@Ga 3:1-29. 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.
1. that ye should not obey the truth--omitted in the oldest
manuscripts.
bewitched--fascinated you so that you have lost your wits.
THEMISTIUS
says the Galatians were naturally very acute in intellect. Hence, Paul
wonders they could be so misled in this case.
you--emphatical. "You, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been
graphically set forth (literally, in writing, namely, by vivid
portraiture in preaching)
among you, crucified" (so the sense and
Greek order require rather than English Version). As Christ was
"crucified," so ye ought to have been by faith "crucified with
Christ," and so "dead to the law" (@Ga 2:19,20). Reference to the
"eyes" is appropriate, as fascination was supposed to be exercised
through the eyes. The sight of Christ crucified ought to have been
enough to counteract all fascination.
2. "Was it by the works of the law that ye received the Spirit
(manifested by outward miracles, @Ga 3:5 Mr 16:17 Heb 2:4; and by
spiritual graces, @Ga 3:14 Ga 4:5,6 Eph 1:13), or by the hearing of
faith?" The "only" implies, "I desire, omitting other arguments, to rest
the question on this alone"; I who was your teacher, desire now
to "learn" this one thing from you. The epithet "Holy" is not prefixed
to "Spirit" because that epithet is a joyous one, whereas this Epistle
is stern and reproving [BENGEL].
hearing of faith--Faith consists not in working, but in
receiving (@Ro 10:16,17).
3. begun--the Christian life (@Php 1:6).
in the Spirit--Not merely was Christ crucified "graphically set
forth" in my preaching, but also "the Spirit" confirmed the word
preached, by imparting His spiritual gifts. "Having thus begun" with the
receiving His spiritual gifts, "are ye now being made perfect"
(so the Greek), that is, are ye seeking to be made perfect with
"fleshly" ordinances of the law? [ESTIUS]. Compare
@Ro 2:28 Php 3:3 Heb 9:10. Having begun in the Spirit, that is, the
Holy Spirit ruling your spiritual life as its "essence and active
principle" [ELLICOTT], in contrast to "the flesh," the element in which
the law works [ALFORD]. Having begun your Christianity in the Spirit,
that is, in the divine life that proceeds from faith, are ye seeking
after something higher still (the perfecting of your Christianity) in
the sensuous and the earthly, which cannot possibly elevate the inner
life of the Spirit, namely, outward ceremonies?
[NEANDER]. No doubt the
Galatians thought that they were going more deeply into the Spirit; for
the flesh may be easily mistaken for the Spirit, even by those who have
made progress, unless they continue to maintain a pure faith
[BENGEL].
4. Have ye suffered so many things--namely, persecution from Jews and
from unbelieving fellow countrymen, incited by the Jews, at the time of
your conversion.
in vain--fruitlessly, needlessly, since ye might have avoided them
by professing Judaism [GROTIUS]. Or, shall ye, by falling from grace,
lose the reward promised for all your sufferings, so that they shall be
"in vain" (@Ga 4:11 1Co 15:2,17-19,29-32 2Th 1:5-7 2Jo 1:8)?
yet--rather, "If it be really (or 'indeed') in vain"
[ELLICOTT].
"If, as it must be, what I have said, 'in vain,' is really the fact"
[ALFORD]. I prefer understanding it as a mitigation of the preceding
words. I hope better things of you, for I trust you will return from
legalism to grace; if so, as I confidently expect, you will not have
"suffered so many things in vain" [ESTIUS]. For "God has given you the
Spirit and has wrought mighty works among you" (@Ga 3:5 Heb 10:32-36)
[BENGEL].
