Galatians 3:15-22 — The Relationship Between God’s Promises and God’s Law

BIG IDEA:

THE BLESSING OF JUSTIFICATION COULD ONLY COME VIA GOD’S UNCHANGING PROMISES RATHER THAN BY THE LAW

INTRODUCTION:

George Brunk: There is one small problem in what Paul has been saying. He has been arguing that the Galatians, as Gentiles, have their place within the purposes of God on the basis of their continuity with Abraham, the one whose standing with God was based in faith. But doesn’t God’s giving of the Law after God’s covenant with Abraham logically imply that God intended for the Sinai covenant to supersede or replace the Abrahamic one? How are we to understand the relative authority of these covenants?

Paul’s answer to this question is that the first covenant has priority over the later one. The character of promise in the first is not modified by the legal character of the second. . .

Paul’s intent here is simply to draw attention to the permanency of a will or covenant. His point is that in making the covenant with Moses, God did not and could not invalidate the covenant with Abraham, given God’s constancy. In fact, the emphasis in the statement is on the fact that the will of which he is speaking is the human will. Paul is saying that if the terms of a human will persist, how much more does an agreement established by God! . . .

Now that Paul has satisfactorily shown how the Law does not replace or supersede God’s promise to Abraham, he has a new problem. If the Abrahamic covenant of promise/faith remains in force and has clear priority over the Law of Moses, what good was the Law in the first place? If Paul wishes to preserve the authority of the Scriptures and the unity of God’s purposes, he will need to show how the Law had a positive role to play, even if its role was limited.

Douglas Moo: While the agitators placed the law and God’s promise to Abraham on the same level, viewing the law as an addition to the promise, Paul saw the law as operating on a different plane entirely. He insisted that the law could not alter the terms of the relationship that God had established with Abraham. “What the Galatians perceive as a necessary supplement to their faith Paul views as a radical break with faith” (Beker 1980: 53). The opening paragraph (vv. 15–18) of this next stage of Paul’s argument establishes this fundamental redemptive-historical point. The key word in the paragraph, and to some extent in subsequent verses, is “promise” (vv. 16, 17, 18 [2x], 21, 22 [the corresponding verb occurs in v. 19]). The promise is God’s promise to Abraham (v. 8), and Paul anticipates this new direction in his teaching at the end of verse 14, with his mention of “the promise of the Spirit.”  In contrast to verses 7–14, in which Paul quoted specific texts of Scripture, there is only one quotation in verses 15–25 (v. 16). But the OT remains just as important as Paul shifts to general arguments from Scripture in this new section (George 1994: 243–44): “There is hardly a clause in this section . . . that does not allude to the OT in a fairly explicit manner” (Silva 2007: 804).

Paul’s take on salvation history raises two key questions, which set the agenda for verses 19–25. The broad, overarching question is obvious: if the law did not materially add anything to the promise, then why did God give the law to his people? After asking just this question in verse 19a, Paul devotes verses 19b–25 to answering it. He makes two basic points.

1. First, the law and the promise serve distinct purposes: the law was given to exacerbate and reveal sin (vv. 19b, 22a) and was not intended to, or able to, give the life that only the promise and faith could achieve (v. 21).
2. Second, all along the law was intended to last only until the promised Messiah came (vv. 19b, 23–25).

This second point provides the answer to a second subsidiary question that Paul must deal with if his argument against the law is to make sense: why could not the Galatians continue to obey the law as long as it was understood as Paul has defined it? It is the movement of redemptive history that explains why the law is no longer necessary. What Paul says in these verses certainly shows that he holds to a single, continuous history of salvation.  But he also views the coming of Christ—“Christ crucified” (3:1; cf. also 2:19–20; 6:14)—as a climactic moment that introduces a significant shift in the history of salvation. At base, the disagreement between the agitators and Paul lies just here: how significant is the shift in salvation history that Christ’s coming has inaugurated?

John MacArthur: The covenant with Abraham was an unconditional covenant of promise relying solely on God’s faithfulness, whereas the covenant with Moses was a conditional covenant of law relying on man’s faithfulness. To Abraham, God said, “I will.” Through Moses He said, “Thou shalt.” The promise set forth a religion dependent on God. The law set forth a religion dependent on man. The promise centers on God’s plan, God’s grace, God’s initiative, God’s sovereignty, God’s blessings. The law centers on man’s duty, man’s work, man’s responsibility, man’s behavior, man’s obedience. The promise, being grounded in grace, requires only sincere faith. The law, being grounded in works, demands perfect obedience.

In contrasting the covenants of promise and of law, Paul first shows the superiority of the one and then the inferiority of the other.

