Under the Law or in Christ?
Galatians 3:23-29
Introduction
Continuing his discussion of works of the law versus faith in the promise, Paul in our text before us tonight, now contrast the personal effects those two approaches have on people. He introduces to us the personal application of the promise made to Abraham and the covenant of works through Moses. By doing this, he describes the before and the after of one’s conversion, the character and orientation of a person’s life before he trusts in God for salvation and after God grants him righteousness because of that trust. Before conversion a person is under the law and suffers the bondage that relationship brings; after conversion one is in Christ and enjoys the freedom that relationship brings.
I. Under Law: Bondage (vv. 23-24)
• Even the most pagan person who has never heard of the true God is under obligation to keep His moral and spiritual standards and, if he disregards those standards, to face the judgment of God.
• Paul here in our text uses two figures to represent God’s law and its effect on the unbelievers.
o The Law as a Prison (v. 24)
Prior to God’s revealing salvation in Christ, men were in a spiritual prison.
The powerful words of Paul in another epistle are a good place to begin the consideration of man’s imprisonment before faith came.
Paul in Romans 1:18-21 declared, “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes , His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”
In the next chapter of that same epistle Paul goes on to explain that “when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them” (2:14-15).
Whether it is through the written law of the Scripture or the inward law of conscience, until a person acknowledges his basic sinfulness and inability to perfectly fulfill the demands of God’s law, he will not come repentantly to seek salvation.
• Until one despairs of themselves and their own sinfulness, they will not come in humble faith to be filled with Christ’s righteousness.
• A person that says they want salvation but refuses to recognize and repent of his sin deceives himself.
• Salvation is deliverance from sin, and a person cannot want to keep his sin and at the same time want to be free from it.
• You cannot truly want the new Christ-life of righteousness without renouncing the old self-life of sin.
The purpose of the law is to reveal and convict people of sin.
• Forgiveness means nothing to a person who is either unaware they have done anything wrong or is unconvinced the wrong they know has produced any serious consequences to them.
• Grace means nothing to a person who does not know they are sinful and that such sinfulness means they are separated form God and damned.
• It is therefore pointless to preach grace until the impossible demands of the law and the reality of guilt before God are preached.
In the opening chapter of the classic Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan writes:
As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a den, and laid me down in that place to sleep; and, as I slept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and behold, I saw a man clothed with rags, standing in a certain place, with his face from his own house, a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back, I looked, and saw him open the book, and read therein; and as he read, he wept and trembled; and, not being able longer to contain, he brake out with a lamentable cry, saying, “What shall I do?”
• A short while later the man encountered a evangelist, who asked, “Wherefore dost thou cry?” The pilgrim answered, “Sir, I perceive by the book in my hand that I am condemned to die, and after that to come to judgment.” The evangelist then pointed the pilgrim toward a gate in the distance and to a light beyond it and a hill. With a great burden on his back and the book in his hand, the Pilgrim starred off toward the hill, crying out, “Life! Life! Eternal life!”
• The burden on the Pilgrim’s back was his sin, the book in his hand was the Bible, and the hill toward which he journeyed was Calvary.
• It was in the reading of God’s word that he learned God’s law condemned him to death and hell because of his sin, and it was that knowledge of sin and judgment that drove Him to the cross of Christ, where the penalty for his sin was paid in full and complete forgiveness offered.
• No matter with what view point you approach it, before faith come, every person is, in the deepest of sense, kept in custody under the law of God and the burden of sin.
• The believer who looks back realizes that being under the law had a good effect though, because it showed them their guilty helplessness, their moral and spiritual wickedness, their fearful danger, and their need of a deliverer.
• The impossible demands of the law are not designed to save, but to condemn sinners and drive them toward the Savior.
o The Law as Guardian and Guide (v. 24)
Second, the law has become a guardian and guide to the Jews and, in a less unique and more general sense, to all mankind.
The sole purpose of the Law, God’s divinely appointed teacher, was to lead men to Christ, that they might be justified.
• After a person comes to Him, there is no longer need for the external ceremonies and rituals to act as guides and disciplinarians, because the new inner principles operate through the indwelling of Christ.
