Gal. iii. 21 — 26. Is the law then against the 'promises of God? God forbid : for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. But before faith came, we tvere kept under the
law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the laiu was our schoolmaster to brine/ lis unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But, after that faith is come, we are no longer under a school- master. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
THE true nature and intent of the moral law is by no means generally understood : and, if the question put by the Apostle into the mouth of an objector, "Wherefore then serveth the law?" were addressed to the great mass even of considerate Christians, very few among them would know what answer to return to it. Hence it is that such oppo- sition is everywhere made to the free offers of the Gospel. We have continually the very same contest to maintain against the generality of Christians, as the Apostle had against the Jews. The Apostle preached, that the Messiah, the Seed in whom all the nations of the earth were to be blessed, was come : and that all were now to be justified by faith in him, precisely as Abraham had been two thousand years before. The Jews maintained, that this could not be the true way of salvation ; for that God had given a law to Moses ; and that law was of perpetual obligation ; and, if we were now to be justified by faith alone, the law would be made void, and had in reality been given to no purpose. To this the Apostle answers, that the law, which was given to the Jews alone, could not invalidate the promise which had many ages before been given to Abraham and all his believing seed, whether among the cir- cumcised Jews, or the uncircumcised Gentiles ; and that there was no such opposition between the two as the Jews imagined ; the law being in fact designed to introduce the Gospel with more effect, and to endear it to all, when it should come to be more fully revealed. This was the state of the question between the Apostle and his opponents ; to whom a complete answer is given in the words before us. The question simply was, ' Is there any real oppo- sition between the law as given to Moses, and the