Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Galatians 3:23

But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.

23. But before faith came ] Better, ‘before this faith’, i.e. in Jesus Christ, ‘came’; and so nearly = before Christ came.

we were kept ] kept in ward. The same word occurs 1Pe 1:5.

shut up ] The passive of the same verb which is rendered ‘hath concluded’ in Gal 3:22.

the faith which should afterwards be revealed ] Here the word faith seems to pass from the subjective to the objective sense. It means the full Gospel revelation of salvation by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

But before faith came – That is, the system of salvation by faith in the Lord Jesus. Faith here denotes the Christian religion, because faith is its distinguishing characteristic.

We were kept under the law – We, who were sinners; we, who have violated the Law. It is a general truth, that before the gospel was introduced, people were under the condemning sentence of the Law.

Shut up unto the faith – Enclosed by the Law with reference to the full and glorious revelation of a system of salvation by faith. The design and tendency of the Law was to shut us up to that as the only method of salvation. All other means failed. The Law condemned every other mode, and the Law condemned all who attempted to be justified in any other way. Man, therefore, was shut up to that as his last hope; and could look only to that for any possible prospect of salvation. The word which in this verse is rendered were kept ephrouroumetha, usually means to guard or watch, as in a castle, or as prisoners are guarded; and though the word should not be pressed too far in the interpretation, yet it implies that there wasa rigid scrutiny observed; that the Law guarded them; that there was no way of escape; and that they were shut up. as prisoners under sentence of death, to the only hope, which was that of pardons.

Unto the faith … – That was the only hope. The Law condemned them, and offered no hope of escape. Their only hope was in that system which was to be revealed through the Messiah, the system which extended forgiveness on the ground of faith in his atoning blood.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 23. But before faith came] Before the Gospel was published.

We were kept under the law, shut up] . We were kept as in a strong hold, , locked up, unto the faith-the religion of the Lord Jesus, which should afterwards be revealed. Here the same metaphor is used as above, and for its explanation I must refer the reader to the same place, Ro 11:32.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Before faith came; before the covenant of grace, or the doctrine of the gospel, or Christ himself, was revealed.

We were kept under the law; the apostle either speaks of all mankind, of whom it is true, that until Gods revelation of the covenant of grace, they had no other way of salvation made known to them than by the law of works; or else of the Jews, to whom, though before Christ there was a revelation of the gospel, yet it was more dark and imperfect, so as they

were kept under the law, but few apprehending any other way of justification than by the works of the law.

Shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed; but the apostle saith they were but shut up under it; God never intended it as that by the observance of which they should be saved; but as even then, to those whom he intended to save, he made a more secret revelation of his gospel, so he had now more fully and plainly revealed the way of salvatiou which he had from eternity established.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

23. faithnamely, that justmentioned (Ga 3:22), of whichChrist is the object.

keptGreek,“kept in ward”: the effect of the “shutting up”(Gal 3:22; Gal 4:2;Rom 7:6).

unto“with a viewto the faith,” c. We were, in a manner, morally forced to it, sothat there remained to us no refuge but faith. Compare the phrase, Ps78:50, Margin Ps 31:8.

which should afterwards,&c.”which was afterwards to be revealed.”

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

But before faith came,…. This is to be understood, not of the grace of faith, which was under the former dispensation, as now; the Old Testament saints had the same Spirit of faith, and the same grace of faith, as for its nature, object, and use, as New Testament saints have; Adam, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, c. believed in Christ, and were justified by faith in his righteousness, as we are. It is much better to understand it of the doctrine of faith, which though preached to Adam, and by Noah, and to Abraham, and by Isaiah, and others, yet not so clearly, largely, and fully, as by Jesus Christ and his apostles so that the times of the Gospel may be called the times of faith, in comparison of the times of the law, and which some think is here meant; but it is best to interpret it of Christ, the object of faith, who was to come, and is come in the flesh, to fulfil the law; and, by so doing, has put an end to it; and to redeem his people from under it, and to save them with an everlasting salvation; for before this his coming in the flesh, the people of the Jews, of whom the apostle was one, were under the law:

we were kept under the law; as persons in a garrison, as the word signifies; they were kept distinct and separate from the rest of the nations of the world, and had neither civil nor religious conversation with them; and so were preserved in some measure both from their impieties and idolatries, which otherwise they were naturally prone to; and as a distinct people, unto the coming of the Messiah, who was to arise from among them; so that their being kept under the law in this sense, was both for their honour and their safety: though the meaning may also be, that they were kept under it as persons under a military guard, as the word likewise imports; and signifies, that the law kept a strict guard and a watchful eye over them, as the Roman soldier had over Paul, that kept him, and held fast the chain in his hand, with which he was bound, that he might not get loose and escape from him; see Ac 28:16 to which the apostle seems here to allude; the law kept them close to the discharge of their duty, and held them fast as prisoners; and which is more fully expressed in the next clause,

shut up. The Syriac version reads this in connection with the former, thus, “the law kept us shut up”, as in a prison; and the same way reads the Arabic version; which shows the state and condition the Jews were in under the law, and how they were treated by it; not as good and righteous persons, but as persons in debt, as criminals and malefactors; a prison is made, and so the law, for such sort of persons; the law considered and used them as sinners, as criminals convicted and condemned; it did itself accuse, convict, and pronounce them guilty, and condemned them to punishment; and detained them as prisoners in its dark dungeon, where they had little light and comfort; and were as in a pit, wherein is no water; though they lay here as prisoners of hope, in expectation of the Messiah’s coming; who was to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound, and to say to the prisoners, Come forth, and to them that sit in darkness, Show yourselves. Also the allusion may be to the custom of the eastern nations, in the usage of their slaves and captives; who in the daytime used to grind at a mill in a prison house, and in the night time were put down into a pit and shut up, and a mill stone put to the mouth of the pit p; and so describes the state of bondage and slavery the Jews were in under the law, who differed nothing from servants, to whom the saints under the Gospel dispensation are opposed, Ga 3:26 as being the children of God by faith in Christ. And in this uncomfortable condition they continued,

unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed; that is, until Christ the object of faith came, who was to be revealed, or made manifest in the flesh; who, before his incarnation, not only lay in the bosom of the Father, but was in a great measure hid under the types and prophecies of the Old Testament; which though they gave some hints of him, yet but obscure ones, in comparison of the revelation made of him by his appearance in human nature; by the testimonies of his Father by a voice from heaven of angels, of John the Baptist, and others; and by his own doctrines and miracles, and by the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him.

p Schindler Lex. Pentaglott. in voce , col. 1712.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Before faith came ( ). “Before the coming (second aorist active infinitive of , definite event) as to the Faith” (note article, meaning the faith in verse 22 made possible by the historic coming of Christ the Redeemer), the faith in Christ as Saviour (verse 22).

We were kept in ward under the law ( ). Imperfect passive of , to guard (from , a guard). See on Acts 9:24; 2Cor 11:32. It was a long progressive imprisonment.

Unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed ( ). “Unto the faith (verse 22 again) about to be revealed.” and the first aorist passive infinitive (regular idiom).

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

But the office of the law as a jailer was designed to be only temporary, until the time when faith should come. It was to hold in custody those who were subjected to sin, so that they should not escape the consciousness of their sins and of their liability to punishment. Faith [ ] . The subjective faith in Christ which appropriates the promise. See on chapter Gal 1:23.

We were kept [] . Better, kept in ward, continuing the figure in shut up, verse 22. The imperfect tense indicates the continued activity of the law as a warder.

Under the law [ ] . Const. with were kept in ward, not with shut up. We were shut up with the law as a warder, not for protection, but to guard against escape. Comp. Wisd. 17 15. The figure of the law as pedagogue (verse 24) is not anticipated. The law is conceived, not as the prison, but as the warder, the Lord or despot, the power of sin (see 1Co 14:56; Romans 7), by whom those who belong to sin are kept under lock and key – under moral captivity, without possibility of liberation except through faith.

Shut up unto the faith [ ] . Eijv unto or for expresses the object of keeping in ward. It is not temporal, until, which is a rare usage in N. T., but with a view to our passing into the state of faith. Which should afterwards be revealed [ – ] . The position of mellousan emphasizes the future state of things to which the earlier conditions pointed. The faith was first revealed at the coming of Christ and the gospel.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “But before faith came,” (pro tou de elthein ten pistin) “But before the faith came,” the Christ-promised one and the system of faith, body of complete truth came, Gal 4:4-5; Before the “Author and finisher of our faith” came, Heb 12:2, before the originator of our faith came, Heb 2:10.

2) “We were kept under the law,” (hupo nomon ephroroumetha) “We were guarded under law,” or kept under guard, law-guard, regarding standards and practices of right and wrong, all and each of which pointed to the need of the Redeemer.

3) “Shut up unto,” (sugkleiomenoi eis) “being shut up with reference to,” With view toward; men were kept, in ward, guarded, and guided by the law which both indicted them of sin and pointed to the Savior.

4) “The faith which should afterward be revealed,” (ten mellousan pistin apokaluphthenai) “The faith (which was, existed already) being about to be revealed,” referring to Christ the object of Faith, the person in whose promised coming Abraham believed, Rom 4:3-5; Heb 11:13; Heb 11:39-40; Luk 10:23-24; 1Jn 2:7-8.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

23. Before faith came. The question proposed is now more fully defined. He explains at great length the use of the law, and the reason why it was temporal; for otherwise it would have appeared to be always unreasonable that a law should be delivered to the Jews, from which the Gentiles were excluded. If there be but one church consisting of Jews and Gentiles, why is there a diversity in its government? Whence is this new liberty derived, and on what authority does it rest, since the fathers were under subjection to the law? He therefore informs us, that the distinction is such as not to interrupt the union and harmony of the church.

We must again remind the reader that Paul does not treat exclusively of ceremonies, or of the moral law, but embraces the whole economy by which the Lord governed his people under the Old Testament. It became a subject of dispute whether the form of government instituted by Moses had any influence in obtaining righteousness. Paul compares this law first to a prison, and next to a schoolmaster. Such was the nature of the law, as both comparisons plainly show, that it could not have been in force beyond a certain time.

