Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Galatians 5:13 - 5:13
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Gal_5:13. “It is with justice that I speak so indignantly against those men; for ye, who are being worked upon by them to bring you under the bondage of the law, have received God’s call to the Messianic kingdom for an object entirely different,—in order that ye may be free.” Thus the apostle again reminds his readers of the great benefit already indicated in Gal_5:1, but now with the view of inculcating its single necessary moral limitation.
ἐπʼ ἐλευθερίᾳ ] that ye should be free; ἐπί used of the ethical aim of the καλεῖν . Comp. 1Th_4:7; Eph_2:10; Soph. Oed. C. 1459: τἀξίωμʼ ἐφʼ ᾧ καλεῖς .
μόνον μὴ κ . τ . λ .] Limiting exhortation. But the verb, which is obvious of itself ( τρέπετε , perhaps, or even ἔχετε ), is omitted, the omission rendering the address more compact and precise. Comp. Mat_26:5; Buttmann, neut. Gr. 338. This also corresponds (in opposition to Hofmann’s groundless doubt) to the usage of the Greeks after the prohibitory μή . See Heindorf, ad Plat. Prot. p. 315 B; Hartung, Partikell. II. p. 153; Klotz ad Devar. p. 669; Winer, p. 554 f. [E. T. 745].
εἰς ἀφορμὴν τῇ σαρκί ] for an occasion to the flesh; do not use your liberty so that it may serve as an occasion for the nonspiritual, psychico-corporeal part of your nature to assert its desires which are contrary to God. Comp. Rom_7:8. As to σάρξ in the ethical sense, see Rom_4:1; Rom_6:19; Rom_7:14; Joh_3:6.
ἀλλὰ διὰ τῆς ἀγάπης δουλ . ἀλλήλ .] but let love (through which your faith must work, Gal_5:6) be that by means of which ye stand in a relation of mutually rendered service. An ingenious juxtaposition of freedom and brotherly serviceableness in that freedom. Comp. Rom_6:18; Rom_6:22; 1Co_9:19; 1Pe_2:16; 2Pe_2:19. The special contrast, however, which is here opposed to the general category of the σάρξ , has its ground in the circumstances of the Galatians, and its warrant in what is about to be said of love in Gal_5:14.