5. He . . . that ministereth--or "supplieth," God (@2Co 9:10). He
who supplied and supplies to you the Spirit still, to the present
time. These miracles do not prove grace to be in the heart
(@Mr 9:38,39). He speaks of these miracles as a matter of
unquestioned notoriety among those addressed; an undesigned proof of
their genuineness (compare @1Co 12:1-31).
worketh miracles among you--rather, "IN you," as
@Ga 2:8 Mt 14:2 Eph 2:2 Php 2:13; at your conversion and since
[ALFORD].
doeth he it by the works of the law--that is, as a consequence
resulting from (so the Greek) the works of the law
(compare @Ga 3:2). This cannot be because the law was then
unknown to you when you received those gifts of the Spirit.
6. The answer to the question in @Ga 3:5 is here taken for granted, It was by the hearing of faith: following this up, he says, "Even as Abraham believed," &c. (@Ge 15:4-6 Ro 4:3). God supplies unto you the Spirit as the result of faith, not works, just as Abraham obtained justification by faith, not by works (@Ga 3:6,8,16 Ga 4:22,26,28). Where justification is, there the Spirit is, so that if the former comes by faith, the latter must also.
7. they which are of faith--as the source and starting-point of their
spiritual life. The same phrase is in the Greek of @Ro 3:26.
the same--these, and these alone, to the exclusion of all the
other descendants of Abraham.
children--Greek, "sons" (@Ga 3:29).
8. And--Greek, "Moreover."
foreseeing--One great excellency of Scripture is, that in it all
points liable ever to be controverted, are, with prescient wisdom,
decided in the most appropriate language.
would justify--rather, "justifieth." Present indicative. It is now,
and at all times, God's one way of justification.
the heathen--rather, "the Gentiles"; or "the nations," as the same
Greek is translated at the end of the verse. God justifieth the
Jews, too, "by faith, not by works." But he specifies the Gentiles in particular here, as it was their case that was in question, the
Galatians being Gentiles.
preached before the gospel--"announced beforehand the Gospel." For
the "promise" was substantially the Gospel by anticipation. Compare
@Joh 8:56 Heb 4:2. A proof that "the old fathers did not look only
for transitory promises" [Article VII, Church of England]. Thus the
Gospel, in its essential germ, is older than the law though the full
development of the former is subsequent to the latter.
In thee--not "in thy seed," which is a point not here raised; but
strictly "in thee," as followers of thy faith, it having first shown the
way to justification before God [ALFORD]; or "in thee," as Father of the
promised seed, namely, Christ (@Ga 3:16), who is the Object of faith
(@Ge 22:18 Ps 72:17), and imitating thy faith
(see on Ga 3:9).
all nations--or as above, "all the Gentiles"
(@Ge 12:3 18:18 22:18).
be blessed--an act of grace, not something earned by works. The
blessing of justification was to Abraham by faith in the promise, not by
works. So to those who follow Abraham, the father of the faithful, the
blessing, that is, justification, comes purely by faith in Him who is
the subject of the promise.
9. they--and they alone.
of faith--(See on Ga 3:7, beginning).
with--together with.
faithful--implying what it is in which they are "blessed together with
him," namely, faith, the prominent feature of his character, and of
which the result to all who like him have it, is justification.
10. Confirmation of @Ga 3:9. They who depend on the works of the law cannot share the blessing, for they are under the curse "written," @De 27:26, Septuagint. PERFECT obedience is required by the words, "in all things." CONTINUAL obedience by the word, "continueth." No man renders this obedience (compare @Ro 3:19,20). It is observable, Paul quotes Scripture to the Jews who were conversant with it, as in Epistle to the Hebrews, as said or spoken; but to the Gentiles, as written. So Matthew, writing for Jews, quotes it as "said," or "spoken"; Mark and Luke, writing for Gentiles, as "written" (@Mt 1:22 Mr 1:2 Lu 2:22,23) [TOWNSON].
11. by the law--Greek, "IN the law." Both in and by are
included. The syllogism in this verse and @Ga 3:12, is, according to
Scripture, "The just shall live by faith." But the law is not of faith,
but of doing, or works (that is, does not make faith, but works, the
conditional ground of justifying). Therefore "in," or "by the law, no
man is justified before God" (whatever the case may be before men, @Ro 4:2)--not even if he could, which he cannot, keep the law,
because the Scripture element and conditional mean of justification is
faith.
