The Coming of the New Age (Galatians 3:23-29)

The churches in Galatia, instead of moving forwards and discovering more about the blessings connected to the gospel declared by Paul and Barnabas when they were there during Paul’s first missionary journey, had been moving steadily backwards. If they went back too far, they would cease to be Christians. Paul does not want that to happen to them. Instead he wants to recover them from the dangerous path they were on. So he provides theological and practical explanations of why they should return as well as exhortations designed to make them think about what they were doing. His method of restoration is pastoral and patient. He cares about them and shows that he does when he repeats what he has said. He does so because he wants them to enjoy the salvation God has provided.

We should note that in this section Paul uses two different first-person plural pronouns. In verses 23-25 he uses ‘we’ and in verses 26-29 he uses ‘you.’ We can see from the latter set of verses that those described as ‘you’ are obviously the Galatians to whom he is writing, which suggests that those described as the ‘we’ in the previous section are the Jews. So in verses 23-25, he describes what life was like for devout Jews during the Mosaic period and in verses 26-29 he summarises what life should be like in the days after the law, which is the time of the Messiah, or the period between the two comings of Jesus.

Life under the Old Covenant

Paul continues his explanation of why the Galatians should not have resorted to a religious practice that was connected to external rituals, even although the false teachers were insisting on such behaviour. Those rituals were part of the Levitical law given by God to the Israelites, so we can appreciate why the Galatians were confused and obeyed those with a distorted message. Paul says two things about the Levitical law which would have astounded the false teachers in Galatia. First, he says that the Levitical law imprisoned those who were under its authority and, second, he says that the Levitical law was suitable for those who had not yet reached maturity. He also repeats what he said in the previous verses when he wrote that the period of the law had been fixed by God and was now over.

Paul, of course, is not despising the period of the Levitical law. He knew that those requirements were given by God as a help to his people, which was very different from what life was like for those who were not Israelites. The Gentiles had that time were, as it is said elsewhere, ‘strangers to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world.’

Yet, the contrast that existed between the state of the Israelites and the state of the Gentiles is not the only contrast that can be made. Another contrast is that between the people of God during the period of the Levitical laws and believers living in the days of the gospel, and this is the contrast that Paul makes here.

The first aspect of the contrast is a continuation of what he had already said about it in the previous verses when he wrote that those Levitical laws were like a jailer or prison guards. This illustration stresses that there was a limit to the spiritual freedom that those under it enjoyed, and it also suggests some firm response by the guards to any misdemeanours. As long as those rules were there, it would not be possible to experience spiritual freedom. The Galatians, in going back to those laws, were not advancing in spiritual freedom. Instead they had gone down a road that hindered it and were now in bondage.

The second aspect of the contrast is taken from the social customs of the time. It was the practice for wealthy families to employ an individual, normally a slave, to look after the young children in a family. His role was to instruct them and, when necessary, discipline them and so teach them how to behave. Yet the children would not have always understood why it was happening. Instead, the supervisor or guardian or disciplinarian was fulfilling the wishes of the parents because the children could not understand what was happening and would not do so until they became older. Similarly, it was God who wanted the Israelites to have those laws, and they included educational and disciplinary features. For example, they would learn that atoning sacrifices were needed in order for sins to be forgiven, and that disobedience would receive deserved punishments. Yet they could not fully appreciate them because, as far as God’s kingdom was concerned, they lived in the days of childhood rather than in the days of adulthood (which have now arrived because Christ as come).

It is not hard for us to see the difference that the coming of Jesus has made to spiritual understanding. We have only to look at the disciples of Jesus and compare what they were like before Pentecost and after Pentecost. Before Pentecost, they did not fully understand the messages of the Old Testament prophets about the sufferings of the Messiah, whereas after Pentecost they did. They even disagreed with Jesus when he told them that he would suffer on the cross. We do not know how much Old Testament believers grasped about the details of how God’s kingdom would function after the Messiah came.

Paul mentions the initial blessing that believers enjoy as a result of the coming of Jesus. That blessing is justification by faith. The point that the apostle could be stressing is that the Levitical laws, while pointing out how far short people came in pleasing God, could not provide a way for sinful people to be forgiven by God. Instead, the gospel reveals how sinners can be forgiven and accepted by God. Once they have been forgiven, they are no longer curtailed as far as spiritual freedom is concerned and they no longer need to be regarded as little children needing a guardian.

