The Pulpit Commentary — Galatians — Section 163

direct, of Christ's gospel, that we find it ~ight worship him acceptably, nnd hold hard to realize to our minds tbnt there ever Joyful communion with him (say) in the 1>xisted a posture of the spirit nnswering to Lord's Supper, though he had just before such a notion, or. if such did exist, that it been handling a corpse without being since could be other tbnn the fmit of an unin- purified, or eating "unclean " ments, or 'ltru~t-ed, ill-trained state of the oonscience. working on the snbbath day. This relief Bnt it was not this, so long as the economy the gospel brought; God's servants learnt of llloses was in force. For these positive with joy that they were righteous and ac- laws were laws of God, binding during his cepted before him simply through faith in pleasure upon the conscience of every Christ without those " works of the Law." Israelite; and in proportion as an Israelite's The curse was reversed. Now it ran thus: consciousness of the existence of Jehovah "Anathemn be ho who doth not wholly trust and of his own covenant relation to Jehovah in Christ crucified for righteousness I -Ana- was real and vivid, in that proportion would thema be he who bringd dead ordinances of he be careful, scrupulously careful even, in the Law to darken hie bretbren's joy 1" obeying those positive laws. He had, Ver. 11.-But that no man is jnstiiled by indeed, to duly estimate the comparative the Law in the sight of God, it is evident importance and obligation of positive and (8.-1 6lo lv v&,.rp o~6,b 611«11oii.-,11 ..-apa .-,; of moral precepts, especially when in actual e,qi) ; but that in the Lau: no man is justified practice they came into conflict, according with God, is evident. To "be justified" to the principle laid down for example in means to be brought out of a state of guilti- Hosea vi. 6; hut it was at his peril that be ness and cursedness into a state of accept- &t any time neglected the former, though ance. The apostle, assuming that every still lees might be dare to neglect the latter. one is guilty and under a curse, now shows For every Israelite, as long as the Law con- that the Law offers no means of justification. tinued in force, that which was said by "But." The apostle is meeting the notion Christ was strictly true, and in both clauses that, though one who is of works of the Law meant to be ta.ken in solemn earnest," These is evermore threatened with a curse ready latter ought be to do, and not to leave the to light down upon him, and though the other undone" (Matt. x.xiii. 23). It we.e, for curse has been, as it cannot but have been, inBtance, a matter of conscience for the actually incurred, yet, by setting bimselt truly conscientious Israelite t.o carefully afresh to the endeavour and thenceforward purify himself from pollution incurred by continuing steadfast in all things written in contact with the dead, and to abstain from the Law, he may thus win pardon and swine's flesh; he might not neglect such righteousness with God. To obviate this pnri.fico.tions or partake of such meat without conception, without stopping to insist upon breaking a commandment of God's, without the fact that through indwelling sin no man therefore incurring God's displeasnre; and possibly can continue in all the things it behoved him to feel that he could not, written in the Law, he puts the notion and in proportion to the sincerity and depth aside by stating that this is not the method of It.is religions sentiment he did feel it. of justification which Scripture recognizes. Now, even when Israelites lived in & world This he shows by adducing that cardinal of their own, comparatively free from the e,phorism of Haba.kkuk, by which, as it presence of Gentiles, the observance of the should seem, the apostle was wont to sub- Levitical Law mnst need.! have been at times stantiate the doctrine of justification by felt to be an irksome or even anxious obli- faith (comp. Rom. i. 17; Heb. x. 38). The gation ; bnt its irksomeness and anxiety way in which the passage is here introduced, must have been greatly increased when almost as e.n obiter dictum, and as if not Gentiles were not merely brought into close needing a formal indication of its coming contact with them, but were even their out of Scripture, suggests the feeling tbnt maBterB. St. Pete: confessed how burden- the passage, as taken in the sense in some it was felt to be, wbeu he pronounced which the apostle reads it, was one already it a yoke which neither they nor their familiar to bis readers, no doubt through fathers h&d been able to bear. The feeling bis own former teaching. When in the Acts of relief must therefore have been inex- (xiii 39-41) we ree.d that in the eynn.gogue pressibly great when &n Israelite could come at the Pisidian Autioch, in close connection 1o Le assured that those positive laws had with the statement tbnt through believing ceased to be obligatory; that even if from in Christ a man is justified, he cited another habit or from national or social sentiment he passage of Habakknk (i. 5), denouncing un- coo tin ued to observe them, yet his conscience believing despisers, we cannot doubt that was quite free to disregard them without he had ma.de good hie statement about fear of displeasing God; that God's cove- justification by alleging this same probative nanted mi,rcy had no longer any rnference text. "In the Law ; " that is, as being in whatcv<;r IQ such observances, and that be tbe sphere and domC1iI1 of the L1.1w. Com• Oil, III, 1-29.] THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 129