Returning to the custodianship of the Law means rebuilding the wall between Jew and Gentile - but you are all one in Christ, heirs of Abraham.
Paul compares the Mosaic Law to a “custodian” assigned to supervise Israel “UNTIL the
seed comes,” and that “seed” is Jesus.
In Greco-Roman society, the “pedagogue”
was a slave with custodial and disciplinary authority over an underage child until
he reached maturity, even though the custodian was a slave.
The analogy stresses the minority status of
the one who is under the custodian and the temporary nature of the
latter’s authority. The custodial function ceases when the child attains maturity.
- (Galatians 3:23-25) – “Before the coming of the faith, however, we were kept in ward under the law, being shut up until the faith which should afterward be revealed. So that, the law has proved our custodian, training us for Christ, in order that, from faith, we might be declared righteous. But the faith having come, no longer are we under a custodian.”
“UNTIL”
In Jesus, the termination point has been
reached for the “children of Abraham.” Previously, all things were
confined under sin, just as the Jews were kept under the Law until the faith
was revealed in Christ. The Torah guarded the people of God until the “faith
came,” and the Law served to make them aware of transgressions.
Likewise, the supervisory role of the Law only
lasted until the “faith was revealed… the promise from the faith of Jesus
Christ given to those who believe.” But with the coming of the promised “seed”
– Jesus - believers are no longer under that custodianship.
The analogy emphasizes the temporal aspect of the Mosaic Law. Since it is compared to the “custodian,” to say the heir is no longer under the custodian is to say the believer is no longer under the jurisdiction of the Mosaic legislation.
And if the Law is incapable of acquitting
anyone before God, and if it was added after the original “promise”
that it could not modify, what was the purpose of the legislation given at Sinai?
Paul addresses that question (“Why, then,
the law?”). The Torah was given through Moses to teach Israel that
sin constitutes disobedience to the commandments of God. It was the “custodian”
for the nation assigned to guard Israel until the promised "seed"
arrived. But that function was always temporary and provisional.
Here in Paul’s larger argument, the temporal
aspect of the Law becomes pronounced. It was given as an interim
stage in God’s larger redemptive program.
ONE NEW MAN
But with the arrival of the “seed,” it
reached the Law’s jurisdiction reached its termination point. Therefore, it no
longer determines who is in the covenant community and who is not. Next, Paul draws
out the social implications of this change:
- (Galatians 3:26-29): “For you all are sons of God through the faith in Christ Jesus; For you, as many as into Christ have been baptized, have put on Christ. There cannot be Jew or Greek, there cannot be slave or free, there cannot be male and female, for all are one in Christ Jesus: Now, if you are of Christ, by consequence, you are Abraham’s seed, according to promise, heirs.”
To now return now to the custodianship of the
Law means regression to the previous stage in redemptive history that was characterized
by the division between Jews and Gentiles, a barrier that has been eliminated by
the death of Jesus.
This paragraph is pivotal to the letter
since it stresses the oneness of God's people. The old
social distinctions are wholly inappropriate now that the “promised seed”
has arrived. To pressure other believers into pursuing a Torah-observant
lifestyle will rebuild those old barriers, especially between Jewish and
Gentile believers.
One function of the Law was to keep Israelites
distinct from Gentiles. The distinctions between Jews and Gentiles
were there by design. But the arrival of Jesus means there is a new basis for
defining and delimiting the people of God.
Previously, uncircumcised Gentiles were
outside the Abrahamic covenant, and therefore, NOT “sons of
God.” They could only become members of the covenant community by
undergoing circumcision, in the case of males, and otherwise adopting a Torah-observant
lifestyle. Effectively, they ceased to be Gentiles.
NO DISTINCTIONS
But the Law also distinguished between slaves and freemen, male and female. Women
could not fulfill certain requirements of the Law because of their periodic
uncleanness from menstruation and thus could not participate fully in the Temple
worship and rituals. They were restricted to the Court of Women, at a further
distance from the presence of Yahweh than men. Religiously speaking, they were
second-class citizens.
And to now embrace a Torah-observant lifestyle will reinstitute this inequity between Jew and Gentile.
The clause, “you are all,” refers
to Gentile and Jewish believers (“That the promise should be given to those
who believe”). Before the coming of the “seed,” all things were
under confinement, both Jew and Gentile.
But now, either group is no longer confined
under either sin or the Law, and both have become sons of God “through
the faith of Christ Jesus.” And if adoption into the covenant community
is through faith, then Gentile believers do not enter it from the works of the Torah,
including circumcision.
Several times Paul emphasizes the word “all.”
Both believing Jews and Gentiles have been made “sons of God” through
their oneness with Jesus. It is “in Christ” that believers become true “sons
of God” and “Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise.”
This does not mean that ethnicity or gender no longer matters in the daily lives of believers, but such distinctions are irrelevant to
anyone’s right standing before God or membership in His covenant community. To
now return to the custodianship of the Law would mean regression to
bondage and social division within the body of Christ.