Galatians 1:1. Ἀπόστολος οὐκ ἀπʼ ἀνθρώπων οὐδὲ διʼ ἀνθρώπου, ἀλλά κ.τ.λ.] Thus does Paul, with deliberate incisiveness and careful definition, bring into prominence at the very head of his epistle his (in the strictest sense) apostolic dignity, because doubt had been thrown on it by his opponents in Galatia. For by οὐκ ἀπʼ ἀνθρώπων he denies that his apostleship proceeded from men (causa remotior), and by οὐδὲ διʼ ἄνθρ. that it came by means of a man (causa medians). It was neither of human origin, nor was a man the medium of conveying it. Comp. Bernhardy, pp. 222, 236; Winer, p. 390 [E. T. 521]. On ἀπό, comp. also Romans 13:1. To disregard the diversity of meaning in the two prepositions (Semler, Morus, Koppe, and others), although even Usteri is inclined to this view (“Paul meant to say that in no respect did his office depend on human authority”), is all the more arbitrary, seeing that, while the two negatives very definitely separate the two relations, these two relations cannot he expressed by the mere change of number (Koppe, “non hominum, ne cujusquam quidem hominis;” comp. Bengel, Semler, Morus, Rosenmüller). This in itself would be but a feeble amplification of the thought, and in order to be intelligible, would need to be more distinctly indicated (perhaps by the addition of πολλῶν and ἑνός), for otherwise the readers would not have their attention drawn off from the difference of the prepositions. Paul has on the second occasion written not ἀνθρώπων again, but ἀνθρώπου, because the contrast to διʼ ἀνθρώπου is διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. It was not a man, but the exalted Christ, through whom the divine call to the apostleship came to Paul at Damascus; αὐτὸς ὁ δεσπότης οὐρανόθεν ἐκάλεσεν οὐκ ἀνθρώπῳ χρησάμενος ὑπουργῷ, Theodoret. And this contrast is quite just: for Christ, the incarnate Son of God, was indeed as such, in the state of His self-renunciation and humiliation, ἄνθρωπος (Romans 5:15; 1 Corinthians 15:21), and in His human manifestation not specifically different from other men (Php 2:7; Galatians 4:4; Romans 8:3); but in His state of exaltation, since He is as respects His whole divine-human nature in heaven (Ephesians 1:20 ff.; Php 2:9; Php 3:20-21), He is, although subordinate to the Father (1 Corinthians 3:23; 1 Corinthians 11:3; 1 Corinthians 15:28, et al.), partaker of the divine majesty which He had before the incarnation, and possesses in His whole person at the right hand of God divine honour and divine dominion. Comp. generally, Usteri, Lehrbegr. p. 327; Weiss, Bibl. Theol. p. 306.

καὶ Θεοῦ πατρός] Following out the contrast, we should expect καὶ ἀπὸ Θεοῦ πατρ. But availing himself of the variety of form in which his idea could be set forth, Paul comprehends the properly twofold relation under one preposition, since, in point of fact, with respect to the modification in the import of the διά no reader could doubt that here the causa principalis is conceived also as medians. As to this usage of διά in popular language, see on 1 Corinthians 1:9. Christ is the mediate agent of Paul’s apostleship, inasmuch as Christ was the instrument through which God called him; but God also, who nevertheless was the causa principalis, may be conceived of under the relation of διά (comp. Galatians 4:7; Lachmann), inasmuch as Christ made him His apostle οὐκ ἄνευ Θεοῦ πατρός, but, on the contrary, through the working of God, that is, through the interposition of the divine will, which exerted its determining influence in the act of calling (comp. 1 Corinthians 1:1; 2 Corinthians 1:1; Ephesians 1:1; Colossians 1:1; 1 Timothy 1:1; 2 Timothy 1:1). Comp. Plat. Symp. p. 186 E, διὰ τοῦ θεοῦ τουτοῦ κυβερνᾶται; and Romans 11:36, διʼ αὐτοῦ τὰ πάντα; Winer, p. 354 f. [E. T. 474].

