Galatians 3

CHAPTER III

PART II

The Gospel of Christian Liberty Unfolded Anew for the Galatians, 3:1–5:12

Paul has brought the Galatians the true gospel which was given to him by revelation, acknowledged by the Jerusalem conference, attested in correcting Peter himself. This precious gospel Paul now unfolds anew for the Galatians in such a way as to destroy the Judaistic error that was creeping in among them. The body of this letter consists of doctrinal exposition which is shot through with dramatic application to the Galatians. It covers 3:1–5:12; some stop at the end of chapter 4. There are three circles of thought in this main body of the epistle.

In the first place, like Abraham, the Galatians were declared righteous by faith and not by law, 3:1–14.

In the second place, this becomes very clear when the relation of faith and law is understood, 3:15–4:7.

In the third place, the Galatians are earnestly admonished not to return to law, 4:8–5:12.

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1. Like Abraham, the Galatians Were Justified by Faith and not by Law, 3:1–14.

O foolish Galatians, ask yourselves a few things!

Expression and thought show that a new section begins at this point. Paul pours out a flood of questions upon the Galatians, questions they should have asked, should now ask, the answers to which would certainly help to open their eyes.

First, the question of shocked surprise. O thoughtless Galatians, who bewitched you, you for whom, plain to the eye, Jesus Christ was publicly placarded as having been crucified?

The address fits the question; “brethren” would not do so. Paul’s feeling is the same as that which is in evidence in 1:6. It is almost unbelievable that, having Christ crucified before their eyes, the Galatians should start to Judaize. The Greek is sparing in its use of “O” with vocatives, which makes it more effective when it is used. Paul says “Galatians” much as he uses “Galatia” in 1:2. It is a general term that is taken from the Roman province and includes all the members of the churches of whatever nationality they may be, Phrygians, Lycaonians, Roman colonists, or Jews.

This word was a convenient term when only these people as such were addressed. Paul calls them ἀνόητοι, “thoughtless” or “foolish” people who were not using their νοῦς or mind, who were not stopping to think. The relative clause states of what they should at once have thought, namely of Christ crucified. Where were their minds?

“Thoughtless” cannot be understood as a reference to a national characteristic of the Celts as though these Galatians were for the greater part Celtic. A few ancients describe the Celts as being fickle and easily moved. If these Galatians were predominantly Celts, and if Paul intended to score them for their national failing, he should have written: “O thoughtless or fickle or unstable Celts!” While “Galatians” is derived from Κέλτοι, Galatia and Galatians designate the Roman province and any or all of its inhabitants irrespective of their extraction. All these Christians in Galatia were acting thoughtlessly, phenomenally so.

The church has known such waves of thoughtlessness in its history from time to time. People are just swept along. Those who do think are cried down and ignored. People seem to have a spell cast over them. “Who bewitched you?” uses this figure. The question is rhetorical, exclamatory, and asks for no answer. It is like our: “What has gotten into you?” The verb is to be taken in the general sense although some think of the evil eye; the idea of envy does not apply here (R. 473). The point to be noted is that when well-instructed Christians go wrong, they act unreasonably. They need a severe jolt to start them thinking sanely again. Paul supplies the jolt and even the right thoughts to which the Galatians must return.

This does not imply that Paul “believed in witchcraft,” i.e., that it produces supernatural effects. The Bible condemns witchcraft; every form of it is devilish, and all its forms run back to paganism in their roots. The devilishness lies in the deception; the devil deceives all who resort to witchcraft. No miraculous effects are produced by it. It is the delusion that such effects are and can be produced that keeps these occult arts alive. Churchmen have ignorantly, sometimes learnedly, held this view and have thus supported the practice of witchcraft. Those who do so today will challenge what is said here. Let them know that the writer does not speak hastily; he speaks after a long and thorough investigation of the entire subject.

The relative clause states that the Galatians should have been the last persons to allow themselves to be deceived. Textual authority is against the insertion of “not to obey the truth” and ἐνὑμῖν. Sometimes the latter is still retained because of its difficulty, and because its insertion is hard to explain. The clause is sometimes divided: “before whose eyes Jesus Christ was?—He was painted among you,” etc. Few will agree to do this. Difficult readings are not eo ipso correct, nor is inability to explain a variant a cause for its retention.

The relative οἷς is emphatic: “you for whom,” etc. The κατά phrase is also emphatic, the sense of which is: “plain to the eye.” It would fit the context well to translate: “was painted before your eyes”; but while the simplex is used with regard to depicting, the compound is never so used. It is common as a designation for posting placards (M.-M. 538), for instance, a father posts a proclamation that he will no longer be responsible for his son’s debts. We need not think that Paul refers to writings which he had sent to the Galatians. The term is figurative for all Paul’s public preaching in Galatia, Barnabas helping him. All of it was like public placards, plain to the eyes, announcing “Jesus Christ” and him “as having been crucified.”

In 1 Cor. 2:2 Paul uses the expression: “Jesus Christ and him crucified” which has the same perfect passive participle. The tense points to the enduring effect of Christ’s crucifixion. As for the Galatians, so for us to this day every gospel sermon placards Jesus Christ as the One crucified. Read Paul’s placard in 2:20, where the word occurs, and in 2:21 where again, plain to the eye, he writes, “Christ died.” In that one perfect participle which is here predicative the entire gospel is concentrated as abolishing all salvation by law or works of law. This participle destroys all Judaistic teaching; it does so today with regard to all the modern forms of this teaching.

This is the indictment against the Galatians: all this placarding was so plain to the eye, and yet they acted as though they could not see, had no sense to read, could not think what this meant. “Crucified—crucified—crucified!”—even a little thinking should suffice to turn the Galatians against all Judaizers. The entire Scriptures are so placarded, yet men even preach on them and see nothing in the cross except noble martyrdom. 2 Cor. 4:3, 4.

Galatians 3:2

2 The first question is asked regarding the objective substance, Jesus Christ crucified; now Paul asks questions regarding the great subjective effects produced in the Galatians. He pours out question upon question. He wants no answer for himself, he needs none; the Galatians need them for themselves. It is high time they did a little plain Christian thinking.

This alone do I want to learn from you: Was it from works of law that you received the Spirit or from the hearing of faith?

“Think for a moment,” Paul says, “look back at your own selves! I want to learn just one thing from you because it is decisive, must be decisive for you. You are all Christians, you all received the Spirit, when he entered your hearts you became Christians.” On this there is no question; it is the basis of Paul’s questioning. The question is: “Whence did you get the Spirit? From what source (ἐκ)? Was the source ‘works of law’ or was it ‘hearing of faith’?” It requires practically no thinking on the part of a Christian to give the answer.

The majority of the Galatians had been Gentiles and thus ἄνομοι, people who paid no attention to law as a source of salvation. Paul’s question does not imply that they at one time relied on works of law. Paul refers to his own preaching in company with Barnabas. They were not Judaizers, they brought no “works of law,” they brought the very opposite, namely “hearing of faith.” Through that the Galatians received the Spirit. So did the Jews among them who, while they were in their Judaism, had practiced works of law, but had failed utterly to receive the Spirit until Paul brought them to the hearing of faith. The gospel is true apart from our experience; yet all Christian experience corroborates its truth.

On the phrase “from works of law” see 2:16 where it is used three times. Some interpreters think that receiving the Spirit refers to the reception of charismata, wonderful charismatic gifts. They point to λαμβάνειν as the verb that is used in connection with such gifts and refer to Pentecost. But at Pentecost the 3, 000 received no such charismata; the 3, 000 did not speak with tongues. 1 Cor. 12:8–10 and Rom. 12:6, etc., list as “gifts” abilities that are devoid of miraculous powers, especially Romans 12. Thousands of Christians in Galatia and elsewhere possessed no miraculous charismata.

Paul addresses all the Galatian Christians; they had received the Spirit when they came to saving faith in the gospel. The reception here referred to occurs at the moment when the Spirit enters the heart by faith and regeneration henceforth to control heart and life. Paul’s question is one that every Christian must answer to this day. Regarding the question of miracles in Galatia see v. 5. They should not be introduced at this point. But every Galatian knew that the Spirit had entered his heart with saving power.

“Works of law” and “hearing of faith” are exclusive opposites; neither tolerates the other. “Works” are such as we do, and they are many so that no man can know whether he has done enough of them. The opposite is ἀκοή, but not in the active sense, the actus audiendi, but as C.-K. 106, etc., shows, in the passive sense: “being made to hear” what God wants us to hear.

The genitives are also opposites: “of law”—“of faith,” but both are possessive: “works which belong with law”—“a being made to hear which belongs to faith.” Both expressions are practical compounds. Yet we question the view of C.-K. when he has ἀκοή = κήρυγμα but adds the exception that the former is also subjective: Kunde vom Glauben (objective genitive); R. V. margin has “message” about faith. Also when, despite the few times the word is used, ἀκοή is made a technical term. The genitives are alike. “Being made to hear” involves the thing God brings to our ears (Christ crucified, v. 1). This belongs to faith in the sense of being intended for us to believe.

When God speaks and makes us hear he wants us to believe. As law calls for works, so our being made to hear calls for faith. Compare Rom. 1:16, 17; also Heb. 4:2.

God made the Galatians hear about Christ crucified so that they came to faith, and thus, thus alone, they received the Spirit and became the Christians they have been.

Galatians 3:3

3 So thoughtless are you? Having begun with spirit, are you now finishing up for yourselves with flesh?

More surprising thoughtlessness. The double question is in reality one. There is nothing in v. 2 to which οὕτως can refer, it points forward. So foolish as to try to complete in a fleshly way what you began in a spiritual way? In v. 2 Paul refers to the beginning, to the time when the Galatians first received the Spirit, and asks from what source this came; now he refers to the ending the Galatians are proposing to make. One may begin well but end ill. The Galatians had, indeed, begun well (v. 2), but what about now ending altogether otherwise? That would be folly, indeed!

The two datives of means πνεύματι and σαρκί, are paired opposites, hence the former cannot be the Holy Spirit (our versions). If he were referred to, the article would be necessary. Both datives lack the article, both stress the quality expressed: “with spirit,” in a truly spiritual manner—“with flesh,” in a fleshly manner. Note also the analogy of Scripture: the Holy Spirit is never said to be the means which we use. Again, the Holy Spirit, this divine Person, is never and can never be paired with an opposite such as flesh.

Paul advances the thought from our reception of the Holy Spirit mentioned in v. 2 to the true spirit that animates our hearts and our lives, the spirit wrought in us by the Holy Spirit. The word “spirit” refers to “faith” mentioned in v. 2, and “flesh” to “works.” The latter is not to be taken in the ethical sense: the sinful nature of man, but far more concretely: the outward deeds which belong to the bodily nature of man. For all works of law have to do with physical, bodily matters, circumcision, kosher eating, Sabbath resting, and all manner of ceremonial observances.

Pray, what are you Galatians thinking to start in one way and to conclude in the exactly opposite way, to start in the right and most blessed way and to end in the utterly wrong and ruinous way? This is not even sane thinking. But note that, while the participle is the aorist to indicate the beginning made, the main verb is the present tense, the concluding has not yet been completed, it has only begun. The damage can still be corrected; Paul is doing his utmost to prevent this present tense from becoming a fixed and final aorist.

Is the verb middle or passive? One might say passive because the Judaizers were working on the Galatians; but the middle is very good, for by listening to the Judaizers the Galatians were doing the concluding for themselves. If they actually ended wrongly they could not shift the blame. Ἐπιτελέω = to bring to an end, to finish or complete.

Galatians 3:4

4 First we have a question as to how the Galatians began (v. 2), next a question as to how they propose to finish (v. 3), now a question as to what lies between. So much, did you suffer it in vain? if, indeed, also (as I cannot believe) in vain! Again the question and its appendix are exclamatory. “So much” is placed emphatically forward and marks either greatness or quantity. Those who think that these were northern Galatians assume that they, too, suffered persecution; but regarding the southern Galatian churches we know what Paul suffered when he and Barnabas founded them (Acts 13:50, etc.; 14:2, 5, 19, 22: 2 Tim. 3:11). Acts 14:2 states that “the brethren” were involved. They would naturally be so in every instance. We cannot say positively whether the Galatians were made to suffer more later on; yet we know that in Acts 14:22 Paul tells them they must expect as much.

Do they now intend to say that all of that suffering was in vain, a great mistake, all to no purpose? But he himself adds that he can scarcely believe that they now think so. Εἰ is strengthened by γε: “if, indeed”; but καί is not to be construed with εἰ because γε intervenes, nor is it to be construed with the adverb “in vain.” The thought is not that this is something bad enough, namely “in vain,” beyond which lies something worse, namely actually falling from the faith. Such an idea is remote from those sufferings. At times Paul uses καί to intimate a contrary supposition that is in his own mind, here one that is indicated by the “if” clause itself: wenn denn doch wirklich vergeblich, which is something Paul cannot bring himself to believe. “If, indeed, in vain” already expresses the doubt about its all being in vain, and καί increases this: Paul will not even think of it until he must. He will think only that the Galatians will answer: “No, no; it was and is not in vain!”

Galatians 3:5

5 The sufferings were terrible experiences; beside them Paul places the most glorious works. He introduces the new question with οὖν and rests it on the preceding ones, especially on v. 2, since he repeats some of the terms there used. He, accordingly, who furnishes you the Spirit and works works of power among you, (does he do it) from works of law or from the hearing of faith?

