An illuminating and stunning verse-by-verse commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians. Amazing light and clarity is brought to scriptures widely misunderstood in the Christian world from the distant past up until the present day, especially concerning the law and the covenants. The subject of “the law in Galatians” was a great point of focus and contention among delegates at the 1888 Minneapolis General Conference Session. Ellen G. White bore the following testimony:
I see the beauty of truth in the presentation of the righteousness of Christ in relation to the law as the Doctor [E. J. Waggoner] has placed it before us. You say, many of you, that it is light and truth. Yet you have not presented it in its light heretofore. … That which has been presented harmonizes perfectly with the light which God has been pleased to give me during all the years of my experience.
—Manuscript 15, 1888
A century later, the timeless value of Waggoner’s contribution to a proper understanding of this critically important New Testament epistle is attested to as follows:
Paul’s Letter to the Galatians throbs like a pounding heart with the urgent message of salvation only by faith as does no other New Testament document. The intrepid apostle’s dynamic personality is revealed here at its finest. The Letter is a crescendo of passionate expression tumbling from his heart like a rushing mountain torrent. No secretary or amanuensis patiently transcribed Paul’s labored dictation this time; the urgency of the Galatians’ need prompted the apostle to dash off this Letter in his own trembling hand. It is perhaps the most authentically spontaneous apostolic document that has survived the early Christian era.
—Robert J. Wieland, back cover synopsis for The Glad Tidings, Pacific Press, 1988.
The flame raging in Paul’s heart has kindled fire in other hearts across the millennia whenever Galatians has been studied seriously. Time cannot quench its ardor. It ignited the blaze that became the great Protestant Reformation of the 16th century; by means of Luther’s comments the same fire again leaped the centuries to set England alight in the great Wesleyan revivals of the 18th century.
On a dismal afternoon in 1882, young Ellet J. Waggoner sat in a gospel tent in Healdsburg, California, listening to a boring sermon. Suddenly he caught a vision of the stupendous reality of the cross of Christ as a present-day truth. That began for him a lifetime study of Galatians. His resultant sermons and writings not only stirred thousands in his own 19th century, but speak simply and eloquently to us now [in the twenty-first!]. Waggoner’s The Glad Tidings deserves attention, for he caught the spirit of the Letter to the Galatians as few, if any, modern commentators have done.