Galatians 2:19

In the last verse the Apostle had been putting a supposed case, but by a not unnatural process of thought he gradually takes the “I” rather more in earnest, and appeals directly to his own personal experience. The “I” of Galatians 2:18 is really St. Peter or the Judaisers; the “I” of this verse is St. Paul himself. The object of his appeal is to make good his assertion that to restore the dethroned Law to its old position is positively sinful.

Once having done with the Law I had done with it for ever. The Law itself had prepared me for this. It was a stage which I could not but pass through, but which was in its very nature temporary. It carried with it the sentence of its own dissolution.

For... — This assigns the reason for the use of the word “transgressor” in the verse before. It is a transgression to rebuild the demolished fabric of the Law, because the true Christian has done with the Law once for all.

Through the law am dead to the law. — In what sense can this be said? The Apostle himself had got rid of his obligations to the Law — not, however, by simply evading them from the first, but by passing through a period of subjection to them. The road to freedom from the Law lay through the Law. The Law, on its prophetic side, pointed to Christ. The Law, on its moral side, held up an ideal to which its votaries could not attain. It did not help them to attain to it. It bore the stamp of its own insufficiency. Men broke its precepts, and its weakness seemed to lead up to a dispensation that should supersede its own. St. Paul would not have become a Christian if he had not first sat at the feet of Gamaliel. If we could trace the whole under-current of silent, and perhaps only half-conscious, preparation, which led to the Apostle’s conversion, we should see how large a part was played in it by the sense, gradually wrought in him, of the Law’s insufficiency. Thus the negative side was given by his own private meditation; the positive side, faith in Christ, was given by the vision on the road to Damascus.

That I might live unto God. — We might not unnaturally expect here “unto Christ,” instead of “unto God.” But the Christian lives unto Christ in order that he may live unto God. The ultimate object of the Christian scheme is that he may be presented righteous before God. By the Law he could not obtain this righteousness. It is obtained in Christ.