Galatians 3:16

The clause καὶ τῷ σπέρματι αὐτοῦ is quoted from God's promises to Abraham in Genesis 13:15; Genesis 17:8 with only the necessary change of the second person σου into αὐτοῦ. The original promise was limited to the possession of the promised land, but was coupled with a perpetual covenant between God and the seed of Abraham: I will be their God, Thou shalt keep my covenant, thou and thy seed after thee in their generations. Hence Hebrew prophecy imported into it the idea of a spiritual inheritance, and the Epistle adopts this interpretation without hesitation. οὐ λέγει, sc. ὁ Θεός. As the clause in question was quoted from an utterance of God, it was not necessary to specify the subject of λέγει. καὶ τοῖς σπέρμασιν : And to his seeds, i.e., families. This contrast between the many families and the one chosen family is more than mere verbal criticism: it contains the germ of that doctrine of continuous divine election within the stock of Abraham which is developed in the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. For Abraham had many children after the flesh; and the exclusion of Ishmael, Dedan, Midian, Esau in patriarchal times in favour of Isaac and of Jacob established the principle which culminated in the rejection of the Jewish nation in favour of Christ. This conception of a continuous holy family linking Christ with Abraham runs through the next section of the Epistle; just as πολλῶν and ἑνός here mean π. σπερμάτων and ἑ. σπέρματος, so ἑνός in Galatians 3:20 means ἑνὸς σπέρματος and τὰ πάντα in Galatians 3:22 τὰ πάντα σπέρματα. In like manner Christ is contemplated, not by Himself alone as constituting in the unity of His person the chosen seed, but as a new centre out of whom the family of God branched forth afresh. He became in a far higher sense than Isaac or Jacob a new head of the chosen family: for all Abraham's children after the flesh that received Him not were shut out from the blessing, while all who believed in Him became by faith sons of Abraham and members of the true family of God. The whole Church of Christ are in short regarded as one with Christ one in life and spirit, for they are members of His body and partake of His spirit (cf. Galatians 3:28-29).