What Does Galatians 3:21 Mean in the King James?
Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The instruction is not against the promise; it simply cannot make alive the life from which alignment comes.
THE MEANING
God’s instruction stands alongside the promises without opposing them. Its limit is precise: it cannot make alive; if it could, alignment would come through instruction. The verse holds the promise and the instruction together while showing that they do not do the same work.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that God’s instruction is an enemy of God’s promises, and the assumption that stricter instruction can itself produce life and alignment.
THE ROOT
ζωοποιῆσαι
zōopoiēsai
GROWS FROM
ζωοποιέω (zōopoieō), from ζωός (zōos) + ποιέω (poieō)
Make alive, give life; formed from “living” and “make.”
“given life” in this verse is zōopoiēsai. The Greek verb asks whether instruction can make someone alive, not merely whether it can state what is right. The verse says that capacity is absent, so alignment does not come through instruction.
ALSO GROWS
zōos: Living, alive
ζωός
This is the living quality named in the first part of the compound: the question concerns imparting life.
poieō: Make, do
ποιέω
This supplies the verb’s making force: the question is whether instruction can bring life about.
zōopoieō: Make alive, give life
ζωοποιέω
The same verb appears in 2 Corinthians 3:6, where the verse says that life is given.
δικαιοσύνη
dikaiosynē
GROWS FROM
δικαιο-
dikaio-
Rightness and justice; the established understanding here is alignment.
“Righteousness” can sound like a status earned by rule-keeping; the Greek word carries the sense of being set right. The verse’s conditional is pointed: if instruction could impart life, alignment would come through it, but it cannot.
ALSO GROWS
dikaios: Just, right, aligned
δίκαιος
This describes the quality of being in right relation that the verse calls righteousness.
dikaioō: Set right, justify
δικαιόω
This related verb expresses the movement toward the aligned state named by dikaiosynē.
THE PATTERN
The power to make alive belongs to the life-giver, not to the instruction being tested against it.
Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live:It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.THE THREAD
Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.“Giveth life” translates the same Greek life-making verb as “given life” in Galatians 3:21. The shared word makes the question in Galatians concrete: instruction cannot impart the life that the verse says the breath gives.
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