Galatians 6:17

Gal_6:17

From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.

Freedom from human criticism

A man who is growing old claims for himself in these words the freedom and responsibility of his own life. He asks that he may work out his own career uninterfered with by the criticism of his brethren. He bids them stand aside and leave him to the Master whom he serves, and by whom he must be judged. How natural that demand is I How we all long at times to make it! How every man, even if he dare not claim it now, looks forward to some time when it must be made. He knows the time will come when, educated perhaps for that moment by what his brethrens criticism has done for him, he will be ready, and it will be his duty to turn aside and leave that criticism unlistened to and say: From henceforth let no man trouble me. Now I must live my own life. I understand it best. You must stand aside and let me go the way where God is leading me. When a man is heard saying that, his fellow-men look at him and they can see how he is saying it. They know the difference between a wilful and selfish independence, and a sober, earnest sense of responsibility. They can tell when the man really has a right to claim his life; and if he has, they will give it to him. They will stand aside and not dare to interfere while he works it out with God. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)

The cry of absolute self-devotion

Magnificent outburst of a heart filled to the overflow with the spirit of impassioned consecration. The man who utters it has made up his mind so firmly that he is conscious there is not the faintest possible chance of his ever changing his determination. He has come to so certain and final a conclusion that he tells those around: You may as well save yourselves the trouble of ever arguing with me or seeking to alter me. I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. And these marks are only so many seals upon a resolution deliberately taken, and so awfully intense in its nature, that you may as well argue with a rock, and expect to move it by force of your logic, as anticipate effecting the slightest alteration in my determined purpose. It is the language of a wholly consecrated man. He has now given himself up to his Master without reserve. All in Paul belongs to Christ. There is not an atom of his manhood now which he feels he can claim as his own. It is lost time, lost trouble, and lost energy, for any to attempt to change his decision, or make him swerve to the right hand or to the left. Let no man trouble me. I am given, up to Christ, and I bear His brand upon me. The word he uses is stigmata. I bear the stigmata of the Lord Jesus. This was the brand the slave used to wear, to show he was the property of his master. If you look at the context, you will see how magnificent a climax this verse forms. Throughout the Epistle St. Paul had been arguing with a Church that had yielded him but little joy. He seems now virtually to say, I have taught you the gospel, I have preached Christ to you. Yea, I have so preached Him that He has been evidently set forth crucified before your eyes. I have denounced the folly of circumcision in the flesh. I have used every possible means to lead you wholly, solely, to Christ. Now you must take your own way. I cannot do more. I cannot say more. But be it known unto you, O Galatians, whichever way you may go, I cannot follow you if you go adrift from the gospel; for God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The text is the language of a man who has not only hoisted his colours, but also deliberately nailed them to the mast. He has driven the nails right through. Pulled down those colours never can be. Displayed on any other masthead, never. Christ is my Master, and Christ alone. For Him I live; for Him, if necessary, I will die. Let none attempt to make me swerve. I am past hope of change. (A. G. Brown.)

The marks of the Lord Jesus.

Explanation of the figure

It was the custom, in those days of darkness and cruelty, to prick or brand upon the body of a slave some distinctive letter or other mark of ownership, by which he might be deterred from attempting flight, or quickly traced and reclaimed in the event of his escape. More especially was this brand used in eases of theft or crime; as a mark of disgrace, a perpetual badge of degradation and contempt. In either case it stamped a poor, fallen, outcast creature as what he was; a slave at least--a man who through the misfortune of his birth or his country had never possessed, or had forfeited, the right of free will and free agency; perhaps one who through his own fault had sunk lower still, and had added to the involuntary misery of servitude the culpable appendage of crime and ignominy. To bear in his body the marks of any one, was to carry about with him everywhere one or both of the two reproaches. This man is a slave, and, This man is a convict. And was St. Paul then not ashamed to apply to himself such a figure? Was St. Paul some poor degraded being, who cared not whether he was a slave or a freeman, an innocent man or a criminal? We must draw a distinction here. The essence of slavery is to have no free will; to be the possession, the property, of another; to enjoy nothing, to have nothing, to do nothing, and to be nothing, save at the beck, command, will, of another. A dreadful state, if that other be a man like myself. But suppose my master be my Creator, Redeemer, Lord, and God. Suppose me His by a right antecedent to my being, a right only to be set aside by my self-abandonment and self-ruin. Will it then be any disgrace to bear His mark in my body, or to be incapable of severing myself from His all-watchful and all-beneficent ownership? St. Paul thought not. (Dean Vaughan.)

I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.--The stigmata

He was growing an old man. Anybody who looked at him saw his body covered with the signs of pain and care. The haggard, wrinkled face, the bent figure, the trembling hands; the scars which he had worn since the day when they beat him at Philippi, since the day when they stoned him at Lystra, since the day when he was shipwrecked at Melita; all these had robbed him for ever of the fresh, bright beauty which he had had once when he sat, a boy, at the feet of old Gamaliel. He was stamped and marked by life. The wounds of his conflicts, the furrows of his years, were on him. And all these wounds and furrows had come to him since the great change of his life. They were closely bound up with the service of his Master, to whom he had given himself at Damascus. Every scar must have still quivered with the earnestness of the words of Christian loyalty which brought the blow that made it. See what he calls these scars, then. The marks of the Lord Jesus. He had a figure in his mind. He was thinking of the way in which a master branded his slaves. Burnt into their very flesh they carried the initial of their masters name, or some other sign that they belonged to him, that they were not their own. That mark on the slaves body forbade any other but his own master to touch him or compel his labour. It was the sign at once of his servitude to one master, and of his freedom from all others. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)

The marks of the Lord Jesus

I. The text is an expression of that rest in love which those alone can have whose life is hid with Christ in God. The immediate motive of its utterance here is a certain sense of powerlessness in swaying the minds of others. What is argument to him? What is the judgment of man? What is any outward evidence? Has he not within the surest of all proof, the experience of the highest faith? From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ.

II. What are the marks here signified? Whatever they are, no doubt they are proofs that he is Christs, and Christ is his. But what are they? Elsewhere, he speaks of his labours and sufferings in the cause of Christ; and that too on an occasion like the present, when some were disparaging him, and making invidious comparisons between himself and the earlier apostles. He is obliged to say in his own cause, I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles. Then he speaks of his severe sufferings as signs of his apostleship. Are these uppermost in his mind now? I think not. Again, he speaks to the Corinthians of the vision vouch-safed to him--How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. And he concludes, In nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing. Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds. Is it to the same that he is referring now? Or, once more, does he allude to the many converts whom he had made, signs, if there be any, that Christ is with him? Well might his heart rest in thoughts like this, as when he wrote to the Church at Corinth--Though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel; And the seal of my apostleship are ye in the Lord. Or when he calls the Philippians my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown. Is this the mark of the Lord Jesus which he looks at, and takes comfort at the sight? No. I think not. It is something closer to him than this. Sufferings may find a man and leave a man separate from Christ: Though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it is nothing. Of visions he says, It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory; and lest he should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given unto him a thorn in the flesh. Of miracles and mighty works, One greater than Paul said--Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven. And as to making converts, here is his own solemn caution, Lest when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. What are these marks? They are the stigmata, the marks (as the Greeks would say, whose word it was), burnt into a slave, the brand set on a runaway slave: a sign graven upon the very body, as inseparable as a birth-mark; one that has indeed been imposed in after years, and by another hand, but now become part and parcel of the man himself, as his own flesh and bone. They are the stigmata, the marks (as Christians would say, in memory of Him who bore them on Himself), of Christ their Master: His marks on their body, as signs that they are members of His Body, in all purity and chastity and holiness, as being temples of the Holy Ghost; His marks on their temper, as those who have taken up their cross and borne it after Him in self-denial and mortification, in patience, in forgiveness, in humility, in cheerfulness; His marks on their soul, as being set free from condemnation by the atoning mercy of the Saviour, as being made partakers of the precious fruits of His sacrifice upon the cross--the mark of justification, and the mark of sanctification--the imputed righteousness of Christ, the imparted and inherent righteousness wrought in them by the Holy Ghost: His marks on their spirit, being full of all spiritual affections--love, joy, peace, patience, amid the trials of earth, longing for the security of heaven, the present enjoyment of an almost perfect rest in the arms of God; in short, a life hid with Christ in God.

III. In the next place observe, that this is not an unusual thought with St. Paul, and will not admit of being explained away as a momentary instance of highly-wrought enthusiasm. It was his life! Did it seem to any a mischievous intrusion of imagination into holy things, to speak of love imagining the Saviours wounds to be traced in the Christians heart? Then how do you read St. Pauls words to the Colossians--I, Paul, who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh; or these to the Philippians--That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death; and again to the Galatians--I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ that liveth in me? These are the marks branded by the fire of Gods love upon his heart. What marks have I of the Lord Jesus? and again, Without these marks will Christ know me for His own? They are brands burnt into the very body, so no outward thing will satisfy; nothing that your hands have done, nothing that the world can measure, for it is beneath all the dress and apparel of a so-called religious life, of which the world takes cognizance. They are part and parcel of yourself, so they can be nothing which can be taken up and laid down at will. Think how great is the risk of self-deceit; because that mark is not genuine unless it be found in the very inmost circle of your life. (G. W. Furse, M. A.)

A branded body

What a testimony does the outward man give to the inner life--the body becomes the tell-tale of the soul! We bear in our body the brand of the master whom we serve. The horny hand of the labourer tells that he is the slave of unceasing, unpitying toil. The dinted brow of the merchant declares what master it is that sits over him in the counting-house as he pores over his ledger, and anxiously balances his gains and losses. The thoughtful features of the student reveal his servitude to a higher master--the love of knowledge and truth. The sailors weather-beaten brow, the soldiers scars or dismembered frame, tell of a more arduous service; and a grateful country can confer on them no decoration more honourable than those which they have already themselves acquired. On many a once robust and comely frame sickness and pain, or grief or anxiety, have wrought their work, have set their seal, too deeply as we are apt to think. In others the wrinkled countenance, the trembling hands, the whitening hair, the dim eye, the dull ear, are signs of the submission that we must all make to the universal law of God, the law of Nature--not to be repined at, not to be evaded, however heavily it may weigh upon us. But there are disfigurements of the poor body which betoken no such honourable or natural servitude. There are marks to be seen deeply stamped on cheek and lip and eye, signs of sottishness and sensuality, signs that the body, which was formed to be a temple of the Holy Spirit, is given over to be the slave of selfish indulgence, of appetites and passions that are meant to serve, not to rule. If the life has been given to Gods service, and the soul has been filled with the love of Christ, our will subjected to His will, our spirit pervaded by His Spirit, intent on the fulfilment of His gracious purposes towards ourselves and all mankind, there will scarcely fail to be some outward signs, in the meek and chastened deportment, in the melting voice and kindling eye--the doors and windows of the soul--through which even the careless observer may become aware of the purity of the spirit that dwells within, of the Master who rules it, and who in return for the service which He asks gives peace and joy, and the sense of perfect freedom. And we may be sure, however they may be overlooked or looked down upon by us, these ornaments of the outer man are in the sight of God of great price. They are in part a fulfilment of the command which the apostle gives us, that we should endeavour to glorify God in our body as well as our spirit, for both are Gods, created by Him for His glory, owned by Him now in their low estate, to be hereafter blessed and purified by Him, so as to partake of His glory. And they whose spirits are now increasing in grace and holiness, which shine through their earthly tabernacle, they make the poor body, be it ever so much a wreck from age, from sickness, or from pain--they make it more beautiful before God than the most perfect youthful form, marred as yet by no suffering, chastened by no trials, not convinced of sin, of righteousness, or of the judgment to come. (Prebendary Humphrey.)

Marks of the Lord Jesus

I. The word-picture here presented.

1. The figure, slave brands.

2. The facts (1Co_4:9; 1Co_4:15; 2Co_11:23; 2Co_11:30).

3. The challenge.

II. The suggestion the picture makes.

1. He who follows the Lord Jesus must expect that some will try to trouble him.

2. He whose marks are most conspicuous will be troubled the least.

3. He who has marks may take comfort in knowing how much his Master paid for him.

4. He who is owned may remember that his Master owns and recognizes the marks also.

5. He that has no marks is either a better or a poorer Christian than St. Paul.

6. Satan outwits himself when he gives a believer more marks.

7. A sure day is coming when the marks will be honourable. (American Homiletic Review.)

Signs of struggle in life

Here is a man whose body shows the signs of toil and care. I will not read the long, familiar catalogue. The whitened hair, the cautious step, the dulness in the eye, the forehead seamed with thought; you know them all, you watch their coming in your friend, you feel their coming in yourself. What do they mean? In the first and largest way they mean life. The difference between this man and the baby, in whose soft flesh there are no branded marks like these, is that this man has lived. But then they mean also all that life has meant; and life, below its special circumstances, always means the mastery in obedience to which all the actions have been done and all the character has taken shape. For instance, here among the white careworn features there are certain lines which tell, beyond all misunderstanding, that this man has struggled and has had to yield. Somewhere or other, sometime or other, he has tried to do something which he very much wanted to do, and failed. As clear as the scratches on the rock which make us sure that the glacier has ground its way along its face, so clearly this man lets us know that he has been pressed and crushed and broken by a weight which was too strong for him. What was that weight? If it were only disappointment, then these marks are the marks of simple failure. If the weight were laid on him as punishment, then these marks are marks of sin. If it were a weight of culture, then the marks are marks of education. If the weight was the personal hand of the Lord Jesus Christ teaching the man that his own will must be surrendered to the will of a Lord to whom he belonged; if the Lord Jesus Christ has been drawing him away from every other obedience to His obedience; then these marks which he bears in his body are the marks of the Lord Jesus. It is as if a master, seeking for his sheep, found him all snarled and tangled in a thicket, clinging to and clung to by the thorns and cruel branches. He unsnarls him with all tenderness, but the poor captive cannot escape without wounds. He even clings himself to the thorns that hold him, and so is wounded all the more. When the rescue is complete and the master stands with his sheep in safety, he looks down on him and says, I need not brand you more. These wounds which have come in your rescue will be for ever signs that you belong to me. No other sheep will carry scars just like them, for every sheeps wanderings, and so every sheeps wounds, are different from every others. Their pain will pass away, but the tokens of the trials through which I brought you to my service will remain. They shall declare that you are mine. You shall bear in your body my marks for ever. (Phillips Brooks, D. D.)

