Chapter Six

On various particular manifestations of Christian love (1–10). Conclusion to the letter (11–18)

Gal 6:1-10. In the conversion of a sinner to the true path, one must act in the spirit of gentleness. One should also care for one’s neighbors in their needs and difficulties, being condescending to their failings, considering that each of us also has his own sins. The moral teaching section concludes with a new call to do good to people.

Galatians 6:1. Brothers! If someone is caught in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual should correct such a one in a spirit of gentleness, watching yourselves lest you too be tempted. “Is caught”—unexpectedly, suddenly for himself, through being drawn away (more precisely: “is seized”). “You who are spiritual”—that is, such Christians in whom the Holy Spirit has most revealed its power, in whom it became the guiding principle of life, while in the mass of Christians the influence of the flesh is still strong (see 1 Cor 3:1-3). These are the people whom the Apostle calls “perfect” (1 Cor 2:6; Phil 3:15), “strong” (Rom 15:1). “Lest you too be tempted,” that is, lest you fall into sin. A brother’s transgression should, therefore, serve as a warning to a “spiritual” person, reminding him of his own weakness, and this remembrance will cause him to treat the one who has sinned more gently...

Galatians 6:2. Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. Not only the sin of a brother, but every heaviness (“burden”) that is felt by our brothers should also be felt by us as if oppressing us ourselves. Therefore, we should help a brother bear his burden, which should be understood as everything that weighs a person down, with which he cannot cope himself—both spiritual and material hardships. This broad understanding of the word “burdens” is prompted by the conclusion of the verse: “you will fulfill the law of Christ” or the commandment of Christ about love, in which actually consists the essence of the law of Christ (see Matt 22:37 and following, John 13:34). The Apostle already sees from the Galatians the fulfilling of the law of Christ, but this fulfilling is still incomplete. It will be perfect only with time (to fulfill perfectly, in contrast to simply fulfill). In the Galatians, therefore, one cannot yet assert perfect fulfillment, but only simple fulfillment. This perfect fulfillment of the law of Christ is possible only when the Galatians always help brothers bear their “burdens.”

Galatians 6:3. For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. The Apostle summoned Christians to bear the burdens “of one another.” By these last words he gave to understand that each has burdens, hardships, awareness of his own failings and these very failings. But there are people who think too highly of themselves (this is indicated by the expression “thinks he is something”; see 1 Cor 3:18 and especially 1 Cor 8:2). Such a person, inasmuch as he is actually nothing, only deceives himself, becomes completely confused in his thinking, and is already unable to treat the burdened brother properly or to serve him.

Galatians 6:4. Let each one test his own work, and then he will have reason to boast only regarding himself and not regarding his neighbor. Instead of indulging in his supposed virtues, a Christian should rather examine his own conduct (“his own work” or doing). “Then he will have reason to boast...” The translation is imprecise. More precisely: “then he will have reason to boast only regarding himself and not regarding his neighbor.” The Apostle’s thought is this. We often boast about ourselves only because we see the blameworthy deeds of others. But to evaluate ourselves from such a perspective is incorrect. One must test oneself, learn all one’s own strengths and abilities, and think about whether we have used these abilities as we should. Then it will turn out that we have nothing to boast about, that we should rather ask God for forgiveness for having neglected his gifts.

Galatians 6:5. For each person will bear his own burden. Here is the basis or motivation for self-examination. One must pay serious attention to one’s conduct, because each of us will bear the results of his earthly deeds in the other life, before the throne of the Eternal Judge (see Rev 14:13; 2 Cor 5:10, Matt 5:25 and following). In this, the Apostle uses a different word for the concept of “burden” than the one he used in Gal 6:2. There the word means every kind of heaviness, from wherever it comes and however long one must bear it. Here, however, a different word is used, which means a weight that someone loads on himself or allows to be placed on him in order to carry it to a definite destination. The deeds which a person has performed here, in earthly life, are such a weight which he himself, and not others, must bear throughout his life and beyond its boundaries (for example, for a dissolute life a person often pays with illness, which no one can share with him)...

Galatians 6:6. Anyone who is taught the word must share all good things with the one who teaches. Even at that time there were among Christians special teachers of faith for people who were not well-informed in it (see Acts 13:1; 1 Cor 12:26; Eph 4:11). The one who receives instruction in the word is obligated to reward the teacher with all good things (“all good things”), that is, earthly gifts, material blessings (see 1 Cor 9:11; Rom 15:27. Teaching of the Twelve Apostles 13:2; 15 and following).

Galatians 6:7. Do not be deceived: God is not mocked. What a person sows, that he will also reap. The false teachers apparently raised many objections to this position of the Apostle and mocked it. Instead of speaking about themselves, the Apostle speaks about God, that God cannot be mocked, as the false teachers were doing, mocking really Paul. Thus the Apostle wants to say that the order existing in the Church is the will of God Himself. God also takes care that a person always reaps what he sows; here on earth, from given seed comes the same seed.

Galatians 6:8. For the one sowing into his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one sowing into the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. Now the Apostle speaks not about what is sown, but about the soil into which the seeds are scattered. The variety of the soil determines the variety of the harvest obtained. Whoever scatters seeds “into the flesh,” that is, cares for the flesh, will from this soil receive only corruption. On the other hand, whoever sows “into the Spirit,” on the soil of the Spirit, will receive from the Spirit eternal life, so that the general rule given at the end of Gal 6:7 proves applicable here too. The Apostle wants to say that whoever uses his property only for improving his own well-being (Rom 13:14), whoever passes indifferently by the needs of brothers in need, will receive nothing except what that soil can give from which he uses his property, that is, nothing except corruption (see Col 2:22; 2 Pet 1:4). The one who, on the contrary, uses his earthly goods for the benefit of society, and specifically for spiritual benefit, then—of course, not from money, but from the Spirit, in whose service he has devoted himself—will receive eternal life (see Matt 6:19-24).

