Galatians 5:6

Gal_5:6

For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.

The order of gracious exercises in the renewed heart

All evangelical writers and preachers maintain that none can be real Christians without exercising faith, repentance, and love; but they differ widely in respect to the proper order of these gracious affections. Some place faith before love and repentance, and some place love before repentance and faith.

I. Let us consider the order in which holy exercises take place in a renewed sinner. The Spirit of God in renewing, sanctifying, or converting a sinner, does not give him any new natural power, faculty, or principle of action; but only gives him new affections or exercises of heart. It is true, indeed, the Holy Spirit commonly awakens and convinces a sinner, before He converts him. But as both sin and holiness consist in free, voluntary exercises, so the Divine Spirit, in converting sinner, only turns him from sinful to holy exercises. Having premised this, I proceed to consider the order in which the Spirit produces the first gracious affections. If love be distinct from repentance, and repentance distinct from faith, which cannot be reasonably denied, then one of these affections must be exercised before another, in a certain order. They cannot all be exercised together.

1. And here it is easy to see that love must be before either repentance or faith. Pure, holy, disinterested love, which is diametrically opposite to all selfishness, is the essence of all true holiness; and, of consequence, there can be no holy affection prior to the love of God being shed abroad in the heart.

2. The next fruit of the Spirit is repentance. As soon as the renewed sinner loves God supremely, he must loathe and abhor himself for hating, opposing, and dishonouring such a holy and amiable Being. As repentance follows love, so faith follows both love and repentance. When the sinner loves, he will repent; and when he repents, he will exercise not merely a speculative, but a saving faith. It is morally impossible that he should feel his need of a Saviour, until he sees and feels that God would be righteous and amiable in sending men to destruction.

II. The importance of representing these first exercises of the renewed heart in the order i have mentioned.

1. Unless we place love before faith and repentance, we cannot reconcile regeneration with the Divine law, which requires all men to love God immediately and supremely. If we say that faith is the first gracious exercise, then we virtually say that men ought to believe the gospel before they love God; which is the same as to say that it is not the duty of sinners to obey the, first and great command, until they become true believers in Christ.

2. It is of importance to represent love as before repentance and faith, in order to make it appear that sanctification is before justification and the only proper evidence of it. Those who place faith before love and repentance, suppose that men are justified before they are renewed or sanctified. They suppose that saving faith consists in a mans believing that he is justified and entitled to eternal life without any evidence from Scripture, sense, or reason.

3. It is absolutely necessary to place love before repentance and faith, in order to distinguish true religion from false. All true religion essentially consists in pure, holy, disinterested love; and all false religion essentially consists in interested, mercenary, selfish love. Now those who place faith before love and repentance, make all religion selfish; because, upon their supposition, all religious affections flow from a belief of their being elected and entitled to eternal life. But if we place supreme love to God, for what He is in Himself, before faith, then all the gracious exercises which flow from it will be holy and disinterested affections.

Conclusion:

1. If the first exercises of renewed sinners always take place in the same order, then all real saints have always had precisely the same kind of religious experience.

2. If the Holy Spirit, in converting sinners, always produces love to God before faith in Christ, then it is extremely erroneous to represent faith as previous to love in the renewed heart. This is the greatest and most prevailing error among those who believe in expert-mental religion.

3. If there can be no true experimental religion but what originates from that supreme love to God which is before faith in Christ, then there is ground to fear that there is a great deal of false religion among all denominations of Christians. Finally, this subject teaches all who have entertained a hope of having experienced a saving change, the great importance of examining themselves, whether they have ever exercised that precious faith which flows from supreme love to God, (N. Emmons, D. D.)

Prevailing faith

I. What is this faith?

1. It is not a mere creed-holding. Though the creed be true, it may not be true to you, if you just repeat it and put it away like a paper in a pigeon-hole. No use if it does not influence your heart and affect your life.

2. It is trust. As creatures we look up to the great Father of spirits; as sinners we trust for the pardon of our sins to the atonement of Christ; as being weak and feeble we trust to the power of the Holy Spirit to make us holy and to keep us so; we venture our eternal interests in the vessel of free grace, content to sink or swim with it. We rely upon God in Christ. We hang upon Christ as the vessel hangs upon the nail.

II. Why is faith selected as the way of salvation?

1. No other way is possible. The road of good works is blocked up by our past sins, and it is sure to be further blocked up by future sins: we ought, therefore, to rejoice that God has commended to us the open road of faith.

2. God has chosen the way of faith, that salvation might be by grace. All idea of our own merit is thus shut out.

3. That there may be no boasting.

4. It is a way open to the most unlearned. However little you may know, you know that you have sinned; know, then, that Jesus has come to put away sin, and that there is life in a look at the crucified One.

III. How does faith operate?

1. It touches the mainspring of our nature by creating love within the soul.

2. It puts us into a new relation. No longer servants, but sons.

3. It creates agreement with the Divine will. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

What makes a Christian: circumcision or faith

Mistake to suppose the Primitive Church can be regarded as a pattern. Apostolic teaching they had; -yet they were only beginners. Just rescued from heathenism, no wonder their spirits long bore the scars of their former bondage. To know what they were like, we must look at the communities gathered by modern missionaries. The same infantile simplicity, the same partial apprehensions of the truth, the same danger of being led astray by the low morality of their heathen kindred, the same openness to strange heresy, the same danger of blending the old with the new, in opinion and practice, beset both. The first theological difference in the early Church illustrates this. It was an attempt to put new wine into old bottles. The Jewish and the Gentile elements did not coalesce. The point round which the strife was waged was not whether Gentiles might come into the Church. That was conceded by the fiercest Judaisers. But it was whether they could come in as Gentiles, without being first incorporated into the Jewish nation by circumcision, and whether they could remain in as Gentiles, without conforming to Jewish ceremonial and law. Those who said no were members of the Christian communities, and, being so, they still iasisted that Judaism was to be eternal. Those who said yes were mostly Gentiles, headed and inspired by St. Paul, a Hebrew of the Hebrews. They believed that Judaism was preparatory, and that its work was done. This Epistle is the memorial of that feud. It is of perennial use, as the tendencies against which it is directed are constant in human nature. The text contains St. Pauls condensed statement of his whole position in the controversy.

I. The first grand principle contained in these words is that faith working by love makes a Christian (Comp. 1Co_7:19; Gal_6:15.)

1. Religion is the harmony of the soul with God, and the conformity of the life to His law. Obedience must be the obedience of a man, and not of his deeds only; it must include the submission of the will and the prostration of the whole nature before God. To be godly is to be godlike. As two stringed instruments may be so tuned to one keynote that, if you strike the one, a faint ethereal echo is heard from the other, which blends undistinguishably with its parent sound; so, drawing near to God, and brought into unison with His mind and will, our responsive spirits vibrate in accord with His, and give forth tones, low and thin indeed, but still repeating the mighty music of heaven.

2. This harmony with God results from love becoming the ruling power of our lives. Love to God is no idle emotion or lazy rapture, no vague sentiment, but the root of all practical goodness, of all strenuous effort, of all virtue, of all praise. That strong tide is meant to drive the busy wheels of life, and to bear precious freightage on its bosom; not to flow away in profitless foam. All the virtues and graces will dwell in our hearts, if Love, their mighty mother, be there.

3. The dominion of love to God in our hearts arises from faith. How can we love Him so long as we are in doubt of His heart, or misconceive His character, as if it were only Power and Wisdom, or awful Severity? Men cannot love an unseen person at all without some very special token of his personal affection for them. It is only when we know and believe the love that God has to us, that we come to cherish any corresponding emotion to Him. Heaven must bend to earth, before earth can rise to heaven. The skies must open and drop down love, ere love can spring in the fruitful fields. And it is only when we look with true trust to that great unveiling of the heart of God which is in Jesus Christ, that our hearts are melted, and all their snows are dissolved into sweet waters, which, freed from their icy chains, can flow with music in their ripple, and fruitfulness along their course, through our otherwise silent and barren lives.

II. But we have to consider also the negative side of the apostles words. They affirm that in comparison with the essential--faith, all externals are infinitely unimportant. A general principle. Rites, sacraments, etc., may be helps: nothing more. If religion be the loving devotion of the soul to God, resting upon reasonable faith, then all besides is, at the most, a means which may further it. The test of all acts and forms of Christian worship is, Do they help men to know and feel Christ and His truth? They are but fuel; the flame is loving faith. The only worth of the fuel is to feed the flame. We are joined to God by faith. Whatever strengthens that is precious as a help, but worthless as a substitute.

III. there is a constant tendency to exalt these unimportant externals into the place of faith. So long as men have bodily organizations, there will be need for outward helps. Forms are sure to encroach, to overlay the truth that lies at their root, to become dimly intelligible, or quite unmeaning, and to constitute at last the end instead of the means. Necessary to remember, in using them, that a minute quantity may strengthen, but an overdose will kill. Even freedom from forms may be turned into a bondage.

IV. When an indifferent thing is made into an essential, it ceases to be indifferent, and must be fought against. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The office and operation of faith

The peculiar character of the gospel is, that it shows how a sinner may be justified before God. Yet the generality of Christians are far from entertaining just views of this most fundamental point. They confound the different offices of faith and works. But St. Paul distinguishes them with much accuracy and precision. He invariably declares that our justification is by faith. Yet, though he denies to works the office of justifying, he invariably insists on them as the fruits and evidence of our faith. Nothing can be more decisive than the declaration in the text.

I. We shall explain it.

1. Man is prone to trust in outward rites and[ ceremonies. The Jews trusted in the ordinance of circumcision; some among ourselves think it sufficient Chat they have been baptized, or are communicants.

2. But no outward observances can avail for our salvation.

(1) An external conformity with the rule of duty may proceed from the basest motives;

(a) to obtain mans applause;

(b) to establish a righteousness of our own;

(2) it may consist with the indulgence of

(a) evil tempers;

(b) vicious appetites.

It cannot, therefore, of itself characterize the true Christian. Nor can it avail anything towards procuring the Divine favour; though, if it proceed from faith and love, it will doubtless be rewarded.

3. That which alone can avail for our acceptance with God is faith. It is by faith that all the saints of old obtained salvation (Rom_4:3; Rom_4:6-7). All the promises of God are made to faith (Mar_16:16; Act_10:43).

4. Yet this faith must be productive of good works. It is not a mere notional assent to certain doctrines; nor a confident assurance respecting the safety of our own state; but a living, operative principle in the heart.

5. It is, on our part, the bond of union between Christ and our souls; and it cannot but discover itself by works of love.

II. Improve it (2Ti_3:16).

1. For the establishment of true doctrine. Let us renounce all confidence in our own works, and rely wholly on the blood and righteousness of Christ.

2. For reproof, i.e., refutation of false doctrine. We are not justified by faith as an operative principle, but simply as uniting us with Christ. Our works do not make our faith to be good or saving, but only prove it to be so.

3. For correction of unrighteous conduct. Let unrighteous Christians put away either their profession or their sins.

4. For instruction in righteousness. Love should operate uniformly, and respect both the bodies and souls of men. Let us abound in it more and more. (Theological Sketch-book.)

