Paul, stigmata indicated either that the persons bearing them were domestic slaves, or

slaves attached to a temple. In accord with this significance is the reading of the

Revised Text, which, instead of reading as the A.V. "The marks of the Lord Jesus", omits

the word `Lord', for the personal name of the owner of the slave is all that was wanted.

Moffatt's translation of Gal. 6: 17, is "Let no one interfere with me after this, for I bear

branded on my body the owner's stamp of Jesus".

The Apostle, from the commencement of his commission, knew that `suffering' for

the name of Christ formed an integral part of it. Not only was Ananias informed by the

Lord that Paul was a chosen vessel to bear His name before the Gentiles and Kings and

the children of Israel, but the peculiar nature of this commission was emphasized by the

added words "I will show him how great things he must suffer for My name's sake"

(Acts 9: 15, 16).

When he summed up his early ministry in Acts 20: and looked forward to the next

phase of his commission he said, "And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto

Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there: save that the Holy Ghost

witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me" (Acts 20: 22, 23).

After his imprisonment, when he became "the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you

Gentiles" (Eph. 3: 1), he assured the Ephesians that his tribulations on their behalf were

their `glory' (Eph. 3: 13), and realized that there were reserved some sufferings which he

now `filled up' (Col. 1: 24). In Philippians, Paul's Lord and Master stooped to the form

of a `slave' (Phil. 2: 7) and a slave could be punished with crucifixion, but a Roman

citizen (as Paul was) could not. Nevertheless it was the Apostle's prayer that he might

know the Lord and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings,

`being made conformable unto His death'. The stigmata or brand marks which Paul bore

in his body were definitely associated with fellowship with the sufferings of Christ, and

for ever separated him from those who, to avoid the offence of the cross, adulterated the

gospel of grace with the dregs of Jewish ceremonial.

Paul was constrained to write two epistles on the great theme of Justification by faith

without works of law, namely Galatians and Romans. In Galatians, at the beginning of

the conflict, he threw the whole weight of his apostolic authority and independence into

the scale (see structure of Gal. 1:), and not until the last word is uttered can he take the

attitude which love dictated, namely to subscribe himself, `a bond slave' of Jesus Christ.

At the opening of the epistle he stresses his credentials; at the close, he draws attention to

the marks his body bears of his faithful adherence to the truth. By the time he came to

write Romans, the conflict with Judaism had died down and he was then free to open that

great epistle not with his apostolic authority, but with the words "Paul a bond-slave of

Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle" (Rom. 1: 1).

Farrar remarks that in verses 12 and 13 Paul resumed the polemical, and in verses 14

and 16 the dogmatic theses of the epistle; and that the personal (17) as well as the

doctrinal truth (18) on which he had been dwelling recur in the last two verses.