Galatians 3:21,22 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Is the law then Which requires perfect obedience, and subjects all that in any respect violate it, to the curse, against, or contrary to, the promises of God Wherein he declares that he will justify men by faith? God forbid That we should intimate any thing of that kind! On the contrary, it was intended to be subservient to the promise, by leading those who were under it to a higher and better dispensation, by subjecting them to the curse, without giving them the least hope of mercy, to oblige them to flee to the promises for justification. For if there had been a law given which could have given life Either spiritual or eternal; if any law, considered in itself alone, could have been a sufficient mean of justification and eternal happiness, then verily righteousness Justification, and the blessings consequent thereon; would have been by the Mosaic law Which is so holy, just, and good in all its moral precepts. By this the apostle shows that the law of Moses was utterly incapable of giving the Jews life and salvation; because, considered in itself, independent of the covenant of grace, it neither promised them the pardon of sin on their repentance, nor the influences of the divine Spirit to enable them to overcome and mortify the corruption of their nature; and of consequence, neither gave them a title to, nor a meetness for, eternal life. Justification, therefore, was not to be obtained by that law. On the contrary, the Scripture Wherein that law is written; hath concluded all under sin Hath shut them up together, (so the word συνεκλεισεν properly signifies,) as in a prison, under sentence of death; that is, hath declared them all to be so shut up; that the promise That is, the blessing of life and salvation, promised through faith in Jesus Christ, might be freely given to them that truly believe in him, and in the truths and promises of his gospel.