the heathen--rather, "the Gentiles"; or "the nations," as the same Greek is translated at the end of the verse. God justifieth the Jews, too, "by faith, not by works." But he specifies the Gentiles in particular here, as it was their case that was in question, the Galatians being Gentiles.
preached before the gospel--"announced beforehand the Gospel." For the "promise" was substantially the Gospel by anticipation. Compare [Joh 8:56]; [He 4:2]. A proof that "the old fathers did not look only for transitory promises" [Article VII, Church of England]. Thus the Gospel, in its essential germ, is older than the law though the full development of the former is subsequent to the latter.
In thee--not "in thy seed," which is a point not here raised; but strictly "in thee," as followers of thy faith, it having first shown the way to justification before God [Alford]; or "in thee," as Father of the promised seed, namely, Christ ([Ga 3:16]), who is the Object of faith ([Ge 22:18]; [Psa 72:17]), and imitating thy faith (see on [Ga 3:9]).
all nations--or as above, "all the Gentiles" ([Ge 12:3]; ; ).
be blessed--an act of grace, not something earned by works. The blessing of justification was to Abraham by faith in the promise, not by works. So to those who follow Abraham, the father of the faithful, the blessing, that is, justification, comes purely by faith in Him who is the subject of the promise.
9. they--and they alone.
of faith--(See on [Ga 3:7], beginning).
with--together with.
faithful--implying what it is in which they are "blessed together with him," namely, faith, the prominent feature of his character, and of which the result to all who like him have it, is justification.
10. Confirmation of [Ga 3:9]. They who depend on the works of the law cannot share the blessing, for they are under the curse "written," [De 27:26], Septuagint. Perfect obedience is required by the words, "in all things." Continual obedience by the word, "continueth." No man renders this obedience (compare [Ro 3:19], ). It is observable, Paul quotes Scripture to the Jews who were conversant with it, as in Epistle to the Hebrews, as said or spoken; but to the Gentiles, as written. So Matthew, writing for Jews, quotes it as "said," or "spoken"; Mark and Luke, writing for Gentiles, as "written" ([Mt 1:22]; [Mr 1:2]; [Lu 2:22], 23) [Townson].
11. by the law--Greek, "IN the law." Both in and by are included. The syllogism in this verse and [Ga 3:12], is, according to Scripture, "The just shall live by faith." But the law is not of faith, but of doing, or works (that is, does not make faith, but works, the conditional ground of justifying). Therefore "in," or "by the law, no man is justified before God" (whatever the case may be before men, [Ro 4:2])--not even if he could, which he cannot, keep the law, because the Scripture element and conditional mean of justification is faith.
The just shall live by faith--([Ro 1:17]; [Ha 2:4]). Not as Bengel and Alford, "He who is just by faith shall live." The Greek supports English Version. Also the contrast is between "live by faith" (namely, as the ground and source of his justification), and "live in them," namely, in his doings or works ([Ga 3:12]), as the conditional element wherein he is justified.
12. doeth--Many depended on the law although they did not keep it; but without doing, saith Paul, it is of no use to them ([Ro 2:13], 17, 23; ).
13. Abrupt exclamation, as he breaks away impatiently from those who would involve us again in the curse of the law, by seeking justification in it, to "Christ," who "has redeemed us from its curse." The "us" refers primarily to the Jews, to whom the law principally appertained, in contrast to "the Gentiles" ([Ga 3:14]; compare [Ga 4:3], ). But it is not restricted solely to the Jews, as Alford thinks; for these are the representative people of the world at large, and their "law" is the embodiment of what God requires of the whole world. The curse of its non-fulfilment affects the Gentiles through the Jews; for the law represents that righteousness which God requires of all, and which, since the Jews failed to fulfil, the Gentiles are equally unable to fulfil. [Ga 3:10], "As many as are of the works of the law, are under the curse," refers plainly, not to the Jews only, but to all, even Gentiles (as the Galatians), who seek justification by the law. The Jews' law represents the universal law which condemned the Gentiles, though with less clear consciousness on their part ([Ro 2:1-29]). The revelation of God's "wrath" by the law of conscience, in some degree prepared the Gentiles for appreciating redemption through Christ when revealed. The curse had to be removed from off the heathen, too, as well as the Jews, in order that the blessing, through Abraham, might flow to them. Accordingly, the "we," in "that we might receive the promise of the Spirit," plainly refers to both Jews and Gentiles.
