13 Christ did redeem us from the curse of the law, having become for us a curse, for it hath been written, `Cursed is every one who is hanging on a tree,'
his corpse doth not remain on the tree, for thou dost certainly bury him in that day -- for a thing lightly esteemed of God `is' the hanged one -- and thou dost not defile thy ground which Jehovah thy God is giving to thee -- an inheritance.
who our sins himself did bear in his body, upon the tree, that to the sins having died, to the righteousness we may live; by whose stripes ye were healed,
in this is the love, not that we loved God, but that He did love us, and did send His Son a propitiation for our sins.
having known that, not with corruptible things -- silver or gold -- were ye redeemed from your foolish behaviour delivered by fathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and unspotted -- Christ's -- foreknown, indeed, before the foundation of the world, and manifested in the last times because of you, who through him do believe in God, who did raise out of the dead, and glory to him did give, so that your faith and hope may be in God.
For such a chief priest did become us -- kind, harmless, undefiled, separate from the sinners, and become higher than the heavens, who hath no necessity daily, as the chief priests, first for his own sins to offer up sacrifice, then for those of the people; for this he did once, having offered up himself;
For, as come down doth the shower, And the snow from the heavens, And thither returneth not, But hath watered the earth, And hath caused it to yield, and to spring up, And hath given seed to the sower, and bread to the eater, So is My word that goeth out of My mouth, It turneth not back unto Me empty, But hath done that which I desired, And prosperously effected that `for' which I sent it. For with joy ye go forth, And with peace ye are brought in, The mountains and the hills Break forth before you `with' singing, And all trees of the field clap the hand.
and the God of our fathers did raise up Jesus, whom ye slew, having hanged upon a tree;
who did give himself for us, that he might ransom us from all lawlessness, and might purify to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works;
neither through blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, did enter in once into the holy places, age-during redemption having obtained;
so also the Christ, once having been offered to bear the sins of many, a second time, apart from a sin-offering, shall appear, to those waiting for him -- to salvation!
for it is impossible for blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Wherefore, coming into the world, he saith, `Sacrifice and offering Thou didst not will, and a body Thou didst prepare for me, in burnt-offerings, and concerning sin-offerings, Thou didst not delight, then I said, Lo, I come, (in a volume of the book it hath been written concerning me,) to do, O God, Thy will;' saying above -- `Sacrifice, and offering, and burnt-offerings, and concerning sin-offering Thou didst not will, nor delight in,' -- which according to the law are offered -- then he said, `Lo, I come to do, O God, Thy will;' he doth take away the first that the second he may establish; in the which will we are having been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once,
My little children, these things I write to you, that ye may not sin: and if any one may sin, an advocate we have with the Father, Jesus Christ, a righteous one, and he -- he is a propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world,
and they sing a new song, saying, `Worthy art thou to take the scroll, and to open the seals of it, because thou wast slain, and didst redeem us to God in thy blood, out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation,
and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first-born out of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth; to him who did love us, and did bathe us from our sins in his blood,
since it had behoved him many times to suffer from the foundation of the world, but now once, at the full end of the ages, for putting away of sin through his sacrifice, he hath been manifested;
for I was wishing, I myself, to be anathema from the Christ -- for my brethren, my kindred, according to the flesh,
And Jehovah is not able any more to accept `you', because of the evil of your doings, because of the abominations that ye have done, and your land is for a waste, and for an astonishment, and for a reviling, without inhabitant, as `at' this day.
and Joshua smiteth them afterwards, and putteth them to death, and hangeth them on five trees; and they are hanging on the trees till the evening. And it cometh to pass, at the time of the going in of the sun, Joshua hath commanded, and they take them down from off the trees, and cast them unto the cave where they had been hid, and put great stones on the mouth of the cave till this very day.
And Ahithophel hath seen that his counsel was not done, and he saddleth the ass, and riseth and goeth unto his house, unto his city, and giveth charge unto his household, and strangleth himself, and dieth, and he is buried in the burying-place of his father.
And one man seeth, and declareth to Joab, and saith, `Lo, I saw Absalom hanged in an oak.'
And Joab saith, `Not right -- I tarry before thee;' and he taketh three darts in his hand, and striketh them into the heart of Absalom, while he `is' alive, in the midst of the oak. And they go round -- ten youths bearing weapons of Joab -- and smite Absalom, and put him to death.
yea, David saith unto the Gibeonites, `What do I do for you? and with what do I make atonement? and bless ye the inheritance of Jehovah.'
and giveth them into the hand of the Gibeonites, and they hang them in the hill before Jehovah; and the seven fall together, and they have been put to death in the days of harvest, in the first `days', the commencement of barley-harvest.
because thy heart `is' tender, and thou art humbled because of Jehovah, in thy hearing that which I have spoken against this place, and against its inhabitants, to be for a desolation, and for a reviling, and dost rend thy garments, and weep before Me -- I also have heard -- the affirmation of Jehovah --
And they hang Haman upon the tree that he had prepared for Mordecai, and the fury of the king hath lain down.
And the king saith -- `to be done so;' and a law is given in Shushan, and the ten sons of Haman they have hanged.
Lo, a nation thou knowest not, thou callest, And a nation who know thee not unto thee do run, For the sake of Jehovah thy God, And for the Holy One of Israel, Because He hath beautified thee. Seek ye Jehovah, while He is found, Call ye Him, while He is near, Forsake doth the wicked his way, And the man of iniquity his thoughts, And he returneth to Jehovah, and He pitieth him, And unto our God for He multiplieth to pardon.
for as many as are of works of law are under a curse, for it hath been written, `Cursed `is' every one who is not remaining in all things that have been written in the Book of the Law -- to do them,'
For, by Myself, I have sworn, An affirmation of Jehovah, That for a desolation, for a reproach, For a waste, and for a reviling -- is Bozrah, And all her cities are for wastes age-during.
And after the sixty and two weeks, cut off is Messiah, and the city and the holy place are not his, the Leader who hath come doth destroy the people; and its end `is' with a flood, and till the end `is' war, determined `are' desolations.
Sword, awake against My shepherd, And against a hero -- My fellow, An affirmation of Jehovah of Hosts. Smite the shepherd, and scattered is the flock, And I have put back My hand on the little ones.
and having cast down the silverlings in the sanctuary, he departed, and having gone away, he did strangle himself.
being declared righteous freely by His grace through the redemption that `is' in Christ Jesus, whom God did set forth a mercy seat, through the faith in his blood, for the shewing forth of His righteousness, because of the passing over of the bygone sins in the forbearance of God -- for the shewing forth of His righteousness in the present time, for His being righteous, and declaring him righteous who `is' of the faith of Jesus.
for what the law was not able to do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, His own Son having sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, did condemn the sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law may be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
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.