Under The Law Or In Christ

Summary: In this sermon, we learn about what we were under the law and what are in Christ.

Paul has presented a sweeping picture of redemptive history from Abraham to Christ. He has used language that everyone would be familiar with to better teach the truth of justification by faith and oppose the idea of the Law bringing life.

A change we see at this point in his argument is a turn from an institutional, historical and theological look of justification by faith to the individuals who are justified by faith.

It isn’t a complete shift from one to the other but a transition from theology to applied theology.

Before we read our passage, I want to say that a lot of this material, especially the outline, comes from John Stott’s commentary on Galatians.

Follow alone as I read Galatians 3:23-29:

Galatians 3:23–29 CSB

23 Before this faith came, we were confined under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith was revealed. 24 The law, then, was our guardian until Christ, so that we could be justified by faith. 25 But since that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for through faith you are all sons of God in Christ Jesus. 27 For those of you who were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ. 28 There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise.

Introduction

The well-known Bible teacher Warren Wiersbe has written these words: “In the Old Testament, we have the preparation for Christ; in the Gospels, the presentation of Christ; and in the Acts through Revelation, the appropriation of Christ.”

He is right. The Old Testament is a preparation for Christ, with its prophecies, ceremonies and institutions that point forward to him.

There may be a further way in which the Old Testament is a preparation for Christ, and the apostle Paul may have had that in mind in the section of Galatians we are studying together today.

He has just indicated that God gave Abraham a promise in an unconditional manner. The promise to Abraham was that he would have right standing before God, and also that God would give him the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Furthermore, when Moses came on to the scene of redemptive history and was given the law 430 years after the promise was given to Abraham, that law could not nullify the promise that God made to Abraham. In fact, the law could not give anything to anyone, other than a sense of sin and transgression, for the law was not given for life or righteousness (cf. 2:21; 3:21).

Therefore, if a man was to be justified before God, he could not be justified by the law. Only through the Abrahamic promise could life be found, and that promise had now found its ultimate fulfillment in the coming of Abraham’s true son, Jesus Christ.

Thus, there is a progression from the promise to Abraham through the law to the fulfillment of the promise in Christ. In a sense, then, the preparation of the Old Testament for Christ becomes the biography of every Christian man. He comes to Christ through the experience of conviction of sin brought about by the truth found in the Law of Moses.

Everybody is living either in the Old Testament or in the New Testament, and derives his religion either from Moses or from Christ. In the language of this paragraph, he is either “under law” or “in Christ.”

My favorite Bible commentator, John Stott, writes:

"God’s purpose for our spiritual pilgrimage is that we should pass through the law into an experience of the promise. The tragedy is that so many people separate them by wanting one without the other. Some try to go to Jesus with first meeting Moses. They want to skip the Old Testament, to inherit the promise of justification in Christ without the prior pain of condemnation by the law. Others go to Moses and the law to be condemned, but they stay in this unhappy bondage. They are still living in the Old Testament. Their religion is a grievous yoke, hard to be borne. They have never gone to Christ, to be set free."

Lesson

Both stages are depicted here in the passage before us today. Verses 23-24 describe what we were under the law, and verses 25-29 what we are in Christ.

Paul gives us two pictures in this passage; what we were under the law and what we are in Christ.

I. What We Were Under the Law (3:23-24)

First, let’s notice what we were under the law.

The CSB says we were confined. Other translations use the word custody or bondage. We are also told we were under a guardian or tutor. Both of these provide clear images of not being free.

A. A Prison (3:23)

The law is pictured as a prison.

We were incarcerated and could not escape. We were on death row after being found guilty of violating the perfect law of God.

The purpose of the law was to make you realize you were helpless Everyone needs to get to the point where they know there is nothing they can do to change their situation.

Charles Wesley was born in 1707, the 18th of 19 children! He pursued the Anglican priesthood at Oxford and, like his brother John, was a member of the Holy Club at Oxford. The Holy Club consisted of a group of students who were intensely concerned about spiritual matters. If ever a group of people worked hard at trying to earn God’s favor through obedience to the law, it was these men. They ministered to the poor of the city through Bible studies and mercy ministries.