Faith

Faith is the foundation of the whole spiritual building, whereby we are built on Christ Jesus. It is the root of the whole spiritual life of grace, the ground whereon the soul rests securely, the beginning of our spiritual existence. The cross is not far off, not over the seas, in the Holy Land, nor removed by length of time. Faith sees it close at hand, and clasps it and loves it, and is crucified on it with Him, dying to itself with its Lord, nailed to it, motionless to its own desires, dead to the world, and living to Him. Nor is heaven far off to faith. For where its Lord is, there is heaven. Faith is with Him, present with Him in spirit, though absent in the body; a penitent amid those who, around the Throne, sing Holy, Holy, Holy. Faith, in one sense, goes before love, because, unless we believed, we should have none to love. Faith is Divine knowledge. As in human love we cannot love unless we have seen, heard, or in some way known, so, without faith, we cannot know aught of God, or know that there is a God whom to love. Yet in act, faith cannot be without love. The just, says Scripture, shall live by his faith, but by a faith which lives. A dead faith cannot give life. Faith without love is the devils faith. For they believe, and tremble. Hearing must come before faith, for faith cometh by hearing. But faith cannot for an instant be separated from love. Who is the object of faith? God the Father, who created us, and gave His Son to die for us; God the Son, who became one of us, and by dying, redeemed us; God the Holy Ghost, who sanctifieth us, and pours forth love, which He is, abroad in our hearts. We were as stocks and stones without faith; but He died, even of these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Are we stocks or stones now, that, having faith, we can believe without loving? Which of His acts of boundless love should we believe without loving? Were it not enough to bear us out of ourselves for love, to transport us, to make us give up our lives for love, to carry us away out of ourselves and of all that we are, to think that for us, earth-worms and defiled, Jesus died? Does not the very name of Jesus make the heart beat, and tremble, and thrill with love? Could a criminal really believe that he had received a full pardon from his injured king, or that the kings son had suffered to obtain his pardon, and was come to tell it him and forgive him, and not love? Well might he doubt such love. But he could not believe it and not love. Faith and love would enter his soul together. Love is in all true faith, as light and warmth are in the ray of the sun. Light and warmth are in the suns ray, and the suns ray brings with it light and warmth; not, light and warmth; the suns ray: yet, where the suns ray is, there are light and warmth, nor can that ray be anywhere without giving light and warmth. Even so, faith it is which brings love, not love, faith; yet faith cannot come into the heart, without bringing with it the glow of love, yea, and the light wherewith we see things Divine. So soon as faith is kindled in the heart, there is the glow of love; and both come from the same Sun of Righteousness, pouring in faith and love together into the heart, and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. In winter, fewer rays come upon any spot of this land from the sun; whence there is then less brightness of light and less glow of heat than in summer; and so the surface of the earth is chilled; and though for a time the frost be melted by that fainter sun, this warmth, coming upon it only for a short time, soon passes away. Even so, there are degrees of faith and love. Yet they may be real faith and love, even when the power of both is lessened, in that the soul does not keep itself or live in the full presence of God. Or, as through a closed window, more light comes than heat, so in some hearts, there may be more of knowledge than of love. And again, as on a cold misty day, when the sun is hidden from our eyes, we are so oppressed by the clamminess of the chill damp upon the surface of our bodies, and by the heavy gloom around, that we scarcely feel the presence of the light and heat; and yet the light and heat are there, else we should be in utter darkness, and our bodies would die; even so, many hearts, at many times, when some mist hides from them the presence of their Lord, feel nothing but their own coldness and numbness, and all seems dark around them, and yet in their very inmost selves they believe and love, else their souls would be dead, and they would be past feeling, and they would not pine for more light and love. A dead body is in darkness, and seeth not the light of this world, and has an awful coldness to the touch; yet itself feels not its own coldness, nor knows its own darkness. Even so, the dead soul, being without the life of God, feels not its own death, craves not to love more. For He who is love hath left it, and it hath no power wherewith to desire to love, unless or until the voice of Christ raises it from the dead and awakens it and it hears His voice, and lives. Or think on the great instances of faith in Holy Scripture. Think you not that Abraham loved, as well as believed, when God first spake to him, and called him to give up his country, and his kindred, and his fathers house, and instead of all, God said, I will bless thee, and he took God for his all, and went out, not knowing whither he went, save that he was following God? And of that great penitent, St. Mary Magdalene, our Lord bears witness that in her there were together love and faith; and for both together, a loving faith, or a faith working by love, our Lord tells her, Thy sins are forgiven. Or was there not love in the faith of the penitent thief, when he discerned his Saviour by his side, in that marred form, which had no beauty or comeliness, His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men, and he said, Lord, remember me in Thy kingdom. There was humility, which owned that it deserved to be forgotten, and wondrous faith which owned in Him, the rejected of men, his Lord and King and God. But there was love too. For love only craves to be remembered. Or think you not that, when God opened the heart of Lydia, to attend unto the things spoken by Paul, He poured into her heart which He had opened, love with faith? Faith which loves not, is not faith; it is dead. And what is dead, hath ceased to be. A dead faith is a faith without love. A dead body is, for the time, until it wholly decays in outward form, like a living body or a body asleep; a dead faith has an outward likeness to a living faith. But as a dead body has no warmth nor power of motion, nor feeling, nor can use any of the powers it once had, nor has them any longer, it can neither taste, nor see, nor hear; so a dead faith is that which has no love, no power to do good works. It perceives not, hears not, tastes not, feels not, the things of God. As love is the life of faith, so with the increase of love, faith increaseth. Even from man towards man, faith and love grow together. The more we love, the more we understand and the more we trust one another. We trust, because we love, and by loving, know God, We can only know God, by loving Him. St. Paul says, I know in whom I have believed. Want of love is the cause of all want of faith. Did we fully love God, who could for a moment doubt of Him? But love liveth by good works. Love cannot live torpid. Even in human love, love which never did deeds of love would grow chill and die. We love those most, to whom we do most good. Love is perhaps increased more by doing than by receiving good; at least, by doing good out of the love of God. Acts of love do not prove only that we have a living faith they increase it. But it has been thought, if faith, on which God holds us righteous, or justifying faith, have love in it, are we not accounted righteous for something m ourselves? We are justified, or accounted righteous before God, neither for faith nor love, but for the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ alone. And faith and love alike, although in us, are not of us; both are alike the gift of God. But this gift, whether of faith or love, is so given, that it is with us to receive it. We come to God by faith and love. But no man cometh unto Me, saith our Lord, except the Father, which hath sent Me, draw him. Believe, and thou comest; love and thou art drawn. The drawing of grace changes nature, and strengthens nature, reforms nature, subdues nature, but only if we be willing to be changed, reformed, subdued, strengthened. How then may we know if we have this faith? How may it grow and be strengthened in us? How do we know that our bodies live? As, says a holy man, we discern the life of this body by its motion, so also the life of faith by good works. The life of the body is the soul, whereby it is moved and feels; the life of faith is love; because by it, it worketh, as thou readest in the apostle, faith which worketh by love: Whence also when charity waxeth cold, faith dies; as the body, when the soul departeth. (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)

The grandeur of faith

I. View, then, the grandeur of faith as the great collective act, in which all the powers of the soul are alike embarked. If God, in the beginning, by the constitution which He gave to man, made him a creature of law, if it can be shown that man fell from his original holiness in the free exercise of all the powers by which he was characterized a responsible being, then it follows that the gospel, as a remedy, must, in all its provisions, recognize this fundamental fact. The whole work of salvation has been already achieved by One from the bosom of the Father, acting as our substitute under the law, satisfying the claims of justice, and rendering obedience to the precepts. Where, then, if we do not work out the righteousness by which we are saved, comes into play our agency? What has man to do in this matter of personal salvation? Where does God place the test of our responsibility and freedom? Exactly at this point: Not in working out a righteousness, not in making atonement for sin, but in accepting the righteousness which is already provided--by cleaving to the Saviour whom the gospel presents to us as our Redeemer. Therefore, with the highest philosophy, do the Scriptures say, He that believeth shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned. I ask you, now, to notice how completely, in the simplest exercise of faith, every faculty of the human soul is brought into action. There is the understanding, which must employ itself upon the propositions of Scripture in order to perceive what they say. There is the judgment and reason, which must meditate upon what is contained in these statements, in order to see whether they constitute a sound basis for a sinners hope. Here are the affections, all brought into exercise when we behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and feel that He is, to us, the chiefest among ten thousand and the one altogether lovely. Here is the will, putting forth its determinate act of choice when it accepts the Lord Jesus Christ, and accepts His work; and, in this very act of acceptance, distinctly and consciously repudiates every other ground of trust-exclaiming, with the apostle, I desire to be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. Nay, even the subordinate faculties of the human soul, such as the imagination, and the fancy, and the taste, all are brought into exercise in order that the great facts of the gospel may be presented before the mind as realities which it can touch and apprehend. Even the faith which is but as a grain of mustard seed, over which you and I weep in the closet because it is so feeble, when you come to analyze it in its constituent parts, is found to have drawn upon the whole contents of your spiritual being. It has occupied the understanding, it has employed the conscience, it has drawn out the affections, it has exercised the will; so that not one single power in man has remained dormant in that faith by which we cling to the Lord Jesus Christ. We hear the eulogy pronounced every day upon the achievements of intellect. Men spread out their philosophies before us, and we follow the painful steps with which they have proceeded from the first premise to the most distant conclusion. We walk with the scientists, who seem to have wrested from the hand of the Creator the keys of His own universe, and with bold adventure have roamed through its wide domains, opening its secret cabinets and unlocking their treasures to our gaze. And as these high achievements of science and of philosophy are held up before us, we are filled with astonishment and pride. God forbid that I should lack in sympathy with these grand movements of the human mind! But they are the exercise of only one power of our nature, even at the best. They reveal man in the towering reach of his intellect, which is bound to expand throughout the eternal ages, growing larger in its grasp and holding within its embrace the great truths of eternity and of God. By so much as I hope hereafter to see in heaven the boundless glory of Jehovah, and to spread out all my intellect in the contemplation of what is sublime and beautiful in God, am I forbidden this day to utter one word of disparagement upon the proofs of mans gigantic understanding. But I turn to faith, which equally exercises this intellect, which draws out all the affections of the soul and the immense power of the will; which presents man before me in the full complement of his powers; which reveals me to myself in the superb integrity of my nature--and I feel that if, through grace, I have been able to exercise this faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, I have put forth an act which has brought out the totality of my being, which has expressed all the constituents of my nature, and which, therefore, in its essential glory, immeasurably transcends all other acts within the compass of the human soul. Under this aspect of it, then, I ask you to look at faith--as the great collective act of the soul, in which a man embarks all the constituent faculties of his being.

II. Faith is the full and final conveyance of the soul to the Lord Jesus as His possession for ever. So that the first act of faith, by which we cleave to Jesus Christ, contains potentially within itself every subsequent act. Just as the seed implicitly contains the whole plant which is evolved from it, so all other acts of faith, until the hour when faith shall lose itself in sight, are contained within this first conveyance of the soul over to the Lord Jesus Christ. For, my hearer--God help you to understand it! ten myriads of times, in sins of desire and of thought and of deed, you have, with your own signature, endorsed the original apostasy in the garden of Eden and underwritten it for yourself. All your days, by personal transgression, you have assumed that guilt as your own. But now comes the hour when the connection with the first Adam is to be broken, when, as far as in us lies, we openly and publicly recant all our sin, and say to the second Adam, who stands upon the ruins of the first covenant and fulfils all of its forfeited conditions, As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. My hearer! is there no power in such an act? and must there not be a Divine virtue in the principle which enables you to perform it--when you can thus cut the connection with all preceding sin, and with him who by his fall precipitated you beneath the curse, disavowing all the transactions of the past, and giving yourselves over in an everlasting covenant to Him who is your Redeemer?

III. View faith as the germinal grace, out of which the whole experience of the Christian is developed--the root of all repentance, obedience, love, and worship. Thus I meet the shallow criticism which men sometimes make against the gospel, when they say, We turn to one Scripture which declares, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved; and we turn to another Scripture which proclaims, Repent and be converted for the remission of sins. They ask of what value is that system which, in the very terms of salvation, is found so contradictory? Faith and repentance are but the two poles of one and the same truth. As there can be no faith which does not involve repentance as its immediate consequence, so there can be no repentance which has not been preceded by the faith of which it was born: and the difference between the two is simply in the order of thought in which you choose to contemplate them. When you shall presently go out of this building, every step down those aisles toward the door carries you just so much away from your pew: but as egress from the building is before the mind as the object to be attained, the motion toward the door, in the order of thought, precedes the motion from the pew; yet every inch that lessens the distance from the one increases just so much the distance from the other. The two are necessarily reciprocal. Then the faith which accepts the Lord Jesus Christ, accepts Him in all of His offices. Thus, faith is seen to be the germ, first of our repentance, then of our obedience, and then of that supreme love which we have to God when we love Him with all the heart and with all the soul and with all the strength and with all the mind. And if faith be, as I have sought to represent, the full conveyance of the soul to Christ as His possession, then is it in itself a complete and sublime devotion; and becomes the germ of that positive worship which we render to God upon His throne here upon earth and hereafter in heaven.

IV. See the grandeur of faith as it is the human correlative, and the human measure, of the atonement of Jesus Christ. Here, again, as I put into these cold words a thought that burns like fire, I tremble at the presumption. The obedience of Jesus Christ is the measure of Gods holiness. And you find that there is a human measure and a human correspondent to this atonement of the Redeemer itself. For when our faith embraces it--when our faith looks upon the blood of Christ, and upon the obedience of Christ, and upon the sufferings and upon the cross of Christ--when, with all the power that belongs to thought, with all the pathos that belongs to feeling, with all the energy that belongs to will, man brings out his whole nature and grasps that atonement, and draws it up to him, and lays it over against his own guilty conscience, and rests in life and in eternity upon its blessed provisions--you have the best expression that earth can give of its estimate of the glory that lies in obedience to the law. I cannot afford to disparage that faith which thus, in its excursions, travels over the atonement of the adorable Redeemer; which is itself the measure of the infinite justice of God, and takes the dimensions of the boundless glory of Jehovah.

V. In the last place, I signalize the grandeur of faith, in that it is the perfection of reason. Philosophers are wont to glory in the prowess of human reason. Let me illustrate this, most simply, from the science of mathematics. If I say that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right-angles, I by no means state a truth that is intuitive, but one that is demonstrable. But, then, how do I demonstrate it? By proving that the things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another. Through the demonstration I carry the mind back, step by step, until it is landed in one of those original and necessary cognitions. And yet the mathematician will smile, with the most self-complacent disdain, upon the very principle which gives him the postulate upon which his reasoning depends. Now, consistency is a jewel; and when you undertake to flout faith, you must go clean through and strike at all these beliefs. When a man tramples upon this principle of faith, which demands the acceptance of the Saviour, I debar him from the possibility of reasoning on any subject under the sun. If the human reason starts from what it is obliged to accept; if, in all the after process, it is obliged to remand its conclusions to that elementary trust from which it in the first instance departed, in order to verify them--if you are obliged, for example, to believe in the principle of causality; if you are obliged to believe in the fact of your personal indentity; if you are obliged, by the necessity of your mental constitution, to believe in the reality of the external world, and to rely upon the evidence and the testimony of sense which underlies all the demonstrations of our proud physical science; if you are compelled, by the same necessity, to rely upon memory, which hangs together all the links of every chain of reasoning through which you are carried--I say, just in proportion as you reason with power to conclusions that are satisfactory, the verification of those conclusions is found in the elementary beliefs which you accept simply and alone with the trust of faith; and I interdict you, by this known fact, from undertaking to despise or contemn it. The man of intellect, who is proud of his power of thought, is the very last under the broad heavens to despise the principle of faith, which gives him his postulates, and the tests by which his conclusions are verified. One other suggestion, and then I am done with this point; which is, that if we start from faith, and if all the time we are going back to faith to verify every course of reasoning, it would seem that when we have accomplished the grand circuit, and know all things that are knowable, and have proved all things that are demonstrable--it seems to me in perfect analogy with mans mental constitution and with Gods high prerogatives, that He should open to us the infinite beyond the finite; that we should rise at last beyond nature up to God; that we should ascend, at last, above these mortal shores to the immortal; that we should have power, by this principle of faith, to take possession of another world, grander, larger, more glorious than all these myriads of worlds which dot the immensity of space; and that, by and by, when we shall have illustrated all the triumphs of science, we shall be able to put the climax upon all this by the higher triumphs of a grander faith. God is infinite, lying beyond the sphere of human thought. Can He ever be known except through revelation? Could we ever understand Him, except by the power of faith? (B. M. Palmer, D. D.)

Faith working by love

I. Faith always produces love.

1. By a necessity of faiths own nature.

2. By the discoveries of beauty in Christ which faith is sure to make.

3. By its appropriation of the love of Christ.

4. By its enjoyment of mercy, leading the heart to a grateful acknowledgment of the source of mercy.

5. By the familiarity with God and the congeniality of disposition which it breeds in the heart.

II. Love is entirely dependent on faith.

1. No man loves a Saviour in whom he reposes no confidence.

2. Love cannot flourish except as faith flourishes.

3. Love cannot work without faith.

III. Faith displays its power by love. Compare faith to an artificer in metals.

1. Love is faiths arm.

2. Faiths tools.

3. Faiths furnace.

4. Faiths mould.

5. Faiths metal, for into the mould of love faith pours love itself.

6. Faiths burnisher.

IV. Love reacts on faith and perfects it.

1. Love leads the soul into admiration and so increases faith.

2. Love forbids unbelief.

3. Perfect love casts out fear.

In conclusion

(1) Faith works: let us as a Church work because we have faith.

