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Gal_5:14.[234] Reason assigned for the ΔΙᾺ Τῆς ἈΓΆΠΗς Κ . Τ . Λ . just said: for the whole law is fulfilled in one utterance; that is, compliance with the whole Mosaic law has taken place and exists, if one single commandment of it is complied with, namely, the commandment, “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” If, therefore, ye through love serve one another, the whole point in dispute is thereby solved; there can no longer be any discussion whether ye are bound to fulfil this or that precept of the law,—ye have fulfilled the whole law. “Theologia brevissima et longissima; brevissima quod ad verba et sententias attinet, sed usu et re ipsa latior, longior, profundior et sublimior toto mundo,” Luther, Ὁ Πᾶς ΝΌΜΟς (comp. 1Ti_1:16; Act_19:7; Act_20:18; Soph. El. 1244; Phil. 13; Thuc. ii. 7. 2, viii. 93. 3; Krüger, § 50. 11. 12) places the totality of the law in contradistinction to its single utterance. The view of Hofmann, that it denotes the law collectively as an unity, the fulfilment of which existing in the readers they have in the love which they are to show, falls to the ground with the erroneous reading, to which it is with arbitrary artifice adapted; and in particular, ὁ πᾶς νόμος means not at all the law as unity, but the whole law:[235] comp. also 2Ma_6:5; 3Ma_6:2 et al.; Herod. i. 111. In point of fact, the phrase does not differ from ὅλος ὁ νόμος , Mat_22:40. Without alteration in the sense, the apostle might also have written πᾶς γὰρ ὁ νόμος , which would only have made the emphasis fall still more strongly on πᾶς .
πεπλήρωται ] As to the reading, see the critical notes. The perfect denotes the fulfilment as complete and ready to hand, as in Rom_13:8. Chrysostom, Theodoret, Oecumenius, Theophylact, Estius, Baumgarten, Semler, Morus, Rückert, Matthies, Schott, Baumgarten-Crusius, de Wette, Wieseler, and others, have correctly explained πληροῦσθαι of compliance with the law; for the explanation comprehenditur (Erasmus, Castalio, Luther, Calvin, Rambach, Michaelis, Zachariae, Koppe, Rosenmüller, Winer, Usteri, Olshausen, Reiche, and others), that is, ἀνακεφαλαιοῦται (which, however, in Rom_13:9 is distinguished from πληροῦσθαι ), is at variance with the universal usage of πληροῦν τὸν νόμον in the N.T. (comp. ἐκπιμπλάναι τ . νόμον , Herod. i. 199; so also Philo, de Abrah. I. p. 36). See Gal_6:2; Mat_3:15; Rom_8:4; Rom_13:8; Col_4:17. The thought is the same as in Rom_13:8, ὁ ἀγαπῶν τὸν ἕτερον νόμον πεπλήρωκε , and Rom_13:10, πλήρωμα νόμου ἡ ἀγάπη . Grotius interprets πληρ . in the same way as in Mat_5:17 : “sicuti rudimenta implentur per doctrinam perfectiorem.” This interpretation is incorrect on account of πᾶς , and because a commandment of the Mosaic law itself is adduced.
ἐν τῷ ] that is, in the saying of the law; see Winer, p. 103 [E. T. 135].
ἀγάπησεις ] Lev_19:18. Respecting the imperative future, see on Mat_1:21; and as to ἑαυτόν used of the second person, see on Rom_13:9; Jacobs, ad Anthol. IX. p. 447. On the idea of the ὡς ἑαυτ ., see on Mat_22:39. Comp. Cic. de Legg. i. 12: “Nihilo sese plus quam alterum homo diligat.” The neighbour is, for the Christian who justly (Mat_5:17) applies to himself this Mosaic commandment, his fellow-Christian (comp. Gal_5:13, ἀλλήλοις , and see Gal_5:14), just as for the Jew it is his fellow-Jew. But how little this is to be taken as excluding any other at all, is shown not only by distinct intimations, such as Gal_6:10, 1Th_3:12, 2Pe_1:7, but also by the whole spirit of Christianity, which, as to this point, finds its most beautiful expression in the example of the Samaritan (Luke 10); and Paul himself was a Samaritan of this kind towards Jews and Gentiles.
The question, how Paul could with justice say of the whole law that it was fulfilled by love towards one’s neighbour, is not to be answered, either by making νόμος signify the Christian law (Koppe), or by understanding it only of the moral law (Estius and many others), or of the second table of the Decalogue (Beza and others; also Wieseler; comp. Ewald), or of every divinely revealed law in general (Schott); for, according to the connection of the whole epistle, ὁ πᾶς νόμος cannot mean anything else than the whole Mosaic law. But it is to be answered by placing ourselves at the lofty spiritual standpoint of the apostle, from which he regarded all other commandments of the law as so thoroughly subordinate to the commandment of love, that whosoever has fulfilled this commandment stands in the moral scale and the moral estimation just as if he had fulfilled the whole law. From this lofty and bold standpoint everything, which was not connected with the commandment of love (Rom_13:8-10), fell so completely into the background,[236] that it was no longer considered as aught to be separately and independently fulfilled; on the contrary, the whole law appeared already accomplished in love, that is, in the state of feeling and action produced by the Spirit of God (Gal_5:22 f.; Rom_15:30), in which is contained the culminating point, goal, and consummation of all parts of the law.[237] The idea thus amounts to an impletio totius legis dilectione formata, by which the claim of the law is satisfied (Gal_5:23). The view of Hofmann, that here the law comes into consideration only so far as it is not already fulfilled in faith; that for the believer its requirement consists in the commandment of love, and even the realization of this is already existing in him, so that he has only to show the love wrought in him by God—simply emanates from the erroneous form of the text and the wrong interpretation of Gal_5:14 adopted by him. That the apostle, moreover, while adducing only the commandment of love towards one’s neighbour, does not exclude the commandment of love towards God (comp. Mat_22:37 f.), was obvious of itself to the Christian consciousness from the necessary connection between the love of God and the love of our neighbour (comp. 1Jn_4:20; 1Co_8:1; 1Co_8:3). Paul was induced by the scope of the context to bring forward the latter only (Gal_5:13; Gal_5:15).
[234] Hofmann reads the verse: ὁ γ . πᾶς νόμος ἑν ὑμῖν πεπλήρωται · ἀγαπήσεις κ . τ . λ . A form of the text so destitute of attestation (Tertullian alone has in vobis instead of ἐν ἑνὶ λόγῳ ), that it is simply equivalent to a (very strange) conjecture. Also the omission of ἐν τῷ is much too feebly attested. In the text, followed above, A B C à agree.
[235] [This is an approximate rendering of the passage, the meaning of which is not, to me at least, very clear. Hofmann seems to have been conscious of this want of clearness, for in his revised edition just issued he has considerably altered his mode of expression, but still leaves the matter somewhat obscure.—ED.]
[236] Especially the precepts as to cultus, in the apostle’s view, were included among the στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου , Gal_4:3.
[237] Therein lies the essence of the so-called tertius usus of the law, the further development of which is given in the Epistle to the Romans. Comp. Sieffert, in the Jahrb. f. D. Theol. p. 271 f.