COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine |
Dear Colleen, “I thought people were always saved by faith throughout history,” wrote my friend Olive recently, “yet Galatians 3:23 talks about ‘before faith came’, and verse 25 says, ‘but now faith has come.’ Is Paul speaking historically or individually? I’m confused. “I was always taught that in the Old Testament people were saved by faith looking forward to the cross the same way we are saved by faith looking backwards to the cross. What am I misunderstanding here? And it would seem heretical to say it has ever been by anything but faith—but then how can ‘But now faith has come’ be understood?” —Olive
Olive’s question is important. Galatians is such a powerful treatise on justification by faith without the works of the law, and Paul’s sentences are loaded with details. It’s important that we understand what he was teaching us as he walks through the impact of God’s promises to Abraham and His provision in Abraham’s seed, the Lord Jesus.
God’s Promises Distinct from Law
The answer to Galatians 3:23 is found in 3:22. I will quote Gal 3:22–25:
But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. Therefore the Law has become our tutor [to lead us] to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.—Galatians 3:22–25 NASB95
Paul identifies “faith” as “faith in Jesus Christ” (v. 22), and he does this as the logical conclusion of his argument in all of chapter 3. He takes us back to Abraham and explains that righteousness has always come through faith, and then in verse 15 he begins explaining why, if people were counted righteous on the basis of faith in God, the law was given. He explains how God’s promises to Abraham culminated in the coming of the promised “seed”, Christ, and in verses 17 and 18 he reiterates that the law, which didn’t exist before the time of Israel—430 years AFTER God made His covenant with Abraham—still cannot be the source of receiving God’s promises. The law, in other words, had a different function than did God’s promises, and God’s promises and our realization of God’s inheritance is still the result of His promises to Abraham—not the result of adding the law to our lives.
He explains that the law “was added because of transgressions”. In other words, from the time of Abraham, God’s promises stood at the heart of God’s relationships with His people. When God brought Israel to Sinai and gave them the law, that was an additional element in His relationship with Israel. They were His people chosen out of the world, but they did not fully “see” or understand either the depth and hopelessness of their sin, nor did they even realize what constituted “sins”. (Romans 5:12–14 explains that before the law was given sin was “not imputed” even though people were sinners from the time of Adam and were dying because they were sinners. So humanity was condemned to die because they were born “in Adam”, by nature children of God’s wrath Eph. 2:–3).
Israel’s Unique Covenant
So, enter Israel, and God made a unique covenant with them that stipulated all the terms of His relationship with them as His nation. He gave them laws that defined sins—and He even included one law—#10—that identified the sin of “covetousness”—a sin in a different category from all others listed in the law. This sin flows from the heart, and people can’t will-power their way out of coveting. Their hearts covet IN SPITE of themselves. So the law was given (as Paul clarifies even more in Romans) to INCREASE sin and to cause people to see and know that their thoughts and desires and behaviors were condemned by God—and just cleaning up their behavior was not sufficient to be considered “overcoming sin”. Their hearts were still covetous.
Along with the Ten and inseparable from them, God gave Israel the sacrificial system. He didn’t just condemn them by giving them a list of behaviors that revealed their sinful hearts and thoughts and deeds; He showed them that the only way they could function as His people was to admit their sins and to bring blood sacrifices to Him. In other words, the sacrifices couldn’t be separated from the fact of their sins and His expectations. He gave them a way to be reconciled to Him and to obtain atonement. They had to offer the sacrifices as He instructed, and they had to be mediated by the levitical priesthood. They couldn’t offer sacrifices in the backyard and be forgiven; God required that they offer the animals through the priesthood who offered them at the specific place: the tabernacle/temple, and God mediated His acceptance and forgiveness through the priesthood.
