The Law as a Jailer & Guardian

This is the third in the series on Why the Law. Actually, I thought about titling all three parts of this Why the Law, but actually, as each part kind of unfolded, it really, there's a different emphasis on each part. So today we're going to talk about the law as a jailer and a guardian. So I noticed as I look through this, you know, we're going to spend a lot of time thinking about the law. We're going to think about the scriptures and their effect on mankind. But I noticed as we look through this, we see that God focuses on each of the three verses we'll cover today on having sometimes personal faith or talking about faith as a general thing that exists among all believers. So there's kind of good news among all these seem rather harsh conditions. There's a jailer, there's a guardian, there's this and there's that. There's actually wonderful news kind of hidden within that.

And I'll try to point that out as we go through it. So let's look at my outline here. I keep modifying it as I study. Initially, it looked really good, and I thought, well, maybe I don't agree with that. And I changed this word, and I changed that word. So this is adapted from Macaulay. Actually, who was it, pointed out to me that I could have McGee in here. We could have Malloy, Merriman, McGee. And so there's a lot of M's, a lot of M people that teach scripture. So OK, this is Macaulay.

So he titled this section, The Law Has a Definite Purpose, 19-24. So the first starts off in verse 19, as we covered a couple of weeks ago, why the law? He answers that question in the A part of that verse. It was added or it came alongside. It didn't replace the law. It came alongside to spotlight or highlight man's fallen nature, his sin nature. And then he goes on in verses of last half of 19 and 20, he talks about the law's character. It's holy and so on. Then he covers an incorrect conclusion that could there be a law, could there be some law that was given that imparts eternal life? And he says absolutely not.

And now today we're going to look at three verses Basically, the first one is that scripture has shut up mankind in verse 22, then law is a jailer in 23, and then law is a guardian. And you may pick up on the fact that, and we'll get down to it, I really like the word guardian over tutor, and hopefully I'll be able to explain that and make that clear.

So let's kind of just jump into it here. So here's the verses. I'm not going to read through them again, but I just want to point out, put 21 in there for context. And basically 21, the middle part of 21, talks about if there had been given a law, basically it was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed be given on the basis of law. And that's not the case.

But, okay, now we come down to 22, 23, and 24. So we have, and but in scripture is like a contrast statement that says, But this, but in contrast to what's gone before, so the contrast in 22 is that the scriptures, the Holy Scripture, notice it's singular, has shut up everyone under sin. We'll dive into that shortly. Then down to 23, it talks about, but before faith came, we were kept in custody, and then it goes on to being shut up to faith. Some of these are hard, and you think, wow, this just sounds kind of complicated.

And then down to 24, we have the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ. So I'm going to go through each of those in order, and hopefully we'll kind of point some important things out. But also, I wanted to point out also, notice that in each of the verses, in 22, notice that he talks about so that the promise by faith in Christ Jesus might be given. Then in 23, he talks about faith which has been revealed. And then in 24 he talks about so that we may be justified by faith. So in the midst of presenting the scriptures, the holy scriptures, the law, and he points out the importance of faith of a believer.

Okay, so let's look at the first verse. But the scripture has shut up everyone under sin. So it's a contrast to what went before, a strong contrast. And from the context, he's kind of contrasting with the fact that there could be a law that men could obey that could give eternal life. And he's going to contrast that with this statement here. Strong contrast. The scripture has shut up everyone under sin.

So what does that mean? So scripture here, first of all, as I mentioned before, is singular. I believe it speaks about the whole body of God's word, And so let's see what that does so if you think about it if you look in scripture scripture Reveals a mind of God the will of God the plan of God the judgment of God It tells about the totality of who God is and how his creation interacts with him So the couple of verses that just kind of I think were important and I borrowed this from Hal here the first one Pretty familiar one in Psalm 14. It says the fool has said in his heart.

There is no God Then verse 3 picks up on that. It says they have all turned aside and together they have become corrupt There is no one who does good not even one So we're going to see as we look through the next two verses that that God looks out And what does he see in his creation because of the fall?

What does he see? He sees that people are foolish enough to say there's no God and They've all turned aside. They've become corrupt. He doesn't see a very pretty picture. And then Isaiah kind of picks up on that. Very familiar verse. All of us, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him.

