Continuing his reflection on the Torah and on the promises given by God, Paul turns to legal analogies, comparing...
Continuing his reflection on the Torah and on the promises given by God, Paul turns to legal analogies, comparing the promises given by God to Abraham and his descendants with an ordinary human will, which, once drawn up, cannot be changed by outsiders (v. 15). In speaking of a will, the apostle certainly had in mind the Kingdom which, in his view, was the subject of the will: after all, if it was promised both to Abraham and to his descendants, then the right to it belonged only to the one named in Abraham's will as heir. Paul, as can be seen, considers the Savior Himself the only lawful heir (v. 16). The apostle may have been following here a known rabbinic tradition according to which the Messiah appeared, in a certain sense, as the personified people of God.
In any case, Paul rightly held that the Torah, given as a law common to the whole people, could in no way cancel the concrete promises given by God, just as it could not cancel a concrete will which, according to the Torah, could not and must not be canceled by outsiders (vv. 17-18). Through this simple legal analogy Paul tries to bring home to his readers the fact that the Torah and the faithfulness that bound Abraham to God, and now binds Christians to Him, are different things. The Torah is needed until the coming of the Messiah, to whom what His followers now hope for had been promised (vv. 19-20). It is needed so that one will not stray from the path of righteousness while waiting for the Messiah.
If the Torah could in itself be a source of life, nothing more would be needed; but the Torah could not be such a source. It could only guard a person walking the path of righteousness, pointing out the danger of sin wherever that danger existed (vv. 21-23). Paul, of course, does not compare the Torah by chance to a pedagogue in the ancient or Hellenistic sense of the word: in those days a pedagogue was not a teacher or educator, but a servant, more often a slave and sometimes free, whose duties included taking a child to school and bringing him back so that he would not decide on the way to turn somewhere else instead of going to school (vv. 24-25). Indeed, the protective role of the Torah plainly loses its relevance in the Kingdom, where sin and evil are already behind us and the fullness of the life of the risen Christ unites into one all who have become its inhabitants and Abraham's spiritual heirs (vv. 26-28).
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3:15 I speak after the manner of men - I illustrate this by a familiar instance, taken from the practice of men.Though it be but a man's covenant, yet, if it be once legally confirmed, none - No, not the covenanter himself, unless something unforeseen occur, which cannot be the case with God. Disannulleth, or addeth thereto - Any new conditions.
3:16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and his seed - Several promises were made to Abraham; but the chief of all, and which was several times repeated, was that of the blessing through Christ. He - That is, God.Saith not, And to seeds, as of many - As if the promise were made to several kinds of seed. But as of one - That is, one kind of seed, one posterity, one kind of sons. And to all these the blessing belonged by promise. Which is Christ - including all that believe in him. Gen 22:18.
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 12:2,$3.Doth not disannul, so as to make the promise of no effect - With regard to all nations, if only the Jewish were to receive it; yea, with regard to them also, if it was by works, so as to supersede it, and introduce another way of obtaining the blessing.
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. But it is by promise.Therefore it is not by the law.
3:19 It - The ceremonial law. 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, Exo 32:1, at least the more grievous parts of it; and the whole of it was a prophetic type of Christ. The moral law was added to the promise to discover and restrain transgressions, to convince men of their guilt, and need of the promise, and give some check to sin. And this law passeth not away; but the ceremonial law was only introduced till Christ, the seed to or through whom the promise was made, should come. And it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator - It was not given to Israel, like the promise to Abraham, immediately from God himself; but was conveyed by the ministry of angels to Moses, and delivered into his hand as a mediator between God and them, to remind them of the great Mediator.
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. Therefore in the promise Moses had nothing to do. The law, wherein he was concerned, was a transaction of quite another nature.
3:21 Will it follow from hence that the law is against, opposite to, the promises of God? By no means. 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.
3:22 But, on the contrary, the scripture wherein that law is written hath concluded all under sin - Hath shut them up together, (so the word properly signifies,) as in a prison, under sentence of death, to the end that all being cut off from expecting justification by the law, the promise might be freely given to them that believe.
3:23 But before faith - That is, the gospel dispensation.Came, we were kept - As in close custody. Under the law - The Mosaic dispensation. Shut up unto the faith which was to be revealed - Reserved and prepared for the gospel dispensation.
3:24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster unto Christ - It was designed to train us up for Christ. And this it didboth by its commands, which showed the need we had of his atonement; and its ceremonies, which all pointed us to him.
3:25 But faith - That is, the gospel dispensation.Being come, we are no longer under that schoolmaster - The Mosaic dispensation.
3:26 For ye - Christians. Are all adult sons of God - And so need a schoolmaster no longer.
3:27 For as many of you as have testified your faith by being baptized in the name of Christ, have put on Christ - Have received him as your righteousness, and are thereforesons of God through him.
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.
3:29 If ye are Christ's - That is, believers in him.