Ver 18. _Law and Promise._--1. So subtle is the spirit of error that
it will seem to cede somewhat to truth, intending to prejudice the
truth more than if it had ceded nothing. The opposers of
justification by faith did sometimes give faith some place in
justification and pleaded for a joint influence of works and faith,
of law and promise. 2. The state of grace here and glory hereafter is
the inheritance of the Lord's people, of which the land of Canaan was
a type. There are only two ways of attaining a right to this
inheritance--one by law, the other by promise. 3. There can be no
mixture of these two, so that a right to heaven should be obtained
partly by the merit of works and partly by faith in the promise. The
only way of attaining it is by God's free gift, without the merit of
works.--_Fergusson._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 19, 20.
_The Inferiority of the Law._
+I. It did not justify but condemn the sinner by revealing his
sin.+--"It was added because of transgressions" (ver. 19). Law has no
remedial efficacy. It reveals and emphasises the fact of sin. It has
no terror while it is obeyed. When it is violated then it thunders,
and with pitiless severity terrifies the conscience and inflicts
unsparing punishment. There is no strain of mercy in its voice, or in
the inflexibility of its methods. It surrenders the condemned to an
anguish from which it offers no means of escape. It is said that,
after the murder of Darnley, some of the wretches who were concerned
in it were found wandering about the streets of Edinburgh crying
penitently and lamentably for vengeance on those who had caused them
to shed innocent blood.
+II. It was temporary in its operation.+--"Till the seed should come
to whom the promise was made" (ver. 19). The work of the law was
preparatory and educative. Centuries rolled away and the promised
Seed was long in coming, and it seemed as if the world must remain
for ever under the tutelage of the law. All the time the law was
doing its work. God was long in fulfilling His promise because man
was so slow to learn. When Christ, the promised Seed, appeared, the
law was superseded. Its work was done. The preparatory gave place to
the permanent; the reign of law was displaced by the reign of grace.
The claims of the law were discharged once for all.
+III. Its revelation was through intermediaries.+--"It was ordained
by angels in the hand of a Mediator" (ver. 19). In the Jewish
estimation the administration of the law by angels enhanced its
splendour, and the pomp and ceremony with which Moses made known the
will and character of Jehovah added to the impressiveness and
superiority of the law. In the Christian view these very methods were
evidences of defect and inferiority. The revelations of God by the
law were veiled and intermediate; the revelation by Grace is direct
and immediate. Under the law God was a distant and obscured
personality, and the people unfit to enter His sacred presence; by
the Gospel God is brought near to man and permitted to bask in the
radiance of His revealed glory, without the intervention of a human
mediator. The law, with its elaborate ceremonial and multiplied
exactions, is a barrier between the soul and God.
+IV. It was contingent, not absolute, in its primal terms.+--"Now a
Mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one" (ver. 20). Where a
mediator is necessary unity is wanting--not simply in a numerical but
in a moral sense, as a matter of feeling and of aim. There are
separate interests, discordant views, to be consulted. This was true
of Mosaism. It was not the absolute religion. The theocratic
legislation of the Pentateuch is lacking in the unity and consistency
of a perfect revelation. Its disclosures of God were refracted in a
manifest degree by the atmosphere through which they passed. In the
promise God spoke immediately and for Himself. The man of Abraham's
faith sees God in His unity. The legalist gets his religion at
second-hand, mixed with undivine elements. He projects on the Divine
image confusing shadows of human imperfection (_Findlay_).
+Lessons.+--1. _The law is powerless to remove the sin it exposes._
2. _The law had the defect of all preparatory dispensations._ 3. _The
law imposes conditions it does not help to fulfil._
_GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES._