that the blessing of Abraham might come to the nations in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
Verse 13 said Christ became a curse for us, and this verse gives the result. But what is Abraham's blessing, and why is the Spirit called the promise?
The verse opens with "so that." It ties back to Christ becoming a curse in verse 13. The blessing moves only after God removes that curse.
The result is that those He represented in grace are completely delivered from the curse. And more: the blessing, once flowing, bursts far beyond the old channel. So he says, "As it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree' — so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles." First of all, God must remove the curse out of the way. He did this in holiness for these believing Jews. Then the same cross of Christ overflows with mercy to the Gentiles.
Verse 13 says "us" — the people who had the law. This verse says "the Gentiles" — people who never received it. So did the curse Christ bore have anything to do with them?
So Christ did not bear the curse of the law for Jews alone, or for those under law. The apostle is plain here. He says that blessing could not have come to Gentiles if Christ had not borne the curse of the law. This is as simple as possible, once we see what the curse really is.
The phrase "the blessing of Abraham" could sound like a family privilege passed down the generations. One writer traces the blessing back to its only cause.
For God blesses only in the way of faith; His delight being always in those who rest their souls on His word. But it is a personal faith, not one handed down from others, that gets the blessing. The very strength of the natural Jew's claim of superiority over the Gentile was that Israel was the seed which God had blessed. The apostle here sets that unreal pre-eminence aside conclusively, by tracing His blessing to its true and only cause. Flesh takes no blessing, and finds no entrance into the kingdom of God.
So how does anyone come into this blessing? By hearing with faith — the same way Abraham did.
On the other hand, the hearing of faith is the one simple means that the Holy Spirit uses for all real peace and blessing. It was so long ago for Abraham himself. Through redemption this holds good not only for the proud but accursed Jew, but even for the poor Gentile. The Gentile is now expressly included in the blessing, and in the richest part of it, the promise of the Spirit.
Could keeping the law have earned the same gift? One writer answers by asking what the law actually promised.
The law holds no promise that, if it is kept in obedience, God would send His Spirit into the heart of man. It never promised that the Spirit would live there as a guest and make the obedient law-keeper the temple of the Holy Spirit. The law does not promise even the Spirit.
Many people expect this blessing to arrive as money, land and comfort. One writer asks the question straight out.
True, we read in Galatians 3 that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive — what? Blessings in the city and in the field? Blessings in our basket and our kneading bowl? No; but "the promised Spirit through faith."
The gift is real now, but it points forward. Abraham's own life is read as the pattern.
We notice further that this blessing brought with it the eventual possession of the promised land. For the present, though, it meant life as a stranger in that land... In receiving the Spirit we have the deposit that guarantees the heavenly portion that is ours. But for now we remain strangers in the place where we are. Our portion lies there in the age to come. Our life as strangers is here in the present age.
- Curse — The curse had to go first. The cross removed it, and then the blessing could flow.
- Overflow — The blessing then burst past its old channel. It reached nations that never had the law.
- Faith — No one inherits this blessing from a parent. Personal faith is the only way to receive it.
- Spirit — The richest part of the blessing is the Spirit, not wealth. The law never even promised Him.
- Deposit — The Spirit guarantees a portion in the age to come. Those who have Him still live as strangers here.
Brethren, (I speak according to man,) even man's confirmed covenant no one sets aside, or adds other dispositions to.
Paul turns from argument to illustration. He asks the Galatians to think about how everyday business works. His point is simple: if people keep a settled agreement, God's promise to Abraham cannot be rewritten by the law.
Paul says, "To give a human example." He borrows a picture everyone already knows. One writer spells it out:
Suppose two people make a covenant, and each one seals it. It is then fully ratified and complete — signed, sealed and delivered, as we say in legal terms. Nobody has the right to change it. Nobody can take away some of the provisions; or add new provisions. The covenant is settled and confirmed. No one may alter it. This is a common practice in daily life which we all understand and agree to.
The Greek word here can mean "covenant" or "testament" — a will. Commentators differ. One holds that "covenant" is the right sense in this verse:
On the question of "covenant" or "testament": "covenant" is always right, except in Hebrews 9:16-17… Some have even made Galatians 3:15-16 "testament," but I judge this to be entirely wrong.
Others find the picture of a will more helpful. They also note that the usual legal sense of "covenant" does not fit what God did with Abraham:
Suppose a man makes a will and leaves certain legacies with no conditions at all. No one would let the executor add conditions later… We usually give the word covenant a legal sense. But God made no legal covenant with Abraham. He made absolute, unconditional promises, which God Himself covenanted to perform.
Such agreements were sealed in the open, in front of witnesses:
This is a covenant between a man and his neighbour, or between one nation and another. Both sides weigh the terms and agree to them. An oath, or some token, then ratifies it in front of witnesses. Galatians 3:15 refers to such a covenant: once a man's covenant is confirmed, no one can annul it or add to it.
If human dealings are this binding, the conclusion about God follows:
In verse 15 Paul draws an illustration from man's everyday business affairs. No one may annul a contract confirmed by signatures — signed, sealed and delivered — or add to it. When one's word is in this way pledged, law binds him to it, allowing no retractions or additions… If humans allow no changes in their contracts, how much less God!
The verse rules out two things: cancelling and adding. So was the law an addition to the promise?
But was the law meant as a revision of the original testament — an appendix, so to speak? Not at all. As verse 15 says, it can be neither annulled nor added to. Dishonest men have an old trick for getting a document they dislike thrown out. They slip into it an addition that so contradicts its main provisions that the whole thing collapses. Men do not allow this. And we must not think God's covenant of promise is less sacred than human documents.