Marks of ownership

These brands were used--

1. In the case of domestic slaves. With these, however, branding was not usual, at least among the Greeks and Romans, except to mark such as had attempted to escape, or had otherwise misconducted themselves, and such brands were held a badge of disgrace.

2. Slaves attached to some temple, or persons devoted to the service of some deity were so branded.

3. Captives were so treated in very rare eases.

4. Soldiers sometimes branded the name of their commander on some part of their body. The metaphor here is most appropriate, if referred to the second of these classes. Such a practice at all events cannot have been unknown in a country which was the home of the worship of Cybele. (Bishop Lightfoot.)

The language of a true-hearted veteran

Although the first and the chief meaning of stigmata is the brand the slave bore to show that he was the property of another, yet the word also meant any scar, and I am inclined to think that the apostle had this also in his mind when he said, Dont you trouble me. I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus. There were the weals--the red lines-through the scourgings. There were the bruises through the stonings. I think Paul says to all, It is no use your trying to turn me back. You are not talking to any young recruit. I have fought in the battle. I have been wounded in the conflict. I have tried and tested my Captain in actual war. Look at the scars I have on me. And methinks his eyes would flash as he would say, Yes, I have scars already, and I am willing to have a great many more. Why, look at what I have suffered for Him. Do you think I am going to give Him up now? Look at what I have endured for Him. Do you think that, after bearing all the scourgings and buffetings and loneliness that I have, I am likely to be turned on one side now? He was proud of his scars. Do you see what a beautiful expression it is--the marks of the Lord Jesus? We may say, Paul, it is a most disgraceful thing to be whipped. Why, you have on your back the brand of infamy. He only smiles and says, No, I have on my back the marks of the Lord Jesus. Why, Paul, look at your wrist; there is a deep, blue line round it where the manacle has been. You have the mark of the fetter on you. Says the apostle: You mistake it; I have the mark of the Lord Jesus. He looked upon these scars as so many badges of honour. Go, walk through Greenwich Hospital tomorrow, or go down to Chelsea and talk to some of the old pensioners. Are they ashamed of their scars? Why, I remember how a few months back we had, at one of our meetings, a brother who had served in the Crimean war, and he showed me how a bayonet had gone in here and come out there; how there was a mark in his arm where a ball had gone right through, and a scar in his face where the sword had cut. I think he told me that he had about twenty scars on him, and his eyes flashed fire as he told the story. And have not you, brethren, some marks of the Lord Jesus of this sort? Have not you been wounded in conflicts willingly endured for the Masters sake? Have not you known what it is to be jeered at for Christs sake? Have you not had to stand a rattling artillery of scoffs in your workshop? Have not some of you deep scars now through being cruelly misrepresented, and you knew it was for Christs sake? I will say to you as Paul said to the Church at Galatia, Have you suffered so many things in vain, if it be yet in vain? Oh, by the scars of the past, I pray you be heroes in the present. I demand of you a complete consecration. Will you yield to the demand which He here makes by me? If some of us have had to say, Lord, I am afraid that the mark is not as clear as it used to be, then I will tell you what we had better do. We had better go and kneel down at His feet, and say, Lord Jesus, brand us anew. Put Thy mark on us again. Thine we are, and on Thy side. Brand us. Put the iron upon us, though it burn us. Oh, do not listen to our cries, but put a deep indelible mark, so that in business life, in home life, in church life, men and women shall say, Lo, there are men who carry the stigmata of their Lord upon them. May God fill us with this holy impassioned earnestness--this sense of having taken an irretrievable step, which shall lead us to say to all about us, From henceforth let no man trouble me. From henceforth clear the road, for I bear in my body the brand of the Lord Jesus. The Lord put His brand on us afresh for His names sake. Amen. (A. G. Brown.)

Marks of servitude

A slave once carried a message written in punctures on the skin of his head, which had been previously shaved bare to receive the writing. When his hair was grown so as to hide the letter, he went unsuspected; and the person to whom the message was sent, having shaved the letter-carriers head, read the message. The slave in old times often carried in his body (as the poor slave does still where slavery is rampant) the marks of his master, just as the sailor in our own time loves to have printed on his arm the initials of his own name and ship, the figure of his crucified Redeemer, or the anchor and cable. St. Paul carried in his body the marks of the master to whom he belonged. The weals made by the Roman lictors rods, with which he was thrice beaten; the red lines of those two hundred stripes which had been laid on him in the Jewish synagogues; the scars left by the stones which had bruised and beaten him down, so that he was left for dead,--these marks of the Lord Jesus he carried with him, the proofs as to whose he was and whom he served.

Legend of St. Francis

The biographer of St. Francis of Assisi says, that after having fasted for forty days in his solitary cell, and passed the time in a fervour of prayer and ecstatic contemplation, transported almost to heaven by the ardour of his desires--then he beheld, as it were, a seraph with six shining wings, bearing down upon him from above, and between his wings was the form of a man crucified. By this he understood to be figured a heavenly and immortal intelligence, subject to death and humiliation. And it was manifested to him that he was to be transformed into a resemblance to Christ, not by the martyrdom of the flesh, but by the might and fire of Divine love. When the vision had disappeared, and he had recovered a little from its effects, it was seen that in his hands, feet, and side, he carried the wounds of the Saviour.

Service the road to honour

When the Spartan king advanced against the enemy, he had always with him some one that had been crowned in the public games of Greece. And they tell us that a Lacedaemonian, when large sums were offered him on condition that he would not enter the Olympic lists, refused them. Having with much difficulty thrown his antagonists in wrestling, one put this question to him, Spartan, what will you get by this victory? He answered with a smile, I shall have the honour to fight foremost in the ranks of my prince. The honour which appertains to office in the Church of God lies mainly in this--that the man who is set apart for such service has the privilege of being first in holiness of example, abundance of liberality, patience of long-suffering, zeal in effort, and self-sacrifice in service. ( C. H. Spurgeon.)

The marks of the Lord Jesus

I. The marks--slave brands.

1. The body of the Christian is itself a badge of servitude to Christ.

2. Baptism is another.

3. So is bodily persecution and mental.

II. The inference to be drawn.

1. No man can legitimately doubt our Christianity and therefore need not be told about it.

2. We need not trouble ourselves, we ever bear the incontestible evidences of being Christs.

In conclusion:

1. Let no man infer that singularity makes a Christian.

2. The reward of bearing the marks.

(1) Hope.

(2) Happiness. (Dean Vaughan.)

Every believing Christian hath these

1. The crown of thorns pierces his head when his sinful conceits are mortified.

2. His lips are drenched with vinegar and gall, when sharp and severe restraints are given to his tongue.

3. His hands and feet are nailed when he is, by the power of Gods Spirit, disabled to the wonted courses of sin.

4. His body is stripped when all colour and pretences are taken away from him.

5. His heart is pierced when the life-blood of his formerly reigning corruptions is let out. (Bishop Hall.)

The broad-arrow of service

When North America was merely an English colony the very timber of the country was sorted out, and wherever a valiant pine or noble oak, fit for the masts or for the ribs of ships was found, the arrow--the Broad Arrow as it was called--was stamped upon it. The tree was in no respect different, dendrologically speaking, after the arrow was put on from what it was before; but when people saw the Broad Arrow on the tree they said, That is the kings; or, It does not belong to us: it belongs to the king; and it had attached to it a sense of royalty, a sense of appropriation; and it took to itself something of the dignity which belongs to real royalty. Now it is not an arrow; it is a cross that is stamped on us--the sign and symbol of the purchase of suffering, by which we are Christs and manifest it to the world. (H. W. Beecher.)

The glory of the marks of the Lord Jesus

As it is a glory to a soldier to have received many wounds and to have many scars in his princes quarrel, and for the defence of his country; so it is a glory for the Christian soldier to have the marks of the Lord Jesus in his body, as of wounds, scourges, and imprisonments for the truth. But if these be the glory of Christs servants, what shall we say of those who not only have their consciences seared as with a hot iron, but have the marks of Bacchus and Venus in their bodies. (R. Cudworth.)

Entire consecration best

The well-defined spiritual life is not only the highest life, but it is also the most easily lived. The whole cross is more easily carried than the half. It is the man who tries to make the best of both worlds who makes nothing of either. And he who seeks to serve two masters misses the benediction of both. But he who takes his stand, who has drawn a boundary line, sharp and deep, about his religious life, who has marked off all beyond as for ever forbidden ground to him, finds the yoke easy and the burden light. So even here to die is gain. (H. Drummond, M. A.)

Honourable marks

John Clark, of Meldon, in France, being for Christs sake whipped three several days, and afterwards having a mark set in his forehead, as a note of infamy, his mother beholding it, encouraged her son, crying with a loud voice, Vivet Christus ajusque insignia, Blessed be Christ, and welcome be these prints and marks of Christ. I conclude this discourse with that saying of Pericles, It is not gold, precious stones, statues, that adorn a soldier, but a torn buckler, a cracked helmet, a blunt sword, a scarred face. Sceva is renowned for this, that at the siege of Dyrrachium he so long alone resisted Pompeys army that he had two hundred and twenty darts sticking in his shield, and lost one of his eyes, and yet gave not over till Caesar came to his rescue. (Trapp.)

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

Gal 6:17-18. Henceforth let no man trouble me — By calling my commission, my doctrine, or my faithfulness in question; or with contentions against my office, quarrels and disputes on account of my renouncing circumcision and the ceremonies of the Mosaic law; for I bear (and affliction ought not to be added to the afflicted!) in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus — That is, of my being his persecuted servant; marks of far more importance, and which I think much more honourable, than circumcision; even the scars which I have received by stripes, blows, bruises, and chains, endured in his service, which ought to endear me to all who have a due regard to him. Because the word στιγματα denotes marks made by burning, some suppose that the apostle had in his eye those servants in the heathen temples on whose foreheads the name of the god to whom they belonged was in that way imprinted, and under the immediate protection of which god such servants were supposed to be. Hence the worshippers of the beast (Rev 13:16) are represented as having a mark on their right hands, or on their foreheads, whereby they were known to be its worshippers. In like manner the servants of God are said to have his name on their foreheads, Rev 22:4. In allusion to these customs, it is thought that the apostle calls the scars of the wounds which he received in Christ’s service, the marks of the Lord Jesus. For besides his having been stoned and left for dead in the streets of Lystra, as he was five times scourged by the Jews, and thrice beaten with rods by the Romans, (2Co 11:24-25,) it is probable he had suffered some of these punishments before this epistle was written, and that they had left scars in his body, by which he was distinguished as the servant of the Lord Jesus. Brethren, the grace — The unmerited favour, and the enlightening, quickening, sanctifying, and comforting influences of his Spirit; be with your spirit — To guide, animate, renew, purify, and comfort you in the ways of truth and peace, of wisdom, piety, and virtue. Thus, although the apostle’s rebukes in the former part of this epistle were sharp and cutting, and although he seems to have treated the Galatians with some severity; yet having expressed his persuasion, that after reading what he had written they would not think differently from him in the principal articles of the Christian doctrine, (chap. Gal 5:10,) he here shows his love

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Galatians

THE OWNER’S BRAND

Gal 6:17.

The reference in these words is probably to the cruel custom of branding slaves as we do cattle, with initials or signs, to show their ownership. It is true that in old times criminals, and certain classes of Temple servants, and sometimes soldiers, were also so marked, but it is most in accordance with the Apostle’s way of thinking that he here has reference to the first class, and would represent himself as the _slave_ of Jesus Christ, designated as His by the scars and weaknesses which were the consequences of his apostolic zeal. Imprisonment, beating by the Jewish rod, shipwrecks, fastings, weariness, perils, persecutions, all these he sums up in another place as being the tokens by which he was approved as an apostle of Jesus Christ. And here he, no doubt, has the same thought in his mind, that his bodily weakness, which was the direct issue of his apostolic work, showed that he was Christ’s. The painful infirmity under which, as we learn, he was more especially suffering, about the time of writing this letter, may also have been in his mind.

All through this Epistle he has been thundering and lightning against the disputers of this apostolic authority. And now at last he softens, and as it were, bares his thin arm, his scarred bosom, and bids these contumacious Galatians look upon them, and learn that he has a right to speak as the representative and messenger of the Lord Jesus.

So we have here two or three points, I think, worth considering. First, think for a moment of the slave of Christ; then of the brands which mark the ownership; then of the glory in the servitude and the sign; and then of the immunity from human disturbances which that service gives. ‘From henceforth let no man trouble me. I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.’

I. First, then, a word or two about that conception of the slave of Christ.

It is a pity that our Bible has not rendered the title which Paul ever gives himself at the beginning of his letters, by that simple word ‘slave,’ instead of the feebler one, ‘servant.’ For what he means when he calls himself the ‘servant of Jesus Christ’ is not that he bore to Christ the kind of relation which servants among us bear to those who have hired and paid them, and to whom they have come under obligations of their own will which they can terminate at any moment by their own caprice; but that he was in the roughest and simplest sense of the word, Christ’s slave.

What lies in that metaphor? Well, it is the most uncompromising assertion of the most absolute authority on the one hand, and claim of unconditional submission and subjection on the other.

The slave belonged to his master; the master could do exactly as he liked with him. If he killed him nobody had anything to say. He could set him to any task; he could do what he liked with any little possession or property that the slave seemed to have. He could break all his relationships, and separate him from wife and kindred.

All that is atrocious and blasphemous when it is applied to the relations between man and man, but it is a blessed and magnificent truth when it is applied to the relations between a man and Christ. For this Lord has absolute authority over us, and He can do what He likes with everything that belongs to us; and we, and our duties, and our circumstances, and our relationships, are all in His hands, and the one thing that we have to render to Him is utter, absolute, unquestioning, unhesitating, unintermittent and unreserved obedience and submission. That which is abject degradation when it is rendered to a man, that which is blasphemous presumption when it is required by a man, that which is impossible, in its deepest reality, as between man and man, is possible, is blessed, is joyful and strong when it is required by, and rendered to, Jesus Christ. We are His slaves if we have any living relationship to Him at all. Where, then, in the Christian life, is there a place for self-will; where a place for self-indulgence; where for murmuring or reluctance; where for the assertion of any rights of my own as against that Master? We owe absolute obedience and submission to Jesus Christ.