The words Θεοῦ πατρός (which together have the nature of a proper name: comp. Php 2:11; Ephesians 6:23; 1 Peter 1:2), according to the context, present God as the Father of Jesus Christ, not as Father generally (de Wette; comp. Hilgenfeld), nor as our Father (Paulus, Usteri, Wieseler). The Father is named after the Son by way of climax (comp. Ephesians 5:5): in describing the superhuman origin of his apostleship Paul proceeds from the Higher to the Highest, without whom (see what follows) Christ could not have called him. Of course the calling by Christ is the element decisive of the true ἀποστολή (Wieseler); but it would remain so, even if Paul, advancing to the more definite agent, had named Christ after God. The supposition of a dogmatic precaution (Theodoret, ἵνα μή τις ὑπολάβῃ ὑπουργὸν εἶναι τοῦ πατρὸς τὸν υἱόν, εὑρὼν προσκείμενον τὸ διά, ἐπήγαγε καὶ Θεοῦ πατρός, comp. Chrysostom, Calovius, and others) would be as irrelevant and inappropriate, as Rückert’s opinion is arbitrary, that Paul at first intended merely to write διὰ Ἰ. Χ., and then added as an after-thought, but inexactly (therefore without ἀπό), καὶ Θεοῦ πατρός.

τοῦ ἐγείραντος αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν] For Paul was called to be an apostle by the Christ who had been raised up bodily from the dead by the Father (1 Corinthians 15:8; 1 Corinthians 9:1; Acts 9:22; Acts 9:26); so that these words involve a historical confirmation of that καὶ Θεοῦ πατρός in its special relation as thoroughly assuring the full apostolic commission of Paul:[14] they are not a mere designation of God as originator of the work of redemption (de Wette), which does not correspond to the definite connection with ἀπόστολος. According to Wieseler, the addition is intended to awaken faith both in Jesus as the Son and in God as our reconciled Father. But apart from the fact that the Father is here the Father of Christ, the idea of reconciliation does not suggest itself at this stage; and the whole self-description, which is appended to Παῦλος, is introduced solely by his consciousness of full apostolic authority: it describes by contrast and historically what in other epistles is expressed by the simple κλητὸς ἀπόστολος. The opinion that Paul is pointing at the reproach made against him of not having seen Christ (Calvin, Morus, Semler, Koppe, Borger; comp. Ellicott), and that he here claims the pre-eminence of having been the only one called by the exalted Jesus (Augustine, Erasmus, Beza, Menochius, Estius, and others), is inappropriate, for the simple reason that the resurrection of Christ is mentioned in the form of a predicate of God (not of Christ). This reason also holds good against Matthies (comp. Winer), who thinks that the divine elevation of Christ is the point intended to be conveyed. Chrysostom and Oecumenius found even a reference directed against the validity of the Mosaical law, and Luther (comp. Calovius) against the trust in one’s own righteousness.

[14] Comp. Beyschlag in Stud. u. Krit. 1864, p. 225.Galatians 1:1-5. APOSTOLIC ADDRESS, BENEDICTION AND DOXOLOGY.—The Epistle opens with the author’s name and the designation of his office, Paul, an Apostle. So far it follows the regular practice of Apostolic Epistles in advancing at the outset a claim to attentive hearing. But circumstances gave in this case a special significance to this opening; for in the Galatian Churches rival agitators had seriously challenged the author’s right to this title of Apostle, so that the bare mention of his office involved a distinct protest against the slanders which had been circulated in regard to his office and his person. He proceeds, accordingly, to an emphatic vindication of his divine commission, not from men, neither through man. He raises here a twofold issue, evidently corresponding to two specific points in his qualifications for the office, which his adversaries had on their side selected for attack. The transition from the plural in the first clause, to the singular in the second, is significant, and helps to furnish a key to the two particular points in his career on which his enemies had fastened. His mission to the Gentiles had apparently been disparaged on the plea that it had emanated from men, i.e., from the Church of Antioch only. Again, the validity of his commission was impugned on the ground that he had originally received the Spirit through a man, i.e., through the agency of Ananias, who had been deputed to lay his hands upon him at Damascus. By these insinuations an invidious comparison was instituted between Paul and the original Apostles who had been sent forth by Christ Himself, and had received the Spirit by a miraculous outpouring from Heaven on the day of Pentecost. It was obviously impossible to confute these aspersions by alleging any specific act of the risen Lord. Accordingly Paul contents himself for the moment with an indignant repudiation of the calumnies, reserving his full vindication for the historical review of his conversion and Christian life (Galatians 1:10 to Galatians 2:14). The tokens by which the risen Lord had attested His presence and His commission to His servant Paul had been very real and certain to the eye of faith; but they had, from the nature of the case, been less tangible than the evidence of His living voice and presence during His earthly sojourn; they had been granted at successive stages of the Apostle’s life, and had often taken the shape of visions, personal revelations, and spiritual communion. At his conversion he had been declared a chosen vessel for future ministry; three years later the Lord had replied to his prayer in the temple, bidding him depart from Jerusalem, for (He said) I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles; afterwards, at Antioch, the Spirit had given command, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them; thereupon God had visibly sealed his appointment by the abundant blessing bestowed upon his labours, as the Galatians themselves could amply testify.—διὰ … πατρὸς. The previous combination of ἀπό and διά in the negative clauses invites a corresponding combination here in the antithesis, ἀλλὰ διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ ἀπὸ Θεοῦ πατρὸς, declaring, on the one hand, the instrumentality of the Son in the appointment of His Apostle, and, on the other, tracing back the authority with which he was invested to God the Father as its original source. But Paul prefers here, instead of contemplating his apostleship to the Gentiles by itself as a single act of the Divine Head of the Church, to connect it with the larger design of building up the Church of Christ, for which the united action of the Father and the Son was indispensable. The Father set that design in motion by raising Him from the dead, and is here accordingly associated with the Son as directly co-operating in the government of the Church. In the subsequent review of his own personal life, Paul in like manner perceives the immediate hand of God in his pre-Christian life, setting him apart from his mother’s womb, and training him under the law for his future work as an Apostle, before he was brought to Christ at all.1–5. Introduction. Salutation and ascription of praise