Faith denotes the full revelation of those things which, during the darkness of the shadows of the law, were dimly seen; for he does not intend to say that the fathers, who lived under the law, did not possess faith. The faith of Abraham has already come under our notice, and other instances are quoted by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. (Heb 11:0.) The doctrine of faith, in short, is attested by Moses and all the prophets: but, as faith was not then clearly manifested, so the time of faith is an appellation here given, not in an absolute, but in a comparative sense, to the time of the New Testament. That this was his meaning is evident from what he immediately adds, that they were shut up under the faith which should afterwards be revealed; for this implies that those who were under the custody of the law were partakers of the same faith. The law did not restrain them from faith; but, that they might not wander from the fold of faith, it kept possession of themselves. There is an elegant allusion, too, to what he had formerly said, that “the scripture hath concluded all under sin.” They were besieged on every hand by the curse, but this siege was counteracted by an imprisonment which protected them from the curse; so that the imprisonment by the law is here proved to have been highly generous in its character.

Faith was not yet revealed, not because the fathers wanted light, but because they had less light than we have. The ceremonies might be said to shadow out an absent Christ, but to us he is represented as actually present, and thus while they had the mirror, we have the substance. Whatever might be the amount of darkness under the law, the fathers were not ignorant of the road in which they ought to walk. Though the dawn is not equal to the splendor of noon, yet, as it is sufficient to direct a journey, travelers do not wait till the sun is fully risen. Their portion of light resembled the dawn, which was enough to preserve them from all error, and guide them to everlasting blessedness.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

TEXT 3:2325

(23) But before faith came, we were kept in ward under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. (24) So that the law is become our tutor to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. (25) But now that faith is come, we are no longer under a tutor.

PARAPHRASE 3:2325

23 Wherefore, before the gospel was published, we were kept in durance under lawthe law of nature and of Moses; shut up together as criminals whom these laws had condemned, to make us embrace the law of faith which should afterwards be revealed.
24 So that the law of nature and of Moses, by making us sensible of the impossibility of being meritoriously justified by works, hath in all ages been our pedagogue to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith gratuitously.
25 But the law of faith being promulgated, we in that dispensation are no longer under the pedagogue. There is no occasion for the law as a pedagogue to bring us to Christ.

COMMENT 3:23

But before faith came we were kept in ward under the law

1.

That is, before faith in Jesus, before the gospel was published.

2.

The law serves as a prison, keeping men from evil deeds and enforcing an outward behaviour.

shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed

1.

Law existed until the day of faith.

a.

John declared a new lamb to take away sin. Joh. 1:29

b.

Jesus preached the new birth. Joh. 3:3

c.

John declared his purpose in writing. Joh. 20:30-31

d.

At Pentecost a new Spirit was declared. Act. 2:38

e.

The apostles declared a new Gospel. 1Co. 15:1-5

2.

A new revelation eliminates the authority of the old.

COMMENT 3:24

is become our tutor

1.

McGarvey states that most families had a slave, who served as a tutor or who took the child to the teacher. He had charge of him from childhood to manhood to shield and protect him.

2.

He affirms that the law was such a tutor to bring those under its care to a state of development fit for society and fellowship of Christ, the spiritual father.

that we might be justified by faith

1.

Not justified by the work of the law, but faith.

2.

This phrase is repeated much in the Scriptures but many do not believe the truthfulness of it.

3.

He does not say faith alone. This is not all of it.

WORD STUDY 3:24

The tutor (paidagogospie dah go GOSS) was the slave who was in general charge of the children in a Greek family. He was responsible for discipline, physical training, and protection. He was not the teacher of the children; he was their escort to school. He at all times tried to guard them against evil and immoral influences. Until the child came of age, he was under the constant scrutiny of this guardian slave.

Notice how closely this ties in to the argument in chapter four concerning the minor child. Although he is destined to inherit everything, as long as he is a child, he is no better than the slave who guards and governs him. The Children of Israel were confined under the guardianship of the Law, until Christ came.

COMMENT 3:25

we are no longer under a tutor

1.

The tutor authority ceased with the day of Pentecost when the gospel was preached.

2.

This is emphasized in many passages.

a.

Having abolished . . . the law of commandments. Eph. 2:14-15

b.

Having blotted out the bond written in ordinances . . . nailing it to the cross. Col. 2:14

3.

The tutor was the law and Paul says that we are not under it. The Christian is strictly a new covenant person.

STUDY QUESTIONS 3:2325

376.

What faith is referred to here?

377.

How was man inward?

378.

Under what sentence did man live inward?

379.

Define the day of faith.

380.

What purpose did the law serve as stated in this verse?

381.

How long was the law a tutor?

382.

Do we need a tutor when we learn from Christ?

383.

Does he say that faith only will justify?

384.

It is well to name the various elements stated in the word of God that do justify.

385.

Does he teach that Christ is sufficient?

386.

If Christ is sufficient, then are works of the law insufficient?

387.

Why do men hold to the law, a tutor, when Paul says we are not under it?

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(23) Before faith came.Before faith awoke into exercise, began to exist, or the preaching of Christ as its object.

We were kept.Better, we were kept in ward, so as to bring out more clearly the force of the metaphor which runs through the verse. The Law was a kind of prison-house, in which we were kept shut up. It was a custody from which we were not permitted to escapea stern guardian that we were made to obey.

Unto the faith . . .With a view to the dispensation of faith which was in store for us. The object of this state of guardianship was to fit us for the dispensation of faith looming in the future.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

23. Before faith came As offered in the gospel of the crucified Jesus.

Kept The Greek word signifies watched, as by a military guard; under sentinels.

Law As a military fortress.

Shut up The doors of our stronghold locked, and we imprisoned; in confinement, yet in safety.

Unto the faith Our future and only outlet.

Which should afterwards be revealed Rather, faith, which was about to be revealed. The faith was in its essence and power operated during the time of the law. It lay in the underlying promise of the Abrahamic covenant throughout the whole period. It lies in the designs of God’s mercy even under the heathen dispensation. But in their dim and dark dispensation, that faith is afterwards to be revealed.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘But before faith came we were kept in ward (kept under restraint) under the Law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed, so that the Law has been our custodian to bring us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come we are no longer under a custodian.’

Before this faith came then, we were kept in restriction under the Law, held under restraint like young children, until the way of faith should be revealed. The Law was like a pedagogue, a slave custodian, given responsibility to watch over a child’s conduct, discipline him and take him to and from school and generally watch over him. But he could not make him do what he ought to do. And he was often someone from whom the child longed to escape.

But now things have changed for the faith has been revealed, and the Law as our moral tutor and disciplinarian has brought us to Christ so that we could be reckoned as righteous by faith. And now his task is finished. For having come to Christ we no longer require a moral custodian, for He is now our all and we are complete in Him (Col 2:10).

Note the continued reference to ‘faith’ or ‘the faith’. The latter is the message of the Gospel, the former the response to that message. It is not always clear which idea is prominent, but the two always tie in together.

‘Kept under restraint.’ In Gal 3:22 it is sin that keeps us under restraint, here it is the Law. But this is because sin receives its power from the Law (1Co 15:56; Rom 7:13).

‘But now that faith has come we are no longer under a custodian.’ This does not indicate a new dispensation. It rather reverts back to the time of Abraham. The Law was a temporary measure for Israel, which did not apply before the time of Moses, and which now no longer continues to apply in its judicial form, although still valid as an example. Now that Christ has come man can go back to the way of faith. The schoolmaster is no longer required for it has been replaced by the Master. As Abraham could look to God, Christians can look to Christ and be declared righteous by faith. The Law’s main function has ceased. It has been replaced in the crucified One in Whom the Christian lives, in Whom he is declared righteous, and through Whose power and example he now walks before God.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The Law’s pedagogical task has now been completed:

v. 23. But before faith came, we were kept under the Law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.

v. 24. Wherefore the Law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

v. 25. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.

v. 26. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.

v. 27. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

v. 28. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

v. 29. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.

The apostle here completes his discussion as to the purpose of the Law by holding before the Galatians an example with which they were familiar: But before faith came, we were in custody under the Law, shut up unto the faith which was to be revealed in the future. Before the era of the Gospel, before the preaching of faith in the redemption of Christ in the proper sense of the term had begun, the Jews were under restraint, confined, kept in custody under the Law. The believers of the Old Testament were under the guardianship of the Law, which regulated their lives even to the last detail. It was a galling bondage which was thus exercised, depriving them of all liberty and choice of action. But God’s purpose in imposing this temporary restraint was kind and merciful, for it was to serve in the interests of the future time of the New Testament, when Christ would come to deliver them from the bondage of the Law.

This relationship and aim the apostle illustrates: So that the Law has been our pedagogue unto Christ, that by faith we might be justified. Among the Greeks the pedagogue was a faithful slave entrusted with the care of the boy from his infancy to the time of his beginning manhood, whose specific duties consisted in keeping the boy under his charge from physical and moral evils and in accompanying him to school and to places of amusement. The pedagogue thus had the right, to a certain extent, to issue commands and prohibitions, to threaten punishment, and to limit the boy’s freedom, but always to the end that the pupil might be trained for mature age and for the assuming of the higher duties which devolved upon him as a citizen of the state. The believers of the Old Testament, according to this comparison, were spiritually not yet of age; God had given them the Law with all its demands and injunctions as a pedagogue, its purpose being to lead them to salvation in Christ, with whom the era of the Law would come to an end. Not as though the Law was able to make the believing Israelites better morally and thus render them worthy of Christ’s love. Its aim was simply to make the people conscious of their inability to fulfill the Law, and thus to make them eager for the free mercy which was revealed in Christ. in this manner the eager desire of the Old Testament believers was kept awake: I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord! Gen 49:18. Note: The fact that the Law is a pedagogue holds true even now, inasmuch as it works knowledge of sin in the heart of man, showing him his utter insufficiency and inability even with his best efforts. For when so much has been achieved in the heart of man by the preaching of the Law, then the gracious Gospel brings faith in the righteousness of Jesus Christ and assures the believer of his salvation.

But the work of the Law is only preparatory: But now that faith has come, we are no longer under the pedagogue. For you all are children of God through faith in Christ Jesus; for as many of you as are baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Now that the Gospel-era is upon us, now that the time of the New Testament is come, now that faith in Jesus Christ is being proclaimed, we are no longer under the jurisdiction of any pedagogue. We are now spiritually of age, we have grown to manhood, we are adult children of God; the services of a special overseer are no longer required. By faith in Christ Jesus, which was kindled in us by the preaching of the Gospel, we have entered into that wonderful relationship to God the Father. The apostle here expands the thought to include the Gentile Christians as well: You all are children of God by faith in Jesus, not by any work of the Law. And with this thought he connects another, namely, that we have become children of God by faith, through the Sacrament of Baptism. Our baptism was done in Christ, unto Christ; we have thereby entered into the most intimate relation to Christ, we have put on Christ with His garment of perfect righteousness. In and with Christ we are clothed with His innocence, righteousness, wisdom, power, salvation, spirit, and life. “It is a spiritual putting on… and is done in this way, that the soul accepts Christ and all His righteousness as its own possession, is defiant, relying upon it as if done and earned by itself… Such accepting is a spiritual putting on: that is the manner and nature of faith.”

