[33] The arrangement above made of the lines of this intricate passage is designed to guide the eye to its elucidation. Our disposition of the verses has not been determined by any preconceived interpretation, but by the parallelism of expression and cadences of phrase. The rhythmical structure of the piece, it seems to us, supplies the key to its explanation, and reduces to order its long-drawn and heaped-up relative and prepositional clauses, which are grammatically so unmanageable.
[34] =Chaire, kecharitômenê.= It is impossible to reproduce in English the beautiful assonance--the _play_ of sound and sense--in Gabriel's greeting, as St Luke renders it.
[35] See Rom. i. 16-18, iii. 19-v. 21, vi. 7, vii. 1-6, viii. 1-4, 31-34, x. 6-9; 1 Cor. xv. 3, 4, 17, 56, 57; 2 Cor. v. 18-21; Gal. ii. 14-iii. 14, vi. 12-14. The latter passages the writer has endeavoured to expound in Chapters X. to XII. and XXVIII. of his Commentary on _Galatians_ in this series.
[36] It is an error to suppose, as one sometimes hears it said, that _trespasses_ or _transgressions_ are a light and comparatively trivial form of sin. Both words denote, in the language of Scripture, definite offences against known law, departures from known duty. Adam's sin was the typical "transgression" and "trespass" (Rom. v. 14, 15, etc.; comp. ii. 23; Gal. iii. 19).
[37] Gal. iii. 13; 1 Cor. vi. 19, 20.
[38] See _The Evangelical Revival, and other Sermons_, pp. 149-170, on "The Forgiveness of Sins."
[39] Bishop Ellicott, who advocates the latter rendering, objects to Meyer's interpretation that it is "doubtful in point of usage." _Pace tanti viri_, we must retort this objection upon the new translation. _To obtain by lot, to have (a thing) allotted to one_, is the meaning regularly given to =klêrousthai= in the classical dictionaries; and in O.T. usage the _lot_ (=klêros=) becomes the _inheritance_ (the thing _allotted_). The verb is repeatedly used by Philo with the meaning _to obtain_, or _receive an inheritance_; whereas there seems to be no real parallel to the other rendering. It is true that =klêrousthai= in the sense of the A.V. requires an object; but that is virtually supplied by =en hô=: "we had our inheritance allotted _in Christ_." Comp. Col. i. 12, "the lot of the saints _in the light_," which signifies not the locality, but the nature and content of the saints' heritage.
[40] See Gal. iii. 22--iv. 7; and Chapters XV.--XVII. in the _Expositor's Bible_ (Galatians), on Sonship and Inheritance in St Paul.
[41] Compare Acts xxvi. 18, which also speaks to this association of ideas in St Paul's mind, with vers. 4, 5, 7, and 11 in this chapter.
[42] Vv. 8, 9, ch. iii. 4, 5; comp. Col. ii. 2, 3; 1 Cor. ii. 6-9.
[43] "The fulness of the time," Gal. iv. 4; "in due season," Rom. v. 6; "in its own times," 1 Tim. ii. 6. These are all synonymous expressions for the Messianic era. Comp. Heb. i. 2, ix. 26; 1 Pet. i. 20.
[44] Ch. iii. 8, 9; Col. i. 25; 1 Cor. iv. 1; 1 Tim. i. 4, i. 7; 2 Tim. i. 9-11; and especially Rom. xvi. 25, 26.
[45] Comp. ch. v. 5; 1 Cor. xv. 24-28; Phil. ii. 9-12; Heb. ii. 8; Rev. i. 5, xi. 15, xvii. 14; Dan. vii. 13, 14.
[46] One wonders that our Revisers, so attentive to all points of Greek idiom, did not think it worth while to discriminate between _Christ_ and _the Christ_ in such passages as this. In Ephesians this distinction is especially conspicuous and significant. See vv. 12, 20 iii. 17, iv. 20, v. 23; similarly in 1 Cor. xv. 22; Rom. xv. 3.