1. Paul, an apostle] In the opening of this Epistle, as of those to the Corinthians, Ephesians, Colossians and Timothy, St Paul designates himself an Apostle. Elsewhere he either adds no descriptive epithet to his name, or he is a bondservant of Christ Jesus (Php 1:1), or of God (Titus 1:1), or a prisoner of Christ Jesus (Philemon 1:1). In the present instance the addition is not without reference to the circumstances under which he wrote. His authority had been impugned, and a great fundamental doctrine of the Gospel perverted. The former must be asserted, that the latter may be maintained.

an apostle] Lit. ‘a messenger’. The title was given by our Lord Himself (Luke 6:13) to twelve chosen by Himself out of the number of His disciples. The qualifications for the office are (1) a Divine call (Luke 6:13; John 15:16; Acts 1:2; Acts 1:24); (2) a personal knowledge of the Lord Jesus, as the Risen Saviour (Acts 1:21-22; 1 Corinthians 9:6); (3) the inspiration and infallible teaching of the Holy Ghost (John 14:26; John 16:13); (4) a Divine commission (Acts 22:21; Acts 26:16-18). On the wider use of the term see Bp. Lightfoot, Gal. pp. 91–97.

not of men, … the dead] ‘Not of men’, rather, not from men. Unlike the false apostles, he did not go forth commissioned by men, as their messenger, or as deriving his authority from them; nor again was he sent ‘by man’ (abstract, not concrete; as in John 2:25). Paul commissioned others, because himself not commissioned by other men.

but by Jesus Christ] A clear proof of the proper Deity of the Lord Jesus. As Jesus was the source from which, so was He also the channel through which St Paul derived his authority. The occasion on which he received this authority was doubtless his miraculous conversion. It is however instructive to observe that even this Divine call and appointment did not supersede the outward commission and ‘investiture’ ‘through the medium of the Church’ (Acts 13:2). The latter, while owing all its value to the former, is distinctly stated to have taken place by the express direction of the Holy Ghost.

“The Apostles are both ‘from Christ’ and ‘through Christ;’ their disciples (and all regular teachers of the Church) are ‘from Christ,’ but ‘through man;’ the false teachers are ‘from men’ and ‘through man.’ Paul’s call was just as direct as that of the Twelve; but the Judaizers, in their tendency to overrate external forms and secondary causes, laid great stress upon the personal intercourse with Christ in the days of His flesh, and hence they were disposed either to declare Paul a pseudoapostle, or at least to subordinate him to the Twelve, especially to Peter and James.” Dr Schaff.

