Our Liberty In Christ by Philip Mauro

thereto, but was “added to” or superimposed upon that plan. To the same effect it is said in Romans 5:20, “Moreover the law entered,” literally came in by the way, as we would say of a thing not bearing directly upon, or contributing directly to the accomplishment of the matter in hand.

And here we would submit to the judgment of our readers a proposition which we deem to be important. This dispensation of the Holy Spirit is sometimes spoken of as a ‘‘parenthesis.” that is to say, a matter not related directly to the main subject but which interrupts the course of the theme, and could be dropped out without being missed. According to that idea. God’s dealings with the nation Israel and His purpose for them are re­garded as the essential features of His great plan for the ages, the era of the church being viewed as a “parenthe­sis.” because it supposedly breaks in upon God’s dealings with Israel, which are to be resumed at the close of this dispensation.

But we maintain on the contrary that according to what is clearly stated in Galatians the main line of God’s dealings is that of His covenant with Abraham and his Seed, leading into blessing to all the nations. In other words. God’s main line of working is not “under the law” but “under the promise.” For Abraham was never un­der the law. The law then and not the church-age was the “parenthesis.” for it interrupted, during a period of about fifteen hundred years, God’s dealings in the line of the promise, just as the Hagar episode was a “paren­thesis” in Abraham’s personal history, interrupting for a time his relations with the true wife. Sarah.

Moreover, the beginning and the ending of the paren­thetical era of the law are definitely marked. The law was “four hundred and thirty years after” the promise (v. 17) ; and its duration was only “until the Seed should come to Whom the promise was made’’ (v. 19). Indeed the whole point of the argument here is that the law, be­ing a parenthesis interposed between “the promise” and the “Seed” by Whom it was to be fulfilled, cannot be taken as disannulling or as modifying in any wise the terms of the promise. “The covenant that was confirmed before of God to (not in) Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul’’ (v. 17). On the other hand, the law could not, and did not, promote in any wise the fulfilment of the promise. “For if the inheritance be of the law” — that is, be at­tained through the instrumentality of the law —” it is no more of promise: but God gave it (the inheritance) to Abraham by promise” (v. 19). Hence the law had noth­ing to do with the accomplishment of the purpose in view in the giving of the promise.

It is, we think, highly important to grasp the fact that this present era of the Holy Spirit, so far from being a “parenthesis,” interrupting the progress