Galatians 6:14

But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(14) God forbid that I should glory.—There is a stress upon the pronoun “I,” which, in the Greek, stands first, in emphatic contrast to the party who had been the subjects of the last verse. They make their boast in a mere external; but for me—far be it from me to make my boast in anything but the cross of Christ.

The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ—i.e., “in the death and passion which Christ underwent for me.” The Apostle is aware that in this he is putting forward a startling paradox. The cross of Christ was “to the Jews a stumbling-block.” They attached to it only ideas of ignominy and shame, and yet it is precisely this of which the Apostle is most proud. He is proud of it as the ground of his salvation, and therefore as the cardinal object of all his hopes and aims.

By whom.—It seems better, on the whole, to adopt the marginal rendering: whereby. The antecedent is thus not Christ, but more especially the cross of Christ. It is the intense contemplation of a crucified Saviour through which the Christian dies to the world.

The world.—By this is meant here the world of sense, the sphere of outward and sensible things, at once with its manifold temptations to sin and with its inadequate methods of escaping from them—mere external rites, such as circumcision.

Benson Commentary

Galatians 6:14. But God forbid that I should be actuated by any such selfish or worldly views, or should glory — Should boast of any thing I have, or am, or do, or rely on any thing for my acceptance with God; save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ — In what Christ hath done and suffered for me; by whom — Or, as the words may be understood, by which cross; the world is crucified to me — All the things and persons in it are to me as dead things, and therefore as nothing; and I unto the world — I am dead to all worldly pursuits, cares, desires, and enjoyments. Or, as Dr. Doddridge paraphrases the clause, By the reliance which I have for justification on Christ’s sufferings and death, and by the believing views I have thereof, I am made indifferent to all things here below; “so that I view the world, as little impressed by all its charms, as a spectator would be by any thing which had been graceful in the countenance of a crucified person, when he beholds it blackened in the agonies of death; and am no more affected by the objects round me, than one who is expiring would be struck with any of those prospects which his dying eyes might view from the cross on which he was suspended.” Or, more concisely, the world is crucified to believers, in that, by the firm expectation of eternal life, grounded on Christ’s cross, that is, on his death and resurrection, the world, like the dead carcass of a crucified malefactor, is stripped to them of all its vain allurements. And they are crucified to the world by Christ’s cross, in that “it inspires them with such principles, and leads them to such a course of life, as renders them, in the eyes of the world, as contemptible, and as unfit for their purposes, as if they were dead carcasses. All believers, therefore, after the apostle’s example, justly glory in the crucifixion of their Master, not only as it is the foundation of that assured hope of pardon which they entertain, but as it is an effectual principle of their sanctification.” — Macknight.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

6:12-15 Proud, vain, and carnal hearts, are content with just so much religion as will help to keep up a fair show. But the apostle professes his own faith, hope, and joy; and that his principal glory was in the cross of Christ. By which is here meant, his sufferings and death on the cross, the doctrine of salvation by a crucified Redeemer. By Christ, or by the cross of Christ, the world is crucified to the believer, and he to the world. The more we consider the sufferings of the Redeemer from the world, the less likely shall we be to love the world. The apostle was as little affected by its charms, as a beholder would be by any thing which had been graceful in the face of a crucified person, when he beholds it blackened in the agonies of death. He was no more affected by the objects around him, than one who is expiring would be struck with any of the prospects his dying eyes might view from the cross on which he hung. And as to those who have truly believed in Christ Jesus, all things are counted as utterly worthless compared with him. There is a new creation; old things are passed away, and new views and dispositions are brought in under the regenerating influences of God the Holy Spirit. Believers are brought into a new world, and being created in Christ Jesus unto good works, are formed to a life of holiness. It is a change of mind and heart, whereby we are enabled to believe in the Lord Jesus, and to live to God; and where this inward, practical religion is wanting, outward professions, or names, will never stand in any stead.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

But God forbid - See the note at Romans 3:4. "For me it is not to glory except in the cross of Christ." The object of Paul here is evidently to place himself in contrast with the judaizing teachers, and to show his determined purpose to glory in nothing else but the cross of Christ. Well they knew that he had as much occasion for glorying in the things pertaining to the flesh, or in the observance of external rites and customs, as any of them. He had been circumcised. He had had all the advantages of accurate training in the knowledge of the Jewish law. He had entered on life with uncommon advantages. He had evinced a zeal that was not surpassed by any of them; and his life, so far as conformity to the religion in which he had been trained was concerned, was blameless; Philippians 3:4-8. This must have been to a great extent known to the Galatians; and by placing his own conduct in strong contrast with that of the Judaizing teachers, and showing that he had no ground of confidence in himself, he designed to bring back the minds of the Galatians to simple dependence on the cross.

