Galatians 1:6 - Homiletics

The sad defection of the Galatians.

The apostle enters at once upon the business in hand, and calls them to account for their incipient apostasy.

I. MARK THE APOSTLE 'S SORROWFUL SURPRISE . "I marvel that ye are so quickly turning away from him who called you in the grace of Christ unto a different gospel." The Celtic heartiness with which they received him at the first, "as an angel of God, even as Christ," might well excite his wonder at their rapid defection. He understood human nature, but there was something in their conduct which baffled ordinary calculations. His surprise is tinged with sorrow, disappointment, perhaps the least touch of anger, and has, unhappily, to occupy the place usually assigned in his Epistles to thanksgivings for the gifts and graces of his converts. Yet there is a tender and cautious tone in the rebuke, as if to imply that his indignation was directed rather against their seducers than against themselves. It does not exclude the idea that they might yet be recovered from their error.

II. THE RAPIDITY OF THE DEFECTION . "Ye are so quickly turning away." So soon after their conversion, or so soon after their hearty reception of him ( Galatians 4:14 , Galatians 4:15 ). How fickle and changeable the Celtic temper! Caesar says, "The Gauls for the most part affect new things." "Giddy-headed hearers have religionem ephemeram , are whirled about by every wind of doctrine, being "constant only in their inconstancy" (Trappe). "They had itching ears; they had heaped to themselves teachers according to their own lusts" ( 2 Timothy 4:3 ); that is, they liked to taste the humour of teachers who would not disturb them in their sinful ways, and used " feigned words ( πλαστοῖς λογοῖς )," rather, words fashioned so as to suit the humour of their disciples. There are men who "by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple" ( Romans 16:18 ). And the devil is always at hand to corrupt from the simplicity that is in Christ ( 2 Corinthians 11:3 ). The Galatians had begun to grow weary of sound doctrine—perhaps from the rooted enmity of the carnal mind to spiritual things, and error once received into a mind that has departed from the freshness of first love, takes firmer root than truth, because it is more in affinity with our lower moods. Besides, there is something in error to recommend it to the curiosity, or pride, or superstition of unstable natures.

III. THE SERIOUS ASPECT OF THE DEFECTION . It was not only in its incipiency, as the apostle signifies, but it was in real process of development. It had a double aspect.

1 . It was defection/tom a person. "From him who called you." This was not the apostle himself, for he does not usually give prominence to his own labours, but rather ascribes the successes of the gospel to the grace and Spirit of God. It was a defection from God the Father, to whom the calling is uniformly ascribed ( Romans 8:30 ; Romans 9:24 ; 1 Corinthians 1:9 ). As such, the apostasy had all the character of ingratitude. But this apostasy, in its completed aspect, is a crucifying of Christ afresh, a fresh immolation of the Redeemer.

2 . It was defection from the system of grace. They were called "into the grace of Christ." They had their standing in the dispensation of grace: for the call of God works only in that sphere ( Romans 5:15 ), and the Judaist emissaries sinned by attempting to draw them off from their true standing-ground ( Romans 5:2 ). Thus the Galatians made a double mistake, pregnant with the worst results—they forgot that conversion is God's work, not man's, and that the covenant under which the blessing is realized is not of works, but of grace.

IV. THE " TERMINUS AD QUEM " OF THE DEFECTION . " TO a different gospel." The apostle does not concede that the Jewish teachers taught the gospel, even in a perverted form, though it might be called a gospel by its teachers. Luther says, "No heretic ever cometh under the title of errors or of the devil." The apostle's phrase, ἕτερον , points to a difference in kind which is not involved in ἀλλὸ . The gospel, in fact, lost its true character by the perverting additions of the Judaists.

V. THE DANGER OF APOSTASY . The forcible language of the apostle implies the fearful risks involved in the perversions of the false teachers. Of all falls those of apostates are the most melancholy. They fall from a great height of privilege. They lose all their past pains and sacrifices in the cause of religion. They deliberately part with all the hopes of mercy and glory in the world to come.