The Pulpit Commentary — Galatians — Section 123

tion mth it,-the Law ih!elf will have it so. death?"-" thnt our old man Wl\s orucill.cd "But (the apostle's feeliug is) tho Lo.w may with hi~?" It ~me h,Y believing iu Obrist curse on as it will: I have life with God :'.1:'d bemg hapt1zed mto him; comp. oh. and in God nevertheless." This same 111. 27, "All ye who were baptized into nspect of the death of Christ as discon- Christ did put on Christ "-words which necting believers from the Law viewed as a have to be taken in connection with the c-eremonial institute, through the polluted- reference to " foith in Christ" in ver. 26. ness which the Law attached to most The perfect tense of the verb <J'VV<CTTaopw,u.a, especially that form of death, is referred to points to a continued state of being fol- in Heb. xiii. 10-13. The phrn.se, "I died lowing upon that decisive orisis of hi~ life; unto the Law," is similar to that of" being the apostle im:tges hir:uself ~ still hangiug made dead to the Law" ( ,9,.,,,.,.,:,9-ri.-, ,-q; ?U t.!te cross w1~h C~r1st, :while also shnriug v6,u.'1'), and being "disoharged [or, • de- m his resurrect1on-hfe; his " old man" is on livered'] from the Lo.w (1<a.-71py{,671µ..v ,.,,-~ the cross, while his spirit partakes in and Toii 116,u.ov)," which we have Rom. vii. 4, 6; is renewed by Christ's life in God (Rom. thongh the po.rticulo.r aspect of the fact that vi. 6, 8, 11). The pragmatism of the pas- the cross disconnects believers from the Law sage, however, that is, its relevanoy to the is not precisely the same in the two pas- subject discussed by him with St. Peter, sages, since in the Romans the Law is consists in the twofold statement : (1) that viewed more in its character as a rule of the Law as a ceremonial institute has now moral and spiritual life (see Rom. vii. 7- nothing to do with him nor he with it, 23). Tb.at I might live llD.to God (fva 8«p except as mutually proclaiming their entii-e (f/<J'w); that 1 might become ali'1le unto God. disseverment the one from the other; and It is not likqly that (1/<J'"' is a future indi- (2) that nevertheless, while thus wholly cative, although we have 1<aTa1iov>..,I,CTov<J'w apart from the Law, he has life in God, as after 1va in ver. 4, and the form (f/<J'oµ.,v in he further proceeds to declare. Neverthe- Rom. vi. 2; for the future would most pro- less I live ((w 1ie'). Notwithstanding all the bably have been (-h<Toµ.a,,, as in eh. iii. 11, Law's anathema, I am alive unto God 12 ; Rnd Rom. i. I 7; viii. 13; x. 5. It is (comp. Rom. vi. 11), the object of his love, more likely to be the snbjnnctive of the and an heir of his eternal life. With this aorist ((71<Ta., which, according to the now exalted blessedness of mine the Law cannot accepted reading of ((7/<T<v for CUIE<TTT/ ,cal in the slightest degree meddle, by any de- av,(11"•"• we have in Rom. xiv. 9; where, termination which it will fain propound of as well as the (fi<J'wµ.ev of I Thess. v. 10, cleanness or uncleanness. No ceremonial it meRns "become alive." In verbs denot- pollution of its constituting can touch this ing a Ktate of being, the aorist frequently my life. My own life and my fellow-be- (though not necesso.rily) means coming into liever's life in God is infinitely removed that state, as for example, br-r,I,x•v<Te, " be- from the possibility of receiving taint of came poor" (2 Cor. ix. 9). "Living unto pollution through eating (say) of blood, or God" here, as in Rom. vi 10, does not so suet, or pork, or through touching a leper mnch denote any form of moral action to- or the remains of a deceased man. Nothing wards God as tbat spiritual state towards of this kind can mar or stain my righteous- oim out of which suitable moral action ness or my fellow-believer's righteousness. .vonld subsequently flow. The apostle died Both he and I, sharing in the like ''life" to the LRw, in order that through Obrist and righteousness, rejoice and exult to- he might come into that vital union with gether; let the Law denounce us for unclean God in which he might both serve him and as loudly and as bitterly as it will. Nay, if find happiness in him; this service to God I were to allow myself to be disquieted by and joy in God being the "fruit-bearing" any such denouncement of pollution, l in which the "life" is manifested (Rom. should, in fact, be allowing myself to har- vii. 5, 6). bour misgivings and unbelief touching the Ver. 20.-This verse brings out into fuller very essence of the grace of Jesus Christ. detail the several points bound np in the Yet not I, bnt Christ liveth in me (oi,,c fr, succinct statement of ver. 19. I am oruci- l'"f,:,, (ii 6, lv lµ.ol Xpccnos); and yet no longer fied with Christ (Xpt<J'T<p <J'VVE<J'Ta.l,pwµ.ac) j I I, but Chritt liveth in me. It was essential 1UL'1le been ~ucified with Christ. I am on to the apostle's argumont that he should the cross, fastened thereto with Christ; assert himself to be, in spite of the Lnw's the object, therefore, with him of the Law's anathema, "alive," in the full possession abhorrence and anathema. If we ask, how of life in God ; but he hastens to qualify and when he became thus blended with this assertion by explaining how entirely Christ in his crucifix.ion, we have the answer he owes this life of his to Christ; and, in anggested Ly himself in Rom. vi, 3, 6, " Are his eagerness to do this, he compresses the ye ignorant, that all we wbo were baptized assertion and the qualification in one clause into Christ J eeus were b11ptized into bis so closely together as, in a way not 11t 1111 uu-- ou. 11. 1-21.1 'l'HE EPIS'l'LE 'l'O TBE GALA'l'IANS. 89