And what does the metaphor carry as to the basis on which this authority rests? How did men acquire slaves? Chiefly by purchase. The abominations of the slave market are a blessed metaphor for the deep realities of the Christian life. Christ has bought you for His own. The only thing that gives a human soul the right to have any true authority over another human soul is that it shall have yielded itself to the soul whom it would control. We must first of all give ourselves away before we have the right to possess, and the measure in which we give ourselves to another is the measure in which we possess another. And so Christ our Lord, according to the deep words of one of Paul’s letters, ‘gives Himself for us, that He might purchase unto Himself a people for His possession.’ ‘Ye are not your own; ye are bought with a price.’

Therefore the absolute authority, and unconditional surrender and submission which are the very essence of the Christian life, at bottom are but the corresponding and twofold effects of one thing, and that is love. For there is no possession of man by man except that which is based on love. And there is no submission of man to man worth calling so except that which is also based therein.

‘Thou hearts alone wouldst move; Thou only hearts dost love.’

The relation in both its parts, on the side of the Master and on the side of the captive bondsman, is the direct result and manifestation of that love which knits them together.

Therefore the Christian slavery, with its abject submission, with its utter surrender and suppression of mine own will, with its complete yielding up of self to the control of Jesus, who died for me; because it is based upon His surrender of Himself to me, and in its inmost essence it is the operation of love, is therefore co-existent with the noblest freedom.

This great Epistle to the Galatians is the trumpet call and clarion proclamation of Christian liberty. The breath of freedom blows inspiringly through it all. The very spirit of the letter is gathered up in one of its verses, ‘I have been called unto liberty,’ and in its great exhortation, ‘Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free.’ It is then sufficiently remarkable and profoundly significant that in this very letter, which thus is the protest of the free Christian consciousness against all limitations and outward restrictions, there should be this most emphatic declaration that the liberty of the Christian is slavery and the slavery of the Christian is freedom. He is free whose will coincides with his outward law. He is free who delights to do what he must do. He is free whose rule is love, and whose Master is Incarnate Love. ‘If the Son make you free, ye shall be free indeed.’ ‘O Lord, truly I am Thy servant, Thou hast loosed my bands.’ ‘I bear in my body’ the charter of my liberty, for I bear in my body the ‘brand of the Lord Jesus.’

II. And so now a word in the next place about these marks of ownership.

As I have said, the Apostle evidently means thereby distinctly the bodily weaknesses, and possibly diseases, which were the direct consequences of his own apostolic faithfulness and zeal. He considered that he proved himself to be a minister of God by his stripes, imprisonments, fastings, by all the pains and sufferings and their permanent consequences in an enfeebled constitution, which he bore because he had preached the Cross of Christ. He knew that these things were the result of his faithful ministry. He believed that they had been sent by no blundering, blind fate; by no mere secondary causes; but by his Master Himself, whose hand had held the iron that branded into the hissing flesh the marks of His ownership. He felt that by means of these he had been drawn nearer to his Master, and the ownership had been made more perfect. And so in a rapture of contempt of pain, this heroic soul looks upon even bodily weakness and suffering as being the signs that he belonged to Christ, and the means of that possession being made more perfect.

Now, what is all that to us Christian people who have no persecutions to endure, and none of whom I am afraid have ever worked hard enough for Christ to have damaged our health by it? Is there anything in this text that may be of general application to us all? Yes! I think so. Every Christian man or woman ought to bear, in his or her body, in a plain, literal sense, the tokens that he or she belongs to Jesus Christ. You ask me how? ‘If thy foot or thine hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee.’

There are things in your physical nature that you have to suppress; that you have always to regulate and coerce; that you have sometimes entirely to cast away and to do without, if you mean to be Jesus Christ’s at all. The old law of self-denial, of subduing the animal nature, its passions, appetites, desires, is as true and as needful to-day as it ever was; and for us all it is essential to the loftiness and purity of our Christian life that our animal nature and our fleshly constitution should be well kept down under heel and subdued. As Paul himself said in another place, ‘I bring under my body, and I keep it in subjection, lest by any means I should myself, having proclaimed to others the laws of the contest, be rejected from the prize.’ Oh, you Christian men and women! if you are not living a life of self-denial, if you are not crucifying the flesh, with its affections and lusts, if you are not bearing ‘about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Christ may be manifested in your mortal body,’ what tokens are there that you are Christ’s slaves at all?

Then, besides this, we may expand the thought even further, and say that, in a very real sense, all the pains and sorrows and disappointments and afflictions that mainly touch our mortal part should be taken by us as, and made by us to be, the tokens that we belong to the Master.

But it is not only in limitations and restrictions and self-denials and pains that Christ’s ownership of us ought to be manifested in our daily lives, and so by means of our mortal bodies, but if there be in our hearts a deep indwelling possession of the grace and sweetness of Christ, it will make itself visible, ay! even in our faces, and ‘beauty born of’ our communion with Him ‘shall pass into’ and glorify even rugged and care-lined countenances. There may be, and there ought to be, in all Christian people, manifestly visible the tokens of the indwelling serenity of the indwelling Christ. And it should not be left to some moment of rapture at the end of life, for men to look upon us, to behold our faces, ‘as it had been the face of an angel,’ but by our daily walk, by our countenances full of a removed tranquillity, and a joy that rises from within, men ought to take knowledge of us that we have been with Jesus, and it should be the truth--I bear in my body the tokens of His possession.

III. Now, once more notice the glorying in the slavery and its signs.

‘I bear,’ says Paul; and he uses, as many of you may know, a somewhat remarkable word, which does not express mere bearing in the sense of toleration and patient endurance, although that is much; nor mere bearing in the sense of carrying, but implies bearing with a certain triumph as men would do who, coming back victorious from conflict, and being received into the city, were proud to show their scars, the honourable signs of their courage and constancy. So, with a triumph that is legitimate, the Apostle solemnly and proudly bears before men the marks of the Lord Jesus. Just as he says in another place:--’Thanks be unto God, which always leadeth us about in triumph in Jesus Christ,’ He was proud of being dragged at the conqueror’s chariot wheels, chained to them by the cords of love; and so he was proud of being the slave of Christ.

It is a degradation to a man to yield abject submission, unconditional service to another man. It is the highest honour of our natures so to bow before that dear Lord. To prostrate ourselves to Him is to lift ourselves high in the scale of being. The King’s servant is every other person’s master. And he that feels that he is Christ’s, may well be, not proud but conscious, of the dignity of belonging to such a Lord. The monarch’s livery is a sign of honour. In our old Saxon kingdom the king’s menials were the first nobles. So it is with us. The aristocracy of humanity are the slaves of Jesus Christ.

And let us be proud of the marks of the branding iron, whether they come in the shape of sorrows and pains, or otherwise. It is well that we should have to carry these. It is blessed, and a special mark of the Master’s favour that He should think it worth His while to mark us as His own, by any sorrow or by any pain. Howsoever hot may be the iron, and howsoever deeply it may be pressed by His firm, steady, gentle hand upon the quivering flesh and the shrinking heart, let us be thankful if He, even by it, impresses on us the manifest tokens of ownership. Oh, brethren! if we could come to look upon sorrows and losses with this clear recognition of their source, meaning and purpose, they change their nature, the paradox is fulfilled that we do ‘gather grapes of thorns and figs of thistles.’ ‘I bear in my body,’ with a solemn triumph and patient hope, ‘the marks of the Lord Jesus.’

IV. And now, lastly, the immunity from any disturbance which men can bring, which these marks, and the servitude they express, secure.

‘From henceforth let no man trouble me.’ Paul claims that his apostolic authority, having been established by the fact of his sufferings for Christ, should give him a sacredness in their eyes; that henceforth there should be no rebellion against his teaching and his word. We may expand the thought to apply more to ourselves, and say that, in the measure in which we belong to Christ, and hear the marks of His possession of us, in that measure are we free from the disturbance of earthly influences and of human voices; and from all the other sources of care and trouble, of perturbation and annoyance, which harass and vex other men’s spirits. ‘Ye are bought with a price,’ says Paul elsewhere. ‘Be not the servants of men.’ Christ is your Master; do not let men trouble you. Take your orders from Him; let men rave as they like. Be content to be approved by Him; let men think of you as they please. The Master’s smile is life, the Master’s frown is death to the slave; what matters it what other people may say? ‘He that judgeth me is the Lord.’ So keep yourselves above the cackle of ‘public opinion’; do not let your creed be crammed down your throats even by a consensus of however venerable and grave human teachers. Take your directions from your Master, and pay no heed to other voices if they would command. Live to please Him, and do not care what other people think. You are Christ’s servant; ‘let no man trouble’ you.

And so it should be about all the distractions and petty annoyances that disturb human life and harass our hearts. A very little breath of wind will ruffle all the surface of a shallow pond, though it would sweep across the deep sea and produce no effect. Deepen your natures by close union with Christ, and absolute submission to Him, and there will be a great calm in them, and cares and sorrows, and all the external sources of anxiety, far away, down there beneath your feet, will ‘show scarce so gross as beetles,’ whilst you stand upon the high cliff and look down upon them all. ‘From henceforth no man shall trouble me.’ ‘I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.’

My brother! Whose marks do you bear? There are only two masters. If an eye that could see things as they are, were to go through this congregation, whose initials would it discern in your faces? There are some of us, I have no doubt, who in a very horrid sense bear in our bodies the marks of the idol that we worship. Men who have ruined their health by dissipation and animal sensualism--are there any of them here this morning? Are there none of us whose faces, whose trembling hands, whose diseased frames, are the tokens that they belong to the flesh and the world and the devil? Whose do _you_ bear?

Oh! when one looks at all the faces that pass one upon the street--this all drawn with avarice and earthly-mindedness; that all bloated with self-indulgence and loose living--when one sees the mean faces, the passionate faces, the cruel faces, the vindictive faces, the lustful faces, the worldly faces, one sees how many of us bear in our bodies the marks of _another_ lord. They have no rest day nor night who worship the beast; and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.

I pray you, yield yourselves to your true Lord, so on earth you may bear the beginnings of the likeness that stamps you His, and hereafter, as one of His happy slaves, shall do priestly service at His throne and see His face, and His name shall be in your foreheads.

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

Chapter 30

THE BRAND OF JESUS.

Gal_6:17-18

THE Apostles pen lingers over the last words of this Epistle. His historical self-defence, his theological argument, his practical admonitions, with the blended strain of expostulation and entreaty that runs through the whole-now rising into an awful severity, now sinking into mother-like tenderness have reached their conclusion. The stream of deep and fervent thought pouring itself out in these pages has spent its force. This prince of the Apostles in word and doctrine has left the Church no more powerful or characteristic utterance of his mind. And Paul has marked the special urgency of his purpose by his closing message contained in the last six verses, an Epistle within the Epistle, penned in large, bold strokes from his own hand, in which his very soul transcribes itself before our eyes.

It only remains for him to append his signature. We should expect him to do this in some striking and special way. His first sentence {Gal_1:1-10} revealed the profound excitement of spirit under which he is labouring; not otherwise does he conclude. Gal_6:17 sharply contrasts with the words of peace that hushed our thoughts at the close of the last paragraph. Perhaps the peace he wishes these troubled Churches reminds him of his own troubles. Or is it that in breathing his devout wishes for "the Israel of God," he cannot but think of those who were "of Israel," but no sons of peace, in whose hearts were hatred and mischief toward himself? Some such thought stirs anew the grief with which he has been shaken; and a pathetic cry breaks from him like the sough of the departing tempest.

Yet the words have the sound of triumph more than of sorrow. Paul stands a conscious victor, though wounded and with scars upon him that he will carry to his grave. Whether this letter will serve its immediate purpose, whether the defection, in Galatia will be stayed by it, or not, the cause of the cross is sure of its triumph; his contention against its enemies has not been in vain. The force of inspiration that uplifted him in writing the Epistle, the sense of insight and authority that pervades it, are themselves an earnest of victory. The vindication of his authority in Corinth, which, as we read the order of events, had very recently occurred, gave token that his hold on the obedience of Gentile Churches was not likely to be destroyed, and that in the conflict with legalism the gospel of liberty was certain to prevail. His courage rises with the danger. He writes as though he could already say, "I have fought the good fight. Thanks be to God, which always leadeth us in triumph". {2Ti_4:7; 2Co_2:14}

The warning of Gal_6:17 has the ring of Apostolic dignity. "From henceforth let no man give me trouble!" Paul speaks of himself as a sacred person. Gods mark is upon him. Let men beware how they meddle with him. "He that toucheth you," the Lord said to His people after the sorrows of the Exile, "toucheth the apple of Mine eye". {Zec_2:8} The Apostle seems to have had a similar feeling respecting himself. He announces that whosoever from this time lays an injurious hand upon him does so at his peril. Henceforth- for the struggle with Legalism was the crisis of Pauls ministry. It called forth all his powers, natural and supernatural, into exercise. It led him to his largest thoughts respecting God and man, sin and salvation; and brought him his heaviest sorrows.

The conclusion of this letter signalises the culmination of the Judaistic controversy, and the full establishment of Pauls influence and doctrinal authority. The attempt of Judaism to strangle the infant Church is foiled. In return it has received at Pauls hands its death-blow. The position won in this Epistle will never be lost; the doctrine of the cross, as the Apostle taught it, cannot be overthrown. Looking back from this point to "prove his own work," he can in all humility claim this "glorying in regard to himself" (Gal_6:4). He stands attested in the light of Gods approval as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. He has done the cause of truth an imperishable service. He takes his place henceforth in the front rank amongst the spiritual leaders of mankind. Who now will bring reproach against him, or do dishonour to the cross which he bears? Against that man Gods displeasure will go forth. Some such thoughts were surely present to the Apostles mind in writing these final words. They cannot but occur to us in reading them. Well done, we say, thou faithful servant of the Lord! Ill must it be for him who henceforth shall trouble thee.

