Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Galatians 3:29

Clarke's Commentary

Verse Galatians 3:29. And if ye be Christ's — Or, as several good MSS. read, If ye be one in Christ. If ye have all received justification through his blood, and the mind that was in him, then are ye Abraham's seed; ye are that real, spiritual posterity of Abraham, that other seed, to whom the promises were made; and then heirs, according to that promise, being fitted for the rest that remains for the people of God, that heavenly inheritance which was typified by the earthly Canaan, even to the Jews.

1. THE Galatians, it appears, had begun well, and for a time run well, but they permitted Satan to hinder, and they stopped short of the prize. Let us beware of those teachers who would draw us away from trusting in Christ crucified. By listening to such the Galatians lost their religion.

2. The temptation that leads us astray may be as sudden as it is successful. We may lose in one moment the fruit of a whole life! How frequently is this the case, and how few lay it to heart! A man may fall by the means of his understanding, as well as by means of his passions.

3. How strange is it that there should be found any backslider! that one who once felt the power of Christ should ever turn aside! But it is still stranger that any one who has felt it, and given in his life and conversation full proof that he has felt it, should not only let it slip, but at last deny that he ever had it, and even ridicule a work of grace in the heart! Such instances have appeared among men.

4. The Jewish covenant, the sign of which was circumcision, is annulled, though the people with whom it was made are still preserved, and they preserve the rite or sign. Why then should the covenant be annulled? This question admits a twofold answer.

1. This covenant was designed to last only for a time, and when that time came, having waxed old, it vanished away.

2. It was long before that void, through want of the performance of the conditions.

The covenant did not state merely, ye shall be circumcised, and observe all the rites and ceremonies of the law; but, ye shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbour as yourself. This condition, which was the very soul of the covenant, was universally broken by that people. Need they wonder, therefore, that God has cast then off? Jesus alone can restore them, and him they continue to reject. To us the new covenant says the same things: Ye shall love the Lord, c. if we do not so, we also shall be cut off. Take heed, lest he who did not spare the natural branches, spare not thee; therefore, make a profitable use of the goodness and severity of God.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

The law’s purpose illustrated (3:23-4:7)

Jews under the law were like children under the control of a guardian, but this was only in anticipation of the coming of Christ. When he came, those who trusted in him were forgiven the sins they had committed against the law and were put right with God. Instead of being like children under a guardian, they now enjoyed the freedom of full-grown mature sons of God (23-26). Since the coming of Christ, all believers are united in him and are God’s children, regardless of race, social status, sex or the law. Being part of Christ, they are part of Abraham’s promised offspring. Those justified by faith are Abraham’s true descendants (27-29).
Paul gives another example, similar to the first, to illustrate the law’s function. A child who inherits his father’s property cannot do as he likes with it until he has reached the age of an adult. Though legally the owner, in reality he is little different from a slave, being under the control of guardians who manage his affairs for him (4:1-2). This illustrates the position of those previously under the law. They were like children receiving instruction. But Christ came and fulfilled the law’s requirements, so that those under its control could be released to enjoy their inheritance as adult sons of God (3-7).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

And if ye are Christ's then are ye Abraham's seed, heirs according to the promise.

This is not merely a continuation of the argument Paul has been making, but it is continued into Galatians 4. The true seed of Abraham (in the plural sense) are all of those who, believing the gospel, have been baptized into Christ, comprising in their corporate totality the seed singular which is Christ, in the sense of his spiritual body. This enabled the Gentiles to be accounted the true seed of Abraham, bypassing the Law of Moses altogether, thus inheriting through the promise to Abraham (Genesis 12:3; Genesis 18:18; Genesis 22:18).

Huxtable has this pertinent observation on this final verse of the chapter:

Those who believe in Christ and are baptized in him are to be understood as here being affirmed to be "Abraham's seed," because, being clothed with Christ, they share his position. "Heirs …" They are heirs, not of Abraham, but of God; for the idea connects to that of the sonship to God (Galatians 3:26), of believers in Christ. E. Huxtable, op. cit., p. 147.

NOTE 1: ON COMMENTS REGARDING Galatians 3:27

Observations under Galatians 3:27 are not intended as a presumption that any mortal knows the mind of God (1 Corinthians 2:16), or the ultimate judgment of the Almighty regarding any man's destiny; for God is too wise to make a mistake and too good to do wrong. The whole province of judging is denied to Christians (Matthew 7:1); on the other hand, the observations under Galatians 3:27, and throughout this series, are merely a conscientious effort to read what seems to be the clear and unequivocal meaning of the sacred New Testament itself. It was Christ who said, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved" (Mark 16:16), and the antithesis of that bold promise justifies the deductions offered under Galatians 3:27. The New Testament is all that people have as the basis of eternal hope; and it is in that frame of reference alone that people have any right to express opinions or form judgments of what is truth. The Lord has promised eternal life conditionally, and only God could change the conditions.

Upon behalf of many precious souls, apparently devoted, spiritual and praiseworthy in so many ways, who have decided to trust God for salvation regardless of their refusal to comply with the conditions, and in many cases, even admit that there are any conditions, let it be said that only God knows if he will or will not find a way for them to whom he has made no promise in the New Testament. The clear and, in a sense, dogmatic interpretations which have been attempted in this series regard only what has been revealed in the New Testament and do not presume to judge the eternal destiny of any fellow-mortal whomsoever, the sole purpose being that of persuading people to accept the salvation of God in Christ upon the condition of their exhibiting "the obedience of faith" (to the best of their intention and ability), the same being the only condition upon which God has promised (in this dispensation) to give any man eternal life. The presumption to affirm what the one true and Almighty God will do for us sinners-all, over and beyond what he has promised to do, simply does not lie within the boundaries of the purpose of these studies.

NOTE 2: JUSTIFICATION NOT POSSIBLE BY LAW

The term "Law" was capitalized throughout this chapter to indicate that the Law of Moses was the opposite of Christianity which Paul was discussing. In two or three places in this chapter, however, Paul used "law" in a sense that many scholars interpret to be more extensive than the Law of Moses only, the logic of such interpretations being clear enough. No doubt Paul's using the "law" in that wider application was for the purpose of including any human law, code of ethics, or system of rules as also being powerless to give justification. Certainly, it is a necessary deduction that if the sacred and divine Law of Moses could not do it, then no lesser system of law whatever could do so.

However, the deduction of theologians to the effect that grace abolishes "all law" is sinful and presumptuous as any religious error ever advocated among people. Paul flatly declared: "Do we then make law of none effect through faith? God forbid: nay, we establish law!" (Romans 3:30). It should be observed that in this quotation the English Revised Version (1885) margin has been followed, giving "law" the wider sense of meaning, being in no way a reference to the Law of Moses. So there is a law which faith establishes; and the nature of it is revealed in the New Testament, as follows:

The law of faith (Romans 3:27).

The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:2).

The perfect law (James 1:25).

The royal law (James 2:8).

The law of liberty (James 2:12).

So fulfill the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2).

In the light of the above passages, it is futile to think of being "under grace and not under law," unless the meaning excludes the law of Christ which every Christian is under. See "The Law of Christ" under Galatians 6:18.

Furthermore, when the author of Hebrews spoke of the abolition of the Law of Moses, he did not say that all law had been abolished, but that "there was of necessity a change of the law"! (Hebrews 7:12). It is that change which Paul discussed in the above chapter, the change from the Law of Moses to the Law of Christ.

One other extremely important consideration is due in this context. If grace has abolished law, then there is no such thing as sin! "Sin is not imputed where there is no law" (Romans 5:13). "Where there is no law, neither is there transgression" (Romans 4:14). "For sin is the transgression of the law" (1 John 3:4). It is clear then that the interpretation of Romans 6:14, "For ye are not under the law, but under grace," if applied to the higher law of the Saviour, becomes the Magna Carta of antinomianism.

NOTE 3: THE FAITH OF CHRIST

This chapter states no less than three times that it is the faith of Christ which saves and justifies, as utterly distinguished from the false notion that it is the sinner's faith which does this. This is in perfect consonance with an extensive body of New Testament teaching to the same effect, as witness the following: (Most of the following is from the KJV.)

Even the righteousness of God through faith of Jesus Christ unto all them that: believe; for there is no distinction (Romans 3:22).

That he might be just and the justifier of him that is of the faith of Jesus (Romans 3:26)

A man is justified not by the works of the law but through faith of Jesus Christ, even we who believed on Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law (Galatians 2:16).

It is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20).

But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe (Galatians 3:22).

In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him (Christ) (Ephesians 3:12).

And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith (Philippians 3:9).

The failure of the English Revised Version (1885) to render these passages according to their true meaning is one of the most deplorable errors in any translation ever distributed. Not only do the KJV and the best modern scholarship testify to the true rendition; but in those instances marked with an asterisk (above), the context itself reveals the meaning to be certainly not that of the sinner's faith in Christ, since the sinner's faith is specifically mentioned in the succeeding clauses. A full dissertation on this exceedingly important truth is given in my Commentary on Romans, Romans 3:22 ff.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

And if ye be Christ’s - If you belong to the Messiah, and are interested in his work.

Then are ye Abraham’s seed - The promise made to Abraham related to the Messiah. It was a promise that in him all should be blessed. Abraham believed in that Messiah, and was distinguished for his faith in him who was to come. If they believed in Christ, therefore, they showed that they were the spiritual descendants of Abraham. No matter whether they were Jews or Gentiles; whether they had been circumcised or not, they had the same spirit which he evinced, and were interested in the promises made to him.

And heirs according to the promise - See Romans 8:17. Are heirs of God. You inherit the blessings promised to Abraham, and partake of the felicity to which he looked forward. You have become truly heirs of God, and this is in accordance with the promise made to Abraham. It is not by the obedience of the Law; it is by faith - in the same way that Abraham possessed the blessing; an arrangement before the giving of the Law, and therefore one that may include all, whether Jews or Gentiles. All are on a level; and all are alike the children of God, and in the same manner, and on the same terms that Abraham was.

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

29.Then are ye Abraham’s seed. This is not intended to convey the idea, that to be a child of Abraham is better than to be a member of Christ, — but to repress the pride of the Jews, who gloried in their privilege, as if they alone were the people of God. They reckoned no distinction higher than to belong to the race of Abraham; and this very distinction he makes to be common to all who believe in Christ. The conclusion rests on this argument, that Christ is the blessed seed, in whom, as we have said, all the children of Abraham are united. He proves this by the universal offer of the inheritance to them all, from which it follows, that the promise includes them among the children. It deserves notice, that, wherever faith is mentioned, it is always his relation to the promise.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Shall we turn now in our Bibles to Galatians chapter three. Background: Paul the apostle had been in the area of Galatia. Galatia was a general area like a county or a state. It was not a city. There were many churches established there. After Paul's departure, other teachers came in declaring that the people could not be saved by a simple faith in Jesus Christ, but must also to that faith add the obedience to the law and the rituals of the law of circumcision. And many of the people in those churches that were brought to the gospel of Jesus Christ through Paul's preaching were taken in by these other teachers that followed Paul, and so a division developed among the brethren there in that area.

These false teachers that had come in had spoken against Paul's authority as an apostle. And they were actually advocating the necessity of proselytizing into Judaism in order to be saved. Keeping of the law and a righteousness which is predicated upon following or observing these particular rules. So, Paul at the end of chapter two said, "I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness could come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain" ( Galatians 2:21 ). Great powerful words, but very true words.

You see, if I could become righteous by keeping a set of rules, then Jesus would not have to die. The fact that Jesus did die declares that no man can be righteous by his own effort or by his own works. God has established a basis for righteousness, but it is not upon works; it's not upon obedience to the law, but it is upon our faith in Jesus Christ. So Paul then opens chapter three,

O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? ( Galatians 3:1-3 )

So, Paul takes them back to the very beginning of their salvation, when they first believed in Jesus Christ, and through their faith in Jesus Christ were accounted righteous before God, before they had done any works at all, God accounted them righteous. Now someone has come along and said, "If you want to really be righteous, then you can't be doing that. If you want to really be righteous, then you've got to be doing this." And they started establishing sort of rules for righteousness, which we are so often prone to do. Now, if you will read ten chapters of the Bible every day, and read a morning devotional, and spend a half hour in prayer, surely you will be much more righteous than the person who doesn't do those things. You see, we're prone to put on that kind of a addition to a person's faith.

"By the works of the law, no flesh can be justified" in the eyes of God ( Galatians 2:16 ). If we could become righteous by obeying the law, any law, any set of rules, then Christ is dead in vain. And so the Galatians were taken in. They were bewitched by the teaching. It sounded so reasonable. But Paul then said, "Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?" Now it's a rhetorical question, because the obvious answer is that they received the Spirit by faith. Now, this epistle to the Galatians is important, because there is, it seems, even to the present time, a great tendency to turn towards works as a basis of my relationship with God. And that's always a dangerous basis for your relationship with God, because our works are not always approved, even by ourselves.

When I was a child growing up in a Pentecostal church, desiring rightfully that fullness of God's Holy Spirit upon my life, I spent many a night in what they called tarrying meetings, as I was tarrying for what they called the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Now, in those churches where I grew up, there were oftentimes what they called testimony meetings. And quite often in the evening, "Anybody have a testimony tonight for the Lord?" And usually there was a certain portion of the meetings set aside for these personal testimonials, and people would get up and testify of God's goodness and God's grace and God's blessings and of problems, many times and all.

But much of my theology was formed from these testimony meetings, and that's why my theology was so mixed up. Because I heard people testify of their receiving of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and I was longing to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And I would hear people say things like, "When I finally took out my cigarettes and laid them down and said, 'God, I'll never smoke again,' then God baptized me with the Holy Spirit." Well, unfortunately, I didn't smoke, or fortunately, so I couldn't lay my cigarettes down.

And there was, though not perhaps declared, there was the subtle innuendo that the baptism of the Holy Spirit somehow came as a reward when you reached a certain degree of consecration or holiness. So that I was actually seeking to receive the Spirit by the works of the law, by keeping the rules, because I had to sign every year a pledge: I won't go to shows, I won't go to dances, I won't smoke, I won't drink, and these. And I would sign the pledge every year. And every year after I'd signed the pledge, I'd immediately try and receive the Holy Spirit 'cause I just signed the pledge. "Lord, look, I'm going to be good." And I wrestled with this, because I could not understand why I tarried so many years and God never filled me with the Spirit.

When I finally received that empowering of the Spirit in my life was when, by faith, one day I just said, "Well, Lord, I'm going to receive it." And I had set aside my concept of my righteousness or my holiness because I didn't smoke and drink. Because I had a real problem, because a friend of mine who did smoke received, and I didn't think God was quite fair. I knew I was far more righteous than he was. And so, when I, by faith . . . and when I received that empowering of the Spirit, I did so by faith.

