Galatians 3:20Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Indeed, after the people’s rebellion in the wilderness, after the worship of the calf and the murmuring against the Lord, the law came into force in order to oppose transgressions. For the law is not appointed for the righteous man, but for the unrighteous, the disobedient, the ungodly, and sinners (1 Tim 1:9).

Returning to a higher point, I say that after the idolatry to which they had given themselves in Egypt, they forgot the God of their fathers. They even began to say: “Israel, these are your gods who brought you out of Egypt.”

Then the order, ritus, of divine worship and the punishment of transgressors against the law were established by the hand of the Mediator, that is, Jesus Christ. For all things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made.

This includes not only heaven, earth, the sea, and all that we see. It also includes what was laid through Moses like a yoke of the law upon the hard-hearted people (Jn 1:1-14).

The Apostle also writes to Timothy: “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2:5).

After, for our salvation, the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, was pleased to be born from the womb of the Virgin, He was called Mediator.

But before He received the body of man, in the beginning with the Father He was God the Word. He is called simply Mediator, without the addition “man,” which He had not yet assumed.

He was Mediator in relation to all the saints for whom He was the Word of God. These are Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and afterward Moses and all the prophets mentioned by Scripture.

His words, “The law was ordained through angels,” suggest this thought. In the whole Old Testament, where an angel is first depicted as speaking, afterward it is presented as though God were speaking.

Indeed, from among the very many ministering spirits, some one angel was visible. Yet through him the Mediator spoke, Who says: “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Ex 3:6).

It is no wonder if God speaks in angels, since even through angels found in men God speaks in the prophets, according to the word of the prophet Zachariah: “And the angel who spoke in me said” (Zech 1:9). At the beginning he had made the remark: “Thus says the Lord Almighty.”

For the angel who, according to Scripture, spoke in the prophet, did not dare to say in his own person: “Thus says the Lord Almighty.”

By the hand of the Mediator we must understand His might and power. Although according to the Godhead, secundum Deum, He Himself is one with His Father, according to the ministry of Mediator He is understood as distinct from Him.

Since the order of words here is tangled and the sense is made difficult by transposition, it seems to us that it should be restored in this way. The law was given through angels by the hand of the Mediator, ordained through angels because of transgressions, until the seed should come to whom the promise was given.

But it is beyond doubt that the seed signifies Christ. According to the words at the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew, He is shown to be the son of Abraham. For Scripture says: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Mt 1:1).

Thus, from the Gentiles He removed the multitude of gods and the worship of the elements, which so provoked the Jews. From the Jews He removed the works of the law, that is, the new moon, circumcision, the observance of the Sabbath, distinctions of foods, and other things rejected by the Gentiles. In this way those who were formerly enemies came to peace. If this is so, how could the Galatians have become so dull in mind as to destroy such peace by returning to Judaism?

Since these circumstances were causing the Galatians to turn to the law, so as to confess one God without the mystery of salvation, as though calling Christ God were hostile to the law, Paul says: a judge, that is, a mediator, does not exist where there is one, but, of course, where there are two. Yet by turning to the law, you have rejected the Judge. But God is one. By saying this, the Apostle testifies that he does not preach Christ as a second God, nor confess two Gods, but only the One, as the law itself also bears witness.

It would be useless to enter into the details of analysis and to enumerate every possible shade of thought presented by different opinions. Therefore we shall limit ourselves to those that receive the chief attention of interpreters, either because of closeness to the text or because of the grouping of the Apostle's thoughts.

First, the Apostle compares the law and the promise, and shows the superiority of the latter. The law was given after the promise. It was given incidentally, for the restraint of transgressions.

Finally, it was given by many angels through the mediation of Moses. Therefore, because of the mutability of the mediators, it cannot be constant and unchangeable. The promise, however, was given without mediators by God Himself, Who is always unchangeable and one.

By virtue of this, the promise also will be eternal and unchangeable. So Cornelius a Lapide, in Curx, Compl. Yet here the significance of the law is drawn in a purely external way from the circumstances of its origin.

It is forgotten that the author of the law is the same God Who was the author of the promise. It was pleasing to Him to surround the giving of the law with these external conditions and not with others.

Second, attention is directed to the significance of the mediator in the giving of the law, and to the indication of God's unity. The giving of the law was something like a covenant between God and the Hebrews.

Because the people of Israel, through their inconstancy, stiff-neckedness, and weakness, could not even hear the voice of God, they could not enter immediately into covenant with Him. Therefore a mediator was used.

He could speak face to face with God and then personally convey the words of God to the people. For the promise, however, there is no need of a mediator. It is given by one party alone, by God alone, and is the gift of His grace.

So Baldwin, Schleiermacher, and others. Yet here too the mutual relation between the law and the promise is not defined. Again, it is not indicated why the unity of God is important here.

Third, some therefore suppose that the Apostle fixes his gaze on the essence of the promise given to Abraham. He seeks to define the significance of the promise and of the law by setting them side by side.

The law was given through Moses. But Moses himself, in comparison with God, was a far lower and non-eternal person. Likewise the people of Israel, who entered into covenant with God at Sinai, could not be considered constant.

Therefore the violation of the law made Israel a violator of the covenant itself and in itself indicated the temporary significance of the law.

As for the promise, although it was given to Abraham, it referred chiefly to his Seed, Christ. In one Person He is both God and man, that is, both the person giving the promise and the person receiving it.

He is an eternal person, constant and always one. This means that with such a person there is no need of any mediator, and the promise itself must remain eternal. So Bisping.

Here the mutual relation of the promise and the law is indeed defined, and the superiority of the former over the latter is set forth. But such an explanation applies better to the comparison of the law with the Gospel, which appeared after the law.

It applies less well to the relation of the law to the promise, which was given earlier. If the promise was given first and must be fulfilled, then the appearance of the law remains unexplained, or, rather, its temporary significance remains unexplained.

Fourth, others again start from the concept of the mediator. They discover that he is needed where some division or dispute has arisen between persons who formerly stood in close relations.

Indeed, they observe that the law was given "because of transgressions," that is, when the Israelites began to violate the covenant God had concluded with their forefathers. If the covenant had been exactly fulfilled, there would have been no need of the law.

Thus the law was given for the purpose of maintaining the covenant that the Hebrews were violating, and for reconciling them with God. Since every reconciliation is made with the participation of mediators, Moses is chosen.

Thus, Paul concludes, the appearance of the law is a witness to the violation of the covenant with God. It is proof of a division that had taken place between God and men.

Where there is no division, where there is unanimity and unity, there is no need of mediators. Now the question is this: from whose side did the violation of the covenant arise? Who produced the division?

Was it God? But God is always one and the same. He could not change what He had once given. The Apostle leaves the readers themselves to discover the authors of the division and to draw the conclusion about the significance of the law.

So Calmet and de Wette. According to this explanation, too much is ascribed to the law. It was supposed to serve as a means for restoring the violated covenant and reconciling men with God.

This goal does not correspond to the purpose of the law, or at least it is unattainable by the law.

Fifth, it is better to rest on the brief paraphrase proposed by Blessed Theodoret. Despite its brevity, it expresses the Apostle's thought very clearly.

Theodoret concentrates his attention on the expression, "God is one," and says: "God is one, both He Who gave the promise to Abraham, and He Who established the law, and He Who has now shown us the fulfillment of the promise.

For it was not one God Who ordered the first things in the divine economy, and another Who ordered the last."

Indeed, if we trace the thoughts of the Apostle Paul through the epistle, we see that his chief purpose is to prove the insufficiency of the law for justification and the necessity of faith.

The covenant itself was founded on faith. It was, as it were, a reward for Abraham's faith, and it was accompanied by a promise, which again required faith.

