(h) Jews and Gentiles one in Christ (3:26-29) 183

(h) Jews and Gentiles one in Christ (3:26-29) 183

TEXTUAL NOTES

v 16 Se om Pas A D2 W byz syr1" cop

eX ntotewS Xeiotoi / EX nLorews G Tyc Pelag

v20V6oV iov OEOV K A C D2 W byz latf vg syrPe`' hcl cop Clem Ambst Chrys Hier Aug / OEOV tou V6oV 1985 / OEOV xcu XCtotou P11 B D' Glat`e'' M.Vict Pelag / tou OEou 330

ayanrloavtog / ayogaoavtog Mcion Pelag (cf. 3:13)

2:15 It is difficult to decide at what point Paul's quotation of his rebuke to Peter comes to an end and passes into his general exposition of the principle at stake. He probably summarizes his rebuke to Peter and then develops its implications, thus passing smoothly from the personal occasion to the universal principle, from Individualgeschichte to Weltgeschichte, as used in the titles of papers by G. Klein, 'Individualgeschichte and Weltgeschichte bei Paulus' (1963), republished (with Nachtrag) in Rekonstruktion, 180-224, and by W. G. Kummel (largely a reply to Klein), ' "Individualgeschichte" and "Weltgeschichte" in Gal. 2:15-21', Moule FS, 157-173. Klein, following R. Bultmann, `Zur Auslegung von Gal. 2, 15-18' (1952), Exegetica (Tubingen, 1967), 394-399, treats v 15 as an independent sentence (relating to the old order), set over against v 16 (relating to the new order), and denies a place to salvation history in Paul's exposition. Kummel, doing more justice to what Paul says, takes vv 15 and 16 together as one sentence, introducing the presentation of justification by faith as the fulfilment of the promise to Abraham and thus as the climax of salvation history (cf. 2 Cor. 6:2, `now is the day of salvation').

ffEts CpvoEt 'IouSaioL xal ovx 6vcv &µaptwXo(, `we (who are) Jews by birth and not "sinners of the Gentiles" ': these words form the subject of the sentence which is continued in v 16 and are caught up again in xal iwcig (v 16). `We' is emphatic-'we' as distinct from `them' (the Gentiles). The status of believers of Jewish birth (like Paul, Peter and Barnabas) is different now from what it was when they lived under the law. At that time the law constituted a barrier between them and the Gentiles. They themselves were `righteous', being within the covenant; the Gentiles, being outside the covenant, were &votot (Rom. 2:12-16; 1 Cor. 9:21) and ipso facto &µaetwXoi (compare Lk. 24:7 with Acts 2:23)-a judgment which was confirmed in Jewish eyes by the general level of pagan morality (cf. Rom. 1:18-32; Eph. 4:17-19; 5:11f.). See E. P. Sanders, `On the Question of Fulfilling the Law in Paul and Rabbinic Judaism', Daube FS, 103-126. `Sinners of the Gentiles' may be a quotation from the vocabulary of law-abiding Jews. But now that Paul, Peter, Barnabas and other `Jews by birth' have embraced the way of faith in Christ, the barrier is down and there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile either in respect of sin (Rom. 3:22) or in respect of access to God's justifying grace (Rom. 10:12).

2:16 E186TEs [&] oti. ov SLxaLovtaL &vOewnos EeYwv v6µov, `knowing that it is not by legal works that any human being is justified': these words anticipate the amplified quotation of Ps. 143 (LXX 142):2 at the end of this verse. The ipya v6µov are the actions prescribed by the law. They are not deprecated in themselves, for the law of God is `holy and just and good' (Rom. 7:12)-even if Paul's attitude to the law is more radical in Galatians than in Romans, this statement is as valid for Galatians as for Romans (cf. Gal. 5:14). What is deprecated is the performing of them in a spirit of legalism, or with the idea that their performance will win acceptance before God; cf. 3:2, 5, 10; also Rom. 3:20, 28. (The noun Epya by itself has much the same sense in Rom. 4:2, 6; 9:11, 32; 11:6; Eph. 2:9; cf. Tit. 3:5, ovx e epywv twv eV StxaLoovvri & EtoLrloaµEV riµEis.) The antithesis to ei; Epywv v6µov is Ex 3siotews (see note on 3:7).

The threefold occurrence of el Epywv voµov in this sentence is striking. C. E. B. Cranfield, `St. Paul and the Law', SJT 17 (1964), 43-68, especially 55 (cf. his Romans, 845-862, especially 853), points out that Paul had no ready word or phrase in Greek to express what we mean by `legalism', and therefore had to use `law' (as in Gal. 3:11, iv v61iw) or a phrase containing `law' (such as e~ >rpywv voµov) to express it. In fact, as C. F. D. Moule points out ('Obligation in the Ethic of Paul', Knox FS, 392), Paul had no distinctive word or phrase for other particular aspects of law; hence the necessity of deducing from the context the nuance which he has in mind. Moule distinguishes in particular what he calls the `revelatory' and `legalistic' senses of voµos, and by means of this distinction is able to give a satisfactory answer to the question whether, in Paul's view, Christ has abrogated the law or not (cf. Rom. 10:4). `Paul saw Christ as the fulfilment of law, when law means God's revelation of himself and of his character and purpose, but as the condemnation and termination of any attempt to use law to justify oneself. And it is this latter use of law which may conveniently be called (for short) "legalism"' If `law means the upward striving of human religion and morality, and therefore colours all human activity with sin, for it represents man's attempt to scale God's throne' (C. K. Barrett, Romans, 129), it is Moule's latter use of law that is presumably implied.

In making this affirmation, Paul was in a strong position: if any one could base a claim on `works of law', it was he. His pre-Christian record, `as to righteousness by law', was `blameless' (Phil. 3:6). But he learned that even this record did not justify him before God; now his hope was founded on `not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ' (Phil. 3:9).

The verb Stxatow means `make &xatos', `put in the right' or `in the clear' (to use a modernism). In this kind of context those are S(xatot who have been set right with God, pardoned and accepted by him; cf. 3:11 for Paul's understanding of the adjective as used in Hab. 2:4b (LXX). The words in the Stxato- group may have either a `relational' or a `behavioural' sense. For example, the noun Stxatoavvrl means not only personal or corporate justice or righteousness of character but also, and distinctively, the state of being right with God, as in v 21. The old question of Jb. 9:1, `How can a man be just (LXX S(xatos) before God?' is not quoted by Paul, but that is the question with which he is concerned. He considers one answer ('By works of law')-the answer which he himself would previously have given-and dismisses it; he offers a new answer ('By faith in Christ').

See J. Buchanan, The Doctrine of Justification (Edinburgh, 1867); H. Kung, Justification, ETr (London, 1966); D. Hill, Greek Words and Hebrew Meanings (Cambridge, 1967), 82-162; E. Kasemann, '"The Righteousness of God" in Paul', NT Questions of Today, ETr (London, 1969), 168-182, and `Justification and Salvation History in the Epistle to the Romans', Perspectives on Paul, ETr (London, 1971), 60-78; J. A. Ziesler, The Meaning of Righteousness in Paul (Cambridge, 1972); H. Seebass and C. Brown, `Righteousness, Justification', NIDNTT III, 352-377, with ample bibliography.

As in Rom. 3:28, 6v0Qw3tos may be more than the equivalent of the indefinite pronoun its. The Jew or the Gentile now stands before God as a human being, neither privileged (as Jew) nor underprivileged (as Gentile), to be given a status before him not by legal works, in which the Jew would have an (at least theoretical) advantage, but on a basis (faith in Christ) equally open to Jew and Gentile (cf. Rom. 3:28-30).

MV 'AT && Jt(otEws 'Irloov Xetotov. Here >tav µ7j means `but', the previous option, e~ eeYwv vbµov, being excluded. SL& Jt(otECOg 'Irloov XeLotov, `through faith in Jesus Christ'. The genitive 'Iioov Xptotov could be objective (so we take it) or subjective, as though the phrase meant `through Jesus Christ's faith(fulness)'. This latter construction has been defended by J. Haussleiter, Der Glaube Jesu Christi and der christliche Glaube (Leipzig, 1891); G. Kittel, `Jr(otu.s 'Irloov XQLotov bei Paulus', TSK 79 (1906), 419-436; K. Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, ETr (Oxford, 1933), 41, 96; A. G. Hebert, ` "Faithfulness" and Faith', Theology 58 (1955), 373-379; T. F. Torrance, `One Aspect of the Biblical Conception of Faith', Exp Tim 68 (1956-57), 111f. (with reply by C. F. D. Moule, ibid., 157); E. R. Goodenough with A. T. Kraabel, `Paul and the Hellenization of Christianity', Religions in Antiquity: Essays in Memory of E. R. Goodenough, ed. J. Neusner = Suppl. Numen 15 (Leiden, 1967), 35-80; G. Howard, `On the "Faith of Christ" ', HTR 61 (1967), 459-465, `Romans 3:21-31 and the Inclusion of the Gentiles', HTR 64 (1970), especially 228-231, `The "Faith of Christ" ', Exp Tim 85 (1973-74), 212-214, and Crisis, 57f.; D. W. B. Robinson, ' "Faith of Jesus Christ"-A NT Debate', RTR 29 (1970), 71-81.

When the genitive is taken as subjective, the phrase is variously interpreted as meaning `Christ's faith' (in God), or `Christ's faithfulness' (to God), or God's faithfulness revealed in Christ (so Barth, Hebert).

In defence of the objective genitive see, in addition to C. F. D. Moule (cited above), J. Murray, Romans, 363-374; J. Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford, 1961), 161-205. C. E. B. Cranfield (Romans, 203 n. 2) briefly dismisses the subjective interpretation as `altogether unconvincing'.

The principal and, indeed, conclusive argument for taking the genitive to be objective here is that, when Paul expresses himself by the verb JtLQTE'Uw and not by the noun at(QtLs, Christ is the undoubted object of the faith, as in the clause immediately following: xal ti[tEls ELS XpLQTOV 'It)QOVV EJLLQTEUOaµEV ('even we have believed in Christ Jesus'). This determines the sense of the preceding SLOE at1QTEws 'I7100V X(?LQTov and of Ex 7t(QTEws XpioTOV in the next clause. See C. H. Dodd, The Bible and the Greeks (London, 1935), 65-70.

R. Bultmann (TDNT VI, 203, s.v. 'Irloov n(ott,) points out that n(otLg believing XQLatov is tantamount to `that Jesus died and rose' (1 Thes. `Paul 5:14). never defines faith. The nature of faith is given in the object to which faith is directed.... Faith always means faith in... or faith that .. .' (G. Bornkamm, Paul, 141). `Faith in..', one should say, as well as `faith that..': it is the personal faith that unites one to Christ along with all fellow-members of the new covenant community-all those who, in Paul's idiom, are `in Christ'.

xal fltots dg XpLQtov 'IrlQOVV ertLQTEVOaµEV, `even we (or we also) have believed in Christ Jesus'. The attempt to press a distinction between the form `Christ Jesus' (commoner in Paul) and `Jesus Christ' (as in the preceding clause) is precarious. `Christ Jesus' might mean `the now exalted Christ who is identical with the earthly Jesus', but one cannot suppose that Paul intended to convey all this every time he used this form. By xal r`1tcts he means `even we who are Jews by birth' (catching up the words of v 15)-even we (or we also) find our justification by faith in Christ and not by legal works, as truly as `sinners of the Gentiles' do. Whether or not this is part of what Paul said to Peter at Antioch, it is implied in what he said, and Peter's endorsement of it is taken for granted. The argument of vv 15-21 would have been pointless unless the premises on which it is based (stated in vv 15f.) were shared by both sides. Peter's assent, which is here assumed, finds substantial expression in the words with which he is credited in Acts 15:9, 11 (although the specific language of justification is not there used): `God... made no distinction between us [Jewish believers] and them [Gentile believers], but cleansed their hearts by faith.... Through the grace of the Lord Jesus, we believe so as to be saved, just as they do.'

iva StxaiwOwsev Ex n(otEws Xptoiov. No material difference can be discerned between the single form `Christ' here and the double forms `Jesus Christ' and `Christ Jesus' in the preceding clauses. Nor can any material difference be discerned between ix n(otEws here and bLa niaTEws above; the vari ation is purely stylistic (cf. ix J[(crEws... Sta iris JL(oTE(0s in Rom. 3:30). We have a further variant Ev JL(otEi in v 20 below.

It is perhaps for emphasis that Paul repeats ovx s~ geYwv voµov. It might go without saying that if `we' have believed in Christ in order to be justified by faith in him, then justification cannot be based on legal works; but there was no harm in spelling it out again. Besides, the repetition of the words leads on naturally to Paul's introduction to his quotation from Ps. 143 (LXX 142):2: ott e~ ggy(ov voµov ov 8txatw0ijoEiat Jtaoa oap~. Here, as later in Rom. 3:20, Paul substitutes Jraoa oap~ for Jtag ~tuv of the LXX (orL ov 6txat(0ftYEtat >v6)jtt6v oov eras l;tuv, which follows Heb. kol hay) and inserts e~ gpywv voµov before ov StxaLWHrIOErat. It may be inferred that for him at least this paraphrase of Ps. 143 (LXX 142):2 had become a habitual proof-text for the doctrine of justification by faith apart from works of law. (In the context of the psalm it is emphasized that no one can hope to win a case at law against God.) Here rcaoa oapj means `all mankind', as frequently in the OT (e.g. Ps. 65 [LXX 64]:2; Je. 12:12; Joel 2:28); cf. 1 Cor. 1:29.

As Paul uses justification by faith to refute legalism in the Galatian churches, he finds it equally effective as a weapon against `gnosticizing' tendencies at Corinth (cf. 1 Cor. 1:30; 6:11).

Paul's application of Ps. 143:2, according to H.-J. Schoeps, `considered from the standpoint of the rabbinic understanding of the law, stems from a partial aspect of the law wrongly isolated from the saving significance of the law as a whole' (Paul, 196). There is indeed a contradiction between the Pauline and the rabbinic understanding: Paul denied any saving significance to the law. On the other hand, there is at least a formal analogy between his insistence on justification by divine grace and sentiments expressed in some of the hymns of the Qumran community: `I know that there is no righteousness in man and no perfection of way in a son of man; to God Most High belong all the works of righteousness ..: (1 QH 4.30f.); `I will call God my righteousness and the Most High the establisher of my goodness' (I QS 10.1If.); `As for me, my judgment belongs to God and in his hand is my perfection of way' (1QS 11.2); `In his compassion he has brought me near and in his loving kindness comes my judgment; in the righteousness of his truth he has judged me and in the riches of his goodness he makes atonement for all my sins' (1 QS 11. 13f.).

See S. Schulz, `Zur Rechtfertigung aus Gnaden in Qumran and bei Paulus', ZTK 56 (1959), 155-185; E. P. Sanders, PPJ, 305-312; 0. Betz, `Rechtfertigung in Qumran', Kdsemann FS, 17-36; E. Kasemann, Romans, 25-32.

2:17 d SE ~rliovvzEs &xatw0~vat s;v XptoT40 6pe0rJ[tEV xa) avro'i a.aQTwXo(. The interpretation of vv 15-21 is beset by problems because Paul appears to be answering various charges which were circulating against him. To understand the point and relevance of his answers adequately it would be necessary to identify those charges, but as it is they can be inferred only from his answers.

Here he may simply mean that when law-abiding Jews like Peter and himself cease to look to the law as the basis of their justification before God and find that justification in Christ instead, they put themselves effectively on a level with `sinners of the Gentiles': they have, in that sense, `been found sinners'-they themselves (xai avto() as much as lesser breeds without the law. But this applies to all Jewish Christians, even to those who have not appreciated the law-free character of the gospel: by yielding faith to Christ they have in logic, if not in consciousness, abandoned faith in the law, and have had to take their place as sinners, utterly in need of God's justifying grace. If Paul has something more specific in mind, such as a charge against himself arising, perhaps, out of the recent episode- at Antioch, it is impossible to identify it.

&pa XptoTos &µapTtas SLaxovos; `Is Christ a servant of sin?' The interrogative particle &pa, accented with a circumflex as in UBS3, Nestle-Aland26 and other editions, occurs nowhere else in Paul, whereas the inferential particle &pa (accented as paroxytone) is quite frequent (cf. v 21; 3:7, 29; 5:11; 6:10). If &pa be read here, it yields excellent sense: `Is Christ then (in that case) a servant of sin?' See J. Lambrecht, `The Line of Thought in Gal. 2.14b-21', NTS 24 (1977-78), 489f., with bibliographical references in footnotes. C. F. D. Moule, Idiom-Book, 196, and `A Note on Galatians ii. 17, 18', Exp Tim 56 (1944-45), 223, agrees with the accentuation &pa but treats the clause not as a question but as a statement of the necessary implication of Peter's behaviour, which Peter answers with aµ71 YEVOtto. Paul then replies, `You may repudiate the position with aµ71 'yevotto, but that is the position in which you logically place yourself by your action, for if I build again...: But every other Pauline instance of µ7l Y£voLto, used thus as an independent sentence, follows a question (in diatribe style); there is thus a presumption that it does so here, and the evidence is not sufficiently strong to mark out the present µ7l YeVOLTO as Peter's imagined reply to Paul's shocking statement of the conclusion to which Peter's action points.

In what sense, then, would it follow that Christ is `a servant of sin'? Not because Peter's action implied that Christ's justifying work was unable to remove sin (although this interpretation was preferred by R. Bultmann, `Zur Auslegung ,..: Exegetica, 395f.), but because, in the argument of Paul's opponents, if law-abiding Jews had now to be reckoned as `sinners', just like those who lived without the law, then the number of sinners in the world was substantially increased, and so (as they understood Paul's position) Christ was made a servant or agent of sin. But the law-free gospel of justification by faith did not make them sinners for the first time; it revealed that they were already sinners, that they were included among the `all' who, as Paul puts it in Rom. 3:23, `have sinned and fall short of the glory of God'. The gospel did not increase the sumtotal of sinners-it was, in fact, the law that did that, according to 3:19-and therefore Christ was in no sense an agent of sin.

µil YEVOLTO, `Far from it!' or `Perish the thought!' This is Paul's characteristic way of repudiating the implication of some question, real or imagined, which is posed by way of an objection to his argument. The idea expressed in the objection is ethically or theologically monstrous; µ7l Y&OLTO (in form the negative of yvoitO, sometimes used in the LXX to render `Amen', as in Ps. 72 [LXX 71]:19, y votto, Ys;voLTO) is equivalent to Heb. has wesalom. Paul regularly follows up µil Y&OLTO with a reasoned rebuttal, as here. He is particularly prone to say µ7l yavoLTO when it is suggested that freedom from law will encourage people to sin (cf. Rom. 6:1f., 15); if that were so, then Christ (as presented by Paul) would indeed be an agent of sin.

2:18 EL yap a XaTUvoa tavta raXLv olxoSoµcu, .tapa(3&trly itavtov ovvlot&vw. One way or another, someone who builds up what he formerly demolished acknowledges his fault, explicitly in his former demolition or implicitly in his present rebuilding. If the one activity was right, the other must be wrong.