Instead of using verbs in the sentence: “Does God furnish and work,” etc., Paul substitutes participial descriptions of God and thus elides the verbs and makes the question far more effective. Both present participles are qualitative in the durative sense. They refer to any and every furnishing and giving, whether it occurred at the time when the Galatians were converted or since then. Little is gained by saying that these are imperfect participles, i.e., the present doing duty for the imperfect since it has no participles of its own. We may translate: the Furnisher—the Worker and reproduce the exact sense.

It is Paul’s habit to round out and to amplify what he begins. He does this here: first, by adding to the idea of receiving the Spirit on the part of the Galatians (v. 2) the correlative idea of bestowing or furnishing the Spirit on the part of God; secondly, by adding to the first essential reception (v. 2) of the Spirit (v. 2), by which spiritual life was kindled in the Galatians, the further idea of working mighty works of power by the Spirit. Like the simplex, the verb ἐπιχορέω means, “to stand the expense of bringing out a chorus” at some public festival and thus in general “to furnish,” “to supply,” but always with the strong connotation of great, free generosity. The patron paid the entire expenses of the training, the costuming, and the staging of the chorus, which called for a lavish hand. So God bestowed his Spirit upon the Galatians in full measure. But this is said by way of preamble to the manifestation of the Spirit which the Galatians had witnessed, namely the working of works of power. The term occurs regularly as a designation for miracles in which omnipotent power shows itself operative in a special degree.

This δυνάμεις does not signify any and all of the charismata. Paul does not say: “signs, wonders, and works of power.” If he had “charismata” in general in mind he would have used that word. With the specific term “works of power” he thinks back of the time when he labored among the Galatians, when the Lord “gave testimony unto the Word of his grace and granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands” (Paul and Barnabas), Acts 14:3. In v. 8, etc., Luke reports one of the works of power, the healing of the lame man at Lystra.

Ἐνὑμῖν = “among you”; works of power were never wrought in the hearts of men. In the miracles wrought by Paul and by Barnabas in Galatia the Galatians had the overwhelming evidence of the presence of the Spirit. Luke says that these miracles attested “the Word of the Lord’s grace.” Paul now puts this very point into his question: “Was all that due to, the result of (ἐκ), works of law or was it the result of the hearing of faith?” see v. 2: Was the source “what you were made to hear as belonging to faith”? Who ever knew a Judaizer to whom the Lord granted a single work of power? But wherever the apostles went, these works followed, yea, in abundance, granted lavishly by God (Acts 14:3). The view that such works continued indefinitely, and that any or all Christians wrought them, is untenable.

A few works of power were granted by way of addition, but this occurred very seldom. Paul is not referring to these by his question.

These questions are to stir the thoughtless Galatians into doing some mighty necessary thinking. Let them wake up! A few proper questions will make them throw out the Judaizers. The same treatment ought to be accorded the deceivers of our time. Oh, if only all of us would think! Put the Word and true Christian experience with the Word into simple honest questions and answers like a catechism, and you are armed and proof against deceit.

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The all-decisive case of Abraham

Galatians 3:6

6 When Paul introduces the case of Abraham he introduces the greatest Scriptural evidence. When he writes καθώς, “even as,” he parallels the Galatians and Abraham and does so regarding the essential point of faith and faith alone. All Judaizers are disowned by Abraham and by the Scriptures which speak of Abraham, and if these Judaizers try to annex Abraham, they can do so only by falsification, which is not annexation.

But the parallel is at once intensified. Those who are like Abraham in the faith of Abraham are sons of Abraham—no less. That means that all who trust in works of law are aliens to Abraham; the Scriptures make them such. More than this. From the very beginning the Scriptures included the ἔθνη, the believing Gentiles, in this Abrahamitic sonship. This includes the Gentile Christians in Galatia.

Their faith includes them, their faith alone. This flatly contradicts the Judaizers who demand that all such Gentiles must also become Jews by submitting to circumcision and the Jewish ceremonial works of law. Abraham is the father of believers, Gentile as well as Jewish believers; faith alone makes them his sons. The Scriptures say so. Let the Galatians think of that and rejoice! The moment they do they will cast out all Judaizers.

Even as Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness. Realize, then, that they (whose characterization is derived) from faith, these (these alone) are sons of Abraham.

Verses 6–9 epitomize Romans 4. The conclusion that Galatians and Romans must therefore have been written at about the same time disregards the fact that this exposition of Gen. 15:6 and of the whole Old Testament account of Abraham goes back through the entire ministry of Paul. For him as a former Jew in all his apostolic contact with Jews Abraham and what the Scriptures said about his faith were vital. This was true already in the case of the Baptist (Matt. 3:9).

Paul uses Gen. 15:6 without quoting it: “Abraham believed God,” etc. The dative does not mean, “in or on God,” but believed what God said, the promise God made to him in Gen. 15:4, 5. He believed the promise about the Heir (Christ) who was to come out of his bowels via Isaac who was as yet unborn; he believed that through this Heir his (spiritual) seed would be in number like the stars of heaven. Abraham believed in Christ (John 8:56), in the gospel. The genuineness of his faith shone out when he held fast to this promise despite God’s command to offer Isaac as a burnt offering, accounting in his faith that God was able to raise Isaac (from whom the Heir was to descend) even from the dead, Heb. 11:19. Behold the faith for which Abraham was pronounced righteous!

Moses writes regarding it: “And it was reckoned to him for righteousness,” which is only another way of saying: “Through (διά) or as a result of it (ἐκ) God declared him righteous.” When did God so reckon? Did he wait until Abraham had proved his faith by proceeding to sacrifice Isaac? Abraham’s justification is recorded in Genesis 15 before Isaac’s birth and not in Genesis 22. The moment he believed God reckoned him righteous.

Was his believing a good work that was of such a value to God as to make Abraham righteous, so that God’s reckoning was merely computing this value? Moses says the opposite. Λογίζομαίτιεἰςτι = “to reckon something for something”: “Something is transferred to the subject (person) in question and reckoned as his which he for himself does not have, … it is figured in for the person per substitutionem; the object present (faith) takes the place of what it counts for (righteousness), is substituted for it.” C.-K. 681. When Abraham believed he was in himself no more righteous than before he believed, but God counted his faith as righteousness for him. God’s accounting did not make him righteous, it did not change Abraham’s person, it changed his status with God. Although he was not himself righteous, God regarded him as being righteous.

Do you ask how God can do so? Any suspicion of arbitrariness or of lack of strict justice is due only to our own crooked minds. The justice of the act is perfect. We know a priori that unjustness and injustice are impossible in the case of God. But we ourselves see it when our dogmaticians point out that this is not an analytic but a synthetic pronouncement of God. There is no virtue or merit either in the believer or in his act of believing, nothing of the kind to the end of his life (analytic).

Here there is something else entirely, more than the believing, namely the object believed, Christ, his expiation (“crucified” v. 1), his merit. The faith that holds to these, for the sake of these and these only (synthetic) is reckoned for righteousness. The substitution is the perfection of justice. Christ’s merit and his righteousness are his own, but he wants them to be ours, makes them ours by faith, even himself kindles that faith; and in the instant of faith this faith, because of the object it holds, secures the verdict of righteousness.

The expression used by Moses and by Paul is most exact: faith for righteousness. When God came with his grace and his glorious promise, Abraham trusted that grace and promise and had them as his very own, and they constituted his righteousness, the quality that is due to God’s own verdict on all who have his grace and his promise. Abraham did not produce his faith nor any part thereof. “Abraham believed God” is plain as to that. God came to Abraham, and not he to God. God made a glorious promise to Abraham, made that promise shine into Abraham’s heart with all its divine power of light, grace, and blessedness. So was he brought to believe. Abraham, indeed, believed, but God’s Word and his promise moved him to believe. Nothing else and nothing less could do so.

Nor was there a possibility that Abraham himself might add a little. There was no need to add anything, the promise and the grace were all-sufficient (gratia sufficiens). God left nothing to be added for the simple reason that Abraham had nothing he could possibly have added. There is only one preparation for faith, and that, too, God makes and alone can make when, by his law, he brings home to us our utter sin and need of his grace. So Abraham believed, so justifying faith is wrought by God.

Galatians 3:7

7 From the incontestable fact laid down by the Scriptural ἐπίστευσε, “he believed,” Paul at once draws an equally incontestable conclusion with the illative ἄρα. He states it imperatively: “Realize, then,” etc. The imperative fits the context much better than an indicative would. The tense is the present; the realization is to be enduring and ever renewed. It pertains to the Galatians and to all believers: “these (whose characteristic mark is derived) from faith, these (these alone) are sons of Abraham.” Here again ἐκ appears (v. 2, 5), its opposite occurs in 2:12, “they (whose mark is) from circumcision.” The demonstrative “these” = these, decidedly these alone, and none who are without faith. Faith makes them like Abraham in his faith, joins them to him inwardly, spiritually forever. Thus they are “sons of Abraham.” A great gulf lies between them and all who are marked by “works of law.” Can the Galatians help seeing that gulf and remain on the right side of it?

Abraham’s “sons” is the proper terms (not, “children,” A. V.). Τέκνα suggests the idea of descent, υἱοί that of Zugehoerigkeit, belonging to, as in “sons of the prophets.” C.-K. 1082. So also “sons” marks their standing: they stand with Abraham. Again, “sons” is used to mark the fact that they stand with a father, stand for what their father stands. In all these senses also all Gentile believers are allied with Abraham as his true “sons.”

Galatians 3:8

8 Continuative δέ adds another vital statement in regard to Abraham and his real sons and brings the matter down to the time of Paul and the Galatians. Now the Scripture, having foreseen that God declares the Gentiles righteous in consequence of faith, proclaimed as good news in advance to Abraham: There shall be blessed in connection with thee all the Gentiles.

What God did with Abraham by declaring him righteous in consequence of faith alone is in the most vital way connected with what he is now doing as Paul writes; it is all of one piece. It is shown to be so, not by a deduction that Paul now makes, but by what God himself declared to Abraham ages ago.

“Having foreseen, the Scripture proclaims,” etc., reverses participle and subject and thereby emphasizes both. To say that the Scripture foresaw is not a mere personification. That would be only a rhetorical figure, but the Scripture is actually the Word of God as it was expressed by himself in permanent form by means of inspiration. It is thus that “the Scripture” and “God” are identified; in fact, the two cannot be separated as is done by those who deny or reduce inspiration. God is in the Scripture, and thus the Scripture foresaw.

The aorist refers to the time of Abraham. The word that God spoke to him at that time was put into writing by Moses at a much later time. The foresight is found in the Scripture because the Writer who used Moses spoke with that foresight when he addressed Abraham. Paul is content to speak of the periods of time involved, the age of Abraham and the time in which Paul was living. In reality, all God’s works are known to him from all eternity, timelessly, and all his counsels and his plans go back before the founding of the world.

Paul says that the Scripture foresaw “that God declares the Gentiles righteous in consequence of faith,” ἐκ, as a result of faith. This is usually regarded as indirect discourse; hence our versions translate, “would justify.” But Paul states the simple fact in his own language as he sees it day by day with his own eyes: “God justifies the Gentiles out of faith.” That is why he writes “God” does this, i.e., does it now; and thereby he in no way makes “the Scripture” one who looks at “God” as being another. But this he does say, that what God is now doing is not a thing that is new, novel, at all strange for the Scripture. The very first book of Scripture saw it many centuries ago, saw it with all the clarity with which Paul and the Galatians now see it, in the same actuality.

Subject and verb are reversed in order to obtain emphasis on each, and the phrase is placed forward in order to secure the chief emphasis for it. “From faith,” from faith God’s verdict flows. Nor is it at all marvelous that God now does this with the Gentiles; it is the same thing God did with Abraham before the first Scripture was ever written. There was ever even as there is now but one way in which God pronounces a sinner righteous.

Hence the first book of Scripture proclaimed in advance as good news to Abraham: “There shall be blessed in connection with thee all the Gentiles.” But how can Paul say that the Scripture proclaimed to Abraham when the Scripture was not written until long after Abraham’s time? Here the identification of the Scripture with God is still stronger than it was in the participle. But the real point to be noted is that what God spoke directly and in person to Abraham, that is what all nations were to read as good news, the same good news that it was to Abraham. Abraham did not receive it in the form of writing, he received the substance without which there would never have been inspired writing. Abraham heard it πρό, “in advance” of the time when the Gentiles were to be so blessed. On the augment in the verb see B.-D. 69, 4. “In advance” is to be construed with the future “shall be blessed.”

He heard it as good news. We are told by some interpreters that this was not “the gospel,” and that our versions should not translate thus. That is an incorrect contention; it is the very sum and substance of the gospel. On this statement made to Abraham rested Abraham’s faith, the faith by which he was declared righteous, the faith that was reckoned to him for righteousness. That is the same gospel we have today, save that now the promise has become fulfillment.

Another incorrect view is that “shall be blessed” does not include justification. The term is wider than “shall be justified,” but justification is the central blessing without which no spiritual blessings other than this come to anybody. In this very sentence we have the statement “that God justifies the Gentiles from faith” as the thing the Scriptures foresaw and by God’s own mouth told Abraham in advance in the words: “There shall be blessed,” etc. see Gen. 12:3 and 18:18; also 22:18. Subject and verb are again transposed, each is thus made emphatic. In v. 2 the reception of the Spirit, the greatest and the most comprehensive blessing, includes justification as its chief factor. Note that the future tense “shall be blessed” is the assured fact, the yea and amen of God. That is why Paul writes: “God (now) justifies the Gentiles.” The agent in the passive is God; “shall be blessed” = “I myself will bless.”

Ἐνσοί is “in thee” in the sense of “in union or connection with thee.” The circle drawn by the preposition has within it, first of all, Abraham himself, and as it is drawn around him by God it is drawn also around all the Gentiles. It is one and the same circle of blessing. The neuter plural subject here has the plural verb in the Greek as it may have when persons are referred to. While Abraham is the forefather of the Jews, when he received this promise he was as much a Gentile as the Gentile Galatians themselves. He was still uncircumcised, a point which Paul drives home so forcibly in Rom. 4:10–12. The astonishing thing to him was not “Gentiles” but the vast number, “all the Gentiles.”

But “in thee” contains vastly more. This means Isaac over against Ishmael. This does not imply that Ishmael could not share in the blessing but that Isaac would be the progenitor of the Messiah, and that the line would continue through Jacob (not Esau), Judah, David, etc. “In thee” speaks of the Messiah, of the Messianic blessing. This world-wide blessing in the Seed of Abraham (v. 16), in Christ, was put in the form of promise for Abraham, for him to believe it. Every promise aims at faith, intends to produce faith. It can be received in no other way. This promise set Christ before Abraham. Abraham “believed” (v. 6). “Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad” (John 8:56). Thus was Abraham justified.

“In thee—all the nations” = first, that Christ would be the fount of blessing for all the Gentiles the world over; secondly, that they would appropriate this blessing as Abraham appropriated it, by faith alone. The Hebrew has “all families of the earth”; LXX, “all the tribes of the earth”; Paul, “all the Gentiles,” or as we may render, “all the nations.” After a fashion the latter is better, for when the promise was spoken, no Jewish nation existed, and this nation was to be included in the circle as were the rest. Still here the whole point rests on non-Jews, on Gentiles. By faith alone they enter the Abrahamic circle as “sons of Abraham” (v. 7).

Galatians 3:9

9 This is stated directly. Consequently those (whose characteristic mark is derived) from faith are blessed with believing Abraham. The blessing is for all, but to each one it comes ἐκπίστεως, out of faith as the fount and source. In v. 7 οἱἐκπίστεως are the “sons of Abraham”; here they are blessed σύν, in association with, Abraham. And Abraham himself is called πιστός, which cannot mean “faithful” (our versions), reliable, trustworthy (in the passive sense), but must have the same meaning as ὁἐκπίστεως, “believing” (active), C.-K. 869. Note the plural used in Eph. 1:1: “to the saints and believers.” C.-K. calls this the standard Jewish designation for Abraham.

Paul, however, uses it in a pointed way, where the decisive thing is that Abraham “believed” (v. 6), that his “faith” was reckoned for righteousness, that “faith” makes sons of Abraham. The clinching statement is that “those of faith” are with Abraham as πιστός, a man marked by faith.

“They are blessed.” This changes the future tense used in the promise into the constant present: ever and ever blessed; the passive again makes God the agent. The essential blessing for all these believers is the fact that, like Abraham, their faith is reckoned for righteousness or, as Paul puts it in his own words: “God declares them righteous.” With justification there go all the other spiritual blessings that are described at length in Romans 5 to 8. Note that ὥστε is paratactic, it occurs in a sentence by itself and for this reason has the indicative (R. 999).

The case of Abraham is all-decisive. Faith alone obtains justification and all resultant blessings. The Scriptures so declare not only regarding Abraham himself but regarding all other men who believe as Abraham did and are thus joined to him as his sons. This is the positive side; now the negative is stated which is equally decisive as, of course, it must be.

The all-decisive exclusion of works of law

Galatians 3:10

10 For as many as are (people whose characteristic mark is derived) from works of law are under a curse.

This is the simple fact concerning the entire class of workers with law and γάρ offers it as the negative proof for justification by faith alone. Two classes of men stand in absolute opposition: οἱἐκπίστεως—ὅσοιἐξἔργωννόμου, those marked by faith—those marked by works of law. All of the former are of the same type; the latter, “as many as,” are of various types; but despite their variety they are one, alike in “works of law” (see 2:16). The Scriptures declare the one class blessed, the other cursed. “Under a curse” means first, under a divine verdict of curse; secondly, under the power which works out and finally completes the curse.

As he did in the case of the blessing, so Paul now does in that of the curse: he offers the Galatians no assertion of his own, apostle though he was, but, as Jesus so often did, brings the clearest passages of Scripture as proof. For it has been written: Accursed everyone who does not abide in all the things that have been written in the Book of the Law to do them!

This is the sword of Damocles which hangs over the head of all workers with law. Paul quotes the LXX of Deut. 27:26 with a slight change. The Hebrew is: “Cursed he that confirmeth not the words of this law to do them,” i.e., confirms them by doing them without fail. This curse is, indeed, conditional. One may escape it by abiding in all the things written in the Book of the Law (Torah) by doing them. The aorist infinitive denotes complete doing, and “all the things” excludes exceptions. Paul does not prove that no man can possibly keep the law; how self-evident that is he shows in the next verses. Besides, who among the Galatians would claim that he had kept the entire law? Most of them had been Gentiles, pagans, who were guilty of the most frightful transgressions of the law.

In the expressions, “it has been written,” “all the things that have been written,” the perfect tenses have the force: once written and thus now on record, permanently so for all time. The former is the regular formula for introducing Scripture passages and contains the very idea of ἡγραφή, the Scripture, with its divine and thus final authority. The point of note in biblion is this, that the very roll or scroll (βίβλος = papyrus plant from which papyrus sheets or “paper” were made) on which the divine law is written bears this curse for all workers with law. Let all the Galatians who are listening to the Judaizers mark it well. Every one of these Judaizers is under this curse. Will the Galatians, too, allow themselves to be drawn under it? “Accursed” means to be under the divine ὀργή or wrath, awaiting the final ἀπώλεια or destruction. The infinitive with τοῦ is epexegetical (R. 1086) and not final.

Galatians 3:11

11 To make the matter perfectly clear Paul adds (δέ) that the law was never designed by God to produce the verdict of justification, that God designed faith (the gospel) for this purpose. He has already pointed to Abraham and to all the sons of Abraham who are justified by faith alone. Here is the inner, the basic reason for that fact. Now that in connection with law (no article, any kind of law) no one is declared righteous with God is plain because, The righteous—from faith shall he live.

It is a fact, in connection with law no one is ever declared righteous with God (παρά in the sense of “in God’s judgment,” B.-P. 973). This is so plain “because” God has said in most simple words how a man receives the verdict of righteousness, namely “in consequence of faith.”

Paul might have said that no one is justified in connection with law because no one is able to meet the demands of the law and have brought proof for that fact. This would limit the whole elucidation to law alone, i.e., to negation. It is simpler and better at once to advance to the opposite affirmation, to God’s own declaration as to how a person is declared righteous with God. For this is the main thing: How am I justified? The other: How am I not justified? is only corollary. When I know the one right way I will discard any proposed wrong way.

Ἐν, “in connection with” law, of course, means the connection indicated by “law” itself: law demands, demands constant, flawless, complete doing on my part, i.e., works, “works of law.” But every connection which any sinner is able to make with law, or the law itself makes with him, damns him from the very start. He goes down before every single demand of the law.

Not the connection with law and any attempt to meet its demands by our doing does God declare to be the way to obtain his verdict of righteousness and consequent life. In Hab. 2:4, which Paul simply repeats as being well known to all his readers, the prophet says: “The righteous—from faith shall he live.” Some would construe together “the one righteous from (out of, due to) faith” and leave as the predicate only the verb “shall live.” But in the Hebrew the phrase “from faith” is marked by the tiphcha to indicate that it bears the emphasis and is thus to be construed with the verb. In English we should underscore the phrase: “The righteous—from faith he shall live.” “From faith” is exactly what Paul means.

Nor is it correct to say that we have two thoughts: 1) the righteous shall live; 2) his living shall be due to faith. The thought is a unit: By faith alone shall the righteous live. Again it is not the thought of the prophet that a man is pronounced righteous by God, and that he then gets faith, and that he then lives. All three occur simultaneously: the pronouncement—faith—life. No man is righteous for even a second before he has faith, or has faith even a second before God declares him righteous; the same is true with regard to his being alive. The prophet and Paul with him emphasize faith. Righteousness and life are inseparable from it. Nor is the gospel omitted; faith is ever the product only of the gospel, and the gospel is ever the contents of faith.

Here, as in Rom. 1:17, Paul corrects the LXX who translate, “out of my faith,” i.e., God’s faith or faithfulness. The Hebrew has “his faith,” i.e., the righteous one’s faith. Paul does not restore “his” because he wants to make the statement entirely general by stressing the function of faith as such. On the context in Hab. 2:4 see Rom. 1:17. The great point is that “the righteous one” has “faith,” something that he could not possibly get from any connection with law. Righteousness and faith go together and are never separated.

There is no need to explain, for this has been done already in v. 6 and again in v. 8. So there is also no need to explain the predicate that the righteous “shall live” out of the faith by which he is righteous. We have been told in v. 7 that spiritual sonship with Abraham is due to faith, and in v. 9 that all spiritual blessings come from faith. Both statements include what the prophet says: spiritual life is due to faith. This future tense does not refer to some distant time: “shall live” when he reaches heaven or at the final judgment. The righteous man is not dead until that time.

John 3:15, 16: “Everyone believing has (ἔχῃ) life eternal,” has it as believing and while believing. This is the so-called logical future: right out of faith, in the instant of its coming into existence, life springs. Yea, faith is the new birth.

Von Hofmann and Zahn advance the view that we should combine into one word δηλονότι = videlicet, scilicet: “Now that in connection with law no one is justified, namely that the righteous shall live due to faith while the law is not of faith, but, etc., therefore Christ,” etc. (v. 11). Glance at this videlicet in Liddell and Scott and note that it cannot be used as proposed. See how three parenthetical statements are thus added one on top of the other—a curious proceeding; nor has Paul the “therefore” that is supplied in v. 13. It is true that δῆλον is often placed first, but that does not prevent its being placed last when this is desired. Regarding the absence of the copula, this is most common in the Greek.

Galatians 3:12

12 The one who is justified will ever live as a result of the faith by which he is justified. But the law does not belong to faith; on the contrary, He who has done the things shall live in connection with them. That is why no connection with law justifies with God (v. 11). That is why Habakkuk wrote concerning the justified man that faith alone will give him life (v. 12). The law is a stranger to faith; it knows nothing of a faith that justifies a sinner; it only curses sinners (v. 10); it knows of only one way to get life, and that is that the man must do, do completely, the things the law lays down, failure to have done so is absolutely fatal.

It is important to note that in the term “the law” the article is generic: everything that definitely deserves the name “law.” We should not restrict this word to the Mosaic law; this is included, and the Judaizers in Galatia operated with this law, namely with its ceremonial requirements but not with its moral section (the Ten Commandments). Paul includes the latter as well as all that can rightly be called law.

We should also note what constitutes “law” and “the law.” This is not the statutory formulation in a code but the Rechtskraft, the power of right involved in the law. C.-K. 758 defines: die mit Rechtskraft ausgeruestete Forderung, die sich immer aufs neue dutch die Rechtsfolgen zum Besstsein bringt, die daran geknuepft sind (also p. 753), the demand endowed with the power of right, ever forcing itself into the consciousness by the consequences of the justice thereto attached. Thus an integral part of law in the Biblical sense of the word is the promise and the curse operating in the law. Paul speaks of the former here, of the latter in v. 10.

Here ἐκπίστεως is construed with ἐστίν in the partitive sense of ἐκ (B.-P. 366, 4 δ): to belong to something (R. 599 does not list εἶναιἐκ). Because of its very nature the law has nothing to do with faith. It always demands with the power of right and justice; faith always receives gratuitously. The two do not match in any way. The fact that they are entirely opposite Paul again establishes by appropriating the well-known Scripture passage, Lev. 18:5: “He who has done the things shall live in connection with them,” the connection being that he has done them. The substantivized participle is an aorist and thus denotes complete doing.

Our versions lose this important point by translating, “he that doeth.” The two are opposites even in this regard: faith has justification and life the instant it begins; doing works of law would get life only when the doing is ended and complete. But the point Paul makes is that faith and doing are opposites. Doing furnishes what is legally and of right demanded; faith receives what is gratuitously bestowed.

What makes the two quotations so striking is the fact that ζήσεται, “shall live,” occurs in both. There are two ways to get eternal life: in one instance life is earned by complete doing; again life is given to us. The trouble with the former is that it is closed to the sinner. Before he can begin any doing, his sin bars the way to life by any use of law. Ἐκπίστεως, life flows as a pure gift “out of faith”; ἐναὐτοῖς, life lies as an earned merit “in them,” i.e., in all the deeds of law when these are complete.

Now we may note that Paul has built a regular negative syllogism. The conclusion is put first: By the law no one is justified. The major premise is: The righteous one shall live by faith alone; the minor: the law does not belong to faith. Hence, it is true beyond a doubt that by the law no one will live, no one is justified. Thus the line of thought begun with Abraham’s justification by faith is duly unfolded.

