Galatians 3:23-29 – The School Teacher
In v23 Paul says that before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. Now that clearly doesn’t mean that people in the Old Testament didn’t have faith. Paul has just been arguing, especially back in v6, that Abraham was saved by faith. And so most commentators see ‘before faith came’ as another way of saying ‘before Jesus came’. That is, ‘before the object of our faith came’. And until that happened, we were imprisoned. The law had something definite in view. It was all pointing to the coming of Jesus. The 10 commandments showed men and women that they had no hope of getting right with God by themselves. So it pointed them forward to the one who was to come.
Paul uses yet another illustration to describe the law’s purpose in v25. He describes the law as our guardian. The older versions say schoolmaster. Literally the word is pedagogue. To understand this, we need to know something about how wealthy Roman families brought up children. They would have a slave called a pedagogue, who would be responsible for overseeing the life and education of their son. The pedagogue had the authority to discipline the son. Basically, his job was to keep him on the straight and narrow until he reached adulthood. And there’s a sense in which the law did that for the nation of Israel. It kept them separate from the other nations until their king came. They were taught to make distinctions between clean and unclean food and so on. It helped keep Israel as a distinct nation until Jesus came.
But the false teachers in Galatia want the Christians there to keep up these distinctions. Paul says in v26 – you’re not children anymore – you’re sons of God through faith. You’re not to try and go back in time. Now that Jesus has come, your distinctiveness is to be seen in living holy lives, not in what you eat and drink. So the ceremonial laws that the false teachers are trying to impose are no longer in place. And in v27 that includes circumcision. It’s been replaced by baptism. Paul rounds off his argument in v28. The old distinctions no longer apply. And so we end in v29 with the main theme. Abraham was saved by faith in Christ. The whole law system was first and foremost to show us our need of Christ. Those who are Abraham’s offspring are those whose faith is in the same Saviour that Abraham trusted in.
Questions
- Whom did the law point forward to?
- How is the law like a school teacher?
Prayer Points
- Pray for the preaching and hearing of God’s Word tomorrow.
- Use prayer points from your congregation.
- Pray for family matters.