For what was impossible to the Law –powerless as it was because it acted through frail humanity– God effected. Sending His own Son in a body like that of sinful human nature and as a sacrifice for sin, He pronounced sentence upon sin in human nature;
Brethren, even a covenant made by a man –to borrow an illustration from daily life– when once formally sanctioned is not liable to be set aside or added to.
I mean that the Covenant which God had already formally made is not abrogated by the Law which was given four hundred and thirty years later–so as to annul the promise.
God, however, is only one. Is the Law then opposed to the promises of God? No, indeed; for if a Law had been given which could have conferred Life, righteousness would certainly have come by the Law.
Now, however, having come to know God –or rather to be known by Him– how is it you are again turning back to weak and worthless rudimentary notions to which you are once more willing to be enslaved?
Train yourself in godliness. Exercise for the body is not useless, but godliness is useful in every respect, possessing, as it does, the promise of Life now and of the Life which is soon coming.
Do not be drawn aside by all sorts of strange teaching; for it is well to have the heart made stedfast through God's grace, and not by special kinds of food, from which those who scrupulously attend to them have derived no benefit.