618
δικαιοσύνην 12. καὶ πατέρα περιτομῆς τοῖς οὐκ ἐκ περιτομῆς µόνον,
ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῖς στοιχοῦσι !
g Ch. ix. 4; τοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν ᾿Αβραάμ. Gal. iii
- ~ ~ , ιά τοῖς ἴχνεσι τῆς ἐν τῇ ἀκροβυστίᾳ πίστεως
13. OF γὰρ διὰ νόµου ἡ ἕ ἐπαγγελία τῷ
fi; Αβραὰμ ἢ τῷ σπέρµατι αὐτοῦ, τὸ κληρονόμον αὐτὸν εἶναι τοῦ” κόσμου, Eph.iL12; , ~ 5 a 5 , , λα, οι , , iii, @ ἀλλὰ διὰ δικαιοσύνης πίστεως. 14. εἰ γὰρ οἱ ἐκ νόµου κληρονόμοι,
κεκένωται ἡ πίστις, καὶ κατήργηλαι ἡ ἐπαγγελία: 15. 6 γὰρ νόμος
1 τοις στοιχουσιν is found in all MSS. but cannot be right; see note in com-
mentary below.
Sv ἀκροβυστίας cf. ii. 27. For the dative τοῖς ἴχνεσιν see Philipp. iii. 16, Gal. v. 16, 25. But cf. also Winer, p. 274.
Vers. 13-15. The argument of vers. 9-12 is reiterated and confirmed here in other terms. Abraham is the father of all believers: for it is not through law that the promise is given to him or his seed, that he should be heir of the world —a condition which would limit the in- heritance to the Jews, but through the righteousness of faith—a condition which extends it to all who believe. We might have expected a quasi-historical proof of this proposition, similar to the proof given in ro f, that Abraham’s justi- fication did not depend on circumcision. But the Apostle taxes another and more speculative line. Instead of arguing from the O.T. narrative, as he does in Gal. ili. 14-17, that the promise was given to a justified man before the (Mosaic) law was heard of, and therefore must be fulfilled to all independently of law, he argues that law and promise are mutually exclusive ideas. For (ver. 14) if those who are of law, i.e., Jews only, as parti- sans of law, are heirs, then faith (the correlative of promise) has been made vain, and the promise of no effect. And this incompatibility of law and _ pro- mise in idea is supported by the actual effect of the law in human experience. For the law works wrath—the very op- posite of promise. But where there is not law, there is not even transgression, still less the wrath which transgression provokes. Here, then, the other series of conceptions finds its sphere: the world is ruled by grace, promise and faith. This is the world in which Abra- ham lived, and in which all believers live ; and as its typical citizen, he is father of them all,
Ver. 13. ἡ ἐπαγγελία is the Divine promise, which is identical with salva- tion in the widest sense. The word im- plies that the promise is held out by God
Om. τῃ before ακροβυστιᾳ SABCD'F. 2 Om. tov before κοσμου ABCD, etc.
of his own motion. The peculiar con- tent here assigned to the promise, that Abraham should be heir of the world, is not found in so many words in the Ο.Τ. Schoettgen, on ver. 3, quotes Mechilta, fol. 25, 2. ‘Sic quoque de Abrahamo legimus, quod mundum hunc et mundum futurum non nisi ea de causa consecutus sit, quia in Deum credidit, qg-d., Gen. xv. 6. And Wetstein, Tan- chuma, 165, 1: Abrahamo patri meo Deus possidendum dedit czlum et ter- tam. These passages prove that the idea was not unfamiliar, and it may be regarded as an extension of the promises contained in Gen. xii. 7, xvii. 8, xxii. 17. But what precisely did it mean? Pos- sibly participation in the sovereignty ot the Messiah. Abraham and his seed would then be heirs of the world in the sense of 1 Cor. vi. 2, 2 Tim. ii. 12. So Meyer and many others. In the con- nection in which the words stand, how- ever, this seems strained; and the ‘‘rationalising” interpretation, which makes the world Abraham’s inheritance through the spread of Abraham’s faith, and the multiplication of his spiritual children, is probably to be preferred. The religion which is conquering the world is descended from him, its power lies in that faith which he also had, and in proportion as it spreads he inherits the world. τῷ σπέρµατι αὐτοῦ: not Christ, as in Gal. iii. 16, but Abraham’s descendants in the widest sense. δικαιοσύνης πίστεως: it was not as one under law, but as one justified by faith, that Abraham had the promise given to him. In the narrative, indeed, the promise (Gen. xii. 7) antedates the justification (Gen. xv. 6), but it is re- peated at later periods (see above): and as ver, 14 argues, promise, faith and justification are parts of one spiritual whole.