Text -- Galatians 3:15-22 (NET)

Inheritance Comes from Promises and not Law

3:15 Brothers and sisters, I offer an example from everyday life: When a covenant has been ratified, even though it is only a human contract, no one can set it aside or add anything to it. 3:16 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his descendant. Scripture does not say, “and to the descendants,” referring to many, but “and to your descendant,” referring to one, who is Christ. 3:17 What I am saying is this: The law that came four hundred thirty years later does not cancel a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to invalidate the promise. 3:18 For if the inheritance is based on the law, it is no longer based on the promise, but God graciously gave it to Abraham through the promise. 3:19 Why then was the law given? It was added because of transgressions, until the arrival of the descendant to whom the promise had been made. It was administered through angels by an intermediary. 3:20 Now an intermediary is not for one party alone, but God is one. 3:21 Is the law therefore opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that was able to give life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. 3:22 But the scripture imprisoned everything and everyone under sin so that the promise could be given– because of the faithfulness of Jesus Christ– to those who believe.

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Robertson: Gal 3:15

After the manner of men ( kata anthrōpon ).

After the custom and practice of men, an illustration from life.

Robertson: Gal 3:15

Though it be but a man’ s covenant, yet when it hath been confirmed ( homōs anthrōpou kekurōmenēn diathēkēn ).

Literally, "Yet a man’ s covenant ratified."On Diathēkē as both covenant and will see note on Mat 26:28; note on 1Co 11:25; note on 2Co 3:6; notes on Heb 9:16. On kuroō , to ratify, to make valid, see note on 2Co 2:8. Perfect passive participle here, state of completion, authoritative confirmation.

Robertson: Gal 3:15

Maketh it void ( athetei ).

See note on Gal 2:21 for this verb. Both parties can by agreement cancel a contract, but not otherwise.

Robertson: Gal 3:15

Addeth thereto ( epidiatassetai ).

Present middle indicative of the double compound verb epidiatassomai , a word found nowhere else as yet. But inscriptions use diatassomai , diataxis , diatagē , diatagma with the specialized meaning to "determine by testamentary disposition"(Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East , p. 90). It was unlawful to add (epi ) fresh clauses or specifications (diataxeis ).

Robertson: Gal 3:16

But as of one ( all' hōs Ephesians' henos ).

But as in the case of one.

Robertson: Gal 3:16

Which is Christ ( hos estin Christos ).

Masculine relative agreeing with Christos though sperma is neuter. But the promise to Abraham uses sperma as a collective substantive and applies to all believers (both Jews and Gentiles) as Paul has shown in Gal 3:7-14, and as of course he knew full well Here Paul uses a rabbinical refinement which is yet intelligible. The people of Israel were a type of the Messiah and he gathers up the promise in its special application to Christ. He does not say that Christ is specifically referred to in Gen 13:15 or Gen 17:7.

Robertson: Gal 3:17

Now this I say ( touto de legō ).

Now I mean this. He comes back to his main point and is not carried afield by the special application of sperma to Christ.

Robertson: Gal 3:17

Confirmed beforehand by God ( prokekurōmenēn hupo tou theou ).

Perfect passive participle of prokuroō , in Byzantine writers and earliest use here. Nowhere else in N.T. The point is in pro and hupo tou theou (by God) and in meta (after) as Burton shows.

Robertson: Gal 3:17

Four hundred and thirty years after ( meta tetrakosia kai triakonta etē ).

Literally, "after four hundred and thirty years."This is the date in Exo 12:40 for the sojourn in Egypt (cf. Gen 15:13). But the lxx adds words to include the time of the patriarchs in Canaan in this number of years which would cut the time in Egypt in two. Cf. Act 7:6. It is immaterial to Paul’ s argument which chronology is adopted except that "the longer the covenant had been in force the more impressive is his statement"(Burton).

Robertson: Gal 3:17

Doth not disannul ( ouk akuroi ).

Late verb akuroō , in N.T. only here and Mat 15:6; Mar 7:13 (from a privative and kuros , authority). On katargēsai see 1Co 1:28; 1Co 2:61Co 15:24, 1Co 15:26.

Robertson: Gal 3:18

The inheritance ( hē klēronomia ).

Old word from klēronomos , heir (kleros , lot, nemomai , to distribute). See Mat 21:38; Act 7:5. This came to Israel by the promise to Abraham, not by the Mosaic law. So with us, Paul argues.

Robertson: Gal 3:18

Hath granted ( kecharistai ).

Perfect middle indicative of charizomai . It still holds good after the law came.

Robertson: Gal 3:19

What then is the law? ( ti oun ho nomoṡ ).

Or, why then the law? A pertinent question if the Abrahamic promise antedates it and holds on afterwards.

Robertson: Gal 3:19

It was added because of transgressions ( tōn parabaseōn charin prosetethē ).

First aorist passive of prostithēmi , old verb to add to. It is only in apparent contradiction to Gal 3:15., because in Paul’ s mind the law is no part of the covenant, but a thing apart "in no way modifying its provisions"(Burton). Charin is the adverbial accusative of charis which was used as a preposition with the genitive as early as Homer, in favour of, for the sake of. Except in 1Jo 3:12 it is post-positive in the N.T. as in ancient Greek. It may be causal (Luk 7:47; 1Jo 3:12) or telic (Tit 1:5, Tit 1:11; Jud 1:16). It is probably also telic here, not in order to create transgressions, but rather "to make transgressions palpable"(Ellicott), "thereby pronouncing them to be from that time forward transgressions of the law"(Rendall). Parabasis , from parabainō , is in this sense a late word (Plutarch on), originally a slight deviation, then a wilful disregarding of known regulations or prohibitions as in Rom 2:23.

Robertson: Gal 3:19

Till the seed should come ( achris an elthēi to sperma ).

Future time with achris an and aorist subjunctive (usual construction). Christ he means by to sperma as in Gal 3:16.

Robertson: Gal 3:19

The promise hath been made ( epēggeltai ).

Probably impersonal perfect passive rather than middle of epaggellomai as in 2 Maccabees 4:27.

Robertson: Gal 3:19

Ordained through angels ( diatageis di' aggelōn ).

Second aorist passive participle of diatassō (see note on Mat 11:1). About angels and the giving of the law see Deuteronomy 33:2 (lxx); Act 7:38, Act 7:52; Heb 2:2; Josephus ( Ant. XV. 5. 3).

Robertson: Gal 3:19

By the hand of a mediator ( en cheiri mesitou ).

En cheiri is a manifest Aramaism or Hebraism and only here in the N.T. It is common in the lxx. Mesitēs , from mesos is middle or midst, is a late word (Polybius, Diodorus, Philo, Josephus) and common in the papyri in legal transactions for arbiter, surety, etc. Here of Moses, but also of Christ (1Ti 2:5; Heb 8:6; Heb 9:15; Heb 12:24).

Robertson: Gal 3:20

Is not a mediator of one ( henos ouk estin ).

That is, a middleman comes in between two. The law is in the nature of a contract between God and the Jewish people with Moses as the mediator or middleman.

Robertson: Gal 3:20

But God is one ( ho de theos heis estin ).

There was no middleman between God and Abraham. He made the promise directly to Abraham. Over 400 interpretations of this verse have been made!

Robertson: Gal 3:21

Against the promises ( kata tōn epaggeliōn ).

A pertinent question again. Far from it (mē genoito ).

Robertson: Gal 3:21

Which could make alive ( ho dunamenos zōopoiēsai ).

First aorist active infinitive of zōopoieō , late compound (zōos , alive, poieō , to make) verb for which see note on 1Co 15:22. Spiritual life, he means, here and hereafter.

Robertson: Gal 3:21

Verily ( ontōs ).

"Really"(cf. Mar 11:32; Luk 24:34). Condition and conclusion (an ēn ) of second class, determined as unfulfilled. He had already said that Christ died to no purpose in that case (Gal 2:21).

Robertson: Gal 3:22

Hath shut up ( sunekleisen ).

Did shut together. First aorist active indicative of sunkleiō , old verb to shut together, on all sides, completely as a shoal of fish in a net (Luk 5:6). So Gal 3:23; Rom 11:32.

Robertson: Gal 3:22

Under sin ( hupo hamartian ).

See hupo kataran in Gal 3:10. As if the lid closed in on us over a massive chest that we could not open or as prisoners in a dungeon. He uses ta panta (the all things), the totality of everything. See Rom 3:10-19; Rom 11:32.

Robertson: Gal 3:22

That ( hina ).

God’ s purpose, personifying scripture again.

Robertson: Gal 3:22

Might be given ( dothēi ).

First aorist passive subjunctive of didōmi with hina .

Vincent: Gal 3:15

After the manner of men ( κατὰ ἄνθρωπον )

According to human analogy; reasoning as men would reason in ordinary affairs. The phrase is peculiar to Paul. See Rom 3:5; 1Co 3:3; 1Co 9:8; 1Co 15:32; Gal 1:11. Comp. ἀνθρώπινος as a man , Rom 6:19.

Vincent: Gal 3:15

Though it be - yet

The A.V. and Rev. give the correct sense, but the order of the Greek is peculiar. Ὅμως yet properly belongs to οὐδεὶς no man : " Though a man's covenant yet no man disannulleth it." But ὅμως is taken out of its natural place, and put at the beginning of the clause, before ἀνθρώπου , so that the Greek literally reads: " Yet a man's covenant confirmed no one disannulleth, etc." A similar displacement occurs 1Co 14:7.

Vincent: Gal 3:15

Covenant ( διαθήκην )

Not testament . See on Mat 26:28, and see on Heb 9:16.

Vincent: Gal 3:15

Confirmed ( κεκυρωμένην )

Po . See 2Co 2:8. In lxx, Gen 23:20; Lev 25:30; 4 Macc. 7:9. From κῦρος supreme power . Hence the verb carries the sense of authoritative confirmation, in this case by the contracting parties.

Vincent: Gal 3:15

Disannulleth ( ἀθετεῖ )

See on bring to nothing , 1Co 1:19. Rev. maketh void .

Vincent: Gal 3:15

Addeth thereto ( ἐπιδιατάσσεται )

N.T.o . Adds new specifications or conditions to the original covenant, which is contrary to law. Comp. ἐπιδιαθήκη a second will or codicil , Joseph B . J . 2:2, 3; Ant . 17:9, 4. The doctrine of the Judaisers, while virtually annulling the promise, was apparently only the imposing of new conditions. In either case it was a violation of the covenant.

Vincent: Gal 3:16

The course of thought is as follows. The main point is that the promises to Abraham continue to hold for Christian believers (Gal 3:17). It might be objected that the law made these promises void. After stating that a human covenant is not invalidated or added to by any one, he would argue from this analogy that a covenant of God is not annulled by the law which came afterwards. But before reaching this point, he must call attention to the fact that the promises were given, not to Abraham only, but to his descendants. Hence it follows that the covenant was not a mere temporary contract, made to last only up to the time of the law. Even a man's covenant remains uncancelled and without additions. Similarly, God's covenant-promises to Abraham remain valid; and this is made certain by the fact that the promises were given not only to Abraham but to his seed; and since the singular, seed , is used, and not seeds , it is evident that Christ is meant.

The promises ( αἱ ἐπαγγελίαι )

Comp. Rom 9:4. The promise was given on several occasions.

Vincent: Gal 3:16

Were made ( ἐρρέθησαν )

Rend. were spoken .

Vincent: Gal 3:16

To his seed ( τῷ σπέρματι αὐτοῦ )

Emphatic, as making for his conclusion in Gal 3:17. There can be no disannulling by the law of a promise made not only to Abraham, but to his seed .

Vincent: Gal 3:16

Not - to seeds ( οὐ - τοῖς σπέρμασιν )

He means that there is significance in the singular form of expression, as pointing to the fact that one descendant (seed) is intended - Christ. With regard to this line of argument it is to be said, 1. The original promise referred to the posterity of Abraham generally , and therefore applies to Christ individually only as representing these: as gathering up into one all who should be incorporated with him. 2. The original word for seed in the O.T., wherever it means progeny , is used in the singular, whether the progeny consists of one or many. In the plural it means grains of seed , as 1Sa 8:15. It is evident that Paul's argument at this point betrays traces of his rabbinical education (see Schoettgen, Horae Hebraicae , Vol. I., page 736), and can have no logical force for nineteenth century readers. Even Luther says: " Zum stiche zu schwach."

Vincent: Gal 3:16

Of many ( ἐπὶ πολλῶν )

Apparently a unique instance of the use of ἐπὶ with the genitive after a verb of speaking. The sense appears in the familiar phrase " to speak upon a subject," many being conceived as the basis on which the speaking rests. Similarly ἐφ ' ἑνός of one .

Vincent: Gal 3:17

And this I say ( τοῦτο δὲ λέγω )

Now I mean this. Not strictly the conclusion from Gal 3:15, Gal 3:16, since Paul does not use this phrase in drawing a conclusion (comp. 1Co 1:12, and τοῦτο δέ φημι , 1Co 7:29; 1Co 15:50). It is rather the application, for which the way was prepared in Gal 3:16, of the analogy of Gal 3:15 to the inviolable stability of God's covenant.

Vincent: Gal 3:17

Four hundred and thirty years after

Bengel remarks: " The greatness of the interval increases the authority of the promise."

Vincent: Gal 3:17

To make of none effect ( καταργῆσαι )

See on Rom 3:3.

Vincent: Gal 3:18

In the analogy of Gal 3:15 there was contemplated the double possibility of invalidation or addition . With relation to God's promise, the Judaisers insisted on addition ; since, while they preached faith in the promise and in its fulfillment in Christ, they made the inheritance of the promise dependent upon the fulfilling of the law. Paul, on the other hand, holds that the Judaistic addition involves invalidation . Salvation must rest either upon the promise or upon the law. The Judaiser said, upon the promise and the law. For God gave the inheritance to Abraham by promise. It has been shown that the law did not abrogate the promise. Hence, if the inheritance be of the law it is no more of the promise. Comp. Rom 4:14.

Gave ( κεχάρισται )

Freely bestowed as a gracious gift. See on Luk 7:21.

Vincent: Gal 3:19

Wherefore then serveth the law? ( τί οὖν ὁ νόμος )

Lit. what then is the law , or, why then the law? What is its meaning and object? A natural question of an objector, since, according to Paul's reasoning, salvation is of promise and not of law.

Vincent: Gal 3:19

It was added ( προσετέθη )

Comp. παρεισῆλθεν came in beside , Rom 5:20. Not as an addition to the promise, which is contrary to Gal 3:18, but as a temporary, intermediate institution, in which only a subordinate purpose of God was expressed.

Vincent: Gal 3:19

Because of transgressions ( τῶν παραβάσεων χάριν )

In order to set upon already existing sins the stamp of positive transgression of law. Comp. Rom 4:5; Rom 5:13. Note the article, the transgressions, summing them up in one mass. Not, in order to give the knowledge of sins. This, it is true, would follow the revelation of sins as transgressions of law (Rom 3:20; Rom 7:13); but, 1. the phrase because of transgressions does not express that thought with sufficient definiteness. If that had been his meaning, Paul would probably have written τῆς ἀπιγνώσεως τῶν παραβάσεων χάριν on account of the knowledge of transgressions . 2. He meant to describe the office of the law as more than giving the knowledge of sins. Its office was, in revealing sin as positive transgression, to emphasize the objective, actual, contrary fact of righteousness according to the divine ideal, and to throw sin into contrast with that grand ideal.

Vincent: Gal 3:19

The seed

Christ, whose advent was to introduce the fulfillment of the promise (Gal 3:16).

Vincent: Gal 3:19

Ordained ( διαταγεὶς )

The verb means to arrange , appoint , prescribe . Of appointing the twelve, Mat 11:1; of enjoining certain acts, Luk 8:55; Luk 17:10; 1Co 7:17; of the decree of Claudius, Act 18:2. Here, describing the form or mode in which the law was added; the arrangement made for giving it.

Vincent: Gal 3:19

By angels ( δἰ ἀγγέλων )

Better, through angels as agents and intermediaries. Comp. εἰς διαταγὰς ἀγγέλων with reference to arrangements of angels ; or as it was ordained by angels , Act 7:53. The tradition of the giving of the law through angels appears first in Deu 33:2 (but comp. lxx and the Hebrew). See Heb 2:2; Act 7:53. In the later rabbinical schools great importance was attached to this tradition, and it was not without influence in shaping the doctrine of angelic mediation which formed one of the elements of the Colossian heresy. Josephus ( Ant . 15:5, 3) relates that Herod excited the Jews to battle by a speech, in which he said that they had learned the holiest of laws from God through angels. It is a general O.T. idea that in great theophanies God appears surrounded with a heavenly host. See Hab 3:8; Isa 66:15; Zec 14:5; Joe 3:11. The idea of an angelic administration is also familiar. See Exo 23:20; Exo 32:34; Exo 33:14; Isa 63:9; Jos 5:14. The agency of angels indicates the limitations of the older dispensation; its character as a dispensation of the flesh.

Vincent: Gal 3:19

In the hand of a mediator ( ἐν χειρὶ μεσίτου )

Ἑν χειρὶ by the agency of . A Hebraism. In this sense, not elsewhere in N.T. See lxx, Gen 38:20 Lev 16:21. In the hand of Moses , Lev 26:46; Num 4:37, Num 4:41, Num 4:45, Num 4:49. Comp. σὺν χειρὶ ἀγγέλου with the hand of the angel , Act 7:35. For μεσίτης mediator , see on 1Ti 2:5, and comp. Heb 8:6; Heb 9:15; Heb 12:24. It is a later Greek word signifying also umpire , arbitrator , and appears in lxx only in Job 9:33. The mediator here is Moses, who is often so designated by rabbinical writers. The object is not (as Meyer) to enable the reader to realize the glory of the law in the dignity and formal solemnity of its ordination, but to indicate the inferior, subordinate position held by the law in comparison with the promise , not the gospel . A glorification of the law cannot be intended, since if that were contemplated in the mention of angels and the mediator, the statement would tend to the disparagement of the promise which was given without a mediator. Paul, in the section Gal 3:6-9, Gal 3:7, aims to show that the law does not, as the Judaisers assume, stand in a relation to the divine plan of salvation as direct and positive as does the promise, and that it has not, like the promise and its fulfillment, an eternal significance. On the contrary, it has only a transitory value. This estimate of the law does not contradict Paul's assertions in Rom 7:12-25. In representing the law as subordinate and temporary he does not impugn it as a divine institution.

Vincent: Gal 3:20

Now a mediator is not a mediator of one ( ὁ δὲ μεσίτης ἐνὸς οὐκ ἔστιν )

Observe, 1. Δὲ is explanatory , not antithetic. The verse illustrates the conception of mediator. 2. The article, the mediator, has a generic force: the mediator according to the general and proper conception of his function. Comp. the apostle (2Co 12:12); the shepherd, the good (Joh 10:11). 3. Ἑνὸς of one , is to be explained by the following εἷς , so that it is masculine and personal. We are not to supply party or law . The meaning is: the conception of mediator does not belong to an individual considered singly. One is not a mediator of his single self, but he is a mediator between two contracting parties; in this case between God and the people of Israel, as Lev 26:46; thus differing from Christ, who is called the mediator of a new covenant (Heb 8:6; Heb 9:15; Heb 12:24). The new covenant, the gospel, was not a contract. Accordingly Gal 3:20 serves to define the true conception of a mediator, and through this definition to make clearer the difference between the law, which required a mediator, and the promise, which is the simple expression of God's will. The very idea of mediation supposes two parties. The law is of the nature of a contract between God and the Jewish people. The validity of the contract depends on its fulfillment by both parties. Hence it is contingent, not absolute.

Vincent: Gal 3:20

But God is one ( ὁ δὲ θεὸς εἷς ἀστίν )

God does not need a mediator to make his promise valid. His promise is not of the nature of a contract between two parties. His promise depends on his own individual decree. He dealt with Abraham singly and directly, without a mediator. The dignity of the law is thus inferior to that of the promise.

Vincent: Gal 3:21

Against the promises ( κατὰ τῶν ἐπαγγελιῶν )

Does it follow from the difference between the law and the promises that they are in antagonism? Paul supposes this objection on the part of a Jewish Christian.

Vincent: Gal 3:21

God forbid ( μὴ γένοιτο )

See on Rom 3:4. This could only be true in case the law gave life , for life must come either through the promises or through the law. If the law is against the promises, and makes them invalid, it follows that life must come through the law, and therefore righteousness, without which there is no life, would verily (ὄντως ), just as the Judaisers claim, be through the law.

Vincent: Gal 3:21

By the law

Tisch., Rev. T., Weiss, retain ἐκ νόμου from , resulting from the law . WH. read ἐν νόμῳ in the law . The meaning is substantially the same with either reading: in the one case proceeding from, in the other residing in the law.

Vincent: Gal 3:22

But it is not true that the law gives life, for the law, according to scripture, condemned all alike.

The scripture ( ἡ γραφὴ )

Scripture is personified. See on Gal 3:8.

Vincent: Gal 3:22

Hath concluded ( συνέκλεισεν )

Better, hath shut up , as a jailer. Only in Paul, with the exception of Luk 5:6. Frequent in lxx. Not included with others , but confined as within an enclosure, as Luk 5:6, of the net enclosing the fish. Comp. Exo 14:3; Jos 6:1; 1 Macc. 4:31. Scripture, in its divine utterances on the universality and guilt of sin, is conceived as a jailer who shuts all up in sin as in a prison. Comp. Rom 3:10-19; Rom 11:32.

Vincent: Gal 3:22

All ( τὰ πάντα )

Neuter, all things collectively : = all men . For the neuter in a similar comprehensive sense, see 1Co 1:27; Col 1:20; Eph 1:10.

Vincent: Gal 3:22

That ( ἵνα )

In order that. That which is represented through a personification as the act of Scripture, is the act of God, according to a definite purpose that the promise should be inherited by believers only, through faith in Jesus Christ.

Vincent: Gal 3:22

The promise ( ἡ ἐπαγγελία )

That is, the thing promised; the inheritance , Gal 3:18.

Vincent: Gal 3:22

By faith ( ἐκ πίστεως )

Const. with the promise , not with might be given . The promised gift which is the result of faith. The false teachers claimed that it was the result of works.

Vincent: Gal 3:22

To them that believe ( τοῖς πιστεύουσιν )

Not tautological. Even the Judaisers held that salvation was intended for believers, but also that legal obedience was its procuring cause; against which Paul asserts that it is simply for those that believe .

Wesley: Gal 3:15

I illustrate this by a familiar instance, taken from the practice of men. Though it be but a man's covenant, yet, if it be once legally confirmed, none - No, not the covenanter himself, unless something unforeseen occur, which cannot be the case with God. Disannulleth, or addeth thereto - Any new conditions.

Wesley: Gal 3:16

Several promises were made to Abraham; but the chief of all, and which was several times repeated, was that of the blessing through Christ.

Wesley: Gal 3:16

That is, God. Saith not, And to seeds, as of many - As if the promise were made to several kinds of seed.

Wesley: Gal 3:16

That is, one kind of seed, one posterity, one kind of sons. And to all these the blessing belonged by promise.

Wesley: Gal 3:16

including all that believe in him. Gen 22:18.

Wesley: Gal 3:17

What I mean is this.

Wesley: Gal 3:17

By the promise itself, by the repetition of it, and by a solemn oath, concerning the blessing all nations. Through Christ, the law which was four hundred and thirty years after - Counting from the time when the promise was first made to Abraham, Gen 12:2-3. Doth not disannul, so as to make the promise of no effect - With regard to all nations, if only the Jewish were to receive it; yea, with regard to them also, if it was by works, so as to supersede it, and introduce another way of obtaining the blessing.

Wesley: Gal 3:18

This is a new argument. The former was drawn from the time, this from the nature, of the transaction. If the eternal inheritance be obtained by keeping the law, it is no more by virtue of the free promise - These being just opposite to each other. But it is by promise. Therefore it is not by the law.

Wesley: Gal 3:19

The ceremonial law.

Wesley: Gal 3:19

To the promise.

Wesley: Gal 3:19

Probably, the yoke of the ceremonial law was inflicted as a punishment for the national sin of idolatry, Exo 32:1, at least the more grievous parts of it; and the whole of it was a prophetic type of Christ. The moral law was added to the promise to discover and restrain transgressions, to convince men of their guilt, and need of the promise, and give some check to sin. And this law passeth not away; but the ceremonial law was only introduced till Christ, the seed to or through whom the promise was made, should come.

Wesley: Gal 3:19

It was not given to Israel, like the promise to Abraham, immediately from God himself; but was conveyed by the ministry of angels to Moses, and delivered into his hand as a mediator between God and them, to remind them of the great Mediator.

Wesley: Gal 3:20

There must be two parties, or there can be no mediator between them; but God who made the free promise to Abraham is only one of the parties. The other, Abraham, was not present at the time of Moses. Therefore in the promise Moses had nothing to do. The law, wherein he was concerned, was a transaction of quite another nature.

Wesley: Gal 3:21

Will it follow from hence that the law is against, opposite to, the promises of God? By no means. They are well consistent. But yet the law cannot give life, as the promise doth.

Wesley: Gal 3:21

Which could have entitled a sinner to life, God would have spared his own Son, and righteousness, or justification. with all the blessings consequent upon it, would have been by that law.

Wesley: Gal 3:22

Hath shut them up together, (so the word properly signifies,) as in a prison, under sentence of death, to the end that all being cut off from expecting justification by the law, the promise might be freely given to them that believe.

JFB: Gal 3:15

I take an illustration from a merely human transaction of everyday occurrence.

JFB: Gal 3:15

Whose purpose it is far less important to maintain.

JFB: Gal 3:15

When once it hath been ratified.

JFB: Gal 3:15

"none setteth aside," not even the author himself, much less any second party. None does so who acts in common equity. Much less would the righteous God do so. The law is here, by personification, regarded as a second person, distinct from, and subsequent to, the promise of God. The promise is everlasting, and more peculiarly belongs to God. The law is regarded as something extraneous, afterwards introduced, exceptional and temporary (Gal 3:17-19, Gal 3:21-24).

JFB: Gal 3:15

None addeth new conditions "making" the covenant "of none effect" (Gal 3:17). So legal Judaism could make no alteration in the fundamental relation between God and man, already established by the promises to Abraham; it could not add as a new condition the observance of the law, in which case the fulfilment of the promise would be attached to a condition impossible for man to perform. The "covenant" here is one of free grace, a promise afterwards carried into effect in the Gospel.

JFB: Gal 3:16

This verse is parenthetical. The covenant of promise was not "spoken" (so Greek for "made") to Abraham alone, but "to Abraham and his seed"; to the latter especially; and this means Christ (and that which is inseparable from Him, the literal Israel, and the spiritual, His body, the Church). Christ not having come when the law was given, the covenant could not have been then fulfilled, but awaited the coming of Him, the Seed, to whom it was spoken.

JFB: Gal 3:16

Plural, because the same promise was often repeated (Gen 12:3, Gen 12:7; Gen 15:5, Gen 15:18; Gen 17:7; Gen 22:18), and because it involved many things; earthly blessings to the literal children of Abraham in Canaan, and spiritual and heavenly blessings to his spiritual children; but both promised to Christ, "the Seed" and representative Head of the literal and spiritual Israel alike. In the spiritual seed there is no distinction of Jew or Greek; but to the literal seed, the promises still in part remain to be fulfilled (Rom 11:26). The covenant was not made with "many" seeds (which if there had been, a pretext might exist for supposing there was one seed before the law, another under the law; and that those sprung from one seed, say the Jewish, are admitted on different terms, and with a higher degree of acceptability, than those sprung from the Gentile seed), but with the one seed; therefore, the promise that in Him "all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Gen 12:3), joins in this one Seed, Christ, Jew and Gentile, as fellow heirs on the same terms of acceptability, namely, by grace through faith (Rom 4:13); not to some by promise, to others by the law, but to all alike, circumcised and uncircumcised, constituting but one seed in Christ (Rom 4:16). The law, on the other hand, contemplates the Jews and Gentiles as distinct seeds. God makes a covenant, but it is one of promise; whereas the law is a covenant of works. Whereas the law brings in a mediator, a third party (Gal 3:19-20), God makes His covenant of promise with the one seed, Christ (Gen 17:7), and embraces others only as they are identified with, and represented by, Christ.

JFB: Gal 3:16

Not in the exclusive sense, the man Christ Jesus, but "Christ" (Jesus is not added, which would limit the meaning), including His people who are part of Himself, the Second Adam, and Head of redeemed humanity. Gal 3:28-29 prove this, "Ye are all ONE in Christ Jesus" (Jesus is added here as the person is indicated). "And if ye be Christ's, ye are Abraham's SEED, heirs according to the promise."

JFB: Gal 3:17

"this is what I mean," by what I said in Gal 3:15.

JFB: Gal 3:17

"ratified by God" (Gal 3:15).

JFB: Gal 3:17

Rather, "unto Christ" (compare Gal 3:16). However, Vulgate and the old Italian versions translate as English Version. But the oldest manuscripts omit the words altogether.

JFB: Gal 3:17

Greek, "which came into existence four hundred thirty years after" (Exo 12:40-41). He does not, as in the case of "the covenant," add "enacted by God" (Joh 1:17). The dispensation of "the promise" began with the call of Abraham from Ur into Canaan, and ended on the last night of his grandson Jacob's sojourn in Canaan, the land of promise. The dispensation of the law, which engenders bondage, was beginning to draw on from the time of his entrance into Egypt, the land of bondage. It was to Christ in him, as in his grandfather Abraham, and his father Isaac, not to him or them as persons, the promise was spoken. On the day following the last repetition of the promise orally (Gen 46:1-6), at Beer-sheba, Israel passed into Egypt. It is from the end, not from the beginning of the dispensation of promise, that the interval of four hundred thirty years between it and the law is to be counted. At Beer-sheba, after the covenant with Abimelech, Abraham called on the everlasting God, and the well was confirmed to him and his seed as an everlasting possession. Here God appeared to Isaac. Here Jacob received the promise of the blessing, for which God had called Abraham out of Ur, repeated for the last time, on the last night of his sojourn in the land of promise.

JFB: Gal 3:17

Greek, "doth not disannul."

JFB: Gal 3:17

The promise would become so, if the power of conferring the inheritance be transferred from it to the law (Rom 4:14).

JFB: Gal 3:18

All the blessings to be inherited by Abraham's literal and spiritual children, according to the promise made to him and to his Seed, Christ, justification and glorification (Gal 4:7; Rom 8:17; 1Co 6:9).

JFB: Gal 3:18

The Greek order requires rather, "But to Abraham it was by promise that God hath given it." The conclusion is, Therefore the inheritance is not of, or from the law (Rom 4:14).

JFB: Gal 3:19

"Wherefore then serveth the law?" as it is of no avail for justification, is it either useless, or contrary to the covenant of God? [CALVIN].

JFB: Gal 3:19

To the original covenant of promise. This is not inconsistent with Gal 3:15, "No man addeth thereto"; for there the kind of addition meant, and therefore denied, is one that would add new conditions, inconsistent with the grace of the covenant of promise. The law, though misunderstood by the Judaizers as doing so, was really added for a different purpose, namely, "because of (or as the Greek, 'for the sake of') the transgressions," that is, to bring out into clearer view the transgressions of it (Rom 7:7-9); to make men more fully conscious of their "sins," by being perceived as transgressions of the law, and so to make them long for the promised Saviour. This accords with Gal 3:23-24; Rom 4:15. The meaning can hardly be "to check transgressions," for the law rather stimulates the corrupt heart to disobey it (Rom 5:20; Rom 7:13).

JFB: Gal 3:19

During the period up to the time when the seed came. The law was a preparatory dispensation for the Jewish nation (Rom 5:20; Greek, "the law came in additionally and incidentally"), intervening between the promise and its fulfilment in Christ.

JFB: Gal 3:19

(Compare "faith came," Gal 3:23).

JFB: Gal 3:19

(Rom 4:21).

JFB: Gal 3:19

Greek, "constituted" or "disposed."

JFB: Gal 3:19

As the instrumental enactors of the law [ALFORD] God delegated the law to angels as something rather alien to Him and severe (Act 7:53; Heb 2:2-3; compare Deu 33:2, "He came with ten thousands of saints," that is, angels, Psa 68:17). He reserved "the promise" to Himself and dispensed it according to His own goodness.

JFB: Gal 3:19

Namely, Moses. Deu 5:5, "I stood between the Lord and you": the very definition of a mediator. Hence the phrase often recurs, "By the hand of Moses." In the giving of the law, the "angels" were representatives of God; Moses, as mediator, represented the people.

JFB: Gal 3:20

Moses, the severing mediator of legal conditions, and Jesus, the uniting mediator of grace--are contrasted. The Jews began their worship by reciting the Schemah, opening thus, "Jehovah our God is ONE Jehovah"; which words their Rabbis (as JARCHIUS) interpret as teaching not only the unity of God, but the future universality of His Kingdom on earth (Zep 3:9). Paul (Rom 3:30) infers the same truth from the ONENESS of God (compare Eph 4:4-6). He, as being One, unites all believers, without distinction, to Himself (Gal 3:8, Gal 3:16, Gal 3:28; Eph 1:10; Eph 2:14; compare Heb 2:11) in direct communion. The unity of God involves the unity of the people of God, and also His dealing directly without intervention of a mediator.

JFB: Gal 3:21

"Is the law (which involves a mediator) against the promises of God (which are without a mediator, and rest on God alone and immediately)? God forbid."

JFB: Gal 3:21

The law, as an externally prescribed rule, can never internally impart spiritual life to men naturally dead in sin, and change the disposition. If the law had been a law capable of giving life, "verily (in very reality, and not in the mere fancy of legalists) righteousness would have been by the law (for where life is, there righteousness, its condition, must also be)." But the law does not pretend to give life, and therefore not righteousness; so there is no opposition between the law and the promise. Righteousness can only come through the promise to Abraham, and through its fulfilment in the Gospel of grace.

JFB: Gal 3:22

As the law cannot give life or righteousness [ALFORD]. Or the "But" means, So far is righteousness from being of the law, that the knowledge of sin is rather what comes of the law [BENGEL].

JFB: Gal 3:22

Which began to be written after the time of the promise, at the time when the law was given. The written letter was needed SO as PERMANENTLY to convict man of disobedience to God's command. Therefore he says, "the Scripture," not the "Law." Compare Gal 3:8, "Scripture," for "the God of the Scripture."

JFB: Gal 3:22

"shut up," under condemnation, as in a prison. Compare Isa 24:22, "As prisoners gathered in the pit and shut up in the prison." Beautifully contrasted with "the liberty wherewith Christ makes free," which follows, Gal 3:7, Gal 3:9, Gal 3:25-26; Gal 5:1; Isa 61:1.

JFB: Gal 3:22

Greek neuter, "the universe of things": the whole world, man, and all that appertains to him.

JFB: Gal 3:22

(Rom 3:9, Rom 3:19; Rom 11:32).

JFB: Gal 3:22

The inheritance promised (Gal 3:18).

JFB: Gal 3:22

That is which is by faith in Jesus Christ.

JFB: Gal 3:22

The emphasis is on "given": that it might be a free gift; not something earned by the works of the law (Rom 6:23).

JFB: Gal 3:22

To them that have "the faith of (in) Jesus Christ" just spoken of.

Clarke: Gal 3:15

I speak after the manner of men - I am about to produce an example taken from civil transactions. If it be confirmed - If an agreement or bond be signed, sealed, and witnessed, and, in this country, being first duly stamped

Clarke: Gal 3:15

No man disannulleth - It stands under the protection of the civil law, and nothing can be legally erased or added.

Clarke: Gal 3:16

Now to Abraham and his seed - The promise of salvation by faith was made to Abraham and his posterity

Clarke: Gal 3:16

He saith not, And to seeds - It was one particular kind of posterity which was intended: but as of one - which is Christ; i.e. to the spiritual head, and all believers in him, who are children of Abraham, because they are believers, Gal 3:7. But why does the apostle say, not of seeds, as of many? To this it is answered, that Abraham possessed in his family two seeds, one natural, viz. the members of his own household; and the other spiritual, those who were like himself because of their faith. The promises were not of a temporal nature; had they been so, they would have belonged to his natural seed; but they did not, therefore they must have belonged to the spiritual posterity. And as we know that promises of justification, etc., could not properly be made to Christ in himself, hence we must conclude his members to be here intended, and the word Christ is put here for Christians. It is from Christ that the grace flows which constitutes Christians. Christians are those who believe after the example of Abraham; they therefore are the spiritual seed. Christ, working in and by these, makes them the light and salt of the world; and through them, under and by Christ, are all the nations of the earth blessed. This appears to be the most consistent interpretation, though every thing must be understood of Christ in the first instance, and then of Christians only through him.

Clarke: Gal 3:17

Confirmed before of God in Christ - i.e. The promise of justification, etc., made to believers in Christ Jesus, who are the spiritual seed of Christ, as they are children of Abraham, from the similitude of their faith. Abraham believed in God, and it was reckoned to him for justification; the Gentiles believed in Christ, and received justification. Probably the word Christ is to be taken, both here and in the preceding verse, for Christians, as has already been hinted. However it be taken, the sense is plainly the same; the promise of salvation must necessarily be to them who believe in Christ, for he is the promised seed, Gen 3:15, through whom every blessing is derived on mankind; and through his spiritual seed - the true Christians, the conquests of the cross are daily spreading over the face of the earth. The present unparalleled dispersion of the sacred writings, in all the regular languages of the universe, is a full proof that all the nations of the earth are likely to be blessed through them; but they have nothing but what they have received from and through Christ

Clarke: Gal 3:17

Four hundred and thirty years after - God made a covenant with Abraham that the Messiah should spring from his posterity. This covenant stated that justification should be obtained by faith in the Messiah. The Messiah did not come till 1911 years after the making of this covenant, and the law was given 430 years after the covenant with Abraham, therefore the law, which was given 1481 years before the promise to Abram could be fulfilled, (for so much time elapsed between the giving of the law and the advent of Christ), could not possibly annul the Abrahamic covenant. This argument is absolute and conclusive. Let us review it. The promise to Abraham respects the Messiah, and cannot be fulfilled but in him. Christians say the Messiah is come, but the advent of him whom they acknowledge as the Messiah did not take place till 1911 years after the covenant was made, therefore no intermediate transaction can affect that covenant. But the law was an intermediate transaction, taking place 430 years after the covenant with Abraham, and could neither annul nor affect that which was not to have its fulfillment till 1481 years after. Justification by faith is promised in the Abrahamic covenant, and attributed to that alone, therefore it is not to be expected from the law, nor can its works justify any, for the law in this respect cannot annul or affect the Abrahamic covenant. But suppose ye say that the law, which was given 430 years after the covenant with Abraham, has superseded this covenant, and limited and confined its blessings to the Jews; I answer: This is impossible, for the covenant most specifically refers to the Messiah, and takes in, not the Jewish people only, but all nations; for it is written, In thy seed - the Messiah and his spiritual progeny, shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. This universal blessedness can never be confined, by any figure of speech, or by any legal act, to the Jewish people exclusively; and, as the covenant was legally made and confirmed, it cannot be annulled, it must therefore remain in reference to its object

In opposition to us, the Jews assert that the Messiah is not yet come; then we assert, on that ground, that the promise is not yet fulfilled; for the giving of the law to one people cannot imply the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant, because that extends to all nations. However, therefore, the case be argued, the Jewish cause derives no benefit from it; and the conclusion still recurs, salvation cannot be attained by the works of the law, forasmuch as the covenant is of faith; and he only, as your prophets declare, who is justified by faith, shall live, or be saved. Therefore we still conclude that those who are only under the law are under the curse; and, as it says, he that doeth these things shall live in them, and he that sinneth shall die, there is no hope of salvation for any man from the law of Moses. And the Gospel of Jesus Christ, proclaiming salvation by faith to a sinful and ruined world, is absolutely necessary, nor can it be superseded by any other institution, whether human or Divine

How we arrive at the sum of 430 years may be seen in the note on Exo 12:40 (note). Dr. Whitby also gives a satisfactory view of the matter. "The apostle refers to the promise made, Gen 12:3, since from that only are the 430 years to be computed, for then Abraham was 75 years old, Gen 12:4; from thence to the birth of Isaac, which happened when Abraham was 100 years old, (Gen 21:5), 25 years; from his birth to the birth of Jacob, 60 years, for Isaac was 60 years old when Rebecca bare him, Gen 25:26. From Jacob’ s birth to the descent into Egypt, 130 years, as he said to Pharaoh, Gen 47:9. The abode of him and his posterity in Egypt was 215 years; so that, with their sojourning in Canaan, was 430 years;"the sum given here, and in Exo 12:40 (note).

Clarke: Gal 3:18

For if the inheritance be of the law - See the preceding arguments, in which this is proved.

Clarke: Gal 3:19

Wherefore then serveth the law? - If the law does not annul the Abrahamic covenant, and cannot confer salvation on its votaries, why did God give it? This was a very natural objection, and must arise in the mind of any Jew who had paid attention to the apostle’ s reasoning

Clarke: Gal 3:19

It was added because of transgressions - It was given that we might know our sinfulness, and the need we stood in of the mercy of God. The law is the right line, the straight edge, that determines the obliquity of our conduct. See the notes on Rom 4:15 (note); and especially on Rom 5:20 (note), where this subject is largely discussed, and the figure explained

Clarke: Gal 3:19

Till the seed should come - The law was to be in force till the advent of the Messiah. After that it was to cease

Clarke: Gal 3:19

It was ordained by angels - The ministry of angels was certainly used in giving the law; see Psa 68:17; Act 7:53; and Heb 2:2; but they were only instruments for transmitting; Moses was the mediator between God and the people, Deu 5:5.

Clarke: Gal 3:20

A mediator is not a mediator of one - As a mediator, μεσιτης, signifies a middle person, there must necessarily be two parties, between whom he stands, and acts in reference to both, as he is supposed to have the interests of both equally at heart

This verse is allowed to be both obscure and difficult; and it is certain that there is little consent among learned men and critics in their opinions concerning it. Rosenmuller thinks that the opinion of Nosselt is to be preferred to all others

He first translates the words ὁ δε μεσιτης ἑνος ουκ εστιν thus: But he (viz. Moses) is not the mediator of that one race of Abraham, viz. the Christians; for ἑνος relates to the σπερμα ᾡ επηγγελται, the seed that should come, Gal 3:19, of which he said, ὡς εφ ’ ἑνος, as of one, Gal 3:16. If Paul had written ὁ δε μεσιτης του ἑνος εκεινου ουκ εστι, he is not the mediator of one, no person would have had any doubt that σπερματος, seed, ought to be supplied after ἑνος, of one, Gal 3:19-20. The same mode of speaking Paul uses, Rom 5:17; ὁ δε, but he, ὁ for αυτος, Mat 12:3, Mat 12:11, Mat 12:39, ὁ δε ειπεν, but he said. Though Moses was the Mediator between God and the Israelites, yet he was not the mediator between God and that one seed which was to come; viz. the Gentiles who should believe in Christ

Clarke: Gal 3:20

But God is one - He is the one God, who is the Father of the spirits of all flesh; the God of the Gentiles as well as the God of the Jews. That this is St. Paul’ s meaning is evident from his use of the same words in other places, 1Ti 2:5 : ἑις γαρ Θεος, etc., for there is one God, and one mediator between God and man, that is, there is only one God and one mediator for the whole human race; Eph 4:5, Eph 4:6 : One Lord, one faith, one baptism, εἱς Θεος και πατηρ παντων, One God and Father of All. The sense of the whole is: Moses was the mediator of one part of Abraham’ s seed, viz. the Israelites; but of the other seed, the Gentiles, he was certainly not the mediator; for the mediator of that seed, according to the promise of God, and covenant made with Abraham, is Christ

Though Nosselt has got great credit for this interpretation, it was given in substance long before him by Dr. Whitby, as may be seen in the following words: "But this mediator (Moses) was only the mediator of the Jews, and so was only the mediator of one party, to whom belonged the blessings of Abraham, Gal 3:8, Gal 3:14. But God, who made the promise that in one should all the families of the earth be blessed, Is One; the God of the other party, the Gentiles, as well as of the Jews, επειπερ εἱς ὁ Θεος, seeing he is One God, who will justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith, Rom 3:30."This exposition is so plain, and so well supported by the different scriptures already quoted, that there can be but small, if any, doubt of its propriety. The clause has been translated thus: "Now a mediator supposes two parties, of which God is but one."

Clarke: Gal 3:21

Is the law then against the promises of God? - Is it possible that the intervention of the law, in reference to one part of the Abrahamic seed, should annul the promise made to the other? It is impossible

Clarke: Gal 3:21

For if there had been a law, etc. - If any law or rule of life could have been found out that would have given life - saved sinners from death, and made them truly happy, then righteousness- justification, should have been by that law.

Clarke: Gal 3:22

But the scripture hath concluded - All the writings of the prophets have uniformly declared that men are all sinners, and the law declares the same by the continual sacrifices which it prescribes. All, therefore have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; and, being tried and found guilty, συνεκλεισεν ἡ γραφη, the Scripture hath shut them up - put them in prison, and locked them up, till the time should come in which the sentence of the law should be executed upon them: (See Rom 3:9-20, and the notes there; and particularly Rom 11:32 (note), where the apostle uses the same metaphor, and which in the note is particularly explained.) That the promise of justification, by faith of Jesus Christ, might be given to them that believe.

Calvin: Gal 3:15

15.I speak after the manner of men. By this expression he intended to put them to the blush. It is highly disgraceful and base that the testimony of God should have less weight with us than that of a mortal man. In demanding that the sacred covenant of God shall receive not less deference than is commonly yielded to ordinary human transactions, he does not place God on a level with men. The immense distance between God and men is still left for their consideration.

Though it be but a man’s covenant. This is an argument from the less to the greater. Human contracts are admitted on all hands to be binding: how much more what God has established? The Greek wordδιαθήκη, here used, signifies more frequently, what the Latin versions here render it, ( testamentum,) a testament; but sometimes too, a covenant, though in this latter sense the plural number is more generally employed. It is of little importance to the present passage, whether you explain it covenant or testament. The case is different with the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the apostle unquestionably alludes to testaments, (Heb 9:16;) but here I prefer to take it simply for the covenant which God made. The analogy from which the apostle argues, would not apply so strictly to a testament as to a covenant. The apostle appears to reason from human bargains to that solemn covenant into which God entered with Abraham. If human bargains be so firm that they can receive no addition, how much more must this covenant remain inviolable?

Calvin: Gal 3:16

16.Now to Abraham, and his seed. Before pursuing his argument, he introduces an observation about the substance of the covenant, that it rests on Christ alone. But if Christ be the foundation of the bargain, it follows that it is of free grace; and this too is the meaning of the word promise. As the law has respect to men and to their works, so the promise has respect to the grace of God and to faith.

He saith not, And to seeds To prove that in this place God speaks of Christ, he calls attention to the singular number as denoting some particular seed. I have often been astonished that Christians, when they saw this passage so perversely tortured by the Jews, did not make a more determined resistance; for all pass it slightly as if it were an indisputed territory. And yet there is much plausibility in their objection. Since the word seed is a collective noun, Paul appears to reason inconclusively, when he contends that a single individual is denoted by this word, under which all the descendants of Abraham are comprehended in a passage already quoted, “In multiplying I will multiply thy seed, זרע ( zerang,) or זרעך ( zargnacha,) as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea-shore.” (Gen 22:17.) Having, as they imagine, detected the fallacy of the argument, they treat us with haughty triumph.

I am the more surprised that our own writers should have been silent on this head, as we have abundant means of repelling their slander. Among Abraham’s own sons a division began, for one of the sons was cut off from the family. “In Isaac shall thy seed be called.” (Gen 21:12.) Consequently Ishmael is not included in the reckoning. Let us come a step lower. Do the Jews allow that the posterity of Esau are the blessed seed? nay, it will be maintained that their father, though the first-born, was struck off. And how many nations have sprung from the stock of Abraham who have no share in this “calling?” The twelve patriarchs, at length, formed twelve heads, not because they were descended from the line of Abraham, but because they had been appointed by a particular election of God. Since the ten tribes were carried away, (Hos 9:17,) how many thousands have so degenerated that they no longer hold a name among the seed of Abraham? Lastly, a trial was made of the tribe of Judah, that the real succession to the blessing might be transmitted among a small people. And this had been predicted by Isaiah,

“Though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea,
yet a remnant of them shall return.” (Isa 10:22.)