And then down in Romans 3.10, pretty biting words here. As it is written, there is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become useless. There is none who does good. There is not even one. So after that you feel, wow, boy. And it's true. I mean, if you look at our world, that is totally true. But the good news is that God has provided a remedy for that.

So he's setting the stage here. He's going to say, and here are some of the scriptures he's talking about, the collective body of scriptures. These three are examples. He's going to say, has shut up. I know that term is a slang, you know, kind of a slang term for that. But this term actually is, I show a little guy in prison on the right hand, top right hand corner there. To shut up, to enclose, it's a fact, it's a past point fact.

The scripture, think about it, they silenced man. Man has no discussion in this matter. God has said, you are guilty. You are under a just condemnation, you don't seek after me. That is, the scriptures declare that from just a lot more than those three passages. Literally you could say, shut up is to imprison with no escape. So man is in that condition. So that's what he's trying to get and then he's going to give well, what's the purpose of that?

We're going to see what's interesting is God's going to present a purpose here and all these verses these three verses He's going to show that we're in this dire situation in this case. We're shut up but God has that actually has a Beneficial effect which may seem hard to believe amen. That's things are terrible You look at the world and things are really terrible. They are God has a purpose his scriptures declare how bad it is, but he's going to say it has a purpose So let's go on here. And then here's a couple of verses that That I'd like to read that kind of point out some things here How this word how this word to be in imprisoned with no escape a couple of verses first one is the Luke and this is the case where I The Lord got into Peter's boat, and they were fishing and it says and he asked him to cast over here and verse 6 says when they had done this They enclosed a great quantity of fish and their nets began to break So the idea that here this parallel word enclosed so this idea of being shut up is to enclose Those fish can't get out typically they can't get out of course if you watch anybody fishing some do get out but typically they're enclosed and they can't get out and here's a verse almost a parallel thought here and For God has shut up or enclosed, with no way of escape, all in disobedience.

But then notice in that harsh statement, but so that, or with a purpose that, he may show mercy to all. On one hand he declares, you're all guilty, but he's able to show his mercy on the other hand. And that theme, if you had to choose a verse that kind of picks up on the theme I'm trying to get, that verse kind of picks up on that theme. So let's go on. Has shut up.

So now the part is everyone under sin. So this is everyone or everything, none excluded. There's not one single person that isn't condemned by the word of God. So God's word produces the action, and His action is to enclose and shut up man, imprison man. And it's under sin. And this is this prepositional phrase which tells How is a man in prison? And you could say he's under the dominion of sin.

A very familiar topic in scripture. You know, Romans spends a long time there. So I have two verses from Romans that kind of point that out. So how does this word describe the dominion of sin? Pretty familiar verses. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

And then secondly, the B part of Romans 3.9 says, For we have already Charged that both Jew and Greek are under sin under sins domination.

So that's that's the bad news if you will But it's bad news with a purpose and here's the purpose so that so what's the way out of this? Here's the way out so that with the purpose. This is God's purpose that the promise and if you if you followed us through the other other lessons the promises referring back to Abraham when when God promised him Seed in verse 3 16 now the promise were spoken to Abraham to his seed and to your seed that is Christ So the promise was of a Savior Might be given or bestowed upon make a gift and And Hal had a comment on this one about the fact it is a free giving of righteousness and life, not because mankind deserves it, but because God, in His grace, makes it available.

God, through His Son, has made available this marvelous grace. So that's the balanced side of that. And it talks about to all who believe, and it's by faith in Jesus Christ. Every gift, you know, God has provided His Son on the cross, right? He died on the cross, and that's provided to all mankind. He's not willing that any should perish, but man has to receive it, right? He has to believe it or accept it. Faith in the person and work of Christ. So those who believe have exercised faith in Jesus Christ.

Okay, so now okay that that was that was 22. So now we're going to go to 23 So it continues on so we talked about how the scriptures affect mankind and God's solution now We're going to see how does the law affect mankind and God's solution if you will Okay, so this verse is but before faith came We were kept in custody under the law being shut up to the faith, which was later to be revealed. So So what this is going to do is, think about this. Mike and I collectively spent some time, we looked at this timeline, we said, you know, Abraham believed God, it was reckoned to him as righteousness, and that occurred over 400 years before the law was given, right? We had the timeline, so he believed that, and that was called the promise, he believed the promise, then the law came in, and the law continued on, And it terminates with Christ.