At the age of 29, Charles Wesley became ill. He was recuperating from his illness at a friend’s home when John Wesley was converted through the reading of Luther’s preface in his commentary on Galatians. Three days after John’s conversion, Charles was also converted. It is believed that immediately after his conversion he wrote the hymn titled, “And Can It Be.” In this hymn one stanza clearly shows that Charles Wesley understood the picture of the law as a prison. He writes:

Long my imprisoned spirit lay

fast bound in sin and nature’s night;

thine eye diffused a quick’ning ray;

I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;

my chains fell off, my heart was free;

I rose, went forth, and followed thee.

The law is like a prison. It keeps us on death row. And until we recognize our condition and turn to Christ, we shall die under the judgment of condemnation on death row.

B. A Tutor (3:24)

The second picture Paul uses of the law is that of a guardian.

The Greek word is often translated as tutor. The tutor isn’t a teacher. He is often a slave himself and his whole job is to guard and escort the child to and from school. He is typically also the disciplinarian and most often they were extremely strict and even cruel at times. They were there to make sure that child obeyed the rules completely and without a question.

But they were also well thought of, of good moral character and someone who would demonstrate right and wrong as well as correct when the child was wrong.

But this guardian’s job ended when the child became an adult.

Paul is using this image to show that while we are children, while we act in disobedient and disrespectful ways, what we would call childish and selfish ways, the law is there to point out our disobedience. It also shows us what the consequences of disobedience are.

The Law functions as a prison, as a guardian who does not allow us out of the prison. The prison nor the guards are there to let us out, to set us free. It is only Christ who does this.

Until the time of Christ, until He was revealed, we were living in bondage with no chance for freedom. Once Christ came, we have the chance for true freedom.

II. What We Are IN Christ (3:25-29)

So that leads us to what we are in Christ.

Notice how Paul starts this section off:

“But since that faith has come,” …. not when, not if but since it has come.

And since Christ has come and been revealed to the world, we no longer need to be in bondage to the Law.

If we don’t need to be in bondage, where does this leave us?

That depends on where you have your faith. There are only two possibilities. You are either working your way to hell under the old covenant or you are in Christ under the New Covenant.

If you are a believer then you are justified by faith in Christ; you are part of God’s family, united together equally as an heir to God’s Abrahamic promise..

Let’s see what each of these mean for us.

A. We Are Sons and Daughters of God (3:26-27)

First of all, we are sons and daughters of God.

There is a difference between being a child and an adult child. No matter how old we get, we are always a son or daughter to our parents. However, once we become adults, more importantly, once we start acting like adults, that parent child relationship changes.

And it changes between us and God as well. While we are children, acting childish, rebellious, there is hostility between us and God. We face God’s wrath by rebelling. When we become a son or daughter we find peace with God.

Romans 5:1 NASB 2020

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

We have peace because with the law we invite nothing but His wrath. Through Christ, we have peace.

When we become sons and daughters of God, God is no longer our Judge, who through the law has condemned and imprisoned us. God is no longer our tutor, who through the law restrains and chastises us. God is now our Father, who in Christ has accepted and forgiven us. We no longer fear him, dreading the punishment we deserve. We love him, with deep filial affection.

We typically talk about being a child of God but Paul uses the Greek word for son. That word is carefully chosen. It is intended to show that while we were under the law we had no status before God. But when we put our faith in Jesus Christ we attained to a new position in the family of God, much like the ancient Roman child did once the tutor was retired.

When a male son became of age (somewhere between the ages of 14 and 17), it was marked by a special ceremony. No such special ceremony marked a girl’s passing into womanhood. But when a boy reached maturity, he discarded his crimson-bordered toga, the toga praetexta that boys wore. In the presence of the entire family he received a pure white toga, the toga virilis, and was received into the counsels of the family hierarchy. He took his place as an adult son, enjoying all the privileges of that relationship.

It is important to note that the sonship of God is “in Christ.” It is not in ourselves. The doctrine of God as a universal Father was not taught by Christ nor by his apostles. God is indeed the universal Creator, having brought all things into existence, and the universal King, ruling and sustaining everything he has made. But he is the Father only of our Lord Jesus Christ and of those whom he adopts into his family through Christ. If we would be sons of God, then it can only be through faith in Christ Jesus.