and God the Father … dead] It may at first sight surprise us that St Paul should thus closely unite God the Father with Jesus Christ, as the channel or agency by which he received his commission. But the difficulty is removed by the addition of the words, ‘Who raised Him from the dead.’ Christ was “declared to be the Son of God with power … by” i.e. as the result of “the resurrection from the dead”. The hypostatic union of the Father and the Son is presupposed (John 10:30). “He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father.” If then St Paul had received his apostolic commission ‘by’ the Risen Christ who “appeared to him on the way”, he might truly be said to have received it ‘by’ God the Father. Luther ascribes the addition of these words to St Paul’s “burning desire to set forth even in the very entry of his epistle, the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to preach the righteousness of God”. “He was raised again for our justification,” Romans 4:25.Galatians 1:1. Παῦλος ἀπόστολος, οὐκ ἀπʼ ἀνθρώπων, οὐδέ διʼ ἀνθρώπου, ἀλλὰ διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, καὶ Θεοῦ πατρὸς τοῦ ἐγείραντος ἀυτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν, Paul an apostle, not of [ἀπʼ called by] men, nor by [διὰ, instructed through the instrumentality of] man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead) A remarkable antithesis, in which, while Paul asserts his apostleship, he mentions also his divine vocation, οὐκ ἀπʼ ἀνθρώπων, ἀλλὰ (supply διὰ) Θεοῦ πατρὸς, not of man, but (by) God the Father; comp. Galatians 1:15, and the following verses; and his immediate instruction, οὐδὲ διʼ ἀνθρώπου, ἀλλὰ διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, not by man but by Jesus Christ. Instruction is generally effected by one individual, for example, as Paul was instructed by Gamaliel; calling, by more than one; hence the difference of number, of men, by a man. Artemonius page 211, 212, contends, after Le Clerc, that we must insert ἀπὸ from after καὶ: but διὰ by is rightly supplied from the last clause, and the force of the particle διὰ by in this passage includes the meaning of the particle ἀπὸ, from, but not vice versa. Paul, when he mentions the Father and the Son in connection, often uses a single preposition. 1 Timothy 6:13.—διὰ, by) He had just used διὰ with) an apostrophe; it is now without the apostrophe, for the sake of emphasis.—ἐγείραντος, who raised) The seeds preparatory to the discussion of his subject are [here already] scattered. The resurrection of Christ is the source of righteousness and apostleship, Romans 1:4-5; Romans 4:25; 2 Corinthians 5:19.Verse 1. - Paul, an apostle (Παῦλος ἀπόστολος); Paul, apostle. The designation of "apostle," as here appropriated by St. Paul in explanation of his right to authoritatively address those he was writing to, points to a function with which he was permanently invested, and which placed him in a relation to these Galatian Churches which no other apostle ever occupied. Some years later, indeed, when St. Peter had occasion to address these same Churches, together with others in neighbouring countries, he likewise felt himself authorized to do it on the score of his apostolical character ("Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ," 1 Peter 1:1); but there is nothing to show that St. Peter had any personal relations with them at present. Under these circumstances, it is perhaps best in translation to prefix no article at all before "apostle." This designation of himself as "apostle' St. Paul subjoined to his name in almost all of his Epistles subsequent to the two addressed to the Thessalonians. The only exceptions are those to the Philippians and to Philemon, in writing to whom there was less occasion for introducing it. He had now, in the third of his three great journeys recorded in the Acts, assumed openly in the Church the position of an apostle in the highest sense. In several of these Epistles (1 Corinthians 1:1; 2 Corinthians 1:1; Ephesians 1:1; Colossians 1:1; 2 Timothy 1:1), to the designation of apostle, St. Paul adds the words," through (διὰ) the will of God;" i.e. by means of an express volition of God explicitly revealed. In what way God had revealed this to be his will is clearly intimated in this letter to the Galatians, in which the words," through Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead," which take the place of the formula, "through the will of God," found elsewhere, indicate that it was through Jesus Christ raised from the dead that this particular volition of God was declared and brought to eft;set. The formula referred to, "through the will of God," was apparently introduced with the view of confronting those who were disposed to question his right to claim this supreme form of apostleship, with the aegis of Divine authorization: they had God to reckon with. The like is the purport of the substituted words in 1 Timothy 1:1, "According to the commandment of God our Saviour, and Christ Jesus our Hope." Not of men, neither by man (οὐκ ἀπ ἀνθρώπων οὐδὲ δι ἀνθρώπου); not from men, neither through a man. The preposition "from" (ἀπὸ) points to the primary fountain of the delegation referred to; "through" (διὰ) to the medium through which it was conveyed. The necessity for this twofold negation arose from the fact that the word "apostle," as I have had occasion fully to set forth elsewhere, was frequently among Christians applied to messengers deputed by Churches, or, probably, even by some important representative officer in the Church, whether on a mission for the propagation of the gospel or for the discharge at some distant place of matters of business connected with the Christian cause. St. Paul had himself frequently served in this lower form of apostleship, both as commissioned by the Church to carry abroad tim message of the gospel, and also as deputed to go to and fro between Churches on errands of charity or for the settlement of controversies. In either case he as well as others acting in the like capacity, would very naturally and properly be spoken of as an "apostle" by others, as we actually find him to have been; as also he would appear to have been ready on this same account