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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadWilliam Burkitt Notes and Observations - Galatians 2:19 - 2:19
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Here the apostle shews, that believers are so far from being justified by the law, that they are dead to the law, so as to put no confidence in their obedience to it for justification; particularly,
1. They are dead to the law; that is, they are delivered from the rigorous exactions of the law. Perfect, personal and perpetual obedience, is the duty which the law exacts at the believers's hand, and he has performed it, though not in himself, yet in the person of Christ his Surety, who yielded as absolute and complete obedience to the law, as it could require or demand.
2. The law is dead to believers, and they to that, in regard to the condemnatory curse and sentence of the law; Christ hath redeemed them from the curse of the law: being made a curse for them, Gal_3:13. True, the believer's violation of the royal and righteous law of God, in the smallest measure and degree, doth in its own nature, deserve the curse and condemnatory sentence; but Christ has discharged him from obnoxiousness to the curse, by being made a curse.
3. The law is dead to believers, as to its authority, to justify and save them. This is that the law cannot do, being made weak through the flesh? though properly speaking, the law is not weak to us, but we are weak to that; the law has not lost its authority to command, but we our ability to obey; it is as impossible for a fallen sinner to keep the law of God perfectly, as it is for a lame cripple to run a race swiftly.
Yet, 4. Believers are not dead, but alive to the law, as a rule of life and holy living; the law binds the believer (in Christ's hand) as strictly to endeavour obedience to it, as it did Adam in innocency: But here is the believer's privilege, that God the Father, upon the score of the covenant of grace, which the blood of Christ has ratified and confirmed, doth graciously accept the faithful endeavours of his children, instead of perfect performances; which obedience the law-covenant did rigorously exact and require.
Thus may every believer say with the apostle, I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God, namely, a life of righteousness and true holiness.