Why can no condition be added later? The answer lies in what the promise itself is:
He appeals here to the moral sense of man. Take a mere man who has made a covenant with no conditions, pledging himself to this or that. And above all, the apostle adds, if that covenant were confirmed, no one could annul it — and no one could add a condition to it… The covenant was of promise, and it was both made and confirmed. It was an absolute promise, not a conditional one. No condition, therefore, could be added without destroying its very nature… The apostle dismisses both thoughts, the annulling and the adding. Adding is, in fact, the same as annulling. Law added would bring in a contradictory principle.
This is not a dry point of law. It reaches anyone who trusts Christ:
But God's covenant looked to Christ, Abraham's special Seed. In Him all the promises of God are yes and amen, to the glory of God through those who believe. So, receiving Christ by faith, we receive all the promises as absolutely and unconditionally as they were made to Abraham… The blessing depends, then, not on what man can do, but on the faithfulness of God. Will He who has promised take back His promise? No; that is impossible.
- Sealed — A confirmed human agreement is signed, sealed and delivered. No one may take a clause out or slip a new one in.
- Greater — People hold their own contracts sacred. God's promise is not less binding than a human document.
- Unconditional — God's promise to Abraham was absolute. Add a condition and you destroy what it is.
- Unamended — The law did not cancel the promise. It was not an appendix to it either.
- Ours — The covenant looked to Christ, Abraham's Seed. Receive Him by faith, and the promises are yours as freely as they were Abraham's.
But to Abraham were the promises addressed, and to his seed he does not say, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed; which is Christ.
The apostle's whole case against putting Gentile believers under law turns on a single word. He goes back to what God promised Abraham, and rests everything on one detail: God said "seed," not "seeds."
The verse points back to two moments in Abraham's life:
In Galatians 3:16 the apostle is speaking of Genesis 12 and 22, only here he means one special seed. God made the promise to Abraham alone, and confirmed it to his seed in chapter 22. The promises of a very numerous seed are separate. Also, Abraham is not joined with his seed in this promise. It should be read, "To Abraham were the promises made, and to his seed."
Where the ESV says "offspring," older translations say "seed," and the writers quoted here use that older word. At first the argument looks strained. In ordinary speech "seed" can cover a whole family line:
To an eye without God's light, the meaning the apostle gives these words here seems forced and arbitrary. That is true of many other sayings of the Spirit. For "seed" is a collective noun, and Scripture keeps using it in the singular to mean a multitude.
The answer lies in which promise the apostle is quoting. God ties a countless seed to one blessing, and says nothing about numbers in another:
He is speaking not of the merely Jewish promises, but of the ones that secured blessing for the Gentiles. These were made to Abram in Genesis 12, and to his seed in Genesis 22, after Abraham had offered Isaac up in figure and received him back from the dead in figure. The Jewish blessing — the land, power over enemies, and so on — is given to a seed said to be as many as the stars and the sand. But not a word about a multiplied seed appears where all the nations of the earth are to be blessed. The apostle argues here from that silence: no one is named there but Isaac, the one seed of Abraham, and a picture of the Lord sacrificed and risen.
That setting shapes the meaning of the promise:
The Seed risen from the dead has clearly broken the link with life or relationship on earth. He is in an entirely new condition, and in it He can bless the Gentile as freely as the Jew. This is what Christ is doing now, as this letter proves, entirely apart from law or circumcision.
Another writer says why Christ Himself had to go through death:
Christ Himself, as man, might have had the promises. Yet He could not take up anything together with us except through death and resurrection. He could not be linked with man in the old Adam.
Some were urging the Galatians to attach themselves to Abraham by circumcision. Naming Christ as the Seed pulls the ground out from under that:
So the blessing was in Abraham only because, as to human descent, Christ came from Abraham… But the real power lay not in Abraham, but in Christ. And the very circumcision that would tie them outwardly to Abraham would in fact cut them off from Christ.
That leaves a question about Abraham's later descendants:
Isaac, Jacob and Judah were Abraham's seed. But they were only links in the chain, because the promise did not reach its fulfilment in them. It found its only fulfilment in Christ.
So much hangs on the form of one word. One writer draws a conclusion about how God wrote Scripture:
Just look at the use made of the singular instead of the plural… If we brought up points like this, people would call it interpretation at its most fanciful. Yet this is the method of the Spirit of God, and by it He shows that Christ was in His mind from the beginning.
If everything sits in one Person, no one shares it except through Him:
We are Abraham's seed as a result of being Christ's. "If you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise" (Gal. 3:29). Being the seed of Abraham is a far lower privilege than the ones shown elsewhere — in the letter to the Ephesians, for example — as marking out the church.
- One word. The whole argument turns on "seed" being singular. God worded the promise to point at a Person, not a nation.
- One Person. That Person is Christ. Isaac, Jacob and Judah were links in the chain; the promise came to rest only in Him.
- One ground. God confirmed the promise after Abraham received Isaac back from death in figure. It stands on resurrection, not on law or family line.
- One reach. The countless seed got the land and victory over enemies. Blessing for all nations hangs on the single Seed, who blesses Gentile as freely as Jew.
- One way in. Believers are Abraham's seed because they belong to Christ. Reaching for Abraham through circumcision cuts you off from the One who holds the blessing.
Now I say this, A covenant confirmed beforehand by God, the law, which took place four hundred and thirty years after, does not annul, so as to make the promise of no effect.
Paul asks the Galatians to think about a signed legal agreement. God gave His promise to Abraham long before the law came at Sinai. Can a law that arrived four centuries later cancel that promise, or add conditions to it?
Paul starts with ordinary agreements between people. What holds for them holds far more for God.
Law is excluded from this covenant of promise. It has absolutely no place there. The apostle's proof is this: God made and confirmed it four hundred and thirty years before the covenant at Sinai. Even a man's covenant, once made and confirmed, cannot be reopened to insert new conditions. How simply impossible, then, to add the law as a condition to the covenant of grace!
Kelly turns this into a picture. A reward can carry a condition, but a gift already promised cannot.