"Troubles" indeed, and to spare, Paul had encountered. He has just passed through the darkest experience of his life. The language of the Second Epistle to Corinth is a striking commentary upon this verse. "We are pressed on every side," he writes, "perplexed, pursued, smitten down." {2Co_4:8-9} His troubles came not only from his exhausting labours and hazardous journeys; he was everywhere pursued by the fierce and deadly hatred of his fellow country-men. Even within the Church there were men who made it their business to harass him and destroy his work. No place was safe for him-not even the bosom of the Church. On land or water, in the throngs of the city or the solitudes of the desert, his life was in hourly jeopardy. {1Co_15:30; 2Co_11:26}

Beside all this, "the care of the Churches" weighed on his mind heavily. There was "no rest" either for his flesh or spirit. {2Co_2:13; 2Co_7:5} Recently Corinth, then Galatia, was in a ferment of agitation. His doctrine was attacked, his authority undermined by the Judaic emissaries, now in this quarter, now in that. The tumult at Ephesus, so graphically described by Luke, happening at the same time as the broils in the Corinthian Church and working on a frame already overstrung, had thrown him into a prostration of body and mind so great that he says, "We despaired even of life. We. had the answer of death in ourselves". {2Co_1:8-9} The expectation that he would die before the Lords return had now, for the first time, it appears, definitely forced itself on the Apostle, and cast over him a new shadow, causing deep ponderings and searchings of heart. {2Co_5:1-10} The culmination of the legalistic conflict was attended with an inner crisis that left its ineffaceable impression on the Apostles soul.

But he has risen from his sick bed. He has been "comforted by the coming of Titus" with better news from Corinth. {2Co_7:6-16} He has written these two letters-the Second to the Corinthians, and this to the Galatians. And he feels that the worst is past. "He who delivered him out of so great a death, will yet deliver". {2Co_1:10} So confident is he in the authority which Christ gave and enabled him to exercise in utter weakness, so signally is he now stamped as Gods Apostle by his sufferings and achievements, that he can dare any one from this time forth to oppose him. The anathema of this Epistle might well make his opponents tremble. Its remorseless logic left their sophistries no place of refuge. Its passionate entreaties broke down suspicion and sullenness. Let the Circumcisionists beware how they slander him. Let fickle Galatians cease to trouble him with their quarrels and caprices. So well assured is he for his part of the rectitude of his course and of the Divine approval and protection, that he feels bound to warn them that it will be the worse for those who at such a time lay upon him fresh and needless burdens.

One catches in this sentence too an undertone of entreaty, a confession of weariness. Paul is tired of strife. "Woe is me," he might say, "that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell among the tents of Kedar! My soul hath long had her dwelling with him that hateth peace." "Enmities, ragings, factions, divisions"-with what a painful emphasis he dwells in the last chapter on these many forms of discord. He has known them all. For months he has been battling, with the hydra-headed brood. He longs for an interval of rest. He seems to say, "I pray you let me be at peace. Do not vex me any more with your quarrels. I have suffered enough." The present tense of the Greek imperative verb (παρεχετω) brings it to bear on the course of things then going on: as much as to say, "Let these weapons be dropped, these wars and fightings cease." For his own sake the Apostle begs the Galatians to desist from the follies that, caused him so much trouble, and to suffer him to share with them Gods benediction of peace.

But what an argument is this with which Paul enforces his plea, -"for I bear the brand of Jesus in my body!"

"The stigmata of Jesus"-what does he mean? It is "in my body"-some marks branded or punctured on the Apostles person, distinguishing him from other men, conspicuous and humiliating, inflicted on him as Christs servant, and which so much resembled the inflictions laid on the Redeemers body that they are called "the marks of Jesus." No one can say precisely what "these brands consisted in. But we know enough of the previous sufferings of the Apostle to be satisfied that he carried on his person many painful marks of violence and injury. His perils endured by land and sea, his imprisonments, his "labour and travail, hunger and thirst, cold and nakedness," his three shipwrecks, the "night and day spent in the deep," were sufficient to break down the strength of the stoutest frame; they had given him the look of a worn and haggard man. Add to these the stoning at Lystra, when he was dragged out for dead. "Thrice" also had he "been beaten with the Roman rods; "five times" with the thirty-nine stripes of the Jewish scourge. {2Co_11:23-27}

Is it to these last afflictions, cruel and shameful as they were in the extreme, that the Apostle specially refers as constituting "the brand of Jesus"? For Jesus was scourged. The allusion of 1Pe_2:24 -"by whose stripes (literally, bruise or weal) ye were healed" shows how vividly this circumstance was remembered, and how strongly it affected Christian minds. With this indignity upon Him-His body lashed with the torturing whip, scored with livid bruises-our Blessed Lord was exposed on the cross. So He was branded as a malefactor, even before His crucifixion. And the same brand Paul had received, not once, but many times, for his Masters sake. As the strokes of the scourge fell on the Apostles shuddering flesh, he had been consoled by thinking how near he was brought to his Saviours passion: "The servant," He had said, "shall be as his Lord." Possibly some recent infliction of the kind, more savage than the rest, had helped to bring on the malady which proved so nearly-fatal to him. In some way he had been marked with fresh and manifest tokens of bodily suffering in the cause of Christ. About this time he writes of himself as "always bearing about in his body the dying of the Lord Jesus"; {2Co_4:10} for the corpse-like state of the Apostle, with the signs of maltreatment visible in his frame, pathetically imaged the suffering Redeemer whom he preached. Could the Galatians have seen him as he wrote, in physical distress, labouring under the burden of renewed and aggravated troubles, their hearts must have been touched with pity. It would have grieved them to think that they had increased his afflictions, and were "persecuting him whom the Lord had smitten."

His scars were badges of dishonour to worldly eyes. But to Paul himself these tokens were very precious. "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you," he writes from his Roman prison at a later time: "and am filling up what is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh". {Col_1:24} The Lord had not suffered everything Himself. He honoured His servants by leaving behind a measure of His afflictions for each to endure in the Churchs behalf. The Apostle was companion of his Masters disgrace. In him the words of Jesus were signally fulfilled: "They have hated Me; they will also hate you." He was following, closely as he might, in the way that led to Calvary. All men may know that Paul is Christs servant; for he wears His livery, the worlds contempt. Of Jesus they said, "Away with Him, crucify Him"; and of Paul, "Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live". {Act_22:22} "Enough for the disciple to be as his Master": what could he wish more?

His condition inspired reverence in all who loved and honoured Jesus Christ. Pauls Christian brethren were moved by feelings of the tenderest respect at the sight of his wasted and crippled, form. "His bodily presence is weak: {2Co_10:10} he looks like a corpse!" said his despisers. But under that physical feebleness there lay an immense fund of moral vigour. How should he not be weak, after so many years of wearying toil and relentless persecution and torturing pain? Out of this very weakness came a new and unmatched strength; he "glories in his infirmities," for there rests upon him the strength of Christ. {2Co_12:9}

Under the expression "stigmata of Jesus" there is couched a reference to the practice of marking criminals and runaway slaves with a brand burnt into the flesh, which is perpetuated in our English use of the Greek words stigma and stigmatise. A man so marked was called stigmatias, i.e., a branded scoundrel; and such the Apostle felt himself to be in the eyes of men of the world. Captain Lysias of Jerusalem took him for an Egyptian leader of banditti: Honourable men, when they knew him better, learned to respect him; but such was the reputation that his battered appearance, and the report of his enemies, at first sight gained for him.

The term stigmata had also another and different signification. It applied to a well-known custom of religious devotees to puncture, or tattoo, upon themselves the name of their God, or other sign expressive of their devotion. {Isa_44:5; Rev_3:12} This signification may be very naturally combined with the former in the employment of the figure. Pauls stigmata, resembling those of Jesus and being of the same order, were signs at once of reproach and of consecration. The prints of the worlds insolence were witnesses of his devotion to Christ. He loves to call himself "the slave of Christ Jesus." The scourge has written on his back his Masters name. Those dumb wounds proclaim him the bondman of the Crucified. At the lowest point of personal and official humiliation, when affronts were heaped upon him, he felt that he was raised in the might of the Spirit to the loftiest dignity, even as "Christ was crucified through weakness, yet liveth through the power of God". {2Co_13:4}

The words I bear- not united, as in our own idiom, but standing the pronoun at the head and the verb at the foot of the sentence-have each of them a special emphasis. I-in contrast with his opponents, manpleasers, shunning Christs reproach; and bear he says exultantly-"this is my burden, these are the marks I carry," like the standard-bearer of an army who proudly wears his scars (Chrysostom). In the profound and sacred joy which the Apostles tribulations brought him, we cannot but feel even at this distance that we possess a share. They belong to that richest treasure of the past, the sum of

"Sorrow which is not sorrow, but delight To hear of, for the glory that redounds There from to human kind and what we are."

The stigmatisation of Paul, his puncturing with the wounds of Jesus, has been revived in later times in a manner far remote from anything that he imagined or would have desired. Francis of Assisi in the year 1224 A.D. received in a trance the wound-prints of the Saviour on his body; and from that time to his death, it is reported, the saint had the physical appearance of one who had suffered crucifixion. Other instances, to the number of eighty, have been recorded in the Roman Catholic Church of the reproduction, in more or less complete form, of the five wounds of Jesus and the agonies of the cross; chiefly in the case of nuns. The last was that of Louise Lateau, who died in Belgium in the year 1883. That such phenomena have occurred, there is no sufficient reason to doubt. It is difficult to assign any limits to the power of the human mind over the body in the way of sympathetic imitation. Since St. Francis day many Romanist divines have read the Apostles language in this sense; but the interpretation has followed rather than given rise to this fulfilment. In whatever light these manifestations may be regarded, they are a striking witness to the power of the cross over human nature. Protracted meditation on the sufferings of our Lord, aided by a lively imagination and a susceptible physique, has actually produced a rehearsal of the bodily pangs and the wound-marks of Calvary.

This mode of knowing Christs sufferings "after the flesh," morbid and monstrous as we deem it to be, is the result of an aspiration which, however misdirected by Catholic asceticism, is yet the highest that belongs to the Christian life. Surely we also desire, with Paul, to be "made conformable to the death of Christ." On our hearts His wounds must be impressed. Along the pathway of our life His cross has to be borne. To all His disciples, with the sons of Zebedee, He says, "Ye shall indeed drink of My cup; and with the baptism that I am baptised withal shall ye be baptised." But "it is the Spirit that quickeneth," said Jesus; "the flesh profiteth nothing." The pains endured by the body for His sake are only of value when, as in Pauls case, they are the result and the witness of an inward communion of the Spirit, a union of the will and the intelligence with Christ.

The cup that He would have us drink with Him is one of sorrow for the sins of men. His baptism is that of pity for the misery of our fellows, of yearning over souls that perish. It will not come upon us without costing many a pang. If we receive it there will be ease to surrender, gain and credit to renounce, self to be constantly sacrificed. We need not go out of our way to find our cross; we have only not to be blind to it, not to evade it when Christ sets it before us. It may be part of the cross that it comes in a common, unheroic form; the service required is obscure; it consists of a multitude of little, vexing, drudging sacrifices in place of the grand and impressive sacrifice, which we should be proud to make. To be martyred by inches, out of sight-this to many is the cruellest martyrdom of all. But it may be Christs way, the fittest, the only perfect way for us, of putting His brand upon us and conforming us to His death.

Yes, conformity of spirit to the cross is the mark of Jesus. "If we suffer with Him"-so the Apostolic Churches used to sing-"we shall also be glorified together." In our recoil from the artificial penances and mortifications of former ages, we are disposed in these days to banish the idea of mortification altogether from our Christian life. Do we not study our personal comfort: in an un-Christlike fashion? Are there not many in these days, bearing the name of Christ, who without shame and without reproof lay out their plans for Winning the utmost of selfish prosperity, and put Christian objects in the second. place? How vain for them to cry "Lord! Lord!" to the Christ who "pleased not Himself!" They profess at the Lords Table to "show His death"; but to show that death in their lives, to "know" with Paul "the fellowship of His sufferings," is the last thing that enters into their minds. How the scars of the brave Apostle put to shame the self-indulgence, the heartless luxury, the easy friendship with the world, of fashionable Christians! "Be ye followers of me," he cries, "as I also of Christ." He who shuns that path cannot, Jesus said, be My disciple.

So the blessed Apostle has put his mark to this Epistle. To the Colossians from his prison he writes, "Remember my bonds." And to the Galatians, "Look on my wounds." These are his credentials; these are the armorial bearings of the Apostle Paul. He places the seal of Jesus, the sign-manual of the wounded hand upon the letter written in His name.

THE BENEDICTION.

ONE benediction the Apostle has already uttered in Gal_6:16. But that was a general wish, embracing all who should walk according to the spiritual rule of Christs kingdom. On his readers specifically he still has his blessing to pronounce. He does it in language differing in this instance very little from that he is accustomed to employ.

"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ" is the distinctive blessing of the New Covenant. It is to the Christian the supreme good of life, including or carrying with it every other spiritual gift. Grace is Christs property. It descended with the Incarnate Saviour into the world, coming down from God out of heaven. His life displayed it; His death bestowed it on mankind. Raised to His heavenly throne, He has become on the Fathers behalf the dispenser of its fulness to all who will receive it. There exalted, thence bestowing on men "the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness," He is known and worshipped as our Lord Jesus Christ.

What this grace of God in Christ designs, what it accomplishes in believing hearts, what are the things that contradict it and make it void, this Epistle has largely taught us. Of its pure, life-giving stream the Galatians already had richly tasted. From "Christs grace" they were now tempted to "remove". {Gal_1:6} But the Apostle hopes and prays that it may abide with them.

"With your spirit," he says; for this is the place of its visitation, the throne of its power. The spirit of man, breathed upon by the Holy Spirit of God, receives Christs grace and becomes the subject and the witness of its regenerating virtue. This benediction contains therefore in brief all that is set forth in the familiar threefold formula - "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost."

After all his fears for his wayward flock, all his chidings and reproofs, forgiveness and confidence are the last thoughts in Pauls heart: "Brethren" is the last word that drops from the Apostles pen, - followed only by the confirmation of his devout Amen.

To his readers also the writer of this book takes leave to address the Apostle Pauls fraternal benediction: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brethren. Amen.

William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.

6:17 don’t let anyone trouble me with these things: No one has a right to criticize Paul or his message because of his proven status as Christ’s servant. • Paul’s scars (Greek stigmata) probably resulted from the severe persecution he had endured as a servant of Christ (see Acts 14:19; 2 Cor 6:4-10; 11:21-33). In contrast with the physical mark of circumcision that the false teachers in Galatia wanted to impose on Gentile Christians, Paul’s scars of suffering were proof that he was Christ’s servant (cp. Exod 21:6).