Hitherto I have said nothing which the Jews themselves do not acknowledge. Let them answer me then; how comes it that the thirteen tribes sprung from the twelve patriarchs were the seed of Abraham, in preference to Ishmaelites and Edomites? Why do they exclusively glory in that name, and set aside the others as a spurious seed? They will, no doubt, boast that they have obtained it by their own merit; but Scripture, on the contrary, asserts that all depends on the calling of God; for we must constantly return to the privilege conveyed in these words, “In Isaac shall thy seed be called.” (Gen 21:12.) The uninterrupted succession to this privilege must have been in force until Christ; for, in the person of David, the Lord afterwards brought back by recovery, as we might say, the promise which had been made to Abraham. In proving, therefore, that this prediction applies to a single individual, Paul does not make his argument rest on the use of the singular number. He merely shews that the word seed must denote one who was not only descended from Abraham according to the flesh, but had been likewise appointed for this purpose by the calling of God. If the Jews deny this, they will only make themselves ridiculous by their obstinacy.

But as Paul likewise argues from these words, that a covenant had been made in Christ, or to Christ, let us inquire into the force of that expression,

“In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.”
(Gen 22:18.)

The Jews taunt the apostle with making a comparison, as if the seed of Abraham were to be quoted as an example in all disastrous omens and prayers; while, on the contrary, to curse in Sodom or Israel is to employ the name of Sodom or Israel in forms of cursing. This, I own, is sometimes the case, but not always; for to bless one’s self in God has quite a different meaning, as the Jews themselves admit. Since, therefore, the phrase is ambiguous, denoting sometimes a cause and sometimes a comparison, wherever, it occurs, it must be explained by the context. We have ascertained, then, that we are all cursed by nature, and that the blessing of Abraham has been promised to all nations. Do all indiscriminately reach it? Certainly not, but those only who are “gathered” (Isa 66:8) to the Messiah; for when, under His government and direction, they are collected into one body, they then become one people. Whoever then, laying disputing aside, shall inquire into the truth, will readily acknowledge that the words here signify not a mere comparison but a cause; and hence it follows that Paul had good ground for saying, that the covenant was made in Christ, or in reference to Christ.

Calvin: Gal 3:17

17.The law which was four hundred and thirty years after. If we listen to Origen and Jerome and all the Papists, there will be little difficulty in refuting this argument. Paul reasons thus: “A promise was given to Abraham four hundred and thirty years before the publication of the law; therefore the law which came after could not disannul the promise; and hence he concludes that ceremonies are not necessary.” But it may be objected, the sacraments were given in order to preserve the faith, and why should Paul separate them from the promise? He does so separate them, and proceeds to argue on the matter. The ceremonies themselves are not so much considered by him as something higher, — the effect of justification which was attributed to them by false apostles, and the obligation on the conscience. From ceremonies, accordingly, he takes occasion to discuss the whole subject of faith and works. If the point in dispute had no connection with obtaining righteousness, with the merit of works, or with ensnaring the conscience, ceremonies would be quite consistent with the promise.

What, then, is meant by this disannulling of the promise, against which the apostle contends? The impostors denied that salvation is freely promised to men, and received by faith, and, as we shall presently see, urged the necessity of works in order to merit salvation. I return to Paul’s own language. “The law,” he says, “is later than the promise, and therefore does not revoke it; for a covenant once sanctioned must remain perpetually binding.” I again repeat, if you do not understand that the promise is free, there will be no force in the statement; for the law and the promise are not at variance but on this single point, that the law justifies a man by the merit of works, and the promise bestows righteousness freely. This is made abundantly clear when he calls it a covenant founded on Christ.

But here we shall have the Papists to oppose us, for they will find a ready method of evading this argument. “We do not require,” they will say, “that the old ceremonies shall be any longer binding; let them be laid out of the question; nevertheless a man is justified by the moral law. For this law, which is as old as the creation of man, went before God’s covenant with Abraham; so that Paul’s reasoning is either frivolous, or it holds against ceremonies alone.” I answer, Paul took into account what was certainly true, that, except by a covenant with God, no reward is due to works. Admitting, then, that the law justifies, yet before the law men could not merit salvation by works, because there was no covenant. All that I am now affirming is granted by the scholastic theologians: for they maintain that works are meritorious of salvation, not by their intrinsic worth, but by the acceptance of God, (to use their own phrase,) and on the ground of a covenant. Consequently, where no divine covenant, no declaration of acceptance is found, — no works will be available for justification: so that Paul’s argument is perfectly conclusive. He tells us that God made two covenants with men; one through Abraham, and another through Moses. The former, being founded on Christ, was free; and therefore the law, which came after, could not enable men to obtain salvation otherwise than by grace, for then, “it would make the promise of none effect.” That this is the meaning appears clearly from what immediately follows.

Calvin: Gal 3:18

18.If the inheritance be of the law. His opponents might still reply, that nothing was farther from their intention than to weaken or disannul God’s covenant. To deprive them of every kind of subterfuge, he comes forward with the assertion, that salvation by the law, and salvation by the promise of God, are wholly inconsistent with each other. Who will dare to explain this as applying to ceremonies alone, while Paul comprehends under it whatever interferes with a free promise? Beyond all doubt, he excludes works of every description. “For,” says he to the Romans,

“if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void,
and the promise made of none effect.” (Rom 4:14.)

Why so? Because salvation would be suspended on the condition of satisfying the law; and so he immediately concludes:

“Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace, in order that the promise might be sure to all the seed.” (Rom 4:16.)

Let us carefully remember the reason why, in comparing the promise with the law, the establishment of the one overturns the other. The reason is, that the promise has respect to faith, and the law to works. Faith receives what is freely given, but to works a reward is paid. And he immediately adds, God gave it to Abraham, not by requiring some sort of compensation on his part, but by free promise; for if you view it as conditional, the word gave, (κεχάρισται,) would be utterly inapplicable.

Calvin: Gal 3:19

When we are told that the law has no influence in obtaining justification, various suggestions immediately arise, that it must be either useless, or opposed to God’s covenant, or something of that sort. Nay, it might occur, why should we not say of the law, what Jeremiah says of the New Testament, (Jer 31:31,) that it was given at a later period, in order to supply the weakness of the former doctrine? Objections of this kind must be answered, if Paul wished to satisfy the Galatians. First, then, he inquires, — what is the use of the law? Having come after the promise, it appears to have been intended to supply its defects; and there was room at least for doubting, whether the promise would have been effectual, if it had not been aided by the law. Let it be observed, that Paul does not speak of the moral law only, but of everything connected with the office held by Moses. That office, which was peculiar to Moses, consisted in laying down a rule of life and ceremonies to be observed in the worship of God, and in afterwards adding promises and threatenings. Many promises, no doubt, relating to the free mercy of God and to Christ, are to be found in his writings; and these promises belong to faith. But this must be viewed as accidental, and altogether foreign to the inquiry, so far as a comparison is made between the law and the doctrine of grace. Let it be remembered, that the amount of the question is this: When a promise had been made, why did Moses afterwards add that new condition, “If a man do, he shall live in them;” and, “Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them?” (Lev 18:5; Deu 27:26.) Was it to produce something better and more perfect?

19. Because of transgressions. The law has manifold uses, but Paul confines himself to that which bears on his present subject. He did not propose to inquire in how many ways the law is of advantage to men. It is necessary to put readers on their guard on this point; for very many, I find, have fallen into the mistake of acknowledging no other advantage belonging to the law, but what is expressed in this passage. Paul himself elsewhere speaks of the precepts of the law as profitable for doctrine and exhortations. (2Ti 3:16.) The definition here given of the use of the law is not complete, and those who refuse to make any other acknowledgment in favor of the law do wrong. Now, what is the import of the phrase, because of transgressions ? It agrees with the saying of philosophers, that “The law was made for restraining evil-doers,” and with the old proverb, “From bad manners have sprung good laws.” But Paul’s meaning is more extensive than the words may seem to convey. He means that the law was published in order to make known transgressions, and in this way to compel men to acknowledge their guilt. As men naturally are too ready to excuse themselves, so, until they are roused by the law, their consciences are asleep.

“Until the law,” says Paul, “sin was in the world:
but sin is not imputed where there is no law.” (Rom 5:13.)

The law came and roused the sleepers, for this is the true preparation for Christ. “By the law is the knowledge of sin.” (Rom 3:20.) Why?

“That Sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.” (Rom 7:13.)

Thus, “the law was added because of transgressions,” in order to reveal their true character, or, as he tells the Romans, that it might make them to abound. (Rom 5:20.)

This passage has tortured the ingenuity of Origen, but to no purpose. If God summon consciences to his tribunal, that those qualities in their transgression, which would otherwise give them pleasure, may humble them by a conviction of guilt, — if he shake off the listlessness which overwhelmed all dread of his judgment-seat, — if he drag to light; sin, which lurked like a thief in the den of hypocrisy, — what is there in all this that can be reckoned absurd? But it may be objected: “As the law is the rule of a devout and holy life, why is it said to be added ‘because of transgressions,’ rather than ‘because of obedience?’” I answer, however much it may point out true righteousness, yet, owing to the corruption of our nature, its instruction tends only to increase transgressions, until the Spirit of regeneration come, who writes it on the heart; and that Spirit is not given by the law, but is received by faith. This saying of Paul, let the reader remember, is not of a philosophical or political character, but expresses a purpose of the law, with which the world had been always unacquainted.

Till the seed should come. If it has respect to seed, it must be to that on which the blessing has been pronounced, and therefore it does not interfere with the promise. The word till, (ἄχρις οὗ,) signifies so long as the seed is expected: and hence it follows, that it must have been intended to occupy not the highest, but a subordinate rank. It was given in order to rouse men to the expectation of Christ. But was it necessary that it should last only until the coming of Christ? For if so, it follows that it is now abolished. The whole of that administration, I reply, was temporal, and was given for the purpose of preserving among the ancient people an attachment to the faith of Christ. And yet I do not admit that, by the coming of Christ, the whole law was abolished. The apostle did not intend this, but merely that the mode of administration, which for a time had been introduced, must receive its accomplishment in Christ, who is the fulfillment of the promise. ⁶⁰ But on this subject we shall have occasion to speak more fully afterwards.

Ordained by angels. The circumstance, that it was delivered through angels, tends to the commendation of the law. This is declared by Stephen (Act 7:53) also, who says, that they had “received the law, (εἰς διαταγὰς ἀγγέλων,) into the dispositions of angels.” The interpretation given by some, that Moses and Aaron, and the priests, are the angels here meant, is more ingenious than solid. Nor is it wonderful that angels, by whom God bestows on us some of the smallest of his blessings, should have been intrusted also with this office of attending as witnesses at the promulgation of the law.

===In the hand of a Mediator === Hand usually signifies ministration; but as angels were ministers in giving the law, I consider “the hand of the Mediator” to denote the highest rank of service. The Mediator was at the head of the embassy, and angels were united with him as his companions. Some apply this expression to Moses, as marking a comparison between Moses and Christ; but I agree rather with the ancient expositors, who apply it to Christ himself. ⁶¹ This view, it will be found, agrees better with the context, though I differ from the ancients likewise as to the meaning of the word. Mediator does not, as they imagine, signify here one who makes reconciliation, which it does in these words,

“There is one Mediator between God and men,
the man Christ Jesus,” (1Ti 2:5,)

— but an ambassador employed in promulgating a law.

We are thus to understand, that, since the beginning of the world, God has held no intercourse with men, but through the agency of his eternal Wisdom or Son. Hence Peter says, that the holy prophets spake by the “Spirit of Christ,” (1Pe 1:11,) and Paul makes him the leader of the people in the wilderness. (1Co 10:4.) And certainly the Angel who appeared to Moses, (Exo 3:2,) can be no other person; for he claims to himself the peculiar and essential name of God, which is never applied to creatures. As he is the Mediator of reconciliation, by whom we are accepted of God, — the Mediator of intercession, who opens up for us a way to “call on the Father,” (1Pe 1:17,) — so he has always been the Mediator of all doctrine, because by him God has always revealed himself to men. And this he intended to state expressly, for the purpose of informing the Galatians, that he who is the foundation of the covenant of grace, held also the highest rank in the giving of the law.

Calvin: Gal 3:20

20.Now, a mediator is not a mediator of one Some are disposed to philosophize on this expression, and would make Paul’s meaning to be, that the twofold nature of Christ is not one in essence. But that Paul is here speaking of the contracting parties, no man of sound judgment entertains a doubt. And so they commonly expound it, that there is no room for a Mediator, unless when one of the parties has a matter to transact with the other. But why that statement should have been introduced they leave undetermined, though the passage manifestly deserves the most careful attention. There may, perhaps, be an Anticipation (πρόληψις) of some wicked thought that might arise about a change of the divine purpose. Some one might say, “As men, when they change their mind about their covenants, are wont to retract them, so has it happened with the covenants of God.” If you take this to be the meaning, then, in the former clause, Paul would acknowledge that men, who occupy one side of this contract, are unsteady and changeable, while God nevertheless remains the same, is consistent with himself, and partakes not of the unsteadiness of men.

But when I take a closer view of the whole subject, I rather think that it marks a difference between Jews and Gentiles. Christ is not the Mediator of one, because, in respect of outward character, there is a diversity of condition among those with whom, through his mediation, God enters into covenant. But Paul asserts that we have no right to judge in this manner of the covenant of God, as if it contradicted itself, or varied according to the diversities of men. The words are now clear. As Christ formerly reconciled God to the Jews in making a covenant, so now he is the Mediator of the Gentiles. The Jews differ widely from the Gentiles; for circumcision and ceremonies have erected “the middle wall of partition between them.” (Eph 2:14.) They were “nigh” to God, (Eph 2:13,) while the Gentiles were “afar off;” but still God is consistent with himself. This becomes evident, when Christ brings those who formerly differed among themselves to one God, and makes them unite in one body. God is one, because he always continues to be like himself, and, with unvarying regularity, holds fixed and unalterable the purpose which he has once made. ⁶²

Calvin: Gal 3:21

21.Is the law then against the promises of God? The certainty and steadiness of the divine purpose being admitted, we are bound equally to conclude that its results are not contrary to each other. Still there was a difficulty to be resolved, arising from the apparent contradiction between the Law and the covenant of grace. This is, perhaps, an exclamation. Dreading no farther contradiction, now that the point is settled, Paul concludes, that the former arguments have placed it beyond a doubt, and exclaims: “Who will now dare to imagine a disagreement between the law and the promises?” And yet this does not prevent Paul from proceeding to remove the difficulties that might still arise.

Before answering the question, he expresses, in his usual manner, a high disdain of such folly; thus intimating the strong abhorrence with which pious men must regard whatever brings reproach on the Divine character. But another instance of high address, which claims our notice, is found in this turn of expression. He charges his adversaries with the offense of making God contradict himself. For from him the Law and the promises have evidently proceeded: whoever then alleges any contradiction between them blasphemes against God: but they do contradict each other, if the Law justifies. Thus does Paul most dexterously retort upon his adversaries the charge which they falsely and calumniously brought against him.

For if there had been a law given. The reply is (what is called) indirect, and does not plainly assert an agreement between the law and the promises, but contains all that is necessary to remove the contradiction. At first sight, you would say that this sentence departs from the context, and has nothing to do with the solution of the question; but this is not the case. The law would be opposed to the promises, if it had the power of justifying; for there would be two opposite methods of justifying a man, two separate roads towards the attainment of righteousness. But Paul refuses to the law such a power; so that the contradiction is removed. I would admit, says he, that righteousness is obtained by the law, if salvation were found in it. But what?

Calvin: Gal 3:22

22.The Scripture hath concluded. By the word Scripture is chiefly intended the law itself. It “hath concluded all under sin,” and therefore, instead of giving, it takes away righteousness from all. The reasoning is most powerful. “You seek righteousness in the law: but the law itself, with the whole of Scripture, leaves nothing to men but condemnation; for all men, with their works, are pronounced to be unrighteous: who then shall live by the law?” He alludes to these words,

“He who shall do these things, shall live in them.” (Lev 18:5.)

Shut out by it, says he, from life through guilt, in vain should we seek salvation by the law. — The word translated all (τὰ πάντα) signifies all things, and conveys more than if he had said all men; for it embraces not only men, but every thing which they possess or can accomplish.

That the promise by faith. There is no remedy but to throw away the righteousness of works, and betake ourselves to the faith of Christ. The result is certain. If works come into judgment, we are all condemned; therefore we obtain, by the faith of Christ, a free righteousness. This sentence is full of the highest consolation. It tells us that, wherever we hear ourselves condemned in Scripture, there is help provided for us in Christ, if we betake ourselves to him. We are lost, though God were silent: why then does he so often pronounce that we are lost? It is that we may not perish by everlasting destruction, but, struck and confounded by such a dreadful sentence, may by faith seek Christ, through whom we “pass from death into life.” (1Jo 3:14.) By a figure of speech, (μετωνυμία,) in which the thing containing is put for the thing contained, the promise denotes that which is promised.

Defender: Gal 3:16

In his theological argument concerning the Abrahamic covenant, Paul almost unconsciously makes an exceedingly strong affirmation of the verbal inspiration of the Old Testament Scriptures, basing his argument not just on one word, but one letter, "seed" instead of "seeds." Thus the promised "Seed" was not the nation Israel, but the one Person who alone could fulfill the great promises made to Abraham, namely, Christ (Gen 22:17, Gen 22:18)."

Defender: Gal 3:17

The 430 years from the Abrahamic promise until the giving of the law to Moses and the 430 years of Israel's extended stay in Egypt parallel each other, provided that the reference to "the covenant" here in Gal 3:17 refers to the final ratification of this covenant, as confirmed to Jacob just as he and his family were leaving Canaan for Egypt (Gen 46:1-4). This seems quite reasonable in the current context of Paul's argument; see also the comments on Act 7:6, note; and Gen 15:13, note."

Defender: Gal 3:19

Therefore the law would have fulfilled its primary function once the promised Seed came to fulfill it (Mat 5:17). It was foolish for the Galatians to want to return to legalistic bondage (Gal 3:1).

Defender: Gal 3:19

The account of the giving of the law through Moses on Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:9-25) makes no mention of angels, although it does record the prolonged sounding of a trumpet. Apparently a mighty host of angels was present. Deu 33:2 mentions "ten thousands of saints" as "the Lord came from Sinai" (Psa 68:17; Act 7:53)."

Defender: Gal 3:22

The law "was added because of transgressions" (Gal 3:19) to make it clear what sin is - a transgression of the character and will of God. When people understand the nature of sin, it soon becomes clear that all people are sinners (Rom 3:10, Rom 3:12, Rom 3:23), and all need to come to Christ for forgiveness and salvation."

TSK: Gal 3:15

I speak : Rom 6:19; 1Co 15:32

it be : Heb 9:17

covenant : or, testament

TSK: Gal 3:16

to : Gal 3:8; Gen 12:3, Gen 12:7, Gen 13:15, Gen 13:16, Gen 15:5, Gen 17:7, Gen 17:8, Gen 21:12, Gen 22:17, Gen 22:18, Gen 26:3, Gen 26:4, Gen 28:13; Gen 28:14, Gen 49:10

which : Gal 3:27-29; Rom 12:5; 1Co 12:12, 1Co 12:27; Eph 4:15, Eph 4:16, Eph 5:29, Eph 5:30,Eph 5:32; Col 2:19; Col 3:11

TSK: Gal 3:17

this : Gal 5:16; 1Co 1:12, 1Co 7:29, 1Co 10:19; 2Co 9:6; Eph 4:17; Col 2:4

the covenant : Gen 15:18, Gen 17:7, Gen 17:8, Gen 17:19; Luk 1:68-79; Joh 1:17, Joh 8:56-58; Rom 3:25; 2Co 1:20; Heb 11:13, Heb 11:17-19, Heb 11:39, Heb 11:40; 1Pe 1:11, 1Pe 1:12, 1Pe 1:20

which : Gen 15:13; Exo 12:40,Exo 12:41; Act 7:6

cannot : Gal 3:15; Job 40:8; Isa 14:27, Isa 28:18; Heb 7:18

that it : Gal 3:21; Num 23:19; Rom 4:13, Rom 4:14; Heb 6:13-18

none : Gal 5:4; Num 30:8; Psa 33:10; Rom 3:3; 1Co 1:17

TSK: Gal 3:18

if : Gal 3:10,Gal 3:12, Gal 3:26, Gal 3:29, Gal 2:21; Rom 4:13-16, Rom 8:17

but : Gal 3:16; Psa 105:6-12, Psa 105:42; Mic 7:18-20; Luk 1:54, Luk 1:55, Luk 1:72, Luk 1:73; Heb 6:12-15

TSK: Gal 3:19

then : Rom 3:1, Rom 3:2, Rom 7:7-13

It was added : Gal 3:21-24; Deu 4:8, Deu 4:9; Psa 147:19, Psa 147:20; Luk 16:31; Joh 5:45-47, Joh 15:22; Rom 2:13; Rom 3:19, Rom 3:20, Rom 4:15, Rom 5:20,Rom 5:21, Rom 7:7-13; 1Ti 1:8, 1Ti 1:9

till : Gal 3:16, Gal 3:25, Gal 4:1-4

by : Deu 33:2; Act 7:53; Heb 2:2, Heb 2:5

in : Exo 20:19-22, Exo 24:1-12, Exo 34:27-35; Lev 15:32; Deu 5:5, Deu 5:22-33; Deu 9:13-20,Deu 9:25-29, Deu 18:15-19; Psa 106:23; Joh 1:17; Act 7:38; The Apostle, having just before been speaking of the promise made to Abraham, and representing that as the rule of our justification, and not the law, lest they should think he derogated too much from the law, and thereby rendered it useless - he thence takes occasion to discourse of the design and tendency of it, and to acquaint us for what purposes it was given.

TSK: Gal 3:20

a mediator is : Job 9:33; Act 12:20; 1Ti 2:5

but : Gal 3:17; Gen 15:18, Gen 17:1, Gen 17:2; Deu 6:4; Rom 3:29

TSK: Gal 3:21

the law : Mat 5:17-20; Rom 3:31, Rom 7:7-13

God forbid : Gal 2:17; Rom 3:4, Rom 3:6

for : Gal 2:19, Gal 2:21; Rom 3:20

righteousness : Rom 3:21, Rom 3:22, Rom 9:31, Rom 10:3-6; Phi 3:6-9; Heb 11:7

TSK: Gal 3:22

concluded : Gal 3:8-10,Gal 3:23; Psa 143:2; Rom 3:9-20,Rom 3:23, Rom 5:12, Rom 5:20, Rom 11:32

that : Gal 3:14, Gal 3:17, Gal 3:29; Rom 4:11-16, Rom 5:20,Rom 5:21; 2Ti 1:1; Heb 6:13-17, Heb 9:15; 2Pe 1:4; 2Pe 3:13; 1Jo 2:25, 1Jo 5:11-13

to : Mar 16:16; Joh 3:15-18, Joh 3:36, Joh 5:24, Joh 6:40, Joh 11:25, Joh 11:26, Joh 12:46, Joh 20:31; Act 16:31; Rom 10:9; 1Jo 3:23, 1Jo 3:24, 1Jo 5:13

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Gal 3:15

Brethren, I speak after the manner of men - I draw an illustration from what actually occurs among people. The illustration is, that when a contract or agreement is made by people involving obligations and promises, no one can add to it or take from it. It will remain as it was originally made. So with God. He made a solemn promise to Abraham. That promise pertained to his posterity. The blessing was connected with that promise, and it was of the nature of a compact with Abraham. But if so, then this could not be effected by the Law which was four hundred years after, and the Law must have been given to secure some different object from that designed by the promise made to Abraham, Gal 3:19. But the promise made to Abraham was designed to secure the "inheritance,"or the favor of God; and if so, then the same thing could not be secured by the observance of the Law, since there could not be two ways so unlike each other of obtaining the same thing.

God cannot have two ways of justifying and saving people; and if he revealed a mode to Abraham, and that mode was by faith, then it could not be by the observance of the Law which was given so long after. The main design of the argument and the illustration here (Gal 3:15 ff) is to show that the promise made to Abraham was by no means made void by the giving of the Law. The Law had another design, which did not interfere with the promise made to Abraham. That stood on its own merits, irrespective of the demands and the design of the Law. It is possible, as Rosenmuller suggests, that Paul may have had his eye on an objection to his view. The objection may have been that there were important acts of legislation which succeeded the promise made to Abraham, and that that promise must have been superseded by the giving of the Law. To this he replies that the Mosaic law given at a late period could not take away or nullify a solemn promise made to Abraham, but that it was intended for a different purpose.

Though it be but a man’ s covenant - A compact or agreement between man and man. Even in such a case no one can add to it or take from it. The argument here is, that such a covenant or agreement must be much less important than a promise made by God. But even that could not be annulled. How much less, therefore, could a covenant made by God be treated as if it were vain. The word "covenant"here ( διαθήκη diathēkē ) is in the margin rendered "Testament;"that is, will. So Tyndale renders it. Its proper Classical signification is will or testament, though in the Septuagint and in the New Testament it is the word which is used to denote a covenant or compact; see the note at Act 3:25. Here it is used in the proper sense of the word covenant, or compact; a mutual agreement between man and man. The idea is, that where such a covenant exists; where the faith of a man is solemnly pledged in this manner, no change can be made in the agreement. It is ratified, and firm, and final. "If it be confirmed."By a seal or otherwise.

No man disannulleth ... - It must stand. No one can change it. No new conditions can be annexed; nor can there be any drawing back from its terms. It binds the parties to a faithful fulfillment of all the conditions. This is well understood among people; and the apostle says that the same thing must take place in regard to God.

Barnes: Gal 3:16

Now to Abraham and his seed - To him and his posterity.

Were the promises made - The promise here referred to was that which is recorded in Gen 22:17-18. "In blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea-shore; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed."

He saith not, And to seeds, as of many, but as of one ... - He does not use the plural term, as if the promise extended to many persons, but he speaks in the singular number, as if only one was intended; and that one must be the Messiah. Such is Paul’ s interpretation; such is evidently the sentiment which he intends to convey, and the argument which he intends to urge. He designs evidently to be understood as affirming that in the use of the singular number σπέρμα sperma (seed), instead of the plural σπέρματα spermata (seeds), there is a fair ground of argument to demonstrate that the promise related to Christ or the Messiah, and to him primarily if not exclusively. Now no one probably ever read this passage without feeling a difficulty, and without asking himself whether this argument is sound, and is worthy a man of candor, and especially of an inspired man. Some of the difficulties in the passage are these:

(1) The promise referred to in Genesis seems to have related to the posterity of Abraham at large, without any particular reference to an individual. It is to his seed; his descendants; to all his seed or posterity. Such would be the fair and natural interpretation should it be read by hundreds or thousands of persons who had never heard of the interpretation here put upon it by Paul.

\caps1 (2) t\caps0 he argument of the apostle seems to proceed on the supposition that the word "seed" σπέρμα sperma , that is, posterity, here cannot refer to more than one person. If it had, says he, it would be in the plural number. But the fact is, that the word is often used to denote posterity at large; to refer to descendants without limitation, just as the word posterity is with us; and it is a fact, moreover, that the word is not used in the plural at all to denote a posterity, the singular form being constantly employed for that purpose.

Anyone who will open Tromm’ s Concordance to the Septuagint, or Schmids’ Concordance on the New Testament will see the most ample confirmation of this remark. Indeed the plural form of the word is never used except in this place in Galatians. The difficulty, therefore, is, that the remark here of Paul appears to be a trick of argument, or a quibble more worthy of a trifling Jewish Rabbi, than of a serious reasoner or an inspired man. I have stated this difficulty freely, just as I suppose it has struck hundreds of minds, because I do not wish to shrink from any real difficulty in examining the Bible, but to see whether it can be fairly met. In meeting it, expositors have resorted to various explanations, most of them, as it seems to me, unsatisfactory, and it is not necessary to detail them. Dr. Burner, Doddridge, and some others suppose that the apostle means to say that the promises made to Abraham were not only appropriated to one class of his descendants, that is, to those by Isaac, but that they centered in one illustrious person, through whom all the rest are made partakers of the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant.

This Doddridge admits the apostle says in "bad Greek,"but still he supposes that this is the true exposition. Noessett and Rosenmuller suppose that by the word σπέρμα sperma (seed) here is not meant the Messiah, but Christians in general; the body of believers. But this is evidently in contradiction of the apostle, who expressly affirms that Christ was intended. It is also liable to another objection that is fatal to the opinion. The very point of the argument of the apostle is, that the singular and not the plural form of the word is used, and that therefore an individual, and not a collective body or a number of individuals, is intended. But according to this interpretation the reference is, in fact, to a numerous body of individuals, to the whole body of Christians. Jerome affirms that the apostle made use of a false argument, which, although it might appear well enough to the stupid Galatians, would not be approved by wise or learned men - Chandler. Borger endeavors to show that this was in accordance with the mode of speaking and writing among the Hebrews, and especially that the Jewish Rabbis were accustomed to draw an argument like this from "the singular number,"and that the Hebrew word זרע zera‛ "seed"is often used by them in this manner; see his remarks as quoted by Bloomfield in loc.

But the objection to this is, that though this might be common, yet it is not the less a quibble on the word, for certainly the very puerile reasoning of the Jewish Rabbis is no good authority on which to vindicate the authority of an apostle. Locke and Clarke suppose that this refers to Christ as the spiritual head of the mystical body, and to all believers in him. LeClerc supposes that it is an allegorical kind of argument, that was suited to convince the Jews only, who were accustomed to this kind of reasoning. I do not know but this solution may be satisfactory to many minds, and that it is capable of vindication, since it is not easy to say how far it is proper to make use of methods of argument used by an adversary in order to convince them. The argumentum a.d. hominem is certainly allowable to a certain extent, when designed to show the legitimate tendency of the principles advanced by an opponent.

But here there is no evidence that Paul was reasoning with an adversary. He was showing the Galatians, not the Jews, what was the truth, and justice to the character of the apostle requires us to suppose that he would make use of only such arguments as are in accordance with the eternal principles of truth, and such as may be seen to he true in all countries and at all times. The question then is, whether the argument of the apostle here drawn from the use of the singular word σπέρματα spermata (seed), is one that can be seen to be sound? or is it a mere quibble, as Jerome and LeClerc suppose? or is it to be left to be presumed to have had a force which we cannot now trace? for this is possible. Socrates and Plato may have used arguments of a subtile nature, based on some nice distinctions of words which were perfectly sound, but which we, from our necessary ignorance of the delicate shades of meaning in the language, cannot now understand. Perhaps the following remarks may show that there is real force and propriety in the position which the apostle takes here. If not, then I confess my inability to explain the passage.

\caps1 (1) t\caps0 here can be no reasonable objection to the opinion that the promise originally made to Abraham included the Messiah; and the promised blessings were to descend through him. This is so often affirmed in the New Testament, that to deny it would be to deny the repeated declarations of the sacred writers, and to make war on the whole structure of the Bible; see particularly Rom. 4; compare Joh 8:56. If this general principle be admitted, it will remove much perplexity from the controversy.

\caps1 (2) t\caps0 he promise made to Abraham Gen 22:18, "and in thy seed זרץ zera‛ , Septuagint ἐν τῷ σπέρματί σου en tō spermati sou ), where the words both in Hebrew and in Greek are in the singular number) shall all the nations of the earth be blessed,"cannot refer to all the seed or the posterity of Abraham taken collectively. He had two sons, Isaac by Rebecca, and Ishmael by Hagar, besides numerous descendants by Keturah; Gen 25:1 ff. Through a large part of these no particular blessings descended on the human family, and there is no sense in which all the families of the earth are particularly blessed in them. On any supposition, therefore, there must have been some limitation of the promise; or the word "seed"was intended to include only some portion of his descendants, whether a particular branch or an individual, does not yet appear. It must have referred to a part only of the posterity of Abraham, but to what part is to be learned only by subsequent revelations.

\caps1 (3) i\caps0 t was the intention of God to confine the blessing to one branch of the family, to Isaac and his descendants. The special promised blessing was to be through him, and not through the family of Ishmael. This intention is often expressed, Gen 17:19-21; Gen 21:12; Gen 25:11; compare Rom 9:7; Heb 11:18. Thus, the original promise of a blessing through the posterity of Abraham became somewhat narrowed down, so as to show that there was to be a limitation of the promise to a particular portion of his posterity.

\caps1 (4) i\caps0 f the promise had referred to the two branches of the family; if it had been intended to include Ishmael as well as Isaac, then some term would have been used that would have expressed this. So unlike were Isaac and Ishmael; so different in the circumstances of their birth and their future life; so dissimilar were the prophecies respecting them, that it might be said that their descendants were two races of people; and in Scripture the race of Ishmael ceased to be spoken of as the descendants or the posterity of Abraham. There was a sense in which the posterity of Isaac was regarded as the seed or posterity of Abraham in which the descendants of Ishmael were not; and the term σπέρμα sperma or "seed"therefore properly designated the posterity of Isaac. It might be said, then, that the promise "to thy seed"did not refer to the two races, as if he had said σπέρματα spermata , "seeds,"but to one σπέρμα sperma , "the seed"of Abraham, by way of eminence.

\caps1 (5) t\caps0 his promise was subsequently narrowed down still more, so as to include only one portion of the descendants of Isaac. Thus it was limited to the posterity of Jacob, Esau being excluded; subsequently the special blessing was promised to the family of Judah, one of the twelve sons of Jacob Gen 49:10; in subsequent times it was still further narrowed down or limited to the family of Jesse; then to that of David; then to that of Solomon, until it terminated in the Messiah. The original intention of the promise was that there should be a limitation, and that limitation was made from age to age, until it terminated in the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. By being thus narrowed down from age to age, and limited by successive revelations, it was shown that the Messiah was eminently intended, which is what Paul says here. The promise was indeed at first general, and the term used was of the most general nature; but it was shown from time to time that God intended that it should be applied only to one branch or portion of the family of Abraham; and that limitation was finally so made as to terminate in the Messiah. This I take to be the meaning of this very difficult passage of scripture; and though it may not be thought that all the perplexities are removed by these remarks, yet I trust they will be seen to be so far removed as that it will appear that there is real force in the argument of the apostle, and that it is not a mere trick of argument, or a quibble unworthy of him as an apostle and a man.

(Whatever may be thought of this solution of thee difficulty, the author has certainly given more than due prominence to the objections that are supposed to lie against the apostle’ s argument. Whatever license a writer in the American Biblical Repository, or such like work, might take, it certainly is not wise in a commentary intended for Sunday Schools to affirm, that the great difficulty of the passage is "that the remark here of Paul appears to be a trick of argument, or a quibble more worthy of a trifling Jewish Rabbi than of a serious reasoner and an inspired man,"and then to exhibit such a formidable array of objection, and behind it a defense comparatively feeble, accompanied with the acknowledgment that if that be not sufficient the author can do no more! These objections, moreover, are not only stated "fairly"but strongly, and something more than strongly; so that while in the end the authority of the apostle is apparently vindicated, the effect is such, that the reader, unaccustomed to such treatment of inspired men, is tempted to exclaim, "non tali auxillo, nec defensoribus istis, tempus eget"Indeed we are surprised that, with Bloomfield and Burger before him, the author should ever have made some of the assertions which are set down under this text.

As to objection first, it does not matter what interpretation hundreds and thousands of persons would naturally put on the passage in Genesis, since the authority of an inspired apostle must be allowed to settle its meaning against them all. The second objection affirms, that "the word σπέρμα sperma is not used in the plural at all to denote a posterity,"on which Bloomfield thus remarks, "it has been denied that the word זרץ zera‛ is ever used in the plural, except to denote the seeds of vegetables. And the same assertion has been made respecting σπέρμα sperma . But the former position merely extends to the Old Testament, which only contains a fragment and small part of the Hebrew language. So that it cannot be proved that זרץ zera‛ was never used in the plural to denote sons, races. As to the latter assertion it is unfounded; for though σπέρμα sperma is used in the singular as a noun of multitude, to denote several children, yet it is sometimes used in the plural to signify several sons of the same family; as in Soph. OEd. Col. 599, γῆς εμῆς ἀπηλάθην Προς τῶν ἐμαυτοῦ σπερμάτων gēs emēs apēlathēn Pros emautou spermatōn ."

The elaborate Latin Note of Borger, part of which is quoted in Bloomfield, will give complete satisfaction to the student who may wish thoroughly to examine this place. He maintains:

1. That though the argument of the apostle may not be founded exactly on the use of the singular number, yet the absurdity at his application of the passage in Genesis to the Messiah, would have been obvious if, instead of the singular the plural had been used, "si non σπέρματος spermatos sed σπέρματων spermatōn mentio fuisset facta ;"from which he justly concludes, that at all events "numerum cum hac explicatione non pugnare ."

2. The word זרץ zera‛ is in certain places understood of one man only (de uno homine) and therefore may be so here.

3. The apostle, arguing with Jews, employs an argument to which they were accustomed to attach importance; for they laid great stress on the respective use of the singular and plural number; which argument. indeed, would be liable to the objections stated against it by Mr. Barnes, if the thing to be proven rested entirely on this ground, and had not, besides, its foundation in the actual truth of the case. If the singular number in this place really had that force attached to it which the apostle declares, and if the Jews were influenced in other matters by arguments of this kind, it was certainly both lawful and wise to reason with them after their own fashion.

4. What is still more to the point, the Jewish writers themselves frequently use the word זרץ zera‛ , not only of one man , but especially of the Messiah , "non tantum de uno homine , sed imprimis etiam de Messia exponere solent ."

On the whole, the objections against the reasoning on this passage are raised in defiance of apostolical interpretation. But, as has been well observed, "the apostle, to say nothing of his inspiration, might be supposed to be better qualified to decide on a point of this kind, than any modern philologist"- Bloomfield in loco.

Barnes: Gal 3:17

The covenant which was confirmed before of God - By God, in his promise to Abraham. It was confirmed before the giving of the Law. The confirmation was the solemn promise which God made to him.

In Christ - With respect to the Messiah; a covenant relating to him, and which promised that he should descend from Abraham. The word "in,"in the phrase "in Christ,"does not quite express the meaning of the Greek εἰς Χριστὸν eis Christon . That means rather "unto Christ;"or unto the Messiah; that is, the covenant had respect to him. This is a common signification of the preposition εἰς eis "The law."The Law given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai.

Which was four hundred and thirty years after - In regard to the difficulties which have been felt respecting the chronology referred to here; see the note at Act 7:6. The exact time here referred to was probably when Abraham was called, and when the promise was first made to him. Assuming that as the time referred to, it is not difficult to make out the period of four hundred and thirty years. That promise was made when Abraham was seventy-five years old; Gen 12:3-4. From that time to the birth of Isaac, when Abraham was a hundred years old, was twenty-five years; Gen 21:5. Isaac was sixty when Jacob was born; Gen 25:26. Jacob went into Egypt when he was one hundred and thirty years old; Gen 47:9. And the Israelites sojourned there, according to the Septuagint Exo 12:40, two hundred and fifteen years, which completes the number: see Doddridge, Whitby, and Bloomfield. This was doubtless the common computation in the time of Paul; and as his argument did not depend at all on the exactness of the reckoning, he took the estimate which was in common use, without pausing or embarrassing himself by an inquiry whether it was strictly accurate or not.

His argument was the same, whether the Law was given four hundred and thirty years after the promise, or only two hundred years. The argument is, that a law given after the solemn promise which had been made and confirmed, could not make that promise void. It would still be binding according to the original intention; and the Law must have been given for some purpose entirely different from that of the promise. No one can doubt the soundness of this argument. The promise to Abraham was of the nature of a compact. But no law given by one of the parties to a treaty or compact can disannul it, Two nations make a treaty of peace, involving solemn promises, pledges, and obligations. No law made afterward by one of the nations can disannul or change that treaty. Two men make a contract with solemn pledges and promises. No act of one of the parties can change that, or alter the conditions. So it was with the covenant between God and Abraham. God made to him solemn promists which could not be affected by a future giving of a law. God would feel himself to be under the most solemn obligation to fulfil all the promises which he had made to him.

Barnes: Gal 3:18

For if the inheritance - The inheritance promised to Abraham. The sum of the promise was, that "he should be the heir of the world;"see Rom 4:13, and the note at that verse. To that heirship or inheritance Paul refers here, and says that it was an essential part of it that it was to be in virtue of the promise made to him, and not by fulfilling the Law.

Be of the law - If it is by observing the Law of Moses; or if it come in any way by the fulfilling of law. This is plain. Yet the Jews contended that the blessings of justification and salvation were to be in virtue of the observance of the Law of Moses. But if so, says Paul, then it could not be by the promise made to Abraham, since there could not be two ways of obtaining the same blessing.

But God gave it to Abraham by promise - That, says Paul, is a settled point. It is perfectly clear; and that is to be held as an indisputable fact, that the blessing was given to Abraham by a promise. That promise was confirmed and ratified hundreds of years before the Law was given, and the giving of the Law could not affect it. But that promise was, that he would be the ancestor of the Messiah, and that in him all the nations of the earth should be blessed. Of course, if they were to be blessed in this way, then it was not to be by the observance of the Law, and the Law must have been given for a different purpose. What that was, he states in the following verses.

Barnes: Gal 3:19

Wherefore then serveth the law? - This is obviously an objection which might be urged to the reasoning which the apostle had pursued. It was very obvious to ask, if the principles which he had laid down were correct, of what use was the Law? Why was it given at all? Why were there so many wonderful exhibitions of the divine power at its promulgation? Why were there so many commendations of it in the Scriptures? And why were there so many injunctions to obey it? Are all these to be regarded as nothing; and is the Law to be esteemed as worthless? To all this, the apostle replies that the Law was not useless, but that it was given by God for great and important purposes, and especially for purposes closely connected with the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham and the work of the Mediator.

It was added - ( προσετέθη prosetethē ). It was appended to all the previous institutions and promises. It was an additional arrangement on the part of God for great and important purposes. It was an arrangement subsequent to the giving of the promise, and was intended to secure important advantages until the superior arrangement under the Messiah should be introduced, and was with reference to that.

Because of transgressions - On account of transgressions, or with reference to them. The meaning is, that the Law was given to show the true nature of transgressions, or to show what was sin. It was not to reveal a way of justification, but it was to disclose the true nature of sin; to deter people from committing it; to declare its penalty; to convince people of it, and thus to be "ancillary"to, and preparatory to the work of redemption through the Redeemer. This is the true account of the Law of God as given to apostate man, and this use of the Law still exists. This effect of the Law is accomplished:

(1)    By showing us what God requires, and what is duty. It is the straight rule of what is right; and to depart from that is the measure of wrong.

(2)\caps1     i\caps0 t shows us the nature and extent of transgression by showing us how far we have departed from it.

(3)\caps1     i\caps0 t shows what is the just penalty of transgression, and is thus suited to reveal its true nature.

(4)\caps1     i\caps0 t is suited to produce conviction for sin, and thus shows how evil and bitter a thing transgression is; see the notes at Rom 4:15; Rom 7:7-11.

(5)\caps1     i\caps0 t thus shows its own inability to justify and save people, and is a preparatory arrangement to lead people to the cross of the Redeemer; see the note at Gal 3:24. At the same time,

(6)    The Law was given with reference to transgressions in order to keep men from transgression. It was designed to restrain and control them by its denunciations, and by the fear of its threatened penalties.

When Paul says that the Law was given on account of transgressions, we are not to suppose that this was the sole use of the Law; but that this was a main or leading purpose. It may accomplish many other important purposes (Calvin), but this is one leading design. And this design it still accomplishes. It shows people their duty. It reminds them of their guilt. It teaches them how far they have wandered from God. It reveals to them the penalty of disobedience. It shows them that justification by the Law is impossible, and that there must be some other way by which people must be saved. And since these advantages are derived from it, it is of importance that that Law should be still proclaimed, and that its high demands and its penalties should be constantly held up to the view of people.

Till the seed should come ... - The Messiah, to whom the promise particularly applied; see Gal 3:16. It is not implied here that the Law would be of no use after that; but that it would accomplish important purposes before that. A large portion of the laws of Moses would then indeed cease to be binding. They were given to accomplish important purposes among the Jews until the Messiah should come, and then they would give way to the more important institutions of the gospel. But the moral law would continue to accomplish valuable objects after his advent, in showing people the nature of transgression and leading them to the cross of Christ. The essential idea of Paul here is, that the whole arrangement of the Mosaic economy, including all his laws, was with reference to the Messiah. It was a part of a great and glorious whole. It was not an independent thing. It did not stand by itself. It was incomplete and in many respects unintelligible until he came - as one part of a tally is unmeaning and useless until the other is found. In itself it did not justify or save people, but it served to introduce a system by which they could be saved. It contained no provisions for justifying people, but it was in the design of God an essential part of a system by which they could be saved. It was not a whole in itself, but it was a part of a glorious whole, and led to the completion and fulfillment of the entire scheme by which the race could be justified and brought to heaven.

And it was ordained by angels - That is, the Law was ordained by angels. The word ordained here διαταγεὶς diatageis usually means to arrange; to dispose in order; and is commonly used with reference to the marshalling of an army. In regard to the sentiment here that the Law was ordained by angels, see the note at Act 7:53. The Old Testament makes no mention of the presence of angels at the giving of the Law, but it was a common opinion among the Jews that the Law was given by the instrumentality of angels, and arranged by them; and Paul speaks in accordance with this opinion; compare Heb 2:2. The sentiment here is that the Law was prescribed, ordered, or arranged by the instrumentality of the angels; an opinion, certainly, which none can prove not to be true. In itself considered, there is no more absurdity in the opinion that the Law of God should be given by the agency of angels, than there is that it should be done by the instrumentality of man.

In the Septuagint Deu 33:2 there is an allusion of the same kind. The Hebrew is: "From his right hand went a fiery law for them."The Septuagint renders this, "His angels with him on his right hand;"compare Josephus, Ant. xv. 5, 3. That angels were present at the giving of the Law is more than implied, it is believed, in two passages of the Old Testament. The one is that which is referred to above, and a part of which the translators of the Septuagint expressly apply to angels; Deu 33:2. The Hebrew is, "Yahweh came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from Mount Paron, and he came (literally) with ten thousands of holiness;"that is, with his holy ten thousands, or with his holy myriads מרבבת קדשׁ mēribbot qodesh . By the holy myriads mentioned here what can be meant but "the angels"? The word "holy"in the Scriptures is not given to storms and winds and tempests; and the natural interpretation is, that he was attended with vast hosts of intelligent beings.

The same sentiment is found in Psa 68:17 - "The chariots of God are myriads, thousands repeated; the Lord is in the midst of them, as in Sinai, as in his sanctuary."Does not this evidently imply that when he gave the Law on Mount Sinai he was surrounded by a multitude of angels? see Stuart on the Hebrews, Excursus viii. pp. 565-567. It may be added, that in the fact itself there is no improbability. What is more natural than to suppose that when the Law of God was promulgated in such a solemn manner on Mount Sinai to a world, that the angels should be present? If any occasion on earth has ever occurred where their presence was allowable and proper, assuredly that was one. And yet the Scriptures abound with assurances that the angels are interested in human affairs, and that they have had an important agency in the concerns of man.

In the hand - That is, under the direction, or control of. To be in the hand of one is to be under his control; and the idea is, that while this was done by the ordering of the angels or by their disposition, it was under the control of a Mediator Rosenmuller, however, and others suppose that this means simply by (per); that is, that it was done by the instrumentality of a Mediator. But it seems to me to imply more than this; that the Mediator here referred to had some jurisdiction or control over the Law thus given; or that it was subject to him, or with reference to him. The interpretation however will be affected by the view which is taken of the meaning of the word Mediator.

Of a Mediator - The word "Mediator" Μεσίτης Mesitēs means properly one who intervenes between two parties, either as an interpreter or internuncius, or as an intercessor or reconciler. In the New Testament, in all the places where it occurs, unless the passage before us be an exception, it is applied to the Lord Jesus, the great Mediator between God and man; 1Ti 2:5; Heb 8:6; Heb 9:15; Heb 12:24. There has been some difference of opinion as to the reference of the word here. Rosenmuller, Grotius, Doddridge, Bloomfield, Robinson (Lexicon), Chandler, and many others suppose that it refers to Moses. Calvin and many others suppose that the reference is to Christ. The common sentiment among expositors undoubtedly is, that the reference is to Moses; and it is by no means easy to show that that is not the correct opinion. But to me it seems that there are reasons why it should he regarded as having reference to the great Mediator between God and man. Some of the reasons which incline me to this opinion are:

(1) That the name Mediator is not, so far as I know, applied to Moses elsewhere in the Scriptures.

\caps1 (2) t\caps0 he name is appropriated to the Lord Jesus. This is certainly the case in the New Testament, unless the passage before us be an exception; and the name is not found in the Old Testament.

