Gal 3:21–24 — The Custodian Until Christ

Paul’s Argument

God has given the scriptures to teach us, to teach us His holy law, and to teach us His gospel, so that by patience and comfort of His holy word, we may embrace the only hope of salvation, which is Christ Himself.

He is talking about the law and the promise that was given to Abraham before the law. He says that the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. And the offspring, he says, is ultimately Christ himself. Yes, there is a first level fulfillment of that promise in the creation of a nation, the nation of Israel, which is the offspring in the plural sense, in the collective sense, but the primary fulfillment of that promise was Christ. The offspring that was referred to in the Old Testament, in Genesis 12 and 15 and so on, was Christ himself. That is what God was referring to when he said that, to your offspring, I will give this land. That is, Christ is the one who is going to come in the fullness of time and purchase for us the land that is the heavenly inheritance that is secured for all of God’s people. That is, being glorified, having glorified bodies to dwell with Christ in the new creation. And that is the promise that God made to Abraham. Abraham received that promise simply by faith. He did not do any works. He was not circumcised at that point in time. He was circumcised later, but he was not circumcised. He was not committing himself to keeping the entire law. He simply believed.

God made the promise and he believed in the Lord and it was counted to him as righteousness. And so Paul is using this argument here to say this is why the Judaizers are wrong. The Judaizers are telling these Galatian Christians that though they are Gentiles, that they need to keep the law to be reckoned as righteous in God’s sight and to be full members of the people of God and heirs of the promises. And Paul is saying, how can that be? Even Abraham was justified and counted righteous before God simply by believing in the promise.

The law came later. The law came 430 years later. And when it came later, it did not annul, as he says there in verse 17, it did not annul that previous covenant that God had made with Abraham. It did not change the terms of that covenant and turn it into a conditional covenant. It is not as though God made the promises to Abraham as an unconditional guarantee of grace, and then later on, 430 years later, when the law came at Mount Sinai, God saying, let me explain the real situation here. I made it sound like it was an unconditional promise, but in actuality, the way that the promises will be fulfilled is by keeping the law. It is actually conditional upon your obedience to the law.

Of course, this raises the question then of, well then why did God give the law in the first place? If everything was based upon this promise, then why did he even bother to give the law? And the answer that Paul gives in this whole context here is that he gave it as a temporary custodian to prepare for Christ. He says, why then the law, verse 19. He says, it was added because of transgressions until the offspring, Christ, should come, to whom the promise had been made. It was added. It was added in a temporary way to prepare for Christ, who is the fulfillment of the promise.

Exposition

Law and Promise

This raises another question in verse 21, is the law then contrary to the promises of God? And Paul says, certainly not. Now the very fact that Paul even has to raise this question, is the law then contrary to the promises, shows, does it not, that the law and the promise are inherently distinct from one another. The law offers life to those who keep it. It offers life to those who do what it commands.

So the very fact that Paul raises this question in verse 21, is the law then contrary to the promises of God, shows that the law and the promise are distinct things. But Paul wants to guard against a misunderstanding. All of his negative statements about the law, that it was added on a temporary basis because of transgressions, must not be interpreted as though God himself did not give the law, or as if he gave the law in a way that completely changed the promise. And Paul says, certainly not. The law is not ultimately contrary to the promises of God.

God is the author of both. He is the author of the promise, and he is also the author of the law. But he gave the law, not to cancel the promise, or to completely change the terms of it from an unconditional to a conditional covenant, but he gave the law to prepare for Christ, in whom the promise is fulfilled. He goes on to say in verse 21b, he says, for if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. Again, this shows that in theory at least, the law offers righteousness to those who keep the law. This shows the works principle is residing in the law. The law has this works principle within it. Those that do these things will live by them.

But the law could not give life. It could not change the heart of man so that man was able to keep the law. The law can only tell us what to do, but it cannot give us the ability to do it. It cannot change our hearts so that we want to obey God and so that we are able to keep the law. If a law had been given that could impart spiritual life, that could change your heart and make you want to obey God, then righteousness would be by the law. But the law was not able to do that.

Imprisoned under Sin

Rather, verse 22, the scripture imprisoned everything under sin so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Why does he switch here from talking about the law to talking about the scripture? He is clearly talking about the Law when he says the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin. That is the function of the Law, to show us our sin and to imprison us under it. But why does he change the terminology from the Law to the Scripture?