so to designate himself, That he was an "apostle" in this sense none probably would have been minded to dispute. Why should they? His having, even repeatedly, held this kind of subordinate commission did not of itself give him a greater importance than attached to many ethers who had held the same. Neither did it invest his statements of religious truth with a higher sanction than theirs. This last was the point which, in St. Paul's own estimation, gave the question of the real nature of his apostleship its whole significance. Was he a commissioned envoy of men, deputed to convey to others a message of theirs? or was he an envoy commissioned immediately by Christ to convey to the world a message which likewise was received immediately from Christ? Those who disputed his statements of religious doctrine might admit that he had been deputed to preach the gospel by Christian Churches or by eminently representative leaders of the Church, while they nevertheless asserted that he had misrepresented, or perhaps misapprehended, the message entrusted to him. At all events, they would be at liberty to affirm that the statements he made in delivering his message were subject to an appeal on the part of his hearers to the human authorities who had delegated him. If he owed alike his commission and his message to (say) the Church of Antioch, or to the Church at Jerusalem, or to the twelve, or to James the Lord's brother, or to other leaders whomsoever of the venerable mother Church, then it followed that he was to be held amenable to their overruling judgment in the discharge of this apostleship of his. What he taught had no force if this higher court of appeal withheld its sanction. Now, this touched no mere problematical contingency, but was a practical issue which, just at this time, was one of even vital importance. It had an intimate connection with the fierce antagonism of contending parties in the Church, then waged over the dying body of the Levitical Law. St. Paul's mission as an apostle is most reasonably considered to (late from the time when, as he stated in his defence before King Agrippa (Acts 26:16, 17), the Lord Jesus said to him, "To this end have I appeared unto time, to appoint thee a minister and a witness [ὑπηρέτην καὶ μάρτυρα: comp. αὐτόπται καὶ ὑπηρέται, Luke 1:2 and Acts 1:2, 3, 8, 22] both of the things wherein thou hast seen me, and of the things wherein I will appear unto thee; delivering thee from the people [λαοῦ, so. Israel], and from the Gentiles, unto whom I myself send thee [εἰς οὕς ἐγὼ ἀποστέλλω σε: thus L. T. Tr. Rev.; the Textus Receptus reads εἰς ου{ς νῦν σε ἀποστέλλω]" (comp. Acts 22:14, 15; 1 Corinthians 9:1). But though his appointment was in reality coeval with his conversion, it was only in course of time and by slow degrees that his properly apostolic function became signalized to the consciousness of the Church. Nevertheless, there is no reason for doubting that to his own consciousness his vocation as apostle was clearly manifested from the very first. The prompt and independent manner in which he at once set himself to preach the gospel, which itself, he tells the Galatians in this chapter, he had received immediately from heaven, betokens his having this consciousness. The time and the manner in which the fact was to become manifest to others he would seem, in a spirit of compliant obedience, to have left to the ordering of his Master. But by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead (ἀλλὰ διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ Θεοῦ πατρὸς τοῦ ἐγείραντος αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν); but through Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead. The conjunction "neither" (οὐδὲ), which comes before δι ἀνθρώπου, marks the clause it introduces as containing a distinctly different negation from the preceding, and shows that the preposition "through" is used in contradistinction to the "from" (ἀπὸ) of the foregoing clause in its proper sense of denoting the instrument or medium through which an act is done. St. Paul affirms that there was no human instrumentality or intermediation whatever at work in the act of delegation which constituted him an apostle. This affirmation places him in this respect precisely on a level with the twelve; perhaps in making it he has an eye 1o this. The notion has been frequently broached that the apostleship which St. Paul made claim to was conveyed to him at Antioch through the brethren who there, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, formally set him apart, together with Barnabas, for the missionary enterprise which they forthwith entered upon (Acts 13:1-3). But words could scarcely have been selected which should more decisively negative any such notion than those do which St. Paul here makes use cf. One form of apostleship was no doubt then conferred upon Barnabas and Paul; but it was not the apostleship of which he is now thinking (see essay on "Apostles," pp. 31, 32.). In defining the precise import and bearing of the expression, δι ἀνθρώπου, "through a man," we may compare it with its use in 1 Corinthians 15:21, "Since δι ἀνθρώπου ξαμε death, δι ἀνθρώπου came also the resurrection of the dead;" where in the second clause the word "man," employed to recite the Lord Jesus, contemplates that aspect of his twofold being which places him as "the second Man" (1 Corinthians 15:47) in correlation to Adam, "the first Man." Similarly, the parallel with Adam again in Romans 5:12, 15 leads the apostle to adopt the expression," the one Man Jesus Christ" (cf. also ibid. 19). In 1 Timothy 2:5, "There is one God, one Mediator also between God and men, himself Man [or, 'a man'], Christ Jesus," our Lord's manhood, in accordance with the requirement of the context, is put forward as a bond of connection linking him with every human creature alike. These passages present Christ in the character simply of a human being. But in the passage before us the apostle at first sight appears to imply that, because he was an apostle through the agency of Jesus Christ, he was not an apostle through the agency of a human being; thus negativing, apparently, the manhood of Christ, at least as viewed in his present