ACC ~ Galatians 3 v15 - 20

OVERVIEW:

Using words suited to limited human knowing (JEROME), Paul draws this analogy: Just as no one can change his legal will after his death, that is how unchangeable is God’s promise to save by faith (AUGUSTINE). When he says that Christ, not birth, makes people heirs of Abraham (THEODORET), he is true to scriptural usage (JEROME) and includes us in Christ’s saving act (THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA). The law was given to point to the promise (AMBROSIASTER) but cannot overshadow Abraham himself (AUGUSTINE). Showing that the Judaizing position is contradictory (AMBROSIASTER), Paul replies to defenders of the law (THEODORET), asserting that it came either to prevent transgressions or to multiply them (JEROME, AUGUSTINE). It was given by God through angels, like most ancient revelation (AMBROSIASTER, NESTORIUS), and mediated by Moses (THEODORET), looking toward Christ (AUGUSTINE). Christ himself is the mediator of God’s unity (PSEUDO-AUGUSTINE). He thus unites the nations (AMBROSIASTER).

3:15a | A Human Example

THE GALATIANS NOT YET READY FOR SOLID FOOD. JEROME: The apostle, who was “made all things to all men” … is also made a fool for the Galatians, whom he a little while before called fools. For he does not employ the arguments that he used with the Romans but simpler ones and such as the stupid could understand. … [He means,] “What I am about to say I say not according to God. I do not speak with regard to the deepest wisdom and those who can eat solid food but with regard to those who feed on milk because of the tenderness of their stomachs.” EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 2.3.15 SEQ.

3:15b | The Analogy of a Will

HOW UNCHANGEABLE IS GOD’S PROMISE TO SAVE BY FAITH. AUGUSTINE: The value that a testator’s death has for confirming his testament is final, since he cannot then change his mind. This is the value that the immutability of God’s promise has in confirming the inheritance of Abraham, whose faith was reckoned for righteousness. EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 23 [1B.3.15-18].

3:16a | Promises to Abraham and His Offspring

THE OFFSPRING OF ABRAHAM. THEODORET: The promise made to Abraham is called a testament in the ancient Scripture and so cannot suffer addition, subtraction or dissolution through the imposition of the Mosaic law, which was given a very long time after Abraham. Now the promise was that the God of all would bless the nations through the offspring of Abraham. And this offspring is Christ the Lord, since the promise found its destination in him through whom the nations received a blessing. But all the others, such as Moses, Samuel, Elijah and in a word all who traced their descent from Israel, were called his offspring according to nature, but [this genetic fact] is not what brought the fount of blessings to the nations. … The fact that those men too trace their race to Abraham does not mean that they are rightly called his offspring, but this man has that appellation in the proper sense, as being the only One through whom, according to the promise, God has bestowed blessing on the nations. EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 3.16-17.

3:16b | One Offspring, Not Many

SIMPLICITY IN ARGUMENT. JEROME: Passing my eyes and memory over all the Scriptures, I nowhere find offsprings written in the plural but everywhere the singular, whether in a good sense or a bad. … If anyone carefully collates the Hebrew Scriptures with the [Greek version of the] Seventy, he will find that where testament is written, what is meant is not “testament” but “covenant.” … Whence it is clear that the apostle has done as he promised, not using deeper meanings but everyday ones, and even trivial ones which (if he had not said beforehand “I speak humanly”) might have displeased the intelligent. EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 2.3.15 SEQ.

3:16c | The One Offspring Is Christ

WHETHER CHRIST IS THE SOLE RECIPIENT OF THE PROMISE. THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA: The words and to his offspring are found to be strictly fulfilled in Christ in their straightforward sense, since he is Abraham’s offspring by nature, as are all those who derive their stock from that source. We, believing in him, are therefore enrolled as children of Abraham and thereby receive fellowship in the blessing. The result is that what appears to be said to one can in fact be understood commonly of many, insofar as all who derive from that source are of Abraham. This promise is completely fulfilled in Christ in the light of the actual events. EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.

3:17a | The Law Given After the Promise

GIVEN SUBSEQUENTLY, THE LAW DOES NOT COMPETE WITH THE PROMISE. AMBROSIASTER: Once the promise had been established, the law was given subsequently, not so that it could undermine the promise but so that it might point to what was to be fulfilled and when it would come. EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 3.17.

3:17b | The Law Does Not Annul the Promise

THE COVENANT NOT ANNULLED WITH ABRAHAM, FOR WHOM BOTH COMINGS WERE FUTURE EVENTS. AUGUSTINE: If the law justifies, Abraham was not justified, since he lived long before the law. Since they cannot say this, they are forced to admit that a man is justified not by works of the law but by faith. And he compels us to understand that all the ancients who were justified were justified from the same faith. For as we are saved by believing partly in a past event, that is, the first coming of the Lord, and partly in a future one, that is, his second coming, they believed the whole of it, that is, both comings as events. The Holy Spirit reveals this for their salvation. EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 23 [1B.3.15-18].