Timothy George: Paul now moved to a second level of argument in his long parenthesis (3:10–25) on the validity of the law in the context of the nature of salvation as God’s free and gracious favor promised to Abraham, secured by Christ, and sealed in the hearts of believers by the Holy Spirit. In vv. 6–14 Paul had argued exclusively from the Scriptures, quoting from the Law five times and from the Prophets once in order to show how God’s promise to Abraham that all peoples would be blessed through him has been fulfilled by Christ, whose death on the cross has wrought redemption and justification by faith for Jews and Gentiles alike. Paul would now zero in on this same theme showing first how God’s covenant with Abraham stands in stark contrast to the law of Moses and yet how, in the providence of God, even the law played a crucial role in the unfolding drama of redemption. There is a noticeable shift in the style of Paul’s argumentation throughout this passage. With the exception of his exegetical comment on Abraham’s “seed” in v. 16, he did not appeal to specific quotations from the OT but argued instead from broader historical and theological considerations concerning the relationship of Abraham, Moses, and Christ. In the first pericope (vv. 15–18) Paul introduced three new terms that would dominate the remainder of his discussion in the central theological section of the letter: promise, already anticipated in v. 14, covenant, and inheritance. All of these were loaded terms in Paul’s vocabulary. Together they underscore the legal and historical train of thought that led Paul toward the personal, existential application he would pursue in 3:26 – 4:11.

Van Parunak: Overview

3:15-22 is distinctively the “promise” section in Galatians. The word occurs for the first time at the end of 3:14 by way of transition, occurs 6 times in this section, and elsewhere only at 3:29; 4:23, 28.

Two parts:

1. 3:15-18, Law does not supercede promise.
2. 3:19-22, Law does prepare for promise.

The next section, 3:23ff, shows that just as promise precedes the law, faith follows it.

Key observation: A covenant cannot be overruled while its promises remain unfulfilled. That is the argument Paul makes here.

Thomas Schreiner: Addition of law does not nullify promise to Abraham (3:15–25)

A.  Interim nature of Mosaic covenant (3:15–18)

1. Human covenants are inviolable (3:15)
2. Promises of Abraham given to Christ (3:16)
3. The law cannot annul promise given (3:17)
4. The law and promise are incompatible (3:18)

B.  The purpose of the law (3:19–25)

1. The law was given to increase sin (3:19a-b)
2. The law was in force until Christ came (3:19c)
3. The law’s inferiority signaled by mediation (3:19d–20)
4. The law is not contrary to God’s promises (3:21a)
5. The law could not produce life (3:21b)
6. All imprisoned under sin (3:22)
7. The law as custodian (3:23)
8. Era of the custodian has ended (3:24–25)

Max Anders: The law’s purpose was never to save. Its purpose has always been to be a standard that would show us the magnitude of our sin, our need for grace, and, thus, lead us to Christ. The law was a temporary measure only until faith in Christ was inaugurated. Therefore, grace is superior to the law.

I.  (:15-18) GOD’S UNCHANGING PROMISES CANNOT BE SUPERCEDED BY THE LAW

Ben Witherington: What we find in 3:15–18 is an analogy between human and divine covenants and more technically what we have here is a similitudo or simile. A simile is a bit different from an example (exemplum), though it has a force or rhetorical effect very similar to an example (Inst. Or. 5.11.22). Basically the force of the argument is strengthened to the degree that the things being compared are equal or nearly so. This form of proof is less powerful than for example the appeal to the Galatians’ experience, not least because it involves an artificial, or humanly devised proof.  Paul himself alerts his audience at the outset of vs. 15 that the argument which will follow will be ϰατὰ ἄνθρωπον. Burton has suggested this means ‘from common human practice’ and Betz that we should translate it ‘from common human life’, but both of these translations ignore the rhetorical function of the phrase. Paul is about to offer a humanly devised or artificial proof. What will follow will be speaking ‘according to human beings’ and so humanly generated as opposed to that which comes from God.  Paul has presented his two divine proofs, one from supernatural experience and one from the sacred Scriptures, and now he will turn to more mundane, merely human arguments, or as Chrysostom put it, Paul now uses human examples.  Martin Luther understood quite well what was going on here: “Paul adds another [argument], one that is based on the analogy of a man’s will; this seems to be a rhetorical argument.”  Almost completely missing the point of the phrase is Dunn who comments that Paul’s use of the phrase ϰατὰ ἄνθρωπον indicates that Paul understood that his analogy here was a weak one.  Paul is not signaling the weakness of the analogy, only the humanness of the argument.  It would have been rhetorically inept to suggest an argument was lame, and then offer it!

A.  (:15) Argument from Comparison to Human Covenants –

God’s Covenant Promises Can Never Be Changed or Annulled

Argument from the lesser (man’s covenants) to the greater (God’s covenants).

“Brethren, I speak in terms of human relations:

even though it is only a man’s covenant, yet when it has been ratified,

no one sets it aside or adds conditions to it.”

Significance of Ratification

•  by man
•  by God

cf. business contracts — any change must be initialed by both parties

Scot McKnight: Although scholars today are unsure about which particular legal institution Paul is using (Roman, Greek, Jewish), they are agreed that Paul’s point is secure: when a covenant or testament or last will has been established—probably after the death of the testator—someone cannot come along and add to it or take away from it.

Craig Keener: Undoubtedly, then, Paul intends both senses of the term here, using human wills as analogies for the biblical covenant with Abraham.