(2) A working Church must be a loving Church, for faith works by love.

(3) But if you are to be a working and a loving Church you must be a believing Church, for that is the bottom of all. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

That salvation is conditional does not affect its gratuitousness

A nobleman might declare his intention of giving a purse of money to all who would walk to his castle, knock at his door, and ask for the treasure. The walking, the knocking, the asking, would be the conditions of bestowment; but certainly the conditions, when fulfilled, would leave untouched the gratuitousness; and no one who walked, knocked, and asked, and obtained the purse would regard it as wages due for what had been done. The case is precisely the same when the proposed benefit is salvation, and the prescribed conditions repentance, faith, and works. (H. MeIvill, B. D.)

Uncircumcision availeth nothing

There may be as much formalism in protesting against forms as in using them. Extremes meet; and an unspiritual Quaker is at bottom of the same way of thinking as an unspiritual Roman Catholic. They agree in their belief that certain outward acts are essential to worship, and even to religion. They only differ as to what those acts are. The Judaizer who says, you must be circumcised, and his antagonist who says, you must be uncircumcised, are really in the same boat. Neither rejection of forms nor formalism, neither negations nor affirmations, make a Christian. One thing alone does that, faith which worketh by love, against which sense ever wars, both by tempting some of us to place religion in outward acts and ceremonies, and by tempting others of us to place it in rejecting the forms which our brethren abuse. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The relations between faith and love

The two graces are inseparable. Like Mary and Martha they are sisters, and abide in one house. Faith, like Mary, sits at Jesus feet and hears His words, and then love, like Martha, diligently goes about the house and rejoices to honour the Divine Lord. Faith is light, while love is heat, and in every beam of grace from the Sun of Righteousness you will find a measure of each. True faith in God cannot exist without love to Him, nor sincere love without faith. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Faith and love are the brain and heart of the soul, so knit together in a mutual harmony and correspondence, that without their perfect union the whole Christian man cannot move with power, nor feel with tenderness, nor breathe with true life. (T. Adams.)

Faith and love

Judith goes in alone, and by her own hand delivers Israel; the waiting woman hath not a stroke in it (Jdt_13:1-20.). Faith is this great lady, and charity her handmaid; through all the actions of goodness she attends on her mistress; when faith sets down the objects of her beneficence, love is her secretary; when she disposeth her good deeds, love is her almoner; when she treats a league of peace, love is her ambassador; what work soever she undertaketh, charity is her instrument. But when it comes to a point of justification to enter the presence chamber of the Great King, to procure remission and peace, charity leaves her to herself. Thus is it now. But hereafter these two shall change places; charity shall be the lady, and faith the waiting-woman. When the soul is to be discharged out of prison and moves to the high court of heaven, faith waits upon her all the way; but at the presence-chamber of glory, faith stays without and love only enters. Yet though faith at last perish in the act, it shall never perish in the effect; for we shall enjoy what we have believed. (T. Adams.)

The relation of faith and love to spiritual life

We may compare the infusion of spiritual life by God to His importation of vegetable life to a tree; faith and love, considered as organs of the inner life, we may compare to the roots of the tree which cleave to the soil for nourishment and support, and to the sap which is propelled through the trunk to every branch and fibre; and finally, we may compare good works, which are the products and manifestations of the vital energies, to the leaves and blossoms with which the tree is adorned, and to its fruits, which are pleasant to the eye and grateful to the palate. No one of these is to be overlooked, nor are they to be confounded with each other. (T. MacNeece, D. D.)

Faith, a power

Whenever the things believed are fitted to awaken any emotion or other active principle of our nature, belief becomes a power. Such it is in all matters respecting mans life, his interests, and his passions. Let a geologist tell a man that there is coal on his property; if he believe him, be assured his faith will not be long inoperative. (T. MacNeece, D. D.)

Love impossible without faith

You cannot love by mere trying. Trial is the first stage in Christian development, but do not call yourself an expert Christian until the distinguishing Christian graces come to you in ways that are spontaneous, automatic, overflowing, consentaneous, symmetrical, and brood as the stream of life--until every thought and feeling has been subdued to the supreme will of God, which is love. When you have reached that condition, then you may call yourself an expert Christian. (H. W. Beecher.)

Faith working by and not by love

Faith is one of the mightiest powers that the world contains. It is like the central fire of the earth, it is like the fountain of the great deep. But whether it be a power for good or evil depends entirely on the objects to which it is directed, or the way in which it works. It may be a volcano scattering ruin and desolation around it, or it may be the genial heat and warmth which fuses together the granite foundations of the globe, and sustains the life of every human being on its surface. It may be a torrent tearing and rending everything before it; it may be diverted into a hundred insignificant streams; or it may be a calm and mighty river, fertilizing and civilizing the world. There is a faith which justifies and a faith which condemns. Faith which worketh by love justifies, sanctifies, elevates, strengthens, purifies Faith which worketh not by love, condemns, hardens, weakens, destroys. The ordinary means and ways by which the faith of a Brahmin, e.g., works are not love, and truth, and justice; but meats, and drinks, and washings. To eat the flesh of a cow is the most enormous wickedness of which a Hindoo can be guilty, and one for which there is no forgiveness in this world or the world to come. To bathe in the waters of the sacred river, is a passport to heaven which will avail though every moral virtue he cast aside. On the avoidance of this sin and the preservation of this virtue the Hindoo expends an energy, a courage, a faith, which would be sufficient to convert a kingdom, and the consequence is that the wilder passions of his nature are left either altogether unrestrained, or are actual]y stimulated and aggravated by the faculty which was meant to purify and elevate them. It is like any other power of the human mind, which, if fed on useless or poisonous substances, becomes unable to attend to what is useful and wholesome. There may be a gigantic memory, which lays up the most trifling details, and forgets the most important events. There may be a gigantic intellect, which wastes itself away in subtlety, or degrades itself in fraud and treachery. There may be also a gigantic faith, which squanders its powers on things without profit, which works by blindness of heart, vainglory, and hypocrisy, by envy, malice, hatred, and all uncharitableness. But Christian faith worketh always and everywhere by love. In this one broad channel, faith may work as it will; it will find enough to fill, enough to fertilize, many rough corners to be rounded off, many intervening obstacles to be washed away, many winding tracks to be followed. Do not divert the faith of Christ our Saviour, that world-controlling, world-conquering faith, from its proper functions; we cannot afford to lose its aid, we want the whole volume of its waters, the undivided strength of its stream, to moisten the dry soil of our hardened hearts, to feed and cleanse our dark habitations, to turn the vast wheels of our complex social system, to deepen our shallow thoughts, to widen our narrow sympathies, to sweeten our bitter controversies, to freshen our stagnant indolence. Faith working by love, can do this, and nothing else can; and we can neither with safety spare its motive power, nor yet without danger open another path for its energies. (Dean Stanley.)

Faith working by love the only genuine faith

That only is faith that makes us to love God, to do His will, to suffer His impositions, to trust His promises, to see through a cloud, to overcome the world, to resist the devil, to stand in the day of trial, and to be comforted in all our sorrows. (Jeremy Taylor.)

Faith working by love

Faith is able to justify of itself, not to work of itself. The hand alone can receive an alms, but cannot cut a piece of wood without an axe or some instrument. Faith is the Christians hand, and can without help receive Gods given grace into the heart; but to produce the fruits of obedience, and to work the actual duties required, it must have an instrument: add love to it, and it worketh by love. So that the one is our justification before God, and the other our testification before man. (T. Adams.)

Faith when once it lives in the soul is all Christian practice in the germ. (Canon Liddon.)

How to estimate the strength of faith

Faith works by love, and therefore its strength or weakness may be discovered by the strength or weakness of the love it puts forth in the Christians actings. The strength of a mans arm that draws a bow is seen by the force the arrow which he shoots flies with. And, certainly, the strength of our faith may be known by the force that our love mounts to God with. It is impossible that weak faith, which is unable to draw the promise as a strong faith can, should leave such a forcible impression on the heart to love God as the stronger faith does. If, therefore, thy heart be strongly carried out from love to God, to abandon sin, perform duty, and exert acts of obedience to His command, know thy place, and take it with humble thankfulness; thou art a graduate in the art of believing. (W. Gurnall.)

Faith and love intimately connected

Faith without love is, as it were, a dream, an image of faith; just as the appearance of a face in a glass is not a real face. (Luther.)

Flatter not thyself in thy faith to God, if thou wantest charity for thy neighbour; and think not thou hast charity for thy neighbour, if thou wantest faith to God: where they are not both together, they are both wanting; they are both dead if once divided. (F. Quarles.)

Faith is the source; charity, that is, the whole Christian life, is the stream from it. It is quite childish to talk of faith being imperfect without charity; as wisely might you say that a fire, however bright and strong, was imperfect with heat; or that the sun, however cloudless, is imperfect without beams. The true answer would be, it is not faith, but utter reprobate faithlessness. (S. T. Coleridge.)

Faith is that nail which fastens the soul to Christ; and love is the grace which drives the nail to the head. Faith takes hold of Him, and love helps to keep the grip. Christ dwells in the heart by faith, and He burns in the heart by love, like a fire melting the breast. Faith casts the knot, and love draws it fast. (Erskine.)

Faiths evidences

Consider the character and the position of a man of simple faith. That man walks this earth, and with every step he feels and realizes that he is in another world of unseen things, greater and far more real to him than what he can see about him. Now let us see what some of the consequences of that faith are--its results, and its evidences. It is quite evident that such a man is, and must be, at peace, for he possesses every element of peace. The past pardoned; the present furnished and supplied; the future secure. Now that rest makes composure, and composure is strength. Faith, and faith only makes strength. Faith is strength. Or look at him again in another of the consequences of faith; And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. Then you say, charity--that is, love--is greater than faith? Yes, greater as a tree is greater than its root, or as a river is greater than its spring; but the faith makes the charity. It is an indispensable ingredient and representation of all charity. I must believe before I can love; I must believe in God before I can love God. Now we are all kind in proportion as we are happy. Who has not found it so? Why do we feel kind on a birthday, or at a marriage, or when we receive some very good news? Why are we kind at Christmas? Because we are happy. For to be happy, we must have no bitter past; we must have no dreaded future; but there must be in the future hope which casts back its happiness upon the passing hour. To make happiness there must be a happy to-day, and a happier to-morrow; without a happier to-morrow, no day will be perfectly happy. This again, is just what faith gives. What is bad in the past is cancelled. The future is bright; and the bright future brightens the passing hour. Faith makes hope, hope makes happiness, and happiness makes love. The next thing is union with Christ. It is a new creation, and faith, faith has done it. Faith has worked by love, and made the union. That union is heaven; it is heaven begun upon earth. Let us follow that man now that he is united. See him at his prayers. O, so different to what he used to call saying his prayers. It is a child speaking to a Father; and he goes boldly. Faith worketh by love. Observe the relationship. Faith is mistress, love is the handmaid. Faith worketh by love. Love subordinate to faith. If love is not subordinate to faith, love becomes misplaced. Love subordinate to faith. Faith has to do with the unseen, and makes it seen, and then the love clasps the seen and makes it his own. We begin by believing the great Unseen; we go on to believe that is love; we apply that love to ourselves, and so that is faith. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

Faith working by love

Now observe, this love has nothing to do with saving you. You were saved before the love began. It owes its existence to the fact of your being saved. It is no cause, it is an effect--an invariable effect--an effect which loves the presence of the cause. We love Him because He first loved us. And now you come to the second stage. You love: deeply, gratefully, irrepressibly, you love. What comes next? Love is a feeling which always looks about to find, or make for itself language. If it do not this, it may be a passion, but it is not love. The language of love is action. We all wish to please where we feel affection. Therefore, by a necessary law, the forgiven soul--happy and attached--looks at lovingly--to see how it can testify its gratitude to the God of its salvation. In Gods great scheme, every Christian is working under constraint of the most powerful impulse that ever animates the breast of man. It is a spring strong enough for the machine, the great machine which it has to move; but all the while he works happily because he works under the smile of God, who has forgiven him, and who loves him with an everlasting love: sure, because it is free, and certain to continue on to the end, because it was all Christ at the beginning. In this little ladder of three steps which goes up from sin to peace, and from peace to glory--the only point that unites the two worlds: faith resting on Christ, love springing out of faith, and good works crowning love--I do desire to trace with you, for a minute, how they act and re-act one upon the other, interweaving themselves endlessly, into greater and greater unity and strength. Faith is the only basis of love. You cannot really love God until you believe that He has forgiven you. You cannot love an angry God you cannot love an object of fear--such as God must be to every man who does not feel that he is pardoned. Well, now, see the return. Every good work re-acts to feed the love from which it sprang. Do not you know how, by doing something for any person, you may make yourself, at last, begin to love that person? Do not you know still more how, by every act of self-denying affection to those you love, you increase the feeling, and deepen the tendency of the attachment? So that the rule is good in the heavenly code, every good action, done for Christs sake, increases spiritual affection, and enhances the desire to love--just as the dropping of the fruit strengthens the roots for the next autumns harvest. It is a blessed thing to have a religion which I am now endeavouring to shew in its whole nature is a faith which worketh by love. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

Faith worketh

I have read that a bishop of the Episcopal Church said, When I was about entering the ministry, I was one day in conversation with an old Christian friend, who said, You are to be ordained: when you are ordained, preach to sinners as you find them; tell them to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and they shall be as safe as if they were in heaven; and then tell them to work like horses.

Christian enthusiasm

I. Define enthusiasm.

1. Origin of the word, and its uses at that time.

2. Etymology: marking changes in meaning.

3. Emphasize present use--Christian enthusiasm.

II. Enthusiasm subjectively considered. God in. Love dwelling in the Christians heart.

1. Crystalized energy; energy taking form; efficiency.

2. Concentrated earnestness; sincerity and singleness of purpose.

3. Unwavering perseverance; continuity.

4. Indomitable courage; bravery.

III. Objectively considered. Love at work. Love gives faith its life, and causes it to glow with fervency, but it does more: it gives action. Faith worketh by love. This action depends upon two conditions, viz.:

1. A correct ideal. Love reveals Christ as the One altogether lovely.

(a) In His character.

(b) In His work.

2. A worthy cause. Love seeks the best time, place, subject. What can be more worthy to engage the Christians powers than the gospel? When once at work, what will net a Christian endure? (Heb_11:1-40.) (Missionaries.) Faith may subdue kingdoms, may overcome worlds, but first of all it must be inspired by love. Faith worketh by love. (American Homiletic Review.)

