TRV
Ambrosiaster
Nicene & Post-Nicene · AD 325–500 · 1,043 passages across 16 books
Commentary
Galatians 2:20
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
There is no doubt that Christ lives in the one who is delivered from death by faith. When Christ forgives the sins of one who is worthy of death, he himself lives in that person, since by his protection the person is snatched from death.
Galatians 2:21
· 2 passages
I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.
The law could not give remission of sins, nor triumph over the second death nor free from captivity those who were bound because of sin. The reason for Christ’s death was to provide those things that the law could not. He did not die in vain, for his death is the justification of sinners.
Since a future life is promised to Christians, the one who now lives with God’s assistance lives in the faith of the promised life. For this one contemplates his image, having the pledge of the future life, which was procured for us by Christ’s love in accordance with God’s will. The one who is grateful to Christ is therefore the one who endures in faith toward him. He knows that he has no benefit from anyone but Christ and treats Christ with dishonor if he compares any other to him.
Galatians 3:2
This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
He sets forth a tenet that could not at that time be denied: the Holy Spirit dwells in believers. This gift was manifested by God to recollect the rudiments of the faith, as it was at the beginning when it was practiced among the apostles and the other disciples. … On these the Holy Spirit descended and gave the capacity to speak in many tongues, with the gift of interpretation, so that no one dared deny the presence of the Spirit of God in them.
Galatians 3:4
Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain.
At that time believers were subject to reproach from others, whether at home or abroad, being pointed out as guilty of treason. Hence the Galatians, who had likewise suffered a great deal, were more perverse than those who had been spared, because they had lost the merit of their suffering by their resubmission to the law.
Galatians 3:13
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:
Since no one could obey the law, all were convicted by the curse of the law, so that it was right to punish them. But Christ, born as a man and offered for us by his Father, redeemed us from the devil. He was offered for those who were liable to the curse of the law. Jesus was made a curse in the way that under the law a victim offered for sin is said to be sin.… Thus he did not say “cursed for us” but “made a curse.”
Galatians 3:17
And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.
Once the promise had been established, the law was given subsequently, not so that it could undermine the promise but so that it might point to what was to be fulfilled and when it would come.
Galatians 3:18
For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise.
The Jews maintain two opposing tenets. For in no way and by no argument can they be persuaded that the promise to Abraham was rendered void by the law, and they are right. But in their short-sighted vanity they maintain another contrary principle, thinking that justification could not come without the practice of the law. They know that Abraham, who is the type [of justification], was justified through faith alone, without the practice of the law.… The heirs to the promise of Abraham are therefore those who are his successors in the adoption of the faith by which Abraham was blessed and justified. The testimony of the promise to Abraham is therefore called a covenant [to signify] that after his death there would be heirs in the promise, made sons of Abraham through faith.
Galatians 3:19
Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.
By “angels” he means God’s messengers—that is, Moses, [Joshua] son of Nun and the other prophets up to John the Baptist. … Through these, therefore, the Law and Prophets are ordained and disposed by God in the hand, that is, the power, of the Savior. For he is the Mediator, the reconciler of God and humanity, so that he may save whom he will out of those who have received the law from the angels.
Galatians 3:20
Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one.
Without doubt, a mediator, that is, arbiter, is not of one but two. For when two peoples were contending against one another, always at odds and enemies because of the disparity in their doctrines, the Savior came as their Mediator, taking from each people the cause of discord so that they might be at peace. So he took from the Gentiles the plurality of gods and cult of the elements, and he took from the Jews the works of the law, that is, new moons, circumcision, the keeping of the sabbath, the distinction of foods and other things that the Gentiles abhorred. And thus those who were formerly enemies came to be at peace. If then this is the case, how could the Galatians be so dull-witted as to violate this reconciliation by conversion back to Judaism?
Galatians 4:3
Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world:
By the “elements” he means new moons and the sabbath. New moons are the lunar days that the Jews observe, while the sabbath is the day of rest. Therefore, before the promise came (that is, the gift of God’s grace) and justified believers by purifying them, we were subject, like those who are infants and imperfect, to our fellow servants as though to custodians. Our pernicious freedom was the matrix of sin.
Galatians 4:4
But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
“The fullness of time” is the completed time which had been foreordained by God the Father for the sending of his Son, so that, made from a virgin, he might be born like a man, subjecting himself to the law up to the time of his baptism, so that he might provide a way by which sinners, washed and snatched away from the yoke of the law, might be adopted as God’s sons by his condescension, as he had promised to those redeemed by the blood of his Son. It was necessary, indeed, that the Savior should be made subject to the law, as a son of Abraham according to the flesh, so that, having been circumcised, he could be seen as the one promised to Abraham, who had come to justify the Gentiles through faith, since he bore the sign of the one to whom the promise had been made.
Galatians 4:6
And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
He says of the Gentiles who believed in Christ, “You are sons,” having previously been enemies. There can be no doubt that believing Jews were also said to be sons of God, since they had long been called by that name. They had received the name of sons at one time as though by anticipation in order that this sonship might subsequently be understood in Christ, being incomplete without the Spirit.
Galatians 4:7
Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
There is no doubt that one adopts a son in order to leave him an heir; but inheritance depends on the death of someone. How then can mortals be called the heirs of him who lives forever? The fact is that Scripture speaks in our own manner so that we may understand. In order to show that the Father will give from his goods those things that he is going to give his sons, it calls this “inheritance.”
Galatians 4:10
Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.
The observers of days are those who say, for example, “Tomorrow there must be no setting out on a journey.” … The observers of months are those who watch the course of the moon, saying, for example, “Contracts must not be sealed in the seventh month.” … Seasons are observed when people say, “Today is the first day of spring, it is a festival and after tomorrow is the feast of Vulcan.” … People pay respect to the year when they say, “The first day of January is the new year,” as though a year were not completed every day.… For if God is loved with the whole heart, there ought not to be any dread or suspicion of these phenomena so long as he is near.
Galatians 4:14
And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.
The ailment of the apostle was a temptation to the Galatians. But they were found constant, not doubting as to his faith. For they could have stumbled and said, “What virtue or hope is there in this faith when its minister is so humiliated?” But when he had inspired their minds with future hopes, they did not fear present death for the sake of Christ’s name.… This caused them later to blush, because after these laudable acts they became again entrapped so as to deserve reproach.
Galatians 4:16
Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?
He says this as to imply: “It is not possible that I should become an enemy to those from whom I received such services. But because no one wants to be exposed when he errs, I seem to be your enemy when I justly reprimand you.”
Galatians 4:24
Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
These women represent the two covenants. Moses, taking the blood of a calf in a vessel, sprinkled the people, saying “this is the blood of the covenant, etc.” … The law was given on Mount Sinai. In reciting it to the people, Moses called this the book of the testament. He then sprinkled the people with blood, as I have said. This law held sinners as offenders. They soon began to be slaves of sin, as if they had been made sons of Hagar, as if returning to slavery.
Galatians 4:26
But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
Jerusalem, which he calls our mother, represents the Lord’s mystery, through which we are reborn into freedom, just as she is free. And she is called heavenly because heaven is her seat. Those to whom she gives birth will be there with her.
Galatians 4:31
So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.
We were therefore sons of the slave woman when we were liable for our sins. But, having received the remission of sins from Christ, we have been made free.