Under the tutor – the law.
“Now before faith came we were held in custody under the law, being held as prisoners until the coming faith would be revealed. Thus the law had become our guardian until Christ so that we could be declared righteous by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.” (Galatians 3:23 -25, NET). Paul is addressing the Ten Commandments, not a universal Moral Law. The universal Moral Law condemned humankind to eternal death in the garden of Eden. God took the sinful humankind from under the Law and placed it under grace, the Faith, or the Teacher Jesus Christ.
The “faith” above refers to Jesus Christ. In Paul’s time, a wealthy man would place his son under a trusted enslaved person until a predetermined time. Therefore, while the son of a reach man was still a child, he, technically, was no better than the enslaved person because an enslaved person would be over him as his guardian until the time determined by the father.
When the son of a wealthy man is old enough to begin schooling, his father appoints a trusted enslaved person in charge of the son until they get to the teacher. Even though the son was technically the owner of the trusted enslaved person, the trusted enslaved person had full authority over him until they got to the teacher. Because the son is still too young, he needed a guardian. Paul presented this example to illustrate the state of humankind, the sinners, before the coming of the Messiah, the righteous teacher. John 13:13.
God gave the law as the guardian of the people through whom he chose to bring the Messiah, the world’s Savior. Paul asserts that before the Messiah, the Jewish people were like a minor in need of a guardian. Galatians 4:1 – 3. The Torah, with its legal part, the ten commandments, was given as a trusted enslaved person to lead the chosen people to the Messiah, the Teacher, and the Savior. Therefore, Paul argues, the law was a temporary provision from Moses to the Cross of Christ. When the minor, the chosen people, comes to the teacher, the Messiah, he no longer needs a guardian. The literal meaning of the original text is that ‘the law was put alongside the minor’ to guide him to the teacher, the Messiah. The Righteous Teacher, the Messiah, has authority over the law because he is the lawgiver. Now that we are in Christ, the Teacher, we do not need the law as our guardian, the tutor. Galatians 3:25.
This subject will continue in the next blog.
