Galatians 5:21 - Exposition

Envyings, murders ( φθόνοι , [Receptus adds φόνοι , rejected by most editors]). These belong properly to the third group, and should have been placed in the same verse with them. We have the like alliterative combination of the Greek words in Romans 1:29 , φθόνου φόνου . Judging from the evidence of manuscripts, the genuineness of φόνοι , is extremely doubtful. Regard being had to the particular circumstances of the Galatian Churches, which the apostle no doubt had in his eye in this enumeration, "murders' seems too strong a word to be appropriate; and this consideration seems to prove the word here not authentic. Drunkenness, revellings ( μέθαι κῶμοι ); drunkennesses , revellings. We have the same two plural nouns in Romans 13:13 , κώμοις καὶ μέθαις . This fourth group represents sins of excess. Here, too, the apostle touches a form of vice, to which abundant testimony shows the Galatians, as well as other branches of Celts, to have been especially prone. It was, perhaps, this marked feature of the Galatian nationality in particular that led St. Peter, in addressing the Churches of "Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia," to speak ( 1 Peter 4:3 ) of their having formerly walked in "lasciviousness, lusts, wine-bibbings, revellings, carousings ( οἰνοφλυγίας κώμοις πότοις ), and abominable idolatries." And such like ( καὶ τὰ ὅμοια τούτοις ); and those (works) which arc like to these. Of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past ( ἅ προλέγω ὑμῖν καθὼς [Receptus, καθὼς καὶ ] προεῖπον ); of the which I forewarn you , even as I did forewarn you. The construction of the accusative ἅ is precisely similar to that of ὅν in John 8:54 , ὅν ὑμεῖς λέγετε ὅτι θεὸς ὑμῶν ἐστι . The πρὸ in προλέγω ), as also in the προεῖπον which follows, has reference to the time when it shall actually be proved who are to enter into the kingdom of God. "As I did forewarn you;" this previous warning was probably given at his very first preaching of the gospel to them he would no doubt at once speak plainly to people, very commonly sunk in vice and excess, of the awards of the "judgment to come." That they which do such things ( ὅτι οἱ τὰ τοιαῦτα πράσσοντες ): that they which practise such things. The present tense of πράσσοντες is more suitable than the aorist, as being the language of warning with reference to future conduct (cf. Romans 2:2 , Romans 2:3 , Romans 2:7-10 ). Shall not inherit the kingdom of God ( βασιλείαν θεοῦ οὐ κληρονομήσουσιν ). The apostle uses the same words in writing to the Corinthians with reference to the sins to which they were the most prone ( 1 Corinthians 6:9 , 1 Corinthians 6:10 ). So Ephesians 5:5 , "No fornicator, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, which is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God." This "kingdom" is also referred to in 1 Thessalonians 2:12 , "Walk worthily of God who calleth you into his own kingdom and glory" ("His own!" Astonishing prospect!); 2 Thessalonians 1:5 , "That ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer;" 2 Timothy 4:18 , "will save me unto his heavenly kingdom." The like designation of the future felicity is given by St. Peter ( 2 Peter 1:11 ), "entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ," and by St. James (it. 5), "heirs of the kingdom which he [God] promised to them that love him." It is derived from our Lord's own teaching, as, e.g. Matthew 25:34 , "Inherit the kingdom prepared for you;" Luke 12:32 , "It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." It is the manifestation and consummation of "that kingdom of heaven," or "kingdom of God," heralded by Christ and his forerunner as "at hand," which the Prophet Daniel had pointed forward to ( Daniel 2:44 ; Daniel 7:13 , Daniel 7:14 , Daniel 7:18 ). Bondage to "the flesh" in this life is constantly declared throughout the New Testament to form an insuperable bar to an entrance into that exalted state. And what is the alternative prospect? This the Apostle Paul does not here specify, though elsewhere he does so with awful emphasis; as e.g. Romans 2:8 .