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Commentary on "The Priority of the Promise"
Day 5: Wednesday, November 2, 2011 - The Duration of God's Law
Overview
Today’s lesson, “The Duration of God’s Law”, is highly important in understanding not only Paul’s argument in chapter 3, but also the entire epistle to the Galatians. It repeats the previously made point that people had lost sight of God’s holiness and their sinfulness, and the proclamation of the law at Sinai made them aware of these unacknowledged realities. The focus then moves to the meaning of the word “until” from Galatians 3:19:
“Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made.”
Citing multiple definitions of the word “until”, the writer argues that the word should not be understood as denoting a temporal terminus point for the law. On the other hand, he recognizes that “the coming of Christ marks a decisive turning point in human history.” Still, the author does not link this decisive point with what happens to the law.
Observations
It is strange to argue that Christ’s coming was a decisive turning point in human history after arguing that “until” doesn’t mark a point in time that brings a change. On one hand the Adventist writer wants to argue that “until” doesn’t establish a change, but that the law continues as it was before. On the pother hand, he wants to argue that Christ’s coming was a decisive turning point in human history. “Until”, however, is related to both “law” and the coming of the offspring. If the coming of the offspring is a decisive turning point, that “turn” affects the law, because the moment marked by “until” links the law with Christ’s coming. The law was added until Christ came, and when this decisive moment came, it was decisive for the law.
Of course it can be argued that the word “until” may have other meanings, and this is precisely the author’s argument. Still, the context of Galatians 3 can only support the meaning that specifies a certain time. The author’s contention that it is possible for the word to have other meanings is unconvincing. He needs to show contextual proof, and he does not do that. Instead he implies that he prefers the non-temporal meaning exclusively for theological, and not exegetical reasons. He has a certain view of the law, and instead of letting the text of Galatians 3 mold his view of the law, he comes to the text with a predetermined decision: the law cannot cease to exist in a temporal way at the cross, so the word “until” must mean something else than the end of the Law and the Mosaic covenant.
The conclusion becomes evident: the entire relationship between law and promise is read into the text, not from the text. Instead of letting Galatians speak about how law and promise relate in a way that is not contradictory, the author reads his already preconceived views about law and promise, resulting in an impaired, skewed, distorted view. Not only is his understanding of this particular text negatively affected, but, since the law-promise relationship is the center of Paul’s thought in Galatians, the author’s overall understanding of the epistle does not rest on exegesis, but on eisegesis, on reading into the text a meaning that is alien to it.
Copyright 2011 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised November 1, 2011. This website is published by Life Assurance Ministries, Glendale, Arizona, USA, the publisher of Proclamation! Magazine. Contact email: BibleStudiesForAdventists@gmail.com.
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