3:6-14 The apostle proves the doctrine he had blamed the Galatians for rejecting; namely, that of justification by faith without the works of the law. This he does from the example of Abraham, whose faith fastened upon the word and promise of God, and upon his believing he was owned and accepted of God as a righteous man. The Scripture is said to foresee, because the Holy Spirit that indited the Scripture did foresee. Through faith in the promise of God he was blessed; and it is only in the same way that others obtain this privilege. Let us then study the object, nature, and effects of Abraham's faith; for who can in any other way escape the curse of the holy law? The curse is against all sinners, therefore against all men; for all have sinned, and are become guilty before God: and if, as transgressors of the law, we are under its curse, it must be vain to look for justification by it. Those only are just or righteous who are freed from death and wrath, and restored into a state of life in the favour of God; and it is only through faith that persons become righteous. Thus we see that justification by faith is no new doctrine, but was taught in the church of God, long before the times of the gospel. It is, in truth, the only way wherein any sinners ever were, or can be justified. Though deliverance is not to be expected from the law, there is a way open to escape the curse, and regain the favour of God, namely, through faith in Christ. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law; being made sin, or a sin-offering, for us, he was made a curse for us; not separated from God, but laid for a time under the Divine punishment. The heavy sufferings of the Son of God, more loudly warn sinners to flee from the wrath to come, than all the curses of the law; for how can God spare any man who remains under sin, seeing that he spared not his own Son, when our sins were charged upon him? Yet at the same time, Christ, as from the cross, freely invites sinners to take refuge in him.

Verse 11. - But that no man is justified by the Law in the sight of God, it is evident (ὅτι δὲ ἐν νόμῳ οὐδεὶς δικαιοῦται παρὰ τῷ Θεῷ); but that in the Law no man is justified with God, is evident. To "be justified" means to be brought out of a state of guiltiness and cursedness into a state of acceptance. The apostle, assuming that every one is guilty and under a curse, now shows that the Law offers no means of justification. "But." The apostle is meeting the notion that, though one who is of works of the Law is evermore threatened with a curse ready to light down upon him, and though the curse has been, as it cannot but have been, actually incurred, yet, by setting himself afresh to the endeavour and thenceforward continuing steadfast in all things written in the Law, he may thus win pardon and righteousness with God. To obviate this conception, without stopping to insist upon the fact that through indwelling sin no man possibly can continue in all the things written in the Law, he puts the notion aside by stating that this is not the method of justification which Scripture recognizes. This he shows by adducing that cardinal aphorism of Habakkuk, by which, as it should seem, the apostle was wont to substantiate the doctrine of justification by faith (comp. Romans 1:17; Hebrews 10:38). The way in which the passage is here introduced, almost as an obiter dictum, and as if not needing a formal indication of its coming out of Scripture, suggests the feeling that the passage, as taken in the sense in which the apostle reads it, was one already familiar to his readers, no doubt through his own former teaching. When in the Acts (Acts 13:39-41) we read that in the synagogue at the Pisidian Antioch, in close connection with the statement that through believing in Christ a man is justified, he cited another passage of Habakkuk (Habakkuk 1:5), denouncing unbelieving despisers, we cannot doubt that he had made good his statement about justification by alleging this same probative text. "In the Law;" that is, as being it. the sphere and domain of the Law. Compare the use of the same preposition: Romans 2:12, "As many as have sinned under [Greek, 'in'] the Law;" 3:19, "It saith to them that are under [Greek, 'in'] the Law." An exactly parallel construction is found in Acts 13:39, "From all things from which ye could not by [Greek, 'in'] the Law be justified." They could not as being in the Law find therein any means of gaining acceptance. "Is justified with God;" comes to be accounted righteous with him. "With God;" not merely outwardly, Levitically, in the judgment of a Levitical priest - but inwardly and in reality, in God's estimation. The preposition "with" (παρά) is used similarly in Romans 2:13, "For not the hearers of the Law are righteous with God;" 1 Corinthians 3:19, "The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." It is God himself that justifies the sinner (Romans 3:30; Romans 4:5); but the apostle does not write "is justified by God," because he is confronting the notion so natural to man, and above all, to the Judaizing legalist, that a man is to make himself righteous by doings - ceremonial or moral - of his own. For, The just shall live by faith (ὁ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται); the righteous by faith shall live. The apostle is not weaving the prophet's words into his own sentence simply as aptly expressing his own thought, but is citing them probatively as words of Scripture; as if he had said, "As Scripture saith, The righteous," etc. The same is the case with the words introduced in the next verse out of Leviticus; so Romans 9:7. In Romans 15:3 and 1 Corinthians 2:9 the apostle inserts, "according as it is written," as in parenthesis, before adding the words of Scripture in such a way as to form a continuation of his own sentence. "The righteous by faith shall live;" that is, the righteous man shall draw his life from his faith. It is generally agreed upon by Hebrew scholars that in the original passage (Habakkuk 2:4) the words, "by his faith" (or possibly, adopting another reading of the Hebrew text, "by my faith," that is, by faith in me) belong to "shall live," rather than to "the righteous" (see on this point Delitzsch on Hebrews 10:38, and Canon Cook on Habakkuk 2:4, in 'Speaker's Commentary'). And that St. Paul so understood it is made probable by the contrasted citation of" shall live in them "in the next verse. With this conjunction of the words, the passage suits the apostle's purpose perfect]y; for if it is by or from his faith that the righteous man lives, then it is by or from his faith that he gets to be accepted by God as righteous. The "faith" spoken of is shown by the context in Habakkuk to mean such reliance upon God as is of a steadfast character, and not a mere fleeting or occasional acceptance of God's promises as true. This is plainly the view of the passage which is taken by the Pauline writer of the Hebrews in Hebrews 10:38.