This covenant was bound up with Israel's rights to inherit the Kingdom of God, or, better, with the rights to the Messiah Himself. The law, given not soon after the covenant, could not annul it.

Thus the testament must necessarily be fulfilled. "Why then the law?" the Apostle asks. "It was added because of transgressions." The law was to serve only as a tutor unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith in Him (v. 24).

That is, it had to convince men that, being guilty before God, they were powerless to attain justification before Him by their virtues and strict fulfillment of the law.

They had to await the coming of the promised Seed and seek such justification in Him.

What then? Can the law act contrary to the promise given by God? No. God is always one and the same. He is unchanging in His promises, and He will not change His covenant with Abraham.

Having once established union with man, He no longer needs a mediator, a surety for the truthfulness of His promises. He Himself concluded the covenant, which will keep its force forever.

In short: a mediator, μεσίτης, does not exist for Him Who is always one and the same. But God is always one and the same, ει̉ς, both when He concluded the covenant with Abraham and when He gave the law to Abraham's descendants through the hand of the mediator Moses.

If this explanation does not define the purpose of Moses in the giving of the law, then, according to the Apostle's thought, there is no need to do so.

It must be noted, however, that the proposed explanation of the passage under consideration does not exclude the other explanations mentioned above. Rather, it joins them within itself.

For completeness of analysis, it remains to add that the word εις used here, in opposition to άλλος, "another," means "always one and the same," unchangeable. It differs from μόνος, "sole" or "only one," from οίος, "solitary," "one," or "separate," and from όμος, "similar," "of the same kind," or "common."

Still, this passage was understood and interpreted in various ways even by the Greeks themselves. This difference reached a large number. More than one hundred interpretations of this passage are counted.

This shows how even a native language sometimes loses its clarity when one or another meaning of a word gradually begins to pass out of use. The passage cited lost its clarity because of the meaning that the Apostle gives here to the word εἷς.

This meaning was always little used. With time it gradually passed almost entirely out of ordinary speech and remained only in the language of philosophers.

The word εἷς had, and for a philosopher still has, the meaning “one” not only in the sense of number. It also means unity, or constancy, of real and moral being. It has the meaning “one and the same,” the very same, unchanging.

Modern philosophers understand the word εἷς in this way in many places in Aristotle and Plato, for example in Legg. V.745.

Even in the first numeral itself, the meaning of unity, in the sense of constancy, appears in all languages and among all peoples. This is because the first numeral everywhere gives the tone to all those that follow.

No nation counts in this way: one, meaning a house; two, meaning no longer a house, but something else, for example a shed; three, a table; four, a chair; and so on.

On the contrary, among all peoples counting is done only with identical objects. Either houses alone are counted, or tables alone, or other objects, but always identical objects.

When heterogeneous objects must be counted, they are all brought under identical concepts: matter, thing, object, and the like. Thus one matter, two matters, and so on; one thing, two things, three things, and so on.

In the passage cited, the Apostle used the word εἷς precisely in this meaning. He placed it in the genitive case with the verb ἐστὶ. As is known, such a construction in Greek indicates belonging, property, naturalness, essential character, and the like.

This construction itself arose through the omission of the noun ἰδιοτης before the genitive case.

On the basis of all these considerations, I would propose the following reading of these two verses. I allow myself a few other minor changes as well.

“Why then the law? It was added afterward to the promise, because of transgressions, until the seed should come to whom the promise refers. It was ordained through angels, by the hand of a mediator. But a mediator is not required on the side of the One who is always one, that is, on the side of a being always one and the same, unchanging. And God is always one.”

A mediator is chosen because the parties who conclude an agreement or condition with one another may fail to fulfill them. They may change their promise. Then the mediator appears as the accuser of the party that has changed.

But such a change of will or covenant is unthinkable in a being who is always one and unchanging (Rom 3:4). Therefore a mediator on the side of such a being is superfluous.

This means that if, at the institution of the law, a mediator proved necessary, then both the mediator and the law were required by the state of the people of Israel. They were not, like the promise, the gift of the all-good and immutable will of God.