That I should glory - That I should boast; or that I should rely on any thing else. Others glory in their conformity to the laws of Moses; others in their zeal, or their talents, or their learning, or their orthodoxy; others in their wealth, or their accomplishments; others in their family alliances, and their birth; but the supreme boast and glorying of a Christian is in the cross of Christ.

In the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ - In Jesus the crucified Messiah. It is a subject of rejoicing and glorying that we have such a Saviour. The world looked upon him with contempt; and the cross was a stumbling-block to the Jew, and folly to the Greek. Notes, 1 Corinthians 1:23. But to the Christian, that cross is the subject of glorying. It is so because:

(1) Of the love of him who suffered there;

(2) Of the purity and holiness of his character, for the innocent died there for the guilty;

(3) Of the honor there put on the Law of God by his dying to maintain it unsullied;

(4) Of the reconciliation there made for sin, accomplishing what could be done by no other oblation, and by no power of man;

(5) Of the pardon there procured for the guilty;

(6) Of the fact that through it we become dead to the world, and are made alive to God;

(7) Of the support and consolation which goes from that cross to sustain us in trial; and,

(8) Of the fact that it procured for us admission into heaven, a title to the world of glory. All is glory around the cross.

It was a glorious Saviour who died; it was glorious love that led him to die; it was a glorious object to redeem a world; and is is unspeakable glory to which he will raise lost and ruined sinners by his death. O who would not glory in such a Saviour! Compared with this, what trifles are all the objects in which people usually boast! And what a lesson is here furnished to the true Christian! Let us not boast of our wealth. It will soon leave us, or we shall be taken from it, and it can aid us little in the great matters that are before us. It will not ward off disease; it will not enable us to bear pain; it will not smooth the couch of death; it will not save the soul. Let us not glory in our strength, for it will soon fail; in our beauty, for we shall soon be undistinguished in the corruptions of the tomb; in our accomplishments, for they will not save us; in our learning, for it is not that by which we can be brought to heaven. But let us glory that we have for a Saviour the eternal Son of God - that glorious Being who was adored by the inhabitants of heaven; who made the worlds; who is pure, and lovely, and most holy; and who has undertaken our cause and died to save us. I desire no higher honor than to be saved by the Son of God. It is the exaltation of my nature, and shows me more than anything else its true dignity, that one so great and glorious sought my redemption. That cannot be an object of temporary value which he sought by coming from heaven, and if there is any object of real magnitude in this world, it is the soul which the eternal Son of God died to redeem.

By whom the world is crucified unto me ... - See the notes at Galatians 2:20.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

14. Translate, "But as for me (in opposition to those gloriers 'in your flesh,' Ga 6:13), God forbid that I," &c.

in the cross—the atoning death on the cross. Compare Php 3:3, 7, 8, as a specimen of his glorying. The "cross," the great object of shame to them, and to all carnal men, is the great object of glorying to me. For by it, the worst of deaths, Christ has destroyed all kinds of death [Augustine, Tract 36, on John, sec. 4]. We are to testify the power of Christ's death working in us, after the manner of crucifixion (Ga 5:24; Ro 6:5, 6).

our—He reminds the Galatians by this pronoun, that they had a share in the "Lord Jesus Christ" (the full name is used for greater solemnity), and therefore ought to glory in Christ's cross, as he did.

the world—inseparably allied to the "flesh" (Ga 6:13). Legal and fleshly ordinances are merely outward, and "elements of the world" (Ga 4:3).