If a man offers a reward and attaches a condition to it, that is fair. But suppose you said to someone: I intend to leave you my house and garden, with no condition attached. Then, a year or two later, you said to him: You must pay me a thousand pounds for the house and garden. He might answer: What do you mean? Do you take back your promise? You gave me the property with no conditions, and now you ask me for payment! God's promise to Abraham was absolute, and it must always remain untouched.
The number is not a stray detail. God chose that timing.
God took care that, between the promise given to Abraham and Isaac and the law, there should pass a period of more than four centuries. Had He given the law a short time after, they might have said it was all one and the same thing. But how could anyone think that, seeing that four hundred and thirty years passed between? The promise has its own special object, and the law has its design too; and we are not to mix the two things together.
The same figure raises a question about Israel's years in Egypt:
The promise to Abraham came long before Israel went into Egypt. The law came after they came out. So according to this passage, their stay in Egypt must have been much less than four hundred years.
So who holds this covenant? The promise ran to Abraham, and then narrowed to one person.
God had bound Himself to Abraham by promise 430 years before the law, having placed, so to speak, the blessing of the Gentiles in him. This promise was confirmed to his seed, and to only one; he does not say to the seeds, but "to the Seed," and it is Christ who is this Seed. A Jew would not deny this last point. The law came long after. It could not annul the promise God had already made and solemnly confirmed, so as to make it of no effect.
Some treat the law as a revision attached to the original document.
Dishonest men have an old trick. They get a document they dislike thrown out by adding to it something that contradicts its main terms, so the whole thing falls apart. This is not allowed among men, and we must not think of God's covenant of promise as less sacred than human documents. The law, which was not given until 430 years afterwards, has not annulled it. And nothing has been added to it to change its blessed simplicity. It was never meant to do either of these things.
So what is the law for, if it cannot touch the promise?
The law does not clash with the promise. Each has its own object: the law is a ministry of death and condemnation, the promise one of blessing by faith. Mixing the two is what does the harm. This is exactly what people are prone to, and what Scripture always clearly sets aside.
This principle was already at work in Israel's history. When everything had been lost, the man who received the law pleaded on other ground.
Moses was the servant of God through whom the law came. Yet he falls back, not on the law covenant — everything was lost on that basis — but on the unconditional covenant God made much earlier with Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. By an instinct given to him by God, Moses in his plea left law for grace. On that ground his plea succeeded.
- Confirmed. No one can reopen a settled covenant to add new terms. God's covenant is not less sacred than a human one.
- Confirmed to Christ. God confirmed the promise not to many seeds but to one Seed, Christ. Its security rests on Him.
- Confirmed 430 years early. God chose the long gap, so that no one could treat promise and law as one and the same thing.
- Still confirmed. The law neither cancelled the promise nor changed it. Each has its own object, and mixing them does the harm.
- Proved confirmed. When Israel had ruined everything under law, Moses appealed to the older promise — and that plea held.
For if the inheritance [be] on the principle of law, [it is] no longer on the principle of promise; but God gave it in grace to Abraham by promise.
Paul sets two ways of receiving the inheritance side by side: law and promise. Only one of them was ever used, and God chose it long before the law was given.
The verse turns on the difference between earning and receiving. One writer explains it in terms of wages.
If a man gets something because of what he has given or done for it, he does not have it by promise. He has what he earned. It is like a person doing so much work for so much pay. Of course, if a master gives his servant a present, the man is thankful for it. But when the pay only matches the work done, it is a debt, not a gift. The law is the principle of what is owed, if such a thing could be found among men. But all that man earned was a curse, because man was a sinner.
The two cannot be mixed. Put the inheritance under law, and the promise is not topped up; it is cancelled.
If the inheritance comes on one principle, says the apostle, then it does not come on the other. God gave it to Abraham and his seed by promise, and He cannot go back from that. And since we are in Christ, who is Abraham's seed, we are "heirs according to promise" (v. 29).
What is being inherited? One writer ties the word back to the promises, then follows the blessing out to who receives it.
after-note: DELETE
"The inheritance" means, I think, all that was included in the promises… The link with what goes before seems to be this. First, the law brings no blessing to those who stand on that ground; it brings a curse. Second, we inherit the blessing by promise, not by law. Christ receives that promise as the risen seed, the Second Adam. So it is open to the Gentile just as much as to the Jew, if he believes. For death and resurrection end every distinction and privilege of the flesh.
The word Paul uses for "gave" means a free gift. His point here is not that law-keeping is impossible. It is that law would clash with terms God had already fixed.
He does not stop here to show that righteousness by law is impossible for man. He insists instead that such a way of being justified, and of gaining the blessing by it, does not fit the plain terms of God's earlier covenant… But God gave the inheritance (kecharistai, "has freely given"), he says, when He promised it. Faith has what it believes, because it rests on the word of One who is almighty and cannot lie. So the very terms of law shut out the idea that we gain anything from God by law.
One of these two covenants was broken almost as soon as it was given. The other could not be.
Here we have a covenant of gift, and the only party to it was God. He stooped to enter it, so that man might know how solemn and unchangeable His promise is… The law was conditional. Making the golden calf forfeited it, and that happened even before its conditions were declared. The law was also temporary. But the inheritance came by promise, and so it was secure. Why? Because it rested on God alone, who is one.
The difference shows up in how each one reached people.
When God has something to give to man that can never fail, He loves to appear in grace and give it, or say it, Himself… With the law, two came in between: the angels and Moses the mediator. What a contrast with the simplicity of grace! In the law, man had to give. In the promise, man had only to receive.
The letter is mostly stern argument. This one word looks ahead.
Galatians says no more about the heir, and it mentions the inheritance only once (chapter 3:18). Yet these words seem to open the door of the Father's house and let us look in, and catch a glimpse of the glory that waits for us there… The time for the glory has not come yet. But we are heirs already, and in Christ we have already obtained an inheritance.
- Gift, not wages. Law pays what is due; promise gives what is undeserved. Mixing them turns a present into a bill.