Galatians 3:13

13 One thought remains to be mentioned, to show how God set aside the law and opened the way of faith. This showing forth is done in typically Pauline fashion. He never lets his explanation run out into a duality, he always brings it to rest in a unit point. This exemplifies the penetration with which his mind works. Here he has two divergent lines of thought, the one a positive thought regarding faith, the other a negative thought regarding law, the one ending in a blessing, the other in a curse. He now ties them together into a knot.

He does it in Christ. Christ took the curse upon himself and so made the blessing possible to faith. Thus also—and this is another feature of his masterful mind—Paul brings us back to Christ crucified who was mentioned in v. 1, yea, also to Abraham and to the Spirit. What a joy to follow a mind such as that!

The absence of a connective in the Greek arrests attention. That is the plain intent regarding the following great statement about Christ. Christ bought us free from the curse of the law when he became a curse in our stead, because it has been written: Accursed everyone who hangs on wood! in order that for the Gentiles the blessing of Abraham might come in connection with Christ Jesus, in order that we might receive the promise of the Spirit by means of the faith.

This letter is addressed to the Galatians. When Paul says “us” and in v. 14 that “we” receive he refers to himself, to all the brethren who were with him at the time of this writing (1:2), and to all the Galatian readers, the great majority of whom were former Gentiles. “Us” and “we” are not the Jews. The argument that these pronouns are in contrast with the phrase “for the Gentiles” (v. 14) is untenable. How does Christ’s purchase of the Jews bring the blessing of Abraham “for the Gentiles”? This can be done only by his purchase of the Gentiles as well as of the Jews. And how can Paul add that “we” Jews get to receive the Spirit? Do Gentiles not receive the Spirit? Did Paul not say that the Gentile Galatians had received the Spirit (v. 2)?

The argument that the Jews alone were under the law is unconvincing. This view misunderstands the force of “the law” by thinking that it refers to the Mosaic law code, and that the Gentiles were not under this code since it had not been given to them. Paul does not use the phrase “under the law” in this section. When he refers to the law in v. 23; 4:4, 5; 5:18 (Rom. 6:14, 15), the phrase he uses is “under law” (without the article). see v. 12 on “law.” Men can be in only one of two conditions, under law or under grace (Rom. 6:14, 15), tertium non datur. This refers to Gentiles as well as to Jews. Rom. 2:12–16 is Paul’s own exposition regarding Gentiles and law. All who are under law, no matter of what kind, be they Jews or Gentiles, are “under a curse” (v. 10), most of all those who seek to get salvation “out of works of law.” The great thing proclaimed in the gospel is the fact that Christ bought them all free from the curse of the law.

When Paul writes: bought us free, us believers, he does not have in mind a limited atonement. In 2 Pet. 2:1 those who bring swift destruction on themselves (damnation) are said to be bought by the Lord. Christ redeemed the world and not only the elect. When we believers are mentioned as those who were ransomed and bought by Christ, this is said because we are the ones who appropriate this redemption. In fact, our ransoming is certain only because Christ ransomed the world. It has been well said that, if Christ had left out one person, I, who know my own unworthiness and sin so fully, must conclude that I am that person.

Furthermore, the law itself declares that only he who keeps its precepts completely shall live (v. 12), all others shall perish. Does this exempt the Gentiles? Rom. 2:12–16 is the answer. Had the Galatians been exempt who had at one time been pagans? Finally, if “he bought us” refers only to the Jews and not equally to the Gentiles, the appended ἵνα clause cannot be properly understood, then the blessing of Abraham was to come for the Gentiles by some other act than this purchase. Such an idea is unthinkable. The Bible knows of no partial redemption, one of Jews only.

Ἐξαγοράζειν is stronger than ἀγοράζειν, but both are used with reference to the purchasing act of Christ, the former again in 4:5, the latter repeatedly in 1 Cor. 6:20; 7:23; 2 Pet. 2:1; Rev. 5:9; 14:3, etc., although it is variously translated in our versions as buy, purchase, redeem. The compound verb with the following ἐκ phrase means, “to buy out of” i.e., “free from.” We have a close synonym in the noun ἀπολύτρωσις, “ransoming” by the payment of a λύτρον or ransom. The idea of ransom cannot be eliminated from this noun, so that it means only “deliverance.” The two verbs mean literally “to buy,” and that means to pay a price for something. That price is the life of Christ laid down in death, cf., v. 1, Christ crucified. His life, blood, death are the price, the λύτρον. This entire imagery goes back to the Old Testament, to its idea of substitutionary blood sacrifice.

Yet, as is the case with regard to a number of concepts and expressions, many modern interpreters search in paganism instead of in the Old Testament for an understanding of the idea of ransom. Thus Deissmann refers to the pagan way of freeing slaves. The slave’s earnings were deposited in a temple; finally the master brought his slave to the temple and took the price. Henceforth the slave was under the god’s protection and thus free from human masters. C.-K. 63 accepts this and says that Paul deepened the idea while he retained the outward features connected with it. C.-K. disregards Zahn’s views on this matter.

This pagan transaction is misunderstood. Neither master nor pagan god buy anything, the slave buys himself. The price is paid in cash; yet 1 Pet. 1:18 specifically denies that we were ransomed “with corruptible things as silver and gold” and in contrast affirms that our ransom was “the precious blood of Christ, of a lamb without blemish or spot.” Neither master nor god died in order to buy the slave’s freedom. All the essentials are different; there is not even an outward resemblance.

Meyer states the facts with precision: “Christ bought them free; and he did it by this that he gave away his life on the cross as the lutron (ransom) that was paid to God, the dator et vindex legis; thereby he obtained for them the forgiveness of sins by his mors satisfactoria which was suffered according to God’s gracious counsel in obedience thereto, so that now the curse of the law, which should have struck them, had no more application to them.” Here there is no slave who buys his own release. Here there is the curse of which v. 10 speaks. From this curse Christ “bought us free by having become (aorist) a curse in our stead” (or: “when he became”). The two κατάρα, “curse,” are the same. That means substitution: Christ took the curse of the law upon himself. “Became” is the completed act. We were not freed from our peculiar curse by Christ’s taking some other kind of curse upon himself but by assuming ours.

The expression is powerful; it is not “became accursed” but “became a curse.” Not some part of our curse affected him through his contact with us, but our whole curse was on him so that he was all curse. The expression used in 2 Cor. 5:21 is still stronger: God himself made the Sinless One “sin in our stead” (see this passage). Isa. 53:6; 1 Pet. 2:24. It is said truly, “Christ became the embodiment of our curse.” He became this voluntarily; he gave himself (1:4; 2:20).

This fixes the meaning of ὑπὲρἡμε͂ν. R. 631: “There are a few other passages where ὑπέρ has the resultant notion of ‘instead,’ and only violence to the context can get rid of it. One of them is Gal. 3:13. In v. 10 Paul has said that those under the law were under a curse, ὑπὸκατάραν. In v. 13 he carries on the same image. Christ bought us ‘out from under’ the curse of the law by becoming a curse ‘over’ us, γενόμενοςὑπὲρἡμῶνκατάρα.

In a word, we were under the curse; Christ took the curse on himself and thus over us (between the suspended curse and us), and thus rescued us out from under the curse. We went free while he was considered accursed. It is not a point here as to whether one agrees with Paul’s theology or not, but what is his meaning. In this passage ὑπέρ has the resultant meaning of ‘instead.’ The matter calls for this much discussion because of the central nature of the teaching involved.” The curse would have crushed us forever; it crushed Christ in death, but his death, satisfied the law and thus ended the curse, Christ arose from death. On the preposition see also 2:20.

The fact that a curse is involved in Christ’s death is substantiated by Deut. 21:23, which Paul quotes in brief but does not follow the LXX with its participle “having been (and thus still being) cursed.” He uses the adjective: “because it has been written (3:10): ‘Accursed everyone who hangs on wood’.” The Hebrew has the noun: “A curse of God the one suspended,” curse in the metonymic sense of “an accursed object” (Ed. Koenig, Woerterbuch). Paul’s translation by means of the adjective is very accurate. The fact that he omits the word “God” causes no change in meaning, for it is God’s law and thus God who renders “accursed.”

Let us note what is implied. After the execution and as an added disgrace the body of a criminal was suspended on a post and became an accursed object, one whom God’s curse had struck down. That is why the LXX could use κεκατηραμένος, the perfect participle which conveys the idea that the object remained accursed. But that is why Paul declined to use this participle: Christ did not remain so. The passage applies to Christ when he hung on the timber of the cross. The Jewish eye regarded that dead body as an accursed object. It saw correctly: that body had suffered God’s curse. In Paul’s own words: Christ became a curse (a cursed object) in our stead. Paul intends to say that this fact was visible even to the eye.

If Christ had been treated as Stephen was, this would not have been apparent. Stephen’s dead body was not hung up as an accursed object. We now see why Jesus said that it was necessary for him to be delivered into the hands of the Gentiles and to be crucified. We see why Paul emphasizes Christ crucified, crucified. God wanted Christ to be seen as what he actually became: a curse. Read Acts 5:30; 10:39; 13:29; 1 Pet. 2:24 in this light. Note that in the first two passages Christ’s being hung on timber is appended to his being slain. It was the cross that said to all Jews that Jesus was accursed. Yet this very cross brought the infinite blessing of Abraham for the Gentiles. The symbol of the curse was the symbol of this blessing for all the world.

Galatians 3:14

14 That is what the two ἵνα clauses state. Christ became an object accursed “in order that for the Gentiles the blessing of Abraham might come (aorist to express actuality) in connection with Christ Jesus.” This was God’s purpose, the aorist implying that it was attained. The Galatians are evidence of the attainment. The thought is paradoxical in the highest degree: a curse of God gets to be the greatest blessing of God. And yet it is not at all paradoxical. The curse that struck Christ like a fiery flame was quenched in his blood and death, and so the blessing of that quenched curse flowed out to all the world in life and salvation.

“The blessing of Abraham” is the one promised to him, cf., v. 8. It blessed Abraham as a believer; it blesses all other believers (v. 9) together with Abraham. It is εἰς, “for,” all Gentiles, not in connection with law and works of law, but “in connection with Christ Jesus,” this man “Jesus” who was anointed as our Redeemer (Purchaser). The connection is faith. The fact that it is intended for the Jews as well as for the Gentiles need not be stated, for Jesus himself was a Jew. The other does need to be stated because the Gentiles do not need to become Jews in order to share this blessing.

The blessing of Abraham is one that is intended for the whole world in Christ Jesus. Its chief content is justification by faith in Christ, our Substitute under the curse. We do not understand the commentators who make the blessing to Abraham and to the Jews one thing, and from this blessing send another thing upon the Gentiles.

The first ἵνα clause is objective although “in connection with Christ Jesus” points to the subjective side, namely faith by which alone the connection is made. The parallel purpose clause brings out the subjective side: “in order that we might receive the promise of the Spirit by means of the faith,” aorist, actually receive. A glance shows how this harks back to v. 2, the Galatians had so received the Spirit. As in v. 2, so now again “faith” is combined with the Spirit. Since it is placed last, this phrase has the emphasis.

“The promise of the Spirit” has the appositional genitive just as in Acts 2:33 (R. 498). Jesus calls the Spirit “the promise of my Father,” whom he will send (Luke 24:49); in Acts 1:4 the apostles are to wait for this promise. Faith is the means for the Spirit’s reception (διά), the means which he himself works. To receive and to have the Spirit is to be declared righteous, to have life, and thus all the other spiritual blessings of Abraham, grace upon grace (John 1:16).

“We” in the verb is identical with ἡμᾶς and ἡμῶν in v. 13. Therefore “us” in v. 13 cannot refer to Jews only, and “we” in v. 14 to both Jews and Gentiles. “We” and “us” are Paul, the brethren with him (1:2), and the Galatians. In the case of these the reception has taken place, and that by means of faith only. Paul has the Galatians themselves say so in v. 2; has them deny that the source was works of law. That is the sense of the phrase here at the end.

Thus everything, everything excludes works of law. Every pertinent Scripture statement on both law and faith. Christ himself is in harmony with these. Faith opens righteousness to all the world. No man is saved except by faith; any man may be saved by faith.

Paul’s exposition is like an arrow hitting its mark. From beginning to end there is not a single weak statement. Not one that deviates from the other by a hair. Here there is compactness, every sentence is freighted to the last word. Try and write a paragraph like this! Inspiration guided Paul’s pen. Here is convincing light and power for the Galatians. In fact, here is conviction even for Paul’s opponents in Galatia, the Judaizers, which should take hold of them mightily in order to draw them away from seeking justification in works of law and to bring them, too, to faith, to the blessing of their ancestor Abraham.

2. The Galatians must Know the Limitations of the Law, 3:15–4:11

It certainly cannot upset or alter God’s own testament.

Galatians 3:15

15 All Judaistic errors rest on misconceptions regarding law. Too much is then naturally expected of law. Paul has already shown that it leaves all who trust in works of law under the curse, that it cannot possibly justify, that this is done only in connection with Jesus Christ who has borne that curse in our stead. All this will become still clearer when the limitations of law become known. These are indeed great. In the first place, the law on which the Judaizers rely came all of 430 years after God put his testamentary promise into force. It ought to be as plain as day that no testament, not even a merely human one, can be annulled or even altered after it is in force. It is preposterous to think that the Mosaic law altered God’s testament. This is the first great point.

