Galatians 3:22

Galatians 3:22. The Scripture, the whole Old Testament, including the law. It is here personified as in Galatians 3:8, and stands for the author of the Scripture. The Apostle may have had in mind a special passage, as Psalms 143:2 (quoted above Galatians 2:16) or Deuteronomy 27:26 (quoted Galatians 3:10), or rather the general scheme of the Scripture as a history of the fall and redemption. Shut up all (things) under sin. Comp. Romans 11:32: ‘God shut up all (men) in unbelief (or disobedience), that He might have mercy upon all.' These two passages contain, as in a nutshell, the whole history of men, the mystery of the fall cleared up by the greater mystery of redemption. ‘Shut up,' as in a prison and state of complete slavery, without means of escape, in striking contrast with the freedom of the gospel. The verb implies an effective (not simply a declaratory) activity of God in the development and punishment (not in the origin) of sin, and this activity is conditioned and controlled by the eternal counsel of redeeming love. ‘All' things, the most comprehensive term. In the parallel passage, Romans 11:32, the masculine is used, ‘all' men. They are viewed as one solid mass of corruption and guilt. No exception is made, not even in favor of the Virgin Mary, as the Vatican dogma would require. The second clause, that (in order that, with the intention that) the promise, etc., contains the solution of the problem in the first clause. God wills sin only as something to be overcome and destroyed; He permitted the fall of Adam only in view of the redemption by Christ which more than made up for all the loss of the fall.

‘In Christ the tribes of Adam boast

More blessings than their father lost.' (Watts.)

Earth has a joy unknown in heaven

The new-born peace of sin forgiven.

Tears of such pure and deep delight,

Ye angels I never dimmed your sight.' (A. L. Hillhouse.)