- Given, not offered. God gave the inheritance the moment He promised it. Faith already has what it believes.
- One party, not two. God alone entered the covenant with Abraham. Its safety rests on Him, not on us.
- Direct, not mediated. The law came through angels and a mediator; the promise God spoke Himself. Man had only to receive.
- Heirs, not hopefuls. In Christ, the one Seed, the inheritance reaches everyone who believes. It is ours already, before the glory comes.
Why then the law? It was added for the sake of transgressions, until the seed came to whom the promise was made, ordained through angels in [the] hand of a mediator.
God's promise to Abraham came 430 years before the law at Sinai, and nothing later can cancel it. So why did God give the law at all?
Everything turns on one word: "added." It tells us what the law was not.
First, it was added. It was not an afterthought. It was not in any way a completion of what was already perfect and confirmed. It was a new and particular requirement, proposed by the Promiser according to the counsel of His wisdom, for a purpose not yet made known. And the people took it on themselves willingly. In its terms it stood apart from the covenant of promise, and against it. God brought it in at its appointed time to show Israel their true condition in the sight of Him who had chosen them as the seed of Abraham His friend.
Sin filled the world long before Sinai. So what changed when the law came?
God gave the law to Israel to bring their sinful state home to them. Sin is lawlessness, and it was filling the earth from the days of the fall. But the moment God gave the law, a clear line appeared. Anyone who stepped over that line became a definite transgressor. God could now charge a man's sin to him in a way not possible before. In Israel God meant to give definite proof of the fallen and sinful state men were in.
God drew that line so it would be felt. The aim was conviction, not information.
The law was added so that there might be transgressions. It was not added so that there might be sin, as we have already seen in Romans, where this same subject is treated. It was added so that there might be transgressions. Through them the consciences of men could be reached. Through them the sentence of death and condemnation could be really felt in their light and careless hearts.
That still leaves the question of what the law was never given to do.
It does not say, "the law entered so that we might get life, righteousness or sanctification by it," but quite the opposite. It was "because of transgressions," and "that the offense might abound." Where does Scripture say the law was given so that we might get life, righteousness or sanctification by it? Nowhere.
The verse sets an end date: "until the offspring should come." The law had a real role, but a fixed term.
Putting man under law was a temporary measure, though a completely righteous one. In itself it rested on principles of everlasting truth: human responsibility, and a perfect rule for it. But with a sinner — and man was a sinner — this principle could only bring a curse, and it was meant to. This was not God's final or lasting way. It was there to bring man's position clearly out, by raising the question of how righteousness is found or obtained.
That end date is a person.
Transgressions, once exposed and defined in this way, had to continue until the offspring came to whom the promises were made. At His appearing He would "finish the transgression" and "put an end to sin" (Daniel 9:24) for the true children of the covenant.
The way God delivered the law carries its own message. Compare it with the way the promise reached Abraham.
Giving the law through angels and a mediator shows the contrast with the promise. The promise was direct and immediate between God and man. No angels and no created go-between came between them. With the law, mediation by creatures stands out. This is the immense superiority of the promises compared with the law. Everything showed distance between God and the people. But in the promises, God comes, speaks, and works personally and in love.
The mediator was Moses. (This verse calls him an "intermediary.")
Moses received the law from God's hand and gave it into the hands of the people. He stood between God and man. To enjoy the blessing that came from the law, each of these two parties had to keep their part of the covenant. God is faithful, and He will keep His part. But even before Moses came down from Mount Sinai, the people had broken theirs. They made a golden calf.
- Added — the law came in beside the promise. It never completed the promise and never became a condition inside it.
- Transgressions — it drew a line. Crossing it made sin open disobedience, so conscience would feel the sentence of death.
- Not life — Scripture never says the law was given to supply life, righteousness or sanctification. It says the opposite.
- Until — its term ran only until the offspring came. God designed it to be temporary.
- Distance — angels and a go-between marked the gap. The promise came straight from God, and blessing still comes that way.
But a mediator is not of one, but God is one.
Paul has just said that the law was "put in place through angels by an intermediary" — older translations call that go-between a mediator. He now argues from the word itself: a go-between means two sides, while a promise has only one.
The mediator here is not Christ but Moses, and the whole point lies in what that office assumes.
Paul contrasts two principles: the law on one side, promise on the other. He does this to rescue the Galatians, and any other souls, from the dangerous error of mixing the two — an error unbelief is prone to make. The mediator he means is the legal one, Moses, not Christ. That office implies two parties: God demanding what is right, and sinful man completely unable to give it. It is wholly different with promise. Promise rests on the sole and unfailing faithfulness of God, Who cannot lie.
If blessing hangs on two parties, it hangs on the weaker of them.
Under the law you have God and man as the two contracting parties, and you have also a mediator between the two. Moses stood in that place between God and men, and what is the result? God's part was safe and sound, but man broke down. And so it was, is, and must be; and this not from any fault in the law, but from man's guilt and evil. The law is like a bridge that may be ever so strong, but rests at one end on no foundation. There can be only one outcome.
The people had a side to keep, and blessing hung on it.
Moses, the mediator, announced the terms of the law. Under those terms, blessing depended on obedience. The people accepted them at once, saying, "All that the Lord has spoken we will do." But the promise to the Seed, Christ, depends on God alone, Who is One. In carrying out that promise He acts wholly from Himself.
Because promise has only one party, its outcome is certain, not just likely.
A covenant does not always assume two parties. In Galatians there is only one. A covenant means any terms on which God brings me into relationship with Himself. The argument in Galatians is: a mediator is not of one; but God is one. Angels ordained the law in the hand of a mediator, and if you have a mediator, you must have two parties. But here you have only one. So now all depends on the sovereignty of God only, and therefore it is infallible.
That is why the same words that humble a person are the words that secure him.