is—rather, as Greek, "has been crucified to me" (Ga 2:20). He used "crucified" for dead (Col 2:20, "dead with Christ"), to imply his oneness with Christ crucified (Php 3:10): "the fellowship of His sufferings being made conformable unto His death."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

For my part I have no such ends, I have no ambition to glory in you as my converts; all that I desire to glory in, is in the doctrine of the gospel, and my sufferings for the propagation of it, and my conformity to Christ in suffering for preaching the gospel. By the cross of Christ

the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world; I care no more for the world than it careth for me; the world despiseth and contemneth me, and the doctrine of the cross which I preach and publish in it, and I contemn it, with all its vain pomp and splendour. And this I do through the

cross of Christ, remembering how the world dealt with Christ, and how little he regarded the world: or, through the grace of Christ, who hath enabled me to it, for the particle translated

by whom, may be indifferently translated by whom or by which.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

But God forbid that I should glory,.... The apostle, on the contrary, expresses his aversion to glorying in anything these men did; not in his outward carnal privileges, as a Jew; nor in his moral, civil, and legal righteousness; nor in his gifts and attainments; nor in his labours and success, as of himself; nor in the flesh of others, or in any outward corporeal subjection to any ordinance, legal or evangelical; his glorying and rejoicing were rather in the spirituality, the faith, hope, love, patience, order, and steadfastness of the saints, than in anything in the flesh, either his own or others: and indeed he chose not to glory in any thing,

save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; meaning either the infirmities, reproaches, tribulations, and persecutions, which he endured for the sake of Christ, and the preaching of his Gospel; or the Gospel, the doctrine of the cross of Christ, and salvation by it: or rather a crucified Christ himself, whom he preached; though counted foolishness by some, and was a stumbling to others: he gloried in him, and determined to know, and make known, none but him, in the business of salvation; he gloried in him as crucified, and in his cross; not in the wood of the cross, but in the effects of his crucifixion; in the peace, pardon, righteousness, life, salvation, and eternal glory, which come through the death of the cross; he gloried in Christ as his wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption:

by whom the world is crucified to me: so that he feared not the worst men, and things in it, any more than he would one that was fastened to a cross, or dead; since Christ, by his crucifixion and death, had overcome the world, the prince of it, the men and malice of it, the sin that was in it, and had made him more than a conqueror also; his faith in a crucified Christ overcame the world likewise; so that he looked upon it as the Israelites saw the Egyptians, dead on the sea shore; nor did he affect and love, but trampled upon and despised, as crucified persons generally are, those things in it which are the most alluring to the flesh, the lusts of it; the doctrine of grace, of a crucified Christ, taught him to deny the riches, honours, pleasures, profits, and applause of the world; which were to him as dross, in comparison of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord: the ceremonial law also, the elements of the world, were dead unto him, being nailed to the cross of Christ, to be of no further use and service unto men:

and I unto the world; that is, am crucified to the world, as the Syriac and Arabic versions express it; that is, he was despised by the world for the sake of a crucified Christ, as the world was by him, in comparison of him; the world had no affection for him, as he had none for the world; and as the ceremonial law was dead to him, so he was dead to that, through the body of Christ, and had nothing to do with these beggarly elements, nor they with him, which sense is confirmed by the following words.

Geneva Study Bible

{10} But God forbid that I should {m} glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

(10) He does not dwell in comparing himself with them, showing that on the other hand he rejoices in those afflictions which he suffers for Christ's sake, and as he is despised by the world, so does he in the same way consider the world as wicked. And this is the true circumcision of a true Israelite.

(m) When Paul uses this word in good sense or way, it signifies to rest a man's self wholly in a thing, and to content himself in it.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Galatians 6:14. By way of contrast, not to the national vanity of the Jews (Hofmann, in accordance with his interpretation of Galatians 6:13), but to the καυχάσθαι which the pseudo-apostles had in view, Paul now presents his own principle: “from me, on the other hand, far be it to glory, except only in the cross of Christ.”

