The Pulpit Commentary — Galatians — Section 150

f11oith, but through faith. Faith is not, taken as itself, a. virtue serving just as works of Law were supposed to serve. The one ground of forgiveness and renewal is the grace of God in Obrist. Faith is the means of securing this, because it unites us to Christ. 2. This faith is in Ghrist, not in a creed. We may cast our thoughts about Christ into a creed. Yet what is necessary is not the understanding of and assent to any doctrines, but trust in a Person. 3. The faith is active trust. It is not only believing about Christ, but relying on him in conduct. For example, it is like, not only believing that a certain pillar-box belongs to the post-office, but also dropping one's letter into it. 4. It is trust to Christ in all his relations, and therefore as much the confidence in him as our Lord and Master that directly leads to obedience, as passive reliance on him as a. Saviour for the forgiveness and renewal which we can never work out for ourselves.- W. F. A. Ver. 19.-Dying to Law and living to God. Here is a. history of man's experience with Law. At first the vision of Law crushes and terrifies. Then it works deliverance from the life that is wholly given up to it. This deliverance is not for antinomian licence, but for spiritual life in God. L WHAT IS IT TO DIE TO LAW? Law here is not merely the Mosaic code. It is generic. Every nation has more or less some conception of law. We all feel it in our conscience. To liv.e for this, to toil simply to meet its requirements, to be gloomy and despondent at our failure, is to live t.o Law. This by no means implies perfect or even partial obedience to Law. It may go with absolute failure ; it is never found resulting in the complete harmony of Law and conduct. Now, to die to Law is to be free from this galling yoke. It is to be liberated from the frightful vision of an obligation that is imperative and yet beyond our power~tbe nightmare feeling that we must do what we cannot do. It is freedom, too, from the habit of living in regard to Law as the rule and motive of life. II. How DOES LA w I.BAD TO THIS RESULT? We can understand how the gospel does it by offering forgiveness and by calling us to a better method of holiness. But Law also strangles the life that dwells in it. 1. It condemns our failure, and so shows us that it is vain to attempt to Ii ve in it. 2. It proves itself impotent to give us the means of fulfilling its requirements. The longer we live in it the more do we see that such a. life is fruitless. Thus we gradually cease to feel drawn to it. At length we confess our failure and abandon the attempt. The Law has then killed the life we ha.d in it. III. WHAT IS THE OBJECT OF THIS DEATH TO LAW? Re.2arded by itself it is a miserable disaster. Law points to righteousness. To cease to live in Law is to dismiS.\I the discredited guide in the wilderness and to be left alone. By itself the result would be ruinous. But it is only permitted in order to clear the way for something better. We must not rest in freedom from Law. To be free from the obligation and free from the penalty, and to have no new and better life, would be the collapse and degradation of all moral order. That is a false and fatal gospel which consists only in the promise of such a result. The only reason for allowing it is to secure the new life in God. 1. This means exchanging a blind submission to Law Joi· a loving obedience to our Father in heaven. 2. It means abandoning the helpless command for the inspiration of a livi11,g presence. This is the true Christian life. It is therefore no selfish salvation that is offered to us, but a life of self-dedication, a losing of self in God. Note that the Law does not lead to this result, nor does dying to the Law. Thus far only the way is prepared. The new life in God flows from the gospel of Christ.-W. F. A. Ver. 20.-Orucified with Ghrist. St. Paul's Christianity was identification of the Christian with Christ. It was not merely believing a scheme of doctrine, nor following a certain course of devotion, nor accepting an offered grace. It was absolute union with Christ in spiritual experience. Nothi9$ is more characteristic of the apostle than the way in which, in almost every Epistle, lie describes the Christian life as going step by step with the life of Christ from the earthly humiliation and death to the heavenly triumph. Here the most essential elements of that experience are pointed out, and the secret of them declared. I. THE ESSENTIAL CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 1. Crucifixion with Ohrist. This is no figure of speech, meaning only that, inasmuch as Christ died for us, we lllay be said to  116 THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. [cu. u. 1-21.