The just shall live by faith--(@Ro 1:17 Hab 2:4). Not as
BENGEL
and ALFORD, "He who is just by faith shall live." The Greek supports
English Version. Also the contrast is between "live by faith"
(namely, as the ground and source of his justification), and "live
in them," namely, in his doings or works (@Ga 3:12), as the
conditional element wherein he is justified.
12. doeth--Many depended on the law although they did not keep it; but without doing, saith Paul, it is of no use to them (@Ro 2:13,17,23 10:5).
13. Abrupt exclamation, as he breaks away impatiently from those
who would involve us again in the curse of the law, by seeking
justification in it, to "Christ," who "has redeemed us from its
curse." The "us" refers primarily to the Jews, to whom the law
principally appertained, in contrast to "the Gentiles" (@Ga 3:14;
compare @Ga 4:3,4). But it is not restricted solely to the Jews,
as ALFORD thinks; for these are the representative people of the world
at large, and their "law" is the embodiment of what God requires of the
whole world. The curse of its non-fulfilment affects the Gentiles
through the Jews; for the law represents that righteousness which God
requires of all, and which, since the Jews failed to fulfil, the
Gentiles are equally unable to fulfil. @Ga 3:10, "As many as are of
the works of the law, are under the curse," refers plainly, not to
the Jews only, but to all, even Gentiles (as the Galatians), who seek
justification by the law. The Jews' law represents the universal law
which condemned the Gentiles, though with less clear consciousness on
their part (@Ro 2:1-29). The revelation of God's "wrath" by the law
of conscience, in some degree prepared the Gentiles for appreciating
redemption through Christ when revealed. The curse had to be removed
from off the heathen, too, as well as the Jews, in order that the
blessing, through Abraham, might flow to them. Accordingly, the "we," in
"that we might receive the promise of the Spirit," plainly refers to
both Jews and Gentiles.
redeemed us--bought us off from our former bondage (@Ga 4:5),
and "from the curse" under which all lie who trust to the law and the
works of the law for justification. The Gentile Galatians, by putting
themselves under the law, were involving themselves in the curse from
which Christ has redeemed the Jews primarily, and through them the
Gentiles. The ransom price He paid was His own precious blood
(@1Pe 1:18,19; compare
@Mt 20:28 Ac 20:28 1Co 6:20 7:23 1Ti 2:6 2Pe 2:1 Re 5:9).
being made--Greek, "having become."
a curse for us--Having become what we were, in our behalf, "a
curse," that we might cease to be a curse. Not merely accursed (in
the concrete), but a curse in the abstract,
bearing the universal curse of the whole human race. So @2Co 5:21,
"Sin for us," not sinful, but bearing the whole sin of our race,
regarded as one vast aggregate of sin. See Note there. "Anathema"
means "set apart to God," to His glory, but to the person's own
destruction. "Curse," an execration.
written--(@De 21:23). Christ's bearing the particular curse
of hanging on the tree, is a sample of the "general" curse which He
representatively bore. Not that the Jews put to death malefactors by
hanging; but after having put them to death otherwise, in order to
brand them with peculiar ignominy, they hung the bodies on a tree,
and such malefactors were accursed by the law (compare @Ac 5:30 10:39).
God's providence ordered it so that to fulfil the prophecy of the curse
and other prophecies, Jesus should be crucified, and so hang on the
tree, though that death was not a Jewish mode of execution. The Jews
accordingly, in contempt, call Him Tolvi, "the hanged one," and
Christians, "worshippers of the hanged one"; and make it their great
objection that He died the accursed death [TRYPHO,
in Justin Martyr, p. 249] (@1Pe 2:24). Hung between heaven and earth as though unworthy
of either!
