And if ye be Christ's, &c.— That is, if ye are united by faith to Him, who is the promised Seed, then are ye the true seed of Abraham, and, in consequence of this, heirs according to the promise.
Inferences.—With what gratitude should we reflect that, through the amazing goodness of God, we share in the same great privilege with the Galatians, and have Jesus Christ crucified evidently set forth amongst us. Let us make the object familiar to our view, and to our hearts; and may we all feel its powerful influence, to engage us to obey the truth, and to comply with the practical design of the gospel, spite of all the fascinating enchantments of this vain and delusive world! May those especially who have begun in the Spirit, and perhaps have suffered many difficulties already in the cause of religion, be concerned that they may not suffer so many things in vain; and, after all their pretensions and hopes, make an end in the flesh, by forsaking that excellent cause!
That we may be deemed the children of Abraham, let us be careful to obtain and cultivate the same faith with him; that so, believing in God, as he did, and trusting in the glorious Messiah, we may attain that righteousness, which it is impossible to attain by the deeds of the law; that law which insists upon immaculate obedience, and passes sentence upon every one that has transgressed it. Nothing can be more important than to endeavour to impress our souls with this fundamental truth; "That if we are of the works of the law, and trust in these for justification, we are under a curse." O that God may graciously thunder that curse into the ears of sleeping sinners, and make them sensible of their guilt and danger; that, as prisoners of justice, yet in some measure prisoners of hope, they may flee for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before them in the Gospel! Zechariah 9:12.Hebrews 6:18.
Nor need we go far for help: no sooner are we wounded, as it were, in one verse, than we find provision for our healing in another: for Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law—and this in a method never sufficiently to be admired; even by making himself a ransom, yea, and becoming a curse for us; submitting, not only to great infamy and wretchedness in his life, but to an ignominious and accursed death, being slain and hanged on a tree, Acts 5:30; Acts 10:39.
To him let us apply, that the curse may be removed; and, with humble confidence in him, lift up our eyes in cheerful expectation; and, though by birth we are Gentiles, the blessing of Abraham will come upon us, and through faith we shall receive the promise of the Spirit. And what promise can be more valuable than this? what blessing more desirable, than to be enlightened, quickened, sanctified, and comforted by the Spirit of the living God? As the just, may we live by faith; and make it our daily request at the throne of grace, that God will implant and increase that divine principle in our hearts; even such a faith as shall work by love, and prove the genuine basis of sincere and universal obedience.
Rejoicing in these spiritual promises to which all true Christians are now equally intitled, and charging our souls with these obligations which necessarily attend them, let us look upon ourselves as the children of Abraham, as entitled to the noblest of those promises which God made to that excellent saint, even to that great and comprehensive promise, (which is all the salvation and all the desire, of every true child of Abraham,) namely, that God will be a God unto us, Genesis 17:7-8. Let us approve ourselves his genuine offspring, by imitating his faith; and always bear in mind, that, having been baptized into Christ, we have so put on Christ, as to be obliged to resemble him in his temper and character.
If we desire to share the blessings and glories of that one body, whereof Christ is the great and glorious head, let us not lay a disproportionate stress upon any thing, by which one Christian may be distinguished from another; but endeavour, as one in Christ Jesus, to be one in affection and friendship to each other: and let those who seem to have the greatest advantages, condescend to those who seem most their inferiors.
Giving up all expectations of life from the law, since that of Moses could not give it, let us look for glory, honour, and immortality by the gospel; truly thankful for the knowledge we have of the Mediator of a better covenant than that in which Moses was appointed to mediate. And, as the law was given, not to disannul the covenant of promise, but with a view to be subservient to it, and to point out Christ, let us apply to Him for righteousness and life; and in Him—as that one Seed of Abraham, in whom all the families and nations of believers were to be blessed,—let us centre our hopes, and be very solicitous that, by faith, we may be united to him, and so have a claim under him to all the privileges of the promise.
Thus let us continue to make use of the law, not as the foundation of our hope towards God, but as our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, by the discovery it has given of our need of him: and being sensible that it has shut up all under sin, from which we cannot be delivered but by the faith which the gospel has revealed, may we be led so to seek the benefit of the promise, that, being sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus, we may be joyful inheritors of eternal life and blessedness.