Paul's language could be taken to refer to one of several specific situations. (i) It could refer to Peter's attempt to rebuild the social partition between Jews and Gentiles which he had earlier broken down. (ii) It could refer to Paul's now preaching the gospel which he had once tried to eradicate, in the sense of 1:23. (iii) It could refer to a rumour that Paul was, in practice, modifying his assertion of the completely law-free character of the gospel, e.g. the report that he was still preaching circumcision (5:11). We have to be guided by the sense which his language most naturally bears in the context of his present argument, paying special attention to the particle y&e.

Probably Paul is not referring to one specific situation. The use of yap suggests that he is explaining why the charge that his gospel makes Christ a minister of sin is inadmissible. The `I' in v 18 is not primarily personal; Paul uses it to refer to any one who behaves in the manner indicated. The clause napa(36tr1y ovvtot&vw at the end of v 18 is almost equivalent to 6pEe'9y &µaptw?os etavtov (so Bultmann, `Zur Auslegung. ', 399). If law-abiding Jews take the position of sinners and turn to Christ for justification, that does not make him a minister of sin, for the fact is this: any one who, having received justification through faith in Christ, thereafter reinstates law in place of Christ makes himself a sinner all over again-and Christ cannot be held responsible for that. If the law was still in force, as the Galatians were being urged to believe, then those who sought salvation elsewhere were transgressors by its standard; if it was no longer in force-if Christ occupied the place which was now rightly his in salvation history-then those who sought their justification before God anywhere but in Christ remained unjustified, that is to say, they were still in their sins. It is the latter contingency that Paul has in mind as he writes to the Galatians: if they sought their justification in the law by submitting to circumcision, Christ would be of no advantage to them (5:2).

For other understandings of rtapa(3aTIJV 4LUUT6V avVLatidV(O, see H. Schlier, Galater, 96; J. Schneider, TDNT V, 741 n. 4, s.v. Jtaea(3&t1s; R. C. Tannehill, Dying and Rising, 56.

2:19 i y6) yap SLa voµov votp &neOavov. A proper understanding of yap would throw light not only on the following words of v 19 but also on the meaning of what precedes in v 18. Certainty is unattainable, but the sense could well be: `The question of transgressing the law does not arise for one who has died in relation to the law.' Transgression implies a law to be transgressed, as Paul notes in Rom. 4:15b; 5:13; it is in the presence of law that sin shows itself in the form of transgression. But the possibility that `I constitute myself a transgressor' before the law is now excluded, for `I have died in relation to the law'. Death in relation to the law is more relevant to Jewish Christians who once lived under law: if it is preposterous for them, after dying to the law, to put themselves under law again, it is even more preposterous for Gentile Christians like the Galatians to assume the yoke of a law to which they had no ancestral commitment.

All believers in Christ have `died in relation to sin' (Rom. 6:2, 11), but the point stressed here is that, at the same time, they have `died in relation to law'Jewish believers specifically and consciously so. Paul-for he puts the case in the first person singular-no longer lives under the power of the law; he has been released from its dominion and has entered into new life. `With death obligations towards the law have ceased' (H.-J. Schoeps, Paul, 193). It is fundamental to Paul's understanding of the law that he can define one and the same experience as death to law (cf. Rom. 7:4-6) and death to sin (Rom. 6:2). To be under law is to be exposed to the power of sin, for `the power of sin is the law' (1 Cor. 15:56); it is the law that provides sin with a vantage-point from which to invade Mansoul (cf. Rom. 7:7-11). But to those who have entered into new life in Christ the assurance is given: `sin will have no more dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace' (Rom. 6:14). Cf. P. Benoit, `La loi et la croix d'apres Saint Paul (Rom VII,7-VIII,4)', RB 47 (1938), 488-509 (especially 502 n. 3).

C. F. D. Moule, `Death "to sin", "to law", and "to the world": A Note on Certain Datives', Rigaux FS, 367-375, suggests that the construction of &atoOavEty with the dative was created by analogy with l;~v followed by the dative in a relational sense (e.g. liv nCO OECD, as in 4 Macc. 7:19; 16:25; Lk. 20:38).

Paul, then, `died to the law' in order to `live to God' (revealed in Christ). But how was it Sta voµov that he died vbµw? According to T. Zahn (Galater, 133), the law showed him his need of redemption and referred him to faith. More adequately, R. C. Tannehill (Dying and Rising, 59) understands Paul's wording in the light of the law's relation to Christ. As appears below in 3:13, Christ bore the curse of the law and exhausted its penalty on his people's behalf: in this sense Christ died Sia voµov, and `the believer's death to the law is also "through law" because he died in Christ's death'-as Paul goes on immediately to affirm: XQIOrw avvcotavpcoµaL. The law has no further claim on him who in death satisfied its last demand, and the believer who has `died with Christ' is similarly `discharged from the law' (Rom. 7:6).

But there may also be a note of personal experience in iyw...SCa v6µov. ... Paul continues to use the first person singular as he speaks for Jewish Christians in general, but the emphatic eycb (while it perhaps anticipates the atyt of v 20) suggests that he knew in a special way what it meant to die to law `through law'. It was Paul's zeal for the law that made him so ardent a persecutor of the church (cf. Phil. 3:6). After his conversion, his persecuting activity was seen by him to have been unspeakably sinful (cf. 1 Cor. 15:9); but the law, to which he had been so utterly dedicated, had proved incapable of showing him the sinfulness of his course or preventing him from pursuing it. Rather, in this respect the law had led him into sin. In the revelation of Jesus Christ on the Damascus road the moral bankruptcy of the law was disclosed: for Paul, therefore, this involved the end of his old life `under law' and the beginning of his new life `in Christ'. In this sense it was Sth v6µov that he died v6µcu ... Lva OECD ,iiow. The nature of this `life to God' is made plain in v 20. `I live in relation to God', Paul implies, `because Christ lives in me' The death that Christ died, `he died in relation to sin, once for all; but the life that he lives, he lives in relation to God' (Rom. 6:10). By faith-union with him, therefore, his people must consider themselves `dead in relation to sin and alive in relation to God in Christ Jesus' (Rom. 6:11), (Christ's death in relation to sin has to do with his finished work as his people's sin-bearer [cf. 2 Cor. 5:21, vati:p tjµwv aµapt(av ejtolrlocv]; their death in relation to sin has reference to their former existence as sinners.) Paul expresses something which is true of all believers, but it may be that his continued use of `I' to express it reflects his awareness that his personal preaching and conduct have been called in question.

A change of lordship, from law to Christ, has taken place, but that is not all, says Paul: `I have been crucified with Christ'. Those who place their faith in Christ are united with him by that faith-united so closely that his experience now becomes theirs: they share his death to the old order ('under law'; cf. 4:4) and his resurrection to new life. This, for Paul, is what is signified in baptism (cf. 3:27)-although he himself did not wait for his baptism to experience it; it came true in him at a stroke on the Damascus road. As Christ's death was death by crucifixion, the believer is said not only to have died with him but to have been `crucified with him' (Xptotw OuvE(Stco)Qwµat). In the passion narrative ovoraveow is used literally of the two robbers who were `crucified with' Jesus (Mt. 27:44; Mk. 15:43; Jn. 19:32); here it is used figuratively, as also in Rom. 6:6, `the person we formerly were was crucified with him' (6 arakatbs 71µtov &v0pwJros ovvEarave(6071). The figure is deliberately bold, designed to emphasize the finality of the death which has put an end to the old order and interposed a barrier between it and the new life in Christ (cf. 5:24; 6:14). The perfect tense truvEOtavpwµar emphasizes that participation in the crucified Christ has become the believer's settled way of life. `Union with Christ is nothing if it is not union with Christ in his death' (J. D. G. Dunn, Unity, 195).

An extension of this thought is Paul's insistence on sharing the sufferings of Christ (cf. 6:17 with Rom. 8:17; 2 Cor. 1:5; 4:10f.; Phil. 3:10; Col. 1:24).

2:20 l;co SE ovXETt eyw, `and it is no longer I who live'. `I died (in relation to law)', Paul has just said; we might expect him to follow this up with `now I live (in Christ)'. The repetition of i''6) is not accidental. But so completely is self dethroned in the new order that in this context Paul will not say Eyau I;to but `it is no longer I who live; it is Christ who lives in me' (~71 (SE iv £toi, Xptotos). Cf. Phil. 1:21, itoi yae To ~fv Xptoros.

Having died with Christ in his death, the believer now lives with Christ in his life-i.e. his resurrection life. In fact, this new life in Christ is nothing less than the risen Christ living his life in the believer. The risen Christ is the operative power in the new order, as sin was in the old (cf. Rom. 7:17, 20); 'IYlaovs Xptatos EV ittv (2 Cor. 13:5). In Paul's general teaching, it is by the Spirit that the risen life of Christ is communicated to his people and maintained within them. It makes little practical difference whether he speaks of Christ living in them or the Spirit dwelling in them (cf. Rom. 8:10a, 11 a), although the latter expression is commoner (contrariwise, although it makes little practical difference whether he speaks of them as being `in Christ' or `in the Spirit', it is the former expression that is commoner). Cf. 3:26-29; 4:6; 5:16-25 with notes.

S Si vvv btu sv oaexi. For the construction cf. Rom. 6:10, 6 bE X71, `the life that he lives'. Even the believer's present life in mortal body, says Paul, is lived in faith-union with Christ, the Son of God (the textual variants are interesting but make no difference to the sense). Cf. Eph. 3:17, `that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith' (Sta rrls Jt(otE(Os). This is not simply the exercise of faith in contrast to sight, as in 2 Cor. 5:7 where, so long as we are in mortal body, `we walk by faith (8L61 r(otEws), not by sight', but faith as the bond of union with the risen Christ. To live by faith in this sense is tantamount to `living by the Spirit' (5:25) which, as in Rom. 8:9-11, enables the believer even now to anticipate the life to come. This aspect of Paul's teaching is characterized by E. P. Sanders as `participationist eschatology' (PPJ, 549). See further E. Wissmann, Das Verhaltnis von IIIETIE and Christusfrommigkeit bei Paulus (Gottingen, 1926), 112.

The phrase Ev oaexl here is non-theological: as in 2 Cor. 10:3 (where it is contrasted with xata (Y&exa in the special Pauline sense of oae~), it means `in mortal body'; cf. the fuller expression Ev T7l 0viit71 oaexi #1µ6v of 2 Cor. 4:11 (and the OvrlTOV ot)µa of Rom. 6:12; 8:11). When o&e~ is used by Paul with the meaning that he distinctively gives it, to live iv oaexl is to lead an unregenerate life: `those who are ev oaexl cannot please God', but those in whom the Spirit of God dwells are not iv oaexl (Rom. 8:8f.). This distinctive use of oaei; occurs below in 3:3; 4:23, 29; 5:13, 16f., 19, 24; 6:8. There is, nevertheless, an umistakable tension set up by the coexistence of life in mortal body and life in Christ-by the fact that the life of the age to come >;v XQIGTC,O has `already' begun while mortal life ev oagx( has `not yet' come to an end.

toil viov rov OEOV. ' "Son" describes the close bond of love between God and Jesus and thus emphasises the greatness of the sacrifice.... The Son of God title has for him [Paul] the function of describing the greatness of the saving act of God who offered up the One closest to Him' (E. Schweizer, TDNT VIII, 384, s.v. vtos). Here, however, it is the active role of the Son of God that is emphasized: tov &yan7loavt6s tE xai atagaSovtoc >ravtov INTrQ Etoil.

When Paul speaks of divine love to mankind, either God or Christ may be the subject. Compare 1 Thes. 1:4, aSe?cpo! ftanrllivot bA6 Tov OEOV, with 2 Thes. 2:13, 66eX(poi rlyalttutEvot vnO xvelov (where xvelov in the context is certainly equivalent to Xetotov). In 2 Thes. 2:16 the participial phrase o ayattrloag tjµag may be attached in grammatical strictness to the nearer nominative [6] OEOS 6 raT71e rlµwv, but in sense it goes with the double nominative 6 xvetOs tjµwv 'Irloovs XetorOS xal [6] OEOS 6 ataTr1e ~µwv. In Rom. 8:37, UnEevtxdtv Sta Tov &yanmoavtog hRag, `the one who has loved us' is not explicitly named, but the preposition bt& points to Christ (cf. for similar sense 1 Cor. 15:57, Td) 8L86Vtt h[& TO vfxos Sta Tov xvelov rlµtuv 'Irloov XetoTOV). In Eph. 2:4 God is the subject, in Eph. 5:2, 25 Christ is the subject and in these last two passages we may well discern an echo of the present passage, for kanrloev is followed by 1taeEOwxEV >ravtov, with Christ as the subject of both verbs. So rl ay&n1 Tov Oeov (2 Cor. 13:14) and h &yanrl Tov Xetotov (Rom. 8:35; 2 Cor. 5:14) can be expressed comprehensively as `the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord' (Rom. 8:39).

When the death of Christ is described by Paul as his being `given up' (in accordance with what seems to have been a traditional use of naeaS(S(%u in a kerygmatic formula), God may be the subject-whether expressly, as in Rom. 8:32 (vat>:p rlµwv Jtavtwv atapESwxEV avtov), or by implication, as in the passive construction of Rom. 4:25 (6g JtapE860rl Sta to 7tapantcbµata ilµcuv)-or, as here, Christ is the subject and the action is reflexive (cf. 1:4 above, with the simple verb: tov Sovtos eavtov v)tep tciv &µaptLwv r`lµwv). This use of ttaeaStSw ti may be based on a Christian interpretation of Is. 52:13-53:12 LXX, where it is said of the Servant that xveLos JtaQESwxev avtdv Tats &µaQT(a1s ~sdv (Is. 53:6) and tape860TI et; O&vatov ~ Vvxil avtov (Is. 53:12). It is a point of interest that in the prayer of consecration in the Greek liturgy the verb napeS(SoTo in the quotation from 1 Cor. 11:23 is amplified by the addition of the reflexive µaXXov bi: £avtov JrapcB(Sov (`in the night in which he was given up, or rather gave himself up .. ').

M. D. Hooker points out that (over against God the Father's initiative in vindicating his Son by raising him from the dead) `when Paul explores the theme of redemption... and the way in which God has dealt with the plight of mankind,... Jesus' own role is understood as less passive and more active: he is not only "given up" by God on our behalf (Rom. viii.32) but "gives himself up" for our sakes' ('Interchange and Atonement', BJRL 60 [1977-78], 480).

Both in the love and in the `giving up' which manifested it God and Christ are one: `God in Christ was reconciling the world to himself' (2 Cor. 5:19); `God in Christ has forgiven you' (Eph. 4:32).

While Paul is still using the pronoun `I' I `me' representatively, it is difficult not to recognize the intense personal feeling in his words: it was a source of unending wonder to him `that I, even I, have mercy found'. For a comparable expression of personal devotion to Christ cf. Phil. 3:7- 14. Charles Wesley tells of the part these words played in his own conversion experience: as he studied Luther's commentary on Galatians, he says, he found special blessing in `his conclusion of the second chapter. I laboured, waited, and prayed to feel "who loved me and gave himself for me" ' (Journal, I [London, 1849], 90).

`Man is not free in his inner being; when he withdraws from the world and knows that he is placed in the presence of God, he discovers that what he wills is not matched by his ability to do it, and that there is a schism of his personality into two "I's", so that he can experience freedom only as freedom from himself. He achieves it in the surrender of his old "I", and in letting himself be crucified with Christ. Now he lives with Christ, yet no longer as "I", but in such a way that Christ is a new "I" in him' (R. Bultmann, `Points of Contact and Conflict' [1946], ETr in Essays Philosophical and Theological [London, 1955], 141). Or more concisely, with J. Denney: `The whole of Christian life is a response to the love exhibited in the death of the Son of God for men' (The Death of Christ [London, 61907], 151).

2:21 ovx &9Ei6) rv x&@Lv toff, OEOV, but that is what the Judaizers were doing. Yet Paul is not primarily contrasting himself with them; otherwise he would have said s;yw before &6EZ8w for emphasis. `Whoever after the coming of Christ pleads the validity of the law, denies the saving significance of the death of Jesus Christ and nullifies God's grace' (H.-J. Schoeps, Paul, 193). Perhaps Paul is replying to a charge that his law-free gospel led to a misuse of the grace of God. For there are two ways of nullifying God's grace, or receiving it `in vain' (Eig xevov, 2 Cor. 6:1): one, by receiving it and then going on as though it made no difference by continuing to live `under law' (cf. 5:4), and the other, by receiving it and then going on as though it made no difference, by continuing to sin `that grace may abound' (Rom. 6:1). In neither way does Paul nullify the grace of God: he refuses to return to legal bondage but at the same time he repudiates the suggestion that freedom from law means freedom to sin- µ7l y£voLio (Rom. 6:15)!

Ei yap Sta voµov Stxatoavvr), &pa Xptatos &opEav &Jti;Oavev. The death of Christ, according to Paul, was endured to secure his people's justification before God (cf. 3:10-14; Rom. 3:21-26); had the works of the law been sufficient to achieve this end, the death of Christ was superfluous. Paul's argument is based on his firm conviction that Christ did not die in vain; therefore righteousness (here, the righteous status that God bestows on believers) is not attained through law. Paul's negative estimate of the efficacy of law was reached not so much through his experience of living under law as because of the positive `revelation of Jesus Christ' on the Damascus road (1:12, 16) which unfolded to him the significance of the total Christ-event, especially the death and resurrection (cf. 1:1b, 4).

A similar construction to the present one occurs in 3:21: `if a law had been given that was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed be based on law'. For the inferential dpa introducing an apodosis after el, cf. v 17 (with note ad loc.); 3:29.

Xptotos ... &nE6avrv is a foundation fact of the gospel; but whereas the true gospel proclaims the efficacy of Christ's death vatl twv &µapttcov fiµwv (cf. 1 Cor. 15:3), this spurious `gospel' denies that efficacy: if it is accepted, then `Christ died' not savingly but 'in vain'.

Having thus stated the universal principle in vv 15-21, Paul proceeds in 3:lff. to apply it to his readers' situation.

(b) The primacy of faith over law (3:1-6)

You foolish Galatians! Who has hypnotized you, after 'Jesus Christ crucified' was placarded before your very eyes? This is all! want you to tell me: was it by legal works that you received the Spirit, or by the message of faith? How can you be so foolish? You began with the Spirit; are you now trying to attain completion by the flesh? Have all your sufferings been to no purpose?-if indeed they are to no purpose. Well then, God supplies you with the Spirit and performs mighty works among you: does he do so by legal works or by the message of faith? (By faith, of course,) just as (in the words of scripture,) 'Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.'

