Galatians 4:12-20

CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES

Galatians 4:12. Be as I am, for I am as ye are.—Paul had become as a Gentile, though he was once a passionate Jew. Their natural leanings towards Judaism they ought to sacrifice as well as he.

Galatians 4:13. Ye know how through infirmity of flesh I preached.—The weakness may have been general debility, resulting from great anxieties and toils. It has been supposed that Paul was feeble-eyed, or blear-eyed (Acts 22:6), and that this special weakness had been aggravated at the time now in question.

Galatians 4:17. They zealously affect you, but not well.—They keenly court you, but not honourably. They would exclude you—from everything and every one whose influence would tend to bring the Galatians back to loyalty to the gospel.

Galatians 4:20. I desire to be present with you, and to change my voice.—To speak not with the stern tones of warning, but with tender entreaties. I stand in doubt of you.—I am sorely perplexed, nonplussed, bewildered, as if not knowing how to proceed.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Galatians 4:12

The Pleadings of an Anxious Teacher with his Pupils in Peril.

I. He reminds them of the enthusiastic attachment of former days.—

1. Urges them to exercise the same freedom as he himself claimed. “Be as I am; for I am as ye are” (Galatians 4:12). Though himself a Jew, Paul had assumed no airs of superiority, and did not separate himself from his Gentile brethren; he became as one of them. He asks them to exercise a similar liberty; and lest they should fear he would have a grudge against them because of their relapse, he hastens to assure them, “Ye have not injured [wronged] me at all” (Galatians 4:12).

2. Recalls their extravagant expression of admiration on their first reception of his teaching.—“Ye know how through infirmity I preached at the first. My temptation ye despised not; but received me as an angel of God.… Ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me” (Galatians 4:13). His physical weakness, which might have moved the contempt of others, elicited the sympathy of the warm-hearted Galatians. They listened with eagerness and wonder to the gospel he preached. The man, with his humiliating infirmity, was lost in the charm of his message. They were thankful that, though his sickness was the reason of his being detained among them, it was the opportunity of their hearing the gospel. Had he been an angel from heaven, or Jesus Christ Himself, they could not have welcomed him more rapturously. They would have made any sacrifice to assure him of their regard and affection.

3. Shows he was not less their friend because he rebuked them.—“Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?” (Galatians 4:16). And now they rush, with Gallic-like fickleness, to the opposite extreme. Because he attacks the new fancies with which they have become enamoured, and probes them with some wholesome and unwelcome truths, they imagine he has become their enemy. Not so; he is but using the privilege of a true and faithful friend.

II. He warns them against the seductive tactics of false teachers.—

1. Their zealous flattery was full of danger. “They zealously affect you, but not well; they would exclude you” (Galatians 4:17). They are courting you, these present suitors for your regard, dishonourably; they want to shut us out and have you to themselves, that you may pay court to them. They pretend to be zealous for your interests; but it is their own they seek. They would exclude you from all opportunities of salvation—yea, from Christ Himself. The flatterer should be always suspected. The turning away from sound doctrine goes hand in hand with a predilection for such teachers as tickle the car, while they teach only such things as correspond to the sinful inclinations of the hearers.

2. Though genuine zeal is commendable.—“It is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing” (Galatians 4:18). Christian zeal must be seen not only to correspond and to be adapted to the intellect, but must also be in harmony with the highest and profoundest sentiments of our nature. It must not be exhibited in the dry, pedantic divisions of a scholastic theology; nor must it be set forth and tricked out in the light drapery of an artificial rhetoric, in prettiness of style, in measured sentences, with an insipid floridness, and in the form of elegantly feeble essays. No; it must come from the soul in the language of earnest conviction and strong feeling.

III. He pleads with the tender solicitude of a spiritual parent.—“My little children, of whom I travail in birth again, … I desire to be present with you, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you” (Galatians 4:19). As a mother, fearful of losing the affection of her children for whom she has suffered so much, the apostle appeals to his converts in tones of pathetic persuasion. His heart is wrung with anguish as he sees the peril of his spiritual children, and he breaks out into tender and impassioned entreaty. And yet he is perplexed by the attitude they have taken, and as if uncertain of the result of his earnest expostulations. The preacher has to learn to be patient as well as zealous.