Because he is referring not simply to the Law as it was given at Mount Sinai, he is referring to the entire history of Israel under the Law, concluding in the exile. So the whole story of the Old Testament from Exodus, when the law was given, all the way to the end of the Bible, to Malachi, is the story of Israel under the law. And that story ends in exile. The captives of Judah were bound with ropes and taken away as prisoners into Babylonian captivity because they had failed to keep God’s law, because they had broken the covenant and worshipped other gods and had failed to keep God’s perfect and holy commandments. The scripture then tells the story of how the law came to Israel and led to Israel being imprisoned under the law, leading to the exile.

You would expect him to say, the Scripture imprisoned the Jewish people under sin because of their failure to keep the law. Why does he say the scripture imprisoned everything under sin? Everything here is Paul’s way of referring to all humanity. You could say the scripture imprisoned everyone under sin. He has this idea, Paul does, that by convicting the Jewish people of their sinfulness and then carrying them off to Babylonian captivity in prison under the law, God was also convicting all of humanity under the law.

If the Jews could not keep the law, then that proves no one can? Paul says this, he fleshes this argument out in Romans. He does not do it here in Galatians in as much detail. But in Romans, if you look at his argument in Romans, he says, for example, in Romans 3, verse 19, that we know that whatever the law speaks, it speaks to those who are under the law. So that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.”

The conviction of Israel under the law, convicting Israel of its sin and law-breaking and transgression, and then carrying Israel off to captivity, is a miniature expression of what is true of all humanity. All of humanity is also convicted by that. If the Jews could not do it, then no one can. So the entire story of the Bible is not only to tell us about what happened to Israel under the law, but it is to tell us what happens to all of us under the law.

And therefore, to make us long even more for the coming of the offspring Christ. Verse 22, so the scripture imprisoned everything under sin so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. That is an interesting statement. The scripture the story of the Bible, the story of Israel under the law, which has implications for all of humanity, leads us to this place of being under sin, of being bound over and thrown into prison because of our sin, but not as an end in itself, not as if God is simply putting us into prison and throwing away the key and just leaving us there, but in order as a ultimate purpose to bring us to faith, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

This is answering Paul’s question back in verse 21. Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? In a certain sense, it is contrary because the promises are based on faith and the law is based on works. But in the ultimate sense, Paul is saying, the law is not contrary to the promises of God because the law was given to imprison everyone under sin so that the promise might then be revealed in all of its glory. So that by faith in Jesus Christ, we might receive the promise.

Held Captive until Faith

And then again, he goes back in verse 23, back to this idea of the time before the law, the time before Christ came, when the law was in place. He says, now before faith came, when he says faith here, he means Christ, the object of faith. So before Christ came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. That is, until Christ would be revealed. Of course, Paul knows that faith is not something that is brand new, that only comes with the coming of Christ, as if there was no faith in the Old Testament times before Christ. He has made that very clear in the context because he has repeatedly emphasized that Abraham was a man of faith, that Abraham is, in fact, the paradigm of what it means to have faith and what it means to be justified by faith. So he is not saying that faith did not exist before Christ came.

Rather, what he is focusing on here is that during the time of the custodianship of the law, the emphasis was on law and works, and so it felt as though faith had not yet come. But now that Christ has come, now that the object of faith has come, we are justified by faith. And then in verse 24, he wraps it all up by using this image or metaphor of the law as a custodian. He says, so then the law was our custodian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith.

The Custodian

In Greek, it is the word pedagogue. Now, we hear that word pedagogue, we think of a teacher. That is not quite what a pedagogue was in the first century. In the Greek and Roman culture of the day, the pedagogue was a household servant who had responsibility to supervise the son before he became an adult. So the son, he is growing up, he is going to become the heir of the inheritance from the father at some point, but when he is in his youth, let us say from around age seven to 19, somewhere in there, he is not yet an adult, and he needs a pedagogue, he needs a household servant to supervise him and to discipline him when he misbehaves, to take him to his teacher every day and make him do his lessons. Pedagogues in the ancient world were temporary.

And that is the main point that Paul is making here. They were temporary. It was a temporary form of slavery almost, even though the son is not a slave, he is the freeborn son, he is going to inherit the inheritance one day. But for that time period in his immaturity, when he is a youth, he is under a temporary form of slavery-like conditions, under this custodianship until he reaches adulthood. And that is what Paul is saying here is that the law was like that pedagogue for us. The law was our disciplinarian, our guardian, our custodian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith.

