Galatians3chapter 3

Galatians 3:6

If, then, God promised him the inheritance of the land, yet he did not receive it during all the time of his sojourn there, it must be, that together with his seed, that is, those who fear God and believe in Him, he shall receive it at the resurrection of the just. For his seed is the Church, which receives the adoption to God through the Lord, as John the Baptist said: "For God is able from the stones to raise up children to Abraham."

Galatians 3:7

“Know ye therefore ... - Learn from this case. It is an inference which follows, that all they who believe are the children of Abraham. They which are of faith - Who believe, and who are justified in this manner. Are the children of Abraham - Abraham was the “father of the faithful.” The most remarkable trait in his character was his unwavering confidence in God. They who evinced the same trait, therefore were worthy to be called his children. They would be justified in the same way, and in the same manner meet the approbation of God.”

Galatians 3:8

“The scripture is said to foresee, because he that indited the scripture did foresee, that God would justify the heathen world in the way of faith; and therefore in Abraham, that is, in the seed of Abraham, which is Christ, not the Jews only, but the Gentiles also, should be blessed; not only blessed in the seed of Abraham, but blessed as Abraham was, being justified as he was.”

Galatians 3:8

“God justifieth the Jews, too, "by faith, not by works." But he specifies the Gentiles in particular here, as it was their case that was in question, the Galatians being Gentiles. preached before the gospel--"announced beforehand the Gospel." For the "promise" was substantially the Gospel by anticipation.”

Galatians 3:8

And the Scripture foreseeing,.... This seems to agree with the Jewish forms or citing passages of Scripture, מה ראה הכתוב, "what does the Scripture foresee?" and מה ראתה תורה, (n) "what does the law foresee?"

Galatians 3:10

“We perceive that the apostle, as elsewhere, has written down the sense of the passage rather than the words. We consider it uncertain whether the seventy interpreters [of the Septuagint] have added "everyone" and "in all" or whether it was in the old Hebrew and deleted by the Jews.”

Galatians 3:10

“They who depend on the works of the law cannot share the blessing, for they are under the curse "written," De 27:26, Septuagint. PERFECT obedience is required by the words, "in all things." CONTINUAL obedience by the word, "continueth." No man renders this obedience (compare Ro 3:19, 20).”

Galatians 3:11

“It requires perfect obedience as the condition of life, and therefore now can by no means be the rule of our justification. This argument of the apostle's may give us occasion to remark that justification by faith is no new doctrine, but what was established and taught in the church of God long before the times of the gospel.”

Galatians 3:11

“THE Apostle quotes from the Old Testament, from the second chapter of Habakkuk, at the fourth verse, and thus confirms one Inspired statement by another. Even the just are not justified by their own righteousness, but live by faith. It follows, then, most conclusively, that no man is justified by the Law in the sight of God. If the best of men find no justification coming to them through their personal virtues but stand accepted only by faith, how much more such imperfect beings, such frequent sinners as ourselves? Men who are saved by faith become just.”

Galatians 3:12

“The curse is wrath revealed, and ruin threatened: it is a separation unto all evil, and this is in full force, power, and virtue, against all sinners, and therefore against all men; for all have sinned and become guilty before God: and if, as transgressors of the law, we are under the curse of it, it must be a vain thing to look for justification by it.”

Galatians 3:13

“In order to redeem us from the curse of the law, Christ became a curse for us. This was demonstrated visibly when He hung on the cross.”

Galatians 3:13

“Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law,.... The Redeemer is Christ, the Son of God; who was appointed and called to this work by his Father, and which he himself agreed to; he was spoken of in prophecy under this character; he came as such, and has obtained eternal redemption, for which he was abundantly qualified; as man, he was a near kinsman, to whom the right of redemption belonged; and as God, he was able to accomplish it.”

Galatians 3:13

“Christ hath redeemed us - The word used here ἐξηγόρασεν exēgorasen is not that which is usually employed in the New Testament to denote redemption. That word is λυτρόω lutroō. The difference between them mainly is, that the word used here more usually relates to a purchase of any kind; the other is used strictly with reference to a ransom. The word used here is more general in its meaning; the other is strictly appropriated to a ransom. This distinction is not observable here, however, and the word used here is employed in the proper sense of redeem.”

Galatians 3:13

“The curse is the divine condemnation of sin which leads to death. To this curse we lay exposed; but Christ on his cross identified himself with the doom impending on sinners that, through his act, the curse passes away and we go free.”

