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King James Version (en)

Galatians, Chapter 3, verses 15-16

¹⁰ And this he showeth by many reasons

¹⁵Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; Though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto.

¹⁶Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.

Read more:Galatians, Chapter 3

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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.

NOTES

For Paul, any discussion of the Torah is inseparable from the question of its context. That context is the entire history of the covenant, the history of God's relationship with His people and with all humanity, which begins...

For Paul, any discussion of the Torah is inseparable from the question of its context. That context is the entire history of the covenant, the history of God's relationship with His people and with all humanity, which begins before the written Torah is given and ends after it ceases to be relevant. Indeed, the history of God's people begins with Abraham, when it had not yet been given, and reaches its culmination with the coming of Christ in the Kingdom, where it loses its relevance, at least in its former capacity.

The Torah is a pedagogue who brings the faithful to Christ, a pedagogue in the ancient sense of the word: someone who takes a child to school and accompanies the child home afterwards to make sure they do not stray along the way. The Torah leads a person to Christ, who Himself showed the world the sole example of the living Torah, enabling that person to follow Him and become like Him until the follower becomes a living Torah, like their Teacher.

In any case, whether we are speaking of the path of righteousness in the pre-Christian world or of the Christian's path, the Torah remains not an end in itself but only a means. By itself it cannot give a person life; it does not impart life. It is the path of life, as it is often called in the books of the Old Testament, but not its source. The source is God, who revealed Himself to the world in Christ. The Torah points to this source, helping a person choose the right direction. It is a compass in the spiritual world, enabling us to find the direction of the source of life. But a compass alone will not feed you, and nothing could be more absurd than making the contemplation of it the main purpose of the journey. Yet this is precisely what often happened in the history of Yahwism and Judaism: following the Torah was made an end in itself, while the purpose for which it had been given was forgotten. Paul restores it to its rightful place as an instrument pointing the way to Christ and, following Christ, into the Kingdom.

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).

Today’s reading makes it clear that the apostle Paul does not reject law as such or consider human ordinances and rules...

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