For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise. But God gave it to Abraham by promise.
ει γαρ εκ νομου η κληρονομια ουκετι εξ επαγγελιας τω δε αβρααμ δι επαγγελιας κεχαρισται ο θεος
10 Church Fathers comment on this verse
But how can this be? No one annuls a human testament, yet God’s testament becomes invalid after four hundred and thirty years? Indeed, if what this testament promised is given not by it, but by another in its place, then it has plainly been rejected. But does this make any sense?
If the law, he says, grants blessing and makes men heirs of life and righteousness, then the promise given to Abraham has consequently been annulled and destroyed. But this would make no sense. The law appeared later; how, then, can it annul the covenant that came before it?
Yet do not press this example in every respect. For this reason he said, “I speak according to human reasoning,” that is, I am using a human example. Therefore it is not surprising if it cannot be applied completely to divine things.
For if, as your new teachers claim, the inheritance is by the law, then it is no longer by the promise, as God Himself said.
The Apostle became all things to all men. He considered himself a debtor, debitor, to serve Greeks and barbarians, the wise and the foolish. Even for the Galatians, whom he had previously called foolish, he himself became foolish.
For with them he does not use the proofs that he used before the Romans. He uses simpler arguments, which could be understood even by the foolish and by people taken from the street.
So that he might not seem to do this through inexperience or lack of skill, he first calms the reader and softens what he is about to say. He puts this preface before it: “Brethren, I speak according to man.”
Indeed, what I am about to say I speak according to man, and not according to God. I do not speak in a manner proportioned to revealed wisdom, nor to the powers of those who can be fed with solid food. I speak to those who, because of the tenderness of their stomach, are fed with the moisture of milk and are wholly unable to digest what is great (1 Cor 3:2).
Therefore, when addressing the Corinthians, among whom fornication had been reported, and such fornication as is not even found among the Gentiles, he said: “I say this, not the Lord” (1 Cor 7:12). In the second epistle to the same people he says: “What I speak, I speak not according to the Lord, but as it were in foolishness” (2 Cor 11:17).
Some think that the Apostle said, “Brethren, I speak according to man,” with human testaments in view. They refer this to the death of the testator and to other examples taken from human life.
It seems to me, however, that these words are placed first both for the reason they themselves indicate and especially because of what follows: “He did not say, ‘to seeds,’ as of many, but as of one, ‘and to your seed,’ which is Christ.”
Passing in mind and memory through all the Scriptures, I have nowhere found it written “seeds,” that is, in the plural. It is always in the singular, whether in a good sense or in a bad one.
Likewise, concerning his words, “Now this I call a covenant confirmed by God,” anyone who carefully compares the Hebrew scrolls and the other editions with the translation of the Seventy will find something. Where “covenant” is written, there is a word that means not covenant or testament, but agreement. In Hebrew this is expressed by the word Berith (הידב).
From this it is evident that the Apostle did what he promised. He used not a hidden meaning inaccessible to the Galatians, but an ordinary and simple one. Had the Apostle not warned that he was speaking according to man, this might have displeased intelligent people.
In this place one must understand the years that passed from the time when the Lord said to Abraham, “And in your seed all nations shall be blessed” (Gen 22:18), until the time when Moses the lawgiver appeared.
Did four hundred years actually pass? Or how is it that in Genesis the Lord promises Abraham himself that after four hundred years his descendants would come out of Egypt? This is no small question. It has been investigated by many, though I do not know whether anyone has fully solved it.
The account in the same book concerning Tamar and her two infants agrees with this place (Gen 38). The first, named Zarah, put his hand out from his mother’s womb, and the midwife tied a scarlet thread on it. Then, when that hand drew back, the second, named Phares, put forth his hand.
This means that Israel put forth his hand in the fulfillment of the works of the law. Then, after staining it with the blood of the prophets and of the Savior Himself, he withdrew it. After this the Gentile people came forth.
Scripture very often says of this people that through it the barrier separating Jews and Gentiles was broken down and overthrown. Thus there would be one flock and one shepherd. Thus there would be glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
The simple meaning of this passage is as the Apostle teaches. The promise given to Abraham before the law cannot be destroyed by the law given afterward. The later must not be preferred to the earlier.
For four hundred and thirty years earlier the promise was given to Abraham that in him all nations would be blessed. The observance of the law, by which, if anyone fulfills it, he lives in it, was prescribed thirty years later by Moses on Mount Sinai.
