For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.
Here Paul seems to pass from his exact words to Peter, to the general purport of his argument. However, his direct address to the Galatians seems not to be resumed until Galatians 3:1, "O foolish Galatians," etc.
For - But I am not a "transgressor" by forsaking the law. "God forbid" such premises as would make "Christ the minister of sin" (Galatians 2:17). "For," etc. Christ, so far from being the minister of sin and death, is righteousness and life in me. I-here emphatic. Paul himself, not Peter, as in the "I," Galatians 2:18, enforcing the argument by his personal experience.
Through the law - my 'school-master to bring me to Christ' (Galatians 3:24): both by its terrors (Galatians 3:13; Romans 3:20) driving me to Christ as the refuge from God's wrath against sin, and, when spiritually understood, teaching that itself is not permanent, but must give place to Christ, whom it prefigures as its end (Romans 10:4); and drawing me to Him by its promises (in the Old Testament prophecies) of a better righteousness, and of God's law written in the heart (Deuteronomy 18:15-19; Jeremiah 31:33; Acts 10:43).
Am, dead to the law, х apethanon (G599)] - 'I died to the law,' and so am dead to it; i:e., passed from under its power in respect to condemnation (Colossians 2:20; Romans 7:1-4; Romans 7:6); just as a woman, once married and bound to a husband, ceases to be so when death interposes, and may be lawfully married to another. So, by believing union to Christ in His death, we, being considered dead with Him, are severed from the law's power over us (cf. Galatians 6:14; 1 Corinthians 7:39; 1 Peter 2:24). Ellicott, somewhat differently, 'I, through the law, owing to sin (elicited by the law, Romans 7:8), was brought under its curse; but having undergone this with, and in the person of, Christ (Galatians 3:13; 2 Corinthians 5:15), I died to the law (not merely as concerns the law, but as the law required), being both free from its claims, and having satisfied its curse.'
Live unto God (2 Corinthians 5:15; 1 Peter 4:1-2).