Galatians 3:15
Inheritance Comes from Promises and not Law
3:15 Brothers and sisters, 1 I offer an example from everyday life: 2 When a covenant 3 has been ratified, 4 even though it is only a human contract, no one can set it aside or add anything to it.
Galatians 3:17
3:17 What I am saying is this: The law that came four hundred thirty years later does not cancel a covenant previously ratified by God, 5 so as to invalidate the promise.
1 tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:11.
2 tn Grk “I speak according to man,” referring to the illustration that follows.
3 tn The same Greek word, διαθήκη (diaqhkh), can mean either “covenant” or “will,” but in this context the former is preferred here because Paul is discussing in vv. 16-18 the Abrahamic covenant.
4 tn Or “has been put into effect.”
5 tc Most mss (D F G I 0176 0278 Ï it sy) read “ratified by God in Christ” whereas the omission of “in Christ” is the reading in Ì46 א A B C P Ψ 6 33 81 1175 1739 1881 2464 pc co. The shorter reading is strongly supported by the ms evidence, and it is probable that a copyist inserted the words as an interpretive gloss. However, this form of the “in Christ” expression is somewhat atypical in the corpus Paulinum (εἰς Χριστόν [ei" Criston] rather than ἐν Χριστῷ [en Cristw]), a fact which tempers one’s certainty about the shorter reading. Nevertheless, the expression is used more in Galatians than in any other of Paul’s letters (Gal 2:16; 3:24, 27), and may have been suggested by such texts to early copyists.