Articles
The law is our tutor to lead us to Christ - Gal 3:24
The law is our tutor to lead us to Christ - Gal 3:24
24 Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith” (Galatians 3:24). ‘The law’, specifically the law of Moses which came 430 years after Abraham died. We had need of a better covenant because of the weakness and unprofitability of the law concerning SALVATION.
The law was God’s way of showing the need for Jesus as the greater and better law giver of a better covenant, the better high priest, the Lamb of God who is the better sacrifice, the better mediator. The Levitical priesthood was itself guilty of sin and needful of atonement. The animal sacrifices were insufficient to take away human guilt and could not thus cleanse the conscience. The earthly temple and altar were types which prefigured the true offering of Jesus in the very presence of the Father.
It all pointed to Jesus. Now, in the fulness of time, all the prophecies and types are fulfilled by Jesus. We now have a sacrifice that does take away sin and cleanse our conscience. We now have a high priest who was without sin and now officiates in the very presence of God. We now have an altar from which those of the first covenant have no right make offerings unto God.
The law, which provided for all of those things, thus leads us (or perhaps you might want to say DRIVES us, pushes us, propels us) unto Jesus. Now, we are no long ‘under’ the tutor – the law – the old covenant. We look to Jesus and not unto Moses. We now live by a new, living, and better way – by the new covenant made by Jesus with His sacrifice. We are now (that is, all believers – both Jewish and Gentile believers) ALL sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, FOR (based upon, because that) we who have been baptized were baptized INTO Christ. AND because we are Christ, we are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise made so long ago to Abraham! The world has been blessed through Abraham’s seed. ARE you a partaker of this blessing?
Hugh DeLong