In this respect, moreover, all believers are alike before God: Not is there Jew or Greek, not is there slave or freeman, not is there male or female; for you all are one in Christ Jesus. Because in Baptism the believers have put on Christ, have been clothed with the garment of his righteousness, therefore all distinctions of nationality are abrogated. It makes no difference to the Lord whether a person was originally a Jew, and burdened with the yoke of the Law, or a Greek, a Gentile living in the license of heathenism: by putting on Christ in Baptism they all become His dear children. All distinctions of rank and social position, too, are done away with, just as all differences of sex. In the Christian Church a man does not hold a higher rank because he is a freeman, or a lower rank because he is a slave; nor does one stand higher, if a man, and lower, if a woman. All are in the same way children of God through Christ. Social distinctions are indeed not abrogated in the world, just as all the other differences will continue to exist, 1Co 7:17-22. But within the Church, before God, we are all alike, poor sinners in need of salvation, children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, and therefore all one in Him. Christ the Head, and all believers the body; in Him is power and life, from Him all His members derive life and strength.

And so the apostle concludes: But if you are Christ’s, then you are the seed of Abraham, heirs according to the promise. By faith the believers are one with Christ, one in Christ. And since Christ is the true Seed of Abraham, therefore the believers, having put on Christ, having entered into the most intimate fellowship with His person, become related to Abraham as Christ is related to the patriarch by the promise of God: they are Abraham’s true seed, his spiritual descendants. And here also there is no difference between Israel according to the flesh and according to the spirit: in fact, whether Jews or Gentiles, the true children of Abraham are those that have accepted the promise of God given to him by faith. And so they are also heirs, not by nature, not by merit, but according to the promise. The believers receive the inheritance, righteousness before God, life, and salvation by reason of the Gospel message proclaimed to Abraham and are children and heirs of the promise. Not by the works of the Law, but by faith these wonderful gifts become theirs. Thus Paul has refuted the errors of the Judaizing teachers of all times with powerful and irrefutable arguments.

Summary

Paul shows that salvation is not of works, but by faith, from the experience of the Galatians, from the example of Abraham, and from the nature of the Law; he shows that the purpose of the Law is subordinate as serving in the capacity of a pedagogue unto Christ, in order that the liberty of the believers as children of God may finally be realized.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Gal 3:23 . ] no longer connected with (Hofmann), but leading over to a new portion of the statement (the counterpart to which is to follow in Gal 3:25 ), namely, to the position which the law held under the circumstances expressed in Gal 3:25 . Before the introduction of faith, it was to guard and maintain those who belonged to it in this relation of bondage, so that they should not get rid of it and become free, a liberation which was reserved for the faith which was to come.

] in the third place with the prepositional phrase. See Ellendt, Lex. Soph . I. p. 397; Klotz, ad Devar . II. p. 378 f.

Here also is neither doctrina fidem postulans , the gospel , as most ancient expositors and Schott think, nor the dispensation of faith (Buhl, comp. Rckert), but subjective faith , which is treated objectively. Comp. on Gal 1:23 , Gal 3:2 . As long as there was not yet any belief in Christ, faith was not yet present; but when on the preaching of the gospel men believed in Christ, the faith, which was previously wanting, had come , that is, had now set in, had presented itself, namely, in the hearts of those who had become believers. On as applied to mental things and states, which set in, comp. Pind. Nem . i. 48 ( hopes ); Plat. Pol . iii. p. 402 A ( understanding ); Soph. O. R . 681 ( ). Comp. also Rom 7:9 .

] (see the critical notes): under the law we were held in custody, so that we were placed in ward with a view to the faith about to be revealed. The. subject is: we Jewish Christians (Gal 3:25 ); the emphasis is on , and afterwards on . The law is represented as a ruler, under whose dominion ( ) those who belonged to it were held in moral captivity, as in a prison; so that they, as persons shut up in the under lock and key, were placed beyond the possibility of liberation which was only to ensue by means of the faith that was to be revealed in the future. [166] The words and the context do not yield more than this: the paedagogic efficacy of the law is not inferred till Gal 3:24 , and is not to be anticipated here. This view is opposed to that of many expositors (Chrysostom, Theophylact, Oecumenius, Erasmus, Grotius, Estius, Winer, Rckert, Schott, Ewald, and others), who find already expressed here that paedagogic function , which, however, is understood in the sense of the “usus politicus ” of the law (but see on Gal 3:24 ): “in severam legis disciplinam, quae ne in omnem libidinem effunderemur cavit , traditi,” Winer. But the whole explanation of the law guarding from sin (to which also Wieseler refers .) is opposed to the correct interpretation of (Gal 3:19 ), and also to Gal 3:22 . The captivity so forcibly described by Paul is just the sinful bondage under the law, Rom 7:1 ; 1Co 15:56 . Observe, moreover, in order to a just understanding of the passage, that , according to the very position of the words, cannot without proceeding arbitrarily be connected with . (so de Wette, Wieseler, and many others, also my own former interpretation), a connection which is not warranted by the other thought, Gal 3:22 , but must be joined to . (Augustine and many others, also Hofmann, Reithmayr, Buhl); and further, that the present participle (with the . . . . belonging to it) forms the modal definition of , representing the continued operation of the latter, which, constantly appearing in fresh acts, renders liberation impossible. Hofmann (comp. his Schriftbew . II. 2, p. 59) understands in the sense of constraining to something; it expresses in his view the constraining power, with which subjection to the law served to keep the people directed towards the faith which was to be revealed in the future. [167] Such an use of the phrase is indubitably found among later Greek authors, and is especially frequent in Polybius (see Raphel, and Schweighuser, Lex. Polyb . p. 571 f.); but how improbable, and in fact incredible it is, that Paul should have here used this word in a different sense from that in which he used it immediately before in Gal 3:22 , and in the kindred passage, Rom 11:32 (he has it not elsewhere)! This sense could not have occurred to any reader. Besides, the idea of constraint against one’s will , which must be conveyed in . (see Fritzsche, ad Rom . II. p. 545), and which Hofmann obliterates (“the law conferred on the people its distinctive position , and its abiding in this distinctive position was at the same time an abiding directed towards the faith that was to come”), would neither agree with the text (Gal 3:22 ; Gal 3:24 ) nor harmonize with history (Rom 11 ; Act 28:25 ff.).

] As in Gal 3:24 is evidently to be understood as telic , and as the temporal interpretation usque ad (Erasmus, Grotius, Michaelis, Koppe, Morus, Rosenmller, Rckert, Usteri, and others) after , which includes in itself the terminus ad quem , would be very unmeaning, is to be explained: towards the faith , that is, with the design , that we should pass over into the state of faith. Luther (1519) aptly remarks: “in hoc, ut fide futura liberaremur.” In accordance with the view of Oecumenius, Theophylact, Augustine, Calovius, Raphel, Bengel, Hofmann, . . . is to be connected with , because the latter, without this annexation of the telic statement . . ., would not form a characteristic modal definition of . This . . . is, in the history of salvation, the divine aim of that , which was to cease on its attainment; Christ is the end of the law. Comp. Gal 3:22 , where . . . corresponds with the . . . here.

] is placed first (Paul did not write, . . . . .), because with that earlier situation is contrasted the subsequent future state of things which was throughout the object of its aim. Comp. on Rom 8:18 . Similarly in 1Pe 5:1 , 2Ma 8:11 .

] for so long as there was not yet belief in Christ, faith had not yet made its appearance: it was still a (in the counsel of God) hidden element of life, which became revealed as a historical phenomenon, when Christ had come and the gospel the preaching of faith (Gal 3:2 ; Gal 3:5 ) was made known. . cannot be understood as the infinitive of design and, according to the reading , as belonging to the latter word (Matthias: “in order to become manifest, as those who were under the ban with a view to the future faith”), because in the religious-historical connection of the text it must signify the final appearance of the blessing of salvation, which hitherto as a had been unknown (Rom 16:25 ). Besides, Paul would thus have written very far from clearly; he must at least have placed the infinitive before .

[166] If, with Winer, Usteri, and Schott, . is explained merely as asservabamur (1Pe 1:5 ), comp. Hofmann, “we were held in keeping ,” it yields, according to the connection with , and with the inference thereupon of the paedagogic function of the law, too weak a thought. Comp. Wis 17:16 . Luther, Calvin, and many others, including Rckert and de Wette, have rightly found in . and . the figurative idea of a prison ( , Plat. Ax . p. 365 E; , Plat. Phaed . p. 62 ff.). The prison, however, is not the law itself; but the latter is the ruler, under whose power the captives are in prison, because, namely, under the law, as the (1Co 15:56 ), they are not in a position to attain to the freedom of moral life.

[167] Raphel, Polyb . p. 518, has understood in a similar way to Hofmann, and finely paraphrased it: “eo necessitatis quem adigere, ut ad fidem tanquam sacram ancoram confugere cogatur.” Comp. Bengel.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

V

INDUCTION INTO CHRIST

Gal 3:23-4:20 .

While in the last discussion we anticipated somewhat by dipping a little into Gal 4 , I commence this Gal 3:23 : “But before faith came, we were kept in ward under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.” The part of that verse that needs explanation is the word “faith.” Faith is used in the following senses:

1. The act, or exercise, of believing in Christ. That is not what is meant by the word here, because the Old Testament people, looking through the types, believed in Christ and had witness borne to their faith, as we learn from Hebrews II. Therefore the error was radical when a Baptist preacher said that there was no faith in Christ until after Christ came and died, and no forgiveness of sins. And not only did I hear a Baptist preacher say that, but I heard a Campbellite preacher misapply it in the same way, saying there could be no remission of sins until Christ actually died, and then the sins of the Old Testament saints were remitted. But sins were remitted in Old Testament times on God’s acceptance of what the Surety would do at the proper time. We must not confound expiation and remission. I will give a financial illustration. Paul writes to Philemon: “If Onesimus oweth thee aught, put that to mine account.” The very moment that Philemon charged it to Paul he could no longer hold it against Onesimus. It was remitted to Onesimus. The surety was held, and not the original contractor of the debt. It stood remitted against Onesimus, since it was put to Paul’s account. The debt was not actually paid to the creditor. Only the personal responsibility for the debt was changed. It was paid whenever Paul should pay it later. Just so God was in the world in Old Testament times not reckoning, or charging, or imputing their sins to them, but was charging them to Christ and reckoning them to Christ, and so sins were remitted just as freely in the Old Testament times as in the New Testament times, but the actual expiation was not made until Christ died. I quote from the “Philadelphia Confession of Faith” the following:

Art. VIII, Sec. 6: “Although the price of redemption was not actually paid by Christ until after his incarnation, yet the virtue, efficacy and benefit thereof was communicated to the elect in all ages successively from the beginning of the world…

Again Art. XI, Sec. 6: “The justification, of believers under the Old Testament, was in all these respects, one and the same with the justification of believers under the New Testament.” And what is more authoritative than any confession of faith is the testimony of God’s Word in Rom 4:7 and 2Co 5:19 . Nevertheless one should either subscribe to the confession of his denomination on vital points or quit the denomination.