Doctrine

1. That the grace of faith is a working grace if it be of a right kind.

2. That if faith be right and true it worketh by love. First.

That faith is a working grace: we have many Scriptures that prove this (2Th_1:11). If faith be living it works. Show

I.--What the work is that faith doth. Answer--It is that which nothing else can do. If we ask faith, as Christ did His disciples, What do ye more than others? Faith might say, Yes, I do.

1. It doth more than sight or sense can do. Faith can make that which is far off to be near (Heb_11:1).

2. It will do that which reason cannot.

[1.] In reference to doctrinal revelation, as--

(1.) The doctrine of the Trinity.

(2.) Of the creation.

(3.) The doctrine of the resurrection.

[2.] In reference to providential dispensations. God told Abraham that he should have a child, though he were an hundred, and Sarah fourscore and ten; and Abraham believed it, and it was so.

3. It can do that which no other grace can do. Faith doth all things well. This will appear by three things--

(1) Other graces are but particular graces, but this is a universal grace.

(2) Other graces depend upon faith, but faith depends upon none. If faith be strong, then patience will be so, and meekness will be so, and charity will be so. Faith is the mouth of the soul: it maintains the whole body.

(3) Other graces are useful, but all the graces together without faith will not justify a man. Show

II.--How it comes to pass that faith doth all these things? Answer--Not by its own power. Whence then is it?

1. It is from the supplies of the Spirit of God; the Spirit of God works in every act of believing (Col_1:29). Faith of itself can do nothing.

2. As it hath Christ for the object of it (Joh_14:1; Php_4:13).

3. By applying the promises, which are the food of faith (Psa_60:6). Secondly.--Faith works by love. Question--What are we to understand by love? Answer--There is a two-fold love.

(1) The love of God.

(2) The love of our neighbour. This may be understood of both these. Question--How doth faith work by love?

1. Passively. Faith is accepted by love.

(1) By works faith is discovered, and made manifest, as life by action, and fire by flame. Compared to-- 2Co_12:9.

(2) It was improved and bettered. Abrahams faith had three great trials.

[1.] Leaving his kindred and country to follow God, he knew not where.

[2.] When God told him that he should have a son, which was greater than the former.

[3.] The offering of this son, which was the greatest trial of all to him.

2. Actually.

Show

I.--How faith in God doth produce love to God.

1. By acquainting the soul with His most excellent perfections.

2. By acquainting the soul with the great love of God to us.

3. In revealing this to us in the gospel, by inviting us; when the soul sees this great love of God, saith, How can I choose but love Him again? (Psa_31:19; Psa_31:23).

II. Where this love is, it works desire of obedience to the command of God. Where love is, obedience is.

(1) Free and voluntary.

(2) It is abounding (1Co_15:1-58. last verse).

(3) It is constant, like the waters of a spring. How should I know whether mine be a true faith?

Answer--If it doth work.

1. If it sets the Lord always before us.

2. It sets the things of the other world before us.

3. It purifies the heart.

4. It overcomes the world.

5. It overcomes the fiery darts of the devil.

Thou hast faith, but it hath these characters:--

(1) It is a blind faith.

(2) It is a barren faith.

(3) It is a profane faith.

(4) It is a presumptuous faith; it works security; it rocks thee asleep in the devils cradle.

(5) There is a faith which men do swear by, but they cannot live by.

(6) See whether it works by love (1Jn_4:20).

(7) Try the strength of your faith.

[1.] If faith be weak, it will work but weakly. When faith is weak, it will look upon that to be a discouragement that is indeed an encouragement.

[2.] If it be weak, it will not work alone, it must have company.

[3.] If faith be weak, it will not work in the dark. (Philip Henry.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Galatians

WHAT MAKES A CHRISTIAN: CIRCUMCISION OR FAITH?

Gal 5:6

It is a very singular instance of imaginative misreading of plain facts that the primitive Church should be held up as a pattern Church. The early communities had apostolic teaching; but beyond that, they seem to have been in no respect above, and in many respects below, the level of subsequent ages. If we may judge of their morality by the exhortations and dehortations which they received from the Apostle, Corinth and Thessalonica were but beginners in holiness. If we may judge of their intelligence by the errors into which they were in danger of falling, these first congregations had indeed need that one should teach them which were the first principles of the oracles of God. It could not be otherwise. They were but just rescued from heathenism, and we need not wonder if their spirits long bore the scars of their former bondage. If we wish to know what the apostolic churches were like, we have but to look at the communities gathered by modern missionaries. The same infantile simplicity, the same partial apprehensions of the truth, the same danger of being led astray by the low morality of their heathen kindred, the same openness to strange heresy, the same danger of blending the old with the new, in opinion and in practice, beset both.

The history of the first theological difference in the early churches is a striking confutation of the dream that they were perfect, and a striking illustration of the dangers to which they were exposed from the attempt, so natural to us all, to put new wine into old bottles. The Jewish and the Gentile elements did not coalesce. The point round which the strife was waged was not whether Gentiles might come into the Church. That was conceded by the fiercest Judaisers. But it was whether they could come in as Gentiles, without first being incorporated into the Jewish nation by circumcision, and whether they could remain in as Gentiles, without conforming to Jewish ceremonial and law.

Those who said ‘No’ _were_ members of the Christian communities, and, being so, they still insisted that Judaism was to be eternal. They demanded that the patched and stiff leathern bottle, which had no elasticity or pliability, should still contain the quick fermenting new wine of the kingdom. And certainly, if ever man had excuse for clinging to what was old and formal, these Judaising Christians held it. They held by a law written with God’s own finger, by ordinances awful by reason of divine appointment, venerable by reason of the generations to which they had been of absolute authority, commended by the very example of Christ Himself. Every motive which can bind heart and conscience to the reverence and the practice of the traditions of the Fathers, bound them to the Law and the ordinances which had been Israel’s treasure from Abraham to Jesus.

Those who said ‘Yes’ were mostly Gentiles, headed and inspired by a Hebrew of the Hebrews. They believed that Judaism was preparatory, and that its work was done. For those among themselves who were Jews, they were willing that its laws should still be obligatory; but they fought against the attempt to compel all Gentile converts to enter Christ’s kingdom through the gate of circumcision.

The fight was stubborn and bitter. I suppose it is harder to abolish forms than to change opinions. Ceremonies stand long after the thought which they express has fled, as a dead king may sit on his throne stiff and stark in his golden mantle, and no one come near enough to see that the light is gone out of his eyes, and the will departed from the hand that still clutches the sceptre. All through Paul’s life he was dogged and tormented by this controversy. There was a deep gulf between the churches he planted and this reactionary section of the Christian community. Its emissaries were continually following in his footsteps. As he bitterly reproaches them, they entered upon another man’s line of things made ready to their hand, not caring to plant churches of circumcised Gentiles themselves, but starting up behind him as soon as his back was turned, and spoiling his work.

This Epistle is the memorial of that foot-to-foot feud. It is of perennial use, as the tendencies against which it is directed are constant in human nature. Men are ever apt to confound form and substance, to crave material embodiments of spiritual realities, to elevate outward means into the place of the inward and real, to which all the outward is but subsidiary. In every period of strife between the two great opponents, this letter has been the stronghold of those who fight for the spiritual conception of religion. With it Luther waged his warfare, and in this day, too, its words are precious.

My text contains Paul’s condensed statement of his whole position in the controversy. It tells us what he fought for, and why he fought, against the attempt to suspend union to Christ on an outward rite.

I. The first grand principle contained in these words is that faith working by love makes a Christian.

The antithesis of our text appears in somewhat varied forms in two other places in the Apostle’s writings. To the Corinthians he says, ‘Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God.’ His last word to the Galatians--the gathering up into one strong sentence of his whole letter--is, ‘In Christ Jesus, neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.’

Now, all these assertions embody substantially the same opposition between the conception of Christianity as depending upon a ceremonial rite, and as being a spiritual change. And the variations in the second member of the contrast throw light on each other. In one, the essential thing is regarded from the divine side as being not a rite performed on the body, but a new nature, the result of a supernatural regeneration. In another, the essential thing is set forth as being not an outward act, but an inward principle, which produces appropriate effects on the whole being. In yet another the essential thing is conceived as being not a mere ceremonial, but practical obedience, the consequence of the active principle of faith, and the sign of the new life. There is an evident sequence in the three sayings. They begin with the deepest, the divine act of a new creation--and end with the outermost, the last result and object of both the others--deeds of conformity to God’s law.

This one process in its triple aspects, says Paul, constitutes a man a Christian. What correspondence is there between it, in any of its parts, and a carnal ordinance? They belong to wholly different categories, and it is the most preposterous confusion to try to mix them up together. Are we to tack on to the solemn powers and qualities, which unite the soul to Christ, this beggarly addition that the Judaisers desire, and to say, the essentials of Christianity are a new creature, faith, obedience--and circumcision? That is, indeed, sewing old cloth on a new garment, and huddling together in grotesque chaos things which are utterly diverse. It is as absurd bathos as to say the essentials of a judge are integrity, learning, patience--and an ermine robe!

There would be less danger of being entangled in false notions of the sort which devastated Galatia and have afflicted the Church ever since, if people would put a little more distinctly before their own minds what they mean by ‘religion’; what sort of man they intend when they talk about ‘a Christian.’ A clear notion of the thing to be produced would thin away a wonderful deal of mist as to the way of producing it. So then, beginning at the surface, in order to work inward, my first remark is that religion is the harmony of the soul with God, and the conformity of the life to His law.

The loftiest purpose of God, in all His dealings, is to make us like Himself; and the end of all religion is the complete accomplishment of that purpose. There is no religion without these elements--consciousness of kindred with God, recognition of Him as the sum of all excellence and beauty, and of His will as unconditionally binding upon us, aspiration and effort after a full accord of heart and soul with Him and with His law, and humble confidence that that sovereign beauty will be ours. ‘Be ye imitators of God as dear children’ is the pure and comprehensive dictate which expresses the aim of all devout men. ‘To keep His commandments’ goes deeper than the mere external deeds. Were it not so, Paul’s grand words would shrink to a very poor conception of religion, which would then have its shrine and sphere removed from the sacred recesses of the inmost spirit to the dusty Babel of the market-place and the streets. But with that due and necessary extension of the words which results from the very nature of the case, that obedience must be the obedience of a man, and not of his deeds only, and must include the submission of the will and the prostration of the whole nature before Him; they teach a truth which, fully received and carried out, clears away whole mountains of theoretical confusion and practical error. Religion is no dry morality; no slavish, punctilious conforming of actions to a hard law. Religion is not right thinking alone, nor right emotion alone, nor right action alone. Religion is still less the semblance of these in formal profession, or simulated feeling, or apparent rectitude. Religion is not nominal connection with the Christian community, nor participation in its ordinances and its worship. But to be godly is to be godlike. The full accord of all the soul with His character, in whom, as their native home, dwell ‘whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely,’ and the full glad conformity of the will to His sovereign will, who is the life of our lives--this, and nothing shallower, nothing narrower, is religion in its perfection; and the measure in which we have attained to this harmony with God, is the measure in which we are Christians. As two stringed instruments may be so tuned to one keynote that, if you strike the one, a faint ethereal echo is heard from the other, which blends undistinguishably with its parent sound; so, drawing near to God, and brought into unison with His mind and will, our responsive spirits vibrate in accord with His, and give forth tones, low and thin indeed, but still repeating the mighty music of heaven. ‘Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God.’

But our text tells us, further, that if we look backwards from character and deed to motive, this harmony with God results from love becoming the ruling power of our lives. The imitation of the object of worship has always been felt to be the highest form of worship. Many an ancient teacher, besides the Stoic philosopher, has said, ‘He who copies the gods worships them adequately.’ One of the prophets lays it down as a standing rule, ‘The people will walk every one in the name of his God.’ But it is only in the Christian attitude towards God that the motive power is found which makes such imitation more than an impossible duty, even as it is only in the revealed character of God that a pattern is found, to imitate which is to be perfect. Everywhere besides, harmony with the gods meant discord with conscience and flagrant outrages of the commonest moralities. Everywhere else, the task of copying them was one lightened by no clear confidence in their love, and by no happy consciousness of our own. But for us, the love revealed is the perfect law, and the love evoked is the fulfilling of the law.

And this is the might and nobleness of the Christian love to God; that it is no idle emotion or lazy rapture, no vague sentiment, but the root of all practical goodness, of all strenuous effort, of all virtue, and of all praise. That strong tide is meant to drive the busy wheels of life and to bear precious freightage on its bosom; not to flow away in profitless foam. Love is the fruitful mother of bright children, as our great moralist-poet learned when he painted her in the House of Holiness:

‘A multitude of babes about her hung, Playing their sport that joyed her to behold.’

Her sons are Strength and Justice, and Self-control and Firmness, and Courage and Patience, and many more besides; and her daughters are Pity with her sad eyes, and Gentleness with her silvery voice, and Mercy whose sweet face makes sunshine in the shade of death, and Humility all unconscious of her loveliness; and linked hand in hand with these, all the radiant band of sisters that men call Virtues and Graces. These will dwell in our hearts, if Love their mighty mother be there. If we are without her, we shall be without them.

There is discord between man and God which can only be removed by the sweet commerce of love, established between earth and heaven. God’s love has come to us. When ours springs responsive to Him, then the schism is ended, and the wandering child forgets his rebellion, as he lays his aching head on the father’s bosom, and feels the beating of the father’s heart. Our souls by reason of sin are ‘like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.’ Love’s master hand laid upon them restores to them their part in ‘the fair music that all creatures make to their great Lord,’ and brings us into such accord with God that ‘We on earth with undiscording voice May rightly answer’ even the awful harmonies of His lips. The essential of religion is concord with God, and the power which makes that concord is love to God.

But this text leads to a still further consideration, namely, the dominion of love to God in our hearts arises from faith.

We thus reach the last link, or rather the staple, of the chain from which all hangs. Religion is harmony with God; that harmony is produced by love; and that love is produced by faith. Therefore the fundamental of all Christianity in the soul is faith. Would this sound any fresher and more obvious if we varied the language, and said that to be religious we must be like God, that to be like Him we must love Him, and that to love Him we must be sure that He loves us? Surely that is too plain to need enlarging on.