The law was given to Israel as a custodian until the coming of Christ. The key is that the law is distinct from the promise: it pronounces a curse upon those who do not keep it perfectly, whereas the promise is God’s grace received by faith alone. Yet the law is not ultimately opposed or contrary to the promise. It serves a subordinate purpose by leading us to Christ, who fulfills the promise. The law was our pedagogue, disciplinarian, and temporary custodian until Christ came. That is the key phrase in verse 24, echoing the language of verse 19: “Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come.”

Doctrine

This passage really is one of the key passages in theology for defending and explaining the law gospel distinction. You have probably heard about that term, the law gospel distinction in theology. This passage is really a key passage for that.

Paul sees the entire sweep of the Old Testament Scriptures as having two major strands, two major things that are being taught in the Scriptures. The promise, which is an unconditional guarantee of grace, and it is received by faith alone, and it is fulfilled in Christ, and the law. The promise and the law. He sees these two strands throughout the Old Testament. But what is interesting is that he sees these two strands, the promise and the law, as being related in a very specific way.

Two Errors to Avoid

There are two wrong ways of relating the law and the promise, or the law and the gospel. One way that is wrong is to set the law and the promise in opposition to one another, as if they are completely incompatible and antithetical to one another. And Paul says very clearly in verse 21, is the law then contrary to the promises of God?

That is why we do not refer to the law-gospel antithesis. We speak of the law-gospel distinction, because Paul does not place law and gospel in absolute opposition to one another.

That is the first wrong way of relating these two major strands of teaching in scripture. The promise and the law. The first wrong way to relate them is to say they are in opposition to each other. They are working at cross purposes with one another. They are antithetical to one another. Paul says, certainly not. That is not the correct way of viewing it.

In the history of the church, one of the earliest heresies that arose was the heresy of Marcionism, named after the heretic Marcion. This is as early as around the year 140, 144 AD, very early. One of the earliest heresies that arose in the church. And Marcion said that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are completely different gods.

The God of the Old Testament is this evil, mean God. He is harsh. He is a legalistic tyrant who gave the law. But the God of the New Testament is a God of love and mercy and grace. And so he said that the law really does not come from the true God. The law comes from some alien God.

He called it the Demiurge, this evil God. He is also the God that is responsible for the physical creation and physical matter, which he also viewed as being bad. So the law and creation, those are bad things. And that is attributed to this other false God called the Demiurge. But now the true God has been revealed through Christ.

That is a bad way of relating these two strands of teaching in the Old Testament. It is relating them in opposition to one another, as antithetical to one another, rather than as seeing them as being properly related. Another wrong way of relating these two strands of teaching is to combine them together.

To combine them together and to say that the promise was good, but the way that the promise gets fulfilled, the way that we receive all the blessings of God that are promised, is by keeping the law. The law is the mechanism for receiving the promise. And that is another wrong way of connecting these two strands of teaching in scripture. Combining them together by making the promise conditional on keeping the law.

Paul clearly says that this is not the correct way to relate them. In verse 17, he explains that the law, which came 430 years later, did not annul the covenant previously ratified by God. He refers to the Abrahamic covenant made in Genesis 15, when God passed between the pieces of the sacrificial animals and symbolically took the curse upon himself: “May I become accursed if this promise is not fulfilled.” The law, by contrast, declares, “You are accursed if you do not keep the law.” The later law therefore does not annul the covenant previously ratified by God; otherwise, it would make the promise void.

So this second wrong way of relating these two strands of teaching in scripture, the promise and the law, or the promise and the gospel, or the law and the gospel, is the wrong way of synthesizing them together. Connecting them together too closely. Turning the gospel into a new law, saying that the gospel is not a free gift that is received by faith alone, but rather the gospel is a conditional covenant, and you have to keep the law to receive the blessing.

So these two wrong ways of relating these two strands. The first wrong way is to set them in antithetical opposition to one another. Paul says certainly not to that one. Or combining them together and making them one thing. Making the promise and the law just one combined covenant where you get the promise but only by keeping the law. Paul says to that one, that makes the promise void. That cannot be. Rather, Paul teaches that the law and the promise, or the law and the gospel, are distinct. They are distinct from one another.

