This week, we are looking at a section of a letter in the New Testament of our Bibles called the book of Galatians. Yesterday, we saw a man named Paul explain that the Law was given so that we would be perfectly positioned to receive God’s promise of rescue from selfishness and rebellion as a result of placing our confident trust in the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel. The Law and Old Testament imprison us in our selfishness and rebellion so that we would be in a position to entrust ourselves with compete confidence not in what we do for God, but in what God has done for us through Jesus Christ. Today, we see Paul unpack this for us in Galatians 3:23:
But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed.
When Paul uses the phrase, but before faith came, he is referring to the time in history before Jesus Christ entered humanity. Before Jesus came to earth, Paul explains that we were kept in custody under the Law. In other words the Law was placed over the Jewish people and held them in custody. Now a natural question that arises here is “why would God use the Law and the Jewish religious system as the means by which He would confine them or hold them in custody? I mean why would God take away someone’s freedom like that?”
And maybe I have just described your view of God and religion. Maybe for you God is like the cop around the corner waiting to bust you because you violated one of His rules. God and religion is about confining and restricting your freedom. So, is that who God is and what God is about?
We see Paul answer these questions by explaining that the Jewish people were held in custody under the Law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. You see, the Law and the Jewish religious system were not used by God to keep the Jewish people in custody in order to rob them of their freedom. Instead the Law and the Jewish religious system were used by God to point the Jewish people to something, which was to the faith that was later to be revealed. Now this word revealed here, in the language that this letter was originally written in, literally means to cause something to be fully known.
The Apostle Paul’s point here is that the Law and the Jewish religious system was used to point the Jewish people to the day in history when Jesus Christ would come to earth and make fully known God’s message of rescue through the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel that would result in freedom from the selfishness and rebellion that separated them from God. Paul then hammers this point home to the members of the churches of Galatia, beginning in Galatians 3:24:
Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
Now to fully grasp the significance of what Paul is saying here, we first need to wrap our minds around what Paul means when he says that the Law has become our tutor to Christ. In the Jewish culture of the Apostle Paul’s day, this word was used to describe a person, who was normally a slave, that functioned as a custodian and who would guide a young and free Jewish person to and from school and who would provide guidance and direction and be in charge of the free child when it came to their conduct or behavior. In our culture today, the word tutor would more aptly describe how a bus driver functions.
Now, let’s ask ourselves a question: As a teenager, did you enjoy riding the bus to and from school? Teenagers who ride the bus now, do you enjoy riding the bus to school? Or would you rather walk or better yet, drive your own car to school? Now, I don’t know about you, but I didn’t enjoy riding the bus; I would have much rather had the freedom to drive to school in my own car. I despised riding the bus to school. I would have rather walked than ride the bus to school. I mean on the bus, there were all these rules: rules on where to sit, how to sit. And there was little or no freedom. No choice of music; no choice of who rode on the bus with you; and very little choice when it come to who sat next to you on the bus.
The closer and closer that I inched to my sixteenth birthday, the more desperate I became to be freed from the bus driver and her rules. The closer and closer I inched toward my sixteenth birthday, the more desperately I desired a better option than the bus and the bus driver. The closer and closer that I inched to my sixteenth birthday, the more desperate I became to be rescued from my desperate situation on the bus and my relationship with the bus driver.
My time on the bus with the bus driver led me to desperately desire the freedom that would come with my license and a car. And when I turned sixteen and had the opportunity to get my license and a car, I jumped on that opportunity. I responded to the opportunity to have another option when it came to how I would get to school. And I rejoiced in the freedom that I received from the bus and the rules of the bus driver when I received my license and car.
Paul’s point here is that in the same way, the Law and Jewish religious system served to reveal the desperate situation that the Jewish people were in. Just like that bus driver, the Law and the Jewish religious system guided, directed and oversaw the conduct of the Jewish people. Just like that bus and the bus driver, the Law and the Jewish religious system guided and directed them to look at the desperate situation that they were in as they tried to do things for God in order to be in a right relationship with God. Just like that bus and the bus driver, the Law and the Jewish religious system guided the Jewish people to look for a better option that would rescue them from the desperate situation that they were in as a result of being guilty of having a huge problem with God.
And that better option, as Paul reveals in these verses was to be justified by faith. That better option was to be declared not guilty of having a huge problem with God as a result of placing one’s confident trust in what Christ had done for them through His life, death, and resurrection. And that is exactly why Jesus had come. And since Christ had come to earth and made fully known God’s message of rescue through the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel, humanity was no longer under a tutor. They were longer in need of someone to guide and direct them to a time in the future, because that future had come.
God had fulfilled His promise to Abraham and sent His Son Jesus, who entered into humanity and allowed Himself to be treated as though He lived our selfish and sinful lives so God the Father could treat us as though we lived Jesus perfect life. God had provided the opportunity for all humanity to receive the forgiveness of sin and enter into the relationship with God that they were created for by believing, trusting and following Jesus as Lord and Leader.
For those who placed their confident trust in the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel, they would receive the freedom that comes from being rescued from selfishness and rebellion. And for those who had placed their confident trust in the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel, Paul explains that you are all sons of God through faith in Christ. Those who placed their confident trust in the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel would no longer be outsiders when it came to their relationship with God. Instead they would be insiders who had been reconciled and restored to the relationship with God that they were created for as part of the family of God.
And it is here that we see the Apostle Paul reveal for us another timeless reason why we are to vote no on religion. And that timeless reason is this: We are to vote no on religion because religion confines and can only guide us to see our need for Christ. You see, whether it the religion of legalism or the religion of license, every religious system can only confine us. Religion can only imprison us in the selfishness and rebellion that separates us from God. Every religion that has ever been devised can guide us to see the desperate situation that we are in as a result of the selfishness and rebellion that separates us from God.
But that is all religion can do. All religion can do is to confine us and lock us up under the destructive power of the selfishness and rebellion that resides within us. All religion can do is to guide us to the reality that there is nothing we can do for God in order to rescue us and make us right with God. All religion can do is guide us to see our need for a rescuer.
But religion does not provide that rescuer that can deliver us from the destructive power of selfishness and rebellion that is within us. Only Jesus Christ can rescue us. It is only when we place our confident trust in what God has done for us that we can be rescued from the destructive power of the selfishness and rebellion that resides within us and experience the forgiveness and relationship with God that we were created for.
Friday, we will see Paul unpack this reality for us…
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