Again Paul cites history. He has already stated what the testament is and also presented what it conveys by means of its immense promise and the first heir and beneficiary under that testament (v. 8) plus those who are excluded by the testament (v. 10). Now he takes up the Mosaic law in its relation to this testament as to the point of time.

Brethren, I speak in human fashion. Though (only) a man’s, having (once) been confirmed, no one voids a testament or adds thereto.

The thought as well as the address indicate the beginning of a new section. “Brethren” is significant for the Galatians, see 1:11. Here the touch of affection is added which reaches out to win the readers. “In human fashion” means in a way so simple that anyone can understand. Paul will in particular use an ordinary illustration, the inviolability of a confirmed human will and testament. That illustration will help to make the main thought clear. By drawing attention to the fact that this is a human illustration Paul does not excuse his use of it but rather states in advance just what it is so that his readers may at once catch the point he presents.

Ὅμως, here and in 1 Cor. 14:7 = “although” and is purely concessive. True, this is not ὁμῶς, “likewise,” (R. 233 on 1 Cor. 14:7). When R. 1154 makes it adversative, its position an instance of hyperbaton (423), and has it modifying the participle (1155), we cannot agree. Our versions are correct; B.-P. 903 and B.-D. 450, 2 leave us uncertain; the classics do not help us. In both passages the concessive adverb is in the most natural way to be construed with the very next word: “though (only) a man’s,” though only a mere human covenant; 1 Cor. 14:7: “though (but) soulless” instruments. This is concession although we may continue with “yet.”

The word διαθήκη is evidently to be understood in the sense of “testament” and not “covenant” although our versions leave us in doubt, and some writers prefer the latter. Regarding the meaning of the word in the LXX who used it to translate berith, regarding the reason for this, and then regarding the New Testament use see the summary given in Matt. 26:18 or 1 Cor. 11:25. “Testament” is beyond question the meaning here where it is used with the singular “a man’s,” a human testament being referred to. If a human covenant were referred to, we should have the plural. Human covenants are made between at least two persons or parties and are mutual. A human testament is always made by an individual, is always one-sided, the testator alone makes disposition of his property. That is why this illustration fits the promises of God to Abraham, which constituted the old covenant.

They and it were absolutely one-sided, from God to Abraham, and not mutual, not between the two. The imagery is here that of a testament with an heir and with an inheritance.

It is a confirmed, ratified, we should say probated testament that is the basis of the illustration, the perfect participle stating that it is still in force. This belongs to the tertium comparationis. Paul’s illustration should not be regarded as an allegory, and the making of the testament and the details of ratifying it should not be introduced, plus the death of the testator, etc. Then counterparts are sought in God’s testament, and none are found. No; this is a testament that has been probated and has been in force, and the point of comparison is the inviolability, the fixedness of such a testament. Nobody can void, annul it, and put something else in its place.

Nobody can “add anything thereto,” affix a codicil to it and thus alter the original testamentary provisions. Of course, the testator can tear it up and write a new will or can add codicils to the one he has written. But this is not a will that is still in the testator’s hands but one that is already in operation.

No ancient or no modern legal practice allows a will that is duly in force to be set aside by a substitute that is offered by somebody else, or allows the additions of codicils by any person. Once in force, the will stands exactly as it is. There is no need to inquire to what law Paul refers, to Roman, Jewish, or that of some nation or province. The Galatians were a mixed people. Paul’s illustration is one of universal applicability, not for quibbling lawyers, but for common people. In fact, the illustration is true everywhere today.

Galatians 3:16

16 After the chief point of the illustration has been fixed, Paul states the fact he is illustrating. Now to Abraham were spoken the promises and to his Seed. Not does he say, And to the seeds, as for many, but as for One, And to thy Seed, who is Christ.

These promises resemble a human testament that is duly in force and in process of administration. Although they were repeated at intervals, they are one confirmed testament that became operative the moment it was spoken. Although they were spoken by God himself and were not at once written, they stand like a man’s testament that is administered after his death.

In these testamentary promises two beneficiaries are named: Abraham—his Seed. One is placed first in the sentence, the other last, both are thus strongly emphasized. Since Paul specifies that “his Seed” refers to Christ, comment so often neglects Abraham and expands on this Seed. We should not neglect Abraham. He is here not named as a mere individual, as one of many beneficiaries of the testament. Even Isaac, Jacob, and the patriarchs could not be named here as Abraham is. Whatever promises God spoke to them were entirely Abraham’s. He was the heir. All others only share in his inheritance. They inherit only as spiritual “sons of Abraham” (v. 7).

But God named two heirs. These were, indeed, two individual persons, for the second heir is called “his Seed.” This very word connects the two. There would be no Abraham, the father of believers, who has multitudes of spiritual sons, without this Seed. The whole blessing of the testamentary promises were Abraham’s and made him the father of these sons, but only through this Seed. As the Seed of Abraham he was himself promised to Abraham when no hope of fulfillment seemed possible. That promise Abraham believed (v. 6) and is thus named the heir together with the Seed.

Here Paul writes that the promises were spoken to Abraham’s Seed; in v. 19 we have the coming of the Seed. When they were spoken to Abraham for him to believe and to become the earthly ancestor of Christ, these promises were at the same time spoken to Christ who was himself both the fulfillment and the one to fulfill the promises. “To Abraham—and to his Seed” thus differ according to the nature and the relation of the two persons. They, indeed, belong together as do no other two, as already stated, but the Seed is supreme.

When Paul writes that God does not say: “And to seeds,” as placing the promises upon (ἐπί) many (plural), but as placing it upon One: “And to thy Seed” (singular), and with the demonstrative ὅς adds “he who is Christ,” the repetition of καί in the cited words points to Gen. 13:15 and 17:8, where this “and” appears with the dative. Some consider only these two passages and overlook Gen. 22:18 and thus get into difficulties. For is zera‘ as it is used in those two passages not a collective? How can Paul then say: “Who is Christ”? Some think that the way out of the difficulty is to make “Christ” a collective; the reference given in the A. V. is to 1 Cor. 12:12, i.e., to the mystical Christ, he plus all believers.

Then “Christ” would include Abraham, and “thy Seed” becomes unintelligible. Then v. 19, “up to when the Seed comes,” is contradicted, for here “the Seed” is decidedly an individual and not a collective group. The mystical Christ is not the solution.

In its place we are told that Paul reverts to the rabbinical type of exegesis which he learned under Gamaliel in the days when he was a rabid Jew. Zahn answers this supposed use of midrash in Paul: “Paul knew his Old Testament and his Hebrew rather better than his commentators; it is ridiculous to defend him against the charge that he misreads the collective zera‘ and imagines it to be the individual person Christ.” We add that this is the more unwarranted when we read Gen. 13:15 and 17:8, both of which promise the land of Canaan to Abraham’s Seed. In various passages of his epistles Paul himself uses “seed” as a collective. The Hebrew plural is used only once in the Old Testament, in 1 Sam. 8:15.

Paul considers the collective singular in the light of Gen. 22:18 and of the other promises made to Abraham. That is why, to begin with, he says that the promises were spoken to these two. They applied to others only because they applied to these two in a peculiar way, yea, because they applied to Christ in a most particular way as “Abraham’s Seed,” as we have already shown. This appears so clearly in v. 19 where “the Seed” is individual and not collective. What Paul says is that a plural like “seeds” would not do even in Gen. 13:15 and 17:8; it had to be a singular “as for one,” it had to be this collective: “and to thy Seed.” The plural would lose, would at least render uncertain, the reference to Christ; the collective singular conserves this vital reference.

Paul is not writing for scholarly but for common readers. These will see that he is not confusing a collective with an individual, and that “Christ” is not a collective. They will see that the collective is the collective it is because it focuses in Christ. In all the spiritual seed of Abraham (collective) there appears “Christ,” the individual. Hence he also writes “who,” not “which” is Christ. The gender of the relative is attracted to the gender of the predicate “Christ,” but here this is done for more than a grammatical reason.

Some have called this attraction harsh, but they overlook the inner reason for this. Paul expects his readers to read the prophecies as he reads them, at least to follow him in getting what those prophecies contain. As all of them start with Abraham, no matter how great a collective group they include (“sons of Abraham,” v. 7, “thy seed”), so all of them focus and center in “Christ”; for Abraham and Christ, these two, in the way already explained, produce the collective.

A word needs to be said regarding Ishmael, the descendants of Keturah, Esau, etc., since all of them are so often excluded from “thy seed.” Please remember how many Jews were also excluded (Rom. 9:6b). “Thy seed” is spiritual. Both Rahab and Ruth (born of pagans) belong to “thy seed.” If Ishmael, if any of the children and the descendants of Keturah believed, they, too, belonged to this spiritual collective. It is only an assumption that all of them disbelieved the promises made to Abraham. Note, too, that the assumption is incorrect that Paul here traces the line of descent for Christ: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Juda, David. This assumption leads to wrong deductions about Ishmael, the children of Keturah, etc., and overlooks the exclusion of so many Jews from the seed.

Galatians 3:17

17 Now Paul makes the application of the illustration used in v. 15, that even a human testament, after it has been confirmed, cannot be voided or altered. Now this I mean: a testament that has been confirmed in advance by God, the law that has come four hundred and thirty years later does not unconfirm so as to put the promise out of effect. For if the inheritance (is derived) from law, no longer (is it) from promise; but to Abraham God has graciously granted it by means of promise.

Here we have the stunning confutation of all Judaizers and of all those who are Judaistically or legalistically inclined. A confirmed human testament stands. God’s testament, duly confirmed, stood for hundreds of years before the Mosaic law was even given, before anybody could even conceive the idea that this law in any way altered the testament or its divine confirmation. These hundreds of years confound all Judaizers.

When Paul places the divine reality beside the human example that he used he advances the argument from the less to the greater.

Paul uses direct discourse in apposition to τοῦτο. He simply states the fact: the law does not unconfirm God’s confirmed testament for the simple reason that the law came so much later. The perfect participle (see v. 15) = “still standing confirmed.” It is not stated how God made the confirmation but compare Heb. 6:13–18. Do not ask why any testament of God’s still needed confirmation. It needed none for its own validity; the confirmation was made wholly for the sake of men in order to give them the strongest possible assurance for faith. This reveals the enormous sinfulness of unbelief which calls the very oath of God perjury.

The participial phrase introduced by μετά is attributive and is thus a compact unit with the noun it modifies. The time, 430 years, is an understatement. When men are eager to prove something they are inclined to exaggerate their arguments and thereby defeat themselves. The opponents note the exaggeration, discount or reject the argument, and even question the person’s veracity. But an understatement acts in the opposite way; the opponents see that the statement spoken against them could be made much stronger. The effect is according. In 1 Cor. 10:8 Paul writes 23, 000 although Num. 25:9 reads 24, 000. The latter is a round number, so also is the former; Paul purposely does not make it as large as possible; he lets his readers say: “There were even more slain!”

He does so here. Instead of making his own discount, Paul takes one from Exod. 12:40, etc.; 430 years (Acts 7:6 has the round number 400 which is used also in Gen. 15:13). Paul’s readers see that he uses Exod. 12:40, that this covers only the stay in Egypt, that Paul might add the years the patriarchs remained in Canaan before Jacob migrated to Egypt. No one knows how long a period this was; the estimate is about 200 years. Paul excludes all dispute about an estimate regarding this time spent in Canaan, he ignores it. The Scriptures have this 430. Any testament that has been confirmed and has been in force for over four centuries certainly cannot have its confirmation upset or modified by something that comes into existence at so long a time afterward.

We have the same verb in the participle “having been confirmed” and in its opposite ἀκυροῖ, “does not unconfirm,” i.e., deprive of confirmation. They are purposely chosen so as to match. “Disannul” in our versions is too narrow, for the verb intends to include both verbs that were used in v. 15: complete annulment (voiding) and also modification (adding codicils which change the original will). Neither in whole nor in part is God’s testament deprived of confirmation by the law which was given 430 (to name only this figure) years later.

Paul names the feature of the testament here in question which is no less than its very heart: “so as to put the promise out of effect.” “The promise” is properly singular, for it refers to Christ, the Heir, the full inheritance in him. Nothing that came 430 and more years later cancels or puts out of effect this promise by voiding the whole testament or by changing it in part with a codicil. The will would be wrecked in either case, for “the promise” is really the whole will. Εἰςτό denotes result; when it is called contemplated result, this is done only because it is negative and denied (understand R. 1003, 1072, 1090 in this sense).

Galatians 3:18

18 “For” makes still clearer the fact that the law, which came into being hundreds of years later than the testament, does not alter its confirmation, does not put its promise out of effect. Paul states it conditionally: “If the inheritance (is derived) from law, no longer (is it derived) from promise.” If, since the days of Moses and Sinai, the source of the inheritance lies in law, then a mighty reversal has certainly taken place, then the source is no longer what it was before, in Abraham’s time and in the centuries following, namely promise. Then no one is able to get this inheritance by simply believing the promise as Abraham, the patriarchs, their families and descendants did during those centuries; then one is now able to get it only by doing works of law as the Judaizers claim by meeting all the legal requirements. Then God’s own confirmation, the oath he made when sealing the testament promise, is canceled and no longer confirms as it did confirm prior to the coming of the law. With such a confirmation the testament promise, the promised inheritance, falls to the ground; it is put out of effect, abolished.