• The law in the ceremonial sense is done away with, though in the moral sense it remains always an intimate friend that one seeks to love and favor.
Before Christ came, the law of external ritual and ceremony, especially the sacrificial system, pictured the once-for-all, perfect, and effective sacrifice of Christ for the sins of the world.
• When the perfect Christ comes into the believer’s heart, those imperfect pictures of Him have no more purpose or significance.
II. In Christ: Freedom (vv. 25-29)
• The Judaizers refused to relinquish the ceremonial law even after making a profession of belief in Christ.
• To them, trust in Christ was merely added to works of the law.
• And because they held onto the bondage of the law, they could not receive the freedom of faith.
• Because they insisted on remaining under the law, they never advanced to the care of the Savior.
• The law was never intended to be anything more than a temporary means of showing people their sin and leading them to the Savior.
• It’s internal, moral demands that left man ridden with guilt; its external ceremonies (circumcision, offerings, washings, Sabbaths, feasts) that symbolized the need for cleansing from that guilt.
• Now that faith in Christ has come, a person is no longer under the law as a guide.
• They are now out from under the law’s symbolism, the law’s bondage, and the law’s discipline.
• The law’s purpose has been fulfilled, and the person is not longer “under the law, but under grace.”
• God’s moral standards, however, do not change, and the New Testament reiterates them, and the power of the Holy Spirit living in the life of the believer enables obedience to keep them.
• As Paul unfolds the results of being rightly related to God through faith in Christ Jesus, he shows us three aspects of the freedom of that relationship.
• Those who believe in Him become one with Him are sons of God, are one with every other believer, and are heirs of the promise.
• Sons of God (v. 26)
• Because of his trust by many Arab tribes, the famous British scholar and soldier Lawrence of Arabia participated in the Paris peace talks after WWI. Several Arab leaders came with him to Paris and stayed in the same hotel. Then they went into their bathrooms they were astounded to discover they could bring seemingly unlimited amounts of water into the bathtub or sink simply by turning the handle on a faucet. When preparing to leave Paris, they removed the faucets and packed them in their luggage, thinking that the faucets themselves magically created the vast amounts of water. When the told Lawrence what they had done, he explained that the faucets were useless unless connected to pipes that were, in turn, connected to a source of water.
• In the same way, a person who is not connected to the Son is not connected to the Father and ha no source of spiritual life or power.
• God has no sons who are not identified by faith with His only Son, Jesus Christ.
• No one comes to the Father except through His Son.
• Faith in Christ Jesus brings believers into Sonship with God the Father.
• “As many as received Him [Christ], “John wrote, “He gave them right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name” (John 1:12)
• Paul a little in Galatians 4:6 writes, “And because you are sons, God has sent forth this Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’”
• Because believers are God’s children and have the power and assurance of His indwelling Spirit and are enveloped in the life of Christ, they should bring honor to His name by the way they live.
• Being cloth…with Christ, they should live like Christ, “blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation,…as lights in the world.” (Phil. 2:15).
• One with Other Christians (v. 28)
• Paul focused on the existing, well-defined distinctions of his society that drew sharp lines and set up high walls of separation between people.
• The essence of those distinctions was the idea that some people – namely Jews, free men, and males in general – were better than, more valuable then, and more significant than others.
• The gospel here destroys all such proud thinking.
• The person who becomes one with Christ also becomes one with every other believer.
• There are no distinctions among those who belong with Christ.
• In spiritual matters, there is to be made no racial, social, or sexual discrimination – neither Jew nor Greek,…slave nor free man,…male nor female.
• Heirs of the Promise (v. 29)
• The spiritual promise of eternal salvation and blessing given to Abraham belongs to all those who belong to Christ.
• They are all heirs according to that promise, which if fulfilled in Christ.
• Those who are children of God are “heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ” (Rom. 8:17).
• Christ’s inheritance belongs to “all those who are sanctified” (Acts 20:32).
• John in his vision on the island of Patmos heard a loud voice saying from the throne of God, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and he shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among them, and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain….He who overcomes shall inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son” (Rev. 21:3-4. 7).
Closing
As we close tonight, let me try to summarize this text for you. We cannot come to Christ to be justified until we have first been to the Law 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 the Law send us to Christ.
