Chuck Larsen

I mentioned in a previous sermon on this passage that Paul addressed the difference between being a slave and being a son or daughter. I began by asking if they knew the difference between being a slave and being a child. One grandmother brought her granddaughter to me and told me that when I asked that question the girl turned to her and whispered “there is no difference.” I thought that was really funny. Paul is going to explain what she said is true. In Galatians 4:1-3, Paul writes, “I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, we were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.”

During Paul’s time, children were placed under the authority of a guardian, usually a trusted slave in the household. As Richison points out, “Roman custom did not specify an age when a person became ready for adulthood. When the father deemed the heir ready, he celebrated this time by a festival known as ‘Liberalia.’ … At this time, the heir received his ‘toga virilis’ (coat of adulthood). The boy burned his childhood toys at this festival. This person now has authority over the slave that governed him as a child.” Richison goes on to say, “A person who operates under the law is no different than a child who is heir to an entire estate and placed under guardianship. He was the legal heir but he did not have the privilege of utilizing his legal rights to his estate. The law was the guardian (3:24–26) that watched over believers in the Old Testament. A Christian who reverts to the law puts himself back under slavery.”

I remember trying to get out of a large parking lot. The sign said “do not enter.” Yet it was in the middle of the day and no one was coming in or going out. The exit was just a few feet ahead. I was almost out of gas and didn’t like the thought of going all the way around the lot to find the right exit. So I quoted Jesus (Mark 2:27), “man was not made for the law, but the law was made for man.” My passengers all mocked me for breaking the law. How long would you wait at a red light before you broke the law and drove on? Motorcyclists know what I mean. Their vehicles are often too light to trigger the sensors that change the light to green. In Kentucky, House Bill 197 would amend state law to allow motorists to drive through an intersection against a red light under certain conditions. Why? Because the law was made for man not the other way around. Unfortunately, we’re still accountable for the decisions we make. I might have a clear conscience for driving out the wrong way, but had a policeman caught me, I would still get a ticket!

In Christ we are all part of the Family of God. When we come to faith in Christ, we become “new creations” (2 Corinthians 5:17), we are “born again” (John 3:3), and we have been “adopted” into God’s family. This is what Paul says in Galatians 3:27-29; “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” All the distinctions that separate humanity have been destroyed and we’re all brought together into one new family – The Church of Jesus Christ! Notice that this does not refer to water baptism but to the work of the Holy Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 12:13 we read, “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body.” When a person by faith trusts Christ for salvation, the Holy Spirit puts him into the body, the family of God, so that you become “children of God” (Galatians 3:26).

My sister was the oldest of us three kids. When we were little, she’d make us play dress up with her. This is something that my brother and I haven’t been real proud of. But playing dress up now is something I really enjoy! All of the family members in God’s family play dress up. In this passage he talks about “putting on” Christ as if He was a garment. Isaiah 61:10 speaks about putting on a “robe of righteousness.” But just a few chapters later in Isaiah 64:6 he says “all our righteousness’s are as filthy rags.” We are all wearing dirty clothes. I mean they are really, really dirty! Through our faith in Christ, God removes our dirty, dirty clothes and exchanges them for the perfect robes of righteousness; Christ Jesus Himself.  In Jesus we all play dress up! Jesus took our filthy clothes and wore them to the cross. His blood washed them clean.

In his comments about the dying thief on the cross next to Jesus, Max Lucado writes, “…The purity of Jesus lifts and covers the dying thief. A sheet of radiance is wrapped around his soul. As the father robed the prodigal, so now Christ robes the thief. Not just with a clean coat but with Jesus himself! ‘Baptized into union with him, you have all put on Christ as a garment’ (Gal. 3:27 NEB). The One with no sin becomes sin-filled. The one sin-filled becomes sinless. It is eternity’s most bizarre exchange. Paul explained it like this: ‘Christ took away the curse the law put on us. He changed places with us and put himself under that curse’ (Gal. 3:13). When he sees sin, a just God must either inflict punishment or assume it. God chose the latter. On the cross ‘God was in Christ, making peace between the world and himself’ (2 Cor. 5:19). I know John says that Jesus was carrying his own cross as he walked up the hill, but he wasn’t. He was carrying ours. The only reason he carried the cross was for us thieves and crooks. ‘Christ had no sin, but God made him become sin so that in Christ we could become right with God’ (2 Cor. 5:21). It wasn’t his death he died; it was ours. It wasn’t his sin he became; it was ours.”