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

Gal 6:17. Τοῦ λοιποῦ, from henceforth) The mode of breaking off the discourse.—κόπουζ, labours [trouble]) Polemic theology, seriously discussed, is a laborious task to godly men; Gal 6:11, note; and Gal 4:20. See the second Antisturmius of L. Osiander, p. 87, 107: κόποι, labour and anxiety of mind, Mat 26:10 [Why trouble (κόπους παρέχετε) ye the woman?].—μηδεὶς παρεχέτω, let no man cause me) Herein there is Ἀποτομία, severity, by virtue of his authority as an apostle.—ἐγὼ γὰρ, for I) Affliction should not be added to the afflicted.—τὰ στίγματα, the marks) from the lash, Act 16:23. These marks of stripes rendered Paul infamous in the eyes of the world, but in reality conferred on him great dignity, for by these he was known to be a servant of Christ. Marks in the body are opposed to the mark of circumcision, the body of Paul [himself] to the flesh of others, Gal 6:13 [the false teachers “glorying in the flesh” of their followers when circumcised].—τοῦ Κυριοῦ, of the Lord) Col 1:24, “of the afflictions of Christ.”—βαστάζω, I bear) so that I consider it an honour to me, Gal 6:14. Therefore they will be disagreeable to me, who please themselves in any other way.[68]

[68] Who seek occasion for glorying in anything but the Cross of Christ.—ED.

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

Gal_6:17. Τοῦ λοιποῦ] occurring only here in the N.T., very frequent in other authors; not ceterum, so that it would be a formula abrumpendi (Bengel, Zachariae, and others), equivalent to τὸ λοιπόν (2Co_13:11; Eph_6:10; Php_3:1, et al.), but the genitive of time (Kühner, II. p. 189): posthac, henceforward (Xen. Anab. v. 7. 34, vi. 4. 11; Plat. Legg. vii. p. 816 D, Demos, p. 385 B; Herod. ii. 109; and the passages in Wetstein); and that as denoting repetitionem ejusdem facti reliquo tempore (Hermann ad Viger. p. 706). The sense posthac might also have been expressed by the accusative (τὸ λοιπόν, Mat_26:41; Mar_14:41; 1Co_7:29; Xen. Anab. ii. 2. 5, iii. 2. 8; Soph. Trach. 907, 917); but in this case a repetitio perpetua would be meant (Hermann, l.c.). Comp. Kühner, ad Xen. Anab, ii. 2. 5. Calvin explains: as for the rest, i.e. praeter novam creaturam. Comp. Wieseler: quod restat. In this case, either the genitive would stand absolutely: as concerns what remains (ὃ δὲ λοιπόν, 1Co_4:2), see Heind. ad Charm. p. 89; Matthiae, p. 815; or it would be dependent on κόπους. But, looking at the frequent use of τοῦ λοιποῦ as a particle of time, both these explanations would be very unnecessarily far-fetched. This remark also applies to the view of Hofmann, who strangely attaches τοῦ λοιποῦ, notwithstanding the want of an antithetical particle, as genitive of the object to κόπους, and conceives Ἰσραήλ as again supplied: on account of the Israel, which is not the Israel of God. Respecting that Israel, in the apostles view, he has not to inquire whether it will be injured through the labour to which he is called. As if any such cold, remorseless renunciation could be justly attributed to the apostle who held his συγγενεῖς κατὰ σάρκα so painfully dear (Rom_9:1 ff; Rom_10:1), and strove in every possible way to gain them (1Co_9:20). But from the hostile annoyances and vexations, which the reader would readily understand to be referred to in these words, the apostle desires to remain henceforward exempt; and this he demands with apostolic sternness.

ἐγὼ γὰρ κ.τ.λ.] the emphasis is on ἐγώ: it is not the teachers who are hostile to me, these men afraid to suffer (Gal_6:12), but I who bear, etc. στίγματα (στίγμα is paroxytone; see Lobeck, Paralip. p. 406) signifies marks branded or etched in, which, usually consisting of letters (Lev_19:28), were put on the body (especially on the forehead and hands) in the case of slaves, as the device of their masters;[272] of soldiers, as the badge of their general; of criminals, as a sign of their offence; and among some oriental nations also, as a token of the divinity which they worshipped (3Ma_2:29; and Grimm in loc). See Wetstein, p. 237 f.; Lipsius, Elect. ii. 15; Deyling, Obss. III. p. 423 ff.; Spencer, Legg. rit. ii. 14. 1; Ewald, in Apocal. p. 151 f. Here Paul has had in view the marks borne by slaves:[273] for, according to the immediate context (Gal_6:14; Gal_6:18), Christ is present to his mind as the Lord; and also in 2Co_11:23 he discerns, in the ill treatment which he has suffered, the proof that he is διάκονος Χιρστοῦ. Comp. also Rev_7:3. The genitive Ἰησοῦ denotes therefore the Ruler, whose servant Paul is indicated to be by his στίγματα; and because in this case the feeling of fellowship with the concrete person of his Master has thoroughly pervaded him, he does not write Χριστοῦ, but Ἰησοῦ (comp. on 2Co_4:10). Others have explained: notae corporis tales, quales ipse Christus gestavit (Morus, comp. Borger); but against this it may be urged that Paul has not made use of a word which of itself conveys a complete idea (such as τὴν νέκρωσιν, 2Co_4:10), but has used the significant στίγματα, which necessarily prompts the reader to ask to whom the person marked (στιγματίας, also στιγματοφόρος, Polyaen. Strat. i. 24) is described as belonging. Therefore Ἰησοῦ is not (with Gomarus and Rückert) to be considered as genitive auctoris.

But what was it that Paul bore in his body as the στίγματα Ἰησοῦ? The scars and other traces of the wounds and mal-treatment, which he had received on account of his apostolic labours.[274] For in the service of Christ he had been maltreated (2Co_11:23), and that so that he must have retained scars or similar indications (see 2Co_11:24-25). Some expositors have, however, believed that Paul adduces these στίγματα by way of contrast to the scar of circumcision (Erasmus in his Annot., Beza, Schoettgen, Grotius; comp. Bengel and Michaelis); but this idea is arbitrarily introduced, and in its paltriness alien to the lofty self-consciousness which these words breathe.

Lastly, as regards the sense in which the reference of γάρ is to be taken, many expositors explain it, with Grotius: satis aliunde habeo, quod feram. So, in substance, Vatablus, Bengel (afflicto non est addenda afflictio), Morus, Winer. But what a feeble reason to assign would this be, either as fretful or as even bespeaking compassion, and wholly repugnant at all events to the proud feeling of being marked as the δοῦλος of Christ! (comp. 2Co_11:23 ff.) And the ἘΓΏ, so full of self-consciousness in opposition to the false teachers, is inconsistent with this view. No; Paul means (veluti trophaea quaedam ostentans, Erasmus, Paraphr.) to say: for I am one who, by being marked as the servant of Christ, is in possession of a dignity, which may justly exempt him from any repetition of molestations (such as had vexed him on the part of the Galatian churches).

On βαστάζω, comp. Chrysostom: ΟὐΚ ΕἾΠΕΝ ἜΧΩ, ἈΛΛᾺ ΒΑΣΤΆΖΩ, ὭΣΠΕΡ ΤΙς ἘΠῚ ΤΡΟΠΑΊΟΙς ΜΈΓΑ ΦΡΟΝῶΝ.

[272] In the East; but among the Romans only in the case of slaves who were suspected or had run away (as a sign of the latter offence, they were by way of punishment branded with Φ or F.U.G.).

[273] Not of soldiers, as Grotius (comp. Calvin), and Potter, Arch. II. p. 7, think; for this must have been suggested by the context. Wetstein understands sacras notas (Herod. ii. 113: στίγματα ἱρά), so that Paul represents Christ ut Deum, quem τὸν κύριον κατʼ ἐξοχήν vocat. But these sacrae notae are only found among particular nations, such as the Persians and Assyrians (Plut. Lucull. p. 507 E; Lucian, de Dea Syra, 59; comp. also what is related in Herod. ii. 113 about a temple of Hercules in Egypt, and in the Asiatic Researches, vii. p. 281 f., about the Indians); hence so foreign a custom would not be likely to suggest itself to the apostle, nor could it be understood by his readers without some more special indication.

[274] Not as Luther, 1519 and 1524, following Augustine, thought: the taming of the flesh and the fruits of the Spirit; against which the ἐν τῷ σώματί μου is itself decisive. In the Commentary of 1538, he understands plagas corpori suo impressas et passiones, deinde ignita tela diaboli, tristitiam et pavores animi, which thus throws together very different elements outward and inward.

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 6:17 . τοῦ λοιποῦ … In deprecating any renewal of the present agitation Paul treats with contempt the prospect of serious danger from it. It had disturbed his peace and the peace of the Church, and must be got rid of, but he describes it as a wearisome annoyance rather than a real peril. στίγματα . These were indelible marks branded on the flesh. They might be self-inflicted: instances are recorded of soldiers branding themselves with the name of their general in token of their absolute devotion to his cause. But they were as a rule inflicted for a badge of lifelong service; the figure in the text is borrowed from the latter, which were either penal or sacred . The penal were stamped on malefactors, runaway slaves, sometimes on captives; but it is clear from the context that the author has in mind the στίγματα ἱρά mentioned by Herodotus in ii., 113, with which the Galatians also were familiar in Phrygian temples. A class of slaves ( ἱερόδουλοι ) attached for life to the service of a temple were branded with the name of the deity. Paul likens himself to these in respect of his lifelong dedication to the name of Jesus, and of the marks imprinted on his body, by which he was sealed for a servant of Jesus in perpetuity. These were doubtless the scars left by Jewish scourging, by the stones of Lystra and the Roman rods at Philippi, all tokens of faithful service to his Master in which he gloried.

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

Marks which are burnt into a man’s flesh, as they used in old times, to mark their servants that had run away from them.

Continuing still in the same metaphor, he opposeth his miseries and the marks of those stripes which he bare for Christ’s sake, against the scar of the outward circumcision, as a true mark of his Apostleship.

For it importeth much, whose marks we bear: for the cause maketh the Martyr, and not the punishment.

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

let no man trouble me--by opposing my apostolic authority, seeing that it is stamped by a sure seal, namely, "I (in contrast to the Judaizing teachers who gloried in the flesh) bear (as a high mark of honor from the King of kings)."

the marks--properly, marks branded on slaves to indicate their owners. So Paul's scars of wounds received for Christ's sake, indicate to whom he belongs, and in whose free and glorious service he is (Co2 11:23-25). The Judaizing teachers gloried in the circumcision mark in the flesh of their followers: Paul glories in the marks of suffering for Christ on his own body (compare Gal 6:14; Phi 3:10; Col 1:24).

the Lord--omitted in the oldest manuscripts.

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 17. From henceforth let no man trouble me] Put an end to your contentions among yourselves; return to the pure doctrine of the Gospel; abandon those who are leading you astray; separate from the Church those who corrupt and disturb it; and let me be grieved no longer with your defections from the truth.

I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.] The στιγματα, stigmata, of which the apostle speaks here, may be understood as implying the scars of the wounds which he had received in the work of the ministry; and that he had such scars, we may well conceive, when we know that he had been scourged, stoned, and maltreated in a variety of ways. The writer could show such scars himself, received in the same way. Or, the apostle may allude to the stigmata or marks with which servants and slaves were often impressed, in order to ascertain whose property they were. A Burman servant often has indelible marks on his thighs and elsewhere, which ascertain to whose service he belongs. "Do not trouble me; I bear the marks of my Lord and Master, Jesus; I am his, and will remain so. You glory in your mark of circumcision; I glory in the marks which I bear in my body for the testimony of the Lord; I am an open, professed Christian, and have given full proof of my attachment to the cause of Christianity."

The first sense appears to be the best: "I have suffered already sufficiently; I am suffering still; do not add any more to my afflictions."

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

17. Let no man trouble me. He now speaks with the voice of authority for restraining his adversaries, and employs language which his high rank fully authorized. “Let them cease to throw hinderances in the course of my preaching.” He was prepared, for the sake of the church, to encounter difficulties, but does not choose to be interrupted by contradiction. Let no man trouble me. Let no man make opposition to obstruct the progress of my work.

As to everything else, (τοῦ λοιποῦ,) that is, as to everything besides the new creature. “This one thing is enough for me. Other matters are of no importance, and give me no concern. Let no man question me about them.” He thus places himself above all men, and allows to none the power of attacking his ministry. Literally, the phrase signifies, as to the rest or the remainder, which Erasmus, in my opinion, has improperly applied to time.

For I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. This accounts for his bold, authoritative language. And what were those marks? Imprisonment, chains, scourging, blows, stoning, and every kind of injurious treatment which he had incurred in bearing testimony to the gospel. Earthly warfare has its honors, in conferring which a general holds out to public view the bravery of a soldier. So Christ our leader has his own marks, of which he makes abundant use, for conferring on some of his followers a high distinction. These marks, however, differ from the other in one important respect, that they partake of the nature of the cross, and in the sight of the world are disgraceful. This is suggested by the word translated marks, (στίγματα,) for it literally denotes the marks with which barbarian slaves, or fugitives, or malefactors, were usually branded. Paul, therefore, can hardly be said to use a figure, when he boasts of shining in those marks with which Christ is accustomed to honor his most distinguished soldiers, which in the eye of the world were attended by shame and disgrace, but which before God and the angels surpass all the honors of the world.

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.

(17) The Apostle has done. He will not dally with these vexatious attacks upon himself and his authority any more. He dismisses them with an appeal which ought to be final. He points to the scars of wounds which he had received in his Master’s service. The branding-irons of Christ, he says, have imprinted these upon me. They show that I, like the slaves of a heathen temple, am devoted and consecrated to His service. They are my credentials, and I shall produce no others. My assailants must leave me in peace.

The marks.—The stigmata, or marks inflicted with branding-irons, such as those which show that a slave is attached to a particular temple or to the service of some particular deity. Branding was applied in some other cases, but especially to temple slaves. Those with which the Galatians were most familiar would be engaged in the worship of Cybele.

There does not seem to be evidence to connect this passage directly with the incident of the “stigmata” in the life of St. Francis of Assisi, but it would seem very probable that the use of the word, which was left untranslated in the Latin versions, suggested, whether by a more or by a less distant association, the idea which took so strong a hold upon his mind that in a moment of extreme spiritual tension the actual marks of the Passion seemed to imprint themselves upon his body.

Of the Lord Jesus.—The true text is simply, “of Jesus.”