John MacArthur: First of all, the covenant of promise was superior because it was confirmed as irrevocable and unchangeable. This can be illustrated by reference to a human covenant. In terms of human relations, Paul says, even . . . a man’s covenant, . . . when it has been ratified, allows no one to set it aside or add conditions to it.

Even human beings hold their covenants to be inviolable and unamendable. Once ratified, they are irrevocable and unchangeable.

Thomas Schreiner: Paul’s language is friendlier here, for he does not label his audience as “foolish” (3:1) but addresses them as “brothers” (cf. 1:11; 4:12, 28, 31; 5:11, 13; 6:1, 18). . .

A decision on the referent of διαθήκη is difficult, but the translation “covenant” should be preferred for a number of reasons.

(1) Context is always the most important factor in determining the meaning of a word, and Paul in this context clearly refers to the covenants with Abraham and Moses.  It is possible, of course, that Paul moves from the idea of a “will” in human society to a “covenant” when referring to Abraham and Moses, but it is more likely that he retains the same term throughout instead of requiring his readers to switch back and forth between “will” and “covenant.”

(2) Wills could be altered, whereas covenants were considered to be immutable.  There are several examples of covenants between human beings in the OT that were considered to be unbreakable (Gen 21:22–32; 26:26–31; 31:44–45; 1 Sam 18:3; 20:8; 22:8; 23:18; 2 Sam 3:12).

(3) In both the LXX and the NT the usual referent for the noun used here (διαθήκη) is “covenant.”

(4) The use of legal terms does not indicate that the reference is to a will, for legal language is used with covenants as well.

Legal language is used here to explain the nature of covenants. Once they are “ratified” (κεκυρωμένην), one cannot “reject” (ἀθετεῖ) or “add to” (ἐπιδιατάσσεται) them. Paul argues from the lesser to the greater from 3:15 to 3:16. If even human covenants are irrevocable and cannot be supplemented, how much more a covenant given by God. In other words, the covenant with Abraham cannot be revoked by a later covenant, nor can additional stipulations be added to it. The covenant with Abraham stands as it was given originally.

Timothy George: In Genesis, God made a promise to Abraham, a promise, as Paul had shown already, not based on Abraham’s meritorious deeds, lifelong obedience, or indeed anything other than God’s own gratuitous good pleasure. This promise, or covenant, as Paul called it here for the first time, was unconditional: no ifs, ands, and buts; no strings attached. Abraham simply believed God would do what he had promised. Then came exodus, Mount Sinai, and Moses, who delivered a new and different covenant, one encumbered with burdensome requirements, a code of behavior that makes demands and issues threats.

B.  (:16) Argument from Christ-Centered Fulfillment –

God’s Promises Find Their Ultimate Fulfillment in Christ

“Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. 

He does not say, ‘And to seeds,’ as referring to many, but rather to one,

‘And to your seed,’ that is Christ.”

John MacArthur: Second, Paul argues from the lesser figure of verse 15 to the greater figure of verse 16, that the covenant of promise was superior to the covenant of law because it was Christ-centered. The immutability of the covenant involving faith directly relates to God’s last and final covenant established through His Son, Jesus Christ. The covenant of law could not possibly have interrupted or modified the previous covenant of promise, because the first one not only was inviolable and permanent in itself but was inseparable from God’s supreme covenant, the New Covenant in the Messiah, the Christ.

Thomas Schreiner: Paul reads the Genesis promises in light of the story line of the OT, which narrows the promise down to a son of David and finds its fulfillment in the one man, Jesus of Nazareth. The “offspring” texts should be interpreted, then, in terms of corporate representation. Jesus is the representative offspring of Abraham and David and the fulfillment of the original redemptive promise in Gen 3:15. Thus, the promise should be conceived typologically, for the offspring promises have their final fulfillment in Christ, so that the offspring promises in the OT point forward to and anticipate the coming of Jesus Christ.

So why does Paul connect Jesus with the promises to Abraham here? He does so to emphasize that the age of fulfillment has arrived. The promises made to Abraham have become a reality in Jesus Christ. They always pointed to the one offspring, Christ Jesus. Hence, to move backward in salvation history to the Mosaic law and covenant is a serious mistake.

Timothy George: Paul’s emphasis on the single seed brings together two ideas that serve as a unifying theme throughout Gal 3 and 4: solidarity in Christ and unity in the church. Elsewhere Paul contrasted Adam and Christ as two heads of humanity. Adam is viewed as the head of sinful humanity that is doomed to die, and Christ is viewed as the head of a new humanity that has the promise of eternal life (Rom 5:12–21). However, here in Gal 3 the contrast is not between Adam and Christ but Abraham and Moses or, as Paul expressed it in vv. 9–10, the contrast between those who seek their identity in the world and thus before God on the basis of, out of (ek), works and those who relate to these matters of ultimate concern out of faith. Either way, though, such an identification involves far more than an individual decision made in isolation from all others. To be “under the curse” is to belong to a family, to be implicated in a corporate solidarity that includes the whole human race and, for that matter, the world of nature as well (cf. Rom 8:18–27). In the same way, to be “in Christ,” the true Seed (singular) of Abraham, is to find a new family, to become a child and heir of the promise through the adoption of grace.

