Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Galatians · About this commentary
Why Then the Law
Galatians 3:19-20
19 Then why is there the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise has been made. It was ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator. · WEB
Paul asks the question his own argument has provoked, and the answer names a purpose, a term, and a manner of delivery.
Having spent thirteen verses showing that the law does not justify, Paul asks the obvious question rather than leaving it to his opponents: why then is there the law?
The answer has three parts, and the first is its purpose: it was added because of transgressions. The preposition allows both a restraining sense and a revealing one — added to hold wrongdoing in check, or added to make it show as wrongdoing. The letter does not choose between them, and both keep the law on the side of the problem's diagnosis rather than its cure.
The second part is a term: until the offspring should come to whom the promise has been made. Something with a stated endpoint is not thereby a mistake — a scaffold comes down when the building stands. What ends at that point is defined by the purpose just named, not by the law's content, which the letter will later quote as still binding on conduct Galatians 5:14.
The third part concerns delivery: ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator. Two intermediaries stand between God and the recipients.
Verse 20 is famously compressed — a mediator is not between one, but God is one — and the argument seems to concern directness. A mediated arrangement has two parties and needs a go-between; the promise to Abraham had God speaking and Abraham believing, nobody in the middle. The promise gains immediacy by the comparison, and the law is shown to have a structure fit for a temporary arrangement.
held with reason What this mark means