Here one may also say the reverse. Why was it necessary to give the law so many years after the promise? After the law was proclaimed, suspicion could arise that the promised agreement had been set aside. Conversely, if the meaning of the promise is preserved, one might think that the law has no importance.
Foreseeing this objection, the Apostle in what follows raises it against himself and gives the answer.
The Jews defend themselves in two contradictory ways. By no means and by no argument can the Jews be persuaded that Abraham's promise was destroyed by the law, and this is correct.
Yet in their careless vanity they defend the opposite, thinking that justification cannot occur without the works of the law. They know, however, that Abraham, the type of this, was justified by faith alone, without the works of the law.
Blinded by envy, they do not understand, nor do they even consider, that if justification is from the law, then the promise is excluded. If there is no promise, then Abraham's faith is undoubtedly vain. This the Jews do not even wish to hear, for they know that the promise proceeds from Abraham's faith.
The promise justifies by faith, not by the law, and Abraham too was justified by faith. Therefore those are heirs of the promise to Abraham who follow him by receiving the faith in which Abraham was blessed and by which he was justified.
Thus the testimony of the promise to Abraham is called a covenant, so that after his death the heirs might abide in the promise, having become his sons by faith.
The law imposed a curse upon those subject to the law. It frightened them with this threat and wished thereby to bring them to the fulfillment of what was due. The promise, however, offers blessing to the nations.
Then the Apostle resolves the apparent objection: the law was given needlessly if the promise contained the blessing. Therefore he explains the need for the giving of the law.
“If the inheritance is of the law.” By inheritance one cannot mean the promised land, because it was in the possession of the patriarchs before the law. Rather, this means the promise concerning the Messiah, the blessing of the nations through Abraham’s seed.
This very promise formed the inner strength and wealth of the Hebrew people, even at a time when that people did not possess the promised land at all.
The second point of the doctrinal section is the refutation of objections against the exclusive significance of faith for the Gentiles apart from the law (Gal 3:15-29).
First objection: the law came after the promise given to Abraham's faith. Therefore could it have annulled this promise?
Gal 3:15-18. Refuting this objection, the Apostle compares God's covenant given to Abraham with human testaments and reasons thus. If by a testament an inheritance is granted to someone by the favor of the one who bequeaths it, then the promise given to Abraham could be fulfilled only by the grace of God.
"Brethren, I speak according to human reasoning: even a human testament, once confirmed, no one annuls or adds to it" (Gal 3:15). Therefore the Mosaic Law, given during the interval between the promise spoken to Abraham, 430 years after it according to Gal 3:17, and its fulfillment in Christ, could neither assist this fulfillment nor weaken the promise.
"For if the inheritance is by the law, it is no longer by promise. But God granted it to Abraham by promise."
Second objection: if the law did not change the conditions of justification by faith, why was it given?
In answering this question, the holy Apostle speaks first of the comparative dignity of the law and the promise. Then he explains the significance of the law in the history of salvation through Jesus Christ.
First: the comparative dignity of the law and the promise.
Defining the relation of the law to the gracious promise concerning Christ, the Apostle shows that the law does not annul the force of the promise. On the contrary, the existence of this force before the law shows that salvation by faith was possible before the law. Therefore it is also possible by the power of the promise after the law is abolished.
Otherwise the promise would prove unfulfilled and the covenant unaccomplished. But this is impossible, for even ordinary human covenants are fulfilled. Much more, then, had God's covenant with Abraham to be fulfilled. At its foundation was the promise concerning the Savior of all, without distinction of nations, only according to their faith, apart from the law given to guide only the chosen people toward Christ.
The similarity between the divine and human covenants is, of course, incomplete. Therefore in verse 15 the Apostle adds the qualification that he speaks of the immutability of the covenant's force according to the ordinary order.
According to Augustine: "The death of the testator finally makes the testament confirmed, because after this there is no longer any possibility for him to change his intention. In God this is replaced by the immutability of His determinations. For all the promises of God are in Him Yes, and in Him Amen" (2 Cor 1:20).
Explaining the content of the promise, the Apostle, in the words of Bishop Theophan, gives "an all-sufficient explanation of its meaning."
