THE TUTOR AND THE SONS

GALATIANS 3:23-29

JUNE 21, 1998

 

What does it take to bring a sinner to faith in Christ?  Some would suggest a certain attractiveness or persuasiveness.  Others think that a personal tragedy or even a personal triumph might lead to faith.

 

While these kinds of things may or may not have any influence on a person dead in trespasses and sins, we can be assured that the Holy Spirit's application of the Law to a person leads to the cross!  The Law was never given to justify anyone.  But without the Law being applied to the sinner, he will not see the need to flee by faith to Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

 

Let us see how Paul opens this truth in our text.

 

I.  Before Faith 

 

The Apostle continues to amplify what he has explained in 3:19, "Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions...."  He shows that the Scripture puts all men in the same boat--sinners who have no hope to save themselves.

 

By the use of two metaphors, Paul shows how the Law functions to lead us to Christ.  The Law is certainly preparatory to justification.  It is essential to be confronted by the Law if we are to understand justification by faith.  John Stott goes so far as to state, "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 acknowledge our sin, guilt, and condemnation, we must not stay there.  We must let Moses send us to Christ" [The Message of Galatians, 102].  The Judaizers had tried to reverse this God-given design with the Galatians.  Go to Christ but adhere to the Law for justification, they demanded.  Our text clarifies God's order in the justification of a sinner.

 

1.  Garrisoned under the law

 

The first picture is that of a "garrison" which held its inmates within certain confines.  The Law is that garrison that keeps us under its pains until we are delivered unto faith in Jesus Christ.  "But before faith came, we were kept in custody under law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed."  The text uses two words to describe what the law is accomplishing before we come to faith in Christ.  First, it exercises protective power over us, so that we continually understand the justice we deserve due to our sin.  We are "kept in custody" which pictures a group of sentries guarding a town and keeping its residents within certain parameters.  Or it could describe a fortress built to protect a group of people from dangers.  The Law indeed protects us from going after other gods or going after other ways to the Eternal God.  So many attempt to get to God on their own terms, but the Law keeps driving them back into misery so that they will understand that they are yet in their sin.  What appears to be cruelty in the Law's condemnation is actually protection for the sinner in bringing him to Christ.  Its protective exercise keeps the sinner from being at peace with a false way of salvation, thus pointing him to the only Redeemer for sinful men.

 

This verse also uses the term, "being shut up," which also connotes the idea of being a prisoner or being locked up on all sides (cf. v. 22).  G. G. Findlay describes the work of the law in graphic terms:

The law was all the while standing guard over its subjects, watching and checking every attempt to escape, but intending to hand them over in due time to the charge of faith.  The law posts its ordinances, like so many sentinels, round the prisoner's cell.  The cordon is complete.  He tries again and again to break out; the iron circle will not yield.  The deliverance will yet be his.  The day of faith approaches.  It dawned long ago in Abraham's promise.  Even now its light shines into his dungeon, and he hears the word of Jesus, "Thy sins are forgiven thee; go in peace."  Law, the stern jailer, has after all been a good friend, if it has reserved him for this.  It prevents the sinner escaping to a futile and illusive freedom [quoted by Timothy George, NAC, 264].

So what is the law doing?  It is applying the intense pain of our bondage to sin.  It shows us the reality of our spiritual condition.  Luther even stated, "Thou art killed by the law that through Christ thou mayest be quickened and restored to life" [Commentary on Galatians, 212].  When Cain, in a moment of jealousy and anger, killed his brother Abel, he saw nothing wrong with what he did until the word of the Lord was applied to him.  "Where is Abel your brother?" the Lord asked.  And he responded casually, as though he had no guilt over his sin, "I do not know.  Am I my brother's keeper?"  Then the Lord delivered the word to him, "What have you done?  The voice of your brother's blood is crying to Me from the ground.  And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.  When you cultivate the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you; you shall be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth."  What had been casual in response, is now, at the word of judgment being applied, painful and horrifying.  "And Cain said to the Lord, "My punishment is too great to bear!"  Cain failed to respond to the law of the Lord in seeking forgiveness; instead he met only with the law's pain, not its pointing to the Redeemer (Genesis 4:9-14).