Life under the new covenant

What does it mean to be a believer in Jesus? What special privileges does such a person have? Paul seems to follow a logical order in verses 26-29 in order to explain those privileges and in the order he refers to what happened to the Galatians at conversion – they were baptised, they joined a new community, and they received a new identity. Those privileges overlap in some details, especially in the way that Jesus is central to each of the three privileges.

The first privilege that Paul mentions was illustrated by their baptism. We may find verse 26 a bit obscure when Paul links membership of the family of God with baptism and when he also links baptism to being clothed with Christ. The likely explanation is that those baptised would have worn a new set of dry clothes after the ritual was performed and Paul explains that baptism depicted them wearing a special spiritual garment, which is the righteousness of Christ. Moreover, it was customary for individuals adopted into a family to wear special robes when they became sons. So we can see why Paul was able to combine the baptism ritual and the adoption practice and connect baptism with coming into the family of God by wearing the righteousness of Christ.

The second privilege is that following their baptism the believers joined a new community. In those days baptism was usually performed when the person believed and not several weeks later as is the case with us. Paul contrasts this new community with various communities with which his readers were familiar. They knew about ethnic communities (Jews and Gentiles), they knew about social communities (slaves and free), and they knew about gender communities (male and female). Paul is not saying that people cease to be the various things that he has just mentioned. Instead, he is saying that such groupings no longer define them. Rather what defines them is that they all belong to Christ.

Sometimes, people think that spiritual unity does away with earthly distinctions. It is better to say that spiritual unity transcends them and elevates believers above such distinctions. It does not make Gentiles into Jews or Jews into Gentiles; it does not make slaves into free people or free people into slaves; it does not make males into females or females into males. All of them carry on living as they were, but they now live connected to a community that is united to Jesus. A Gentile woman who is a slave is now a sister. A Jewish man who is free is now a brother. A Gentile man who is free is a brother and a Jewish woman who is a slave is a sister (in reality, Paul says that female Christians had the same rights as sons, which was very counter cultural). The Levitical laws could never create a new community. Instead it kept Jews and Gentiles separate from one another.

The third privilege is that having been baptised and joined the new community those Galatians discovered who they had become. Baptism illustrated that they belonged to Christ. That was the point they made when they professed to believe in him. Belonging to Christ meant that they now possessed what had been promised to Abraham, they were the heirs of the kingdom of God.

Application

Paul here reminds Christians of the importance of recognising who they are. John Stott summarises the great change that these verses describe in three levels of life: believers find their place in eternity because they are now related to God as his children; they find their place in current society because they are brothers and sisters; and they find their place in history because they are related to believers in every age of history.

A second application is that the church of Jesus Christ should function above the areas of separation that exist in society. In society, we find constant attempts to remove the differences that exist between races, or to regulate in order to reduce the problems caused by social divisions, and to reform gradually the inequality between men and women. Although those goals are important for society, they are not the goals of the gospel. The goal of the gospel is to make sinners into the seed of Abraham, to bring them into union with Christ, to produce a community in which the everyday divisions of life are no longer the priorities and which do not affect the relationships believers have with one another. The gospel calls us to a higher form of life. Perhaps we can put it this way – the gospel does not call us to patch up society and deal with some issues for a short time in history; instead, it calls us into a new society that is going to inherit a new world. Of course, Christians can work to do away with wrongs in society, but even when such wrongs are removed society does not become Christian.

Another application concerns how believers see each other. Do we look at one another through the lens that define sinful society? Do we compare and think about one another according to the definitions of society? Or do we see believers as those who are the seed of Abraham, the heirs of the world, with an incredible future, even if sadly they are mistreated in society?

A fourth application is that we should be thankful that we do not live in the days when the Levitical laws were the requirements for God’s people. A little thought about what those under it had to do should reveal that to us. How many animals would a worshipper have to purchase when worshipping God? One for a burnt offering, one for a sin offering, one for a peace offering. What did an Israelite have to do when a child was born? What did he have to do if God answered his prayer to be healed from leprosy? The Galatians had moved from the right package to a wrong passage and in the process forgot the great blessings they had received.