REFLECTIONS.—1st. With warm expostulation, and sharp rebuke, the Apostle upbraids the stupidity and folly of these Galatians, who had departed so grievously from the simplicity of the gospel. O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, what emissary of Satan, by his craft, has perverted your souls, that ye should not obey the truth, but depart from the grand principles of the gospel, renouncing the doctrine of free justification through the Redeemer's blood? Several things served to aggravate their folly:
1. The clear display of the truth which had been made to them—Before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, and his death and sufferings, with all the effects and designs of them, represented in such a lively manner, as if he had been crucified among you.
2. What they had received, under the ministration of the gospel. This only would I learn of you, received ye the Spirit, his gifts and graces, by the works of the law, by the ministration of it, or obedience to it, or by the hearing of faith, the preaching of justification through the free grace of a Redeemer? They must own that it was through the latter: and therefore most inexcusable was their folly to quit that gospel, the blessed and most happy effects of which they had experienced.
3. Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? and, forsaking your dependence on the grace of the gospel, do you expect to reach perfection by your obedience to the law of Moses? Are ye so foolish as to have recourse to the ministration of death, in order to obtain righteousness unto life?
4. Have ye suffered so many things in vain, for the cause of Christ and the profession of the gospel? How absurd were it to expose yourselves thus, if it be yet in vain, and after all you should apostatize, and lose the blessings of your profession and sufferings? You must then of all men be most foolish and most miserable.
5. He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doth he it by the works of the law, as the way of justification, or by the hearing of faith, in the ministry of the gospel? If these miracles, as was evident, were wrought in confirmation of the doctrines of grace, how preposterously absurd were they to quit the truth confirmed by such divine and incontestable evidence!
2nd, The Apostle, having sharply rebuked the folly of the Galatians in departing from the truth, proceeds to confirm the great doctrine of justification by faith alone, from which they had been seduced. And he proves it,
1. By the example of Abraham. He believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness: the Lord Messiah, on whom his faith rested, became the meritorious cause of his acceptance before God. Know ye therefore, that they which are of faith, and place their whole dependence for acceptance with God on the same object, they are the spiritual children of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the Gospel unto Abraham, when neither circumcision was yet instituted, nor the law given, saying, In thee, that is, in thy Seed, the Messiah, shall all nations be blessed, accepted of God in him, and admitted to the participation of all the privileges of God's peculiar people. So then it is hence evident, that they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham, without the least respect to the law of Moses.
2. It is impossible for any man to be justified before God any other way than by faith. For as many as are of the works of the law, and seek justification on the footing of personal righteousness, are, and must be under the curse denounced on every transgressor: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them; the least failure in thought, word, or deed, but once, even in the longest life, effectually cuts off the sinner from all hope by the law, and leaves him under the wrath of an offended God. Therefore Christ, viewing our desperate guilt and hopeless misery, hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, by the price of his own blood, being made a curse for us, by divine constitution appointed to be our surety, and bearing, in his own body on the cross, the punishment due to our iniquities: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree. And to this most painful, shameful, and accursed death he submitted, that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we, whether Jews or Gentiles, being taken into a state of acceptance with God, might receive the promise of the Spirit, in all his plenitude of gifts, graces, and consolations, through faith in the Redeemer; and not on account of any works of our own, or legal services. Note; (1.) Every man, being unable to yield immaculate obedience to the law, is consequently a transgressor, and sealed up, by nature, under wrath. (2.) Despair is written on every effort of the fallen sinner, made in his own natural strength, to escape from the condemnation under which he lies. (3.) The gospel brings relief to the desperate, by revealing to us a divine Substitute, all-sufficient to bear our sins, and to restore us to the enjoyment of God's forfeited favour. (4.) By persevering faith alone we embrace, and actually possess, all the blessings obtained for us in and by the great Redeemer.
3. The scriptures of the Old Testament are express to the point. But that no man is justified by the works of the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for the just shall live by faith; he only who by faith has laid hold of the great Atonement, can live in a state of favour with God. And the law is not of faith: but the way it prescribes for justification is directly opposite, even by immaculate personal obedience; the man that doeth them, and keeps, in spirit and practice, universally and abidingly, all the commands enjoined, shall live in them; but every defect, flaw, or failure, brings down death as the wages of sin. So that the saints of old were justified in the same way as we are, and the gospel was preached to them even as unto us.