 

Paul explains that the Law keeps us in custody and shuts us up, "to the faith which was later to be revealed."  The pain applied by the Law is an instrument to show us the only way of relief, through faith in Jesus Christ.  This revelation of faith comes on the heels of the law exposing a person's sinfulness.  He did not say that this faith is 'discovered' or 'sought', but instead,  "revealed."  The verb mood shows that the revelation comes to us from outside of us.  It is not something that we innately discover, but something that comes as a gift from God.  That is precisely what we see throughout the Epistles and in the Gospels, that faith is a divine grace or gift (cf. Eph. 2:8-9; Philip.1:29; John 6:64-65; 10:26).

 

2.  Disciplined by the law

 

The Law not only exercises protection over the sinner, but secondly, also restrains him by disciplining him.  Here we have the introduction of the term, "tutor," which the Apostle uses as another metaphor for grasping the use of the Law.  "Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith."  The tutor in the first century (Greek, paidogogos) was typically a slave who was in charge of a child from the ages of 6 to 16.  "Tutor" in the sense that we use the term today, is not a precise explanation of the Greek word.  Timothy George prefers to transliterate the Greek term because there is no exactly corresponding term in English.  Some translations call it "schoolmaster," "teacher and guide," "custodian," but none of these conveys the language of the first century.  Instead, it is more the idea of a disciplinarian who was constantly the companion of a child, with the responsibility of bringing the child into adulthood.  So the "paidogogos" had the job of discipline in order to deliver the child over to another realm of life.

 

George points out that "the dominant image was that of a harsh disciplinarian who frequently resorted to physical force and corporal punishment as a way of keeping his children in line" [265].  The paidogogos restrained a child from poor manners on one hand to protecting him from the advances of homosexuals at the public baths on the other [ibid.].  He was even pictured in ancient drawings with a cane or rod in his hand for exercising his harsh discipline upon his charge [Stott, 97].  The paidogogos had a responsibility to bring a child to adulthood, so he did whatever it took to curb the tendencies of children and protect from foolish ways.  But his job was temporary.  When the child reached late adolescence, the paidogogos was finished.  The child might very well hate the tutor while living with him, but once he pressed on into adulthood, he came to have appreciation for all the discipline exercised by the tutor in his life.

 

Leon Morris aptly summarizes the role of the law as paidogogos.  "Paul is saying that the law was not the teacher that makes clear the way of salvation.  It was the leader, which, properly followed, would bring those it lead to Christ....The principle function of the law was not that of providing the way of salvation, but rather that of pointing to the Savior" [Galatians: Paul's Charter of Christian Freedom, 119].

 

II.  Justified by Faith

 

The last two chapters of this Epistle explain the use of the Law in the believer.  But such a role is much different than in his pre-justification days!  The Law hems the sinner in so that he runs to Christ for refuge from the pains of eternal judgment.  This part of the Law's work has a terminus. 

 

1.  Tutor finished 

 

You do not always need the tutor.  The ancient Greek paidogogos was never meant to follow a young boy through his entire life.  He served to bring him into adulthood, then delivered him unto the boy's father.  He learned important lessons from the tutor, but now he was in the liberty of relationship to the father.  In much the same way, Paul explains the end of the Law's work as tutor for those who have come to faith in Christ.  "But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor."  It is not that the believer has no more need for the Law or concern for the Law.  But he does look at it in a totally different way.  He no longer lives under the Law's power of condemnation nor under its threats.  Because of the change wrought in his heart through the new birth and his new standing before God as one who is justified, the believer sees God's commands as a delight.  He does not labor under the tyranny of the Law, trying to get to God on the basis of merit achieved through the means of the Law.  "Faith has come," so he no longer needs the Law to keep him in custody or imprison him.  It has done its work in pointing to the soul's only refuge, Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 

 

2.  Faith identified 

 

Paul stresses the revelatory nature of faith in these verses.  Faith is not something that everyone has but only needs to work up.  This is the error of the Pelagians who thought that man is capable on his own of improving his condition and even of choosing on his own to believe God.  Those who maintain the idea that saving faith is part of a person's nature and he need only choose to believe and he will be saved, have failed to understand the very nature of faith as well as the nature of humanity.  Man has no will to choose because of his fallen nature.  He is insensible to the gospel until grace is given to believe.  Faith must be revealed to the sinner.   

