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Gal_5:3. With regard to the judgment just expressed, Χριστὸς οὐδὲν ὑμᾶς ὠφελήσει , Paul now, with increasing emotion ( μαρτύρομαι , παντὶ ἀνθρ . περιτ .), gives an explanation (Gal_5:3-4) which clearly discloses the entire certainty of this negation.
The δέ is not potius (Schott), because it is not preceded by any antagonistic assertion, but is the autem which leads on to more detailed information (Herm. ad Viger. p. 845).
μαρτύρομαι ] in the sense of μαρτυρῶ , as in Act_20:26; Eph_4:17; Joseph. Bell. iii. 8. 3; and also Plat. Phil. p. 47 D, while in classical authors it usually means to summon as a witness and obtestor. Paul testifies that which with divine certainty he knows. The context does not warrant us to supply θεόν , with Bretschneider and Hilgenfeld.
πάλιν ] not contra (Erasmus, Er. Schmid, Koppe, Wahl; comp. Usteri), which is never its meaning (see Fritzsche, ad Matth. p. 166 f.), but again, not however in the sense that Gal_5:3 is described as a repetition of what was said in Gal_5:2 (Calvin, Castalio, Calovius, Wolf, Zachariae, Paulus, and others), which it is not; nor in the sense that Paul is thinking merely of the testifying in itself, and not of its purport (Hofmann; comp. Fritzsche, Winer, de Wette),—an interpretation which cannot but be the less natural, the more necessarily that which is attested πάλιν stands in essential inner connection with the axiom which had been previously expressed (“probatio est proximae sententiae sumta ex loco repugnantium,” Calvin); but in the sense that Paul calls to the remembrance of his readers his last presence among them (the second), when he had already orally assured them of what he here expresses (Moldenhauer, Flatt, Rückert, Olshausen, Wieseler). Comp. on Gal_1:9, Gal_4:16.
παντὶ ἀνθρ . περιτ .] stands in a climactic relation to the foregoing ὑμῖν , remorselessly embracing all: to every one I testify, so that no one may fancy himself excluded from the bearing of the statement. According to Chrysostom and Theophylact, with whom Schott and others agree, Paul has wished to avoid the appearance κατʼ ἔχθραν ταῦτα λέγεσθαι ; but in this view the whole climactic force of the address is misunderstood.
ὅλον ] has the emphasis; comp. Jam_2:10. Circumcision binds the man who accepts it to obey the whole law, because it makes him a full member of the covenant of the law, a proselyte of righteousness, and the law requires from those who are bound to it its entire fulfilment (Gal_3:10). Probably the pseudo-apostles had sought at least to conceal or to weaken this true and—since no one is able wholly to keep the law (Act_13:38; Act_15:10; Rom_8:3)—yet so fearful consequence of accepting circumcision, as if faith in Christ and acceptance of circumcision might be compatible with one another. On the contrary, Paul proclaims the decisive aut … aut. The state of the man who allows himself to be circumcised stands in a relation contradictory to the state of grace (comp. Rom_6:14 f., Rom_11:6).