Paul's question, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit by the hearing of faith, or by the works of the law?" The answer is obviously: you received the Holy Spirit by faith; it's God's gift. You can't deserve it. You can't be worthy of it. And that was the whole context behind the tarrying; it was a cleansing process where you'll become worthy. My body worthy to be the temple of the Holy Spirit? Never, no way. I received the Spirit by the hearing of faith.

Now the next question: "Foolish Galatians, having begun in the Spirit." That's where you start with...you started out in the Spirit, now are you going to be made perfect in your flesh? Are you going to improve upon God's work in your life? And how many times we're trying to improve on our righteousness by works, by obedience, by promising to God, making covenants with God. Promising, "Now, God, I promise this next week I am going to faithfully pray one hour everyday. I promise You, Lord, I'm going to. Now, Lord, on the basis of that promise, I want You to bless me. You know, because after all, I'm going to be so righteous by the end of the week having prayed an hour every day." And having begun in the Spirit, we so often are seeking to be made perfect in the flesh, by our fleshly efforts. Paul is rebuking the Galatians for this false concept.

Have ye suffered [he said] so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain. He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? ( Galatians 3:4-5 )

Again, this creates some problems many times, because there are those that are going around with what they call miracle ministries. And you know, they advertise, "Come and see miracles." And, "Miracles every Monday night," you know. As though God were limited to, you know, "Why, I came Sunday night." "No, no, no, this isn't miracle night yet, come back tomorrow night for the miracles."

Now it has created a problem, because many of these miracle evangelists have deep personal problems. Yet they stand up before a great number of people, and there seems to be miracles wrought through their ministry. There was a fellow, A.A. Allen. He even opened Miracle Valley Ranch in Arizona. A.A. Allen was an alcoholic. He died of acute alcoholism in San Francisco. And yet, he'd get up before the people, and there were miracles that people would testify to as the result of his prayers and the result of his services. Now, you see, that seems totally inconsistent to us. A person to have that kind of power with God, surely you would think he lived a very dedicated, consecrated, holy, righteous life. That this was God's attestation to the person's holiness or righteousness. Not so.

Those that worked miracles do not do it on the basis of their righteousness, and this stumbles a lot of people when they get close to some of these persons that are going around in these miracle meetings, to see the inconsistency of their walk. Stumbles many people, because somehow, we think that this is related to holiness and to righteousness and to the obedience of a fine line of commitment to God.

You see, God does not reward us for our works, for our efforts, for our goodness. Whatever God gives to me, He gives to me on the basis of my believing in His grace. And these men have learned to believe in the grace of God. Not really looking at their own selves, weaknesses, failures or whatever, and they have learned how to inspire people to look to God through faith. And God honors the faith of the people who have come to receive from God.

Any work that God has done in my life comes to me by believing, faith in Jesus Christ and in the grace of God. Now, when you can really assimilate that truth, then you can start to expect God to bless you, though you know that you don't deserve the blessings, because I'm not coming on what I deserve. If I got what I deserved, man, I'd be frying by now. He has not rewarded us according to our iniquities, but "as high as the heaven is above the earth, so high is God's mercy towards them that fear Him" ( Psalms 103:11 ).

So I stand in the grace of God. I walk in the grace of God. Now, does that mean then that I can just go out, and you know, live any kind of an old lascivious life? No, no, no, no, no. The love of Christ constrains me to walk a life that is pleasing, and when I use that as the criteria for my activities, I find that I live a more strict life than when I try and use right and wrong as the basis for my particular activity. Is this right to do? Is this wrong to do? I so often hear that question. That should not be the consideration. The consideration should always be, "Is this pleasing to God if I do it?"

You see, a lot of people say, "Well, there's nothing wrong with that." Ooo, but it doesn't please God. So, as I am living to please God, yet I do not look at myself or my imperfections as the basis for my receiving from God. Or, if I happen to have a good day and have been especially benevolent and have done, you know, some extra good deeds, I don't look to those as the basis of my receiving from God. I don't say, "Well, God, did you see that? Did you observe? Lord, didn't I handle that well? Now don't you think, Lord, I deserve a little special credit for that one, you know? Can't You do this for me? Because look what I just did for You." No, God does not reward me for good efforts, or even good performance. God blesses me because He loves me. And He loves for me to just trust in Him. And He loves it when I seek to please Him. But even that is not the basis for what God gives to me. The basis is God's love and grace for me. He bestows upon me His blessings, His love, as I simply believe in Him to do it and trust Him to do it.

Now, if you are coming to God on the basis of your righteousness, then you're going to be cut short of what God wants to do in your life. You're going to be robbing yourself of many rich blessings that God wants to bestow. But if you come always on the basis of God's love and grace for you, then you'll never be cut short. As I am believing and trusting God to bless my life, even though I know I do not deserve it.

As Jacob said, "Lord, I am not worthy the least of thy mercies" ( Genesis 32:10 ). It isn't my worthiness that counts. Jacob was a scoundrel, and yet God blessed him abundantly, and he knew it. He was a deceiver. He was a conniver. He was a manipulator. And when he looked at God's blessings, "O Lord, I'm not worthy the least of Your mercies, yet you have blessed me."

So, he now enters into this principle coming back to Abraham.

Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness ( Galatians 3:6 ).

What? His believing God. Now, it is true that his belief in God was manifested by his obedience to God. It isn't just saying, "Well, I believe in the Lord. I believe in Jesus." It's more than just a verbal assent to the truth. If I indeed believe, my belief will be demonstrated by my actions. If I stood here tonight before you and said, "Friends, I believe there's going to be a violent earthquake in ten minutes that's going to level this building. God's revealed to me that the San Andreas fault line is about ready to, you know, to let go. In fact, in just now, it's actually only nine minutes and forty seconds. This thing is just going to be flattened." And I just went on talking and all, you can say, "He really doesn't believe that." Why? Because my actions are not consistent with what I am saying. You see, if I really believed that, I'd say, "Hey, let's get out of here. You know, get out there under the trees or get out there in the yard, because, you know, these buildings are going to be flat. And go get your kids, get them out of the buildings quick! You know, and let's get moving."

Now, if a person just says, "Hey, I believe in Jesus. Yeah, I believe." And yet their actions are not in conformity with what they are declaring, then there is a great reason to doubt whether or not they sincerely or really believe it. If I sincerely really believe something, then my actions are going to be conformed with and confirming that which I believe.

So, Abraham's actions confirmed what he believed. His actions were on the basis on what he believed. Abraham believed God, and it was the belief that God accounted for righteousness, not the actions, but the belief that prompted the actions. As James said, "Faith without works is dead" ( James 2:26 ). "You say you believe? Well, you show me your works and I'll show you your faith." In other words, James is pointing out that just verbal assent to truth is not enough. It has to be demonstrated by your action if it is a true faith, if it is a true belief. But God doesn't look to the actions, but He looks to the faith which prompts the actions. With Abraham, it was Abraham's faith that God accounted for righteousness.

Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham ( Galatians 3:7 ).

So, Abraham was the father, not of a physical race, but of a spiritual race. The promises to Abraham were not to the physical seed, but to the spiritual seed. So that Paul will soon point out that we as children of Abraham, who is the father of those that believe, and by your believing, you then become a child of Abraham through faith. And thus, the covenant that God made with Abraham become God's covenant with you, as you become a child of Abraham, the father of those who believe. So, you may be a physical descendant of Abraham, but if you don't believe, you're not really a descendant of Abraham in that spiritual sense.

And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen [or the Gentiles] through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham ( Galatians 3:8-9 ).

The promise of God to Abraham, foreseeing that the Gentiles were going to be justified through faith, promised him this blessing of which you become partaker.

Now, those who were ready to go back to the law, those that were ready to look to the law as the basis for a righteous standing before God, Paul said, "Don't you realize that,"

For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them ( Galatians 3:10 ).

Heavy duty. You want to be made righteous before God by your keeping the law? Then you've got to keep the whole law all the time, and if you ever violate it once in any area, you've had it. You're under the curse. For "cursed is the man that continueth not in the whole law to do all of the things that are written therein."

James said that "if we keep the whole law, and yet violate in one point, we are guilty of all" ( James 2:10 ). Now, it doesn't make any difference which point you violated, if you violate any point of the law, you're guilty of the whole. If you want to be righteous before God by your works, then you've got to be perfect. And if you're not perfect, you better listen then to the gospel of grace through faith, because you need it. So this is for imperfect people. The rest of you can go home at that point.

But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for [the Bible says], The just shall live by faith ( Galatians 3:11 ).

This scripture was given to God to the troubled prophet Habakkuk who was complaining to God at a time of national declension. The nation was going downhill fast. All kinds of corruption in government. And Habakkuk saw the corruption that was there. He has insight into the problem and he said, "God, please do me a favor. Don't let me see anything else; I can't take it. The whole system is going down the tubes and you're not doing a thing about it." God said, "Habakkuk, I am doing a work, and if I told you what I was doing, you wouldn't believe me." So Habakkuk said, "Well, try me." And God said, "I am preparing Babylon, and I am going to bring Babylon as my instrument to judge these people for their iniquity." "Wait a minute, Lord, that isn't fair. We're bad, yes, but hey, they're horrible. They're much worse than we. Why would you use a nation that is even more evil to punish us?" God said, "I told you you wouldn't believe it." So Habakkuk said, "Well, Lord, I don't know what to do. I'm just going to go sit in the tower, and I'm just going to wait on You and see what You're going to do."

So, he went into the tower to just sit there and wait on God. And while he was sitting there, the word of the Lord came to Habakkuk the prophet saying, "Habakkuk, the just shall live by faith. Believe me. Just trust in me. Things are going to get tough, Habakkuk. The nation's going to go into captivity, you know, but believe Me, trust in Me, the just shall live by faith."

So, Paul here again quotes this fantastic statement of God: the just, or those that are justified will be justified by faith. That is why the law cannot justify you. It cannot make you righteous.

And the law is not of faith ( Galatians 3:12 ):

The law is of works. The law says,

but, The man that doeth them shall live in them ( Galatians 3:12 ).

But the law places the emphasis upon the doing, the obedience, where faith places the emphasis upon trusting in God. So then, as many as are under the law are under the curse of the law, unless they keep the entire law. But,

Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree ( Galatians 3:13 ):

So Jesus, hanging upon the tree, upon the cross, became a curse for us that He might redeem us from the curse of the law. Again, here we have a glorious insight into God's grace towards us in Christ. For "though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might know the riches of God" ( 2 Corinthians 8:9 ). I mean, that's quite a deal. Here He was so rich, yet for your sake He emptied Himself. He became poor, that through His poverty you might know the riches of God's love and grace.

"For God made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin" ( 2 Corinthians 5:21 ). Many times when we go down to baptize in the ocean, the water is rather cold. And when people are immersed in that cold water, sometimes it sort of takes their breath away. And as they come up, you can see them sort of gasping because of the coldness, you know, just haah, you know, trying to catch composure again. It's a shock when your body is warm to suddenly be immersed in cold water. It's a shock to your body.

I wonder what kind of a shock it must have been to Jesus who was so pure, so totally pure, to all of a sudden have dumped on Him the sins of the world. Every rotten, evil thing that has ever been committed by man. Every perverted thing ever committed by man dumped on Him. What a shock that must have been. But yet, "God made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God through Him" ( 2 Corinthians 5:21 ). So, He redeemed us from the curse of the law, because He became a curse for us through hanging there on the cross.

That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith ( Galatians 3:14 ).

So Jesus came to redeem, taking our curse. But again, that's negative. Positive: that you might receive the blessings that God promised to Abraham, the promise of the Spirit through faith.

Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; Though it be but man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man [can] disannulleth [it], or addeth thereto [to it] ( Galatians 3:15 ).

Now, God made the covenant with Abraham, a blessing. "In blessing I will bless thee" ( Genesis 22:17 ). God made the promise of His blessing upon Abraham's children. You are the children of Abraham through faith, for he is the father of those that believe. And so, God's promises to you are, "In blessing I will bless you and multiply you." God's promised His blessing upon you through faith. Jesus opened the door that you might receive these blessings that God promised upon Abraham. And by your faith in Jesus Christ, you enter into this covenant.

Now, a covenant, though God made it with man, once God confirmed that covenant, no man can take away from that covenant or no man can add to that covenant. And so,

Now to Abraham and to his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ ( Galatians 3:16 ).

And so when God said, "And through thy seed all of the nations of the earth will be blessed," He wasn't saying that the world is going to be blessed through the Jewish nation. He was saying the world would be blessed through Jesus Christ. Thy seed, singular. It was a reference to Jesus Christ and the work of redemption that He would accomplish for man, through which the blessings of God might come upon all the nations of the world. And the Jews so often misinterpret that promise to Abraham thinking that they are to be the benefactors of the blessings to the world. Not so. It is through the seed, singular, Jesus Christ, that these blessings were to come to the Gentiles and to all the world.

And this I say ( Galatians 3:17 ),

Remember, if God has made a covenant, no one can add to it or take away from it. "And this I say,"

that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect ( Galatians 3:17 ).

So, the law came along and pronounced upon man a curse. "Cursed is everyone that continues not in the whole law to do all that is written therein." The law came along and condemned man to death. But God has promised the blessing. And "in blessing I will bless thee." And His blessing upon Abraham's seed, those who would believe. That is, upon his descendants, or those that would follow him in faith. So the law cannot really take away those blessings that God has promised to you, or your failure and obedience to the law cannot destroy or disannul the covenant that God made to bless you.

Now God help us to see this, because it's going to cause your life to become so rich and filled with God's blessing you won't be able to handle it. My life has become so blessed of God, having been brought by the Spirit to the understanding of the basis of God's blessings upon me are all in God, in His grace, in His love for me, and are not dependent upon my works. But they are just predicated upon: God has made a covenant to bless me. God confirmed that covenant, and the law cannot disannul it. My failure cannot disannul it. As I believe in Jesus Christ, I become a son of Abraham through faith, and thus, this covenant that God made with Abraham's children becomes God's covenant with me, and God's covenant was that of total blessings.

Now, the law can't take that away from me. Though the law was added four hundred and thirty years later, once the covenant is confirmed, it cannot be added to or disannulled. It cannot disannul God's covenant of blessing with me because I have failed to keep that law.

Wherefore then serveth the law? ( Galatians 3:19 )

And, of course, it's the opposite. Then why did God give the law? If the inheritance is of the law, it is no more of promise. But God gave it to Abraham by promise. Then why did God give the law?

It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator ( Galatians 3:19 ).

So, the law served because of man's transgressions, to show man his guilt and his need of a Savior.

Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one ( Galatians 3:20 ).

It takes two to have a mediation. Takes two to tango. Two to have a fight. Takes two to have a mediation. Then, so Christ is become the mediator between God and man.

Is the law then against the promises of God? [No] God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith ( Galatians 3:21-23 )

"But before faith came," rather. Before Jesus Christ came, the relationship to God had to be by the law. That's how man related to God. He had to bring the sacrifice; he had to make the covering for his sin. But once Jesus came, we no longer needed the law.

Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ ( Galatians 3:24 ),

Or unto the time of the coming of Christ.

that we might be justified by faith ( Galatians 3:24 ).

The law can only show me how far I have failed to be what God would require me to be. It's the schoolmaster. Man was once under the law unto the time of Christ.

But after that faith is come [Jesus Christ came], we are no longer under a schoolmaster ( Galatians 3:25 ).

Paul said Christ is the end of the law to those that believe. That is, the law as the basis for my relationship with God. My relationship with God is no longer based upon my keeping the law. My relationship with God is now based upon my faith in Jesus Christ.

For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise ( Galatians 3:26-29 ).

And so, Jesus has become the common denominator among men. So that we all relate to God on an equal basis through Jesus Christ. I have just as ready an access to God through Jesus Christ as does Billy Graham or the Pope or anybody else, because they have to come the same way. I have to come through Jesus Christ and through faith in Jesus Christ. In fact, sometimes I think I have more access, because I know I have to come through faith, and some of those good people might think that they can come on their own sometimes. But I know I can't.

So you, as a child of God through faith in Jesus Christ, have access to God, and it doesn't make any difference what your background is. For as far as our being in Christ, "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female." There is no male superiority. God doesn't listen to men more readily than women. Or, on the other hand, He doesn't listen to women more readily than men. We are all brought to one common denominator in Jesus Christ and we're all one in Him. "

Contending for the Faith

And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

And if ye be Christ’s: Belonging to Christ is the most important thing in the world. One belongs to Christ because Christ purchased him (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). In Titus 2:14, Paul refers to the children of God as "a peculiar people." "Peculiar" does not mean strange but rather is used of "one’s own possession" (Vine 477). The idea is the Galatians belonged exclusively to Christ. He has purchased them. They have accepted the deliverance He offers.

then are ye Abraham’s seed: Because they are in Christ (verse 27) and belong to Christ, they are considered as spiritual descendants of Abraham. Abraham does not enjoy his blessings because of the law of Moses but because of his own faith in the promises of God and his subsequent obedience. This promise is to Abraham and his seed (verse 16). The seed is Christ, and anyone in Him and belonging to Him will enjoy the blessings contained in the promises. Like Abraham one must believe and obey the word of God.

heirs according to the promise: The part of the promise in Genesis 12:3 that Paul has under consideration is "and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." The Galatians will be included because they form a part of the families of the earth. The blessings in this promise are the spiritual blessings that are in Christ (Ephesians 1:3). They are not limited to the heavenly inheritance but contain blessings for the here and now (see Romans 4:7-8; Romans 4:12, where the forgiveness of sins is included in the blessings given to Abraham and, therefore, to all families of the earth when they walk in His steps).

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

3. The logical argument 3:15-29

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

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

The conditions of people under Law and faith 3:23-29

"Continuing the perspective of salvation history introduced in Galatians 3:13 f. and developed in Galatians 3:15-22, Paul gives further consideration to the place of the law in the divine economy by showing the relation between law and faith as two distinct dispensations." [Note: Fung, p. 167.]

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

A third change is that those joined to Christ by faith become spiritual descendants of Abraham and beneficiaries of some of God’s promises to him. This does not mean Christians become Jews. Christians are Christians; we are in Christ, the Seed of Abraham (cf. Galatians 3:16). God promised some things to all the physical descendants of Abraham (e.g., Genesis 12:1-3; Genesis 12:7). He promised other things to the believers within that group (e.g., Romans 9:6; Romans 9:8). He promised still other things to the spiritual seed of Abraham who are not Jews (e.g., Galatians 3:6-9). Failure to distinguish these groups and the promises given to each has resulted in much confusion. For example, amillennialists conclude that Gentile believers inherit the promises of the believing remnant within Israel, thus eliminating any future for Israel as a nation. Here is another example of this error.

"Throughout the whole vast earth the Lord recognizes one, and only one, nation as His own, namely, the nation of believers (1 Peter 2:9)." [Note: William Hendriksen, New Testament Commentary: Exposition of Galatians, p. 151. Cf. Ridderbos, The Epistle of Paul to the Churches of Galatia, p. 150.]

Why can the amillennialist position represented above not be correct? The reason is that Scripture speaks of the church as a nation distinct from Israel (Ephesians 2:11-22). [Note: See Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, "Israel and the Church," in Issues in Dispensationalism, pp. 113-30, especially pp. 126-27.] Jews, and Gentiles who had to become Jews to enter Israel, made up Israel. The church consists of Jews and Gentiles who enter it as Jews or Gentiles (Ephesians 2:16; cf. 1 Corinthians 10:32). Furthermore Paul called Jewish Gentile equality in the church a "mystery," something unique, not previously revealed in Scripture (Ephesians 3:5). The church began on the day of Pentecost, not in the Old Testament (Acts 1:5; Acts 11:15-16; 1 Corinthians 12:13; Colossians 1:18). Believers of all ages are all the people of God. Nevertheless God has dealt with different groups of them and has had different purposes for them as groups in various periods of human history.

Does the church inherit the promises to Abraham? It only inherits some of them. The Jews will inherit those promises given to the physical descendants of Abraham. All believers will inherit those given to the spiritual descendants of Abraham. Saved Jews will inherit those given to the physical descendants who are also spiritual descendants. In Bible study it is very important to note the person or persons to whom any given promise was given.

Barclay's Daily Study Bible

Chapter 3

THE GIFT OF GRACE ( Galatians 3:1-9 )

3:1-9 O senseless Galatians, who has put the evil eye on you--you before whose very eyes Jesus Christ was placarded upon his Cross? Tell me this one thing--did you receive the Spirit by doing the works the law lays down, or because you listened and believed? Are you so senseless? After beginning your experience of God in the Spirit, are you now going to try to complete it by making it dependent upon what human nature can do? Is the tremendous experience you had all for nothing--if indeed you are going to let it go for nothing? Did he who generously gave you the Spirit, and who wrought mighty things among you, do so because you produced the deeds the law lays down or because you heard and believed., Was it not with you exactly as it was with Abraham--Abraham trusted God, and it was that which was credited to him as righteousness. So you must realize that it is those who make the venture of faith who are the sons of Abraham. Scripture foresaw that it would be by faith that God would bring the Gentiles into a right relationship with himself, and told the good news to Abraham before it happened--In you shall all nations be blessed. So, then, it is those who make that same venture of faith who are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

Paul uses still another argument to show that it is faith and not works of the law which puts a man right with God. In the early Church converts nearly always received the Holy Spirit in a visible way. The early chapters of Acts show that happening again and again (compare Acts 8:14-17; Acts 10:44). There came to them a new surge of life and power that anyone could see. That experience had happened to the Galatians and had happened, said Paul, not because they had obeyed the regulations of the law, because at that time they had never heard of the law, but because they had heard the good news of the love of God and had responded to it in an act of perfect trust.

The easiest way to grasp an idea is to see it embodied in a person. In a sense, every great word must become flesh. So Paul pointed the Galatians to a man who embodied faith, Abraham. He was the man to whom God had made the great promise that in him all families of the earth would be blessed ( Genesis 12:3). He was the man whom God had specially chosen as the man who pleased him. Wherein did Abraham specially please God? It was not by doing the works of the law, because at that time the law did not exist; it was by taking God at his word in a great act of faith.

Now the promise of blessedness was made to the descendants of Abraham. On that the Jew relied; he held that simple physical descent from Abraham set him on a different footing with God from other men. Paul declares that to be a true descendant of Abraham is not a matter of flesh and blood; the real descendant is the man who makes the same venture of faith. Therefore, it is not those who seek merit through the law who inherit the promise made to Abraham; but those of every nation who repeat his act of faith in God. It was by an act of faith that the Galatians had begun. Surely they are not going to slip back into legalism--and lose their inheritance.

This passage is full of Greek words with--a history, words which carried an atmosphere and a story with them. In Galatians 3:1 Paul speaks about the evil eve. The Greeks had a great fear of a spell cast by the evil eye. Time and again private letters end with some such sentence as this: "Above all I pray that you may be in health unharmed by the evil eye and faring prosperously" (Milligan, Selections from the Greek Papyri, No. 14).

In the same verse he talks about Jesus Christ being placarded before them upon his Cross. It is the Greek word (prographein, G4270) that would be used for putting up a poster. It is actually used for a notice put up by a father to say that he will no longer be responsible for his son's debts; it is also used for putting up the announcement of an auction sale.

In verse 4, ( Galatians 3:4), Paul talks about beginning their experience in the Spirit and ending it in the flesh. The words he uses are the normal Greek words for beginning and completing a sacrifice. The first one (enarchesthai, G1728) is the word for scattering the grains of barley on and around the victim which was the first act of a sacrifice; and the second one (epiteleisthai, G2005) is the word used for fully completing the ritual of any sacrifice. By using these two words Paul shows that he looks on the Christian life as a sacrifice to God.

In verse 5 ( Galatians 3:5), he speaks of God giving generously to the Galatians. The root of this word is the Greek choregia (compare G5524) . In the ancient days in Greece at the great festivals the great dramatists like Euripides and Sophocles presented their plays; Greek plays all have a chorus; to equip and train a chorus was expensive, and public-spirited Greeks generously offered to defray the entire expenses of the chorus. (That gift is described by the word choregia, compare G5524.) Later, in war time, patriotic citizens gave free contributions to the state and choregia was used for this, too. In still later Greek, in the papyri, the word is common in marriage contracts and describes the support that a husband, out of his love, undertakes to give his wife. Choregia underlines the generosity of God, a generosity which is born of love, of which the love of a citizen for his city and of a man for his wife are dim suggestions.

THE CURSE OF THE LAW ( Galatians 3:10-14 )

3:10-14 All who depend on the deeds which the law lays down are under a curse, for it stands written, "Cursed is everyone who does not consistently obey and perform all the things written in the book of the law." It is clear that no one ever gets into a right relationship with God by means of this legalism, because, as the Bible says, "It is the man who is right with God through faith who will live." But the law is not based on faith. And yet the scripture says.. "The man who does these things will have to live by them." Christ ransomed us from the curse of the law by becoming accursed for us--for it stands written, "Cursed is every man who is hanged on a tree." And this all happened so that in Christ Abraham's blessing should come to the Gentiles, and so that we might receive the promised Spirit by means of faith.

Paul's argument seeks to drive his opponents into a corner from which there is no escape. "Suppose," he says, "you decide that you are going to try to win God's approval by accepting and obeying the law, what is the, inevitable consequence?" First of all, the man who does that has to stand or fall by his decision; if he chooses the law he has got to live by it. Second, no man ever has succeeded and no man ever will succeed in always keeping the law. Third, if that being so, you are accursed, because scripture itself says ( Deuteronomy 27:26) that the man who does not keep the whole law is under a curse. Therefore, the inevitable end of trying to get right with God by making the law the principle of life is a curse.

But scripture has another saying, "It is the man who is right with God by faith who will really live" ( Habakkuk 2:4). The only way to get into a right relationship with God, and therefore the only way to peace, is the way of faith. But the principle of law and the principle of faith are antithetic; you cannot direct your life by both at one and the same time; you must choose; and the only logical choice is to abandon the way of legalism and to venture upon the way of faith, of taking God at his word and of trusting in his love.

How can we know that this is so? The final guarantor of its truth is Jesus Christ; and to bring this truth to us he had to die upon a Cross. Now, scripture says that every man who is hanged on a tree is accursed ( Deuteronomy 21:23); and so to free us of the curse of the law, Jesus himself had to become accursed.

Even at his most involved, and here he is involved, one simple yet tremendous fact is never far from the mind and heart of Paul--the Cost of the Christian gospel. He could never forget that the peace, the liberty, the right relationship with God that we possess, cost the life and death of Jesus Christ, for how could men ever have known what God was like unless Jesus Christ had died to tell them of his great love.

THE COVENANT THAT CANNOT BE ALTERED ( Galatians 3:15-18 )

3:15-18 Brothers, I can use only a human analogy. Here is the parallel when a covenant is duly ratified, even if it is only a man's covenant, no one annuls it or adds additional clauses to it. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his seed. It does not say, "and to his seeds," as if it were a case of many, but, "and to his seed," as if it were a case of one, and that one is Christ. This is what I mean, the law which came into being four hundred and thirty years later cannot annul the covenant already ratified by God and thus render the promise inoperative. For. if the inheritance is dependent on law, it is no longer dependent on promise; but it was through promise that God conferred his grace on Abraham.

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

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

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

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

SHUT UP UNDER SIN ( Galatians 3:19-22 )

3:19-22 Why, then, have the law at all? The law was added to the situation to define what transgressions are, until the seed should come, to whom the promise, which still holds good, had been made. That law was enacted by angels and came by means of a mediator. Now there can be no such thing as a mediator of one; and God is one. Is, then, the law contrary to the promises of God? God forbid! If a law which was able to give life had been given, then indeed right relationship with God would have come through the law. But the words of scripture shut up everything under the power of sin, for the very reason that the promise should be given to those who believe through faith in Jesus Christ.

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

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

(ii) The law was not given direct by God. In the old story in Exodus 20:1-26 it was given direct to Moses; but in the days of Paul the Rabbis were so impressed by the holiness and the remoteness of God that they believed that it was quite impossible for him to deal direct with men; therefore they introduced the idea that the law was given first to angels and then by the angels to Moses (compare Acts 7:53; Hebrews 2:2). Here Paul is using the Rabbinic thoughts of his time. The law is at a double remove from God, given first to angels, and then to a mediator; and the mediator is Moses. Compared with the promise, which was given directly by God, the law is a second-hand thing.

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

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

THE COMING OF FAITH ( Galatians 3:23-29 )

3:23-29 Before faith came we were under guard under the power of the law, shut up and waiting for the day when faith would be revealed. So that the law was really our tutor to bring us to Christ so that we might get into a right relationship with God by means of faith. But now that faith has come we are no longer under a tutor; for you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is no longer any distinction between Jew and Greek, slave and free man, male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are the seed of Abraham, and heirs according to promise.