Grace gives the people no place whatever in the accomplishment of the blessing. God alone is the Blesser, and He will not give any of His glory to another. We are humbled to the depths, yet blessed beyond measure, because God has His true place. Nothing depends on the creature. There are no legal terms of agreement. There are no business deals in which man's ability counts. There are no angels to administer, and no mere sinful man as mediator. God has worked, and who shall stop His hand or bind Him with conditions?
The two arrangements also differ in how close God comes.
In promise there is only one party, and that is God. Here nothing can fail or break down. He must accomplish it all. When God spoke to Abraham about His promises, there was no distance. He spoke to him Himself, with no one in between. God spoke to him face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. What a contrast at the giving of the law! There distance comes in at once, boundaries are set, and Moses becomes mediator.
Saying that a promise needs no mediator does not sideline Christ.
Remember that the question here is not about Christ the Mediator, Who gave Himself a ransom for all. This is a question of promise alone, and a mediator has nothing to say to it.
Commentators differ in emphasis. Another writer sees Christ's mediation as the reverse of Moses' place:
Mediation, in real and true humanity, does not separate. In the person of the Son of God it brings together the parties whom the earlier mediator kept apart. God was and is in Christ. The man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, was God, or He would not have had Himself to give.
- Two. The mediator here is Moses. That office needs two sides: God requiring what is right, and sinful man unable to give it.
- Broken. A bridge is only as good as its weaker end. God's side held; man's side gave way. The fault lay in man's guilt, not in the law.
- One. Promise has a single party, so its fulfilment rests on God's sovereignty alone and cannot fail.
- Near. One party means no distance. God spoke to Abraham face to face. The law set boundaries and put a man in between.
- Humbled. Grace leaves us no share in producing the blessing. That is why the blessing cannot be shaken.
[Is] then the law against the promises of God? Far be the thought. For if a law had been given able to quicken, then indeed righteousness were on the principle of law;
Paul has set the law beside God's promise. That raises an obvious question: do the two fight each other? The answer turns on one word: life.
If law and promise truly pulled in opposite directions, the fault would lie with the God who gave both.
Paul has already shown clearly that the earlier covenant and the later one differ in nature, that they contradict each other in their very terms, and that the later one is refused altogether as a means of righteousness or blessing. This gives natural reason an opening to conclude that God's law, as given through Moses, has something in its nature that is completely hostile to His promises. But that would mean supposing this. In name only the all-wise God is of one mind and unchanging in His purposes, while in reality He is divided against Himself. Paul rejects the thought as soon as it is stated.
The two could only clash if both were roads to the same destination.
Suppose man had been able to obey the law and so gain a title. Then two systems would have clashed with each other, since both would lead to the same end. Some would receive the inheritance because of promise, and others on the ground of law. So the two totally opposite roads of grace and law would be leading to the same result. That would indeed be 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 condemning… So the law pulls down what is evil, and the promise gives what is good and builds it up.
One writer follows the word "quicken" — to make alive — through Scripture, and shows where it never appears.
Paul shows again the shortcomings of the law; the law cannot produce life. Scripture uses this word "quicken" of God, of the Lord Jesus, of the Holy Spirit and of the Father. It never uses it of the law. The law cannot give life; it cannot quicken. This is the point. It can only bring us under condemnation.
Suppose a law had been given that could give life. Follow that case out and see where it leads.
Man, possessing divine life, would have been righteous in the righteousness that he had accomplished. The law promised God's blessing on the terms of man's obedience. If it could have given life at the same time, that obedience would have taken place. Righteousness would then have been reached on the ground of law, and those who had been given the promise would have enjoyed its fulfilment through their own righteousness. But the opposite happened, for after all man, whether Jew or Gentile, is a sinner by nature.
So the real need lay in man, and the law could not meet it.
The one thing needed was to give man a new life, in which it would be as natural for him to fulfil the law as it now is natural for him to break it. That the law could not do; instead it has proved us all to be under sin, and so revealed our need of what has been brought in through Christ.
Many accept that no one is justified by law, yet keep the law as a rule for daily living. One writer denies that the two can be split.
A great deal has been made of the distinction between the law for justification and the law as a rule of life. It is impossible to separate the two — in fact Scripture does not separate them… Sinai has but one voice. What folly to think of a rule of life coming from a place that only thunders out death and judgment for the least disobedience. In fact the law is "the strength of sin," and the apostle, in that wonderful seventh chapter of Romans, shows that it is as powerless to produce righteousness in a saint as in a sinner.
What law could not supply, God had already pledged — and then came in Person to secure.
Had there been a law able to give life, "then righteousness would indeed be by the law" (Gal. 3:21); but before the law, yes, "before the ages of time," God had promised life for man. That promise is in Christ Jesus, and so He had to come where we were to free us from sin and death, that we might have life in Him. The law said, Do and live. The Lord Jesus, when we could do nothing, died that we might live.
- No conflict — If law fought promise, God would be divided against Himself. Paul rejects that idea the moment it is raised.
- No life — The law commands and condemns. It was never given power to make alive; Scripture ties that power to God, never to a rule.
- No righteousness — Righteousness needs life behind it. The law gives no life, so it could never make anyone righteous.
- No fault in the law — The weakness lies in the man, not in the command. He needed a new life, not a better standard.
- Life by promise — What law could not give, God promised and Christ died to secure. The law said, Do and live; Christ died so that we could live.
but the scripture has shut up all things under sin, that the promise, on the principle of faith of Jesus Christ, should be given to those that believe.
Paul has just said that the law was never God's way of giving life. So what did Scripture do instead? It locked everyone in. And it did so for a reason: the promise, handed to those who believe, on the terms of faith.
The word behind "imprisoned" pictures a jailer turning the key. Older translations read "concluded all under sin". Scripture is doing two things here at once:
Scripture is now called on as God's witness against human sin. It is also the common jailer of those He has chosen, while they are in their natural condition, and of all other men too... Scripture, then, shut up "the whole" under sin. God's truth in this way became man's prison... The bondage is universal, because sin is in the very nature of fallen man. The deliverance is special, because the faith that justifies is not a natural instinct, but the gift of God to those He has chosen.
