"Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ."
These words admit of two renderings: either 'Now to Abraham and his seed,' or 'now in, through, or in reference to Abraham and his seed.' In either case they are expressive of a fact. "To Abraham and his seed promises were made;" or, in other words, blessings were promised. The following are examples of such promises,—Gen. 12:3; 17:4–8; 22:16, 17. This has been generally understood to be the meaning of the apostle; and it has been supposed that his argument is,—'Certain blessings were by God freely promised to Abraham and his spiritual seed long before the law was given, and therefore their communication cannot be suspended on obedience to the requisitions of that law.' The great objection to this mode of interpretation is, that it obliges us to understand the word "Christ," not of the Messiah personally, but of the collective body of those who are saved by him.
We are rather disposed to consider the apostle as stating, 'Now the promises were made through or in reference to Abraham and his Seed.' Not only were blessings promised to Abraham and his seed; but blessings were promised through Abraham and his Seed to the nations. It is to one of these promises that the apostle refers in the preceding context, verse 8. The blessing promised through Abraham and his Seed was, he informs us, the justification of the Gentiles by faith. We consider the apostle then as saying in the first clause of the verse, 'Now the promises of justification by faith were made to the Gentiles through Abraham and through his Seed.'
The word "seed" is a word of ambiguous meaning. It may either signify descendants generally, or one class of descendants, or a single descendant.3 The apostle in the concluding part of the verse tells us how it is to be understood in the passage he alludes to. "He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy Seed, which is Christ."
These words have very generally been understood as if they embodied an argument,—as if the apostle reasoned from the word "seed" being in the singular, inferring from that circumstance either that the word referred to one class of descendants, and not to descendants of all classes, or to one individual descendant, and not to descendants generally. That this is not the apostle's reasoning we apprehend is certain; for it is obviously inconclusive reasoning. The use of the plural term might have laid a foundation for the inference that he spake of more than one; but seed being a collective word, its use in the singular lays no foundation for an opposite inference. Even supposing that his Jewish readers might have been imposed on by such a sophism, which is not at all probable, it would not only have been unworthy of his dignity as an apostle, but of his integrity as an honest man, to have used it.
The truth is, there is no ground to suppose that it is the statement of an argument at all. It is just as Riccaltoun observes, "a critical, explicatory remark." It is just as if he had said, 'In the passage I refer to, the word seed is used of an individual, just as when it is employed of Seth, Gen. 4:25, where he is called "another seed," and said to be given in the room of Abel, whom Cain slew. In looking carefully at the promise recorded, Gen. 22:16–18, the phrase "seed" seems used with a different reference in the two parts of the promise—the first part of the 17th verse plainly referring to a class of descendants; the last clause and the 18th verse to an individual, and that individual is Christ.' There is no doubt that this is the fact—that in the promise, "In thy Seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed," the reference is not to the descendants of Abraham generally, nor to his descendants by Isaac, nor to his spiritual descendants, but to his great descendant, the Messiah.
The words will, indeed, admit of another meaning, q. d.—'The sacred oracle does not refer to all the descendants of Abraham, but to one particular class of them; not to his descendants by Ishmael, nor to his descendants by the sons of Keturah, nor even to all his descendants by Isaac, nor to his natural descendants, but to his spiritual descendants.' But this obliges us to understand the word "Christ" in a very unusual, if not altogether unwarranted, sense. Besides, if the apostle alludes, as is natural, to the promise he had already quoted, there is no doubt that the reference there is to the Messiah personally considered. We therefore prefer the former mode of interpretation. The promise of justification by faith to the Gentiles was made through Abraham and his seed, meaning by his seed, the Messiah. The reason why this is so particularly noticed will appear in the course of the discussion.