Paul does not reason about it. He does not ask whether it is thinkable or possible that God’s oath-bound confirmation and the promise which it sealed can be thus abolished. The only possible answer is “no.” Paul does something that is still stronger. He is a theologian of fact. Facts are invincible. He sets down the cold fact: “but to Abraham God has graciously granted it by means of promise,” i.e., by means of promise alone without law or works of law of any kind.

He uses the perfect tense “has granted it,” so that after it was thus granted it stands. Here is the staggering fact that stands forth as plain as day. Paul lets it confront the Judaizers and the Galatians who are inclined to follow them. Abraham had the inheritance of the confirmed testament by faith in the testamentary promise alone without any law or works of law, and these Judaizers are now telling the Galatians that they can have it only by obeying the Mosaic law that was given hundreds of years later. This is not even modification, it is utter cancellation of God’s testament.

The Greek is able to emphasize all the terms by a proper placement in the sentence. “To Abraham” is placed forward; the Judaizers say, “not so to the Galatians.” The phrase “by means of promise” is placed before the verb and the subject, and verb and the subject are reversed, all three are emphatic, especially “God.” This is what God has done; this is the means he used, the only one; this is his act, a gracious granting. We cannot reproduce all this in English but must see it in the Greek in order to get the full meaning of what Paul writes. Note, too, that God’s testament is entirely promise without a single legal stipulation; testaments convey an inheritance, the one term connotes the other. Some human testaments may require something on the part of an heir as a condition of receiving the inheritance; God’s testament does not, it is pure promise.

Galatians 3:19

19 Paul has completely refuted the idea that the law affected the testament in any way. But this leaves the positive question, in fact, raises it: Why, then, the law? Indeclinable τί = “why” (B.-P. 1310: Wozu in aller Welt das Gesetz?); B.-D. 480, 5: Was soll also das Gesetz? If what Paul states are historical facts regarding the testament and the Mosaic regulation, there seems to be no reason for God’s giving the law although he did this so much later. Those who have the question read: “What, then, is the law?” (R. V.; the A. V. is correct) think that the answer is delayed until v. 24; that Paul had to delay it until he had disposed of other pertinent questions. But the question is “why,” and the answer follows at once. It is

The temporary nature of the Mosaic law.

Not only did this law come in 430 years later, it remained in force only for the Jews, only until their historic mission was accomplished, only until Christ came, and then it was abolished even for the Jews.

For the sake of the transgressions it was added until (the time) when the Seed came, to whom the promise had been made—(this law) put into force as an ordinance by means of angels in connection with a mediator’s hand.

The question that is here answered is not one that is raised by some Judaizing objector. The Judaizers had probably never faced the fact that the law, which they made so essential to Christianity, came in centuries after Abraham; had never asked why it came in then. It is Paul who sees all these facts and God’s intent in so arranging them. There is, of course, no question that God gave the law although the fact is added that it was given in a way that was much inferior to the giving of the testament.

“For the sake of the transgressions” has the word χάριν which is merely a preposition: wegen, B.-D. 160, and may denote the reason or the aim (B.-P. 1398). Here the latter is the case. When Paul says that the law “was added,” this cannot mean as a codicil to the testament, an idea that has already been completely excluded. It was not added to the testament as a part of it or for testamentary purposes. It did not have to do with the testament and its provisions but with “the transgressions.” These were its aim and purpose. But not: “in order to check or to stop the transgressions”; the very contrary, “in order to bring them out fully as what they were, namely transgressions.” The idea is not that there were a lot of transgressions, and that these needed a check in order to prevent undue spreading, and that the law was introducced to do the checking.

Rom. 4:15 shows that without law there is no transgression. The very word παράβασις implies a law or norm which is overstepped. The Greek has the image of walking “beside” the law or norm and thus spurning it while our word “transgression” suggests the picture of a boundary that is illegally crossed into forbidden territory.

It is astonishing yet altogether true, the purpose of the law is transgressions. It is for sinners only; sinless persons need no law. But the moment the law meets a sinner, he reacts by transgression because of the sin in him. The law brings it out so that he and all men may see it. Compare Rom. 5:20 and 7:13. Let us make it drastic.

While it is latent, sin stirs but slightly. It is like a lion who is asleep or is moving about quietly. Apply the stick of the law to it, prod it a little, and its fangs flash, its rages and roars, it tries to rend and tear, it displays what a wild beast it really is. That stick does not make the beast a beast; it cannot kill or change the beast; all it can do is to make it show what it is. That is true even when the stick is heavy enough to subdue the beast for the time being; the very subdual is brought about by overpowering force alone.

Again Paul speaks historically: “up to (the time) when the Seed came.” He refers to the law of Moses with its many regulations which was given for the period from Sinai until Christ and Calvary. This is the law with which the Judaizers were operating on the thoughtless Galatians. It was abrogated in Christ, “to whom the promise has been given.” The Greek has the perfect for which the English would use the past perfect “had been given.” The historical mission of the Mosaic law ended when the promise to Abraham (v. 18) was fulfilled in Christ who is here called “the Seed” as explained in v. 16.

Paul carefully keeps the connection. We may say that the Mosaic law was given when the Jewish nation began to be a nation after leaving the Egyptian bondage, and that the law ended when this nation lost its national existence by rejecting Christ. This law, of course, also segregated the nation, was a strong hedge about it, kept it from mixing with other nations; but Paul is not speaking of this function of the law.

We may add still more. The Mosaic law alsocontained elaborate regulations for removing the guilt of the transgressions of the Jews. This law established the priesthood of the Jews, the sacrifices, the cleansings. They were entirely law since they had been ordered by God, and yet in all of them there was gospel, the adumbration of Christ, whose blood cleanses us from all sin. This shows that when Christ, the substance, came, the adumbration, having served its purpose, vanished. The letter to the Hebrews has much to say on this phase of the subject.

This still leaves the larger question about the time from Adam until Moses and Sinai and about the time since Christ and Calvary. Rom. 5:14 refers to the former period and shows how men died because of sin. Rom. 2:12–16 adds that even the Gentiles, who never had the Mosaic law, have God’s law, although it is blurred, written in their hearts, their own conscience condemning them. This is the moral law which Moses formulated in full clarity for the Jews. Rom. 7:7–13 shows how this law smote Paul and revealed his sin and his subjection to death. This is the law that still operates in sinners.

Romans 2 shows that moralism, the effort to keep this law, is not the way in which to escape condemnation, is only the surest way of sinking into greater condemnation. It is this to the present day. The only escape lies in justification by faith, Rom. 3:20, etc. This escape delivers us from all condemnation of law.

This clears up what Paul says to the Galatians regarding the whole Mosaic law, its ceremonial as well as its moral content. The Judaizers laid great stress on the ceremonial phase of the law and demanded that the Galatian Christians keep this in order to be saved. Not only a part of the Mosaic law is abrogated in Christ, but all law with all its condemnation is ended for the believer in Christ; Rom. 8:1: There is no more κατάκριμα, verdict of condemnation from any law, for those who are in Christ Jesus by faith.

Christ is “the Seed” of Abraham, to him the promise has been made, i.e., in God’s testament. He is the Heir who has the whole inheritance; and all of us who are joined to him in faith, all of us who are “in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1) are joint heirs with him (Rom. 8:17), who have escaped from all condemnation of law.

The temporary nature of the Mosaic code, as far as it was intended only for the Jewish nation, is evidenced also by the way in which this code was given to the Jews. Paul uses the same word which Stephen employed, but he has the aorist passive participle διαταγείς, “put into force as an ordinance,” while Stephen uses the plural noun διαταγᾶς (see Acts 7:53). The agent in the passive is God; the aorist records the historical fact. God used the angels in his communication of the ordinances to Moses. We must include far more than the two tables of stone, namely also the whole Tabernacle and many other features. Paul and Stephen refer to Deut. 33:2, compare Heb. 2:2.

Just how the angels functioned in the giving of the law to Moses we do not know. Deut. 33:2 speaks of the thunder, lightning, earthquake, trumpet on Sinai. Over against the Gentiles, who had no law that was given in such a glorious way, this mode of giving exalted the law of Moses; the Jews were proud of having such a law. Here, however, the reverse is stressed. The glory remains, it was given “through angels,” but Christ, the Seed, who received the promise is vastly greater than all angels. So also the testament promise is far greater than the ordained law.

Ἐν differs from διά; the angels were God’s servants, his means, but Moses was not Israel’s servant and means but Israel’s representative. Exod. 20:19. This shows us the sense of μεσίτης, which does not here mean Friedenstifter but Uebermittler, not a mediator or an intermediary between two estranged parties who brings them together again but one who merely transmits. In the matter of the law God functioned through angels, yet not with Israel itself but with Israel’s representative who bore all the ordinances to the people.

“Hand” = service. Moses is not mentioned by name. The anarthrous nouns say that he belongs to the class of men who represent others; there is a class of them. In the case of “the Seed,” Christ, this was far different. He inherited the promise of the testament; he was the Mediator in the highest sense of the term, himself the God-man who reconciled the world to God.

Galatians 3:20

20 This helps us to understand the statement which, despite its simplicity, is said to have received about 250 different and divergent interpretations. Now the mediator does not belong to one person; but God is one person. One person acts for himself; it is a multitude such as Israel that needs a mediator in the sense of a representative to receive what the one (God) transmits to all of them. Let us keep to the context; this is said with reference to the transmission of the law to the whole people of Israel by Moses. It is also said in contrast to the way in which the testament and its promise were given. Being one person, God acted for himself and needed no representative when he was giving the law; being a young nation, Israel had a representative when it was receiving the law from God. God did not give the law to each Israelite separately; Moses received it for all of them.

The article in the expression “the mediator” is generic, it generalizes from what is said about “a mediator’s hand” in v. 19. “Is not of one” is the Greek idiom for “does not belong to one.” God is one person and can act for himself. The διά used in v. 19 shows that the angels were not regarded as God’s representatives even also as there was a number of them. The observation is correct that, if Paul had intended to say that a mediator does not belong to one party only but always to two parties, he would have said “two.” But then “mediator” would signify a go-between who brings two separated parties together. The giving of the Mosaic law was not at all a transaction of this kind.

The point is that Paul brushes away the idea that the law is in some way an addition to or an alteration of God’s will and testament to Abraham which was already in full force for hundreds of years. It is only a temporary and a subordinate set of regulations that were intended for the Jewish nation. Hence the great difference in the mode of procedure. When God established his testament with Abraham, God appeared to Abraham (Gen. 17:1–21) in person, and when the testament was executed, God was in Christ (2 Cor. 5:19). The testament was given in person to the one Abraham; correspondingly, the inheritance was paid out to the one Heir, Christ. But the law was intended for the whole nation of Jews, their representative Moses brought it to them. The difference is so great that without perversion of the facts nobody can possibly make this law anything that is even remotely like a late codicil to the testament, to say nothing of substituting the law for the testament and thereby making it void.

The great lack in the law: its inability to produce life.

Galatians 3:21

21 In v. 15–18 Paul stresses the late date of the law and the fact that this excluded any modification of the testament by means of the law. In v. 19, 20 he shows the temporary nature of the law which was evidenced also by the way in which it was given. Now he adds the fact of the inability of the law to give life, which means that it could not possibly produce righteousness.

The further question is raised. If the law is so distinct and different from the testament, is only temporary in its function, etc: Is the law, then, contrary to the promises of God? Paul repudiates the idea as being altogether wrong: Perish the thought! This expression is explained in 2:17. To have the law alter the testament, to attach it to the testament (gospel) as a vital part, or to substitute it for the testament, is the one extreme; to make the law a contradiction of the testament (gospel) and thus to cast aside the law (antinomism), is the other extreme. By rejecting the first of these alternatives we are not forced to accept the second; and, of course, vice versa. Both are false, contrary to the facts. We do not have to decide between extremes.

Since the Judaizers would not think of rejecting the law of Moses as being contrary to the testament, since they would point to this extreme alternative only in order to force acceptance of the opposite extreme, Paul does not at once show that the law is not contrary to the gospel but points to the lack and the inability of all law. It is not κατά, “against or contrary to,” the testament (gospel) but differs from it in that vital point which the Judaizers fail to see.

For if there had been given a law, one able to make alive, actually the righteousness would have been (derived) from the law. “Law” in general (no article), thus also the Mosaic law but equally all other law lacks the ability “to make alive” (aorist, punctiliar), to produce spiritual life. That is why it cannot produce “the righteousness” we need to attain salvation. For one must have life in order to live in righteousness even to the slightest degree. That is why Paul points to this inability to bring forth life.

With regard to the testament of promise matters are different; it produces faith which is life. It grasps God’s righteousness in Christ (Rom. 3:21, 22), (the imputed righteousness), which means salvation, and it brings forth a life of righteousness (acquired righteousness). See the vast and the essential difference between the testament (gospel) and all law!

Yes, the law “was given,” John 1:17. The Mosaic law was, indeed, a great gift of which the Jews were rightfully proud—if they had only used it aright (Rom. 3:20). The implication of the statement is the fact that law is always given, it is never produced by man himself. All evolutionary origin of law is denied. The passive includes the agent: there must always be the divine Lawgiver. This is true also of the law written in the hearts of Gentiles which is greatly blurred by the darkening effect of sin.

