March 14 - Galatians 3:23-24

March 14 - Galatians 3:23-24

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. So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith.

An initial reading of this implies imprisonment under the Law, but another application of the thought might be a custodial relationship – such as a guardian or foster parent.

Since we live by faith and not by the Law today, we don’t understand the incredible difference that Jesus’ life, death and resurrection brought to us.  We take what we have for granted.  Even the transition from not knowing Christ to knowing Christ is not as profound as the transformation from living under the Law to living by faith according to Jesus’ words.

If we look at the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, we glimpse a hint of the ways that Jesus was changing people’s attitudes and application of the law.  The commands are the same, but there is such a difference in how He binds people to those commands.

In those days every bit of the letter of the law was spelled out and just as we see happen today, as soon as they spelled out the law, someone went looking for a loophole.  Jesus wanted people’s actions to be a reflection of their heart, not a reaction to a law.

For instance, in Matthew 5:33, Jesus says, “You have heard it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.’” 

Well, as you read through the rest of that passage, you find that people were making oaths on the earth or on the basis of themselves. 

None of that will work … and obviously the law forced people to find their way around it so that they could continue in their humanity.

By the time Jesus got to the end of His teaching on that issue, He made it quite clear that it wasn’t about the Law at all, it was about the intent of the person and so He said, “Simply let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and your ‘no,’ ‘no!’

That’s all there is to it.  If you have to make an oath on an external foundation, you have lost the power of the truth of your word.  If your yes is yes and your no is no and people trust you to be honest and that your word is good … that is much more important.

The Law held people to a semblance of the righteousness that God desired for His people, but they worked hard to find their way around it.  For the time that the Law held power over God’s people, it was important that it be there.  But, it was just acting as a guardian or a foster parent and as soon as that period of necessity was ended … when Jesus arrived … the Law became subordinate to faith in Jesus Christ.