INTRODUCTION: Keep in mind God's promise to Abraham that in his seed would come the world-wide blessing of justification (3:8). Verses 6-22 have shown that this blessing (justification) could not have come through the law of Moses. This lesson further shows a function and purpose of the law and the function of faith in Christ. It contrasts the inability of the law to mature the heirs to inherit the promise and the ability of faith of Christ to mature us to be able to inherit the promised blessing.
I. THE FUNCTION OF THE LAW, 3:23-25.
A. IT WAS AN EDUCATOR, v. 23 (see lesson Nine). Notice the words “kept under guard by the law,” NKJ. The law functioned as a provisional educative system to bring mankind to a realization of his exceeding sinfulness and consequent need for a savior. By holding sinful men guilty, the law “kept under guard” or kept them in prison, as it were. This imprisonment shut them up – with a view toward – the faith and justification. It could not justify sinners, only the system of faith in Christ could do that. This is what was learned.
B. IT FUNCTIONED AS A PAIDAGOGOS, vs. 24-25.
1. PAIDAGOGOS, “i.e. a guide, or guardian of boys, lit., a child leader....In this and allied words the idea is that of training, discipline, not of impartation of knowledge. The PAIDAGOGOS was not the instructor of the child; he...was responsible for his moral and physical well being. Thus understood, PAIDAGOGOS is appropriately used with “kept inward” and “shut up” whereas to understand it equivalent to “teacher” introduces a foreign idea to this passage. W.E. Vine.
The point of the figure as applied to the law of Moses was to show that it could not bring one to maturity, to the age of inheritance as full-grown sons. It dealt only with children too young to inherit. Only faith of Christ could bring them to maturity and of age to inherit the promise.
2. No longer under a PAIDAGOGOS. In consequence, when one is brought to Christ by faith he is brought, as it were, to maturity and enabled to inherit the promise. Thus, full grown, the PAIDAGOGOS is no longer needed.
II. WE BECOME HEIRS OF THE PROMISE THROUGH FAITH IN CHRIST, 3:26-29.
A. SONS OF GOD, 3:26-27. The words for “sons” and “children” are different words in the original language. One means an infant (4:1,3) and the other means a full grown son of the age to inherit (3:26; 4:5,6). A child may be the heir of an estate but until he reaches manhood, as we say, becomes of age, he cannot receive the inheritance. This is Paul's intentional use of these words in Gal. 3:26; 4:5, 6). The American Standard translation is consistent in its translation at this point.
The teachings of 3:26-29 grows out of this figure of a child coming of age and receiving the inheritance. At baptism, Paul says our faith in Christ makes us full grown sons able to inherit the blessing of justification (also see Col. 2:12 for being raised through faith). This reasoning is conclusive that the law, like a PAIDAGOGOS, cannot mature children, cannot make them full grown sons and therefore the law cannot be the means of inheriting the Abrahamic promise of salvation. But if we are Christ's by faith, says Paul (v. 29) then we are Abraham's seed, full grown sons, and thus heirs of the promise of eternal life.
B. YOU ARE ALL ONE IN CHRIST, 3:28. The language of this verse comes out of the cultural conditions of the Roman world during Paul's time. It can be likened to the caste system of India which reckons that birth into a particular case determines one's worth and consequent privileges. Birth into slavery or freedom was also significant to the considered worth and privileges of the people of the first century. Many were taught to believe that some were born to serve while others were born to rule. This made freemen better than slaves, they thought. But Paul teaches that whether bond slave or freeman, faith in Christ brings one to salvation. The freeman has no privilege over the slave to become a Christan. Freemen had no more right to be saved than did the common bond man. Women at that time were not valued as much as males. Often they were considered property. Obviously women did not have the privileges of men and some may well have thought, even as some do in India, that salvation is primarily for men and secondarily for women. But Paul argues that a woman can become a Christan as surely as a man. Of course, the main thrust of this argument is against the Judaistic idea that the fleshy Jew by birth and his relation to Abraham was better than the Gentile (Cf. Rom. 3:9). But again, Paul insists that a Gentile can be justified without consideration for his race just as quickly as an offspring of Abraham. In Christ these worldly distinctions were dissolved and salvation was made sure to all flesh, to all nations, to every creature.
CONCLUSION: v. 29. “ If Christ's then....Abraham's seed...heirs.” Christ by the system of faith in Him brings us to the age of maturity to inherit the promise God made to Abraham and his seed. This Paul concludes the total inability of the law of Moses to justify any more than a prison house could make one free or a PAIDAGOGOS could mature a child to receive his father's estate.
QUESTION: What possible experience other than obedience of faith in Christ as define in the gospel can be offered as proof of one's son ship and justification?
ANSWER TRUE OF FALSE: Any “religious experience” other than the hearing of the faith of Christ Jesus and baptism into Christ cannot be regarded as saving experience.
AN ALTERNATE MEANING OF GALATIANS 3:26-27? If baptism is not regarded as the expression of our faith in Christ and to put us into Christ, then what does this passage teach?
by Lane Rogers