\caps1 (3) i\caps0 t is difficult to see the pertinency of the remark here, or the bearing on the argument, on the supposition that it refers to Moses. How would it affect the drift and purport of the apostle’ s reasoning? How would it bear on the case? But on the supposition that it refers to the Lord Jesus, that would be a material fact in the argument. It would show that the Law was subordinate to the Messiah, and was with reference to him. It was not only subservient by being ordained by angels, but as being under the Mediator, and with reference to him until he, the "promised seed,"should come.

\caps1 (4) i\caps0 t is only by such an interpretation that the following "vexed"verse can be understood. If that be applied to Moses, I see not that any sense can be affixed to it that shall be pertinent or intelligible.

These reasons may not appear satisfactory to others; and I admit they are not as clear as would be desirable that reasons should be in the exposition of the Bible, but they may be allowed perhaps to have some weight. If they are of weight, then the sentiment of the passage is, that the Law was wholly subordinate, and could not make the promise of no effect. For:

(1) It was given hundreds of years after the promise.

\caps1 (2) i\caps0 t was under the direction of angels, who must themselves be inferior to, and subordinate to the Messiah, the Mediator between God and man. If given by their agency and instrumentality, however important it might be, it could not interfere with a direct promise made by God himself, but must be subordinate to that promise.

\caps1 (3) i\caps0 t was under the Mediator, the promised Messiah. It was in his hand, and subject to him. It was a part of the great plan which was contemplated in the promise, and was tributary to that, and must be so regarded. It was not an independent scheme; not a thing that stood by itself; but a scheme subordinate and tributary, and wholly under the control of the Mediator, and a part of the plan of redemption, and of course to be modified or abrogated just as that plan should require, and to be regarded as wholly tributary to it. This view will accord certainly with the argument of Paul, and with his design in showing that the Law could by no means, and in no way, interfere with the promise made to Abraham, but must be regarded as wholly subordinate to the plan of redemption.

Barnes: Gal 3:20

Now a mediator is not a mediator of one ... - This verse has given great perplexity to commentators. "There is, unquestionably,"says Bloomfield, "no passage in the New Testament that has so much, and to so little purpose, exercised the learning and ingenuity of commentators as the present, which seems to defy all attempts to elicit any satisfactory sense, except by methods so violent as to be almost the same thing as writing the passage afresh."In regard, however, to the truth of the declarations here - that "a mediator is not a mediator of one,"and that "God is one"- there can be no doubt, and no difficulty. The very idea of a mediator supposes that there are two parties or persons between whom the mediator comes either to reconcile them or to bear some message from the one to the other; and it is abundantly affirmed also in the Old Testament that there is but one God; see Deu 6:4.

But the difficulty is, to see the pertinency or the bearing of the remark on the argument of the apostle. What does he intend to illustrate by the declaration? and how do the truths which he states, illustrate the point before him? It is not consistent with the design of these notes to detail the numerous opinions which have been entertained of the passage. They may be found in the larger commentaries, and particularly may be seen in Koppe, Excursus vii. on the Galatians. After referring to a number of works on the passage, Rosenmuller adopts the following interpretation, proposed by Noessett, as expressing the true sense. But he (that is, Moses) is not a mediator of one race (to wit, the Abrahamic), but God is the same God of them and of the Gentiles. The sense according to this is, that Moses had not reference in his office as mediator or as internuncius to the descendants of Abraham, or to that one seed or race, referred to in the promise.

He added the hard conditions of the Law; required its stern and severe observances; his institutions pertained to the Jews mainly. They indeed might obtain the favor of God, but by compliance with the severe laws which he had ordained. But to the one seed, the whole posterity of Abraham, they concerning whom the promise was made, the Gentiles as well as the Jews, he had no reference in his institutions: all their favors, therefore, must depend on the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham. But God is one and the same in reference to all. His promise pertains to all. He is the common God to the Jews and the Gentiles. There is great difficulty in embracing this view of the passage, but it is not necessary for me to state the difficulty or to attempt to show that the view here proposed cannot be defended. Whitby has expressed substantially the same interpretation of this passage. "But this mediator (namely, Moses) was only the mediator of the Jews, and so was only the mediator of one party, to whom belonged the blessing of Abraham, Gal 3:8, Gal 3:14. But God, who made the promise, ‘ That in one should all the families of the earth be blessed,’ is one; the God of the other party, the Gentiles as well as the Jews, and so as ready to justify the one as the other."

According to this interpretation, the sense is, that Moses was mediator of one part of Abraham’ s seed, the Israelites; but was not the mediator of the other part of that seed, the Gentiles; yet there was the same God to both parties, who was equally ready to justify both. Locke has expressed a view of the passage which differs somewhat from this, but which has quite as much plausibility. According to his exposition it means, that God was but one of the parties to the promise. The Jews and the Gentiles made up the other. But at the giving of the Law Moses was a mediator only between God and the Israelites, and, therefore, could not transact anything which would tend to the disannulling of the promise which was between God and the Jews and Gentiles together, the other party to the promise. Or in other words, at the covenant made on Mount Sinai, there was really present but one of the parties, and consequently nothing could be done that would affect the other.

Moses did not appear in behalf of the Gentiles. They had no representative there. He was engaged only for the Jews, for a part only of the one party, and that part could not transact anything for the whole. The giving of the Law, therefore, could not affect the promise which was made to Abraham, and which related to the Jews and the Gentiles as together constituting one party. This view is plausible. It has been adopted by Doddridge, and perhaps may be the true interpretation. No one can deny, however, that it is forced, and that it is far from being obvious. It seems to be making a meaning for the apostle, or furnishing him with an argument, rather than explaining the one which he has chosen to use; and it may be doubted whether Paul would have used an argument that required so much explanation as this before it could be understood. All these expositions proceed on the supposition that the word "mediator"here refers to Moses, and that the transaction here referred to was that on Mount Sinai. I would suggest a sense of the passage which I have found in none of the commentaries which I have consulted, and which I would, therefore, propose with diffidence.

All that I can claim for it is, that it may possibly be the meaning. According to the view which I shall submit, the words here are to be regarded as used in their usual signification; and the simplest interpretation possible is to be given to the propositions in the verse. One proposition is, that a mediator is not appointed with reference to one party, but to two. This proposition is universal. Wherever there is a mediator there are always two parties. The other proposition is, that God is one; that is, that he is the same one God, in whatever form his will may be made known to people, whether by a promise as to Abraham, or by the Law as to Moses. The interpretation which I would propose embraces the following particulars:

(1) The design of the apostle is, to show that the giving of the Law could not abrogate or affect the promise made to Abraham; and to show at the same time what is its true object. It could not annul the promises, says Paul. It was given long after, and could not affect them, Gal 3:17. It was an addition, an appendage, a subsequent enactment for a specific purpose, yet a part of the same general plan, and subordinate to the Mediator, Gal 3:19. It was to be shown also that the Law was not against the promises of God. It was a good law Gal 3:21; and was not designed to be an opposing system, or intended to counteract the promise, or the scheme of salvation by promise, but was a part of the same great plan.

\caps1 (2) a\caps0 mediator always supposes two parties. In all the transactions, therefore, where a mediator is employed, there is supposed to be two parties. When, therefore, the promise was made to Abraham with reference to the Messiah, the great Mediator; and when the Law was given in the hand of the Mediator, and under his control, there is always supposed to be two parties.

\caps1 (3) t\caps0 he whole arrangement here referred to is under the Mediator, and with reference to him. The promise made to Abraham had reference to him and to those who should believe on him; and the Law given by Moses was also under him, and with reference to him. He was the grand object and agent of all. He was the Mediator with reference to both. Each transaction had reference to him, though in different ways the transaction with Abraham relating to him in connection with a promise; the transaction at the giving of the Law being under his control as Mediator, and being a part of the one great plan. There was an identity of plan; and the plan had reference to the Messiah, the great Mediator.

(4) God is one and the same. He is throughout one of the parties; and he does not change. However the arrangements may vary, whether in giving the Law or imparting a promise, He is the same. There is only one God in all the transaction; and He, throughout, constitutes one of the parties. The other party is man, at first receiving the promise from this one God with reference to the Mediator through Abraham, and then receiving the Law through the same Mediator on Mount Sinai. He is still the one party unchanged; and there is the same Mediator; implying all along that there are two parties.

\caps1 (5) i\caps0 t follows, therefore, agreeably to the argument of the apostle, that the Law given so long after the promise, could not abrogate it, because they pertained to the same plan, were under the same one God, who was one unchanging party in all this transaction, and had reference to the same Mediator and were alike under his control. It followed, also, that the Law was temporary Gal 3:19; interposed for important purposes until the "seed should come,"because it was a part of the same general arrangement, and was under the control of the same Mediator, and directed by the same one God, the unchanging one party in all these transactions. It followed, further, that the one could not be against the other Gal 3:21, because they were a part of the same plan, under the control of the same Mediator, and where the same God remained unchanged as the one party. All that is assumed in this interpretation is:

(a)    That there was but one plan or arrangement; or that the transaction with Abraham and with Moses were parts of one great scheme; and,

(b)    That the Mediator here referred to was not Moses, but the Messiah, the Son of God.

The following paraphrase will express the sense which I have endeavored to convey. "The giving of the Law could not annul or abrogate the promise made to Abraham. It was long after that, and it was itself subservient to that. It was given by the instrumentality of angels, and it was entirely under the control of the Mediator, the Messiah. The plan was one; and all the parts of it, in the promise made to Abraham and in the giving of the Law, were subordinate to him. A mediator always supposes two parties, and the reference to the Mediator, alike in the promise to Abraham and in the giving of the Law, supposes that there were two parties. God is one party, the same unchanging God in all the forms of the promise and of the Law. In this state of things, it is impossible that the Law should clash with the promise, or that it should supersede or modify it. It was a part of the one great plan; appointed with reference to the work which the Mediator came to do; and in accordance with the promise made to Abraham; and therefore they could not be contradictory and inconsistent."It is assumed in all this that the Messiah was contemplated in the whole arrangement, and that it was entered into with reference to him. That this may be assumed no one can deny who believes the scriptures. The whole arrangement in the Old Testament, it is supposed, was designed to be ancillary to redemption; and the interpretation which has been submitted above is based on that supposition.

Barnes: Gal 3:21

Is the law then against the promises of God? - Is the Law of Moses to be regarded as opposed to the promises made to Abraham? Does this follow from any view which can be taken of the subject? The object of the apostle in asking this question is, evidently, to take an opportunity to deny in the most positive manner that there can be any such clashing or contradiction. He shows, therefore, what was the design of the Law, and declares that the object was to further the plan contemplated in the promise made to Abraham. It was an auxiliary to that. It was as good as a law could be; and it was designed to prepare the way for the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham.

God forbid - It cannot be. It is impossible. I do not hold such an opinion. Such a sentiment by no means follows from what has been advanced; compare the note at Rom 3:4.

For if there had been a law given which could have given life - The Law of Moses is as good as a law can be. It is pure, and truly, and good. It is not the design to insinuate anything against the Law in itself, or to say that as a law it is defective. But law could not give life. It is not its nature; and man cannot be justified by obedience to it. No man has ever yielded perfect compliance with it and no man, therefore, can be justified by it, compare the notes at Gal 2:16; Gal 3:10, note.

Verily righteousness should have been by the law - Or justification would have been secured by the Law. The Law of Moses was as well adapted to this as a law could be. No better law could have been originated for this purpose, and if people were to attempt to justify themselves before God by their own works, the Law of Moses would be as favorable for such an undertaking as any law which could be revealed. It is as reasonable, and equal, and pure. Its demands are as just, and its terms as favorable as could be any of the terms of mere law. And such a law has been given in part in order to show that justification by the Law is out of the question. If people could not be justified by a law so pure, and equal, and just; so reasonable in all its requirements and so perfect, how could they expect to be justified by conformity to any inferior or less perfect rule of life? The fact, therefore, that no one can be justified by the pure law revealed on Mount Sinai, forever settles the question about the possibility of being justified by law.

Barnes: Gal 3:22

But the Scripture - The Old Testament (see the note at Joh 5:39), containing the Law of Moses.

Hath concluded all under sin - Has "shut up"( συνέκλεισεν sunekleisen ) all under the condemnation of sin; that is, has declared all people, no matter what their rank and external character, to be sinners. Of course, they cannot be justified by that law which declares them to be guilty, and which condemns them, any more than the Law of the land will acquit a murderer, and pronounce him innocent, at the same time that it holds him to be guilty. In regard to the meaning of the expression used here; see the note at Rom 11:32; compare Rom 3:9, Rom 3:19. "That the promise by faith of Jesus Christ, etc."That the promise referred to in the transaction with Abraham, the promise of justification and life by faith in the Messiah. Here we see one design of the Law. It was to show that they could not be justified by their own works, to hedge up their way in regard to justification by their own righteousness, and to show them their need of a better righteousness. The Law accomplishes the same end now. It shows people that they are guilty; and it does it in order that they may be brought under the influence of the pure system of the gospel, and become interested in the promises which are connected with eternal salvation.

Poole: Gal 3:15

Though it be but a man’ s covenant: the word here translated covenant, diayhkh , is ordinarily translated testament; see Mat 26:28 . It signifies in the general, an ordering or disposing of things; more specially, a testament; which is the disposition of the testator’ s goods after his death. Now, (saith the apostle), I here argue according to the ordinary methods and doings of men, who have such a respect for a man’ s testament, as that,

if it be once confirmed according to the methods of law and civil sanctions of men, or rather by the death of the testator (for a testament is of no force while the testator liveth, Heb 9:17 ); nor will men alter the will or last testament of a deceased person, though it be not as yet confirmed according to the methods of human laws.

No man disannulleth, or addeth thereto; no man that is, no just man, will go about to disannul it, or add to it, nor will any just government endure any such violation of it. Hence the apostle argueth both the certainty and unalterableness for the covenant of grace with Abraham, and until the death of Christ it was but a covenant, or a testament not fully confirmed, but yet unalterable, because the covenant of that God who cannot lie, nor repent; but by the death of Christ it became a testament, and a testament ratified and confirmed by the death of the person that was the testator; therefore never to be disannulled, never capable of any additions. Those words, or addeth thereto, are fitly added, because these false teachers, though they might pretend not to disannul God’ s covenant, holding still justification by Christ; yet they added thereto, making circumcision, and other legal observances, necessary to justification; whereas by God’ s covenant, or testament, confirmed now by the death of Christ, faith in Christ only was necessary.

Poole: Gal 3:16

Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made the promises, Gen 12:3 22:18 ; in the one of which places it is said: In thee; in the other: In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. He saith, promises, either because of the repetition of the same promises, or taking in also other promises.

He saith not: And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ: some may object against the apostle’ s conclusion, that the promise respected only one, and that was Christ; because God said not seeds, as of many, but seed; whereas the term seed is a noun of multitude, and signifieth more than one; besides that the Hebrew word, which is used Gen 22:18 , admitteth not the plural number. But it is answered, that though the word translated seed admitteth not the plural number, yet had God intended more than one, he could have expressed it by words signifying children, or generations, &c.

Secondly, that the term seed, though a noun of multitude, yet is often applied to a single person; as Gen 3:15 , where it also signifieth Christ; Seth is called another seed, Gen 4:25 ; and so in many other places. Some think that by seed he meaneth believers, and so interpret it of Christ mystical; and that the scope of the apostle in this place is to prove, that both the Jews and Gentiles were to be justified the same way; because they were justified in force and by virtue of the promise, which was not made to many, but to one church, which was to consist both of Jews and Gentiles, for (according to the prophecy of Caiaphas, Joh 11:52 ) Christ died, that he might gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad. The promises made to Abraham, were but the exhibition of the eternal covenant of grace, made between the Father and his Son Christ Jesus (who was in it both the Mediator and Surety); which covenant was promulgated, as to Adam and Noah, so to Abraham, in these words: In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be called, that is, in Christ. From whence the apostle proveth, that there is no justification by the works of the law, but in and by Christ, and the exercise of faith in him.

Poole: Gal 3:17

The covenant, that was before confirmed of God in Christ: the word translated covenant, is the same as before; ordinarily signifying one’ s disposal of things in his last will and testament. Which name is given to the covenant of grace, with respect to the death of Christ; for though Christ as yet had not died, yet he was, by virtue of the covenant of redemption, and in God’ s counsels: The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, Rev 13:8 . This (he saith) was in Christ, ( as Abraham’ s promised seed), confirmed of God to Abraham, by God’ s oath, Heb 6:17,18 ; by frequent repetitions of it; by such solemn rites as covenants use to be confirmed by, Gen 15:17,18 ; by the seals of circumcision, Gen 17:11 Rom 4:11 ; by a long prescription, &c.; though it received indeed its final and ultimate consummation by the death of Christ, yet it was before many ways confirmed.

The law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul: the law was given four hundred and thirty years after the giving this promise to Abraham: though, Gen 15:13 , the round number of four hundred years only be mentioned, which are to be counted from the birth of Isaac; yet, Exo 12:40 , they are reckoned (as here) four hundred and thirty years, from Abraham’ s going out of Canaan, Gen 12:4 ; from whence to the birth of Isaac were twenty-five years, Gen 21:5 , compared with Gen 12:4 ; from the birth of Isaac till Jacob was born, sixty years, Gen 25:26 ; from thence till Jacob went down into Egypt, one hundred and thirty years, Gen 47:9 , where they abode two hundred and fifteen years. Hence the apostle concludes, that it was impossible that the law, which was not given till four hundred and thirty years after the confirmation of the promise,

should make the promise confirmed

of no effect

Poole: Gal 3:18

If the inheritance of the heavenly Canaan, typified by the earthly Canaan, the promise of which was made to Abraham, be to be obtained by the fulfilling of the law, and yielding obedience to it, then it is no more of the promise. It is much the same with what the apostle said before, Rom 4:14 ; and with what he had said, Rom 11:6 : If by grace, then it is no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace; otherwise work is no more work. He shows, that there is an opposition between grace and work, the law and the promise; that which is of grace, and of the promise, is of free love; that which is of works, and the law, is wages, and a reward of debt.

But (saith the apostle) God gave the inheritance to Abraham by promise he of his free love engaging himself thereunto.

Poole: Gal 3:19

Wherefore then serveth the law? Some might say: To what purpose was the law given? As if there could be no use of it unless it were available to justification.

It was added because of transgressions it was (saith the apostle) given after the promise, not to supply something wanting as to justification, to prescribe some works that must be added; but either to restrain sin, 1Ti 1:9 , or to show and discover sin, to make men see that they stood in need of Christ: see Rom 7:13 .

Till the seed should come to whom the promise was made: till Christ the promised Seed should come, who is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth, Rom 10:4 ; upon whose coming the law contained in ordinances ceased. That Christ is here to be understood by the seed, is plain by the addition,

to whom the promise was made Some here understand by the seed, Christ and the church, (which both make up Christ mystical), and interpret this text by Eph 2:14 , till the Jews and Gentiles should be both made one. This law (he saith)

was ordained by angels Luke, Act 7:38 , speaks of the law as published by one angel: the apostle, Heb 2:2 , calls it, the word spoken by angels. We read of no angels, Exo 19:20 , nor of any of the saints; yet, Deu 33:2 : Moses saith God came from Sinai, with ten thousand saints. The law was given either by the ministry of an angel, or by God attended with angels.

In the hand of a mediator; that is, (say some), under the power of Christ the Mediator; but by the mediator is rather to be understood Moses, which agreeth with Deu 5:5 , where Moses telleth the Jews, that he stood between the Lord and them at that time, to show them the word of the Lord; nor is Christ any where called the Mediator of the old, but of the new testament, Heb 8:6 Heb 12:24 .

Poole: Gal 3:20

This is a text acknowledged by all interpreters to be very obscure; not so much as considered in itself, (for all know, that a mediator speaks one that goes in the middle between two persons that are at odds, so cannot be of one), as in regard of the connection of it with what went before; where he had told us, that the law was given in the hand of a mediator. There are various senses given of this verse, and the variety much ariseth from men’ s different understanding of the mediator in whose hand the law was given. To me the apostle seems to magnify the promise above the law, in that the promise was given to Abraham immediately by God, (who is one in essence), but the law was given not immediately by God, but by Moses as mediator, who in that action was a type of Christ. And God thereby showed, that the law would bring no man to life and salvation without the one and only Mediator Christ Jesus. Christ, indeed, is the Mediator of the new testament, he mediated for it, he mediateth in it; but it was men’ s transgression of the law that brought them in need of a Mediator, sin being the only thing that separateth between God and man.

God is one and there had been no need of mediating between him and man, but for the law which man had transgressed. Those that by the mediator, Gal 3:19 , understand Christ, make this the sense: That as a mediator supposeth two parties at odds, so Christ’ s being Mediator speaks him to have respect to Jews and Gentiles. But this interpretation seems to make Christ the Mediator between Jews and Gentiles, whom (the apostle saith) he made both one, breaking down the partition-wall, Eph 2:14 ; but we do not find the name of Mediator upon this account any where given unto Christ. Many other senses are given, but the first mentioned seemeth the most probable, viz. that God made use of no mediator in giving the promise, but only in giving the law, which evidenced that justification was not to be by it; nor had there been need of a true Mediator under the gospel, but for the law, men’ s transgression of which brought in a need of a Mediator; which proved that justification could not be by the law.

Poole: Gal 3:21

Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: though it be thus, yet there is no such opposition between the law and the promises, as that either of them make the other useless. Far be it from me (saith the apostle) to assert any such thing! They are not contrary to one another but subservient to one another.

For if there had been a law given which could have given life for if there had been a law which could, by our perfect performance of it, have given us a righteousness, wherein we might have stood righteous before God, then righteousness should have been by the law; then men might have hoped to have been justified and accepted of God by me for such obedience; then indeed the law had been against the promises, they holding forth another righteousness, viz. the righteousness of God from faith to faith.

Poole: Gal 3:22

But the Sripture hath concluded all under sin: it pleased God to give a law, which, if Adam had continued in his estate of innocence, might have given life; but considering man in his lapsed state, that now is not possible: Rom 2:10 : There is none righteous, no not one: and Eph 2:3 : We are all children of wrath.

That the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe that the promises of life and salvation might be given to those who, according to the new covenant of the gospel, should receive and accept of the Mediator, and the terms of salvation which God offers to us in the gospel; where these promises are exhibited upon condition of believing. Though, upon our first reflection upon it, it may seem strange to us, that God, having in his eternal counsels fixed the salvation of man upon a conenant of grace, and his believing in Jesus Christ, should in time first propound a covenant of works: Do this, and live; yet, upon second thoughts, this will appear necessary; for till man was a transgressor by breaking the law, and violating the first covenant, there was no room for a Mediator, no cause for men’ s applying themselves to a Mediator. God therefore first gave out the covenant of works, and suffered man to break it; and then he revealed the Mediator to lapsed man; that so they who should believe in him might obtain the promise of life, to which by the fall they had forfeited their right.

Haydock: Gal 3:15

I speak after the manner of man; or, by a comparison, says St. John Chrysostom, common among men. If a man make or execute his last will, or any deed or contract, it stands good; no one contemns it, or pretends to annul it, or add any thing to it: how much more shall the testament, the covenant, or solemn promise which God made to Abraham, to bless all nations, stand firm and have its effect? And he said to his seed, to one, i.e. in Christ only, not to his seeds, as it were by many. It is observed, that the word seed being a collective signification, may grammatically be taken for the plural as well as for the singular number; so that we are to have more regard to St. Paul's authority, who expounds to us what is here signified by the word see, that to the word itself. ---

The law which was made after four hundred and thirty years (consult the chronologists) does not make void the testament: nor the promise which God himself made to Abraham, that mankind should be blessed only by Christ. These blessings could not be by the law of Moses ordained, or delivered by angels in the hand of a mediator, to wit, of Moses, according to the common interpretation, who, in receiving and publishing the law, was as it were a mediator betwixt God and his people. ---

And a mediator is not of one, (but is called so, as mediating betwixt two parties) but God is one. This is to signify, that when he made the covenant or promise to Abraham, he made this promise himself, and did not make use of a mediator inferior to himself, as when he gave the law; and the law, in this respect, was inferior to the promise; but the chief difference was, that true justice and sanctification was not given by the law, for so it would have contradicted and have made void the promise made before to Moses [Abraham?], that the blessings of true sanctification should only be by his seed and by faith in Christ, the Son of Abraham and of David. According to the Scriptures all things (i.e. all men) were shut up together under sin, under the slavery of sin, from which they were not to be redeemed but by the accomplishment of the promise, and by the coming of Christ, by his grace, and faith in him. (Witham) ---

Because of transgressions. To restrain them from sin, by fear and threats. ---

Ordained by Angels. The law was delivered by Angels, speaking in the name and person of God to Moses, who was the mediator on this occasion between God and the people. (Challoner) ---

The law was established not to occasion sin, but to manifest sin, and to punish sin. Ezechiel (xx. 11.) shews the meaning of the apostle, when he says: that God, after bringing the Israelites out of Egypt, imposed laws upon them that gave life to such as observed them. This was the decalogue, published immediately after the passage of the Red Sea; but violating these commandments, they became guilty of idolatry. To punish them, God imposed upon them precepts which are not good, and which give not life. (ver. 24, 25.) This is the ceremonial law, which was established and published by degrees during the forty years the Israelites sojourned in the desert. It is then evident that this law was given to punish transgressions in the Israelites, and to prevent relapses. This is the sense of St. Paul.

Haydock: Gal 3:22

Hath concluded all under sin; i.e. hath declared all to be under sin, from which they could not be delivered but by faith in Jesus Christ, the promised seed. (Challoner) ---

The law was not given to all; but all its precepts and prohibitions were binding under sin, and all violators of the law were guilty of sin.

Gill: Gal 3:15

Brethren,.... Whereas in Gal 3:1, he calls them "foolish Galatians", which might seem too harsh and severe, therefore, to mitigate and soften their resentments, he styles them brethren; hoping still well of them, and that they were not so far gone, but that they might be recovered; and imputing the blame and fault rather to their leaders and teachers, than to them:

I speak after the manner of men; agreeably to a Talmudic form of speech in use among the Jews, דברה תורה כלשין בני אדם, "the law speaks according to the language of the children of men", or "after the manner of men" ^b, when they argue from any Scripture, in which a word is repeated, and the latter word seems to point out something peculiar: but the apostle's meaning is, that the thing he was about to speak of was taken from among men, in common use with them, and what was obvious to the common sense and understanding of men, and might easily be applied and argued from, as it is by him:

though it be but a man's covenant, or testament, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth or addeth thereto; if a covenant made between men, or a man's will and testament, be confirmed, signed, sealed, and witnessed, in a proper manner, no other man can make them void, or take anything from them, or add anything to them, only the parties concerned by their own will and consent; and if this be the case among men, much less can the covenant of God, confirmed by two immutable things, his word and oath, or his will and testament, or any branch of it, be ever disannulled, or be capable of receiving any addition thereunto. The apostle seems to have a particular respect to that branch of the covenant and will of God, which regards the justification of men in his sight by the righteousness of Christ, to which the false teachers were for adding the works of the law.

Gill: Gal 3:16

Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made,.... The promises design the promises of the covenant of grace mentioned in the next verse, which are exceeding great and precious, better than those of any other covenant; and which are all yea and amen in Christ, and are chiefly of a spiritual nature; though all the temporal blessings of God's people come to them in a covenant way, and by virtue of the promise; for godliness has the promise of this life, that God will verily feed them, withhold no good thing from them proper for them, sanctify all their afflictions, support under them, and never leave nor forsake them: but the promises here intended principally are such as these, that God will be their God, and they shall be his people, the promise of Christ as a Saviour and Redeemer of them; of the Spirit as their sanctifier, and the applier of all grace unto them; of justification by Christ's righteousness, and pardon by his blood; of adoption through free rich grace; of perseverance in grace, and of the eternal inheritance: now these promises were made, ερρηθησαν, "were said unto", or spoken of, to Abraham and his seed; that is, they were discovered, made manifest, and applied to Abraham, the father of many nations; and were declared to belong to him and his spiritual seed, even all that believe, whether Jews or Gentiles; for the apostle is not speaking of the original make and constitution of the covenant of grace and its promises, which were made from all eternity; the grand promise of life was made before the world began, and Christ was set up as Mediator from everlasting, before ever the earth was, which suppose a covenant in which this promise was granted, and of which Christ was the Mediator as early; it was made long before Abraham, or any of his spiritual seed, were in being; nor was it made with any single person, any mere creature, Abraham, or any other, but with Christ, as the head and representative of the whole election of grace: but what is here treated of is, the declaration and manifestation of the covenant, and its promises to Abraham; which was frequently done, as upon the call of him out of the land of Chaldea, upon his parting with Lot, when he was grown old, and when Eliezer his servant was like to be his heir, and just before the giving of him the covenant of circumcision, and again upon the offering up of his son Isaac:

he saith not unto seeds, as of many; in the plural number, as if Jews and Gentiles were in a different manner his spiritual seed:

but as of one; using the singular number:

and to thy seed, which is Christ; meaning not Christ personal, though he was of the seed of Abraham, a son of his, as was promised; but the covenant and the promises were not now made with, and to Christ, as personally considered, this was done in eternity; but Christ mystical, the church, which is the body of Christ, of which he is the head, and is called by his name, 1Co 12:12 and designs all Abraham's spiritual seed, both Jews and Gentiles; who are all one in Christ, and so Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise; hence there is no room for the objection of the Jew to the apostle's application of this passage to Christ ^c, that the Scripture speaks not of any particular person, but of seed in a general and collective sense, of a large and numerous offspring; since the apostle designs such a seed by Christ, as numerous as the stars of the sky, and the sand on the sea shore, even all believers in all nations, Abraham is the father of; though did the apostle mean Christ particularly, and personally considered, there are instances to be given, where the word "seed" is used, not in a collective sense, but of a single person, as in Gen 4:25. Nor has the Jew ^d any reason to charge him with a mistake, in observing that the word is not in the plural, but in the singular number, when it is the manner of the Hebrew language to speak of seed only in the singular number; but this is false, the word is used in the plural number, and so might have been here, had it been necessary, as in 1Sa 8:15 concerning seed sown in the earth, from whence the metaphor is here taken. The first tract in the Jews' Misna, or oral law, is called, זרעים, "seeds"; and the word, even as spoken of the posterity of men, is used in the plural number in their Talmud ^e; where they say,

"pecuniary judgments are not as capital ones; in pecuniary judgments, a man gives his money, and it atones for him; in capital judgments, his blood, and the blood זרעותיו, "of his seeds", or posterity, hang on him to the end of the world; for we so find in Cain, who slew his brother; as it is said, "the bloods of thy brother crieth"; it is not said, the blood of thy brother, but the bloods of thy brother, his blood, and the blood זרעותיו, "of his seeds".''

Gill: Gal 3:17

And this I say,.... Assert and affirm as a certain truth, that is not to be gainsaid;

that the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul; by "the covenant" is meant, not the covenant made with Adam, as the federal head of all his posterity; for this was made two thousand years before the law was given; nor that which was made with the Israelites at Mount Sinai, for that itself is the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after this covenant; nor the covenant of circumcision given to Abraham, for that was not so long by some years, before the giving of the law, as the date here fixed: but "a covenant confirmed of God in Christ"; a covenant in which Christ is concerned; a covenant made with him, of which he is the sum and substance, the Mediator, surety, and messenger; and such is what the Scriptures call the covenant of life and peace, and what we commonly style the covenant of grace and redemption; because the articles of redemption and reconciliation, of eternal life and salvation, by the free grace of God, are the principal things in it. This is said to be "in Christ", εις χριστον, "with respect to Christ"; though the Vulgate Latin and Ethiopic versions leave out this clause, nor is it in the Alexandrian copy, and some others; meaning either that this covenant has respect to Christ personal, he having that concern in it, as just now mentioned, and as it was made manifest and confirmed to Abraham, was promised in it to spring from him; or rather that it has respect to Christ mystical, as before, to all Abraham's spiritual seed, both Jews and Gentiles: and this is said to be "confirmed of God", with respect thereunto; which must be understood, not of the first establishment of the covenant, in and with Christ, for that was done in eternity; nor of the confirmation of it by his blood, which was at his death; nor of the confirmation of it in common to the saints by the Spirit of God, who is the seal of the covenant, as he is the Spirit of promise; but of a peculiar confirmation of it to Abraham, either by a frequent repetition thereof, or by annexing an oath unto it; or rather by those rites and usages, and even wonderful appearances, recorded in Gen 15:9 and which was "four hundred and thirty years before" the law was given, which are thus computed by the learned Pareus; from the confirmation of the covenant, and taking Hagar for his wife, to the birth of Isaac, 15 years; from the birth of Isaac, to the birth of Jacob, 60 years, Gen 25:26, from the birth of Jacob, to his going down into Egypt, 130 years, Gen 47:9, from his going down to Egypt, to his death, 17 years, Gen 47:28 from the death of Jacob, to the death of Joseph in Egypt, 53 years, Gen 50:26 from the death of Joseph, to the birth of Moses, 75 years; from the birth of Moses, to the going out of the children of Israel from Egypt, and the giving of the law, 80 years, in all 430 years. The Jews reckoned the four hundred years spoken of to Abraham, Gen 15:13 and mentioned by Stephen, Act 7:6 from the birth of Isaac; but they reckon the four hundred and thirty years, the number given by Moses, Exo 12:40 and by the apostle here, to begin from the confirming the covenant between the pieces, though somewhat differently counted; says one of their chronologers ^f, we reckon the 430 years from the 70th year of Abraham, from whence to the birth of Isaac were 30 years, and from thence to the going out of Egypt, 400 years; and another ^g of them says,

"they are to be reckoned from the time that the bondage was decreed, in the standing between the pieces; and there were 210 years of them from thence to the going down to Egypt, and these are the particulars; the 105 years which remained to Abraham, and the 105 years Isaac lived after the death of Abraham, and there were 10 years from the death of Isaac, to the going down to Egypt, and it remains that there were 210 years they stayed in Egypt:''

another ^h of their writers says,

"that from the time that the decree of the captivity of Egypt was fixed between the pieces, to the birth of Isaac, were 30 years; and from the birth of Isaac to the going down of the children of Israel into Egypt, 400 years; take out from them the 60 years of Isaac, and the 130 years that Jacob had lived when he went into Egypt, and there remain 210.''

Josephus reckons ⁱ these years from Abraham's coming into the land of Canaan, to the departure of the children of Israel out of Egypt, and makes them 430, agreeably to Exo 12:40 and to the apostle here, and to the Talmud; See Gill on Act 7:6. However, be these computations as they will, it is certain, that the law, which was so long after the confirming of the covenant to Abraham, could not make it null and void: or that it should make the promise of none effect; the particular promise of the covenant, respecting the justification of Abraham and his spiritual seed, by faith in the righteousness of Christ.

Gill: Gal 3:18

For if the inheritance be of the law,.... By the inheritance is meant, either the eternal inheritance, everlasting life and happiness in heaven, which is the gift of God through Christ, and not attained to and enforced by the works of the law; or particularly the blessing of justification, promised in the covenant to Abraham, and his spiritual seed; even to the Gentiles, and inherited by them; which is not obtained through obedience to the law of works, nor does it belong to those who seek for it by the deeds of the law, for these are not heirs of it; see Rom 4:14. For was this the case,

it is no more of promise; it cannot be by merit and by promise, by works and grace too; these can never be reconciled, and consist together; if it is by promise, then not of the law; and if it is of the law, it is not by promise: "but" nothing is more certain than this, that

God gave it, freely, without any consideration of the works of the law,

to Abraham by promise; wherefore justification is not by works, but by the free grace of God, through faith in the righteousness of Christ; and in this way men become heirs according to the hope of eternal life: all which is directly opposite to the notion of the Jews, who say, that, בשכר מצות ירשו גן עדן,

"for the reward of the commandments, men shall inherit paradise ^k.''

Gill: Gal 3:19

Wherefore why then serveth the law?.... If this be the case, might an objector say, why was the law given? what ends and purposes are to be served by it? of what use can it be? there had as good been no law at all, if the inheritance is not of it, and there is no justification by it. To which it is answered,

it was added because of transgressions; four hundred and thirty years after the covenant made with Abraham; it did not succeed it, nor take the place of it, and so make it null and void; but was over and above added unto it, for the sake of restraining transgressions; which had there been no law, men would not have been accountable for them; and they would have gone into them without fear, and with impunity; but the law was given, to lay a restraint on men, by forbidding such and such things, on pain of death; and also for the detecting, discovering, and making known transgressions, what they are, their nature and consequences; these the law charges men with, sets them before them, in their true light and proper colours; and convicts them of them, stops their mouths, and pronounces them guilty before God: moreover, this law entered in, over and above any other revelation God was pleased to make, "that the offence might abound", Rom 5:20 either that particular offence, the sin of Adam, the apostle is there speaking of; the heinous nature of which, its aggravated circumstances, and the justness of its imputation to his posterity, were more clearly discerned by this law; and so the Syriac version here renders it in the singular number,

מטל מסטינותא, "because of transgression"; or all other offences and transgressions, which are increased through the multiplicity of precepts, and attended with more aggravating circumstances, than if no law was given, and more eagerly pursued after, through the prohibition of them; such being the corrupt nature of man, that the more anything is forbidden, the more desirous it is of it: add to all this, that the law was given for the punishing of transgressions, for which it curses, and threatens with death, and inflicts it on Christless sinners: hence it is clear there can be no justification by it, and yet it is not useless and insignificant:

till the seed should come, to whom the promise was made; either Christ the seed of the woman, and of Abraham, who was to come in the flesh, and is come; and to whom the grand promise of life, and all the promises of the covenant were made; not for himself, but for those he represented, and in whom they are all secure: until whose coming to finish transgression, and bring in everlasting righteousness, the law was to continue in the form in which, and the use for which it was added, and then to cease as the ministration of Moses; for through the coming of Christ it received its full accomplishment, and came to an end; the ceremonial law was utterly abolished, and the moral law ceased to be a covenant of works, though it continues a rule of walk and conversation; and the whole Mosaic economy was no more: or else the seed here intends the spiritual seed of Abraham; particularly among the Gentiles, to whom the promise of blessedness, of justification, and eternal life was made; and the sense be, that till such time that a generation of faithful men, of believers in Christ, should arise among the Gentiles, the law was to continue with the Jews; but when they should spring up, the middle wall of partition should be broken down, and Abraham's spiritual seed among Jews and Gentiles make up one body, one people, and be fellow heirs and partakers of the promise of God in Christ, through the Gospel:

and it was ordained by angels; not Moses and Aaron, and Joshua, as some say; for though Moses was concerned in the giving of the law, yet not Aaron nor Joshua, nor are any of them ever called angels; but the holy elect angels are here meant, the ten thousands of saints, or holy ones, God came to Mount Sinai with, and the Lord was among, in the holy place; see Deu 33:2 and so the Jews say ^l that the Lord appeared on Mount Sinai gloriously, עם כיתיה דמלאכיא, "with companies", or "troops of angels", to give the law to his people: and this may be said to be "ordained" by them, inasmuch as it might be written and spoken by them, as the instruments and ministers God made use of; for though the tables are said to be the work of God, and the writing the writing of God, and to be written with the finger of God, and he is said to speak all the words of it, yet this hinders not, but that all this might be done by the means of angels; who might be employed in disposing and fitting the stones in the form they were, and in writing the law upon them; hence it is said to be given by the disposition of angels, Act 7:53 and certain it is, that it was spoken by them, Heb 2:2 they forming in the air those articulate and audible sounds, when the law was delivered; who were also concerned in the thunderings and lightnings, and in the blowing of the trumpet, that waxed louder and louder at that time:

in the hand of a mediator; not Christ, as many interpreters, ancient and modern, have thought; for though he was present at the giving of the law, as appears from Act 7:38 and is the Mediator between God and man, and had the law in his hand, out of which it went forth as the lawgiver; and as the surety of his people has fulfilled it, and by so doing put an end to it, and delivered them from the curse and condemnation of it; yet he is the Mediator of the new and better covenant, not the ministration of death, but of life; and so Moses and Christ, the law and Gospel, the old and the new covenant, are continually opposed to each other; besides, the mediator here seems to be represented as inferior to the angels, and as receiving the law into his hands from them, by whom it was ordained; which to conceive of Christ, is very much to the demeaning and lessening of him. Moses is the mediator here meant, who stood between God and the people of Israel; not to make peace between them, but to show the word of God from him to them, and this at their own request; see Deu 5:5, and in his hand the tables of the law were, when he came down from the mount, and was a typical mediator of Christ. So the Jews say of him, that

"he was אמצעי, "a mediator" between them and God ^m.''

Gill: Gal 3:20

Now a mediator is not a mediator of one,.... A mediator supposes two parties he stands between, and these at a distance from, or disagreeing with each other; where there is but one party, there can be no need of, nor any reason for, a mediator; so Christ is the Mediator between God and men, the daysman, Job 9:33, that lays his hands upon them both; and Moses, he was the mediator between God and the Israelites:

but God is one; not in person, for there are three persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one, in nature and essence; so that though there are three persons, there is but one God, and who is the God both of Jews and Gentiles; who is of one mind concerning them, and has taken them into one and the same covenant, and makes use of one and the same method in the justification of them: but the true sense of the phrase here is, that whereas a mediator supposes two parties at variance, "God is one of the two"; as the Ethiopic version reads the words; he is a party offended, that stands off, and at a distance, which the law given by angels in the hand of a mediator shows; so that that is rather a sign of disagreement and alienation, and consequently that justification is not to be expected by it.

Gill: Gal 3:21

Is the law then against the promises of God?.... If the law was added because of transgressions, and curses for them, and if the inheritance is not of it, but by promise, were it, it would not be by promise, then, says an objector, it is against the promises: these are contrary to one another, and God, in giving the one and the other, must contradict himself: to which it is replied,

God forbid; a way of speaking the apostle uses, when he would express his abhorrence and detestation of anything, as here; for though the law and promises are distinct things, and have their separate uses, yet they are not contradictory to each other; the law has its use, and so have the promises; the promises do not set aside the law as useless on all accounts, nor does the law disannul the promises, but is subservient to them:

for if there had been a law which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law; but the law cannot give life, spiritual life to a dead sinner; God only can do this, Father, Son, and Spirit; so far is the law from giving it efficiently, that it is not so much as the means of it; it is not made use of this way; God makes use of the law to kill, but not to make alive; he makes use of the law to strike dead all a man's hopes of happiness, by the deeds of it; but it is the Gospel he uses to quicken and comfort; that is the Spirit that giveth life. The law requires as much of a dead sinner, as it did of Adam in innocence, but gives him no life, activity, and strength to perform; could it quicken him, and enable him to do all its demands perfectly, then there would be righteousness, and so justification by it, as by the promise; whence it appears that there is no contrariety in the law to the promises: the reason why there is no righteousness is, because it cannot give life, spiritual life and strength; and if so, then not eternal life; which is the free gift of God, and not the merit of men's works: this is directly contrary to a notion of the Jews, who cry up the law as a life giving law; say they ⁿ,

"great is the law, שהיא נותנת חיים לעושיה, "for it giveth life to them that do it", in this world, and in the world to come:''

and elsewhere ^o,

"the law is a tree of life to all that study in it,

למיהב לון חיי, "to give unto them life" in this world, and "to give unto them life" in the world to come.''

Gill: Gal 3:22

But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin,.... By the "Scripture" is meant, either the writing of the law in particular, the killing letter, or the whole Scripture, or God in it; and who by and in it has shown, declared, and proved, that all the individuals of human nature, Jews and Gentiles, and all that is in them, and done by them, are under the power and dominion of sin, defiled by it, and involved in the guilt of it; for it is not πΑντΑν, "all persons", but πΑντΑ, "all things", belonging to all persons; all the members of their bodies, and faculties of their souls; all their thoughts, inclinations, and intentions; all their works and services, even their best righteousness, which is as filthy rags; all are declared to be sinful and polluted, and men on account of them to be guilty before God, and liable to punishment; from whence there can be no escape by the law of works; for they are like men concluded, or shut up in a prison, from which there is no apparent likelihood of deliverance: now the Spirit of God, discovering to men this their wretched and desperate condition, under the law and sin, reveals Christ and his righteousness to them, and enables and encourages them to believe in him, by whom only they can be justified from all things, they cannot by the law of Moses, in which they see themselves shut up, as in a prison:

that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe; by the "promise" is intended, the promise of life and salvation, and particularly of a justifying righteousness; which is given, not merited; righteousness is a gift, a gift of grace, a free gift, and so is eternal life; salvation in all its parts is of free grace; Christ is a free gift, and so are all things along with him; yea, faith itself, by which they are received, it is not of ourselves, it is the gift of God; Christ is the author and finisher, as well as the object of it; and therefore here called "the faith of Jesus Christ": and such that have it, to them the promise, or the things promised, righteousness and life are given, which the law could not give; not to them that work, but to them that believe: thus the law is so far from being against the promises of God, that it is subservient to them; for though the law has no tendency in itself to bring persons to Christ, and to believe in him for righteousness, yet this concluding men under sin, showing them their desperate, and hopeless, and helpless condition, the Spirit of God takes occasion from hence to reveal Christ unto them, and to enable them as perishing creatures to venture on him, and lay hold on the hope set before them in the Gospel; and so they come to enjoy the grand promise of it, even life and salvation by Christ.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Gal 3:15

¹ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:11.

² tn Grk “I speak according to man,” referring to the illustration that follows.

³ tn The same Greek word, διαθήκη (diaqhkh), can mean either “covenant” or “will,” but in this context the former is preferred here because Paul is discussing in vv. 16-18 the Abrahamic covenant.

⁴ tn Or “has been put into effect.”

NET Notes: Gal 3:16

¹ tn Grk “his seed,” a figurative extension of the meaning of σπέρμα (sperma) to refer to descendants (L&N 10.29).

² tn Grk “It”; the referent (the scripture) has been specified in the translation for clarity. The understood subject of the verb λέγει (legei) could also be “He” (referring to God) as the one who spoke the promise to Abraham.

³ tn Grk “to seeds.” See the note on “descendant” earlier in this verse. Here the term is plural; the use of the singular in the OT text cited later in this verse is crucial to Paul’s argument.

⁴ tn See the note on “descendant” earlier in this verse.

sn A quotation from Gen 12:7; 13:15; 17:7; 24:7.

NET Notes: Gal 3:17

¹ tc Most mss (D F G I 0176 0278 Ï it sy) read “ratified by God in Christ” whereas the omission of “in Christ” is the reading in Ì⁴⁶ א A B C P Ψ 6 33 81 1175 1739 1881 2464 pc co. The shorter reading is strongly supported by the ms evidence, and it is probable that a copyist inserted the words as an interpretive gloss. However, this form of the “in Christ” expression is somewhat atypical in the corpus Paulinum (εἰς Χριστόν [ei" Criston] rather than ἐν Χριστῷ [en Cristw]), a fact which tempers one’s certainty about the shorter reading. Nevertheless, the expression is used more in Galatians than in any other of Paul’s letters (Gal 2:16; 3:24, 27), and may have been suggested by such texts to early copyists.

NET Notes: Gal 3:18

¹ tn On the translation “graciously gave” for χαρίζομαι (carizomai) see L&N 57.102.

NET Notes: Gal 3:19

¹ tn Grk “Why then the law?”

² tc For προσετέθη (proseteqh) several Western mss have ἐτέθη (eteqh, “it was established”; so D* F G it Ir^lat Ambst Spec). The net effect of this reading, in conjunction with the largely Western reading of πράξεων (praxewn) for παραβάσεων (parabasewn), seems to be a very positive assessment of the law. But there are compelling reasons for rejecting this reading: (1) externally, it is provincial and relatively late; (2) internally: (a) transcriptionally, there seems to be a much higher transcriptional probability that a scribe would try to smooth over Paul’s harsh saying here about the law than vice versa; (b) intrinsically: [1] Paul has already argued that the law came after the promise (vv. 15-18), indicating, more than likely, its temporary nature; [2] the verb “was added” in v. 19 (προσετέθη) is different from the verb in v. 15 (ἐπιδιατάσσεται, epidiatassetai); virtually all exegetes recognize this as an intentional linguistic shift on Paul’s part in order not to contradict his statement in v. 15; [3] the temper of 3:1–4:7 is decidedly against a positive statement about the Torah’s role in Heilsgeschichte.

³ tc παραδόσεων (paradosewn; “traditions, commandments”) is read by D*, while the vast majority of witnesses read παραβάσεων (parabasewn, “transgressions”). D’s reading makes little sense in this context. πράξεων (praxewn, “of deeds”) replaces παραβάσεων in Ì⁴⁶ F G it Ir^lat Ambst Spec. The wording is best taken as going with νόμος (nomo"; “Why then the law of deeds?”), as is evident by the consistent punctuation in the later witnesses. But such an expression is unpauline and superfluous; it was almost certainly added by some early scribe(s) to soften the blow of Paul’s statement.