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

17. As at the opening, so at the close of the Epistle, St Paul asserts his authority. Then it was as a duly commissioned Apostle, here it is as a tried and tested servant of his Heavenly Master. He has fully discussed the question at issue. He has said his last word upon it. From henceforth he claims exemption from the worry and distraction of controversy. As he said elsewhere, ‘If any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant’ (1Co_14:38).

for I bear … the Lord Jesus] All commentators agree in regarding this as having reference to St Paul’s suffering for Christ. ‘I, unlike these false teachers, can appeal to the marks of persecution which I have undergone as proofs of the depth of my convictions, the sincerity of my faith’. But the particular expression, ‘the marks of the Lord Jesus’, may either mean the ‘wounds of Christ’ or the marks of ownership branded on the Apostle’s body, which proved him to be the ‘slave of Christ’. Certain marks (stigmata) were affixed by means of a hot iron on two classes of slaves, (1) those who had run away from their masters or had otherwise misconducted themselves, in which case they were a badge of disgrace; and (2) on slaves attached to particular temples, as the property of the deity worshipped there. Of course St Paul cannot allude to the former of these cases. He may speak figuratively of the scars which he bore on his body, from wounds received at Lystra and elsewhere, as the proofs of his devotion to the service of Christ. Bp. Lightfoot adopts this view as most appropriate. “Such a practice at all events cannot have been unknown in a country which was the home of the worship of Cybele. A ‘sacred slave’ is mentioned in a Galatian inscription”. There is however, something to be said for the other explanation which makes the marks of the Lord Jesus to be the wheal of the stripes inflicted on His sacred body—the print of the nails and of the spear. In confirmation of this view passages are adduced in which St Paul speaks of himself as a partaker of the sufferings of Christ, of bearing about in his body the dying of the Lord Jesus, of filling up in his flesh the sufferings of Christ, 2Co_1:5; 2Co_4:10; Col_1:24; nay more, of being crucified with Christ, Rom_6:6; Gal_2:20. On the whole, however, the former account of the phrase seems preferable. Most modern expositors notice the alleged ‘stigmata’ of St Francis of Assisi. The connexion is limited to the identity of the term, which has been adopted by Romish hagiologists from the Latin Vulgate. The stigmata of the Saint were not marks of persecution.

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.

Brethren,.... So he calls them, to testify his affection for them, notwithstanding their infirmity and instability, and the roughness with which he had treated them; and to show his great humility and condescension in owning the relation, and putting them on a level with himself, which the pride of the false teachers would not suffer them to do.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit: which is his concluding benediction and usual salutation and token in all his epistles: he wishes that more gifts of grace might be bestowed upon them; that the Gospel of the grace of God might be continued with them; that the love of Christ might be shed abroad in their hearts; that they might receive out of his fulness grace for grace; that there might be an increase of grace in their souls; that it might abound in them, and they grow in the exercise of it: he does not pray that the law of Moses, or the righteousness of works, but that the grace of Christ might be with them; not in the mere notion of it, but in the spiritual experience of it; that it might be in their hearts, and with their spirits, quickening, comforting, and strengthening them; making them more spiritual and evangelical in their frames and duties, and freeing them from a carnal and legal spirit: to all which he sets his

Amen; signifying his desire that so it might be, and his faith that so it would be. The subscription of the letter follows,

unto the Galatians, written from Rome; where perhaps he was then a prisoner; the Arabic version adds, "by Titus and Luke": who might be sent with it, but the subscriptions of the epistles are not to be depended on.

Next: Ephesians Introduction

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

17 From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.

Ver. 17. From henceforth let no man] Here he takes upon him as an apostle, and speaks with authority, Σεμνως και δεινως.

I bear in my body the marks] As scars of honour. Paul had been whipped, stocked, stoned, &c. The marks of these he could better boast of than those false apostles of their circumcision. And hereby it appeared that he refused not, as they did, to suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. In the year 1166, the Synod held at Oxford in the reign of Henry II banished out of England 30 Dutch doctors (which taught the right use of marriage, and of the sacraments), after they had first stigmatized or branded them with hot irons. (Alsted Chron.) John Clerk of Melden, in France, being for Christ’s sake whipped three different days, and afterwards having a mark set in his forehead, as a note of infamy, his mother beholding it (though his father was an adversary) encouraged her son, crying with a loud voice, Vivat Christus eiusque insignia, " Blessed be Christ, and welcome be these prints and marks of Christ." The next year after, sc. A. D. 1524, he brake the images without the city, which his superstitious countrymen were to worship the next day. For the which he was apprehended, and had his right hand cut off, his nose pulled off with pincers, both his arms and both his breasts torn with the same instrument; and after all he was burned at a stake. In his greatest torments he pronounced that of the Psalmist, "Their idols are silver and gold, the works of men’s hands," &c. (Scultet. Annul.) I conclude this discourse with that saying of Pericles, "It is not gold, precious stones, statues, that adorns a soldier, but a torn buckler, a cracked helmet, a blunt sword, a scarred face." Of these Biron, the French marshal, boasted at his death. And Sceva is renowned for this, that at the siege of Dyrrachium, he so long alone resisted Pompey’s army, that he had 220 darts sticking in his shield, and lost one of his eyes, and yet gave not over till Caesar came to his rescue. {a} Mr Prinne’s Stigmata Laudis are better known than that they need here to be related.

{a} Densamque ferens in pectore silvam. Lucan.

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.

From henceforth - For the remaining time; that is, during the remainder of my life.

Let no man trouble me - This implies that he had had trouble of some kind, and he earnestly desires that he may have no more. What particular trouble he here refers to, is not certainly known, and commentators have not been agreed. It seems to me that the connection requires us to understand it of the molestation which he had in regard to his call to the apostolic office, and his authority to explain and defend the religion of the Redeemer. This had been one principal subject of this Epistle. His authority had been called in question. He had felt it necessary to go into a vindication of it. His instructions had been departed from on the ground that he was not one of the original apostles, and that he differed from others; see Gal 1:11. Hence, all the anxiety and trouble which he had had in regard to their departure from the doctrines which he had taught them. He closes the whole subject of the Epistle by this tender and affecting language, the sense of which has been well expressed by Crellius: “I have shown my apostolic authority, and proved that I am commisioned by the Lord Jesus. I have stated and vindicated the great doctrine of justification by faith, and shown that the Mosaic law is not necessarily binding. On these points may I have no more trouble. I have enough for my nature to bear of other kinds. I bear in my body the impressive proofs that I am an apostle, and the sufferings that require all my fortitude to sustain them.” These marks, received in the service of the Lord Jesus, and so strongly resembling those which he himself received, prove that I am truly engaged in his cause, and am commissioned by him. These wounds and sorrows are so many, that I have need of the kindness and prayers of Christians rather than to be compelled to vindicate myself, and to rebuke them for their own wanderings.”

For I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus - The word here rendered “marks” (στίγματα stigmata), means properly the marks or brands which are pricked or burnt in upon the body. So slaves were sometimes branded by their masters to prevent their escape; and so devotees to an idol god sometimes caused to be impressed on themselves the name or image of the divinity which they adored. Herodotus (ii. 113) mentions a temple of Hercules in Egypt, in which if any slave took refuge, and had the sacred brands or marks impressed on him (στίγματα stigmata), he thereby devoted himself to the god, and it was not lawful for anyone to injure him. Many have supposed that Paul here says, in allusion to such a custom, that he had the name of the Redeemer impressed on his body, and that he regarded himself as devoted to him and his cause. It seems to me that by these marks or brands he refers to the weals which he had received in his body; the marks of stripes and sufferings which he endured in the service of the Redeemer. Compare 2Co 11:24-25.

He had repeatedly been scourged. He bore the marks of that on his person now. They were the evidences that he was devoted to the Saviour. He had received them in his cause; and they were the proofs that he belonged to the Lord Jesus. He had suffered for him, and had suffered much. Having thus suffered, and having thus the evidence that he belonged to the Saviour, and having by his sufferings given ample proof of that to others, he asks to be freed from further molestation. Some had in their body the marks of circumcision, the evidence that they were disciples of the Law of Moses; others had perhaps in their persons the image and name of an idol to which they were devoted; but the marks which he bore were the weals which he had received by being again and again whipped publicly in the cause of the Redeemer. To that Redeemer, therefore, he felt himself united, and from that attachment he would not allow himself to be diverted.

How often has an old soldier shown his scars with pride and exultation as a proof of his attachment to his country! Numerous scars; the loss of an arm, an eye, or a leg, are thus the much valued and vaunted pledges of attachment to liberty, and a passport to the confidence of every man who loves his country. “I prize this wound,” said Lafayette, when struck in the foot by a musket ball at Germantown, “as among the most valued of my honors.” So Paul felt in regard to the scourges which he had received in the cause of the Lord Jesus. They were his boast and his glory; the pledge that he had been engaged in the cause of the Saviour, and a passport to all who loved the Son of God. Christians now are not subjected to such stripes and scourings. But let us have some marks of our attachment to the Lord Jesus. By a holy life; by self-denial; by subdued animal affections; by zeal in the cause of truth; by an imitation of the Lord Jesus; and by the marks of suffering in our body, if we should be called to it, let us have some evidence that we are his, and be able to say, when we look on death and eternity, “we bear with us the evidence that we belong to the Son of God.” To us that will be of more value than any ribbon or star indicating elevated rank; more valuable than a ducal coronet; more valuable than the brightest jewel that ever sparkled on the brow of royalty.

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

I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus in my body, by the stripes and wounds I have received for preaching the gospel. (Witham) --- Formerly it was not unusual to stamp certain characters on the bodies of soldiers, fugitives, and on domestics, purposely to distinguish them.

There are three principal parts in this epistle. The first is the history of the vocation of St. Paul, chap. i. and ii.; the second is on justification and the abrogation of the law; the third is an exhortation to persevere in Christian liberty, to avoid its abuse, and to perform the various duties of a Christian.

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George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Let no man trouble me, either with questions about circumcision, or with imputations as if I were a friend to their opinion, of the necessity of adding to the doctrine of faith, circumcision and other observances of the law.

For I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus; I sufficiently declare my judgment to the world, suffering for my profession, and preaching the gospel. These sufferings he calls

the marks of the Lord Jesus, because he endured them in testimony to the gospel, as well against the Jews its against the Gentiles.

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

17. From henceforth—From the time-point of the laying down once for all of this unmovable canon.

Trouble me—I move above all molestation and obstacles in my apostolic course; for the trueness of my adherence to Christ is placed above question by my scars in his service.

Marks— Στιγματα, stigmata, derived from στιζω, to prick, to brand; hence a brand or mark of ownership or disgrace, (as our English word stigma,) either pricked in or burnt upon the body of man or beast. Two kinds of stigmata are, 1. Upon slaves, more usually those who had tried to escape, and then the marks were not only a security to the owner but a disgrace to the slave. 2. Temple slaves, or persons dedicated to some duty, were branded upon hand or neck, and then they were held too sacred to be touched. We might suppose that it was to this last class that the apostle alludes, and proclaims that his scars for Christ are his brands of dedication and ownership, and that no annoying hand should touch him.