And is it not true that faith must precede our love to God, and affords the only possible basis on which that can be built? How can we love Him so long as we are in doubt of His heart, or misconceive His character, as if it were only power and wisdom, or awful severity? Men cannot love an unseen person at all, without some very special token of his personal affection for them. The history of all religions shows that where the gods have been thought of as unloving, the worshippers have been heartless too. It is only when we know and believe the love that God hath to us, that we come to cherish any corresponding emotion to Him. Our love is secondary, His is primary; ours is reflection, His the original beam; ours is echo, His the mother-tone. Heaven must bend to earth before earth can rise to heaven. The skies must open and drop down love, ere love can spring in the fruitful fields. And it is only when we look with true trust to that great unveiling of the heart of God which is in Jesus Christ, only when we can say, ‘Herein is love--that He gave His Son to be the propitiation for our sins,’ that our hearts are melted, and all their snows are dissolved into sweet waters, which, freed from their icy chains, can flow with music in their ripple and fruitfulness along their course, through our otherwise silent and barren lives. Faith in Christ is the only possible basis for active love to God.

And this thought presents the point of contact between the teaching of Paul and John. The one dwells on faith, the other on love, but he who insists most on the former declares that it produces its effects on character by the latter; and he who insists most on the latter is forward to proclaim that it owes its very existence to the former.

It presents also the point of contact between Paul and James. The one speaks of the essential of Christianity as faith, the other as works. They are only striking the stream at different points, one at the fountain-head, one far down its course among the haunts of men. They both preach that faith must be ‘faith that worketh,’ not a barren assent to a dogma, but a living trust that brings forth fruits in the life. Paul believes as much as James that faith without works is dead, and demands the keeping of the commandments as indispensable to all true Christianity. James believes as much as Paul that works without faith are of none effect. So all three of these great teachers of the Church are represented in this text, to which each of them might seem to have contributed a word embodying his characteristic type of doctrine. The threefold rays into which the prism parts the white light blend again here, where faith, love, and work are all united in the comprehensive saying, ‘In Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love.’

The sum of the whole matter is this--He who is one in will and heart with God is a Christian. He who loves God is one in will and heart with Him. He who trusts Christ loves God. That is Christianity in its ultimate purpose and result. That is Christianity in its means and working forces. That is Christianity in its starting-point and foundation.

II. But we have to consider also the negative side of the Apostle’s words. They affirm that in comparison with the essential--faith, all externals are infinitely unimportant.

Paul’s habit was always to settle questions by the widest principles he could bring to bear upon them--which one may notice in passing is the very opposite to the method that has been in favour with many Church teachers and guides since, who have preferred to live from hand to mouth, and to dispose of difficulties by the narrowest considerations that would avail to quiet them. In our text the question in hand is settled on a ground which covers a great deal more than the existing dispute. Circumcision is regarded as one of a whole class--namely, the class of outward rites and observances; and the contrast drawn between it and faith extends to all the class to which it belongs. It is not said to be powerless because it is an Old Testament rite, but because it is a rite. Its impotence lies in the very nature which it has in common with all external institutions, whether they be of the Old Testament or of the New, whether they be enjoined of God or invented by men. To them all the same characteristic cleaves. Compared with faith they are of no avail. Not that they are absolutely useless. They have their place, but ‘_in Christ Jesus_’ they are nothing. Union to Him depends on quite another order of facts, which may or may not exist along with circumcision, or with baptism, or with the Lord’s Supper. However important these may be, they have no place among the things which bind a soul to its Saviour. They may be helps to these things, but nothing more. The rite does not ensure the faith, else the antithesis of our text were unmeaning. The rite does not stand in the place of faith, or the contrast implied were absurd. But the two belong to totally different orders of things, which may co-exist indeed, but may also be found separately; the one is the indispensable spiritual experience which makes us Christians, the other belongs to a class of material institutions which are much as helps to, but nothing as substitutes or equivalents for, faith.

Keep firm hold of the positive principle with which we have been dealing in the former part of this sermon, and all forms and externals fall as a matter of course into their proper place. If religion be the loving devotion of the soul to God, resting upon reasonable faith, then all besides is, at the most, a means which may further it. If loving trust which apprehends the truth, and cleaves to the Person, revealed to us in the Gospel, be the link which binds men to God, then the only way by which these externals can be ‘means of grace’ is by their aiding us to understand better and to feel more the truth as it is in Jesus, and to cleave closer to Him who is the truth. Do they enlighten the understanding? Do they engrave deeper the loved face carven on the tablets of memory, which the attrition of worldly cares is ever obliterating, and the lichens of worldly thoughts ever filling up? Do they clear out the rubbish from the channels of the heart, that the cleansing stream may flow through them? Do they, through the senses, minister to the soul its own proper food of clear thought, vivid impressions, loving affections, trustful obedience? Do they bring Christ to us, and us to Him, in the only way in which approach is possible--through the occupation of mind and heart and will with His great perfectness? Then they are means of grace, precious and helpful, the gifts of His love, the tokens of His wise knowledge of our weakness, the signs of His condescension, in that He stoops to trust some portion of our remembrance of Him to the ministry of sense. But in comparison with that faith which they cannot plant, though they may strengthen it, they are nothing; and in the matter of uniting the soul to God and making men ‘religious,’ they are of no avail at all.

And such thoughts as these have a very wide sweep, as well as a very deep influence. Religion is the devotion of the soul to God. Then _everything_ besides is not religion, but at most a means to it. That is true about all Christian ordinances. Baptism is spoken about by Paul in terms which plainly show that he regarded it as ‘nothing’ in the same sense, and under the same limitations, as he thought that circumcision was nothing. ‘I baptized some of you,’ says he to the Corinthians; ‘I scarcely remember whom, or how many. I have far more important work to do--to preach the Gospel.’ It is true about all acts and forms of Christian worship. These are not religion, but means to it. Their only value and their only test is--Do they help men to know and feel Christ and His truth? It is true about laws of life, and many points of conventional morality. Remember the grand freedom with which the same Apostle dealt with questions about meats offered to idols, and the observance of days and seasons. The same principle guided him there too, and he relegated the whole question back to its proper place with, ‘Meat commendeth us not to God; for neither if we eat are we the better, neither if we eat not are we the worse.’ ‘He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it.’ It is true, though less obviously and simply, about subordinate doctrines. It is true about the mere intellectual grasp of the fundamental truths of God’s revelation. These, and the belief of these, are not Christianity, they are helps towards it.

The separation is broad and deep. On one side are all externals, rites, ceremonies, politics, Church arrangements, forms of worship, modes of life, practices of morality, doctrines, and creeds--all which are externals to the soul: on the other is faith working through love, the inmost attitude and deepest emotion of the soul. The great heap is fuel. The flame is loving faith. The only worth of the fuel is to feed the flame. Otherwise it is of no avail, but lies dead and cold, a mass of blackness. We are joined to God by faith. Whatever strengthens that faith is precious as a help, but is worthless as a substitute.

III. There is a constant tendency to exalt these unimportant externals into the place of faith.

The whole purpose of the Gospel may be described to be our deliverance from the dominion of sense, and the transference of the centre of our life to the unseen world. This end is no doubt partly accomplished by the help of sense. So long as men have bodily organisations, there will be need for outward helps. Men’s indolence, and men’s sense-ridden natures, will take symbols for royalties, bank-notes for wealth. The eye will be tempted to stay on the rich colours of the glowing glass, instead of passing through them to heaven’s light beyond. To make the senses a ladder for the soul to climb to heaven by, will be perilously likely to end in the soul going down the ladder instead of up. Forms are sure to encroach, to overlay the truth that lies at their root, to become dimly intelligible, or quite unmeaning, and to constitute at last the end instead of the means. Is it not then wise to minimise these potent and dangerous allies? Is it not needful to use them with the remembrance that a minute quantity may strengthen, but an overdose will kill--ay, and that the minute quantity may kill too? Christ instituted two outward rites. There could not have been fewer if there was to be an outward community at all, and they could not have been simpler; but look at the portentous outgrowth of superstition, and the unnumbered evils, religious, moral, social, and even political, which have come from the invincible tendency of human nature to corrupt forms, even when the forms are the sweet and simple ones of Christ’s own appointment. What a lesson the history of the Lord’s Supper, and its gradual change from the domestic memorial of the dying love of our Lord to the ‘tremendous sacrifice,’ reads us as to the dangerous ally which spiritual religion--and there is no other religion than spiritual--enlists when it seeks the help of external rites!

But remember that this danger of converting religion into outward actions has its root in us all, and is not annihilated by our rejection of an elaborate ceremonial. There is much significance in the double negation of my text, ‘Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision.’ If the Judaisers were tempted to insist on the former, as indispensable, their antagonists were as much tempted to insist on the latter. The one were saying, ‘A man cannot be a Christian unless he be circumcised.’ The other would be in danger of replying, ‘He cannot be a Christian if he is.’ There may be as much formalism in protesting against forms as in using them. Extremes meet; and an unspiritual Quaker, for instance, is at bottom of the same way of thinking as an unspiritual Roman Catholic. They agree in their belief that certain outward acts are essential to worship, and even to religion. They only differ as to what these acts are. The Judaiser who says, ‘You must be circumcised,’ and his antagonist who says, ‘You must be uncircumcised,’ are really in the same boat.

And this is especially needful to be kept in mind by those who, like the most of us, hold fast by the free and spiritual conception of Christianity. That freedom we may turn into a bondage, and that spirituality into a form, if we confound it with the essentials of Christianity, and deny the possibility of the life being developed except in conjunction with it. My text has a double edge. Let us use it against all this Judaising which is going on round about us, and against all the tendency to it in our own hearts. The one edge smites the former, the other edge the latter. Circumcision is nothing, as most of us are forward to proclaim. But, also, remember, when we are tempted to trust in our freedom, and to fancy that in itself it is good, _uncircumcision is nothing_. You are no more a Christian for your rejection of forms than another man is for his holding them. Your negation no more unites you to Christ than does his affirmation. One thing alone does that,--faith which worketh by love, against which sense ever wars, both by tempting some of us to place religion in outward acts and ceremonies, and by tempting others of us to place it in rejecting the forms which our brethren abuse.

IV. When an indifferent thing is made into an essential, it ceases to be indifferent, and must be fought against.

Paul proclaimed that circumcision and uncircumcision were alike unavailing. A man might be a good Christian either way. They were not unimportant in all respects, but in regard to being united to Christ, it did not matter which side one took. And, in accordance with this noble freedom, he for himself practised Jewish rites; and, when he thought it might conciliate prejudice without betraying principle, had Timothy circumcised. But when it came to be maintained as a principle that Gentiles _must_ be circumcised, the time for conciliation was past. The other side had made further concession impossible. The Apostle had no objection to circumcision. What he objected to was its being forced upon all as a necessary preliminary to entering the Church. And as soon as the opposite party took that ground, then there was nothing for it but to fight against them to the last. They had turned an indifferent thing into an essential, and he could no longer treat it as indifferent.

So whenever parties or Churches insist on external rites as essential, or elevate any of the subordinate means of grace into the place of the one bond which fastens our souls to Jesus, and is the channel of grace as well as the bond of union, then it is time to arm for the defence of the spirituality of Christ’s kingdom, and to resist the attempt to bind on free shoulders the iron yoke. Let men and parties do as they like, so long as they do not turn their forms into essentials. In broad freedom of speech and spirit, which holds by the one central principle too firmly to be much troubled about subordinate matters--in tolerance of diversities, which does not spring from indifference, but from the very clearness of our perception of, and from the very fervour of our adherence to, the one essential of the Christian life--let us take for our guide the large, calm, lofty thoughts which this text sets forth before us. Let us thankfully believe that men may love Jesus, and be fed from His fulness, whether they be on one side of this undying controversy or on the other. Let us watch jealously the tendencies in our own hearts to trust in our forms or in our freedom. And whensoever or wheresoever these subordinates are made into things essential, and the ordinances of Christ’s Church are elevated into the place which belongs to loving trust in Christ’s love, then let _our_ voices at least be heard on the side of that mighty truth that ‘in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

5:6 Faith in Christ Jesus provides access to all of God’s favor and grace, so no further benefit is available through human effort. Faith is expressed by exercising love toward others (cp. Rom 13:10; 14:17-19; 2 Cor 8:8-13).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Gal 5:6. Ἰσχύει) prevails, avails. The same word occurs, Mat 5:13; Jas 5:16.—οὔτε ἀκροβυστία, nor uncircumcision) This refers to those who, if they regard themselves as free from the law, think that they are Christians on that account alone.—πίστις διʼ ἀγάπης ἐνεργουμένη, faith working by love) This is the new creature; Gal 6:15. He joined hope with faith; now he joins with it love. In these the whole of Christianity [the being in Christ] consists; ἐνεργουμένη is not passive, but middle, 1Th 2:13; nor does Paul put love as a form of faith, but shows that, along with faith, nothing else than love remains, Gal 5:13-14; in which very truth, however, he teaches the same thing as Jas 2:22. Faith is recommended to those who defend circumcision; love, to those who think that uncircumcision is [avails] something, [that they may be reminded that the law is not set aside by faith, but confirmed.—V. g.] Love is opposed to the enmities which prevailed so virulently among the Galatians: Gal 5:13; Gal 5:15; Gal 5:20; Gal 5:26. Those seeking justification by works are at a very great distance from love. The Spirit is a Spirit of faith and love.—V. g.]

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Gal_5:6. Warrant for the ἐκ πίστεως: for in Christ Jesus, in fellowship with Christ (in the relation of the ἐν Χριστῷ εἶναι), neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail; the fact of a man being or not being circumcised is of no influence, but faith, which is operative through love, sc. ἰσχύει τι. The τι ἰσχύει is to be left in the same general and unlimited form in which it stands. Circumcision and uncircumcision are circumstances of no effect or avail in Christianity. And yet they were in Galatia the points on which the disturbance turned! On the faith active in love, which is the effective saving element in the state of the Christian, comp. 1Ti_1:5; 1Th_1:3; 1 Corinthians 13; also Jam_2:22. By means of this faith man is καινὴ κτίσις, Gal_6:15. Bengel well says: Cum fide conjunxit Gal_5:5, spem, nunc amorem; in his stat totus Christianismus. How very necessary it was for the Galatians that prominence should be given to the activity of faith in love, may be seen from Gal_5:15; Gal_5:20; Gal_5:26. The passive view of ἐνεργουμ., which is given by the Fathers and many Catholics, such as Bellarmine, Estius, Reithmayr, in whom the interest of dogmatic controversy against the Protestants came to a great extent into play, is erroneous, because ἐνεργεῖσθαι in the N.T. is always middle (vim suam exserere). See on 2Co_1:6; Fritzsche, ad Rom. vii. 6, II. p. 18. It does not mean, having been rendered energetic through love (Reithmayr), but working through love, expressing thereby its vital power. Moreover, our passage is not at variance with justification solely by faith: opera fieri dicit ex fide per caritatem, non justificari hominem per caritatem, Luther. Comp. Calovius: Formatam[225] etiam fidem apostolus refellit, cum non per caritatem formam suam accipere vel formari, sed per caritatem operosam vel efficacem esse docet. Caritatem ergo et opera non fidem constituere, sed consequi et ex eadem fluere certum est. It must, however, be observed that love (the opposite of all selfishness) must be, from its nature, the continuous moral medium of the operation of faith in those who are thereby justified,[226] 1Co_13:1 ff. Comp. Lipsius, Rechtfert. p. 192; Romang, in Stud. u. Krit. 1867, p. 90 ff., who, however, concedes too much to the idea of fides formata.