⁴ tn Grk “the seed.” See the note on the first occurrence of the word “descendant” in 3:16.

⁵ tn Or “was ordered.” L&N 31.22 has “was put into effect” here.

⁶ tn Many modern translations (NASB, NIV, NRSV) render this word (μεσίτης, mesith"; here and in v. 20) as “mediator,” but this conveys a wrong impression in contemporary English. If this is referring to Moses, he certainly did not “mediate” between God and Israel but was an intermediary on God’s behalf. Moses was not a mediator, for example, who worked for compromise between opposing parties. He instead was God’s representative to his people who enabled them to have a relationship, but entirely on God’s terms.

NET Notes: Gal 3:20

¹ tn The meaning of this verse is disputed. According to BDAG 634 s.v. μεσίτης, “It prob. means that the activity of an intermediary implies the existence of more than one party, and hence may be unsatisfactory because it must result in a compromise. The presence of an intermediary would prevent attainment, without any impediment, of the purpose of the εἶς θεός in giving the law.” See also A. Oepke, TDNT 4:598-624, esp. 618-19.

NET Notes: Gal 3:21

¹ tc The reading τοῦ θεοῦ (tou qeou, “of God”) is well attested in א A C D (F G read θεοῦ without the article) Ψ 0278 33 1739 1881 Ï lat sy co. However, Ì⁴⁶ B d Ambst lack the words. Ì⁴⁶ and B perhaps should not to be given as much weight as they normally are, since the combination of these two witnesses often produces a secondary shorter reading against all others. In addition, one might expect that if the shorter reading were original other variants would have crept into the textual tradition early on. But 104 (a.d. 1087) virtually stands alone with the variant τοῦ Χριστοῦ (tou Cristou, “of Christ”). Nevertheless, if τοῦ θεοῦ were not part of the original text, it is the kind of variant that would be expected to show up early and often, especially in light of Paul’s usage elsewhere (Rom 4:20; 2 Cor 1:20). A slight preference should be given to the τοῦ θεοῦ over the omission. NA²⁷ rightly places the words in brackets, indicating doubts as to their authenticity.

² tn Or “have been based on the law.”

NET Notes: Gal 3:22

¹ tn Or “locked up.”

² tn Grk “imprisoned all things” but τὰ πάντα (ta panta) includes people as part of the created order. Because people are the emphasis of Paul’s argument ( “given to those who believe” at the end of this verse.), “everything and everyone” was used here.

³ tn Or “so that the promise could be given by faith in Jesus Christ to those who believe.” A decision is difficult here. Though traditionally translated “faith in Jesus Christ,” an increasing number of NT scholars are arguing that πίστις Χριστοῦ (pisti" Cristou) and similar phrases in Paul (here and in Rom 3:22, 26; Gal 2:16, 20; Eph 3:12; Phil 3:9) involve a subjective genitive and mean “Christ’s faith” or “Christ’s faithfulness” (cf., e.g., G. Howard, “The ‘Faith of Christ’,” ExpTim 85 [1974]: 212-15; R. B. Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ [SBLDS]; Morna D. Hooker, “Πίστις Χριστοῦ,” NTS 35 [1989]: 321-42). Noteworthy among the arguments for the subjective genitive view is that when πίστις takes a personal genitive it is almost never an objective genitive (cf. Matt 9:2, 22, 29; Mark 2:5; 5:34; 10:52; Luke 5:20; 7:50; 8:25, 48; 17:19; 18:42; 22:32; Rom 1:8; 12; 3:3; 4:5, 12, 16; 1 Cor 2:5; 15:14, 17; 2 Cor 10:15; Phil 2:17; Col 1:4; 2:5; 1 Thess 1:8; 3:2, 5, 10; 2 Thess 1:3; Titus 1:1; Phlm 6; 1 Pet 1:9, 21; 2 Pet 1:5). On the other hand, the objective genitive view has its adherents: A. Hultgren, “The Pistis Christou Formulations in Paul,” NovT 22 (1980): 248-63; J. D. G. Dunn, “Once More, ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ,” SBL Seminar Papers, 1991, 730-44. Most commentaries on Romans and Galatians usually side with the objective view.

sn On the phrase because of the faithfulness of Jesus Christ, ExSyn 116, which notes that the grammar is not decisive, nevertheless suggests that “the faith/faithfulness of Christ is not a denial of faith in Christ as a Pauline concept (for the idea is expressed in many of the same contexts, only with the verb πιστεύω rather than the noun), but implies that the object of faith is a worthy object, for he himself is faithful.” Though Paul elsewhere teaches justification by faith, this presupposes that the object of our faith is reliable and worthy of such faith.

Geneva Bible: Gal 3:15

^{( 17 )} Brethren, I speak ^{( i )} after the manner of men; Though [it be] but a man's covenant, yet [if it be] ^{( k )} confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto.

^{( 17 )} He puts forth two general rules before the next argument, which is the seventh in order. The first is, that it is not lawful to break covenants and contracts which are justly made, and are according to law among men, neither may anything be added to them. The other is, that God did so make a covenant with Abraham, that he would gather together his children who consist both of Jews and Gentiles into one body (as appears by that which has been said before). For he did not say, that he would be the God of Abraham and of his "seeds" (which thing nonetheless should have been said, if he had many and various seeds, such as the Gentiles on the one hand, and the Jews on the other) but that he would be the God of Abraham, and of his "seed", as of one.

^{( i )} I will use an example which is common among you, that you may be ashamed that you do not give as much to God's covenant as you do to man's.

^{( k )} Authenticated, as we say.

Geneva Bible: Gal 3:16

Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, ^{( 18 )} which is ^{( l )} Christ.

^{( 18 )} He puts forth the sum of the seventh argument, that is, that both the Jews and the Gentiles grow together in one body of the seed of Abraham, in Christ alone, so that all are one in Christ, as it is afterward declared in (Gal 3:28).

^{( l )} Paul does not speak of Christ's person, but of two peoples, who grew together in one, in Christ.

Geneva Bible: Gal 3:17

^{( 19 )} And this I say, [that] the covenant, that was confirmed before of God ^{( m )} in Christ, the ^{( 20 )} law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.

^{( 19 )} The eighth argument take by comparison, in this way: if a man's covenant (being authenticated) is firm and strong, much more is God's covenant. Therefore the Law was not given to cancel the promise made to Abraham with respect of Christ, that is to say, the end of which depended upon Christ.

^{( m )} Which pertained to Christ.

^{( 20 )} An enlarging of that argument in this way: moreover and besides that the promise is of itself firm and strong, it was also confirmed by virtue of being in place for a long time, that is, for 430 years, so that it could in no way be broken.

Geneva Bible: Gal 3:18

^{( 21 )} For if the ^{( n )} inheritance [be] of the law, [it is] no more of promise: but God gave [it] to Abraham by promise.

^{( 21 )} An objection: we grant that the promise was not cancelled by the covenant of the Law, and therefore we join the Law with the promise. No, the apostle says, these two cannot stand together, that is, that the inheritance should both be given by the Law and also by promise, for the promise is free. And from this it follows that the Law was not given to justify, for by that means the promise would be broken.

^{( n )} By this word "inheritance" is meant the right of the seed, which is, that God should be our God, that is to say, that by virtue of the covenant that was made with faithful Abraham, we that are faithful might by that means be blessed by God as well as Abraham.

Geneva Bible: Gal 3:19

^{( 22 )} Wherefore then [serveth] the law? It was added because of ^{( o )} transgressions, ^{( p )} till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; ^{( 23 )} [and it was] ^{( q )} ordained by ^{( r )} angels in the hand of a mediator.

^{( 22 )} An objection which rises from the former answer: if the inheritance is not by the Law (in the least way) then why was the Law given after the promise was made? In order, the apostle says, to reprove men of sin, and so to teach them to look to Christ, in whom at length that promise of saving all people together should be fulfilled; the Law was not given in order to justify men.

^{( o )} That men might understand by discovering their sins that they are only saved by the grace of God, which he revealed to Abraham, and that in Christ.

^{( p )} Until the partition wall was broken down, and that full seed sprang up, made of two peoples, both of Jews and Gentiles. For by this word "seed" we may not understand Christ alone by himself, but coupled and joined together with his body.

^{( 23 )} A confirmation of the former answer taken from the manner and form of giving the Law: for it was given by angels, striking a great terror into all, and by Moses a mediator coming between. Now they that are one need no mediator, but they that are in any way separated, and that are at variance one with another, do. Therefore the Law itself and the mediator were witnesses of the wrath of God, and not that God would by this means reconcile men to himself and abolish the promise, or add the Law to the promise.

^{( q )} Commanded and given, or proclaimed.

^{( r )} By the service and ministry.

Geneva Bible: Gal 3:20

Now a mediator is not [a mediator] of one, ^{( 24 )} but God is one.

^{( 24 )} A taking away of an objection, lest any man might say that sometimes by consent of the parties which have made a covenant, something is added to the covenant, or the former covenants are broken. This, the apostle says, does not come to pass in God, who is always one, and the very same, and like himself.

Geneva Bible: Gal 3:21

^{( 25 )} [Is] the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.

^{( 25 )} The conclusion uttered by a manner of asking a question, and it is the same that was uttered before in (Gal 3:17), but proceeding from another principle, so that the argument is new, and is this: God is always like himself: therefore the Law was not given to abolish the promises. But it would abolish them if it gave life, for by that means it would justify, and therefore it would abolish that justification which was promised to Abraham and to his seed by faith. No, it was rather given to bring to light the guiltiness of all men, to the end that all believers fleeing to Christ, might be freely justified in him.

Geneva Bible: Gal 3:22

But the ^{( s )} scripture hath concluded ^{( t )} all under sin, that the ^{( u )} promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.

^{( s )} By this word "scripture" he means the Law.

^{( t )} All mankind, and whatever comes from mankind.

^{( u )} In every one of these words, there lies an argument against the merits of works: for all these words, promise, faith, Christ, might be given, to believers, are against meritorious works, and not one of them can be included as a meritorious work.

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Gal 3:1-29

1 He asks what moved them to leave the faith, and hang upon the law.

6 They that believe are justified,

9 and blessed with Abraham.

10 And this he shows by many reasons.

Combined Bible: Gal 3:15

color="#000000"> 15. Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; Though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto.  

  

After the preceding, well-taken argument, Paul offers another based on the similarity between a man's testament and God's testament. A man's testament seems too weak a premise for the Apostle to argue from in confirmation of so important a matter as justification. We ought to prove earthly things by heavenly things, and not heavenly things by earthly things. But where the earthly thing is an ordinance of God we may use it to prove divine matters. In Mat 7:11 Christ Himself argued from earthly to heavenly things when He said: "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children; how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?"  

  

To come to Paul's argument. Civil law, which is God's ordinance, prohibits tampering with any testament of man. Any person's last will and testament must be respected. Paul asks: "Why is it that man's last will is scrupulously respected and not God's testament? You would not think of breaking faith with a man's testament. Why do you not keep faith with God's testament?"  

  

The Apostle says that he is speaking after the manner of men. He means to say: "I will give you an illustration from the customs of men. If a man's last will is respected. and it is, how much more ought the testament of God be honored: 'In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.' When Christ died, this testament was sealed by His blood. After His death the testament was opened, it was published to the nations. No man ought to alter God's testament as the false apostles do who substitute the Law and traditions of men for the testament of God."  

  

As the false prophets tampered with God's testament in the days of Paul, so many do in our day. They will observe human laws punctiliously, but the laws of God they transgress without the flicker of an eyelid. But the time will come when they will find out that it is no joke to pervert the testament of God.  

  

Combined Bible: Gal 3:16

color="#000000"> 16. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.  

  

The word testament is another name for the promise that God made unto Abraham concerning Christ. A testament is not a law, but an inheritance. Heirs do not look for laws and assessments when they open a last will; they look for grants and favors. The testament which God made out to Abraham did not contain laws. It contained promises of great spiritual blessings.  

  

The promises were made in view of Christ, in one seed, not in many seeds. The Jews will not accept this interpretation. They insist that the singular "seed" is put for the plural "seeds." We prefer the interpretation of Paul, who makes a fine case for Christ and for us out of the singular "seed," and is after all inspired to do so by the Holy Ghost.  

  

Combined Bible: Gal 3:17

color="#000000"> 17. And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.  

  

The Jews assert that God was not satisfied with His promises, but after four hundred and thirty years He gave the Law. "God," they say, "must have mistrusted His own promises, and considered them inadequate for salvation. Therefore He added to His promises something better, the Law. The Law," they say, "canceled the promises."  

  

Paul answers: "The Law was given four hundred and thirty years after the promise was made to Abraham. The Law could not cancel the promise because the promise was the testament of God, confirmed by God in Christ many years before the Law. What God has once promised He does not take back. Every promise of God is a ratified promise."  

  

Why was the Law added to the promise? Not to serve as a medium by which the promise might be obtained. The Law was added for these reasons: That there might be in the world a special people, rigidly controlled by the Law, a people out of which Christ should be born in due time; and that men burdened by many laws might sigh and long for Him, their Redeemer, the seed of Abraham. Even the ceremonies prescribed by the Law foreshadowed Christ. Therefore the Law was never meant to cancel the promise of God. The Law was meant to confirm the promise until the time should come when God would open His testament in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  

  

God did well in giving the promise so many years before the Law, that it may never be said that righteousness is granted through the Law and not through the promise. If God had meant for us to be justified by the Law, He would have given the Law four hundred and thirty years before the promise, at least He would have given the Law at the same time He gave the promise. But He never breathed a word about the Law until four hundred years after. The promise is therefore better than the Law. The Law does not cancel the promise, but faith in the promised Christ cancels the Law.  

  

The Apostle is careful to mention the exact number of four hundred and thirty years. The wide divergence in the time between the promise and the Law helps to clinch Paul's argument that righteousness is not obtained by the Law.  

  

Let me illustrate. A man of great wealth adopts a strange lad for his son. Remember, he does not owe the lad anything. In due time he appoints the lad heir to his entire fortune. Several years later the old man asks the lad to do something for him. And the young lad does it. Can the lad then go around and say that he deserved the inheritance by his obedience to the old man's request ? How can anybody say that righteousness is obtained by obedience to the Law when the Law was given four hundred and thirty years after God's promise of the blessing?  

  

One thing is certain, Abraham was never justified by the Law, for the simple reason that the Law was not in his day. If the Law was non-existent how could Abraham obtain righteousness by the Law? Abraham had nothing else to go by but the promise. This promise he believed and that was counted unto him for righteousness. If the father obtained righteousness through faith, the children get it the same way.  

  

We use the argument of time also. We say our sins were taken away by the death of Christ fifteen hundred years ago, long before there were any religious orders, canons, or rules of penance, merits, etc. What did people do about their sins before these new inventions were hatched up?  

  

Paul finds his arguments for the righteousness of faith everywhere. Even the element of time serves to build his case against the false apostles. Let us fortify our conscience with similar arguments. They help us in the trials of our faith. They turn our attention from the Law to the promises, from sin to righteousness; from death to life.  

  

It is not for nothing that Paul bears down on this argument. He foresaw this confusion of the promise and the Law creeping into the Church. Accustom yourself to separate Law and Gospel even in regard to time. When the Law comes to pay your conscience a visit, say: "Mister Law, you come too soon. The four hundred and thirty years aren't up yet. When they are up, you come again. Won't you ?"  

  

Combined Bible: Gal 3:18

color="#000000"> 18. For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise.  

  

In Rom 4:14 , the Apostle writes: "For if they which are made of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect." It cannot be otherwise. That the Law is something entirely different from the promise is plain. The Law thunders: "Thou shalt, thou shalt not." The promise of the "seed" pleads: "Take this gift of God." If the inheritance of the gifts of God were obtained by the Law, God would be a liar. We would have the right to ask Him: "Why did you make this promise in the first place: 'In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed'? Why did you not say: 'In thy works thou shalt be blessed'?"  

  

VERSE 18. But God gave it to Abraham by promise.  

  

So much is certain, before the Law ever existed, God gave Abraham the inheritance or blessing by the promise. In other words, God granted unto Abraham remission of sins, righteousness, salvation, and everlasting life. And not only to Abraham but to all believers, because God said: "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." The blessing was given unconditionally. The Law had no chance to butt in because Moses was not yet born. "How then can you say that righteousness is obtained by the Law?"  

  

The Apostle now goes to work to explain the province and purpose of the Law.  

  

Combined Bible: Gal 3:19

color="#000000"> 19. Wherefore then serveth the law?  

  

The question naturally arises: If the Law was not given for righteousness or salvation, why was it given? Why did God give the Law in the first place if it cannot justify a person?  

  

The Jews believed if they kept the Law they would be saved. When they heard that the Gospel proclaimed a Christ who had come into the world to save sinners and not the righteous; when they heard that sinners were to enter the kingdom of heaven before the righteous, the Jews were very much put out. They murmured: "These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day." ( Mat 20:12 .) They complained that the heathen who at one time had been worshipers of idols obtained grace without the drudgery of the Law that was theirs.  

  

Today we hear the same complaints. "What was the use of our having lived in a cloister, twenty, thirty, forty years; what was the sense of having vowed chastity, poverty, obedience; what good are all the masses and canonical hours that we read; what profit is there in fasting, praying, etc., if any man or woman, any beggar or scour woman is to be made equal to us, or even be considered more acceptable unto God than we?"  

  

Reason takes offense at the statement of Paul: "The law was added because of transgressions." People say that Paul abrogated the Law, that he is a radical, that he blasphemed God when he said that. People say: "We might as well live like wild people if the Law does not count. Let us abound in sin that grace may abound. Let us do evil that good may come of it."  

  

What are we to do? Such scoffing distresses us, but we cannot stop it. Christ Himself was accused of being a blasphemer and rebel. Paul and all the other apostles were told the same things. Let the scoffers slander us, let them spare us not. But we must not on their account keep silent. We must speak frankly in order that afflicted consciences may find surcease. Neither are we to pay any attention to the foolish and ungodly people for abusing our doctrine. They are the kind that would scoff, Law or no Law. Our first consideration must be the comfort of troubled consciences, that they may not perish with the multitudes.  

  

When he saw that some were offended at his doctrine, while others found in it encouragement to live after the flesh, Paul comforted himself with the thought that it was his duty to preach the Gospel to the elect of God, and that for their sake he must endure all things. Like Paul we also do all these things for the sake of God's elect. As for the scoffers and skeptics, I am so disgusted with them that in all my life I would not open my mouth for them once. I wish that they were back there where they belong under the iron heel of the Pope.  

  

People foolish but wise in their conceits jump to the conclusion: If the Law does not justify, it is good for nothing. How about that? Because money does not justify, would you say that money is good for nothing? Because the eyes do not justify, would you have them taken out? Because the Law does not justify it does not follow that the Law is without value. We must find and define the proper purpose of the Law. We do not offhand condemn the Law because we say it does not justify.  

  

We say with Paul that the Law is good if it is used properly. Within its proper sphere the Law is an excellent thing. But if we ascribe to the Law functions for which it was never intended, we pervert not only the Law but also the Gospel.  

  

It is the universal impression that righteousness is obtained through the deeds of the Law. This impression is instinctive and therefore doubly dangerous. Gross sins and vices may be recognized or else repressed by the threat of punishment. But this sin, this opinion of man's own righteousness refuses to be classified as sin. It wants to be esteemed as high-class religion. Hence, it constitutes the mighty influence of the devil over the entire world. In order to point out the true office of the Law, and thus to stamp out that false impression of the righteousness of the Law, Paul answers the question: "Wherefore then serveth the Law?" with the words:  

  

VERSE 19. It was added because of transgressions.  

  

All things differ. Let everything serve its unique purpose. Let the sun shine by day, the moon and the stars by night. Let the sea furnish fish, the earth grain, the woods trees, etc. Let the Law also serve its unique purpose. It must not step out of character and take the place of anything else. What is the function of the Law? "Transgression," answers the Apostle.  

  

The Twofold Purpose of the Law  

  

The Law has a twofold purpose. One purpose is civil. God has ordained civil laws to punish crime. Every law is given to restrain sin. Does it not then make men righteous? No. In refraining from murder, adultery, theft, or other sins, I do so under compulsion because I fear the jail, the noose, the electric chair. These restrain me as iron bars restrain a lion and a bear. Otherwise they would tear everything to pieces. Such forceful restraint cannot be regarded as righteousness, rather as an indication of unrighteousness. As a wild beast is tied to keep it from running amuck, so the Law bridles mad and furious man to keep him from running wild. The need for restraint shows plainly enough that those who need the Law are not righteous, but wicked men who are fit to be tied. No, the Law does not justify.  

  

The first purpose of the Law, accordingly, is to restrain the wicked. The devil gets people into all kinds of scrapes. Therefore God instituted governments, parents, laws, restrictions, and civil ordinances. At least they help to tie the devil's hands so that he does not rage up and down the earth. This civil restraint by the Law is intended by God for the preservation of all things, particularly for the good of the Gospel that it should not be hindered too much by the tumult of the wicked. But Paul is not now treating of this civil use and function of the Law.  

  

The second purpose of the Law is spiritual and divine. Paul describes this spiritual purpose of the Law in the words, "Because of transgressions," i.e., to reveal to a person his sin, blindness, misery, his ignorance, hatred, and contempt of God, his death, hell, and condemnation.  

  

This is the principal purpose of the Law and its most valuable contribution. As long as a person is not a murderer, adulterer, thief, he would swear that he is righteous. How is God going to humble such a person except by the Law? The Law is the hammer of death, the thunder of hell, and the lightning of God's wrath to bring down the proud and shameless hypocrites. When the Law was instituted on Mount Sinai it was accompanied by lightning, by storms, by the sound of trumpets, to tear to pieces that monster called self-righteousness. As long as a person thinks he is right he is going to be incomprehensibly proud and presumptuous. He is going to hate God, despise His grace and mercy, and ignore the promises in Christ. The Gospel of the free forgiveness of sins through Christ will never appeal to the self-righteous.  

  

This monster of self-righteousness, this stiff-necked beast, needs a big axe. And that is what the Law is, a big axe. Accordingly, the proper use and function of the Law is to threaten until the conscience is scared stiff.  

  

The awful spectacle at Mount Sinai portrayed the proper use of the Law. When the children of Israel came out of Egypt a feeling of singular holiness possessed them. They boasted: "We are the people of God. All that the Lord hath spoken we will do." ( Exo 19:8 ) This feeling of holiness was heightened when Moses ordered them to wash their clothes, to refrain from their wives, and to prepare themselves all around. The third day came and Moses led the people out of their tents to the foot of the mountain into the presence of the Lord. What happened? When the children of Israel saw the whole mountain burning and smoking, the black clouds rent by fierce lightning flashing up and down in the inky darkness, when they heard the sound of the trumpet blowing louder and longer, shattered by the roll of thunder, they were so frightened that they begged Moses: "Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die." ( Exo 20:19 .) I ask you, what good did their scrubbing, their snow-white clothes, and their continence do them? No good at all. Not a single one could stand in the presence of the glorious Lord. Stricken by the terror of God, they fled back into their tents, as if the devil were after them.  

  

The Law is meant to produce the same effect today which it produced at Mount Sinai long ago. I want to encourage all who fear God, especially those who intend to become ministers of the Gospel, to learn from the Apostle the proper use of the Law. I fear that after our time the right handling of the Law will become a lost art. Even now, although we continually explain the separate functions of the Law and the Gospel, we have those among us who do not understand how the Law should be used. What will it be like when we are dead and gone?  

  

We want it understood that we do not reject the Law as our opponents claim. On the contrary, we uphold the Law. We say the Law is good if it is used for the purposes for which it was designed, to check civil transgression, and to magnify spiritual transgressions. The Law is also a light like the Gospel. But instead of revealing the grace of God, righteousness, and life, the Law brings sin, death, and the wrath of God to light. This is the business of the Law, and here the business of the Law ends, and should go no further.  

  

The business of the Gospel, on the other hand, is to quicken, to comfort, to raise the fallen. The Gospel carries the news that God for Christ's sake is merciful to the most unworthy sinners, if they will only believe that Christ by His death has delivered them from sin and everlasting death unto grace, forgiveness, and everlasting life. By keeping in mind the difference between the Law and the Gospel we let each perform its special task. Of this difference between the Law and the Gospel nothing can be discovered in the writings of the monks or scholastics, nor for that matter in the writings of the ancient fathers. Augustine understood the difference somewhat. Jerome and others knew nothing of it. The silence in the Church concerning the difference between the Law and the Gospel has resulted in untold harm. Unless a sharp distinction is maintained between the purpose and function of the Law and the Gospel, the Christian doctrine cannot be kept free from error.  

  

VERSE 19. It was added because of transgressions.  

  

In other words, that transgressions might be recognized as such and thus increased. When sin, death, and the wrath of God are revealed to a person by the Law, he grows impatient, complains against God, and rebels. Before that he was a very holy man; he worshipped and praised God; he bowed his knees before God and gave thanks, like the Pharisee. But now that sin and death are revealed to him by the Law he wishes there were no God. The Law inspires hatred of God. Thus sin is not only revealed by the Law; sin is actually increased and magnified by the Law.  

  

The Law is a mirror to show a person what he is like, a sinner who is guilty of death, and worthy of everlasting punishment. What is this bruising and beating by the hand of the Law to accomplish? This, that we may find the way to grace. The Law is an usher to lead the way to grace. God is the God of the humble, the miserable, the afflicted. It is His nature to exalt the humble, to comfort the sorrowing, to heal the broken-hearted, to justify the sinners, and to save the condemned. The fatuous idea that a person can be holy by himself denies God the pleasure of saving sinners. God must therefore first take the sledge-hammer of the Law in His fists and smash the beast of self-righteousness and its brood of self-confidence, self-wisdom, self-righteousness, and self-help. When the conscience has been thoroughly frightened by the Law it welcomes the Gospel of grace with its message of a Savior who came into the world, not to break the bruised reed, nor to quench the smoking flax, but to preach glad tidings to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, and to grant forgiveness of sins to all the captives.  

  

Man's folly, however, is so prodigious that instead of embracing the message of grace with its guarantee of the forgiveness of sin for Christ's sake, man finds himself more laws to satisfy his conscience. "If I live," says he, "I will mend my life. I will do this, I will do that." Man, if you don't do the very opposite, if you don't send Moses with the Law back to Mount Sinai and take the hand of Christ, pierced for your sins, you will never be saved.  

  

When the Law drives you to the point of despair, let it drive you a little farther, let it drive you straight into the arms of Jesus who says: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."  

  

VERSE 19. Till the seed should come to whom the promise was made.  

  

The Law is not to have its say indefinitely. We must know how long the Law is to put in its licks. If it hammers away too long, no person would and could be saved. The Law has a boundary beyond which it must not go. How long ought the Law to hold sway? "Till the seed should come to whom the promise was made."  

  

That may be taken literally to mean until the time of the Gospel. "From the days of John the Baptist," says Jesus, "until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John." ( Mat 11:12-13 .) When Christ came the Law and the ceremonies of Moses ceased.  

  

Spiritually, it means that the Law is not to operate on a person after he has been humbled and frightened by the exposure of his sins and the wrath of God. We must then say to the Law: "Mister Law, lay off him. He has had enough. You scared him good and proper." Now it is the Gospel's turn. Now let Christ with His gracious lips talk to him of better things, grace, peace, forgiveness of sins, and eternal life.  

  

VERSE 19. And it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.  

  

The Apostle digresses a little from his immediate theme. Something occurred to him and he throws it in by the way. It occurred to him that the Law differs from the Gospel in another respect, in respect to authorship. The Law was delivered by the angels, but the Gospel by the Lord Himself. Hence, the Gospel is superior to the Law, as the word of a lord is superior to the word of his servant.  

  

The Law was handed down by a being even inferior to the angels, by a middleman named Moses. Paul wants us to understand that Christ is the mediator of a better testament than mediator Moses of the Law. Moses led the people out of their tents to meet God. But they ran away. That is how good a mediator Moses was.  

  

Paul says: "How can the Law justify when that whole sanctified people of Israel and even mediator Moses trembled at the voice of God? What kind of righteousness do you call that when people run away from it and hate it the worst way? If the Law could justify, people would love the Law. But look at the children of Israel running away from it."  

  

The flight of the children of Israel from Mount Sinai indicates how people feel about the Law. They don't like it. If this were the only argument to prove that salvation is not by the Law, this one Bible history would do the work. What kind of righteousness is this law-righteousness when at the commencement exercises of the Law Moses and the scrubbed people run away from it so fast that an iron mountain, the Red Sea even, could not have stopped them until they were back in Egypt once again? If they could not hear the Law, how could they ever hope to perform the Law?  

  

If all the world had stood at the mountain, all the world would have hated the Law and fled from it as the children of Israel did. The whole world is an enemy of the Law. How, then, can anyone be justified by the Law when everybody hates the Law and its divine author?  

  

All this goes to show how little the scholastics know about the Law. They do not consider its spiritual effect and purpose, which is not to justify or to pacify afflicted consciences, but to increase sin, to terrify the conscience, and to produce wrath. In their ignorance the papists spout about man's good will and right judgment, and man's capacity to perform the Law of God. Ask the people of Israel who were present at the presentation of the Law on Mount Sinai whether what the scholastics say is true. Ask David, who often complains in the Psalms that he was cast away from God and in hell, that he was frantic about his sin, and sick at the thought of the wrath and judgment of God. No, the Law does not justify.  

  

Combined Bible: Gal 3:20

color="#000000"> 20. Now a mediator is not a mediator of one.  

  

Here the Apostle briefly compares the two mediators: Moses and Christ. "A mediator," says Paul, "is not a mediator of one." He is necessarily a mediator of two: The offender and the offended. Moses was such a mediator between the Law and the people who were offended at the Law. They were offended at the Law because they did not understand its purpose. That was the veil which Moses put over his face. The people were also offended at the Law because they could not look at the bare face of Moses. It shone with the glory of God. When Moses addressed the people he had to cover his face with that veil of his. They could not listen to their mediator Moses without another mediator, the veil. The Law had to change its face and voice. In other words, the Law had to be made tolerable to the people.  

  

Thus covered, the Law no longer spoke to the people in its undisguised majesty. It became more tolerable to the conscience. This explains why men fail to understand the Law properly, with the result that they become secure and presumptuous hypocrites. One of two things has to be done: Either the Law must be covered with a veil and then it loses its full effectiveness, or it must be unveiled and then the full blast of its force kills. Man cannot stand the Law without a veil over it. Hence, we are forced either to look beyond the Law to Christ, or we go through life as shameless hypocrites and secure sinners.  

  

Paul says: "A mediator is not a mediator of one." Moses could not be a mediator of God only, for God needs no mediator. Again, Moses could not be a mediator of the people only. He was a mediator between God and the people. It is the office of a mediator to conciliate the party that is offended and to placate the party that is the offender. However, Moses' mediation consisted only in changing the tone of the Law to make it more tolerable to the people. Moses was merely a mediator of the veil. He could not supply the ability to perform the Law.  

  

What do you suppose would have happened if the Law had been given without a mediator and the people had been denied the services of a go- between? The people would have perished, or in case they had escaped they would have required the services of another mediator to preserve them alive and to keep the Law in force. Moses came along and he was made the mediator. He covered his face with a veil. But that is as much as he could do. He could not deliver men's consciences from the terror of the Law. The sinner needs a better mediator.  

  

That better mediator is Jesus Christ. He does not change the voice of the Law, nor does He hide the Law with a veil. He takes the full blast of the wrath of the Law and fulfills its demands most meticulously.  

  

Of this better Mediator Paul says: "A mediator is not a mediator of one." We are the offending party; God is the party offended. The offense is of such a nature that God cannot pardon it. Neither can we render adequate satisfaction for our offenses. There is discord between God and us. Could not God revoke His Law? No. How about running away from God? It cannot be done. It took Christ to come between us and God and to reconcile God to us. How did Christ do it? "Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross." ( Col 2:14 .)  

  

This one word, "mediator," is proof enough that the Law cannot justify. Otherwise we should not need a mediator.  

  

In Christian theology the Law does not justify. In fact it has the contrary effect. The Law alarms us, it magnifies our sins until we begin to hate the Law and its divine Author. Would you call this being justified by the Law?  

  

Can you imagine a more arrant outrage than to hate God and to abhor His Law? What an excellent Law it is. Listen: "I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods. . .showing mercy unto thousands . . . honor thy father and thy mother; that thy days may be long upon the land. . ." ( Exo 20:2-3 , 6, 12.) Are these not excellent laws, perfect wisdom? "Let not God speak with us, lest we die," cried the children of Israel. Is it not amazing that a person should refuse to hear things that are good for him? Any person would be glad to hear, I should think, that he has a gracious God who shows mercy unto thousands. Is it not amazing that people hate the Law that promotes their safety and welfare, e.g., "Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not steal"?  

  

The Law can do nothing for us except to arouse the conscience. Before the Law comes to me I feel no sin. But when the Law comes, sin, death, and hell are revealed to me. You would not call this being made righteous. You would call it being condemned to death and hell-fire.  

  

VERSE 20. But God is one.  

  

God does not offend anybody, therefore He needs no mediator. But we offend God, therefore we need a mediator. And we need a better mediator than Moses. We need Christ.  

  

Combined Bible: Gal 3:21

color="#000000"> 21. Is the law then against the promises of God?  

  

Before he digressed Paul stated that the Law does not justify. Shall we then discard the Law? No, no. It supplies a certain need. It supplies men with a needed realization of their sinfulness. Now arises another question: If the Law does no more than to reveal sin, does it not oppose the promises of God? The Jews believed that by the restraint and discipline of the Law the promises of God would be hastened, in fact earned by them.  

  

Paul answers: "Not so. On the contrary, if we pay too much attention to the Law the promises of God will be slowed up. How can God fulfill His promises to a people that hates the Law?"  

  

VERSE 21. God forbid.  

  

God never said to Abraham: "In thee shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because thou hast kept the Law." When Abraham was still uncircumcised and without the Law or any law, indeed, when he was still an idol worshiper, God said to him: "Get thee out of thy country, etc.; I am thy shield, etc.; In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." These are unconditional promises which God freely made to Abraham without respect to works.  

  

This is aimed especially at the Jews who think that the promises of God are impeded by their sins. Paul says: "The Lord is not slack concerning His promises because of our sins, or hastens His promises because of any merit on our part." God's promises are not influenced by our attitudes. They rest in His goodness and mercy.  

  

Just because the Law increases sin, it does not therefore obstruct the promises of God. The Law confirms the promises, in that it prepares a person to look for the fulfillment of the promises of God in Christ.  

  

The proverb has it that Hunger is the best cook. The Law makes afflicted consciences hungry for Christ. Christ tastes good to them. Hungry hearts appreciate Christ. Thirsty souls are what Christ wants. He invites them: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Christ's benefits are so precious that He will dispense them only to those who need them and really desire them.  

  

VERSE 21. For if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.  

  

The Law cannot give life. It kills. The Law does not justify a person before God; it increases sin. The Law does not secure righteousness; it hinders righteousness. The Apostle declares emphatically that the Law of itself cannot save.  

  

Despite the intelligibility of Paul's statement, our enemies fail to grasp it. Otherwise they would not emphasize free will, natural strength, the works of supererogation, etc. To escape the charge of forgery they always have their convenient annotation handy, that Paul is referring only to the ceremonial and not to the moral law. But Paul includes all laws. He expressly says: "If there had been a law given."  

  

There is no law by which righteousness may be obtained, not a single one. Why not?  

  

Combined Bible: Gal 3:22

color="#000000"> 22. But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin.  

  

Where? First in the promises concerning Christ in Gen 3:15 and in Gen 22:18 , which speak of the seed of the woman and the seed of Abraham. The fact that these promises were made unto the fathers concerning Christ implies that the fathers were subject to the curse of sin and eternal death. Otherwise why the need of promises?  

  

Next, Holy Writ "concludes" all under sin in this passage from Paul: "For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse." Again, in the passage which the Apostle quotes from Deu 27:26 , "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." This passage clearly submits all men to the curse, not only those who sin openly against the Law, but also those who sincerely endeavor to perform the Law, inclusive of monks, friars, hermits, etc.  

  

The conclusion is inevitable: Faith alone justified without works. If the Law itself cannot justify, much less can imperfect performance of the Law or the works of the Law, justify.  

  

VERSE 22. That the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.  

  

The Apostle stated before that "the Scripture hath concluded all under sin." Forever? No, only until the promise should be fulfilled. The promise, you will recall, is the inheritance itself or the blessing promised to Abraham, deliverance from the Law, sin, death, and the devil, and the free gift of grace, righteousness, salvation, and eternal life. This promise, says Paul, is not obtained by any merit, by any law, or by any work. This promise is given. To whom? To those who believe. In whom? In Jesus Christ.  

  

Maclaren: Gal 3:22

The Universal Prison

But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the prorate by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.'--Gal. 3:22.

THE Apostle uses here a striking and solemn figure, which is much veiled for the English reader by the ambiguity attaching to the word concluded.' It literally means shut up,' and is to be taken in its literal sense of confining, and not in its secondary sense of inferring. So, then, we are to conceive of a vast prison-house in which mankind is confined. And then, very characteristically, the Apostle passes at once to another metaphor when he goes on to say under sin.' What a moment before had presented itself to his vivid imagination as a great dungeon is now represented as a heavy weight, pressing down upon those beneath; if, indeed, we are not, perhaps, rather to think of the low roof of the dark dungeon as weighing on the captives.

Further, he says that Scripture has driven men into this captivity. That, of course, cannot mean that revelation makes us sinners, but it does mean that it makes us more guilty, and that it declares the fact of human sinfulness as no other voice has ever done. And then the grimness of the picture is all relieved and explained, and the office ascribed to God's revelation harmonised with God's love, by the strong, steady beam of light that falls from the last words, which tell us that the prisoners have not been bound in chains for despair or death, but in order that, gathered together in a common doleful destiny, they may become recipients of a common blessed salvation, and emerge into liberty and light through faith in Jesus Christ.

So here are three things--the prison-house, its guardian, and its breaker. The Scripture hath shut up all under sin, in order that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given unto all them that believe.'

I. First, Then, Note The Universal Prison-House.

Now the Apostle says two things--and we may put away the figure and look at the facts that underlie it. The one is that all sin is imprisonment, the other is that all men are in that dungeon, unless they have come out of it through faith in Jesus Christ.

All sin is imprisonment. That is the direct contrary of the notion that many people have. They say to themselves, Why should I be fettered and confined by these antiquated restrictions of a conventional morality? Why should I not break the bonds, and do as I like?' And they laugh at Christian people who recognise the limitations under which God's law has put them; and tell us that we are cold-blooded folks who live by rule,' and contrast their own broad emancipation from narrow prejudice.' But the reality is the other way. The man who does wrong is a slave in the measure in which he does it. If you want to find out --and mark this, you young people, who may be deceived by the false contrasts between the restraints of duty and the freedom of living a dissolute life--if you want to find out how utterly he that committeth sin is the slave of sin,' try to break it off, .rod you will find it out fast enough. We all know, alas! the impotence of the will when it comes to hand grips with some evil to which we have become habituated; and hew we determine and determine, and try, and fail, and determine again, with no better result. We are the slaves of our own passions; and no man is free who is hindered by his lower self from doing that which his better self tells him he ought to do. The tempter comes to you, and says, Come and do this thing, just for once. You can leave off when you like, you know. There is no need to do it a second time.' And when you have done it, he changes his note, and says, Ah! you are in, and you cannot get out. You have done it once; and in my vocabulary once means twice, and once and twice mean always.'

Insane people are sometimes tempted into a house of detention by being made to believe that it is a grand mansion, where they are just going to pay a flying visit, and can come away when they like. But once inside the walls, they never get past the lodge gates any more. The foolish birds do not know that there is lime on the twigs, and their little feet get fastened to the branch, and their wings flutter in vain. He that committeth sin is the slave of sin--shut up,' dungeoned, under sin.'

But do not forget, either, the other metaphor in our text, in which the Apostle, with characteristic rapidity, and to the horror of rhetorical propriety, passes at once from the thought of a dungeon to the thought of an impending weight, and says, Shut up under sin.'

What does that mean? It means that we are guilty when we have done wrong; and it means that we are under penalties which are sure to follow. No deed that we do, howsoever it may fade from the tablets of our memory, but writes in visible characters, in proportion to its magnitude, upon our characters and lives. All human acts have perpetual consequences. The kick of the rifle against the shoulder of the man that fires it is as certain as the flight of the bullet from its muzzle.. The chalk cliffs that rise above the Channel entomb and perpetuate the relics of myriads of evanescent lives; and our fleeting deeds are similarly preserved in our present selves. Everything that a man wills, whether it passes into external act or not, leaves, in its measure, ineffaceable impressions on himself. And so we are not only dungeoned in, but weighed upon by, and lie under, the evil that we do.

Nor, dear friends, dare I pass in silence what is too often passed in silence in the modern pulpit, the plain fact that there is a future waiting for each of us beyond the grave, of which the most certain characteristic, certified by our own forebodings, required by the reasonableness of creation, and made plain by the revelation of Scripture, is that it is a future of retribution, where we shall have to carry our works; and as we have brewed so shall we drink; and the beds that we have made we shall have to lie upon. God shut up all under sin.'

Note, again, the universality of the imprisonment. Now I am not going to exaggerate, I hope. I want to keep well within the limits of fact, and to say nothing that is not endorsed by your own consciences, if you will be honest with yourselves. And I say that the Bible does not charge men universally with gross transgressions. It does not talk about the virtues that grow in the open as if they were splendid vices; but it does say, and I ask you if our own hearts do not tell us that it says truly, that no man is, or has been, does, or has done, that which his own conscience tells him he should have been and done. We are all ready to admit faults, in a general way, and to confess that we have come short of what our own consciousness tells us we ought to be. But I want you to take the other step, and to remember that since we each stand in a personal relation to God, therefore all imperfections, faults, negligences, shortcomings, and, still more, transgressions of morality, or of the higher aspirations of our lives, are sins. Because sin--to use fine words --is the correlative of God. Or, to put it into plainer language, the deeds which in regard to law may be crimes, or those which in regard to morality may be vices, or in regard to our own convictions of duty may be shortcomings, seeing they all have some reference to Him, assume a very much graver character, and they are all sins.

Oh, brethren, if we realise how intimately and inseparably we are knit to God, and how everything that we do, and do not do, but should have done, has an aspect in reference to Him, I think we should be less unwilling to admit, and less tinged with levity and carelessness in admitting, that all our faults are transgressions of His law, and we should find ourselves more frequently on our knees before Him, with the penitent words on our lips and in our hearts, Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight.'

That was the prayer of a man who had done a foul evil in other people's sight; who had managed to accumulate about as many offences to as many people in one deed as was possible. For, as a king he had sinned against his nation, as a friend he had sinned against his companion, as a captain he had sinned against his brave subordinate, as a husband he had sinned against his wife, and he had sinned against Bathsheba. And yet, with all that tangle of offences against all these people, he says, Against Thee, Thee only.' Yes! Because, accurately speaking, the sin had reference to God, and to God alone. And I wish for myself and for you to cultivate the habit of connecting, thus, all our actions, and especially our imperfections and our faults, with the thought of God, that we may learn how universal is the enclosure of man in this dreadful prison-house.

II. And So, I Come, In The Second Place, To Look At The Guardian Of The Prison.

That is a strange phrase of my text attributing the shutting of men up in this prison-house to the merciful revelation of God in the Scripture. And it is made still more striking and strange by another edition of the same expression in the Epistle to the Romans, where Paul directly traces the concluding all in disobedience' to God Himself.

There may be other subtle thoughts connected with that expression which I do not need to enter upon now. But one that I would dwell upon, for a moment, is this, that one great purpose of Scripture is to convince us that we are sinful in God's sight. I do not need to remind you, I suppose, how that was, one might almost say, the dominant intention of the whole of the ceremonial and moral law of Israel, and explains its many else inexplicable and apparently petty commandments and prohibitions. They were all meant to emphasise the difference between right and wrong, obedience and disobedience, and so to drive home to men's hearts the consciousness that they had broken the commandments of the living God. And although the Gospel comes with a very different guise from that ancient order, and is primarily gift and not law, a Gospel of forgiveness, and not the promulgation of duty or the threatening of condemnation, yet it, too, has for one of its main purposes, which must be accomplished in us before it can reach its highest aim in us, the kindling in men's hearts of the same consciousness that they are sinful men in God's sight.

Ah, brethren, we all need it. There is nothing that we need more than to have driven deep into us the penetrating point of that conviction. There must be some external standard by which men may be convinced of their sinfulness, for they carry no such standard within them. Your conscience is only you judging on moral questions, and, of course, as you change, it will change too. A man's whole state determines the voice with which conscience shall speak to him, and so the worse he is, and the more he needs it, the less he has it. The rebels cut the telegraph wires. The waves break the bell that hangs on the reef, and so the black rocks get many a wreck to gnaw with their sharp teeth. A man makes his conscience dumb by the very sins that require a conscience trumpet-tongued to reprehend them. And therefore it needs that God should speak from Heaven, and say to us, Thou art the man,' or else we pass by all these grave things that I am trying to urge upon you now, and fall back upon our complacency and our levity and our unwillingness to take stock of ourselves, and front the facts of our condition. And so we build up a barrier between ourselves and God, and God's grace, which nothing short of that grace and an omnipotent love and an all-powerful Redeemer can ever pull down.

I wish to urge in a few words, yet with much earnestness, this thought, that until we have laid to heart God's message about our own personal sinfulness we have not got to the place where we can in the least understand the true meaning of His Gospel, or the true work of His Son. May I say that I, for one, am old-fashioned enough to look with great apprehension on certain tendencies of present-day presentations of Christianity which, whilst they dwell much upon the social blessings which it brings, do seem to me to be in great peril of obscuring the central characteristic of the Gospel, that it is addressed to sinful men, and that the only way by which individuals can come to the possession of any of its blessings is by coming as penitent sinners, and casting themselves on the mercy of God in Jesus Christ? The beginning of all lies here, where Paul puts it, the Scripture hath herded all men,' in droves, into the prison, that it might have mercy upon all.

Dear friend, as the old proverb has it, deceit lurks in generalities. I have no doubt you are perfectly willing to admit that all are sinful. Come a little closer to the truth, I beseech you, and say each is sinful, and I am one of the captives.

III. And So, Lastly, The Breaker Of The Prison-House.

I need not spend your time in commenting on the final words of this text. Suffice it to gather their general purport and scope. The apparently stern treatment which God by revelation applies to the whole mass of mankind is really the tenderest beneficence. He has shut them up in the prison-house in order that, thus shut up, they may the more eagerly apprehend and welcome the advent of the Deliverer. He tells us each our state, in order that we may the more long for, and the more closely grasp, the great mercy which reverses the state. And so how shallow and how unfair it is to talk about evangelical Christianity as being gloomy, stern, or misanthropical! You do not call a doctor unkind because he tells an unsuspecting patient that his disease is far advanced, and that if it is not cured it will be fatal. No more should a man turn away from Christianity, or think it harsh and sour, because it speaks plain truths. The question is, are they true? not, are they unpleasant?

If you and I, and all our fellows, are shut up in this prison-house of sin, then it is quite clear that none of us can do anything to get ourselves out. And so the way is prepared for that great message with which Jesus opened His ministry, and which, whilst it has a far wider application, and reference to social as well as to individual evils, begins with the proclamation of liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.

There was once a Roman emperor who wished that all his enemies had one neck, that he might slay them all at one blow. The wish is a fact in regard to Christ and His work, for by it all our tyrants have been smitten to death by one stroke; and the death of Jesus Christ has been the death of sin and death and hell--of sin in its power, in its guilt, and in its penalty. He has come into the prison-house, and torn the bars away, and opened the fetters, and every man may, if he will, come out into the blessed sunshine and expatiate there.

And if, brethren, it is true that the universal prison-house is opened by the death of Jesus Christ, who is the Propitiation for the sins of the whole world, and the power by which the most polluted may become clean, then there follows, as plainly, that the only thing which we have to do is, recognising and feeling our bound impotence, to stretch out chained hands and take the gift that He brings. Since all is done for each of us, and since none of us can do sufficient for himself to break the bond, then what we should do is to trust to Him who has broken every chain and let the oppressed go flee.

Oh, dear friend, if you want to get to the heart of the sweetness and the blessedness and power of the Gospel, you must begin here, with the clear and penitent consciousness that you are a sinful man in God's sight, and can do nothing to cleanse, help, or liberate yourself. Is Jesus Christ the breaker of the bond for you? Do you learn from Him what your need is? Do you trust yourself to Him for pardon, for cleansing, for emancipation? Unless you do, you will never know His most precious preciousness, and you have little right to call yourself a Christian. If you do, Oh, then a great light will shine in the prison-house, and your chains will drop from your wrists, and the iron door will open of its own accord, and you will come out into the morning sunshine of a new day, because you have confessed and abhorred the bondage into which you have cast yourselves, and accepted the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free.