Paul is still thinking of the essential part that the law did play in the plan of God. In the Greek world there was a household servant called the paidagogos ( G3807) . He was not the schoolmaster. He was usually an old and trusted slave who had been long in the family and whose character was high. He was in charge of the child's moral welfare and it was his duty to see that he acquired the qualities essential to true manhood. He had one particular duty; every day he had to take the child to and from school. He had nothing to do with the actual teaching of the child, but it was his duty to take him in safety to the school and deliver him to the teacher. That--said Paul--was like the function of the law. It was there to lead a man to Christ. It could not take him into Christ's presence, but it could take him into a position where he himself might enter. It was the function of the law to bring a man to Christ by showing him that by himself he was utterly unable to keep it. But once a man had come to Christ he no longer needed the law, for now he was dependent not on law but on grace.

"As many of you," says Paul, "who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." There are two vivid pictures here. Baptism was a Jewish rite. If a man wished to accept the Jewish faith he had to do three things. He had to be circumcised, to offer sacrifice and to be baptized. Ceremonial washing to cleanse from defilement was very common in Jewish practice (compare Leviticus 11:1-47; Leviticus 12:1-8; Leviticus 13:1-59; Leviticus 14:1-57; Leviticus 15:1-33).

The details of Jewish baptism were as follows: The man to be baptized cut his hair and his nails; he undressed completely; the baptismal bath had to contain 40 seahs, that is 2 hogsheads, of water. Every part of the body had to be touched with the water. He made confession of his faith before three men who were called fatherly of baptism. While still in the water, parts of the law were read to him, words of encouragement were addressed to him, and benedictions were pronounced upon him. When he emerged he was a member of the Jewish faith; it was through baptism that he entered into that faith.

By Christian baptism a man entered into Christ. The early Christians looked on baptism as something which produced a real union with Christ. Of course, in a missionary situation where men were coming direct from heathenism, baptism was for the most part adult baptism and the adult would necessarily have an experience a child could not have. But just as really as the Jewish convert was united with the Jewish faith, the Christian convert was united with Christ (compare Romans 6:3 ff.; Colossians 2:12). Baptism was no mere outward form; it was a real union with Christ.

Paul goes on to say that they had put on Christ. There may be here a reference to a custom which certainly existed later. The candidate for baptism was clothed in pure white robes, symbolic of the new life into which he entered. Just as the initiate put on his new white robe, his life was clothed with Christ.

The result is that in the Church there was no difference between any of the members; they had all become sons of God. In Galatians 3:28 Paul says that the distinction between Jew and Greek, slave and free man, male and female is wiped out. There is something of very great interest here. In the Jewish morning prayer, which Paul must all his pre-Christian life have used, the Jew thanks God that "Thou hast not made me a Gentile, a slave or a woman." Paul takes that prayer and reverses it. The old distinctions were gone; all were one in Christ.

We have already seen ( Galatians 3:16) that Paul interprets the promises made to Abraham as specially finding their fulfilment in Christ; and, if we are one with Christ, we, too, inherit the promises--and this great privilege comes not by a legalistic keeping of the law, but by an act of faith in the free grace of God.

Only one thing can wipe out the ever sharpening distinctions and separations between man and man; when all are debtors to God's grace and all are in Christ, only then will all be one. It is not the force of man but the love of God which alone can unite a disunited world.

-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)

Gann's Commentary on the Bible

Galatians 3:29

if you are Christ’s -- Christ was the seed of Abraham, and since baptized believers have entered into a relationship with Christ they must consequently have a share in likewise being of Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Abraham’s seed ... heirs -- The Judaizers taught that by becoming subjects to the Mosaic Law the Galatian Gentiles would become the seed or progeny of Abraham. Paul asserts that this privilege comes to one by faithful obedience to Christ and not by the Mosaic Law. Abraham was justified by obedient faith before the Mosaic Law was given.

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

For if ye be Christ's,.... Or seeing ye are his, not by creation only, but by the Father's gift to him, by the purchase of his own blood, by the power of his grace, making them willing to give up themselves to him; not only his by profession, saying they are the Lord's, calling themselves by his name; but by possession, Christ dwelling in their hearts by faith, and they having his Spirit as a spirit of regeneration and adoption:

then are ye Abraham's seed; not his natural but his spiritual seed, the seed that should come, and to whom the promises were made, Galatians 3:16 and so were upon an equal foot even with the Jews that believed:

and heirs according to the promise; being the children of God, they are heirs of God; and being the spiritual children of Abraham, the children of the promise, which are counted for the seed, they are, according to the promise made to Abraham and his spiritual seed, heirs of the blessings of the grace of life, and of the eternal inheritance; of the blessing of justification of life, and of everlasting salvation; of this world and of the world to come; of all the spiritual blessings of the covenant of grace, and of the incorruptible and undefiled inheritance of the saints in light; to which they are begotten through the abundant mercy of God, for which they are made meet by the grace of Christ; and to which they have a right by his justifying righteousness.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      19 Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.   20 Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one.   21 Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.   22 But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.   23 But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.   24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.   25 But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.   26 For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.   27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.   28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.   29 And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

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

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

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

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

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

      III. The law was designed for a schoolmaster, to bring men to Christ,Galatians 3:24; Galatians 3:24. In the Galatians 3:23, the apostle acquaints us with the state of the Jews under the Mosaic economy, that before faith came, or before Christ appeared and the doctrine of justification by faith in him was more fully discovered, they were kept under the law, obliged, under severe penalties, to a strict observance of the various precepts of it; and at that time they were shut up, held under the terror and discipline of it, as prisoners in a state of confinement: the design of this was that hereby they might be disposed more readily to embrace the faith which should afterwards be revealed, or be persuaded to accept Christ when he came into the world, and to fall in with that better dispensation he was to introduce, whereby they were to be freed from bondage and servitude, and brought into a state of greater light and liberty. Now, in that state, he tells them, the law was their schoolmaster, to bring them to Christ, that they might be justified by faith. As it declared the mind and will of God concerning them, and at the same time denounced a curse against them for every failure in their duty, so it was proper to convince them of their lost and undone condition in themselves, and to let them see the weakness and insufficiency of their own righteousness to recommend them to God. And as it obliged them to a variety of sacrifices, c., which, though they could not of themselves take away sin, were typical of Christ, and of the great sacrifice which he was to offer up for the expiation of it, so it directed them (though in a more dark and obscure manner) to him as their only relief and refuge. And thus it was their schoolmaster, to instruct and govern them in their state of minority, or, as the word paidagogos most properly signifies, their servant, to lead and conduct them to Christ (as children were wont to be led to school by those servants who had the care of them) that they might be more fully instructed by him as their schoolmaster, in the true way of justification and salvation, which is only by faith in him, and of which he was appointed to give the fullest and clearest discoveries. But lest it should be said, If the law was of this use and service under the Jewish, why may it not continue to be so under the Christian state too, the apostle adds (Galatians 3:25; Galatians 3:25) that after faith has come, and the gospel dispensation has taken place, under which Christ, and the way of pardon and life through faith in him, are set in the clearest light, we are no longer under a schoolmaster--we have no such need of the law to direct us to him as there was then. Thus the apostle acquaints us for what uses and purposes the law served; and, from what he says concerning this matter, we may observe,

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

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

      3. The great advantage of the gospel state above the legal, under which we not only enjoy a clearer discovery of divine grace and mercy than was afforded to the Jews of old, but are also freed from the state of bondage and terror under which they were held. We are not now treated as children in a state of minority, but as sons grown up to a full age, who are admitted to greater freedoms, and instated in larger privileges, than they were. This the apostle enlarges upon in the Galatians 3:26-29. For, having shown for what intent the law was given, in the close of the chapter he acquaints us with our privilege by Christ, where he particularly declares,

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

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

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

Kelly Commentary on Books of the Bible

Galatians 1:1-24. We saw the second of Corinthians characterized by the most rapid transitions of feeling, by a deep and fervent sense of God's consolations, by a revulsion so much the more powerful in a heart that entered into things as few hearts have ever done since the world began. For as the first epistle had put down man in every form, and more particularly man as an expression of the world in its pride, so the second epistle breathes the comfort of God's restoring grace, and is characterized therefore by the strongest emotions of the heart; for he ardently loved these saints. He had felt their wrong, but at the same time had been lifted marvellously above what might be called personal feeling, and so much the more, therefore, could have the grief of love unmingled with that which really impairs its strength, and leaves its sensibilities incomparably less acute. So much the more, then, we find the working of spiritual feeling as expressed by him in the second epistle, where he speaks of God lifting up those that were cast down, as He had delivered himself from the imminent danger to which he had been exposed even as to life.

In the epistle to the Galatians we have another tone and style, a serious and grieved spirit, with feelings not less deep it may be, even more profoundly moved than in writing to the Corinthians; and for this reason, that the foundations were still more deeply affected by that which was working among the assemblies of Galatia. It was not the worldly presumption of man, nor the slight which this would inevitably cast on apostolic authority, as well as on the order of the church, on morality even, at least on Christian morality, on the comely ways of brethren one with another in private as well as in their public assemblies. In the epistle to the Galatians a deeper question was raised nothing less than the fountain of grace itself. Hence in this epistle it is not so much the laying bare the need of man of the sinner, as the vindication of that same grace of God for the saint, with the exhibition of the ruinous results to him who is drawn aside from the deep and broad groundwork that God has laid for souls in Christ. Here particularly the Christian is guarded against the inroads of legalism. If the world were the great enemy at Corinth, the law perverted is that against which the Spirit of God raises up the apostle in writing to the Galatians. Flesh alas! has an affinity for both. This epistle, as those to the Corinthians, opens with an assertion of his apostolic place. At the outset here (not there) he sets aside human intervention. Men were not his source, nor was man even a medium to him. He strikes accordingly at the root of all successional or derived authority. "Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and," in order to make it still more evident, "by God the Father, who raised him from the dead." This is peculiar to our epistle. In the epistle to the Ephesians we shall find that the apostle claims a still higher character for all ministry. There it is not traced to God the Father, that raised Christ from the dead; but it descends from Christ ascended to heaven (which, we shall soon see, perfectly fits in with that epistle). Here it is the total judgment of flesh in its religious pretensions, and more particularly a blow to that which is an essential principle of law. The whole legal institution depended on a people lineally descended from Abraham, as their priests on a similar succession from Aaron. Being, of course, dying men, whether it be the general privileges of Israel, or the special place of the priest, all was transmitted from father to son. In its own proper sphere and blessings Christianity knows nothing of the sort, but denies it in principle. So here Paul is "an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, that raised him from the dead."

To have been with the Messiah, the hearer of His words and the witness of His work, up to His departure, was ever a condition to those who were accustomed to the twelve apostles. The apostle himself meets that difficulty in the face, and in effect concedes to his detractors that he was not made an apostle by Christ here below. But if not called to have his place among the twelve, it was the Lord's sovereign dealing to give him a better one. There is no approach to a vaunt about his dignity. He does not even deign to fill up the sketch. He leaves it to spiritual wisdom to gather what was the evident impression of the truth.

For his own special call was an indisputable fact; and it is a great joy to the heart to think how Christianity (while it leaves the deepest and the highest space in all directions, so to speak, for the working of the Holy Ghost, while there is more room in it than anywhere else for the play both of the renewed mind and the affections that the Spirit of God gives, while, consequently, it admits of the richest possible exercises of both mind and heart), nevertheless, in its grand truths rests on the most patent and certain facts. For God considers the poor; He has regard to the simple; He has children in His eye. And facts tell on their mind. Indeed, there is no soul really above them. Whoever despises the facts of Christianity, as if nothing in Scripture were worthy of meditation, or of ministering to others but exercises and speculative deductions, will be found, if he do not find himself often, on the verge of dangerous delusions, both for the mind and for the walk.

But the apostle here does not reason about the matter. He simply states, as I have said, that his apostolic character was not only from Jesus, but from God the Father, that raised Him from the dead. it had a resurrection-source, instead of being from Christ on earth, and in relation to the work God was doing when He sent His Son here below. Along with himself he takes care expressly to couple others: "and all the brethren which are with me." Paul did not stand alone. He had the faith that could by grace cleave to God if he had not a companion; but God blesses that faith, and acts by it on the conscience of others, even on those that, alas! too often might be ready to turn aside. In this case, happily, the brethren near at hand went along with him in heart. After wishing those addressed grace and peace, as usual, he speaks of the Lord in a manner singularly in unison with the object of the epistle: "Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us" not from judgment, not from the wrath to come, but "from this present evil world." The evil that was gaining ground among the Galatian believers legalism links the soul with the world, and indeed proves it to be evil by giving present credit to the flesh, and association with all the system that is around us now. But in truth the Lord "gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father: to whom be glory for ever and ever."

At once the apostle launches into the troubled sea. There is no recounting what God had done for them. There is no mention here of grace, nor even of any special powers conferred by the Spirit of God. We shall find he does not forget this elsewhere: he reasons on it in another part of the epistle. But his heart was too agitated not to betake himself at once to the point of their danger. Consequently, without further preamble, and with an ominous silence as to their state (for, indeed, it could not be spoken of), he at once breaks the ground. "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you in the grace of Christ unto another gospel: which is not another."

Mark how nicely every word was suited to deal with their souls. He speaks of "the grace of Christ." He warns against "another gospel," i.e., a different one, which was really none at all. It was not another, as he says. "But there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ." And then he, indignant at such a thought, makes his most solemn appeals. "But though we" Paul himself, or any that were associated with him "though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." Nor this only. "As we have said before, so I say now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received." The apostle stands to the truth preached and received. What he preached was the truth as to this matter. He does not deny that others preached it; but if so, they preached the same truth. The apostle was given to preach the truth more fully than any other. To depart from this was fatal. Nor this only. If he had preached the full truth of the gospel, he insists that they had received it. He will not hear of any pretended misunderstanding. He refuses all cover for different thoughts. In either case "let him be accursed."

And he justifies this strength of warning: "For do I now persuade men or God? Do I seek to please men? For if I yet pleased men, I should not be a servant of Christ." Impossible to serve two masters! Christ never mingles with flesh or law any more than with the world. Bondage is there; and He is a deliverer, but it is to God's glory, and for His own service in the liberty of grace.

And now the apostle enters on another part of his subject. His account proves how independent he was of the very persons whom they would have desired to have seen associated with him. It was an offence in the eyes of the Jewish Christians, and perhaps specially of the Christians that Judaize, that the apostle had been so little at Jerusalem that his intercourse was so scanty with the twelve. The apostle accepts the fact in all its strength. Far from wishing to gain credit, either for the gospel or for his own apostolic place, in consequence of being linked with those that had been apostles before him, he insists on that very independence which they counted a reproach. His is an apostleship to itself, as real as that of the twelve, but of another order, not at the same time, nor in the same manner. All sprang, no doubt, from the same God, from the same Lord Jesus Christ; but even so from God and from the Lord in other relationships. Very particularly was it marked by the manner of his call, that his apostleship had no connection with either the world or the flesh. It had nothing whatever to do even with the Lord Himself, in the days of His flesh, when acting as minister of the circumcision in the land of Judea. Invariably, where man seeks to bring in a successional apostleship, the twelve become the great model.