Verse 27 talks about baptism, which visibly sets forth our union with Christ: “for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” Paul does not mean that baptism unites us to Christ. He wrote this letter to counter the false teaching of the Judaizers who were insisting that circumcision was necessary for salvation. Paul knew enough theology to know that baptism is merely the New Testament equivalent of the Old Testament circumcision. It is faith that secures union with Christ, while baptism signifies that union outwardly and visibly.

B. We Are All One in Christ Jesus (3:28)

Second, we are all one in Christ Jesus.

Two important parts of this is the “allness” and being “in Christ.” It is being in Christ that we can be one.

In Christ we belong to God (as his sons) and to each other (as brothers and sisters). And we belong to each other in such a way as to render to no account the things that normally distinguish us, namely race, rank, and gender.

Paul might have had in mind one part of the morning prayer that devout Jewish men prayed. They would pray, “I thank you, God, that I am not a Gentile. I thank you, God, that I am not a slave. And I thank you, God, that I am not a woman.”

Paul now realizes that these distinctions are gone, and that is why he says in verse 28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

We can’t be honest and say that we do not see differences between us. It is not possible for us not to see that we look different, talk different. We can’t help but notice a difference in race or sex or whatever.

But what we should be seeing is every Christian becoming more Christ-like. The more we are like Christ the less any difference matters.

Let’s look briefly at the eradication of these distinctions.

1. There is no distinction of race

There is no distinction of race.

Paul says, “There is neither Jew nor Greek” (3:28a).

All racial distinctions and prejudices are meaningless in the body of Christ.

We are equal, equal in our need of salvation, equal in our inability to earn or deserve it, and equal in the fact that God offers it to us freely in Christ.

Once we have received it, our equality is transformed into a fellowship, which can only exist in Christ Jesus.

2. There is no distinction of rank

There is no distinction of rank.

Every society has formed some type of class or caste system. t is called many different things. It can be determined by power, money, birth or education but it is used to divide people into categories and keep them categorized.

There is a saying, rank has it’s privilege. The only privilege in the family of God is being a member of the family and as members, as brothers and sisters, we are equals.

3. There is no distinction of gender

There is no distinction of gender.

I will be honest here. This one gets beat all up in society and is often misunderstood and misused by many in church.

We first must realize that Paul is referring to justification by faith. Since we are all justified by faith then we are all equal in how we come into a relationship with God. Every single person enters into this relationship in one way and that is regardless of what gender you are. It is through faith alone in Christ alone.

But we have to be very careful with this. Too many want to use this to go further and say there is no difference in roles or in ministry positions based off of gender. Paul is not addressing this issue in this letter. He does address it very clearly in other letters but not in this letter dealing with how a person is justified.

If someone wants to use this to defend their position, no matter which side they take, they are misusing Scripture.

There is no distinction between genders in how we enter into a relationship with God and that is by being in Christ, it is through the work of Christ and it is done by God’s grace for each person.

C. We Are Heirs according to the Promise (3:29)

And finally, we are heirs according to the promise.

Paul concludes with the statement that “if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.”

This type of “if … then” statement takes the “if” part to be an assumption. We would probably say it using the word “since” … since you belong to Christ .. or because you belong to Christ you are an heir according to the promise God made to Abraham.

Our union with Christ makes us spiritual sons and daughters of Abraham. We join the family of God with all those who believed before us.

Those who try to obey the law for justification are rejected. Those whose faith is in Christ will be received in to the family.

We can often feel unworthy, or maybe inadequate, especially when we compare ourselves to others and even more so if we are using worldly standards for comparison.

What we need to remember is that we are in Christ, in a relationship with the living and sovereign God. When God looks at us, He sees the righteousness of His Son given to us.

We look at others and see their accomplishments. We look in a mirror and see what we consider our failures. God looks at us and see His son or daughter whom He died for. The next time you want to think of yourself as a failure, remember how God looks at you.

Let’s pray.