We may find a condition of past unreality in the apodosis as well as in the protasis. For ἦν with ἄν may be either present or past unreality, the imperfect of “to be” doing duty for the aorist of this verb (R. 1015). Only the context decides. Here past unreality is more in place than present: “would have been” and not “would be.” For Abraham must be included, he who certainly obtained righteousness without law (v. 6), he who received the testament of the promises (gospel), v. 16. On “righteousness,” the quality due to God’s verdict, see v. 6. “A law, one able,” etc., leaves “law” (without the article) general, while the articulated participle makes a particular application (R. 777).

If a law had ever been given by God that was able to produce life, then and then alone the righteousness would have been ἐκνόμου, have its source in this law. But the world has never received a law of this kind. If a law were of this kind, it would not be law; if it were law, it would not be of this kind. The very idea of a law producing life is a contradiction. That means an equal contradiction in the idea of law furnishing righteousness. When the Judaizers and the Pharisees in general sought to do “works of law,” these were not righteousness but filthy rags (Isa. 64:6), a pretense, a spurious imitation; God did not declare these workers of law righteous, they declared themselves righteous (Luke 16:15) as the criminal always likes to acquit himself.

Galatians 3:22

22 How the matter really stood since there was no law that was able to make alive and afford the needed righteousness, is now stated in a striking way. But the Scripture locked up everything together under sin in order that the promise might be given as a result of faith in Jesus Christ to those believing.

Ἀλλά is placed in contrast with the question Paul has emphatically denied in v. 21. No, the Mosaic law is not contrary to the promises made to Abraham; no law can compete with the promises since it is unable, as the promises are, to produce life and thus righteousness. “But” this was the situation: God locked up everything together under sin in order to achieve his great purpose, the gift of the promise to all believers. It could not come out of law which because of its very nature cannot produce life and righteousness. The gift was pure promise, and faith, faith alone was to receive it as a possession.

Paul does not say that “the law” locked up everything together under sin but that “the Scripture” did so. He again identifies the Scripture with God (v. 8). “The Scripture” is God’s recorded will. The supposition that this refers to one particular passage such as Deut. 27:26 (see v. 10) is too narrow. When “the Scripture” is named, there is a reference to many passages; we have a sample in the list Paul uses in Rom. 3:9–18. Many more may be cited. They all express God’s judgment on sinners. Rom. 3:9 states that this includes Jews as well as Gentiles.

“The Scripture locked up everything together under sin.” The verb is placed forward for the sake of emphasis: no less did the Scripture do than lock up everything together in one mass, allowed no difference (Rom. 3:22), made no exception. It is striking to note that Paul does not say “all men” but uses the neuter “all the things,” i.e., “everything.” Yet τὰπάντα is not the indefinite πάντα; “everything” refers definitely to all that pertains to men, all of whom were sinners. We may think of their thoughts, words, and deeds, of their whole character and life. The view that this neuter plural means σπέρματα, “all the seed,” i.e., all Jews, is strange. Everything without exception was locked and sealed and thus doomed “under sin” by the recorded judgment of God. “Under sin” = under the curse and the power of sin. Nothing pertaining to men could possibly escape the divine judgment which condemned all of it as sin.

The law extended back only to Moses. While it was recorded later than the giving of the law on Sinai, the Scripture reaches back to Adam by whom sin came into the world (Rom. 5:12). This is the reason that Paul writes “the Scripture” and not “the law.” The other reason is this, because the Jews had the Scripture they could thus see what this Scripture did with “everything,” namely lock it all up together under sin. What hope was there, then, that those who had all of this Scripture before their eyes might escape this locking up by means of works of law? Absolutely none.

For the purpose which God had in mind in this Scriptural judgment of his was by no means to leave men with “everything” they had, thus locked up and doomed to damnation. The Scripture itself recorded his ultimate purpose which was man’s salvation: “in order that the promise might be given as a result of faith to those believing.” This was the one way of escape. This promise is the one Abraham received, by which he received righteousness through faith (v. 8, 16), the promise to be fulfilled in Abraham’s Seed who is Christ. It was God’s purpose to convey this promise to men, to bestow it upon them as a gift with all that it contained. How the gift was to be bestowed is stated most clearly: “as a result of faith in Jesus Christ to all those who believe.” Faith is doubly emphasized, both as a source (ἐκ) and as a mark of all who have the gift (the characterizing participle). The Scripture placed Abraham before all the Jews who had the Old Testament by pointing to his faith and by calling attention to the fact that he believed the promise even long before the Mosaic law was given.

How, then, can Judaizers say, or the Galatians for a moment believe, that the substance of the promise (gospel) is received by means of law and works of law? A promise is received only by faith. Promise and faith are correlatives. See this in v. 6–9; also that works of law leave one under the curse in v. 10. Faith and believing are the subjective means as the promise (gospel) is the objective means of righteousness. “Faith” always has its contents, is never empty; it is “faith in Jesus Christ” (objective genitive), he in whom as Abraham’s Seed the promise given to Abraham is fulfilled.

It is all so plain in Scripture. But the Jews found only law and then misused this law for works of law. And now the Judaizers were trying to draw the Galatians back under law where righteousness could never be obtained, where they would again be locked up under sin. “Locked up together” is a characteristic term of this epistle which proclaims the gospel of Christian liberty.

The law was only a guardsman and a paidagogos‘.

Galatians 3:23

23 The Scripture locked up everything under sin. The Scripture record goes back to Adam, the first sinner. What, then, had the Mosaic law to do which came in so late after Abraham’s time (v. 17)? Its function was very secondary and also ended with Christ (v. 19). Moreover, before the faith came, we were being kept under guard by law, being locked up together for the faith about to be revealed.

During the period when the Mosaic law was in force it functioned as a legal guardsman—that is all. It stood as a guard over those who were locked up together under sin. Call the law a warden for that period. In v. 17 Paul states when the Mosaic law arrived; in v. 19 until what time it functioned, “until the Seed (Christ) came.” “Before the faith came” covers the period thus already marked out: from Moses to Christ.

“Before the faith came” thus = “until the Seed (Christ) came.” What the coming of the faith means we see from the phrase “for the faith about to be revealed.” The coming refers to this revelation. It occurred with the coming of Christ, with his bringing the great fulfillment of the testamentary promise. This fulfillment stood forth in complete revelation for Jews and for Gentiles alike (v. 8, 9). Paul uses a striking term when he speaks of this as “the faith” arriving and being revealed. Note the article, it is not “faith” in general but “the faith” in a specific sense. Abraham certainly had faith (v. 6), so did all the Old Testament saints, namely subjective faith.

“The faith” is to be taken objectively yet not as designating a period. It designates the substance of all justifying and saving faith in the hearts of believers. Before this substance came in Christ it existed only in promise and was embraced by faith as the sure promise of God (Abraham is the example). Then Christ brought the fulfillment, and in him this stood fully revealed; from then on believers embraced the fulfilled and revealed promise, i.e., the Christ who had actually come as promised, “the faith” in this sense.

Δέ is not adversative; it = “moreover” and adds the new point as to how the Mosaic law functioned during this period with reference to Christ, “the faith” in the sense of substance. This law could do nothing toward bringing the faith. Christ’s coming was completely assured by the promise. Only this much is true, the Mosaic law would have had no object and would never have been given save for the promise and its fulfillment in Christ.

What, then, did this law do during this entire period of waiting since it came in on Sinai? It was posted as a guard or sentry over us, Paul says, who were locked in together under sin by the Scripture as stated in v. 22: “By law we were being kept under guard as being locked up together for the faith (Christ),” etc. “By law” (no article) means that the Mosaic law acted as law. The Mosaic law was, of course, “law” and therefore acted in the capacity of law. One of its functions was to stand guard. So the Mosaic law stood guard as law, like a sentry, until it was relieved of its duty by the arrival of Christ, “the faith.”

When Paul says “we were guarded” he, of course, means “we Jews.” But this is to be understood in the sense of Rom. 3:19; the law speaks to those who are under it, to whom it was given, and these were the Jews and not the Gentiles; but when the Mosaic law held all the Jews under guard as it did, it thereby stopped every mouth and declared the whole world guilty and subject to God’s judgment. What this law did for the Jews had its bearing on the whole world, also on all the Gentiles who did not have the Mosaic law. If God dealt so with the descendants of Abraham, how would he deal with those who were nothing but pagans? In v. 22 the Scriptures locked up “everything” under sin. Paul now adds that the law stood sentry even over the Jews as those who were locked up.

The imperfect “we were being guarded” reaches back to Sinai and covers that entire period; it is matched by the durative present participle “as being locked up together”; but both tenses imply that this condition was to be followed by another, for both are open tenses, their action is not final. The idea of the verb is not that of being guarded against hostile attack but that of being in a prison and prevented from any possible escape; yea, there stood this mighty sentry all the time so that all Jews might see that they could not escape.

Yet he stood there because they were to escape. We have this stated already in v. 22. From Adam onward the Scripture confined everything under sin only in order that men might accept the promise by faith in Christ and thus escape from sin. Now Paul adds (δέ) that even then the Mosaic law kept its guard over the Jews, including those who believed, as locked up together for the fulfillment that was to be revealed in Christ. During the period from Sinai until Christ the sentry stood guarding even the believers. All the old Jewish believers had to observe the Mosaic law.

The idea is not that they were still held under the damnation of sin like the unbelieving Jews but that they were held by this sentry “for the faith about to be revealed,” for the Christ about to come. With their faith in the promise they were not to stray off from the fulfillment of that promise. The fulfillment would come from the Jews and from no other source (John 4:22); the Samaritans, for instance, worshipped they knew not what. It was the Mosaic law which kept the Jews for the fulfillment.

“About to be revealed” is a periphrastic substitute for the future tense and is not often found with the aorist infinitive (R. 857), but is punctiliar in the case of this aorist infinitive (R. 878). The revelation was to occur at a definite future time, namely when Christ came (v. 19). That would be the complete revelation for the Jews and for the whole world. Then the sentry duty of the Mosaic law would no longer be needed, it would end.

That time was now past. The guard had been recalled. What folly for the Judaizers to claim that he was still on duty and to invent for him an outrageous duty, one that he had never had, namely to hold believers to works of law by which nothing could be attained except the curse (v. 10)!

Galatians 3:24

24 And so (ὥστε, R. 999) the law has been our slave-guardian for Christ in order that as a result of faith we might get to be declared righteous. But the faith having come, no longer are we under a slave-guardian.

With a closely allied figure Paul restates what he has just said about our being kept under guard by law. The sentry has been a παιδαγωγός for the Jews until Christ came. This term is literally, “boy’s leader” and refers to the attendant, generally a slave, whom a wealthy Greek or Roman father provided for his son during the years between seven and seventeen, whose duty it was to attend and to watch over the lad. He took the boy to school and to gymnastic exercises, watched and corrected his deportment so that it might befit his station, and kept him from hurtful associations and influences, from foolish and hurtful actions. The lad was thus trained early and long ever to be a gentleman. The forbidding vultus paedagogi came to be proverbial. This “boy’s guide” was not the boy’s teacher except as indicated; nor was he appointed to administer punishment, for the father attended to the latter.

“And so,” Paul says, “the law has been our boy’s guardian for Christ,” γέγονεν, “hath been” (R. V.), “was” (A. V.), but not “is become” (R. V., American Committee); for this function of the Mosaic law as also this law itself with all its ceremonialism ended with Christ. This perfect does not reach from the past to the present (Paul’s time, our own time), it stopped when Christ came; the graph is not ·→ but >→· (R. 895).

Paul’s statement is historical and not general or doctrinal. The American Committee seems to have confused the past historical fact which Paul presents to the Galatians, that during the period from Sinai to Christ the Mosaic law functioned as a paidagogos‘ for the Jews, with the doctrinal statement which we formulate when we now adopt Paul’s language about a paidagogos‘ and call the moral law, no matter in what formulation, in that of the Ten Commandments or in any other, a means for directing or driving us to Christ. Paul is speaking of the ceremonial contents of the Mosaic law which were completely abrogated when Christ came, which had fulfilled the purpose for which they had been given when the faith was revealed (v. 23).

Yes, all the ceremonial regulations served just as a slave-guardian did for the boy in his charge. These regulations kept the Jews from mingling with the Gentiles, the bad boys who had no guardian, whose influence and association would bring pagan contamination. All these regulations focused on Christ; they were full of types of Christ. Think of the high priesthood, the sacrifices, the Temple itself (John 2:19–21). All these were “for or towards Christ.” None of them had any meaning apart from Christ who was about to be revealed; all of them had served their historic purpose when Christ was revealed.

“For Christ” is elucidated by the purpose clause even as εἰς denotes purpose or aim: “in order that we might get to be declared righteous.” This does not mean to get this declaration when Christ came. Millions of Jews died during the period between Sinai and Calvary. But this entire law ever pointed them to Christ, their Messiah, so that these Jews might believe in him as Abraham had believed and had been declared righteous as a result of faith. So the Jews were to believe and to be declared righteous (see v. 6, “righteousness”). The Old Testament believers were justified just as we are by faith in Christ, but they had the Christ who was to come while we have the Christ who has come.