So this is going to kind of flip things around. At first when I started studying this verse, I said, man, I don't, I'm confused. Cause it says before faith came, they were kept in custody under the law. Wait a minute. Isn't that backwards? Shouldn't it say, shouldn't it be flipped? Faith came with Abraham, the promise, but what this is referring to, uh, is the faith, the collective faith that we see that Paul teaches. It's a faith. of the church age, if you will.

So he's going to flip the thing here and describe it that way. So hopefully that doesn't confuse you. Okay, so let's get it. Okay. And actually, what would help here, the definite article here kind of helps you a bit because it talks about the faith And actually, I kind of went back and forth on this, and you'll see my dilemma here in a second. It's terrible when your dilemmas are in print. Then you have to explain them away. So, anyway. Okay.

The first part of the verse tells us about the timing of this custody under the law principle. Also, another thing here is that we have, it says, before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law. And notice that it isn't capitalized. I'm going to talk about that in a second. And the has been added.

So I believe this is talking about the principle as a law. Law as a principle, which is actually is a much wider definition of law. Law that in Romans speaks to this a lot, where man makes up some kind of rule or way to live by. I'll live by the Ten Commandments, for example.

So that's not a bad thing. But God hasn't asked you to do that. He's asked you to put your faith and trust in Christ. Now, you can live out the Ten Commandments as you walk by faith in Christ, but he's asked you to trust in Christ. So I have a chart coming up that will hopefully explain the difference. OK, so what is the faith in this context?

So I had a couple of examples. I feel like Bob this morning, Bob put up some some comments by our favorite guys. We got Weiss, we got Constable, and then we got the M guys. But so Weiss has a comment about this and Constable has a comment. So, Weiss kind of says, I think this is personal faith, pointing back to the previous verse. And I sort of thought that for a while. And then, Constable says, well, this is a picture of Israel and pointing toward this is a salvation history terminating in the time of grace.

But I really think it's basically the faith. And I think Verne taught this quite a bit, too. This is a body of truth that is revealed by Paul in the New Testament. And it includes all the things that we understand and teach. So I think it's more than just personal faith here. So it says, before faith came, before the time of grace, or dispensation of grace, there was this time period of law, the Mosaic Law.

So he's looking at it that way. Okay? So then here's my little chart on... I don't want to spend a lot of time on this. And if you want a copy, I can get you a copy. This is just the law, the Mosaic Law, and it has the definite article. And you can see that, unfortunately, that your English text doesn't always bring that across. I listed the verses where we talk about the law on here. And then law, not capitalized, not with a capital L, and with no definite article, is basically law as a principle of life, any man-made rule that are believed to obtain righteousness.

Only a couple of places, the verse we're talking about now is one of those places. OK, hopefully I didn't confuse you too much. Okay, so let's go back. Okay. So here's what's happened. He said before faith came Here's where we were under under the most under the law under this law system a law system We were kept in custody. So I have a different picture on my top this guy I have a guy in this case you had it before you had a little guy in prison with bars like this This case you're in you're in prison. You're in custody, but there's a guard outside and So it's a slightly different idea. And it's actually a more military context.

And it's continuous action and pastime. So all during the time before faith came, man was kept in custody. And it's used in Corinthians there in Damascus. This is Paul. The king was guarding the city. And it actually goes on to say that they were to seize Paul. So they're guarding the city. Keeping the city looking for Paul, basically.

Under the law, we were constantly being guarded. So how does the law system keep us in jail? How does it guard us? A couple things from Hal here. A law system guards us so that we cannot get out of prison and bondage. We must keep performing and obeying self-made rules for righteousness. And don't we see this today? We're talking about this at Sunday school.

Don't we see, unfortunately, many brothers and sisters that they feel inadequate in their Christian life and they say, well, I know what I need to do. I'm going to make a list of the things I'm not doing so well on. I'm not as loving as I could be. I'm not as kind as I should be. As generous as I should be, and they make a list. They say, well, Monday I'm going to work on one, Tuesday I'll work on the next one, and they make their own set of rules. And they're not bad rules, to be generous, to be loving are perfectly good, but they're approaching it.