2. Faith sometimes means the body or system, of gospel truths, usually preceded by the article “the.” But evidently that cannot be the meaning here. In what sense then is “faith” used in Gal 3:23 ? Here is the reading which supplies the modifying words: “But before the object of faith came we were kept in ward under the law.” The object of faith is Christ, the antitype. The simple meaning of the whole section is, that an Old Testament believer, though his sins were remitted and he was justified, must yet observe the law of types until Christ came. Just as in Gal 4 it says, “But I say that so long as the heir is a child, he differeth nothing from a bondservant, though he is Lord of all; but is under guardians and stewards until the day appointed of the father.” Being shut up under the law meant that the Old Testament saint, though his sins were remitted by faith in the antitype, yet had to keep on fulfilling the requirements of the law as to feasts and ceremonies and the observance of days. He was in the position of an heir but had not yet ob- gained his majority, but had to keep up the type until the antitype came. We need to get that meaning clear in our mind, because in the New Testament an argument is based on it. We have Moses who had real faith, and David and Enoch and Elijah, who had real faith, but they kept up the ceremonial law. The form was symbolic in the Mosaic law, and in the law preceding Moses. Why do we not now do as did the early people? Because the object of faith came, and the heirs of faith are now out from under the law. We are not under stewards and governors as the Old Testament people were.

I now explain the next verse: “So that the law has become our tutor to bring us unto Christ.” The Greek word is compound, pais, “a child.” and agogos, “a conductor.” Agogos is from the verb agein, to lead, or conduct. To complete the analogy we have only to refer to the heathen custom of entrusting the care of a child in his nonage, to a slave. This slave was not necessarily the teacher, in the modern sense of pedagogue, but would lead the child to the school where the real teacher would instruct him. So the law, a slave, leads to Christ, the great teacher. In this sense the law evidently was not to annul the previous covenant of grace, but was added to it in a subsidiary or helpful sense. But now that the object of faith is come, we are no longer under the tutor. In many places Paul thus argues against any lapsing into Judaism. It was going back to the rudiments, the weak and beggarly elements of an obsolete dispensation. The whole book of Hebrews is written on that subject.

So a man who observes the seventh day instead of the first day proclaims that he is still in the Old Testament.

We come now to a thought not discussed before, Gal 3:26 : “For ye are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” The Jews, as Jews, were not sons by faith, but sons by lineal, fleshly descent. “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ.” What is the force of “baptized into Christ”?

I had a Campbellite brother say to me, “You Baptists have no method of induction into Christ.”

“What is your method?” I asked.

“We baptize into Christ,” he said.

“How will you reply,” I asked, “to the Roman Catholic when he says you Campbellites have no method of inducting Christ into you? You ask them how they induct Christ into men and they answer, ‘By eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus Christ in the mass.’ “

I reply to both, for the Catholic has better ground than the Campbellite that each ordinance is a symbolic, pictorial induction. Baptism does not really put us into Christ. On the contrary, says Paul, “By faith we enter into this grace wherein we stand.” Eating the bread and drinking the wine does not really put Christ into us, for by the Spirit Christ is put into us, or “formed in us the hope of glory.” (See also 2Co 3:18 ; 2Co 4:6 .) Baptism does not really put us into Christ; it is only figurative of it. Paul says, “By faith we are all children of God.” By faith, and not by baptism, so that the form of being baptized into Christ is not the reality of putting us into Christ. In baptism we put on Christ, as an enlisted soldier puts on the uniform which is the external emblem, or symbol, of his enlistment.

The next verse calls for some explanation. “There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male and female; for ye all are one man in Christ Jesus.” What are the distinctions between the two covenants? Under the Mosaic covenant a Jew only belonging to the nation by fleshly descent was in the covenant. But in the new covenant it is neither Jew nor Greek. There is no distinction of nationality. That is the first point. They all come in just alike, as the animals went into Noah’s ark through one door. There was just one door; the eagle had to swoop down and go in the same door that the snail crawled through.

The second point of distinction is not national, but in Christ there is no distinction between a slave and his master. Abraham’s slaves were circumcised because they belonged to him. But in the new covenant the slaves of a believer are not baptized because they belong to him. Neither the relation of children nor slaves put them in the covenant and entitles them to the ordinances. Earthly relations do not count at all in the new covenant. Here the individual alone counts. The child of a preacher must himself repent and believe and must be baptized for himself. The preacher’s wife must repent and believe and be baptized for herself. She must take no religious step because of her relation to her husband, such as joining “his church” to be with him or in order to “commune with him.” This passage means even more than that. In the old covenant only the males received the token of the covenant. In the new covenant there is no distinction as to ordinances between male and female. The woman is baptized as well as the man. If one was a slave of a Jew, the law required that the slave should be circumcised, becoming a member of the covenant through circumcision. Under the new covenant, it is clearly said that there is neither bond nor free that a slave does not come in because he is a slave belonging to some one in the covenant, but comes in on his own personal faith in Christ, just as any other sinner comes in.

I repeat that the next point of difference in that verse is one of sex. Under the Jewish covenant only the male received the token of the covenant. The woman’s position in the Mosaic covenant was a very subordinate one, but in the new covenant the woman receives the ordinance of the covenant just the same as the man. She is a human being and comes in by her own personal faith in Christ, and is received by baptism just the same as if she were a man. So we see that makes a very important distinction in the two covenants.

Gal 3:29 needs just a word of explanation: “And if ye are Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise,” whether a heathen, a Jew, a Scythian, Bohemian, a man, or a woman. If one gets into Christ by faith then he belongs to Abraham’s seed not his fleshly see, but his spiritual seed, as Paul says, “He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly.” The real circumcision is not the circumcision of the flesh, but of the heart. He is repeating what I have explained before: “But I say that so long as the heir is a child, he differeth nothing from a bondservant though he is lord of all; but is under guardians and stewards until the day appointed of the father.” So the Old Testament saints as children were held in bondage under the rudiments of the world, that is, bound to observe those ceremonial laws of sacrifice and the entire sabbatic cycle. “But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” We are not children of God by ordinary generation. We are children of God by regeneration. When born naturally I was not in the kingdom, not in the church, not in anything religious, yet some denominations teach that the church consists of believers and their children. We don’t get in because we are the sons of some member that is in, or the slave, or the wife of somebody that is in we do not get in that way. We come in by adoption. What is adoption? Adoption is that process of law by which one, not naturally a member of the family, is legally made a member and an heir of the family. Naturally we do not belong to God’s family. We could not call God Father.

Now comes a point more precious than any I have presented, Gal 4:6 : “And because ye are sons [by adoption, by regeneration], God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.”

I remember as distinctly as I can remember anything that ever came in my experience, the day, the place, and the hour when in my heart I could say for the first time, to God, “Father”; when the realization of God’s fatherhood and when the filial feeling toward God came into my soul. That was when I accepted Christ.

There was nothing in the old covenant that gave one that individual assurance, that inward witness. It could not, as it came by natural descent, but here is a very precious thing in the new covenant that to all those who by faith enter into this covenant, there is given a witness: “God’s Spirit witnesseth with our spirit that we are the children of God.” The filial feeling comes to us. The first time I preached on that subject I used this illustration: If I were to go to spend a night with one of the neighbors and, not knowing his children personally, would see the children come in from school, I could tell by watching them which ones were the children of that home and which were the neighbor’s children, without asking any questions. The real child of the house has perfect freedom. There is no form nor stilts. The little girls just run right up to their mamma and say, “Give me this,” or “give me that,” but the neighbor’s child is more ceremonious in making requests and taking familiar liberties, because there is no filial feeling. An orphan received into a home, after having been legally adopted, will at first be shy and distant. Only when by long usage the child begins to exercise the filial feeling does he feel that be belongs there. When in such case that filial feeling begins to appear in the child there is something that somewhat answers to the Spirit’s witness to our spirits that we are children of God and may say, “Father.”

As a sinner I thought of God often, that is, his holiness, his justness and his omnipotence, and the thought was more terrifying than pleasant, but as a Christian there is nothing sweeter in the heart than when I think of God as Father. It is the sweetest thought I ever had “our Father.” He is no longer dreadful to me nor distant, but the filial feeling in my heart toward God gives me a freedom of approach to him. I count that one of the most precious blessings of the new covenant.

To continue: “So that thou art no longer a bondservant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God. Howbeit at that time, not knowing God, ye were in bondage to them that by nature are no gods [ye were ‘idolaters]: but now that ye have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how turn ye back again to the weak and beggarly rudiments, whereunto ye desire to be in bondage over again?” We can understand how a slave should want to step out of bondage into the privileges of sonship and heirship, but it is more difficult to understand that a son and heir should desire to go back to the position of bondage.

I heard a Baptist preacher once say that repentance is “to know God.” I told him that it was much more important for God to know us than for us to know God; that our title to heaven did not consist of our being sure that we knew God, but in being sure that God knew us; that many in the last day would say, “Lord, Lord, open unto us; we have prophesied in thy name,” but he will say, “You claim to know me, but I never knew you.”

A passage in Paul’s letter to Timothy is much in point just here. The apostle is describing how some who once claimed to know God had made shipwreck of the faith. He rebukes the idea of our standing in God’s sight by what we know, or claim, by describing the seal of a true Christian. This seal bears a double inscription. Un one side the inscription reads: “The Lord knoweth them that are his,” and on the other side the inscription reads: “Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.” This gives two real tests of one’s profession: (1) Does the Lord know him to be a Christian, as Jesus says, “I know my sheep”? (2) Does he bear fruit? Does he depart from iniquity? In other words, does the sheep follow the Shepherd? The passage 2Ti 2:19 where he rebukes the errorists, who had overthrown the faith of some, by saying, “Howbeit the firm foundation of God standeth, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his,” and, “Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness.” What a theme that is for a sermon!