[225] The fides formata is also found here by Bisping, and especially Reithmayr, following the Trid. Sess. vi. 7, de justif. See, on the other hand, Apol. Conf. Aug. p. 81 f.

[226] Comp. also Dorner, Gesch. d. prot. Theol. p. 232 ff.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Gal 5:6 . Circumcision conveyed no spiritual blessing in return for its binding pledge of obedience to the Law. In 1Co 7:17-22 it is placed in the same category as marriage and slavery, outward conditions of life which are neither good nor evil in themselves, but are the appointed portion of some, who should therefore loyally accept the burden or the blessing. Paul not only paid due respect to the Law himself, but even circumcised Timothy, when he desired to take him with him as his minister in Christ amidst Jews, that he might avoid needless offence. But he warned his disciples at the same time that in resorting to it for salvation they were really denying the faith, and forfeiting their birthright of Christian freedom. διʼ ἀγάπης . The rendering of our versions by or through love confuses faith with love, as though faith was the result of love or worked through its instrumentality. But the clause really describes a combination of two distinct graces: there may be intense faith without love ( cf. 1Co 13:2 ); but faith ought to work in love, i.e. , in a spirit of love. Love is the atmosphere amid which faith should put forth its energy. This force of διά has been already noted in the case of διὰ νόμου (Gal 2:19 ). ἐνεργουμένη . The middle voice is here employed to describe the inner working of the spirit of man, the active is used for recording God’s work for man in Gal 2:8 .

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

6.] Confirmation of the words ἐκ πίστεως, ver. 5.

ἐν χριστῷ, in Christ, as an element, in union with Christ, = in the state of a Christian: notice χρ. Ἰησ., not Ἰησ. χρ.:—in Christ, and that Christ, Jesus of Nazareth.

ἐνεργουμένη, not passive, but middle, as always in N. T. See reff. and notes on those places: also Fritzsche’s note on Rom 7:5. “ἐνεργεῖν, vim exercere de personis, ἐνεργεῖσθαι, ex se (aut suam) vim exercere de rebus collocavit, Gal 5:6; Col 1:29; 1Th 2:13 al., ut h. l. Passivo (cf. ἐνεργεῖται πόλεμος, Polyb. i. 13. 5; Jos. Antt. xv. 5. 3) nunquam Paulus usus est.” The older Romanist Commentators (Bellarm., Est.) insisted on the passive sense as favouring the dogma of fides formata, for which it is cited by the Council of Trent, sess. vi. cap. 7, de Justific. And the modern Romanist Commentators, though abandoning the passive sense, still claim the passage on their side (e.g. Windischmann); but without reason; love is the modus operandi of faith, that which justifies, however, is not love, but faith; nor can a passage be produced, where St. Paul says we are justified by ‘faith working by love,’ but it is ever by faith only. One is astonished at the boldness of such a generally calm and fair writer as Windischmann, in claiming the passage for the Tridentine doctrine, even when the passive interpretation, which was all it had to lay hold on, is given up.

As parallels to our passage, see Rom 14:17; 1Co 7:19.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He addeth a reason for that now circumcision is abolished, seeing that Christ is exhibited unto us with full plenty of spiritual circumcision.

He maketh mention also of uncircumcision, lest the Gentiles should please themselves in it, as the Jews do in circumcision.

The taking away of an objection: If all that worship of the Law be taken away, wherein then shall we exercise ourselves? In charity, saith Paul: for faith, whereof we speak, cannot be idle, nay it bringeth forth daily fruits of charity.

So is true faith distinguished from counterfeit faith: for charity is not joined to faith as a fellow cause, to help forward our justification with faith.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

For--confirming the truth that it is "by faith" (Gal 5:5).

in Jesus Christ--Greek, "in Christ Jesus." In union with Christ (the ANOINTED Saviour), that is, Jesus of Nazareth.

nor uncircumcision--This is levelled against those who, being not legalists, or Judaizers, think themselves Christians on this ground alone.

faith which worketh by love--Greek, "working by love." This corresponds to "a new creature" (Gal 6:15), as its definition. Thus in Gal 5:5-6, we have the three, "faith," "hope," and "love." The Greek expresses, "Which effectually worketh"; which exhibits its energy by love (so Th1 2:13). Love is not joined with faith in justifying, but is the principle of the works which follow after justification by faith. Let not legalists, upholding circumcision, think that the essence of the law is set at naught by the doctrine of justification by faith only. Nay, "all the law is fulfilled in one word--love," which is the principle on which "faith worketh" (Gal 5:14). Let them, therefore, seek this "faith," which will enable them truly to fulfil the law. Again, let not those who pride themselves on uncircumcision think that, because the law does not justify, they are free to walk after "the flesh" (Gal 5:13). Let them, then, seek that "love" which is inseparable from true faith (Jam 2:8, Jam 2:12-22). Love is utterly opposed to the enmities which prevailed among the Galatians (Gal 5:15, Gal 5:20). The Spirit (Gal 5:5) is a Spirit of "faith" and "love" (compare Rom 14:17; Co1 7:19).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 6. For in Jesus Christ] By the dispensation of the Gospel all legal observances, as essential to salvation, are done away; and uncircumcision, or the Gentile state, contributes as much to salvation as circumcision or the Jewish state; they are both equally ineffectual; and nothing now avails in the sight of God but that faith δι' αγαπης ενεργουμενη, which is made active, or energetic, by love. God acknowledges no faith, as of the operation of his Spirit, that is not active or obedient; but the principle of all obedience to God, and beneficence to man, is love; therefore faith cannot work unless it be associated with love. Love to God produces obedience to his will: love to man worketh no ill; but, on the contrary, every act of kindness. Faith which does not work by love is either circumcision or uncircumcision, or whatever its possessor may please to call it; it is, however, nothing that will stand him in stead when God comes to take away his soul. It availeth nothing. This humble, holy, operative, obedient LOVE, is the grand touchstone of all human creeds and confessions of faith. Faith without this has neither soul nor operation; in the language of the Apostle James, it is dead, and can perform no function of the spiritual life, no more than a dead man can perform the duties of animal or civil life.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

6. For in Jesus Christ. The reason why believers now wait for the hope of righteousness through the Spirit is, that in Christ, that is, in the kingdom of Christ, or in the Christian church, circumcision with its appendages is abolished; for, by a figure of speech in which a part is taken for the whole, the word Circumcision is put for ceremonies. While he declares that they no longer possess any influence, he does not admit that they were always useless; for he does not maintain that they were repealed till after the revelation of Christ. This enables us to answer another question, Why does he here speak so contemptuously of circumcision, as if it had been of no advantage? The rank which circumcision once held as a sacrament is not now considered. The question is not what was its value before it had been abolished. But under the kingdom of Christ, he pronounces it to be on a level with uncircumcision, because the coming of Christ has put an end to legal ceremonies.

But faith, which worketh by love. The contrast here introduced, between ceremonies and the exercise of love, was intended to prevent the Jews from thinking too highly of themselves, and imagining that they were entitled to some superiority; for towards the close of the Epistle, instead of this clause, he uses the words, a new creature. (Galatians 6:15.) As if he had said, Ceremonies are no longer enjoined by Divine authority; and, if we abound in the exercise of love, all is well. Meanwhile, this does not set aside our sacraments, which are aids to faith but is merely a short announcement of what he had formerly taught as to the spiritual worship of God.

There would be no difficulty in this passage, were it not for the dishonest manner in which it has been tortured by the Papists to uphold the righteousness of works. When they attempt to refute our doctrine, that we are justified by faith alone, they take this line of argument. If the faith which justifies us be that “which worketh by love,” then faith alone does not justify. I answer, they do not comprehend their own silly talk; still less do they comprehend our statements. It is not our doctrine that the faith which justifies is alone; we maintain that it is invariably accompanied by good works; only we contend that faith alone is sufficient for justification. The Papists themselves are accustomed to tear faith after a murderous fashion, sometimes presenting it out of all shape and unaccompanied by love, and at other times, in its true character. We, again, refuse to admit that, in any case, faith can be separated from the Spirit of regeneration; but when the question comes to be in what manner we are justified, we then set aside all works.

With respect to the present passage, Paul enters into no dispute whether love cooperates with faith in justification; but, in order to avoid the appearance of representing Christians as idle and as resembling blocks of wood, he points out what are the true exercises of believers. When you are engaged in discussing the question of justification, beware of allowing any mention to be made of love or of works, but resolutely adhere to the exclusive particle. Paul does not here treat of justification, or assign any part of the praise of it to love. Had he done so, the same argument would prove that circumcision and ceremonies, at a former period, had some share in justifying a sinner. As in Christ Jesus he commends faith accompanied by love, so before the coming of Christ ceremonies were required. But this has nothing to do with obtaining righteousness, as the Papists themselves allow; and neither must it be supposed that love possesses any such influence.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(6) In Jesus Christ.—When the Christian has entered into those close relations with Christ which his Christianity assumes.

Availeth any thing.—As “shall profit” in Gal_5:2; avail in the way of justification.

Faith which worketh by love.—Faith in Christ, the devoted attachment to Christ, is the great motive power, the source or mainspring of action; and the law by which that action is regulated is the law of love. (Comp. Gal_5:13-14 below, and Rom_13:8-10.) Faith makes a man seek to do the will of Christ; love tells him what that will is. It is clear that the faith thus described by St. Paul does not stop short in a mere head notion, and so is in no conflict with the teaching of St. James. (See Jas_2:14-26.)

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

6. Anxious to remove all possibility of a misconstruction of his meaning, St Paul gives a reason for thus connecting the inheritance with faith. The fact of being circumcised or of being uncircumcised in itself is of no avail to a man’s salvation. If he is ‘in Christ Jesus’ he is safe; and he is in Christ by faith—a faith working through love. We have a repetition of this statement in ch. Gal_6:15 with the substitution of ‘a new creature’ for ‘faith working through love’.

Abraham believed before he was circumcised, St Paul was circumcised before he believed. Therefore the being circumcised or uncircumcised in itself availeth nothing.

but faith which worketh by love] better, working by love. Most commentators regard this statement as reconciling the language of St Paul with that of St James concerning justification. But it may be observed that St Paul nowhere teaches that the faith which is without works justifies. He does assert (and St James does not contradict him), that man is justified by faith without works. Neither works, nor love, nor any other Christian graces, cooperate with faith in the justification of the sinner. They are the necessary fruits of a living faith.

The addition of the words, ‘working through love’, is an answer by anticipation to the charges of Antinomianism, so constantly brought against those who maintain the doctrine of justification by faith only.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For in Christ Jesus,.... The Arabic version reads, "in the religion of Christ"; in the religion of Moses, or of the Jews under the former dispensation, the things after mentioned were of some moment and consideration; but are of no account in the Christian religion, and under the Gospel dispensation: circumcision and uncircumcision make no difference in the church of Christ, or are any bar to communion with it; nor do they make any alteration in the love and favour of Christ, who is all in all to his people, whether Jews or Gentiles; nor have they any influence at all on salvation, Christ being a common Saviour to the circumcised and uncircumcised; nor are they any evidence for or against a person's being in Christ, or having an interest in him:

neither circumcision availeth anything; not now as a command and ordinance of God, being abolished by Christ; nor as a type, having its accomplishment in him, and his people; nor as a privilege, giving any preference in any respect to the Jew above the Gentile; nor is it of any weight or consequence, or has any concern in the business of salvation:

nor uncircumcision; it is no hinderance to the enjoyment of the Gospel, to entrance into a Gospel church state, or to admission to the ordinances of it; nor to the participation of the blessings of grace, as justification, pardon, adoption, and eternal life:

but faith which works by love; faith has a concern in justification and salvation, not by way of causal influence, but as it is that grace which receives the righteousness of Christ, through which we are saved, and kept by the power of God unto salvation; yet not any sort of faith, but that which is operative, is attended with good works; and which works itself by love to God, to Christ, to his people, ways, worship, truths, and ordinances. The Syriac version renders it, "which is perfected by love"; that is, is showed to be right, true, and genuine thereby; see Jam 2:22.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

6 For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.

Ver. 6. Neither circumcision] Unregenerate Israel is as Ethiopia, Amo 9:7.

But faith that worketh] Iustificamur tribus modis, Effective a Deo, apprehensive a fide, declarative ab operibus. Faith justifies the man, and works justify faith. To be a mother in Israel, is having Rachel’s eye and Leah’s womb.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For in Jesus Christ - In the religion which Christ came to establish.

Neither circumcision ... - It makes no difference whether a man is circumcised or not. He is not saved because he is circumcised, nor is he condemned because he is not. The design of Christianity is to abolish these rites and ceremonies, and to introduce a way of salvation that shall be applicable to all mankind alike; see the Gal 3:28, note; 1Co 7:19, note; compare Rom 2:29.

But faith which worketh by love - Faith that evinces its existence by love to God, and benevolence to people. It is not a mere intellectual belief, but it is that which reaches the heart, and controls the affections. It is not a dead faith, but it is that which is operative, and which is seen in Christian kindness and affection. It is not mere belief of the truth, or mere orthodoxy, but it is that which produces trite attachment to others. A mere intellectual assent to the truth may leave the heart cold and unaffected; mere orthodoxy, however bold and self-confident, and “sound,” may not be inconsistent with contentions, and strifes, and logomachies, and divisions. The true faith is that which is seen in benevolence, in love to God, in love to all who bear the Christian name; in a readiness to do good to all mankind. This shows that the heart is affected by the faith that is held; and this is the nature and design of all genuine religion. Tyndale renders this, “faith, which by love is mighty in operation.”