Lessons.—

1. Strong emotions and warm affections are no guarantee for the permanence of religious life.

2. How prone are those who have put themselves in the wrong to fix the blame on others.

3. Men of the Galatian type are the natural prey of self-seeking agitators.

GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES

Galatians 4:12. Christian Brotherhood.—Here is.

1. A loving compellation—“Brethren.”
2. A submissive address by way of comprecation—“I beseech you.”
3. A request most reasonable—“Be ye as I am; for I am as ye are.”
4. A wise and prudent preoccupation or prevention which removes all obstructions and forestalls those jealousies, those surmises and groundless suspicions, which are the bane of charity and the greatest enemies to peace. “Ye have not injured me at all.”

I. Nature herself hath made all men brethren.—

1. This may serve to condemn all those who look upon men under other consideration than as men, or view them in any other shape than as brethren. And the very name of man and of brother should be an amulet for all mankind against the venom of iniquity and injustice.

2. By this light of nature we may condemn ourselves when any bitterness towards our brother riseth in our hearts, and allay or rather root it out as inhuman and unnatural. None can dishonour us more than ourselves do, when one man hath trodden down another as the clay in the streets, when we think ourselves great men by making our brethren little, when we contemn and despise, hate and persecute them.

II. Brethren as Christians professing the same faith.—There is such a brotherhood that neither error nor sin nor injury can break and dissolve it.

1. Men may err and yet be brethren.—We may be divided in opinion and yet united in charity. Consider the difficulty of finding out truth in all things and avoiding error, that our brother may err rather from want of light than out of malice and wilfully, and conceive it possible we may err as foully as others.

2. Men may sin and yet be brethren.—Charity, because she may err, nay, because she must err, looks upon every Christian as a brother. If he err, she is a guide to him; if he sin, she is a physician; if he fall, she strives to lift him up, being a light to the blind and a staff to the weak.

3. Men may injure each other and yet be brethren.—Socrates, being overcome in judgment, professed he had no reason to be angry with his enemies unless it were for this, that they conceived and believed they had hurt him. Indeed, no injury can be done by a brother to a brother. The injury is properly done to God, who reserves all power of revenge to Himself. “If a brother strike us,” said Chrysostom, “kiss his hand; if he would destroy us, our revenge should be to save him.” Nazianzen said to the young man who was suborned to kill him, “Christ forgive thee, who hath also forgiven me and died to save me.”

Lessons.—

1. Brotherly love is pleasant and delightful.

2. Profitable and advantageous.

3. So necessary that it had been better for us never to have been than not to love the brethren.—A. Farindon.

Galatians 4:13. Love for the Preacher—

I. Notwithstanding the physical infirmity of the messenger (Galatians 4:13).

II. Generates the loftiest esteem for his character and abilities (Galatians 4:14).

III. Is often expressed in exaggerated terms (Galatians 4:15).

Galatians 4:14. The Authority of the Messenger of God.

I. He is to be heard even as Christ Himself, because in preaching he is the mouth of God.

II. Here we see the goodness of God, who does not speak to us in His majesty, but appoints men in His stead, who are His ambassadors.

III. There must be fidelity in teachers.—They stand in the stead of Christ, and must deliver only that which they know to be the will of Christ.

IV. They must have especial care of holiness of life.

V. The people are to hear their teachers with reverence, as if they would hear the angels or Christ Himself.

VI. The comfort of the ministry is as sure as if an angel came down from heaven, or Christ Himself, to comfort us.—Perkins.

Galatians 4:16. The Right Mode of giving and receiving Reproof.—Should it be esteemed the part of a friend faithfully to tell men the truth? and should the suppression of truth and the substitution of its opposite be hold to mark the character of an enemy? How often has the amicable state of feeling been broken up by telling the truth, even when done in a proper spirit and manner!

I. What would you wish your friend to be?—

1. Sincere.
2. That he should take a very general interest in my welfare and be desirous to promote it.
3. A person of clear, sound, discriminating judgment, and with a decided preference in all things.
4. That he should not be a man full of self-complacency, a self-idolater, but observant and severe towards his own errors and defects.
5. A man who would include me expressly in his petitions, praying that I may be delivered from those evils which he perceives in me, and God far more clearly.
6. Such that, as the last result of my communications with him, a great deal of what may be defective and wrong in me shall have been disciplined away.