Hence it is that Rome, which most decidedly in principle rests on human succession (as all worldly religion must, to a certain extent, embrace the same principle) Rome, I say, seeks to derive her authority, as all know, from Peter. No person can intelligently read the New Testament without perceiving the utter fallacy of such a system; for Peter was expressly, as the next chapter of this epistle tells us, apostle of the circumcision. So were the others that seemed to be the chief. If any apostleship would have served for the Gentiles, it ought to have been Paul's then; for Paul was the apostle of the uncircumcision. What a condemnation of themselves, that no system which ever seeks for an earthly succession can in the least make Paul answer its purpose! In his case the breach with man was evident; the association with heaven, and not Jerusalem, was too plain to be disputed or evaded. Successor to Paul there is none; if so, who and where? In the case of the twelve, we do find an apostle chosen to supply the gap of Judas chosen, I admit, of God, though after a Jewish sort, as Chrysostom justly remarks, for the Holy Ghost was not yet given. I admit that this was all in place and season then for Jerusalem.

But at the same time it is plain that the apostle Paul here starts with the instructive fact, that the very thing for which some Judaizers then blamed him was the distinctive glory of that to which the Lord had called him. "I certify you, brethren," says he, "that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. For ye have heard of my conversation in times past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it: and profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood: neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus."

Now, it is evident and to this I call your particular attention that the apostle here binds together his gospel with his apostolic place. This was the serious move of the enemy. You cannot attack such a servant without attacking his testimony. You cannot weaken his apostleship without endangering the very gospel that you have received yourselves. And this is always true in its measure, and shows the exceeding gravity of opposition where God raises up for His own special work in this world; but more particularly where, as in the apostle's case, the mere manner of his conversion, the special form of his separation unto God, bears the impress of the truth he was to preach. To impugn the one is to imperil the other. The Galatians did not think of this; people that are thus blinded by the enemy never do. To them, no doubt, it appeared as if they were zealous and sincere champions of unity. They were grieved to think that the Jewish church, with its twelve apostles and its elders, with its manifold links with antiquity and God's past testimony on earth, should seem separated in any measure from the apostle and his work. No doubt there was a difference of tone. Had a man come down from the teaching of the twelve, albeit inspired of God to write, as we know some of them were, and all of them having a most truly apostolic place, he might have been startled by the teaching of St. Paul. Can it be doubted that the special form of spiritual thought and feeling formed, for instance, by James's or Peter's teaching, yea, even by that of John, while harmonizing, where the heart was open, with the instruction of Paul, nevertheless would appear at first very different? We know how feeble and slow the heart is, and how apt disciples in general are to narrow the riches of the grace and truth of God. Even in Christianity how much need there is to remember what the Lord warns us of inLuke 5:1-39; Luke 5:1-39 that no man accustomed to old wine straightway desires new, but says, The old is better. This was at work even in those early days. It had tainted among others the Galatians; for although, in point of fact, what had converted them was the heavenly testimony of the apostle Paul, nevertheless they had in time become acquainted with Christians who had not been so favoured, perhaps from the churches in Judea. Saints they may have been; and such, we know, moved about from Jerusalem. At any rate, the Galatians, naturally fickle, were quick to take up prejudices. They had somehow become uneasy. Those that were used of Satan, both to oppose the apostle in person, and also to distrust that testimony which they had not spirituality enough to appreciate, busily insinuated doubts into the minds of these Gentile brethren, and found too ready an ear among them.

Thus the apostle had to link together the gospel of grace with his own apostolic dignity; and we do well to take heed to this remarkable fact. With the utmost simplicity he shows that his own separation from man was a part of God's ways for the purpose of making more strikingly felt the great truth that he was afterwards to proclaim. He had been himself (could they deny it?) at least as zealous for the Jews' religion as any Jew of the straitest sect. He had made as much proficiency as any of his day it may be, more. Who of his nation had advanced in Judaism beyond him? Who more zealous of the doctrines of his fathers? Therefore, it came to pass that there was nothing the apostle had not learned of which they boasted. He had been trained up under the most distinguished teacher the great Rabbin Gamaliel; but "when it pleased him, who had separated him from his mother's womb, and called him by his grace, to reveal his Son in him." Mark, again, the strength of the expression. It is not simply that he was brought to follow Jesus, to believe and confess His name; but God revealed His Son in him. And we can all see how exactly the phrase falls in with the words of our Lord given in the Acts of the Apostles; for the wonderful truth burst upon the apostle's ear from the beginning, in the Saviour's call to him from heaven. The oneness of the saints with Christ Himself is, as we all familiarly know, clearly intimated. So here it is said that God was pleased to reveal His Son in him, that he might preach the good news of Him among the heathen.

Immediately, then, as. it is added, he conferred not with flesh and blood; neither went up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before him; but went into Arabia, and returned again, not to Jerusalem, but to Damascus, the place near which he had been called at first. "Then after three years," he says, "I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter." Surely now there was some link with the twelve! Not so. He went simply to make the acquaintance of Peter, and abode with him how long? Fifteen days. Far too short a time, if it were a question of due initiation into the testimony of the twelve. But, in point of fact, he did not see the twelve. He saw Peter; but "other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother." To this he gives the most solemn asseveration: "The things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not." Thus he accepts the challenge that was given by unbelief. He heartily avows what they counted a defect; and not Only so, but with the greatest solemnity assures them that he had not seen the apostles, save only Peter, and James the brother of the Lord, and these but for a short space.

The apostleship of Paul, therefore, was entirely independent of Jerusalem and the twelve. He had derived the gospel that he preached from the Lord, and not from any of his fellow-servants who had been engaged in the work before him. Nor had he conferred even then with flesh and blood; his mission as well as conversion and call were alike independent of it. He had been called, as none could deny, in a way which not even any other apostle had ever known. Of none else could it be so said that "it Pleased God to reveal his Son in him." It was not thus that Peter or the rest were drawn to follow their Master. The language would not have been applicable when the other apostles were called. There was no question of revealing His Son in them then. The very utmost that could be said was, that God had been pleased to reveal His Son to Peter and the others. But there was no sense of union then. There was no consciousness of the identification of the saint with Christ. Accordingly, the language would have been premature and entirely beyond the conscious experience of the saints, or the real truth of the matter in the sight of God. But God took care that the call of Paul should be delayed till the whole order of the Jewish apostleship should be complete. He took care also that the twelfth apostleship should be filled up; for it is a profound mistake to suppose that Peter and the other apostles had been hasty in numbering Matthias with them, and that Paul was really the twelfth apostle according to the mind of the Lord. The truth is, that they had their relationship to the twelve tribes of Israel. This seems to have been the reason of their being twelve; and it is to me clear that our Lord establishes this as the true reference and key when He declares that, in the regeneration, the Son of Man shall sit upon the throne of his glory, and they shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. One of them fell from his place, but the vacancy was filled up directly.

Thus all had been duly prepared of God, with a far-reaching wisdom, to make the call of Paul an evidently and entirely separate thing, to make his apostleship as distinct in fact as in form; to give him fresh communications, even as to the Lord's supper, and to convey anew the very gospel that he preached as the revelation of the Son in him. The Lord did stamp the testimony of Peter as being truly the revelation of His Father. Flesh and blood had not revealed it. It was not a question of man's wit. His Father had made a revelation to Peter. What had been revealed? He revealed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God. But, I repeat, this simply was revealed to him. You cannot go farther. Jesus, the rejected Messiah, was the Son of the living God, the giver of life, the quickening Son of God. In Paul's case the Holy Ghost could go a step farther, and that step He seems to me to take. The apostle states it with perfect calmness, and without comparing others. There is no depreciating of any soul, but the plain statement of the positive truth, which after all is the best and the humblest way, that most of all magnifies God, and edifies His children. So it was, then, that the apostle presents his own wonderful relation to Christ. It was not merely that Paul was lowered by the carping Judaizers God's grace was being sacrificed. It was not merely that his apostleship was doubted God's magnifying of His own Son was set at naught. It was the ungrateful heart of man that, in its avidity after something that would bring an appearance of strength and unity, would sacrifice that, which was of heaven for what was after all connected with the earth and the flesh.

Another thing, too, let me just point out in passing. If ever there was a man who more than another contended for the oneness of the saints in every sense, above all, for the one body of Christ, for the unity of the Spirit, it was the apostle Paul. Nevertheless, there never was one that had a deeper sense of the importance of walking, if need were, alone with God. Be assured that it is the same simplicity of faith which enters into both these things now. On the other hand, where unity becomes an object, it is never understood; and at the same time the walk of faith cannot be maintained. In short, the man who, occupied with Christ above, enters for that very reason most into the blessedness of the body of Christ here below by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, is the very one that will know in fit season what it is not to confer with flesh and blood. No doubt this might be provoking to human importance sometimes. It might seem entirely despising his brethren. "Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood."

No doubt also his line of procedure did not at all consort with their desires, who were sticklers for earthly order, and a line that looks safe and respectable to natural eyes. What! an apostle, or at any rate one that says he is an apostle, setting aside what God inaugurated in Jerusalem, not even conferring with those whom the Lord Himself called by His personal summons here below? Here they might flatter themselves were plain tangible facts; here the amplest testimony on the Lord's part that the twelve are really His chosen apostles. But as for the apostle Paul, he says he was called, and this by his master from heaven; but by his own showing nobody heard the call of Christ but himself. One can readily conceive men of strong prejudice and of weak faith thus hesitating, especially in presence of the apostle's strong assertion of entire liberty from the law for the Gentiles. Consequently it is plain from the beginning, that the apostleship of Paul made a demand upon faith which the other apostolate did not. He was an enemy stopped in sovereign grace. He was not converted first, and then gradually led into that highest degree, but called at once to be an apostle as well as saint in a way that belonged to no one but himself. It was from and in connection with Christ in heaven. He acts on this in faith; he understands it with an energy and a brightness that increased even in his Roman prison.

But it was true from the first. "Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood." Had Paul gone up to present his credentials to the others, he would have lowered, obscured, and done as far as in him lay to destroy the special blessedness and peculiar glory of his apostleship. But he was not thus disobedient to the heavenly vision. And God held the reins that the truth might be kept unsullied and pure; and he goes south and north as the Lord guided His servant, but not to Jerusalem to those that were apostles before him. He visits Arabia and Damascus once more. Then after a certain lapse of time he does see Jerusalem, but no more than Peter and James, not the apostolic college officially. And you will observe the immense importance attached to this simple account; for all here is plain matter of fact, but pregnant with the weightiest consequences as long as the church and the gospel last here below.

"The things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not. Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and was unknown by face unto the churches of Judea which were in Christ." Was this then a reproach? Be it so: such was true. It was really part of God's wondrous ways with him, as indicating the true character of Christianity and of its ministry as contrasted with Judaism. It was therefore not only for him, but for the instruction of the Galatians, and of us all. If understood, it completely cut all the earthly swaddling-clothes of the heavenly church, and of the Christian. Those who lived in Jerusalem were too prone to preserve the clothes and the cradle which had their place and use at first, but had no claim to be kept up among the Gentiles. Whatever might be the apostle's tenderness toward his nation elsewhere, not an earthly link but must be snapped. Accordingly the apostle lays stress on the fact that he was "unknown by face unto the churches of Judea which were in Christ: but they had heard only, that he which persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed. And they glorified God in me."

This, be it observed, was part of God's way with him beyond all others. There was no such thing as a gradual training. The other apostles enjoyed this more. They had followed Jesus in His earthly path of presentation to Israel. They had been by degrees instructed according to the testimony which the Lord Jesus was pleased to give; and most suited it was, of course, to the time, people, and circumstances. Anything else would have been imperfect; but still it had essentially a transitional character. It was partly directed to the hearts and consciences of the Jews, partly in view of the approaching rupture of all ties with Israel.

In Paul's case there was nothing of the sort. His testimony was characteristically though not of course exclusively heavenly, as it was also the witness of grace to the fullest. How could it be otherwise with one persecuting at the moment that he was arrested, in hot deadly opposition to God's church up to his most unexpected call from heaven? Thus is seen sovereign grace, and nothing else, as well as a heavenly link instantly formed between the Lord in glory and His servant on earth. No wonder that the apostle attached the greatest moment to the facts of his conversion and call, and that, instead of hiding his lack of familiarity both with the apostles and with the churches in Judea, he glories in it. It was through no such channel that he had his apostleship. Christ on high had called him. Such was the will of God the Father that had raised Christ from the dead.

Galatians 2:1-21. But we have a good deal more. He tells us that fourteen years after he again went up to Jerusalem. He went up with Barnabas, taking Titus with him. It was by revelation, not by summons from Jerusalem, or to acquire a title thereby. And "Titus," as he says here, "who was with me, being a Greek," etc. So far from this being the smallest allowance of Jewish prejudice, it was itself a powerful blow against it. Thus, going up with Barnabas, he took Titus, a Gentile, along with him; and even so by revelation. It was rather to have Gentile liberty secured by the twelve apostles, and that the Judaizers should be condemned by the church at Jerusalem. It was the very reverse of deriving his authority from either. He went up by revelation for the purpose of getting a condemnation in Jerusalem itself of those who would force Jewish principles on the church of God at large. The legal mischief had emanated from Jerusalem: the remedy of grace must be applied by the apostles, elders, and brethren there. It was a misuse of the respect naturally accorded to some who came from Jerusalem; and so God took care to correct the evil by a formal, public, authoritative sentence of the body there, instead of a pure and simple rejection of the error among the Gentile churches, which might have looked like a schism, or at least a divergence of feeling between them and the apostle Paul. It might have been inferred that Paul was to do what he could with the Gentile churches, but that the twelve exclusively cared for the churches in Judea, he consequently having nothing to do with them. But it is not so. The apostle goes up to Jerusalem, not only with Barnabas, who had come from thence, but taking with him Titus, who seems not to have been there before Titus, his own valued companion in labour, but a Gentile. In fact, what Jerusalem had done, as far as this was concerned, was to let slip men that would impose circumcision evil workers, as he in a later epistle contemptuously calls such like of the concision; for they were corrupting the Gentile churches by Judaism, instead of helping them in Christ.