We may be mistaken in thinking we are Christians, but he doesn’t make any mistakes. Spurgeon says, “Our title to salvation does not depend on our hold on Christ, but on his hold on us.” We may shake loose our hold on Christ, but Christ doesn’t turn us loose. Peter turned loose and thought he was gone, but Christ did not turn loose, so Peter was not gone. That is why he changes that expression, “Rather to be known of God.”

I was attending a meeting in Burleson County conducted by our Methodist friends (and they do hold some mighty good meetings), and a great many penitents went forward.

“Come into the altar and help those laboring souls,” a brother said.

So I went and sat down by a man that was crying and groaning, and I said,

“My brother, what are you crying about?” He says,

“Well, I have been converted a dozen times and I always fall, and now I have fallen again.” I said,

“Perhaps you are mistaken on one or the other of these points.”

“No, sir; I know I am not mistaken; I know I was converted and now I have lost it.”

“Then what are you crying about?” I asked. “Tears are quite useless in such a case.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“On your statement,” I replied, “your case is hopeless according to this scripture: ‘For as touching those that were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the age to come, and then fell away it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance.’ ”

“My friend,” I added, “You see why this is so. I can neither help you nor comfort you in any way until you can give up one or the other of your positive assertions. You are making your fallible knowledge of two vital points the standard. What have I or any other preacher to present to you? If I present Christ as the only name whereby one can be saved, you say you have tried him and he failed. If I present faith as the only means of laying hold on Christ, you say you have tried that and it failed. If I present the Holy Spirit as the only one who can apply Christ’s blood and regenerate and sanctify you, you say you have tried him on all these points and he failed. I am sure I have nothing more to offer you. The only three-ply rope that can lift you to heaven you say has been broken in all its strands in your case; so there is nothing left for you but to get ready for hell.”

He quit crying at once and said, “Maybe I was mistaken on one of those points.”

“Just so,” I replied, “and the sooner you can determine on which one the sooner I can direct you what to do. If on the first point, then seek a salvation you never had, just as any other sinner. If on the second point only, then seek healing as a backslider.”

Gal 4:10 : “Ye observe days, and months, and seasons) and years.” That is an unmistakable reference to the sabbatical days of the Old Testament economy their seventh day sabbath, their lunar sabbath, their annual sabbaths and their jubilee sabbath, which means that one so doing prefers the Old Testament economy to that of the New Testament. Compare his strong teaching on this point in his letter to the Colossians (Col 2:20-23 ).

Gal 4:11 : “I am afraid of you, lest by any means I have bestowed labor upon you in vain.” Here he questions not himself, nor what he preached, but fears that their profession was empty and vain. For if they had truly accepted Christ, why should they leave the substance for the shadow, thus practically saying that Christ had not come yet?

In Gal 4:15 we note a question: “Where then is that gratulation of yourselves?” (American Standard). “Where then the blessedness ye spake of?” (Common Version). The point of the question is this: They counted themselves as so great beneficiaries of Paul in the first meeting that he to them was an angel from heaven, and their gratitude so great they were ready to pluck out their own eyes to give to him; it was marvelous that all this had so rapidly passed away, and a contrary attitude assumed toward him. It called for an adequate explanation which must be sought on supernatural grounds or the intervention of bewitching power. Mere fickleness of mind on their part, since he hadn’t changed, could not explain. Let the reader compare the prophet’s address to Ephraim and Judah (Hos 6:4 ), and point out the expression in the famous hymn, “Oh, for a closer walk with God,” based on the common version rendering of this verse.

We note another piercing question in Gal 4:16 : “Am I become your enemy, by telling you the truth?”

Many years ago I read an account of two visits of Henry Clay to Lexington, Kentucky. He was very popular in Kentucky. On one occasion the whole town turned out to welcome him. Houses were covered with banners, bands were playing “Behold the Conquering Hero Comes.” Later he made a second visit to that town and they greeted him with rotten eggs.

What had changed them? Clay had not changed. A very beautiful incident occurred on that last visit. Among the crowd that was against him on the last visit was an old mountaineer, a hunter, with his long Kentucky rifle in his hand, who came up and said, “Mr. Clay, it breaks my heart to tell you. I have been standing by you all my life, but that last vote of yours in Congress has turned me, and I have to go back on you.” Clay looked at him and reached out and took hold of his gun saying, “Is this a good old Kentucky rifle?” “Yes, sir; never a better.” “Has it never happened when you were out hunting because there was no meat ‘in the house, that you saw a big buck in easy range, and lo! your gun snapped?” “Yes, sir; it has happened.” “What did you do throw away the gun, or pick the flint and try it again?” The old hunter said, “I see the point; I’ll pick the flint and try you again.”

In Gal 4:17 Paul lays bare the motive of the authors of this sudden change: “They zealously seek you in no good way; nay, they desire to shut you out, that ye may seek them.” Their object was to shut out their credulous victims from Paul that they might be sought as teachers themselves.

We come to two verses that need a little explanation: “My little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you” then he stops and never does finish the sentence. There is a dash there showing that his own mind is in doubt as to whether they were false professors or backsliders. “But I could wish to be present with you now, and to change my tone; for I am perplexed about you.” He did not know just how to treat them whether to present a personal Christ to them as to those never having had any real faith, or whether to try to bring them back as backsliders. He could not tell what was in their hearts. He could not read them. “I am perplexed.” “If I just knew your real state, I would know how to talk to you; if, like God, I could know whether you are Christians or not I would know what to say to you.” So all preachers in their experience have that perplexity of mind when dealing with some people.

QUESTIONS

1. What is the meaning of “faith” in Gal 3:23 ?

2. Give several meanings of the word “faith.”

3. Illustrate a misinterpretation of faith in this verse.

4. Give the financial illustration of how Old Testament saints were justified.

5. Why did they keep up the ceremonial law, and why do we not keep it?

6. Explain the law as a pedagogue unto Christ.

7. What is the force of “baptized into Christ”? Give the position of the Campbellites, Catholics, and Baptists on this point.

8. What are the distinctions between the two covenants (1) As to nationality? (2) As to slaves and their masters? (3) As to sex?

9. What is adoption, and upon what is this legal process based?

10. How is the fatherhood of God realized? Give the author’s illustration.

11. What is the result? (See Gal 4:6-7 .)

12. What is the difference between knowing God and being known of God, which the more important, and why?

13. What inscriptions on the Christian’s seal?

14. What is the reference in Gal 4:10 , “Ye observe days, months, etc.,” and what Paul’s teaching on this in Col 2:20-23 ?

15. Contrast their present attitude toward Paul with their former attitude, and illustrate.

16. Compare the prophet’s address to Ephraim and Judah, and point out the expression in “Oh, for a closer walk with God,” based on the common version rendering of Gal 4:15 .

17. What the motive of the authors of this sudden change?

18. What doubt is indicated by the dash in Gal 4:19 , and what the perplexity indicated by it?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

23 But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.

Ver. 23. But before faith came, &c. ] i.e. Before Christ came; faith is put for the object of faith.

We were kept under the law ] , as in a prison or garrison, being circled with a compassing strength. The sinner, having transgressed, is kept by the law, as with a guard or garrison, that he cannot escape unless he be delivered by Christ. Some learned men make this expression of the apostle here, “Kept under the law,” to denote the duty of a schoolmaster; as one who is to give an account of such as are committed to his charge.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

23 .] But ( carries us on to a further account of the rationale and office of the law. “When the noun, to which the particle is attached, is preceded by a preposition, and perhaps the article as well, may stand the third or fourth word in the sentence. So , Thuc. i. 6: , Plato, Phdr. 227 d, &c.” Hartung, Partikell. i. 190) before (this) faith (not, the faith , in the sense of the objects of faith , but the faith just mentioned, viz. ., which did not exist until Christ) came (was found, or was possible, in men: cf. ref., where however it is more entirely subjective), we (properly, we Jewish believers but not here to be pressed, because he is speaking of the divine dealings with men generally the Law was for , the only revelation) were kept in ward (not simply ‘ kept ’ as E. V., but as Chrys., , though not as he proceeds, for, as above, our objective state is here treated of: see Rom 7:6 . But we must not yet, with Chrys., al., introduce the , or understand . as conveying the idea of ‘ safely kept ’ ( , ): is quite against this, and the pdagogic figure does not enter till the next verse, springing out of the preparation implied in , joined to the fact of our sonship, see below. Our present verse answers to ch. Gal 4:2 , where we find and , not the . See Jowett’s beautiful illustration), shut up under the law, in order to ( of the preparatory design , not merely of the result , or the arrival of the time: and it may belong either to . (not to , if that be read, as that would betoken the act completed when the Law was given), or to the imperfect ) the faith (as in Gal 3:22 ) about to be revealed (on the order of the words see on ref. Rom. “As long as there was no such thing as faith in Christ, this faith was not yet revealed , was as yet an element of life hidden in the counsel of God.” Meyer).

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Gal 3:23-24 . THE POSITION OF THE TRUE CHILDREN OF GOD BEFORE THE COMING OF CHRIST IS ILLUSTRATED BY THE CONTROL EXERCISED OVER CHILDREN IN THEIR FATHER’S HOUSE BY MEMBERS OF HIS HOUSEHOLD. These verses explain the position of the faithful under the Law. They are here associated with Christians by the use of the first person plural; for they too were in their generation believers in God, they belonged to the same blessed family and inherited the original promise. Yet since all Israel from the time of Moses to the Advent were subjected to the control of the Law, they too were subject to bondage. But this was really due to the watchful love of their Heavenly Father, who thus provided needful shelter and guidance, just as an earthly father places his young children during years of weakness and inexperience under the charge of household servants. . The article, though ignored in our versions, is essential to the sense. By the coming of the faith is meant the historic fact of the Christian religion, the spread of the Gospel on earth. The term has the same objective sense as in Gal 1:23 , Gal 3:25 , Act 6:7 , and Rom 3:30 , where also a clear distinction is drawn between , faith in the abstract, and , the faith of Christ. Obviously faith did not come with Christ, it was the most conspicuous virtue of the Jewish Church, and Abraham was but the first of many splendid examples of it. . MS. authority is strongly in favour of the present participle, which is also more appropriate than the perfect for describing the continuous process of legal condemnation which prevailed from generation to generation. . No English equivalent for this term can convey its real force, for it has no exact counterpart in an English home. The position of a nurse towards young children approaches more nearly than that of schoolmaster or tutor to the office of the , for he was a confidential dependent, usually a slave, neither qualified to instruct, nor invested with authority to control his young master, but appointed to attend on him, to safeguard him, and to report to his father any disorderly or immoral habits on which it might be necessary for the father to place a check. The Law in like manner regulated outward habits, enforced order and decency, and maintained a certain standard of morality among Israelites until in due time they became ripe for spiritual freedom. It was not the function of the Law to address itself directly to the conscience like the Prophets, or to claim spiritual authority over the whole man, but to impose a check on the open tyranny of evil, to enforce on the community a higher standard of morals, and so to foster indirectly the growth of spiritual life.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Gal 3:23-29

23But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. 24Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. 25But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. 26For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.

