Galatians 2:19 - Exposition

For I through the Law am dead to the Law ( ἐγὼ γὰρ διὰ νόμου μόμῳ ἀπέθανον ,); for I , for my part , through the Law died unto the Law. This ἐγὼ is not the hypothetical "I" of Galatians 2:18 , which in fact recites the personality of St. Peter, but is St. Paul himself in his own concrete historical personality. And the pronoun is in a measure antithetical; as if it were: for whatever may be your feeling, mine is this, that I," etc. The conjunction "for" points back to the whole passage ( Galatians 2:15-18 ), which has described the position to which St. Paul had himself been brought and on which he still now, when writing to the Galatians, is standing; he here justifies that description. "Through the Law;" through the Law's own procuring, through what the Law itself did, I was broken off from all connection with the Law. From the words, "I have been crucified with Christ," in the next verse, and from what we read in Galatians 3:13 , most especially when taken in connection with the occurrences at Antioch which at any rate led to the present utterance, and with the hankering after Judaical ceremonialism in Galatia which occasioned the writing of this letter, we may with confidence draw the conclusion that St. Paul is thinking of the Law in its ceremonial aspect, that is, viewed as determining ceremonial purity and ceremonial pollution. He is here most immediately dealing with the question, whether Jewish believers could freely associate without defilement in God's sight with Gentile believers who according to the Levitical Law were unclean, and could partake of the like food with them. The notion of becoming dead to the Law through the cross of Christ has other aspects besides this, as is evinced by Romans 7:1-6 ; a fact which is indeed glanced at by the apostle even here; but of the several aspects presented by this one and the same many-faced truth, the one which he here more particularly refers to is that which it bore towards the Law as a ceremonial institute. That which the Law as a ceremonial institute did in relation to Christ was this—it pronounced him as crucified to be in the intensest degree ceremonially accursed and polluting; to be most absolutely cherem. But Christ in his death and resurrection-life is appointed by God to be the sinner's only and complete salvation. It follows that he who by faith and sacrament is made one with Christ, does, together with the spiritual life which he draws from Christ, partake also in the pollution and accursedness which the Law fastens upon him ; he is by the Law bidden away: he can thenceforth have no connection with it,—the Law itself will have it so. "But (the apostle's feeling is) the Law may curse on as it will: I have life with God and in God nevertheless." This same aspect of the death of Christ as disconnecting believers from the Law viewed as a ceremonial institute, through the pollutedness which the Law attached to most especially that form of death, is referred to in Hebrews 13:10-13 . The phrase, "I died unto the Law," is similar to that of "being made dead to the Law" ( ἐθανατώθητε τῷ νόμῳ ), and being "discharged [or, 'delivered'] from the Law ( κατηργήθημεν ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου )," which we have Romans 7:4 , Romans 7:6 ; though the particular aspect of the fact that the cross disconnects believers from the Law is not precisely the same in the two passages, since in the Romans the Law is viewed more in its character as a rule of moral and spiritual life (see Romans 7:7-23 ). That I might live unto God ( ἵνα θεῷ ζήσω ); that I might become alive unto God. It is not likely that ζήσω is a future indicative, although we have καταδουλώσουσιν after ἵνα in verse 4, and the form ζήσομεν in Romans 6:2 ; for the future would most probably have been ζήσομαι , as in Galatians 3:11 , Galatians 3:12 ; and Romans 1:17 ; Romans 8:13 ; Romans 10:5 . It is more likely to be the subjunctive of the aorist ἔζησα , which, according to the now accepted reading of ἔζησεν for ἐνέστη καὶ ἀνέζησεν , we have in Romans 14:9 ; where, as well as the ζήσωμεν of 1 Thessalonians 5:10 , it means "become alive." In verbs denoting a state of being, the aorist frequently (though not necessarily) means coming into that state, as for example, ἐπτώχευσε , "became poor" ( 2 Corinthians 9:9 ). "Living unto God" here, as in Romans 6:10 , does not so much denote any form of moral action towards God as that spiritual state towards him out of which suitable moral action would subsequently flow. The apostle died to the Law, in order that through Christ he might come into that vital union with God in which he might both serve him and find happiness in him; this service to God and joy in God being the "fruit-bearing" in which the "life" is manifested ( Romans 7:5 , Romans 7:6 ).