3:18 | Inheritance by Faith, Not Law

HEIRS OF THE PROMISE MADE CHILDREN BY FAITH. AMBROSIASTER: The Jews maintain two opposing tenets. For in no way and by no argument can they be persuaded that the promise to Abraham was rendered void by the law, and they are right. But in their short-sighted vanity they maintain another contrary principle, thinking that justification could not come without the practice of the law. They know that Abraham, who is the type [of justification], was justified through faith alone, without the practice of the law. … The heirs to the promise of Abraham are therefore those who are his successors in the adoption of the faith by which Abraham was blessed and justified. The testimony of the promise to Abraham is therefore called a covenant [to signify] that after his death there would be heirs in the promise, made sons of Abraham through faith. EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 3.18.1-3.

3:19a | Why the Law?

THE LAW AS TUTOR. THEODORET: This question should be read as a personification. “What you want to know,” he says, “is why the law was imposed. I shall tell you. … It was imposed for the tutelage of the race from which that offspring was going to sprout according to the flesh.” EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 3.19.

3:19b | The Law Added Because of Transgressions

AFTER IDOLATRY CAME THE LAW TO FORBID TRANSGRESSIONS. JEROME: It was after the offense of the people in the wilderness, after the adoration of the calf and their murmurings against God, that the law came to forbid transgressions. EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 2.3.19-20.

NONE BUT THE HUMBLE ARE READY FOR GRACE. AUGUSTINE: Here arises a rather pertinent question: if faith justifies and even the former saints, who were justified before God, were justified through it, what need was there for the law to be given? … The law was given to a proud people, but the grace of love cannot be received by any but the humble. Without this grace the precepts of the law cannot possibly be fulfilled. Israel was rendered humble by transgression, so that it might seek grace and might not arrogantly suppose itself to be saved by its own merits; and so it would be righteous, not in its own power and might but by the hand of the Mediator who justifies the ungodly. EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 24 [1B.3.19-20].

3:19c | The Law Given Through an Intermediary

WHETHER GOD GAVE THE LAW BY MEANS OF THE ANGELS. Nestorius: [It is said that] “God gave the law” and “by means of angels the Law was given.” They are not lies, nor are they contradictory one to another. It is not that he calls the angels God or that an angel calls himself God. But because he appeared by means of the angels, both are truly said. THE BAZAAR OF HERACLEIDES 56.

ORDAINED BY ANGELS. AMBROSIASTER: By “angels” he means God’s messengers—that is, Moses, [Joshua] son of Nun and the other prophets up to John the Baptist. … Through these, therefore, the Law and Prophets are ordained and disposed by God in the hand, that is, the power, of the Savior. For he is the Mediator, the reconciler of God and humanity, so that he may save whom he will out of those who have received the law from the angels. EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 3.19.1-2.

AN ANGEL SENT TO MOSES. THEODORET: It was imposed through the ministry of angels, and Moses assisted in this imposition. For Moses is the one that is called an intermediary. … For the God of all set Michael over them, as taught by the blessed Daniel. And to the great Moses he promised to send with him an angel to the people. EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 3.19.

GOD THE SPIRIT WORKED THROUGH ANGELS PRIOR TO THE INCARNATION. AUGUSTINE: Now every dispensation of the Old Testament was given through angels, the Holy Spirit working in them and in the very Word of truth, though not yet incarnate, yet never departing from some true ordering of providence. This law was given through angels, sometimes acting in their own person, sometimes in that of God, as was also the way of the prophets. … The children [of Abraham] were put in the hand of [Christ] the Mediator so that he himself might liberate them from sin when they were forced by their transgression of the law to admit that they needed grace and mercy from the Lord. EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 24 [1B.3.19-20].

3:20 | An Intermediary

THE RECONCILER OF NATIONS. AMBROSIASTER: Without doubt, a mediator, that is, arbiter, is not of one but two. For when two peoples were contending against one another, always at odds and enemies because of the disparity in their doctrines, the Savior came as their Mediator, taking from each people the cause of discord so that they might be at peace. So he took from the Gentiles the plurality of gods and cult of the elements, and he took from the Jews the works of the law, that is, new moons, circumcision, the keeping of the sabbath, the distinction of foods and other things that the Gentiles abhorred. And thus those who were formerly enemies came to be at peace. If then this is the case, how could the Galatians be so dull-witted as to violate this reconciliation by conversion back to Judaism? EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 3.20.1-2.

MOSES AS MEDIATOR. THEODORET: For [Moses] mediated between God and the people. But God is the one who both gave the promise to Abraham and imposed the law, and he has shown us the destination of the promise. For it was not one God who dispensed the former and another who dispensed the latter. EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS 3.20.

CHRIST AS MEDIATOR. PSEUDO-AUGUSTINE: Because this situation had made the Galatians turn to the law, so as to confess one God without the mystery, as if it were inimical to the law for Christ to be called God, he says: “An arbiter (that is, a mediator) is not of one but of course of two. You however, having turned to the law, have rejected the arbiter. God, however, is one.” By saying this, he bears witness that he is not preaching Christ in such a way as to make him another God or confess two but that there is one God, as the law itself attests. QUESTIONS ON THE NEW TESTAMENT, APPENDIX 80.2.