Gal 3:23 “But before this faith came” The definite article used in tandem with “faith” implies the body of Christian truth (i.e., the gospel, cf. Act 6:7; Act 13:8; Act 14:22; Gal 1:23; Gal 6:10; Jud 1:3; Jud 1:20). However, in this context, it is metaphorical for the gospel age.

NASB”we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed”

NKJV”we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed”

NRSV”we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed”

TEV”the Law kept us all locked up as prisoners, until this coming faith should be revealed”

NJB”we were allowed no freedom by the Law; we were being looked after till faith was revealed”

The law was first depicted as a jailor as in v.22. Humans were put in protective custody until the Messiah came (cf. Php 4:7; 1Pe 1:5). The second metaphor used to describe the law is in Gal 3:24, where it is called our custodian (cf. Gal 4:1-2). In Greek and Roman society, this term referred to caretakers of young Greek or Roman boys. The guardian was in charge of their protection, food, transportation, and tutoring, so “custodian” had a dual connotation: protector and disciplinarian. Paul distinguished the two intentional purposes of the law in the plan of God:

1. to show us our sinfulness

2. to keep us as a guardian until the free offer of grace in Christ came (cf. Joh 1:12; Joh 3:16; Rom 1:16; Rom 10:9-13)

Gal 3:24

NASB”the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ”

NKJV”the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ”

NRSV”the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came”

TEV”So the Law was in charge of us until Christ came”

NJB”The Law was to be our guardian until the Christ came”

Two varying interpretations of the prepositional phrase “to Christ” are possible: (1) to bring us to Christ, as in the NASB, NKJV, and NIV or (2) until Christ came, as in NRSV, TEV, and the JB.

“that we may be justified by faith” “Justified by faith” was Luther’s famous slogan of the Reformation. The Law has a part to play in God’s free gift in Christ. It provides a necessary pre-condition to the gospelour need! The saving “faith” always has (1) cognitive, (2) volitional, and (3) relational elements.

Gal 3:25 “But now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor” Believers are no longer underage children, but they have become full sons, full heirs! All of this occurs through God’s grace, Christ’s finished work, and our repentant faith response.

Gal 3:26 “you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” The phrase “are all sons of God” refers to those who have received Christ by faith (cf. Joh 1:12; Joh 3:16; Rom 8:14-17). This verse does not advocate universalism; nor does Rom 5:18 or 11:32, but it does speak of the universal offer of salvation. “All” appears first in the Greek sentence for emphasis.

Gal 3:27 “For all of you who were baptized into Christ” This is not an emphasis on baptism as a means to salvation, for that is exactly the argument the Judaizers were using in connection with circumcision. Christian baptism is a sign of the work of the Spirit which is mentioned earlier in verses Gal 3:2-3; Gal 3:5; Gal 3:14 (cf. 1Co 12:13). To be baptized in/by/with the Spirit was a biblical metaphor for becoming a Christian. Baptism was simply the opportunity for a public confession of faith in Christ and an accompanying symbol of an inner change. To make water baptism a precondition for salvation is to become a neo-Judaizer!

SPECIAL TOPIC: BAPTISM

“have clothed yourselves with Christ” This is an aorist middle indicative which emphasizes a purposeful action on our part. This involves the idea of our “putting on” (as a garment) the family characteristics of God. This clothing metaphor was used often by Paul (cf. Rom 13:14; Eph 4:22; Eph 4:24-25; Eph 4:31; Col 3:10; Col 3:12; Col 3:14). It is possible that it refers to the Roman rite of passage when a boy traded his childhood toga for his adult toga, thereby becoming a full citizen (like the Jewish rite, Bar Mitzvah). This then would symbolize our becoming of full age and, thereby, a full heir.

Gal 3:28 The distinctions which the Judaizers emphasized are now totally removed in Christ. There are no barriers for anyone to become a Christian. The Jewish arrogance against Gentiles, slaves, and women has been totally removed. Distinctions are not valid for salvation (cf. Rom 3:22; 1Co 12:13; and Col 3:11), yet this does not mean that we are no longer male or female, slave or free, Jew or Greek. Those distinctions remain and there are passages that speak to these distinctions, but in the area of becoming a Christian there are no barriers. Every barrier raised by self-righteous, legalistic or biased humans, Christ has knocked down once and for all. Hallelujah!

Manfred T. Brauch, Abusing Scripture, p. 68 (also F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians, p. 187) asserts that the three contrasting groups reflect an ancient synagogue prayer where Jewish men thank God they were not created as women, slaves, or Gentiles! The new reality in Christ has negated and revealed the bias of first century Judaism. “In Christ” supercedes everything!

SPECIAL TOPIC: RACISM

“for you are all one in Christ Jesus” As humans are all one in Adam (Rom 5:12 ff.), they are all potentially one in Christ (cf. Rom 5:18). The only barrier is personal repentance and faith in Christ (Mar 1:15; Act 3:16; Act 3:19; Act 20:21).

This collective emphasis is very similar to the concept of corporate Israel. We are now one new collective unit, the Church (cf. John 17; Rom 12:4-5; 1Co 12:12 ff.).

Gal 3:29 “if” Here, “if” introduces a first class conditional sentence, assumed to be true from the author’s perspective or for his literary purposes.

“if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise” Not all national or racial Israel is truly spiritual Israel (cf. Gal 6:16; Rom 2:28-29; Rom 9:6), but all who are the true Israel are so by faith. Therefore, no more distinction was made between Jew and Gentile; only between those who have faith in the Messiah and those who do not. There is no favoritism with God. God’s one-time, universal gracious plan for the redemption of mankind is repentance and faith in His crucified Son. Those who respond by faith are made sons and heirs of God (cf. Tit 3:7)! There is no longer the OT distinction of Jew vs. Greek.

This new reality also affects the nationalistic and geographical prophecies. The distinction between Jew and Gentile is no longer valid. Now the distinction is unbeliever and believer. No NT author, including Jesus, ever reaffirms the OT nationalistic prophecies to Israel. Palestine and Jerusalem are no longer the focus of God’s activity. The whole world is the new holy land. Jerusalem is no longer a special, holy city. It is now “new Jerusalem” (cf. Rev 3:12; Rev 21:2; Rev 21:10), which is a symbol of heaven. Be careful of systematic theologies that focus or magnify OT prophecies as ultimate future realities!

Here is a selected part of the introductory notes to my commentary on Revelation (pp. 1-2).

“FIRST TENSION (OT racial, national, and geographical categories vs. all believers over all the world)

The OT prophets predict a restoration of a Jewish kingdom in Palestine centered in Jerusalem where all the nations of the earth gather to praise and serve a Davidic ruler, but Jesus nor the NT Apostles ever focus on this agenda. Is not the OT inspired (cf. Mat 5:17-19)? Have the NT authors omitted crucial end-time events?

There are several sources of information about the end of the world:

1. OT prophets (Isaiah, Micah, Malachi)

2. OT apocalyptic writers (cf. Ezekiel 37-39; Daniel 7-12; Zech.)

3. intertestamental, non-canonical Jewish apocalyptic writers (like I Enoch, which is alluded to in Jude)

4. Jesus Himself (cf. Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21)

5. the writings of Paul (cf. 1 Corinthians 15; 2 Corinthians 5; 1 Thessalonians 4-5; 2 Thessalonians 2)

6. the writings of John (1 John and Revelation).

Do these all clearly teach an end-time agenda (events, chronology, persons)? If not, why? Are they not all inspired (except the Jewish intertestamental writings)?

The Spirit revealed truths to the OT writers in terms and categories they could understand. However, through progressive revelation the Spirit has expanded these OT eschatological concepts to a universal scope (“the mystery of Christ,” cf. Eph 2:11 to Eph 3:13. See Special Topic at Gal. 10:7). Here are some relevant examples:

1. The city of Jerusalem in the OT is used as a metaphor of the people of God (Zion), but is projected into the NT as a term expressing God’s acceptance of all repentant, believing humans (the new Jerusalem of Revelation 21-22). The theological expansion of a literal, physical city into the new people of God (believing Jews and Gentiles) is foreshadowed in God’s promise to redeem fallen mankind in Gen 3:15, before there even were any Jews or a Jewish capital city. Even Abraham’s call (cf. Gen 12:1-3) involved the Gentiles (cf. Gen 12:3; Exo 19:5).

2. In the OT the enemies of God’s people are the surrounding nations of the Ancient Near East, but in the NT they have been expanded to all unbelieving, anti-God, Satanically-inspired people. The battle has moved from a geographical, regional conflict to a worldwide, cosmic conflict (cf. Colossians).

3. The promise of a land which is so integral in the OT (the Patriarchal promises of Genesis, cf. Gen 12:7; Gen 13:15; Gen 15:7; Gen 15:15; Gen 17:8) has now become the whole earth. New Jerusalem comes down to a recreated earth, not the Near East only or exclusively (cf. Revelation 21-22).

4. Some other examples of OT prophetic concepts being expanded are:

a. the seed of Abraham is now the spiritually circumcised (cf. Rom 2:28-29)

b. the covenant people now include Gentiles (cf. Hos 1:10; Hos 2:23, quoted in Rom 9:24-26; also Lev 26:12; Exo 29:45, quoted in 2Co 6:16-18 and Exo 19:5; Deu 14:2, quoted in Tit 2:14)

c. the temple is now Jesus (cf. Mat 26:61; Mat 27:40; Joh 2:19-21) and through Him the local church (cf. 1Co 3:16) or the individual believer (cf. 1Co 6:19)

d. even Israel and its characteristic descriptive OT phrases now refer to the whole people of God (i.e.,”Israel,” cf. Rom 9:6; Gal 6:16, i.e.,”kingdom of priests,” cf. 1Pe 2:5; 1Pe 2:9-10; Rev 1:6)

The prophetic model has been fulfilled, expanded, and is now more inclusive. Jesus and the Apostolic writers do not present the end-time in the same way as the OT prophets (cf. Martin Wyngaarden, The Future of The Kingdom in Prophecy and Fulfillment). Modern interpreters who try to make the OT model literal or normative twist the Revelation into a very Jewish book and force meaning into atomized, ambiguous phrases of Jesus and Paul! The NT writers do not negate the OT prophets, but show their ultimate universal implication. There is no organized, logical system to Jesus’ or Paul’s eschatology. Their purpose is primarily redemptive or pastoral.