The law demands works and threatens a curse, whereas the promise comes by faith. But they are so arranged in God’s wisdom with a certain order in redemptive history in which the law was added as a temporary period of time to keep God’s people under custody until the coming of the offspring to whom the promise is pointed from the very beginning. In itself, if you take the law and you just consider it in itself, abstracting it from redemptive history and just looking at what the law itself says, then the law is contrary to the promise. But in the ultimate sense, in terms of God’s plan of redemptive history and God’s purposes, it was a temporary custodian until Christ.

The First Use of the Law

in theology we talk about the three uses of the law. The first use of the law is the law that shows us our sin and drives us to Christ. The second use of the law is the law as a curb upon sin in society. This is through conscience. So even unbelievers who do not have, who are not Christians, who do not believe in the Bible, even they know the basic content of the law written upon their heart through their conscience. And the third use of the law is the use of the law for the believer, not as a means of salvation, not as a means of justification, but rather as a guide for how we should live the Christian life.

But the first use of the law is the one that Paul is dealing with here in this passage. He will talk about the third use of the law later on in Galatians 5. But in the first use of the law, he says that the law recalls the requirement of the pre-fall covenant of works with Adam. And it offers righteousness and life to those who keep it perfectly.

But since the law cannot impart spiritual life, since it cannot change your heart, all it ends up doing is exposing your sin and exposing your sin in a way that convicts you and leaves you imprisoned and without excuse. The first use of the law is the most important use of the law.

It convicts us of our sinful hearts. It does not merely convict us of the fact that we have committed specific sins. It does do that. But even more, it convicts us of our sinful nature. It convicts us of the fact that we have a sinful heart. Because no matter how hard we try to obey God, we find ourselves continually falling short and continually sinning against God. It convicts us of our sinful nature.

It sentences us to death. It condemns us. It locks us up in prison. But even more importantly than that, all of that is very negative sounding, but Paul is saying it is actually positive because by doing that work of showing us our sinful nature and showing us our inability to keep the law, it actually has a good positive purpose in the plan of God, which is it shows us the impossibility of obtaining righteousness in any other way than through faith in Christ. It shows us our own bankruptcy. It shows us that we cannot do it. And it shows us that we need Christ and it leads us to Christ. This is really the practical application for us.

Now Paul here in this passage is primarily focused upon the big picture of redemptive history of what God was doing with Abraham and Israel leading to the exile and then the coming of Christ. And he is talking about the first use of the law in this big, redemptive, historical, grand purpose of God with Israel.

But he applies it to us individually as well. He applies it to us individually as well. And the key to seeing that is that word everything that I mentioned back in verse 22. The scripture imprisoned everything under sin, which I said is Paul’s way of referring to the Gentiles as well. The scripture is written not only for Israel, so that Israel can see their own sin and be then even more longing for Christ. The Old Testament is also for us.

Application

The Law Exposes Sin

We are therefore meant to see ourselves in the text. We are supposed to see ourselves. When we look at Israel’s failure and Israel’s exile, we are supposed to see ourselves there in the text. And so it does have an application for us individually as well.

The law is given, not only for Israel and the big scale of redemptive history to lead Israel to a sense of crying out to God for the coming of the Messiah, but it is given for us, too, to show us our sinfulness and to prepare us to come to Christ. This is one of the things that, and here is really the application of this text for us as believers. This is one of the things that we really need to wrestle with and think about.

It is uncomfortable? We do not really want to do this. We do not really want to dwell upon our sin. We do not really want to meditate upon the law and sit there with the weight of that and be convicted before God. It is an awkward, uncomfortable thing. We just want to go right to the cross. We want to go right to the promise and just thank the Lord for the salvation that we have in Christ.

But the thing is that psychologically, if we just jump too fast, if we just go right to the goodness of the gospel and all that we have in Christ without really sitting with our sin and our need, then the gospel itself becomes less precious to us? Martin Luther has a great, his commentary on Galatians, where he is going through this whole section of Galatians. He has a great little quote that just perfectly summarizes this thought. He says, this is just a funny, interesting little quote, but it just perfectly captures the thought?

Hunger for Christ

Hunger is the best cook. Have you heard that before? Hunger is the best cook. What do we mean by that? Think about it. When you are stuffed and you are already feeling over bloated and you do not need any more food, the food does not taste that good anymore? It does not have that same delight to it, that same satisfaction, that same pleasure. The first taste of ice cream is great, but when you get to the bottom, you are somewhat like, ugh, I have had enough ice cream?