"God promised to bless the nations of all things by the seed of Abraham. This seed is Christ the Master Himself, for by Him this promise was brought to fulfillment, and the nations received the blessing. This is what the Apostle declares" (blessed Theodoret).
Everything the Apostle wrote was plainly written with possible objections from the false teachers in mind. Therefore, having affirmed the force of the promise positively, he affirms it also from the other side, negatively. To do this, he shows that the law, which appeared 430 years after the promise (Ex 12:40), could not destroy so ancient a force of the promise.
"How can the law annul this covenant or promise, so that the nations receive blessing not through Christ, but through the commandments of the law? This would be nothing other than the destruction of the promise, which is absurd," says Theophylact.
To this one may add the following words of blessed Augustine: "When the promise was given, the law had not yet been given. After so many years, it could not be given in such a sense as to make the preceding promise to Abraham void."
Having affirmed that the testament granted to Abraham in the promise cannot be annulled, the Apostle adds something to strengthen his conclusion. If one judges according to your view, that is, if receiving the promise is made conditional on submission to the Mosaic law, then the promise is destroyed.
For if receiving what was promised as an inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on that promise. Yet God granted Abraham this privilege, that in his seed all nations would receive the blessing, apart from every condition, by one providential promise.
Here the term inheritance is introduced because of the comparison of the promise with a testament. What is received by testament is called an inheritance. The holy Apostle also calls an inheritance what is received by promise, which he has identified with a testament.
Now the Gentiles, by the will of the providential God, enter through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ into the inheritance of what God had assigned to their portion in the promise to Abraham. It is wholly unfitting for the law to have any part or significance in this. It is contrary to God’s intentions. Whoever does this destroys the whole dispensation of God.
“If the promise declares that the blessing will be through Christ, while instead of Christ the law gives the blessing, then God’s covenant with Abraham is destroyed and becomes useless” (Oecumenius).
“How can the law annul this covenant or promise, so that the nations receive the blessing not through Christ but through the commandments of the law? This would be nothing other than the abolition of the promise, which is absurd” (blessed Theophylact).
Let us make two or three extracts from patristic interpretations, by which the whole reasoning of the holy Apostle in these verses is clarified.
Saint Damascene writes: “The thought of the holy Apostle in these words is this. It was bequeathed to Abraham that in his seed all nations would be blessed. This seed is Christ according to the flesh. Four hundred and thirty years after this testament, the law came. Therefore, if this law gives blessing, life, and justification, then that testament will be of no use. From this it would follow that, while no one annuls a human testament, the testament of God became invalid after four hundred and thirty years. For if what that testament promised is given not by it, but by another, that is, by the law, then the testament is thereby annulled. With what is this in accord?”
Here are the words of blessed Augustine: “When the promise was given, the law had not yet been given. After so many years, it could not have been given in such a sense as to make the earlier promise to Abraham powerless. This compels us to acknowledge that all the ancients, including those under the law, who were justified, were justified not by the law properly speaking, but by faith, which acted secretly in it. We become saved by believing partly in what is past, namely the first coming of the Lord, and partly in what is future, namely the second coming of the Lord. They believed in all this, both in the first and in the second coming, as future, by the revelation of the Holy Spirit, that they might be saved. Hence also the following saying of the Lord: ‘Abraham desired to see My day, and he saw it and was glad’ (cf. Jn 8:56).”
Ambrosiaster reasons thus: “The Jews defend two contradictory positions. They cannot in any way be persuaded that Abraham’s promise was not annulled by the law. Yet they themselves, in opposition to this, stubbornly assert that justification is impossible without the works of the law. They know that Abraham, the pattern of justification, was justified by faith alone, without the works of the law. Blinded by a certain zeal, they do not understand and cannot grasp that if justification depends on the law, the promise is thereby destroyed. If the promise is destroyed, then without doubt Abraham’s faith itself is made vain. The Jews cannot even bear to hear this, knowing that Abraham’s promise is from faith. The heirs of Abraham’s promise are the successors of his faith, for the sake of which Abraham himself was blessed and justified. These successors are those who believe in Christ. The gift promised to Abraham was communicated in Christ to his children according to faith.”
Was the law given so long after the promise precisely so that this very interval might show that the law is one thing, and the promise to faith another? From the course of events it is clear that the law serves faith. It was given so that the promise, conditioned by Abraham’s faith or by faith like his, might in due time come to fulfillment. The law could not have independent significance.
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 17 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS