Galatians 3:19 - Meaning and Application

The apostle had just been speaking about the promise made to Abraham, and he had shown that this promise, not the law, is the rule of our justification, that is, how we are made right with God. He knows some people might think this makes the law useless, so he now explains why God gave it. The question is: if the promise is enough for salvation, what was the law for? Why did God give the law through Moses?

He answers that the law was added because of transgressions, that is, because of sin. It was not given to replace the promise or to set up a different way of being made right with God. Instead, it was added beside the promise to serve it. The Israelites were God’s chosen people, but they were sinners like everyone else, so the law was given to show them their sin and their danger before God. By the law comes the knowledge of sin (Romans 3:20), and the law came in so that sin might increase in awareness and exposure (Romans 5:20).

The law was also meant to restrain sin. It was meant to put awe in people’s minds and hold back their sinful desires, so they would not rush into the evil they were naturally inclined toward. At the same time, it was meant to point them to the only way sin could truly be taken away, through the death and sacrifice of Christ. That was the special purpose of the laws about sacrifices and cleansing.

Paul adds that the law was given until the seed should come to whom the promise had been made. That seed is Christ, as Paul has already shown, or, in a wider sense, the gospel age when Jews and Gentiles alike, through faith, would become Abraham’s seed. So the law was added for a time, until that full time came. But when Christ came, and when God’s grace was shown more fully in the promise, the law of Moses was to end as a covenant. Hebrews 8:7-8 says that when the first covenant was found wanting, a better one took its place.

This does not mean the moral law, as the law of nature, lost its value. It still serves to show people their sin and restrain evil. But we are no longer under the crushing burden and fear of that legal covenant. The law was never meant to offer a different way of justification from the promise. Its purpose was to make people see their need of the promise, by showing them how sinful sin is, and to lead them to Christ, through whom alone they could be pardoned and made right with God.

Paul gives another reason the law could not cancel the promise: it was appointed through angels in the hand of a mediator. It came to different people, and in a different way, from the promise. The promise was made to Abraham and to all his spiritual seed, including believers from every nation, Jews and Gentiles alike. But the law was given to Israel as a special nation, set apart from the rest of the world. The promise came directly from God, while the law came through angels and through a mediator.

That shows the law could not have been meant to cancel the promise. A mediator is not used for one party only, but God is one, and the promise rested on his single gracious purpose. So it would not make sense for God to undo a promise he had already made to Abraham and to all his spiritual seed, simply through a later arrangement made with the Jewish nation. That would not fit his wisdom or his faithfulness. Moses was only a mediator between God and the spiritual seed of Abraham, so the law given through him could not overturn the promise, much less destroy it.

Paul then answers another possible objection. Someone might ask, is the law against God’s promises? Do the covenant with Abraham and the law of Moses clash? His answer is, certainly not. He would never say such a thing, and nothing he has said should lead us to that idea. The law does not fight against the promise. It supports it by showing people their guilt and their need for a better righteousness than the law can provide.

In fact, if there had been a law that could give life, then righteousness would have come by the law. If that were true, the promise would have been unnecessary. But that cannot be the case in our present condition, because Scripture has shut up all under sin, that is, it has declared both Jews and Gentiles to be guilty and unable to become righteous by keeping the law (Galatians 3:22). The law exposed their wounds, but it could not heal them. It showed they were guilty, and its sacrifices and purifications showed, by their very weakness, that they could not fully take away sin. So the great purpose of the law was to lead people to receive the promise through faith in Jesus Christ.

When people are convinced of their guilt, and of the law’s inability to make them righteous, they are ready to believe in Christ. Then they receive the blessing of the promise.

Paul’s last point here is that the law was meant to serve as a schoolmaster, or tutor, to bring people to Christ (Galatians 3:24). He has already said that before faith came, before Christ appeared and justification by faith was more fully revealed, the Jews were kept under the law. They were bound by strict rules and severe penalties, and they were shut up under its discipline, like prisoners held in confinement. This was done so they would be more ready to welcome the faith that would later be revealed.

In that condition, the law trained them to look ahead to Christ. It led them to him so that they might be justified by faith.

By showing God’s mind and will for Israel and also pronouncing a curse on every failure of duty, the law made it necessary to confront them with their lost condition. It also showed them the weakness and limits of their own righteousness, since it could not recommend them to God.

The law also required many sacrifices. These sacrifices could not remove sin by themselves, but they pointed ahead to Christ and to the great sacrifice he would offer for sin’s forgiveness. In this way, the law directed people, though in a dim and shadowy way, to Christ as their only help and refuge.

So the law was their schoolmaster, a guide and guardian for them in their immature state. The Greek word used here most properly means a servant who led children to school. In that sense, the law led them to Christ, so that they might be more fully taught by him as their true teacher, in the only way of justification, that is, being counted right with God, and salvation, which comes through faith in him alone.

Still, someone might ask, if the law served that purpose under the Jews, why should it not keep serving that purpose under the Christian era too? Paul answers this in Galatians 3:25, when he says that after faith has come, and the gospel has been clearly revealed, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. We do not need the law in the same way to point us to Christ, because Christ and the way of pardon and life through faith in him are now shown in full light.

From this, we can see several things. First, we see God’s goodness to his people long ago in giving them the law. Even though it was dark and severe compared with the gospel, it still gave them enough help to guide their duty to God and encourage their hope in him.

Second, we see the great mistake and folly of the Jews. They misunderstood the purpose of the law and used it for something God never intended. They expected to be made right with God by obeying it, but the law was never given as the rule of their justification. It was given to show their guilt, their need of a Savior, and to direct them to Christ and faith in him as the only way to receive that blessing. See Romans 9:31, Romans 9:32, Romans 10:3, Romans 10:4.

Third, we see the great advantage of the gospel over the law. Under the gospel, we have a clearer view of God’s grace and mercy than the Jews had before. We are also freed from the bondage and fear under which they lived. We are no longer treated like children in an immature state, but like sons who have grown up and now enjoy greater freedom and larger privileges. Paul expands on this in the verses that follow.

After showing the purpose of the law, Paul closes the chapter by telling us what we have through Christ. First, he says that we are children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, Galatians 3:26. This is a great privilege. Real Christians are no longer counted as mere servants, but as sons. They do not stand at such a distance from God as the Jews did, but have closer and freer access to him. They are received into his family and have a right to all the blessings of his children.

They receive this privilege by faith in Christ Jesus. When they accept him as Lord and Savior and trust him alone for justification and salvation, they are brought into this happy relationship with God. This matches John 1:12, where all who received Christ were given the right to become children of God, to those who believe in his name.

Paul also reminds us in Galatians 3:27 that this faith in Christ was what they confessed in baptism. He says, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” In baptism, they publicly professed faith in him, gave themselves to him, and, as it were, put on his uniform as his servants and disciples. By becoming members of Christ, they were received and counted as children of God through him.

Here we should note two things. First, baptism is now the solemn sign of our admission into the Christian church, just as circumcision was for the Jews. The Lord Jesus appointed it that way in the command he gave to his apostles (Matthew 28:19). The apostles then baptized those they had taught to believe the Christian faith. Paul may mention baptism here, and the fact that believers become children of God through the faith confessed in it, to answer another objection from the false teachers.

They might say, “Even if the law given at Mount Sinai was ended by Christ, why should circumcision be set aside too? It was given to Abraham with the promise, long before Moses gave the law.” Paul removes that objection when he says that those baptized into Christ have put on Christ. This shows that under the gospel, baptism takes the place of circumcision. Those who are devoted to Christ by baptism, and who truly believe in him, are fully admitted to the privileges of the Christian state, just as Jews were admitted to the privileges of the law by circumcision (Philippians 3:3). So there is no reason to keep circumcision.

Second, in baptism we put on Christ. We confess that we belong to him, and we are bound to live as his faithful servants. Being baptized into Christ means being baptized into his death, so that, just as he died and rose again, we should die to sin and walk in new life (Romans 6:3, Romans 6:4). It would help us much if we remembered this more often.

Second, this privilege, being children of God and being devoted to Christ in baptism, is now shared alike by all real Christians. The law did make distinctions between Jew and Greek, giving the Jews many advantages. It also made distinctions between bond and free, master and servant, and between male and female, since only males were circumcised.

But that is not the case now. All believers stand on the same level, and all are one in Christ Jesus. One person is not accepted because of any national or personal advantage over another, and another is not rejected because he lacks such advantages. All who truly believe in Christ, whatever their nation, sex, or condition, are accepted by him and become God’s children through faith in him.

Third, being Christ’s means we are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise. The teachers who pushed Jewish customs wanted the Galatians to think they had to be circumcised and keep Moses’ law to be saved. “No,” says the apostle. There is no need for that. If you belong to Christ, if you truly believe in him who is the promised seed in whom all nations were to be blessed, then you become the true seed of Abraham, the father of all believers. As such, you are heirs according to the promise, and you have a right to its great blessings and privileges.

So, taken as a whole, the point is clear. Since justification, meaning being made right with God, is not gained by works of the law but only by faith in Christ, and since the law of Moses was only a temporary arrangement given for purposes that supported the promise and did not cancel it, and since Christians now enjoy greater and better privileges than the Jews did under that older covenant, the Galatians were being very unreasonable and unwise to listen to those who were trying to take away the truth and freedom of the gospel.