View Single Post
  #131  
Old 12-20-2008, 11:41 PM
BrianT
Guest
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Hi Steve,

Quote:
No, there is quite a clear contextual change after verse 24.
No there's not. Verse 25 starts with "But", which means it's continuing the same thought (even the same sentence, KJV punctuation notwithstanding). Verse 26 starts with "For", again continuing the same thought.

Quote:
That should help you out doctrinally, if you read Matthew Henry.
Are you serious? Did you read Matthew Henry? Did you read where he says of verse 24:

Quote:
"The law was designed for a schoolmaster, to bring men to Christ, v. 24. In the foregoing verse, the apostle acquaints us with the state of the Jews under the Mosaic economy, that before faith came, or before Christ appeared and the doctrine of justification by faith in him was more fully discovered, they were kept under the law, obliged, under severe penalties, to a strict observance of the various precepts of it"
and
Quote:
"And thus it was their schoolmaster, to instruct and govern them in their state of minority, or, as the word paidagogos most properly signifies, their servant, to lead and conduct them to Christ (as children were wont to be led to school by those servants who had the care of them); that they might be more fully instructed by him as their schoolmaster, in the true way of justification and salvation, which is only by faith in him, and of which he was appointed to give the fullest and clearest discoveries. But lest it should be said, If the law was of this use and service under the Jewish, why may it not continue to be so under the Christian state too, the apostle adds (v. 25) that after faith has come, and the gospel dispensation has taken place, under which Christ, and the way of pardon and life through faith in him, are set in the clearest light, we are no longer under a schoolmaster—we have no such need of the law to direct us to him as there was then."
and of verse 25:

Quote:
"The great fault and folly of the Jews, in mistaking the design of the law, and abusing it to a very different purpose from that which God intended in the giving of it; for they expected to be justified by the works of it, whereas it was never designed to be the rule of their justification, but only a means of convincing them of their guilt and of their need of a Saviour, and of directing them to Christ, and faith in him, as the only way of obtaining this privilege."
and of verse 26:

Quote:
How they come to obtain this privilege, and that is by faith in Christ Jesus. Having accepted him as their Lord and Saviour, and relying on him alone for justification and salvation, they are hereupon admitted into this happy relation to God, and are entitled to the privileges of it"
and

Quote:
"And therefore upon the whole, since it appeared that justification was not to be attained by the works of the law, but only by faith in Christ"
God bless,
Brian