by Kent Leslie ✉️
Why, then, was the law given? Duh, because people are selfish and evil. If we didn’t have laws, some people will always do the selfish thing, and don’t care who it harms. They’ll dump their trash in your yard. They’ll bathe in everybody’s drinking water. They’ll shoot their noisy neighbors. Laws aren’t about saving such people; they’re about stopping their evil.
Same with the Law in the bible. It was added for the sake of transgressions. That is until Jesus, the Seed to whom the promise was made. Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit. In Old Testament times, only prophets had the Holy Spirit; now every Christian receives him. Now we’re meant to follow the Spirit, and if we actually listen to him, he guides us way better than the Law ever could.
The law was put into effect by angels. In
Dt 33.2: He said: “The L
ORD came from Sinai and appeared to them from Seir; he shone on them from Mount Paran and came with ten thousand holy ones, with lightning from his right hand for them.”
Pharisees claimed the “holy thousands” in this verse, are angels. Pharisees were mighty nervous about the idea of God interacting so closely with humans, because contact with someone so very holy might just vaporize us. (Jesus came to earth to help us be rid of that fear.) So Pharisees were in the habit of emphasizing how angels did this or that; not so much God. And they really liked to emphasize the angels helping God hand down the Law to Moses.
Thus we find this idea in the New Testament three times—here,
Now a mediator is not just for one person alone, but God is one. I translate verse 20 a bit more literally: “And the mediator isn’t for one, and God is one.”
This verse confuses people! We’re not entirely sure what Paul meant by it. Christians have come up with maybe 300 different interpretations of it. One commentary I looked at, gutlessly skipped this verse rather than deal with the controversy. Bad commentator! Helping Christians with tricky verses is your whole job!
My best guess, based on a couple of the things the ancient Christians wrote, is this: Mediators usually have to negotiate between multiple parties, and maybe make compromises so everybody gets what they want. Whereas God isn’t multiple parties; he’s one God. True, he’s a trinity, but the persons of the trinity are all on the same side. The Father doesn’t have to negotiate with the Son; the Son loves the Father and eagerly wants to do his Father’s will.
So Moses mediated the Law—he had to make negotations, and compromises, and adjustments, in the way he led the people. Jesus even said so:
Mt 19.8: He told them,
“Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of the hardness of your hearts, but it was not like that from the beginning.”
Jesus doesn’t do that sort of thing. Neither does the Holy Spirit. God is gracious and kind; he forgives everything; he even makes accommodations for weak and immature people. But truth is still truth. God still has high standards, which don’t change just because we don’t like them. He always wants us to do better. He’ll help!
And we don’t negotiate heaven with God. We either trust him to save us, or we don’t.
Is the law therefore contrary to God’s promises? Absolutely not! I mentioned last week whenever Paul asks a question and answers it with “Absolutely not,” it’s a rhetorical technique; he’s quoting something the Christians of his day were actually teaching.
Heck, Christians of our day are teaching it. Dispensationalists say the Law is one dispensation, and God’s promises are another, and God’s grace is yet another. And that’s rubbish. God doesn’t change his plans every couple centuries, and invent whole new dispensations with entirely new rules. Same God, same rules. The promises have to do with salvation, but the Law does not. It’s like Paul says: If the law had been granted with the ability to give life, following it would make us righteous. Follow the Law, and God’ll save you. And again: That’s not what the bible teaches. That’s not what Pharisees taught. That’s not what Christianity teaches. That’s what pagans believe: Good people go to heaven, bad people go to hell.
But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin’s power. If you think the Law, or the bible, is what saves you, you’re gonna wind up in a legalistic religion where everything’s always about avoiding or fighting sin. Sin’s gonna be all your life is about. Asking “Is this a sin or not?” and constantly worrying you got the answer wrong. Avoiding everything which might be a sin. It’s gonna feel like prison.
People who leave legalistic churches, regularly describe it just like getting out of prison. This legalistic prison should make us realize there’s something wrong with this belief. But y’know, people can get used to their prisons, and even prefer them to freedom.
The law, then, was our guardian until Christ. “Guardian” is
Greeks—well, the Greeks with money anyway—would buy a slave specifically to supervise their children. Walk ’em to school. Shoo the bullies away. Keep ’em out of trouble. Make them mind their manners. Help ’em with schoolwork. Everything nannies do today.
Greeks grew up loving their pedagogues, and usually freeing them when they got older. Because once you get older, you don’t need a nanny anymore, right? And now that we have Christ Jesus, do we need the Law to be our nanny? Should we?
Anyway that’s what Paul means when he says But since that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. Because of faith, we trust Christ Jesus, follow him instead of the Law, and become proper children of our heavenly Father.