Charles Ellicott Commentary Galatians 1:6

"I marvel that ye are so quickly removing from him that called you in the grace of Christ unto a different gospel;" — Galatians 1:6 (ASV)

Removed.—The Greek word is one regularly used for a “deserter,” “turncoat,” or “apostate,” either in war, politics, or religion. The tense is strictly present: “You are now, at this moment, in the act of falling away.”

Him who called you.—The call of the Christian is attributed by St. Paul to God the Father; so even in Romans 1:6. The Christian, having been called by God, belongs to Christ. The part taken by Christ in the calling of the Christian is rather a mediate agency, such as is expressed in the next phrase.

Into the grace of Christ.—Rather, by the grace of Christ. The grace (i.e., the free love) of Christ becomes the instrument of the divine calling, since it is through the preaching of that free love and free gift that the unbeliever is at first attracted and won over to the faith. The “grace of Christ” is His voluntary self-surrender to humiliation and death, from no other prompting than His own love for sinful men.

To another gospel: which is not another.—It is to be regretted that the English language hardly admits the fine shade of distinction that exists here in the Greek. The Greek has two words for “another:” one (the first of those used here) implying a difference in kind, the other implying mere numerical addition.

Do I call it another gospel? That would seem to concede its right to be called a gospel at all. It might be supposed to be some alternative theory, existing side by side with what you originally heard; but this cannot be. This “other gospel” is not a second gospel; for there cannot be two gospels. The inference, therefore, to be drawn is that it is not a gospel in any sense of the word. This, then, may be dismissed. It is no true gospel, but only mischievous and factious meddling on the part of certain false teachers.

On verses 6-10:

The Apostle is surprised at their rapid defection. The doctrine to which they had at first adhered was a doctrine of salvation by grace; they now imagined that they were only hearing a different version of the same truths. A different version? How was that possible? There could not be any second gospel, nor was there really anything of the kind. It was not a new gospel, but only a factious perversion of the old. Those who do this—no matter who they are—are accursed. That, at least, is plain speaking, and no one can accuse it of time-serving.

The Apostle had ended his address to the Galatians abruptly, and now he plunges abruptly, and without further preface, into the middle of his charges against them. He cannot understand their sudden apostasy.