Galatians 6:9. Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due time we will reap, if we do not give up. “Let us not grow weary”—more precisely: “let us not abandon it.” A person sometimes finds himself growing tired under the burden of the duty of doing good to his neighbors which he has taken upon himself. But he should rather shake off such a feeling of fatigue.

Galatians 6:10. So then, as long as we have time, let us do good to all people, but especially to those of the household of faith. A Christian should be charitable to all people, but in any case first of all to those who are related to him by faith. Gal 6:11-18. In conclusion to his letter, the Apostle once more utters a bitter complaint against his opponents—those who judaize—and then declares that for him personally, the cross of Christ is the sole source of his pride in life.

Galatians 6:11. See what large letters I have written to you with my own hand. The Apostle wanted the Galatians to imagine his face as clearly as possible (see Gal 4:20 and Gal 5:2). Therefore, contrary to his custom—of using the services of scribes when writing his letters, to whom he dictated, he now took up the pen himself and wrote quite a long letter, and moreover in very large letters (“what large letters”—more precisely: “in what large script”). Why he wrote in “large script”—is unknown. Perhaps his eyesight was poor and his eyes ached, so he could not write small, or perhaps also in order to give special importance to this letter.

Galatians 6:12. Those who want to make a good appearance in the flesh compel you to be circumcised, only so that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. Galatians 6:13. For even those who are circumcised do not keep the law themselves, but they want you to be circumcised so that they may boast in your flesh. Paul cannot forget that while he is away from the Galatians, they are being seduced by the false teachers; to warn his readers against them, he says here that these false teachers, who base all their value on their fleshly Jewish advantages (Rom 2:28; Eph 2:11; Phil 3:3 and following)—which have no significance for moral and religious life, whose realm is the spirit—compel the Galatians to be circumcised with the goal of freeing themselves from persecution by unbelieving Jews, for whom the cross of Christ was an offense (Gal 5:11; 1 Cor 1:23). The law itself, its internal content, has no significance for such people: they do not observe its numerous prescriptions. “Who are circumcised.” Why does the Apostle use the present tense for the false teachers? After all, they had been circumcised long ago (see Gal 5:12)? He wants to say that circumcision was for them something like a dogma, which they constantly preached: these were men of circumcision (Gal 2:12). “So that they may boast in your flesh,” that is, having circumcised you, they will refer to this as proof of their devotion to the Law of Moses. And this could be useful to them when unbelieving Jews began to reproach them for believing in Christ. These people, so to speak, wanted to insure themselves against persecution for faith in Christ by taking out a “certificate of loyalty.”

Galatians 6:14. But as for me, may I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Galatians 6:15. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision amounts to anything, but a new creation. The Apostle does not belong to that class of people who seek the favor of the world. “As for me, may I never...” Rather: “may it not be that...” While those seek glory, trying to impose the mark of Judaism on a larger number of gentiles, the Apostle considers the cross of Christ as the sole object of his boasting, which at the same time is also his own cross: he himself has endured and suffered what Christ endured and suffered on the cross (Gal 2:19). And just as for Christ his relationship to the narrow confines of Jewish nationality ended with death on the cross, so too for Paul, who partakes in this death. Through the crucified Jesus, the world has died for Paul and Paul for the world. That the Apostle has truly died for the world is completely true, because now, at the present time, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any significance: only new “creations,” created in Christ for new, eternal life, exist (see 2 Cor 5:17).

Galatians 6:16. As for those who walk according to this rule, peace be upon them and mercy, and upon the Israel of God. Whoever holds the same way of thinking as the Apostle, to them he sends his blessing. “And upon the Israel of God,” that is, the true Israel, which can really be called the people of God. By this “Israel” it is most natural to understand Christians from among the Jews, in whom Israel continues to live as a people of God (Rom 11:1-8; Phil 3:3 compare the interpretation of Ephrem the Syrian, Ambrosiaster, who understood the expression exactly this way).

Galatians 6:17. From now on, let no one trouble me, for I bear on my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. “From now on”—more correctly: “from the rest” of Israel (those who have turned away from God) “let no one cause me trouble and burden.” The Apostle does not want the remaining, who have turned away from God, Israelites to interfere in his affairs and put obstacles in his path. “The marks of Jesus”—according to Tischendorf and other new editions: “the marks of Jesus.” By “marks” one must understand properly the signs on the body, made by some cutting instrument or red-hot iron. According to the ancient general opinion of commentators, the Apostle calls thus the scars remaining on his body from the wounds inflicted on him during persecutions by the Jews (2 Cor 11:24). He calls them “the marks of Jesus” because he imagines Christ as the God-man Jesus, undergoing beating and blows from soldiers at the trial before Pilate (Matt 27:26; John 19:1), and because he regards his own sufferings as participation in the sufferings of Jesus (Phil 3:10: Col 1:24)... “If someone saw a bloodied and covered with countless wounds soldier coming out of battle, would they accuse him of cowardice and betrayal when he bears on his very body the evidence of his courage? So too,” he says, “you should judge concerning me... My wounds present evidence stronger than words and more extensive than this letter” (Chrysostom).

Galatians 6:18. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen. The Apostle has said much that was unpleasant for his readers in this letter. As if covering all their transgressions with his love and wishing to show that he is not angry with them, he sends them a greeting such as he usually adds in his letters, and calls them “brothers.” * * * Some commentators find a hint to this in the letter to Gal 4:15