What is Law? Many believe that laws exist to protect us? The law against murdering protects someone, generally speaking, from being murdered. The same is true of theft, libel, slander, violence and such. But that truly isn’t the purpose of laws. Laws exist in order to punish those who transgress, or break them. Frederick Bastiat, a French political philosopher in the 1850’s wrote, “When law and force keep a person within the bounds of justice, they impose nothing but a mere negation. They oblige him only to abstain from harming others.” This is the purpose of law: Keep us from harming others. But that is a far cry from the purpose of the Christian: To Love God and to love your neighbor. Failing to harm someone doesn’t mean that I love him or her.
Take for instance, a woman beaten and bleeding in the ditch. If I walk past her, I have not harmed her, but I surely haven’t loved her either. Or consider a man in the same condition, even if I stop and help out, lending some time and a few easily accessible resources but fail to give everything I have for his welfare, I have simply kept from harming him more, but I haven’t loved him as I love myself. If I despise someone and stop from publishing harmful statements about her or him, it isn’t because I love them, it is because I don’t want to be punished. That is what violation of the law does; it brings punishment.Now what does this have to do with Galatians you may ask? Well Paul, starts off asking the question, "What then was the purpose of the law?" To which he gives 5 reasons in our passage:
- Added because of transgressions
- Not to give life
- Declare us prisoners of sin
- Hold us prisoners
- Lead us to Christ
Nowhere in this list is the Law meant to enable us to love God and neighbor, in fact, quite the opposite, through the law, we become conscious of all the ways that we fail to love God and our neighbor. Or using the words of Rom. 3:20 directly, “…through the law we become conscious of sin.” The Law was given because of transgressions; it was given to bring us to knowledge of our sin and complete sinfulness. In this respect, it is like looking in a mirror. The mirror shines back to us who we truly are.
For those insatiated with fashion and the constant need to be hip, or hop, the mirror shows them who they are? For those angered by the world, hardened by life and resolutely defiant, the mirror picks up the scene and displays it back. Borrowing from Harry Potter, the mirror of Erised shows our greatest desire. To be powerful, fashionable, beautiful, unloved, etc. A mirror shows us our desires. In this respect, a mirror is much like a picture; the great difference is that mirrors always present the present, while a picture always shows the past. The Law shows our desire to harm and hate.
For every human, the law is a mirror revealing to us, the myriads of ways we sin and fail to honor God, how we fail to Love God and neighbor, and to serve them both. The Law shows how we fail to love God and neighbor by tolerating sin in our midst instead of eradicating it from the community. The Law shows how we abhor authority by failing to submit to parents, leaders and authorities. The Law shows our selfishness versus the call to love and serve. These things and many more, the mirror of the Law reveals.
But the Law also exists, not to give life, but to declare us prisoners of sin. It can’t keep us alive; it can’t even keep us from harming ourselves. We all know people who purposely harm themselves, who cut themselves, commit suicide, who continue to shop lift, or speed even when they have been caught before and punished. We all know people who can’t stop lying or speeding even though they know it is unhealthy or dangerous. Yet they can’t stop because the law has no power to give life, only the power to take life. The law only has the power to declare us prisoners of our sinful condition. When we steal, the law doesn’t make us an honest patron, rather it punishes us for our sinful action. The Law exists to punish wrong doers.
The Law reveals to us the truth that we are trapped in sin much like fish are trapped in purse nets. The Law is the net that has been laid around us, just as the boat lays the seine and slowly brings it in, making the fish painfully aware of their predicament as they flop around in the air, or get caught up by the gills in the net. Using another analogy, some roman gladiators, called retairius, used nets and tridents to fight. Their goal was to catch the opponent in the net and attack while he was occupied trying to get out.
I had my first encounter with fishing net this past spring. I went to the harbor and got some old nets to put over our 2 apple trees. As I laid them out on the ground to mend the holes, my feet kept getting tangled up and every step caused me to get more tangled. Though I finally succeeded in freeing myself, the task was much harder than I anticipated. This is what the Law does, it entangles us, and trips us up in its web but unlike my escape from the net, there is no escape from God’s Law. Hear these word from Romans 11:32, “For God has bound all men over to disobedience… The Law reveals our true situation, just like the mirror – sinful, vile, and disobedient. But praise God the verse goes on to say, “so that he may have mercy on them all.” There is a hint of grace, which we will get to in a few moments, after exploring all the purposes of the law.
If that isn’t enough, after tripping us up, the Law also holds us prisoner. It locks us up, just as a prisoner of war is locked up, or a criminal. The Law guards us so that there is no escape. It is like a maximum-security prison, an Alcatraz, a San Quentin, the ADX Supermax in CO home of the Unabomber, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy J. McVeigh and World Trade Center bombing mastermind Rams Yousef. But unlike these prisons where inmates get 23 hours a day in solitary and 1 hour in the open, the Law holds us prisoner 24-7. Under God’s Law, we are considered as equals to these men and countless others we so casually describe as despicable, dangerous or in need of reform.
