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Gal_5:2. Paul now in a warning tone reveals to them the fearful danger to which they are exposed. This he does by the address ἴδε in the singular (comp. Soph. Trach. 824), exciting the special attention of every individual reader, and with the energetic, defiant interposition of his personal authority: ἐγὼ Παῦλος , on which Theophylact well remarks: τὴν τοῦ οἰκείου προσώπου ἀξιοπιστίαν ἀντὶ πάσης ἀποδείξεως τίθησι . Comp. 2Co_10:1; Eph_3:1; Col_1:23
ἐὰν περιτέμνησθε ] To be pronounced with special emphasis. The readers stood now on the very verge of obeying thus far—and therefore to the utmost—the suggestions of the false apostles in taking upon them the yoke of the law, after having already consented to preliminary isolated acts of legal observance (Gal_4:10).
Χριστὸς ὑμᾶς οὐδὲν ὠφελήσει ] comp. Gal_2:21. Χριστὸς is emphatically placed first, and immediately after περιτ . Chrysostom, moreover, aptly remarks: ὁ περιτεμνόμενος ὡς νόμον δεδοικὼς περιτέμνεται , ὁ δὲ δεδοικὼς ἀπιστεῖ τῇ δυνάμει τῆς χάριτος , ὁ δὲ ἀπιστῶν οὐδὲν κερδαίνει παρὰ τῆς ἀπιστουμένης . On such a footing Christ cannot be Christ, the Mediator of salvation. Paul’s judgment presupposes that circumcision is adopted, not as a condition of a holy life (Holsten), but as a condition of salvation, which was the question raised among the Gal_2:3; Gal_2:5; Act_15:1; Act_16:3. Comp. Lechler, apost. Zeitalt. p. 248. The future, ὠφελήσει , which is explained by others (de Wette, Hofmann, and most) as referring to the consequence generally, points to the nearness of the Parousia and the decision of the judgment. Comp. Gal_5:5 : ἐλπίδα δικαιοσύνης , just as previously the idea of the κληρονομία in Gal_4:30.