TEXTUAL NOTES

v1 e(3aoxavev K A B D* G pc lat`'K syr"' / add zrj aXrl9eta [r] netOeo9aL (under influence of 5:7) C DI K L P l byz lat°g'c" syr°c1

npoeypa(Prl / add ev vµty D G byz lat°g't" syrh`''

3:1 cu &v61TOt fakdTat. For the vocative cf. 2 Cor. 6:11 (Kop(v0Lot); Phil. 4:15 ((NkLjnijotot). In these two places the readers are addressed as residents in specific cities; in this letter, which is being sent to churches in several cities, the readers are addressed as residents in a specific province (see p. 16 on the appropriateness or otherwise of calling them TakdTat). The prefixed cu (absent from 2 Cor. 6:11 and Phil. 4:15) expresses emotion (unlike the vocative 1 in Attic which was quite unemotional); some would therefore accent it th (cf. BDF 146.2).

For the vocative &v6rltoL cf. Lk. 24:25, where it is applied by the risen Lord to the two disciples on the Emmaus road and coupled with (3pateic trl xap&ia, `slow of heart' (i.e. of understanding). In Rom. 1:14 &vo yroO is the antithesis of aocpos. Paul uses the adjective here and in v 3 to emphasize the illogicality of the Galatians' retrogression.

iLs vµas E06oxavEV; (3aoxa(vw (here only in the NT) means `fascinate' (from the cognate Lat. fascino) or `bewitch' (originally by means of the evil eye). The other meaning, `envy' (cf. Dt. 28:56 LXX), is not relevant here. Translate: `who has hypnotized you?' Their new behaviour was so strange, so completely at odds with the liberating message which they had previously accepted, that it appeared as if someone had put a spell on them. Cf. R. Haughton, The Liberated Heart (London, 1975), 100f.

The added clause in AV/KJV, `that ye should not obey the truth', has intruded into the text here under the influence of 5:7. Jerome remarks (ad loc.): `In certain manuscripts (in quibusdam codicibus) it reads: "Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth?" But because this is not present in the Greek copies of Adamantius [i.e. Origen], we have omitted it.'

oLs xai' ocp9a7 µovs 'Ir)oovs XeLozos neoeyecp1q eotavew thvog. Elswhere in the NT neoyeacpw has its ordinary sense `write in advance'-e.g. in OT prophecy (Rom. 15:4; Jude 4) or in a previous letter or earlier in the same letter (Eph. 3:3). But here the prefix neo- is locative, not temporal: `display before (one's audience)', as on a public placard-a thoroughly classical usage. Luther ('welchen Jesus Christus vor die Augen gemalt war') and others have thought that the idea is of a verbal picture painted before the hearers' eyes (xat' 6cpOaX,µovs), a vivid description of the crucifixion of Christ; G. Bornkamm (with greater probability) prefers the idea of a notice or proclamation publicly set up, `a decree promulgated by authority' (Paul, 159). Marius Victorinus (ad loc.) curiously understands neoYeacpw in the sense of Lat. proscribo ('proscribe'): `Christ was proscribed, i.e. his property was divided into lots and soldthe property (namely) which he had in us, and which has been put up to auction, sold and dissipated by the persuasive influence of Judaism.'

Evidently in the cities of Galatia, as later in Corinth, Paul was resolved to know nothing `except Jesus Christ and him crucified' (1 Cor. 2:2). The cross of Christ, with all that it involved, was central to his gospel. Cf. 1 Cor. 1:18, where he calls the gospel `the word of the cross' (6 X6yos tov otavpov), and 15:3, where Christ's death `for our sins' occupies the primary place in the kerygma which was common to Paul and the Jerusalem apostles. The gospel of Christ crucified, as Paul saw it, so completely ruled out the law as a means of getting right with God that it was scarcely credible that people who had once embraced such a gospel should ever turn to the law for salvation. (One might almost say, `should ever turn back to the law', except that these Gentiles had never been under the law; yet see 4:9, Ec1otQE(peTE nhXiv.)

3:2 touto µovov 6e),,w µa6Eiv &cp' vµcuv, `This is the only thing I want to learn from you'. If they conceded this point-and in the light of their experience they could do no other-they had conceded Paul's case: the ground was taken away from the judaizing argument. The question is a feature of Paul's diatribe style.

£l; epywv voµov to tvevµa EXa(3ete it ti; &xo71S at(o'tew5; `Was it by works of law or by hearing with faith that you received the Spirit?' Paul assumes that they had received the Spirit-his presence and power were manifested among them by the 6uv6µets of v 5-and that they knew that they had received him when they heard and believed the law-free gospel. Cf. 3:14b, iva TV EatayyEXiav TOV atvevµatos Xa(3w sev bta Tfig at(oTEwg. The statement that Paul does not bring possession of the Spirit into connexion with righteousness by faith (A. Schweitzer, Mysticism, 220f.) is unfounded. Justification (2:16) and the gift of the Spirit are alike received not E~ ipywv voµov but Sta at(ozews- through one and the same act of faith. The &xorl at(otews is hearing the gospel and believing it, or (by metonymy) the gospel itself, which is presented to be heard and believed. Paul's use of this expression for the gospel may be influenced by Is. 53:1 (LXX), t(s iat(orEVOe Ti &xoj r`luiv; (`who has believed our message?'), which he quotes in Rom. 10:16 as referring to the gospel and treats as a premise leading to the conclusion: `So faith comes from what is heard (&pa rl ati(Jzts e~ &xor'lg), and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ' (r`l Se &xorl Sta. Gil sa'tos Xptotov)' Cf. 1 Thes. 2:13, atapaXa(36vtec ),,oyov &xofI asap' r`lµwv iov OEOlJ, `when you received the word which you heard (lit. the word of hearing) from us-the word of God.' (See E. P. Sanders, PPJ, 482f.)

The use of &xoij to denote the content of what is heard, as well as the faculty, organ or act of hearing, is attested in classical and later Greek from Thucydides (Hist. 1.20.1) onwards.

It is implied that there could be no higher privilege for mortal men and women than the gift of the Spirit. Since this gift was received through believing the gospel and not through obedience to the law, the superiority and sufficiency of the gospel called for no further demonstration. The Spirit is the guarantee of final salvation; the Spirit is received by faith. Does it not follow that final salvation depends on faith? `The gift of the Spirit and justification are two sides of the one coin. The blessing of Abraham is equated with the latter in vv. 8f., and with the former in v. 14. Both times the means given is faith' (J. D. G. Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit [London, 1970], 108).

3:3 ovtcws &vorlto( cote; The question Paul has just asked (v 2), with the conclusion to which it plainly points, justifies the unflattering adjective which he has already applied to his readers: their action is a return from maturity to immaturity.

evap~aµevot atvev salt vvv oaexi ErtieXeioOe; If they had been asked, like the twelve disciples of Ephesus, `Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?' (Acts 19:2), their intelligent answer would have been `Yes!' They began their Christian career in (or with) the Spirit; can they now find it conceivable that the perfection of that career is to be sought on the lower plane of `flesh'? `Flesh' here is not simply the body, in which circumcision is carried out, but human nature in its unregenerate weakness, relying on such inadequate resources as were available before the coming of faith, having no access as yet to the power of the Spirit. In Paul's experience as well as in his theology, legal works were a feature of life according to the `flesh', not according to the Spirit. The two verbs evapxoµat and eJtttEXEw are similarly used of the beginning and completion of the Christian way in Phil. 1:6, `he who has begun (evap~aµEvoc) a good work in you will bring it to completion (eJtttEX(3et) against the day of Jesus Christ.' There, however, the completion is achieved on the same plane as the inception.

The Spirit in Pauline teaching belongs to the foundation of the gospel; his reception does not mark a second and higher stage than justification. Both in John (7:39; 16:7; 20:22) and in Acts (1:8; 2:38) the gift of the Spirit is similarly the sequel and confirmation of Christ's redemptive work.

It is disputed whether the datives JtvEVµatt... oapxi should be taken to indicate manner in which or instrument by which (see discussions in H. Schlier, Galater, 123; BDF 198.5). The distinction is more grammatical than substantial.

3:4 tooavta EJtaOete eixrl; When ataaxw is used thus without further definition it may mean more generally `experience' or more particularly `suffer'. If the former is meant here, the sense will be, `Have you experienced such great things (the gift of the Spirit, the ensuing mighty works) to no purpose?' Cf. BAG 639 (s.v. Jtaaxw, 1). If the latter is meant, the sense will be, `Have you suffered so many things (or, have you endured such great sufferings) to no purpose?' A parallel to the latter sense comes in Acts 9:16, ooa Sei avtbv i tEp tov ovoµatos µov rtaOEt, `how many things he must suffer (or, how great sufferings he must endure) for my name'.

W. Michaelis (TDNT V, 905, s.v. Jtaaxw) argues that Jtaoxw, when used absolutely, always implies unpleasant suffering, except where the context shows that it is used sensu bono. In taking issue with A. Oepke (Galater, 68), who argues that it is used here sensu bono, Michaelis points out that Oepke's appeal to Josephus, Ant. 3.312, is inadmissible, since the context there makes it clear that oaa JtaOovtEs e~ avtov is used in bonam partem, of all the benefits which the Israelites had received from God.

What the Galatians had actually suffered is uncertain. There is no reference to their being positively persecuted for the faith, as the Thessalonian Christians were (1 Thes. 2:14; 2 Thes. 1:4f.). But sufferings of any kind endured for the gospel's sake would indeed be pointless (ELxrl) if, after all, salvation could be attained by law-keeping. If circumcision and the like could procure justification before God, then persecution for the cross of Christ and the oxav6aXov attached to it could be by-passed (cf. 4:29; 5:11; 6:12).

Paul's added words, Er YE xa' Elxrl ('if indeed it has been to no purpose'), express some hope that the situation is not yet irretrievable; they may yet be regained for the truth of the gospel. Cf. 4:11, cpo(3ovµat vµas µtj Jtcog Elx~ xexoJtCaxa Els vµas ('I am afraid that I have toiled over you to no purpose'); 1 Cor. 15:2, extol El [ti] Elx~ eJtiate oatE ('unless indeed you believed to no purpose'), where Paul is rather more sanguine than he is in writing to the Galatians.

3:5 6 ovv bttxoprlycuv vµfv to nvevµa xai evEpycov SvvaµEts Ev vµfv, `he who supplies the Spirit to you and performs mighty works among you', i.e. God. >r1xoprlyew is a Hellenistic compound of xoerlyew, having the general sense of `supply'; if it is God who here supplies the Spirit, it is equally God who in 2 Cor. 9:10 `supplies (enLxoprlyuw) seed for the sower and bread for food'. In Col. 2:19 the verb is used of the supply of nourishment by Christ as head to his body the church (cf. EJttxoprly(a in Eph. 4:16). With the present wording cf. Phil. 1:19, SLa... eattxon'qylas tov JtvEVµWTOg'Irloov Xptatov ('through the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ'), where, however, tau JtvEUµatog may not be objective (corresponding to the object to Jtvefi a here) but subjective: `the help supplied by the Spirit of Jesus Christ'. Jesus' own mighty works during his ministry were performed in the power of the Spirit (cf. Mt. 12:28; Lk. 4:14).

The present participles Ettxop1ywv and evEpywv probably imply that this divine activity still continues: Paul is not simply referring to something which the Galatians had witnessed once for all when first they believed the gospel. In Galatia, as later in Corinth, `the signs of an apostle were performed... in all patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works (Svvaµs(jtv)' (2 Cor. 12:12). Paul would not have appealed to mighty works accomplished by the power of the Spirit and experienced by the Galatians if in fact they had experienced nothing of the kind. That the introduction of the gospel to new territories was regularly accompanied by miraculous healings and other `signs and wonders' is attested throughout the NT not only in Paul's writings but in Hebrews (2:4) and in Acts (2:43 et passim). Paul knows well enough that miracles in themselves prove nothing (in 2 Thes. 2:9 they are satanically energized phenomena attending the appearance of the `man of lawlessness', and even in Rom. 15:19, where he describes his own apostolic record, their evidential value is secondary); when he expounds the doctrine of the Spirit along his chosen lines it is the ethical `fruit of the Spirit' that he emphasizes (cf. 5:22f.). But here he makes an ad hominem appeal to the Galatians' experience: their acceptance of the gospel as Paul preached it was in fact followed by miraculous signs, whereas presumably nothing of that sort accompanied the activity of the agitators.

Here SvvaµEtg is used comprehensively of the manifestations of the Spirit's power; in 1 Cor. 12:10, 28f., it is used of one group of such manifestations: some believers receive ~vEpytjµata Svv&µEwv while others receive Xaploµata laµatwv and a variety of other gifts. Even when buv&µEts constitute one group of manifestations alongside others, they should not be too rigidly demarcated from those others; healings, for example, although separately mentioned, were one form of mighty work. But when the word is used comprehensively, as it is here, it no doubt includes several of the manifestations separately listed in 1 Cor. 12. Even in this wider sense, probably not all the Galatian Christians had been empowered to perform mighty works, but their performance was a feature of their life together, and marked out their churches as communities of the Spirit.

The verb ivEpyew, here used of God's performing mighty works among them, was used in 2:8 of his enabling Peter and Paul to discharge their respective apostleships; it is used in 1 Cor. 12:6, 11 (as here) of the divine authorship of spiritual manifestations.

E~ Epywv voµov ~ ei; &xofs JtlotEws; as in v 2, but here we have to supply EJttxopr)yFi T6 Jrvc.ta xal ivEgyEt SvvaµEts (as implied by the participles earlier in the sentence).

For Paul, the antithesis between law and Spirit was as absolute as the antithesis between works and faith; cf. 2 Cor. 3:6b, to y&e Ye&µµa &?towrEVVEt, 'to SE nvEVµa ?cuoJto1Ei. The presence of the Spirit in power is an unmistakable sign that the new age has dawned (cf. Joel 2:28ff.); its mighty works are SvvaµCLs ... teXXovtos aicuvos (Heb. 6:5); it displaces the law and rules out of court every attempt to achieve righteousness by works which the law prescribes.

It is a natural inference from Paul's rhetorical questions that the `other gospel' which was being presented to the Galatian Christians took no account of the Spirit. If that is so, it cannot be regarded as a form of gnosticism. Elsewhere (as at Corinth) Paul had to deal with his opponents' claim to be men of the Spirit, a claim which was backed up by appeals to visions, revelations and mighty works (cf. 2 Cor. 11:4; 12:1ff.). But there is no hint that the agitators in Galatia made any such claim. It was as the sequel to Paul's preaching that the Galatian Christians received the Spirit, and Paul's knowledge of this forms the background of his reference to `those who are spiritual' (ol 3tvEVµattxo() in 6:1 and his ethical exhortation: `If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit' (5:25). Nevertheless, W. Schmithals, in line with his thesis that the agitators (like Paul's opponents elsewhere) were Gnostics, holds that as part of their programme they stressed ecstatic experiences and other spiritual manifestations, but that (in the light of Gal. 3:2) Paul may not have been aware of this (Paul and the Gnostics, 46-51, especially 47 n. 98). It is difficult to treat this suggestion seriously. How much Paul did or did not know about the agitators' teaching is debatable, but all that we know about it must be derived from this letter, and if there were any gaps in his information, we have no means of filling them in or even of recognizing their existence.

On the other hand, it has been suggested that Paul's own unqualified statements about the primacy of the Spirit over law, taken by themselves as they stand in Galatians, `can with a great deal of justification be called blatantly Gnostic' (cf. J. W. Drane, Paul: Libertine or Legalist?, 112). But a much more apt description than `blatantly Gnostic'-which, apart from anything else, could be dismissed as anachronistic-would be `essentially charismatic'. It is Paul above all others who introduced the term xaptoµa to the Christian vocabulary in relation to the ministry of the Spirit, and although it does not occur in Galatians the reality which it conveys is implicit in this verse. That `charismatic' is far preferable to `gnostic' as a description of Paul's teaching is evident from the emphasis with which he gives `knowledge' (yvwois) quite an inferior place to `love' (&y6myl), the primary `fruit of the Spirit' (cf. 5:13f., 22; also 1 Cor. 8:1; 13:8-13).

3:6 xaOws 'A(3paaµ Eat(otEVoEV T4) 6E4), xai eXoytoOrl av'tw Els Stxatoovvlly. Just as God supplies the Spirit and works miracles among them `by the hearing of faith', so it was by faith that he justified Abraham. The connexion implied in xaOws would be lost unless there were the closest possible link between receiving the Spirit and being justified. True, Abraham could not be said to have received the Spirit through faith, for he lived in the age of promise, not of fulfilment (see note on v 14). The Galatians, who lived in the age of fulfilment, had received the Spirit as well as a righteous standing before God-alike by faith. Similarly, it was `by the hearing of faith' and not by legal works that Abraham received a righteous standing before God. When he heard the promise of God, he believed, `and it was reckoned to him as righteousness'.

Abraham, according to the Genesis narrative, was called by God to leave his homeland in Mesopotamia and journey by divine direction to another land where he and his descendants would receive unsurpassed blessings. In obedience to the call he travelled to Canaan, where he led a nomadic existence for the rest of his life. Shortly after his arrival there, when as yet he was childless, God promised him that his offspring would be more numerous than the stars he could see in the night sky. Nothing could have seemed less likely, yet Abraham believed this incredible promise because of the trustworthiness of him who made it: `he believed in Yahweh, and he [Yahweh] reckoned it to him as righteousness' (Gn. 15:6).

This is one of Paul's two key-texts for his teaching about justification by faith (cf. Rom. 4:3), the other being Hab. 2:4b (quoted in v 11 below; cf. Rom. 1:17).

In itself, the statement of Gn. 15:6 could mean that Abraham's faith was reckoned as meritorious by God and entered to his credit account, as it is said of Phinehas's act of zeal in Ps. 106 (LXX 105):30f. (cf. Nu. 25:10-12): `that has been reckoned to him as righteousness (LXX xai e7,,oyta0rI avrw Elg SLxaLoovvriv) from generation to generation for ever.' Cf. W. R. Farmer, `The Patriarch Phineas', ATR 34 (1952), 26-30. (A similar instance is Mattathias's act of zeal in 1 Macc. 2:52.) Philo interprets Abraham's faith as meritorious (Rer. Div. Her. 90-95; cf. Leg. All. 3.228). It is not certain that Jas. 2:23 does so (cf. B. Lindars, NT Apologetic, 225; J. D. G. Dunn, Unity, 96, 251). But Paul interprets the text so as to exclude merit, thus showing `a more careful regard for the context' (B. Lindars, NT Apologetic, 225). Cf. Rom. 4:4f., where he says that the reckoning is not xata ocpE(Xriisa but Xata xa@Lv. See H. W. Heidland, TDNT IV, 289-292, s.v. Xoy(~osat.

(c) The blessing of Abraham (3:7-9)

You must recognize, then, that it is the people of faith who are Abraham's sons. And Scripture, foreseeing that God was to justify the Gentiles on the ground of faith, preached the gospel to Abraham in advance: 'In you all the Gentiles will be blessed.' So then, it is the people of faith who are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

3:7 With his reference to Abraham in v 6, Paul introduces his distinctive understanding of salvation-history. V 6 both concludes one section of his argument and begins a new one: it is connected with what goes before it by xaOtus and with what follows by the aea of v 7.

