Galatians 3:21 Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life… There is a mighty growth in the discovery of God's nature and will, but never a point at which we are brought to a pause by a manifest contradiction of one part with another. In reading the Bible we always look on the same landscape, the only difference being that as we take in more of its statements, more and more of the mist is rolled away from the horizon, so that the eye can behold a wider sweep of its beauty. There is a vast difference between the New Testament and the Old, but it is the difference between two parts of one whole. It is no new landscape which opens on our gaze, as the town and the forest come out from the shadow, and fill up the blanks in the glorious panorama; it is no new planet which comes travelling in its majesty, as the crescent deepens into the circle, and the line of faint light gives place to the rich globe of silver; and it is no fresh religion which is made known as the brief notices given to patriarchs expand into the institutions of the law, under the teachings of prophecy, till at length in the days of Christ and His apostles they burst into magnificence, and fill a world with redemption. It is throughout the same system, and revelation has been only the gradual development of this system — the drawing up of another fold of the veil from the landscape, the adding of another stripe of light to the crescent; so that the fathers of our race, and ourselves, look on the same arrangements for human deliverance, though to them there was nothing but cloudy expanse, with here and there a prominent landmark, whilst to us, though the horizon loses itself in the far-off eternity, every object of personal interest is exhibited in beauty and distinctness. (H. Melvill, B. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. |
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