ἐμοὶ μὴ γένοιτο καυχ.] mihi ne accidat, ut glorier. On this deprecating expression with the infinitive, comp. LXX. Genesis 44:7; Genesis 44:17; Joshua 22:29; Joshua 24:16; 1Ma 13:5; 1Ma 13:9-10; Ignat. Eph. 12; Xen. Cyr. vi. 3. 11: ὦ Ζεῦ μέγιστε, λαβεῖν μοι γένοιτο αὐτόν, Anab. i. 9. 18; Dem. 33:25; Ellendt, Lex. Soph. I. p. 366.

In the words εἰ μὴ ἐν τῷ σταυρῷ down to κόσμῳ, observe the defiant enthusiasm, which manifests itself even in the fulness of the expression. How very different the conduct of the opponents, according to Galatians 6:12! Nothing but the cross of Christ is to be the subject of his καυχᾶσθαι; nothing, namely, but the redemption accomplished on the cross by Christ constituted the basis, the sum, and the divine certainty of his faith, life, hope, action, etc. Comp. Php 3:7 ff.; 2 Corinthians 5:15 ff.; 1 Corinthians 1:23; 1 Corinthians 2:2, et al. Thus it is a truly apostolic oxymoron: καυχᾶσθαι ἐν τῷ σταυρῷ. The cross is “τὸ καύχημα τῶν καυχημάτων,” Cyril.

διʼ οὗ ἐμοὶ κόσμος ἐσταύρ. κἀγὼ τῷ κόσμῳ reveals the cause why he may not glory in anything else: “through whom the world is crucified to me, and I (sc. ἐσταύρωμαι) unto the world,” that is, “by whose crucifixion is produced the result, that no internal fellowship of life longer exists between me and the world: it is dead for me, and I for it.” By Calvin, Bengel, Winer, Usteri, Hofmann, Holsten, Matthias, Reithmayr, and others, διʼ οὗ is referred to the cross. But it is more pertinent to refer it to the fully and triumphantly expressed subject immediately preceding, τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ (Vulgate, Erasmus, Beza, Luther, and many others, including de Wette, Ewald, Wieseler): through whom, that is, according to the context, by means of whose crucifixion. This effect is dependent on the inward fellowship with the death of Christ (Galatians 2:19 f.; Romans 6) commenced by faith, and maintained by the Holy Spirit. By this fellowship Paul is transplanted into an entirely new relation of life, and feels that all the previous interests of his life are now stripped of their influence over him, and that he is now completely independent of them. Comp. Php 3:7 ff.

ἐμοί] for me, denotes the ethical reference of the relation. See Bernhardy, p. 84.

κόσμος (without the article; see Winer, p. 117 [E. T. 153]) finds its explanation from Galatians 6:15 (οὔτε περιτομὴ, αὔτε ἀκροβυστία), namely, the organic totality of all relations aloof from Christianity, looked upon, indeed, as a living power, which exercises authority and sway over the unconverted, but in the case of the converted has become dead through his admission into the fellowship of faith and life with the crucified Lord; that is, has ceased to influence and determine his thoughts, feelings, and actions. Thus the world is crucified to him by means of the crucifixion of Christ. Comp. Colossians 2:20; Ephesians 2:2 f.; 1 Corinthians 7:31; 1 Corinthians 7:33-34; Jam 4:4; 1 John 2:15 f.

κἀγῶ τῶ κόσμῳ] for the cessation of the mutual fellowship of life is meant to be expressed, and the matter to be thus wholly exhausted. Comp. 1 Corinthians 6:13; 2 Thessalonians 1:12; “nec malis illius territor, nec commodis titillor, nec odium metuo, nec plausum moror, nec ignominiam formido, nec gloriam affecto,” Erasmus, Paraphr.