Philip Ryken: [Argument based on grammar supports doctrine of inerrancy of Scripture]

It is almost as if there is only one party to the covenant: Jesus Christ. But this is exactly what the Galatians were in danger of forgetting. By trusting in the works of the law, they were dividing the church along racial lines: Jews on one side, Gentiles on the other. They were not united in Christ. Paul used the promise to the offspring, therefore, to remind them that God’s eternal plan is for one family in one Christ. By the time he gets to the end of chapter 3, this will be the climax of his argument: “in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith. . . . And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal. 3:26, 29).

Van Parunak: It is worth noting that the phrase cited by Paul, kai tw spermati sou, appears in the Abrahamic promises only in reference to the land. Paul indeed extends its scope: “the promises,” including the promise about blessing the gentiles. But the particular promise that leads to this argument is that Abraham will one day inherit the land in which he wandered as a stranger (17:8), the land which he personally saw (13:15), the land between the river of Egypt and the Euphrates (15:18). Even when Hebrews shows us that Abraham was looking forward to a heavenly city, it acknowledges that the physical land is the “land of promise” (11:9).

C.  (:17) Argument from Chronology –

God’s Promises Came Way Before the Law and Were not Set Aside by the Law

1. God’s Promises Came Way Before the Law

“What I am saying is this:

the Law, which came four hundred and thirty years later”

John MacArthur: Third, the covenant of promise was superior to the covenant of law because of chronology. The Law, which came four hundred and thirty years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God. Because the covenant with Abraham was permanent and inviolate, no amount of time could nullify the promise.

The four hundred and thirty years refers to the time elapsed between God’s last statement of the Abrahamic covenant and His giving of the Law to Moses. The Lord repeated the promise to Abraham’s son Isaac (Gen. 26:24) and then to his grandson Jacob (28:15). The Law came 645 years after Abraham, but 215 years later God repeated the Abrahamic covenant to Jacob, exactly four hundred and thirty years prior to the Mosaic covenant at Sinai.

Warren Wiersbe: Paul is counting from the time Jacob went into Egypt, when God appeared to him and reaffirmed the covenant (Gen. 46:1-4).  The 430 years is the time from God’s confirmation of His promise to Jacob until the giving of the law at Sinai.

2. God’s Promises Were Not Set Aside by the Law

“does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God,

so as to nullify the promise.”

Scot McKnight: What is the “covenant of Abraham”? It has been customary, in theology, to prefer the term testament for a unilateral (one-sided) arrangement, initiated and carried out by one person, and to use the term covenant for a bilateral arrangement. There were two Greek terms for covenant: diatheke and syntheke, the latter clearly implying equality of partners. It is also clear that Greek translators of the Hebrew term berith did not want to make the covenant of Abraham to sound like a mutual arrangement of equal parties, so they chose the term diatheke. In the history of discussion, some theologians have stressed the unilateral nature of God’s covenant with Abraham and have sometimes even preferred the expression the “testament of Abraham.” And, of course, this has become the standard way Christians describe the Bible: Old Testament and New Testament.

On the other hand, since there is clearly an obligation on the part of the persons (Abraham and his corporate “seed”) to commit themselves to the obligations of the covenant (i.e., circumcision, obedience to the law, surrender), other theologians prefer the translation “covenant.” I shall use the term covenant because I agree that, while God’s arrangement with Abraham was sovereignly initiated and established, Abraham did have an obligation to live within the parameters established by God.  Their relationship, however, was by no means equal, and the covenant should never be understood as a mutually agreed upon agreement.

Howard Vos: The law, or Mosaic covenant, instituting the concept of blessing for obedience and cursing for disobedience, could not set aside the unconditional Abrahamic covenant.

Thomas Schreiner: The Abrahamic covenant focuses on what God does for his people in saving them, while the Mosaic covenant accents human obedience. The Abrahamic covenant celebrates God’s work in delivering his people, whereas the Mosaic summons human beings to keep the law. Paul does not give a complete exposition of the two covenants here, but he does see a fundamental incompatibility. If believers lived under the Mosaic covenant, the promise given to Abraham would be nullified. Human obedience would be the fundamental issue for receiving the promise, and hence circumcision would continue to be required. But since the law is subsequent to the promise and inferior to the promise, circumcision and observance of the law are not required in order to belong to Abraham’s family.

Douglas Moo: Promise, in the case of both Abraham (3:6) and all who experience his blessing (3:8–9), is activated by faith, and—as Paul is especially at pains to argue in this context, versus the agitators—by “faith alone.”

Craig Keener: God ratified his covenant with Abraham (Gal. 3:15; cf. Gen. 22:16-18), confirming it with an oath (Gen. 22:16); nothing, therefore, could supersede this arrangement.  If Abraham was justified by faith (Gen. 15:6 in Gal. 3:6), the subsequent law of Moses could not do away with this way of justification (cf. Rom. 10:6-10).  Indeed, with 430 years between the promise to Abraham and the law, faith in God’s promise clearly remained sufficient already during a long era.