Galatians 3:14

“That we - Who believe, whether Jews or gentiles. Might receive the promise of the Spirit - Which includes all the other promises. Through faith - Not by works; for faith looks wholly to the promise.”

Galatians 3:15

“Brethren, I speak after the manner of men - I draw an illustration from what actually occurs among people. The illustration is, that when a contract or agreement is made by people involving obligations and promises, no one can add to it or take from it. It will remain as it was originally made. So with God. He made a solemn promise to Abraham. That promise pertained to his posterity. The blessing was connected with that promise, and it was of the nature of a compact with Abraham.”

Galatians 3:15

“The original word diatheke signifies both a covenant and a testament. Now the promise made to Abraham was rather a testament than a covenant. When a testament has become of force by the death of the testator, it is not capable of being altered; and therefore, the promise that was given to Abraham being of the nature of a testament, it remains firm and unalterable.”

Galatians 3:15

“Much less would the righteous God do so. The law is here, by personification, regarded as a second person, distinct from, and subsequent to, the promise of God. The promise is everlasting, and more peculiarly belongs to God.”

Galatians 3:16

“And he gives us a very surprising exposition of this. We should have thought it had been meant only of the people of the Jews. "Nay," says the apostle, "it is in the singular number, and points at a single person-- that seed is Christ, " So that the covenant is still in force; for Christ abideth for ever in his person, and in his spiritual seed, who are his by faith.”

Galatians 3:16

“This verse is parenthetical. The covenant of promise was not "spoken" (so Greek for "made") to Abraham alone, but "to Abraham and his seed"; to the latter especially; and this means Christ (and that which is inseparable from Him, the literal Israel, and the spiritual, His body, the Church).”

Galatians 3:17

“And this I say - What I mean is this. The covenant which was before confirmed of God - By the promise itself, by the repetition of it, and by a solemn oath, concerning the blessing all nations. Through Christ, the law which was four hundred and thirty years after - Counting from the time when the promise was first made to Abraham, Gen. xii, 2, 3.”

Galatians 3:17

“In what way, then, can the law annul this covenant, agreement, and promise, so that the nations would receive blessing not in Christ but through the commandments of the law? For this would be nothing other than the overthrow of the promise, which is absurd.”

Galatians 3:17

“Here Jacob received the promise of the blessing, for which God had called Abraham out of Ur, repeated for the last time, on the last night of his sojourn in the land of promise. cannot--Greek, "doth not disannul." make . . . of none effect--The promise would become so, if the power of conferring the inheritance be transferred from it to the law (Ro 4:14).”

Galatians 3:18

“And again - This is a new argument. The former was drawn from the time, this from the nature, of the transaction. If the eternal inheritance be obtained by keeping the law, it is no more by virtue of the free promise - These being just opposite to each other.”

Galatians 3:19

"Wherefore then serveth the law?" as it is of no avail for justification, is it either useless, or contrary to the covenant of God? [CALVIN]. added--to the original covenant of promise.

Galatians 3:19

“Was added - To the promise. Because of transgressions - Probably, the yoke of the ceremonial law was inflicted as a punishment for the national sin of idolatry, Exod. xxxii, 1, at least the more grievous parts of it; and the whole of it was a prophetic type of Christ.”

Galatians 3:20

“Now the mediator is not a mediator of one - There must be two parties, or there can be no mediator between them; but God who made the free promise to Abraham is only one of the parties. The other, Abraham, was not present at the time of Moses.”

Galatians 3:20

“THE text does not strike you as difficult, but it is exceedingly perplexing to the interpreter. I was looking at one very old commentator who is a great favorite of mine and I noticed that he said that there were 250 different meanings given by expositors to this verse. John Prime, in 1587, called it, "an endless labyrinth." "Oh," I thought, "here is a nice wood to lose oneself in! Two hundred and fifty meanings!" Turning to a more modern author—a great reader, however—he said he believed that more than 400 different interpretations had been put upon the passage.”

Galatians 3:21

“They are well consistent. But yet the law cannot give life, as the promise doth. If there had been a law which could have given life - Which could have entitled a sinner to life, God would have spared his own Son, and righteousness, or justification. with all the blessings consequent upon it, would have been by that law.”

