Galatians 3:15
Brethren, aI speak after the *manner of men; Though it be but a man's 3covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto.
Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; Though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto.
Ἀδελφοί, κατὰ ἄνθρωπον λέγω· ὅμως ἀνθρώπου κεκυρωμένην διαθήκην οὐδεὶς ἀθετεῖ ἢ ἐπιδιατάσσεται.
Textual key: no entry
a:
Romans 3:5 But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man)
Romans 6:16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
Romans 6:19 I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.
1 Corinthians 15:32 If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die.
Hebrews 9:17 For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth.
*:
manner-custom, habit.
3:
Romans 9:4 Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;
the word here translated covenant, διαθηκη, is ordinarily translated testament; see Mat 26:28. It signifies in the general, an ordering or disposing of things; more specially, a testament; which is the disposition of the testator’s goods after his death. Now, (saith the apostle), I here argue according to the ordinary methods and doings of men, who have such a respect for a man’s testament, as that,
once confirmed, according to the methods of law and civil sanctions of men, or rather by the death of the testator (for a testament is of no force while the testator liveth, Heb 9:17); nor will men alter the will or last testament of a deceased person, though it be not as yet confirmed according to the methods of human laws.
that is, no just man, will go about to disannul it, or add to it, nor will any just government endure any such violation of it. Hence the apostle argueth both the certainty and unalterableness for the covenant of grace with Abraham, and until the death of Christ it was but a covenant, or a testament not fully confirmed, but yet unalterable, because the covenant of that God who cannot lie, nor repent; but by the death of Christ it became a testament, and a testament ratified and confirmed by the death of the person that was the testator; therefore never to be disannulled, never capable of any additions.
Those words, or addeth thereto, are fitly added, because these false teachers, though they might pretend not to disannul God’s covenant, holding still justification by Christ; yet they added thereto, making circumcision, and other legal observances, necessary to justification; whereas by God’s covenant, or testament, confirmed now by the death of Christ, faith in Christ only was necessary.