redeemed us--bought us off from our former bondage ([Ga 4:5]), and "from the curse" under which all lie who trust to the law and the works of the law for justification. The Gentile Galatians, by putting themselves under the law, were involving themselves in the curse from which Christ has redeemed the Jews primarily, and through them the Gentiles. The ransom price He paid was His own precious blood ([1Pe 1:18], ; compare [Mt 20:28]; [Ac 20:28]; [1Co 6:20]; ; [1Ti 2:6]; [2Pe 2:1]; [Re 5:9]).
being made--Greek, "having become."
a curse for us--Having become what we were, in our behalf, "a curse," that we might cease to be a curse. Not merely accursed (in the concrete), but a curse in the abstract, bearing the universal curse of the whole human race. So [2Co 5:21], "Sin for us," not sinful, but bearing the whole sin of our race, regarded as one vast aggregate of sin. See Note there. "Anathema" means "set apart to God," to His glory, but to the person's own destruction. "Curse," an execration.
written--([De 21:23]). Christ's bearing the particular curse of hanging on the tree, is a sample of the "general" curse which He representatively bore. Not that the Jews put to death malefactors by hanging; but after having put them to death otherwise, in order to brand them with peculiar ignominy, they hung the bodies on a tree, and such malefactors were accursed by the law (compare [Ac 5:30]; ). God's providence ordered it so that to fulfil the prophecy of the curse and other prophecies, Jesus should be crucified, and so hang on the tree, though that death was not a Jewish mode of execution. The Jews accordingly, in contempt, call Him Tolvi, "the hanged one," and Christians, "worshippers of the hanged one"; and make it their great objection that He died the accursed death [Trypho, in Justin Martyr, p. 249] ([1Pe 2:24]). Hung between heaven and earth as though unworthy of either!
14. The intent of "Christ becoming a curse for us"; "To the end that upon the Gentiles the blessing of Abraham (that is, promised to Abraham, namely, justification by faith) might come in Christ Jesus" (compare [Ga 3:8]).
that we might receive the promise of the Spirit--the promised Spirit ([Joe 2:28], 29; [Lu 24:49]). This clause follows not the clause immediately preceding (for our receiving the Spirit is not the result of the blessing of Abraham coming on the Gentiles), but "Christ hath redeemed us," &c.
through faith--not by works. Here he resumes the thought in [Ga 3:2]. "The Spirit from without, kindles within us some spark of faith Whereby we lay hold of Christ, and even of the Spirit Himself, that He may dwell within us" [Flacius].
15. I speak after the manner of men--I take an illustration from a merely human transaction of everyday occurrence.
but a man's covenant--whose purpose it is far less important to maintain.
if it be confirmed--when once it hath been ratified.
no man disannulleth--"none setteth aside," not even the author himself, much less any second party. None does so who acts in common equity. Much less would the righteous God do so. The law is here, by personification, regarded as a second person, distinct from, and subsequent to, the promise of God. The promise is everlasting, and more peculiarly belongs to God. The law is regarded as something extraneous, afterwards introduced, exceptional and temporary (Ga 3:17-19, 21-24).
addeth--None addeth new conditions "making" the covenant "of none effect" ([Ga 3:17]). So legal Judaism could make no alteration in the fundamental relation between God and man, already established by the promises to Abraham; it could not add as a new condition the observance of the law, in which case the fulfilment of the promise would be attached to a condition impossible for man to perform. The "covenant" here is one of free grace, a promise afterwards carried into effect in the Gospel.
16. This verse is parenthetical. The covenant of promise was not "spoken" (so Greek for "made") to Abraham alone, but "to Abraham and his seed"; to the latter especially; and this means Christ (and that which is inseparable from Him, the literal Israel, and the spiritual, His body, the Church). Christ not having come when the law was given, the covenant could not have been then fulfilled, but awaited the coming of Him, the Seed, to whom it was spoken.
promises--plural, because the same promise was often repeated ([Ge 12:3], ; , ; ; ), and because it involved many things; earthly blessings to the literal children of Abraham in Canaan, and spiritual and heavenly blessings to his spiritual children; but both promised to Christ, "the Seed" and representative Head of the literal and spiritual Israel alike. In the spiritual seed there is no distinction of Jew or Greek; but to the literal seed, the promises still in part remain to be fulfilled ([Ro 11:26]). The covenant was not made with "many" seeds (which if there had been, a pretext might exist for supposing there was one seed before the law, another under the law; and that those sprung from one seed, say the Jewish, are admitted on different terms, and with a higher degree of acceptability, than those sprung from the Gentile seed), but with the one seed; therefore, the promise that in Him "all the families of the earth shall be blessed" ([Ge 12:3]), joins in this one Seed, Christ, Jew and Gentile, as fellow heirs on the same terms of acceptability, namely, by grace through faith ([Ro 4:13]); not to some by promise, to others by the law, but to all alike, circumcised and uncircumcised, constituting but one seed in Christ ([Ro 4:16]). The law, on the other hand, contemplates the Jews and Gentiles as distinct seeds. God makes a covenant, but it is one of promise; whereas the law is a covenant of works. Whereas the law brings in a mediator, a third party ([Ga 3:19], ), God makes His covenant of promise with the one seed, Christ ([Ge 17:7]), and embraces others only as they are identified with, and represented by, Christ.