II. Why do we regard a friend as an enemy because he tells us the truth?—

1. Because plain truth, by whatever voice, must say many things that are displeasing.
2. Because there is a want of the real earnest desire to be in all things set right.
3. Because there is pride, reacting against a fellow-mortal and fellow-sinner.
4. Because there is not seldom a real difference of judgment on the matters in question.
5. Because there is an unfavourable opinion or surmise as to the motives of the teller of truth.

III. How should reproof be administered?—

1. Those who do this should well exercise themselves to understand what they speak of.
2. It should be the instructor’s aim that the authority may be conveyed in the truth itself, and not seem to be assumed by him as the speaker of it.
3. He should watch to select favourable times and occasions.

IV. How should reproof be received?—

1. By cultivating a disposition of mind which earnestly desires the truth, in whatever manner it may come to us.
2. There have been instances in which a friend, silent when he should have spoken, has himself afterwards received the reproof for not having done so from the person whom he declined to admonish.
3. If there be those so painfully and irritably susceptible as to be unwilling to hear corrective truth from others, how strong is the obligation that they should look so much the more severely to themselves.—John Foster.

Galatians 4:18. Zeal.

I. Various kinds of zeal.—

1. There is a zeal of God which is not according to knowledge.
2. There is a mistaken zeal for the glory of God.
(1) When that is opposed which is right, under a false notion of its being contrary to the glory of God.
(2) When ways and methods improper are taken to defend and promote the glory of God.
(3) There is a superstitious zeal, such as was in Baal’s worshippers, who cut themselves with knives and lancets; particularly in the Athenians, who were wholly given to idolatry; and the Jews, who were zealous of the traditions of the fathers.
(4) There is a persecuting zeal, under a pretence of the glory of God.
(5) There is a hypocritical zeal for God, as in the Pharisees, who made a show of great zeal for piety, by their long prayers, when they only sought to destroy widows’ houses by that means.
(6) There is a contentious zeal, which often gives great trouble to Christian communities.
(7) True zeal is no other than a fervent, ardent love to God and Christ, and a warm concern for their honour and glory.

II. The objects of zeal.—

1. The object of it is God. The worship of God, who must be known, or He cannot be worshipped aright.
2. The cause of Christ is another object of zeal. The gospel of Christ; great reason there is to be zealous for that, since it is the gospel of the grace of God.
3. The ordinances of Christ, which every true Christian should be zealous for, that they be kept as they were first delivered, without any innovation or corruption.
4. The discipline of Christ’s house should be the object of our zeal.
5. True zeal is concerned in all the duties of religion and shows itself in them.

III. Motives exciting to the exercise of true zeal.—

1. The example of Christ.
2. True zeal answers a principal end of the redemption of Christ.
3. It is good, the apostle says, to be zealously affected in and for that which is good.
4. A lukewarm temper, which is the opposite to zeal, seems not consistent with true religion, which has always life and heat in it.
5. The zeal of persons shown in a false way should stimulate the professors of the true religion to show at least an equal zeal.—Pulpit Assistant.

Christian Zeal—

I. Implies unwavering steadfastness of purpose.

II. Universal and hearty obedience to God’s commands in all things, small as well as great.

III. Supreme devotion of heart and life to Christ.

IV. Should be exercised in a good thing.—True zeal seeks benevolent ends by lawful means, else it is fanaticism. It seeks practical ends by wise means, else it is enthusiasm. Zeal should be shown in active and useful devotion to the cause of religion, rather than in excitement and warm devotional exercise.

V. Should be uniform, not periodical.—It should not depend upon the fluctuations of feeling, but should act upon principle. Periodical fervours are deceitful, dangerous, injurious, dishonourable to religion. They are commonly a proof of superficial piety, or of none at all.—Stephen Olin.

Godly Zeal and its Counterfeits.

I. Let us distinguish between mere natural zeal and spiritual ardour.—

1. There is a zeal of sympathy which is awakened by the zeal of others with whom we associate. It is only that of the soldier who, though himself a coward, is urged on to battle by the example of those around him.

2. There is constitutional zeal, a warmth, an ardour, which enters into all we say or do, which pervades all our actions and animates all our services. This is not strictly religious but animal excitement, and is no more allied to our soul-life than our arms or our feet.

