Dedicated to Truth

Dedication · Senior Member

Lesson 7 Galatians 3:21-25

Dedication · Senior Member

But before faith came,....

What are we to understand by this?

It cannot mean faith in God, as the Old Testament faithful had faith, it was not limited to New Testament faithful people.
Adam, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Daniel, Isaiah and many more believed in Christ the coming Messiah, and were justified by faith in his righteousness, as we are.

It is much better to interpret in connection with Christ's actual coming, the object of faith, who was to come to redeem his people from under law, and offer them everlasting salvation.

We were kept under the law....

as people confined in a prison house! Held fast as prisoners, shut up.

What does this means?

We need to read a preceeding text to get this context -- the memory verse says:

Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe”

This shows the state and condition the Jews were in under the law, for the law condemned them as sinners worthy of death; but they were also prisoners with hope.

Through the sacrificial system they placed their hope and expectation in the Messiah's coming, who would fulfil the promise found in Isaiah 42:7 "to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house," was their hope.

For the blood of goats and sheep could not open that prison house of death.
Nothing that they could do would open that prison -- they were kept there but they had the hope.

Romans 5:12 By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned..
5:18 Therefore as by the offence of one condemnation came upon all men; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.

It is only because of Christ that the prison house of sin and death has been opened!

Dedication · Senior Member

"Christ's death proves God's great love for man. It is our pledge of salvation. To remove the Christ's death on the cross from the Christian would be like blotting the sun from the sky. What took place on that cross brings us near to God, reconciling us to Him. With the relenting compassion of a father's love, Jehovah looks upon the suffering that His Son endured in order to save the race from eternal death, and accepts us in the Beloved.

Without Christ's sacrifice on the cross, man could have no union with the Father. On it depends our every hope. From it shines the light of the Saviour's love, and when at the foot of the cross the sinner looks up to the One who died to save him, he may rejoice with fullness of joy, for his sins are pardoned. Kneeling in faith at the cross, he has reached the highest place to which man can attain.

As we contemplate scenes at the cross we learn that the heavenly Father loves us with a love that is infinite. Can we wonder that Paul exclaimed, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ"? Galatians 6:14. It is our privilege also to glory in the cross, our privilege to give ourselves wholly to Him who gave Himself for us. Then, with the light that streams from Calvary shining in our faces, we may go forth to reveal this light to those in darkness. {ad AA 209-210}

Dedication · Senior Member

"Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith." Gal. 3:24

What law acted like a school master, or tutor to point the people to the coming Messiah?

The moral law pointed out their sin.

There was another law pointing them to coming "Lamb of God". This was the ceremonial law. Once Christ came the ceremonial sacrifices and rituals ceased.

"In the Galatian churches, open, unmasked error was supplanting the gospel message. Christ, the true foundation of the faith, was virtually renounced for the obsolete ceremonies of Judaism." (AA 386)

Paul, in Galatians 3:1 says in astonishment that Christ and His crucifixion had been presented to them so graphically it was as if they had been there.

Surely they couldn't have forgotten and now thought they had to do the animal sacrifices and all those rituals to escape from the condemnation of the moral law.