Galates 4:12

Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am.

The call to Christian liberty

I. The call is based on personal example. “I am.” Paul, an exemplification of Christian liberty. He could afford to contrast himself with the Judaisers in point of piety, labour, and Divine blessing on his work. Christian liberty stood approved of God in his person and ministry. There was no risk to run, he himself being witness, in this glorious liberty. A grand thing when a teacher can make such an appeal on the ground of his own character.

II. The call is founded on self-abnegation. Paul renounced all his Jewish rights and privileges, and became “as without law to them that were without law,” that he might liberate the Gentiles and keep them free. “Will you abandon me, when I have abandoned all for you?” The teacher must stoop to conquer, and place himself in the position of the taught.

III. The call is based on the past relationship of the two. “Ye have not injured me at all; you never disobeyed me; don’t do so now.” Happy the teacher who has such a ground of appeal.

IV. The call is based on its own merits. There was no personal ground of complaint. Any grief the apostle might have had for the wreck of his own work was altogether subordinate to the thought of spiritual disaster. In the last resort every appeal must rest here. Other grounds are helpful, but gospel freedom must win its way on its own merits. The spirit of liberty is not merely a jealousy of our own particular rights, but a respect for the rights of others, and an unwillingness that any man, whether high or low, should be trampled under foot. (Channing.)

Liberty

is the soul’s right to breathe, and when it cannot take a long breath, laws are girded too tight. Without liberty man is in a syncope. (H. W. Beecher.)

A minister’s appeal to his people

What motives, what insinuations, what reasons, what wise pre-oecupations and preventions, what art, what humility, what love is here! “Brethren, I beseech you,” etc. We have

1. a loving compellation--“Brethren.”

2. A submissive address by way of comprecation--“I beseech you.”

3. A request most reasonable--“Be you 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.” Of these the request is the main. We shall at this time speak only of the first part, that adducing, persuading, powerful name of “brethren.”

I. Nature herself hath made all men brethren. “Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us?” (Malachie 2:10). There is great difference indeed in other respects. Some are high, others low; some fair, others foul; some learned, others unlearned; some rich, others poor. But in respect of original and extraction there is no difference at all: we are all branches of the same root, all hewn out of one rock, all digged out of one pit.

1. And therefore, to make some use of that which we have learnt concerning our brotherhood by nature, this may serve, in the first place, to condemn all those who look upon men under other consideration than as men, or view them in any other shape than that of 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. Therefore, in the second place, 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 with this consideration, that it is inhuman and most unnatural; that we cannot nourish it in our breasts, and not fall from our creation, and leave off to be men.

II. And further we carry not this consideration, but pass now to view the Galatians as brethren in that other capacity, as they were Christians, professing the same faith: which our apostle in this place might more particularly and especially mean. There is such a relation, such a brotherhood, betwixt all those who profess the same faith, that neither error, nor sin, nor injury can break and dissolve it. For if any or all of these had been of force enough to do it, then certainly our apostle would never have been so free as to have called the Galatians “brethren.”

1. And, first, to error: though it have a foul aspect, and bear a distasteful and loathed name, yet it carrieth no such monstrosity, no such terror with it, as to fright brethren so far asunder as not to behold one another in that relation, not “to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Éphésiens 4:3).

2. But, in the next place, if error cannot break and dissolve this relation of brotherhood which is amongst Christians, being of itself venial and easy to be pardoned, especially of those who are subject to error themselves; yet sin hath a foul aspect, and is of the most ugly and deformed appearance of anything in the world. We should never ask this question, if we would distinguish (which is easy to be done) between the nature of our brother and his fault; between that which he received from God, and that evil affection [which] he hath from himself; between that which is from heaven, heavenly, and that which is from the earth, nay, from the lowest pit of hell; if we would consider him in his rational nature, the image of God; and in that other capacity, as he is one for whom Christ died, and so capable of eternal life; and that though he seemed dead, yet his life may nevertheless be “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossiens 3:3). For why judgest thou thy brother? (Matthieu 7:1). “Judgment is the Lord’s” (Deutéronome 1:17), who seeth “things that are not as if they were” (Romains 4:17). Look not upon thy brethren as grasshoppers, and upon thyself as a strong and perfect man in Christ; as if thou weft spiritual, heavenly, impeccable, and as far removed from sin as God Himself. But rather, as St. Paul was made a Jew to the Jew (1 Corinthiens 9:20), so be thou as a sick man ministering to the sick, handling another with the same compassion thou wouldst have extended to thyself, if thou thyself shouldst be in his case. If thou despise and reproach him, I am sure thou art in a far worse.

3. So, then, neither error nor sin can untie this knot, can dissolve and break this relation of brethren. I named a third, but I am well-near ashamed to name it again, or bring it in competition with error or sin; because an offence against God should more provoke us than any injury done to ourselves: which our apostle here sets so light by, that although the Galatians had even questioned his apostleship, and preferred Peter and James and John before him, yet he passeth it by as not worth the taking notice of; like Socrates, who, 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. And here St. Paul saith, “Ye have not hurt me at all.” And indeed no injury can be done by a brother to a brother. For the injury is properly done to God, who made them brethren and fellow-servants, and who reserves all power of revenge unto Himself, who is their common Master and the God of revenge. Bat we shall no further prosecute this, because it will fall in with our last part. We will rather, having, as ye have read, secured and fortified the brethren, walk about yet a while longer, and tell the towers and bulwarks which the God of love hath raised and set up to uphold them. And they are--

1. Pleasure, excessive pleasure.

2. Profit, great profit.

3. Necessity, extreme necessity. All these serve to maintain and uphold this brotherhood.

For brotherly love is--

1. 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, D. D.)

Live above injuries

When an inconsiderate fellow had stricken Cato in the path, and afterwards cried him mercy, he replied, “I remember not that thou didst strike me.” One having made a long and idle discourse before Aristotle concluded it thus: “I doubt I have been too tedious to you, sir, with my many words.” “Indeed,” said Aristotle, “you have not been tedious to me, for I gave no heed to anything you said.” Momus in Lucian tells Jupiter, “It is in thy power whether any one shall vex or wrong thee.” St. Paul here shakes all the affronts offered to him with as much ease as he did the viper. (Trapp.)

Forget injuries

It was a noble testimony borne to Henry

VI. that “he never forgot anything but injuries;” and even still nobler to Cranmer, “To get a favour, do him wrong.”

The noblest worship of the Power above

Is to extol and imitate His love;
Not to forgive our enemies alone,

But use our bounty that they may be won.

(Waller.)