39. by him all that believe are justified from all things--The sense
requires that a pause in the sentence be made here: "By him the believer
is absolved from all charges of the law." What follows,
from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses--is not an
exceptional but an explanatory clause. The meaning is not,
"Though the law justifies from many things, it cannot justify from all
things, but Christ makes up all deficiencies"; but the meaning is, "By
Christ the believer is justified from all things, whereas the law
justifies from nothing." (Note.--The deeper sense of justification,
the positive side of it, is reserved for the Epistles, addressed to
the justified themselves: and whereas it is the resurrection of
Christ here, and throughout the Acts chiefly, which is dwelt on, because
the first thing in order to bring peace to the guilty through Christ was
to establish His Messiahship by His resurrection, in the Epistles to
believers His death as the way of reconciliation is fully unfolded).
JFB.
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