D.  (:18) Argument from Completeness –

The Blessing of the Promised Inheritance Came Via God’s Promises — Not God’s Law

“For if the inheritance is based on law, it is no longer based on a promise;

but God has granted it to Abraham by means of a promise.”

John MacArthur: Fourth, the covenant of promise is superior to the covenant of law because it is more complete. Paul’s point is that an inheritance . . . based on law depends on man’s performance, whereas the one granted . . . to Abraham by means of a promise depends on God’s power. The term granted translates the perfect tense of charizomai (to give graciously) and points to the permanent character of the inheritance. The principles behind the two types of inheritance are incompatible. One is by God’s law and man’s works and the other by God’s grace and man’s faith. Not only that, but the abilities to fulfill the covenants are of an infinitely different order. Man cannot succeed in perfectly keeping the law, and God cannot fail in perfectly keeping the promise. Because the covenant of promise is complete, the covenant of law can in no way improve or change it.

Timothy George: In this verse Paul brought together by way of conclusion the three main points he had made in this short pericope: the faithfulness of God, the lateness of the law, and the gratuity of the promise.

Ben Witherington: Verse 18 provides the conclusion that Paul wishes to draw on the basis of his historical observation and analysis.  The γὰρ indicates we are meant to connect the previous sentence to this one. Here again, though Paul uses εἰ plus an implied indicative verb, he is clearly dealing with what he considers to be an unreal condition: “If the inheritance [comes] from the Law, then it does not come from the promise. But God graciously gave it to Abraham through (or by) the promise.”  Here promise and Law are set over against each other as the essence or heart of two separate covenants. As Lightfoot says ‘Law’ and ‘Promise’ “are used without the article, as describing two opposing principles”.

Douglas Moo: This verse provides a further explanation (γάρ, gar, for) for why the law cannot annul the promise: the law introduces an element that is antithetical to the nature of promise, which is a matter of grace. In this verse Paul introduces a concept that will be important in his subsequent argument: “inheritance” (κληρονομία, klēronomia; see κληρονόμος [klēronomos] in 3:29; 4:1, 7). Paul may have been influenced by the reference to a “will” in verse 15 to introduce this word into his argument at this point. God’s promise covenant with Abraham, he suggests, also involves the promise of an inheritance. In the OT, the “inheritance” is usually identified with the land (e.g., Gen. 28:4; Deut. 1:39); for Paul (and for other NT authors), the “inheritance” is Christ himself and all the blessings Christ provides his people. The verb that Paul uses to describe God’s “giving” of the inheritance is κεχάρισται (kecharistai, a perfect form that emphasizes the continuing effects of the “gracious giving”). The notion of gracious giving is warranted based on Paul’s other uses of the verb χαρίζομαι (charizomai: Rom. 8:32; 1 Cor. 2:12; 2 Cor. 2:7, 10 [3x]; 12:13; Eph. 4:32 [2x]; Phil. 1:29; 2:9; Col. 2:13; 3:13 [2x]; Philem. 22). And it is just here that an important perspective on Paul’s argument emerges. “Promise,” by its nature, involves a free and unconstrained decision to commit oneself or specific objects to another. It is this nature of promise that Paul highlights in order to show why the inheritance cannot be based on the law. As Paul has explained in Gal. 3:12, “law” operates according to the principle of doing: it demands works.  And as Paul makes clear elsewhere, grace and works are antithetical. In fact, Paul’s logic in this verse is very similar to his logic in Rom. 4:4–5, where he argues that Abraham could not have been justified by works because, if he had, his status before God would not be based on grace. Explicit in his argument there and implicit here is the fact that God always operates with his sinful creatures on the basis of grace (see also Rom. 11:6: “And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace”). Paul argues against imposing the law on the Galatian Christians, then, not only because it belongs to an earlier phase of salvation history. It is also not a channel of blessing or inheritance, because its nature contradicts the fundamentally gracious manner in which God bestows his blessing on his people. As Dunn (1993a: 186) rightly says, “Paul stakes his case on the theological axiom that salvation is always, first to last, a matter of divine initiative and grace.” And we will let Calvin (1854: 63) have the last word: “Let us carefully remember the reason why, in comparing the promise with the law, the establishment of the one overturns the other. The reason is, that the promise has respect to faith, and the law to works. Faith receives what is freely given, but to works a reward is paid. And he immediately adds, God gave it to Abraham, not by requiring some sort of compensation on his part, but by the free promise; for if you view it as conditional, the word gave (κεχάρισται)would be utterly inapplicable.”

Nijay Gupta: Contrary to what the rival teachers pronounced, this glorious inheritance, this status of true family members of God, could not come through the law. And if they tried to seek out adoption and inheritance via the law, they would be cut off from the Abrahamic promise; they have chosen their path, and it is a dead-end. There is only one way to the inheritance: it is through Abraham, now offered freely and graciously to the Galatians through faith in Jesus Christ.

