IV. HORTATORY APPLICATION OF THE FOREGOING.--1. Christian liberty excludes Judaism (ch. v. 1-6). 2. The Judaising intruders (ch. v. 7-12). 3. Liberty not licence, but love (ch. v. 13-15). 4. The works of the flesh and of the Spirit (ch. v. 16-26). 5. The duty of sympathy (vi. 1-5). 6. The duty of liberality (ch. vi. 6-10). V. AUTOGRAPH CONCLUSION.--1. The Judaisers' motive (ch. vi. 12, 13). 2. The apostle's motive (ch. vi. 14, 15). 3. His parting benediction and claim to be freed from further annoyance (ch. vi. 16-18). (_Findlay_ and _Sanday._) +CHAPTER I.+ _CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES._ Ver. 1. +Paul, an apostle.+--He puts his own name and apostleship prominent, because his apostolic commission needs to be vindicated against deniers of it. +Not of,+ or from, +men, but by,+ or from, +Jesus Christ and God the Father.+ The Divine source of his apostleship is emphatically stated, as also the infallible authority for the Gospel he taught. Ver. 6. +I marvel that ye are so soon removed.+--So quickly removed; not so soon after your conversion, or soon after I left you, but so soon after the temptation came; so readily and with such little persuasion (cf. ch. v. 7-9). It is the fickleness of the Galatians the apostle deplores. An early backsliding, such as the contrary view assumes, would not have been matter of so great wonder as if it had taken place later. Vers. 8, 9. +Any other gospel.+--The apostle is here asserting the oneness, the integrity of his Gospel. It will not brook a rival. It will not suffer any foreign admixture. +Let him be accursed.+--Devoted to the punishment his audacity merits. In its spiritual application the word denotes the state of one who is alienated from God by sin. Ver. 11. +Not after man.+--Not according to man; not influenced by mere human considerations, as it would be if it were of human origin. Ver. 12. +But by the revelation of Jesus Christ.+--Probably this took place during the three years, in part of which the apostle sojourned in Arabia (vers. 17, 18), in the vicinity of the scene of the giving of the law; a fit place for such a revelation of the Gospel of grace which supersedes the ceremonial law. Though he had received no instruction from the apostles, but from the Holy Ghost, yet when he met them his Gospel exactly agreed with theirs. Ver. 14. +Exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.+--St. Paul seems to have belonged to the extreme party of the Pharisees (Acts xxii. 3, xxiii. 7, xxvi. 5; Phil. iii. 5, 6), whose pride it was to call themselves "zealots of the law, zealots of God." A portion of these extreme partisans, forming into a separate sect under Judas of Galilee, took the name of zealots _par excellence,_ and distinguished themselves by their furious opposition to the Romans.