V. The Gospel considers not faith as a virtue or work, but as an instrument, or hand, to apprehend Christ. Faith does not cause or procure our salvation, but as the beggar’s hand it receives it, being wholly wrought and given of God.
VI. This distinction of the law and the Gospel must be observed carefully, as the two have been often confounded. It has been erroneously stated that the law of Moses, written in tables of stone, is the law; the same law of Moses, written in the hearts of men by the Holy Ghost, is the Gospel. But I say again that the law written in our hearts is still the law of Moses. This oversight in mistaking the distinction of the law and the Gospel is and has been the ruin of the Gospel.—Perkins.
Vers. 13, 14. Redemption and its Issues.
- Redemption was effected by Christ enduring the penalty of violated law (ver. 13).
- Redemption by Christ has brought blessing to all nations.—“That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ” (ver. 14).
- The spiritual results of redemption are realised only by faith.—“That we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (ver. 14).
Ver. 13. The Curse and Sentence of the Law lies on record against sinners, it puts in its demand against our acquittance, and lays an obligation upon us unto punishment. God will not reject nor destroy His law. Unless it be answered, there is no acceptance for sinners. Christ answered the curse of the law when He was made a curse for us, and so became, as to the obedience of the law, the end of the law for righteousness to them that believe. And as to the penalty that it threatened, He bore it, removed it, and took it out of the way. So hath He made way for forgiveness through the very heart of the law; it hath not one word to speak against the pardon of those who believe.—John Owen.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Verses 15–18.
The Divine Covenant of Promise—
I. Is less susceptible of violation than any human covenant.—“Though it be but a man’s covenant, yet if it be confirmed [approved], no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto” (ver. 15). Common equity demands that a contract made between man and man is thoroughly binding and should be rigidly observed; and the civil law lends all its force to maintain the integrity of its clauses. How much more certain it is that the Divine covenant shall be faithfully upheld. If it is likely that a human covenant will not be interfered with, it is less likely the Divine covenant will be changed. Yet even a human covenant may fail; the Divine covenant never. It is based on the Divine Word which cannot fail, and its validity is pledged by the incorruptibility of the Divine character (Mal. iii. 6).
II. Is explicit in defining the channel of its fulfilment.—“Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made; . . . to thy seed, which is Christ” (ver. 16). The promise is in the plural because the same promise was often repeated (Gen. xii. 3, 7, xv. 5, 18, xvii. 7, xxii. 18), and because it involved many things—earthly blessings to the literal children of Abraham in Canaan, and spiritual and heavenly blessings to his spiritual children; and both promised to Christ—the Seed and representative Head of the literal and spiritual Israel alike. Therefore the promise that in him “all families of the earth shall be blessed” joins in this one Seed—Christ—Jew and Gentile, as fellow-heirs on the same terms of acceptability—by grace through faith; not to some by promise, to others by the law, but to all alike, circumcised and uncircumcised, constituting but one seed in Christ. The law, on the other hand, contemplates the Jews and Gentiles as distinct seeds. God makes a covenant, but it is one of promise; whereas the law is a covenant of works. God makes His covenant of promise with the one Seed—Christ—and embraces others only as they are identified with and represented by Him (Fausset).
III. Cannot be set aside by the law which was a subsequent revelation.—“The covenant, . . . the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul” (ver. 17). The promise to Abraham was a prior settlement, and must take precedence, not only in time but also in authority, of the Mosaic law. It was a bold stroke of the apostle to thus shatter the supremacy of Mosaism; but the appeal to antiquity was an argument the most prejudiced Jew was bound to respect. “The law of Moses has its rights; it must be taken into account as well as the promise to Abraham. True; but it has no power to cancel or restrict the promise, older by four centuries and a half. The later must be adjusted to the earlier dispensation, the law interpreted by the promise. God has not made two testaments—the one solemnly committed to the faith and hope of mankind, only to be retracted and substituted by something of a different stamp. He could not thus stultify Himself. And we must not apply the Mosaic enactments, addressed to a single people, in such a way as to neutralise the original provisions made for the race at large. Our human instincts of good faith, our reverence for public compacts and established rights, forbid our allowing the law of Moses to trench upon the inheritance assured to mankind in the covenant of Abraham” (Findlay).