MHCC: Gal 3:15-18

The covenant God made with Abraham, was not done away by the giving the law to Moses. The covenant was made with Abraham and his Seed. It is still in force; Christ abideth for ever in his person, and his spiritual seed, who are his by faith. By this we learn the difference between the promises of the law and those of the gospel. The promises of the law are made to the person of every man; the promises of the gospel are first made to Christ, then by him to those who are by faith ingrafted into Christ. Rightly to divide the word of truth, a great difference must be put between the promise and the law, as to the inward affections, and the whole practice of life. When the promise is mingled with the law, it is made nothing but the law. Let Christ be always before our eyes, as a sure argument for the defence of faith, against dependence on human righteousness.

MHCC: Gal 3:19-22

If that promise was enough for salvation, wherefore then serveth the law? The Israelites, though chosen to be God's peculiar people, were sinners as well as others. The law was not intended to discover a way of justification, different from that made known by the promise, but to lead men to see their need of the promise, by showing the sinfulness of sin, and to point to Christ, through whom alone they could be pardoned and justified. The promise was given by God himself; the law was given by the ministry of angels, and the hand of a mediator, even Moses. Hence the law could not be designed to set aside the promise. A mediator, as the very term signifies, is a friend that comes between two parties, and is not to act merely with and for one of them. The great design of the law was, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ, might be given to those that believe; that, being convinced of their guilt, and the insufficiency of the law to effect a righteousness for them, they might be persuaded to believe on Christ, and so obtain the benefit of the promise. And it is not possible that the holy, just, and good law of God, the standard of duty to all, should be contrary to the gospel of Christ. It tends every way to promote it.

Matthew Henry: Gal 3:6-18

The apostle having reproved the Galatians for not obeying the truth, and endeavoured to impress them with a sense of their folly herein, in these verses he largely proves the doctrine which he had reproved them for rejecting, namely, that of justification by faith without the works of the law. This he does several ways.

I. From the example of Abraham's justification. This argument the apostle uses, Rom. 4. Abraham believed God, and that was accounted to him for righteousness (Gal 3:6); that is, his faith fastened upon the word and promise of God, and upon his believing he was owned and accepted of God as a righteous man: as on this account he is represented as the father of the faithful, so the apostle would have us to know that those who are of faith are the children of Abraham (Gal 3:7), not according to the flesh, but according to the promise; and, consequently, that they are justified in the same way that he was. Abraham was justified by faith, and so are they. To confirm this, the apostle acquaints us that the promise made to Abraham (Gen 12:3), In thee shall all nations be blessed, had a reference hereunto, Gal 3:8. The scripture is said to foresee, because he that indited the scripture did foresee, that God would justify the heathen world in the way of faith; and therefore in Abraham, that is, in the seed of Abraham, which is Christ, not the Jews only, but the Gentiles also, should be blessed; not only blessed in the seed of Abraham, but blessed as Abraham was, being justified as he was. This the apostle calls preaching the gospel to Abraham; and thence infers (Gal 3:9) that those who are of faith, that is, true believers, of what nation soever they are, are blessed with faithful Abraham. They are blessed with Abraham the father of the faithful, by the promise made to him, and therefore by faith as he was. It was through faith in the promise of God that he was blessed, and it is only in the same way that others obtain this privilege.

II. He shows that we cannot be justified but by faith fastening on the gospel, because the law condemns us. If we put ourselves upon trial in that court, and stand to the sentence of it, we are certainly cast, and lost, and undone; for as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse, as many as depend upon the merit of their own works as their righteousness, as plead not guilty, and insist upon their own justification, the cause will certainly go against them; for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them, Gal 3:10, and Deu 27:26. The condition of life, by the law, is perfect, personal, and perpetual, obedience; the language of it is, Do this and live; or, as Gal 3:12, The man that doeth them shall live in them: and for every failure herein the law denounces a curse. Unless our obedience be universal, continuing in all things that are written in the book of the law, and unless it be perpetual too (if in any instance at any time we fail and come short), we fall under the curse of the law. The curse is wrath revealed, and ruin threatened: it is a separation unto all evil, and this is in full force, power, and virtue, against all sinners, and therefore against all men; for all have sinned and become guilty before God: and if, as transgressors of the law, we are under the curse of it, it must be a vain thing to look for justification by it. But, though this is not to be expected from the law, yet the apostle afterwards acquaints us that there is a way open to our escaping this curse, and regaining the favour of God, namely, through faith in Christ, who (as he says, Gal 3:13) hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, etc. A strange method it was which Christ took to redeem us from the curse of the law; it was by his being himself made a curse for us. Being made sin for us, he was made a curse for us; not separated from God, but laid for the present under that infamous token of the divine displeasure upon which the law of Moses had put a particular brand, Deu 21:23. The design of this was that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ - that all who believed on Christ, whether Jews or Gentiles, might become heirs of Abraham's blessing, and particularly of that great promise of the Spirit, which was peculiarly reserved for the times of the gospel. Hence it appeared that it was not by putting themselves under the law, but by faith in Christ, that they become the people of God and heirs of the promise. Here note, 1. The misery which as sinners we are sunk into - we are under the curse and condemnation of the law. 2. The love and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ towards us - he has submitted to be made a curse for us, that he might redeem us from the curse of the law. 3. The happy prospect which we now have through him, not only of escaping the curse, but of inheriting the blessing. And, 4. That it is only through faith in him that we can hope to obtain this favour.

III. To prove that justification is by faith, and not by the works of the law, the apostle alleges the express testimony of the Old Testament, Gal 3:11. The place referred to is Hab 2:4, where it is said, The just shall live by faith; it is again quoted, Rom 1:17, and Heb 10:38. The design of it is to show that those only are just or righteous who do truly live, who are freed from death and wrath, and restored into a state of life in the favour of God; and that it is only through faith that persons become righteous, and as such obtain this life and happiness - that they are accepted of God, and enabled to live to him now, and are entitled to an eternal life in the enjoyment of him hereafter. Hence the apostle says, It is evident that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God. Whatever he may be in the account of others, yet he is not so in the sight of God; for the law is not of faith - that says nothing concerning faith in the business of justification, nor does it give life to those who believe; but the language of it is, The man that doeth them shall live in them, as Lev 18:5. It requires perfect obedience as the condition of life, and therefore now can by no means be the rule of our justification. This argument of the apostle's may give us occasion to remark that justification by faith is no new doctrine, but what was established and taught in the church of God long before the times of the gospel. Yea, it is the only way wherein any sinners ever were, or can be, justified.

IV. To this purpose the apostle urges the stability of the covenant which God made with Abraham, which was not vacated nor disannulled by the giving of the law to Moses, Gal 3:15, etc. Faith had the precedence of the law, for Abraham was justified by faith. It was a promise that he built upon, and promises are the proper objects of faith. God entered into covenant with Abraham (Gal 3:8), and this covenant was firm and steady; even men's covenants are so, and therefore much more his. When a deed is executed, or articles of agreement are sealed, both parties are bound, and it is too late then to settle things otherwise; and therefore it is not to be supposed that by the subsequent law the covenant of God should be vacated. The original word diathēkē signifies both a covenant and a testament. Now the promise made to Abraham was rather a testament than a covenant. When a testament has become of force by the death of the testator, it is not capable of being altered; and therefore, the promise that was given to Abraham being of the nature of a testament, it remains firm and unalterable. But, if it should be said that a grant or testament may be defeated for want of persons to claim the benefit of it (Gal 3:16), he shows that there is no danger of that in this case. Abraham is dead, and the prophets are dead, but the covenant is made with Abraham and his seed. And he gives us a very surprising exposition of this. We should have thought it had been meant only of the people of the Jews. "Nay,"says the apostle, "it is in the singular number, and points at a single person - that seed is Christ, "So that the covenant is still in force; for Christ abideth for ever in his person, and in his spiritual seed, who are his by faith. And if it be objected that the law which was given by Moses did disannul this covenant, because that insisted so much upon works, and there was so little in it of faith or of the promised Messiah, he answers that the subsequent law could not disannul the previous covenant or promise (Gal 3:18): If the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise; but, says he, God gave it to Abraham by promise, and therefore it would be inconsistent with his holiness, wisdom, and faithfulness, by any subsequent act to set aside the promise, and so alter the way of justification which he had thus established. If the inheritance was given to Abraham by promise, and thereby entailed upon his spiritual seed, we may be sure that God would not retract that promise; for he is not a man that he should repent.

Matthew Henry: Gal 3:19-29

The apostle having just before been speaking of the promise made to Abraham, and representing that as the rule of our justification, and not the law, lest they should think he did too much derogate from the law, and render it altogether useless, he thence takes occasion to discourse of the design and tendency of it, and to acquaint us for what purposes it was given. It might be asked, "If that promise be sufficient for salvation, wherefore then serveth the law? Or, Why did God give the law by Moses?"To this he answers,

I. The law was added because of transgressions, Gal 3:19. It was not designed to disannul the promise, and to establish a different way of justification from that which was settled by the promise; but it was added to it, annexed on purpose to be subservient to it, and it was so because of transgressions. The Israelites, though they were chosen to be God's peculiar people, were sinners as well as others, and therefore the law was given to convince them of their sin, and of their obnoxiousness to the divine displeasure on the account of it; for by the law is the knowledge of sin (Rom 3:20), and the law entered that sin might abound, Rom 5:20. And it was also intended to restrain them from the commission of sin, to put an awe upon their minds, and be a curb upon their lusts, that they should not run into that excess of riot to which they were naturally inclined; and yet at the same time it was designed to direct them to the true and only way whereby sin was to be expiated, and wherein they might obtain the pardon of it; namely, through the death and sacrifice of Christ, which was the special use for which the law of sacrifices and purifications was given.

The apostle adds that the law was given for this purpose till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; that is, either till Christ should come (the principle seed referred to in the promise, as he had before shown), or till the gospel dispensation should take place, when Jews and Gentiles, without distinction, should, upon believing, become the seed of Abraham. The law was added because of transgressions, till this fulness of time, or this complete dispensation, should come. But when the seed came, and a fuller discovery of divine grace in the promise was made, then the law, as given by Moses, was to cease; that covenant, being found faulty, was to give place to another, and a better, Heb 8:7, Heb 8:8. And though the law, considered as the law of nature, is always in force, and still continues to be of use to convince men of sin and to restrain them from it, yet we are now no longer under the bondage and terror of that legal covenant. The law then was not intended to discover another way of justification, different from that revealed by the promise, but only to lead men to see their need of the promise, by showing them the sinfulness of sin, and to point them to Christ, through whom alone they could be pardoned and justified.

As a further proof that the law was not designed to vacate the promise, the apostle adds, It was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. It was given to different persons, and in a different manner from the promise, and therefore for different purposes. The promise was made to Abraham, and all his spiritual seed, including believers of all nations, even of the Gentiles as well as the Jews; but the law was given to the Israelites as a peculiar people, and separated from the rest of the world. And, whereas the promise was given immediately by God himself, the law was given by the ministry of angels, and the hand of a mediator. Hence it appeared that the law could not be designed to set aside the promise; for (Gal 3:20), A mediator is not a mediator of one, of one party only; but God is one, but one party in the promise or covenant made with Abraham: and therefore it is not to be supposed that by a transaction which passed only between him and the nation of the Jews he should make void a promise which he had long before made to Abraham and all his spiritual seed, whether Jews or Gentiles. This would not have been consistent with his wisdom, nor with his truth and faithfulness. Moses was only a mediator between God and the spiritual seed of Abraham; and therefore the law that was given by him could not affect the promise made to them, much less be subversive of it.

II. The law was given to convince men of the necessity of a Saviour. The apostle asks (Gal 3:21), as what some might be willing to object, " Is the law then against the promises of God? Do they really clash and interfere with each other? Or do you not set the covenant with Abraham, and the law of Moses, at variance with one another?"To this he answers, God forbid; he was far from entertaining such a thought, nor could it be inferred from what he had said. The law is by no means inconsistent with the promise, but subservient to it, as the design of it is to discover men's transgressions, and to show them the need they have of a better righteousness than that of the law. That consequence would much rather follow from their doctrine than from his; for, if there had been a law given that could have given life, verily righteousness would have been by the law, and in that case the promise would have been superseded and rendered useless. But that in our present state could not be, for the scripture hath concluded all under sin (Gal 3:22), or declared that all, both Jew and Gentile, are in a state of guilt, and therefore unable to attain to righteousness and justification by the works of the law. The law discovered their wounds, but could not afford them a remedy: it showed that they were guilty, because it appointed sacrifices and purifications, which were manifestly insufficient to take away sin: and therefore the great design of it was that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to those that believe, that being convinced of their guilt, and the insufficiency of the law to effect a righteousness for them, they might be persuaded to believe on Christ, and so obtain the benefit of the promise.

III. The law was designed for a schoolmaster, to bring men to Christ, Gal 3:24. In the foregoing verse, the apostle acquaints us with the state of the Jews under the Mosaic economy, that before faith came, or before Christ appeared and the doctrine of justification by faith in him was more fully discovered, they were kept under the law, obliged, under severe penalties, to a strict observance of the various precepts of it; and at that time they were shut up, held under the terror and discipline of it, as prisoners in a state of confinement: the design of this was that hereby they might be disposed more readily to embrace the faith which should afterwards be revealed, or be persuaded to accept Christ when he came into the world, and to fall in with that better dispensation he was to introduce, whereby they were to be freed from bondage and servitude, and brought into a state of greater light and liberty. Now, in that state, he tells them, the law was their schoolmaster, to bring them to Christ, that they might be justified by faith. As it declared the mind and will of God concerning them, and at the same time denounced a curse against them for every failure in their duty, so it was proper to convince them of their lost and undone condition in themselves, and to let them see the weakness and insufficiency of their own righteousness to recommend them to God. And as it obliged them to a variety of sacrifices, etc., which, though they could not of themselves take away sin, were typical of Christ, and of the great sacrifice which he was to offer up for the expiation of it, so it directed them (though in a more dark and obscure manner) to him as their only relief and refuge. And thus it was their schoolmaster, to instruct and govern them in their state of minority, or, as the word paidagōgos most properly signifies, their servant, to lead and conduct them to Christ (as children were wont to be led to school by those servants who had the care of them); that they might be more fully instructed by him as their schoolmaster, in the true way of justification and salvation, which is only by faith in him, and of which he was appointed to give the fullest and clearest discoveries. But lest it should be said, If the law was of this use and service under the Jewish, why may it not continue to be so under the Christian state too, the apostle adds (Gal 3:25) that after faith has come, and the gospel dispensation has taken place, under which Christ, and the way of pardon and life through faith in him, are set in the clearest light, we are no longer under a schoolmaster - we have no such need of the law to direct us to him as there was then. Thus the apostle acquaints us for what uses and purposes the law served; and, from what he says concerning this matter, we may observe,

1. The goodness of God to his people of old, in giving the law to them; for though, in comparison of the gospel state, it was a dispensation of darkness and terror, yet it furnished them with sufficient means and helps both to direct them in their duty to God and to encourage their hopes in him.

2. The great fault and folly of the Jews, in mistaking the design of the law, and abusing it to a very different purpose from that which God intended in the giving of it; for they expected to be justified by the works of it, whereas it was never designed to be the rule of their justification, but only a means of convincing them of their guilt and of their need of a Saviour, and of directing them to Christ, and faith in him, as the only way of obtaining this privilege. See Rom 9:31, Rom 9:32; Rom 10:3, Rom 10:4.

3. The great advantage of the gospel state above the legal, under which we not only enjoy a clearer discovery of divine grace and mercy than was afforded to the Jews of old, but are also freed from the state of bondage and terror under which they were held. We are not now treated as children in a state of minority, but as sons grown up to a full age, who are admitted to greater freedoms, and instated in larger privileges, than they were. This the apostle enlarges upon in the following verses. For, having shown for what intent the law was given, in the close of the chapter he acquaints us with our privilege by Christ, where he particularly declares,

(1.) That we are the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, Gal 3:26. And here we may observe, [1.] The great and excellent privilege which real Christians enjoy under the gospel: They are the children of God; they are no longer accounted servants, but sons; they are not now kept at such a distance, and under such restraints, as the Jews were, but are allowed a nearer and freer access to God than was granted to them; yea, they are admitted into the number, and have a right to all the privileges, of his children. [2.] How they come to obtain this privilege, and that is by faith in Christ Jesus. Having accepted him as their Lord and Saviour, and relying on him alone for justification and salvation, they are hereupon admitted into this happy relation to God, and are entitled to the privileges of it; for (Joh 1:12) as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to those that believe on his name. And this faith in Christ, whereby they became the children of God, he reminds us (Gal 3:27), was what they professed in baptism; for he adds, As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Having in baptism professed their faith in him, they were thereby devoted to him, and had, as it were, put on his livery, and declared themselves to be his servants and disciples; and having thus become the members of Christ, they were through him owned and accounted as the children of God. Here note, First, Baptism is now the solemn rite of our admission into the Christian church, as circumcision was into that of the Jews. Our Lord Jesus appointed it to be so, in the commission he gave to his apostles (Mat 28:19), and accordingly it was their practice to baptize those whom they had discipled to the Christian faith; and perhaps the apostle might take notice of their baptism here, and of their becoming the children of God through faith in Christ, professed therein, to obviate a further objection, which the false teachers might be apt to urge in favour of circumcision. They might be ready to say, "Though it should be allowed that the law, as given at mount Sinai, was abrogated by the coming of Christ the promised seed, yet why should circumcision be set aside too, when that was given to Abraham together with the promise, and long before the giving of the law by Moses?"But this difficulty is sufficiently removed when the apostle says, Those who are baptized into Christ have put on Christ; for thence it appears that under the gospel baptism comes in the room of circumcision, and that those who by baptism are devoted to Christ, and do sincerely believe in him, are to all intents and purposes as much admitted into the privileges of the Christian state as the Jews were by circumcision into those of the legal (Phi 3:3), and therefore there was no reason why the use of that should still be continued. Note, Secondly, In our baptism we put on Christ; therein we profess our discipleship to him, and are obliged to behave ourselves as his faithful servants. Being baptized into Christ, we are baptized into his death, that as he died and rose again, so, in conformity thereunto, we should die unto sin, and walk in newness of life (Rom 6:3, Rom 6:4); it would be of great advantage to us did we oftener remember this.

(2.) That this privilege of being the children of God, and of being by baptism devoted to Christ, is now enjoyed in common by all real Christians. The law indeed made a difference between Jew and Greek, giving the Jews on many accounts the pre-eminence: that also made a difference between bond and free, master and servant, and between male and female, the males being circumcised. But it is not so now; they all stand on the same level, and are all one in Christ Jesus; as the one is not accepted on the account of any national or personal advantages he may enjoy above the other, so neither is the other rejected for the want of them; but all who sincerely believe on Christ, of what nation, or sex, or condition, soever they be, are accepted of him, and become the children of God through faith in him.

(3.) That, being Christ's, we are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. Their judaizing teachers would have them believe that they must be circumcised and keep the law of Moses, or they could not be saved: "No,"says the apostle, "there is no need of that; for if you be Christ's, if you sincerely believe on him, who is the promised seed, in whom all the nations of the earth were to be blessed, you therefore become the true seed of Abraham, the father of the faithful, and as such are heirs according to the promise, and consequently are entitled to the great blessings and privileges of it."And therefore upon the whole, since it appeared that justification was not to be attained by the works of the law, but only by faith in Christ, and that the law of Moses was a temporary institution and was given for such purposes as were only subservient to and not subversive of the promise, and that now, under the gospel, Christians enjoy much greater and better privileges than the Jews did under that dispensation, it must needs follow that they were very unreasonable and unwise, in hearkening to those who at once endeavoured to deprive them of the truth and liberty of the gospel.

Barclay: Gal 3:15-18

When we read passages like this and the next one, we have to remember that Paul was a trained Rabbi, an expert in the scholastic methods of the Rabbinic academies. He could, and did, use their methods of argument, which would be completely cogent to a Jew, however difficult it may be for us to understand them.

His aim is to show the superiority of the way of grace over the way of law. He begins by showing that the way of grace is older than the way of law. When Abraham made his venture of faith, God made his great promise to him. That is to say. God's promise was consequent upon an act of faith; the law did not come until the time of Moses, four hundred and thirty years later. But--Paul goes on to argue--once a covenant has been duly ratified, you cannot alter it nor add additional clauses to it. Therefore, the later law cannot alter the earlier way of faith. It was faith which set Abraham right with God; and faith is still the only way for a man to get himself right with God.

The Rabbis were very fond of using arguments which depended on the interpretation of single words; they would erect a whole theology on one word. Paul takes one word in the Abraham story and erects an argument upon it. As the King James Version translates Gen 17:7-8, God says to Abraham, "I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee" and says of his inheritance, "I will give it unto thee and to thy seed after thee." (Seed is more clearly rendered descendant, as the Revised Standard Version has it.) Paul's argument is that seed is used in the singular and not in the plural; and that, therefore, God's promise points not to a great crowd of people but to one single individual; and--argues Paul--the one person in whom the covenant finds its consummation is Jesus Christ. Therefore, the way to peace with God is the way of faith which Abraham took; and we must repeat that way by looking to Jesus Christ in faith.

Again and again Paul comes back to the same point. The problem of human life is to get into a right relationship with God. So long as we are afraid of him, there can be no peace. How are we to achieve this right relationship? Shall it be by a meticulous and even self-torturing obedience to the law, by performing endless deeds and observing every smallest regulation the law lays down? If we take that way we will be forever in default, for man's imperfection can never fully satisfy God's perfection; but if we abandon this hopeless struggle and bring ourselves and our sin to God, his grace opens its arms to us and we find ourselves at peace with a God who is no longer judge but father. Paul's argument is that this is what happened to Abraham. It was on that basis that God's covenant with Abraham was made; and nothing that came in later can change that covenant any more than anything can alter a will that has already been ratified and signed.

Barclay: Gal 3:19-22

This is one of the most difficult passages Paul ever wrote, so difficult that there are almost three hundred different interpretations of it! Let us begin by remembering that Paul is still seeking to demonstrate the superiority of the way of grace and faith over the way of law. He makes four points about the law.

(i) Why introduce the law at all? It was introduced, as Paul puts it, for the sake of transgressions. What he means is that where there is no law there is no sin. A man cannot be condemned for doing wrong if he did not know that it was wrong. Therefore the function of the law is to define sin. But, while the law can and does define sin, it can do nothing whatever to cure it. It is like a doctor who is an expert in diagnosis but who is helpless to clear up the trouble which he has diagnosed.

(ii) The law was not given direct by God. In the old story in Exo 20 it was given direct to Moses; but in the days of Paul the Rabbis were so impressed by the holiness and the remoteness of God that they believed that it was quite impossible for him to deal direct with men; therefore they introduced the idea that the law was given first to angels and then by the angels to Moses (compare Act 7:53; Heb 2:2). Here Paul is using the Rabbinic thoughts of his time. The law is at a double remove from God, given first to angels, and then to a mediator; and the mediator is Moses. Compared with the promise, which was given directly by God, the law is a second-hand thing.

(iii) Now we come to that extraordinarily difficult sentence--"There can be no such thing as a mediator of one; and God is one." What is Paul's thought here? An agreement founded on law always involves two people, the person who gives it and the person who accepts it; and it depends on both sides keeping it. That was the position of those who put their trust in the law. Break the law and the whole agreement was undone. But a promise depends on only one person. The way of grace depends entirely on God; it is his promise. Man can do nothing to alter that. He may sin, but the love and the grace of God stand unchanged. To Paul it was the weakness of the law that it depended on two persons, the law-giver and the law-keeper; and man had wrecked it. Grace is entirely of God; man can not undo it; and surely it is better to depend on the grace of the unchanging God than on the hopeless efforts of helpless men.

(iv) Is, then, the law antithetic to grace? Logically Paul should answer, "Yes" but, in fact, he answers, "No." He says that scripture has shut up everyone under sin. He is thinking of Deu 27:26where it is said that everyone who does not conform to the words of the law is cursed. In fact, that means everyone, because no one ever has, or ever will, perfectly keep the law. What, then, is the consequence of the law? It is to drive everyone to seek grace, because it has proved man's helplessness. This is a thought that Paul will soon develop in the next chapter; here he only suggests it. Let a man try to get into a right relationship with God via the law. He will find he cannot do it and will be driven to see that all he can do is to accept the wonderful grace of which Jesus Christ came to tell men.

Constable: Gal 3:1--5:1

III. THEOLOGICAL AFFIRMATION OF SALVATION BY FAITH 3:1--4:31

Here begins the theological section of the epistle, which Paul led up to in his preceding historical account of his own conversion and calling culminating in his confrontation with Peter over justification.⁷⁹ Paul first vindicated the doctrine of justification by faith alone, and then he clarified it (ch. 4).

Constable: Gal 3:1-29

A. Vindication of the doctrine ch 3

Paul explained the meaning of justification and sanctification by faith alone. He argued their validity from experience (3:1-5), from Scripture (3:6-14), and from logic (3:15-29) to dissuade his readers from returning to reliance on the Mosaic Law. In 3:1-18 Paul argued against legalism, the belief that we can make ourselves acceptable to God by keeping rules.⁸⁰ In 3:19-4:7 he argued against nomism, the belief that we need to make law the ruling governor of our lives.⁸¹

"Paul's Galatian letter, it must always be remembered, is not concerned just with legalism,' even though sadly it is often understood only in those terms. Rather, Galatians is principally concerned with nomism' or whether Gentiles who believe in Christ must also be subject to the directives of the Mosaic law."⁸²

"Gal 3:1-18 is one of the most familiar and closely studied portions of Paul's letters. That is so because of its concentration of themes central to the Christian gospel, its attack against legalism, and the complexity of Paul's arguments in support of a law-free gospel."⁸³

Constable: Gal 3:15-29

3. The logical argument 3:15-29

Paul continued his argument that God justifies Christians by faith alone by showing the logical fallacy of relying on the Law. He did this to answer the legalists and to clarify the distinction between works and faith as ways of salvation (i.e., justification, sanctification, and glorification). He continued to base his argument on the biblical revelation of Abraham.

Constable: Gal 3:15-18

The continuance of faith after the giving of the Law 3:15-18

3:15-16 Paul now turned to the objection that when God gave the Law He terminated justification by faith alone. He reminded his readers, with a human analogy, that even wills and contracts made between human beings remained in force until the fulfillment of their terms. Likewise the covenant God made with Abraham remains in force until God fulfills it completely. The promises made to Abraham extended to his descendants as well as to him personally. They even extend to Christ, the descendant of Abraham who became the greatest source of blessing God promised would come through his descendants. Paul did not mean that Christ fulfilled the Abrahamic Covenant completely. He meant that through Christ, the descendant of Abraham, God continued to fulfill the Abrahamic Covenant. The Mosaic Law did not supersede (take the place of) the Abrahamic Covenant.

The Hebrew word for "seed" or "offspring" (zera, v. 16) is a collective singular that can refer either to one descendant or to many descendants. An English collective singular, for example, is "sheep" that can refer to one sheep or to many sheep. Paul explained that the seed God had in mind in Genesis 13:15 and 17:8 was the one descendant, Christ.⁹⁹

"The term seed not uncommonly denotes all the descendants of some great ancestor, but it is not normally used of one person. Used in this way it points to the person as in some way outstanding; the seed is not simply one descendant among many but THE descendant."¹⁰⁰

The Four Seeds of Abraham in Scripture

Natural Seed All physical descendants of AbrahamGenesis 12:1-3, 7; et al.

Natural-Spiritual Seed Believing physical descendants of AbrahamIsaiah 41:8; Romans 9:6, 8; Galatians 6:16

Spiritual Seed Believing non-physical descendants of AbrahamGalatians 3:6-9, 29

Ultimate Seed Jesus ChristGalatians 3:16; Hebrews 2:16-17

3:17-18 Paul summarized his point in verse 17.

The 430 years probably began with God's reiterating the promises to Jacob at Beersheba as he left Canaan to settle in Egypt (in 1875 B.C.; Gen. 46:2-4). They probably ended with the giving of the Mosaic Law (in 1446 B.C.; Exod. 19).

The "inheritance" (v. 18; cf. v. 29; 4:1, 7; 5:21) refers to what God promised to Abraham and his descendants including justification by faith implicit in blessing. Reception of this did not depend on obedience to the Law, but God guaranteed to provide it. The idea of inheritance dominates much of the discussion in the following chapters.¹⁰¹

". . . the inheritance of Gal. 3:18 and 4:30 is parallel not with the land promises, Canaan, but with the gift of justification to the Gentiles. This is the major passage in the New Testament used to equate the inheritance of the land of Canaan with heaven, but the land of Canaan is not even the subject of the passage!"¹⁰²

Constable: Gal 3:19-22

The purpose of the Law 3:19-22

3:19 In view of the foregoing argument, did the Law have any value? Yes, God had several purposes in it. Purpose, not cause, is in view, as is clear in the Greek text.

There have been four primary interpretations of what "because of transgressions" means. First, some take it to mean "to restrain transgressions."¹⁰³ This seems legitimate since all law has a restraining effect. Second, some understand the phrase to mean "to reveal transgressions." This seems valid in view of other statements that Paul made (cf. Rom. 3:20; 4:15; 5:13). Third, it may mean "to provoke transgressions." This, too, seems legitimate. A "Do not touch. Wet paint!" sign on a bench tempts people to touch the bench to see if the paint really is wet. Fourth, some have understood that Paul meant "to awaken a conviction of transgressions." This seems less likely in this context since Paul showed more concern with the objective facts of salvation history than he did with the subjective development of faith in the individual.¹⁰⁴

Angels who stood between God and the Israelites mediated the Mosaic Covenant (cf. Deut. 33:2, LXX). Both God and the Jews had responsibilities under the Law. In contrast, God Himself revealed the Abrahamic Covenant, without mediation, in which only God had responsibilities (v. 20; cf. Gen. 15).

"Just as it [the Law] had a point of origin on Mount Sinai, so also it had a point of termination--Mount Calvary."¹⁰⁵

Paul clarified that the Law was only a temporary measure designed to function until Christ came.

"The function of the law was to point people to Christ, not to provide for all time the way the people of God should live."¹⁰⁶

The Christian Reconstruction movement, headed by Rousas J. Rushdoony, Greg Bahnsen, and Gary North, answers Paul's question, "Why the Law then?" (v. 19) this way. God gave the Mosaic Law to provide a framework for the operation of every nation's government.¹⁰⁷

"Reconstructionists anticipate a day when Christians will govern using the Old Testament as the law book"¹⁰⁸

Reconstructionism rests on presuppositional apologetics, theonomy (lit. the rule of God), and postmillennialism. Other names for it are the theonomy movement and the Chalcedon school. It is gaining many followers especially among charismatic evangelicals. Its popular appeal is that it claims God wants America and every other nation to function as God intended Israel to function, namely as a theocracy. It fails to make a distinction between God's unique purpose for Israel and His purpose for other nations throughout history.¹⁰⁹

3:20 The meaning of this verse has drawn numerous different explanations.¹¹⁰ I think Paul probably meant that a mediator (here the angels, v. 19) is necessary when two parties make an agreement in which they both assume responsibilities, as in the reciprocal Mosaic Covenant. However a mediator is not necessary when the covenant is unilateral, as when God made the unconditional Abrahamic Covenant.

3:21-22 Do the Law and the promises contradict each other? Never! God designed them for two different purposes. The purpose of the Law was never to provide justification. It served as a mirror to show people their sinfulness and that they are the slaves of sin. When they realize they cannot save themselves, they will be open to receiving salvation as a gift by faith.

"God always intended to save by faith, apart from law. God gave the law, but he gave it in order that it would condemn all and thus prepare negatively for redemption on the basis of faith (3:22, 24, the purpose clauses conveying God's intention). The law was not given to make alive (3:21)."¹¹¹

"It rivets upon us the conviction that we cannot be justified by anything we can do. Like the Israelites in Egypt, we are commanded to make bricks without straw, to be perfectly holy when we have none of the makings of holiness--to love God with all our hearts and the neighbor as ourselves when we are without divine charity."¹¹²

"A law can lay down what people ought to do, but it cannot give them the power to overcome the temptations to do evil."¹¹³

The whole Old Testament (v. 22), not just the Law of Moses (v. 21), showed that people are sinners and incapable of saving themselves.

College: Gal 3:1-29

GALATIANS 3

II. ARGUMENTS: LAW VS. FAITH (3:1-4:31)

A. ARGUMENT ONE: RECEIVING THE SPIRIT (3:1-5)

¹ You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. ² I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? ³ Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? ⁴ Have you suffered so much for nothing - if it really was for nothing? ⁵ Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?

3:1 You foolish Galatians!

To call the Galatians "foolish" (ajnovhtoi , anoçtoi , literally "not having a mind") was to call them irrational, unthinking, or lacking in understanding. It is the same word Jesus used to describe the slow, dumb failure to understand of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:25).

Who has bewitched you?

"Bewitched" is from the Greek word baskaivnw (baskainô ), cognate with the Latin word from which we get "fascinate." The word comes from an early superstition based on "the evil eye": a person might be enticed to stare at someone who could bewitch him or cast a spell on him through the magic arts and then would do things totally foreign to his natural behavior. Bruce suggests the translation, "Who has hypnotized you?" Paul's use of this word does not imply he believed in such a thing; he was using the word's association with ignorant superstition to shame them.

The clause "that ye should not obey the truth" of the KJV is not found in the early manuscripts. It probably was inserted here in imitation of 5:7.

Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.

The expression "clearly portrayed" is from progravfw (prographô ), which occurs in Greek writers in three senses: 1) to write beforehand (in time), 2) to write publicly, 3) to write at the head of the list. Paul's emphasis here is most likely the second of these three, in which it is especially the public portrayal of Christ through Paul's preaching.

Just as Paul later resolved in Corinth "to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified" (1 Cor 2:2), he could say to the Galatians, "May I never boast except in the cross of Jesus Christ" (Gal 6:14).

3:2 I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?

At this point Paul begins a series of devastatingly logical arguments to prove the gospel is superior to the law. Like a good trial lawyer Paul asks questions and designs arguments to force an admission of the truth. Over the course of the next two chapters we will gain a perspective on the law vs. faith issue from:

1. The Holy Spirit (3:2-5)

2. Abraham (3:6-9)

3. The curse of the O.T. law (3:10-14)

4. A human will (3:15-22)

5. The child-keeper (3:23-4:7)

6. Paul's personal plea (4:8-20)

7. The allegory of Hagar and Sarah (4:21-31).

The first issue is clear enough: did they receive the Holy Spirit by keeping the O.T. law or by believing in Christ? Since the Holy Spirit is given as a mark to those belonging to God's family (Rom 8:9; Eph 1:13), this becomes a pivotal question. Whichever has brought them into the family of God - obeying laws or believing in Christ - is what they must hang on to. By their own experience they know that the Spirit became active in their lives and in their Christian community when they put their faith in Christ.

In addition to this verse, other Scriptures which link the coming of the Spirit with faith are Acts 19:2; Gal 3:14; Eph 1:13; 3:17. At the same time, certain Scriptures specifically link the Holy Spirit to baptism: Acts 2:38-39; 5:32; 1 Cor 12:13. Perhaps this dilemma is best solved by linking faith and baptism, rather than by setting them in opposition. First century Christians would be puzzled by those who cannot join "one faith, one baptism" (Eph 4:5) in their response to the gospel.

3:3 Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?

Are they so "mindless" (same Greek term as in v. 1)? What else than "foolish" and "mindless" would describe the choice to move from maturity back to immaturity, from proven success back to frustrating failure? The NIV phrase "by human effort" (literally, "by flesh") should be understood as the best efforts which man in his fallen state can produce. Men's failure to receive the Holy Spirit before they accepted Christ was not because they had not tried hard enough. The failure came from the inability to achieve perfection, due to the weakness of the flesh.

3:4 Have you suffered so much for nothing-if it really was for nothing?

It is possible that the word "suffer" (pavscw , paschô ) could be understood "have you experienced" so much in a good sense - God's promises and blessings. However, the more natural meaning of the word is "suffer," as in all its other 40 uses in the N.T. While we do not know what specific hardships and persecutions the Galatians may have endured for the sake of the cross, we do know that some turned to circumcision as a means of escaping that persecution (cf. 6:12).

3:5 Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?

This verse clarifies how they would know when the Holy Spirit came to them. What would become a theological controversy for Christians in the 20th century was easily settled for those in the 1st century. When the Holy Spirit came into new territory and created a community of believers in that century, there were regularly spectacular results. The explosion of miracles (dunavmei" , dynameis , "mighty works"), tongues, and prophesying would be easily identifiable as marking the time when God gave his Spirit. For the Galatians this happened when they became believers, not when they tried to keep the law. While not every believer began working miracles, of course, they could all easily observe what the message of the Apostle Paul was doing in the Christian community.

The word "give" (ejpicorhgevw , epichorçgeô ) in this verse has a rich background. In classical times it referred to the generous patron of the arts who "supplied" the theatre with whatever they needed to pay the chorus and other expenses. For the Galatians God has generously "supplied" his Spirit in response to their faith. The present tense of the participle in Greek implies, moreover, that this is a continuing activity. (See also the uses of the same word in 2 Cor 9:10 and 2 Pet 1:11).

Likewise, the word "work" (ejnergevw , energeô , "energize") paints a graphic picture. It is God's "in-working" by which he "energizes" his people to do great things. Related forms of the word occur 34 times in the N.T. Paul uses the word primarily to describe the power source by which every Christian is enabled to serve. (See especially the uses in Eph 1:19; 3:20; Gal 2:8; 5:6; and Phil 2:13.)

For Paul then, the issue is clear. He repeats the question of verse two: was it "out of works of law" or "out of hearing of faith" that they received the Spirit of God? Argument One in Paul's series of seven (cf. 3:2) is thus proved out of their own personal experience.

B. ARGUMENT TWO: ABRAHAM (3:6-9)

⁶ Consider Abraham: "He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." ^{a 7} Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. ⁸ The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you." ^{b 9} So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

^a 6 Gen. 15:6 ^b 8 Gen. 12:3; 18:18; 22:18

3:6 Consider Abraham: "He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."

From his first question ("How did you Galatians gain your acceptance with God?") Paul now moves to his second, more general question ("What kind of people does God accept?"). Abraham, a believer, will be Paul's prime exhibit. His example will provide a second convincing proof for Paul's line of argument, that faith in Christ saves and works of law do not.

While we must remember that Abraham had an obedient faith, going out from his homeland at God's command, that is not the context from which Paul drew this quotation from Gen 15:6. In that chapter God made a covenant with Abraham, including this gracious promise:

"Look up at the heavens and count the stars-if indeed

you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your

offspring be."

Abraham believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. It is significant to notice that this event took place two chapters before Abraham obeyed God in the rite of circumcision (Gen 17:10) and seven chapters before he took his son Isaac to Moriah to sacrifice him (Gen 22:2). What had Abraham done in chapter 15 to please God so greatly? When God told him the incredible promise about future offspring, Abraham believed him!

3:7 Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham.

Paul has divided mankind into two groups, depending on how they seek right standing with God. Some are "of works" and some are "of faith." It was the "of faith" group that the Spirit blessed; which group would Abraham claim? Based on the previous verse, Paul concludes that it is clearly those who believe (the "of faith" group) who are the sons of Abraham. (The NIV has interpreted "sons" (uiJoiv , huioi ) in this verse as "children," including both male and female, noting Paul's similar use in vv. 26-28.)

No longer could men count on their Jewish ancestry to save them; no longer could they rely on how well they kept the Jewish law. Now they must realize what was true from the beginning: the true sons of Abraham are those who inherit and practice his faith.

3:8 The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham:

Scripture, as the word of God, is here personified "as an extension of the divine personality," and thus it "foresaw" what God planned to do. God's plan from the beginning was to justify Gentiles by faith. The plan was not an afterthought or a desperation measure taken after God's dealings with Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses fell through. The "good news" of the gospel for all nations was announced as early as Genesis 12:3 and 18:18.

"All nations will be blessed through you."

The quotation is a combination of both Genesis 12:3 and 18:18 from the LXX. Argument Two of Paul's list of seven (cf. 3:2) is thus proved by quoting Scripture. While the Mosaic law made careful distinctions between those who were Jews and those who were not, the earlier promise to Abraham specifically included "all nations" in the blessing.

3:9 So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

Not until Christ came could one fully understand what God's plan had always been. God never intended to bring all the Gentiles into the Jewish nation as circumcised proselytes. Instead, God planned to use the offspring of Abraham to bless those who are like Abraham: people of faith.

C. ARGUMENT THREE: THE CURSE (3:10-14)

¹⁰ All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law." ^{a 11} Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith." ^{b 12} The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, "The man who does these things will live by them." ^{c 13} Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree." ^{d 14} He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

^a 10 Deut. 27:26 ^b 11 Hab. 2:4 ^c 12 Lev. 18:5 ^d 13 Deut. 21:23

3:10 All who rely on observing the law are under a curse,

Having shown that both the Spirit and Abraham clearly favor those who believe, Paul now introduces a threat against those who would opt for observing the law. The NIV translation "rely on observing the law" is literally those who are "of works of law." This same phrase was used three times in 2:16. Everything Paul has said since that verse has been an elaboration of the same point: God will save those who are "of faith," not those who are "of works of law."

for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the law."

Argument Three will also be proved by quoting Scripture (Deut 27:26a; Hab 2:4b; and Lev 18:5b). The first Scripture Paul uses is the occasion when God's people heard the cursings and blessings which would later be enshrined on Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. After each cursing was pronounced (Deut 27:15-25) the people all said, "Amen!" This affirmed that they agreed with God that each offense deserved to be under God's curse. At the conclusion of the list the summary curse was stated, which Paul here quotes. As the people uttered their final "Amen!" they agreed that they were bound by the law to keep every detail. Anyone who did not keep all the laws, all the way, all the time would be under the curse.

But this becomes a highly uncomfortable situation! As in the fable of the "Sword of Damocles," how can a person ever feel secure when certain death is suspended above him by a fragile human hair? Anyone who depends on earning God's approval by keeping all his laws is haunted by the thought that one slip brings certain doom.

3:11 Clearly no one is justified before God by the law,

As a means of securing salvation, the law is a curse and not a help. To further establish this point Paul introduces another Scripture quotation. This will confirm Paul's argument, showing that the way Abraham was justified before God was not an exceptional situation, but a situation that is true in all instances. No one is justified before God by the law!

because, "The righteous will live by faith."

The quotation of Habakkuk 2:4 comes from a time when Judah was groaning under the oppression of the Babylonian invaders, around 605 B.C. The people were encouraged to put their trust in God, for the appointed time of deliverance would certainly come. "Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay" (2:3). At the appointed end, the wicked will be destroyed, but "the righteous will live by his faith" (2:4). (Cf. the similar use of this quotation in Heb 10:37-38.) For all God's people in that time of crisis, the avenue to life did not lie in their own efforts, but in faith, in trusting God. Faith is the source of life.

3:12 The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, "The man who does these things will live by them."

But the law has little to do with this kind of trusting faith (literally, it is not "of faith"). The law is based on doing, not trusting. The only promise of the law is for "the man who does" (Lev 18:5). Thus Paul sees law and faith as mutually exclusive approaches to God. A person can depend on one or the other, but not both.

Paul's argument is neatly logical:

Justification is "of faith" (v. 11)

The law is not "of faith" (v. 12)

Therefore: justification and law are not a

part of each other.

The same quotation from Lev 18 is also found in Luke 10:28 and Rom 10:5. In the Luke context an expert in the law is told by Jesus, "Do this and you will live." Since the lawyer naively thinks he can fulfill the law's demands, however, Jesus tells him the parable of the Good Samaritan to show him how far reaching these demands can be. The Romans passage is quite similar to the context of Galatians. There, "Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes" (10:4) and "the righteousness that is by faith" is further explained (10:6ff.).

3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law

The curse of the law, introduced in verse 10, hangs over the entire human race. All who do not succeed in keeping the law perfectly are doomed. But Christ has "redeemed" his people. The Greek word for "redeemed" is ejxagoravzw (exagorazô ), which meant to buy in the open marketplace, the agora (cf. 4:4). The simple form of the verb (ajgoravzw , agorazô , "buy") is found twenty-five times in the N.T., twenty of those with an ordinary commercial meaning. In the other five uses it reflects the terminology of the slave-market, as does the compound form in this verse. In 1 Cor 6:20 and 7:23 Christians are "bought at a price," and Rev 5:9 identifies that price as the blood of the Lamb. Those thus purchased are "redeemed from the earth" (Rev 14:3). False teachers commit the outrageous sin of "denying the sovereign Lord who bought them" (2 Pet 2:1).

by becoming a curse for us,

But how did Jesus redeem us? Paul explains that Jesus so completely identified himself with our sins that he " became a curse for us." An O.T. quotation from Deut 21:23 seals the point: by hanging on the tree, Jesus came under the curse of God. Thus Paul takes the event of the cross a step further than Peter's statement that Jesus "bore our sins in his body on the tree" (1 Pet 2:24). At the point of crucifixion, Jesus no longer was regarded as an innocent man. "God made him who had no sin to be (italics mine) sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor 5:21).

for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree."

When Moses originally issued this decree, crucifixion as we know it did not yet exist. The practice then was to take the slain body of a criminal and hang it up for public exposure. (See Num 25:4; Josh 10:26; and 2 Sam 21:6.) The victim was treated to utter contempt by society, and God added his censure against the person justly condemned.

Crucifixion of a living victim as a means of execution was probably borrowed by the Romans from ancient Carthage. Roman law allowed only slaves and foreigners to be crucified. Roman writers (Cicero, Tacitus) condemned the cross as cruel and disgraceful; Josephus wrote that it was detested and not practiced by the Jews.

3:14 He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus,

The two purpose clauses (i{na , hina ) in this verse are coordinate. The first shows God's general purpose: to give the blessings of Abraham also to the Gentiles; the second is more specific: to give the Spirit to those who believe.

The blessings promised to the Gentiles (v. 8) could only be realized when the Gentiles were freed from their sinful state. God could hardly bless them for their carnality and idolatry! But Christ "bought out" such people from their bondage so that God's blessings could be freely available to them.

so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

This second, more specific, purpose makes plain how the blessing of Abraham comes to Gentiles. Christ the curse becomes Christ the source of blessing when we believe in him. The "promise of the Spirit" could be either a subjective or objective genitive; that is to say, the Spirit could be the one who made the promise (in O.T. Scripture) or the one who is himself promised to us (as indwelling our hearts). In the context of this chapter (esp. verses 2-5) it is better to understand that the Spirit himself is the gift promised by God to those who believe. (Cf. Acts 2:38 and Eph 1:13-14.)

D. ARGUMENT FOUR: A HUMAN COVENANT (3:15-22)

¹⁵ Brothers, let me take an example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case. ¹⁶ The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say "and to seeds," meaning many people, but "and to your seed," ^a meaning one person, who is Christ. ¹⁷ What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. ¹⁸ For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise. ¹⁹ What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was put into effect through angels by a mediator. ²⁰ A mediator, however, does not represent just one party; but God is one. ²¹ Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. ²² But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.

^a 16 Gen. 12:7; 13:15; 24:7

3:15 Brothers, let me take an example from everyday life.

To this point, then, Paul has introduced arguments based on: (1) the coming of the Holy Spirit (proven by the experience of the Christian community); (2) the example of Abraham (proven by Scripture); and (3) the curse of the law (proven by Scriptures). Now a fourth argument will be used, one drawn from everyday life.

"Brothers," Paul says, "I am speaking in a human fashion now." Rather than bombard them with an endless array of Scriptures, Paul wisely varies his ammunition.

Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case.

In everyday secular life the Galatians had occasional opportunity to deal with legal wills. The Greek word for a "last will and testament" was diaqhvkh (diathçkç ), the same word Scripture used when God makes a "covenant" with men. What is true of the "will" in a secular sense is also true of the "covenant" in a religious sense: once ratified (or "probated") no one can set them aside (ajqetei' , athetei , "annul") or add to them (ejpidiatavssetai , epidiatassetai , "add a codicil to").

In Roman law, as in American law, the testator could amend or annul his will in any way he pleased while he was living. But at the death of the testator the will could no longer be changed.

3:16 The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed.

Now that Paul has chosen the imagery of a legal examination of a will, it is necessary to identify the party or parties named as beneficiaries of that will. The gracious covenant drawn up by God was promised "to Abraham and to his seed." Abraham, of course, is easy to identify, but who is/are "his seed"?

The Scripture does not say "and to seeds," meaning many people, but "and to your seed," meaning one person, who is Christ.

