- It seeks to base personal righteousness on an effete legalism.—“If righteousness come by the law.”
- It defeats the gracious purposes of God.—“I do not frustrate the grace of God.”
- It renders the sacrifice of Christ nugatory.—“Then Christ is dead in vain.”
Frustrating Divine Grace.—1. The joining of works with faith in the manner of justification is a total excluding of God’s free grace and favour from any hand in the work. Grace admits of no partner. If grace does not all, it does nothing; if anything be added, that addition makes grace to be no grace. 2. That the apostle doth exclude in this dispute from having any influence in justification the works, not only of the ceremonial but also of the moral law, appears from this—that he opposes the merit of Christ’s death to all merit of our own, whether by obedience to the one law or the other. 3. If there had been any other way possible by which the salvation of sinners could have been brought about but by the death of Christ, then Christ would not have died. To suppose Christ died in vain or without cause is an absurdity. If justification could have been attained by works or any other means, then His death had been in vain, and it were an absurd thing to suppose He would have died in that case.—Fergusson.
Justification by Works makes Void the Grace of God.
I. Grace must stand wholly and entirely in itself.—God’s grace cannot stand with man’s merit. Grace is not grace unless it be freely given every way. Grace and works of grace in the causing of justification can no more stand together than fire and water.
II. The apostle answers the objection that if a sinner is justified only by faith in Christ then we abolish the grace of God.—He shows that if we be justified by our own fulfilment of the law then Christ died in vain to fulfil the law for us.
III. We have here a notable ground of true religion.—That the death of Christ is made void if anything be joined with it in the work of our justification as a means to satisfy God’s justice and to merit the favour of God. Therefore the doctrine of justification by works is a manifest error.—Perkins.
CHAPTER III.
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.
Ver. 1. Who hath bewitched you?—Fascinated you, as if overlooked by the evil eye, so that your brain is confused. The Galatians were reputed to possess acute intellects: the apostle marvelled the more at their defection. That you should not obey the truth.—Omitted in R.V. Before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified.—In preaching, a vivid portraiture of Christ crucified has been set before you as if depicted in graphic characters impossible to mistake.