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Under the new testament established in Christ, and confirmed by the death of Christ, there is no difference between Jew and Gentile; there is but one way of justification, one of salvation, for them both; and that is, by believing in Christ Jesus; which faith is not an idle, inactive, inoperative faith, but such a

faith as worketh by love, both towards God and towards men, in an obedience to all the commandments of God: yet is not the soul justified, nor shall it stand righteous before God, in and for this obedience, which neither is faith, nor goeth before it, but followeth it, as the true, proper, and necessary effect of it.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

6. For—We as Christians wait this faith-justification for the following reason.

Nor uncircumcision—The freedom from, or avoidance of, circumcision will not justify us, nor the performance of circumcision as a mere bodily act condemn us.

Worketh by love—In Paul’s view the true faith always truly worketh. Good works are the direct and immediate effect of true faith. The work is the test of the trueness of the faith. The faith justifies the man before God, as by it the man comes into that position by which justifying grace can flow from God upon him, (see notes, Rom_4:6; Rom_4:24; Rom_6:1-23; Rom_10:10,) and works, by their evidence, justify him as being a man of true faith.

By love—A faith might work evil through hate; but holy faith works good by love. For when we have true faith, God’s approving Spirit pours love into the heart, predisposing to works of all good.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For in Jesus Christ (ejn gar Cristw jIhsou); .for in Christ Jesus. "For;" to prove that it is from the ground of faith that we look for the final awards due to righteousness, and not from obedience to any ceremonial law. "In Christ Jesus" means more than in Christ"s religion. We had the phrase above, Gal_3:28, "All ye are one man in Christ Jesus." It occurs frequently in St. Paul"s writings; remarkable instances are supplied in Rom_16:17, "who were in Christ before me;" ibid., 11, "which are in the Lord;" 1Co_1:30, "of him i.e. of God) are ye in Christ Jesus." It is, perhaps, best illustrated by our Lord"s own parable of the vine in Joh_15:1-4. The spiritual union with Christ therein portrayed is maintained and operative through the action of the soul habitually cleaving to and depending upon him, and constantly receiving from him responsive gifts of spiritual vitality and power. Neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith which Worketh by love (ou peritomh ti ijscuei oute ajkrobustia ajllastiv dij ajgaphv ejnergoumenh); neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith operative through love. In two other passages the apostle makes a very similar statement. One is below, Gal_6:15, "For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature." The other is 1Co_7:19, which with its context runs thus: "Was any one called being circumcised? let him not become uncircumcised (mhsqw) Hath any been called in uncircumcision? let him not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing; but the keeping of the commandments of God." The comparison of these three passages suggests:

(1) That the "availeth not anything" now before us is tantamount to the "neither is anything" and to the "is nothing" of the other two passages; and that the meaning in each case is that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any effect for good; for since the anti-thetic affirmation in all three cases states what is effectual for good, it is obvious to infer that it was of a beneficial effect only that the apostle was thinking in the foregoing statement.

(2) This leads to the question why "uncircumcision" should be thus repeatedly affirmed, twice to the Galatians, to be of no beneficial effect. More must be meant than a mere completing of the sentence by adding to the mention of "circumcision" the mention of its opposite. It is clear that there were those who imagined that uncircumcision made a favourable difference in men"s religious condition, just as there were others, like these Galatian reactionaries, who imagined that circumcision did. That there were persons to be found in the Church who held the former view is put beyond doubt by the exhortation," Let him not become uncircumcised," which immediately precedes 1Co_7:19, now under review with the passage immediately before us; with reference to which exhortation comp. RAPC 1Ma 1:15; Josephus, "Ant," 12:5. It was in no such ways, the apostle tells them, that the Divine approval was to be either gained or secured; and only mischief would result from entering upon them.

(3) The antithetic affirmation of what really is effectual for our spiritual well-being varies in the three passages; but it is natural to infer that that which in all three is declared to be the thing of vital importance, either is at bottom one and the same thing, or at least necessarily involves it. "Faith operative through love" must be identical with, or involve, "the keeping of the commandments of God," and "a new creature." A close examination of the first of these three sentences will show that it is so. The participle ejnergoumenh cannot be a passive, as Estius maintained; who even asserted a passive sense for the verb ejnergeisqai in all the eight other passages in which it is found. (Rom_7:5; 2Co_1:6 2Co_4:12; Eph_3:20; Col_1:29; 1Th_2:13; 2Th_2:7; Jam_5:16) In perhaps not one of these passages is a passive meaning probable; while in some of them, as Col_1:29; 1Th_2:13, it is palpably inadmissible. In the case before us, if a passive sense were admitted, we should have the expression, "faith wrought in us by love;" an account of the genesis of faith which must be judged to be in the strictest sense of the word preposterous. Faith does indeed grow and become perfected through love; but it is not in the first instance wrought in us by love, except indeed it be God"s love to us. (Eph_2:4) In those passages of the New Testament in which the verb ejnergein occurs in the active voice (Mat_14:2; Mar_6:14; Gal_2:8, twice; 1Co_12:6, 1Co_12:11; Eph_1:11, 20 2:2; Php_2:13) the subject of the verb is a personal agent, or one which, as in Mat_14:2 and Mar_6:4, is probably spoken of as such. It is most commonly followed by an accusative of the thing wrought, which, however, is sometimes left to the reader to supply. The middle voice appears in St. Paul always to have for its subject an impersonal agent (Winer, "Gram. N. T.," 6); and such an agent is said ejnergeisqai in the sense always of "proving, acting out, its vitality and power," and never of simply "doing" such and such things. It is nowhere followed by an accusative. It is thus distinguished from ejrgazomai, which either is followed by an accusative of the work done or is used absolutely of "doing work," as in Rom_4:4, Rom_4:5; stiv 1Co_4:12. The apostle, therefore, by the words, pi di ajgaphv ejnergoumenh means not, "faith through love doing works of beneficence," "but "faith evincing its vitality and power through the love which it begets in us;" "faith by love operative and influential." "Love is not contemplated as a separate acting of the Spirit, added on to faith as it were by an extrinsic effort of the soul, but as a product of faith itself, by which faith exerts its own internal energy. The apostle"s meaning becomes clearer if we consider the object on which the justifying faith of the Christian fastens. This the apostle describes in this Epistle as Christ, "who gave himself for our sins;" "who loved me and gave himself for me". (Gal_1:4 Gal_2:20) When this marvellous exhibition of Divine compassion and love is through faith in very deed caught sight of and realized, it naturally becomes a truth-power, exercising over the man an influence imperative and supreme. This was the apostle"s own experience; so much so that he seems to struggle with language while compelling it to describe the intensity of self-devotion with which it animated him. In this Epistle we may cite the passages Gal_2:20 Gal_6:14. And in other Epistles he writes in a similar strain. Let it suffice to cite 2Co_5:14, 15: "The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died; and he died for all, that they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again;" adding, in ver. 17, "Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; all things are of God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ words which show what he meant by the "new creature" mentioned below, Gal_6:15. Thus the apostle evinces how in his own case faith through love became operative and influential. Christ"s love to himself, on being realized by him, awakened in his soul a sentiment of grateful affection to his Redeemer, which was so strong and influential as thenceforward to sway and regulate the whole of his life. To complete, however, our estimate of the apostle"s view of this matter, we must not forget to take account of the words "by the Spirit" in the preceding verse. The Spirit alone can make even the love of Christ thus influential with our souls, which but for his quickening grace remain, even in sight of the cross, still numbed and cold. The accordance of the notion of "faith through love operative and influential" with that of a "new creature" has been already indicated; and no other principle than this can enable us for the "keeping of the commandments of God;" and this does, and even constrains the soul to keep them. "But," it may be asked, "does the ordinary experience of Christian men and women as we see them bear out this representation? Is faith in their case thus operative and influential?" It would be foolish to say that it is; with the average, even of those Christians who make a religious life their most serious concern, it is not. And the case was no doubt the same with the average of Christian believers in the apostle"s own time. But this we can affirm: in proportion as our faith in Christ"s being our reconciling Redeemer is vivid and real, in that proportion is it energizing and transforming. It is in its own nature essentially love-inspiring and consecrating. It argues a miserable defect in our faith when we have to supplement, as we so often must, its vitalizing power by injunctions and restraints of "the letter" and "the Law;" so far as it is so with us, so far we live as "bondmen" and not as "free." If "the Son makes us free, then are we free indeed;" and this is how he makes us free he imparts to us the gift of love to himself; and that makes obedience tobe no longer a constrained service, but a very instinct of our nature.

The essential principle of Bible Christianity.

After condemning circumcision he qualifies his statement to the extent of making it neither better nor worse than uncircumcision. But then he reduces them both to the one level of religious ineptness. Consider

I THE POWER OF CHRISTIANITY CONSISTS NOT IN DISTINCTIONS LIKE THOSE WHICH SEPARATE JEW AND GENTILE. "In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision." A man is not saved because he is circumcised, nor lost because he is not. Circumcision does not introduce a man into union with Christ, and the mere absence of it does not lead to a deeper fellowship with the Saviour. It is, therefore, a mistake to have the form of godliness without the power.

II THE TRUE POWER OF CHRISTIANITY LIES IN FAITH WORKING BY LOVE.

1. Faith is fundamental in Christian life, at least on man"s side, as regeneration is fundamental on God"s side. This fact is not inconsistent with the fact that Christ himself is the only Foundation, for he is the Foundation absolutely, whether we believe in him or not; but faith is the foundation which we lay when we are enabled through the Divine Spirit to place ourselves on the true Foundation laid in Zion.

2. It is not a mere historical faith, nor a speculative belief in doctrines, which may be allied with a cold and unloving heart; for" it worketh by love." It is not, therefore, a "dead faith.

3. It is justifying faith, for it is the instrument of our justification; and it is perfect in itself so far as it apprehends the righteousness of Christ. The Romish idea, that it is "faith made perfect by love," is founded on a mistranslation, for the verb is not the passive, but the middle, as always in the New Testament, and is opposed to the doctrine of the apostle, which is that faith is not a work and has no merit, and by its very relation to justification protests against the merit of all human works.

4. It is at the same time an operative faith; for "it worketh by love." It is, indeed, a mighty power. "It overcomes the world." Love is the channel in which faith flows forth to bless the world.

(1) It is evident that love does not work of itself; it works in the strength of faith. No man loves a Saviour whom he cannot trust. All who are united to Christ by faith become partakers of his Spirit, one of whose fruits is love (ver. 22); and this love is the principle of all obedience. (Rom_13:10)

(2) Love is faith"s metal, for into the mould of love does faith pour love itself.

(3) Love flourishes exactly as faith flourishes. If, through distress, you begin to doubt the Lord"s goodness and wisdom, there is a fear that the heart will become cold toward him. The faith and the love will increase or diminish together.

(4) Though faith worketh by love, the love reacts upon faith and adds to its power. Love leads to admiration, for it sees Christ"s love, faithfulness, and power; and faith says at once, "I can trust him more than ever." But love likewise forbids unbelief. Was there ever true love in man or woman that it did not forbid distrust? The want of mutual confidence in the marriage relation is the death of love.

(5) Faith and love are the great allied principles of Christian life. A Puritan divine says, "Faith and love are the two arms and the two eyes without which Christ can neither be seen nor embraced." Another says, "Faith and love are the two conduits lain from the Christian soul to the Fountain of living waters, fetching in from thence a daily supply of such grace as will certainly end in a fulness of glory.

(6) The pregnant statement of the apostle condemns alike all hypocrites and legalists, as well as all who are careless or slothful in the Lord"s service.

Faith working through love.

St. Paul has just been writing of the relation of faith to hope (ver. 5). He now shows how it is connected with love. We can only separate the Christian graces in thought. In experience they blend and interact one with another.

I FAITH IS AN ACTIVE POWER. It works. Christ tells us that it can move mountains. Through lack of faith the disciples had not strength to cure a lunatic boy. (Mat_17:19, Mat_17:20) This faith of St. Paul is very different from the "dead" faith which St. James scouted with so much scorn. It is not a cold intellectual conviction of the truth of certain propositions called collectively a creed. Nor is it a mere passive reliance upon the efficacy of the "finished work of Christ," or upon the grace of God which is to do everything for us while we slumber in indifference, or upon Christ himself solely as a Saviour. it is active trust rousing all the energies of our soul to loyal service.

II FAITH SHOWS ITS ENERGY IS LOVE. We do not read of love working through faith as some would prefer to regard the mutual operation of the two graces. We are familiar with the idea of love as a motive, and we can well understand how faith might give it a ground and channel of definite action. But the converse is here. Faith begins to operate in its own energy and discovers a field of enterprise in love.

1. Faith inspires love, as love also in turn inspires faith. We believe in and trust the goodness of Christ, and so we are moved to love him. If we did not believe in his love we should never return it.

2. Faith having once roused love exercises itself in promoting the objects of love. We trust in the unseen God, we also love him; then we try to please him, to enjoy his favour, and to live in his presence objects of love; but objects we should never seek if we were not supported and urged on by our belief in and trust to what is beyond our sight and experience.

III FAITH WORKING THROUGH LOVE IS THE ONE ESSENTIAL CONDITION OF SUCCESS IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. Circumcision is of no use. Uncircumcision and the liberty that boasts of it by themselves are useless. Mere barren liberty is nothing. Freedom is conferred that in it we may have a field and range for noble enterprises. Mere rites, baptism, etc., mere observance of religious services, will not advance us in the spiritual life, neither will resistance to the bondage of such things. The negative side of Protestantism is no gospel if we rest only in that. Spiritual, active life is the great thing. Faith alone would not suffice, because our supreme duties are love of God and love of man, and faith is only valuable as it leads up to these. But love alone would not suffice, for without faith, even if it came into being, it would languish and perish in despair. "Faith working through love this is the motto for the healthy Christian life. He who relinquishes this will turn not only to a lower method, but to a worthless and fatal one. Nothing else will avail, and nothing more is needed for growth up to the attainment of the most perfect saintliness and the most fruitful service. W.F.A.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For in Christ Jesus - According to the institution which he hath established, according to the tenor of the Christian covenant. Neither circumcision - With the most punctual observance of the law. Nor uncircumcision - With the most exact heathen morality. Availeth anything - Toward present justification or eternal salvation. But faith - Alone; even that faith which worketh by love - All inward and outward holiness.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

VERSE 6. For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.