Notice who does the shutting up. Paul does not say God shut all up; he says the Scripture did. That detail carries weight about the book itself:
Galatians 3:22 states the power, authority and inspiration of Scripture in unmistakable terms... Here Scripture stands in the place of the Universal Judge. But who can claim that place except God? If the Scriptures shut everyone up under sin, then it is obvious that God is their author.
Verse 21 has already ruled out the alternative. A rule can tell you what to do. It cannot make you alive enough to do it:
The law demanded righteousness, but it gave no life. If it had given life, then keeping the law would have been possible. Righteousness would have come by the law, and the blessing would have come apart from any promise. But the law convicts of sin. It shows that man cannot get the blessing by his own efforts, and so proves that the promise was needed.
"Everything" is a wide word. It takes in the nation that had the commandments and the nations that never did:
Jew and Gentile were alike sinners before God. The one broke the known commands of God; the other gave free rein to his passions and desires. All are brought in guilty... But now the promise is accomplished to all who believe. The Jew has no exclusive claims, since guilt puts him in the same prison-house as the Gentiles. Grace makes the promise good to all believers, whoever they may be; righteousness is credited on the principle of faith in Jesus Christ.
Here is the turn in the verse. A guilty verdict on everyone sounds like the end of hope. But the sentence is not the goal:
All are shut up under sin, and there is no further need to test man. God has announced in the Scriptures His conclusion about all men. All are guilty, all are under sin. Does God do this so that He may justly condemn everyone? Oh, wondrous grace! The very opposite. "So that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe." Man had failed, whether under law or not, but the promise can never fail... that depends not on man, but on God.
If the prison is real, the exit matters. So how does anyone get out?
Law gave no hope of escape, but tended to increase the misery of confinement. Faith is the only door of escape from sin and from the Law. But it is a door thrown wide open in Christ and the redemption He has accomplished.
Paul's whole answer to "Is the law then contrary to the promises of God?" is that each does a different work. Confusing the two wrecks both:
Under law, all are lost; under grace, all may be saved. The law cannot, and ought not to, spare sinners. The law pulls down what is evil, but the promise freely gives what is good and builds it up... So the law is not against the promises of God. Understand the true work of the law and the true result of God's promises, and you will see that they are in no way against each other. Each has its own place. But if we mix them up, then all is confusion.
- Locked — Scripture acts as jailer. It shuts everything under sin, and God's own truth becomes man's prison.
- Judged — the book that passes this verdict on everyone sits in the seat of Judge, and only God can sit there.
- Levelled — those who had the commandments and those who never did share one prison-house. Guilt cancels every advantage.
- Aimed — God passes this sentence not to condemn everyone, but to give the promise. That promise rests on Him, so it cannot fail.
- Opened — faith is the one door out, thrown wide in Christ. Law pulls down what is evil; promise gives what is good. Mix them, and all is confusion.
But before faith came, we were guarded under law, shut up to faith [which was] about to be revealed.
Paul looks back at the centuries before Christ came. He describes that whole era as custody: people held under law, waiting. Who is the "we" being held? And is the law here a jailer or a protector?
The pronouns matter. One writer says readers often take this verse as a picture of their own Christian life:
We must notice here a very common mistake. People often misquote this scripture, as though it said that the law is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ (Gal. 3:23-25). Bear in mind that the word "we" refers to the Jews, and "ye" applies just as plainly to the Gentiles, who had never been under the law... Now, to change all this and apply it to us, the Gentiles, is to deny that faith has come. In effect it denies that Christ has come. It goes back to the schoolmaster, as if Christ still had to come and deliver us from him.
Paul speaks of faith as something that arrived at a point in time. One writer explains what arrived:
Faith here means Christian faith: the principle of relationship with God. Before it came, the positive objects of faith — the Person, the work, and the glory of Christ as man — had not yet become the means of establishing the faith of the gospel. Until then the Jews were kept under the law, shut in with a view to enjoying this privilege that was still to come.
Being kept was not comfortable. People looked to the law for rescue, but it held the keys, and a believer under it lived in bondage:
If all are shut up in hopelessness under sin, the law itself takes the place of a jailer. Men look to it for deliverance, but it acts as the very strength of sin, to make them aware how completely sin ruled them... His spirit is and must be the spirit of bondage. He is "a prisoner of hope," craving liberty, yet not knowing how to get it... The law kept even the saints who were under it, as it were, in jail. Look at Hezekiah. He was in bondage under fear of death, shut up in prison, waiting for the faith that would later be revealed.
One writer works from an older translation that reads "guarded under law" instead of "held captive," and shows what that guarding did:
"But before the coming of that faith we were being constantly guarded under law."... It is true that the law turned their sin into transgression and showed how bad they were. But the law did more than this. It guarded them from the idolatry that was all around them. There was one nation in the world (even though that nation had failed so terribly) that still held the truth and the knowledge of the One true God... The law was not the means of justifying them, for they did not keep it; but they were shut in under the obligation to keep it.
The confinement had a direction. There was only one way out of it, and the law itself offered none:
Scripture had confined all under sin. Then the Law, which held authority over Israel, shut them in even more firmly to faith. Faith was the only way of escape from their bondage to sin and to the Law. Law gave no hope of escape, but tended to increase the misery of confinement. Faith is the only door out of sin and out of the Law. But it is a door thrown wide open in Christ and His accomplished redemption.
The custody described here belonged to a stage that has closed. Even the best of those under it were treated as minors:
Under the law, before Christ came, the choicest saint alive was treated as a child under age. So the schoolmaster kept him, convicted of sin and shut up to the faith that the coming of Christ would reveal. Now faith has come, because Christ, the Object of faith, is revealed. We come out of that guardianship and take our place as sons in the Father's house.