TRANSITION: “Why the Law then?”

Ben Witherington: It was the task of any good rhetor to anticipate any questions or objections to one’s arguments that might be raised by one’s audience, and to forestall them by answering them in advance. Paul does this here, once again drawing on the diatribe style involving a question to an imaginary interlocutor followed by the speaker’s answer.

Thomas Schreiner: Paul’s answer is intriguing, for he argues that the law and the promise have different functions. The law could never grant righteousness, but it enclosed all under sin until Jesus Christ came (3:21–25). Hence, the law was in force for an interim period in salvation history until the coming of Christ. Now that faith in Christ has come and the promise to Abraham is realized, believers are no longer under the Mosaic covenant and law. And if believers are not under the Mosaic covenant, then circumcision is unnecessary.

John MacArthur: After showing the superiority of the covenant of promise, Paul shows the inferiority of the covenant of law –

1. first in regard to its purpose,
2. then in regard to its mediator,
3. and finally in regard to its accomplishment.

II.  (:19-22) THE PURPOSE OF GOD’S LAW WAS NEVER TO PROVIDE JUSTIFICATION

Scot McKnight: Outline of 3:19-25

The Question About the Historical Purpose of the Law (vv. 19–20)

1. The question (v. 19a)
2. The answer (vv. 19b–20)
3. The purpose of the law (v. 19b)
4. The temporal limitations of the law (v. 19c)
5. The circumstances of the giving of the law (vv. 19d–20)

The Question About the Historical Function of the Law (vv. 21–25)

1. The question (v. 21a)
2. The answer (v. 21b)
3. The reason for the answer (vv. 21c–25)
4. The inability of the law (v. 21c)
5. The function of the law in history (v. 22a)
6. The function of the promises in history (v. 22b)
7. The explanation of the function of the law (vv. 23–25)
   • Time elements of the law (v. 23)
   • Effect of the law (v. 24a)
   • Result of the law’s effect (v. 24b)
   • Suspension of the law (v. 25)

Ronald Fung: Paul’s contention in vv. 19–22 may be summed up as follows: The law is an institution inferior to the covenant of promise and it does not bestow righteousness. Its “true effect … is to nail man to his sin. As the prison holds the prisoner … so man is shut up by the Law under sin…. Rightly understood, then, the Law prevents any attempt on man’s part to secure righteousness before God in any other way than … that promised to Abraham.”  There is no essential contradiction of the promise by the law, bcause, simply, the law is intended to serve the purposes of the promise, which has to do with justification by faith.

In this section (3:15–22) Paul has again demonstrated that justification is by faith and not by works of the law. He has done it in terms of the relation between the law and the promise, by showing clearly that it is the original covenant of promise which represents God’s intention in his dealings with men, and that the law is an inferior institution designed to serve the purposes of the promise. Hence the Judaizers were wrong, in the terms used in v. 16, to impose new conditions for salvation (“add a codicil”) upon the original covenant of promise, which cannot be rendered null and void (“set … aside”) in this way.

The entire passage is, in fact, an elaboration of the antithesis between law and promise already introduced in vv. 13f. As in that earlier passage (cf. especially vv. 13f. and v. 22), the doctrine of justification by faith is explained historically, that is, from the perspective of salvation history.  This perspective is continued in the next section (3:23 – 4:11). Before turning to that, however, we may briefly note again the nexus of ideas in which justification belongs: promise (vv. 16, 18, 22), inheritance (v. 18), and life (v. 21). If in 3:15–22 justification is treated primarily with reference to the promise, in the next section it is the notion of sonship (implied in the concept of inheritance) that will occupy the dominant place.

A.  (:19-20) God’s Law Was Necessary But Clearly Inferior to God’s Promises

1. (:19a)  The Law was Necessary Because of Sin

“It was added because of transgressions“

Again, the emphasis on the law having been “added” after the Promises.

Rendall: The real meaning is that it was added with a view to the offences which it specifies, thereby pronouncing them to be from that time forward transgressions of the Law. Its design is gathered in short from its contents. The prohibitions of the Ten Commandments reveal their own purpose: they were enacted in order to repress the worship of false gods, idolatry, blasphemy, Sabbath breaking, disobedience to parents, murder, adultery, theft, false witness, covetousness. These sins prevailed before the Law, but by pronouncing them to be definite transgressions it called in the fear of God’s wrath to reinforce the weakness of the moral sense and educate man’s conscience.

Thomas Schreiner: Four interpretations dominate.

(1)  The law was given by God to restrain sin. According to this reading, the law taught Israel how to live before Christ came.

(2)  The law’s purpose was to define sin.  If this view is adopted, 3:19 is similar to Rom 4:15, which says, “Where there is no law, there is no transgression.” The law provides the standard, the measuring stick, by which sin is identified. The law classifies sin as sin in a technical or legal sense. In other words, sin is identified as “transgression” when a specific law is violated. Longenecker defends this view by saying that the notion that the law multiplies sin does not fit with the temporal clause, while the definitional sense accords with the idea of the supervision of the pedagogue, and also explains why those under the law are cursed.