Expositor's Greek Testament

Galatians 6:14. Paul contrasts his own spirit with that which his rivals are manifesting. They are animated by selfish desires to glory over the flesh of others, he will glory only in the triumph of the cross over his own flesh, whereby the power of the world over him, and his carnal love of the world, are both done away.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

14. We might have expected that St Paul would have named ‘the Spirit’ or ‘the new creature’ as the object of his boasting, in immediate contrast with ‘the flesh’, the seat of the outward rite, in which the false teachers gloried. He does mention it at the end of Galatians 6:15. But he here names that which is the root and source of ‘peace and mercy’ in this present life and of eternal salvation in the life to come. There is nearly the same contrast in Php 3:3 with the verbal substitution of ‘Christ Jesus’ for the ‘Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ’.

but God forbid that I] The personal pronoun stands first in the Greek and is emphatic. ‘Others would find cause for boasting in a fleshly rite: but for my part, God forbid that I should glory &c.’ See ch. Galatians 2:17, note.

in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ] ‘in the atoning death, as my means of reconcilement with God’ Alford. ‘Not in my suffering for Christ, but in His sufferings for me’. Lightfoot. Compare the well-known hymn, ‘When I survey the wondrous Cross &c.’. It is a death of shame and ignominy, pronounced to be accursed of God, in which St Paul will glory—nay, he rejects every other ground of boasting but this alone. Such a declaration would be the raving of a maniac, unless Jesus were the Son of God, the Saviour of the world.

by whom] R.V., ‘through which’. Commentators are not agreed as to the antecedent to the relative pronoun. Is it the Cross, or Christ Himself? The Greek admits of either. We have few data by which to decide. But practically it matters little. The Cross does not, it cannot mean the material Cross on which our Saviour died. That has long ago ceased to exist in its original form, even if the tradition of its discovery could be historically established. (See an interesting Article by the Rev. R. Sinker in Smith’s Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, on the Finding of the Cross.) If we read ‘by which’, the reference is not to a cross, but to the Cross, i.e. the atoning death of Christ; if ‘by whom’, it is not Christ as the glorified Son of Man, but Christ crucified that is referred to.

the world is crucified] Lit., ‘has been crucified’. It is not easy to define exactly the meaning of the term ‘world’. Alford explains it as ‘the whole system of unspiritual and unchristian men and things’. Its force may be inferred from St Paul’s use of it elsewhere, e.g. 1 Corinthians 2:12; Ephesians 2:2. Comp. James 1:27; James 4:4; 1 John 2:15-16; 1 John 5:19.

The world with its passing interests, its narrowly limited aims, its sordid gains, its perishable treasure, its hollow show, its mockery of satisfaction—is to me like yon felon slave, nailed to the cross dying by a certain and shameful, if a lingering death. And I too am so regarded by the world. It is an object of contempt and relinquishment to me, and I to it. We seem to hear the echo of our Saviour’s own words, words so hard to understand, so much harder to act upon, Luke 14:26.

Bengel's Gnomen

Galatians 6:14. Ἐμοὶ δὲ, but as for me) I should be sorry to be a partaker of such things as those.—μὴ γένοιτο καυχᾶσθαι) Joshua 24:16, חלילה, μὴ γένοιτο ἡμῖν καταλιπεῖν Κυριον, God forbid, that we should forsake the Lord.—καυχᾶσθαι, to glory) We have a specimen of this sort of glorying, 2 Corinthians 5:15-19; Php 3:8, etc.—ἐν τῷ σταυρῷ, in the cross) which has nothing to do with circumcision of the flesh. To glory in the cross[64] is an Oxymoron.—ΔΙᾺ ΟὟ, by which) the cross: for the apostle is speaking here chiefly of the cross; and if the διʼ οὗ should even be referred to Christ, still the cross must be regarded as the ground on which this reference would be made. That, by which anything whatever is such as it is, possesses the same nature in a higher degree.—κόσμος ἐσταύρωται, the world has been crucified) The world, with its ‘elements,’ has no longer dominion over me; ch. Galatians 4:3. There is a gradation from the flesh [Galatians 6:13] to the world [in this 14th verse].—κᾀγὼ τῷ κόσμῳ, and I to the world) The world is at variance with me: I could not, though I were willing, henceforth gain any favour from the world. This cross includes death, Colossians 2:20.