14. The intent of "Christ becoming a curse for us"; "To the end that
upon the Gentiles the blessing of Abraham (that is, promised to Abraham, namely, justification by faith) might come in Christ Jesus"
(compare @Ga 3:8).
that we might receive the promise of the Spirit--the promised Spirit
(@Joe 2:28,29 Lu 24:49). This clause follows not the clause
immediately preceding (for our receiving the Spirit is not the
result of the blessing of Abraham coming on the Gentiles), but "Christ
hath redeemed us," &c.
through faith--not by works. Here he resumes the thought in
@Ga 3:2. "The Spirit from without, kindles within us some spark of
faith Whereby we lay hold of Christ, and even of the Spirit Himself,
that He may dwell within us" [FLACIUS].
15. I speak after the manner of men--I take an illustration from a
merely human transaction of everyday occurrence.
but a man's covenant--whose purpose it is far less important to
maintain.
if it be confirmed--when once it hath been ratified.
no man disannulleth--"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
(@Ga 3:17-19,21-24).
addeth--None addeth new conditions "making" the covenant "of none
effect" (@Ga 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.
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.
promises--plural, because the same promise was often repeated
(@Ge 12:3,7 15:5,18 17:7 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 (@Ro 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"
(@Ge 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 (@Ro 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 (@Ro 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
(@Ga 3:19,20), God makes His covenant of promise with the one seed,
Christ (@Ge 17:7), and embraces others only as they are identified
with, and represented by, Christ.
one . . . Christ--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. @Ga 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."
17. this I say--"this is what I mean," by what I said in @Ga 3:15.
continued . . . of God--"ratified by God" (@Ga 3:15).
in Christ--rather, "unto Christ" (compare @Ga 3:16). However,
Vulgate and the old Italian versions translate as English Version. But the oldest manuscripts omit the words altogether.
the law which was--Greek, "which came into existence four hundred
thirty years after" (@Ex 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 (@Ge 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.
cannot--Greek, "doth not disannul."
make . . . of none effect--The promise would become so, if the power
of conferring the inheritance be transferred from it to the law
(@Ro 4:14).
18. the inheritance--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
(@Ga 4:7 Ro 8:17 1Co 6:9).
but God, &c.--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
(@Ro 4:14).
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].
added--to the original covenant of promise. This is not inconsistent
with @Ga 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 (@Ro 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 @Ga 3:23,24 Ro 4:15. The meaning can
hardly be "to check transgressions," for the law rather stimulates
the corrupt heart to disobey it (@Ro 5:20 7:13).
till the seed--during the period up to the time when the seed
came. The law was a preparatory dispensation for the Jewish nation
(@Ro 5:20; Greek, "the law came in additionally and
incidentally"), intervening between the promise and its fulfilment
in Christ.
come--(Compare "faith came," @Ga 3:23).
the promise--(@Ro 4:21).
ordained--Greek, "constituted" or "disposed."
by angels--as the instrumental enactors of the law
[ALFORD] God
delegated the law to angels as something rather alien to Him and severe
(@Ac 7:53 Heb 2:2,3; compare @De 33:2, "He came with ten
thousands of saints," that is, angels, @Ps 68:17). He reserved "the
promise" to Himself and dispensed it according to His own goodness.
in the hand of a mediator--namely, Moses. @De 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.
