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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - Galatians 3:23 - 3:23
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
But the office of the law as a jailer was designed to be only temporary, until the time when faith should come. It was to hold in custody those who were subjected to sin, so that they should not escape the consciousness of their sins and of their liability to punishment.
Faith (τὴν πίστιν)
The subjective faith in Christ which appropriates the promise. See on Gal 1:23.
We were kept (ἐφρουρούμεθα)
Better, kept in ward, continuing the figure in shut up, Gal 3:22. The imperfect tense indicates the continued activity of the law as a warder.
Under the law (ὑπὸ νόμον)
Const. with were kept in ward, not with shut up. We were shut up with the law as a warder, not for protection, but to guard against escape. Comp. Wisd. 17:15. The figure of the law as pedagogue (Gal 3:24) is not anticipated. The law is conceived, not as the prison, but as the warder, the Lord or despot, the power of sin (see 1Co 15:56; Romans 7), by whom those who belong to sin are kept under lock and key - under moral captivity, without possibility of liberation except through faith.
Shut up unto the faith (συνκλειόμενοι εἰς τὴν πίστιν)
Εἰς unto or for expresses the object of keeping in ward. It is not temporal, until, which is a rare usage in N.T., but with a view to our passing into the state of faith.
Which should afterwards be revealed (μέλλουσαν - ἀποκαλυφθῆναι)
The position of μέλλουσαν emphasizes the future state of things to which the earlier conditions pointed. The faith was first revealed at the coming of Christ and the gospel.