1:6 {3} I marvel that ye are so soon {e} removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
(3) The first part of the epistle, in which he witnesses that he is an apostle, nothing inferior to those chief disciples of Christ, and wholly agreeing with them, whose names the false apostles abused. And he begins with chiding, reproving them of unsteadiness, because they gave ear so easily to those who perverted them and drew them away to a new gospel.
(e) He uses the passive voice to cast the fault upon the false apostles, and he uses the present voice to show them that it was not completely done, but in the process of being done.
1:6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed. Paul abruptly springs into the midst of his subject. With the fickleness of their race, they had so soon swerved
from him that called them. The analogy of Paul's language would show that he refers to God. Compare Ga 1:15 1Co 1:9 Ro 8:30. The call was a divine one. Paul was only the instrument that God used.
Into the grace of Christ. The gospel privileges. Called into these, they had removed
unto another gospel, one of a different kind, not worthy of the name.
1:6 I marvel that ye are removed so soon - After my leaving you. From him who called you by the grace of Christ - His gracious gospel, and his gracious power.
1:6-9 Those who would establish any other way to heaven than what the gospel of Christ reveals, will find themselves wretchedly mistaken. The apostle presses upon the Galatians a due sense of their guilt in forsaking the gospel way of justification; yet he reproves with tenderness, and represents them as drawn into it by the arts of some that troubled them. In reproving others, we should be faithful, and yet endeavour to restore them in the spirit of meekness. Some would set up the works of the law in the place of Christ's righteousness, and thus they corrupted Christianity. The apostle solemnly denounces, as accursed, every one who attempts to lay so false a foundation. All other gospels than that of the grace of Christ, whether more flattering to self-righteous pride, or more favourable to worldly lusts, are devices of Satan. And while we declare that to reject the moral law as a rule of life, tends to dishonour Christ, and destroy true religion, we must also declare, that all dependence for justification on good works, whether real or supposed, is as fatal to those who persist in it. While we are zealous for good works, let us be careful not to put them in the place of Christ's righteousness, and not to advance any thing which may betray others into so dreadful a delusion.