The first things, that is, the mediator and the law, like the people of Israel themselves, are passing and temporary. The last thing, that is, the promise, is immutable and eternal.

From this comes the conclusion. The law, as a temporary means called forth by the sinful state of the people of Israel, restrained them from sin, so that they might worthily meet the promised Messiah. It is lower than the promise, the good and immutable gift of the all-good and wholly immutable God.

This is precisely the thought that the holy Apostle Paul proves in the third chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians.

Thus there is no opposition between the law and the promises of faith. But the law had a serving significance in relation to the promises of faith. That is, it had to act for their preservation and direct men toward their center, Christ.

This subordinate significance of the law in relation to the promises of faith was expressed, among other things, in this. The promises to Abraham were given by God Himself. The laws to the Hebrew people were given through their mediator Moses and through God’s mediators, the angels.

Concerning these thoughts of the Apostle, Bishop Theophan writes: “The angels are not the makers of the law, but ministers at its institution. They stood on God’s behalf, and Moses on the people’s behalf. God inspired them, they transmitted it to Moses, and he to the people. By appearing on Sinai, God showed that the law comes from Him. Yet the law had many details, and it was more convenient to transmit them through angels. Moses himself testified before his death: ‘The Lord came from Sinai with myriads of holy ones; at His right hand were angels with Him’ (Deut 33:2). The protomartyr Stephen says that the law was received by the arrangement of angels (Acts 7:53; cf. Heb 2:2).”

As for the twentieth verse, which is very difficult to understand, the closest meaning of the context seems to be this. By the word “one” we should understand the one promised seed, Christ Jesus. He is, in the proper sense, the one Mediator of God and men.

Since He Himself is God and man, He has no need of another mediator. Consequently, the promises of faith receive the significance of things eternal, as proceeding from the one unchanging God.

Blessed Theodoret draws attention to this and says: “God is one: He Who gave the promise to Abraham, He Who established the law, and He Who now has shown us the fulfillment of the promise. For it was not one God Who administered the first things, and another Who administered the last.”

In one of the more recent explanations it is said: “A mediator is not needed from a Being and for a Being that is unchanging. God is precisely such a Being. Therefore the promises of God do not bear a temporary character.”

In any case, this place is truly hard to understand (2 Pet 3:15). It has more than four hundred explanations.

In the opinion of one profound investigator, the Apostle’s thought here is this: “A mediator is not the mediator of one party. Two are necessary. But God is only one. This means that the law given through Moses is not exclusively divine, but is limited by regard for the second party, both in content and in form (cf. Ezek 20:25; Mt 19:8). The Redeemer, however, is God and man, and therefore unites both sides in Himself. Here there is not a third between two, but one in two. Likewise, in the act of justification, each person is inwardly joined to the Savior, and in Him and through Him to the first source of all being. In this case no dividing wall exists. Instead we see direct contact. It was altogether different at Sinai. There the mediator is lower than the angels and cannot be a perfect substitute for Jehovah. The Apostle does not present this position dogmatically, so as not to arouse suspicion.”

But how these statements are connected here with one another, and with the course of the Apostle's discourse, is not clear. Our ancient interpreters did not probe this deeply. Having expressed the meaning of each statement, they went no further. Modern interpreters began to guess how this passage should be understood in context, and they guessed much. One of them observes that by the beginning of the present century there were already as many as 250 conjectures. Yet they still continue guessing there. There will scarcely be an end to this.

What, then, should we do? It is best to say: we do not understand, and therefore do not undertake to explain what is unclear. Whatever conjecture we make, it is most likely that we will not arrive at a satisfactory solution. It is better not to undertake it.

This causes no loss for understanding the Apostle's discourse. These words, like the preceding words, "ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator," are additional statements. If understood, they would enrich us with clearer and fuller knowledge of what is being said. Yet even when not understood, they do not obscure the Apostle's answer to the question: "Why then the law?"