In Galatians 3:21-23, Paul turns from denouncing the law as a means of salvation to talk about what the law actually is. The law is good. God gave us the law as a mentor to lead us to Christ. It does that by pointing out our need for a savior. It convicts us all of sin. Here’s what Paul said, “Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.” We were all “captives” of the law. That means we were slaves. It is only through Christ that we are set free. The law brings home the reality of our sinfulness and opens the door to our salvation through faith in Christ. It does not save anyone. It just makes it clear we need to be saved!

Evangelist Fred Brown used three images to describe the purpose of the law. First he likened it to a dentist’s little mirror, which he sticks into the patient’s mouth. With the mirror he can detect any cavities. But he does not drill with it or use it to pull teeth. It can show him the decayed area or other abnormality, but it cannot provide the solution. Brown then drew another analogy. He said that the law is also like a flashlight. If suddenly at night the lights go out, you use it to guide you down the darkened basement stairs to the electrical box. When you point it toward the fuses, it helps you see the one that is burned out. But after you have removed the bad fuse, you don’t try to insert the flashlight in its place. You put in a new fuse to restore the electricity. In his third image, Brown likened the law to a plumb line. When a builder wants to check his work, he uses a weighted string to see if it is true to the vertical. But if he finds that he has made a mistake, he does not use the plumb line to correct it. He gets out his hammer and saw. The law points out the problem of sin; it does not provide a solution.

The purpose of the law has always been the same. When we preach salvation by grace through faith alone, we are preaching the gospel message that has come down through history from the time of Christ. John Calvin wrote, “From this we see that the law was not given to the fathers so that they might purchase salvation; nor were the ceremonies added so that, by observing them, men might attain righteousness. The only purpose of the law was to remove all confidence that people might place in works, so that they might rest all their hope in the grace of Christ.”

Paul reminds the Galatians that the law was quite late on the human scene. Abraham lived long before the law even existed. God had made promises to Abraham and to those who through faith, became children of Abraham. The law, the late comer, does not cancel God’s promises at all. He argues that God’s promises to Abraham had been signed, sealed, and delivered. They were “ratified” by God himself in Genesis 15. The promise of the blessings to Abraham was pointing to the Messiah, not the whole nation that had its physical roots in Abraham. This is the way Paul explains it in Galatians 3:15-17, “To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, ‘And to off springs,’ referring to many, but referring to one, ‘And to your offspring,’ who is Christ. This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void.”

The blessing promised was specifically for Christ and then all those who are children of Abraham through faith in Christ. The blessings are mediated to mankind through the promised offspring. Those promises that God made to Abraham regarding Christ have come to pass. The promise has been ratified and nothing can change it. It is through Christ that every nation will be blessed just as God promised. The law, the latecomer, did not change that. The blessings are not doled out for obedience of a legal system that was established 430 years after the contract had been signed. The law changes nothing!

It is obvious that the “promise” given to Abraham is far superior to the law that was given to Moses. As the author of the book to the Hebrews points out, the law was mediated through angels. The promises to Abraham came directly from God. Paul is going to spend some time explaining God’s purpose for the law. Far from annulling God’s promises to Abraham, the law serves the promises of God in several specific ways. The primary way, as Paul will explain later, is that the law points us to God’s promise by exposing our sin. By revealing our sinfulness, it leads us to Christ. The law does not save us. It does not bless us in anyway. It merely condemns us. Why would we ever want to return to living under the law when we have God’s grace? In light of the finished work of Jesus, it offends God to go back to the law. Jesus is what we need. Jesus is all we need. Jesus paid it all! We worship Him because of who He is and what He has done. Spurgeon said that God’s grace meets us where the law has left us. “If the sinner is dead, it gives him life; if he be filthy, it gives him washing; if he be naked, it gives him clothing. Is the sinner hungry? It feeds him. Is he thirsty? It gives him drink. Do the sinner’s wants grow even larger after he becomes a saint, or has he a deeper apprehension of them? Then the supplies are just as deep as his necessity.” Where the Law leaves us, God’s grace picks us up!