This does not mean that the law worked faith and justification. The law never does that (v. 21b). But this we may say: as regulations all these were law; but all the types and figures in these regulations that referred to Christ were gospel. And this gospel content of the legal regulations helped to work faith, for this content went with the promise made to Abraham.

It is a misunderstanding of Paul’s figure of the boy’s guardian when the figure is made an allegory. This loses the tertium comparationis. Compare R., W. P., who regards Christ as “the Schoolmaster” and says that the guardian is dismissed, and that we are now “in the school of Christ.” But the guardian sat in the school (and in the gymnasium), watched the boy there, and then took him home. The guardian went everywhere with the boy. He was not only his teacher. The point of this figure is the immaturity of the boy (4:1–3). He was rid of the guardian only after reaching maturity. As far as school was concerned, the school ended for him even before he was seventeen and was considered mature enough to dispense with a guardian slave.

It is startling in a way that Paul says: ἐκπίστεωςδικαιωθῶμεν, for with ἐκ he makes faith the source of God’s act of justification. But Paul does this already in v. 12, and twice in Rom. 1:17, and in Rom. 4:16. How can faith be the source of justification? If we conceive the essence of faith to be an activity, ein Holen Christi, as it has been called, we must say that Paul is wrong, for in this sense faith could not be the source of God’s justifying (and we may add his elective) act. But Paul presented faith as a passivity, ein sich geben lessen. In the instant of its creation by the gospel Christ is given to faith.

When I lie unconscious, say as I drift into death, and am capable of not the least activity, Christ is mine by this divine gift. Faith, so defined, is, indeed, the source of justification. Thus our fathers speak of election “in view of faith” and most carefully explain this phrase as signifying “in view of the saving merits of Christ perseveringly apprehended by faith.” The power in the source lies in this content of faith and not in an activity. When faith is correctly defined, like Paul, we need not fear to attribute too much to it.

Galatians 3:25

25 Paul continues: “But the faith having come,” the faith in the sense of v. 23 (Christ), “no longer are we under a slave-guardian” (no article). With the arrival of “the faith” all mentorship, whether of the Mosaic law or of any other kind, ended automatically. The aorist participle is again historical. With the arrival of Christ everything changed for all believers whether they were native Jews, foreign proselyte believers, or pagans who were converted by the apostles. “No longer are we” refers to the “we” of the previous verses, namely Jews. Everything resembling a paidagogos‘ was abolished, not only for believing Jews, but for all Jews; and if for them, then naturally also for all others. Since Christ came there has never been a paidagogos‘ such as the Jews had by God’s appointment. The apostles were not sent out into the world by Christ to offer the Gentiles the old Jewish legal system but to offer “the faith” alone.

Galatians 3:26

26 The “we” forms occurring in v. 23–25 speak of Jews, the aorists of the time before Christ. In v. 25 Paul comes down to the arrival of Christ and thus says of the Jews that “we (Jews) are no longer under a guardian.” He now turns to the Galatians and tells them what this abrogation of the Mosaic law, this abolition of the paidagogos‘ means for them.

“For” = that you may understand what this means for you, note what you are. For you all are God’s sons through this faith in Christ Jesus. All of you Galatians, whether former Jews or former Gentiles, are now “God’s sons,” nothing less. The predicate, which is placed before the copula, is emphatic. “Sons” is the significant term, mature, full-grown sons, who are in possession of the inheritance, the fulfillment of the promise (v. 18). The A. V. translates “children of God”; but τέκνα could not be used here. Its connotation is dearness; but the believers of the Old Testament time were as dear to God as those of the New Testament. “Children” may also connote immaturity, and it would do that here. Υἱοί, as the context requires, suggests the idea of standing, independent standing, that is free from any mentor such as children would have (a nurse, a slave-guardian).

The point is that the Galatians are not in a position that resembles that of the Old Testament believers. Theirs is full Christian liberty. More than this. The Judaizers were trying to put the Galatians back under the Mosaic regulations, and that not as the Old Testament believers were once under them but in a monstrous way such as God never thought of during the Old Testament period, namely that the Galatians should seek to be saved by observing these regulations. God had appointed the law as a mentor for his children, the Judaizers wanted this mentor turned into a tyrant slave driver for his sons. Paul tells the Galatians that even the mentor is gone, that they are now free sons.

“God’s sons through the faith in connection with Christ Jesus” speaks of “the faith” exactly as was done in v. 23–25 where the article appears three times as it now does a fourth time. “The faith” is again objective. This objective substance of the faith is, of course, retained in the heart by subjective faith, by believing; but Paul stresses the objective means (διά) of the sonship of the Galatians. When this is noted, the debate about the phrase “in Christ Jesus” becomes superfluous. The A. V. does not separate by a comma; the R. V. does and thereby has two separate modifiers of “you are.” The A.

V. is correct: “the (objective) faith” is ever connected with (ἐν) Christ Jesus. All that we believe centers in Christ, the Messiah who is Jesus. Paul’s thought is not clearly apprehended when we take the sense to be: by believing (subjectively) in Christ (as the object). When Paul has this in mind he writes: “faith (no article) of Jesus Christ (genitive) as in v. 22. C.-K. 1083 is misleading when he speaks of Gotteskindschaft (it should be Sohnschaft) as though a corresponding conduct is implied. The context makes no reference to conduct.

Galatians 3:27

27 With an explanatory “for” Paul adds: For as many of you as were baptized in connection with Christ did put on Christ. “As many as” takes up the “all you” of v. 26 and is to be understood in the same sense: whether formerly Jews or formerly pagans. Paul points the Galatians to their baptism as the date when they received “the faith” into their hearts. Baptism is an essential part of “the faith” (substance). By receiving the one the other is received. Both are objective to be, of course, received subjectively.

Robertson’s grammar (592) is most convincing regarding static εἰς in Rom. 6:3, etc.: ὅσοιἐβαπτίσθημενεἰςΧριστὸνεἰςτὸνθάνατοναὐτοῦἐβαπτίσθημεν, and declares, “The notion of sphere is the true one.” It is most decidedly. Rom. 6:3 must thus be translated: “As many of us as were baptized in Christ (not into) were baptized in his death (not into).” And in Matt. 28:19 the sense is, “in the name (not into).” This the papyri have taught us. All the former labored explanations of this εἰς are thus permanently corrected. The New Testament was written when εἰς was being used with verbs of condition and even verbs of being which formerly had been using ἐν so that we meet εἶναιεἰς. This usage continued until in the Greek of the present time ἐν has disappeared. Here Paul writes just as he did in Rom. 6:3: “as many as were baptized εἰς Christ,” in Christ.

Have no fear in regard to mysticism in the preposition, for the sense of εἰς is ἐν, and the sense of this latter is connection, location in the same sphere: “in connection with Christ.” Baptism is ever in connection with Christ, in connection with his death (Rom. 6), in connection with the Name of the Father, etc., (Matt. 28:19), in connection with the remission of sins (Acts 2:38), the sphere and connection being indicated by the noun or the nouns that follow the preposition. Here the idea is not auf Christum (Zahn), which would require the Greek ἐπί, or in Beziehung auf. The whole action of baptism, the command, all the promises included in the sacrament as well as all else are wholly and completely connected with Christ, in one blessed sphere with him.

Paul says: By being baptized in Christ all you baptized Galatians “did put on Christ,” or, as the middle may be rendered, “did allow yourselves to be clothed with Christ.” On the permissive middle see R. 808, etc.; B.-D. 317. This verb does not mean “to play a role,” the Galatians, like actors, being dressed up as Christ (Zahn). Nor does the idea of putting on Christ mean to acquire the same relation to God that Christ had, the relation of sonship. Nor is baptism “a badge or uniform of service like that of the soldier,” his sacramentum, oath of fealty, a “symbolic picture” (R., W. P.). He who puts on Christ becomes partaker of his salvation. The imagery is not pagan but that of the Old Testament.

To put on Christ is to receive justification: “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me in the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels,” Isa. 61:10. Compare Luke 15:22; Matt. 22:11; Ps. 132:9, 16. The objection that this is not a wedding is unwarranted. Why must allowing oneself to be clothed refer especially to a wedding? Were the grown sons of Greeks and Romans not invested with garments that marked them as sons?

We should not lose ourselves in these details. The stress is on the name “Christ” which repeats “Christ Jesus” of v. 26. The point is the difference between the Old Testament believers who were still under the paidagogos‘, immature, still waiting for the revelation of the faith about to come, and the New Testament believers, God’s sons, mature, free, not needing a mentor. This is the position “the faith” and our baptism give us: Christ is here at last, and we are joined to him. Verse 27 explains “in Christ Jesus” as it is used in v. 26. As the latter is a real, saving connection, so v. 27 is not mere symbolism, not an act of ours such as swearing fealty.

Galatians 3:28

28 The new statement is without a connective and simply parallels the previous one. In baptism all the Galatians are alike clothed with the garment of Christ’s perfect righteousness. In God’s eyes they are all alike. During the time the Mosaic law was in force, this law itself recognized and maintained differences. It had provisions for Jews over against Gentiles—many of them; for free men over against slaves; for men over against women. When the faith and Christ came, these distinctions were abolished.

There is no Jew nor Greek, there is no slave nor free, there is no male and female; for you all are as one person in union with Christ Jesus. Ἔνι = ἔνεστι and is an old idiom (R. 313). Yet ἔνι (the preposition ἐνί [= ἐν] turned into an adverb) implies, not ἐστίν the copula, but ἔστιν, denoting existence: es gibt, “there exists.”

The old distinction between Jew and Gentile is placed first; it extends to nations. Next is that between slave and free, and we must remember that this extended through the whole Roman world at that time. These two pairs are placed chiastically: for Jew was greater than pagan Greek, and free, of course, greater than slave. The last difference is a coordinate pair (note καί), two neuter terms: “no male and female,” i.e., no male and no female sex. Paul stops with this; any other distinction can readily be added. He says: Since you Galatians are all sons of God by faith, clothed with Christ’s righteousness in baptism, all these and similar distinctions and differences are wiped out as to your spiritual standing.

This does not involve a physical mutation. Christians of Jewish or of Greek descent retained their descent, free men and slaves kept their social positions, men and women kept their sex. The gospel changes nothing in the domain of this world and this natural life. In a way the gospel effects changes also in this domain. It has driven out slavery and has elevated the status of woman. But Paul is here speaking of the spiritual domain, of God’s household in which all believers are equally sons of God.

Paul states this in a striking way: “For you are all one person in union with Christ Jesus.” There are still many individuals, πάντεςὑμεῖς, and these remain “many.” But in their union with Christ they are all εἷς, masculine, not ἕν, neuter, “one person,” not just “one thing or body.” The idea to be expressed is not that of the Una Sancta, namely Christ as the head and all of us one great organism or body of many members, each with his special gifts as pictured in Eph. 4:11–16. What union with Christ signifies for Jew, Greek, etc., is this that they are all alike in their spiritual standing, everyone has been baptized, declared righteous, etc., none are higher, none lower, none richer, none poorer, none better, none worse, none with more, none with less, in every respect they are exactly as “one person in Christ Jesus.” All the Galatians are not a lot of sons of God with many differences in their sonship but a unit person. Whichever you take, the sonship is identical. Paul loves to end with a focal unit idea beyond which thought cannot go.

Galatians 3:29

29 Now he even completes the circle by combining the end with the beginning. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise. The condition of reality assumes the fact which is indeed the fact, that the Galatians belong to Christ. “To be of Christ” is a Greek idiom: to be his, to belong to him. This defines what “being in Christ Jesus” means. Yet belonging to Christ fits exactly being heirs with him.

Ἄρα introduces the self-evident deduction: “then you are Abraham’s seed,” his true spiritual descendants (see v. 7). But this is only the intermediate thought; the final one is the apposition. With the word “promise” Paul reaches back to v. 8 where the promise is quoted, to v. 16–18 where the promise is connected with the testament, the inheritance, and the Supreme Heir. With “heirs” Paul recalls what he says of the testament in v. 15, 17, 18. God granted the inheritance to Abraham by promise (v. 17). So, then, as Abraham’s seed we are heirs with Abraham, Abraham and we belong to Christ by faith alone. Or recalling that Christ is “the Seed” (v. 16) of Abraham, the Heir of the testament of promise, we who belong to Christ as Abraham’s spiritual seed are heirs with Christ according to promise.

A silent contrast runs through all these blessed statements: the Mosaic law does not make sons of God, does not make us Abraham’s seed, does not constitute us heirs. It is the promise alone which was fulfilled in Christ; it is faith and baptism and not works of law. Here is the answer to the Judaizers. Could the Galatians fail to feel its convincing power?

R A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, by A. T. Robertson, fourth edition.

M.-M. The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, Illustrated from the Papyri and other Non-Literary Sources, by James Hope Moulton and George Milligan.

C.-K Biblisch-theologisches Woerterbuch der Neutestamentlichen Graezitaet von D. Dr. Hermann Cremer, zehnte, etc., Auflage, herausgegeben von D. Dr. Julius Koegel.

B.-D Friedrich Blass’ Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, vierte, voellig neu-gearbeitete Auflage besorgt von Albert Debrunner.

B.-P Griechisch-Deutsches Woerterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments, etc., von D. Walter Bauer, zweite, etc., Auflage zu Erwin Preuschens Vollstaendigem Griechisch-Deutschem Handwoerterbuch, etc.