one ... Christ--not in the exclusive sense, the man Christ Jesus, but "Christ" (Jesus is not added, which would limit the meaning), including His people who are part of Himself, the Second Adam, and Head of redeemed humanity. [Ga 3:28], prove this, "Ye are all ONE in Christ Jesus" (Jesus is added here as the person is indicated). "And if ye be Christ's, ye are Abraham's SEED, heirs according to the promise."
17. this I say--"this is what I mean," by what I said in [Ga 3:15].
continued ... of God--"ratified by God" ([Ga 3:15]).
in Christ--rather, "unto Christ" (compare [Ga 3:16]). However, Vulgate and the old Italian versions translate as English Version. But the oldest manuscripts omit the words altogether.
the law which was--Greek, "which came into existence four hundred thirty years after" ([Ex 12:40], ). He does not, as in the case of "the covenant," add "enacted by God" ([Joh 1:17]). The dispensation of "the promise" began with the call of Abraham from Ur into Canaan, and ended on the last night of his grandson Jacob's sojourn in Canaan, the land of promise. The dispensation of the law, which engenders bondage, was beginning to draw on from the time of his entrance into Egypt, the land of bondage. It was to Christ in him, as in his grandfather Abraham, and his father Isaac, not to him or them as persons, the promise was spoken. On the day following the last repetition of the promise orally ([Ge 46:1-6]), at Beer-sheba, Israel passed into Egypt. It is from the end, not from the beginning of the dispensation of promise, that the interval of four hundred thirty years between it and the law is to be counted. At Beer-sheba, after the covenant with Abimelech, Abraham called on the everlasting God, and the well was confirmed to him and his seed as an everlasting possession. Here God appeared to Isaac. Here Jacob received the promise of the blessing, for which God had called Abraham out of Ur, repeated for the last time, on the last night of his sojourn in the land of promise.
cannot--Greek, "doth not disannul."
make ... of none effect--The promise would become so, if the power of conferring the inheritance be transferred from it to the law ([Ro 4:14]).
18. the inheritance--all the blessings to be inherited by Abraham's literal and spiritual children, according to the promise made to him and to his Seed, Christ, justification and glorification ([Ga 4:7]; [Ro 8:17]; [1Co 6:9]).
but God, &c.--The Greek order requires rather, "But to Abraham it was by promise that God hath given it." The conclusion is, Therefore the inheritance is not of, or from the law ([Ro 4:14]).
19. "Wherefore then serveth the law?" as it is of no avail for justification, is it either useless, or contrary to the covenant of God? [Calvin].
added--to the original covenant of promise. This is not inconsistent with [Ga 3:15], "No man addeth thereto"; for there the kind of addition meant, and therefore denied, is one that would add new conditions, inconsistent with the grace of the covenant of promise. The law, though misunderstood by the Judaizers as doing so, was really added for a different purpose, namely, "because of (or as the Greek, 'for the sake of') the transgressions," that is, to bring out into clearer view the transgressions of it ([Ro 7:7-9]); to make men more fully conscious of their "sins," by being perceived as transgressions of the law, and so to make them long for the promised Saviour. This accords with [Ga 3:23], ; [Ro 4:15]. The meaning can hardly be "to check transgressions," for the law rather stimulates the corrupt heart to disobey it ([Ro 5:20]; ).
till the seed--during the period up to the time when the seed came. The law was a preparatory dispensation for the Jewish nation ([Ro 5:20]; Greek, "the law came in additionally and incidentally"), intervening between the promise and its fulfilment in Christ.
come--(Compare "faith came," [Ga 3:23]).
the promise--([Ro 4:21]).
ordained--Greek, "constituted" or "disposed."
by angels--as the instrumental enactors of the law [Alford] God delegated the law to angels as something rather alien to Him and severe ([Ac 7:53]; [He 2:2], ; compare [De 33:2], "He came with ten thousands of saints," that is, angels, [Psa 68:17]). He reserved "the promise" to Himself and dispensed it according to His own goodness.
in the hand of a mediator--namely, Moses. [De 5:5], "I stood between the Lord and you": the very definition of a mediator. Hence the phrase often recurs, "By the hand of Moses." In the giving of the law, the "angels" were representatives of God; Moses, as mediator, represented the people.