20. "Now a mediator cannot be of one (but must be of two parties whom he mediates between); but God is one" (not two: owing to His essential unity not admitting of an intervening party between Him and those to be blessed; but as the ONE Sovereign, His own representative, giving the blessing directly by promise to Abraham, and, in its fulfilment, to Christ, "the Seed," without new condition, and without a mediator such as the law had). The conclusion understood is, Therefore a mediator cannot appertain to God; and consequently, the law, with its inseparable appendage of a mediator, cannot be the normal way of dealing of God, the one, and unchangeable God, who dealt with Abraham by direct promise, as a sovereign, not as one forming a compact with another party, with conditions and a mediator attached thereto. God would bring man into immediate communion with Him, and not have man separated from Him by a mediator that keeps back from access, as Moses and the legal priesthood did (@Ex 19:12,13,17,21-24 Heb 12:19-24). The law that thus interposed a mediator and conditions between man and God, was an exceptional state limited to the Jews, and parenthetically preparatory to the Gospel, God's normal mode of dealing, as He dealt with Abraham, namely, face to face directly; by promise and grace, and not conditions; to all nations united by faith in the one seed (@Eph 2:14,16,18), and not to one people to the exclusion and severance from the ONE common Father, of all other nations. It is no objection to this view, that the Gospel, too, has a mediator (@1Ti 2:5). For Jesus is not a mediator separating the two parties in the covenant of promise or grace, as Moses did, but ONE in both nature and office with both God and man (compare "God in Christ," @Ga 3:17):representing the whole universal manhood (@1Co 15:22,45,47), and also bearing in Him "all the fulness of the Godhead." Even His mediatorial office is to cease when its purpose of reconciling all things to God shall have been accomplished (@1Co 15:24); and God's ONENESS (@Zec 14:9), as "all in all," shall be fully manifested. Compare @Joh 1:17, where the two mediators--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 (@Ro 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 (@Ga 3:8,16,28 Eph 1:10 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.
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."
life--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.
22. But--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].
the scripture--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 @Ga 3:8,
"Scripture," for "the God of the Scripture."
concluded--"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, @Ga 3:7,9,25,26 5:1 Isa 61:1.
all--Greek neuter, "the universe of things": the whole
world, man, and all that appertains to him.
under sin--(@Ro 3:9,19 11:32).
the promise--the inheritance promised (@Ga 3:18).
by faith of Jesus Christ--that is which is by faith in Jesus Christ.
might be given--The emphasis is on "given": that it might be a free
gift; not something earned by the works of the law (@Ro 6:23).
to them that believe--to them that have "the faith of (in) Jesus
Christ" just spoken of.
23. faith--namely, that just mentioned (@Ga 3:22), of which
Christ is the object.
kept--Greek, "kept in ward": the effect of the "shutting up"
(@Ga 3:22 Ga 4:2 Ro 7:6).
unto--"with a view to the faith," &c. We were, in a manner, morally
forced to it, so that there remained to us no refuge but faith. Compare
the phrase, @Ps 78:50, Margin; @Ps 31:8.
which should afterwards, &c.--"which was afterwards to be revealed."
24. "So that the law hath been (that is, hath
turned out to be) our schoolmaster
(or "tutor," literally, "pedagogue": this term, among the Greeks, meant
a faithful servant entrusted with the care of the boy from childhood to
puberty, to keep him from evil, physical and moral, and accompany him
to his amusements and studies) to guide us unto Christ," with whom we
are no longer "shut up" in bondage, but are freemen. "Children"
(literally, infants) need such tutoring
(@Ga 4:3).
might be--rather, "that we may be justified by faith"; which we
could not be till Christ, the object of faith, had come. Meanwhile the
law, by outwardly checking the sinful propensity which was constantly
giving fresh proof of its refractoriness--as thus the consciousness of
the power of the sinful principle became more vivid, and hence the sense
of need both of forgiveness of sin and freedom from its bondage was
awakened--the law became a "schoolmaster to guide us unto Christ"
[NEANDER]. The moral law shows us what we ought to do, and so we
learn our inability to do it. In the ceremonial law we seek, by
animal sacrifices, to answer for our not having done it, but find dead
victims no satisfaction for the sins of living men, and that outward
purifying will not cleanse the soul; and that therefore we need an
infinitely better Sacrifice, the antitype of all the legal sacrifices.