glorified condition. The inference, however, is plainly contradicted by both 1 Corinthians 15:21 and 1 Timothy 2:5; for the former passage points in "the second Man" to the "Lord from heaven," while the other refers to him as permanent "Mediator between God and men," both, therefore, speaking of Jesus in his present glorified condition. To obviate this difficulty some have proposed to take the "but" (ἀλλά), not as adversative, but as exceptive. But there is no justification for this - not even Mark 9:8 (see Winer's 'Gram. N. T.,' 53, 10, 1 b). A less precarious solution is arrived at by gathering out of the context the precise shade of meaning in which the word "man" is here used. Christ is indeed "Man," and his true manhood is the sense required in the two passages above cited; but he is also more than man; and it is those qualities of his being and of his state of existence which distinguish him from mere men, which the context shows to be now present to the apostle's mind. For the phrase, "through a man," is not contrasted by the words, "through Jesus Christ," alone, but by the whole clause: "through Jesus Christ, and God the Father who raised him from the dead." That is to say, in penning the former phrase, the apostle indicates by the word "man" one invested with the ordinary qualities of an earthly human condition; whereas the "Jesus Christ" through whom Heaven sent forth Saul as an apostle to the Gentiles was Jesus Christ blended with, inconceivably near to, God the Father, one with him; his oneness with him not veiled, as it was when he was upon earth, though really subsisting even then (John 10:30), but to all the universe manifested - manifested visibly to us upon earth by the resurrection of his body; in the spiritual, as yet now to us invisible world, by that sitting down on the right hand of God which was the implied sequel and climax of his resurrection. The strong sense which the apostle has of the unspeakably intimate conjunction subsisting. since his resurrection, between Jesus Christ viewed in his whole incarnate being and. God the Father, explains how it comes to pass that the two august Names are combined together under one single preposition, "through Jesus Christ, and God the Father." We shall have to notice the same phenomenon in ver. 3 in the apostle's formula of greeting prayer, "Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ;" on which see the note. We have the same conception of Christ's personality consequent upon his resurrection in the apostle's words relative to his apostolic appointment in Romans 1:4, 5; where the Jesus Christ through whom "he had received grace and apostleship," in contrast with his merely human condition as "of the seed of David according to the flesh," is described as "him who was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead." The clause, "who raised him from the dead," has a twofold bearing upon the point in hand. 1. It supplies an answer to the objection which may be believed to have been made to Paul's claim to be regarded as an apostle sent forth by Jesus Christ, by those who said, "You have never seen Christ or been taught by him, like those whom he himself named apostles." The answer is, "You might object so if Jesus were no more than a dead man; but he is not that: he is a living Man raised from the dead by the Father; and as such I have myself seen him (cf. 1 Corinthians 9:1); and he it was that in his own person, and through no intervention of human agency, gave me both the commission to preach and the gospel which I was to preach" (see below, vers. 11, 12). 2. It connects the action of God the Father with that of Jesus Christ in appointing Paul to be an apostle; for the things which Christ did when raised from the dead and glorified with himself (John 17:5) by the Father must obviously have been done from, with, and in God the Father. It would unduly narrow the pragmatism of the clause if we limited it to either of the two purposes above indicated; both were probably in the mind of St. Paul in adding it. The immediate context gives no warrant for our supposing, as many have done, that the apostle has just here other truths in view as involved in the fact of our Lord's resurrection; such e.g. as he has himself indicated in Romans 4:24, 25; Romans 6; Colossians 3:1. However cogent and closely relevant some of these inferences might have been with respect to the subjects treated of in this Epistle, the Epistle itself, as a matter of fact, makes no other reference whatever to that great event, whether directly or indirectly. Should δι ἀνθρώπου be rendered "through man," the noun understood generically, as e.g. Psalm 56:1 (Septuagint), or "through a man," pointing to one individual being? It is not very material; but perhaps the second rendering is recommended by the consideration that, if the apostle had meant still to write generically, he would have repeated the plural noun already employed. Indeed, it may be thought a preferable rendering in the other passages above cited. The transition from the plural noun to the singular, as is noted by Bishop Lightfoot and others, "suggested itself in anticipation of the clause, 'through Jesus Christ,' which was to follow." In the expression, "God the Father," the addition of the words, "the Father," was not necessary for the indication of the Person meant, any more than in 1 Peter 1:21, "Believers in God which raised him from the dead," or in numberless other passages where the term "God" regularly designates the First Person in the blessed Trinity. It would be an incomplete paraphrase to explain it either as "God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," or as "God our Father." It is rather, "God the primary Author and supreme Orderer of all things," or, as in the Creed, "God the Father Almighty." It is best illustrated by the apostle's words in 1 Corinthians 8:6, "To us there is one God, the Father, of whom [i.e. out of whom, ἐξ οῦ] are all things, and we unto him; "and in Romans 11:36," Of him, and through him, and unto him, are all things." The apostle adds the term in order to make the designation of the supreme God, who is the Source of his apostleship, the more august and impressive. An apostle