Paul in the New Testament says, it's Christ's life in me. That's how I live the Christian life. So this law system that people put themselves under, Cannot achieve righteousness cannot achieve and doesn't please God people think they're pleasing God Well, I was more generous today or I was more kind today Well, no, he wants you to be focusing on the Savior So that as a result of that you can be more kind and more generous and so on The law system can never deliver a person out of bondage pretty pretty harsh words But it can't do that. But God but God's gonna tell us how we you know, like I said each of these verses he states the problem and And then he states the answer to the problem. OK. And now it's not bad enough that we're kept in custody.

There's another thing that's even worse. If you're in this mode of making up rules and keeping those, you're being shut up to the faith, which was later to be revealed. Something just to kind of keep in mind here. This is Paul writing to the Galatian church.

And in that time period, notice he has we up there, as we were kept in custody. So he's including himself. He's pointing out that if he obeys some law system, he's going to be kept in custody. So it goes back to Paul's time and goes forward in application to us. So now, in addition to being kept in custody, we're shut up. We're shut up to the very thing that gives us a solution. We're shut up together. On all sides, actually it's the same word we had before.

So actually I should have here, I should have had this guy with a guard, and then right below it I should have a little prison guy. So I should have two icons here rather than one. If you're following my icons. Okay. If you operate under a law system, you shut up or out. Operating by faith. Well think about it. If you start counting your good deeds, if you start counting your kindness, you're defeating the whole purpose of faith.

It's just like, unfortunately, in my years, and I haven't done a lot of counseling, but I had an occasion where we were counseling, I was part of people that were counseling a husband and wife, and, let's see, I hope I get this right. One of the spouses, I can't remember now. Bonnie can help me here. Anyway, one of the spouses had kept a list of all the transgressions of the other spouse. It was, I mean, the list was, you know, tremendously long. As soon as a person does that, you might as well say the relationship's over with. Because if you start counting, and maybe they're all true. Maybe every single one of those is true. That's not love. That's not a relationship. A relationship says, OK, it's OK. It's fine. I love you. I care for you. And that's what a loving relationship with our Savior is about. It's not counting how many good deeds we do for Him every day.

So, anyway. OK. Okay, so being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. So once again, the timeline is this law is in effect, this law of principle is in effect, and then faith comes with the age of grace. Okay, I think I'll just skip that. Okay, so that kind of ends that section.

So we've talked about the scriptures. We've talked about the law keeping us in custody and shutting us out of faith. Now we come to probably the favorite part. You know, this verse, we've all heard this verse before. Therefore, the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ so that we may be justified by faith.

After looking through this and studying this out, I kind of have a new appreciation for this verse and things that it says and things it does not say. So hopefully you won't meet me out in the parking lot and say, Roger, it can't be possibly true what you said.

OK, so let's go through this. So first of all, I'm going to I'm going to look at a little bit different translation of the first part of this verse. So let's look at something that's called the inner linear. Familiar with that? That's actually a word-by-word translation of the Greek New Testament. And in this case, they translated therefore, so that. That's one of them. Also, it leaves out the words that aren't there. And one of the key things is that there's no to lead us to is not there. So it reads in the inner linear.

So that the law has become our guardian to Christ. So that's how that first part, I believe, reads better. So that the law has been our guardian to Christ. And the reason I did this, not because I'm trying to show off I can find it in the inner linear, it's just I think it brings across the point of what's going on better. So that, or therefore, based on the previous verse, The subject here is the law.

In this case, so we've kind of flipped gears here. Now we're talking about the Mosaic Law. It has a definite article there. Okay, so what has the law done? Has become, so the law has, this is this word, genoai, come into a new state of being, a state of being that didn't previously exist, and it's in the perfect tense. We'll leave that aside for right now. So the law has become something it wasn't before. And you think, wow, boy, we've been talking about the law. How can it become something? He's going to say that it's an aspect of the law that wasn't obvious before.

I prefer the word over tutor, guardian. And it's a pedagogos is a Greek word. Literally, it's a child leader. To lead a child compound word to lead a child or a boy Also has the idea of a guardian or keep a child in line Well, you know if you look through and I had somebody last week actually it was Alan's son talked with me after the after the service So he spent a long time talking about different.