The history of salvation for Paul begins with Abraham, to whom the gospel was preached in advance (v 8), and reaches its climax in Christ. The promise made to Abraham finds its fulfilment in Christ, to whom indeed it primarily referred. But between the promise and the fulfilment there intervened the age of law, introduced parenthetically for the purpose which is stated below in v 19, but lacking any direct or effective relevance to the saving work of God.

There is in some quarters uneasiness over the idea that Paul held and expounded a doctrine of salvation-history. Marcion in the second century felt more than uneasiness over the idea; he totally rejected it. He did not use the terminology of salvation-history, but it was his conviction that the OT (not only the law, but even Abraham) could have nothing to do with the gospel of Jesus that made him expunge vv 6-9 from his text of Gal. 3. A modern expression of uneasiness comes from E. Fuchs, Studies of the Historical Jesus, ETr (London, 1964), 175. He cannot agree that in this passage Paul is thinking unequivocally in terms of salvation-history. The new relation `between Abraham's promise and the largely Gentile heirs of this promise... breaks the salvation-history scheme of promise-fulfilment which had previously applied to Israel. For Paul everything now depends not on Israel's history but solely on faith, and this is true not only of the heirs, but even of Abraham himself.' But this is simply to say that Paul no longer held such a doctrine of salvation-history as he might have held in his pre-Christian days. What Paul is expounding here is true salvation-history, but Christian salvation-history, in which the principle of faith is of paramount importance, for Abraham and for his spiritual heirs. The inclusion of these heirs, believing Gentiles, in the promise made to Abraham is essential to salvationhistory as Paul understands it.

A more judicious account is given by E. Kasemann, Perspectives on Paul, ETr (London, 1971), 60-78: he distinguishes Paul's salvation-history from that spurious outlook sometimes bearing the same designation-that so-called salvation-history with which `one is always on the safe side' (62)-but insists on the centrality of the factor of faith. Salvation-history `forms the horizon of Pauline theology' (66), but the horizon must be defined in reference to the centre. Salvation-history is the `sphere' of justification, but `justification remains the centre, the beginning and the end of salvation history' (76). See also 0. Cullmann, Salvation in History, ETr (London, 1967), 45-47, 248-268. See further on 2:15.

In Paul's exposition of salvation-history the Gentiles occupy a special place, as they did in God's promise to Abraham. The promise that in (or rather with) Abraham and his offspring all the nations of the earth-i.e. all the Gentiles (n&vta to 90vr))-would be blessed was fulfilled in Christ, Abraham's offspring par excellence. But for the fulfilment of the promise to be brought home to its Gentile beneficiaries, the Gentile mission was necessary. Here Paul's own role acquires eschatological significance. Paul, as apostle to the Gentiles, has his distinctive place, if not in the fulfilment of God's promise to Abraham, then certainly in the confirmation of that promise to its stated beneficiaries.

When Paul here sets forth the significance of Abraham's faith being reckoned to him as righteousness, he does not use the argument which he develops in Rom. 4:10-12, that Abraham's faith was so reckoned to him while he was as yet uncircumcised. This is not because he had not at this stage thought of the argument of Rom. 4:10-12 (it lies on the surface of the Genesis narrative) but perhaps because it was not likely to have the desired effect on the Gentile Christians of Galatia. They might well have answered that that they were justified by faith while they were uncircumcised, as Abraham was; that they proposed to accept circumcision after being justified by faith, as Abraham did; and that for them, as for Abraham, circumcision would be a seal of the justification by faith which they had received in their uncircumcised state.

The Galatian Christians had apparently been told by the agitators how necessary it was for them to be true sons of Abraham, and therefore to be circumcised, as Abraham was. Circumcision was given by God to Abraham as the sign of his covenant with Abraham and his descendants, who were accordingly to receive this sign: `Every male among you shall be circumcised.... So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant' (Gn. 17:10-13).

Although circumcision was thus instituted, according to the pentateuchal record, many generations before the law was given, it was reaffirmed in the law (Lv. 12:3) and Paul treats it as part of the law. Moreover, it was a seal `in the flesh' (Eatl 'tf15 oapxos vµwv) and thus for Paul belonged to the wrong side of the antithesis flesh/spirit (cf. v 1). (Although modern students of Paul's terminology distinguish between his distinctive use of o&p~ and the ordinary use of the term to denote the substance of the body, Paul did not keep them in strictly separate compartments; cf. v 3.) In Paul's eyes, for those who had been justified by faith to be subsequently circumcised would be a perverse attempt to seek perfection in the flesh after `having begun with the Spirit' (v 3), and his Galatian converts should recognize this. The initial yLvthGxETE of v 7 may be either indicative or imperative, but is more probably imperative: since Abraham's faith was reckoned to him as righteousness, let them learn that it is men and women of faith who are Abraham's true children.

It is not circumcision that makes a man a son of Abraham in the sense that matters most, but faith. The antithesis between ex Jt(otew; (el; &xofj; Jt(otr(O;) and sib ize'wv vbtov which is explicit in vv 2, 5, 11, is implied here; and circumcision is an Epyov vdµov. The Galatians were being urged to become children of Abraham by adoption (since they were not his children by natural birth), and this, they were told, involved circumcision, just as it did for proselytes from paganism to Judaism. Paul maintains that, having believed the gospel and received God's gift of righteousness, they are Abraham's children already, in the only sense that matters in God's sight. Abraham's heritage is the heritage of faith, and those who share this heritage are thereby manifested as sons of Abraham. It is pointless to try to interpret this in terms of the law of inheritance, whether Greek or Roman, as W. M. Ramsay did (Galatians, 343); vioi 'A(3pa6µ is an instance of the idiomatic Hebrew use of `sons' (b`'ne) with a following genitive to denote character.

If Paul uses the masculine viol 'A(3paaµ rather than tExva 'A(3Qa6µ (for which cf. 4:28; Rom. 9:7), this is not simply due to the fact that males only were circumcised; rather, vlo( includes 9vyaceeE, as in v 26, where it is obvious from the context that viol 6Eov embraces both men and women.

For of ex J1(atEw; (those who are characterized by such faith as Abraham showed when he believed God) cf. v 9; also o >rx a(atcw; 'A(3pa6cµ, `he who is characterized by Abraham's faith' (Rom. 4:9). Contrast ooot ... ei; i`pywv voµov E(o(v (v 10); o[ ex voµov (Rom. 4:14; cf. Rom. 4:16; of Ex JrcQLtoti;(2:12).

3:8 jtpolSovoa Se fl ypacprl xtX. fl ypacprl is here practically equivalent to 6 OE6g, as in Rom. 9:17 (cf. B. B. Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible [Philadelphia, 1948], 299-348). Scripture records the promise of God, which conveyed to Abraham the good news (npoEVrlyyEX(oato) that all nations would be blessed in his offspring. Paul might well have said atpoC&)v Se 6 6E6s xtX and omitted o 9E6g from the otL clause, but he uses `the scripture' here more or less as an extension of the divine personality. The written text (ypa(ptil) of Gn. 12:3 or 18:18 is, of course, centuries later than the lifetime of Abraham. But the scripture embodies and perpetuates the promise, so that the good news which was `preached beforehand' to Abraham is still preached by the scripture to those who read it or hear it read, especially to those living in the age when the promise has been fulfilled. If the promise was good news for Abraham, it is good news also for the nations (Gentiles) who are to be blessed in (or with) him.

ex tt(oTews, 'on the ground of [their] faith'-the kind of faith with which Abraham responded to the promise of God. G. Howard (Crisis, 57) sees rather a reference to God keeping faith with his promise, which is certainly a factor in Paul's argument, but not primarily in view in Fx at(otecus (cf. note on 2:16).

Stxatot is i6vrl, present tense, because it is God's abiding policy.

'EvevXoyriOrioovtaL Ev ooi navta Ta E6vrl. The quotation conflates Gn. 12:3, where God says to Abraham, evXoyrlOioovtat Ev ooi 7taoa6 a[ cpvXai (Heb. mispehot) Trls yfs, and 18:18, where God says of him, EvevXoyriOrioovTat :v avTCU at&vta Ta iOvrl (Heb. goye) Tfls yfs. The form with 90vri (cf also Gn. 22:18, cited below in v 16) naturally lent itself better than that with cpuka(, `tribes' (cf. JtaTpLa(, `families', in the quotation in Acts 3:25), to Paul's present argument: he is concerned with the extension to Gentiles of the principle of righteousness by faith which is attested for Abraham. (For other Pauline conflations of OT texts cf. Rom. 9:33; 11:8, 26f.; 2 Cor. 6:16- 18.)

The argument which begins with v 8 may be regarded as a midrashic interpretation of On. 12:3 and 18:18 comparable to the interpretation of On. 15:6 in Rom. 4:3-25 or that of Ex. 34:29-35 in 2 Cor. 3:7-18 (cf. J. D. G. Dunn, Unity, 88). The essence of the midrash is the reinterpretation of the text or texts in the light of the Christ-event. The same may be said of the typological application of the narrative of Isaac and Ishmael in 4:21-31 below.

The Greek passive EvcvXoyriOrloovtaL is unambiguous: in (with) Abraham all the nations will be blessed. But in On. 12:3 and 18:18 (cf. 28:14) the LXX passive renders the Heb. niph'al (nibr`'ku), which may have reflexive force (so On. 18:18 RSV: `all the nations of the earth shall bless themselves by him'), like the hithpael (hitbareku) of Gn. 22:18 and 26:4b. The reflexive interpretation means that Abraham will become proverbial for divine blessing and prosperity, so that in days to come men and women everywhere, wishing to call down the greatest prosperity on themselves, will say, `May I be as blessed as Abraham was!' But the use of the niph'al nibr`'ku `is usually taken in a passive sense. J. Schreiner, "Segen fur die Volker in der Verheissung an die Vater", BZ 6 (1962), p. 7, endeavours to bring out the distinctive sense of the niph'al by translating "acquire blessing for themselves" ' [`(fur) sich Segen erwerben, sich Segen verschaffen'] (R. E. Clements, Abraham and David [London, 1967], 15 n. 3).

Even so, that others will receive divine blessing through Abraham is ex pressly stated in Gn. 12:3a, 'I will bless those who bless you' (cf. Nu. 24:9); and with the reference to all the tribes or nations of the earth 'something like the note of universalism is already struck in these words' (C. R. North, The OT Interpretation of History [London, 1946], 26). The LXX translators understood the verbal form (and even that in Gn. 22:18 and 26:4b; cf. note on v 16 below) to have passive force, and accordingly used the passive voice in their Greek rendering; it is the sense which they gave it that Paul sees fulfilled in his Gentile mission.

3:9 CuatE of >x 'riotEC Evkoyovvtat ovv 't4 7ttat4 'A(3paait, `so it is they who are marked by belief [in God] that are blessed with believing Abraham'. oL Ex Jt otEws is used as in v 7. Men and women of faith are not only sons and daughters of Abraham but have a share in the blessing promised to him. In using the preposition avv, Paul conveys the precise force of Heb. b", translated Ev in the LXX in Gn. 12:3 and 18:18, `Not "in thee ..." but "with thee" (or "by means of thee") "shall all families of the earth bless themselves" is the correct translation' (C. G. Montefiore, The OT and After [London, 1923], 85). The Gentiles who are to be blessed with Abraham, says Paul, are those who like him believe God; the blessing they receive is the blessing he received-in the first instance, justification. In the present context the adjective Jttat(; applied to Abraham means not `faithful' (AV, RV) or `trustworthy' (as in Sir. 44:20, iv EvpE6r1 JtiOtos, rendering Heb. ub`nissuy nimsd' ne'`"man, `and in testing JTEi(Jaotill he was found faithful'), but `believing' (cf. RSV: `Abraham who had faith').

(d) The curse of the law (3:10-14)

All those who are (seeking justification) by legal works are under a curse, for it is written: 'Cursed is every one who does not persevere in all the things that are written in the book of the law, to do them.' Clearly no one is justified in God's sight by law because (as scripture says) 'it is the one who is righteous by faith that will find life.' But the law is not (based) on faith, rather (as scripture says again), 'he who has done them will find life therein.' Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse on our behalf-because it is written: 'Cursed is every one who is hanged on a gibbet'-in order that the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, in order that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

TEXTUAL NOTES

v 14 enayyE?,Lav K A B C D2 111 byz lat°' syr cop arm Orig Ambst Hier Aug / EuXoytav P46 D* G pc lath Mcion Ambst Eph Vig

3:10 ooot yap al Epywv voµov slow. The threefold occurrence of s~ epycwv voµov in 2:16 implies that the reference here is to those who rely on the law, or on their performance of the law, for their acceptance with God. Cf. C. E. B. Cranfield's expansion: 'as many as are legalists, refusing to accept the righteous status God has made available in Christ and insisting on thinking that they can earn their own righteous status by their fulfilment of the law's demands' (Romans, 848).

R. Bring (Galatians, 120-125) understands by Epya vbµov here the Jewish misinterpretation of the law, as though Paul meant, `Cursed is every one who transgresses the law by trying to keep it legalistically, for Dt. 27:26 says.'. But this puts an improbable strain on Paul's language. An even greater strain is involved in D. P. Fuller's interpretation: the person who strives to attain a righteous status by legal works is in effect trying to bribe God and so contravening the spirit of Dt. 10:17 and 27:25 (where bribery is forbidden)-thereby incurring the curse pronounced on the law-breaker ('Paul and the Works of the Law', WTJ 38 [1975-76], 28-42, especially 32).

vno xatapav eto(v• ysyparctat yap xrX. The following quotation comes from Dt. 27:26, which concludes the `Shechemite dodecalogue'-the twelve curses pronounced by Levites standing on Mount Ebal, to each of which the people responded with `Amen'. The LXX adds emphasis to the MT by inserting tress after Errixatapatos and naoty after os ovx eµtEvrL. It may be that the curses (with the corresponding blessings recited on Mount Gerizim, Dt. 28:1-6) were not pronounced once and for all, but were repeated periodically as part of a covenant-renewal ceremony. An elaborated form was repeated on solemn occasions by the covenant-community of Qumran (1QS 2:1-18).

The whole dodecalogue, A. Alt points out, `is concerned with crimes committed in secret, in the hope that they would never appear before a human court' ('The Origins of Israelite Law' [1934], ETr in Essays on OT History and Religion [Oxford, 1966], 115). Therefore no specific penalty is prescribed for each offence mentioned, but Yahweh is called upon in effect to execute his curse on the wrongdoer. By their `Amen' the people as a whole dissociate themselves from such evil actions and those who practise them; the curse thus involves exclusion from the covenant-community (cf. Ex. 12:15, 19; 30:33, etc., for those ritual offences whose perpetrator will be `cut off from Israel' or `from his people').

While the first eleven curses of the dodecalogue invoke a ban on specific acts of religious or social misdemeanour, the twelfth is more comprehensive, and (especially in its more emphatic LXX wording) lends itself readily to Paul's argument. But in addition to taking over the twofold `all' added by the LXX, Paul replaces rraow tots XoyoLs tov voµov tovtov (LXX) by the equally deuteronomic naotv tots yeypaµµvolt i=v tw (3i(3X(p tov voµov. In the LXX, as in the MT, the curse is pronounced on the person who `does not confirm (Heb. ydgim, `uphold') the words of this law by doing them'. But in Paul's version of the text the denunciation is generalized: it is not `this law' (the dodecalogue) that he has in mind, but the written Torah (cf. Dt. 31:26; Jos. 1:8) in all its details.

M. Noth observes that the context of the dodecalogue speaks of blessing for the law-keeper as well as cursing for the law-breaker, but argues that Paul does not misrepresent the original intention of the passage. On the basis of the Deuteronomic (Dt. 12-26) and Holiness (Lv. 17-26) codes alike, `there is no place for the idea of good, meritorious works and a reward which may be earned thereby; the blessing is not earned, but freely promised. On the basis of this law there is only one possibility for man of having his own independent activity: that is transgression, defection, followed by curse and judgment. And so, indeed, "all those who rely on the works of the law are under a curse" ' (The Laws in the Pentateuch and Other Studies, ETr [Edinburgh, 1966], 131).

Philo (Praem. 79-126, 127-172) allegorizes both the blessings and the curses. At a later date, the rabbis of the Amoraic period emphasize the verb ydgIm ('confirm', `uphold') in Dt. 27:26 as requiring that one should maintain the divine authority of the law and protest against transgressions of it, not that one should achieve perfection (cf. E. P. Sanders, PPJ, 137). Paul himself may have the same verb in mind in Rom. 3:31, where he says that by receiving justification by faith we do not nullify the law but `uphold' it (vbµov 10T&o srv).

Here, however, he is concerned to stress the unfulfillable character of the law: by the standard of the law every one is `under a curse' because no one is able to keep it in its entirety.

But one may inquire more particularly: why is the curse incurred by all who rely on legal works for justification? Is it simply (i) because no one keeps everything prescribed by the law, so that, by reason of however limited a failure to attain full marks, every one becomes liable to the curse (cf. 5:3)? Or is it (ii) because the curse falls on every one who seeks justification by the law, even if he does attain full marks?

(i) In the former case, Paul may be saying that a failure to keep one point of the law is a failure to keep the law as such (cf. Jas. 2:10), and therefore incurs the curse invoked on the law-breaker. This is a view popularly ascribed to the school of Shammai, which is said to have reckoned a 99 percent achievement as a failure whereas the school of Hillel in effect treated 51 percent as a pass-mark, carrying entitlement to enter the world to come; cf. C. G. Mon- tefiore and H. Loewe, A Rabbinic Anthology (London, 1938), 594-597, 664 n. 33.

If indeed Paul expresses a Shammaite interpretation here, that would put in question the common assumption that he was, like his teacher Gamaliel, a Hillelite. It is true that later tradition makes Gamaliel the successor (either immediately, or at one remove) to Hillel as head of his school, if not indeed Hillel's son or grandson. But the earlier traditions which reflect some direct memory of Gamaliel and his teaching do not associate him with the school of Hillel (cf. J. Neusner, The Rabbinic Traditions about the Pharisees before 70, I [Leiden, 1971], 341-376).

Paul's Hillelite affinities (maintained by J. Jeremias, `Paulus als Hillelit', Black FS [1], 88-94) have been denied by K. Haacker ('War Paulus Hillelit?', Das Institutum Judaicum der Universitat Tubingen [1971-72], 106-120; `Die Berufung des Verfolgers and die Rechtfertigung des Gottlosen', Theologische Beitrage 6 [1975], 1-19) and H. Hubner ('Gal 3, 10 and die Herkunft des Paulus', KD 19 [1973], 215-231; Das Gesetz bei Paulus, 16-43 and especially 135f.-n.-16).