[64] The cross, and to glory, being contraries.—ED.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 14. - But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (ἐμοὶ δὲ μὴ γένοιτο καυχᾶσθαι εἰ μὴ ἐν but as for me, God forbid, etc. For the construction of the dative ἐμοὶ with γένοιτο, Alford cites Acts 20:16, Οπως μὴ γένητα αὐτῷ χρονοτριβῆσαι, and Meyer Xenophon, 'Cyrop.' 6:3. 11, Ω Ζεῦ μέγιστε λαβεῖν μοι γένοιτο αὐτόν. But neither passage matches the tone of abhorrence which attaches to the phrase, μὴ γένοιτο, on which see note on Galatians 2:17. Here only in the New Testament does it form a syntactical part of a sentence. But in the Septuagint this construction is of repeated occurrence, following the Hebrew construction of chali'lah with a dative and an infinitive verb with min. Thus Genesis 44:7, Μὴ γένοιτο τοῖς παισί σου ποιῆσαι κ.τ.λ..; id., 17. So Joshua 24:16. The pronoun ἐμοὶ is strongly emphasized both in this first clause of the verse and in that which follows. The apostle is vividly contrasting his own feeling and behaviour in relation to the cross of Christ with those of the leaders of the circumcision party whom he has been denouncing. They would fain put the cross as far as possible out of sight, not to offend the Jews they were so anxious to conciliate - that "obnoxious object" (σκάνδαλον, 1 Corinthians 1:25) itself, as well as the inferences which the apostle taught them to draw from it in relation to the ceremonial law: their καύχημα, that whereof they would glory, should be in preference the mutilated flesh of their misled Galatian brethren; his boast, rejoicing, glory, was, and God helping him should ever be, the cross of Christ - that, and that alone. It quite emasculates the energy of his utterance to paraphrase "the cross" as being "the doctrine of the cross or of Christ's atonement." Rather, it is the cross itself which rivets his admiring view; sneered at by Gentile, abhorred by Jew, but to his eye resplendent with a multiplicity of truths radiating from it to his soul of infinite preciousness. Among those truths, one group, which to us is apt to appear of but small interest, was to the apostle's heart and conscience productive of profoundest relief. In former days he had experienced the burden and the chafing or benumbing effect of the Law, both as a ceremonial institute and as a "letter" of merely imperative command. It was the cross which released him, as from the guilt and servitude of sin, so also from all the worry and distress of bondage to ceremonial prescriptions. And this group of truths, as well as those relating to man's reconciliation with God, he felt it to be his mission, even perhaps his own most especial mission, boldly and frankly to proclaim; not only to rejoice in them on his own behalf, but to hold them forth to the view of others, as replete with blessing to all mankind; to glorify and vaunt them. His motive at present in thus vehemently protesting his own rejoicing in the cross of Christ was doubtless to rouse into fresh activity the slumbering sympathy with those feelings which had probably in some degree once animated his Galatian converts. Therefore it is that he writes, "the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ," instead of "the cross of my Lord," which it would else have been in this case natural to him to say, as he does in Philippians 3:8, "for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord," and according to the tone of Galatians 2:20 of this Epistle. This "our" hints to the Galatians that they have as much reason as he has to glory in the cross as redeeming God's people alike from sin and from the Law. By whom (or, whereby) the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world (δἰ οῦ ἑμοὶ κόσμος ἐσταύρωται, κἀγώ κόσμῳ [Receptus, τῷ κόσμῳ]); through which the world has been crucified unto me, and I unto the world. The omission of τῷ before κόσμῳ, which is now generally agreed in, adds to the terseness of the sentence. The article is wanting before κόσμος elsewhere, as 2 Corinthians 5:19; Philippians 2:15; Colossians 2:20; 1 Timothy 3:16. The construing of the passage which takes the relative οῦ as reciting "our Lord Jesus Christ," loses sight of the image which is now the one most prominent to the apostle's view: this surely is not Christ himself, but his cross; as in 1 Corinthians 2:2 the apostle determines the more general term, "Jesus Christ," by the more specific one, "and him crucified." The reference of the relative is to be determined, here as often elsewhere, not by the mere propinquity of words in the sentence, but by the nearness of objects to the writer's mind at the moment. In language of singular intensity the apostle bespeaks the all-involving transformation which, through the cross of Christ, his own life had undergone. The world, he says, had become to him a thing crucified: not only a dead thing, ceasing to interest or attract him, but also a vile, accursed thing, something he loathed and