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

From henceforth (tou loipou). This genitive form is found, in the New Testament, only here and in Eph_6:10, where the Textus Receptus reads ton. As being less ambiguous, it is chosen in preference to ton, because this latter word is also used in the sense "finally," as in Php_3:1 4:8, as well as for "henceforth," as in Mat_26:45; Heb_10:13. The meaning of tou loipou is illustrated by Aristophanes, "Pax.," 1050, "You shall never dine henceforth (tou loipou) any more in the Prytaneum;" and Herod., 3:15. Let no man trouble me (kopouv moi mhdeitw). The phrase, kopouv praecein, "cause trouble, or annoyance," occurs also in Luk_11:7 Luk_18:5. Obviously the apostle refers to such trouble as was now accruing to him from the endeavours of the Judaizing party to pervert his Galatian disciples. On him fell the "anxiety of all the Churches". (2Co_11:28) In any of his Gentile Churches, the defeat of the work of the gospel by Judaizing perversion was a "worry" which touched him to the very quick. There is nothing to warrant the supposition that he alludes to assaults made in particular upon his apostolical authority, such as he had often occasion to deal with, as, for example, at Corinth. None such have been referred to in this Epistle, though he has found occasion to complain of the alienated affections of his converts. For I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus (ejgw gar tagmata tou jIhsou Receptus, tou Kuriou jIhsou ejn tw swmati mou bastazw); I am one who bear branded on my body the flesh-marks of Jesus. The ejgw is inserted with emphasis. Being such as he here describes himself, he had a claim upon his brethren to be spared unnecessary annoyance. The Greek word stigma here employed denotes a mark on the flesh, either by puncture, its proper sense, with a hot, sharp instrument, very often with hot needles (see Prudentius"s lines quoted by Grotius in his note on the caragma, mark, in Rev_13:16) or more summarily by simply branding without puncture. It served sometimes as a mark of permanent ownership, as upon horses or cattle (Liddell and Scott, sub verb. stizw). In respect to slaves, it was not considered humane to brand them, except for punishment, or as security in particular cases against running away. Hence stigmatiav, brandling, designated a scoundrel or a runaway slave; as Aristophanes, "Lys.," 331; "Av.," 760. Others besides slaves were sometimes branded in ignominious punishment: Aristophanes, "Ran.," 1507; Herod., 7:233. Thus we have in (38, 26), ejstigmenov aujtomolov, "a branded deserter." Vegetius (quoted by Facciolati, sub verb. stigma), writing three hundred years later, states ("Do Re Milit.," 1:8; 2:5) that, in the Roman army, raw recruits had to be proved fit for service before they were allowed to have the tattoo put upon them. After due trial, they were "punc-turis in cute punctis milites scripti et matriculis inserti." But this testimony does not establish the fact of such usage prevailing in the Roman army in St. Paul"s time; though it is quite supposable that then, as now, soldiers might sometimes tattoo on their arm or hand the name of a favourite general. Instances are cited of consecration to a particular god being signalized by stigma. Herodotus, writing five hundred years before, says of a certain temple of Heracles, on the Egyptian coast, that if a servant, belonging to any man whatever, took sanctuary in it, and put upon himself sacred stigmata, giving himself to the god, no one could touch him (ii. 113). In RAPC 2Ma 2:29 mention is made of a "mark of Dionysus" ivy leaf being, by means of fire, put upon the body of Jews in Egypt in the time of Ptolemy Philopator; but this would seem to have been intended rather as a barbarous indignity, because especially abhorrent to their religious feelings, than as an actual consecration of them to Dionysus as his slaves. " But that it was in some cases employed to signalize a "sacred slave" is attested by Philo, "De Mon.," 2. p. 221, M; and Lucian, "De Dea Syr.," as cited by Bishop Lightfoot, who remarks that such a practice could not have been unknown in a country which was the home of the worship of Cybele." An example more familiar to the apostle"s mind might, perhaps, be cited, Isa_44:5 (Septuagint) ejpigrayei ceiri, "shall write upon his hand, I am God"s," which rendering Gesenius ("Thes.," in verb. kathabh) consents to accept. But if this rendering be the right one, it may yet be doubted whether it means writing by puncture; for grammata stikta appear in Lev_19:28 to be forbidden; unless, indeed, the prohibition be taken to refer to idolatrous tattoos only. But even thus the use of such in idol-worships has a further confirmation. It appears, however, to be a strong objection to our supposing the apostle to be here alluding to either the stigmata of consecration or those of other ownership, that such would infer no more suffering than would attend simple tattooing; whereas it is plain that the apostle alludes to marks which evidenced the undergoing of inflictions of extraordinary severity. The word stigma had passed into Roman usage, being employed both in a literal sense and also in a figurative one of a "stigma," as we also speak, cast upon a person"s character as by a poet"s lampoon. Thus Martial ("Epigr.," 12:62) writes, "Frons haec stigmate non meo notanda," "This forehead to be marked with a stigma not of my affixing," where the word frons indicates a close adherence to the original notion of a slave"s forehead branded. Suetonius ("Caes.," 73), "Catullum, a quo sibi versiculis de Mamurra perpetua stigmata imposita non dissimulaverat, satisfacientem eodem die adhibnit coenae." Reviewing the evidence now adduced as to the manner in which the term was used, we observe that the words "brandling" and "branded" (stigmatiav and ejstigmenov) were used to describe a person made infamous to open view by brand-marks put upon his person. It was natural that the word stigma would thus acquire the sense of a mark of patent infamy left upon a man"s person by some corporal abuse which he had been subjected to, without any other qualifying idea. Now, it appears most probable that it is in this sense that the apostle here uses the word. The term points to those scars, seams, perhaps long-continuing sores, which the long course of ever-recurring hardships and ill usage, through which he had passed, must have left upon him patent evidence to all who looked upon him of the manner in which his fellow-men regarded and treated him; this only, apart from any qualifying idea, whether of ownership, or of military allegiance, or of religious consecration. It is in this general sense that Chrysostom appears to have read the clause; and this general sense satisfies all the requirements of the context. A strong light is thrown upon this matter by what the apostle, near about this same time, wrote to the Corinthians, in rmata 2Co_11:22-27. The passage, as indeed does the whole Epistle, with much also of the frmer Epistle addressed to the same Church, betokens a strong feeling at this particular time resting on his mind, of the grievous, countless, hardships which marked his career a feeling, very supposably, just then freshened by some very painful experiences recently gone through, from the effects of which his bodily form was still suffering. "In stripes above measure, in deaths oft. Of the Jews, five times received I forty stripes save one; thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep." Such are some particulars which he specifies; and the enumeration is very suggestive with reference to our present point. Could he have undergone that "stoning" at Lystra, after which he was dragged out of the city as dead to be left to lie without burial, and have carried away no enduring disfigurement? Whether any marks would be likely to remain upon him from the five Jewish whippings, we cannot tell; but we may be assured that the three floggings inflicted with the cruel vitis of the Roman soldiery must have scarred his flesh with seams of permanent disfigurement. Perhaps while he wrote, sores remaining from some one of those eight punishments were making themselves painfully felt. These judicial inflictions, however, severe as some of them may have been, were nevertheless regulated by law and custom. There were m all probability other, much more barbarous and altogether unregulated, violences, which came often upon him from the brutality of mobs, from the assaults of "robbers," from accidents in shipwreck. It could not fail but that his person presented, wherever he went, conspicuously to view, tokens that he was one wont to be both regarded and dealt with as if he were, no doubt deservedly, a wretched outcast; in his own forcible, most deeply pathetic phrase, perikaqa tou komou pantwn periyhma "as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things". (1Co_4:13) The apostle"s enemies taunted him with the contrast which subsisted between the solemnity and power would-be power they meant of his letters, and the meanness and feebleness of his personal appearance and his personal address. (2Co_10:1, 2Co_10:10) His personal presence may, originally and by natural make, not have been calculated to bespeak respect. But whatever disadvantages he lay under originally, must, beyond all question, have been vastly aggravated by the bodily hard ships to which he had been subjected.

These must have left effects (this, perhaps, being the "stake in the flesh" which be groaned under messenger to buffet him," the fruits, certainly, of Satan"s working in the hearts of godless men) which he felt to be not only fraught with personal humiliation in whatever intercourse he held with his fellow-men, but also likely greatly to mar his efficiency in his ministerial work. The only consolation remaining to him was that, in the utter extinction of all self-love, he rejoiced to know that Christ"s grace had, in this enhanced feebleness of his instrument, the clearer field wherein to manifest its own Divine potency. (2Co_12:9, 2Co_12:10) "The flesh-marks of Jesus." This may be understood as meaning that they were incurred in Jesus" service. In part it may be so taken; but the relation expressed by this genitive appears to go deeper than that. The apostle means, the marks which disfigured the body of Jesus as now reproduced in his body. The genitive is used in just the same way as it is in the strikingly similar clause in 2Co_4:10, "always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus (panto thkrwsin tou jIhsou ejn sw swmati periferontev), where hJ nekrwsiv tou jIhsou means apparently "the deadness or corpse-condition of Jesus" (compare the use of the Greek noun in (Rom_4:19) the state of Jesus" nenekrwmenon swma, while yet hanging a corpse on the cross. By s strong hyperbole, prompted by the intense feeling then on his mind of his own bodily sufferings and the almost ever-present imminency of death (comp. vers. 7-12 of the same chapter), the apostle, in those words, refers to "Jesus" corpse-condition" as reproduced in his own bodily condition, adding the expression of his assured conviction that all was to this end that "the life also of Jesus," that is, the life which Jesus himself lives, should be all the more clearly manifested by what he was working in the world, in and through a body apparently so death-bound as the apostle"s was. The use of the phrase, thus interpreted, coheres well with the feeling which, in the writing of this Epistle, was very near to his soul, of his being "crucified along with Christ." The phrase, then, glances at those swollen, livid, blood-flecked, wales and bruises, (tw mwlwpi aujtou 1Pe_2:24) which the Roman scourging that immediately preceded his being handed over for crucifixion must have left on his sacred flesh no part spared the entire frame pervaded alike with disfigurement and with torture. To the body of his adorable Lord at that hour to the human consciousness of every thoughtful spectator, defaced, shorn by the dis-honouring whip of the dignity properly connate with a human body, and made utterly vile (for this should seem to have been the symbolical meaning and intent of that customary preliminary of crucifixion) and, at length on the cross, presenting to open view those brand-marks of degradedness, the apostle feels his own body to be, in the treatment it had received and the condition to which it had been reduced, in no small measure assimilated. Not only was he in spirit joined unto his Lord and one spirit with him; but in body likewise was he (so to speak) joined unto his Lord, and one body with him; being deeply "taught" in the lesson of what was meant by being "a sharer of his sufferings, while day by day becoming more conformed to the fashion of his death"; (Php_3:10) clothed with Christ in this sense also; clothed with the Crucified One. The verb bastazw, as here introduced, may be distinguished from the periferontev of 2Co_4:10, by presenting the notion of one"s carrying something in thought separable from one"s self, instead of being (so to speak) commingled with one"s own being. I am carrying, and can offer to your view, the brand-marks of Jesus." Chrysostom catches this view, perhaps carrying it out somewhat far, in his animated comment, "He saith not, "I have," but I carry;" like a man priding himself on a trophy and ensigns of a king." The use of the same verb in Act_9:15, "to bear my Name before the Gentiles and kings," clearly illustrates its import here. This closing verse is withal no piteous appeal for commiserating sympathy. The tone of "from henceforth," betokening the feeling of one who has made up his mind not to be trifled with, precludes the notion of his mood being one of mere self-pity and tenderness. Far more does the apostle hereby make claim to share with his Lord in that mingled sentiment of reverence and deferential, sympathetic compliance, which the disciple of Christ might be expected to entertain towards his Lord, crucified for him; such a sentiment as would prompt him to lighten, if he might, his burden and pain, to take part in his enterprise, to help forward his designs. Those brand-marks would cry out in loud protest against a fellow-disciple"s antipathy, tergiversation, or disesteem.

An apostle pleading for forbearance.

He now turns round to his adversaries, and with one parting word asks to be let alone.

I A CLAIM TO BE LEFT UNMOLESTED. "Henceforth let no man cause me troubles," by gainsaying my doctrine, impugning my apostleship, or imposing upon me the labour of a defence. He might well appeal to their forbearance; he needed to be strengthened rather than weakened, comforted rather than discouraged.

II THE GROUND OF HIS CLAIM. "I bear in my body the marks of Jesus." "I not the false teachers who plan to escape persecution by their hypocrisy bear in my body the marks in many scourgings, wounds, and scars of Christ"s ownership. These marks were the visible vouchers of his apostleship.

The stigmata.

I THE APOSTLE IS THE SERVANT OF CHRIST. The stigmata are the brands, the name of the master burnt on the slave. The most honoured of the apostles regards himself as the branded servant of Christ. To no higher honour can any Christian aspire. Christianity is living, not for self, but for Christ. We must all understand that Christ stands to us in the relation of a Master. Our part is to submit to his will. The supreme and peculiar Christian duty is obedience to Christ. (Joh_14:21)

II THE TRUE SERVANT OF CHRIST BEARS THE HARK OF HIS MASTER. St. Paul bore on his body the scars of the sufferings he had endured in the service of Christ. These plainly marked him as Christ"s. Christians must all bear indications of Christ on their lives. It may be granted that St. Francis was none the better for having the wound-marks as of the nails of the cross in his hands and feet. Yet this strange condition was the last proof of his passionate identification of himself with Christ in thought and will and affection. So the Christian must ever have the Name of Jesus upon him in the Christ-likeness of his life. It is useless to have it merely on the tongue; it must be on the body, i.e. on the life.

III THE MARKS OF CHRIST COME THROUGH SUFFERING FOR CHRIST. Thus St. Paul received his. They were brands burnt in by fiery trials. Suffering for Christ proves our fidelity to him and brings out our Christ-likeness of character. They who are like the rocky soil and receive the Word with joy, but cannot withstand persecution, may sing of the sweetness of the Name of Jesus in sentimental hymns; but they have no such Name branded on their persons. After all their enthusiasm has evaporated, we see nothing but self left. The Christian must deny himself for Christ. His life may not be so hard as St. Paul"s. Rarely has such hardship been known as the great apostle endured; rarely have the brands been burnt so deep with such cruel fires. Yet all must have an experience that is similar in kind, though perhaps far less in degree. The sufferer, however, may console himself with the thought that the more fiery the trial he endures for Christ becomes, the deeper will be the sacred marks of the Name of Jesus upon him. For nothing makes us so Christ-like and nothing binds us so near to Christ as patient suffering and toil for his sake. This suggests the fear that it is no easy thing to be a Christian. Certainly to be a true Christian such as St. Paul was is not easy; it is the depth of self-renunciation and the height of arduous fidelity. Count the cost, then. Look at the irons ready to brand the Name of Jesus before consenting to become his servant. But look also on the other side, at what he suffered for us and at the glory of his service.

IV THE BRANDS OF SERVICE SHOULD BE THE SECURITY OF THE SERVANT OF CHRIST. With such marks upon him, how dare any man trouble the apostle by questioning his authority? Suffering for Christ should be a confirmation of our faith to others. It should also be a security against the danger of unfaithfulness. How can he who bears the Name of Jesus thus conspicuously burnt in by hard trial and long service forsake his Master? Such brands should be eternal. 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.

From henceforth let none trouble me - By quarrels and disputes. For I bear - And afflictions should not be added to the afflicted. In my body the marks of the Lord Jesus - The scars, marks, and brands of my sufferings for Him.

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

VERSE 17. From henceforth let no man trouble me.

The Apostle speaks these words with a certain amount of indignation. "I have preached the Gospel to you in conformity with the revelation which I received from Jesus Christ. If you do not care for it, very well. Trouble me no more. Trouble me no more."

VERSE 17. For I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.

"The marks on my body indicate whose servant I am. If I was anxious to please men, if I approved of circumcision and good works as factors in our salvation, if I would take delight in your flesh as the false apostles do, I would not have these marks on my body. But because I am the servant of Jesus Christ and publicly declare that no person can obtain the salvation of his soul outside of Christ, I must bear the badge of my Lord. These marks were given to me against my will as decorations from the devil and for no other merit but that I made known Jesus."

Of the marks of suffering which he bore in his body the Apostle makes frequent mention in his epistles. "I think," he says, "that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men." (1Co 4:9.) Again, "Unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwellingplace; And labour, working with our hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it; being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day." (1Co 4:11-13.)

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.

The apostle having thus fully declared the mind of God in the matter controverted betwixt himself and the false apostles, touching the necessity of circumcision; he now makes use of his apostolic authority, and charges his adversaries to give him no farther trouble or disturbance, either by gainsaying his doctrine, or detracting from his authority; because he bare in his body the marks of his sufferings for Christ Jesus; namely, the stripes and wounds which he patiently received for the name of Christ, and his holy religion, 2Co 11:23.

Learn hence, That whatever hard measure we meet with for the sake of Christ, what wounds and marks we receive for professing faith in him, and persevering in obedience to him, he will own them for his own, and give us leave to look upon them as our own; yea, to call them his own, as our apostle did here: I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.

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

Henceforth let no man trouble me; for I bear branded on my body the marks of Jesus. [We have here a figure taken from the life of a slave, who, in that day, was often branded with his master's name, so as to insure his recovery should he attempt to escape. Now, Paul had been troubled by the Judaizers, who asserted that he was teaching their doctrine, and was as they were ( Gal_5:10-11 ). But this, in Paul's eyes, was an assertion that he was free from Christ ( Gal_5:4 ). Now, it troubled him to be thus accused of being no longer the servant of Christ, and, to silence such calumny, he appeals to the scars on his body, which showed that he was indeed the branded servant of Christ, and not a time-pleasing, persecution-evading ( Gal_6:12 ) servant of the world.]

