8 And the holy Writings, seeing before the event that God would give the Gentiles righteousness by faith, gave the good news before to Abraham, saying, In you will all the nations have a blessing.
To them who are good to you will I give blessing, and on him who does you wrong will I put my curse: and you will become a name of blessing to all the families of the earth.
And, truly, the good news came to us, even as it did to them; but the hearing of the word did them no good, because they were not united in faith with the true hearers.
The rod of authority will not be taken from Judah, and he will not be without a law-giver, till he comes who has the right to it, and the peoples will put themselves under his rule.
And your seed will be a blessing to all the nations of the earth, because you have done what I gave you orders to do.
And this is in agreement with the words of the prophets, as it is said, After these things I will come back, and will put up the tent of David which has been broken down, building up again its broken parts and making it complete: So that the rest of men may make search for the Lord, and all the Gentiles on whom my name is named, Says the Lord, who has made these things clear from the earliest times.
And that from the time when you were a child, you have had knowledge of the holy Writings, which are able to make you wise to salvation, through faith in Christ Jesus. Every holy Writing which comes from God is of profit for teaching, for training, for guiding, for education in righteousness: So that the man of God may be complete, trained and made ready for every good work.
However, the holy Writings have put all things under sin, so that that for which God gave the undertaking, based on faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who have such faith.
What then may we say? That the nations who did not go after righteousness have got righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith:
For the holy Writings say to Pharaoh, For this same purpose did I put you on high, so that I might make my power seen in you, and that there might be knowledge of my name through all the earth.
For this reason, then, a man may get righteousness by faith without the works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? is he not in the same way the God of Gentiles? Yes, of Gentiles: If God is one; and he will give righteousness because of faith to those who have circumcision, and through faith to those who have not circumcision.
Till I put all those who are against you under your feet.
For David said of him, I saw the Lord before my face at all times, for he is at my right hand, so that I may not be moved: And for this cause my heart was glad and my tongue full of joy, and my flesh will be resting in hope:
And I will take a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah one who will have my mountains for a heritage: and the people I have taken to be mine will have it for themselves, and my servants will have their resting-place there.
And even if there is still a tenth part in it, it will again be burned, like a tree of the woods whose broken end is still in the earth after the tree has been cut down (the holy seed is the broken end).
Your seed will be like the dust of the earth, covering all the land to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south: you and your seed will be a name of blessing to all the families of the earth.
I will make your seed like the stars of heaven in number, and will give them all these lands, and your seed will be a blessing to all the nations of the earth;
Do not the Writings say that the Christ comes of the seed of David and from Beth-lehem, the little town where David was?
What then do the Writings say? Send away the servant-woman and her son; for the son of the servant-woman will not have a part in the heritage with the son of the free woman.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Galatians 3
Commentary on Galatians 3 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 3
The apostle in this chapter,
Gal 3:1-5
The apostle is here dealing with those who, having embraced the faith of Christ, still continued to seek for justification by the works of the law; that is, who depended upon their own obedience to the moral precepts as their righteousness before God, and, wherein that was defective, had recourse to the legal sacrifices and purifications to make it up. These he first sharply reproves, and then endeavours, by the evidence of truth, to convince them. This is the right method, when we reprove any for a fault or an error, to convince them that it is an error, that it is a fault.
He reproves them, and the reproof is very close and warm: he calls them foolish Galatians, v. 1. Though as Christians they were Wisdom's children, yet as corrupt Christians they were foolish children. Yea, he asks, Who hath bewitched you? whereby he represents them as enchanted by the arts and snares of their seducing teachers, and so far deluded as to act very unlike themselves. That wherein their folly and infatuation appeared was that they did not obey the truth; that is, they did not adhere to the gospel way of justification, wherein they had been taught, and which they had professed to embrace. Note, It is not enough to know the truth, and to say we believe it, but we must obey it too; we must heartily submit to it, and stedfastly abide by it. Note, also, Those are spiritually bewitched who, when the truth as it is in Jesus is plainly set before them, will not thus obey it. Several things proved and aggravated the folly of these Christians.
Gal 3:6-18
The apostle having reproved the Galatians for not obeying the truth, and endeavoured to impress them with a sense of their folly herein, in these verses he largely proves the doctrine which he had reproved them for rejecting, namely, that of justification by faith without the works of the law. This he does several ways.
Gal 3:19-29
The apostle having just before been speaking of the promise made to Abraham, and representing that as the rule of our justification, and not the law, lest they should think he did too much derogate from the law, and render it altogether useless, he thence takes occasion to discourse of the design and tendency of it, and to acquaint us for what purposes it was given. It might be asked, "If that promise be sufficient for salvation, wherefore then serveth the law? Or, Why did God give the law by Moses?' To this he answers,
The apostle adds that the law was given for this purpose till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; that is, either till Christ should come (the principle seed referred to in the promise, as he had before shown), or till the gospel dispensation should take place, when Jews and Gentiles, without distinction, should, upon believing, become the seed of Abraham. The law was added because of transgressions, till this fulness of time, or this complete dispensation, should come. But when the seed came, and a fuller discovery of divine grace in the promise was made, then the law, as given by Moses, was to cease; that covenant, being found faulty, was to give place to another, and a better, Heb. 8:7, 8. And though the law, considered as the law of nature, is always in force, and still continues to be of use to convince men of sin and to restrain them from it, yet we are now no longer under the bondage and terror of that legal covenant. The law then was not intended to discover another way of justification, different from that revealed by the promise, but only to lead men to see their need of the promise, by showing them the sinfulness of sin, and to point them to Christ, through whom alone they could be pardoned and justified.
As a further proof that the law was not designed to vacate the promise, the apostle adds, It was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. It was given to different persons, and in a different manner from the promise, and therefore for different purposes. The promise was made to Abraham, and all his spiritual seed, including believers of all nations, even of the Gentiles as well as the Jews; but the law was given to the Israelites as a peculiar people, and separated from the rest of the world. And, whereas the promise was given immediately by God himself, the law was given by the ministry of angels, and the hand of a mediator. Hence it appeared that the law could not be designed to set aside the promise; for (v. 20), A mediator is not a mediator of one, of one party only; but God is one, but one party in the promise or covenant made with Abraham: and therefore it is not to be supposed that by a transaction which passed only between him and the nation of the Jews he should make void a promise which he had long before made to Abraham and all his spiritual seed, whether Jews or Gentiles. This would not have been consistent with his wisdom, nor with his truth and faithfulness. Moses was only a mediator between God and the spiritual seed of Abraham; and therefore the law that was given by him could not affect the promise made to them, much less be subversive of it.