Thus, then, God directed and ruled that the apostle should go up and have the evil condemned on the spot, and at the centre from which it had emanated. And when he went there, was it a question of receiving aught from the twelve? Nay; he communicated unto them the gospel which he preached among the Gentiles. It was not that they communicated to him the gospel they had learned from Jesus here below, but he communicated to them that gospel he was in the habit of preaching among the Gentiles. But it was in no vain glory, in no tone of superiority, though, no doubt, it was a far fuller and higher testimony than theirs; for he adds, "privately to them which were of reputation, lest by any means I should run or had run in vain." He granted that persons might indulge in some such thoughts about him. It was for the chiefs at Jerusalem to judge for themselves, and they did judge to the confusion of the apostle's adversaries. "But neither Titus [he takes occasion to say parenthetically], being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised." And what was the result of all this? Why, that though there were "false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage," Paul did not give place by subjection even for an hour, "that the truth of the gospel might continue with them." For the foundation was at stake. "But of these who seemed to be somewhat." Here he takes up, not the mischievous troublers of the Gentiles, whom he does not hesitate to call "false brethren," but the highest in office he found there. "Of these who seemed to be somewhat (whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me)." It is interesting to note the earnestness and strength with which the apostle speaks, now the question had been fairly raised. Pungent, abrupt, indignant, he none the less was led of God. "But of these who seemed to be somewhat, (whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me: God accepteth no man's person:) for they who seemed to be somewhat in conference added nothing to me; but contrariwise, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter," etc. A different issue ensued from their settling down in the mutual independence of the Gentile churches and the Jewish. "They gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision." They thus acted and pronounced according to the evident intention of God conveyed in the character of their apostolates respectively.

Thus, it is seen, the truth was established. The apostle Paul interferes in no way with the work which God had given the others to do. He owned and valued, in its own place, the difficult, weighty, and momentous work which God had assigned to Peter, James, and the rest; but at the same time he stood firmly humbly, of course, and lovingly, but firmly for that which the Lord had assigned to himself and his colleagues among the Gentiles; and, so far from Christ's liberty having been in the least weakened, the apostolic conclave put their seal, with the whole church at Jerusalem, upon it most heartily. (Acts 15:1-41) As it is said here, "They gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship, that we should go unto the heathen and they unto the circumcision. Only they would that we should remember the poor; the same which I also was forward to do." But this was not all. He mentions another fact, and of the greatest gravity, closing this part of his argument that when Peter subsequently came down into the Gentile quarters, he had been himself affected by the subtle spirit of Judaism, i.e., the chief of the twelve! How little is man to be accounted of! And Paul, far from deriving his apostleship or aught else from Peter, was obliged to rebuke him, and this publicly. "When Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed: for before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles; but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation. But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?" I call your attention particularly to this, brethren, that an act apparently so simple as Peter's ceasing to eat with the Gentiles had such a solemn character in the eye of the apostle Paul, that he considered it a question of the truth of the gospel. Are you prepared for this searching judgment of what looked a small and indifferent matter? Do your souls go along with Paul's decision? Or are you inclined toward the easy-going yieldingness of Peter? Can you seize the gravity of this?

Remember what it must have been to one like Paul to censure the most honoured of the twelve. For Peter is not said to have withdrawn from the Lord's table where the uncircumcised met, but from the simple matter of eating with the Gentiles. The truth of the gospel, to the apostle Paul's mind, was at stake. Need it be added that he was right and Peter wrong? The gospel had brought in before God this double conclusion, founded on the first Adam and the last. It supposed, and went forth to every creature on the ground of the total ruin of Jew and Gentile. There was no difference: all had sinned. And it proclaimed the full and equally blessed standing of those who received Christ. There was no difference in the blessing of Christ: man's guilt and God's grace were alike indiscriminate. There was no difference either way. (Romans 3:1-31, Romans 10:1-21) But the act of Peter went to maintain a difference. The truth of the gospel, therefore, was compromised. And there were reasons why Peter was grievously in fault, particularly as he did no longer adhere to the law, but lived as one conscious of the freedom from it which the gospel gives those who believe in a risen Christ. Why then did he want he Gentiles to live as did the Jews?

The apostle accordingly now turns to the great argument of his epistle, and the discussion of those grand principles that are characteristic to Christianity, and in full agreement with the facts that have already been brought before you. "We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we may be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." But then he goes farther. He says, "If, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ therefore the minister of sin?" This would have flowed from Peter's conduct. Had Peter been right, it was evident that the gospel had put Peter in the wrong. The gospel had led Peter to treat the Jews and Gentiles all alike. The gospel had given him to sanction in his ways and words the overthrow of the partition wall. If Peter was acting rightly now, this had all been a mistake, and consequently the gospel nay, solemn to say, Christ Himself would be thus a minister of sin. Such was the serious but necessary import of Peter's act. Peter would have been horrified at such a conclusion. This shows us the exceeding seriousness of a step apparently so trifling as his abstaining from further intercourse with the Gentiles in mere ordinary life. The apostle's discerning eye at once judged by Christ and by that gospel which he had learned from Him. He habitually measured things not so much by their bearing on Jews or Gentiles as by their effect on Christ's glory. In point of fact, to bring in Christ is also best of all to secure the blessing, the privileges, the glory that God has in His grace for every one that believes. Paul was pleading for the real interests of the Jew just as much as of the Gentile; but he presses this most clenching argument that Peter's conduct involved the making Christ Himself the minister of sin; "for if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor."

Then the apostle at once explains, as annexed to this, the real state of the case. "I through the law am dead to the law." As you know, he had been under law as a Jew. And what was the effect of God's giving him to have an application of law in his own conscience? Why, to feel himself a dead man. As it is reasoned out in Romans 7:1-25, the law came, and he died. "I through law am dead to law, that I might live unto God." The law in itself never produces such a result. All that the law can do, even when yielded by the might of the Spirit of God, is to force on a soul the consciousness of being dead before God. The law is never life to the dead, but kills morally those who seem alive. "I through law am dead to law." It is thus, then, that grace uses it to give me death in my conscience before God. Thus I am dead through the law. The Spirit of God can employ it to make a man feel that all is over with him; but He goes farther in grace, and by that very law brings the man in dead to the law, and not merely condemned. He through law died to law, that he might live to God! Here he comes to the positive blessing; for the Spirit cannot rest in what is but negative. But it is life after death to law, and consequently in another sphere.

He next announces the true secret of it all: "I am crucified with Christ." It is not merely that I have found in Christ a Saviour, but I am crucified with Christ. My very nature is dealt with. All that I have as a living man in the world is gone, not, of course, as a mere matter of fact, but, what is far more important, as a matter of faith. The history of the flesh its sad and humbling history is soon over; but the history that faith opens into never closes. "I am crucified with Christ." This terminates all for me as a living man here below. "Nevertheless" astonishing to say, for it could not be natural life "nevertheless, I live." And what sort of life can this be? "Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." How precious to have done with one's sinful self and to begin a life so perfect as Christ's! "And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."

I have nothing to do with the law any more, even if I had been once under it as a Jew. For the law was used with killing power; and, slain as it were in my conscience, I found in that very place Christ Himself by the grace of God, Christ that died for me; and not merely this, but Christ in whom I died. I am crucified with Christ: consequently all that remains for me is living this new life which Christ is in me. And this life is sustained by the very same person who is its source. "The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me," etc. It is not a question of my loving Him, though this is and must be true of the saints; but this would tend to throw the soul on self, and it is not the reckoning of grace. What comforts the soul, what strengthens and keeps it up, is that He "loved me, and gave Himself for me."

Thus, as he says most emphatically, "I do not frustrate the grace of God;" they did, every one who substituted aught but Christ and His cross. Every one who went back from such a gospel as this was, as far as it went, frustrating the grace of God. "If righteousness come by the law," (he does not merely say, "come of the law," but come by it,) "then Christ is dead [died] in vain." Not so; it is exclusively of grace by Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. It is wholly apart from works of law.

Accordingly, in Galatians 3:1-29 he pursues his reasoning. "O foolish Galatians," he now breaks out in an impassioned appeal to them, "who hath bewitched you [that ye should not obey the truth should here vanish], before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you?" Observe the place the cross has here, not merely Christ's blood, but His death on the cross. As we saw it in the Corinthians applied to judge the worldliness of the saints there, so here it judges their legalism. "This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?" There are two things in the Christian; he has a life, a new life in Christ, but he has also, the Holy Ghost. The law kills instead of giving life, and puts under condemnation instead of giving that Spirit which is necessarily a spring of sonship and liberty. Having brought in the true character of the Christian's life as flowing simply and solely from Christ, and from Christ crucified too, so here he takes up the Holy Ghost. He was given, whether in power or in person, not by the law, but by the hearing of faith.

"Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? Have ye suffered so many things in vain, if it be yet in vain? He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?" There could be but one answer. This immense privilege had no connection with law whatever. The Holy Ghost is given as the seal of faith in Christ on the accomplishment of redemption, not before nor otherwise.

Then he takes up Abraham; for this is always the stock argument of those who would bring in circumcision and the law, Abraham being emphatically the friend of God and the father of the faithful. And mark how the Holy Ghost turns Abraham into an additional and most unexpected proof of the grace of God and the truth of the gospel. Only we must carefully bear this in mind, that in the epistle to the Galatians we never rise exactly to church ground. It is Christian ground, certainly, but not the church as such. Of course the same persons who are here in present view belonged to the church of God; but then they are not contemplated in their heavenly relationship, but as the children of promise, as we shall see in the end of this very chapter. There are many present privileges and future glories that belong to the Christian; and promise is one of them. We are not to suppose that a higher and more heavenly character blots out the lesser place; of this the apostle takes advantage here. But he proves more when he says that Abraham believed God; it was plainly not a question of law. Abraham never. heard of the law. "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Know ye therefore that they which are of faith" (not those that cry up the law) "are the children of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith," not by becoming proselytes of the gate, or entering on a legal basis, but "foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed." Later, and in a far fuller way now, the gospel was the blessed answer to this early grace. He does not say that it is the complement of it; but most decidedly it flows from the same divine spring of grace. The gospel, not the law, owns its kindred with the promise. "So then," says he, "they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham." The law holds out but never gives blessing. Those that are of faith, not those who pretend to the law and do it not, are blessed with their father.

But he goes deeply. He tells them that as many as take the ground of law works are under the curse already. Not that they have actually broken down and failed; but so incapable is man of standing before God on the principle of doing the law, that it is all over with him the moment he pretends to it. "As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." The consequence is, that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God; and this he proves, not only from the promise, but from the prophets. When the prophet speaks of any one living, it is by faith "The just shall live by faith." Hence, you see, all exactly suits the gospel as Paul insisted on it. "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ." He does not say, that the Gentiles were under that curse, but that Christ bought off us who were in this position from its curse; for in truth, whatever might be our boast, all we (the Jews) got from the law was a curse, not a blessing; and what Christ did for us was to purchase us from that awful plight in which the law could not but put us because we had transgressed. it. And thus the blessing of Abraham could flow freely towards the Gentiles who never were there.

And this leads to another point, the relation of the law to the promises. How do they stand related? and how do they affect each other? The apostle turns this into an admirable piece of divine reasoning in defence of the gospel. "Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; though it be but a man's covenant, yet, if it be confirmed, no man annulleth or addeth thereto." Everybody knows this. When once a covenant is "signed, sealed, and delivered," it must not be meddled with. You cannot lawfully add to it, any more than set aside its provisions. "Now to Abraham were the promises spoken, and to his seed. He saith not, And to seeds, as to many; but as to one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. And this I say, that the covenant confirmed before by God unto Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, can not annul so that it should make the promise of none effect." Such is the application. "For if the inheritance be of law, it is no more of promise:" otherwise by the condition of law you would annul the promise. That is to say, the covenant that was made between God and Abraham had reference to the seed which was coming, symbolized by Isaac, but really looking onward to Christ. Nothing that God afterwards introduced annulled this. If the law, introduced afterwards, were allowed to exercise control, the effect would be to set aside the promise. It would be first adding to it, and not only so, but annulling it. The inheritance, therefore, depends on the grace of God fulfilling His promise, not on man's accomplishment of the law, even if possible. The promise is therefore entirely distinct from the law, which was not heard of for four hundred and thirty years after. The long lapse of time ought to have guarded men from mixing up the law with the promise, and thus from the appearance of annulling the promise by the law, for this would be most dishonouring to God. We can understand a foolish man making a covenant, and the next day repenting of it, which is never true of the divine purposes. In this case it was God that gave the promise; it was He that confirmed the covenant to Christ, without saying a word about the law till four hundred and thirty years after. How impossible, therefore, to add the law to the promise! Still less is it possible to let the law set its force aside. "To Abraham were the promises made, and to his seed."

This is exceedingly important, and the more as I believe the scope of the allusion to Abraham and to his seed is not often appreciated. The argument is founded upon the unity of the seed of promise in this connection. For God does speak elsewhere, and even on this occasion, of a numerous seed. One of the encouragements, as we know, which God furnished to Abraham was, that he should have a seed like the sand of the sea, and like the stars of the sky. These were his lineal posterity. But where the Gentiles are mentioned, God only speaks of seed without reference to number.

This is best seen by turning to Genesis 22:1-24, where both facts are found in the same context. I just refer to it for a moment, because it adds much to the beauty of the reasoning in Galatians. In verse 17 it is written, "In blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore." At first sight it seems most extraordinary, if the apostle referred to such a Scripture for the proof of the importance of one seed; because, if there is anything that lies on the surface of the passage, it is the multiplicity of the seed a seed expressly said to exceed all reckoning. This, then, is not what the apostle Paul has in view, but in contrast with it. And mark the difference. When God speaks of the seed numerous as the sand or the stars, He gives them a Jewish character of blessing. "Thy seed ( i.e., the numerous seed) shall possess the gate of his enemies." God promises the final power and glory of Israel in the earth, putting down their foes, and so forth.

But immediately after this it is added, "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. "Here we have the Gentiles expressly named, and to this the apostle refers. Mark it well. When God gives a pledge not of possessing the gate of enemies, when He speaks of the blessing of the nations, instead of the overthrow of Israel's foes, then he speaks simply of "thy seed." There is no comparison of countless seed; there is not an allusion to the sand of the sea, or to the stars of the sky. On this the apostle reasons.