E. P. Sanders, on the other hand, does not believe that Paul provides enough evidence to show whether before his conversion he had been a Shammaite or a Hillelite, if either; he maintains, moreover, that neither the statements insisting on total law-keeping nor those which hold out hope if the merits outweigh the demerits amount to a `systematic soteriology' (PPJ, 138 n. 61; `Fulfilling the Law in Paul and Rabbinic Judaism', Daube FS, 126 addendum). The whole `weighing' interpretation of rabbinic theology, according to Sanders, is mis guided, no matter to which school it is ascribed. The rabbis of our period assumed that all who were within the covenant would attain salvation-have a portion in the world to come-except those whose impenitent wickedness or apostasy put them effectively outside the covenant. Within the covenant repentance could always atone for breaches of the law. This `covenant nomism', as Sanders calls it, was common ground to the rival rabbinic schools and did not constitute a matter for disagreement; hence it is more often presupposed than asserted in their debates (PPJ, passim; cf. also his `Patterns of Religion in Paul and Rabbinic Judaism: A Holistic Method of Comparison', HTR 66 [1973], 455-478).

The limited part that repentance plays in Paul's soteriology suggests that he approached the whole question with different presuppositions from those of the rabbis. Cf. M. E. Andrews, `Paul and Repentance', JBL 54 (1935), 125: `When he [Paul] made possession of the Spirit the sine qua non of salvation as well as of a worthy ethical life, repentance was excluded by the simple expedient of being replaced by something more effective' See also J. Knox, Chapters, 142-145.

(ii) But does Paul mean that even for one who does persevere in doing all things written in the book of the law justification is not thereby assured? It appears that he does. Here pre-eminently, as in his other deviations from the pattern of rabbinic theology, Paul's thinking is dominated by the logic of his conversion experience. In the attempt to establish his own righteousness (Rom. 10:3) Paul's achievement was greater than that of many: `as regards the righteousness which rests in the law', he says, `I was blameless' (Phil. 3:6). Yet it was not on this ground that he was justified before God, but because of the righteousness which is granted `through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God on the ground of faith' (Phil. 3:9).

It might well seem to follow from the language of Dt. 27:26 that every one who does persevere in doing all that the law prescribes is immune from the curse pronounced on the law-breaker. This indeed is implied in Lv. 18:5 ('the one who does them will find life thereby'), which Paul quotes below in v 12. But he quotes it only to set it aside in favour of the principle of faith (as contrasted with works) laid down in Hab. 2:4b, `it is the one who is righteous by faith (not the one who perseveres in doing the whole law) that will find life.' `Having argued in 3:10 that one who seeks justification by works of law will be cursed, obviously because he cannot keep the law perfectly, Paul then argues (3:11, 12) that one cannot in any case be justified by works of law. It is by definition impossible' (E. P. Sanders, `Fulfilling the Law .. ', 106).

Paul's confrontation with the risen Christ on the Damascus road after his grounding in Judaism, and the new understanding of salvation-history which sprang from that confrontation, compelled him to see the legal path to salvation closed by a barrier (which he would not have refused to identify with the cross) which carried a notice reading: `No road this way.'

There was, indeed, provision made in the law itself for those who failed to keep it-for those, at any rate, whose failure was inadvertent and not deliberate. Why does Paul make no reference to the sin-offering, or to the day of atonement?

One reason may be that the sacrificial ritual had not been mentioned by the agitators. Even they knew that this part of the law at least had been rendered obsolete by the death of Christ. `Those who looked upon this death as a sacrifice soon ceased to offer to God any blood-sacrifice at all' (A. Harnack, What is Christianity? ETr [London, 1904], 159). Long before the writer to the Hebrews spelt out the rationale of this in detail, the principle was accepted by the disciples of Jesus as a matter of course. The Galatians evidently had no thought of meeting Paul's argument here with the objection that the law made sacrificial provision for the removal of the curse. And if they had done so, Paul would have replied that, if the law as such was ineffectual for setting men and women right with God, the sacrificial ritual was ipso facto ineffectual. It had, in any case, been superseded by a provision which was supremely effectual. Christ had been set forth by God as a hilasterion, to be received by faith; he had been sent `in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin', so that the ethical fruit which the law could not produce might be manifested in the lives of those `who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit' (Rom. 3:25; 8:3f.).

3:11 otL SE iv voµw ovBEis 6Lxa1OuTaL Itapa tw 6ECO 8~Xov. Cf. 2:16 for a repeated affirmation of the same principle, supported by the quotation of Ps. 143 (LXX 142):2. To the fuller phrase El; i`pywv voµov there the more concise Ev voµw corresponds here: after E~ spywv voµov in v 10 Ev voµw suffices to express the same idea (cf. Phil. 3:6, 8LxaLo(T6vrly rv iv voµw); see D. P. Fuller, `Paul and "the Works of the Law" ', 40.

How is one justified in the sight of God? Paul has answered this question by pointing to the experience of Abraham (v 6). It might be argued, however, that Abraham's was a special case; hence Paul cites the statement of justification by faith as a permanent principle in Hab. 2:4b, which in the present context (cf. Rom. 1:17) must be given the sense: `It is the one that is righteous (justified) by faith not by law] that will live (find life).' If life is assured to those who are justified by faith, then it is not assured to those who seek justification by lawkeeping, whether they succeed in keeping the law or not.

In the original setting of this oracle, Habakkuk cries on God to intervene and punish the oppression that he sees around him. The tyranny of the native rulers of Judah has been checked by the Babylonian invaders, the executors of divine judgment, but the invaders have proved more oppressive by far. Are they `to keep on... mercilessly slaying nations for ever?' (Hab. 1:17). The prophet waits patiently for a response to his complaint, and at last it comes. `The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small': the vindication for which he longs will indeed be realized, `it will surely come, it will not delay' (Hab. 2:3). Let the righteous man wait in faith for this consummation; by his faith he will preserve his life (Heb. saddiq be'`munato yihyeh); cf. Jesus' words to his disciples in Lk. 21:18 for very much the same assurance: `By your endurance you will gain your lives:

In the LXX it is not simply for the fulfilment of his vision and the vindication of divine justice that the prophet waits but for the coming of God: `he will surely come, he will not delay' (epxosEvoc ?j~Ei xai ov -1 xpov(o1). Heb. "'munato, `his faith(fulness)', has been read with a different pronominal suffix: '`'munati, `my faith(fulness)': `the righteous one will live by my faithfulness' (or `by faith in me'), 6 Si; S(xaios Ex n(oTEws µov irloetaL (B). The `C' group of LXX witnesses has tov before (not after) Ex n(OTEws, which might yield the same sense (with somewhat greater emphasis on the pronoun) or (if tov be construed with o S(xaios) might mean `my righteous one will live by faith(fulness)'. This latter form is quoted in Heb. 10:38a as an encouragement to persevere in believing hope and not lose heart because the parousia is delayed: `The coming one (b >;pxoµevos, instead of the anarthrous LXX s;pxoµevoc) will come and will not delay' (Heb. 10:37, quoting Hab. 2:3b).

It may be that Hab. 2:3f. was current in primitive Christian times as a testimonium to the certainty of Christ's coming, and that this primitive currency is reflected independently in Paul and in Heb. 10:37f. C. H. Dodd (According to the Scriptures [London, 1952], 50f.) thought it likely that the currency of the testimonium antedated Paul's writing to the Galatians, because Paul's argument here is very much ad hominem, and would be the more effective if it was already common ground between him and his opponents that, when the coming one came, the righteous would live by faith.

In the Qumran literature the Hebrew text of Hab. 2:4b is applied to `all the doers of the law in the house of Judah, whom God will save from the place of judgment because of their toil (`amdl) and their faith in (or `loyalty to') the Teacher of Righteousness' (lQpHab 8:1-3). The Teacher of Righteousness was not only a spiritual leader but a figure of eschatological significance. Acceptance of his teaching, or loyally keeping to the path which he marked out for his followers, was the way to eternal life.

Paul omits the possessive pronoun from his quotation altogether, although it would have made little difference to his argument had he included it: ex Jr(oTetU tou (or ttov i;x Jr(ote(wS) would have meant `by faith in me (God)', while ix Jr(otewg avtov (had he translated be'emunato literally) would have meant `by his faith (in me)'. The faith by which one becomes righteous in God's sight is faith in God, believing acceptance of his promise, such as Abraham showed.

Righteousness by faith is for Paul so closely bound up with true life that the two terms-`righteousness' and `life'-can in practice be used interchangeably (cf. v 21 b).

3:12 If Ps. 143 (LXX 142):2 (especially as glossed by Paul) shows how one is not justified before God (by law), Hab. 2:4b shows how one is justified (by faith). Law and faith, for Paul, are unrelated: the gospel calls for faith, but law requires works. `The law is not based on faith' (6 S>; voµog ovx £OTty Ex Jt(cTews); any blessing associated with it lies in obedience to its precepts, as is plain from Lv. 18:5, quoted by Paul in the form o Jtotrloag avta l;~oeTat Ev avtot; (cf. the LXX: a Jtot>joas avOpcwitos l;rl(Yetat i:;v avtoi-). Paul's avT&, like the LXX a, refers to Jtpootayµata ... xal... xp(tata ('ordinances and judgments') of the preceding clause in Lv. 18:5, but for readers of this letter it would rather recall Tov Jtotfloat avta ('to do them', i.e. `all things written in the book of the law') at the end of v 10 above. (Cf. Ezk. 20:13, a Jtot~oet avta &vOpwJtog xal (,ioetat s;v avtotg, quoting Lv. 18:5.) Since the law is not Ex Jt(cTews, whereas justification is only ix Jt(cTews (v 11), therefore justification cannot come by the law.

G. Howard, taking 7t(otiS in the sense of `faithfulness' (see note on 2:16), interprets the first clause of v 12 to mean that the law, which required perfect fulfilment by mankind, could never be the means of fulfilling God's promise to Abraham; the promise could be fulfilled only by God's faithfulness in extending his blessing to the Gentiles (Crisis, 63f.).

There are two other NT references to Lv. 18:5. In Lk. 10:28 Jesus replies to the lawyer who had correctly recited the two great commandments with the words, `You have answered right; do this, and you will live (toeto JLOLEt xat l;rla,1)'-the lawyer's immediate attempt to justify himself shows that he realized that this was not so easy as it sounded. More relevantly to our present passage, in Rom. 10:5 Paul sets out the way of justification by the law in terms of Lv. 18:5 (Mcuea~s yap ypaq)Et tiv 6LxaLoovvr1v arx [toe] v6tov ot. d JtoLrlaag avta 6v0pwJtos lrloEtat Ev avtois). rv He then proceeds (Rom. 10:6-10) to set out the way of justification by faith in terms of a pesher on Dt. 30:12-14, carefully omitting avto Jto6Eiv from the end of his quotation (cf. Bruce, Romans, 203f.).

K. Barth has maintained (CD 11/2, ETr [Edinburgh, 1957], 245) that in Rom. 10:5 6 aourloas 6v0pwitos (Lv. 18:5) is Jesus. He is followed in this by C. E. B. Cranfield, who takes the reference to be to `the one Man who has done the righteousness of the Law in His life and, above all, in His death, in the sense of fulfilling the law's requirements perfectly and so earning as His right a righteous status before God' (Romans, 521). Cranfield admits that Gal. 3:12 `might, at first sight, seem to tell against this interpretation', but holds (again with Barth) that here too Paul has Christ's perfect obedience in mind in quoting Lv. 18:5, `for otherwise a step in the argument is missing'-Christ's becoming accursed for us would have no redemptive power apart from his perfect obedience (Romans, 522 n. 2).

This understanding of the personal righteousness of Christ and its relation to the righteousness which he has procured for believers is perfectly in keeping with Paul's thought, but it cannot, strictly speaking, be regarded as the straight exegesis of Gal. 3:12, nor even of Rom. 10:5.

D. P. Fuller ('Paul and "The Works of the Law" ', 41) sees a distinction between the use of Lv. 18:5 here and its use in Rom. 10:5, because in Rom. 10:5 Paul cites Moses as authority for the law, whereas `the meaning which he intends these words to convey in Galatians 3:12 is not the meaning that Moses himself intended'. Granted that Paul interprets Lv. 18:5 here in the sense of justification by legal works, it is difficult to see that he interprets it at all otherwise in Rom. 10:5. True, in the context of Lv. 18:5 the promise of life to those who do what God commands is a genuine promise, but in Rom. 10:5 as well as in Gal. 3:12 Paul indicates that, with the coming of the gospel, that way to life has now been closed, even if once it was open-and it is doubtful if he would concede even that (his Damascus-road experience had shown him the incompetence of the way of law-keeping and the power of the way of faith). Vv 10-12 `provide a crushing refutation of the Galatians who wanted to accept circumcision. Not only would they obligate themselves to obey a law which they could not fulfil, thus falling under its curse, but following that law is in any case a way that cannot lead to salvation' (E. P. Sanders, `Fulfilling the Law .. ', 106).

In his quotation of Lv. 18:5, as in his quotation of Hab. 2:4b, Paul understands `life' practically in the sense of `justification'.

3:13 Xptorbs f!.tag E~rlyopaaEV Extfg xaiapas tov voµov. The `curse of the law' is the curse pronounced on the law-breaker in Dt. 27:26, quoted in v 10 above. From this curse Christ has redeemed his people, says Paul, by becoming a curse on their behalf (yEvoµrvos vnee ilµciwv xathea). But how? To be born under law, as he was (4:4), involves no curse, if one keeps the law. And this Christ did, according to Paul (cf. 2 Cor. 5:21, tov µrl yvovta aµaptlav). By his lifelong obedience (cf. Rom. 5:19) he remained immune from the curse of the law, yet the circumstances of his death brought him unavoidably under that curse. The text which Paul quotes to this effect had reference originally to the exposure of the corpse of an executed criminal: `if a man has committed a crime punishable by death, and you hang him on a tree [pole], his body shall not remain all night upon the tree [pole], but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is accursed by God; you shall not defile your land which Yahweh your God gives you for an inheritance' (Dt. 21:22f.).

The exposure of a criminal's corpse on a tree or pole, then, was not to be prolonged beyond sundown: such continued exposure was an affront not only to human decency but to God himself (Heb. giPlat 'Whim could mean `affront to God' rather than `accursed by God', although the LXX chooses the latter rendering). An early instance of this is recorded in Jos. 10:26f.: when Joshua captured the Canaanite kings who were defeated in the battle of Beth-horon, he `put them to death, and he hung them on five trees. And they hung upon the trees until evening; but at the time of the going down of the sun, Joshua commanded, and they took them down from the trees, and threw them into the cave where they had hidden themselves, and they set great stones against the mouth of the cave' (cf. the treatment of the king of Ai in Jos. 8:29). So, in the Johannine passion narrative, the bodies of Jesus and the two robbers who were crucified with him were removed from their crosses before sundown, at the instance of the Jewish authorities, who were specially concerned that the sanctity of the ensuing sabbath should not be violated (Jn. 19:31; cf. Mk. 15:42f.).

Another OT instance of the hanging up of the corpses of criminals may be relevant for Paul's argument. In the apostasy of Baal-peor the wrath of Yahweh, manifested in the outbreak of plague, was averted from Israel when the chiefs of the people were hanged (7ta(Ja6EL)1tat(ty) `in the sun' before him (Nu. 25:4). The LXX verb implies not only public exposure but also the making of a public example, to effect atonement for covenant-violation. Cf. 2 Sa. (LXX 2 Ki.) 21:6, where seven sons of Saul were similarly hanged up (LXX >•rjXIh~(O) before Yahweh (whose displeasure on this occasion had been manifested by a famine). The curse of Dt. 27:26 was pronounced at the end of a covenantrenewal ceremony and had special reference therefore to the covenant-breaker. Christ accordingly underwent the penalty prescribed for the covenant-breaker.

It is a matter of coincidence, no doubt, that in Heb. 6:6 the verb atapaSELyµatl~cu is used of the crucifying (or re-crucifying, &vaotavQovvtas) of Christ, but the collocation of the two ideas there provides sufficient evidence that crucifixion ranked as one form of napaSELyµatii;Ew. The Palestinian Targum on Nu. 25:4f. links that passage with Dt. 21:23 by inserting an explicit reference to the `wood' on which the chiefs of the people were hanged and by stipulating that their bodies should be taken down and buried `at the departure of the sun' (cf. A. T. Hanson, Studies, 6).

When Philo (Spec. Leg. 3.152) discusses Dt. 21:22f., he replaces xpEµhvvvµt by &vaoxokoitltcu, `impale', `crucify'. Elsewhere (Post. C. 61; Som. 2.213) he associates &vaoxoXoni~w with `nailing up' (npooi Xow), indicating that he has crucifixion in mind rather than impalement. Crucifixion is manifestly implied in Gal. 3:13 and the places in Acts (5:30; 10:39) where Jesus is spoken of as xpEµaµsvos >d ~tia.ou (cf. n(JO(JnTl~avtEs, Acts 2:23), since the reference is to the historical crucifixion of Jesus.

The hanging (impalement, crucifixion) of living men was not a traditional Jewish mode of execution, though it was common among the surrounding nations (cf. Ezr. 6:11; Est. 5:14; 7:10; 1 Macc. 1:61). When the Nahum commentary from Qumran refers to Alexander Jannaeus's crucifixion of his captured enemies, it expresses abhorrence at his `hanging them alive, which was never done in Israel' (4QpNa 1:7f.). But whether it was a corpse or a living person that was hanged, the principle of Dt. 21:22f. was equally applicable in Jewish law. This is spelt out in I IQ Temple Scroll 64:6-13, where regulations are formulated for hanging a man `on a tree, that he may die', as well as for hanging an executed man `on a tree', and both forms of hanging are related to Dt. 21:22f. (where gilelat 'elohim, `a curse of God', is expanded to mequlele 'elohim wa''unasim, `accursed by God and men'). One type of criminal who is to be hanged `on a tree, that he may die', is he who has wronged his people by informing against them and delivering them up to a foreign power; another is he who `has cursed (galal) his people and the children of Israel'.

See the discussions by Y. Yadin, `Pesher Nahum (4QpNahum) Reconsidered', IEJ 21 (1971), 1-12; J. A. Fitzmyer, `Crucifixion in Ancient Palestine, Qumran Literature, and the NT', CBQ 40 (1978), 493-513 (especially 498-507, 510-512).

As Paul quotes Dt. 21:23, it shares a common term with Dt. 27:26 (quoted in v 10), and thus provides an instance of the exegetical principle known to the rabbis as gezerah shawah ('equal category'). Where two texts share a common term in this way, each may throw light on the other (cf. the common term trl(Jctat in Hab. 2:4b and Lv. 18:5, quoted in vv l lf.). Paul's present use of gezerah shawah is based on the Greek version; there is no term common to the two texts in Hebrew. Whereas Dt. 21:23 MT says that a hanged man is gilelat 'e1Ohim (lit. `a curse of God'), Dt. 27:26 MT calls the law-breaker 'arur ('cursed'). The LXX, however, uses a form of the verb (ent)xatae&osat in both places-the perfect participle passive xExatrlpasvoc in Dt. 21:23 and the verbal adjective Entxat&patos in Dt. 27:26. (Yet Paul shows that he knew the Hebrew text of Dt. 21:23, for in his exposition he uses the noun xat&pa, corresponding to Heb. q`'lalah.)