(3)  Dunn argues that the law was given to deal with sin. In other words, sacrifices were provided in the OT cultus to atone for sin before the coming of Christ.

(4)  Despite the attractiveness of the first three views, the view that is the most plausible is that the law was given to increase sin.  The problem with the first view, that the law was given to restrain sin, is the context of Galatians. Such an admission by Paul would support the view of the Judaizers who argued that the Galatians must be circumcised and keep the law. Surely the opponents must have argued that the law’s restraining function was desperately needed among the Galatian Christians. Instead, Paul has already argued that the law curses those who are under its rule since no one can obey it (3:10).  Indeed, the law is unable to grant life, and all enclosed within its realm are under the power of sin (3:21–22). Furthermore, 4:5 speaks of those who were under law as redeemed or liberated from it, indicating that those who are under law are enslaved to sin. Hence, there is no reason to think that the law is envisioned as restraining sin here. Quite the opposite. As in Rom 5:20, the law was given to increase transgressions. Such a perspective fits with the history of Israel, for life under law did not lead to a law-abiding society. Instead, sin reigned in Israel, and as a result both the northern and southern kingdoms were sent into exile.

A more attractive solution is that the law was given to define sin, and it is possible that both the defining of sin and the expansion of sin are included. Still, it is difficult to see how the law defined sin only until Christ came. The idea that the law increased the reign of sin in Israel until the coming of the Christ, however, fits with the OT story of Israel’s life under the law. Furthermore, it was noted above that Paul links being “under law” (cf. 3:23) with being under the power of sin, and hence the upsurge of sin under the law is preferable. By showing that the law could not curb sin, God revealed that the only answer to the power of sin is the coming of the Messiah.

Finally, it is unlikely that Paul emphasizes here that the law provides atonement for sin. Instead, he emphasizes in Galatians that the law does not provide full and final forgiveness, for if forgiveness is truly secured through the law and its sacrifices, then Christ died for nothing (2:21).

Philip Ryken: Sometimes the law restrains sin, but this is not why God gave Moses the law with all its regulations and requirements. He did not give it to decrease transgression, but actually to increase it. The law exposes sin for what it really is, namely, a violation of God’s holy standard. That is what transgression means: the crossing of a legal boundary or the breaking of a specific law.

The law has a way of making people want to break it. Paul explained this effect of the law to the Romans. “If it had not been for the law,” he wrote, “I would not have known sin” (Rom. 7:7). And as soon as Paul found out what sin was, he wanted to try it: “The law came in to increase the trespass” (Rom. 5:20). Or, to paraphrase what Paul said to the Galatians, the law was given “in order that there might be transgressions.”  Sometimes the law serves as a stimulus to sin.

One purpose of the law, then, is not preventive but provocative.  Rather than preventing transgression, the law actually provokes people to sin. By doing so, it does not make things better, but makes a bad situation even worse: “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20). God did not give the law to reveal the way to be justified; he gave it to disclose the evil power of sin. “Therefore,” wrote Martin Luther, “the true function and the chief and proper use of the Law is to reveal to man his sin, blindness, misery, wickedness, ignorance, hate and contempt of God, death, hell, judgment, and the well-deserved wrath of God.”

Yet this is a good thing. When the Scripture says that the law was “added,” it literally says that the law came in by a side road. The law feeds into the promise; it is the on-ramp to the gospel highway. The more we know the law, the more we see our sin, and the more we see this, the more we confess that we need a Savior. “The law was given,” wrote Calvin, “in order to make transgressions obvious, and in this way to compel men to acknowledge their guilt.”  And it is only when we see our guilt that we see how much we need Jesus. The law is the law so that Christ can become our Savior.

2. (:19b-20)  The Law was Clearly Inferior to God’s Promises —

a.  Proven by the nature of mediation

 “having been ordained through angels

by the agency of a mediator“

Mediated through angels and Moses rather than directly given by God as the promises were to Abraham.

Thomas Schreiner: The “mediator” (μεσίτου) in the verse is almost certainly Moses, for he functioned as the one who transmitted the law to Israel.  The presence of a mediator suggests the inferiority of the revelation or the weakness of the people.  The reference to Moses’ hands alludes to the Ten Commandments, which Moses brought down from the mountain with his own hands (cf. Exod 32:15, 19; 34:4, 29). So, Paul emphasizes that the law was given to Moses through angels, and Moses in turn mediated the law to the people.