Paul concludes the whole matter with the above statement. "You want to be justified by the Law, by circumcision, and by works. We cannot see it. To be justified by such means would make Christ of no value to us. We would be obliged to perform the whole law. We rather through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness." The Apostle is not satisfied to say "justified by faith." He adds hope to faith.

Holy Writ speaks of hope in two ways: as the object of the emotion, and hope as the emotion itself. In the first chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians we have an instance of its first use: "For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven," i.e., the thing hoped for. In the sense of emotion we quote the passage from the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans: "For we are saved by hope." As Paul uses the term "hope" here in writing to the Galatians, we may take it in either of its two meanings. We may understand Paul to say, "We wait in spirit, through faith, for the righteousness that we hope for, which in due time will be revealed to us." Or we may understand Paul to say: "We wait in Spirit, by faith for righteousness with great hope and desire." True, we are righteous, but our righteousness is not yet revealed; as long as we live here sin stays with us, not to forget the law in our members striving against the law of our mind. When sin rages in our body and we through the Spirit wrestle against it, then we have cause for hope. We are not yet perfectly righteous. Perfect righteousness is still to be attained. Hence we hope for it.

This is sweet comfort for us. And we are to make use of it in comforting the afflicted. We are to say to them: "Brother, you would like to feel God’s favor as you feel your sin. But you are asking too much. Your righteousness rests on something much better than feelings. Wait and hope until it will be revealed to you in the Lord’s own time. Don’t go by your feelings, but go by the doctrine of faith, which pledges Christ to you."

The question occurs to us, What difference is there between faith and hope? We find it difficult to see any difference. Faith and hope are so closely linked that they cannot be separated. Still there is a difference between them.

First, hope and faith differ in regard to their sources. Faith originates in the understanding, while hope rises in the will.

Secondly, they differ in regard to their functions. Faith says what is to be done. Faith teaches, describes, directs. Hope exhorts the mind to be strong and courageous.

Thirdly, they differ in regard to their objectives. Faith concentrates on the truth. Hope looks to the goodness of God.

Fourthly, they differ in sequence. Faith is the beginning of life before tribulation. (Hebrews 11.) Hope comes later and is born of tribulation. (Romans 5.)

Fifthly, they differ in regard to their effects. Faith is a judge. It judges errors. Hope is a soldier. It fights against tribulations, the Cross, despondency, despair, and waits for better things to come in the midst of evil.

Without hope faith cannot endure. On the other hand, hope without faith is blind rashness and arrogance because it lacks knowledge. Before anything else a Christian must have the insight of faith, so that the intellect may know its directions in the day of trouble and the heart may hope for better things. By faith we begin, by hope we continue.

This passage contains excellent doctrine and much comfort. It declares that we are justified not by works, sacrifices, or ceremonies, but by Christ alone. The world may judge certain things to be ever so good; without Christ they are all wrong. Circumcision and the law and good works are carnal. "We," says Paul, "are above such things. We possess Christ by faith and in the midst of our afflictions we hopefully wait for the consummation of our righteousness."

You may say, "The trouble is I don’t feel as if I am righteous." You must not feel, but believe. Unless you believe that you are righteous, you do Christ a great wrong, for He has cleansed you by the washing of regeneration, He died for you so that through Him you may obtain righteousness and everlasting life.

VERSE 6. For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love.

Faith must of course be sincere. It must be a faith that performs good works through love. If faith lacks love it is not true faith. Thus the Apostle bars the way of hypocrites to the kingdom of Christ on all sides. He declares on the one hand, "In Christ Jesus circumcision availeth nothing," i.e., works avail nothing, but faith alone, and that without any merit whatever, avails before God. On the other hand, the Apostle declares that without fruits faith serves no purpose. To think, "If faith justifies without works, let us work nothing," is to despise the grace of God. Idle faith is not justifying faith. In this terse manner Paul presents the whole life of a Christian. Inwardly it consists in faith towards God, outwardly in love towards our fellow-men.

Martin Luther — Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1535), English translation by Theodore Graebner (Zondervan, 1939) — public domain (U.S. copyright not renewed). Text from a community e-Sword module.

In Christ Jesus, that is, in the economy of Christ Jesus, under the gospel dispensation, in our state of Christianity, since Christ’s manifestation in the flesh, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth any thing with God, as to our acceptance with him, or reward from him: but the qualification now necessary to salvation under the gospel, is faith working by love; that is, such an effectual belief of future happiness purchased for us, and promised to us by Christ, as causes us to love and serve him, to trust in and depend upon him for the same.

Learn, 1. That although circumcision, and the rest of the Levitical ceremonies, were once enjoined by God, and practised by the Jews as an acceptable service, and the neglect or contempt of them was a mortal sin; yet since Christ’s coming in the flesh, who was the substance of all those shadows, the command whereby they were enjoined did cease, and neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avail any thing to salvation.

Learn, 2. That though the ceremonial law be abolished, yet a believer under the gospel has work to do, a work of faith, and labour of love; for though faith alone justifieth us before God, yet it is not alone in the heart when it doth justify, but is always accompanied with the grace of love to God and our neighbour; For in Christ Jesus no faith availeth any thing, but that which worketh by love.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith working through love. [It makes no difference in God's sight what a man has been, whether a circumcised Jew, or an uncircumcised, Gentile. There is, in his sight, no merit in either condition. That which he values is a faith in his Son, Christ Jesus, which manifests itself in loving service to him.]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

6. For in Christ Jesus, etc. It made no difference in the sight of God whether a Christian was a circumcised Jew or an uncircumcised Gentile. Both stood on the same footing. It did make a great difference, though, if the Gentile Christian became circumcised in order to keep the law (verse 2). It is true Paul circumcised Timothy, but it was not to keep the law. See notes on 2:3. But faith availeth—the faith in Christ; the faith which uses love as its medium and method of working. There is first faith in Christ; then the love of Christ.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

6. ἐν γὰρ. Explaining St Paul’s reliance on πνεύματι and especially ἐκ πίστεως.

Χριστῷ [Ἰησοῦ]. Ἰησοῦ is omitted by B only. So Gal 2:4; Gal 3:26; Gal 3:28, cf. Gal 3:14. St Paul adds the dear personal name which recalls His life, death, and whole work of salvation. In Christ Jesus. Out of Christ they might avail something, but to a man who is in Christ they effect nothing. For the continuance and attainment of final righteousness the exercise of faith is necessary. Observe that St Paul is not speaking of how to become “in Christ,” but how to live when in Him. Thus the passage has no relation to the Roman Catholic doctrine of fides formata as necessary for justification in the forensic sense.

οὔτε κ.τ.λ., Gal 6:15. Similarly it is not the colour of the soldier that makes the difference, but his skill in fighting (Theodoret after Chrysostom).

περιτομή … ἀκροβυστία. i.e. as such, Gal 6:15 note. On the contrary, either may be of grievous hindrance if entered upon with a view to salvation thereby.

τι ἰσχύει. Cf. Jas 5:16; Mat 5:13. If a man is in Christ the only thing that avails for Christian activity etc. is faith made operative by love. Moulton and Milligan understand it to mean “is valid,” as in Heb 9:17, comparing a passage in a papyrus of the 2nd cent. A.D. (Expositor, VII. 7, May 1909, p. 475).

ἀλλὰ πίστις διʼ ἀγάπης. Love, in its widest sense. St Paul is approaching the moral teaching of Gal 5:13 sqq. (Beet). Observe “Cum. fide conjunxit spem Gal 5:5, nunc amorem. In his stat novus Christianus” (Bengel). Chrysostom, perhaps rightly, sees here a hint to the Galatians that if their love to Christ had been right they would not have deserted Him for bondage.

ἐνεργουμένη, “being made operative.” Passive, and probably suggesting Divine action brought to bear upon faith (Col 1:29 notes). Thus in the true Christian life faith is wrought upon by God, who, using the means of our love to Himself and men, brings out our faith to its true productiveness.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

6. ἐν γὰρ Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ οὔτε περιτομή τι ἰσχύει οὔτε ἀκροβυστία, ἀλλὰ πίστις δι· ἀγάπης ἐνεργουμένη. “For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith working through love.” For the disclosure of the apostle’s fundamental idea of the nature of religion, there is no more important sentence in the whole epistle, if, indeed, in any of Paul’s epistles. Each term and construction of the sentence is significant. ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ (the bracketing of Ἰησοῦ by WH., because of its omission by B. Clem., seems scarcely justified) limits ἰσχύει. It is not precisely equivalent to τοῖς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ, but means, rather, “on that basis which is created by Christ Jesus”; nearly equal, therefore, in modern phrase, to “in Christianity,” “on the Christian basis.” With ἰσχύει (from Æschylus down, “to have strength,” “to be able,” “to avail”) is to be supplied, not δικαιοῦν (“is able to justify”; cf. Act 6:10), which would be to limit the thought more narrowly than the context would warrant, but εἰς δικαιοσύνην, as suggested by the preceding sentence, and in the inclusive sense of the term as there used. By the omission of the article with περιτομή and all the following nominatives, these nouns are given a qualitative force, with emphasis upon the quality and character of the acts. This might be expressed, though also exaggerated, by some such expression as, “by their very nature circumcision,” etc. The phrase διʼ ἀγάπης ἐνεργουμένη furnishes a most significant addition to the word πίστις, which has filled so large a place in the epistle thus far. For not only has he not previously in this epistle used the word ἀγάπη, but, though often using each alone in other epistles (for πίστις, see Rom 1:17, Rom 3:22, etc.; and for ἀγάπη, see esp. 1 Cor., chap. 13) he has nowhere else in any of his letters brought the two words into immediate connection. The relation between the two terms, which is here expressed but not perfectly defined by ἐνεργουμένη διά, “operative, effective through,” “coming to effective expression in,” is made clearer by a consideration of the nature of the two respectively, as Paul has indicated that nature elsewhere. Faith is for Paul, in its distinctively Christian expression, a committal of one’s self to Christ, issuing in a vital fellowship with him, by which Christ becomes the controlling force in the moral life of the believer. See esp. 2:20 and cf. detached note on Πίστις and Πιστεύω, V B. 2. (e), p. 482. But the principle of Christ’s life is love (see 2:20, τοῦ ἀγαπήσαντος, etc.; Rom 5:5-8, Rom 8:35-39). Faith in Christ, therefore, generates love, and through it becomes effective in conduct. See also v. 22, where first among the elements which life by the Spirit (which, as v. 5 indicates, is the life of faith) produces is love; and on the moral effect and expression of love, see especially 1 Cor., chap. 13. On the meaning of ἀγάπη, see on v. 14. That the apostle added the words διʼ ἀγάπης ἐνεργουμένη instead of writing πίστις or ἡ πίστις alone is probably due to his having in mind, even here, that phase of the matter which he discusses more fully in vv. 13 ff.; cf. Rom 3:1-4, and 3:30 for similar brief anticipations of matters to be more fully discussed later. Anticipating the objection that freedom from law leaves the life without moral dynamic, he answers in a brief phrase that faith begets love and through it becomes operative in conduct.

The whole sentence affirming the valuelessness alike of circumcision and of uncircumcision for the Christian life, and ascribing value to faith and love, shows how fully Paul had ethicised and spiritualised his conception of religion. That he says not simply περιτομὴ οὐδὲν ἰσχύει, but οὔτε περιτομὴ … οὔτε ἀκροβυστία naturally implies not only that he is opposed to the imposition of circumcision upon the Gentiles, but that he repudiates every conception of religion which makes physical conditions of any kind essential to it. The sentence, therefore, in no way contradicts vv. 2, 3, since the latter declare to the Galatians that if they accept a physical rite as religiously essential, they thereby repudiate the principle of the religion of Christ. He could have said the same thing about uncircumcision had he been addressing men who were in danger of adopting this as essential to religion. Indeed, this he does say in 1Co 7:18, 1Co 7:19: περιτετμημένος τις ἐκλήθη; μὴ ἐπισπάσθω. The doctrine of that passage as a whole is identical with the teaching in this letter. For though in v. 19 τήρησις ἐντολῶν θεοῦ, “a keeping of divine commandments,” fills the place occupied here by πίστις διʼ ἀγάπης ἐνεργουμένη, v. 14 here shows that these two expressions are at bottom not antithetical but in effect equivalent.

Ἰσχύω, from Æschylus down, in the sense “to have strength,” “to be able,” “to avail” is rare in Paul, but not infrequent in other N. T. writers. It is used as here in the third of the above-named senses in Heb 9:17, and with similar meaning in Mat 5:13. Note the construction there.

Ἐνεργουμένη is to be taken, in accordance with the regular usage of ἐνεργεῖσθαι in Paul, as middle, not passive, and as meaning “operative,” “effective”: Rom 7:5, 2Co 1:6, 2Co 4:12, Eph 3:20, Col 1:29, 1Th 2:13, 2Th 2:7, Jas 5:16; see also Polyb. 1. 13:5; Jos. Ant. 15. 145 (5:3). The active, on the other hand, is used of persons: 1Co 12:6, 1Co 12:11, Gal 2:8, Gal 3:5, Eph 1:11, Eph 1:20, Eph 1:2:2. That the preposition διά denotes not antecedent cause but mediate agency, the object of the preposition being that through which the πίστις becomes effective, is made practically certain not on grammatical grounds, but because of the nature of the two attitudes expressed by πίστις and ἀγάπη as conceived of by the apostle. See above in the larger print. See note on διά under 1:1 and cf. 2Co 1:6, where a similar relation is expressed by ἐν. Since πίστις is without the article, the participle, though anarthrous, may be attributive, “which works”; but 2:20 suggests that to express this thought Paul would have written πίστις ἡ ἐνεργουμένη, and makes it likely that ἐνεργουμένη is adverbial, expressing means or cause.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

In Christ Jesus. In the economy of life which he inaugurates and inspires.

Availeth [ισχυει] . Has any significance or practical power. The verb in Paul only here and Phi 4:13. See on 2Th 1:9. Which worketh [ενεργουμενη] . See on 1Th 2:13. Middle voice, comp. Rom 7:5; 2Co 1:6; 2Co 4:12; 2Th 2:7; Eph 3:20. Not passive, as by many Roman Catholic expositors, faith which is wrought by love.

By love [δι αγαπης] . Not that justification is through love; but the faith of the justified, which is their subjective principle of life, exhibits its living energy through love in which the whole law is fulfilled (verse 14). See 1Ti 1:5; 1Th 1:3; 1 Corinthians 13.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.