Like a Philadelphia lawyer reading the fine print, Paul examines carefully the wording of the original promise. The covenant promise does not include Abraham's "seeds" (spevrmata , spermata ) but his "seed" (spevrma , sperma ). Inspired by the Holy Spirit to see in the text what would normally be passed over, Paul takes emphatic note of the singular form of the word. God's covenant promise was not to reach its final application in all the descendants of Abraham, but in a single, very special descendant: Jesus Christ. (The genealogy of Matthew's gospel, showing Jesus to be descended directly from Abraham, is significant here.)

It is true, of course, that in either Greek or English the word "seed" is a collective noun, and can refer to either a single seed or a mass quantity of it. It would have been precarious for Paul to have made an issue of the singular "seed" if he had not been writing as an inspired apostle.

3:17 What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later,

Having established who the beneficiaries of the covenant were to be, Paul now examines the validity of the covenant itself. Has anything happened to make the original promise null and void? Or to put it more bluntly, did the covenant at Sinai cancel the promises made to Abraham? Following the same principles as common legal systems among men, Paul has to conclude that the Sinai law was 430 years too late to cancel the Abrahamic covenant.

Two interrelated questions must be addressed here. First, what is the reason for the "430 years later"? Second, as the next phrase of this verse mentions, when was the earlier covenant actually ratified, or "established" by God?

At first glance one might think the 430 years represented the time period from the middle of Abraham's life, when the promise was given, to the point in Moses' life when the law was introduced at Sinai. However, a closer look exposes a problem. No matter which point we choose in Abraham's life as a starting date, it is well over 430 years until Moses. Abraham was 75 when God first called him (Gen 12:4) and 99 when Isaac was conceived (Gen 17:1; 18:14). By the time Isaac was born the original promise had been in effect for 25 years. Isaac then lived to the age of 180, died and was buried in Canaan (Gen 35:36). Isaac's son Jacob was an old man himself by the time his sons went down to Egypt to beg food from Joseph. The family of Jacob went to Egypt as honored guests, only to wind up as slaves generations later. They spent over 400 years in Egypt (Gen 15:13; Exod 12:15) before Moses led them out and they received the law at Sinai.

Abraham until Isaac's birth: 25

Isaac until death: 180

Jacob & Joseph: ?

Years lived in Egypt: 400

A number well over 600, traditionally put at 645, would be a more accurate count of the interval between Abraham and Moses.

One possible solution to this apparent problem is that Paul was following Exod 12:40 in the LXX here, which reads, "and the dwelling of the sons of Israel, which they dwelt in Egypt and in Canaan, was 430 years." In the standard Hebrew text however, the 430 years applies to Egypt alone.

A more likely solution is suggested by the wording of the next phrase in this verse of Galatians.

does not set aside the covenant previously established by God

The 430 years appears to come after the "previously established" covenant, not after Abraham himself. The question to ask, then, is when was the covenant established? The birth of Isaac could hardly qualify as "offspring as numerous as the stars" (Gen 15:5). Nor could the promise of possessing the land (15:7) be dated from the time of Abraham, who never owned a square foot of property except the burial plot of Sarah. The first part of the covenant promise which actually finds fulfillment is that Abraham's offspring would go down into a foreign land to be enslaved for 400 years (15:13). It could well be argued, therefore, that this is the point at which the covenant becomes "previously established" as it finally begins to go into effect.

Whichever approach to the 430 years is correct, Paul's main point must not be overlooked. The event at Sinai was 430 years too late to set aside or modify the covenant with Abraham, which was already in effect.

Paul's readers in Galatia would do well to remember chapter one in this context. The unchanging gospel (1:8-9) is the final climax of this unchanging promise God made to Abraham. God has had one plan for the ultimate salvation of the world-a plan which was devised from the beginning of creation-and God has never deviated from it.

and thus do away with the promise.

It will be appropriate at this point to note Scripture's choice of available synonyms for "covenant." Two common words were used for covenant agreements, sunqhvkh (synthçkç ) and diaqhvkh (diathçkç ). The first was appropriate when two parties met as equals and worked out a 50-50 arrangement (cf. the "alliance" of Isa 30:1 and Dan 11:6, as well as the deal worked out by Judas and the priests in Luke 22:5). The other word, diathçkç , was appropriate when the arrangement was one-sided, imposed by a strong party. Invariably it is this second term which Scripture uses to describe God's covenant with men. God sets the terms at his own pleasure and men have no room to negotiate. God could be harsh or he could be gentle, but men have no basis for bargaining. They can either yield to God's covenant or they can refuse to participate, but they cannot change it. Neither can they "do their half" in this arrangement. Men must pledge loyalty to God as their liege-master, but nothing they can do would constitute a "fair exchange" to gain their salvation.

Likewise, Paul makes an interesting choice between two options in his word for "promise." In classical Greek there is the word uJpovscesi" ( hyposchesis ), which is a promise worked out by negotiation, with mutual approach and mutual agreement. On the other hand, the word ejpaggeliva ( epangelia ) used in this verse and throughout the New Testament, is a promise freely made and freely given.

3:18 For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise;

The "inheritance" of which Paul speaks is what has been naturally implied by the situation of the human last will and testament. When a man makes a will, it is to designate his heirs and to specify the inheritance which each will receive.

When a child inherits something from his or her parent, it is not because the child has somehow "earned" the inheritance as "wages." The child receives the stated property or assets simply because the deceased parent has declared it to be so. The bequest cannot be both a wage and an inheritance at the same time.

but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.

God has freely given (kecavristai , kecharistai ) an inheritance to Abraham and his seed. God's promise was not extorted from him under pressure, nor is there any need to fear that he will find a way to renege. As Bruce notes, the perfect tense of the verb "gave" implies "that God not only granted the inheritance to Abraham in the past but continues to make it good to his descendants."

3:19 What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions

Several English translations of this verse have attempted to express more plainly God's purpose in giving the law:

"to show men how guilty they are of breaking God's laws" (The Living Bible)

"to make wrongdoing a legal offense" (NEB)

"to show what wrongdoing is" (TEV)

"to underline the existence and extent of sins" (Phillips)

The purpose of the law is first of all to expose man's sinfulness. It functions as a flashlight might help to identify what has gone wrong with an automobile. The flashlight could call attention to a broken fan belt, but would be of little use in actually fixing the problem. The law spotlights man's broken, sinful state, but the law is not the tool we need to fix our brokenness.

In fact, the law even functions in a way that aggravates and enlarges the problem. It not only exposes everything we have done wrong, it also provides a handy list of all the other things we could do wrong if we want to.

Paul's statement here should be compared with Rom 4:15, "And where there is no law there is no transgression"; and with Rom 5:20, "The law was added so that the trespass might increase."

until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come.

This is a clear statement that the law would be in effect only until Jesus, the Seed of Abraham came. God never intended the law to be permanent. Its purpose was to prepare men for the coming of the offspring (Jesus), by pointing out how bad their sin really was.

The law was put into effect through angels by a mediator.

While there is little evidence of early Jewish understanding that the angels played a part in delivering the law to Moses, no fewer than three N.T. passages affirm that it is so. This verse in Galatians was preceded by Stephen's statement before the Sanhedrin in Acts 7:38 about "the angel who spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai," and followed later by the reference in Heb 2:2 to "the message spoken by angels."

While the Hebrew Old Testament says nothing about angels being involved in giving the law, the LXX translation of Deut 33:2 says when the Lord came from Sinai there were "at his right hand angels with him." Bruce quotes John Calvin as saying, "It is probable that both Paul and Stephen derived from this passage their statement that the law was 'ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator,' for its authority was greatly confirmed by its having so many witnesses."

3:20 A mediator, however, does not represent just one party; but God is one.

As Lightfoot has noted, this verse has produced as many as 250 to 300 different interpretations. While it is difficult to imagine 300 explanations that are truly different from each other, it must be admitted that the meaning of this verse is not immediately apparent. The primary approaches to this verse can be limited to these:

(1) God's true nature is oneness; a transaction like the giving of the law which involves extra functionaries is contrary to his true nature and is therefore false.

(2) A mediator usually negotiates between two pluralities ("a mediator is not of one"). Therefore Moses was not representing God, but was representing the angels. However, it must be admitted that a mediator can very nicely represent an individual (as in Job 9:33 or 1 Tim 2:5).

(3) A variation on (2) is the view that Moses, the representative of mankind, met at Mount Sinai a certain angel, the representative of all angels.

Whatever the specific interpretation of this verse, the overall meaning is that Sinai represented a "second-hand," indirect communication to mankind. The Sinai law is therefore inherently inferior to God's direct communication through Christ-God in human flesh.

3:21 Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not!

Apart from its proper fulfillment in Christ, the law has been called "intrusive, temporary, secondary and preparatory." One reads such criticism of the law and begins to feel that the law is somehow our enemy, and the enemy of God's promises as well. Anticipating this reaction on the part of his readers, Paul explains the apparent competition between the law and the promises. Is there a real competition? "Absolutely not!"

We should recall that Paul himself elsewhere says, "So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good" (Rom 7:12). Recall the purpose of the law as stated in v. 19. The law highlights problems, and does a thorough job of it. But the law does not fix problems; that is not its job. The law does the diagnostic work; someone else will have to do the surgery. The law is diagnostic; only the promises are therapeutic.

For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law.

God never intended the law to impart life or produce adequate righteousness. The job of the law is to reveal that mankind is dying from a lack of righteousness. The law says, in effect, "If you live sinlessly, I will let you go on living" (Lev 18:5). But what about the person who does not live sinlessly? What does the law have to offer him? The law promises a curse (Deut 27:26), with a later reminder that "the soul who sins is the one who will die" (Ezek 18:4).

But what about a remedy? Could the sacrifice of bulls and goats take away sins? (Heb 10:4 shows this to be impossible.) Would divine justice be satisfied with "burnt offerings, calves a year old . . . thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil?" (Micah 6:7). Only the promised blessing to and through the Seed of Abraham could suffice.

3:22 But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin,

The only possibility for life under the law was for a man to succeed in living sinlessly. But Scripture itself declares that no one ever did so. Apart from the coming of the promised Seed, the whole world is "shut up together" (sugkleivw , synkleiô ) in the prisonhouse of sin. (Cf. the same word in Rom 11:32, where God has "bound over" all men to disobedience.)

so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.

Hopefully, men driven to the despair of ultimate doom and damnation will eventually realize their bankrupt spiritual state. Those who do recognize their own spiritual poverty are indeed "blessed" (Matt 5:3), because they are the ones who will then turn to Christ. When their legal plight drives them to seek refuge in Christ, putting all their hopes in him, the law will have performed its God-given task.

Salvation is only possible "through faith" to "those who believe." This repetition enforces the truth that the Galatians needed so badly: men cannot earn their salvation, or even improve their chances by trying harder to live up to the law.

E. ARGUMENT FIVE: THE CHILD-KEEPER (3:23-4:7)

1. The Job of the Child-Keeper (3:23-25)

²³ Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. ²⁴ So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ ^a that we might be justified by faith. ²⁵ Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.

^a 24 Or charge until Christ came

3:23 Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law,

The coming of "this faith" is the combined aspect of the coming of Jesus Christ and the personal faith of believers in him. Christ's life marks the watershed of salvation history.

Before Christ all men were helpless prisoners. We were prisoners "of sin" (v. 22) and prisoners held "by the law" (v. 23). In this

sense, "sin" and "law" are practically synonymous, because the strength of sin is law. Bruce explains this nicely when he says, "To be 'under law' is in practice to be 'under sin' - not because law and sin are identical, but because law, while forbidding sin, stimulates the very thing that it forbids." Sin is our jailor; the law is our warden.

locked up until faith should be revealed.

But it was not God's ultimate plan for mankind to be locked up (synkleiô , "shut up together," as in v. 22) under sin. This was a preliminary phase with a definite termination point set. The confinement under sin and the law came to a specific halt with the coming of Christ and our subsequent faith in him. This protective confinement was only temporary; it was not God's best and final remedy.

3:24 So the law was put in charge

As Paul begins Argument Five, he says literally, "the law has become our paidagwgov" (paidagôgos )." In the world of the first century the paidagôgo s was a cultured slave who was put in charge of the moral training of the sons of a free man as soon as they were old enough to leave their wet-nurse. (When the son reached the age of sixteen he was usually free from his paidagôgos ). The duties of this slave included four basic areas: (1) to protect the sons from harm, whether physical or moral, (2) to administer discipline, when necessary, (3) to inculcate virtues of manhood, such as fearlessness and uprightness, and (4) to escort the boy to his instructor. It was this last duty for which the paidagogos derived his name ( pais "child" plus agôgos "leader").

The irony of a slave ruling over a free man was not lost on the ancients. In a dialogue recorded by Plato, Socrates playfully teases young Lysis about his inferior status to his own family's slaves.

Socrates: But answer me this: suppose you desire to ride in one of your father's chariots and hold the reins in some race; they will not allow you, but will prevent you?

Lysis: That is so, to be sure; they will not allow me.

Socrates: But whom would they allow?

Lysis: There is a driver, in my father's pay.

Socrates: What do you say? A hireling, whom they trust rather than you, so that he can do whatever he pleases with the horses; and they pay him besides a salary for doing that!

Lysis: Why, of course.

Socrates: Well, but they trust you with the control of the mule-cart, and if you wanted to take the whip and lash the team, they would let you?

Lysis: Nothing of the sort!

Socrates: Why, is nobody allowed to lash them?

Lysis: Oh yes, the muleteer.

Socrates: Is he a slave, or free?

Lysis: A slave.

Socrates: So it seems that they value a slave more highly than you with their property, and allow him to do what he likes, while preventing you? And now there is one thing more you must tell me. Do they let you control your own self, or will they not trust you in that either?

Lysis: Of course they do not.

Socrates: But some one controls you?

Lysis: Yes, my paidagôgos here.

Socrates: Is he a slave?

Lysis: Why, certainly. He belongs to us.

Socrates: What a strange thing! A free person controlled by a slave! But how does this paidagôgos actually exert his control over you?

Lysis: By taking me to school, I suppose.

Socrates: And your teachers, can it be that they also control you?

Lysis: I should think they do!

Socrates: Then quite a large number of masters and controllers are deliberately set over you by your father.

to lead us to Christ

The law was set in place by God as a "custodian" or "child-leader" to lead us to Christ (Greek, eij" Cristovn , eis Christon ). This can be understood in two different ways: the law led until Christ came (RSV), or the law led to Christ (NIV and NASB). While there is truth in both views, the context of this passage (in fact, the whole thrust of chapters three and four), points to a law which was in effect only until Christ came. This understanding of the phrase is also in better agreement with v. 25.

At issue in this discussion is whether people must first come under the law before they can come under the blood of Jesus. It is true that all mankind comes under the judgment of the law, but it is not true that people must submit to the law before they can come to Christ. The whole point of Paul's argument is that the Gentiles did not have to become circumcised Jews before they could accept Christ.

that we might be justified by faith.

The ultimate purpose of the law itself, then, was salvation through faith. The law was never intended to be more than a temporary aid. From the very beginning the law was destined to be removed from having any authority, just as soon as the real Authority came. Then men could be justified by trusting in the final Authority himself, rather than by submitting to his slave.

3:25 Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.

The clear statement of Scripture is that Christians are not under the law. While the Greek says literally "we are no longer under paidagôgos ," the NIV correctly catches the meaning of what Paul said. As Bruce notes, "hypo paidagôgos (under a guardian) has the same sense as hypo nomon (under law)."

God's law in the Old Testament has served its purpose; it has prepared the world for Christ. Now it is taken out of the way. The children have come of age; the guardian has been dismissed. Any attempt to force men to stay under the rule of the custodian is to doom them to immaturity.

2. The Benefits for the Children (3:26-29)

²⁶ You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, ²⁷ for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸ There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹ If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

3:26 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,

Those who are "sons of Abraham" in v. 7 have an even higher status: they are "sons of God" as well. It is through faith, not through works, that they enter into this family relationship.

The phrase "in Christ Jesus" is not merely the description of their faith; this is usually expressed in another way. Instead, "in Christ Jesus" shows the grand scope of the believer's whole existence. To be "in Christ" is to be in his body, united with his people, and indwelt by his Spirit. Thus, we might say, "In Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith."

3:27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ

Those who are "in Christ" got into that position through faith (vv. 7, 26), as expressed through the act of baptism. Clark Pinnock affirms, "The entry into the new life in Christ was by baptism." And F. F. Bruce observes, "This is the only reference to baptism in Galatians, and it is difficult to suppose that the readers would not have understood it as a statement about their initiatory baptism in water 'into the name of Jesus.'"

Some interpreters are required by their creedal presuppositions to imagine that early Christians experienced two separate baptisms, one by the Spirit and the other in water. However, this simply will not do. Paul emphatically declares there is "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph 4:5), so the outer immersion in water and the inner engulfing by the Spirit must be simultaneous. Those who insist on preferring a Spirit baptism and downplaying water baptism should note that Spirit baptism is nowhere commanded of men, and could not be obeyed if it were. Baptism in water is routinely demanded of believers, and was the common experience of early Christians.

In Paul's own experience baptism marked a critical point in his conversion. Although some would insist that Paul's "justification by faith" was received on the Damascus road at the moment when the Lord appeared to him, one must take note of the biblical evidence. On the third day following, Ananias insisted that Paul "get up and be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name" (Acts 22:16). While one must never think the water or the act of baptism to have any power to save, it still remains a fact that Paul's salvation experience was not complete until he was baptized.

have clothed yourselves with Christ.

In Christian baptism the believers "clothe themselves" in Christ. They will not stand before God in the filthy rags of their own attempts at goodness, but in the white robes of the righteousness of Christ (see Isa 64:6 and Rev 6:11). Moule and others have suggested that the "clothing" imagery arose from the converts' practice of taking off their old garments before baptism and putting on new garments afterwards.

3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek,

There is a good possibility that here Paul is consciously using the threefold division of an ancient Jewish prayer:

"Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who hast not made me a gentile. Blessed art Thou . . . who hast not made me a slave. Blessed art Thou . . . who hast not made me a woman."

This prayer, repeated each morning by the pious Jewish male, can be traced back at least as far as Rabbi Judah ben Elai around A.D. 150. At the time it was intended as a statement of reverence for the Torah, for those three classes of people were prevented by status or circumstance from studying it. As Bruce has noted, "It is not unlikely that Paul himself had been brought up to thank God that he was born a Jew and not a Gentile, a freeman and not a slave, a man and not a woman. If so, he takes up each of these three distinctions which had considerable importance in Judaism and affirms that in Christ they are irrelevant."

Jack Cottrell has demonstrated that Paul's threefold division has special significance in O.T. inheritance laws. Gentiles, slaves, and women could not ordinarily inherit the land owned by Israelites. But in the new covenant all three are counted as "sons of God" (v. 26) and are heirs of salvation (v. 29).

For the Jew the separation between Jew and Gentile was "the most radical within the human race." While it was possible for a Gentile to cross over the gulf and join the Jewish side as a proselyte, the great gulf remained. Jewish Christians in the church - especially in Galatia - carried on the same attitude toward Gentiles: If they want to join our side, let them be circumcised first.

slave nor free,

Roman slavery was at its worst at the birth of Christ. Masters had the legal right to torture or kill slaves, since they were mere property. In the second century the emperor Hadrian would forbid a master from killing a slave, unless he first got permission from the court.

But while the ancient world calmly accepted the institution of slavery, the church could not. Whatever the roles people held in the secular world, in Christ they were equal. Both stood before God as unworthy; both were accepted in Christ as forgiven.

male nor female,

Ancient society, including the Jews, usually took a disparaging view of women. Since women could not receive circumcision, they were less than full participants in the old covenant. The Talmud (the official collection of Jewish tradition and Scripture interpretation) has some very harsh statements in this regard: "Women are greedy, inquisitive, lazy, vain, and frivolous"; "Ten qab of empty-headedness have come upon the world, nine having been received by women, and one by the rest of the world"; "Happy is he whose children are males, and woe to him whose children are females." Worst of all, the rabbis taught, "May the words of the Torah be burned, they should not be handed over to women."

But in Christ women come to faith (v. 26), baptism (v. 27), and salvation (v. 29) on the same terms with men. They are equally acceptable to God, and equally loved.

This does not, however, cancel out the separate and distinct roles of men and women in the home or in the church. It was after Paul had written this verse in Galatians that he affirmed certain limitations on the role of women (1 Cor 11:3-16; 14:33-36;

1 Tim 2:8-15). The statement "neither male nor female" must be understood in terms of eligibility for salvation, especially in this context of faith and baptism (vv. 26-27).

On the other hand, others hold that this verse removes virtually all distinctions between men and women in the church. Bruce reasons that "if a Gentile may exercise spiritual leadership in church as freely as a Jew, or a slave as freely as a citizen, why not a woman as freely as a man?" While slave/master roles would still exist between Christians outside the context of the church, and while husband/wife roles would still exist in the family, no such distinctions would be recognized in their church roles. However, this is not implied by the context, and is inconsistent with Paul's own later teaching.

for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

The Galatian believers, although Gentile in their ancestry, are united with Jewish believers in Christ. In the world, mankind will always be divided into warring camps over issues of race, nationality, creed, sex, and social status, but in the body of Christ all are equal. All have put on Christ; all look like Christ; all belong to Christ.

3:29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed,

Since Christ is the offspring of Abraham, then all those who belong to Christ are also the offspring of Abraham. If, as the agitators were insisting, one must become a Jew before he can become a Christian, that is taken care of in Christ. Those who have faith in Christ are the seed of Abraham.

and heirs according to the promise.

The promise was made to Abraham, but we have become the heirs! Those who trusted their ancestry are now replaced by those who trust their Savior. The new heirs will inherit what Abraham had coming: justification by faith.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

McGarvey: Gal 3:15

Brethren, I speak after the manner of men: Though it be but a man's covenant, yet when it hath been confirmed, no one maketh it void, or addeth thereto

McGarvey: Gal 3:16

Now to Abraham were the promises spoken, and to his seed. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. [Gen 13:15 ; Gen 17:8]

McGarvey: Gal 3:17

Now this I say: A covenant confirmed beforehand by God, the law, which came four hundred and thirty years after, doth not disannul, so as to make the promise of none effect

McGarvey: Gal 3:18

For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no more of promise: but God hath granted it to Abraham by promise. [Brethren, I wish to use an illustration taken from our daily business life, viz.: that of our usage concerning contracts or agreements. Now if, when a human contract has once been confirmed, it becomes so sacred that no man will presume to annul or change it without the consent of both parties, much more is a covenant of God's too sacred to be modified or tampered with. But God made such a ratified or confirmed contract or covenant with Abraham, for he spoke promises to Abraham, and to his seed. Not in fact meaning to Abraham and all his posterity, but to Abraham and his spiritual posterity (for he used a word which may be so interpreted), for he did not use the plural "seeds," but the singular "seed," thereby referring especially to Christ as the head of the spiritual posterity. Now, I say therefore, that this covenant, having been confirmed before the law came, still holds good, and can not be annulled by the coming of the law, for the law, as you know, did not come until four hundred and thirty years after the covenant was confirmed. Now, to sum up what I have said, the promise, being given to the seed of Abraham, becomes to them an inheritance, and inheritances do not come from two parties, but from one; so, if the inheritance had been derived from the law, it could not have been derived from the promise also; but it was derived from the promise, since God thus gave it to Abraham. We lack space for the grammatical and chronological difficulties of this passage. Suffice it to say, "seed," being a collective noun, is capable of being applied to many; but it is also, as Paul says, capable of being applied to one, and none of his auditors would object at all to his thus applying it solely to Christ. Again, if the term of four hundred and thirty years is inaccurate, it is the number given in the Septuagint, which was then universally used. And, for argumentative purposes, was sufficiently correct as a round number.]

McGarvey: Gal 3:19

What then is the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise hath been made; and it was ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator.

McGarvey: Gal 3:20

Now a mediator is not a mediator of one; but God is one. [This verse has been interpreted in more than three hundred different ways.]

McGarvey: Gal 3:21

Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could make alive, verily righteousness would have been of the law.

McGarvey: Gal 3:22

But the scripture shut up all things under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. [The apostle now undertakes to show the inferiority of the law to the gospel. For what purpose then, you ask, was the law? It was added by God for the purpose of revealing and manifesting to man his sinfulness, and was to exist only during the interim between the giving of the promise and the fulfillment of the promise by the coming of Christ (Gal 2:18 ; Rom 5:13-20 ; Rom 7:7). It was not given directly by divine lips, as was the gospel, but through the intervention of angels (Deu 33:2 ; Heb 2:2); and it was not given personally, but through Moses, a mediator (Deu 5:5). Now, this mediatorship of Moses also argues the temporal nature of the law; for a mediator is no part of the personality of the one whom he represents: he is a different personality; but God is one personality, and can not, therefore, be properly represented by any other than himself. Such a mediatorship, therefore, must, in the very nature of the case, be but temporary. The men who represent God are mortal and pass away, but God is immutable and ever-abiding. His promises, therefore, stand on a different plane from anything which rests on human mediation. But some one will ask, if the law brings a curse, is it not antagonistic to the promises which bring a blessing? God forbid that we should think that the Almighty acts in so contrary a manner. There are two ways in which the law might antagonize the gospel. 1. If righteousness could have been obtained by it, it might have proved a rival way of life. But it is no such rival. 2. If it had destroyed life despite the gospel, it would have been contradictory to the gospel. But it merely shut men up as prisoners, doomed for their sins, that justification by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to all them that believe. Thus, instead of being antagonistic to the gospel, the law emphasized and revealed the blessedness of the gospel.]

Lapide: Gal 3:1-29

CHAPTER 3

SYNOPSIS OF THE CHAPTER

S. Paul proceeds to prove by five reasons that we are justified not by the law, or the works of the law, but by Christ.

i. The first proof is drawn (ver. 2) from experience. The Galatians had received the Holy Spirit and His gifts, not in circumcision, but in baptism.

ii. The second (ver. 6) from the example of Abraham, who was justified because he believed God, i.e., by faith.

iii. The third relies on the fact (ver. 10) that these under the law are under the curse threatened to all who transgress it. But Christ, being made a curse for us, has set us free from the curse of the law.

iv. The fourth is drawn (ver. 11) from Habakkuk ii. 4: "The just liveth by faith."

v. The fifth insists (ver. 16) that it was to Abraham and his seed that the blessing of righteousness was promised. Therefore, it is by the promise, apprehended by faith, that we are justified, and not by the law. For the law, as is said in ver. 24, was given only as a school-mister to lead us to Christ, that by Him we might be justified, that we might put on Him and become all one with Him.

Ver. 1 . — O foolish Galatians. " Each province," says S. Jerome, " has its characteristic. Epimenides notes that the Cretans are liars. The Latin historian charges the Moors with frivolity, Me Dalmatians with ferocity. All the poets condemn the cowardice of the Phrygians. Cicero (' pro Flacco ') asserts that the Greeks are frivolous by nature and empty by education. In the same way the Apostle, it seems to me, charges the Galatians with their racial defect in describing them as untearable, stubborn, and slow to wisdom."  S. Jerome again says that Hilary, an impartial witness, calls the Gauls intractable; and again he insists that the stupidity of the Galatians is evident from their inclination to all sorts of foolish heresies. " Whoever has seen, as I have done, Ancyra, the metropolis of Galatia, will bear out my statement that it is torn with schisms. To say nothing of the Cataphrygians, the 0phites, the Borborites, and the Manichæans, whoever in the whole Roman world besides knows more than the names of the Passalorinctæ, the Ascodrobi, the Artotiræ, and other monstrous sects? The traces of ancient folly remain to this day " ( in Ep. Galat., Preface, lib. ii.).

Observe that this reproach of the Apostle's springs, not from indignation, but from charity; it is a material and not a formal rebuke. Cf. Gregory, Past. iii. 8.

Parents who use a thong to punish their sons may still more use their tongue, and burn out their vices by sharp words. Christ called the scribes hypocrites (S. Mat 22:18), and S. Paul called Elymas a child of the devil (Act 13:10). The keenness, however, of the rebuke is toned down here by the following words—" Who hath bewitched you?"— which attribute their folly to the influence of the Jews.

Who hath bewitched you? The Greek word here signifies (1.) to, envy. "What Jew has envied you your Gospel liberty?" (Theophylact and Anselm). It denotes (2.) to fascinate, charm, bind the eyes, so as to make them to see what is not, or not to see what is. This second sense better suits the context—before whose eyes Christ hath been evidently set forth. It was through the fixed look of the person casting the spell that the charm was commonly made to work. Virgil refers to this in the line, " Some eye is casting its spell on my tender lambs."  S. Paul's question then means: "What evil eye has seduced you, 0 Galatians, yet young in the faith, to the delusion of Judaism?" " The evil eye," says Jerome, " is peculiarly hurtful to infants, and those of tender years, and who cannot yet run alone."

Evidently set forth. The Vulgate is præscriptus, which is rendered by Anselm, disinherited; by Ambrose, spoiled, in the sense: You have deprived Christ of His lawful inheritance, the Church.

S. Augustine, according to Erasmus, understands the word to allude to legal prescription, by which, after a certain time (three years in the case of movables, ten years in the case of immovables), possession gave a title to ownership. Christ, by the prescription of the Old Law, which for so many hundreds of years enjoyed the name of the Free Law, was shut out from His possession, the Church. But Erasmus has misread S. Augustine, as is evident from the best MSS. The latter reads proscriptus, and comments on it thus: " The Jews took away His inheritance, and drove Him out," which is an act of proscription, not of prescription.

S. Jerome interprets præscriptus to mean that the death of Christ was predicted by the prophets and in the sacraments of the Old Law.

But there is a third and better meaning. Christ was put by writing, or by a picture, before your very eyes, crucified. The Galatians had not been spectators of the actual Crucifixion, but Christ had by preaching and faith been represented to them as crucified. This interpretation makes it necessary to supply as though before crucified.

The sense, then, is: Though crucified at Jerusalem in fact, yet Christ has been represented as though crucified before you, 0 Galatians, by my preaching and your faith. By the eyes of faith you have seen Christ hanging on the Cross more clearly than did the Jews who stood at its foot. Who, then, has cast a spell upon those eyes which have so clearly seen Christ crucified?

It is possible, however, that the words are to be taken literally. In your own age, in the presence perhaps of some of you, and in a country not far removed, Christ was marked out by the instruments of His Passion, and depicted as your Saviour. While the colours then are so fresh on the canvas, how can you be so bewitched as to forget so great and so recent a benefit?

In this sense Christ Himself crucified is, as it were, a picture or a book in which He is described in blood-red letters. Do you wish to know who Christ is and what He is like? Open this book, look at the Cross, see the title, Jesus of Nazareth—i.e., Consecrator, who has consecrated us to God—King of the Jews. You will find it written. " Christ was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." He alone bore and expiated our sin, for what is sin but Christicide or Deicide? You will read too in this book, in the wounds and blood of Christ, that it was love of you which formed and coloured Him so. In His whole body you will see love written, nay, engraved. This book, in short, will show to one who reads and looks well all the wisdom of Christ, and the very depths of Christian philosophy.

Ver. 2. — Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the heating of faith? The Spirit here is the Holy Spirit, with His visible gifts of tongues and prophecy, which He used to give in baptism, as outward tokens of the invisible graces He there infused. S. Paul asks the Galatians whether it is not clear that they received the Spirit and His gifts, not from circumcision, but in baptism.

The heating of faith. Hearing can be taken here either actively, in reference to the preaching they heard, or passively, in reference to their hearkening to and obeying the faith preached. Cf. Isa 51:4-7.

Ver. 3. — Having begun in the Spirit. With the spiritual doctrine of Christ, and the spiritual gifts received from Him, enabling you to live the spiritual life.

Are ye now made perfect by the flesh? The flesh is put for circumcision and other carnal ceremonies of the law. The interpretation which sees here a reference to the carnal lusts of the flesh is disproved by the context. Made perfect is in the Vulgate consumemini.

S. Bernard ( Serm. 33 in Cant.) applies this text to those who exhaust their strength by unrestrained devotion, through excessive prayers and penances. Afterwards, he says, they become lazy, and are consumed by the flesh, while seeking for health, and so become sensual and carnal. Cf. notes to 1Co 3:2.

Theophylact observes that S. Paul uses the passive, not the active—"Are you made perfect?" not, "Do you make perfect?" i.e., he hints that they were like brute beasts, in suffering themselves to be circumcised by others. He also notes that he does not say merely πεγει̃σθε, but ε̉πιτελει̃σθε : After being perfected in Christ, will you seek a perfection beyond in the Old Law? Do you want to add a fifth wheel to the coach?

Ver. 4. — Have ye suffered so many things in vain? Why should unbelievers persecute you in vain, i.e., without cause, if you are returning to Moses?

If it be yet in vain. Which it will be, unless you return to your former mind, and stand firm in the faith of Christ.

Ver. 5.— He therefore that ministereth. I.e., God or Christ, who infuses His grace, and works in you by His Divine power. Cf. 1Co 12:6.

Ver. 6. — Even as Abraham believed God. This introduces the second argument, to prove that we are justified, not by the works of the law, but by faith; not by Moses, but by Christ. Abraham received the Spirit when uncircumcised and before the law, and was justified by faith in Christ, not by the law, which at that time was not in existence. So, argues S. Paul, are you justified by faith.

And it was accounted to him for righteousness. By his faith he was justified. Cf. notes to Rom 4:3.

Ver. 7.— They which are of faith. A Græcism for they who are faithful, who imitate Abraham's faith.

The same are the children of Abraham. Not by blood, but by imitation; to them, therefore, belongs the blessing pronounced on Abraham.

Ver. 8. — Preached before the gospel unto Abraham. Gave him this most joyful news of the blessing to be conferred by Christ on His descendants, i.e., on the faithful. In other words, the Gospel about Christ and His righteousness is not new, but is as old as the days of Abraham.

In thee shall all nations be blessed. Cajetan observes, in his notes or Genesis 12., that when God called Abraham from his home in Chaldea, and from his kindred, to go to a land to be shown him, He promised him a sevenfold blessing. Seven is the number of completeness. (1.) He promised him that he should be the head or father of a great nation, in the words, " I will make of thee a great nation ;" (2.) abundant riches, in the words, " I will bless thee ;" (3.) fame and wide renown, in the words, " And make thy name great ;" (4.) the sum of all blessings and honours, in the words, " Thou shalt be a blessing." The exact force of the Hebrew here is that thou shalt be so filled with blessings as to seem to be a blessing itself, so that when men may wish to bless any one, they shall put you forward as an example, saying, "May God bless thee as He blessed Abraham." In a similar way the Romans saluted their Cæsar: "May you be more fortunate than Augustus, more virtuous than Trajan." (5.) "The Lord promised His blessing, not to Abraham only, but to his friends, in the words, " I will bless them that bless thee." (6.) He promised that He would avenge him on his adversaries, in the words, " I will curse him that curseth thee." (7.) The preceding six are temporal only, but the seventh and the chief is spiritual and eternal, " In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed."

1. Observe that in thee, i.e., in thy seed, as is explained in Gen 22:17, is to he understood as in Christ, who was born of Abraham, according to the Apostle's interpretation in Gal 3:16. Through thy seed, Christ, and through faith in Him, all nations shall be blessed, i.e., be justified and made sons and friends of God, and consequently heirs of God's kingdom, and entitled to hear the blissful words, " Come, ye blessed of My Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Abraham's blessing, therefore, was that he should be the father of the justified.

2. But in thee can be also rendered like thee. As thou art justified by faith, so by faith shall all nations be justified, and not by the works of the law. So say Chrysostom, Augustine, Theophylact, Œcumenius, and S. Thomas.

Notice, too, that with God to speak is as efficacious as to do, for, " Ye spake the word and they were made."

Similarly, to pronounce a blessing with Him is the same as to confer a blessing ( benedicere = benefacere ). The greater the blessing promised, the greater the blessing given. But the greatest good we can receive is that grace by which we become sharers of the Divine nature, and the word blessing, therefore, denotes this great gift.

Hence the Fathers rightly interpret, they shall be blessed, as they shall be justified : they shall receive the blessing of justification, than which no greater gift can be given to man by God.

From this is evident the error of Paginus, in rendering the phrase before us, In thee shall all nations bless themselves. The Hebrew voice of the verb is the Niphal, which is purely passive, not reflexive; moreover, S. Paul's use of the passage is against him.

Ver. 9. — So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. This is the conclusion from the premisses of the three preceding verses. God promised to Abraham that in him, i.e., in his seed, i.e., in Christ, all nations should be blessed, i.e., justified. But the promise of God cannot fail; therefore the consequence contained in this verse follows.

If the second sense of in thee, given above, is preferred, the argument is the same. In thee, i.e., like thee, all nations shall be blessed. But thou, 0 Abraham, wast justified by faith; therefore, the Gentiles too shall be justified in the same way. And from this it follows that they who are of faith shall be blessed, i.e., justified with faithful Abraham. This last phrase rather favours the second rendering of in thee, and hints that the Gentiles shall be justified by faith like faithful Abraham.

Observe again the Græcism, they who are of faiih, i.e., who are faithful. Similarly, he speaks of those who are of the circumcision, i.e., the Jews, followers of the law. Elsewhere he calls them those who are of the works of the law, i.e., those who rely on it and hope for justification from it.

Ver. 10.— For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse. He inquired in verse 5 whether righteousness comes from the law or from faith. He replied, "From faith," and then proved his answer by the example of Abraham. He now proceeds to a third proof, by destroying the alternative, viz., that it is not of the law. So far from the law bestowing a blessing, those who are under it are under a curse—exposed to eternal damnation. This he argues thus: Whoever does not keep the whole law is cursed by the law. But no one keeps the whole law without the grace of Christ, as I suppose you know from your own experience; for you know that the law teaches, threatens, and punishes only, but does not confer grace; therefore, without faith no one is free from the curse of the law pronounced by it against those who transgress it. The law curses, faith alone blesses.

If any one wishes the argument put more in syllogistic form, it may be thrown into the mood barbara thus. Whoever breaks any law is cursed by it. But all who are under the law, and are shut off from the grace of Christ, break the law; therefore, all who are under the law are cursed by it. The major is proved by Deut. xxvii. 26; the minor is supposed to be known by experience, and hence the conclusion follows. Of course the minor must be granted, else the Judaisers might say to the Galatians: We are as much under a blessing as a curse, for if the law curses those who break it, it also blesses those who keep it, as is said in Deut. xxviii. 2.

For it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. Though Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, the LXX., render the word we translate continueth somewhat differently, yet the sense is the same throughout. Whoever does not by his deeds establish, strengthen, settle the law, is accursed by it. This is the major of the syllogism just stated.

1. Observe that he passes over the minor, because it was admitted. Calvin, however, makes it to be this: But no one can fulfil the law; therefore, the law imposes what is impossible, and consequently all are under its curse. But this is an impious proposition. If modified thus: No one keeps the law without the faith of Christ, therefore all without that faith are under the curse of the law, then it becomes orthodox. God does not command impossibilities. Although by natural strength a man cannot keep the whole law, yet he can by supernatural, and this latter God gives to all that ask Him, whether Jews or Gentiles.

2. Observe, in the second place, that not all were accursed who broke any law. For some laws, though of Divine origin, obliged under venial sin only, because of the nature of their subject-matter, as, e.g., the law forbidding the mother to be taken in the nest with her young (Deu 22:6.), and the law forbidding a vineyard to be sown with divers seeds (ver. 9), and the law forbidding a garment to be woven of flax and wool (ver. 11). It is evident, therefore, that Deut. xxvii., quoted by S. Paul, refers to the Decalogue, which contains commandments of great importance. It is because they oblige under mortal sin that he is cursed who breaks one of them. A reference to Deut. xxvii. will show this to be the case. The Apostle assumes that no one can keep the whole Decalogue without the grace of Christ, and he thence concludes that all who are under the law are cursed by it.

Ver. 11 . — But that no man is justified. This is a fourth proof.  S. Paul would fain convince the Galatians by an accumulation of proofs. After that based on the example of Abraham, and that on the condition of those under the law, he proceeds to another drawn from Habukkuk ii. 4, a text already explained in the notes on Rom 1:17.

Ver. 12 . — And the law is not of faith. The law neither teaches nor gives the grace by which we fulfil the law and live righteously. But, as is said in Eze 20:11, the man that doeth what the law commands shall live, i.e., shall not be punished with the death threatened by the law for transgressors, but he shall enjoy life and an abundance of temporal goods, as the law promises to those who keep it. The same was said in Rom 10:5, which reminds us of the close relationship between that Epistle and this, the latter being a compendium of the former.

Observe the antithesis between "faith" and "law." Of the former, it is said that the just, because he is just, shall live by it, i.e.,shall enjoy a life of grace and glory, which is the perfect and blissful life. But as to the latter, it is not said absolutely that he who keeps the law shall live by it, but only in it, i.e., he shall live the life, and enjoy the goods promised by the law, viz., abundance of corn, wine, and oil.

Ver. 13. — Christ was made a curse for us. Christ, though blessed in Himself, was made a curse, so far as He took on Him the person of sinners, to expiate the curse due because of their sins. Just as if a man make himself responsible for another's debt, he becomes and is called a debtor, so Christ was made a curse for us. The term, however, cannot be properly applied to Him, for though a debt may be transferred, sin cannot. It is only applied to Him improperly, in the sense that He took upon Him the punishment of sin. In 2Co 5:21, Christ is said to have been made sin for us, i.e., a victim for sin, according to the Jewish rite by which, through the imposition of hands, the whole body of sin was transferred to the victim. So here He is called a curse, because God transferred to Him the curses due to the whole human race, so that He bore for us the shameful Cross, to show the hideousness of sin as well as to give an example of every virtue. He hung on the Cross, says S. Augustine, " in order that Christian freedom, unlike Jewish slavery, might fear not only no death, but no kind of death " ( contra Adimant. c. 21). So too Tertullian: " The Lord Himself was cursed in the law, and yet He alone was blessed. Therefore let us, His servants, follow our Lord, and patiently endure cursing, that we may be blessed. " ( de Patienciâ, c. 8).

For it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree. This is from Deu 21:23. Aquila and Theodotion render the clause, The curse of God is hanged ; Symmachus, He was hanged for blasphemy against God; Ebion, the half-Jewish, half-Christian heresiarch, as Jerome calls him, rendered it, He who hangs is an outrage on God; another, The insult against God is hanged. Jerome adds that his Hebrew teacher (Barhanina) told him that the Hebrew might be translated, God was ignominiously hanged. Hence  S. Jerome infers, that as S. Paul does not mention the name of God, that name was not in the original, but afterwards inserted by some Jew, in derision of the Christians. But this is improbable, for all the Hebrew, Latin, and Greek texts, as well as the LXX. version, have the name of God in this text of Deuteronomy. It was, therefore, out of zeal for God that Paul omitted His name, and because of the Jews and the Galatians, already half-disposed to forsake Christ. He feared lest he might alienate them still further if he said that Christ had been cursed by God.

1. From this and other passages, such as Num 25:24, Jos 8:29, 2Sa 21:9, it appears that the Jews, contrary to the opinion expressed by some, punished criminals with crucifixion, as well as stoning or burning.

2. They adopted crucifixion for the most heinous crimes, such as blasphemy, idolatry, oppression, and accordingly they crucified Christ for aiming at a kingship over Judæa. Hence criminals so punished were held in greater execration than others, accursed by God and man. It was not among the Romans alone that the punishment of crucifixion was regarded as infamous above all others.

3. Although Tostatus extends by analogy the provisions of Deu 21:23 to other modes of punishment besides crucifixion, yet there is little warrant for doing so. The law imposes this penalty precisely on hanged criminals alone, on the ground that they were specially execrable.

It may be asked why God commanded the bodies of such criminals to be buried before the evening. The answer is to be found in Josh. viii. 28, and the comments of Andreas Masius on it. " It is," he says, " because such a corps is regarded as contaminating the earth; for as long as human bodies are left neglected and unburied, like the bodies of brute beasts, men who dwell on the earth are apt to conceive an impious and pernicious opinion of the soul's mortality." This explanation is more ingenious than true. It proves too much, and applies to all criminals, however killed; but the law regards those only who were hanged on a tree. The opinion, therefore, of Cajetan and others is preferable, viz., that God wishes to blot out the remembrance of such men entirely from the earth, as a deterrent to others. So too poisoning, arson, fraud, and sodomy were punished with death by fire, the fire annihilating the bodies of those guilty of such atrocities.

We should note the Scripture phraseology here. The earth is said to be polluted by crimes, to groan, to cry aloud, to be angry, to call for vengeance, nay, to cast out its inhabiters, as, e.g., in Lev 18:28. The figure is a prosopopœia, by which life and feeling are attributed to inanimate things, so that the earth and the elements, as irrational creatures serving their Creator and jealous for His honour, detest what He detests. They do this by a sort of natural instinct, which keeps them true to their place and the universal good, and eager to fulfil the will of God. This natural instinct makes them do what they would do in obedience to reason if they were rational creatures.

It was in accordance with this law of Deuteronomy that Christ, as a suspended malefactor, was taken from the Cross and buried, before the evening of the day on which He suffered, the next day being a Sabbath, although strictly speaking He was exempted from this law by His innocence. Hence the Hebrew of S. Jerome, before quoted, held that the law could be prophetically rendered: " His body," i.e., Christ's, " shall not remain on the tree because God was ignominiously hanged." The Jews, however, did not rely on this law for their action in taking him down from the Cross, but on the dishonour that would otherwise be done to the great Sabbath that was close at hand, as is clear from S. Joh 19:31.

This law of Deuteronomy was a judicial law, and, therefore, abrogated with the whole judicial and ceremonial law, by the death of Christ. Consequently crucified criminals are not now reckoned as cursed above others, nor are they buried on the same day, but are sometimes allowed to hang for days and weeks for a terror to other evil-doers.

S. Jerome remarks on this passage. " The Lord's shame is our glory. He died that we might live. Ye descended into hell that we ascend to heaven. He was made foolishness that we might become wise. He emptied Himself of His fulness, and put off the form of God, and put on the form of a servant, that the fulness of the God-head might dwell in us, and that we might be changed from slaves into masters. He hung on the Cross, that the tree of shame might destroy the sin which we had committed through the tree of knowledge. His Cross made the bitter waters sweet, and made the lost axe swim in Jordan. Finally, He was made a curse—made, not born—that the blessings which had been promised to Abraham, with Him as author and herald, might be transferred to the Gentiles, and the promise of His spirit might by faith be fuelled in us." See too the notes of Chrysostom and Anselm.

Ver. 14.— That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles. This evidently is a corollary from the preceding verse. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, in order that the blessing of Abraham might be ours in place of the curse.

The promise of the Spirit. To the children of Abraham, i.e., to those who believe on Christ, the descendant of Abraham, was promised the Holy Spirit to justify and sanctify us. For when God said to Abraham, " In thee," it was to his seed, which is Christ, that the blessing was appointed. Cf. notes to verse 8 above.

Ver. 15.— I speak after the manner of men. Cf. Job 31:33, and Hos 6:7. S. Paul's meaning is that in dealing with spiritual things he uses material illustrations, as, e.g., that of a testator and his testament, to prove that we inherit Abraham's blessing, not through the law, but through faith in Christ, according to the covenant made with Abraham, and that, therefore, the Galatians should feel shame for attributing less to God than to the testaments and covenants of men. This is his fifth proof, that we are justified by faith and not by the law.

Though it be but a man's covenant. No one adds to or subtracts from a man's testament when once it is duly drawn up.

Ver. 16.— To Abraham and his seed were the promises made. Thisrefers to Gen. xxii. 16. From this we conclude that by his readiness to obey God in sacrificing his son he merited that from his own seed should Christ be born as a blessing to the Gentiles, and to fulfil the promises. The Apostle, therefore, rightly lays it down that these promises were made to Abraham and his seed, i.e., to Christ, who should spring from his loins; although the word of Genesis speaks of these promises being made to Abraham in his seed only, and not to his seed. Yet the very fact that they were to be fulfilled in his seed shows that they were made rather to his seed than to Abraham. Just as if a king should promise one of his nobles to exalt his family in his son, by making him a duke or a prince, and thereby makes a promise to the son rather than to the father, so did God to Abraham. It was in Christ, as the seed of Abraham, that the promise, " In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed," has been fulfilled, and justification assured to all who believe in Christ.

To thy seed which is Christ. This may be said to meet a possible objection that seed is equivalent to posterity or descendants, and is therefore a noun of multitude, and that S. Paul here denies this interpretation. But seed is sometimes used as a collective term, as for example, in the promise, " Thy seed shall be as the stars of heaven," and sometimes as a particular term; e.g., in Gen 21:13: " Of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed."  S. Paul, in interpreting the word here in the latter sense, might have appealed to the practice of the Rabbinical expositors, who all understood it of Christ. Moreover, if it were to be taken in the former sense, the prophecy would have failed of fulfilment, for all the nations of the earth have not been blessed in Abraham's posterity, if by them we are to understand the Jewish people; on the contrary, the Jews are for a reproach, and a curse among the Gentiles.