Timothy George: Paul did not intend to denigrate Moses as a person but rather to show again the transitory and totally inadequate character of the law as a system of salvation. The epistle to the Hebrews picks up on one of Paul’s favorite antinomies, that of servant and son, and applies them to Moses and Christ in precisely this way: “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s household, . . . but Christ was faithful as a Son over his household” (Heb 3:5–6; emphasis added). Here in Galatians Paul did not develop these themes but focused instead on the unity of God, quoting from the Shema, the most basic confession of the Hebrew faith, “Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deut 6:4). Paul’s point was this: the promise to Abraham came directly from God, not through angels or by means of a merely human mediator such as Moses.

b.  Proven by the intended duration — Only Temporary

“until the seed should come

to whom the promise had been made“

Ben Witherington: The Law is seen by Paul as an important parenthesis between the Abrahamic covenant and the fulfillment of the promises to Abraham in Christ, but a parenthesis nonetheless, a temporary means of God’s dealing with the chosen people. . .

The temporality of the Law includes an end as well as a beginning in history, a point made five times in 3:19–25 (w. 19c, 23a and c, 24a, 25).

c.  Proven by the need for a mediator

“Now a mediator is not for one party only;

whereas God is only one.”

John MacArthur: Paul seems to be pointing out that a mediator (literally one who stands between two parties) is needed only when more than one party is involved.   God gave the covenant directly to Abraham without a mediator because He was the only one involved in making the covenant.  Abraham was a witness to the covenant and was a beneficiary, but he was not a party to it.  Abraham had no part in establishing or keeping the covenant.  That responsibility was God’s alone.  The covenant of law, however, not only involved mediators (angels and Moses) but mutual obligations on the two parties (God and Israel).

Thomas Schreiner: A mediator involves at least two parties, and in this context the distance between God and Israel is stressed. Such a view fits with the giving of the law in Exodus, where Moses received the law on the mountain alone and brought it down to Israel (cf. Exod 19–34). Mediation also implies a contract between God and Israel. Therefore, the promises of the covenant were dependent on both parties fulfilling their responsibilities. The Sinai covenant failed because Israel did not do what was demanded and broke the stipulations of the covenant. The promise given to Abraham, by contrast, is dependent on God alone. And since it depends on his promise and is not contingent, it will certainly be fulfilled.

The main idea of the verse seems clear in context. On the one hand, the law is inferior to the promise because it required mediation: from God to angels to Moses to the people. On the other hand, the one God spoke directly to Abraham. Hence, the promise is clearly superior to the law. The indirect way that the law came to Israel suggests that it should not be placed on the same plane as the promise.

The declaration that “God is one” recalls one of the fundamental tenets of Judaism, found in the Shema of Deut 6:4. Paul also appeals to the oneness of God in Rom 3:30 to underscore that there is one way of salvation. It is intriguing that both in Romans and here in Galatians the oneness of God is introduced where Paul defends the inclusion of Gentiles into the people of God apart from the law. Since there is one God, there is one way of salvation. Inasmuch as the law did not and could not accomplish salvation, it is inferior to the promise.

Nijay Gupta: It is a bit like two people who meet and fall in love, but they speak different languages and communicate through a translator. The love may genuinely be there, but so is the translator, which means there is a necessary distance relationally between the lovers. They might appreciate the good work of the translator to connect them, but they no doubt long for the translator to not be necessary, so they can engage more directly, heart to heart. The oneness of God is not just a numerical value; it is a testimony and confession that God’s people believed and professed about God’s essential nature and desire for wholeness against fragmentation, peace against division, integration against disintegration. The mediation of angels and mortals must give way to a more fluid and intimate union between God and the believer, and this can only happen in Jesus Christ through the Spirit. Perhaps there is also an element of this oneness value that involves Jews and gentiles coming together as one—this would anticipate Galatians 3:28 where Paul affirms that “all” are children of God on equal footing by participating in the unique Sonship of Jesus Christ by “putting on” Christ.

Van Parunak: Thus we have three specific ways in which the law is different from promise:

1. its purpose,
2. its duration,
3. and its bilateral nature.

Application: Each of these should lead us to thank God.

B.  (:21-22) God’s Law Should Not be Stretched Beyond Its Intended Purpose

1. God’s Law is Not an Enemy to God’s Promises

“Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God?  May it never be!“

Ronald Fung: The law’s inferiority to the promise does not mean that the law contradicts the promise (v. 21a).  Paul substantiates his emphatic denial of any such contradiction by referring again to the function of the law, but this time in a positive as well as a negative aspect.

2. God’s Law Can Never Provide Justification

“For if a law had been given, which was able to impart life,

then righteousness would indeed have been based on law.”

Howard Vos: If the law is inferior to promise, is there opposition between these two divine arrangements? Paul says, “Perish the thought.” The law is all right as far as it goes, but it really could not compete with promise because it could not give life. The law as an externally prescribed rule cannot even pretend to impart life. And if sanction were given to law as a new means of justification, it would achieve nothing unless it gained a means of bestowing spiritual life.

3. God’s Law Accomplished Its Intended Purpose

“But the Scripture has shut up all men under sin, that the promise by

faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.”

Ben Witherington: The Law is therefore to be understood not as a restriction of the Abrahamic promises to one race – that is the mistake Paul’s opponents are making – but as a temporary measure introduced for certain specific purposes which, in the long run, would not prevent but rather facilitate the creation of the single family spoken of in the promise.