Paul probably uses EJTLxatapatos (in preference to the LXX xexatrlpaµsvos) when quoting Dt. 21:23 here by way of assimilation to his quotation of Dt. 27:26 in v 10 (cf. M. Wilcox, ' "Upon the Tree"-Deut. 21:22-23 in the NT', JBL 96 [1977], 85-99, especially 87). He omits `by God' after EnLxataparos in v 13 (contrast the LXX xExaTry1Quthvoc vno 6Eob)-probably not (as has been suggested) to avoid an unseemly collocation of the divine name with the idea of cursing but to avoid the implication that Christ in his death was cursed by God. This implication would conflict with Paul's conviction that Christ's enduring the cross was his supreme act of obedience to God (cf. Rom. 5:19) and that `in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself' (2 Cor. 5:19). Paul leaves the question, `By whom was Christ cursed?' unanswered; what he does make plain is that the curse which Christ `became' was his people's curse, as the death which he died was their death. Death `is the experience in which the final repulsion of evil by God is decisively expressed; and Christ died. In His death everything was made His that sin had made ours-everything in sin except its sinfulness' (J. Denney, The Death of Christ, 160). So in 2 Cor. 5:21 Paul speaks of Christ as having been `made sin for us'-'that is, he came to stand in that relation with God which normally is the result of sin, estranged from God and the object of his wrath' (C. K. Barrett, 2 Corinthians, 180).

Whereas in Dt. 21:23 the MT leaves tdluy ('hanged') unqualified, the LXX (followed by Paul) adds ani ~vXov (reproduced from Dt. 21:22); cf. the quotation in 1IQ Temple Scroll 64:12, tdluy 'al hd'es ('hanged on the tree').

According to H.J. Schoeps (Paul, 179f.), following G. Klein, Studien uber Paulus (Stockholm, 1918), 62-67, Paul resolves the problem presented by Christ's crucifixion by playing on the double meaning of the Hebrew participle taluy-on the one hand, `hanged', on the other hand, `lifted up', `exalted' (cf. the ambivalence of 5W6(o in John, also the double sense of `lift up your head' in Gn. 40:13, 19)-and thus showing how the curse was transformed into a blessing. There is nothing in the context to warrant this interpretation; it would, indeed, involve the absurd sense: `An exalted one is accursed by God:

It is not improbable that the argument of vv 10-13 was worked out in Paul's mind at the beginning of his Christian career. The root of his hostility to the followers of Jesus is not easy to uncover: their general position appeared to him to be a threat to the law of God, but especially, perhaps, their insistence that the crucified one was the Messiah of Israel. Since the Messiah, almost by definition, enjoyed the unique blessing of God, whereas a crucified person, according to the law, died under the curse of God, the identification of the crucified Jesus with the Messiah was a blasphemous contradiction in terms. This was so even if his death on the cross was undeserved, not to speak of the interpretation of Dt. 21:23 attested later in the Mishnah (Sanh. 6:4) which inferred from gilelat `15him that the hanged man had blasphemed the Name. When Paul was compelled to recognize that the crucified Jesus, risen from the dead, was Messiah and Son of God, he was faced with the problem how and why he nevertheless had died under the divine curse. The solution set forth here in vv 10-13 probably came to him sooner rather than later: Christ had endured the curse on his people's behalf (by being 'hanged on a tree') in order to redeem them from the curse pronounced on those who failed to keep the law. This argument would have been all of a piece with his swift and radical reappraisal of the place of the law in God's ways with mankind.

The verb a;~ayopalw is used of the redemptive work of Christ here and in 4:5. The simple verb &yood~w is used in 1 Cor. 6:20; 7:23, `you were bought with a price', where the readers are expected to know what the `price' (66µi) was (cf. Rev. 5:9, hyopaoag... eV icu aZµaii Gov). It is not implied, however, that the price was paid to some person or entity entitled to exact it.

In saying that 'Christ has redeemed us', whom does Paul mean by 'us'? It might be argued that only Jews were 'under law' (cf. 4:5) and therefore liable to the curse incurred by the law-breaker; Gentiles->0vrI 'ra [t~ voµov Exovia, as they are called in Rom. 2:14-had not incurred the curse as law-breaking Jews had done. But Paul's argument excludes the possibility of his meaning that only Jewish believers were redeemed from the curse of the law. The `Gentiles who have not the law' nevertheless `show that what the law requires is written on their hearts' (Rom. 2:14f.); they have an innate sense of right and wrong, as is attested by the accusing or excusing activity of their conscience; and if they are law-breakers in this sense, they too are in principle liable to `the curse of the law'. This indeed might be implied in Paul's inclusion of the emphatic LXX insertions Jtas and Jtaoiv in his quotation of Dt. 27:26 (v 10): `every one', whether Jew or Gentile, is subject to the curse who does not persevere in 'everything', whether specifically `written in the book of the law' or more generally `written on their hearts'. That Gentiles as well as Jews are in view is confirmed by the emphasis on Eig 'ta E0vrl in the continuation of the present sentence (v 14); cf. T& Jt&vta in v 22 (avvexXELoEV f yQUq Ta Jt&via vJto a,µaet(av) and the inclusive language and argument of vv 23-27; 4:4-6. (Cf. G. Howard, Crisis, 59.)

3:14 tva Eic to eOvrI i OkOyia tov 'A(3eaaµ yEvl)TaL Ev Xetotw 'Ir)oov. The two Na clauses of v 14 are co-ordinate: both express the purpose of Christ's redemptive death-the one in more general terms, the other in a more specific interpretation. The `blessing of Abraham' (i.e. the blessing promised to Abraham) which is granted to faith replaces the `curse' incurred under the law; this reinforces the effectiveness of Gn. 15:6 (quoted in v 6) as a solvent to the apparent contradiction between Hab. 2:4b and Lv. 18:5 (cf. H.-J. Schoeps, Paul, 177f.).

The law makes a distinction between the people of Israel, to whom it was given, and the Gentiles, to whom it was not given. But the promise to Abraham explicitly embraced the Gentiles (Jt&vta T& e0vq) within its scope; they were to have a share in the blessing promised to him. Their share in his blessing was confirmed to them `in Christ Jesus', not only because he was the one who redeemed his people from the curse of the law but also (as is declared in v 16) because he was the offspring of Abraham in whom, according to a further (oat.tct) elaboration of the promise, all the Gentiles were to be blessed.

The repetition of the promise to Abraham, after the offering up of Isaac, in the form EveuXoyr)6r)oovtuL ev t1 oJnEeµaT( oov n&vta to P9vr) (Gn. 22:18) has suggested to some commentators that Paul has the narrative of the binding of Isaac (agedat yishaq) in mind here. Cf. N. A. Dahl: `Apart from Ro 8:32 the clearest Pauline allusion to Gn 22 is found in Gal 3:13-14' ('The Atonement-An Adequate Reward for Akedah?' in Black FS [1], 23). Dahl indeed sees a possible link between `a man hanging on a tree' and `a ram caught in a thicket' (Gn. 22:13); this, however, is far-fetched. M. Wilcox (' "Upon the Tree"..:, 97) prefers to link the ~vXov of Gal. 3:13 with the ~vXa laid on Isaac in Gn. 22:6a, 7b, 9; cf. Gen. Rab. 56:4 (on Gn. 22:6), where Isaac carries the wood `like one who carries his cross (s`'lubo) on his shoulder'. C. H. Cosgrove ('The Mosaic Law Preaches Faith: A Study in Galatians 3', WTJ 41 [1978-79], 146-171) goes so far as to find an `implicit Isaac-Christ typology' throughout vv 13-29. But Isaac personally does not figure in the present argument: indeed, both in On. 22:18 and here Abraham's `offspring' belongs to future generations, although Isaac is the indispensable link between Abraham and that more distant offspring. See further on 4:22ff.

But in what form does the `blessing of Abraham' now come on believing Gentiles? The answer to this question is supplied in the second tva clause: tva rv roar#EX(av tov nvrvtatog Xa(3w.trv SLa tits Jt(otrwg. (The article tf s before JtlotEwc probably points back to Ex rtiotr(Os in vv 7, 9, 1If.) The substance of the 'promise' is the gift of the Spirit or (according to the variant reading Evkoy(av, which is probably an inadvertent assimilation to the preceding clause and not a deliberate Marcionism) the promised 'blessing' is the gift of the Spirit. The Galatians have already been reminded in v 2 that it was by the message of faith that they received the Spirit.

According to N. A. Dahl (`The Atonement ..: ), this second rvu clause is Paul's interpretative comment on `a fragment of pre-Pauline tradition' preserved in 3:13, 14a, by which he `identifies the blessing of Abraham with the Spirit, given as a down-payment even to Gentile believers' (23). Whereas the pre-Pauline tradition makes Christ liberate his people from the curse incurred by transgression of the law, Paul sees him as liberating his people from the law itself. But the distinction here envisaged by Dahl probably did not exist in Paul's mind: as Paul saw it, the curse was incurred by all who are i Epycov voµov, transgressors or not (v 10).

Our receiving the blessing because Christ endured the curse is a notable example of the gospel principle of 'interchange', as expounded by M. D. Hooker: 'Paul does not explain how one who is made a curse becomes a source of blessing; but since it is "in Christ" that the blessing comes, and since it is by being identified with the one true descendant of Abraham that Jews and Gentiles receive the promise, it is clear that the curse has been annulled-transformed into blessing. This can only be through the resurrection: the judgement of the Law-that Christ was under a curse-has been withdrawn; God himself has vindicated his Son as righteous, and those who have faith in him are reckoned righteous and live' ('Interchange and Atonement', BJRL 60 [1977-78], 470f.; cf. also her `Interchange in Christ', JTS n.s. 22 [1971], 356f.).

So, Abraham by faith received justification and the promise of blessing; now that Christ has accomplished his redemptive work, Abraham's children (cf. v 7), likewise by faith, receive justification and the promised blessing-the gift of the Spirit. They receive this blessing, moreover, in Christ Jesus', the Son of Abraham-as it is written, `In your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.'

(e) The priority and permanence of the promise (3:15-18)

My brothers, I use a human analogy. Even when it is a human being's testament that is involved, no one (else) annuls it or adds a codicil to it once it has been validated. Now it was to Abraham and to his 'offspring' that the promises were spoken. It does not say, 'And to (your) offsprings', as though referring to many individuals, but 'And to your offspring', with reference to one person, namely Christ. What I mean is this: the testament or covenant, which was validated in advance by God, cannot be invalidated by the law (which was given four hundred and thirty years later), as though the effect of the law were to make the promise null and void. For if the inheritance were based on law, it would no longer be based on promise. But it is by a promise that God has granted it to Abraham.

TEXTUAL NOTES

v 16 os/oD* 81 Iren"ItTert/ouG

v 17 OEOV P46 K A B W pc latr v6 / Orov etc Xetatov D G I byz latvet syr

3:15 'A8EXcpoi, xa'ta 6v0(JwJtov 4y(0. Paul speaks xa'ta avOptwJtov when he draws an analogy from human life, as here (cf. I Cor. 9:8), uses a figure of speech (cf. 1 Cor. 15:32) or quotes a current argument which he repudiates so vigorously that he apologizes for referring to it (cf. Rom. 3:5).

The present analogy is drawn from judicial practice: if his readers, despite all that has been said above, persist in appealing to the law, let them consider that the divine promise was embodied in a settlement which was made long before the giving of the law and which therefore cannot be annulled or even modified by the law. Among studies of Paul's references to judicial practice in this epistle see A. Halmel, Ober romisches Recht im Galaterbrief.• Eine Untersuchung zur Geschichte des Paulinismus (Essen, 1895); D. Walker, `The Legal Terminology in the Epistle to the Galatians', The Gift of Tongues and Other Essays (Edinburgh, 1906), 81-175. (Walker, following Halmel, finds Paul's legal terminology here to be Roman, as against Ramsay, Galatians, 349-375, who argues that it is basically Greek.)

oµws, `nevertheless', comes strangely in its present position (but cf. 1 Cor. 14:7). It might be explained as being displaced: `though it be but a man's testament, nevertheless no one annuls it once it is proved.' On the other hand, it might be accented oµws and translated `likewise': `(As with God's covenant), so likewise a human testament is not annulled.' (cf. BDF 450.2). This is not so probable here as it is in 1 Cor. 14:7.

&vOpthJtov xsxvpwµevrly 8taOtjxr)v. Since it is a human analogy that Paul is using, 8t071xq in the immediate context is likely to have its current secular sense of `will', `testamentary disposition', rather than its distinctively biblical sense of `covenant'. The distinctively biblical sense arises from the LXX employment of 8taOtjxrl as the equivalent of Heb. berit, `covenant'.

Yet it was the biblical use that suggested to Paul his discussion of the bta"xrl at this point. The promise to Abraham was confirmed by a covenant, in which God undertook to give the holy land to his descendants in perpetuity (Gn. 15:18-21; 17:2-14). One clause in the covenant promise of Gn. 17:4, `you shall be the father of a multitude of nations' (ro7,,7 ov EOvwv), was to be exploited by Paul in Rom. 4:17 to show that Abraham was the father of Gentile believers (which he maintains here on a more general basis; cf. v 7 above).

The 8ta0tilxrl (b`'rrt) made with Abraham had this in common with an ordinary testament, that it was largely concerned with inheritance (x).rlpovos(a, v 18)-the inheritance to be received by Abraham's descendants being, accord ing to Paul, the twofold blessing of justification by faith and the gift of the Spirit.

Throughout the OT, the b`'rit made by God with his people is regularly a `covenant of grant', a settlement graciously bestowed by the superior party on an inferior. It has been widely argued that the OT `covenant' formulary is modelled on the `vassal treaty' current in the ancient Near East, in which an imperial suzerain brought a lesser power into treaty relationship with himself, promising protection and help in return for such services as the lesser power was in a position to render; cf. G. E. Mendenhall, Law and Covenant in Israel and the Ancient Near East (Pittsburgh, 1955); K. Baltzer, The Covenant Formulary, ETr (Oxford, 1971). This was on a different footing from a `parity covenant', a treaty between equals or near-equals such as the Israelites were forbidden to make with the Canaanites (Ex. 23:32)-because it would infringe the covenant which their divine suzerain had established with them-or that which successive kings of Damascus made with successive kings of Judah (1 Ki. 15:19). The `statutes' (debarim) of the OT law-codes-'Thou shalt (not)...'-are patterned rather on the vassal treaty formulations than on the ancient Near Eastern law-codes with their casuistic ('If a man...') form (cf. the Heb. mispatim of, e.g., Ex. 21:2-22:17).

Outstanding OT covenants are those made by God with Noah (Gn. 9:9-17), with Abraham and his family (Gn. 15:18-21; 17:2-14), with Israel in the days of Moses (Ex. 19:5f.; 24:3-8; 34:10; Dt. 29:1), and with David and his house (2 Sa. 23:5; Is. 55:3). It is by contrast with the covenant of Moses' day that the new covenant foretold by Jeremiah is to be established in perpetuity (Je. 31:31-34; cf. 2 Cor. 3:2-14; Heb. 8:6-9:22).

All this, however, has little to do with Paul's present argument. He is concerned not with the treaty-form of covenant but with a will or testament, which was one form of a unilateral StuOrlxrl, a disposition or settlement.

ovBEis &OEtE6, `no one annuls'. When a deed of settlement is properly signed, sealed and delivered and the property legally conveyed, not even the original owner can revoke it or alter its terms. As for a testamentary disposition, Roman law and most other systems permitted the testator to cancel or modify it (by codicils or otherwise) at any point during his lifetime, but only with his death could it be validated (xvpoUo0cu). By that time he was no longer in a position to change it, and no one else was allowed to do so. Paul does not say in so many words, as the writer to the Hebrews says, that a will becomes effective only when the testator's death is registered (Heb. 9:16f.); he assumes it as something that is universally known, whereas it is an essential link in the argument of Heb. 9:15-22.

W. M. Ramsay (Galatians, 353) argued that the judicial references in this epistle were not to Roman law but to Greek law modified by local usage. He drew (especially with regard to the law affecting inheritance) on K. G. Bruns and E. Sachau (ed.), Syrisch-romisches Rechtsbuch aus dem funften Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1880), although he preferred to call the work the `Graeco-Syrian' lawbook. According to Ramsay, the validation of a will, in many cities throughout the Greek world, depended on its being duly registered and deposited (either in original or in a certified copy) in the public record office. Once this was done, not even the testator was permitted to alter it, unless such permission had been expressly written into it. This irrevocable character attached to a will especially where the inheritance of sons was concerned-above all (and this is particularly important in reference to the vioOw(a of 4:5) where the inheritance of adopted sons was concerned. L. Mitteis, Reichsrecht and Volksrecht in den ostlichen Provinzen des romischen Kaiserreichs (Leipzig, 1891), 213ff., quotes a relevant passage from Lucian, The Disinherited, 12, which shows how in the Greek world the rights of an adopted son were even more secure than those of a son by birth.

The evidence adduced by Ramsay is important, but it can support nothing like the weight which he placed on it; in particular, it has no real bearing (as he supposed it to have) on the validity of the South Galatian hypothesis of the destination of the letter. His arguments were subjected at the time to meticulous scrutiny by P. W. Schmiedel ('Galatia', Enc Bib, 1608- 1611) and shown to be far less conclusive than Ramsay maintained.

71 E7riStat6ooEtat, 'or adds a codicil to it'. The compound verb (cf. v 19 for the simpler Stat&aaw) has been found thus far in Christian writings only; this is its earliest extant literary attestation. The testator in Roman law could add a codicil at any time that he chose, but after his death (or before it, for that matter) nobody else might do so. Ramsay maintained that in the Greek procedure which he thought to be in view here it was permissible to execute an itiStaOrlxrl or supplementary will (e.g. making provision for a second son and heir by adoption), but even that could not revoke the terms of the first will. An example of an EJttStaOixrl is Papyrus 21 (126 BC) in B. P. Grenfell (ed.), An Alexandrian Erotic Fragment and Other Greek Papyri (Oxford, 1896), 44-48. (The noun En1StaOrlxrl is used in the plural by Josephus, Ant. 17.226, of the last codicil to Herod's will, in which Archelaus was nominated king in place of Antipas. As Herod and his sons were Roman citizens, his will was drawn up and executed in accordance with Roman law.)

E. Bammel, `Gottes 8ta0rlxrl (Gal. iii. 15-17) and das jiidische Rechtsdenken', NTS 6 (1959-60), 313-319, argues that Paul has neither Greek nor Roman analogies in mind, but the Jewish institution of the matte'nat bari, the irrevocable `gift of a healthy person', in contrast to the last will and testament of someone at the point of death.