Ver. 17 . — The covenant that was before of God in Christ. If, as was said in verse 15, no one annuls the testament of a man, still less can the law, which came 430 years afterwards, annul the promise of God confirmed to Abraham in Christ.

Note that the Hebrew berith, the Greek diathèkè, and the Latin testamentum, have all the same meaning of covenant, and that the diathèkè, of the LXX. is identical with sunthèkè,according to Jerome, Chrysostom, Theophylact, and Œcumenius. Budæus proves the same from Demosthenes and Aristophanes. Cf. notes to 1Co 11:25. But S. Augustine understands the term of a will. " Because," he says, " the death of the testator has the effect of confirming his will, so the unchangeableness of God has the effect of confirming His promise."

An important question is here raised as to the date from which these 430 years should be reckoned, for the terminus ad quem alone is clearly defined in this passage, viz., the year when the law was given on Mount Sinai.  S. Paul's computation seems in conflict with Exo 12:40, which speaks of the sojourning of the children of Israel in Egypt as lasting 430 years, or, in other words, which represents the time between the going down of Jacob into Egypt and the Exodus as 430 years; but the Apostle seems to count the interval between Abraham and the Exodus as 430 years. But from Abraham to Jacob's descent was 200 years, and therefore if Exod. xii. 40 is to be followed, the Apostle should have said 630 years.

I reply briefly with S. Augustine (qu. 47 in Exod. ); with Athanasius, or rather Anastasius, in his "Synopsis of Holy Scripture" ( in loco ) with Eusebius, in his Chronicon; with Rupert, Tostatus, Cajetan ( in Exod.), that the computation of S. Paul is identical with that of Moses in Exod. xii. 40, and that both begin to reckon, not from the descent of Jacob into Egypt, but from the seventy-fifth year of Abraham's life, when he was called from his country to go into Canaan. It was in that year that he received the blessings S. Paul is referring to, as is evident from the beginning of Gen. xii.

1. This appears from the obvious fact that the Hebrews did not dwell in Egypt 430 years; for Kohath went down with his grandfather, Jacob (Exo 6:18). But Kohath lived 133 years, and his, son Amram 137 years. When Moses, Amram's son, went out of Egypt with the Hebrews, he was in his eighty-first year; and if all these three are added together, we get 351 only. But we must deduct from this total the years that Kohath lived after begetting Amram, and that Amram lived after begetting Moses. From this it follows that the number of 430 must be reckoned from a date long anterior to the descent into Egypt, viz., from the migration of Abraham from Haran, and this the LXX. expressly say in their rendering of Exo 12:40: " But the sojourning of the children of Israel, which they and their fathers made in the land of Egypt and Canaan, was 430 years."

2. Moreover, the Apostle says here that the law was given 430 years after, not the descent of Jacob, but the promise to Abraham; but the law was given in the same year that the Hebrews left Egypt, in the third month after their departure. Cf. Exo 19:1, and the notes to Exod. xii. 40.

Ver. 18 . — If the inheritance be of the law. If our heritage of righteousness be of the law of Moses, then it is not of the promise. But this is false, for God promised this righteousness to Abraham and to his seed, which is Christ. If it is of the promise of Christ, then it is through faith in Christ, and not through the law of Moses, that all nations are to be blessed.

Ver. 19.— Wherefore then serveth the law? Why was the law introduced after the promise? Is it that God does not fulfil His promise? The answer is that the law was given by God to restrain and punish transgressions. This was its direct purpose, but indirectly it served as a means whereby transgressions might be made manifest. A self-willed people would, on hearing the law, recognise their sins as such, and feel the need of Christ's grace if they were to keep it. In this way the law sent men to Christ.

Till the seed should come. Till the birth of Christ, to whom God had promised that by Him all nations should be blessed, i.e., justified, and so be able to live uprightly and to keep the law. The law was given as a pedagogue till Christ should come; therefore when Christ has come it has done its work, and the Jews are foolish in wishing to prolong its power.

Because of transgressions. The Greek word rendered added denotes put in its place, as a soldier is assigned his post by his general. So the law was assigned its rank, place, time, and method of promulgation.

1. It was given its rank between the law of nature and the Gospel, being more perfect than the one but inferior to the other. It was a road from one to the other.

2. It was given its fitting time, in being promulgated to a people still uncouth, when it was about to form itself into a nation and a Church, to prevent it from failing into idolatry and heathen license.

3. It had its due place, for being given at Sinai before the entrance into Canaan, it formed a sort of condition to the covenant. God promised that He would lead the Hebrews into Canaan, and put them in possession of it, if they would follow the law as their guide, and observe it as a condition attached to His promise.

4. It had its proper mode of promulgation, for it came from an angel on Mount Sinai, with the sound of a trumpet, with a terrible earthquake, with thunder and lightning, as a law of fear to restrain the rebellious Jews, like slaves, by fear of punishment. In these four ways the law was externally ordered.

5. But it was also internally disposed in due order. Its precepts bade the Hebrews ( a ) worship God by appointed ceremonies and sacrifices; ( b ) refrain from injury to their neighbour, or if injury had been inflicted, it bade them offer fitting satisfaction; ( c ) it regulated the inner man by the moral precepts of the Decalogue.

Similarly, but much more perfectly, has the New Law, the law of Christ, been ordered. (1.) It was assigned its proper rank, as being the crown and perfection of all laws. (2.) It came in its proper time, viz., in the last age of the world, when Christ, the great Legislator, came. It was promulgated at Pentecost, on the fiftieth day after the Passover, which was a feast symbolical of pardon, freedom, bliss, and the eternal jubilee. (3.) Its place was befitting its dignity. Not on Sinai was it given but on Sion, the type and mirror of celestial glory, to which this law leads us. (4.) As to the mode of promulgation, notice that it was given with a mighty wind and fiery tongues, with the power and might of the Holy Spirit, to preach the Gospel and convert all nations, because it was a law of burning love and enkindled charity. (5.) Its contents were duly related to one another, through its precepts of faith, hope, charity, and those relating to justification and the Sacraments.

It was ordained by angels. From this it appears that it was not God who in person spoke to Moses, but an angel representing Him, and speaking in His Name; as when he said, "I am the Lord thy God." Even so an ambassador speaks in the name of his sovereign, and acts by his authority. It was then an Angel who, in the place of God, was the immediate giver of the Decalogue to the people on Mount Sinai. It was an Angel also who spoke with Moses on Mount Sinai, and gave him for promulgation to the people the ceremonial laws, with directions for the making of the Tabernacle, for the ark, the cherubim, the sacrifices, and expiatory rites, which are found scattered throughout the Pentateuch.

In the hand of a mediator. Hand is here used to denote instrumentality. By a similar usage the word of the Lord is said to have come to pass in the hand of Elijah, Isaiah, and other prophets, acting as the instruments of God. Vatablus has for mediator intercessor, and Erasmus conciliator. But mediator, as the more intensive term, is preferable. Whoever mediates between two may be either a messenger, or an interpreter, or a peacemaker, and in each sense he is a mediator.

What mediator is referred to here? 1. Jerome, Augustine, Chrysostom, and Ambrose reply, Christ the Lord. Although Christ was not then actually our mediator, yet He was by the decree and in the purpose of God. The Old Law, in this sense, was given by the power and authority of Christ, who was the predestined Mediator; and since, therefore, the law was given by His authority, so when He was born into the world it was in His power to abrogate it.

2. The answer of Cyril ( Thesauri, xii. 10), Gregory Nazianzen ( Orat. 6 before Greg. Nyss.), Catharinus, Adam, and others, including even Beza, is better, viz., that the mediator was Moses, who himself says, in Deuteronomy v. 5, that he stood between the Lord and the people at that time. This opinion is supported by the consideration ( a ) that Christ cannot be said to be a mediator as God, but only as God-made-man. But at the time of Moses He was not yet made man, and therefore could not then be called a mediator. The major of this syllogism is proved thus: Christ as God only, just as Christ as man only, is but one of two extremes; therefore as such He cannot be a mediator, but only as God-man. As the God-man He unites in His person the two extremes of God and man. As God He had the authority and dignity belonging to a mediator; as man He did the work of a mediator. It may be objected to this, no doubt, that though Christ was not then actually a mediator, yet He was by predestination. But this objection loses sight of the fact that the Apostle is not speaking of a mediator by predestination, but of an acting mediator; for he says that the Old Law was ordained by this mediator, i.e., in very deed, when it was given to the Hebrews. But Christ, not yet existing as mediator, could not have ordained the law at that time; therefore He was not its mediator, for what has no existence can neither work nor ordain anything.

( b ) The phrase of S. Paul means that angels gave the law by the instrumentality of a mediator. But Christ cannot be said to be the minister of angels but their Prince (cf. Heb. 1.); therefore, the mediator here is not Christ. ( c ) Again, the Old Law was given by Moses, as the New Law by Christ. As, then, Christ is the mediator of the New Law and the New Covenant, so was Moses of the old. ( d ) Lastly, that Moses was the mediator is clear from Heb 8:5-6, and Heb 9:15-20.

Observe, in opposition to the Protestants, that if Moses could be called a mediator without any derogation from the mediatorial office of Christ, as even Beza admits, in the sense, not of a redeemer or reconciliator, but as a messenger from one to the other, why may not the Saints with even better title be called mediators without offence to Christ, seeing that by their merits and prayers they gain for us the grace of God? It is astonishing that Protestants should make so much fuss about this word, and strive to throw so much dust in people's eyes, when, as is evident, there is no difference between us, either about the name or the thing.

The meaning of the Apostle, then, is this: The Old Law was given by angels and promulgated by Moses, the New by Christ Himself. He who as God used the instrumentality of Moses in proclaiming the Old Law, could, when made man, abrogate it in His own person, in order that 'the promise made to Abraham, that all nations should be justified, might be fulfilled in Himself, the seed of Abraham.

Ver. 20. — Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but of two, in this case of two peoples, Jews and Gentiles, to whom Christ acts as mediator, says Ambrose. (2.) Or, Christ is not a mediator of one nature, but of two, the Divine and the human. (3.) Or, Moses is not a mediator of one will and purpose, because as a man he was subject to change. God on the contrary is unchangeable in His will and promise. Adam leans to this explanation. But all these are beside the phraseology of Scripture and the drift of the Apostle.

(4.) A better interpretation is that Christ is a mediator not of one but of two—not of two Gods, as though Father and Son make two, according to the heresy of Arius and Nestorius—not between God and angels, for the good angels need no mediator, and the evil angels cannot derive any benefit from one—but He is a mediator between the two parties, God on one side and man on the other. And the inference drawn is that it is not the law, but Christ, that redeems us and reconciles us to God. This explanation is supported by Augustine, Theophylact, Anselm.

(5.) The best interpretation of the clause is that the Apostle is explaining the character of a mediator. The mediator Moses, he seems to say, is not of one but of two determinate parties, viz., God and the Hebrews, but not of God and Christians. On the other hand, God is One, not two. The Apostle is not building his argument on these words, except indirectly, but is merely contrasting the dual character of a mediator with the unity of God. It is on this latter fact that he relies to prove his case.

But God is one. There are not two Gods, one of whom is the God of the law and of the Jews, the other of Abraham and of Christians, as the Manichæans have thought, but the God of Jews and of Christians is one and the same—the law and the Gospel proceed from the same Author. Accordingly, it being the same God, He could not intend that the law should annul His promise to Abraham of giving His righteousness to all nations in Abraham's seed, i.e., in Christ, or, in other words, through faith in Him; else would He be inconstant, the very thought of which is impious. Rather He gave the law to be our pedagogue to Christ. It is, therefore one and the same God who made Moses the mediator between Himself and the Hebrews; and, when he was superseded, between Himself and Christians of all nations, and so fulfilled His promise to Abraham, that He would give through Christ the blessing of justification to all nations.

This interpretation is confirmed by the parallel passage in 1Ti 2:5, where, from the fact that the same God is God of all nations, the Apostle proves that He wishes all men to be saved, and from the same principle he infers that there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. God, he argues, does not wish for the salvation of the Jews only, but of all nations. Again, not only the Jews, but all nations have fallen into sin, and stand in need of a redeemer. This cannot be Moses, for he was mediator to the Jews only; therefore it must be Christ. Moses, therefore, must give way to Him, as the seed promised to Abraham, in whom all nations should be blessed. So Gennadius in Œcumenius, and, following him, Salmeron.

Ver. 21 . — Is the law then against the promises of God? Jerome correctly points out that this is an answer by anticipation to the objection to which S. Paul had exposed himself in verse 19, when he said, "The law was added because of transgressions till the seed should come." For any one might say: If the law was added to the promise, and, as it were, removed it, it seems to have taken to itself the office of quickening and justifying men, so that it may be regarded as doing the work of the promise till Christ should come; for if not, why was it added, unless it were, as you say yourself, because of transgressions, to destroy them by the living and virtuous actions prescribed by the law for justification? If this be so, then the law is against the promises of God, for God promised this justification to faith in Christ, not to the law, nay, He thereby excluded it from the law.

That S. Paul is meeting an objection of this sort is obvious from what follows. The law, he exclaims, cannot give life; therefore, it is not against the promises of God which offer that spiritual life in Christ. The antecedent is proved thus: If the law could give life it could also justify; but this it cannot do (ver. 22). Hence the law was only given to be our pedagogue to Christ, to lead us to justification by faith. Or it may be put thus: When I said that the law was given because of transgressions, I meant that its function was to prevent them by fear of punishment, that passion might not issue in action; I did not mean that the law alone could calm the violence of passion within, or give that grace by which we fulfil the law.

God forbid. It is impossible that God should give a law contradictory to His promises, for this would be for God to contradict Himself. The law which came after was not opposed to the preceding promises, but its office was to admonish men to prepare themselves worthily for Christ and His Gospel. Therefore the law is not contrary to the promise, but establishes it.

For if there had been a law given which could have given life. To give life is to impart righteousness to the soul. But, as S. Paul appears to distinguish between life and righteousnessit is better to say that to give life stands for to quicken man's works. This is done when a man does virtuous actions out of the spirit of charity. The argument is from the effect to the cause, from a living work to life; as we say: This man eats, talks, moves, therefore he is alive. In the same way, if the law could produce in us living works, it could also give us the spirit of charity from which they spring, for the works of the Spirit presuppose the Spirit, just as motion does life.

Ver. 22.— But the scripture hath concluded all under sin. This Scripture is cited in Rom 3:9.

Ver. 23. — Before faith came. Like slaves under the stern discipline of the law, we were kept as though by walls and hedges from sin, and were held, and kept in, that we might be thereby prepared, and might learn to long for the righteousness which Christ should give.

Ver. 24. — The law was our schoolmaster. A pædagogue, says S. Jerome, is one who looks after a boy. Among the Greeks he was a slave, whose duty it was to accompany his ward wherever he went, to keep him from loose conduct, to chastise him if need were, and in every way to form his character for good. Such was the office of the law with regard to the Hebrews.

Unto Christ. By a happy figure of speech, S. Paul compares the law to a pædagogue, and faith in Christ to a father, For we are born again by faith in Christ, and become sons of God, thereby passing from the state of pupilage under the law to that of men under Christ.

Ver. 26 . — For ye are all the children of God. Both Jews, who were under the law, and Gentiles, who were not, are become, by faith in Christ, children of God. The conjunction for is causal, and indicates the reason why we are not under the law as a pædagogue, viz., because we are the sons of God. Children are like slaves, S. Paul says, in chap. iv. 1, nay, like the lower animals, in needing a pædagogue to enable them to resist the motions of sense. But those who by faith in Christ have left this state of childhood, and are become sons of God, have grown to man's estate. It would be, therefore, absurd for them to be made subject to the law as their pædagogue, as though they were still children. This would be as absurd, says Theophylact, as for a man, when the day had dawned, to prefer a lamp to the sun. This is a rebuke to the Judaisers, which may be summarised thus: Christ is to us as a father to his grown-up sons. Why do you then go back to the pædagogy of the law? Why hold out your hand again like boys to the ferule?

By faith. Not faith alone, but by faith manifested in baptism and other acts.

Ver. 27 . — As many of you as have been baptized into Christ. To be baptized into Christ is to receive His baptism as distinct from that of Moses or John Baptist. The change from the first person ( we ) of verse 25 to the second person ( you ) here denotes the change of subject from Jews to Gentiles.

Have put on Christ. You have received plenteously in your baptism the grace and gifts of Christ; you have put them round you like a garment (cf. Psa 109:18), so that you are made partakers of the Divine nature, and therefore of the workings of God's power, by which Christ shines in your lives. " Your daily conversation," says Anselm, " like a splendid robe, is Christ's holiness and Christ's religion."

These words may be explained in a better way, thus: As matter takes its form, the body its soul as a substantial robe to hide its nakedness and ugliness; so you in baptism have put on Christ by grace, so that the Spirit of Christ is, as it were, your form and soul; consequently you have been brought into such close union with Christ that, as He is the Son of God by nature, so are you by adoption and grace. This is the explanation of Chrysostom and Theophylact. The conjunction for shows that Paul wishes to prove that we are the sons of God by the fact that we have put on Christ, who is the Son of God by nature, and hence are one with Him, and, as it were, are Christ Himself. Cf. notes to

1Co 12:12.

We should note from this the efficacy of baptism, which not only adorns us with graces and gifts, but with Christ Himself. What have the Protestants to say to this who make baptism to be a bare sign of righteousness already received by faith?

S. Ambrose ( Serm. 90) gives some beautiful words of S. Agnes about the baptismal robe of Christ, both that which is within, and that material robe which formerly was given to adults at their baptism as a symbol of the first. " He adorned me," she said, " with a glorious bracelet. Hie covered my hand and neck with precious stones. He put pearls in my ears, and loaded me with glistening gems. On my face He put his seal, that I might admit no lover save Him alone. He clad me in a robe of cloth of gold, and with glorious jewels did He beautify me." And a little farther she continued: " Now have I drunken milk and honey from His mouth. Now have I been clasped in His most chaste embraces. Now has His body been united to mine, and His blood has bedewed my cheeks." This last of course refers to the Eucharist, which used to be given to those newly baptized, that they might be wholly united to Christ. To them too used to be given milk and honey, as symbols of the sweetness of Christ, and of the law of Christ, of which they then become partakers.

Ver. 28. — There is neither Jew nor Greek.—i.e., in Christ. In the Church of Christ there is no distinction before God of birth, position, or sex. All, whether Jews or Greeks (= Gentiles), whether slaves or freemen, whether males or females, make one mystical body, the Church, of which the Head is Christ.

Or we may take it, and better, with S. Chrysostom, to mean that ye are one in the sense that ye have put on one form, or one soul, like the garment described above, and this not of any angel, but of Christ. This garment is the faith, charity, and holiness of Christ, and it makes you to seem like one man, to be one Christ. The Jews, therefore, have nothing of their Judaism to pride themselves on when they pass into Christ; therefore they have nothing of their own to invite you to, 0 Galatians, for you are equal sharers in Christ with them.

Ver. 29.— If ye be Christ's. Ifyou are members of the Head, and are the mystical body of its Spirit, then, as Christ is, so are ye Abraham's seed, and hence inheritors of the righteousness promised to Abraham. Accordingly, Ambrose reads here: " If ye are one in Christ, then are ye Abraham's seed," which gives the meaning very clearly.

Commentary -- Other

Critics Ask: Gal 3:17

GALATIANS 3:17 —Does Paul err in the amount of time between Abraham and the time the Law was given?

PROBLEM: In Galatians 3:17 , the apostle states that a period of 430 years elapsed between the time of God’s promises to Abraham (Gen. 12:1-3 ), which was about 2000 B.C. , and the giving of the law to Moses, which was around 1450 B.C . This would be a mistake of over 100 years.

SOLUTION: The time that Paul refers to is not the initial giving of the Abrahamic covenant ( Gen. 12-15 ), but the later confirmation of the covenant to Jacob ( Gen. 46 ), which was about 1877 B.C . Since the Exodus occurred around 1447 B .C. (cf. 1 Kings 6:1 ), this would be exactly 430. There is good indication that Paul is referring to the confirmation to Jacob, not to the initiation of the covenant to Abraham. The text clearly dates the 430 years from “the covenant that was confirmed” ( Gal. 3:17 ). Thus, the time period is the final reaffirmation of the Abrahamic promises to the descendants (seed) of Abraham which takes place in Genesis 46:2-4 to Jacob, a descendent of Abraham, which was 430 years before the children of Israel came out of Egypt.   

Evidence: Gal 3:19

What is the Purpose of the Law?

By Charles Spurgeon

" Beloved, the Law is a great deluge which would have drowned the world with worse than the water of Noah’s flood; it is a great fire which would have burned the earth with a destruction worse than that which fell on Sodom; it is a stern angel with a sword, athirst for blood, and winged to slay; it is a great destroyer sweeping down the nations; it is the great messenger of God’s vengeance sent into the world. Apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Law is nothing but the condemning voice of God thundering against mankind. ‘Wherefore then serveth the Law?’ seems a very natural question. Can the Law be of any benefit to man? Can the Judge who puts on a black cap and condemns us all, this Lord Chief Justice Law, can he help in salvation? Yes, he can; and you shall see how he does it, if God shall help us while we preach.

" Now, if you are unrepentant, you have never obeyed your Maker. Every step you have taken has added to your crimes. When God has fanned your heaving lungs, you have breathed out your poisonous breath in rebellion against Him. How should God feel toward you? You have walked over the principles of righteousness with your unsanctified feet. You have lifted up your hands, filled with poisoned weapons, against the throne of the Almighty. You have spurned every principle of right, of love and of happiness. You are the enemy of God, the foe of man and a child of the devil in league with hell. Ought not God hate you with all His heart?

" Yet, in the midst of your rebellion He has borne with you. All this you have done, and He has kept silent. Dare you think that He will never reprove?

" Lo, I see, the Law given upon Mount Sinai. The very hill doth quake with fear. Lightnings and thunders are the attendants of those dreadful syllables which make the hearts of Israel to melt. Sinai seemeth altogether on the smoke. The Lord came from Paran, and the Holy One from Mount Sinai; ‘He came with ten thousands of his saints.’ Out of His mouth went a fiery Law for them. It was a dread Law even when it was given, and since then from that Mount of Sinai an awful lava of vengeance has run down, to deluge, to destroy, to burn, and to consume the whole human race, if it had not been that Jesus Christ had stemmed its awful torrent and bidden its waves of fire be still. If you could see the world without Christ in it, simply under the Law, you would see a world in ruins, a world with God’s black seal put upon it, stamped and sealed for condemnation; you would see men, who, if they knew their condition, would have their hands on their loins and be groaning all their days—you would see men and women condemned, lost, and ruined; and in the uttermost regions you would see the pit that is digged for the wicked, into which the whole earth must have been cast if the Law had its way, apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ our Redeemer.

" My hearer, does not the Law of God convince you of sin? Under the hand of God’s Spirit does it not make you feel that you have been guilty, that you deserve to be lost, that you have incurred the fierce anger of God? Look here: have you not broken these Ten Commandments; even in the letter, have you not broken them? Who is there among you who has always honored his mother and father? Who is there among you who has always spoken the truth? Have we not sometimes borne false witness against our neighbors? Is there one person here who has not made to himself another god, and loved himself, or his business, or his friends, more than he has Jehovah, the God of the whole earth? Which of you has not coveted his neighbor’s house, or his manservant, or his ox, or his donkey? We are all guilty with regard to every letter of the Law; we have all of us transgressed the Commandments.

" And if we really understood these Commandments, and felt that they condemned us, they would have this useful influence on us of showing us our danger, and so leading us to fly to Christ. But, my hearers, does not this Law condemn you, because even if you should say you have not broken the letter of it, yet you have violated the spirit of it. What, though you have never killed, yet we are told, he that is angry with his brother is a murderer.

" This Law does not only mean what it says in words, but it has deep things hidden in its bowels. It says, ‘Thou shall not commit adultery,’ but it means as Jesus has it, ‘He that looketh on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.’ It says, ‘Thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.’ It meaneth that we should reverence God in every place, and have His fear before our eyes, and should always pay respect to His ordinances and evermore walk in His fear and love. My brethren, surely there is not one here so foolhardy in self-righteousness as to say, ‘I am innocent.’ The spirit of the Law condemns us. And this is its useful property; it humbles us, makes us know we are guilty, and so we are led to receive the Savior."

Evidence: Gal 3:21

" Although the Law disclosed and increases sin, it is still not against the promises of God but is, in fact, for them. For in its true and proper work and purpose it humbles a man and prepares him—if he uses the Law correctly—to yearn and seek for grace." Martin Luther

Introduction / Outline

Robertson: Galatians (Book Introduction)

The Epistle To The Galatians

Probable Date a.d. 56 Or 57

By Way of Introduction

It is a pity that we are not able to visualize more clearly the time and place of writing this powerful polemic against the Judaizers who were trying to draw away from the evangelical gospel the churches of Galatia. The data are not clear as in the Thessalonian and Corinthian Epistles. There are many things that can be said, but few are decisive. One is that the Epistle was written about seventeen years after Paul’s conversion, adding the three years of Gal_1:18 and the fourteen of Gal_2:1, though not insisting on the full number in either case. Unfortunately we do not know the precise year of his conversion. It was somewhere between a.d. 31 and 36. Another thing that is clear is that the Epistle was written after the Conference in Jerusalem over the Judaizing controversy to which Paul refers in Gal_2:1-10 and after the subsequent visit of Peter to Antioch (Gal_2:11-14). The natural interpretation of Acts 15:1-33 is to understand it as the historical narrative of the public meetings of which Paul gives an inside view in Gal_2:1-10. Not all scholars agree to this view, but the weight of the argument is for it. If so, that rules out the contention of Ramsay and others that Galatians is the earliest of Paul’s Epistles. It was written then after that Conference which took place about a.d. 49. It seems clear also that it was written after the Epistles to the Thessalonians (a.d. 50-51) which were sent from Corinth.

Did Paul mean by Galatia the Roman province as he usually does or does he make an ethnographic use of the term and mean the real Celts of North Galatia? Luke uses geographical terms in either sense. Certainly Paul preached in South Galatia in his first mission tour. See note on Act_16:6 for the discussion about the language there as bearing on his going into North Galatia. By " the churches of Galatia" Paul can mean the whole of Galatia or either South or North Galatia. The various items mentioned, like the illness that led to his preaching (Gal_4:13), " the first time" or " formerly" (Gal_4:13), " so quickly" (Gal_1:6), are not conclusive as to time or place. If Paul means only the South Galatian Churches (Pisidia, Lycaonia, Phrygia), then the Epistle, even if two visits had been made, could come some time after the second tour of Act_16:1. The place could be Philippi, Corinth, Ephesus, Antioch. Even so room must be made for the seventeen years after his conversion plus the interval thereafter (some twenty years in all). If Paul includes North Galatia, the time would be more easily handled (the twenty years required from a.d. 31 to 36 to a.d. 51 to 57) and the place could be Ephesus, Philippi, or Corinth. Special treatises on the date of Galatians have been written by Askwith (1899), Round (1906), Steinmann (1908), Weber (1900)

Lightfoot held that the similarity of Galatians to Romans (written from Corinth spring of a.d. 56 or 57) naturally argues for the same general period and place. It is a possible hypothesis that, when Paul reached Corinth late autumn or early winter of A.D. 55 or 56 (Act_20:1.), he received alarming reports of the damage wrought by the Judaizers in Galatia. He had won his fight against them in Corinth (I and II Corinthians). So now he hurls this thunderbolt at them from Corinth and later, in a calmer mood, sends the fuller discussion to the church in Rome. This hypothesis is adopted here, but with full recognition of the fact that it is only hypothesis. The language and the topics and the treatment are the same that we find in Romans. Galatians thus fits in precisely between II Corinthians and Romans. It is a flaming torch in the Judaizing controversy. This Epistle was the battle cry of Martin Luther in the Reformation. Today it has served as a bulwark against the wild criticism that has sought to remove the Pauline Epistles from the realm of historical study. Paul is all ablaze in this Epistle with indignation as he faces the men who are undermining his work in Galatia.

JFB: Galatians (Book Introduction)

THE internal and external evidence for Paul's authorship is conclusive. The style is characteristically Pauline. The superscription, and allusions to the apostle of the Gentiles in the first person, throughout the Epistle, establish the same truth (Gal 1:1, Gal 1:13-24; Gal 2:1-14). His authorship is also upheld by the unanimous testimony of the ancient Church: compare IRENÆUS [Against Heresies, 3,7,2] (Gal 3:19); POLYCARP [Epistle to the Philippians, 3] quotes Gal 4:26; Gal 6:7; JUSTIN MARTYR, or whoever wrote the Discourse to the Greeks, alludes to Gal 4:12; Gal 5:20.

The Epistle was written "TO THE CHURCHES OF GALATIA" (Gal 1:2), a district of Asia Minor, bordering on Phrygia, Pontus, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Paphlagonia. The inhabitants (Gallo-græci, contracted into Galati, another form of the name Celts) were Gauls in origin, the latter having overrun Asia Minor after they had pillaged Delphi, about 280 B.C. and at last permanently settled in the central parts, thence called Gallo-græcia or Galatia. Their character, as shown in this Epistle, is in entire consonance with that ascribed to the Gallic race by all writers. Cæsar [Commentaries on the Gallic War, 4,5], "The infirmity of the Gauls is that they are fickle in their resolves and fond of change, and not to be trusted." So Thierry (quoted by ALFORD), "Frank, impetuous, impressible, eminently intelligent, but at the same time extremely changeable, inconstant, fond of show, perpetually quarrelling, the fruit of excessive vanity." They received Paul at first with all joy and kindness; but soon wavered in their allegiance to the Gospel and to him, and hearkened as eagerly now to Judaizing teachers as they had before to him (Gal 4:14-16). The apostle himself had been the first preacher among them (Act 16:6; Gal 1:8; Gal 4:13; see on Gal 4:13; "on account of infirmity of flesh I preached unto you at the first": implying that sickness detained him among them); and had then probably founded churches, which at his subsequent visit he "strengthened" in the faith (Act 18:23). His first visit was about A.D. 51, during his second missionary journey. JOSEPHUS [Antiquities, 16.62] testifies that many Jews resided in Ancyra in Galatia. Among these and their brethren, doubtless, as elsewhere, he began his preaching. And though subsequently the majority in the Galatian churches were Gentiles (Gal 4:8-9), yet these were soon infected by Judaizing teachers, and almost suffered themselves to be persuaded to undergo circumcision (Gal 1:6; Gal 3:1, Gal 3:3; Gal 5:2-3; Gal 6:12-13). Accustomed as the Galatians had been, when heathen, to the mystic worship of Cybele (prevalent in the neighboring region of Phrygia), and the theosophistic doctrines connected with that worship, they were the more readily led to believe that the full privileges of Christianity could only be attained through an elaborate system of ceremonial symbolism (Gal 4:9-11; Gal 5:7-12). They even gave ear to the insinuation that Paul himself observed the law among the Jews, though he persuaded the Gentiles to renounce it, and that his motive was to keep his converts in a subordinate state, excluded from the full privileges of Christianity, which were enjoyed by the circumcised alone (Gal 5:11, Gal 4:16, compare with Gal 2:17); and that in "becoming all things to all men," he was an interested flatterer (Gal 1:10), aiming at forming a party for himself: moreover, that he falsely represented himself as an apostle divinely commissioned by Christ, whereas he was but a messenger sent by the Twelve and the Church at Jerusalem, and that his teaching was now at variance with that of Peter and James, "pillars" of the Church, and therefore ought not to be accepted.

His PURPOSE, then, in writing this Epistle was: (1) to defend his apostolic authority (Gal 1:11-19; Gal 2:1-14); (2) to counteract the evil influence of the Judaizers in Galatia (Gal. 3:1-4:31), and to show that their doctrine destroyed the very essence of Christianity, by lowering its spirituality to an outward ceremonial system; (3) to give exhortation for the strengthening of Galatian believers in faith towards Christ, and in the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:1-6:18). He had already, face to face, testified against the Judaizing teachers (Gal 1:9; Gal 4:16; Act 18:23); and now that he has heard of the continued and increasing prevalence of the evil, he writes with his own hand (Gal 6:11 : a labor which he usually delegated to an amanuensis) this Epistle to oppose it. The sketch he gives in it of his apostolic career confirms and expands the account in Acts and shows his independence of human authority, however exalted. His protest against Peter in Gal 2:14-21, disproves the figment, not merely of papal, but even of that apostle's supremacy; and shows that Peter, save when specially inspired, was fallible like other men.

There is much in common between this Epistle and that to the Romans on the subject of justification by faith only, and not by the law. But the Epistle to the Romans handles the subject in a didactic and logical mode, without any special reference; this Epistle, in a controversial manner, and with special reference to the Judaizers in Galatia.

The STYLE combines the two extremes, sternness. (Gal. 1:1-24; Gal 3:1-5) and tenderness (Gal 4:19-20), the characteristics of a man of strong emotions, and both alike well suited for acting on an impressible people such as the Galatians were. The beginning is abrupt, as was suited to the urgency of the question and the greatness of the danger. A tone of sadness, too, is apparent, such as might be expected in the letter of a warm-hearted teacher who had just learned that those whom he loved were forsaking his teachings for those of perverters of the truth, as well as giving ear to calumnies against himself.

The TIME OF WRITING was after the visit to Jerusalem recorded in Act 15:1, &c.; that is, A.D. 50, if that visit be, as seems probable, identical with that in Gal 2:1. Further, as Gal 1:9 ("as we said before"), and Gal 4:16 ("Have [ALFORD] I become your enemy?" namely, at my second visit, whereas I was welcomed by you at my first visit), refer to his second visit (Act 18:23), this Epistle must have been written after the date of that visit (the autumn of A.D. 54). Gal 4:13, "Ye know how . . . I preached . . . at the first" (Greek, "at the former time"), implies that Paul, at the time of writing, had been twice in Galatia; and Gal 1:6, "I marvel that ye are so soon removed," implies that he wrote not long after having left Galatia for the second time; probably in the early part of his residence at Ephesus (Act 18:23; Act 19:1, &c., from A.D. 54, the autumn, to A.D. 57, Pentecost) [ALFORD]. CONYBEARE and HOWSON, from the similarity between this Epistle and that to the Romans, the same line of argument in both occupying the writer's mind, think it was not written till his stay at Corinth (Act 20:2-3), during the winter of 57-58, whence he wrote his Epistle to the Romans; and certainly, in the theory of the earlier writing of it from Ephesus, it does seem unlikely that the two Epistles to the Corinthians, so dissimilar, should intervene between those so similar as the Epistles to the Galatians and Romans; or that the Epistle to the Galatians should intervene between the second to the Thessalonians and the first to the Corinthians. The decision between the two theories rests on the words, "so soon." If these be not considered inconsistent with little more than three years having elapsed since his second visit to Galatia, the argument, from the similarity to the Epistle to the Romans, seems to me conclusive. This to the Galatians seems written on the urgency of the occasion, tidings having reached him at Corinth from Ephesus of the Judaizing of many of his Galatian converts, in an admonitory and controversial tone, to maintain the great principles of Christian liberty and justification by faith only; that to the Romans is a more deliberate and systematic exposition of the same central truths of theology, subsequently drawn up in writing to a Church with which he was personally unacquainted. See on Gal 1:6, for BIRKS'S view. PALEY [Horæ Paulinæ] well remarks how perfectly adapted the conduct of the argument is to the historical circumstances under which the Epistle was written! Thus, that to the Galatians, a Church which Paul had founded, he puts mainly upon authority; that to the Romans, to whom he was not personally known, entirely upon argument.

JFB: Galatians (Outline)

• SUPERSCRIPTION. GREETINGS. THE CAUSE OF HIS WRITING IS THEIR SPEEDY FALLING AWAY FROM THE GOSPEL HE TAUGHT. DEFENSE OF HIS TEACHING: HIS APOSTOLIC CALL INDEPENDENT OF MAN. (Gal. 1:1-24)
• HIS CO-ORDINATE AUTHORITY AS APOSTLE OF THE CIRCUMCISION RECOGNIZED BY THE APOSTLES. PROVED BY HIS REBUKING PETER FOR TEMPORIZING AT ANTIOCH: HIS REASONING AS TO THE INCONSISTENCY OF JUDAIZING WITH JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. (Gal. 2:1-21) Translate, "After fourteen years"; namely, from Paul's conversion inclusive [ALFORD]. In the fourteenth year from his conversion [BIRKS]. The same visit to Jerusalem as in Act 15:1-4 (A.D. 50), when the council of the apostles and Church decided that Gentile Christians need not be circumcised. His omitting allusion to that decree is; (1) Because his design here is to show the Galatians his own independent apostolic authority, whence he was not likely to support himself by their decision. Thus we see that general councils are not above apostles. (2) Because he argues the point upon principle, not authoritative decisions. (3) The decree did not go the length of the position maintained here: the council did not impose Mosaic ordinances; the apostle maintains that the Mosaic institution itself is at an end. (4) The Galatians were Judaizing, not because the Jewish law was imposed by authority of the Church as necessary to Christianity, but because they thought it necessary to be observed by those who aspired to higher perfection (Gal 3:3; Gal 4:21). The decree would not at all disprove their view, and therefore would have been useless to quote. Paul meets them by a far more direct confutation, "Christ is of no effect unto you whosoever are justified by the law" (Gal 5:4), [PALEY].
• REPROOF OF THE GALATIANS FOR ABANDONING FAITH FOR LEGALISM. JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH VINDICATED: THE LAW SHOWN TO BE SUBSEQUENT TO THE PROMISE: BELIEVERS ARE THE SPIRITUAL SEED OF ABRAHAM, WHO WAS JUSTIFIED BY FAITH. THE LAW WAS OUR SCHOOLMASTER TO BRING US TO CHRIST, THAT WE MIGHT BECOME CHILDREN OF GOD BY FAITH. (Gal. 3:1-29)
• THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED: ILLUSTRATION OF OUR SUBJECTION TO THE LAW ONLY TILL CHRIST CAME, FROM THE SUBJECTION OF AN HEIR TO HIS GUARDIAN TILL HE IS OF AGE. PETER'S GOOD WILL TO THE GALATIANS SHOULD LEAD THEM TO THE SAME GOOD WILL TO HIM AS THEY HAD AT FIRST SHOWN. THEIR DESIRE TO BE UNDER THE LAW SHOWN BY THE ALLEGORY OF ISAAC AND ISHMAEL TO BE INCONSISTENT WITH THEIR GOSPEL LIBERTY. (Gal. 4:1-31) The fact of God's sending His Son to redeem us who were under the law (Gal 4:4), and sending the Spirit of His Son into our hearts (Gal 4:6), confirms the conclusion (Gal 3:29) that we are "heirs according to the promise."
• PERORATION. EXHORTATION TO STAND FAST IN THE GOSPEL LIBERTY, JUST SET FORTH, AND NOT TO BE LED BY JUDAIZERS INTO CIRCUMCISION, OR LAW JUSTIFICATION: YET THOUGH FREE, TO SERVE ONE ANOTHER BY LOVE: TO WALK IN THE SPIRIT, BEARING THE FRUIT THEREOF, NOT IN THE WORKS OF THE FLESH. (Gal. 5:1-26) The oldest manuscripts read, "in liberty (so ALFORD, MOBERLEY, HUMPHRY, and ELLICOTT. But as there is no Greek for 'in,' as there is in translating in 1Co 16:13; Phi 1:27; Phi 4:1, I prefer 'It is FOR freedom that') Christ hath made us free (not in, or for, a state of bondage). Stand fast, therefore, and be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage" (namely, the law, Gal 4:24; Act 15:10). On "again," see on Gal 4:9.
• EXHORTATIONS CONTINUED; TO FORBEARANCE AND HUMILITY; LIBERALITY TO TEACHERS AND IN GENERAL. POSTSCRIPT AND BENEDICTION. (Gal. 6:1-18)

TSK: Galatians (Book Introduction)

The Galatians, or Gallograecians, were the descendants of Gauls, who migrated from their own country, and after a series of disasters, got possession of a large district in Asia Minor, from them called Galatia (Pausanias, Attic. c. iv). They are mentioned by historians as a tall and valiant people, who went nearly naked, and used for arms only a buckler and sword; and the impetuosity of their attack is said to have been irresistible. Their religion, before their conversion was extremely corrupt and superstitious; they are said to have worshipped the mother of the gods, under the name of Adgistis; and to have offered human sacrifices of the prisoners they took in war. Though they spoke the Greek language in common with almost all the inhabitants of Asia Minor, yet it appears from Jerome that they retained their original Gaulish language even as late as the fifth century. Christianity appears to have been first planted in these regions by St. Paul himself (Gal 1:6; Gal 4:13); who visited the churches at least twice in that country (Act 16:6; Act 18:23). It is evident that this epistle was written soon after their reception of the gospel, as he complains of their speedy apostasy from his doctrine (Gal 1:6); and as there is no notice of his second journey into that country, it has been supposed, with much probability, that it was written soon after his first, and consequently about ad 52 or 53. It appears that soon after the Apostle had left them, some Judaizing teachers intruded themselves into the churches; drawing them off from the true gospel, to depend on ceremonial observances, and to the vain endeavour of " establishing their own righteousness." It was in order to oppose this false gospel that St. Paul addressed the Galatians, and after saluting the churches of Galatia, and establishing his apostolic commission against the attacks of the false teachers, he reproves them for departing from that gospel which he had preached to them, and confirmed by the gift of the Holy Ghost - proves that justification is by faith alone, and not by the deeds of the law, from the example of Abraham, the testimony of Scripture, the curse of the law, the redemption of Christ, and the Abrahamic covenant, which the law could not disannul - shows the use of the law in connection with the covenant of grace; concludes that all believers are delivered from the law, and made the spiritual seed of Abraham by faith in Christ; illustrates his inference by God’s treatment of the Jewish church, which he put under the law, as a father puts a minor under a guardian; shows the weakness and folly of the Galatians in subjecting themselves to the law, and that by submitting themselves to circumcision they become subject to the whole law, and would forfeit the benefits of the covenant of grace; gives them various instructions and exhortations for their Christian conduct, and particularly concerning the right use of their Christian freedom; and concludes with a brief summary of the topics discussed, and by commending them to the grace of Christ.

TSK: Galatians 3 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Gal 3:1, He asks what moved them to leave the faith, and hang upon the law; Gal 3:6, They that believe are justified, Gal 3:9, and blessed with Abraham; Gal 3:10, And this he shows by many reasons.

Poole: Galatians 3 (Chapter Introduction)

CHAPTER 3

MHCC: Galatians (Book Introduction)

The churches in Galatia were formed partly of converted Jews, and partly of Gentile converts, as was generally the case. St. Paul asserts his apostolic character and the doctrines he taught, that he might confirm the Galatian churches in the faith of Christ, especially with respect to the important point of justification by faith alone. Thus the subject is mainly the same as that which is discussed in the epistle to the Romans, that is, justification by faith alone. In this epistle, however, attention is particularly directed to the point, that men are justified by faith without the works of the law of Moses. Of the importance of the doctrines prominently set forth in this epistle, Luther thus speaks: " We have to fear as the greatest and nearest danger, lest Satan take from us this doctrine of faith, and bring into the church again the doctrine of works and of men's traditions. Wherefore it is very necessary that this doctrine be kept in continual practice and public exercise, both of reading and hearing. If this doctrine be lost, then is also the doctrine of truth, life and salvation, lost and gone."

MHCC: Galatians 3 (Chapter Introduction)

(Gal 3:1-5) The Galatians reproved for departing from the great doctrine of justification alone, through faith in Christ.

(Gal 3:6-9) This doctrine established from the example of Abraham.

(Gal 3:10-14) From the tenor of the law and the severity of its curse.

(Gal 3:15-18) From the covenant of promises, which the law could not disannul.

(Gal 3:19-25) The law was a school master to lead them to Christ.

(Gal 3:26-29) Under the gospel state true believers are all one in Christ.

Matthew Henry: Galatians (Book Introduction)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians

This epistle of Paul is directed not to the church or churches of a single city, as some others are, but of a country or province, for so Galatia was. It is very probable that these Galatians were first converted to the Christian faith by his ministry; or, if he was not the instrument of planting, yet at least he had been employed in watering these churches, as is evident from this epistle itself, and also from Act 18:23, where we find him going over all the country of Galatia and Phrygia in order, strengthening all the disciples. While he was with them, they had expressed the greatest esteem and affection both for his person and ministry; but he had not been long absent from them before some judaizing teachers got in among them, by whose arts and insinuations they were soon drawn into a meaner opinion both of the one and of the other. That which these false teachers chiefly aimed at was to draw them off from the truth as it is in Jesus, particularly in the great doctrine of justification, which they grossly perverted, by asserting the necessity of joining the observance of the law of Moses with faith in Christ in order to it: and, the better to accomplish this their design, they did all they could to lessen the character and reputation of the apostle, and to raise up their own on the ruins of his, representing him as one who, if he was to be owned as an apostle, yet was much inferior to others, and particularly who deserved not such a regard as Peter, James, and John, whose followers, it is likely, they pretended to be: and in both these attempts they had but too great success. This was the occasion of his writing this epistle, wherein he expresses his great concern that they had suffered themselves to be so soon turned aside from the faith of the gospel, vindicates his own character and authority as an apostle against the aspersions of his enemies, showing that his mission and doctrine were both divine, and that he was not, upon any account, behind the very chief of the apostles, 2Co 11:5. He then sets himself to assert and maintain the great gospel doctrine of justification by faith without the works of the law, and to obviate some difficulties that might be apt to arise in their minds concerning it: and, having established this important doctrine, he exhorts them to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free, cautions them against the abuse of this liberty, gives them several very needful counsels and directions and then concludes the epistle by giving them a just description of those false teachers by whom they had been ensnared, and, on the contrary, of his own temper and behaviour. In all this his great scope and design were to recover those who had been perverted, to settle those who might be wavering, and to confirm such among them as had kept their integrity.

Matthew Henry: Galatians 3 (Chapter Introduction)

The apostle in this chapter, I. Reproves the Galatians for their folly, in suffering themselves to be drawn away from the faith of the gospel, and endeavours, from several considerations, to impress them with a sense of it. II. He proves the doctrine which he had reproved them for departing from - that of justification by faith without the works of the law, 1. From the example of Abraham's justification. 2. From the nature and tenour of the law. 3. From the express testimony of the Old Testament; and, 4. From the stability of the covenant of God with Abraham. Lest any should hereupon say, " Wherefore then serveth the law?" he answers, (1.) It was added because of transgressions. (2.) It was given to convince the world of the necessity of a Saviour. (3.) It was designed as a schoolmaster, to bring us to Christ. And then he concludes the chapter by acquainting us with the privilege of Christians under the gospel state.

Barclay: Galatians (Book Introduction)

A GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE LETTERS OF PAUL

The Letters Of Paul

There is no more interesting body of documents in the New Testament than the letters of Paul. That is because of all forms of literature a letter is most personal. Demetrius, one of the old Greek literary critics, once wrote, "Every one reveals his own soul in his letters. In every other form of composition it is possible to discern the writercharacter, but in none so clearly as the epistolary." (Demetrius, On Style, 227.) It is just because he left us so many letters that we feel we know Paul so well. In them he opened his mind and heart to the folk he loved so much; and in them, to this day, we can see that great mind grappling with the problems of the early church and feel that great heart throbbing with love for men, even when they were misguided and mistaken.

The Difficulty Of Letters

At the same time there is often nothing so difficult to understand as a letter. Demetrius (On Style, 223) quotes a saying of Artemon, who edited the letters of Aristotle. Artemon said that a letter ought to be written in the same manner as a dialogue, because it was one of the two sides of a dialogue. In other words, to read a letter is like listening to one side of a telephone conversation. So when we read the letters of Paul we are often in a difficulty. We do not possess the letter which he was answering; we do not fully know the circumstances with which he was dealing; it is only from the letter itself that we can deduce the situation which prompted it. Before we can hope to understand fully any letter Paul wrote, we must try to reconstruct the situation which produced it.