despised. And conversely, he himself had become a crucified thing unto the world; not only had he ceased to present to the world ought that could interest or attract it, but also become to it a thing scorned and abhorred; as he says 1 Corinthians 4:13, "We have been made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things." The whole context of those words in the Corinthians (vers. 9-13) is here compressed into the single clause, "I have been crucified unto the world." "The world;" the term denotes unregenerate mankind taken in connection with that entire system of habits of life and of feeling in which man, as un-quickened by the Spirit of God, finds his sphere and home. As the apostle is speaking of his own personal experience, we must understand him as referring in particular to all those circumstances of civil, social, and religious being which had once surrounded him, the honoured Jew and Pharisee. These he enumerates at length in Philippians 3:5, 6. To these we might add, though it would, perhaps, have hardly occurred to Paul's own mind to add it, the ordinary possession of worldly comforts and immunity from want and suffering. All, he proceeds in that passage to say, he had "forfeited" (ἐζημιώθην Philippians 3:8). Nor did he look back upon his loss with regret: "I do count them as dung (σκύβαλα)." This twofold description, "I forfeited all things," and "I do count them all as dung," is here summarized in the phrase, "the world is a crucified object to me." The world, further, thus described as crucified to him, included in particular the entire system of Jewish ceremonialism, so far as it existed apart from the vitalizing influence of the Spirit of God. The "natural man (ψυχικὸς ἄνθρωπος)" sets great store by religious ceremonialism; it is to him, in fact, his religion. The apostle has himself felt it to be so. But his sentiment now is the very opposite: he accounts it a dead, lifeless thing; nay, even loathsome and abhorred, whenever in the smallest degree placed even by a Christian Jew in the category of Christianly obedience. That he did regard such religious ceremonialism as belonging to the "world," from which as in Christ he had become dissevered, is plain, both from Galatians 4:3, "in bondage under the rudiments of the world," and from Colossians 2:20, "why, as though living in the world, do ye subject yourself to ordinances, Handle not," etc. That this particular ingredient in the whole system recited as "the world" was at this moment present to the apostle's mind, appears from his singling out circumcision for mention in the next verse. While, however, this was a part of the "crucified world" just now prominent to his view, this term comprised to his consciousness much beside; namely, the entire mass of ungodliness and vice which appertains to "the course, or age, of this world" (αἰὼν τοῦ κόσμου τούτου, Ephesians 2:2), from which αἰὼν, the Christian is by the daily transforming of his character to be removed (Romans 12:2). (See above, Galatians 1:4, and note.) "Through which;" in various ways was the cress of Christ the means of effecting this mutual crucifixion between the apostle and the world. It is apparent, from the whole tenor of his Epistles, that Christ crucified, as manifesting both Christ's love to sinful men in general, and to his own self in particular, "the chief of sinners," and likewise the love of God his Father, wrought with so mighty an attraction upon his whole soul - intellect, conscience, affections - that all other objects which were only not connected with this one lost to him their whole zest and interest, while all other objects which clashed with the moral and spiritual influence of this became absolutely distasteful and repulsive. And, on the other hand, the world at large met the man who was animated with this absorbing devotion to God as manifested in a crucified Christ, with just that estrangedness and aversion which might have been anticipated. The influence exercised by the cross in crucifying the world and the apostle to each other was intensified by the especial bearing which, in the apostle's view, the cross had towards Jewish ceremonialism (see Galatians 2:19, 20, and notes). The vivid, intense manner in which the apostle proclaimed such sentiments alienated from him the adherents and champions of Judaism, and made him of all Christians the one who was to them the most obnoxious. And how this affected his standing, even in the Gentile world, there have been above repeated occasions for noting. Galatians 6:14

Vincent's Word Studies

Contrast of Paul's own boasting and its ground with those of the false apostles.

By whom (δι' οὗ)

The relative may refer either to the cross, by which, or to Christ, by whom. The cross was a stumbling-block to the Jews (Galatians 3:13), and it is the crucified Christ that Paul is emphasizing. Comp. Galatians 2:20; Galatians 5:24.

The world (κόσμος)

See on John 1:9; see on Acts 17:24; see on 1 Corinthians 4:9.