However, even within the NT there is tension. There is no clear systemization of eschatological events. In many ways the Revelation surprisingly uses OT allusions in describing the end instead of the teachings of Jesus (cf. Matthew 24; Mark 13)! It follows the literary genre initiated by Ezekiel, Daniel, and Zechariah, but developed during the intertestamental period (Jewish apocalyptic literature). This may have been John’s way of linking the Old and New Covenants. It shows the age-old pattern of human rebellion and God’s commitment to redemption! But it must be noted that although Revelation uses OT language, persons, and events, it reinterprets them in light of first century Rome (cf. Rev 1:7).”

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

before. Greek. pro. App-104.

kept = kept in custody.

shut up. Some as “concluded” above.

unto. Greek. eis. App-104.

should afterwards = was about to be.

revealed. Greek. apokalupto. App-106.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

23.] But ( carries us on to a further account of the rationale and office of the law. When the noun, to which the particle is attached, is preceded by a preposition, and perhaps the article as well, may stand the third or fourth word in the sentence. So , Thuc. i. 6: , Plato, Phdr. 227 d, &c. Hartung, Partikell. i. 190) before (this) faith (not, the faith, in the sense of the objects of faith, but the faith just mentioned, viz. ., which did not exist until Christ) came (was found, or was possible, in men: cf. ref., where however it is more entirely subjective), we (properly, we Jewish believers-but not here to be pressed, because he is speaking of the divine dealings with men generally-the Law was for , the only revelation) were kept in ward (not simply kept as E. V., but as Chrys., ,-though not as he proceeds, -for, as above, our objective state is here treated of: see Rom 7:6. But we must not yet, with Chrys., al., introduce the , or understand . as conveying the idea of safely kept ( , ): is quite against this, and the pdagogic figure does not enter till the next verse, springing out of the preparation implied in , joined to the fact of our sonship, see below. Our present verse answers to ch. Gal 4:2, where we find and , not the . See Jowetts beautiful illustration), shut up under the law, in order to ( of the preparatory design, not merely of the result, or the arrival of the time: and it may belong either to . (not to , if that be read, as that would betoken the act completed when the Law was given), or to the imperfect ) the faith (as in Gal 3:22) about to be revealed (on the order of the words see on ref. Rom. As long as there was no such thing as faith in Christ, this faith was not yet revealed, was as yet an element of life hidden in the counsel of God. Meyer).

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Gal 3:23. , the faith of Jesus Christ) So the following verses.- , we were kept shut up) These two words elegantly disjoin the law and faith. The being kept in custody is the consequence of the shutting up. Wis 17:16 : , he was kept shut up in a prison without iron bars.- ) So the LXX., , Psa 78:50, Psa 31:9; Amo 1:6; Amo 1:9. But it is an abbreviated phrase: shut up, and therefore reserved and forced to the faith, etc. [so that there remained to us no refuge but faith.-V. g.] Polybius says, , he was shut up to those very hopes which were among [which depended on] his own domestics and friends; and so it often occurs in the same writer.-See Raphelius. Irenaeus has, the sons of God are shut up to the belief of His coming: l. iii. c. 25.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Gal 3:23

Gal 3:23

But before faith came, we were kept in ward under the law,-Faith came with Christ. God dealt with Abraham by the law of faith; on account of sins he substituted the law of works through Moses. The law remained in force till Christ came and through him the law of faith was again restored as a means of justification. But before faith came in Christ Jesus, we [Jews] were kept in ward under the law-kept under it as a child is kept under a tutor, directed and trained by him, fitted for the faith should afterward be revealed in Christ. So the law of Moses served as a tutor to fit and train the Jewish people, or those who kept it, for Christ. This was the mission of the law. The Jews transgressed, fell away from God, and became so given over to the flesh and to the hardness of heart that they could not act from faith; but without faith the heart could not be purified nor the soul trust in God, so God placed them under the law of Moses to train them to obedience through the law of works, which required fleshly obedience to a law that controlled the actions of the body for temporal ends, but through this discipline gradually fitted men to exercise faith in Jesus Christ, and to lift up the spirit and prepare it to act on eternal motives in accord with spiritual laws.

shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.-The law of works, while it served this purpose to the Jews to bring them to Christ, the same scriptures now help us as examples, and by the application in the Old Testament, to understand the operation and application of the law of faith.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

faith came: Gal 3:19, Gal 3:24, Gal 3:25, Gal 4:1-4, Heb 12:2

under: Gal 4:4, Gal 4:5, Gal 4:21, Gal 5:18, Rom 3:19, Rom 6:14, Rom 6:15, 1Co 9:20, 1Co 9:21

the faith: Luk 10:23, Luk 10:24, Heb 11:13, Heb 11:39, Heb 11:40, 1Pe 1:11, 1Pe 1:12

Reciprocal: 1Sa 26:8 – delivered Act 6:14 – change Rom 7:6 – But 1Co 12:13 – whether we be Jews 2Co 3:13 – to the Gal 2:4 – liberty Gal 3:22 – concluded Gal 4:3 – in

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Gal 3:23. , -But before the faith came, we were kept in ward, shut up under the law for the faith to be afterwards revealed. The perfect participle of the Received Text has C, D3, K, L in its favour, with several of the Greek fathers, and is adopted by Tischendorf; while the present has A, B, D1, F, . The last, accepted by Lachmann, is apparently the better supported by MSS., though it may be suspected of being a conformation to the verb . leads on to another explanatory thought-to an additional element of contrast, and it stands third in the clause on account of the prepositional phrase. Hartung, 1.190; Klotz-Devarius, 2.378. The particle is postponed, ubi quae praeposita particulae verba sunt aut aptius inter se conjuncta sunt aut ita comparata, ut summum pondus in ea sententia obtineant. Poppo, Thucyd. 1.302. The article specializes the faith as that just mentioned-the faith of Jesus Christ-not in an objective or theological sense, the body of truth claiming faith or the gospel, as many of the older commentators supposed, with Schott, Bisping, Gwynne, Brown, etc. It is subjective faith placed under an objective aspect (see under Gal 1:23), or an inner principle personified. It is not Christ (Pelagius, Bullinger), nor Christ and the preaching of the doctrine of faith (Brenz). The faith with this special aspect and object did not come till Christ came, till the promised Deliverer or Christ appeared in human nature, and under the human name Jesus, Gal 3:22. Under the law, faith in Him unincarnate did exist, and certainly such faith did justify; for the non-justification of the Jew antecedent to the coming of Christ, asserted by Gwynne, is tantamount to his non-salvation, and contradicts many utterances and thanks-givings of the Old Testament. The pre-Christian faith resting ideally on One to come, brought them acceptance and pardon, for men are saved not by the doctrine, but by the fact of an atonement; though faith in Him as really existent, or as Jesus, came with Himself into the world. Faith came when prophecy merged into history, and prior to the incarnation the Jews were under the pressure of law-the reference in the verb and participle being to them and their law.

The verb is not asservabamur-the notion of is not in the context (Winer, Usteri, Schott),-but custodiebamur, kept under guard- (Chrysostom). They were under guard, being or having been shut up-literally, concluded, to retain the translation of the previous verse; the not referring to those who form the object of the verb, but expressing the fulness of its action-shut round so that escape is impossible. The meaning is not that the paedagogic power of the law-severa legis disciplina (Winer)-restrained sin, for such a sense is not found in the context, which refers not to the moral restraint of the law, but the helplessness of the law to bring righteousness or justification. The connection of is disputed. Some, as OEcumenius, Theophylact, Augustine, Raphelius, Wolff, Bengel, and Hofmann, connect it directly with . If the reading of the perfect tense be admitted, this connection becomes impossible, for it supposes the act to have been done when the law was given; whereas standing by itself, or unconnected with , it denotes the completeness and permanence of the state. The meaning of the participle directly joined to has been thus given by Borger: eo necessitatis redigere ut ad fidem tanquam sacram anchoram confugere cogatur, or conclusi adeoque reservati atque adacti ad fidem. The construction is justifiable, for there are several examples of it. See Fritzsche on Rom 11:32; Raphel. in loc.; Schweighaser, Lex. Polyb. sub voce. Yet it does not fit in here so well, as shut up to the faith would imply the existence of the faith during the act or the period of the incarceration. But during the whole of that period it had not yet come, as the apostle expressly argues. The either of time or destination is more in harmony with the verb in the imperfect, -we were kept in ward until the faith came, or rather for the faith about to be revealed. The law was an institute of intermediate and temporary guard and bondage, but it had a blessed purpose. is not temporal (Borger, Matthies, Brown), a sense it very seldom has, and one unneeded here after the distinct temporal assertion, before the faith came. The preposition has its ethical meaning of aim or object (not in adventum ejus fidei, Augustine). Donaldson, 477; Jelf, 625, 3. The temporally qualifying epithet seems taken out of the usual order that it may have the emphasis, and that the idea expressed by it may be put into the foreground, as in Rom 8:18; Rom 10:4. The faith was future when the law was given, and from his assumed standpoint the apostle specializes it; but it was revealed when the apostle wrote-revealed-divinely disclosed-the theme and the mode being alike of God. Matthias connects , not with , but with , giving a temporal signification, as if the purpose were to show them openly as persons who, through the guardianship of that law, must remain under its curse till they were freed from it by faith. The Jews, during the continuance of that law, were in spiritual bondage and seclusion; as obedience could not win righteousness for them, they were helpless; and all this that they might pass into freedom when the Seed came, and faith in Him gave them emancipation and acceptance with God. From a law, the curse of which so terribly enslaved them, they were to pass into faith and deliverance. The very contrast should have rejoiced them, as it did the apostle himself, for his own experience gave proof and power to his theology. And yet they were seeking back to that law, and ignoring that faith, which unmixed and by itself, had been the instrument of righteousness to Abraham, and would be the same to all his spiritual children. The law had its own work to do, but that work did not result in the gift of the Spirit, or in the perfection of those under it, Gal 3:2-5; its work was done in its own sphere which was one of curse and confinement, and done under an economy which was a parenthesis in the divine government, brought in and moulded with a view to the introduction of a better and nobler dispensation, the characteristic principle of which is faith. The law was not, and was not meant to be, a final economy.

