Galates 4:17

They zealously affect you, but not well.

False zeal

Paul suggests--

I. That things which are good in their kind may be done for wrong ends.

1. In preaching,

(1) some do it for envy and strife;

(2) some to gain personal or pecuniary ends.

2. In embracing the gospel, some do it, not for its own sake, but for

(1) honour;

(2) profit.

3. This must teach us not only to do good, but to do it well. For which end--

(1) We must set before us the will of God as our main motive.

(2) The outward action must be conformable to the inward motion.

II. That nature can counterfeit grace. Thus men feign--

1. The experiences and life of religion.

2. The activities of religion. How hard to detect the hypocrite, and yet how easy to become one.

III. The envy and ambition of the deceivers. Paul must be excluded from the love of the Galatians that they alone may be loved. Thus Joshua (Nombres 11:29); John’s disciples (Jean 3:30); our Lord’s disciples (Luc 9:49).

IV. The divisions between pastors and people created by the false teachers. (W. Perkins.)

The spirit of religious faction

I. Its prominent characteristic. Clever imitation of religious zeal.

1. In its apparent motives What other end could they have in making the sacrifices their work involved.

2. In the deep interest it seems to take in its objects.

3. In the undoubted earnestness with which its work is done.

II. Its method of operation.

1. To create a schism between pastor and people. Paul’s apostleship was denied; his character traduced; his motives impugned.

2. To create a schism between one Church and another. The Judaizers sought to divorce the Galatians from the fellowship of Gentile Churches which were based on liberty.

2. To create a schism between the believer and his Lord. How often is this effected, not precisely in this way, but by the passions engendered by religious strife.

III. Its object.

1. To gain personal ascendancy.

2. To secure the deference and zeal of the Galatians.

Schism

To separate from the Church in some one or few essential articles while you pretend to hold Christ the Head is heresy; to separate from it in spirit, by refusing holiness and not loving such as are holy, is ungodliness; to differ from it by any error of judgment or life is sin; to magnify any one church or party, so as to deny due love and communion to the rest, is schism. To limit all the Church to your party, and deny all or any of the rest to be Christians, and parts of the Universal Church, is schism by a dangerous breach of charity, and the principal schism that you should avoid. It is schism also to condemn unjustly any particular Church as no Church, and it is schism to withdraw your bodily communion from a Church that you were bound to hold that communion with; and it is schism to make divisions or parties in a Church, though you divide not from that Church. (R. Baxter.)

Zeal

I. Consider the nature of zeal in general. Zeal is a strong and ardent affection of the heart towards some distant and desirable object. It is not a simple, but complicated, emotion, which admits of different degrees of ardour and sensibility, accordingly as its object appears more or less agreeable, more or less distant, or more or less important. Zeal always supposes a fixed and steady attention to the object upon which it terminates. A slight and cursory view of any agreeable objects never excites in our breast the least degree of zeal to make them our own. But it is a law of our nature that a close and continued attention to any desirable object should draw all the affections of the heart towards it, and, of consequence, should produce the emotion of zeal Whatever agreeable subject seizes and absorbs the mind will naturally enkindle the fire of zeal. Zeal is one of the first and strongest emotions which we discover in children. The reason is, the smallest trifles are sufficient to fill their minds and engross their whole attention. And when greater trifles fill greater minds they produce the same effect. Even philosophers and politicians often suffer the most vain and imaginary schemes to take the entire possession of their thoughts, and to fill their minds with a flame of zeal, which is astonishing to all who have never paid the same attention to the same ideal or trifling subjects. But whatever be the object of zeal, it always appears to the person who feels this lively emotion to be a matter highly interesting, either on its own account, or on account of its supposed connection with some valuable end.

II. Distinguish false zeal from true. There is a zeal which forms a beautiful moral character. A strong and ardent desire to promote the public good justly commands universal approbation and esteem. This the apostle observes in the verse immediately succeeding the text. “But it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing.” It is the goodness of its ultimate object which renders zeal virtuous and amiable. When it ultimately seeks the promotion of a good cause, it is according to knowledge, it is agreeable to the dictates of reason and conscience, it is of a godly sort, and it resembles the zeal of the Lord of Hosts. But false zeal has a diametrically opposite object, and ultimately seeks a selfish end.

III. How false zeal will dispose men to act. It is a powerful stimulus to action, and will dispose all men to act in the same manner, unless restrained by soma different passion, or by some insurmountable obstacle.

1. It will dispose them to combine together in carrying on their destructive designs. This false fervour, like electrical fire, will easily and instantaneously spread from breast to breast among those who are ardently engaged in the same cause.

