Bible Commentaries

Amended Expressions

Galatians 4:9

In the course of his writing the Apostle said, "After that ye have known God, or rather—." That is the point. The subject is Amended Expressions, self-correction in the use of language. Sometimes we are too fluent, and we are halfway through a sentence before it occurs to us that we are on the wrong track. We start sentences from the wrong end. However skilful we may be in the use of words, sometimes we are halfway through a sentence before we see that the sentence might have been much better if we had started it from the other end. The Apostle was a tumultuous speaker. The one thing he lacked was polish—a fatal lack in the estimation of pedants and of people who have nothing to do. Hear him:—"After that ye have known God, or rather are known of God"—which I ought to have said at first but did not. We have seen instances in which inspired writers have corrected themselves and have corrected public impression. Thus:—"It is Christ that died, yea rather." Why, that is the same Romans 6:17). Is that clear? Yes. Then if clear what does it mean? Why obviously it means that sundry persons were appointed to deliver sundry documents to the churches; they came like letter-carriers and in effect said, "We deliver the doctrine to you," and then they vanish: can anything be clearer? No: and hardly anything can be falser. How then? Why contrariwise, just as this same Apostle corrects himself in the text. The Revised Version gives the true reading:—"Ye became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching whereunto ye were delivered." The delivery took place at the other end. We are not critics, we are delivered men, we are handed over. Now we begin to see the meaning of religious inspiration and religious enthusiasm. What, forsooth! is this it? that the documents have been delivered to me, and I have to read them and pronounce an opinion upon them? Contrariwise, the documents are not delivered to me, I am delivered to the documents, bound hand and foot and head,—the slave of truth, the bondman of God. You thought the Bible was to be handled by you, whereas you have to be handled by the Bible. You thought you were called upon as respectable citizens to pronounce an opinion upon revelation! It is extremely humiliating, but the truth stands exactly in the other way. The Bible comes to judge us.

Or take an instance of the larger translation from this epistle. The Apostle, in a tumult of excitement, in what we might call a divine rage, says, "I would they were even cut off which trouble you." What does he mean? Why obviously an act of excision; he would have the knife drawn as between the Galatians and their tormentors, and he would cut off the tormentors and let them fall into any place that would receive them. That is clear? Yes, too clear; it has about it the clearness of shallowness. There is not one word of truth in it. The Apostle's meaning is larger and more precise and more crushing in its practical application. These Galatians were not converted Jews, they were converted Pagans, and they or their ancestors were the worshippers of the earth-goddess Cybele, and that earth-goddess was served by priests who were self-mutilated, who had done some wild cutting upon themselves. These priests were always known by the Romans as Galli—almost Galatians you see again. The Apostle says, These men are not waiting to bring you to Judaism, which is a religion which was true, but they want to bring you back to your old paganism: I would God that they would be consistent, that they would carry out their own reasoning to its logical issues, and show you what kind of circumcision they want you to undergo; I wish they would be self-consistent and would come right down to the square end of their own logic and say, This is what we want to be at; then you would see their meaning and repulse it. But evil teachers often conceal their meaning; they are very clever in the use of ambiguity. The double entendre is their great weapon. When you believe them in their first meaning and go a mile or two after them and remind them of the acceptation you put upon their words, they say, Nothing of the kind; that is not what we meant; you have mistaken us; your interpretation is imperfect: what we really did mean to do with you was to thrust you into everlasting darkness. Beware of the awful avalanche; beware the awful subtlety and the insidiousness of the man who will lecture to you in an innocent way, simply asking you to follow the light of reason, lift up your head and be as sunny and trustful as you can, and go with him along the flowery road. When you are ten miles along that road he will tell you that he never meant what you thought he signified; when it is too late for you to return he will tell you his original meaning. Beware! resist the devil, and he will flee from you; be sober, be vigilant; for your adversary in many a form, lion and serpent and angel of light, goeth about seeking whom he may devour.