Charles Spurgeon Commentary Galatians 4

Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am; for I am as ye are: ye have not injured me at all.

He had told them the gospel, and other teachers had come in and alienated their affections. He says, "Now I am just the same to you as I ever was; I wish you would have the same love to me."

Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first. And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.

He dwells on that. They had been so enthusiastic about his teaching when he first taught them, that he feels grieved that now they have turned to other teaching – not because it injured him, but because it injured them.

Where is then the blessedness you spoke of? (Galatians 4:15)

When you said that you were happy to live in Paul's days, glad to listen to so simple and plain a teacher.

For I bear you record, that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me. Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?

Ah! There are many who have incurred enmity through speaking the gospel very plainly. For the natural human tendency is towards ceremony, towards some form of legal righteousness. People feel they must have something aesthetic, something that delights their sensuous nature, something they can see and hear, to mix that up with the simplicity of faith. Paul was as clear as noonday against everything of that kind, and so the Galatians eventually became angry with him. Well, he could not help that, but it did grieve him.

They zealously affect you, but not well; yes, they would exclude you, that you might affect them.

They would, if they could, turn you out of our love that you might run after them. These false teachers would shut us out of your hearts that your hearts might go after them.