Galatians Commentary:
I. Introduction (1:1-9)
II. Paul's Gospel and Authority (1:10-2:21)
III. Faith Alone Against Works-Gospel (3:1-5:12)
IV. New Life in the Spirit and Love (5:13-6:18)
A. Spirit and Flesh (5:13-26)
B. Keep Watch and do Good (6:1-10)
C. Final Warning and Benediction (6:11-18)
Take Time to be Holy by Russell's Hymns
Augustine writes, "Cling to the faithful who are good, for there are believers who are evil--a deplorable situation. There are those who, though called believers, are not so... Seek the good; cleave to the good; be good. Do not be surprised at the large number of bad Christians who fill the church... They can exist along with us in the Church of this time, but they will not be able to remain in that assembly of saints which will be after the resurrection." (Sermons, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, vol 38, Sermon 223: A Vigil of Easter).
Irenaeus writes, "And that not by the much-speaking of the law, but by the brevity of faith and love, men were to be saved, Isaiah says thus: A word brief and short in righteousness: for a short word will God make in the whole world. And therefore the apostle Paul says: Love is the fulfilling of the law: for he who loves God has fulfilled the law. Moreover the Lord, when He was asked which is the first commandment, said: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy strength. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments, He says, all the law hangeth and the prophets. So then by our faith in Him He has made our love to God and our neighbour to grow, making us godly and righteous and good. And therefore a short word has God made on the earth in the world." (The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, 87).
John Fox writes, "Thus far our history of persecution has been confined principally to the pagan world. We come now to a period when persecution, under the guise of Christianity, committed more enormities than ever disgraced the annals of paganism. Disregarding the maxims and the spirit of the Gospel, the papal Church, arming herself with the power of the sword, vexed the Church of God and wasted it for several centuries, a period most appropriately termed in history, the 'dark ages'...
Popery having brought various innovations into the Church, and overspread the Christian world with darkness and superstition, some few, who plainly perceived the pernicious tendency of such errors, determined to show the light of the Gospel in its real purity, and to disperse those clouds which artful priests had raised about it, in order to blind the people, and obscure its real brightness...
Many persons of the reformed persuasion were, about this time, beaten, racked, scourged, and burnt to death, in several parts of France, but more particularly at Paris, Malda, and Limosin..." (Fox's Book of Martyrs, ch IV).
Augustine writes, "For the devil cannot conquer or subdue any but those who are in league with sin; and therefore he is conquered in the name of Him who assumed humanity, and that without sin, that Himself being both Priest and Sacrifice, He might bring about the remission of sins, that is to say, might bring it about through the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, by whom we are reconciled to God, the cleansing from sin being accomplished. For men are separated from God only by sins, from which we are in this life cleansed not by our own virtue, but by the divine compassion; through His indulgence, not through our own power. For, whatever virtue we call our own is itself bestowed upon us by His goodness. And we might attribute too much to ourselves while in the flesh, unless we lived in the receipt of pardon until we laid it down. This is the reason why there has been vouchsafed to us, through the Mediator, this grace, that we who are polluted by sinful flesh should be cleansed by the likeness of sinful flesh. By this grace of God, wherein He has shown His great compassion toward us, we are both governed by faith in this life, and, after this life, are led onwards to the fullest perfection by the vision of immutable truth." (City of God, X.22).
Augustine writes, "...if in the passage where it is asked, 'What do you have that you did not receive?' the very will by which we believe is reckoned as a gift of God, because it arises out of the free will which we received at our creation. Let the objector, however, attentively observe that this will is to be ascribed to the divine gift, not merely because it arises from our free will, which was created naturally with us; but also because God acts upon us by the incentives of our perceptions, to will and to believe, either externally by evangelical exhortations, where even the commands of the law also do something, if they so far admonish a man of his infirmity that he betakes himself to the grace that justifies by believing; or internally, where no man has in his own control what shall enter into his thoughts, although it appertains to his own will to consent or to dissent." (On the Spirit and the Letter, ch 60).
Fulgentius writes, "I thank God that by his operation, you are the kind of men who contend very courageously and fervently on behalf of that grace by which we are saved. I am, however, saddened because some of our brothers, calling themselves Christian, strive to deny the Catholic faith. That is, they attirubte the gifts of God's grace to the power or merit of the human will, as if our effor, without God's help, might avail for obeying the divine command, and as if the command were God's only in the sense that he commanded us to work, but did not himself accomplish in us what he commanded... Therefore, the voluntary death of the soul produced penal death for the body... This grace of God, by which we are saved, is not given to anyone by virtue of preceding good merit... Therefore, this was accomplished by the grace of divine goodness, grace that was never bestowed in such a way that it might reveal some good merits in man, but was bestowed so that grace itself might confer merits on those who did not have any... Let us affirm that grace is given to no man because of past or future merits, but that all men's good merits are both begun and perfected by the gift and help of grace itself." (The Truth About Predestination and Grace, TFOTC, vol 126, 1.1, 4, 7, 8, 14).
Anselm writes, "As all things were created through the supreme Being, so all live through it.
IT is certain, then, that through the supreme Nature whatever is not identical with it has been created. But no rational mind can doubt that all creatures live and continue to exist, so long as they do exist, by the sustenance afforded by that very Being through whose creative act they are endowed with the existence that they have. For, by a like course of reasoning to that by which it has been gathered that all existing beings exist through some one being, hence that being alone exists through itself, and others through another than themselves -- by a like course of reasoning, I say, it can be proved that whatever things live, live through some one being; hence that being alone lives through itself, and others through another than themselves.
But, since it cannot but be that those things which have been created live through another, and that by which they have been created lives through itself, necessarily, just as nothing has been created except through the creative, present Being, so nothing lives except through its preserving presence." (Monologium, ch XIII).
Ver 13. For you, brothers, were called for freedom. Only don’t use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants to one another.
Ver 14. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Ver 15. But if you bite and devour one another, be careful that you don’t consume one another.
Ver 16. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Ver 17. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, that you may not do the things that you desire.
Ver 18. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
Ver 19-21. Now the deeds of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lustfulness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, divisions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit God’s Kingdom.
Ver 22-23. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
Ver 24. Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.
Ver 25. If we live by the Spirit, let’s also walk by the Spirit.
Ver 26. Let’s not become conceited, provoking one another, and envying one another.