CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Galatians 3:17. The covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law cannot disannul.—From the recognised inviolability of a human covenant (Galatians 3:15), the apostle argues the impossibility of violating the divine covenant. The law cannot set aside the promise.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Galatians 3:15-18
The Divine Covenant of Promise—
I. Is less susceptible of violation than any human covenant.—“Though it be but a man’s covenant, yet if it be confirmed [approved], no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto” (Galatians 3:15). Common equity demands that a contract made between man and man is thoroughly binding, and should be rigidly observed; and the civil law lends all its force to maintain the integrity of its clauses. How much more certain it is that the divine covenant shall be faithfully upheld. If it is likely that a human covenant will not be interfered with, it is less likely the divine covenant will be changed. Yet even a human covenant may fail; the divine covenant never. It is based on the divine word which cannot fail, and its validity is pledged by the incorruptibility of the divine character (Malachi 3:6).
II. Is explicit in defining the channel of its fulfilment.—“Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made; … to thy seed, which is Christ” (Galatians 3:16). The promise is in the plural because the same promise was often repeated (Genesis 12:3; Genesis 12:7; Genesis 15:5; Genesis 15:18; Genesis 17:7; Genesis 22:18), and because it involved many things—earthly blessings to the literal children of Abraham in Canaan, and spiritual and heavenly blessings to his spiritual children; and both promised to Christ—the Seed and representative Head of the literal and spiritual Israel alike. Therefore the promise that in him “all families of the earth shall be blessed” joins in this one Seed—Christ—Jew and Gentile, as fellow-heirs on the same terms of acceptability—by grace through faith; not to some by promise, to others by the law, but to all alike, circumcised and uncircumcised, constituting but one seed in Christ. The law, on the other hand, contemplates the Jews and Gentiles as distinct seeds. God makes a covenant, but it is one of promise; whereas the law is a covenant of works. God makes His covenant of promise with the one Seed—Christ—and embraces others only as they are identified with and represented by Him (Fausset).
III. Cannot be set aside by the law which was a subsequent revelation.—“The covenant, … the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul” (Galatians 3:17). The promise to Abraham was a prior settlement, and must take precedence, not only in time but also in authority, of the Mosaic law. It was a bold stroke of the apostle to thus shatter the supremacy of Mosaism; but the appeal to antiquity was an argument the most prejudiced Jew was bound to respect. “The law of Moses has its rights; it must be taken into account as well as the promise to Abraham. True; but it has no power to cancel or restrict the promise, older by four centuries and a half. The later must be adjusted to the earlier dispensation, the law interpreted by the promise. God has not made two testaments—the one solemnly committed to the faith and hope of mankind, only to be retracted and substituted by something of a different stamp. He could not thus stultify Himself. And we must not apply the Mosaic enactments, addressed to a single people, in such a way as to neutralise the original provisions made for the race at large. Our human instincts of good faith, our reverence for public compacts and established rights, forbid our allowing the law of Moses to trench upon the inheritance assured to mankind in the covenant of Abraham” (Findlay).
IV. Imposed no conditions of legal obedience.—“If the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise” (Galatians 3:18). The law is a system of conditions—so much advantage to be gained by so much work done. This is all very well as a general principle. But the promise of God is based on a very different ground. It is an act of free, sovereign grace, engaging to confer certain blessings without demanding anything more from the recipient than faith, which is just the will to receive. The law imposes obligations man is incompetent to meet. The promise offers blessings all men need and all may accept. It simply asks the acceptance of the blessings by a submissive and trustful heart. The demands of the law are met and the provisions of the covenant of promise enjoyed by an act of faith.
Lessons.—
1. God has a sovereign right to give or withhold blessing.
2. The divine covenant of promise is incapable of violation.
3. Faith in God is the simplest and sublimest method of obedience.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Galatians 3:15-18. The Promise a Covenant confirmed.
I. The promises made to Abraham are first made to Christ, and then in Christ to all that believe in Him.—
1. Learn the difference of the promises of the law and the gospel. The promises of the law are directed and made to the person of every man particularly; the promises of the gospel are first directed and made to Christ, and then by consequent to them that are by faith ingrafted into Christ.
2. We learn to acknowledge the communion that is between Christ and us. Christ died upon the cross, not as a private person, but as a public person representing His people. All died in Him, and with Him; in the same manner they must rise with Him to life.
3. Here is comfort against the consideration of our unworthiness. There is dignity and worthiness sufficient in Him. Our salvation stands in this, not that we know and apprehend Him, but that He knows and apprehends us first of all.
II. The promise made to Abraham was a covenant confirmed by oath.—Abraham in the first making and in the confirmation thereof must be considered as a public person representing all the faithful. Here we see God’s goodness. We are bound simply to believe His bare word; yet in regard of our weakness He ratifies His promise by oath, that there might be no occasion of unbelief. What can we more require of Him?
III. If the promise might be disannulled, the law could not do it.—
1. The promise, or covenant, was made with Abraham, and continued by God four hundred and thirty years before the law was given.
2. If the law abolish the promise, then the inheritance must come by the law. But that cannot be. If the inheritance of eternal life be by the law, it is no more by the promise. But it is by the promise, because God gave it unto Abraham freely by promise; therefore it comes not by the law. This giving was no private but a public donation. That which was given to Abraham was in him given to all that should believe as he did.—Perkins.
Galatians 3:15-17. Divine and Human Covenants.
I. A covenant, as between man and man, is honourably binding (Galatians 3:15).
II. The divine covenant made to Abraham ensures the fulfilment of promises to all who believe as Abraham did (Galatians 3:16).
III. The law cannot abrogate the divine covenant of promise (Galatians 3:17).
Galatians 3:18. Law and Promise.—
1. So subtle is the spirit of error that it will seem to cede somewhat to truth, intending to prejudice the truth more than if it had ceded nothing. The opposers of justification by faith did sometimes give faith some place in justification, and pleaded for a joint influence of works and faith, of law and promise.
2. The state of grace here and glory hereafter is the inheritance of the Lord’s people, of which the land of Canaan was a type. There are only two ways of attaining a right to this inheritance—one by law, the other by promise.
3. There can be no mixture of these two, so that a right to heaven should be obtained partly by the merit of works and partly by faith in the promise. The only way of attaining it is by God’s free gift, without the merit of works.—Fergusson.