Galatians 6:2

ἀναπληρώσατε. Text. Rec. with אACDgrKL etc. syrHarcl. ἀναπληρώσετε is read by BG vulg. syrPesh.

2. The suggestion of common weakness producing sympathy with a fallen brother leads to the thought of active help. But, as usual with St Paul, this passes beyond the immediate connexion to a wider statement. The asyndeton suggests that he is illustrating the particular case by a general principle.

ἀλλήλων. He has now come to a clear contrast to Galatians 5:26.

τὰ βάρη, plural[159]. For the singular with βαστάζειν see Matthew 20:12. The reference is wide, all that causes them anxiety and that can be borne by others (contrast Galatians 6:5). St Paul, it must be remembered, was writing to those who were inclined to carry wrong burdens, those of legal enactments, cf. Acts 15:28; Acts 15:10; Revelation 2:24. See also Jerome on Galatians 6:3, p. 521 c.

[159] Is affixed to a word it means that all the passages are mentioned where that word occurs in the New Testament.

βαστάζετε, Galatians 5:10. In Romans 15:1 St Paul states his meaning plainly without the metaphor of βάρος.

καὶ οὕτως. In contrast to the false way proposed to them.

ἀναπληρώσατε: see notes on Textual Criticism. Matthew 13:14; 1 Corinthians 16:17; Philippians 2:30. Fill up completely as though it were a goblet showing the measure proposed for you. The word is used in the Papyri of completing a contract, and of making up a rent (see Moulton and Milligan in Expositor, VII. 5, 1908, p. 267).

τὸν νόμον τοῦ χριστοῦ. The phrase is unique, but cf. James 1:25. Not Ἰησοῦ as meaning the law that Jesus spake, e.g. “love one another,” John 13:34 (Jerome), or the Sermon on the Mount, but τοῦ χριστοῦ “the law of the Messiah.” This includes not only all His words and deeds but probably also the whole principle of His self-sacrifice, in His Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection (cf. Ephesians 5:1-2). In this sense Bengel is right: Lex Christi lex amoris, for this is love itself. St Paul thus returns to the thought of Galatians 5:13-14, but, as always, giving his words a deeper and wider range. Thus there is a sense in which the believer is ἔννομος (cf. ἡ ἔννομος βίωσις, Ecclus. Prol.), but it is ἔννομος Χριστοῦ (1 Corinthians 9:21), and seeing that it is subjection to a principle, or rather to a Person, and not to a command or series of commands, it is the very opposite to subjection to the Law of Moses, though, of course, in one sense, moral obligation to a Person is the highest Law of all. On ὁ χριστός, meaning more than the personal name, see Colossians 1:7 note.