10. Under the law and in Christ
In Galatians 3:15–22 the apostle Paul reviewed two thousand years of Old Testament history, from Abraham through Moses to Christ. He also showed how these great biblical names are related to one another in the unfolding purpose of God: how God gave to Abraham a promise and to Moses a law, and how through Christ he fulfilled the promise which the law had revealed as indispensable. For the law condemned sinners to death, while the promise offered them justification and eternal life.
Now Paul expands on his theme and shows that this progression from the promise through the law to the fulfilment of the promise is more than the history of the Old Testament and of the Jewish nation. It is the biography of everyone, at least of every Christian. We are all either held captive by the law because we are still waiting for the fulfilment of the promise, or delivered from the law because we have inherited the promise. More simply, we are all living either in the Old Testament or in the New, and derive our religion either from Moses or from Jesus. In the language of this paragraph, we are either ‘under the law’ or ‘in Christ’.
God’s purpose for our spiritual pilgrimage is that we should pass through the law into an experience of the promise. The tragedy is that so many people separate them by wanting one without the other. Some try to go to Jesus without first meeting Moses. They want to skip the Old Testament, to inherit the promise of justification in Christ without the prior pain of condemnation by the law. Others go to Moses and the law to be condemned, but they stay in this unhappy bondage. They are still living in the Old Testament. Their religion is a dreadful yoke, hard to bear. They have never gone to Christ, to be set free.
Both these stages are set out here. Verses 23 and 24 describe what we were under the law, and verses 25–29 what we are in Christ.
1. What we were under the law (3:23–24)
In a word, we were in bondage. The apostle uses two vivid similes in verses 23 and 24 in which the law is likened first to a prison, in which we were held captive, and then to a tutor, whose discipline was harsh and severe.
a. A prison (3:23)
Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law. Let us examine the two verbs. The Greek word for held in custody (phroureō) means to ‘protect by military guards’ (Grimm–Thayer). When applied to a city, it was used both of keeping the enemy out and of keeping the inhabitants in, lest they should flee or desert. It is used in the New Testament of the attempt to keep Paul in Damascus: ‘the governor under King Aretas had the city of the Damascenes guarded [presumably by posting sentries] in order to arrest me,’ Paul himself wrote (2 Cor. 11:32). And Luke describes how the Jews ‘kept close watch on the city gates in order to kill him’ (Acts 9:24; emphasis added). Confined to the city in this way, his only possible means of escape was the undignified procedure of being smuggled out by night through a window in the wall, and being lowered to the ground in a basket. The same verb is used metaphorically of God’s peace and power (Phil. 4:7; 1 Pet. 1:5), and is here applied to the law which held in custody. The verb locked up (synkleiō) is similar. It means to ‘hem in’ or ‘coop up’ (Liddell and Scott). Its only literal use in the New Testament comes in Luke’s account of the miraculous catch of fish, when ‘they caught . . . a large number of fish’ (Luke 5:6, emphasis added).
So both verbs emphasize that God’s law and commandments hold us in prison, and keep us confined, so that we cannot escape. The neb translation is that ‘we were close prisoners in the custody of the law’.
b. A guardian (3:24)
This is Paul’s second metaphorical description of the law. The Greek word is paidagōgos and means literally a ‘tutor, i.e. a guide and guardian of boys’ (Grimm–Thayer). He was usually himself a slave, whose duty it was ‘to conduct the boy or youth to and from school, and to superintend his conduct generally’ (Arndt–Gingrich). He was often harsh to the point of cruelty, and is usually shown in ancient drawings with a rod or cane in his hand. Paul uses the word again in 1 Corinthians 4:15, saying, ‘Even if you had ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers.’ In other words, ‘There are plenty of people to discipline you, but I am the only one to love you.’ Later in the same chapter he asks: ‘Shall I come to you with a rod of discipline [i.e. like a paidagōgos], or shall I come in love and with a gentle spirit [i.e. like a father]?’ (1 Cor. 4:21).
What do these two similes imply? In what sense is the law like a prison guard and a child’s disciplinarian or tutor? The law expresses the will of God for his people, telling us what to do and what not to do, and warns us of the penalties of disobedience. Since we have all disobeyed, we have fallen under its just condemnation. We are all ‘under the control of sin’ (22), and therefore we are all ‘under the law’ (23). By nature and practice we are ‘under a curse’ (10), that is, ‘the curse of the law’ (13). Nothing we do can deliver us from its cruel tyranny. Like a jailor it has thrown us into prison; like a paidagōgos it rebukes and punishes us for our misdeeds.