4. The stability of the covenant made with Abraham could not be vacated by the law. Brethren, I speak after the manner of men, and use a familiar instance to elucidate the point in hand: though it be but a man's covenant, yet, if it be confirmed, and duly signed and sealed, no man disannulleth or addeth thereto, except the parties interested, by mutual consent. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made, of justification, adoption, grace, and glory. He saith not to seeds, as of many, as if the promises referred to all his natural, as well as spiritual children, but as of one, in the singular number; and to thy Seed, which is Christ, through whose merit alone we can be justified, and by whose Spirit alone we can be sanctified. And this I say, as evident, that the covenant which was confirmed before, to Abraham, of God in Christ, or with respect to Christ, who was the Mediator and Surety of the covenant, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect, and introduce another way of justification before God, different from, yea, contrary to, that which God had before established with Abraham. For if the inheritance be of the law, and the title to acceptance with God be obtained by immaculate obedience, it is no more of promise: but God gave it graciously to Abraham by promise, which no subsequent dispensation could set aside; for God is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent; and therefore the promise of justification and adoption is in Christ, promised only to those who truly believe in him.
3rdly, As to the objections which he knew the Jewish zealots would raise, as if he derogated from the honour of the law, and rendered it useless, he states and answers them.
1. They might say, Wherefore then serveth the law, if no creature can be justified or saved by it. I reply, It was added because of transgressions, in subservience to the design of the covenant of grace; in order to restrain, by its penalty, and to convince, discover, and condemn the transgressors, shewing them the necessity of a Divine Atonement, till the Seed should come, to whom the promise was made, and who should be the end of the law for righteousness, to every believer; and it was ordained by angels, delivered by their ministry, in the hand of a mediator, even Moses, who was typical of the great Mediator, Jesus Christ. Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but stands between the two parties; but God is one; and as the Gentiles were not represented at all at mount Sinai, nor regarded as one of the parties in that covenant, which was a transaction merely between God and Abraham's natural seed, this cannot exclude them from the benefit of the antecedent promise which God made to Abraham and his spiritual seed.
2. Some may hence argue, Is the law then against the promises of God, made to Abraham and his seed? are they at variance with each other? God forbid: there is the most perfect harmony between them. For if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law; and could man have yielded, in his own person, an immaculate obedience to the law, his title to life would have been clear, and the promised Substitute had been unnecessary: but the scripture hath concluded all under sin, hath shut up every man, as in a dungeon, under the guilt and condemnation of sin, all having come short of the glory of God; that the promise, by faith, of Jesus Christ, might be given to them that believe, and that pardon and salvation might come to such, as the free gift of God in him. But before faith came, (before Christ, the great object of faith, appeared incarnate, and his gospel was more clearly manifested) we, who were under the Mosaic dispensation, were kept under the law, as in a castle, separate from other nations, and as captives under a yoke of bondage, shut up in close custody unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed, and till Christ, opening to us a door of hope, should bring us from this state of servitude into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster, and served most directly to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith: the moral precepts and sanction convinced us of our desperate case, as unable to answer the demands of the law, and obnoxious to the curse; the ceremonial institutions led us to look for the divine Substitute, in all the sacrifices which were enjoined for the expiation of sin; and both taught the necessity of justification by faith, through a divine and infinitely meritorious Atonement. But after that faith is come, and Christ, the sinner's Substitute, hath appeared, and is held forth to us in the gospel, we are no longer under a schoolmaster, being delivered from our former state of minority and legal bondage. For now ye who believe, are all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ, arrived to maturity of age, and entitled to all the blessings of adoption which Jesus hath obtained for all that perseveringly believe in him. For as many of you, whether Jews or Gentiles, as have been baptized into Christ, by faith really united to him, and by baptism making open profession of him, have put on Christ: through him alone they are accepted, and by his Spirit are cloathed with the whole panoply of God. There is now neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, all distinctions of nation, sex, condition, are ceased: for ye, who believe, are all one in Christ Jesus, united to him in one body, and alike freely partakers of all the privileges contained in the gospel. And if ye be Christ's, living members of his body mystical, then are ye Abraham's Seed, in a spiritual sense, and heirs according to the promise, entitled to claim, under Christ, your great covenant head, all the blessings which he has purchased by his blood, which will, in due time, be bestowed on all his faithful saints.