Thus delivered up to the judicial law, we see how awful is the doom
we deserve: thus the law at last leads us to Christ, with whom we find
righteousness and peace. "Sin, sin! is the word heard again and
again in the Old Testament. Had it not there for centuries rung in the
ear, and fastened on the conscience, the joyful sound, "grace for
grace," would not have been the watchword of the New Testament. This was
the end of the whole system of sacrifices" [THOLUCK].
25. "But now that faith is come," &c. Moses the lawgiver cannot bring us into the heavenly Canaan though he can bring us to the border of it. At that point he is superseded by Joshua, the type of Jesus, who leads the true Israel into their inheritance. The law leads us to Christ, and there its office ceases.
26. children--Greek, "sons."
by--Greek, "through faith." "Ye all" (Jews and Gentiles
alike) are no longer "children" requiring a tutor, but SONS
emancipated and walking at liberty.
27. baptized into Christ--(@Ro 6:3).
have put on Christ--Ye did, in that very act of being baptized
into Christ, put on, or clothe yourselves with, Christ: so the
Greek expresses. Christ is to you the toga virilis (the Roman
garment of the full-grown man, assumed when ceasing to be a child)
[BENGEL].
GATAKER defines a Christian, "One who has put on Christ." The
argument is, By baptism ye have put on Christ; and therefore, He being
the Son of God, ye become sons by adoption, by virtue of His Sonship by
generation. This proves that baptism, where it answers to its ideal, is not a mere empty sign, but a means of spiritual transference from
the state of legal condemnation to that of living union with Christ,
and of sonship through Him in relation to God (@Ro 13:14). Christ
alone can, by baptizing with His Spirit, make the inward grace
correspond to the outward sign. But as He promises the blessing in the
faithful use of the means, the Church has rightly presumed, in charity,
that such is the case, nothing appearing to the contrary.
28. There is in this sonship by faith in Christ, no class privileged
above another, as the Jews under the law had been above the Gentiles
(@Ro 10:12 1Co 12:13 Col 3:11).
bond nor free--Christ alike belongs to both by faith; whence he puts
"bond" before "free." Compare Note,
see on 1Co 7:21,22;
Eph 6:8.
neither male nor female--rather, as Greek, "there is not male and female." There is no distinction into male and female.
Difference of sex makes no difference in Christian privileges. But under
the law the male sex had great privileges. Males alone had in their body
circumcision, the sign of the covenant (contrast baptism applied to
male and female alike); they alone were capable of being kings and
priests, whereas all of either sex are now "kings and priests unto God"
(@Re 1:6); they had prior right to inheritances. In the
resurrection the relation of the sexes shall cease (@Lu 20:35).
one--Greek, "one man"; masculine, not neuter, namely "one new
man" in Christ (@Eph 2:15).
29. and heirs--The oldest manuscripts omit "and." Christ is "Abraham's seed" (@Ga 3:16): ye are "one in Christ" (@Ga 3:28), and one with Christ, as having "put on Christ" (@Ga 3:27); therefore YE are "Abraham's seed," which is tantamount to saying (whence the "and" is omitted), ye are "heirs according to the promise" (not "by the law," @Ga 3:18); for it was to Abraham's seed that the inheritance was promised (@Ga 3:16). Thus he arrives at the same truth which he set out with (@Ga 3:7). But one new "seed" of a righteous succession could be found. One single faultless grain of human nature was found by God Himself, the source of a new and imperishable seed: "the seed" (@Ps 22:30) who receive from Him a new nature and name (@Ge 3:15 Isa 53:10,11 Joh 12:24). In Him the lineal descent from David becomes extinct. He died without posterity. But He lives and shall reign on David's throne. No one has a legal claim to sit upon it but Himself, He being the only living direct representative (@Eze 21:27). His spiritual seed derive their birth from the travail of His soul, being born again of His word, which is the incorruptible seed (@Joh 1:12 Ro 9:8 1Pe 1:23).