 

Notice how Paul explains this.  First, he states that through the law we are "shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed."  We saw earlier how the mood of the verb (passive) shows that the revelation comes from outside of us.  We are the recipient of faith.  It comes as God's gift by grace.  Then he explains that faith has come.  "But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor."  What he means is that having been under the discipline of the Law for so long, we suddenly are pointed to faith in Christ as the only way to be justified.  Faith "comes" as God's gift.  Again, it is pictured as something from outside the sinner that comes to him.  "This faith is not a human discovery, but a faith that was to be revealed" [Morris, 118]. 

 

But we must see how the Apostle identifies the exercise of faith.  It is not simply the possession of faith that justifies a person.  Nor is it the recognition of faith's existence.  Nor is it faith as a mere historical belief.  Nor is it a faith in faith.  Instead, "For all of you are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus."  It is a very specific sort of faith that the Gospel calls for.  It is "faith in Christ Jesus."  It is a trust, a clinging to, an embracing of Jesus Christ as He is revealed in the Gospel.  It is faith that He is God Himself who became a man on our behalf, in order to redeem us. 

 

I received an e-mail from Kevin Millard in Albania a couple of weeks ago, telling of a Muslim friend whom he had spent many hours testifying to of the gospel of Christ.  The one sticking point of his Muslim friend was that God became a man.  He just could not believe this.  But without this, he could not believe savingly in Christ.  Tragically, this man was killed by an Islamic extremist and as far as Kevin knows, he never embraced Jesus Christ as his Redeemer. 

 

Faith in Christ Jesus does not stop in Bethlehem and the manger scene.  It goes to the cross, where Jesus Christ satisfied God's justice on our behalf, when He died a bloody death to atone for our sins.  It continues on to the tomb, which is empty, for He is forever alive.   

 

Do you think that you are one of the sons of God because you live in America or because you are a human?  Paul tells us, no indeed, it is only "through faith in Christ Jesus" that a person is a child of God.  Have you exercised such faith in Christ Jesus, trusting Him alone to justify you before God on the basis of His merits alone? 

 

3.  Faith declared 

 

In the only verse mentioning baptism in this Epistle, we find the Apostle stating that all of the professing believers in Galatia had been baptized.  "For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ."  Because baptism is such a controversial and important issue in the church, I plan to do an excursus for a couple of weeks on this subject and the Bible's teaching.  But for our purposes this morning, let's us consider the declaration that comes through baptism. 

 

The text is obviously speaking of those who have believed, for he says to the Galatian Christians, you "have clothed yourselves with Christ."  No unbeliever has clothed himself with Christ, which beautifully describes the transformation wrought in the lives of those who have faith in Christ.  So it is obvious he is speaking of the baptism of believers in this text as the normal practice of the early church.  What is baptism anyway?  Timothy George has done an excellent job of addressing this subject in his commentary on Galatians.  Let me quote from him.  

Baptism in the New Testament invariably implies a radical commitment involving a decisive no to one's former way of life and an equally emphatic yes to Jesus Christ....Baptism is the place where what has happened individually in regeneration is validated corporately within the fellowship of the community of faith [276, 283].

Baptism is the New Testament manner of openly professing that we have been crucified with Christ, buried with Him, and have been raised to a new life by His own resurrection power (cf. Romans 6:1-6).  Unfortunately, we have moved away from the centrality of baptism as a believer's profession of faith and shifted this to an act of walking down a church aisle or raising a hand.  Ask the typical Baptist when he professed his faith and he will describe a trip down an aisle at the bidding of the pastor.  But in the early church and through history, we find believers declaring their identification with Christ and His body in the waters of baptism. 

 

It is clear from the context that Paul was not substituting baptism for circumcision in Galatia so that some type of baptismal regeneration could be applied.  To do so would have put Paul on the same theological base as the Judaizers!  For why would he try to rid them of one ritual as the means to a right standing with God in order to substitute another?  His emphasis was upon faith alone in Christ alone for justification.  But he clearly shows that those who exercised such faith were baptized in Galatia.  "Faith secures the union; baptism signifies it outwardly and visibly," as John Stott put it [99]. 

 

Should we view baptism as an option since it has no power to save?  Certainly not!  Instead, we should follow obediently in baptism as the God-given means of demonstrating "outwardly and visibly" our faith in Christ and our union with the body of Christ.  

 

III. Triumph of Faith  

            1.  Sons of God 

            2.  Clothed with Christ  

            3.  One in Christ Jesus  

            4.  Abraham's heir

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