But, thank God, he never meant this oppression to be permanent. He gave the law in his grace in order to make the promise more desirable. So Paul adds a time reference to both descriptions of our bondage here: Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed (23). Again, the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith (24). These are two ways of saying the same thing, because faith and Christ go together. Both verses tell us that the oppressive work of the law was temporary, and that it was ultimately intended not to hurt but to bless. Its purpose was to shut us up in prison until Christ should set us free, or to put us under guardians until Christ should make us children.
Only Christ can deliver us from the prison to which the curse of the law has brought us, because he was made a curse for us. Only Christ can deliver us from the law’s harsh discipline, because he makes us children who obey from love for their Father and are no longer disobedient children needing to be punished.
2. What we are in Christ (3:25–29)
Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian (25). This underlines that what we are is quite different from what we were. We are no longer ‘under the law’ in the sense that we are condemned and imprisoned by it. Now we are in Christ (26), united to him by faith, and so have been accepted by God for Christ’s sake, in spite of our grievous lawbreaking.
The last four verses of Galatians 3 are full of Jesus Christ. Verse 26: ‘in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.’ Verse 27: ‘For all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.’ The reference here may be to the toga virilis, which a boy would put on when he had entered into manhood, a sign that he had grown up. Verse 28b: ‘You are all one in Christ Jesus.’ Verse 29: ‘If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed.’ This, then, is what we are as Christians. We are ‘in Christ’, we have been ‘baptised into Christ’, we have clothed ourselves ‘with Christ’ and we ‘belong to Christ’.
Paul now unfolds three results of our being united to Christ in this way.
a. In Christ we are children of God (3:26–27)
God is no longer our Judge, who through the law has condemned and imprisoned us. God is no longer our Guardian, who restrains and chastises us through the law. God is now our Father, who in Christ has accepted and forgiven us. We no longer fear him, dreading the punishment we deserve; we love him, with deep devotion. We are neither prisoners, awaiting the final execution of our sentence, nor children, minors, under the restraint of a tutor, but children of God and heirs of his glorious kingdom, enjoying the status and privileges of grown-up children (which is the only sense in which the New Testament would allow the modern idea that people ‘come of age’).
This relationship we have as the children of God is in Christ; it is not in ourselves. The doctrine of God as a universal Father was not taught by Christ nor by his apostles. God is indeed the universal Creator, having brought all things into existence, and the universal King, ruling and sustaining all that he has made. But he is the Father only of our Lord Jesus Christ and of those whom he adopts into his family through Christ. If we want to be the children of God, then we must be in Christ Jesus . . . through faith (26). It is through faith that we are in Christ, and through being in Christ that we are children of God.
Our baptism is the visible indication of this union with Christ: all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ (27). This cannot possibly mean that the act of baptism itself unites a person to Christ, that the mere administration of water makes that person a child of God. We must give Paul credit for a consistent theology. This whole epistle is devoted to the theme that we are justified through faith, not circumcision. It is unthinkable that Paul should now substitute baptism for circumcision and teach that we are in Christ by baptism! The apostle clearly makes faith the means of our union with Christ. He mentions faith five times in this paragraph, but baptism only once. Faith secures the union; baptism is the outward and visible sign of it. So in Christ, by faith inwardly (26) and baptism outwardly (27), we are all children of God.
b. In Christ we are all one (3:28)
Literally, ‘You are all one person in Christ Jesus’ (neb). In Christ we belong not only to God (as his children) but to each other (as brothers and sisters). And we belong to each other in such a way as to render of no account the things which normally distinguish us, such as race, rank and sex.
First, there is no distinction of race: There is neither Jew nor Gentile (28). God called Abraham and his descendants (the Jewish race) in order to entrust his unique self-revelation to them. But when Christ came, God’s promise was fulfilled that in Abraham’s seed all the families of the earth would be blessed. This includes all nations of every race, colour and language. We are equal: equal in our need of salvation, equal in our inability to earn or deserve it, and equal in the fact that God offers it to us freely in Christ. Once we have received it, our equality is transformed into a fellowship, the family which only Christ can create.