3. There is a zeal which is merely sentimental. It throws a romantic glamour over our objects; but its exercises are too occasional, too random, to produce much effect.

4. There is a zeal of affectation like that of Jehu (2 Kings 10:16). This is religious foppery and hypocritical vanity.

5. Christian zeal is a fair demonstration of what is felt within. It seeks not the eye of man, but acts under the conviction of God’s omniscience.

II. Consider the objects to which Christian zeal should be directed.—This “good thing” may be taken as including all true religion, and embracing:

1. The promotion of God’s glory.
2. The extension of Christ’s kingdom.
3. The salvation of men.
4. The conversion of the world.

III. The good that results from the exercise of Christian zeal to the persons that possess it.—

1. It renders them more Christ-like.
2. It furthers the divine designs in the most effective way.
3. We become worthy followers of the great heroes of faith in the past ages.—The Preacher’s Magazine.

True Christian Zeal.

I. The Christian convert is zealously affected in a good thing.—

1. All the teachings of Christianity are good. They enlighten, guide, and sanctify. They are peculiar, harmonious, infallible, divine. Their morality is sublime, their spirit heavenly, their effect glorious.

2. The influence of Christianity is good.—It has created the sweet charities of national and domestic life, sanctified advancing civilisation, softened the fierceness of war, stimulated science, prompted justice and liberty. Sceptics have admitted this.

3. All that Christianity accomplishes for man is good.—It saves him from sin, from the stings of guilt, from the eternal consequences of wrong-doing.

II. The zeal of the Christian convert is to be steady and continuous.—There should be no diminution nor fluctuation in our zeal.

1. Because no reason can be assigned why we should not be as zealous at any after-hour as at the hour of our conversion.

2. Because it is only by steady and continuous zeal that a proper measure of Christian influence can be exerted.

3. Because only by steady and continuous zeal can Christian character be matured.

4. Because only thus can success in Christian enterprises be attained.

5. Because steady and continuous zeal will alone bring divine approval.

III. The zeal of the Christian convert is not to be unduly influenced by the presence of others.—While Paul was with the Churches in Galatia they were zealous, but after his departure their zeal ceased. To lose our zeal because we have lost the influence of another is to show:

1. That we never possessed true Christian motives.

2. That our supposed attachment to Christ and His cause was delusive.

3. That our zeal had merely been an effort to please men, not God.—The Lay Preacher.

Galatians 4:19. The Christmas of the Soul.—The apostle refers to the spiritual birth. The soul then rises into a consciousness of its infinite importance; its thoughts, sympathies, and purposes become Christ-like, and Christ is manifested in the life. The soul-birth were impossible if Christ had not been born in Bethlehem. That was an era in the world’s history, this in the individual life; that was brought about by the Holy Spirit, this is effected by the same divine Agent; that was followed by the antagonism of the world, this is succeeded by the opposition of evil, both within and without; that was the manifestation of God in the flesh, this is the renewing of man’s nature in the image of God; that came to pass without man’s choice, this requires man’s seeking. Has this spiritual birth taken place in you? If so, you have a right to the enjoyment of a happy Christmas. Keep the feast as a new man in Christ Jesus.—Homiletic Monthly.

Galatians 4:20. A Preacher’s Perplexity—

I. Occasioned by the defection of his converts.—“I stand in doubt of you.”

II. As to what method he should adopt to restore them.—“And to change my voice.”

III. Increased by the difficulty of effecting a personal interview.—“I desire to be present with you now.”

“I stand in doubt of you.” Doubtful Christians.

I. Persons whose religion is liable to suspicion.—

1. Those who have long attended the means of grace, and are very defective in knowledge.
2. Who possess much knowledge, and are puffed up with it.
3. Who contend for doctrinal religion rather than for that which is practical and experimental.
4. Who waver in their attachment to the fundamental principles of the gospel.
5. Who neglect the ordinances of God’s house.
6. Who neglect devotional exercises.
7. Who co-operate not with the Church to advance the kingdom of Christ in the world.

II. The improvement to be made of the subject.—

1. Should lead to self-examination.
2. Shows the loss and danger of persons so characterised.
3. Should lead to repentance and faith.
4. While exercising a godly jealousy over others, let Christians watch with greater jealousy over themselves.—Helps.