3:16 Tw Se 'A(3ea6cµ £e@EOilaav al t;rrayyr).(at xai Tw WWt>reµatt avtov. The promise embraces not only Abraham but his posterity. If in On. 18:18 it is in (or with) Abraham that all the nations of the earth will be blessed, in Gn. 22:18 the promise runs: `In your offspring (aneeµa) all the nations of the earth will be blessed' (cf. Gn. 26:4b; 28:14). In Gn. 22:18 (and 26:4b) the Hebrew conjugation is the reflexive Hithpael (hitbareku), not Niphal, but even so it is represented by the passive in the LXX. In Sir. 44:21 (evEvkoyrl671vat eOvrl a v Ttu oats Q tats avtov) the Hebrew text as well as the Greek translation seems to indicate that the nations would be the objects of the blessing, if lbrk bzr'w gwym be vocalized lebarek [infinitive Piel, rather than Niphal libbarek for lehibbarek] bezar`o goyim (`to bless the nations in his offspring').

In the Genesis narrative the patriarchal promises relate in part to the land (Gn. 12:7; 13:15, 17; 26:4; 28:13) and in part to other aspects of the heritage (especially the universal blessing). But where the promises are given to Abraham's offspring (t4 oJtepµati avtov, as Paul says here), and not to others in or with Abraham's offspring, the reference is to the land ('To your offspring I will give this land', Gn. 12:7; cf. 13:15; 15:18; 17:8; 24:7, etc.). The reference to the land, however, plays no part in the argument of Galatians; in Rom. 4:13 it appears as `the promise to Abraham and his offspring, that he should inherit the world' (tb xXr1eov6µov avtbv Elvat xootov)-a promise fulfilled (like the twin-promise that in Abraham and his offspring all nations would be blessed) in the worldwide expansion of the gospel through the Gentile mission. (The writer to the Hebrews, for his part, interprets the promise of the land in terms of `a better country, that is, a heavenly one' [Heb. 11:16]). For Paul's present argument the promise to Abraham's offspring, as to Abraham himself, is the promise that in the one, as in the other, all the nations will be blessed.

On the patriarchal promises see J. Hoftijzer, Die Verheissungen an die drei Erzvater (Leiden, 1956); D. J. A. Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch (Sheffield, 1978), 26f., 29, 31-43, 81-96, 111-118; C. Westermann, The Promises to the Fathers: Studies on the Patriarchal Narratives, ETr (Philadelphia, 1980).

ov XEyEt, Kai tots attEpµaoLv, ws End rro??v, &XX' ws Ecp' avos, Kai tw aJn>etat( Gov, os EotLv Xelatos. The subject of XEyEi is either o Oros or (as in v 8) rl Yeacprl. The repeated 6g, indicating the subjective motivation or intention of the subject, may be construed with the understood participle k ywv or (if the implied subject be f`l Yea(prl) Xyovoa. The relative os, instead of agreeing in gender with its antecedent aatEpµatt, is attracted in gender to the following XeLotos (unless we are dealing with a sense construction, as in 4:19).

There is no need to make heavy weather of Paul's insistence that the biblical text has aatEpµatL (singular) and not anarpµaaty (plural). The essence of his argument can be expressed quite acceptably if it is pointed out that the biblical text uses a collective singular ('offspring') which could refer either to a single descendant or to many descendants. In the first instance the reference is to a single descendant, Christ, through whom the promised blessing was to come to all the Gentiles. In the second instance the reference is to all who receive this blessing; in v 29 all who belong to Christ are thereby included in Abraham's offspring. Paul was well aware that the collective noun could indicate a plurality of descendants as well as a single descendant. So, in Rom. 4:18, he identifies Abraham's offspring of Gn. 15:5 with the many nations of Gn. 17:5, interpreting the latter as Gentile believers.

The plural orrata does occur in the LXX (as in Lv. 26:16), but with the sense `varieties of seed', which is irrelevant where human offspring is in view.

A. Halmel ((Jber romisches Recht...), who regarded all Paul's judicial analogies in this epistle as framed on Roman procedure, argued that the singular anaeµa, with reference to a particular individual, conformed to Roman practice, in which a bequest could not be made to an undefined plurality but to a certa persona (cf. summary in D. Walker, `Legal Terminology', 105-107). But Paul is now concerned with biblical exegesis, not with judicial analogies, and parallels to his exegetical argument are more readily found in Jewish than in Roman sources. Arguments based on the singular or plural of Heb. zera' ('seed') occur in m. Shab. 9:2 and b. Shab. 84b (on Is. 61:11), as on the singular or plural of dam ('blood') in Gen. Rab. 22:9 (on Gn. 4:10; 2 Ki. 9:26; 2 Ch. 24:25). Cf. Philo, Mut. Nom. 145, where much is made of the fact that in Gn. 17:16 LXX Abraham is promised not JtoXX i tExva ('many children') by Sarah but ti xvov ('a child'), `because excellence cannot be estimated by number but rather by value'. This kind of argument might have weighed more with some of Paul's opponents than any number of analogies from Greek or Roman law.

In Jewish exegesis it is recognized that zera' usually refers to a plurality of descendants. Thus the various Targums generally render Heb. zar'"kd ('your seed') in the promise to Abraham by Aram. bNnayk ('your children'). There are places, however, where it is recognized that the biblical context points to an individual: thus in Gn. 4:25 `another seed' (zera` 'aher, LXX o7n£pµa iTc ov) is Seth, in Gn. 21:12, 13 Abraham's `seed' is respectively Isaac and Ishmael, in 2 Sa. 7:12-15 David's `seed' is primarily Solomon. In the NT, as Solomon in Nathan's oracle is swallowed up in the coming Messiah (cf. the application of 2 Sa. 7:14 to Christ in Heb. 1:5b, a form of exegesis anticipated in 4QFlor. 1:10f.), so Isaac, as Abraham's `seed', is swallowed up in Christ, in whom the promise to Abraham (xai 'uu on£pµ.atL av'rov) reached its fruition. M. Wilcox ('The Promise of the "Seed" in the NT and the Targumim', JSNT, Issue 5 [October 1979], 2-20) draws attention to the paraphrase of the promise to Abraham in Jub. 16:17f. (`from the sons of Isaac one should become a holy seed, and should not be reckoned among the Gentiles; for he should become the portion of the Most High, and all his seed... should be unto the Lord a people for [his] possession above all nations and... a kingdom of priests and a holy nation') and Ps.-Philo, LAB 8:3, '"unto thy seed will I give this land; and thy name shall be called Abraham, and Sarai thy wife shall be called Sarah. And I will give thee of her an eternal seed and make my covenant with thee" And Abraham knew Sarah his wife, and she conceived and bore Isaac' (who is thus apparently equated with the `eternal seed'). These late texts seem to envisage one pre-eminent descendant of Abraham through whom the promise made regarding his `seed' would be fulfilled.

See further D. Daube, `The Interpretation of a Generic Singular', The NT and Rabbinic Judaism (London, 1956), 438-444.

3:17 iouTo Sa; XEyw, `What I mean is this': the promise to Abraham was complete in itself, and had all the confirmation it required from the authority of God who made it (cf. Heb. 6:13-18). The prefix Jtpo-in ateoxExupwµevT1v indicates that it was validated at the time it was given, long before the law. Nothing of later date, therefore, can invalidate the promise or in any way make it less secure than it was when Abraham first received it. The law was given in Moses' day, much later than the promise to Abraham-430 years later, according to the LXX reading of Ex. 12:40, which includes in that figure the patriarchs' sojourning in Canaan as well as their descendants' residence in Egypt. (In the MT the interval between the promise and the law was more like 645 years; in Seder 'Olam 3 the 430 years are reckoned from the covenant of Gn. 15 to the exodus.) The law therefore cannot annul or weaken the promise; and the gospel, with its corollaries of justification and the gift of the Spirit, is the fulfilment of the promise.

R. E. Clements (Abraham and David, 57f.) finds an OT antecedent to Paul's contrast between the covenant of law made at Sinai and the covenant of promise made to Abraham in the contrast between the Deuteronomic emphasis on the covenant of Horeb-Sinai and the Priestly interpretation which gave primacy to the Abrahamic covenant, with its permanent validity. `The Abrahamic covenant stood as a witness to the primacy of grace in all God's dealings with his people Israel, and testified to the belief that election was an act of God, and not a state to which men could attain by their obedience to a law.'

H.-J. Schoeps compares Paul's appeal from the law back to the Abrahamic promise with Jesus' appeal from the law back to the creation ordinances-in relation, e.g., to the sabbath (Mk. 2:27) and to marriage (Mk. 10:5-9)-and finds a common principle in both ('Restitutio principii als kritisches Prinzip der nova lex Jesu', Ausfi hchristlicherZeit [Tubingen, 1950], 271). Cf. also D. Daube, `Evangelisten and Rabbinen', ZNW 48 (1957), 119-126, especially 125f.

3:18 El yap Ex v6ltov iI xXlQovoµla, ovxett i btayyExlag, `for if the inheritance were based on law, it would no longer be based on promise'. The inheritance has been implied in vv 15-17: promises made with regard to a man's descendants involve the principle of inheritance. If the inheritance of Abraham's descendants were based on law-more specifically, the Mosaic law-then it would belong to the people of the law (cf. v 10, 6001 ... > ieYwv vbµov Eka(v), i.e. the Jewish nation. But if it is based on the promise made to Abraham, generations before the giving of the law, then the law cannot affect it. It belongs to the people of faith (cf. v 7, of ex n(atE(0s) who, whether of Gentile or Jewish birth, are the true children of Abraham. And it is certainly on promise that the inheritance is based: u3 be 'A(3ea6µ St' i;JtayyeX(ag XExaetatat 6 9E6s-by promise, and therefore by faith, for it was on account of his faith in the promise of God that Abraham was justified (v 6). The perfect xExaetorau implies that God not only granted the inheritance to Abraham in the past but continues to make it good to his descendants. The promise to Abraham was entirely a covenant of grant (cf. K. M. Campbell, `Covenant or Testament?' EQ 44 [1972], 107-111, especially 108).

A. Halmel (Uber romisches Recht ...) argued that Paul treats the law as a codicil to the promise, in accordance with the clear direction in Roman law that a codicil cannot affect inheritance (cf. Gaius, Inst. 2.273, `codicillis heres non instituitur'; Justinian, Inst. 2.25.2, `codicillis hereditas neque dari neque adimi potest'). `Thus the legal inferiority of a codicil as compared with a will illustrates the inferiority and transitoriness of the Law as compared with the Promise' (D. Walker, `Legal Terminology', 111, summarizing Halmel). But it is as certain as anything can be that Paul did not regard the law as a codicil to the promise. It was a completely different instrument, quite unrelated to the promise, introduced for a distinct purpose, as Paul now goes on to say.

(f) The purpose of the law (3:19-22)

What was the purpose of the law, then? It was added for the sake of transgressions, until the coming of the offspring to whom the promise had been made. It was administered through angels, by the agency of a mediator. Now a mediator is not for one party (only), but God is one. Is the law then contrary to the promises [of God]? Far from it! If a law had been given that was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law. But scripture has confined all under (the power of) sin in order that the promise might be given to believers on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ.

TEXTUAL NOTES

v 19 voµos; twv napa(3aocwv xapty JtpooEtrOr) / voµos; cwv 3tapa600ewv xaety ETEO1 D: / voµos; twv Jrpa~rwv xapty ETEO1J lat't'" / voµos rwv Jreal;Ewv; P46 / voµos twv npa~EWv; EtEOTI G Iren'a' Ambst

v 21 tov OEov K A C D G (om tov) W byz lat syr cop arm Ambst Chrys Hier Aug / tov XpLotov 104 / om P46 B lat'' P Ambst M.Vict

Ex voµov av rlv A C at / ctv Ex voµov rlv K L P byz / Ex voµov rlv av K at / Ex voµov rev D al / Ex voµov G / Ev voµw rlv av P46 / ev voµw av rlv B

3:19 t( ovv o voµos; To the question `Why then the law?' (here the ellipsis of the verb is as natural in English as in Greek) two answers are given: (i) to multiply (and even to stimulate) transgressions; (ii) to confine all in the prisonhouse of sin, from which there is no exit but the way of faith.

tcuv Jtapa(36.cEwv x&ety, `that is, in order that there might be transgressions, the conscious disobeying of definite commandments' (C. E. B. Cranfield, `St. Paul and the Law', SJT 17 [1964], 46). xapty expresses purpose, not antecedent cause. The law was brought into the situation as an additional factor, in order to produce transgressions. Compare the argument of Rom. 4:15; 5:12-21: `where there is no law, there is no transgression' (Jrap6c(3aots), but `law came in by a side road (Jta@EtofiXOEv) to increase the trespass (JtctQ J rwµa)'. That the promulgation of specific enactments creates a corresponding category of specific violations, with opportunity (and perhaps temptation) to commit these violations, is a fact of human experience. But Paul's statement goes beyond this: the purpose of the law was to increase the sum-total of transgression.

Cranfield adds that the law `also increases sin in the sense that it makes men sin more', especially because it tempts sinful men `to try to use it as a means to the establishment of a claim upon God', which he regards as the essence of legalism ('St. Paul and the Law', 46f.). Cf. 1 Cor. 15:56, `the power of sin is the law'.

H. Hubner asks whose purpose it was that the law should produce transgressions, and finds the answer to his question in the following reference to angels. It was the angels who planned by means of the law to incite human beings to commit acts of transgression. Such angels are to be regarded as demonic beings who, unlike God, desired men's downfall, not their welfare (Das Gesetz bei Paulus, 28f.). `It is evident', he adds (33), `that Paul's whole course of argument here concerning the purpose of the law has a blasphemous sound in Jewish ears; it must shock Jews as such and not merely the Pharisaic section' But even if he is right in discerning the angels' hostile intention, their intention is viewed as overruled, if not directed, by God for the accomplishment of his purpose. Even in Galatians the law is ultimately God's law (if only by implication). E. P. Sanders (PPJ, 550) concedes that Paul makes an extreme statement here `in the heat of the argument', but finds evidence of `soberer reflection' in Rom. 2:13; 10:2; Phil. 3:6.

There is, indeed, not much difference between this statement and that of Rom. 5:20a, except that there is no word of angels there. When Paul says that the law `was added' (npoarreOrl), he does not mean that it was added to the promise as a kind of supplement to it; he means that it was added to the human situation for a special purpose-a purpose totally different from that of the promise. The use of the verb na@Elos pxo tat (cf. its sinister nuance in 2:4 above) in Rom. 5:20a ('the law came in by a side road') provides an apt comment on the sense of neooEtEOi here.

Several Western witnesses to the text exhibit the simple verb E'tEOtl ('was laid down') in place of npooEt> Orl, but this variant is usually combined with an alteration of Jtapa0aoEwv designed to remove what a scribe or editor felt to be the scandalous statement that the purpose of the law was the production of transgressions. The alteration of itapa(3aoEwv to ataeaSooEwv made the purpose of the law the creation of traditions (presumably in the sense of 1:14); its replacement by rtpa~cwv yielded a reference to the `law of works'.

&XoLS ov iXOrl to onepµa w enrly'EXtat, `until the coming of (Abraham's) offspring to whom the promise had been made', i.e. Christ (cf. v The 16). perfect emyyeXtaL either has pluperfect force or, like the perfect xaxa@Lotut in v 18, it emphasizes the abiding validity of the promise.

The law, then, was to remain in force until the coming of Christ; this is repeated in greater detail in vv 23-25. The suggestion has been made that Paul's Jewish education had taught him that the law would be abrogated with the advent of the messianic age, so that, when he was persuaded that Jesus was the Messiah, he drew the logical conclusion. There was an early Jewish doctrine of three epochs in world-history-the age of chaos, the age of law, and the messianic age-each lasting for 2,000 years, after which the eternal sabbath rest would be enjoyed (b. Sanh. 97a; m. Tamid 7:4). This doctrine was said to emanate from `the school of Elijah'-a phrase which denotes the same kind of antiquity for haggadah as `a commandment of Moses from Sinai' denotes for halakhah (W. Bacher, Tradition and Tradenten [Frankfurt, 1914], 25ff., 233f.). For one brought up in this doctrine it followed that, `if the "Days of the Messiah" have commenced, those of the Torah came to their close. On the other hand, if the Law, the Torah, still retained its validity, it was proclaimed thereby that the Messiah had not yet arrived' (L. Baeck, `The Faith of Paul', JJS 3 [1952], 106; cf. H.-J. Schoeps, Paul, 171 ff. ). For a comprehensive discussion see W. D. Davies, Torah in the Messianic Age and/or the Age to Come (Philadelphia, 1952).

But the question of Paul's earlier instruction on this subject is of minor importance: the logic which impelled him to the conviction that Christ had displaced the Torah was the logic of his Damascus-road conversion. See note on 1:8f. above.

StazaYEls bt' &yyeXwv, `administered through angels'; cf. Stephen in Acts 7:53 (Els btataY&S &yy9kwv), also Heb. 2:2, where the law is `the word spoken through angels' (6 bt' &yysX(ov kakilOEIg Xoyos).

The angelic administration of the law finds no place in the OT. The nearest thing to it is the description of the theophany in Dt. 33:2, `Yahweh came from Sinai, ... he came from his holy myriads; from his right hand came a fiery law for them.' The phrase `a fiery law' (Heb. 'es dat) is of uncertain meaning; the LXX renders the clause ex SE~Lcuv avrov &yyEXot tet' aOZOV ('at his right hand were angels with him'). `It is probable', wrote John Calvin, `that both Paul and Stephen derived from this passage their statement that the law was "ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator", for its authority was greatly confirmed by its having so many witnesses' (Harmony of the Last Four Books of the Pentateuch, ETr, IV [Edinburgh, 1855], 381).

Paul, like Stephen, refers to the angelic administration of the law as something well known. But it is difficult to find any extant reference to it before the date of this epistle. In Jub. 1:29ff. the angel of the presence takes the tablets ,of the law and of the testimony of the weeks' and dictates their contents to Moses; but this cannot be equated with the administration of the law Philo by angels. (Som. 1.141-143), discussing the angels seen by Jacob in his dream at Bethel, describes them as `mediators' (µEOitat) and says that it was to one of these mediators that the people said at Sinai, `You speak to us,... but let not God speak to us, lest we die' (Ex. 20:19)-although it was actually to Moses that this request was addressed. No more than the author of Jubilees does Philo speak of the angelic administration of the law. Comparison is also made with Test. Dan. 6:2, £yy(tete t4 0ew xal rw &yysX) tw napaLtovµevcu vµas ('draw near to God and to the angel who intercedes for you'), but this angel is `the mediator (tea(rrlc) of God and man for the peace of Israel' and champions Israel (like Michael in Dn. 12:1) against `the kingdom of the enemy'.

