Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (To the Greater Glory of God)
From: Galatians 3:7-14
Justification By Faith (Continuation)
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[7] So you see that it is men of faith who are the sons of Abraham. [8] And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "In you shall all the nations be blessed." [9] So then, those who are men of faith are blessed with Abraham who had faith.
[10] For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, "Cursed be every one who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them." [11] Now it is evident that no man is justified before God by the law; for "He who through faith is righteous shall live" ; [12] but the law does not rest on faith, for "He who does them shall live by them." [13] Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us--for it is written, "Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree"--[14] that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
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Commentary:
6-9. The Apostle recalls the figure of Abraham in order to show that man's justification is not the result of the material works prescribed by the Mosaic Law, but rather the result of faith in God's word. According to Gen 15:6, when God promised Abraham that he would have a son even though he was already an old man and his wife Sarah was barren, Abraham immediately took God at his word. It was this faith that justified Abraham: God had not yet established circumcision or given the Law. Therefore, St Paul argues, "it is men of faith who are the sons of Abraham".
God had given the Patriarch a promise whose implications were universal: "In you shall all the nations be blessed." That promise is now being kept through the entry of the Gentiles, through faith, into the new people of God. Abraham is in effect the father of those who believe, for in him all those who would believe in Jesus Christ were already blessed.
In the same way as he justified Abraham, God justifies every man--through faith (cf. Gen 15:6; Rom 4:2ff; Jas 2:21ff). Thus, people do not become sons of the Kingdom simply because they are descendants of Abraham according to the flesh: no, they must become like him by being men of faith like him. Therefore, man's greatness in God's eyes is not a matter of blood or descent, as the Jews believed, but of divine grace, which makes us children of the blessing, children of God (cf. Jn 1:12-13).
God grants the gift of justification by faith to all who believe in his word, as Abraham did. The true imitators of Abraham, St John of Avila says, are "those who believe with loving faith, with firm and constant faith, who are so well grounded in faith that nothing, no adversity, no temptation, no ill-treatment can disconsole them or dismay them" ("Lecciones Sobre Gal, ad loc.").
10-12. In what is called the Council of Jerusalem, St Peter had said, "Why do you make trial of God by putting a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?" (Acts 15: 10): the Jews could not, despite their efforts, keep the Mosaic Law--the Law which they thought justified them in God's sight. Therefore, those who place their hope of salvation in the Law are subject to the curse which the Law itself places on those who infringe it: "Cursed be he who does not confirm the words of the Law by doing them" (Deut 27:26).
The curse of the Law falls on anyone who fails to keep it, given that every commandment involves a penalty for its transgressor. That is why the Apostle argues that those who rely only on the Law are subject to the risk of being cursed, of being punished--"are under a curse". He then goes on to recall once more the passage in Habakkuk which says that "the righteous shall live by his faith" (2:4; cf. note on Rom 1:17). If the righteous or justified man lives by faith, the Apostle concludes, he does not live by the Law, for the Law does not call for faith but for fulfillment of its precepts.
13-14. Christ, who was innocent, wished to offer the Father perfect atonement and thereby blot out our sin. To this end he voluntarily turned upon himself the curse which the Law laid on its transgressors. He bore the curse of the Law on our behalf and thereby set us free from the curse. What was for our Lord punishment was for men salvation. As St Jerome puts it, "the injury suffered by the Lord is our glory. He died so that we might live; he descended into hell so that we might ascend into heaven. He became folly so that we might be reaffirmed in wisdom. He emptied himself of the fullness and form of God, taking the form of a slave, so that this divine fullness might dwell in us and we might be changed from slaves into lords. He was nailed on the Cross so that the sin committed at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil might be blotted out, once he was hung on the tree of the Cross" ("Comm. in Gal, ad loc.").
With our Lord's death, the world's redemption is achieved, God's promise is fulfilled and the blessing he gave to Abraham multiplies his posterity, making them more numerous than the stars of heaven or the sand of the seashore (cf. Gen 15:5-6; 22:17).