- Kept — for whom. "We" means the Jews under the law, not the Christian today. To apply it to ourselves is to act as though Christ had not yet come.
- Kept — as prisoner. The law that men hoped would free them became the jailer. Even a believer under it had the spirit of bondage — "a prisoner of hope."
- Kept — as guard. The same guarding kept one nation clear of the idolatry all around it. So the knowledge of the true God survived.
- Kept — until. The confinement pointed one way only. Faith was the single exit, and Christ's finished redemption threw that door wide open.
- Kept — no longer. "Faith" here is the whole revealed system that came with Christ. Now that it has come, the child under age grows up: we take our place as sons in the Father's house.
So that the law has been our tutor up to Christ, that we might be justified on the principle of faith.
Paul has just said the law was added because of transgressions, until the promised offspring came. Now he gives the law a job title. One word settles how the whole verse reads. Was the law a teacher who drives sinners to Christ? Or a minder who kept God's people until Christ came?
Older Bibles call this person a schoolmaster; the ESV calls him a guardian. The picture came from ordinary household life in Greece and Rome. It was not a picture of a classroom.
Wealthy families in Greece and Rome often put a man in charge of boys from about age six until about sixteen. This man would have complete charge of the boy, and would be responsible for his manners and for his morals. He would have the authority to punish him when necessary. He would take him to school, though he would not generally teach him. This man was very often a slave... You will understand this man was really more of a guardian than a teacher... This is just what the law was to Israel. It was given to train them, to show them their own wickedness, and to punish them.
Older English Bibles print the words "to bring us" in italics. That means the translators added them. The ESV leaves them out, and the writers here say they should go.
"To bring us" has no business here. The meaning is that the law was a schoolmaster dealing with these Jews, until Christ came... This is not about bringing people to Christ now. The effect of the law is instead to minister death and condemnation, as Scripture tells us plainly elsewhere. God may let people come under sentence of death in this way, and afterwards bring them out of it by Christ. But no one can say that a power that kills is itself the means of bringing people to Christ.
The same point cuts down a popular use of the verse:
Upon this the statement is often made that the law is like a whip to bring us to accept Christ. But that is not the meaning. The law was the schoolmaster for the Jews until Christ came — the schoolmaster up to the time of Christ.
Paul writes "our" in this verse, then "you" two verses later. The switch marks off who was ever in this school.
The law was a schoolmaster to the Jews, not to the Gentiles. Paul said "we" in Gal. 3:24, in contrast to "you" in Gal. 3:26. It was their schoolmaster until Christ came, but any led to Christ were no longer under that schoolmaster.
If the law was not driving people to Christ, it was still teaching while it waited for Him.
There were two lessons to learn. First, we cannot keep the law. Second, the system of sacrifice pointed on to the sinner's only hope: Christ and His finished work. Thus the law is a tutor, a schoolmaster, till Christ appears on the scene.
The verse says justification comes by faith, not by the schoolmaster. One writer lists what the law could and could not do:
It could curse. It could kill. It could not give life. So righteousness could not come by it. Nor could it condemn sin in the flesh. Yet even now it is good, we learn, if a man uses it lawfully. It was made not for the righteous, but for the lawless and the disobedient... And no one whom God had put under the law could have got free from its curse, if the Lord Jesus Christ had not become a curse for them.
The picture also marks what the law never gave, and what faith gives instead.
The schoolmaster is not the Father. He is the one the child is put under, to be cared for until the child is ready to deal directly with the Father's mind. Under law, it was like saying to a child under age, "Do this, and do that," without giving reasons. But those brought to be Abraham's seed by being put in Christ are all "sons of God, through faith."
Verse 25 sets the believer free from the guardian. That freedom can be taken in two wrong ways.
When we grow up, we usually respect and value our schoolmasters more than we ever did before. We do not want to get rid of them — that would be lawlessness — nor to stay under their authority — that would be the Galatian error, and against Christ.
- Guardian: the "schoolmaster" was a household servant who walked a boy to school and disciplined him. His job was charge and restraint, not teaching.
- Until: "until Christ came" fixes an end date. The law minded Israel until Christ came; it was never the whip that drives sinners to Him.
- Ours: Paul says "our," meaning the Jews. Gentiles were never put in that school at all.
- Unable: the law could curse and kill, but it could not give life. So justification had to come by faith. Freedom from its curse came only because Christ became a curse for them.
- Sons: the guardian is not the Father. Once faith came, the schoolroom ended. Believers stand as sons — free from the law, but not free to live as they please.
But, faith having come, we are no longer under a tutor;
Paul has just called the law a guardian — older translations say "schoolmaster" — who watched over Israel until Christ came. Now he draws the conclusion: the guardian was only ever meant to serve until a fixed date, and that date has arrived.
The word "faith" here is not first about your believing. It points to something that arrived in history, and the arrival ended an era.
But once faith — that is, Christ and the system of faith — had come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. What existed only for the time of waiting lost its whole reason for being once the One it pointed to had come. The schoolmaster had been useful for keeping them safe until the appointed time. But once the awaited One arrived, there was no motive left to keep him — he belonged to the time of waiting.
One writer fixes the moment, and explains how God's truth justified people before it came:
Faith came, in this sense, when the Son of God appeared. God's truth always had a justifying power, but that was because both law and prophets spoke of Him who was to come. The service of the guardian expires with the arrival of the true speaker of the words of God.
The picture behind the verse is a household job, not a classroom. And notice who was under him — Paul writes "we," meaning his own people.
This is literally "child conductor," pedagogue: originally a slave who took his master's children to school. The law was a schoolmaster to the Jews (not to the Gentiles: Paul said we, Gal. 3:24; in contrast to you in Gal. 3:26) until Christ came; but any led to Christ were no longer under that schoolmaster.
The change is not that the rules got easier. The relationship itself is new.
