literally 'to become.' His exhortation is therefore, 'Become as I am, because I also became as you are.' That is, 'become as I am, free from the bondage of the law. I became as you are, Gentile.' Paul exhorts the Galatians to free themselves from bondage to law as he had done. He appeals to them to do this because he who had possessed the advantages of the law, had foregone these advantages and had placed himself on the same level in relation to the law as Gentiles He tells them that he gave up all those time-honored Jewish customs and those dear associations of race to become like them. He has lived like a Gentile so that he might preach to Gentiles." (Wuest)
You did me no wrong - "—anticipating a possible suggestion that the vigor of the apostle's language was due to some personal grievance. The point tense show that he has in mind the occasion of his first visit to them. The emphasis is on 'no,' lit., 'in nothing did ye do me an injustice.' Cp. 2 Corinthians 12, 13 where the apostle is ironical. On the contrary, so far from doing him any injury that he might resent, he reminds them that the circumstances under which they first met were such as rather to put him under obligation to them, because of the kindness with which they treated him when his sickness might very well have repelled them." (Vine)
it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first - "His visit to the Galatian cities had not be premeditated, it was an indirect consequence of his illness." (Vine)
as Christ Jesus - "—there is an ellipsis to be supplied here, 'as ye would receive Christ Jesus,' the messenger of God and Lord of all the angels. When the apostle first visited the Galatians they knew nothing of God or His angels or of Christ Jesus; but they had received him as they would have received Them had they known of Them. This is an instance of the rhetorical figure 'climax,' the effect of the words is heightened by the ad 'angel' to 'Christ.'" (Vine)
What then has become of your blessedness? - "—makarismos, which is translated 'blessing' in Romans 4:6, 9. They had counted themselves happy when they heard the gospel from his lips. What had become of that spirit which animated them not so long ago? Cp. 1:6, above." (Vine)
"He [Paul] had preached and they had come to the services. They were so eager to hear Paul that they sat in the front seats and listened attentively as he spoke. But all that had changed. They were curse with fighting and bickering until Paul had to say, 'Take heed that ye be not devoured one of another' (Gal 5:15). Why this sad change? Had they denied the Scriptures? No, the legalists had come to them with Scriptures from the Old Testament. They had done what nine-tenths of the professing church is doing today. They took rites and ceremonies and forms and decrees from a former dispensation and added them to and mixed them with God's pure message of grace. The result: The apostle now had to ask the Galatians: 'Where is then the blessedness ye spake of?' (Gal 4:15) ... These Galatian believers did not lose their blessedness and become Paul's enemy through falling into sins of the flesh or through worldliness, but rather through that which seemed good. They 'desired' to be under the law again, to do more than God required. They sought to give to God that which he does not ask for and even refused to accept, since He has provided all the sinner needs in Christ ... We today should heed this lesson and learn what happens to the believer who becomes enamored of anything but Christ. The temptations to 'fall from grace,' are as great today as they ever were. It would be well, therefore, to read this letter to the Galatians often so that we might be among those who 'stand fast.'" (Stam)
you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me - "Paul is saying that he has had a good relationship with the Galatians: you have in the past been ready to 'pluck out your eyes for me' (a common expression of the time for giving up everything for another, not an indication of eye trouble). Though he was ill on his former visit, they had not scorned him but had treated him as Christ had treated them. Now he wanted them to hold firm to the truth he had taught them." (Ryrie)
"—sufficient proof, indeed, of their gratitude to the apostle and of their consequent love for him. The words have been understood as suggesting that the 'infirmity' of which he speaks was an affection of the eyes, and some have found support for this theory in the blindness that ensued on the vision at the time of his conversion, and also in the incident recorded in Acts 23:1-5. All this is precarious and highly speculative at the best. Nor does it matter either way. The same is to be said of the identification of this 'infirmity' with the 'thorn in the flesh' of 2 Corinthians 12:7. Had 'ye' been the emphasized word, as it is not, the sentence might have been understood to suggest an affection of the eyes, but the emphasis is on 'eyes'; they would have parted with their most precious possession, see Deuteronomy 32:10, had there been any possibility of his profiting by the gift. As to the blindness on the way to Damascus, that was supernaturally inflicted and was complete; so with the cure, that also was the direct act of God, and so cannot have been other than complete." (Vine)
They make much of you, but for no good purpose. - "This is just the difference between proselytizing and evangelizing; in the one there is zeal for a creed, in the other for a person. The Judaizers paid court to the Galatians in order to attach them to a part; Paul took an interest in them in order that he might win them to, and preserve them for, Christ." (Vine)
They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them. - "—If the Judaizers could persuade the converts, who had been taught that faith in Christ alone was necessary for salvation, that circumcision and submission to the law were also essential, the effect would inevitably be just what the apostle here describes. They must turn to their new teachers for that assurance of salvation which, they would suppose, the gospel as preached by Paul could not supply." (Vine)
