I. The nation of the Jews shall be called and converted to the participation of this blessing.—When and how, God knows; but it shall be done before the end of the world. If all nations be called, then the Jews.
II. That which was foretold to Abraham is verified in our eyes.—This nation and many other nations are at this day blessed in the seed of Abraham. 1. Give to God thanks and praise that we are born in these days. 2. We must amend and turn to God that we may now be partakers of the promised blessing. 3. We must bless all, do good to all, and hurt to none.
III. All men who are of Abraham’s faith shall be partakers of the same blessing with him.—God respects not the greatness of our faith so much as the truth of it.—Perkins.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Verses 10–14.
The Conflict between the Law and Faith.
I. The law condemns the least violation of its enactments.—“Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things . . . in the law to do them” (ver. 10). The law is a unity; to violate a part is to violate the whole. It is like a perfect bell, every stroke resounds through every atom of the metal. If the bell is fractured in the least degree, the dissonance is evident in every part. Law is so all-pervasive and so perfect that to break one law is to be guilty of all. It is intolerant of all imperfection and makes no provision to prevent or repair imperfection except by a rigid obedience to every statute. If obedience could be perfect from this moment onwards, the past disobedience would not be condoned; we should be still liable to its penalties, still be under the curse. To pledge ourselves to unsinning obedience is to pledge ourselves to the impossible. All our efforts to obey law—to conform our life to the law of righteousness, the purity and beauty of which we perceive even while in a state of lawless unnature—are futile. It is like running alongside a parallel pathway into which we are perpetually trying to turn ourselves, but all in vain. We cannot escape the condemnation of the disobedient.
II. The law cannot justify man.—“But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith” (ver. 11). The law reveals our sin and our utter helplessness to rid ourselves of its misery. The law forces out the disease that is spreading under the skin. Such is its task. But healing it does not bring. “The law,” says Luther, “is that which lays down what man is to do; the Gospel reveals whence man is to obtain help. When I place myself in the hands of the physician, one branch of art says where the disease lies, another what course to take to get quit of it. So here. The law discovers our disease, the Gospel supplies the remedy.” We become aware in critical moments that our evil desires are more powerful than the prohibition of law and are in truth first stirred up thoroughly by the prohibition. And this disposition of our heart is the decisive point for the question, “Whether then the holy law, the holy, just and good commandment makes us holy, just, and good men?” The answer to this is, and remains a most decided, “No.”
III. The law ignores faith.—“The law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them” (ver. 12). Its dictum is do, not believe; it takes no account of faith. To grant righteousness to faith is to deny it to legal works. The two ways have different starting-points, as they lead to opposite goals. From faith one marches through God’s righteousness to blessing; from works, through self-righteousness, to the curse. In short, the legalist tries to make God believe in him. Abraham and Paul are content to believe in God. Paul puts the calm, grand image of Father Abraham before us for our pattern, in contrast with the narrow, painful, bitter spirit of Jewish legalism, inwardly self-condemned.
IV. The law, the great barrier to man’s justification, is done away in Christ.—“Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law” (ver. 13). Christ brought us out of the curse of the law by Himself voluntarily undergoing its penalty and submitting to the utmost indignity it imposed—hanging on a tree. It was this crowning scandal that shocked the Jewish pride and made the cross an offence to them. Once crucified, the name of Jesus would surely perish from the lips of men; no Jew would hereafter dare to profess faith in Him. This was God’s method of rescue; and all the terrors and penalties of law disappear, being absorbed in the cross of Christ. His redemption was offered to the Jew first. But not to the Jew alone, nor as a Jew. The time of release had come for all men. Abraham’s blessing, long withheld, was now to be imparted, as it had been promised, to all the tribes of the earth. In the removal of the legal curse, God comes near to men as in the ancient days. In Christ Jesus crucified, risen, reigning, a new world comes into being, which restores and surpasses the promise of the old.
V. Faith ends the conflict of the law by imparting to man a superior spiritual force.—“That we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (ver. 14). Faith is a spiritual faculty, and its exercise is made possible by the operation of the Holy Spirit. The law of works is superseded by the higher law of the Spirit. It is in the human soul that law has its widest sweep and accomplishes its highest results. The soul can never rise higher in its experience and efforts than the law by which it is governed. The law of sin has debased and limited the soul, and only as it is united by faith to Christ and responds to the lofty calls of His law will it break away from the corruption and restraints of the law of sin and rise to the highest perfection of holiness. “In every law,” says F. W. Robertson, “there is a spirit, in every maxim a principle; and the law and the maxim are laid down for the sake of conserving the spirit and the principle which they enshrine. Man is severed from submission to the maxim because he has got allegiance to the principle. He is free from the rule and the law because he has got the spirit written in his heart.”