Galatians 3:21

“The law is by no means inconsistent with the promise, but subservient to it, as the design of it is to discover men's transgressions, and to show them the need they have of a better righteousness than that of the law.”

Galatians 3:22

“But--as the law cannot give life or righteousness [ALFORD]. Or the "But" means, So far is righteousness from being of the law, that the knowledge of sin is rather what comes of the law [BENGEL]. the scripture--which began to be written after the time of the promise, at the time when the law was given.”

Galatians 3:22

“Whose grace, if not of that God from whom also came the law? Unless it be, forsooth, that the Creator intercalated His law for the mere purpose of producing some employment for the grace of a rival god, an enemy to Himself (I had almost said, a god unknown to Him), "that as sin had" in His own dispensation "reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto (eternal) life by Jesus Christ," His own antagonist!”

Galatians 3:22

“But the scripture hath concluded - All the writings of the prophets have uniformly declared that men are all sinners, and the law declares the same by the continual sacrifices which it prescribes.”

Galatians 3:23

For that faith is the one universal salvation of humanity, and that there is the same equality before the righteous and loving God, and the same fellowship between Him and all, the apostle most clearly showed, speaking to the following effect: "Before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed, so that the law became our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith; but after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster."

Galatians 3:23

“THIS is a condensed history of the Jews before the Gospel was fully preached to them. Before the clear and plain revelation of the way of salvation—that is to say, before Jesus Christ, Himself, actually appeared among the sons of men—the Hebrew nation was put under the tutorship and governance of the Mosaic Law. So far as salvation was to be obtained by it, that Law was a total failure. It did not make the Jews a holy people—whenever they reached any point of excellence, they soon went back from it, for they were bent on backsliding.”

Galatians 3:23

“But before faith came,.... This is to be understood, not of the grace of faith, which was under the former dispensation, as now; the Old Testament saints had the same Spirit of faith, and the same grace of faith, as for its nature, object, and use, as New Testament saints have; Adam, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, &c. believed in Christ, and were justified by faith in his righteousness, as we are.”

Galatians 3:24

“Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster unto Christ - It was designed to train us up for Christ. And this it did both by its commands, which showed the need we had of his atonement; and its ceremonies, which all pointed us to him.”

Galatians 3:24

“Meanwhile the law, by outwardly checking the sinful propensity which was constantly giving fresh proof of its refractoriness--as thus the consciousness of the power of the sinful principle became more vivid, and hence the sense of need both of forgiveness of sin and freedom from its bondage was awakened--the law became a "schoolmaster to guide us unto Christ" [NEANDER].”

Galatians 3:24

“NEITHER the Jewish Law of Ten Commandments, nor its Law of ceremonies were ever intended to save anybody. It was not the intent of the ceremonial Law, in itself to effect the redemption of the soul—by a set of pictures it set forth the way of salvation—but it was not, itself, the way. It was a map, not a country. It was a model of the road, not the road itself. The blood of bulls and goats, nor the ashes of a heifer could take away sin!”

Galatians 3:24

“And as it obliged them to a variety of sacrifices, &c., which, though they could not of themselves take away sin, were typical of Christ, and of the great sacrifice which he was to offer up for the expiation of it, so it directed them (though in a more dark and obscure manner) to him as their only relief and refuge.”

Galatians 3:25

"But now that faith is come," &c. Moses the lawgiver cannot bring us into the heavenly Canaan though he can bring us to the border of it. At that point he is superseded by Joshua, the type of Jesus, who leads the true Israel into their inheritance.

Galatians 3:26

“What I say, then, is this, that that God is the object of faith who prefigured the grace of faith. But when he also adds, ".For ye are all the children of faith," it becomes dear that what the heretic's industry erased was the mention of Abraham's name; for by faith the apostle declares us to be "children of Abraham," and after mentioning him he expressly called us "children of faith" also.”

Galatians 3:28

“There is neither Jew nor Greek - That is, there is no difference between them; they are equally accepted through faith. There is neither male nor female - Circumcision being laid aside, which was peculiar to males, and was designed to put a difference, during that dispensation, between Jews and gentiles.”

Galatians 3:28

“When one has once put on Christ and, having been sent into the flame, glows with the ardor of the Holy Spirit, it is not apparent whether he is of gold or silver. As long as the heat takes over the mass in this way there is one fiery color, and all diversity of race, condition and body is taken away by such a garment.”