"This passage seems obscure until we take into account the fact that the word 'affect' here means to affect the emotions. It is used by Paul in 2 Corinthians 11:2, where he writes to the Corinthians: 'I am jealous over you..' Thus, the idea is that the legalizer were courting the Galatians, as it were, to win them away from Paul and his message of grace. Indeed, they were seeking to 'exclude' the Galatians—from him; to 'cut him out,' as we say, so that the Galatians might court them. To this the apostle responds that it is always good to be 'affected,' to have deep feelings, about any good thing—as they had previously had about Paul's God-given message of grace. And then, as a rebuke: 'and not only when I am present with you.' ... The Judaizers had been largely successful in courting the Galatians, so that the Galatians were now charmed with the personalities of these legalizers rather than with Christ. Paul had drawn their hearts to Christ; the Judaizers drew their affections to themselves and charmed them as true 'holy' people." (Stam)
until Christ is formed in you! - "—morphoo. When the apostle brought the gospel to the Galatian cities, his aim was not merely to induce men to change their religion, to forsake polytheism, the worship of many gods, for monotheism, the worship of one God; it was that they might receive life in Christ. So now his anxiety on their account was not merely that they should be intellectually persuaded of, and confirmed in, the true nature of the gospel and its conditions, but that the new life therein imparted might grow in them. Doctrine is not something alien from life. What a man believes affects his character and his conduct. Doctrine that exalts Christ makes for holiness; doctrine that detracts from the excellence of His person, OR FROM THE COMPLETENESS AND SUFFICIENCY OF HIS SACRIFICE, hinders, or prevents, the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer, which work is carried on by presentation of Christ, in His essential deity, in His true manhood, in His perfect salvation; see John 16:13-15. The fatal defect of the doctrine of the Judaizers was that, by making something besides acceptance of Christ necessary to obtaining of the promises, they presented a defective Savior. That Christ is supreme, Romans 9:5; sufficient, Colossians 1:19; 'all and in all,' 3:11, nothing less than this is the apostle's claim. But if on this point the Galatians were misled, how could they experience the power of truth they denied? To submit to circumcision, to seek justification by law, was to be severed from Christ and to lose all that the gospel offered, see 5:2-4, below. To trust Christ, and to trust Him alone, was to be justified from all things indeed, see Romans 3:28; 8:31-34; but more, it was to be 'a new creation,' 2 Corinthians 5:17, to live in Christ, and to have Christ living in the heart. Growth, moreover, is the evidence of life, and this the apostle desired for his converts that they might 'all attain ... unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,' that they might 'grow up in all things into ... Christ,' Ephesians 4:13-15. How this is to be accomplished may be learned from his prayer that Christ might dwell in their hearts through faith, 3:17, and from the exhortation of Philippians 2:5, 'Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus.' For as the exercise of faith occupies the heart with Christ, the mind of Christ develops in the believers, and as a direct result of these inward processes his conduce is increasingly conformed to the example of Christ. 'That Christ may be formed in you' is, then, the desire of the apostle for the moral conformity of the believer to Christ here and now. The thought is similar to, or identical with, that of Philippians 3:10, 'becoming conformed to His death.' But conformity to Christ, though it begins in the moral sphere, does not end there. In due time, that which is now inward and spiritual will extend also to that which is outward and physical, for 'the body of our humiliation' will, at the coming of the Lord, be 'conformed to the body of His glory,' Philippians 3:21. The apostle's mind here, however, is not so much on the future, and the final outcome in them of faith in Christ, as it is that he longs for some present and satisfying evidence to confirm his confidence that God had indeed begun a good work in them; if he were only assured of that the ultimate issue would not be in doubt; see Philippians 1:6. But the ordinance of God is that the believer must enter into willing cooperation with Him for his own perfecting into the image of His Son; see Romans 8:28-29. The formation of Christ in the believer is at once the purpose of God and the ambition, inwrought by the Spirit, of all who are taught of Him." (Vine)
do you not listen to the law? - "—the story to which the apostle is about to refer is related in Genesis 16—18:15 and 21:1-21. 'The Law' here, then, is not the moral and ceremonial code contained in the other books of the Pentateuch, but is either, a, the Pentateuch itself, as in Romans 3:21, or, b, the Old Testament as a whole, as in v. 19; it does not seem to make any material difference whether the word is understood here in its wider or in its more limited sense." (Vine)
"The words 'ye that desire to be under the law,' imply that the Galatians had not adopted, but were on the point of adopting the law. The idea is, 'ye who are bent on being under law.' The article is absent before law in the Greek text. The word law here REFERS TO LAW AS A PRINCIPLE OF LIFE, NOT ONLY TO THE MOSAIC LAW, 'Are ye not hearing the law?' This is a remonstrance to these Galatians who are bent on upholding the authority of the law, but who are not heeding the full significance of the law." (Wuest)
"This is the second time that the apostle has said in this epistle that they 'desired to be under the law.' In the same chapter (chapter 4), verse 9, he said, 'Ye desire again to be in bondage,' Think of that! They desired to put themselves under the bondage, the yoke of the law. Peter had called the law of Moses 'a yoke...which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear' (Acts 15:10). The Galatians certainly have their counterpart in many believers today, true believers in Christ, who nevertheless think that they will please and honor God more by putting themselves under the law of Moses, even though God has abolished it and revealed His grace. Perhaps I should explain here that God has not abolished the law as the written standard of righteousness or of His moral principles, but He has abolished the law as a covenant. Now that it has been done away, God calls it the old covenant. To those who desired to be under the law Paul said 'Do ye not hear the law?'" (Stam)
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