For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.
All Commentaries on Galatians 2:19 Go To Galatians 2
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
For I through the law am dead to the law. The law was the forerunner of Christ, and died when He appeared. The Ceremonial died absolutely, the Moral only so far as it was a tutor, and a judge of sin. By the law itself I died to law, because itself bade me die to it and live unto Christ. This is a second reason, following on that given in ver17 , why we are justified by Christ and not by the law. Since the law itself sent me to Christ, why do you, 0 Jews, go against its own declarations, and seek to galvanise it into fresh life? It does not, however, follow from this that the binding force of the Decalogue ceased when Christ came, for the law in this respect was not Mosaic, but natural and immutable. Cf. notes on Romans 7:1.
Accordingly, Luther"s remarks here and again on chapter iv. of this Epistle are impious. "To die to the law," he says, "is nothing but to be free from obeying it, whether it be ceremonial or moral, for it is obvious that the law was given to the Jews, and not to us." He says the same in his treatise de Libertate Christiant: "The Christian needs neither law nor works, for by faith he is free from all law." Again, in the Wittenberg Edition of his works (pp189 , 190), he says: "The human heart must hate above all things the law of God, and so far God Himself." Listen to these words, all ye who have been miserably deceived by him and his colleagues, and shudder at the words not of a man but of Satan. For what more blasphemous and abominable words could Satan, the sworn foe of God and Prayer of Manasseh , utter against God, or what words more dangerous to man?
The sentiments of Calvin (Instit. lib3 , cap19 , § 2 , 4 , 7): "When conscience says, "Thou hast sinned," reply, " Yes, I have sinned."—"God will, therefore, condemn and Punish you."—"No, for it is the law that threatens that; but I have nothing to do with the law."—"Why?"—"Because I am free." " Is this the pure Gospel? Did Paul teach this? "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid. Yea, we establish the law." ( Romans 3:31.) "Who," says S. Augustine (contra Ep. Pelag. lib. iii. c4), "is so impious as to say that he does not keep the commandments, because a Christian is not under the law but under grace?" Who can believe that Luther and Calvin were sent by God to be reformers of the Church, when they abrogate all law, human and Divine?