What the Jews would have liked, no doubt, was power (and the Galatians, after all, were in danger of slipping into the same snare; for the law suits the world, as grace does not), and in the world present power and honour. This the Jews are destined to have by-and-by; for the promises to Abraham are not exhausted yet. Whereas the Holy Ghost by the apostle draws attention to the contrast of "thy seed" (as one) with the numerous seed, with earthly blessing attached to them; whilst to "thy seed " simply, without reference to stars or to sand, no more is annexed than the blessing of Gentiles. This it is to which we are come now under Christianity. By-and-by will be fulfilled the promised earthly blessing, and power, and glory for Israel like the sand and the stars. The Jews will surely be exalted, as well as converted nationally, and they will then put down their enemies, being made the head when other nations become the tail. But meanwhile, under the gospel, there is an express promise of the blessing of the Gentiles when God spoke of the one seed, which is Christ. Already "thy seed," the true Isaac, is given, and in that true seed the Gentiles are being blessed. It is no question now of being subject to the Jews, who shall never possess the gate of their enemies, but be peeled and scattered and few, while the gospel is going forth. The other part remains, and must be accomplished in its own day, when Israel's heart turns to the Lord. Meanwhile another and a better sort of blessing is given, as a better Seed also is given the true Heir of all the promises of God, even Christ the Lord. And, doubtless, God had all this in view when He pledged Himself with an oath to Abraham. He did not forget His people Israel; but He had always the glory of Christ before Him; and the moment we rise up to this blessed Seed of all blessing (the true Isaac, dead and risen really, as the son of Abraham was then in figure), the blessing of the Gentiles is secured in that one sole person, before the Jews are multiplied in their land under the new covenant, and possess the gate of their enemies.

This then is the apostle's allusion and reasoning; but he proceeds to meet a natural objection. If the promise be the only means of enjoying the inheritance, what is the good of the law? Does not this make very light of it? You say that the promise is everything, and that the law cannot either set aside the promise or add other clauses to it. What then is the end of the law? It is for the purpose of bringing in transgression, answers the apostle. This is all that people's zeal and labour come to. They spring from unbelief from undue thoughts of self, from ignorance of God, from slight thoughts of Christ. Legal activity is but labouring in the fire for vanity; and if, alas! the Christian dooms himself to such hard labour instead of resting in the faith of Christ, whom has he to blame? Certainly not God, nor His plain and precious word. He will gain transgression thereby; nothing more, nothing better. "Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator." Thus it is evident that the legal system is a parenthesis. Promise was before the law, and flowed out of the grace of God. The law came in meanwhile, serving its own object, which was to bring out what was in the heart of man. For he is a sinner; and the law called out the sin into articulate transgressions, and made it perfectly plain that the heart is only evil continually, and proves it by plain transgressions; that is all. Then comes the seed, and the promise is made Yea and Amen in Him all the promises of God. As made under the law He was for Israel; but He died and rose, and was thus free to bless a Gentile as much as a Jew. For what has a risen man to do with Israel more than the nations? All question of natural ties drops in death; as the cross is the disproof of any right to Christ in either. For Jew and Gentile were alike guilty of crucifying Him. All therefore becomes a matter of the pure grace of God; and He is pleased to bless the Gentiles in the Seed, even Christ dead and risen.

The law is of a wholly different nature, and hence was ordained of angels in the hand of a mediator. The creature intervenes here, and the consequence soon appears. For he comes to another and most cogent argument. "Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one." The meaning is that you never can get stability in blessing until you have simply God putting forth His own power according to His own grace. Leave room for God, and for God alone. Such is the only possible way in which blessing can be brought in, in order that such souls as we are should be blessed and maintained in it. And thus it is with the promise. In it there is one party, even God Himself, who gave it, and accordingly fulfils it in that Seed to whom the covenant was confirmed. But the moment you bring in the law, you have two parties; and, strange to say, instead of the greater party being God, it becomes man, whose responsibility is to God. God asks, and man is called to give, i.e., is called to obedience. Alas! we know too well the result from sinful man. Grace alone in such a case brings glory to God. Thus, clearly, in the law man becomes the prominent and responsible party, not God. This never can bring man to God any more than glory to God. The law, accordingly, never was the truth, either on God's side, or man's. It was, of course, altogether just and right in itself. Man had his duty to God, and be ought to have. done his duty; but it was precisely what he could not do, because he was a sinner. To make this evident by transgressions was the object of the law. It was to demonstrate his sinfulness, not to gain the inheritance. But this was only provisional and parenthetic. After all, what God had at heart was the accomplishment of His own promise in grace. When He gave the promise to Abraham, He said, "I will give." And now in Christ He has accomplished it I mean already. But before He sent the promised Seed, man's self-confidence needed the discipline of the intermediate thing, the law; and after infinite long-suffering on God's part, the people who undertook to obey it had to be swept out of the land for their disobedience.

The law was given them with all pomp and solemnity. It was ordained by angels, who had nothing to do with promise, which God gave direct to His friend. When He had anything unfailing to do or say, He loved to appear in grace; He said it Himself, and did it for Himself. But when men would have anything fraught with distress to His people, when through their folly confusion must ensue, contrary to all that His heart loved, then it was left to others. Thus the law was ordained by angels in the hands of a mediator. A double intervention comes between God and man, in contrast with the simplicity of His ways of grace. In grace, God in the person of His Son speaks and accomplishes ALL; and thus He is glorified from first to last. Man is only the receiver; and truly, as we know, "it is more blessed to give than to receive." God reserves to Himself this great blessedness in the gospel; whereas under the law there was nothing of the kind. Then I must repeat that God could only make claims; and man had to take the place, if he could, of giving to God of rendering his obedience. He was bound to do what he ought; but, in point of fact, all was a failure, and could be nothing else, because man was a sinner.

This then is what the law brought in. Is it against the promise of God? Not at all. Rather, if man had been able to obey the law and so acquire a title, then two systems would have interfered with each other as being to the same end. Some would have received the inheritance because of promise, and others on the ground of law. Thus the two totally opposite roads of grace and law would have been leading to the same result. This must be indeed confusion; as it is, there is none. Under law all is lost; under grace all is saved. The law and the promise are both from God, but the law's use is only negative and condemnatory. It cannot and ought not to spare sinners. The promise has another and most blessed place. It brings in deliverance for man in the accomplishment of God's purpose in Christ. This is what is found under it. Thus the law pulls down what is evil, and the promise gives what is good and builds it up. The law brings man in his nothingness into evidence, it proves that he is only a poor lost sinner. Grace brings out the faithful promise of God, and His goodness to him that deserves nothing. Thus, rightly understood and applied, the law and the promises, while wholly distinct, are in no way inconsistent with each other. Merge them, as unbelief does, and all is confusion and ruin.

Further, it is laid down, if there had been a law capable of giving life, righteousness would be by the law. But this could not be. On the contrary, "the Scripture hath concluded all under sin" not under righteousness by law. Thus, whether it be the Gentile without law, or the Jew with it, all are shut up under sin. "The scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe."

But, he adds, faith is come (that is, the testimony to be believed by man now, or the gospel). This he means here by "faith." "Before faith came we [Jews] were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the children of God." Instead of being under a slave, with rigorous and humiliating discipline, there is now the place of a child before his Father; the Christian stands by faith of Jesus in direct relationship to God. "Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus."

This is shown still more fully in the allusion to baptism: "As many of us as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." It is of course assumed that every Christian had been baptized. There was no doubt or difficulty on this head in these early days. There was no believer, Jew or Gentile, who had not gladly submitted to that very blessed sign of having part with Christ, and of that which is made good by Christ. "As many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." It is not a question of law at all. Christian baptism, contrariwise, supposes man dead; and the only death that can deliver man out of his own death is the death of Christ. Therefore, when a man is baptized, he is not, of course, baptized into his own death; there is no sense in such a thought. He is baptized into Christ's death, which is the sole means of deliverance out of his state of sin. So here the Christian puts on Christ, not the law or circumcision. He wants to get rid of the first Adam and all its appliances, not to keep it on; and therefore he puts on Christ. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female;" all is Christ and only Christ. It is not an old creation, but a new one. Can anything prove that it is not an old creation better than this that there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female, which last at least is an absolute necessity for the perpetuation of the race? All this vanishes in Christ; we are all one in Him; and if you are Christ's, what need to be circumcised! You do not want to become the children of Abraham in that sense, which would be the revival of the flesh. If Christ's, they were Abraham's seed already, "and heirs according to the promise;" for Christ, he had shown before, was the one true Seed; and if we are Christ's, we belong to that one true Seed, and therefore are the children of Abraham without circumcision at all. Nothing can be more conclusive than this disproof of the fleshly pretensions that were connected with Jerusalem, and were brought in under cover of Abraham, but really to the subversion of the gospel.

In Galatians 4:1-31 the relation is taken up, not of the law to the promise, but of the Christian now to the condition of the saints of old a very important point also. Here one may be very brief: "The heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors, until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children," etc. The comparison would take in the Old Testament saints; or the application ("even so we") is to those then alive, who had been under that state of things. "We, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world; but when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." The apostle shows that, so far from bringing in Christians and putting them on the ground of the Old Testament, God is really leading those who were in that connection out of it all by redemption. He fully allows that the Lord was both made of a woman and made under the law; but what was the ultimate object in view! It was not to keep people under the law, still less could it be to put any under the law, but to bring them clean out if they had been under it before. Such was the case with the Old Testament believers, and many Jewish believers then alive. Was it possible, then, that any could desire to put the Gentiles under law, when they had been brought out from it themselves by the will of God, the work of Christ, and the witness of the Holy Spirit? What a gross inconsistency! What a subversion, not only of the truth of God revealed in the gospel, but also of redemption, which is its basis! For Christ bought off those that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons, bringing them by grace into a place of known salvation and intelligent joy in relation with our God and Father, out of that bondage and nonage which the law supposes.

But what about the Gentiles? "Because ye are sons." He does not condescend to reason about their place in the matter, but puts them at once in their due relationship. Because they were sons, God sent that blessed proof and power of their sonship. He gives freely the Holy Ghost on their acceptance of Christ's name; or, as it is here written, "He sent forth the Spirit of his Son in your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." That is, if the Holy Ghost was given as the seal of their redemption, and as the joy of the sonship, wherein they now stood, in the exercise of their nearness to God and enjoyment of His love, they cry, "Abba, Father," the very words of Christ himself (but in how different circumstances!) to His Father. "Wherefore, thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ."

Thence he advances to another point of his argument. Indeed, we may say that now he thunders on the Galatians that were dragging in the law. Did they know that for a Gentile Christian to take up Judaistic elements is in principle to go back to heathenism? Heathenism! Why they thought they were becoming more truly religious, more reverent in their value for Scripture. They thought that Christianity would be all the better for adopting the ancient forms and beautiful figures of the law. Not at all, says the apostle, you are returning straight into your old heathenism without knowing it yourselves. For he had shown that our purchase by Christ delivers even the Jew from subjection to the law; whilst Gentiles are set at once on the ground of grace without the intervention of any legal apprenticeship whatever, "Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?" What can be conceived more serious or trenchant than such a statement as this? Impossible to find a blast more withering to all that they were aiming at. Born and bred in the abominable idolatries of the heathen, they were strangers to the institutions of Israel. They had been lately brought by the grace of God into Christianity, where they found Jewish brethren, now made one, as it is said, in Christ. Ignorant or false men had made them hanker after circumcision. What were they doing? When a Gentile Christian, mark, takes up such Old Testament elements, according to the Holy Ghost, it is not to him merely Judaism, but a return to his Gentile idols, little as he may think so.

Jewish elements were borne with in a Jew. The apostle Paul himself, inRomans 14:1-23; Romans 14:1-23, insists upon the forbearance of a Gentile even towards the Jew that might be still encumbered by his days, meats, and so on. But the moment a Gentile takes the system up, or a Jew presses it on a Gentile, it is nothing but downright heathenism. Who would have ventured to say, without express scripture, that the old Jewish forms thus adopted by a Gentile believer have such an idolatrous character? Yet how true it is, the more we look below the surface; indeed, in our day it becomes more and more palpable to the eye. Ritualism is the present most patent comment on the apostle's statement. The very defence set up, and the meanings which these men put on the forms and ceremonies of which they make Christianity so largely to consist, demonstrate their most barefaced turning back to idolatry. Do not suppose that idolatry has its character saved because Jesus is worshipped. Christianity refuses to be mingled with anything but itself. Tender and comprehensive as Christianity is, it is also the most exclusive thing that can be. Truth must necessarily be exclusive, and all who hold the truth must, in their adhesion to it and Him who is its personal expression, be exclusive too. (I mean by this, of course, exclusive of sin and falsehood.) There can be no compromise; but to be exclusive in any sense save as the expression of the truth in Christ would be in its own way an utter and heartless falsehood. There is nothing that requires more the power of grace; for even the truth itself, if severed from grace, ceases to be the truth. Being found only in Christ, it supposes the manifestation of grace; light does not in the same way that truth does. "Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." (Compare John 1:9; John 1:17.)

Now the Galatians were unwittingly in danger of giving up the truth. They were only, as they supposed, beginning to cherish a becoming attitude toward the religion of the fathers, and of all who had before Christ honoured God on earth. Venerable religion! the only system of earthly worship which had ever possessed God's sanction. Why not adopt what was wanting in Christianity? Where was the harm of taking up what saints of old submitted to? No, rejoins the apostle; you are going back to heathenism. They had been idolaters before they became Christians; and to take up Jewish principles in addition to Christ is to turn back again to their cast-off idols. Next, we are told, wherein this consisted. "Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. What! is this all? I have known a divine who had a character for intelligence use these words as a motto and sanction. And no wonder. Christendom is built upon this footing. They think that it is quite right, for the church especially, to appoint days for this and that saint; to have certain seasons to remind one of the Lord's incarnation, ministry, and crucifixion, of His resurrection, ascension, and so on. I choose the best facts; for I have no wish to rake up abuses. All this is counted a great, wise, and sensible help to devotion. Well, "sensible" help in the meaning of an appeal to nature it is; but it is a sensible help to idolatry, not to living faith. This is the very evil which the Spirit of God so earnestly and energetically denounces here by the apostle Paul. He does not charge them with anything of an openly gross or immoral nature; but what a proof that the truth of God, that the grace of Christ, is exclusive of everything but itself! Nor is there a greater evidence of God's tender and considerate care for us than such a fact as this. For He knows our tendency to mingle law with grace in some form or measure, and treats that which was of the fathers and long before Moses, as a foreign ingredient deleterious to Christians. As God has wrought for us on the cross, and delivered us from every atom of sin in Christ, so He will not allow us to mix one earthly or legal element with the revelation of His grace, which He has made ours in redemption, and proclaimed to us by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.

Hereon the apostle puts before them another expostulation: "I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain." And this directly follows his censure of their observance of times and seasons. "Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am; for I am as ye are." They knew very well that he had nothing to do with the law or its ordinances. "Be as I am." By this he plainly means free from law. "For I am as ye are." They were, after all, Gentiles, and as such ought to have had nothing to do with the law. So he calls on them to be as free of the law as himself. For he, though a Jew, had completely done with the law, and all that pertains to it. "For I am as ye are: ye have not injured me at all." That is, the apostle, instead of regarding his despised freedom from the law as a just reproach, glories in it. There was no insult to him, nor injury done, in saying that he did not acknowledge the law for a Christian.

