What Does Galatians 3:6 Mean?

(6-14) These prolific results are due to faith, and not to the Law; just as it was faith which won for Abraham that imputed righteousness. Faith was the cause, blessing the consequence, which extends to all the spiritual descendants of Abraham. The Scripture distinctly foresaw this when it declared that the heathen too (*i.e.,* those who believe from among the heathen) should be blessed in Abraham. The effects of the Law are just the opposite of this. Where faith brings a blessing the Law brought a curse. The Law never made any man accepted as righteous. This is a privilege reserved for faith. The Law demands a literal fulfilment, which is impossible. Hence the Law entailed a curse, which Christ has removed by taking it upon Himself. Thus the blessing promised to Abraham, and the outpouring of the Spirit included in it, have been opened out to Gentiles as well as Jews, and indeed to all who give in their adhesion to Christ by faith. (6) **Even as.**—The argument is here very condensed. Ideas lie close together in the Apostle’s mind which are some distance apart in ours. He asks whether, in bestowing the gifts of the Spirit upon the Christian Church, God made use of the medium of the Law or of faith. The answer he assumes to be faith; and his thoughts fly at once to that crucial instance of faith—the faith of Abraham. **Abraham believed God . . .**—Quoted from the LXX. version of Genesis 15:6. The same quotation is made, in the same words and with the same object, in Romans 4:3, where see the Note. Comp. also the *Excursus E to* that Epistle, on “Imputed Righteousness.”