Galatians 6:18 Commentary and Bible Study

‘Brethren’, again he affirms his love and speaks as a member of the same family, the family of God. This is always necessary when we have hard things to say in correction of other believers, for correction is so much more effective when it is delivered in the atmosphere of love and commitment to each other. He has in the course of the epistle marvelled at their turning away, called them ‘foolish Galatians’, but he has also called them ‘the churches of Galatia’ and ‘my little children’, and again here ‘brethren’. ‘Of our Lord Jesus Christ’. He must be our Lord, for he is our Creator, our King, our lawgiver: if not Lord, he cannot be Jesus - Saviour. We need his grace each moment. Grace does not run out, does not grow stale; it is designed for our lives here in the body. We need grace because we sin daily. We need grace in order to bear with a world that fills us with horror and which urges us to turn away from God. He is Christ - the anointed one, appointed to be our mediator, who is God made flesh. His grace must enter our hearts to be of comfort to us. It must be believed. It must be with our spirits, visible to us. Grace releases us from the fear of death, and allows us to escape from the guilt of sin. It teaches us to rejoice and gives us hope that the world does not have. And so Paul completes this Epistle to the Galatians, and what was so painful for the apostle has turned out in the goodness of God to be a letter which has brought joy and comfort to the church in all ages and which has been a bulwark against the attacks of the enemy of souls which particularly focus on this great doctrine of justification by faith alone.