New Mediator, Better Covenant
Then, in Gal 3:19-20, Paul reminds us that the law required a mediator between God and Israel, and that mediator was Moses. But the covenant God made with Abraham was made unilaterally by God Himself—no mere man even participated in that covenant. God Himself mediated His covenant with Abraham. And by extension, Paul is showing that by sending Christ, God Himself also was the mediator of the new covenant. So Paul continues and explains (v. 21) that the law was not ADDED to the covenant with Abraham. It was parallel to it, and it functioned under the overarching, eternal promises of God’s covenant with Abraham. The law didn’t come along and replace or nullify God’s original promises to Abraham. The law COULD NOT mediate or impart life or righteousness. Only God’s promises could do that. If the Law had been required for life and righteousness, then the law would have been a replacement covenant. It would have been the “next thing” in a sequence of promises.
But, Paul continues in v. 22, the law came along and revealed that every single person who ever lives is “shut up”—a prisoner of sin. The law reveals and defines the dark covetousness of the human heart. The law reveals the flesh-driven sins of passion that flow from the heart: murder, adultery, stealing. The law reveals the human tendency to create idols, to disrespect God, to embrace what they can see and feel. It pointed out Israel’s need to trust God and to believe that He would care for them even as they kept their Sabbath. The law pointed out their innate sinfulness, and it showed them that their sin was so terrible that there was no hope for any person apart from blood sacrifice. Sin demanded death.
But when Christ came, He was the unique Mediator and Sacrifice, the Seed God promised Abraham. He fulfilled all the shadows of the law, and He died a human death for human sin. Now, we have the one sufficient blood sacrifice, and when a person sees and believes what Jesus did, God gives them the gift of faith in Jesus’ sacrifice for their sins.
Verse 23 says “before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law”. Paul doesn’t mean there was no faith in the world—we know Abraham and others had faith. But the Lord Jesus hadn’t yet come, and the perfect Sacrifice and completed atonement for sin had not yet been revealed. Abraham had faith in what God said and acted on that faith; Israel also had that kind of faith available—and Moses demonstrated that kind of faith. But no one before Jesus actually was offered the already-completed atonement. Those before Jesus believed God who granted righteousness on the basis of Jesus’ sacrifice—but that sacrifice hadn’t happened yet in real time. In eternity Jesus is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8), but in real time, people have lived with different degrees of revelation of God’s mystery of salvation.
Living By Faith in Jesus
The “faith” in v. 23 is the faith in Jesus Christ (identified in v. 22). And because we now have the Lord Jesus, because the temple veil was ripped and Jesus ascended to the Father and poured out His Spirit on all who believe, we have entered a new covenant—a covenant based on Jesus’ blood instead of on the animal blood mediated by the Levites.
The law functioned as a temporary national covenant with Israel without ever negating or replacing the promises God made to Abraham. Rather, the law became a tangible, living shadow, a metaphor, if you will, of what God was doing in the world as He prepared the nation and the lineage of the Savior who would ultimately fulfill all the shadows of the law. The Lord Jesus would become the fulfillment of God’s promised inheritance to all who believe as Abraham did. And because of Jesus, God’s promises to Abraham that His descendants would have the Land He gave them—even those promises will still be ultimately fulfilled.
So when Paul says “before faith came”, he is referring specifically to the faith in Jesus Christ that he mentioned in his previous sentence. “Faith” now is faith in God’s fulfilled and revealed atonement. It’s still faith in God and His word and promises, but He has now revealed and fulfilled His promise of blessing and righteousness in His Son. Faith on this side of the cross is a more specifically “revealed” faith than was the faith of Abraham—and yet it is the same kind of faith: faith that is a gift from God and is faith in God and what He has promised and revealed. We live in a time of grace and faith based on the already-completed atonement. Abraham lived by faith in God’s promises of blessing and righteousness. Israel lived by faith in the God who made them a nation and provided a system of atonement based on repetitive sacrifices and a human priesthood. We live by faith in the One who has embodied everything God promised He was providing—who embodied all the shadows of the law. †
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