Second, there is no distinction of rank: There is . . . neither slave nor free. Nearly every society in the history of the world has developed its class or caste system. Circumstances of birth, wealth, privilege and education have divided men and women from one another. But in Christ snobbery is prohibited and class distinctions are made invalid.
Third, there is no distinction of sex: nor is there male and female. This remarkable assertion of the equality of the sexes was made centuries in advance of the times. Women were nearly always despised in the ancient world, even in Judaism, and often exploited and ill-treated as well. But here we find the assertion that in Christ male and female are one and equal – made by Paul, who is ignorantly supposed by many to have been an anti-feminist.
A word of caution must be added. This great statement of verse 28 does not mean that racial, social and sexual distinctions are actually obliterated. Christians are not literally ‘colour-blind’, so that they do not notice the colour of a person’s skin. Nor are they unaware of the cultural and educational background from which people come. Nor do they ignore a person’s sex, treating a woman as if she were a man or a man as if he were a woman. Of course every person belongs to a certain race and nation, has been nurtured in a particular culture, and is either male or female. When we say that Christ has abolished these distinctions, we mean not that they do not exist, but that they do not matter. They are still there, but they no longer create any barriers to fellowship. We recognize each other as equals, brothers and sisters in Christ. By the grace of God we are to resist the temptation to despise one another or patronize one another, for we know ourselves to be ‘all one person in Christ Jesus’ (neb).
c. In Christ we are Abraham’s seed (3:29)
If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. We have seen that in Christ we belong to God and to each other. In Christ we also belong to Abraham. We take our place in the noble historical succession of faith, whose outstanding representatives are listed in Hebrews 11. No longer do we feel ourselves to be waifs and strays, without any significance in history, or bits of useless debris drifting on the tide of time. Instead, we find our place in the unfolding purpose of God. We are the spiritual seed of our father Abraham, who lived and died four thousand years ago, for in Christ we have become heirs of the promise which God made to him.
These, then, are the results of being ‘in Christ’, and they speak with powerful relevance to us today. For our generation is busy developing a philosophy of meaninglessness. It is fashionable nowadays to believe (or to say you believe) that life has no meaning, no purpose. There are many who admit that they have nothing to live for. They do not feel that they belong anywhere, or, if they belong, it is to the group known as ‘the unattached’. They class themselves as ‘outsiders’, ‘misfits’. They are without anchor, security or home. In biblical language, they are ‘lost’.
To such people comes the promise that in Christ we find ourselves. The unattached become attached. They find their place in eternity (related first and foremost to God as his sons and daughters), in society (related to each other as brothers and sisters in the same family) and in history (related also to the succession of God’s people down the ages). This is a three-dimensional attachment which we gain when we are in Christ – in height, breadth and length. It is an attachment in ‘height’ through reconciliation to the God who, although some theologians reject the concept and we must be careful how we interpret it, is a God ‘above’ us, transcendent over the universe he has made. Next, it is an attachment in ‘breadth’, since in Christ we are united to all other believers throughout the world. Third, it is an attachment in ‘length’, as we join the long, long line of believers throughout the whole course of time.
So conversion, although supernatural in its origin, is natural in its effects. It does not disrupt nature, but fulfils it, for it puts me where I belong. It relates me to God, to other people and to history. It enables me to answer the most basic of all human questions, ‘Who am I?’, and to say, ‘In Christ I am a child of God. In Christ I am united to all the redeemed people of God, past, present and future. In Christ I discover my identity. In Christ I find my feet. In Christ I come home.’
3. Conclusion
The apostle has painted a vivid contrast between those who are ‘under the law’ and those who are ‘in Christ’, and everybody belongs to the one or the other category. If we are ‘under the law’, our religion is a bondage. Not knowing forgiveness, we are still, as it were, in custody, like captives in prison or children under tutors. It is sad to be in prison and in the nursery when we could be grown up and free. But if we are ‘in Christ’, we have been set free. Our religion is characterized by ‘promise’ rather than by ‘law’. We know ourselves related to God, and to all God’s other children in space, time and eternity.
We cannot come to Christ to be justified until we have first been to Moses to be condemned. But once we have gone to Moses, and acknowledged our sin, guilt and condemnation, we must not stay there. We must let Moses send us to Christ.