This title is prefixed to Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, Ephesians, Colossians. Here with special emphasis, because Paul's apostleship had been challenged.

Of men - by man (ἀπ' ἀνθρώπων - δἰ ἀνθρώπου)

Better, from men - through man or a man. In contradiction of the assertion that he was not directly commissioned by Jesus Christ, like the twelve, but only by human authority. From men, as authorising the office; through man, as issuing the call to the person. He thus distinguishes himself from false apostles who did not derive their commissions from God, and ranks himself with the twelve. Man does not point to any individual, but is in antithesis to Jesus Christ, or may be taken as equals any man.

By Jesus Christ

See Acts 11:4-6; 1 Corinthians 11:1.

And God the Father

The genitive, governed by the preceding διὰ by or through. The idea is the same as an apostle by the will of God: 1 Corinthians 1:1; 2 Corinthians 1:1; Ephesians 1:1. Διὰ is used of secondary agency, as Matthew 1:22; Matthew 11:2; Luke 1:70; Acts 1:16; Hebrews 1:2. But we find διὰ θελήματος θεοῦ by the will of God, Romans 15:32; 1 Corinthians 1:1; 2 Corinthians 1:1, etc., and διὰ θεοῦ by God, Galatians 4:7. Also δἰ οὗ (God), 1 Corinthians 1:9; Hebrews 2:10.

Who raised him from the dead (τοῦ ἐγείραντος αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν)

It was the risen Christ who made Paul an apostle. For resurrection the N.T. uses ἐγείρειν to raise up; ἐξεγείρειν to raise out of; ἔγερσις raising or rising; ἀνιστάναι to raise up; ἀνάστασις and ἐξανάστασις raising up and raising up out of. With νεκρὸς dead are the following combinations: ἐγείρειν ἀπὸ τῶν νεκρῶν (never ἀπὸ νεκρῶν) to raise from the dead; ἐγ. ἐκ νεκ. or τῶν νεκ. to raise out of the dead; ἀναστήσαι to raise, ἀναστῆναι to be raised or to rise ἐκ. νεκ. (never ἀπὸ); ἀνάστ. ἐκ. νεκ.; or τῶν νεκ. resurrection of the dead; ἀνάστ. ἐκ. νεκ.; ἐξανάστασις ἐκ. νεκ rising or resurrection out of the dead or from among. It is impossible to draw nice distinctions between these phrases.

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