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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Bengel Commentary - Galatians 2:15 - 2:15
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Gal 2:15. Ἡμεῖς, we) Paul, sparing the person of Peter, dismisses the second person singular, and passes to the first person plural, then figuratively to the first person singular, Gal 2:18; lastly, I in its proper [literal] meaning, Gal 2:19-20. We, although Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, viz., we have been: comp. the preterite knowing-we have believed. This we, after the reason[12] has been interposed in the way of parenthesis, is taken up again in the following verse with epitasis [an emphatic addition, viz., even we] and reaches to we have believed.-φύσει, by nature) not merely proselytes.-οὐκ ἐξ ἐθνῶν ἁμαρτωλοὶ, not sinners of the Gentiles) Paul openly declares it as a thing acknowledged, that the Gentiles, inasmuch as they did not even possess the law, are sinners, while the Jews, on the contrary, had the law or even works; Tit 3:5. Then by the way he grants, that it is only in Christ that the Jews can have communion with them; but he especially declares, as a thing acknowledged, the justification of the Gentiles by faith, and he also infers the same thing concerning the Jews. To this refers the expression sinners, Gal 2:17, note.[13]
[12] By ‘aetiologia.’ See Append.
[13] Sinners such as the Gentiles heretofore were justly regarded.-ED.