Exposing Our Needs

The law is useful to reveal our sin to us. The law is useless in providing salvation. All of us have sinned. And all of us may be saved by grace. It's not a matter of pick or choose. The law shows us our need, and it points to Jesus Christ.

Statement 3: The Law was given to prepare the way for Jesus Christ.

Paul writes:

Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.

You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. (Galatians 3:23-27)

Perhaps there's a practical way to try to explain this. It comes out in the phrase of Galatians 3:24, "So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith."

In the Greek world there was a household servant called the paidagogos. This person was not the schoolmaster. This person was usually an old and trusted slave of high character who had long served the family. This person was in charge of the child's moral welfare. It was a duty of this person to see that the child of the family stayed as much as possible out of temptation and danger so as to have the opportunity to grow up into a fulfilled adult. Each day this person accompanied the child to and from school. He didn't actually teach the child. It was his duty to get him to school, delivering him safely to the teacher.

Paul is saying that the law has this kind of a function. The law is there to lead us to Christ. It is not there to take the place of Jesus. The law shows us that we are incapable of righteousness. Our very sense of failure leads us to Jesus in awareness that we are not dependent on law but on grace. To push the analogy a bit farther, the slave was not the child's father. He was a child's guardian and disciplinarian. He was a kind of custodian or high class babysitter.

The law did not give life to Israel. Instead, it regulated the life of Israel. The Judaizers taught that the law was necessary for life and righteousness. Paul is saying that they are in error. The work of the guardian was preparation for the child's maturity. Once the child came to maturity, he no longer needed this guardian. For the law was a preparation for the nation of Israel until the coming of the promised Seed, Jesus Christ.

Fourth, in Galatians 3:27-29, Paul declares that the Law cannot do what the Promise can do.

Paul concludes this logical argument by reminding us that we are all sons and daughters of God through faith in Jesus Christ. By our baptism we have been clothed with Christ, literally laying aside the dirty garments of sin and being clothed in fresh clean garments of Christ's righteousness on our behalf.

When a Roman child came of age, he took off his childhood garments and put on the toga of adult citizenship. Paul is saying, "Why in the world are you taking off your adult toga and putting on children's clothes?"

Then he concludes with that gargantuan statement about the oneness we have in Christ Jesus. He declares: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Galatians3:28).

A first-century Pharisee would pray each morning, "I thank Thee, God, that I am a Jew, not a Gentile; a man, not a woman; and a free man, not a slave."

Aristotle declared that only a comparatively few people could really live worthwhile lives. He named four classes who never could. Slaves could not, for they're the tools of other men. Those who die young could not, for they've not lived long enough to achieve true happiness. Those who are diseased could not, for they are necessarily miserable. Paupers could not, for they do not have sufficient of this world's goods. Take these four classes from first century society or any society and how many would you have left?

Perhaps now you get a feel for what grace can do in an individual life and a society when such narrow restrictions are removed. That is why we say the ground is level at the foot of the cross. That is why, in the chauvinistic society of the first century, the Apostle Paul spoke words of liberation, freedom in Christ.

For God's sake and yours, let's let the mirror show us our need of the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ.

Let's let the guardian escort us into spiritual maturity.

Let's see the Law as a vehicle to Grace and the freedom which is ours in Jesus Christ, not the end in itself.