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Just as he brings forward "five hundred brethren" as additional witnesses to the
Resurrection of the Lord in I Cor. 15: 6, so these brethren are associated with him in this
great stand for the truth, and the vindication of his claims.
Macknight brings this passage forward as one of the evidences that Paul wrote the
epistle from Antioch.
"From as the only view with which any of the brethren could join the apostle in
writing to the Galatians, was to attest the facts which he advanced in the first and second
chapters for proving his apostleship, the brethren who joined him in writing it must have
been such as knew the truth of these facts."
Brethren of Corinth, or Ephesus, or Rome would only be able to attest what the
apostle himself had told them, but the brethren at Antioch would have had opportunity of
obtaining first hand evidence of these things. In chapter two Paul refers to an incident
which took place at Antioch, an incident that put Peter in a very bad light, and it was
necessary that some such confirmation should have accompanied this stirring letter, lest
the edge be taken off the arguments by doubts as to their truth and reality.
If Paul's word is to be accredited at all, and if the confirmation of "all the brethren"
that associated themselves with his attitude and witness, is not to be set aside, then in the
clearest possible light we must set the apostle of the Gentiles, accepting his unique and
distinctive office as a gift of the ascended Christ, and realizing as we do so, that an
apostle implies a message, and an apostle so represents the Lord Who sent him, that the
words reveal how exceedingly serious the attitude of those must be who look upon the
glorious revelation of Divine Truth found in Paul's epistles, as but Paul's "opinion".
"Verily, verily , I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send (exapostello)
receiveth Me; and he that receiveth Me receiveth Him that sent (exapostello) Me"
(John 13: 20).