2. False zeal will hurry men on to act without regarding or even consulting the sober dictates of their own reason. It will not suffer them to make a proper use of that noble faculty which God has implanted in their breasts to direct them in all their private and public conduct. Zealots who do not give a reason to themselves for their own opinions and conduct are still more averse to giving a reason to others.

3. While men are under the influence of false zeal they are prone to act, not only without consulting their own reason but without hearkening to the reason of others. They are inclined to shut their ears against the most plain and conclusive arguments which can be offered to their cool and candid consideration.

4. Those whom a false zeal has united together in a bad cause are extremely fond of increasing their strength by bringing over as many as possible to their views and feelings. A false zeal is no less a proselyting than an infatuating spirit. Those who are deceived, as are all who are actuated by a blind zeal, have a strong inclination to deceive others. The Scribes and Pharisees, whom our Saviour calls “blind leaders of the blind,” would compass sea and land to make proselytes to their own errors and delusions. But zealots are no less artful than indefatigable in their efforts to attach others to their persons and pursuits.

6. It is the nature of false zeal to embolden and stimulate men to acts of violence and cruelty in effecting their sinister and selfish purposes. A bear robbed of her whelps is not more fierce and cruel than those who are zealously engaged to accomplish a base and cruel design Their fiery zeal sears their consciences and hardens their hearts, which prepares them to sacrifice without remorse either friends or foes, who stand in their way and oppose their views.

It only remains to make a proper application of-this subject.

1. What has been said upon the nature and effects of false zeal may help us to determine who are under its governing influence at the present day.

2. It appears from the description which has been given of false zeal that these who feel it and act under its influence are altogether criminal.

3. False zeal is the most dangerous, as well as the most criminal, passion that can possibly reign in the human heart. It has been the primary source of innumerable murders, massacres, persecutions, conspiracies, revolutions, wars, and desolations among the nations of the earth. A single spark of false zeal may spread from the breast of one popular influential character through a whole nation, and involve them in the heaviest calamities. Of this we have a late and memorable instance. About a half-a-century ago the malignant heart of Voltaire swelled with impetuous zeal to crush Christianity and all its votaries. From him the flame spread among his learned friends; from these it spread among the French philosophers and nobility; and from these it spread among a vast number of secret societies in France, in Germany, and in several other parts of Europe. In this rapid progress it employed a thousand pens and ten thousand tongues to plead its cause and proselytize millions to atheistical and sceptical infidelity. Strengthened and encouraged by their numbers, these zealots pointed their virulence against the throne as well as the altar, which spread anarchy and destruction through France, and involved a great part of Europe, Egypt, and Syria in all the terrors and miseries of a long and cruel war. Such have been the genuine fruits of false zeal in our own day; and such we have reason to believe it will continue to produce wherever it rages without restraint. Let us therefore endeavour to undeceive those who are deceived, and in this way effectually check the further spread of false zeal.

4. In the next place, it is our immediate duty to cherish in ourselves and others the spirit of true zeal in opposition to false. Our cause is the best in which we can possibly be engaged. The defence of our religion and government calls for our most zealous exertions. (N. Emmons, D. D.)

Unchristian zeal

A false zeal in religion is always, in some respect or other, a misdirected zeal, or a zeal not according to knowledge; a zeal seeking some false end, or, while proposing to itself a good end, seeking its promotion in some unauthorized way. Jehu had a good zeal, which he called zeal for the Lord of Hosts. His fault was not that he was too zealous, but that his zeal was really directed to his own advancement. The Jews, in the days of Christ, had zeal for God, but it was so misdirected as to fire them with a frenzy to destroy the Son of God, and extinguish the Light of the world. There are countless forms of false zeal now at work, but, in all cases, they sin, not by excess, but by misdirection. Some are flaming with a zeal to spread some of the corruptions of Christianity, and to carry men away from its great and cardinal truths. Some are equally zealous to build up a sect or a party on other foundations than those which God has laid in Zion; and that which taints their zeal is the purpose to which they employ it, and not any excessive fervour of their zeal itself. (Bonar.)

True and false zeal

Let us take heed we do not sometimes call that zeal for God and His gospel which is nothing else but our own tempestuous and stormy passion. True zeal is a sweet, heavenly, and gentle flame, which makes us active for God, but always within the sphere of love it never calls for fire from heaven to consume those that differ a little from us in their apprehensions. It is like that kind of lightning (which philosophers speak of) that melts the sword within, but singeth not the scabbard; it strives to save the soul, but hurteth not the body. (Cudworth.)