But, further, he refers in a very affecting manner to some personal circumstances how in his own body he was a witness of having nothing to do with flesh; for what God had been pleased to put upon him as serving Him in the gospel was not great power of nature, but that which made him contemptible in his preaching. It is evident that the thorn in the flesh was something which left him open to a slight, and made it difficult indeed for any one to understand how a man who was called to be an apostle should find it hard to convey plainly his mind in preaching. It is quite obvious that there was a hindrance of some sort. It seems to have been something which affected his speech too, and exposed him to ridicule and to unfavourable comments where men were carnally-minded. But in this he could glory. It was something painful to bear. At first he prayed the Lord to take it from him; but no! though he had prayed thrice, as his Lord had done on another and wondrous occasion, so the apostle was to have communion with Christ in this way, and learn that there is something better than the taking away of that which makes nothing of the flesh. The power of Christ must rest upon him. Thus it appears that the Galatians as well as the Corinthians had been similarly affected. And this leads him to speak of another trial. When they first knew him, there was no difficulty felt on this score; they heard him as an angel of God. It was they who had changed, not he. They had so completely lost sight of the grace of Christ, the sweetness and the bloom of it, that he travailed again for them: his soul once more passed through that which had exercised him when they were converted.

Then he gives a closing blow to those who doted about the law. He says to those who would be under the law, why do you not listen to the law? Look at Abraham and his house; look at the maid Hagar; look at Isaac and Ishmael. There you have in a figure the two parties that are still found on the earth: the law party symbolized by Ishmael, the child of flesh; and those that cling to the grace of God, who have their pattern in Isaac, the child of promise. Now, what does God say about it? Why this: "Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, and the other by a freewoman." The apostle expressly reasons on Abraham, as they were always anxious to cite Abraham, the father of circumcision. Their main support then, as they thought Abraham, had two sons; but they stood, according to Scripture, on wholly different principles. "The child of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise." How apt the illustration for exposing the judaizers! The case is hit off exactly to the life. Which son represented them? Under which type did they fall Ishmael or Isaac? Whom did their principle make them resemble?

There can be no doubt about the matter. "Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?" "Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, which answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us [all?]. For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath a husband." The application of this is as plain as it is conclusive, for those who appealed to Abraham and bowed to the word of God. Instead of going up to Jerusalem on earth, instead of endeavouring to effect a junction with the law or anything else here below, the gospel wants no such allies, but repudiates them all. The very reverse of their system is true. The true link is with Jerusalem above, as our prototype is Isaac, the child of the freewoman. Theirs was the slave's son Ishmael.

Then, bringing in the name of Jerusalem, the Spirit leads him to apply the prophecy of Isaiah, which shows that millennial Israel (in their turn abandoning self-righteousness, and made free by God's grace in Christ) will look back and count as their own those now brought in as Christians, and find far more children begotten by the gospel, in the time of their own desolation, than even when they flourished of old, and had ,all that earthly power and glory could give. Thus a decisive blow is struck at the principle of connection with the law; and it was evident that they did not truly "hear the law." Their ears were heavy, and their eyes blinded by their legalism. Nor did they understand the prophets better. To be under law was fatal to Jerusalem. Everything lost then would be gained when promise has its way. Up to the destruction of Jerusalem it was law; but now, under Christianity, Jerusalem, being rebellious and scorning promise like Ishmael, is cast out and has nothing. She is desolate; she is no longer in the condition of the married wife, but like the fugitive bondwoman. She is as one that has no husband. Yet, wondrous to say, when she desires to be under grace by-and-by, all those that are now brought in by promise will be accounted as children to her. Such is the reasoning in which the apostle uses this very remarkable prophecy. When Jerusalem is humbled by the mercy of God, and betakes herself to her Messiah and the new covenant, she will "hear the law," and the prophets will be accomplished in her blessing, and in the largeness of love the present children of promise (even Christians, as being in a certain mystical sense children of Jerusalem) will be her boast. But this will be Jerusalem, under not law but promise and liberty, restored by grace after having lost everything by the law, and reduced to utter desolation. But for us now the apostle carefully adds the principle of our heavenly character. Ours is Jerusalem above, not a city on earth. That is, he links on the heavenly character of Jerusalem for us before touching on the desolate place of Jerusalem after the flesh, or of the predicted change of heart and blessing in grace, when she will be glad to appropriate, as it were, the Christians born now after the Spirit. This closes the course of the apostle's argument.

Next he turns to direct exhortation, the chief salient points of which will call for but few words. It is liberty and not law that the Christian stands in. At the same time he insists in the most peremptory manner that our liberty in Christ is to be used for holiness. He shows that the Spirit of God dwelling in the believer gives no license for the action of the flesh. In other words, if the believer simply were one forgiven by grace, without having either life in Christ or the Holy Ghost dwelling in him, he might, perhaps, plead that he could not avoid sinning. He had been brought to a place of blessing outside himself and by another, the Saviour, which in itself gives the soul motives indeed but not power; whereas, for the soul who is brought to God by the gospel, and planted in the liberty wherein Christ makes free before God, it is no more a question of flesh, but of the Holy Ghost who is given to him. And who will venture to say that the indwelling Spirit of God fails to supply power to him who submits to the righteousness of God in Christ? Hence the point is not at all whether we have intrinsic power, but whether He is not now abiding in us as "a Spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." Undoubtedly such is the assurance of God's word to His children; and thus Galatians 5:1-26 is in contrast withRomans 7:1-25; Romans 7:1-25. In that chapter of Romans we have a man converted indeed, but without liberty, and consequently powerless. He sees the right, feels the good, desires the holy, but never, accomplishes. The reason is, that he has not yet come to own by faith that he has no strength any more than righteousness, and that Christ is all and in all. He is afresh making efforts to improve, yet still in bondage and misery. He is occupied with himself. He feels what he ought to do, but he does it not, and thus is increasingly wretched. Sense of duty is not power. What gives power is the heart surrendering itself in everything, and thus set at liberty by Christ. I am perfectly delivered, and the measure of my deliverance is Christ, and Christ raised from the dead. This is Christianity; and when the soul thankfully accepts from God this blessed liberty, the Holy Ghost is given to and acts in the believer as a Spirit of peace and power; so that if there is the flesh lusting against the Spirit, the Spirit resists this, in order that (for such is the true meaning) they should not do the things that they would.

Accordingly he draws from this a most weighty argument against bringing in the law as the rule of life for the believer. You do not need it, because the Holy Ghost thus working strengthens you unto love. Liberty comes first, mark; power and love afterwards. And how true all this is! Make a child thoroughly happy, and you will soon see that its duty becomes comparatively light and a joy. But when one is miserable, does not every duty, even where it may be as light as a feather, feel as if it were an iron chain on you? It is no wonder that one who is thus tied and bound feels restive under it. Far otherwise is God's way with souls. He makes one first thoroughly happy in the sense of His grace and the liberty Christ has won, and then the Holy Ghost becomes an indwelling spring of power, though His power is put forth in us only as we have Christ kept before us. Thus, if we walk in the Spirit, we shall not fulfil the desires of the flesh. Such is the secret of true power. The consequence is, "If ye are led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law;" and more than this, if we are producing the fruits of the Spirit, he can easily say, "Against such there is no law." Let others talk as they will of the law, no law can censure the real fruits of the Holy Ghost, or those in whom they are found.

Then we come to the closing chapter (Galatians 6:1-18); and here we find the Spirit of God calling for tenderness in dealing with those who are overtaken in a fault. "Ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted." Besides, we have a more daily duty: "Bear ye one another's burdens." It is not merely to seek in love a fallen brother, but to be the succourer of others in their difficulties. Love finds its activity in caring for those that are cast down, "and so fulfils the law of Christ." Do you want a law? Is not this just the law for you! It is the law of Christ. Thus He lived and moved here below. The law of Moses tells a man to do his duty in his own place. The law of Christ makes the going out of love towards another, so to speak, to be his joy. It was exactly what Christ was on earth; and the expression of Christ is the prime call of the Christian.

But there is more for us. He shows that God would give us a deliverance from self-importance; and what a mercy it is to be so blessed, that one can afford to forget one's self! Now, the law always brings fallen man into importance: such it must be in its principle. The law necessarily makes the man, and the man's doings, to be the prominent object. Hence the effect of the law in all its ramifications on man is the same. Thus it wrought among the Galatians. After all their vapouring about the law, they were biting and devouring one another. Was this the love the law claimed? Had they been occupied with Christ, they would have really loved one another, and in other respects too fulfilled the law, without thinking about themselves or it. Such is the effect of Christianity, and such in perfection was Christ Himself. But spite of, or rather because of, their use of law, they were self-important, without holy power, and judged instead of loving each other. How abortive is man in the things of God! "For if a man think himself to be something when he is nothing he deceiveth himself. But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. For every man shall bear his own 'burden." Thus, whatever may be the energy that seeks souls in love, there is nothing after all like Christianity for maintaining individual responsibility intact.

How wholesome is the language here, "Every one shall bear his own burden!" But responsibility is always according to the relation in which one stands, and the measure of knowledge which each possesses, or ought to possess. Let me press this gravely upon those who are here this night. If I am a man, I am responsible as such; being fallen and sinful, this will end in judgment. If I am a Christian, I am responsible according to that position and privilege. My responsibility is defined by the place in which I am found. If I am a mere man, a sinner, the end of that is (for responsibility is not like power, destroyed by sin) the eternal judgment of God. If I am a Christian, I acquire a new kind of responsibility. My business is to act consistently with the new place in which grace has put me. Let us never confound the two. One of the most dangerous errors in Christendom is, that these two things are lumped together. The truth is the distinctive boon and mark of Christendom. There is now much confusion of things that differ; and so, more or less, error runs through the whole of it in all its parts; but I know not anything more ruinous than this. The most difficult thing in Christendom is for people to know what it is to be Christians, and to take this place by the faith of Christ themselves. That is, the most simple and most obvious truth is just the last thing a man thinks about. And no wonder. What Satan aims at is, that people should not count themselves what they are, and that they should be always slipping into what they are not. The result of this is, that neither God has His place, nor they. All is confusion. Christ is forgotten.

But then there is another point of exhortation too; and surely we ought not to forget that there are not only the common links of love, and the willingness to succour one another, as we see, beginning with a most extreme case and ending with a general one; but still further, "Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things;" and not only that, but also the general responsibility of the saint and in a solemn manner. It is not only that we are put now where we can be the witness to grace in all its outgoings, but, besides that, we are where flesh might show itself. And this is a universal principle. If I sow to the flesh, I shall of the flesh reap corruption; if I sow to the Spirit, I shall reap life everlasting. Eternal life is beyond doubt the gift of divine grace; but, besides, the eternal life that I have now by pure and simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is what I find at the end of my course as well as at the starting. There is such a thing as, by patient continuance in well doing, to seek for eternal life. Eternal life is spoken of in this double way in scripture (Romans 6:22-23); and I also press this as a truth of no small importance and but too much forgotten.

Then, further, attention is drawn to another topic his own writing of this letter. It was a very unusual circumstance. The apostle, as far as I know, wrote no other letter to any one of the churches of the saints. To the Galatians there was an exception. If he wrote to the Romans;, it was transcribed, or at any rate written, by another. He signed ordinarily, putting his subscription at the end, i.e., his own name, to verify it; but he did not write it. Writing was a somewhat laborious task in those days, and it was a kind of profession to be a writer or scribe, before printing, of course, was known. Now the apostle in writing to the Galatians was so moved in love, and so yearned over them in their danger, that he actually wrote the epistle with his own hand. He draws particular attention to this fact ere he closes: "You see how large a letter I have written unto you with mine own hand." Thus it was the ardour of love and grief; it was the earnestness of his purpose that could not bear in this instance to employ an intermediary. Just as he had shown that God in His love to man had given the promise direct, so the apostle Paul acts in his care for the saints of God where all the foundations were endangered.

Finally, he concludes by putting the sentence of death, if I may so say, on circumcision, and all such as might adopt it. He intimates also how vain a thing is legalism, because those that were pleading for circumcision in no case carried out their own principle. Bring in one part of law, and you fall under the authority of the whole. You are bound to carry it out consistently. This they never thought of doing. The enemy had ensnared them by crying up circumcision, in order to betray them into a link with Judaism; but they had no thought of bearing the real burden of the law. As for himself, he gloried only in the cross. "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." Along with the cross goes a new creation. How blessed, and how all-important for our souls! The cross has sentenced the world; and this very sentence of the world is our deliverance from the world. We are crucified unto it by grace, as the world is crucified unto us by judgment. For the world there is nothing yet executed, any more than the great results of grace for the saints as yet appear in their fulness. The solemnities of Christ's judgment await men in the day of the Lord. But the whole matter is decided before God. And this is of immense moment to remember. Christianity brings everything to a climax; it also settles all questions. The Christian by the cross of Christ has terminated his connection with flesh, with the world, with the law. He is brought into another condition. And what is this? He is a new creature in Christ. Therefore, no wonder that he says, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ."

At the same time it is shown to be, not what it might seem, a negative power only, but along with it is the new creation into which grace forms us. "In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature." Gentiles might boast in their freedom. What ground is there for boasting in this? In Christ alone, in His cross, let us boast, and in the new creature which is by Christ. Therefore the apostle adds, ,And as many as walk according to this rule [that is, the rule of the new creation], peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God." Those that walk according to this rule would be saints in general. The "Israel of God," I apprehend, would mean, that the only part of Israel whom God owns now consists of those that really are of faith those that .received Jesus. It is not a vague general expression for all saints, but implies that fleshly Israel was nothing now. If any of them believe in the Crucified, they were God's Israel. Soon all will believe in Christ, and all Israel be saved. But this is a future prophetic vision not touched on here. The new creation is a present blessing that the soul already enjoys. It is an actual result of the cross of Christ. Consequently we have no allusion to the Lord's coming in this epistle to the Galatians. It is all devoted to the deliverance of the saint from this present evil age by the cross of Christ, and his consistent maintenance of the new nature and position of grace of the new creation in Christ Jesus.

May the truth of God sink into our hearts! Thus all things fall into their place, and the Spirit connects us in heart with that which God is doing and will do for the glory of Christ. The apostle had heard enough of circumcision: it was repulsive to him henceforth. It was his to bear in his body a very different brand" the marks of the Lord Jesus," the scars of the only warfare that is precious in the sight of God the Father. Lastly, he desires for his brethren, that "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ" might be with their spirit. Nothing more in keeping with the wants of those addressed, who had so soon turned aside from the grace of Christ to a different gospel.