There's all kinds of neat stories in Greek literature about a pay to go goss and what they do with it there were slaves apparently they were slaves in the Roman culture and people would I was going to say hire them. They didn't exactly hire them. They bought them, I guess. They bought these slaves, and they would give them a task.

And one of the tasks described here is to keep their child in line. They sometimes apparently would get their child up in the morning, possibly bathe them, feed them, take them to school, stay there at school to make sure they didn't cause a problem. Yeah, Bonnie was talking about the fact she loved to have that in her class. taught in elementary school, and she'd love to have one of those Pegasus hanging around to keep the child in line, because she spent a lot of her time keeping the class in line when she wanted to teach.

So this is a pretty cool, the concept is pretty cool. So this is, but it's a slave. So the question comes out, and I've heard people talk about this, with the word tutor, you know, you kind of get the idea, well, this guy's, he's gonna, he's, he's, he's giving them some knowledge. You think of a tutor, if I hire a tutor, I want somebody to to beef me up on calculus in the university environment, or whatever, arithmetic, whatever it might be, I hired a tutor to do this.

Well, this Peter Gogos, from what I can understand, he was more to keep a child in line. So what's being communicated here is so that the law has become our guardian to Christ, and not so much giving us information or training us. So Hal had a comment about this guy, this verse. In the context, the idea is that the law is a guardian keeping one in line and not that of a tutor or instructor imparting knowledge.

So hopefully you're kind of getting where I'm coming from here. And then actually Merriman had a comment. In Paul's day, usually a slave assigned to monitor and guard the behavior of the child. I like that last part, guard the behavior of the child. And children do need that.

I have four grandchildren, what am I talking about? I've got two twins now. So I have four grandchildren, and they need guarding. I tell you, either because they're going to knock themselves out. Two little twins are going to bop each other in the head or grab the toy out. The other ones are going to do other stuff. They need guarding.

And so I think that's what Paul has in mind here. And actually the other part in this structure here, guardian, identifies the law. In the structure it identifies the law. And it's until, actually here's another thing, it says, which is cool, remember I told you that the two, I have it in italics, the two lead us, notice that's in italics in the verse, so it just comes down, So that the law has been our guardian to Christ, but I think even there's even a better Better way to look at that and I think it's unto Christ or until Christ is better Until Christ shows that the law will have a termination point when Christ comes So the law has been our guardian until Christ. I think it's the best rendering of that it's consistent with back in 319 where it said I Why then the law? It was added or came alongside because of transgressions until the seed would come, until Christ would come. So why the guarding? Why this guard?

It was necessary so that man should know and feel the constraint of the taskmaster, the law, in order to welcome the deliverer when he came, the Lord Jesus. The law has virtually kept man in the position of a slave, or a position of slaves. OK, so the last part. So here's, once again, Paul presents the bad news first. The law has become a guardian.

But the good news is, so that, with a purpose that, we may be justified. We may justify by faith. And justified here actually there's a parallel verse that talks about being justified pretty familiar in Galatians 2 16 so that we may be justified By faith or out from faith in Christ and not by the works of the law since by the works of the law no flesh will be justified and the only way to receive this is by is by God's blessing and So just my final chart here, just a few points that kind of occurred to me in the three verses.

You know, first of all, as I mentioned, God desires that all men come by faith to Christ. So it seems like, in looking at these verses, the takeaway is that He allowed things to go forward and to force men to see that they needed a Savior. So we see that in the first verse, God shut up or imprisoned all by the scriptures to force men to seek Him by faith. And then the second verse, there are two parts of that, right? Paul says we are in custody, are being guarded under the law, and we were shut up to faith, until faith would come. Then lastly, the law is our guardian, our policeman until Christ, so that we would welcome the deliverer when he comes.

Okay, so let's close. We thank you, Father. We thank you so much, Lord, for your marvelous grace. Lord, we thank you for your plan. I think about after saying these verses, you say, my ways are not your ways and my thoughts are not your thoughts. Your thoughts are higher than your thoughts, and your way is higher than our ways. And in your wisdom, Lord, the law was given, and it was given because Israel asked for it. But it turned out not to be a very good thing for them, but it has a purpose, as you delineate here, to appoint us to the Savior. We ask it in His name. Amen.