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.

17. From henceforth let no man trouble me. Dispute my apostolic authority. I bear in my body the marks, etc. He bore on his body too many evidence of what he had suffered for Christ. As slaves were often branded by their master's name, so he had the brand of Christ upon him in his scars. Compare 2 Cor. 11:24, 25.

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.

From now on

This can also mean "Lastly" or "As I end this letter."

let no one trouble me

Possible meanings are 1) Paul is commanding the Galatians not to trouble him, "I am commanding you this: do not trouble me," or 2) Paul is telling the Galatians that he is commanding all people not to trouble him, "I am commanding everyone this: do not trouble me," or 3) Paul is expressing a desire, "I do not want anyone to trouble me."

trouble me

Possible meanings are 1) "speak of these matters to me" or 2) "cause me hardship" or "give me hard work."

for I carry on my body the marks of Jesus

These marks were scars from people who beat and whipped Paul because they did not like him teaching about Jesus. AT: "for the scars on my body show that I serve Jesus"

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit

"I pray that the Lord Jesus will be kind to your spirit"

brothers

See how you translated this in Galatians 1:2.

translationWords

Jesus

grace

lord

spirit

brother

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

17. NOTHING CAN TROUBLE ME; I BELONG TO MY MASTER, JESUS

A curious addition, illustrative of the strength of the emotion under which the Apostle wrote this Epistle. It is hardly a “note of denunciation,” but is to show that his own acceptance of Jesus as his Lord and Master is so thorough that nothing can affect his determination to be His. But he puts this into an imperative form, cf. 1Ti 4:12. It contains also a note of confidence in the ultimate triumph of his own efforts, and, by implication, of his teaching.

τοῦ λοιποῦ, “in future.” Madvig, § 66 (276), Rem. 1, compares Thuc. IV. 98 οὐ βλάψομεν τοῦ λοιποῦ ἓκοντες τὸ ἱερόν. Compare νυκτὁς, τῆς αὐτῆς ἡμέρας. τὸ λοιπόν would, as it seems, mean “continuously during the future” (Mar 14:41; 1Co 7:29; Heb 10:13) or only “finally,” 2Th 3:1; Php 3:1. Zahn rather strangely interprets it not of time at all, but as referring to Gal 6:16: “Let no one of the rest of Israel,” cf. Act 5:13. He quotes in confirmation Marcion’s text, τῶν δὲ ἄλλων εἰκῆ κόπονς μοι μηδεὶς παρεχέσθω, who, however, probably omitted καὶ ἐπὶ τ. Ἰ. τ. θ.

κόπους (cf. κοπιάω Gal 4:11) μοι μηδεὶς παρεχέτω. For κόπους παρέχειν see Mat 26:10 (|| Mar 14:6) and especially Luk 11:7, and in the singular Luk 18:5[172]. Cf. πόνον παρέχειν. Plat. Rep. VII. 526 c; Herod. I. 177. Also Sir 29:4, אA. Cf. ἀγῶνα παρέχειν, Isa 7:13. Deissmann (Bible Studies, p. 354) quotes an incantation from the papyri, ἐάν μοι ὁ δεῖνα κόπους παράσχῃ. So Hermas Vis. III. 3, 2 μηκέτι μοι κόπους πάρεχε περὶ ἀποκαλύψεως

[172] Is affixed to a word it means that all the passages are mentioned where that word occurs in the New Testament.

ἑγὼ γὰρ. Still emphatic. See also below.[173]

[173] Dr J. H. Moulton suggests that the scars on St Paul were to Roman officials marks of identification, in accordance with descriptions found in the papyri. Expository Times, March, 1910, p. 283.

τὰ στίγματα τοῦ Ἰησοῦ. στίγμα is found elsewhere in the Greek Bible only in Son 1:11, where the phrase “with studs (lit. points) of silver” is translated μετὰ στιγμάτων τοῦ ἀργυρίου. Cf. a Greek Hexaplaric version of Jdg 5:30. St Paul means that his body hears traces of suffering endured for Christ, but it is very uncertain in what way he regards them: (a) as brands set on a slave by his master. The marks are proofs that he belongs to Christ, and that Christ sets him all his tasks and is finally responsible, and will at last make him succeed. He is completely identified with his Master’s interests. For this custom of branding see the Code of Khammurabi, §§ 226, 227, and quotations in Wetstein. Ramsay (Gal. p. 472) says that such marks may still be seen in Turkey as a relic of the time before slavery was abolished there. See also Driver on Exo 13:9.

(b) Another explanation, on the whole more probable, but not necessarily excluding the thought of slavery, is that of sacred signs set on things or persons under the protection of a god. See reff. in Wetstein and also 3Ma 2:29, in a decree against the Jews, τοὺς δὲ ἀπογραφομένους χαράσσεσθαι, καὶ διὰ πυρὸς εἰς τὸ σῶμα παρασήμῳ Διονύσῳ κισσοθύλλῳ. This suggests consecration and therefore immunity from all ordinary claims and molestation. Deissmann (Bible Studies, p. 360 note) compares the emphatic ἐγώ to the equally emphatic anok of some incantations. He also thinks St Paul regards his marks as amulets (see below).

τοῦ Ἰησοῦ. Not the official (cf. even Gal 6:18) but the personal name, perhaps to recall both the sufferings that Jesus Himself bore and the triumphant issue of them. There may thus even be some allusion to the marks recorded in Joh 20:27. The thought is probably that of 2Co 4:10 (see also Col 1:24 note on τῶν θλίψεων τοῦ Χριστοῦ), that St Paul’s sufferings are a reproduction of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus, in toil etc., so far as in his personal life these can be reproduced, and so reproduced they mark him as belonging to Jesus primarily as Master, perhaps also as the Source of his life. Jerome recalling the sufferings mentioned in 2Co 11:23 sqq. contrasts these with the mark of circumcision.

ἐν τῷ σώματί μου. He will not use σάρξ with its un-Christlike connotation, Gal 6:12-13.

βαστάζω, Gal 6:2. Here with some connotation of solemnity in bearing trophies or royal standards (see Chrysostom). The word is used in an incantation quoted by Deissmann of carrying an amulet (Bible Studies, p. 358). Cf. περιφέροντες in 2Co 4:10.

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.

17.] τοῦ λοιποῦ, as E. V., henceforth: scil., χρόνου. So Herod. iii. 15, ἔνθα τοῦ λοιποῦ διαιτᾶτο:—see numerous other examples in Wetstein. “τὸ λοιπόν continuum et perpetuum tempus significat,—ut apud Xen. Cyr. viii. 5. 24; τοῦ λοιποῦ autem repetitionem ejusdem facti reliquo tempore indicat, ut apud Aristoph. in Pace, v. 1684 (1050 Bekk.).” Hermann ad Viger., p. 706. But the above example from Herod. hardly seems to bear this out. Rather is a thing happening in time regarded as belonging to the period including it, and the genitive is one of possession. Against this Ellic., viewing the gen. as simply partitive, refers to Donalds. Gram. § 451: who however defines his meaning by saying “partitive, or, what is the same thing, possessive.” This indeed must be the clear and only account of a partitive genitive.

κόπ. παρεχ.] How? Thdrt. (hardly Chrys.), al., understand it of the trouble of writing more epistles—οὐκέτι, φησί, γράψαι τὶ πάλιν ἀνέξομαι· ἀντὶ δὲ γραμμάτων τοὺς μώλωπας δείκνυμι, κ. τῶν αἰκισμῶν τὰ σημεῖα. But it seems much more natural to take it of giving him trouble by rebellious conduct and denying his apostolic authority, seeing that it was stamped with so powerful a seal as he proceeds to state.

ἐγὼ γάρ] for it is I (not the Judaizing teachers) who carry (perhaps as in ver. 5, and ch. 5:10,—bear, as a burden: but Chrys.’s idea seems more adapted to the ‘feierlich’ character of the sentence: οὐκ εἶπεν, ἔχω, ἀλλά, βαστάζω, ὥσπερ τις ἐπὶ τροπαίοις μέγα φρονῶν ἢ σημείοις βασιλικοῖς: see reff. (2)) in (on) my body the marks of Jesus.

τὰ στίγματα,—the marks branded on slaves to indicate their owners. So Herod. vii. 233, τοὺς πλεῦνας αὐτέων, κελεύσαντος Ξέρξεω, ἔστιζον στίγματα βασιλήϊα: and in another place (ii. 113) is a passage singularly in point: ὅτεῳ ἀνθρώπων ἐπιβάληται στίγματα ἱρά, ἑωϋτὸν διδοὺς τῷ θεῷ, οὐκ ἔξεστι τούτου ἅψασθαι. See many more examples in Wetst. These marks, in St. Paul’s case, were of course the scars of his wounds received in the service of his Master—cf. 2Co 11:23 ff.

Ἰησοῦ is the genitive of possession,—answering to the possessive βασιλήϊα in the extract above. There is no allusion whatever to any similarity between himself and our Lord, ‘the marks which Jesus bore;’ such an allusion would be quite irrelevant: and with its irrelevancy falls a whole fabric of Romanist superstition which has been raised on this verse, and which the fair and learned Windischmann, giving as he does the honest interpretation here, yet attempts to defend in a supplemental note.

Neither can we naturally suppose any comparison intended between these his στίγματα as Christ’s servant, and circumcision: for he is not now on that subject, but on his authority as sealed by Christ: and such a comparison is alien from the majesty of the sentence.

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

17. Τοῦ λοιποῦ κόπους μοι μηδεὶς παρεχέτω, ἐγὼ γὰρ τὰ στίγματα τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ἐν τῷ σώματί μου βαστάζω. “Henceforth let no man give me trouble; for I bear the marks of Jesus in my body.” This verse is best treated, as in WH., as a separate paragraph. V. 18 is the benediction of the whole epistle, hence not to be attached to v. 17, and v. 16 is the benediction concluding the paragraph begun at v. 11. With evidently deep feeling the apostle demands that henceforth he be spared the distress which his opponents have hitherto been inflicting upon him, and appeals to the scars which he has received in the service of Jesus, and which he in a figure describes as evidence that he belongs to Jesus.

Τοῦ λοιποῦ is doubtless here, as usually elsewhere, a genitive of time, meaning “henceforth.” The interpretation of Zahn, which makes it equivalent to τῶν ἄλλων, a genitive of the whole limiting μηδείς and referring to the remainder of Israel, which is not τοῦ θεοῦ, is negatived by the fact that the familiar use of τοῦ λοιποῦ in the sense of “henceforth” would have made it necessary for Paul to employ τῶν ἄλλων to express the thought which this interpretation finds here. The interpretation of Wies. which takes τοῦ λοιποῦ in the sense “finally,” equivalent to τὸ λοιπόν in Php 3:1, Php 4:8, etc., is unsustained by any clear evidence of the use of the genitive τοῦ λοιποῦ in this sense. Eph 6:10 is the only example that is alleged for such usage, and neither text nor interpretation of this passage is quite certain.

Κόπος is frequent elsewhere in Paul in the sense of “labour, toil,” 2Co 6:5, 1Th 1:3, 1Th 2:9, 1Th 3:5, etc. But the phrase κόπους παρέχειν clearly means, not “to impose toil,” but “to give trouble”; cf. Sir. 29:4, Mat 26:10, Mar 14:8, Luk 11:7, Luk 18:5. The use of the present imperative suggests an action already in progress. With μηδείς it means, “let no one continue to give, etc.,” “let him cease giving”; cf. BMT 165.

By τὰ στίγματα Paul undoubtedly refers to the effects of his sufferings as an apostle (cf. 2Co 6:4-6, 2Co 11:23ff.), and as the ἐν τῷ σὤματί μου shows, the physical effects, perhaps actual scars. The only doubt to which the phrase is subject concerns the value which he means to ascribe to these marks of his sufferings, or the figure of speech under which he means to present them. Elsner and Raphelius* find the explanation in a custom spoken of by Hdt. 2:113, according to which a fugitive who took refuge in a temple and there received upon his body the marks of the god, could not thereafter be touched. Sief. and Cremer, following many earlier interpreters, suppose the apostle to be thinking of himself as the slave (or soldier) of Jesus, and of the marks of his sufferings as comparable to the marks on the body of a slave designating his ownership, or on that of a soldier, indicating the general under whom he serves; cf. Hdt. 7:233; Diod. Sic. 34. 2:1; Plut. Nicias, 29:2; Deissmann, whom Zahn and M. and M. Voc. follow, finds the suggestion of a charm, warding off attack, appealing especially to a papyrus of the third century A. D. (Papyrus J. 383 of the Leyden Museum*), containing a spell, in which occur both the word βαστάζω and the expression κόπους παρέχειν. The expression κόπους παρεχέτω is favourable to the first or third of these views (note the words οὐκ ἔξεστι τούτου ἄψασθαι in Hdt. 2:113 and the precise phrase κόπους παρέχειν in the papyrus). But it is doubtful whether the usage described by Herodotus was prevalent in Paul’s day and surroundings, or at any rate familiar enough so that a bare allusion to it would be intelligible. As concerns the third view, the appositeness of the papyrus passage is greatly diminished by the fact that it makes no reference to στίγματα; what the protected one bears being not marks, but a miniature coffin of Osiris. On the other hand, the thought of himself as a slave of Jesus is a favourite one with the apostle, and the custom of branding or otherwise marking slaves was undoubtedly familiar to the Galatians. These facts make it most probable that it is the idea of himself as a slave of Jesus, marked as such by the scars of his sufferings, that underlies the language of the apostle.

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

Henceforth [του λοιπου] . Only here and Eph 6:10. Commonly to loipon. The genitive is temporal; at any time in the future as distinguished from throughout the future.

Trouble me [κοπους μοι - παρεχετε] . Lit. give me troubles; make it necessary for me to vindicate my apostolic authority and the divine truth of my gospel.

Bear in my body. Comp. 2Co 4:10.

Marks [στιγματα] . N. T. o. The wounds, scars, and other outward signs of persecutions and sufferings in the service of Christ. Comp. 2Co 11:23 ff. The metaphor is the brands applied to slaves in order to mark their owners. Hence Rev., I bear branded. Brands were also set upon soldiers, captives, and servants of temples. See on Rev 13:16, and comp. Rev 7:3; Rev 14:1, 9, 11. The scars on the apostle 's body marked him as the bondservant of Jesus Christ. The passage naturally recalls the legend of Francis of Assisi.

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