Fuente: Commentary on the Greek Text of Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and Phillipians

Gal 3:23. The thought in this verse is virtually the same as verse 19. Faith is a term for the Gospel of Christ, to distinguish it from the law of Moses. Kept under the law is the same as “it was added” in verse 19, and shut up unto the faith corresponds with “till the seed should come” in the same verse.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Gal 3:23. Before the faith came, the faith in Jesus Christ just mentioned (Gal 3:22), which under the legal dispensation existed only as a latent element of life.

We were shut up and kept in ward under the law for the faith about to be revealed, i.e., in order to be prepared for the free state of the Christian faith. The word faith usually means the subjective state of the heart, the exercise of trust; but in Gal 3:22-23 it seems to pass over into the objective sense, i.e., the dispensation of faith, the gospel, hence the verbs came and to be revealed. In Gal 3:24 again the subjective sense is meant.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Before faith came, that is, before Christ came, and the doctrine of faith was preached, we were in bondage under the law; the ceremonial law was a very great bondage; their frequent going up to Jerusalem at their festivals, was burthensome; their ceremonies were many, inconvenient and chargeable; their laws for uncleanness and purifications, rendered them unconversable, at all times, with other people, and sometimes unconversable one with another; yet was the law very useful to the Jews, that so they might be prepared by it to receive the doctrine of Christ, and salvation by faith in him.

Hence it is that he calleth the law their schoolmaster to bring them unto Christ: the schoolmaster excercises authority over minors only, not over grown persons; he teaches only rudiments and first principles for beginners, not such things as require mature judgment and perfect age.

Such was the law in comparison of the gospel, and Moses with respect to Christ. Moses and the law is a rigid and severe schoolmaster, who, by whips and threats, require a hard lesson of their scholars, whether able to learn it or not: But Christ and the gospel is a mild and gentle teacher, who, by sweet promises and good rewards, invite their scholars to their duty, and guide and help them to do what of themselves they cannot do; by which means, they love both their master and their lesson, and rejoice when he is nearest to them, to direct them in their studies. As the law is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, so Christ is our great prophet that leads us to God.

Note, farther, that though the law was a good schoolmaster to the Jews in their infancy and minority; yet it has no authority over Christians now grown up to maturity. The gospel-church, that is, both believing Jews and Gentiles, being like a son come to age, believing in Christ already come, are no longer to be treated as children under the discipline of the law as a schoolmaster; for they are now under the evangelical, not Mosaical dispensation of the covenant of grace. After that faith is come: that is, Christ, the object of faith manifested, and the gospel, the doctrine of faith revealed, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Gal 3:23. But before faith That is, the gospel dispensation, came, we The nation of the Jews; were kept under the law Under that dispensation, as condemned malefactors are guarded in close custody; shut up As prisoners under sentence; unto the faith which should afterward be revealed Reserved and prepared for the gospel. Observe here, reader, 1st, The gospel is called faith, (Gal 3:2; Gal 3:23; Gal 3:25,) and the law of faith, (Rom 3:27,) because it requires faith, instead of perfect obedience, as the means of mens justification. This law of faith, or method of justification, came at the fall: it was then established; and till it came, Adam was kept in ward without hope, under the law he had broken. In like manner the Gentiles, under the law of nature, and the Jews, under the law of Moses, were kept in ward, as criminals, and had no hope of pardon, but what the law of faith gave them, as made known obscurely in the first promise, (Gen 3:15,) and afterward in the covenant with Abraham. 2d, The law of Moses, instead of being contrary to the promises of God, or covenant with Abraham, effectually co-operates therewith. By the perfection and spirituality of its moral precepts, it makes us sensible of our inability to obey it perfectly; and by its curse, denounced against every one who does not obey perfectly, it makes us flee, trembling and affrighted, to the method of salvation revealed to us in the covenant with Abraham, and published to all mankind in the gospel. Macknight.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

But before faith came, we were kept in ward under the law shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

Gal 3:23-29. Inferior, temporary, co-operatingsuch is the distinctive nature of the Law. It had held Israel prisoner, till Christ should come. Or it resembled the slave who led a child to (Christs) school (1Co 4:15*). Now that Christ has appeared there is no room for a law-regime. Sonship, faith, a new humanity put on like a garment at baptism (Gal 3:27; cf. Rom 13:14, and in a modified application, 1Co 15:53 f.), these are the privileges of Christians. Why be circumcised? Why Judaize? The new humanity is internationalno room now for Jewish superiority! And, while there is a blessing in being Abrahams seed, the true descent is spiritual, and Christ gives the blessing according to the promise. Law give it? Never!Evangelical Protestants must not ignore Pauls sacramental doctrine; still, they are entitled to urge that the keynote of all remains faith. The apostle believes and teaches nothing which could make faith less than all-important. (1 Corinthians 8 ff. is peculiarly instructive as to his attitude towards quasi-magical sacramental doctrines. The idol taint is not physical.)

Gal 3:27. put on.It is tempting to conjecture that the phrase is borrowed from the mystery religions; but authorities have failed to find confirmatory evidence.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.

This suggests clearly that the faith of verse twenty-two is related to Christ, not us.

Now, this passage has some import that I have never heard before – I have always been taught that it speaks simply that we were bound to obey the law. This passage seems to say much more to me. Before faith came, some suggesting this be Christ while others see it simply as faith/belief, we were kept or held guard, or imprisoned under the law. The term used relates to being under guard or the thought of a city under siege – the city dwellers are kept from escape. Shut up in prison until faith should be revealed. Again, some see faith as Christ, others as faith fulfilled coming.

Now, the thought of being imprisoned under law seems to relate to much more than just being bound to the law to obey it, to me it suggests that until Christ came, the believer was literally imprisoned spiritually. This is true, in that they could not have been regenerated until Christ came to do the cross work. The reformed abhor this thought, but it is the logical conclusion – how can regeneration ever occur until Christ has done all that is required for regeneration and redemption.

I do not suggest, as some have intimated, that the Old Testament saint was not saved and on his way to glory, but I am saying that they could not get there until the work of the Cross was done. It is illogical to put the cart before the horse. I have suggested that even God can’t deficit spend – He cannot override the requirements His own decree set forth. It is the cross of Christ that brings salvations possibility and nothing else. It, of course, was from the foundation of the world, but God, when he created set His decree within a framework of time and limited Himself to that medium.

How can He provide something that He has not supplied? He can’t. The Old Testament saint was bound for heaven as sure as I, but based on the coming “faith” or work of Christ. (See my work on regeneration for more on this line of thinking.)

Finally, to the point – the Old Testament saint was in bondage until Christ was come. This is what Sheol and Luke sixteen is about. The saints of old were contained in Sheol until they could be liberated and set free by their coming savior.

Oh, what a truth – and the reformed folks I have spoken with on the subject just bristle and foam over such thinking – how clear it is to me from this passage as well as others.

The term “kept” has the thought of kept by a garrison, or kept under guard – be kept from moving freely where you will. The Old Testament saint was not free spiritually; they were very limited in their position before God, until Christ came and made provision for all of us.

This was a keeping of their soul as well as their mind and will, this is also why the Old Testament saints were such sinners, they did not have the Holy Spirit to convict and guide them, they were very limited in their ability to do right – the law was their prison.

Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson

3:23 {26} But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto {x} the faith which should afterwards be revealed.

(26) Now there follows another handling of the second part of this epistle, the state of which was this: although the Law (that is, the whole government of God’s house according to the Law) does not justify, is it therefore to be abolished, seeing that Abraham himself was circumcised, and his posterity held still the use of Moses’ Law? Paul affirms that it ought to be abolished, because it was instituted for that end and purpose, that is should be as it were a schoolmaster, and keeper to the people of God, until the promise indeed appeared, that is to say, Christ, and the Gospel manifestly published with great efficacy by the Spirit.

(x) The reason why we were kept under the Law, is set down here.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

The conditions of people under Law and faith 3:23-29

"Continuing the perspective of salvation history introduced in Gal 3:13 f. and developed in Gal 3:15-22, Paul gives further consideration to the place of the law in the divine economy by showing the relation between law and faith as two distinct dispensations." [Note: Fung, p. 167.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Paul pictured Israel before the advent of Christ as a child. The coming of faith (Gal 3:23) is synonymous with the coming of Christ in Paul’s view of salvation history.

In Paul’s day it was common for children between age six and puberty to be under the care of a pedagogue (tutor). The pedagogue protected them from evil influences and demanded their obedience.

"No doubt there were many pedagogues who were known for their kindness and held in affection by their wards, but the dominant image was that of a harsh disciplinarian who frequently resorted to physical force and corporal punishment as a way of keeping his children in line." [Note: George, p. 265.]

The Law did just that for Israel. [Note: See Michael J. Smith, "The Role of the Pedagogue in Galatians," Bibliotheca Sacra 163:650 (April-June 2006):197-214.] The Law was essentially a disciplinarian for the Israelites. However the need for that kind of assistance ended when Christ came.

"Christ is the real teacher, who takes us in hand and shows us the way of God in terms of grace." [Note: Harrison, p. 1292.]

Now all who trust in Christ are adult sons (Gr. huioi), no longer children. It is faith in Christ Jesus that makes one a son of God (Gal 3:25).

"Now the focus shifts from the historical to the personal, from the institutional to the individual. Paul has discussed the inheritance promised to the children of Abraham; now he zooms in on the heir who claimed his bequest." [Note: George, p. 271.]

George suggested that Gal 3:26 is the center of a chiasm. [Note: Ibid., pp. 271-74.] The first half of the chiasm has a Jewish emphasis whereas the second half has a Gentile emphasis.

    A    Promise (Abraham) Gal 3:6-14

        B    Law (Moses) Gal 3:15-22

            C    Faith (Christ) Gal 3:23-25

D    "You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus." Gal 3:26

            C’    Faith (Spirit) Gal 3:27 to Gal 4:7

B’    Law (stoicheia tou kosmou [elements of the world]) Gal 4:8-11

    A’    Promise (Sarah) Gal 4:21-31

What unites us to Christ is the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit that takes place at the moment of salvation (1Co 12:13). Paul’s original readers may have taken his reference to baptism as being water baptism, but water baptism dramatized what happened to them when the Spirit baptized them. When Roman male children reached son status their fathers gave them a special toga that identified their status. Paul compared that toga to Christ (Gal 3:27).

God has dealt with humanity as a father deals with his children. When children are young, having limited information and experience, a good father makes allowances for their immaturity, but when they become mature, he deals with them as adults. The differences in the house rules that Paul spoke of here reflect different dispensations (i.e., economies, Gr. oikonomos, lit. house law). It is interesting that even non-dispensational commentators admit that the coming of Christ, as Paul spoke of it here, inaugurated a new dispensation in God’s dealing with humanity.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)