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Gal_3:3. Are ye to such a degree irrational?—pointing to what follows. The interrogative view (in opposition to Hofmann) is in keeping with the fervour of the language, and is logically justified by the indication of the high degree implied in οὕτως . On οὕτως , comp. Soph. Ant. 220, οὐκ ἔστιν οὕτω μῶρος : Joh_3:16; Gal_1:6; Heb_12:21; and see Voigtländer, ad Luc. D. M. p. 220; Jacob, ad Luc. Alex. p. 28.
ἐναρξάμενοι πνεύματι , νῦν σαρκὶ ἐπιτελεῖσθε ;] After ye have begun by means of the Spirit, are ye now brought to completion by means of the flesh? The second part of the sentence is ironical: “After ye have made a beginning in the Christian life by your receiving the Holy Spirit (Gal_3:2), are ye now to be made perfect by your becoming persons whose life is subject to the government of the σάρξ ? Do ye lend yourselves to such completion as this?” In the same measure in which the readers went back to the legal standpoint and departed from the life of faith, must they again be emptied of the Holy Spirit which they had received, and consequently be re-converted from πνευματικοί into σαρκικοί (Rom_7:5; Rom_7:14), that is, men who, loosed from the influence of the Holy Spirit, are again under the dominion of the σάρξ which impels to sin (Rom_7:14 ff; Rom_8:7 f., et al.). For the law cannot overcome the σάρξ (Rom_8:3-4; 1Co_15:56). According to this view, therefore, πνεῦμα and σάρξ [116] designate, not Christianity and Judaism themselves, but the specific agencies of life in Christianity and Judaism (Rom_7:5-6), expressed, indeed, without the article in qualitative contrast as Spirit and flesh, but in the obvious concrete application meaning nothing else than the Holy Spirit and the unspiritual, corporeal and psychical nature of man, which draws him into opposition to God and inclination to sin (see e.g. Rom_4:1; Joh_3:6).
ἐναρξάμενοι ] What it is which they have begun, is obvious from πνεῦμα ἐλάβετε in Gal_3:2, namely, the state into which they entered through the reception of the Spirit—the Christian life.[117] This reception is “the indisputable sign of the existence and working of true Christianity,” Ewald.
ἘΠΙΤΕΛΕῖΣΘΕ ] is understood by most modern expositors (including Baumgarten-Crusius, de Wette, Hilgenfeld, Ewald, Wieseler, Hofmann) as middle (comp. Luther, Castalio, and others); although Koppe (with whom Rückert agrees) entirely obliterates the literal sense by the assumption, that it is put so only for the sake of the contrast and denotes “tantum id, quod nunc inter Gal. fieri solebat, contrarium pristinae eorum sapientiae,” etc. Winer explains more definitely: “carne finire, h. e. ita ad τὴν σάρκα se applicare, ut in his studiis ΣΑΡΚΙΚΟῖς plane acquiescas;” and Wieseler: “instead of your advancing onward to the goal, ye make the most shameful retrogression;” comp. Hofmann. But ἘΠΙΤΕΛΕῖΝ and ἘΠΙΤΕΛΕῖΣΘΑΙ always denote ending in the sense of completion, of accomplishing and bringing fully to a conclusion (consummare): see especially Php_1:6, ὁ ἐναρξάμενος … ἐπιτελέσει ; 1Sa_3:12, ἌΡΞΟΜΑΙ ΚΑῚ ἘΠΙΤΕΛΈΣΩ : Zec_4:9; Luk_13:32; Rom_15:28; 2Co_7:1; 2Co_8:6; 2Co_8:11; Heb_8:5; Heb_9:6. Comp. Thucyd. iv. 90. 4, ὍΣΑ ἮΝ ὙΠΌΛΟΙΠΑ ἘΠΙΤΕΛΈΣΑΙ : Xen. Anab. iv. 3. 13. If, therefore, the word is taken as middle, it must be explained: “After ye have begun (your Christian life) with the Spirit, do ye now bring (that which ye have begun) to completion with the flesh?” Comp. Holsten. But the active to complete is always in the N.T. represented by ἐπιτελεῖν , not by ἘΠΙΤΕΛΕῖΣΘΑΙ in the middle (comp., on the contrary, 1Pe_5:9), however undoubted is the occurrence of the medial use among Greek authors (Plat. Phil. p. 27 C; Xen. Mem. iv. 8. 8; Polyb. i. 40. 16, ii. 58. 10, v. 108. 9). Moreover, the τοσαῦτα ἐπάθετε εἰκῆ which follows (see on Gal_3:4) makes the subject of ἘΠΙΤΕΛΕῖΣΘΕ appear as suffering, and thereby indicates the word to be passive, as, following the Vulgate (consummamini), Chrysostom, and Theophylact, many of the older expositors have understood it,[118]—viz., so that the Judaistic operations, which the readers had experience of and allowed to be practised on themselves, are expressed by antiphrasis, and doubtless in reference to their own opinion and that of their teachers, as their Christian completion ( τέλειοι ποιεῖσθε !). Comp. also Matthias, Vomel, Reithmayr. But how cutting and putting to shame this irony is, is felt at once from the contradictory juxtaposition of carne perficimini! Nearest to our view (without, however, bringing forward the ironical character of the words) comes that of Beza, who says that perficimini applies to the teaching of the pseudo-apostles, who ascribed “Christo tantum initia, legi perfectionem justitiae.” Comp. Semler. The present denotes that the Galatians were just occupied in this ἐπιτελεῖσθαι . Comp. Gal_1:6. The emphatic ΝῦΝ (“nunc, cum magis magisque deberetis spirituales fieri relicta carne,” Bengel) should have prevented it from being taken as the Attic future (Studer, Usteri).
[116] Following Chrysostom, Theophylact, and many ancient expositors, Rückert, Usteri, and Schott believe that σαρκί is chosen with special reference to circumcision (Eph_2:11). But the context by no means treats specially of circumcision, and the contrast of itself necessarily involved σαρκί .
[117] Bos, Wolf, and others, as also Schott, assume the figurative idea of a race in the stadium. But this reference would require to be suggested by the context (as in v. 7); for although ἐπιτελεῖσθαι is used of the completion of a race, as of every kind of completion (Herodian. viii. 8. 5, iii. 8. 17 f., iv. 2. 7), it has not this special meaning of itself, but acquires it from the context.
[118] Some of them indeed translating it passively, but in the interpretation (comp. Erasmus, Calvin, and others, also Bengel) not strictly maintaining the passive sense.