Hunger is the best cook, and the same way here with the gospel. Having a sense of our need, having a sense of our sinfulness as we sit with the law, as we sit there in prison? Imprisoned by the law and really meditating upon it and meditating upon how sinful we are and how God’s law condemns us. That is a necessary thing in order for us to truly experience the joy of the gospel.

No Other Refuge

A criminal will often protest his innocence as long as possible? Even after he has been arrested, he will still try to protest his innocence and say, no. But when the evidence in court is so overwhelming, he will eventually be forced to plead guilty and cast himself on the mercy of the court.

That is the way it is with us. It is like we are so prone to trying to deceive ourselves, compare ourselves with other people, to blame others for our faults. It is really because of what they did, how they mistreated me that I reacted that way. We are so prone to not really face up to our own sinfulness and our own depravity. That we need to be convicted.

We need to be put on trial and have the evidence presented against us until we get to the point where we stop all the excuses, we stop all the protests, and all the trying to wiggle out, and we just say, you know what? You are right. You are right. I am guilty.

And it is only then that we will be brought to truly hunger and thirst after Christ and to place all our trust in Him and Him alone. Calvin in his sermons on Galatians puts it this way. He says, the law was given to drive men to acknowledge that they are sinners and to cause them to despair. For unless this happens, their consciences will not be prompted to take refuge in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Is that not true? Consider the people in your life who are not professing Christians. No matter how carefully you present apologetic arguments for the Bible as the Word of God or for the historical reality of Christ’s resurrection, Christ will not be meaningful to them unless the Spirit gives them a sense of their sin and convicts them under the law. They might concede that there is evidence for the historical reality of Christ, but intellectual agreement alone is not enough.

Unless they feel the weight of God’s law and are convicted of their sin like a criminal before the court, they perceive no need to believe in Christ. Christ has no value or meaning to them. One might demonstrate historically that Christ lived, died, and rose again, yet they still lack the desire to trust him. They have not been brought to cry out for God’s grace and look to Christ for salvation.

What a blessed thing that is, if the Spirit has wrought that in your heart, has brought you to the point of being truly convicted of your sinfulness. And we talk about repentance considerably, but this is not really repentance, it is conviction of sin. And this is a beautiful thing when it is combined with faith, when it is combined with genuine trust in Christ. Those beautiful, blessed tears of joy at the foot of the cross.

Totally different from Judas when he was convicted with his guilty conscience for betraying Christ. He did not have that Christ-centered conviction of sin and tears of joy. He took his own life in remorse, but it was not true spirit-wrought conviction of sin.

This is the law’s primary task. It is a preparatory task. It is like the farmer who has to prepare the soil before he puts the seed into the ground. If you just go directly and you forget about preparing the soil, and all you do is just cast the seed on the ground, it is going to fall on the hard soil. It is not going to bring forth any fruit. You have to till the soil. You have to break up that dirt. You have to put in the fertilizer and all the mulch and get it ready. That is the Spirit’s job, through the law, is to till the soil of our hearts.

And also, not only that, not only to prepare our hearts for Christ, but also to block all the other paths that we think we have. Towards righteousness and forgiveness and assurance. All the other paths that we try, if I just do somewhat better, if I just go to counseling and get some therapy, if I just work really hard on this one thing in my life, then I can fix it, then I can make myself better.

No, the law says you have no other hope, you have no other way of being right with God except Christ. This first use of the law primarily is for the unbeliever. It is tilling the soil and getting the heart ready and preparing the unbeliever to come to Christ. But there is even a first use of the law for the believer. Even we as believers who have come to faith in Christ, who are trusting in Christ, we still need the law to keep us humble and to keep us continually going to the Lord.

The law is a mirror, revealing not only our sinfulness and the sinfulness of our hearts, but also revealing the imperfections of our good works. Our good works are imperfect in the sight of God’s holy law, and that keeps us humble and close to Christ. The law shatters our self-reliance and compels us to seek deliverance in Christ. In Romans chapter four, correct that, in Romans chapter seven, the Apostle Paul says, essentially summarizing, he says, I thought I could keep the law, but then I realized that I could not.

And he ends that with, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. We can get into a whole debate about whether this is Paul speaking as an unbeliever or as a believer. It is not important because it is applicable to both? This is a blessed thing when we get to that point where we say, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

We must never get to the point in the Christian life where we feel confident in ourselves as if we have no more need of Christ. No matter how much progress we make in the Christian life, we must always be aware of our sin and look to Christ as our only righteousness.