+IV. That apostolic credentials are evident in the clear statement of the great principles of the Gospel salvation.+--"Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us," etc. (vers. 4, 5). In these words, we have a suggestive epitome of the whole Gospel. Man is delivered from sin and from the present evil age by the self-sacrifice of Jesus; and this method is "according to the will of God," and brings unceasing glory to His name. This is the Gospel in a nutshell and involves all the grand principles of redemption the apostle was commissioned to declare, and which he develops more clearly in the course of this epistle. Deliverance is Divinely provided, irrespective of human effort or merit. The Galatians in seeking to return to legal bondage ignored the root principles of the Gospel and imperilled their salvation. The apostle vindicated the credentials of his high office by faithful remonstrance and plain authoritative statement of the truth Divinely revealed to him. It is a mark of high intellectual power to make the greatest truths clear to the humblest mind. Christian teaching has all the more weight when associated with irreproachable moral character. +Lessons.+--1. _God should be gratefully recognised as the Giver of all good._ 2. _The special endowments of one are for the benefit of all._ 3. _It is a solemn responsibility to be entrusted with the preaching of the Gospel._ _GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES._ Ver. 1. _The Power of the Gospel._--1. Free grace doth often light upon the most unworthy, not only by giving salvation to themselves, but making them instrumental for the kingdom of Christ, and bringing about the salvation of others. 2. Faithful and called ministers of Christ are to be so far from cowardly ceding, or heartless fainting under the bold, bitter, and unjust aspersions of those who question their calling, and thereby weaken their authority and render the truth of their doctrine doubtsome, that they ought the more to avow their calling against all who question it. 3. The office of an apostle had this peculiar to itself, that the designation was not mediately by the election and suffrages of men, as in the calling of ordinary office-bearers, but immediately from God, so that the function of the apostles ceased with them and did not pass by succession to a pope or any other. 4. The false apostles, that they might shake the truth preached by Paul and establish their own contrary error, alleged that he was no lawful apostle. This Paul refutes by showing he was called by Christ after He was raised from the dead and had taken possession of His kingdom, so that his calling had at least no less dignity and glory in it than if he had been called by Christ when He was on earth.--_Fergusson._