Given this picture of the Law, why would anyone want to live under the Law? Why would Jews want to stay under its power for attaining righteousness? Why would they think it could give them righteousness? I don’t know. Paul has just painted a brutal picture of the Law’s purpose: to make us aware of our sin, to take our life, to capture us and hold us prisoner. Obviously, these Judaizers, like many today, were unaware of the true nature of Law, and had an erroneous belief that Law actually makes one free. I have friends who truly believe that by keeping the Law – Friday Sabbaths, no pork, praying Jewish prayers, etc. they are becoming more holy. Paul didn’t think so, and neither should we. But there is a 5th purpose of the Law, which we haven’t spoken about yet.
John Calvin writes, “The Law was given to keep alive the hope of salvation until the advent of Christ” (II.12.17). The Law gives us a reason to hope that something else is coming to rescue us, more to the point that someone is coming to rescue us, to break into our prison and set us free. The Law gives us hope by pointing us to the Great emancipator. The Law’s purpose, after it has done the first four things is to continue its job and lead us to Christ.
The old covenant, the Law was put into effect through angels by a mediator. A mediator, however, does not represent just one party; but God is one (Gal 3:19b-20). Paul is comparing the work of the Law and its origin to the work of Christ. Where Moses stood between God and the people, representing them both, where he negotiated their salvation, even crying out to God not to kill the Israelites for their sin, while simultaneously sinning himself by striking the rock and throwing the tablets. While this mediator tried to negotiate a peace between God and his creation, he simply ushered in an era of punishment. But the Great emancipator, Jesus, ushers in a new covenant.
He mediates a new relationship, not of punishment but of Grace and mercy and peace. John 1:17 tells us, “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” It is “For this reason,” Hebrews 9:15 can declare, “Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance — now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.” It is new because, “…the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises.”
Where the old covenant promised to punish us and hold us prisoner, the new covenant promises to change our very hearts and minds. Listen, “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear” (Hebrews 8:6, 10–13).
When the old covenant viewed us as slaves needing punishment, the new covenant views us as sons and daughters in the words of Galatians 4:4. When the old covenant had a mediator acting on both parties’ behalf, the new covenant has God acting on our behalf. There is no mediator between God and men, for God himself takes the initiative. That is why 1 Timothy 2:5 can say “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” but we know Jesus is God incarnate according to the Scriptures. So God is acting unilaterally instead of Moses who acted bi-laterally.
One of the commentators I read, trying to grapple with Paul’s statement in Gal 3:20 A mediator, however does not represent one party, but God is one made this observation which really helped me to understand the passage. He wrote, “Any transaction in which a mediator engages is inferior to God acting directly on his own accord and initiative.” In short, he is saying, when God chooses to redeem people, it is always directly and unilaterally of his own accord without the need of a mediator like Moses. Reflect with me, is it not true that the Exodus was God acting directly on Israel’s behalf, as was the Crossing of the Red Sea, the falling of the walls of Jericho, the saving of Jerusalem during Elisha’s day (2 Kings 6:17) ad infinitum. God always acts directly to save his people, and make promises to them. That was Paul’s point last week about Abraham and the promise.
And so it is today, the Law declares our situation and takes us to the footsteps of the Cross, but God himself saves us on the cross and by his resurrection. The Law doesn’t teach us how to live, as some have argued, the Law leads us to the teacher, who promises to teach us how to live after he has saved us. In fact, Paul makes this startling statement in Gal 3:25 Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.
What does that mean? If the law promises punishment, imprisonment, condemnation and to make my sin abound and make me more aware of it, then in Christ I am released from those realities for Christ promises me a righteousness not my own, a life unattainable by myself, and the truth of God. In fact Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth and the life" (John 14:6). These are the opposites. The only way I can receive the opposite of all the Law promises, is to be completely released from the Law. A prisoner isn’t free until he is released from the prison. A fish isn’t free until released from the hook or net. Likewise, a human isn’t free to love God and neighbor, until they are released from the Law. Only without the threat of punishment can we truly bring our acts of love and service to the throne of God. Only without the watchful eye of a jailer, can we act in confidence that our life in Christ is acceptable to God. Only in having been tutored in what is sinful and vile, can we know what is righteous and just. Only in having been imprisoned, can we know what freedom is. Only in having pursued works righteousness, can we appreciate righteousness by faith.
In closing, lets turn to the words of Romans “You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness…But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life” (Romans 6:18, 22). Being released from the Law isn’t a license to sin, quite the contrary, being released from the Law is our first step into a new life, a life pleasing and acceptable to God, and a life where holiness and righteousness reign. So people of God, read the law, study it, learn it, let it convict you of sin and declare the truth of your condition without Christ, but always demand that it do its final part. Demand that it take you to Christ, where grace and mercy abound. For Christ has set you free from the Law of Sin and death so that you can truly Love God and your neighbor. You and I are people of faith “..led by the Spirit, you are not under law” (Galatians 5:18). Our teacher is God himself, not a rule book. Amen.
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