Galatians 1:6

I marvel that ye are so quickly removing from him that called you in the grace of Christ unto a different gospel.

Hendriksen pointed out that it was Paul's manner to commend before he began to condemn";[17] but there is nothing like that here. In the very place where commendation was usually written, Paul thundered his indignant astonishment at a fully developed and continuing apostasy of his beloved converts among the Galatians. As Wesley said, "The Greek word here rendered marvel usually expressed surprise at something blameworthy."[18]

Ye are so quickly removing... The present tense indicates that the defection of the Galatians was well under way and still going on. There are several possible meanings of this clause: (a) It refers to moral speed,[19] that is, they were more quickly accepting the false teaching than they had accepted the gospel at first; (b) it means, "So soon after Paul's visit to them";[20] or (c) it means, "So soon after their conversion." There is no certain way to know exactly what shade of meaning Paul had in mind; and, for this reason, it is precarious to build a theory regarding the date of this epistle on any alleged meaning of this clause.

The reason why Paul speedily moved to attack and destroy the rampant heresy involved a number of facts, the details of which he would set forth in the bulk of the epistle. As Coad said, "The new teaching was retrograde, a return to bondage (Galatians 5:1)."[21] To surrender to the Judaizers was to negate the glory of the cross of Christ and to make the death of Christ on Calvary of no effect. It should be constantly borne in mind that the error Galatians was designed to correct was that of grafting Judaism into Christianity. There is absolutely nothing in this letter which may legitimately be construed as the stressing of "faith only" as opposed to "faith and obedience" as proclaimed in the Christian gospel from the beginning. Paul was not here giving a revised Christian doctrine, but defending the true doctrine already known and preached, from the encroachments of Judaism. Some of the comment one encounters regarding Galatians misses this very important point.

[17] William Hendriksen, op. cit., p. 37.

[18] John Wesley, op. cit., in loco.

[19] J. W. McGarvey, op. cit., p. 250.

[20] John Wesley, op. cit., in loco.

[21] F. Roy Coad, A New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1969), p. 446.