and joy. We Gentiles may now look up to heaven, and confidently say " Thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and though Israel acknowledge us not."
The expressions ' by faith,' and ' through faith,' evidently do not diffei in their meaning, as Paul uses them indiscriminately, sometimes the one, as in 1 : 17. 3 : 20. 4 : 16, &c. &c., and sometimes the other, as in 3 : 22, 25. Gal. 2:16, &c. &c., and as each of the prepositions employed in the original is used to express the means by which any thing is done.
(31) Do we then make void tKe law through faith ? God forhid : yea^ we establish the law. This verse states the third result of this method of salvation ; instead of invalidating, it establishes the law. As Paul uses the word law in so many senses, it is doubtful which one of them is here principally intended. In every sense, however, the declaration is true. If the law means the Old Testament generally, then it is true, for the gospel method of justification contradicts no one of its statements, is in- consistent with no one of its doctrines, and invalidates no one of its pro- mises, but is harmonious with all, and confirmatory of the whole. If it means the Mosaic institutions specially, these were shadows of which Christ is the substance. That law is abolished, not by being pronounced spurious or invalid, but by having met its accomplishment, and answered its design in the gospel. What it taught and promised, the gospel also teaches and promises, only in clearer and fuller measure. If it means the moral law, which no doubt was prominently intended, still it is not invalidated, but established. No moral obligation is weakened, no penal sanction disregarded. The precepts are enforced by new and stronger motives, and the penalty is answered in him, who bore our sins in his own body on the tree. To whom be glory now and for ever.