Instead of being under a slave, with strict and humiliating discipline, there is now the place of a child before his Father. Through faith in Jesus the Christian stands in direct relationship to God.
The next verse supplies the reason. Everything turns on one word:
In the Greek, the word for "sons" means a son who is of full age. This is the important part of the argument. You are no longer children, so you are no longer under a child trainer. Now you all are full-grown sons. You are no longer subject to the severe and humiliating discipline of the child trainer, who was very likely a slave himself. Now you are a son, now you are mature, now you are free.
Sending the guardian away is only one item on a longer list of what faith does.
Here are precious deeds of faith! It dismisses the schoolmaster. It brings the soul to God as to a father. Then it clothes the believer with the value of Christ in God's sight and acceptance... We are brought out from under the law — the schoolmaster — and with him, tutors and governors are gone. We are "sons" at home in the Father's house.
The Galatians wanted a law God had never given them. One writer says the same mistake is widespread today.
The Galatians had never been devoted followers of Judaism, so they had no excuse for trying to mix the two principles. Once a believer has known the liberty of the gospel, it is a terribly serious backward step to try to mix that liberty with the principles of law. We know all too well what happens today. The Gentiles, to whom God never gave the law, have brought it into many systems that boast the name of Christianity.
But dismissing the guardian is not the same as dismissing all restraint:
That liberty does not mean license. A young man freed from his schoolmaster's authority is still bound by honour and good manners, and it is the same here. "Liberty" has its boundary in "Christ." When we grow up we usually respect our old schoolmasters more than we ever did before. We do not wish to destroy them — nor to stay under them.
- Faith came. Not your believing first of all, but Christ Himself and the whole order that rests on Him. What belonged to the time of waiting ended when the awaited One arrived.
- The guardian's job ended. He was a household slave who walked children to school: useful, strict, temporary. That role belonged to Israel, never to the other nations.
- Sons replaced children. The believer is no longer a child under humiliating discipline. He is a full-grown son, in direct relationship to the Father.
- Faith clothes as well as frees. Faith dismisses the guardian. It brings the soul to God as Father and clothes the believer with the value of Christ.
- Freedom, not license. Going back under law is a backward step. But freedom has a boundary, and the boundary is Christ.
for ye are all God's sons by faith in Christ Jesus.
Paul has just called the law a guardian that kept God's people under control until Christ came. Now he tells the Galatian believers what they already are, and every word counts: "sons," "all," "through faith," "in Christ Jesus."
Paul's word marks a change of position in the family:
Faith in Christ Jesus has brought us into the favoured place of "sons of God." The word in verse 26 is "sons," not "children." The saints under the law were like children still in infancy: under age, and so under the guardian. The believer today is like a child who has come of age. He leaves guardianship behind and takes his place as a son in his father's house.
A son, unlike a child, is old enough to be trusted:
The word here in the Greek is "sons," not "children," which gives a beautiful distinctness to the line of thought. In chapter 4:2-3 the word child implies immaturity and learning under subjection, like a servant. Son, however, means a distinct position of freedom and dignity. A son no longer needs legal restraints and prohibitions. He can be trusted with responsibility apart from rules and regulations.
Up to this point Paul has been saying "we." At verse 26 the pronoun changes:
Notice the striking change from verse 26. It is no longer "we," but "you." Now he is addressing the Galatians. They had of course been Gentile sinners, and yet they enjoyed the nearness of sons of God. Faith in Christ Jesus, he implies, brings you into this high relationship, without the law stepping in. The law, after all, deals with slaves, or at least treats those under it as if they were slaves. They were all sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus — Gentiles as well as Jews.
The word "all" also settles whether "sons" leaves women out:
No natural distinction. Brothers and sisters alike are "priests to God and His Father" (Revelation 1:6); brothers and sisters alike are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 4:6 adds what comes next, and the order matters:
"In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith" (Galatians 3:26). "And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father" (Galatians 4:6). This is the divine order. We are born of the Spirit through faith in Christ Jesus, and so become sons. Then God sends the Spirit as the Spirit of sonship to dwell in our hearts. So the Spirit's indwelling does not happen at the same moment as becoming sons; it follows from it.
The last phrase of the verse tells us where faith puts a person:
Paul has led the believing Jew out of legal bondage into the righteous liberty of faith. Now he shows all believers, circumcised or not, the true glory of their divine title and relationship. Here we see plainly what faith does: it unites the believer to the One he believes in, and identifies him with that ever blessed Person in whose name he stands. Sonship is natural to the only begotten of the Father, and to no one else. But believers are, in the Spirit's estimate, where their faith is. They are distinctly "in Christ." The Galatians lost sight of this, and so lay open to the persuasions of those who pressed the law on them.
One writer sets this verse beside the Lord's words to the religious leaders who claimed God as their Father:
Notice how the Lord's words completely destroy the false idea, held by so many, of the "universal Fatherhood of God"… Jesus said, "If God were your Father…" It was a denial. The devil was their father. The Fatherhood of God is limited to those who believe, as Galatians 3:26 states.
The verse states a fact, not a goal. Yet many believers hesitate to own it:
Many in our day have faith in Christ Jesus, yet are afraid to believe that they are sons of God, and that they remain so. Such unbelief grieves the Holy Spirit. While it lasts He can only reprove it, instead of giving them the joyful liberty that belongs to such a relationship.
- Sons. The word is "sons," not "children." A son has come of age, out from under the guardian, with freedom and dignity in his father's house.
- All. Paul switches from "we" to "you." Gentiles as much as Jews, brothers and sisters alike, hold the same title.
- Faith. Sonship comes through faith, without the law; the Spirit of the Son is then sent because you are already a son.
- In Christ. Sonship belongs by nature to Christ alone, God's only Son. Believers hold it because faith puts them in Him, and God counts them where their faith is.
- Certainty. God's Fatherhood is not universal; it rests on faith in Christ. Those who believe are meant to enjoy the relationship, not doubt it.