The Ancient Letters

It is a great pity that Paulletters were ever called epistles. They are in the most literal sense letters. One of the great lights shed on the interpretation of the New Testament has been the discovery and the publication of the papyri. In the ancient world, papyrus was the substance on which most documents were written. It was composed of strips of the pith of a certain bulrush that grew on the banks of the Nile. These strips were laid one on top of the other to form a substance very like brown paper. The sands of the Egyptian desert were ideal for preservation, for papyrus, although very brittle, will last forever so long as moisture does not get at it. As a result, from the Egyptian rubbish heaps, archaeologists have rescued hundreds of documents, marriage contracts, legal agreements, government forms, and, most interesting of all, private letters. When we read these private letters we find that there was a pattern to which nearly all conformed; and we find that Paulletters reproduce exactly that pattern. Here is one of these ancient letters. It is from a soldier, called Apion, to his father Epimachus. He is writing from Misenum to tell his father that he has arrived safely after a stormy passage.

"Apion sends heartiest greetings to his father and lord Epimachus.

I pray above all that you are well and fit; and that things are

going well with you and my sister and her daughter and my brother.

I thank my Lord Serapis [his god] that he kept me safe when I was

in peril on the sea. As soon as I got to Misenum I got my journey

money from Caesar--three gold pieces. And things are going fine

with me. So I beg you, my dear father, send me a line, first to let

me know how you are, and then about my brothers, and thirdly, that

I may kiss your hand, because you brought me up well, and because

of that I hope, God willing, soon to be promoted. Give Capito my

heartiest greetings, and my brothers and Serenilla and my friends.

I sent you a little picture of myself painted by Euctemon. My

military name is Antonius Maximus. I pray for your good health.

Serenus sends good wishes, Agathos Daimonboy, and Turbo,

Galloniuson." (G. Milligan, Selections from the Greek Papyri,

36.)

Little did Apion think that we would be reading his letter to his father 1800 years after he had written it. It shows how little human nature changes. The lad is hoping for promotion quickly. Who will Serenilla be but the girl he left behind him? He sends the ancient equivalent of a photograph to the folk at home. Now that letter falls into certain sections. (i) There is a greeting. (ii) There is a prayer for the health of the recipients. (iii) There is a thanksgiving to the gods. (iv) There are the special contents. (v) Finally, there are the special salutations and the personal greetings. Practically every one of Paulletters shows exactly the same sections, as we now demonstrate.

(i) The Greeting: Rom_1:1 ; 1Co_1:1 ; 2Co_1:1 ; Gal_1:1 ; Eph_1:1 ; Phi_1:1 ; Col 2 ; 1Th_1:1 ; 2Th_1:1 .

(ii) The Prayer: in every case Paul prays for the grace of God on the people to whom he writes: Rom_1:7 ; 1Co_1:3 ; 2Co_1:2 ; Gal_1:3 ; Eph_1:2 ; Phi_1:3 ; Col_1:2 ; 1Th_1:1 ; 2Th_1:2 .

(iii) The Thanksgiving: Rom_1:8 ; 1Co_1:4 ; 2Co_1:3 ; Eph_1:3 ; Phi_1:3 ; 1Th_1:3 ; 2Th_1:3 .

(iv) The Special Contents: the main body of the letters.

(v) Special Salutations and Personal Greetings: Rom 16 ; 1Co_16:19 ; 2Co_13:13 ; Phi_4:21-22 ; Col_4:12-15 ; 1Th_5:26 .

When Paul wrote letters, he wrote them on the pattern which everyone used. Deissmann says of them, "They differ from the messages of the homely papyrus leaves of Egypt, not as letters but only as the letters of Paul." When we read Paulletters we are not reading things which were meant to be academic exercises and theological treatises, but human documents written by a friend to his friends.

The Immediate Situation

With a very few exceptions, all Paulletters were written to meet an immediate situation and not treatises which he sat down to write in the peace and silence of his study. There was some threatening situation in Corinth, or Galatia, or Philippi, or Thessalonica, and he wrote a letter to meet it. He was not in the least thinking of us when he wrote, but solely of the people to whom he was writing. Deissmann writes, "Paul had no thought of adding a few fresh compositions to the already extant Jewish epistles; still less of enriching the sacred literature of his nation.... He had no presentiment of the place his words would occupy in universal history; not so much that they would be in existence in the next generation, far less that one day people would look at them as Holy Scripture." We must always remember that a thing need not be transient because it was written to meet an immediate situation. All the great love songs of the world were written for one person, but they live on for the whole of mankind. It is just because Paulletters were written to meet a threatening danger or a clamant need that they still throb with life. And it is because human need and the human situation do not change that God speaks to us through them today.

The Spoken Word

One other thing we must note about these letters. Paul did what most people did in his day. He did not normally pen his own letters but dictated them to a secretary, and then added his own authenticating signature. (We actually know the name of one of the people who did the writing for him. In Rom_16:22 Tertius, the secretary, slips in his own greeting before the letter draws to an end.) In 1Co_16:21 Paul says, "This is my own signature, my autograph, so that you can be sure this letter comes from me" (compare Col_4:18 ; 2Th_3:17 ).

This explains a great deal. Sometimes Paul is hard to understand, because his sentences begin and never finish; his grammar breaks down and the construction becomes involved. We must not think of him sitting quietly at a desk, carefully polishing each sentence as he writes. We must think of him striding up and down some little room, pouring out a torrent of words, while his secretary races to get them down. When Paul composed his letters, he had in his mindeye a vision of the folk to whom he was writing, and he was pouring out his heart to them in words that fell over each other in his eagerness to help.

INTRODUCTION TO THE LETTER TO THE GALATIANS

Paul Under Attack

Someone has likened the letter to the Galatians to a sword flashing in a great swordsmanhand. Both Paul and his gospel were under attack. If that attack had succeeded, Christianity might have become just another Jewish sect, might have become a thing dependent upon circumcision and on keeping the law, instead of being a thing of grace. It is strange to think that, if Paulopponents had had their way, the gospel might have been kept for Jews and we might never have had the chance to know the love of Christ.

PaulApostleship Attacked

It is impossible for a man to possess a vivid personality and a strong character like Paul and not encounter opposition; and equally impossible for a man to lead such a revolution in religious thought as he did and not be attacked. The first attack was on his apostleship. There were many to say that he was no apostle at all.

From their own point of view they were right. In Act_1:21-22 we have the basic definition of an apostle. Judas the traitor had committed suicide; it was necessary to fill the blank made in the apostolic band. They define the man to be chosen as one who must be "one of these men who were with us during all the time our Lord went in and out amongst us, beginning from the baptism of John, until the day he was taken from us" and "a witness of the Resurrection." To be an apostle a man must have companied with Jesus during his earthly life and have witnessed his Resurrection. That qualification Paul obviously did not fulfil. Further, not so very long ago he had been the arch-persecutor of the Christian Church.

In Gal_1:1 Paul answers that. Proudly he insists that his apostleship is from no human source and that no human hand ordained him to that office, but that he received his call direct from God. Others might have the qualifications demanded when the first blank in the apostolic band was filled; but he had a unique qualification--he had met Christ face to face on the Damascus Road.

Independence And Agreement

Further, Paul insists that for his message he was dependent on no man. That is why in Gal 1-2 he carefully details his visits to Jerusalem. He is insisting that he is not preaching some second-hand message which he received from a man; he is preaching a message which he received direct from Christ. But Paul was no anarchist. He insisted that, although his message was received in entire independence, it yet had received the full approval of those who were the acknowledged leaders of the Christian Church (Gal_2:6-10 ). The gospel he preached came direct from God to him; but it was a gospel in full agreement with the faith delivered to the Church.

The Judaizers

But that gospel was under attack as well. It was a struggle which had to come and a battle which had to be fought. There were Jews who had accepted Christianity; but they believed that all Godpromises and gifts were for Jews alone and that no Gentile could be admitted to these precious privileges. They therefore believed that Christianity was for Jews and Jews alone. If Christianity was Godgreatest gift to men, that was all the more reason that none but Jews should be allowed to enjoy it. In a way that was inevitable. There was a type of Jew who arrogantly believed in the idea of the chosen people. He could say the most terrible things--"God loves only Israel of all the nations he has made." "God will judge Israel with one measure and the Gentiles with another." "The best of the snakes crush; the best of the Gentiles kill." "God created the Gentiles to be fuel for the fires of Hell." This was the spirit which made the law lay it down that it was illegal to help a Gentile mother in her sorest hour, for that would only be to bring another Gentile into the world. When this type of Jew saw Paul bringing the gospel to the despised Gentile, he was appalled and infuriated.

The Law

There was a way out of this. If a Gentile wished to become a Christian, let him become a Jew first. What did that mean? It meant that he must be circumcised and take the whole burden of the law upon him. That, for Paul, was the opposite of all that Christianity meant. It meant that a mansalvation was dependent on his ability to keep the law and could be won by his own unaided efforts; whereas, to Paul salvation was entirely a thing of grace. He believed that no man could ever earn the favour of God. All he could do was accept the love God offered him by making an act of faith and flinging himself on his mercy. The Jew would go to God saying, "Look! Here is my circumcision. Here are my works. Give me the salvation I have earned." Paul would say:

"Not the labours of my hands

Can fulfil thy lawdemands;

Could my zeal no respite know,

Could my tears for ever flow,

All for sin could not atone:

Thou must save, and thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring,

Simply to thy Cross I cling;

Naked, come to thee for dress;

Helpless, look to thee for grace;

Foul, I to the fountain fly;

Wash me, Saviour, or I die."

For him the essential thing was, not what a man could do for God, but what God had done for him.

"But," the Jews argued, "the greatest thing in our national life is the law. God gave that law to Moses and on it our very lives depend." Paul replied, "Wait one moment. Who is the founder of our nation? To whom were the greatest of Godpromises given?" Of course, the answer is Abraham. "Now," went on Paul, "how was it that Abraham gained the favour of God? He could not have gained it by keeping the law because he lived four hundred and thirty years before the law was given to Moses. He gained it by an act of faith. When God told him to leave his people and go out, Abraham made a sublime act of faith and went, trusting everything to him. It was faith that saved Abraham, not law; and," Paul continues, "it is faith that must save every man, not deeds of the law. The real son of Abraham is not a man racially descended from him but one who, no matter his race, makes the same surrender of faith to God."

The Law And Grace

If all this be true, one very serious question arises--what then is the place of the law? It cannot be denied that it was given by God; does this emphasis on grace simply wipe it out?

The law has its own place in the scheme of things. First, it tells men what sin is. If there is no law, a man cannot break it and there can be no such thing as sin. Second, and most important, the law really drives a man to the grace of God. The trouble about the law is that because we are sinful men we can never keep it perfectly. Its effect, therefore, is to show a man his weakness and to drive him to a despair in which he sees that there is nothing left but to throw himself on the mercy and the love of God. The law convinces us of our own insufficiency and in the end compels us to admit that the only thing which can save us is the grace of God. In other words the law is an essential stage on the way to that grace.

In this epistle Paulgreat theme is the glory of the grace of God and the necessity of realizing that we can never save ourselves.

FURTHER READING

Galatians

E. D. Burton, Galatians (ICC; G)

G. S. Duncan, The Epistle to the Galatians (MC; E)

D. Guthrie, Galatians (NCB; E)

J. B. Lightfoot, The Epistle to the Galatians (MmC; G)

Abbreviations

ICC : International Critical Commentary

MC: Moffatt Commentary

MmC: Macmillan Commentary

NCB: New Century Bible

E: English Text G: Greek Text

Barclay: Galatians 3 (Chapter Introduction)

The Gift Of Grace (Gal_3:1-9)

The Curse Of The Law (Gal_3:10-14)

The Covenant That Cannot Be Altered (Gal_3:15-18)

Shut Up Under Sin (Gal_3:19-22)

The Coming Of Faith (Gal_3:23-29)

Constable: Galatians (Book Introduction)

Introduction

Historical Background

"The most uncontroverted matter in the study of Galatians is that the letter was written by Paul, the Christian apostle whose ministry is portrayed in the Acts of the Apostles."¹

The Apostle Paul directed this epistle to the churches of Galatia (1:2), and he called its recipients Galatians (3:1). However who these people were and where they lived are problems that have proved difficult to pinpoint.

The traditional opinion held that the recipients lived in the geographical district known as Galatia located in the northern part of the Roman province called Galatia in Asia Minor.² This view holds that Paul founded these churches on his second missionary journey after the Spirit forbade him to preach in the province of Asia (Acts 16:6). Paul could have written this epistle then during his third journey either from Ephesus about 54 A.D. or from Corinth about 57 A.D. The main arguments for this "North Galatian theory" are as follows. The popular use of the term "Galatians" usually signified people in this area. Second, Luke normally referred to geographical districts rather than Roman provinces in Acts. Third, there is some similarity between the Galatians as Paul referred to them in this epistle and the Gallic inhabitants of northern Galatia. Fourth, Paul travelled through this region during his second journey (Acts 16:6-8).

The more popular view today maintains that Paul wrote to the churches located in the Roman province of Galatia that he founded on his first missionary journey (cf. Acts 13:38-39, 46, 48; 14:3, 8-10).³ The arguments for this "South Galatian theory" are as follows. Acts 16:6 and 18:23 offer no support to the theory that Paul made a trip to the northern part of provincial Galatia. Second, there is no specific information about the northern Galatian churches in Acts. Third, the geographic isolation of the North Galatia district makes a visit by Paul improbable. Fourth, Paul usually referred to provincial titles in his writings. Fifth, the name "Galatians" was appropriate for the southern area. Sixth, the mention of Barnabas in Galatians 2 suggests that the Galatians had met him. Seventh, the absence of a North Galatian representative in the collection delegation referred to in 1 Corinthians 16:1 implies that it was not an evangelized area. Eighth, the influence of the Judaizers was extensive in South Galatia.

If Paul wrote this epistle to the churches of South Galatia, he probably did so at one of two times. If Paul's visit referred to in Galatians 4:13 is the same one described in Acts 16:6, he must have written this epistle after the Jerusalem Council (i.e., in or after 49 A.D.). Nevertheless it seems more likely that Galatians 4:13 refers to the visit described in Acts 14:21, so Paul must have written before the Jerusalem Council (i.e., before or in 49 A.D.). Assuming the earlier date Paul probably wrote Galatians from Antioch of Syria shortly after his first missionary journey and before the Jerusalem Council.⁴ Another less likely possibility is that he wrote it from Ephesus during his third missionary journey.⁵

The dating of the epistle affects the occasion for writing. Assuming the South Galatian theory and an early date of writing, Paul wrote mainly to stem the tide of Judaizing heresy to which he referred throughout the letter. He mentioned people who opposed him in every chapter (1:6-7; 2:4-5; 3:1; 4:17; 5:7-12; 6:12-13).

The identity of the Judaizers is also important. Their method included discrediting Paul. The first two chapters of Galatians especially deal with criticisms leveled against him personally. His critics appear to have been Jews who claimed to be Christians and who wanted Christians to submit to the authority of the Mosaic Law and its institutions. They probably came from Jerusalem and evidently had a wide influence (cf. Acts 15). One man seems to have been their spokesman (3:1; 5:7, 10) though there were several Judaizers in Galatia as the many references to "them" and "they" scattered throughout the epistle suggest.⁶

Message⁷

Probably the most distinctive impression one receives from this epistle is its severity. Paul wrote it with strong emotion, but he never let his emotions fog his argument. His dominant concern was for truth and its bearing on life.

Compared with the Corinthian correspondence Galatians is also corrective. However the tone is very different. There is no mention here of the readers' standing in Christ or any commendation of them.

The introduction is rather cold and prosaic with no mention of thankfulness. Paul begins at once to marvel at the Galatians' apostasy (1:6-9; cf. 3:1-5; 4:8-11). Even tender sentiments seem to rise from a very troubled heart (4:19-20). Obviously that of which Paul wrote in this letter was of utmost importance to him.

He was not dealing with behavior, as in Corinthians, so much as belief, which is foundational to behavior.

Galatians has been called the Manifesto of Christian Liberty. It explains that liberty: its nature, its laws, and its enemies. This little letter has at various times through history called God's people out of the bondage of legalism back into the liberty of freedom. Luther loved it so much he called it his wife.

The greatest value of this letter is not found in its denunciations but in its enunciations. We must not be so impressed with the fiery rhetoric and dramatic actions of Paul that we fail to understand the reasons underlying what he said and did.

Galatians' central teaching is a proclamation concerning liberty. It is a germinal form of the Epistle to the Romans, which Paul wrote 8 years later in 57 A.D.

Three sentences will state its major revelations.

First, the root of every Christian's Christianity is God's supply of His Holy Spirit to that person (3:5, 14). One receives new life by receiving the Holy Spirit by faith at conversion. Nothing other than faith is necessary for salvation. To affirm that one must be circumcised or baptized to receive life is to proclaim the worst of heresies. New life comes by faith alone. What makes Christians different is God indwelling us.

Second, the culture (medium) in which every Christian's Christianity grows is the desires of God's Spirit who indwells us (5:17). When a Christian has life by faith he or she is free from all other bondage: that of the flesh, and that of rites and ceremonies. (By "flesh" I mean our sinful human nature.) He has power to master the flesh, and he has found life apart from rites and ceremonies, so he is free from these. However, his liberty is not license to sin. God's Spirit enables the Christian to obey. Circumcision or baptism does not make anyone able to obey God. We can only obey God in the power of God's Spirit. In short, we are free to obey God, not to disobey Him, when the Spirit dwells within us. God's life in us bears fruit if we cooperate with Him. But if we conflict with Him it does not.

Third, the fruit that every Christian produces is the evidence of God's Spirit triumphing over his flesh (5:22). The essence of this fruit is love. The works of the flesh are the fruit of a religion that does not have the life-giving Spirit indwelling its members (i.e., ritualism). Fruit issues from life; works issue from ritualism.

The Galatians upset Paul exceedingly because whenever we add anything to faith for salvation inevitably we neglect faith. If we make something beside faith supreme, we establish a rite (e.g., baptism). When we establish a rite, practice of the rite becomes the message of religion and we divorce morality from religion. There is no motivation for righteous living. This is one difference between Christianity and all other religions. All other religions have rites, ceremonies, and creeds, but no life. Consequently there is no vital connection in these religions between belief and morality. We see that all kinds of sin result from the tragedy of adding something to the one responsibility of faith (e.g., Roman Catholicism).

Galatians is not only a proclamation, it is also a protest.

It protests against preachers of another gospel (1:8-9). These words of Paul are not only a curse, they are a statement of fact. One who preaches another gospel substitutes falsehood (which issues finally in the works of the flesh) for the truth (which issues finally in the fruit of the Spirit). Get the gospel straight before you finish your study of Galatians.

Galatians also protests against the receivers of another gospel (5:4). To add to faith is to trust ceremony, which is to deny Christ, which is to be cut off from Christ, which is to fall from grace. Ceremonies such as baptism and the Lord's Supper have a proper place in Christianity, but to make them necessary for justification is to deny Christ. A person is justified only when he or she says sincerely, "Nothing in my hands I bring, Simply to Thy cross I cling."

Galatians also protests against those who practice the deeds of the flesh, which result from a false gospel (5:21). They will not inherit God's kingdom. Their reward will be less than it would be if they did not practice the deeds of the flesh.

This letter warns us against adding any rite or ceremony or observance to faith to obtain God's acceptance. Such a practice cuts off those who rely on the ritual from Christ. Dr. William Culbertson used to say, "It is very hard to tell when the accretions to faith make faith invalid." We all struggle with this difficulty in our evangelism.

It also warns us against changing horses in midstream. That is, it warns us against trusting in faith for justification, but then concluding that the only way to be sanctified is to observe rites, ceremonies, or other observances. Having begun salvation by the Spirit we will not attain God's goal for us by the flesh. The life of the Spirit must remain the law of the Christian.

We may compare the Christian life to a three-stage Saturn rocket.

Here is another way to think of salvation. We can chart it showing the relationships of justification, sanctification, and glorification. Justification is solely an act of God that takes a moment. Sanctification is a joint enterprise between God and the Christian that takes a lifetime. Glorification is another act of God alone that takes only a moment.

I would summarize the message of the book as follows. Salvation is by God's grace through faith plus nothing. We will deal with these issues more in detail in our study of the book.

Outline⁸

I. Introduction 1:1-10

A. Salutation 1:1-5

B. Denunciation 1:6-10

II. Personal defense of Paul's gospel 1:11-2:21

A. Independence from other apostles 1:11-24

1. The source of Paul's gospel 1:11-17

2. The events of Paul's early ministry 1:18-24

B. Interdependence with other apostles 2:1-10

C. Correction of another apostle 2:11-21

III. Theological affirmation of salvation by faith 3:1-4:31

A. Vindication of the doctrine ch. 3

1. The experiential argument 3:1-5

2. The Scriptural argument 3:6-14

3. The logical argument 3:15-29

B. Clarification of the doctrine ch. 4

1. The domestic illustration 4:1-11

2. The historical illustration 4:12-20

3. The biblical illustration 4:21-31

IV. Practical application to Christian living 5:1-6:10

A. Balance in the Christian life ch. 5

1. Living without the Law 5:1-12

2. Living without license 5:13-15

3. Living by the Holy Spirit 5:16-26

B. Responsibilities of the Christian life 6:1-10

1. Toward sinning Christians 6:1

2. Toward burdened Christians 6:2-5

3. Toward teachers 6:6-9

4. Toward all people 6:10

V. Conclusion 6:11-18

Constable: Galatians

Galatians

Bibliography

Allen, Kenneth W. "Justification by Faith." Bibliotheca Sacra 135:538 (April-June 1978):109-16.

Andrews, Mary E. "Paul and Repentance." Journal of Biblical Literature 54:2 (June 1935):125.

Barclay, William. The Letters to the Galatians and Ephesians. Daily Study Bible series, 2nd ed. and reprint ed. Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 1962.

Barrett, C. K. Freedom and Obligation. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985.

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Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

Haydock: Galatians (Book Introduction)

THE

EPISTLE OF ST. PAUL, THE APOSTLE,

TO THE GALATIANS.

INTRODUCTION.

The Galatians, soon after St. Paul had preached the gospel to them, were seduced by some false teachers, who had been Jews, and who were for obliging all Christians, even those who had been Gentiles, to observe circumcision, and the other ceremonies of the Mosaical law. In this epistle he refutes the pernicious doctrine of those teachers, and also their calumny against his mission and apostleship. The subject matter of this epistle is much the same as of that to the Romans. It was written at Ephesus, about twenty-three years after our Lord's ascension. (Challoner) --- The Galatians were originally Gauls, who under their leader, Baennus, spread themselves over Greece, and at length passed over into Asia Minor, where they settled between Cappadocia and Phrygia, in the province afterwards called from them Galatia. It seems that St. Peter preached first in those parts; but it was only to the Jews, as my be gathered from the inscription of his first epistle, which he addresses to the Jews of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. But St. Paul was the first that preached to the Gentile inhabitants of this province. When he first preached to them, he was received as an angel from heaven, or rather, as Christ himself: he visited them oftener than once, and the Church he there formed was very considerable. It was the Jewish converts of Galatia (who, as we have before mentioned, were the spiritual children of St. Peter) that caused those troubles which gave rise to this epistle. They strongly advocated the legal observances; and making a handle of the high pre-eminence of St. Peter, they decried St. Paul, even calling in question his apostleship. They taught the necessity of circumcision, and other Mosaic rites, which the apostles then in part retained. Thus divisions were raised in this infant Church. On these accounts the apostle warmly asserts his apostleship, as being called by Christ himself. He shews that his doctrine was that of the other apostles, who, in the council of Jerusalem, four years before, testified their exemption from the legal observances. He teaches, that it is not by the law, but by faith, that the blessings of salvation are imparted to them. After establishing these more important parts of the epistle, he gives them instruction on various heads. The Greek subscription to this epistle informs us, that it was written from Rome. St. Jerome says, he wrote it when in chains. Theodoret says, it was the first epistle that St. Paul wrote from Rome. This opinion has probably been adopted from a mistaken interpretation of the text: I bear the marks of the wounds of Christ in my body. By these marks they understand chains, whilst the text equally applies to the mortifications and self-denials of a Christian. The contrary opinion is, that this epistle was written from Ephesus in the year of Christ 55. This is the more probable opinion, and is maintained by St. Gregory the Great, Ludovicus, Capellanus, Estius, Usher, Pearson, and many others. The authority of the Greek copies, in assigning the places whence the letters were written, has been long rejected by the learned. We find no such information in the more ancient Greek manuscripts of St. Germanus and Clermont, &c. (Calmet)

====================

Gill: Galatians (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO GALATIANS

The persons to whom this epistle is written were not such who made up a single church only, in some certain town or city, but were such of which several churches consisted, in a region or country called Galatia, as is evident from Gal 1:2 and the members of these churches seem to be chiefly, if not altogether Jews, since the apostle includes them with himself; as having been under the law, under tutors and governors, and in bondage under the elements of the world, and to whom the law had been a schoolmaster, though now they were no longer under it as such, Gal 3:23 or however, though some of them might have been originally Gentiles, yet, previous to their conversion, had become proselytes to the Jews, and now were returning to Judaism again, as appears from Gal 4:8. When and from whence this epistle was written, is not very clear and manifest: some have thought, that it was written about the time of the writing of the epistle to the Romans, and upon a like occasion; but if it was written about that time, it could not he written from Rome, as the subscription to this epistle attests, since it is certain, that when the apostle wrote his epistle to the Romans, he had never, as yet, been at Rome. Beza is of opinion, that it was written from Antioch, between the return of Paul and Barnabas thither from their first journey, and the troubles which broke out in that church, Act 14:28. But to this it is reasonably objected, that it is questionable whether there were so early any churches in Galatia at all; and if there were, it does not seem that the defection from the faith, complained of in this epistle, as yet had took place in any of the churches; for it was after this date that the troubles upon this head arose at Antioch, which seems to have been the first place, and the church there the first church the judaizing teachers practised at and upon. Some Latin exemplars testify that it was written from Ephesus; of which opinion was Erasmus; but as Dr. Lightfoot observes, the same reason is against this as the former, seeing the corruption that was got into this church was then but beginning, when the apostle was at Ephesus: it seems therefore most likely, that it was written from Rome, as the subscription in the Greek copies affirms; and which is strengthened by the Syriac and Arabic versions, seeing it seems to have been written after the apostle had made the collections, in several places, for the poor saints at Jerusalem, Gal 2:10 and when the apostasy from the faith had got to a great pitch; nor is it any objection that there is no express mention made of his bonds in it, as there is in those epistles of his, which were written from Rome; since, when he wrote this, he might have been delivered from them, as some have thought he was after his first defence; and besides, he does take notice of the marks of the Lord Jesus he bore in his body, Gal 6:17. Dr. Lightfoot places the writing of this epistle in the year and in the "fifth" of Nero; some place it in 55, and others in 58. That there were churches in Galatia very early, is certain from Act 18:23 but by whom they were planted is not so evident; very likely by the apostle, since, it is certain, both from this epistle, that he was personally in this country, and preached the Gospel here, Gal 4:13 and from Act 16:6 and if he was not the instrument of the conversion of the first of them, which laid the foundation of a Gospel church state, yet it is certain, that he was useful in strengthening the disciples and brethren throughout this country, Act 18:23. But after his departure from them, the false teachers got among them, and insinuated, that he was no apostle, at least that he was inferior to Peter, James, and John, the ministers of the circumcision; and these seduced many of the members of the churches in this place, drawing them off from the evangelical doctrine of justification by the righteousness of Christ, persuading them that the observation of the ceremonial law, particularly circumcision, was necessary to their acceptance with God, and justification in his sight: wherefore the occasion and design of this epistle were to vindicate the character of the apostle as such; to establish the true doctrine of justification by faith, in opposition to the works of the law; to recover those who were carried away with the other doctrines; to exhort the saints to stand fast in the liberty of Christ, and to various other duties of religion; and to give a true description of the false teachers, and their views, that so they might beware of them, and of their principles.

Gill: Galatians 3 (Chapter Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO GALATIANS 3

In this chapter the apostle reproves the Galatians for their disobedience to the Gospel, and departure from it; confirms the doctrine of justification by faith, by various arguments; shows the use of the law, and the abrogation of it, and makes mention of several privileges which belong to believers in Christ. He begins with a sharp reproof of the Galatians, and represents them as foolish and bewitched, and charges them with disobedience to the truth of the Gospel, which is aggravated by the clearness of the Gospel ministry, in which a crucified Christ, and justification by him, had been so evidently set before them, Gal 3:1, and by the fruit and effect of it, they having received the Spirit by it, and not by the preaching of the law of works, Gal 3:2 and it still increased their folly, that whereas they had begun with the Spirit of God, and set out in a dependence on him and his grace, they seemed now as if they would end in a carnal and legal way, Gal 3:3. To which is added, the consideration of their having suffered many things for the sake of the Gospel, which must be suffered in vain should they relinquish the Gospel, though the apostle hoped otherwise of them, Gal 3:4, nay, they had not only received through the preaching of the Gospel the Spirit, and his graces, but even extraordinary gifts attended it, for the confirmation of it, Gal 3:5, so that this case of theirs was a very aggravated one, and they were guilty of great folly and madness: from hence the apostle passes to the main thing in dispute, the great truth of justification by faith in the righteousness of Christ, which these persons were departing from, and which he establishes by several arguments; and first from the instance and example of Abraham, who was justified by faith, as appears from that which he believed, being imputed to him as his justifying righteousness, Gal 3:6, and as many as are believers in Christ are his spiritual children, and so undoubtedly are justified the same way their father was, Gal 3:7, and particularly that the Gentiles are justified by faith is clear from the preaching of the Gospel to Abraham, and the promise made unto him, that in his seed all nations should be blessed; that is, with the blessing of justification, Gal 3:8. The conclusion of which instance and example is, that as faithful Abraham was blessed with a justifying righteousness through faith, so all that believe are blessed along with him with the same blessing, Gal 3:9, and that no man can be justified by the works of the law is certain, since the law is so far from justifying any on account of obedience to it, that it pronounces a curse upon all that do not perfectly and constantly fulfil it, Gal 3:10. And this is still further evident from a passage in the prophecy of Hab 2:4 which declares, that the just live by faith, or that those who are truly righteous are such who are justified by it, Gal 3:11. And this is illustrated by the law and faith being contrary; for if a just man lives by faith, then not by the law, for the law does not direct a man to believe, but to work, and to live by his works, Gal 3:12. And the apostle having spoken of the law as a cursing law, takes the opportunity of showing how believers are delivered from the curse of it, which is done by Christ's being made a curse for them; and that he was, appears from his being crucified and hanged on a tree; the ends of which were, that the same blessing of justification Abraham had, might come upon the Gentiles through Christ, and that they might by faith receive the promise of the Spirit, Gal 3:13 so that it is clear from hence, that the blessing of justification is through Christ's being made a curse, and is received by faith, and is not by the works of the law. The apostle next argues from the inheritance being by covenant, testament, or promise, and therefore not by the law: he observes, that a man's covenant or testament, when confirmed, can neither be disannulled, nor have anything added to it, and much less can the covenant or testament of God, confirmed of him in Christ, be disannulled by the law, or the promise in it be made of none effect by that which was several hundred years after a declaration of it to Abraham, to whom, and to whose seed, the promises were made; so that it unavoidably follows, that since the inheritance or blessing of life is by promise, as is clear from its being given to Abraham by promise, then it is not of the law, Gal 3:15. And whereas an objection might arise, if this be the case, of what use and service can the law be? to what purpose, or for what end, was that given? The apostle answers, that it was added because of transgressions; and that it was to endure until Christ should come, to whom the promise was made; and accordingly it was published in a very grand and solemn manner by angels, and was put into the hands of a mediator, Moses, who stood between God as one party, and the people of Israel as another, Gal 3:19. Moreover, as it might be further objected, that, according to this way of reasoning, the law is against the promises; the apostle replies in a way of detestation and abhorrence of any such thing, and by an argument from the insufficiency of the law to justify, since it cannot give life, Gal 3:21. And then proceeds to point out another use of the law, which is to conclude men under sin, or convince men of it, that they, seeing their need of righteousness and life by Christ might receive the promise of it through faith in him Gal 3:22, and so far were men from being justified by the law under the former dispensation, that they were kept under it as in a garrison, and shut up in it as in a prison, until Christ, the object of faith, was revealed, and released them, Gal 3:23, and was moreover as a rigid and severe schoolmaster; and so it continued until the times of Christ; and these therefore being the uses of the law, it is a clear case that justification is by faith, and not by that, Gal 3:24. Besides, Christ being now come, the Jews themselves are no more under this law as a schoolmaster; it is now abolished, and therefore there is no justification by it, Gal 3:25. And that this is the case of true believers in Christ is evident, because such are the children of God, and are taught and led by the Spirit of God, and are free, and not under the law as a schoolmaster, Gal 3:26. Besides, as they are baptized into Christ, they have put him on, as the Lord their righteousness, and so profess to be justified by him, and him only, Gal 3:27, and these, let them be of what nation, sex, state, and condition soever, are all one in Christ, and are all justified in one and the same way; and being Christ's they are Abraham's spiritual seed, and so heirs of the same promise of righteousness and life as he, Gal 3:28.

College: Galatians (Book Introduction)

FOREWORD

Since the earliest days of the concept of a commentary series jointly authored by church of Christ and Christian church scholars, I have eagerly anticipated the College Press NIV Bible Commentary. The dream of Don DeWelt was to bring brothers back together in a project honoring our common devotion to Scripture. Exegesis of the text should know no party line, but should interpret fairly and honestly what God said. Participating as a writer in this series is an honor and a challenge.

Having taught Galatians and Ephesians for twenty years in the Bible college classroom, I know that many good commentaries already exist. All the books that have been written provide a wonderful platform on which to build. No quantity of footnotes could adequately reflect my gratitude for the research of great scholars of the past.

I especially want to express my thanks to my family and my co-workers in Christ for the support and inspiration they have given me. Experience is teaching me that no member of the Lord's body functions well alone. In addition, I feel gratitude to a host of zealous students who have brought their enthusiasm and fresh insights to the halls of Ozark Christian College. Learning from students is one of the best ways to learn!

Out of my study of Galatians and Ephesians, I have learned to love the Lord and his people. Viewing God's children as my dear brothers and sisters is a rich blessing. Especially dear to me are the precious saints of God whose love has reached beyond the sectarian lines. Yearning to taste the freedom for which Christ has set us free, they have dared to love with God's own love. Out of their sincere faith and unfeigned love, it is possible to catch a glimpse of heaven. Until the family is reunited around the throne, may God bless you.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

INTRODUCTION

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Gal 5:1). This freedom rings out in every page of Galatians, Paul's great "Magna Charta of the Christian faith." This epistle is our charter of Christian freedom, our declaration of independence from slavery

to the law.

Throughout the history of the church the message of Galatians has been needed to free men from chains of false doctrine. When the early Judaizers tried to bind men to the old commandments from Sinai, Galatians set them free. When the apostate church of the Dark Ages tried to bind men to a papal system of salvation by penance and works, Galatians set them free. When modern legalists try to bind us to a joyless religion of superior "rightness," Galatians sets us free.

Martin Luther was moved by Galatians to sound the reveille of the Reformation. He said, "The Epistle to the Galatians is my epistle; I have betrothed myself to it: it is my wife." His commentary on Galatians cost him more labor, and was more highly esteemed by him, than any of his other works. For Luther, as for every age, the simple gospel of the message of Galatians was a mighty weapon in the arsenal of freedom.

THE WRITER

No epistle can lay more claim to being a genuine product of the hand of Paul than can Galatians. As Kümmel says, "That Galatians is a genuine, authentic Epistle is indisputable." Paul claims to be the author (1:1 and 5:2), and the early church accepted this claim without reservation. The style and message are clearly Pauline. "His mind, character, and accents are to be seen in every paragraph."

THE GALATIAN CHURCHES

While the authorship is beyond dispute, there is considerable controversy regarding the recipients of this letter. They are called "the churches in Galatia," but just what is meant by this?

During the third century B.C. some barbarian people of Celtic origin migrated to the inner plateau of Asia Minor and established a kingdom there. Since some of the Celtic people were known in France as the Gauls, these people in Asia Minor were distinguished as the "Gallo-Graecians," from which the name "Galatians" comes.Their realm was centered around Ancyra (the modern capital of Turkey) in the northern highlands area.

After the Romans conquered this territory, it was combined in 25 B.C. into a large province containing the districts to the south, Lycaonia and Isauria, as well as parts of Pisidia and Phrygia. The newly created province was called Galatia, and included the cities known to us from Paul's missionary journeys - Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Derbe, and Lystra.

When Paul spoke of "Galatia," did he refer to ethnic Galatia (the tribal area limited to the north), or did he refer to political Galatia (the province which also included the districts to the south)? The traditional view, still shown on most Bible maps, is the "north Galatian theory." The view favored by most commentaries today is the "south Galatian theory."

The North Galatian Theory

If this view is correct, then Paul must have visited Galatia on the second missionary journey (Acts 16:6, although without preaching) and started churches there on the third missionary journey (Acts 18:23). However, Acts says nothing of the cities there, nor of Paul's preaching.

Possible arguments to support the "North Galatian theory" include the following:

1. "Galatia" meant a place inhabited specifically by the Gauls.

2. In Acts, Antioch is called "Pisidian," while Lystra and Derbe are cities of Lycaonia.

3. The Phrygians would have objected to being called Galatians, since it would remind them of their subjection to Rome.

4. Paul could not have addressed Lycaonians or Pisidians as "O foolish Galatians."

5. The fickle nature of the recipients suits the Gallic people.

6. "The region of Phrygia and Galatia" (Acts 16:6) appears to mean that Galatia was quite distinct from Phrygia.

7. There is no mention in Galatians that Paul experienced strong opposition when he preached there.

The South Galatian Theory

In the 1880s and 1890s William Ramsay did extensive archaeological work in Asia Minor. His careful research not only proved that Luke was an accurate historian; it also laid the foundation for the "south Galatian theory." This is the view favored in this commentary.

If this view is correct, then Paul visited cities of Galatia on all three of his missionary journeys. These were among the first churches he started. The cities would include Pisidian Antioch and Iconium (where Paul met resistance from the Jews), and Lystra (where Paul was first welcomed, and then stoned).

Possible arguments to support the "south Galatian theory" include the following:

1. If Galatia does not include the cities of Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe, then we know absolutely nothing about the churches which were so important in Paul's life and to which such an important epistle was sent.

2. The expression "the region of Phrygia and Galatia" (Acts 16:6) is best understood as the area through which Paul would go when he left Lystra and Iconium, "the Phrygio-Galatian" territory.

3. Paul normally uses Roman imperial names for the provinces, and the Roman "Galatia" included the south.

4. "Galatians" was the only word available that would include the people of all four cities (just as "British" includes people who are Welsh, Scottish, and English).

5. "The Galatian churches" participated in the collection for the saints in Jerusalem (1 Cor 16:1), and Paul's assistants included

two South Galatians - Gaius of Derbe and Timothy of Lystra (Acts 20:4).

6. The northern area was not on the common trade routes, and it is unlikely that Paul would have made a difficult journey to reach such an out-of-the-way place "because of an illness" (Gal 4:13).

7. Judaizers are known to have followed Paul through the cities of the south.

8. Paul's words "you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God" (4:14) could be connected with his reception at Lystra, where they wanted to worship him and Barnabas.

9. The early church developed along the great trade routes, and these went through the south parts of Galatia, not the north.

10. Barnabas is mentioned three times (2:1, 9, 13), as though he is known to the readers, and he accompanied Paul only on the journey that went to the cities of the south.

THE DATE AND PLACE OF WRITING

The date and place of writing are somewhat dependent on the choice of north or south Galatia as the destination. If the "north Galatian theory" is correct, the epistle could not have been written until after Paul arrived in Ephesus on the third missionary journey (Acts 18:23-24). This would produce a date no earlier than A.D. 52-55. Lightfoot proposed that the letter was written from Corinth, perhaps A.D. 56-57.

If one is convinced that the "south Galatian theory" is correct, a much wider range of dates is possible. Galatians could have been written as early as A.D. 48, even before the Jerusalem Conference.However, as our discussion of Gal 2:1-10 will show, it is more likely that the Jerusalem Conference had already taken place when Paul wrote the letter. This would move the probable date to A.D. 50 or later. It is likely that Galatians stands among the first of Paul's epistles.

The decision about the date and place of writing does not affect the interpretation of Galatians; in fact, the reverse is true. The exegesis of the text determines the decision about date and place. One cannot say, "Paul wrote at such and such a date; therefore, the text means this." Our decision about date and place comes from indications in the text itself (Gal 1:6 "so quickly deserting"; 2:1 "fourteen years later I went up again to Jerusalem"; 2:11 "when Peter came to Antioch"; 4:13 "because of an illness I first preached to you"; 4:20 "I wish I could be with you now.") What we know for certain about Paul's circumstances we will learn from the text.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barclay, William. Flesh and Spirit . Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962.

. The Letters to the Galatians and Ephesians . Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1958.

. The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians . Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1959.

. New Testament Words . London: SCM Press, 1964.

Bartchy, S. Scott. First Century Slavery and 1 Corinthians 7:21 . Atlanta: Scholar's Press, 1973.

Barrett, C. K. "The Allegory of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar in the Argument of Galatians," Rechtfertigung: Festschrift fur Ernst Käsemann . Tübingen/Gottingen, 1976.

Barth, Markus. Romans . Oxford: University Press, 1980 (reprint).

Bauckham, R. J. "Barnabas in Galatians." Journal for the Study of the New Testament , Issue 2 (1979) 61-70.

Bauer, Walter; William F. Arndt; and F. Wilbur Gingrich. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature . 2nd ed. Rev. by F. Wilbur Gingrich and Frederick W. Danker. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.

Blakely, Given. What the Bible Says About the Kingdom of God . Joplin: College Press, 1988.

Blass, F.; A. Debrunner; and Robert W. Funk. A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961.

Boice, James Montgomery. Galatians . The Expositor's Bible Commentary, ed. by Frank E. Gaebelein. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976.

Brandenburger, Egon. "Cross," Dictionary of New Testament Theology (1975) I:391-403.

Bruce, F. F. The Epistle to the Galatians (NIGTC). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982.

Büchsel, Friedrich. "ajllhgorevw," Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (1964) I:260-263.

Bundrick, David R. "TA STOICHEIA TOU KOSMOU," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 34 (Sept 1991) 353-364.

Burton, E. D. The Epistle to the Galatians (ICC). Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1921.

Carson, D. A.; Douglas J. Moo; and Leon Morris. An Introduction to the New Testament . Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992.

Calvin, John. Commentary on Galatians . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961 (reprint).

Cullmann, Oskar. "Pevtro", Khfa'"," Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (1968) VI:100-112.

Dana, H. E. and Julius R. Mantey. A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament . New York: Macmillan, 1955.

Deissmann, Adolph. Light from the Ancient East (Eng. Trans.). New York: Harper, 1927.

DeVries, C. E. "Paul's 'Cutting' Remarks about a Race: Galatians 5:1-12," Current Issues in Biblical and Patristic Interpretation: Studies in Honor of Merrill C. Tenney . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975.

Duncan, George S. The Epistle of Paul to the Galatians (MNTC). London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1934.

Fairweather, William. The Background of the Epistles . Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1935.

Fung, Ronald Y. K. The Epistle to the Galatians (NICNT). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988.

Green, Michael. The Empty Cross of Jesus . Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1984.

Guthrie, Donald. Galatians (NCBC). London: Oliphants, 1969; revised edition 1974.

Hauck, Friedrich and Siegfried Schulz. "pornhv," Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (1968) VI:579-595.

Holly, David. A Complete Categorized Greek-English New Testament Vocabulary . Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980.

Howard, George. Paul: Crisis in Galatia (SNTSM 35). Cambridge: University Press, 1979.

Hurtado, L. W. "The Jerusalem Collection and the Book of Galatians," Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Issue 2 (Oct. 1979) 53.

Jewett, Robert. "Agitators and the Galatian Congregation," New Testament Studies 17 (1970-1971) 198-212.

Johnson, Robert L. The Letter of Paul to the Galatians (LWC). Austin: R. B. Sweet, 1969.

Lewis, C. S. The Four Loves . San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971 (reprint).

Liddell, Henry George; Robert Scott; and Henry Stuart Jones. A Greek English Lexicon . Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968.

Lightfoot, J. B. The Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1957 (reprint).

Lohse, Eduard. "proswpolhmyiva," Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (1968) VI:779-780.

Longenecker, Richard N. Galatians (WBC). Dallas: Word, 1990.

Matera, Frank J. Galatians (Sacra Pagina). Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1992.

McCasland, S. Vernon. "The Greco-Roman World," The Interpreter's Bible Vol. 7, pp. 75-99. New York: Abingdon, 1951.

Metzger, Bruce M. A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament . London: United Bible Societies, 1971.

Michaelis, Wilhelm. "pavqhma," Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (1967) V:930-935.

Moule, C. F. D. Worship in the New Testament . Richmond: John Knox Press, 1961.

Moulton, James Hope. A Grammar of New Testament Greek . Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1963.

Moulton, W. F. and A. S. Geden. A Concordance to the Greek Testament . Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1963.

Müller, Dietrich. "Apostle," Dictionary of New Testament Theology (1975) I:126-135.

Parker, Pierson. "Once More, Acts and Galatians." Journal of Biblical Literature 86 (1967) 175-180.

Pinnock, Clark H. Truth on Fire: The Message of Galatians . Grand Rapids: Baker, 1972.

Oepke, A. "mesivth"," Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (1967) IV:598-624.

Ramsay, W. M. St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen . Grand Rapids: Baker, 1949 (reprint).

Ridderbos, Herman N. The Epistle of Paul to the Churches of Galatia (NICNT). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953.

Sampley, J. Paul. "'Before God, I do not lie' (Gal 1:20): Paul's Self-Defence in the Light of Roman Legal Praxis." New Testament Studies 23 (1977) 477-482.

Stauffer, Ethelbert. "ajgapavw," Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (1964) I:35-55.

Stein, Robert H. "Wine-Drinking in New Testament Times," Christianity Today (June 20, 1975) 9-11.

Stott, J. R. W. The Message of Galatians . Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1968.

Strelan, J. G. "Burden-Bearing and the Law of Christ: A Re-examination of Galatians 6:2," Journal of Biblical Literature 94 (1975) 266-276.

Stumpff, Albrecht. "zh'lo"," Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (1964) II:877-888.

Trench, R. C. Synonyms of the New Testament . Grand Rapids: Baker, 1953 (reprint).

Vine, W. E. An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words . Westwood, NJ: Fleming H. Revell, 1940.

Weiss, Konrad. "crhstov"," Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (1974) IX:483-492.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

ABBREVIATIONS

BAGD Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich-Danker Greek Lexicon (2nd. ed.)

BDF Blass-Debrunner-Funk Greek Grammar

CT Christianity Today

ExpT Expository Times

DNTT Dictionary of the New Testament, by Colin Brown

JBL Journal of Biblical Literature

JETS Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society

JSNT Journal of Studies for the New Testament

JTS Journal of Theological Studies

KJV King James Version

LSJ Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek Lexicon

LXX Septuagint

NEB New English Bible

NRSV New Revised Standard Version

NTS New Testament Studies

RSV Revised Standard Version

TDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. by

Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich

TEV Today's English Version

TrinJ Trinity Journal

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

College: Galatians (Outline)

OUTLINE

I. AUTHORITY: The Apostolic Gospel - 1:1-2:21

A. Greeting - 1:1-5

B. Paul's Astonishment - 1:6-10

C. Paul's Call by God - 1:11-17

D. Paul's Brief Meeting with Leaders - 1:18-24

E. Showdown: Conference in Jerusalem - 2:1-5

F. Apostolic Agreement - 2:6-10

G. Showdown: Conflict in Antioch - 2:11-14

H. Apostolic Conclusion - 2:15-21

II. ARGUMENTS: Law Vs. Faith - 3:1-4:31

A. Argument One: Receiving the Spirit - 3:1-5

B. Argument Two: Abraham - 3:6-9

C. Argument Three: The Curse - 3:10-14

D. Argument Four: A Human Covenant - 3:15-22

E. Argument Five: The Child-Keeper - 3:23-4:7

1. The Job of the Child-Keeper - 3:23-25

2. The Benefits for the Children - 3:26-29

3. The Full Rights of the Children - 4:1-7

4. The Folly of Turning Back - 4:8-11

F. Argument Six: Paul's Personal Plea - 4:12-20

1. Paul's Former Welcome - 4:12-16

2. Paul's Present Pains - 4:17-20

G. Argument Seven: Allegory of Hagar & Sarah - 4:21-31

III. APPLICATION: Living for Freedom - 5:1-6:18

A. Freedom or a Yoke? - 5:1-6

B. The Yeast of the Agitators - 5:7-12

C. The Essence of Law and Love - 5:13-15

D. The Acts of the Sinful Nature - 5:16-21

E. The Fruit of the Spirit - 5:22-26

F. The Law of Christ - 6:1-6

G. The Harvest of the Spirit - 6:7-10

H. Paul's Own Conclusion - 6:11-18

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV