Galatians, Lectures on the Epistle to the

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From chapter 1:

"As usual, the first few verses bear the stamp of the whole, and show what the Holy Ghost was about to bring out in every part. We have, of course, the choicest collection of words, and the avoiding of irrelevant topics, so as to reveal in short compass the mind of God as to the state of things among the churches in Galatia. This accounts for the comparative coldness of the tone of the epistle - the reserve, we may say, with which the apostle speaks to them.
I think it is unexampled in any other part of the New Testament. And the reason was this: the bad state into which the Galatians had fallen did not so much arise from ignorance, as it was unfaithfulness. And there is a great difference. God is most patient towards mere want of light; but He is intolerant of His saints' trifling with the light He has given them. The apostle was imbued with the mind of God, and has given it to us in a written form without the slightest admixture of human error. He has given us, not only the mind, but the feelings of God.

Now man reserves his bitter censure for that which is immoral - for a man guilty of cheating or intoxication, or any other grossness: every correct person would feel these things. But the very same persons who are alive to the moral scandal may be dead to an evil that is a thousand times worse in the sight of God.
Most people are sure to feel immorality, partly because it affects themselves; whereas in what touches the Lord, they always need to be exhorted strenuously and to have the light of God brought to bear strongly upon it. Satan is not apt to serve up naked and bare error, but generally garnishes it with more or less of truth, attractive to the mind. Thus he entices persons to refuse what is good, and choose what is evil." [...]

198 pages - Hardcover - Author: W. Kelly