What may be the earliest non-biblical reference comes in a speech which Josephus (Ant. 15.136) puts into the mouth of Herod, of all people: `we have learned the noblest of our doctrines and the holiest of our laws through angels sent from God' (SL' &yyEXwv Jnaea tov OeoU)-although it has been held that the ayyEkoL here are human messengers, prophets (or priests); cf. R. Marcus in the Loeb edition of Josephus, VIII (London, 1963), 66f.; also W. D. Davies, `A Note on Josephus, Antiquities 15:136', HTR 47 (1954), 135-140, who is disposed to agree with Marcus that &yyEXoL may be prophets but concludes that, even if they are angels, this in no way implies a limited duration for the law which, for Josephus, 606vatos btaµhvEL (Ap. 2.277).

The tannaitic midrashim-Mek. on Ex. 20:18, Sipre Nu. 102 on Nu. 12:5 (cf. Pesiq. R. 21, 103a)-state, on the basis of Ps. 68:17, that God was attended at the law-giving on Sinai by myriads of angels but this, again, does not amount to their being the administrators of the law.

As for the NT references, Stephen's point is that the people showed their impiety by disregarding the law even though it was administered by beings as high and holy as angels, while the writer to the Hebrews argues that if `the word spoken through angels' was safeguarded by the severest sanctions, much more terrible must be the penalty for rejecting the saving message brought not by angels but by the Lord himself. Paul, for the polemic purposes of his present argument, uses the angelic administration as evidence of the inferiority of the law to the promise, which was given directly by God.

It has been asked if these administrators of the law should be thought of as good angels or bad angels. If they are the ministering angels who attended God when he appeared at Sinai, then they are ex hypothesi good angels, but some of the rabbis (e.g. Raba in b. Ber. 25b; RR. Joshua b. Levi and Judah b. Simon in Pesiq. R. 21, 97a; 25, 128a) suggested that they were not greatly pleased that God should give his law to human beings. According to A. Marmorstein, `Jews and Judaism in the Earliest Christian Apologies', Expositor, series 8, 17 (1919), 100-116 (especially 113), these suggestions `can only be understood as the denial of the often repeated idea that Moses received the Torah from the angels'.

tv (ELpi ieotov. The mediator has commonly been identified with Moses; cf. the repeated phrase Ev xELpi Mwvaew; in the LXX (Lv. 26:46; Nu. 4:37, etc.). Moses certainly was the Israelites' mediator with God throughout the wilderness wanderings; see Philo, Vit. Mos. 2.166 (lLEo(trl; xai SLaXXaxtrlc); also the certainly pre-Pauline Ass. Mos. 1:14, where Moses calls himself trio SLaOrlxrl; .EULtric (Greek as quoted by Gelasius Cyzicenus, Comm. Act. Syn. Nic. 2.18). It is plain in the Pentateuch that Moses served as go-between, receiving the law from God to give to the people (as in Dt. 5:5, `I stood between [6.v6. 1Eaov] Yahweh and you') and presenting their pleas to God (as in Dt. 5:22-31). A. Oepke (TDNT IV, 615, 618, s.v. t(J(trls) compares the application of the term sarsor ('agent', `commissioner') to Moses in rabbinical literature, e.g. by R. Samuel b. Isaac (c. AD 300) in j. Meg. 4.74d: `the Torah was given by the hand(s) of a sarsor' (a close equivalent to Paul's EvXELei [tEUCtov).

To some the Mosaic identification of the mediator here is obvious: `The reference is of course to the part played by Moses' (C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans, 858; similarly H. D. Betz, Galatians, 170). But to others the identification is not so clear: `The question of the identity of the "mediator" is even more fraught with problems' than the function of the angels (C. H. Cosgrove, `The Mosaic Law Preaches Faith', 158). In their view the `mediator' here is so closely associated with the angels that one might think more readily of the angels' mediator than of the Israelites' mediator. H.-J. Schoeps indeed holds that Paul viewed Moses as mediating between the angels and the people. Paul, however, has a further remark to make about the mediator.

3:20 6 SE [tEULtrlc tV6g o'Ux EorLV, 6 S:` OE6q EIS EatLV. The negative in the former clause goes logically with sv6S, but is attracted to the verb.

The two statements in v 20 are completely intelligible if each is taken by itself. It goes without saying that a mediator requires at least two parties between which he is to mediate; he cannot mediate on behalf of one party only. That God is one is the theological basis of Judaism and Christianity alike: et; o OEO; (Rom. 3:30); rlµfv EIS 6E6s o nat~e (1 Cor. 8:6). See E. Peterson, Ell OEOE (Gottingen, 1926).

It is the relation between the two clauses that constitutes the interpretative problem. In what way does the affirmation that God is one form an antithesis to what is said about the mediator? The number of solutions offered to the problem has been reckoned to exceed 300-one might wonder, indeed, if this is Robert Browning's `great text in Galatians' with its `twenty-nine distinct damnations' for the unwary exegete.

It is natural to suppose that Paul has in mind the fact that, in making his promise to Abraham, God acted unilaterally, in sovereign grace. In giving the law, he employed mediation; in bestowing the promise, he acted on his own, as one (Ets). No angelic intervention, no human mediation, was involved: God promised, and Abraham believed. But `God is one' would be a strange way of saying this.

A. Oepke (TDNT IV, 619, s.v. µco(trlS) takes Paul to mean: A mediator usually negotiates between two pluralities (here, the angels on the one side and the Israelites on the other). But God, being one and not a plurality, requires no mediator. To this it may be replied that a mediator may intervene as effectively between two individuals (cf. the mokiah, LXX Lco(Tls, of Jb. 9:33) as between one individual and a plurality (cf. 1 Tim. 2:5) or between two pluralities.

We can scarcely hope to grasp Paul's meaning unless we posit a logical relation between ivos in the former clause and eig in the latter. If a mediator is not `of one', whereas God is `one', it follows that the mediator to whom Paul refers here is not God's mediator.

Whose mediator is he, then? H. Lietzmann (An die Galater, 21f.) argues that, since he is not the mediator of one but of many, he must (in this case) be the representative not of God (who is one) but of the angels (who are many). G. Klein agrees and, taking Moses to be the mediator in question, concludes that Moses is here the `functionary' of the angels-the functionary, indeed, of powers opposed to God ('Individualgeschichte and Weltgeschichte bei Paulus', Rekonstruktion, 210).

But there is nothing in the context to warrant this view. Moses was in no way qualified to be the representative of angels; he was in every way qualified to be his people's representative, and indeed he served them effectively in this way on many occasions. Yet v 19 brings the tco(trls so closely into association with the angels that a µco(nig of the angels may well be implied. If the angels' µeolTrls was not Moses, who was he? A. Vanhoye (`Un mediateur des anges en Ga 3, 19-20', Bib. 59 [1978], 403-411) thinks of the angel of the presence who was with Moses in the wilderness and `who spoke to him at Mount Sinai', as Stephen says in the same sentence which states that Moses `received living oracles to give to us' (Acts 7:38; cf. Ex. 23:20f.; 32:34; 33:14). This angel, he suggests, was the µeo(T1ls of the angels as Moses was the teoitrls of the Israelites; he compares the roles of the two 'anse benayim in the valley of Elah, where Goliath represented the Philistines and David the Israelites, except that in the valley of Elah the two representatives clashed in conflict whereas at Sinai they met for communication (cf. 1 Sa. [LXX I Ki.] 17:4, 23; in v 23 LXXA renders 'is benavim by &v~p o &µeooaios, presumably a corruption of &v71p o µe(Yatog, `the middleman'). On the whole, Vanhoye's interpretation commends itself as the best solution of the problem.

Perhaps the point about the law is that it `was negotiated not directly between the principals but through deputies' (W. H. Isaacs, `Galatians iii.20', Exp Tim 35 [1923-24], 567). And a point to note about o µ£a('11; is that the article here is not generic: whatever be true of mediators in general, `the mediator' in this situation (the law-giving) is a representative not of one, but of many.

The one God is God of Jews and Gentiles alike (cf. Rom. 3:29f.). The law divided them; the gospel brings them together. And since the God of Jews and Gentiles is one, it is fitting that he should provide one way of salvation for both-the way of faith (cf. U. Mauser, `Galater iii.20: Die Universalitat des Heils', NTS 13 [1966-67], 258-270).

As for the law, it is shown to have been intrusive, temporary, secondary and preparatory. That is, says C. E. B. Cranfield (Romans, 858f.), the law apart from Christ-nuda lex, as Calvin styles it (Inst. 2.7.2). See notes below on 5:14 ('the whole law') and 6:2 ('the law of Christ').

3:216 ovv voµos xata T V EnayyEXI(nV; `Is the law then contrary to the promises?' The direction of the argument thus might prepare us for an affirmative answer, rather than for Paul's emphatic µl71 y>volto. This is not the only place in his writings where Paul repudiates an inference which might be drawn from his argument (cf., for a good parallel to this instance, Rom. 7:7). If the promises are God's promises, the law (even in Galatians) is God's law; they cannot therefore be opposed in principle to each other. Now, after interposing his µ7I yevoIto, he goes on, characteristically, to state his reason. True, he says (in a nearparenthesis), if a law had been given which could impart life, then righteousness (justification) would certainly be based on law. (This is another of the rare Pauline instances of an unfulfilled condition; cf. 1:10b.) But the law as a means of justification and life, in terms of Lv. 18:5 (cf. v 12 above), has been superseded by faith, in terms of Hab. 2:4b (cf. v 11 above); the conclusion is that, despite what is said in Lv. 18:5 (and in Rom. 7:10, f1 evtoXrl fl rLs ~(orlv), the law in fact proved unable to give life. Could it have given life, then indeed `Christ died in vain' (2:21). It proved, on the contrary, to lead to death: `the written code kills' (2 Cor. 3:6). The establishment of righteousness by faith as the way to life implies the inability and displacement of the law. Once again, l;wonolaw is practically synonymous with Slxalow. To be justified (by faith) is to receive life (by faith); `dikaiosyne, which often means the righteousness which leads to life, can become simply the equivalent of "life" ' (E. P. Sanders, PPJ, 503).

3:22 &XXa ovvex? eLoEv xtX. Paul goes on to show why the law, despite its purpose of producing transgressions, is not contrary to the promises. Since it is God's law, it serves as God's instrument to accomplish his purpose. It cannot of itself impart life, but (&),),,&) by showing the bankruptcy of human effort it shuts men and women up to the grace of God as their only hope.

The law does indeed produce transgressions, and by that very fact it demonstrates its inability to lead to justification and life. Those who use it as a way to justification and life are in fact misusing it; it is this misuse that nullifies the promise. What the law does is to bring to light the universal human plight: all are `under sin'. If, realizing this, men and women look round for a way of deliverance from their plight, they find it in the promise. Believing the promise, and the one who has made it, they are justified-justified by faith in Jesus Christ, in whom the promise and its fulfilment are embodied. Far from being against the promises, then, the law drives men and women to flee from its condemnation and seek refuge in the promises.

rl ypacpri, here tantamount to `the written law', concentrated in such an uncompromising form as Dt. 27:26 (quoted in v 10 above). It might indeed be held that, as in v 8, ri Yeacpri is practically equivalent to `God', who speaks in scripture (the more so since the verb ovvxXe(w is used similarly in Rom. 11:32, where God is the subject: `God has consigned them all to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all'). But here the figure of speech is more vivid than in v 8: the written law is the official who locks the law-breaker up in the prisonhouse of which sin is the jailor. Unlike zovs Jt&vias in Rom. 11:32, the more general to Jt&via here is neuter plural; it embraces the whole human situation-man and all his works-in the aeon which the gospel age has displaced. Those who come to their senses in the prison-house and recognize the hopelessness of their predicament will be the readier to embrace the promise of liberty and life: the law thus serves the interests of the promise-and of the beneficiaries of the promise.

into &µaptiav, cf. Rom. 3:9, navtag vcp' &µaptiav Eivat, `that all are under (the dominion of) sin'; 7:14, nEnpaµ> vog vno rIv &µapt(av, `sold under sin', `sold into the ownership of sin'. This is the first of a series of veto phrases; cf. vno voµov (v 23; 4:4f.), vno nai&aywyov (v 25), vno Enttponous xal otxovoµovc (4:2), vno t& atoiXEta tov xoaµov (4:3).

Ex Jr(otews 'IiIoov Xptotov. For the objective genitive see note on 2:16. The faith by which the true children of Abraham (v 6) inherit the promises made to Abraham and his posterity (v 16) is specifically identified as `faith in Jesus Christ', the wrwa tov 'A(3paaµ parexcellence. G. Howard (Crisis, 58, 65) takes the phrase to mean (as in 2:16) `through the faithful act of Christ'; but the following tots tiotEVOVOLv points in the other direction: `that the promise based on faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those exercising such faith'.

(g) Liberation from the law (3:23-25)

Before faith came we were guarded and confined under law, until the revelation of the faith that was to come. So the law has been our custodian until (the coming of) Christ, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian.

TEXTUAL NOTE

v 24 yryovev / ryeveto PI B Clem.Alex1aftnm

3:23 The sense of v 22 is here repeated in different terms. The `coming of faith'-the `faith in Jesus Christ' just mentioned (in other words, the gospel)may be understood both on the plane of salvation-history and in the personal experience of believers. On the plane of salvation-history the coming of faith coincides with the appearance of Christ, in whom the parenthetic age of law was displaced by the age of faith (cf. 4:4), which fulfils the promise made to Abraham. In the personal experience of believers it coincides with their abandonment of the attempt to establish a righteous standing of their own, based on legal works, and their acceptance of the righteousness which comes by faith in Christ (cf. Rom. 10:3f.; Phil. 3:9).

vno voµov EcppovpovµE9a avyxXEtoµsvot is remarkably parallel to the confinement of v 22, but here, instead of sin as the jailor, law is the warden or custodian-a distinction without much of a difference, so that the reader might be disposed to ask, like the imaginary interlocutor of Rom. 7:7, `Is the law sin?' To be into voµov in the sense of v 23 is another way of expressing the experience of being vno &µapt(av in the sense of v 22. To be `under law' is in practice to be `under sin'-not because law and sin are identical, but because law, while forbidding sin, stimulates the very thing that it forbids. Cf. Rom. 6:14, where it is because `you are no longer under law, but under grace', that `sin shall not have dominion over you'-the implication being that sin has dominion over men and women so long as they are `under law'. As will be seen in 4:4, one purpose of the coming of Christ is the redemption of his people from their bondage `under law'.

As Gentiles and Jews alike are `confined under sin' in v 22, so Gentiles and Jews alike are `confined under law' here. For the sense in which Gentiles could be regarded as being `under law' see note on v 13 above. G. Howard (Crisis, 60-64) maintains that the law is the law of Moses, whether Gentiles or Jews are said to be under it-not in the sense that all are subject to its specific demands, but in the sense that `the law is a suppressor and a restrainer of mankind'; men and women are suppressed under its tyranny, but are released from that tyranny by Christ. The law kept the Gentiles out of the privileges of the people of God and kept Israel apart from the rest of mankind; this divisive force has been overcome by the unifying effect of Christ's redemptive act.

Els ttv µhXXovoav 7t(otty &7toxaXucp&ivat. For the construction cf. Rom. 8:18, 7Ep6s t11v µhX? ouaav 66~av &7toxaXvcpOrlvat Els t [tag (for the more classical construction cf. I Pet. 5:1, tfs µe),Xovorls &7roxaXv(p671vat 66~rlg). The revelation of glory marks the consummation of Christ's saving work; the revelation of faith marks its inception.

3:24 cwaTE 6 voµos JtaLSaywyas 1"lµ(.ov yEyovsv E[S Xpto'tov. The naLSaywyos was the personal slave-attendant who accompanied the free-born boy wherever he went, from the time he left his nurse's care. It was his duty to teach the boy good manners (with the use of the birch, if necessary), take him to school (carrying his satchel and other effects), wait for him there, in the waiting room or in the 7ta1SaywyEtov, a place reserved specifically for 7taL8aywyo( (Dem. De Cor. 258), or even in the classroom itself (cf. the Duris cup [early 5th century BC] in E. Pottier, Douris et les peintres de vases grecs [Paris, 1905], 112, fig. 22), then take him home and test his memory by making him recite the lesson he had learned. During the boy's minority the na66aywy6s imposed a necessary restraint on his liberty until, with his coming of age, he could be trusted to use his liberty responsibly.

The 7taLbaywy6s, who, for all his disciplinary function, might establish a bond of close affection with his charge, was not an instructor, not a `pedagogue' in the modern sense. Paul does not ascribe an educative role to the law, unlike Plato, who regards the law as imparting 7taibEta (cf. Leg. 7.809a, [t6v vo.tocpv?axa] 7t6g &v rlµiv 6 v6[tog avtbs natSsv(JEiEV lxavths; `How would the law itself give an adequate education [to our guardian of the law]?'). The 7taLSE(a provided by wisdom in Proverbs is generally related by the rabbis to the instructive role of the Torah (see m. Ab. 3.18 for Aqiba's interpretation in this sense of Pr. 4:2, `I [Wisdom] give you good doctrine [a reference to `instruction' in the preceding verse, LXX 7ratbda]; forsake not my law'). Nor does Paul suppose that the presence of this 7taL6aywy65 will protect his charge from doing wrong, unlike Philo (Mut. Nom. 217), who assumes that this will be the effect of the presence of a 7tatbaywy65 (7raL6aywyov µev 7rap6vtos ovx av &µ&ptot 6 &y6.tvos, `when the 7taLbaywy6s is present his charge will not go astray').

A. Oepke (Galater, 86-88) mentions various kinds of 3taLbaywy65. Ancient authors disagree about their qualities. No doubt some were good and some were bad. A modern analogy is suggested by J. D. G. Dunn's use of the term 'baby-sitter'.

In the phrase Eig Xptat6v the preposition Etc has temporal force: `until Christ' (contrast NIV, `to lead us to Christ'). As the slave-attendant kept the boy under his control until he came of age, so the law kept the people of God in leading-strings until, with the coming of faith, they attained their 19, spiritual majority in Christ. Cf. V &xets ov E~.6rl td anepµa entjyyE?tat.

tva >x It(OTEW; 8Lxatw6Co[tEv. This clause amplifies the temporal phrase Eig XQLOt6v. The appearance of Christ gave effect to the purpose of God'that we (Jews and Gentiles without distinction) should be justified by faith', in accordance with the promise to Abraham. The justifying act of God in Christ obliterates the partition which the law erected between the two communities.

3:25 UOovorls Si;tfg JnlarEws ovxett vJtd 3rzatOaywy6v Eotrv, because with the coming of faith believers have come of age and no longer require to be under the control of a slave-attendant: vnd JtalOaywy6v has the same sense as vtto v6µov in v 23.-

To the figure of a prison warden, then, Paul adds that of a slave-attendant to describe the function of the law before the gospel age. Another, but related, figure is employed in 4:1f., but first he pauses to make one of his greatest affirmations about the new order of liberated existence 'in Christ'.

(h) Jews and Gentiles one in Christ (3:26-29)

For through faith you are all sons of God in Christ Jesus. All of you who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. (In him) there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor freeman, there is no 'male and female'; for in Christ Jesus you are all one. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.

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