But that no man is justified,.... There are some that are justified, as all God's elect are, in his own mind and will from eternity; which will of his to justify them, upon the righteousness of his Son, undertook by him to bring in, is their justification in the court of heaven; and all that believe in Christ are openly and manifestly justified in the court of conscience, under the testimony of the Spirit of God: but no one is justified

by the law; it is in the Greek text, "in the law"; there were many justified before the law was given, as Noah, Job, Abraham, and all the Ante-Mosaic believers; and there were many justified "in", or under the legal dispensation; but none of them were justified by their obedience to the law, but by the righteousness they believed they had in the Lord: especially no man is justified

in the sight of God; who sees the heart, knows the spring of actions, and whose judgment is according to truth; that is, by the law and the deeds of it, however they may before men:

it is evident; it is a clear case, out of all dispute, as appears from Habakkuk 2:4

for the just shall live by faith; which may be read either, "the just by faith, shall live": that is, the man who is just by faith, or justified by faith, not by it as a principle or act, or as the cause or matter of his justification, but by the object of his faith, Christ and his righteousness apprehended by faith, and so not just or justified by works; he shall live a life of justification, through that righteousness his faith receives; he shall live comfortably, with much peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, as the result of his being justified by faith; and shall live eternally, and never die the second death: or the "just shall live by faith"; he that is righteous, not by his own works, but by the obedience of Christ, shall live not upon faith, but by it on Christ, and his righteousness, which is revealed from faith to faith; and this makes it a clear point, that he is not justified by the law, for if he was, he would not live by faith on Christ, but in and by the deeds of the law.

11. by the law—Greek, "IN the law." Both in and by are included. The syllogism in this verse and Ga 3:12, is, according to Scripture, "The just shall live by faith." But the law is not of faith, but of doing, or works (that is, does not make faith, but works, the conditional ground of justifying). Therefore "in," or "by the law, no man is justified before God" (whatever the case may be before men, Ro 4:2)—not even if he could, which he cannot, keep the law, because the Scripture element and conditional mean of justification is faith.

The just shall live by faith—(Ro 1:17; Hab 2:4). Not as Bengel and Alford, "He who is just by faith shall live." The Greek supports English Version. Also the contrast is between "live by faith" (namely, as the ground and source of his justification), and "live in them," namely, in his doings or works (Ga 3:12), as the conditional element wherein he is justified.

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