Galatians 1:6

Galatians 1:6.— We have before observed, that St. Paul's first endeavour in this epistle was to satisfy the Galatians, that the report spread of him, that he preached circumcision, was false. Till this obstruction which lay in his way was removed, it was to no purpose for him to go about to dissuade them from circumcision, though that be what he principallyaims at in this epistle. To shew them that he promoted not circumcision, he calls their hearkening to those who persuaded them to be circumcised, their being removed from him; and those that so persuaded them, perverters of the Gospel of Christ, Galatians 1:6. He further assures them, that the Gospel which he preached every where, was that, and that only, which he had received by immediate revelation from Christ, and was no contrivance of man; nor did he vary it to please men; that would not consist with his being a servant of Christ, Galatians 1:10. And he expresses such a firm adherence to what he had received from Christ, and had preached to them, that he pronounces an anathema upon himself, Galatians 1:8 or any other man, or angel, that should preach any thing else to them. To make out this to have been all along his conduct, he gives an account of himself for many years backwards, even from the time before his conversion; wherein he shews, that from a zealous persecuting Jew he was made a Christian, and an Apostle by immediate revelation; and that having no communication with the Apostles, or with the churches of Judea, or any man in this sense for some years, he had nothing to preach but what he had received by immediate revelation. Nay, when fourteen years after he went up to Jerusalem, it was by revelation; and when he there communicated the Gospel which he preached among the Gentiles, Peter, James, and John approved of it without adding any thing, but admitted him as their fellow-apostle. So that in all this he was guided by nothing but divine revelation, which he inflexibly adhered to so far, that he openly opposed St. Peter for his Judaizing at Antioch. All which account of himself tends clearly to shew, that St. Paul made not the least step towards complying with the Jews in favour of the law; nor did, out of regard to man, deviate from the doctrine which he had received by revelation from God, ch. Galatians 1:6.—ii. 21.

From him that called you into the grace of Christ— These words might be rendered with equal propriety, called you by, or through the grace of Christ. The passage plainly points out St. Paul himself. See ch. Galatians 5:8. But then one might wonder how he came to use there words; since at first light it might appear to have sounded better to have said, Removed from the Gospel I preached to you, to another Gospel, than, Removed from me who called you into the grace of Christ, unto another Gospel. But if it be remembered that St. Paul's design here is to vindicate himself from the aspersion cast on him, that he preached circumcision, nothing could be more suitable to that purpose than this way of expressing himself.