I want you to write down these words: Do not use the law to shave with! We will come back to that in a few minutes, but for now, I need to confess on the front edge here that this passage is super intimidating!
All throughout the book of Galatians, Paul has been arguing that the Christian life must be rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ alone, because our only hope for eternal life with God rests in the finished work of Christ crucified, risen, and returning; we have no hope for salvation in the law of Moses because the Law of Moses cannot start or complete what only faith in Christ can accomplish.
Now the problem, and the thing that is most intimidating for me today as I preach, is that over half the Bible we hold in our hands is made up of Old Testament Law and the story of a people, Israel, who tried to find everlasting life through their performance of the law along with its sacrificial system.
Some, as I said last week, will just “unhitch” themselves from the Old Testament and try to live as though the Law and its sacrificial system has no bearing on our lives today, to their own demise, because without the Old Testament and its sacrificial system and the story of a people who tried to gain right standing with God through their performance of said system, (without the Old Testament) no one would ever recognize their need for Christ, let alone become sons and daughters of God. Look at the text with me real quick…
19Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. 20Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one. 21Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. 22But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. 23Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.
So, if we are not going to “unhitch” ourselves from the Old Testament, its laws, and its sacrificial systems, and if we are going to trust in Christ alone for salvation, then what good is the Law? What purpose does the Law serve in the life of a blood-bought, son or daughter of God who has been signed, sealed, and delivered into the hands of the Father? Why do we need the Law today? I am glad you asked because this is the first question Paul poses for us.
#1: WHY DO WE NEED THE LAW TODAY? (VV. 19 – 20)
Paul’s answer can be seen in verses 19 – 20 where he says that the law “was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary… [and] an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.”
Can I just press pause here and confess my absolute love for the Apostle Paul and his unique gift of putting words together in such a way as to make us scratch our heads with wonder and sometimes confusion over his seeming inability to just say things straight without using big words, run on sentences, and grammatical structures that make you wonder what he actually means? You see what I just did right? I used too many words, a grammatical structure that would be hard for anyone to read, and you are probably wondering what I am even talking about.
My entire point here is that Paul can sometimes be more than a little confusing. Peter even admits this in 2 Peter 3:15 – 16 where he points out that Paul can be hard to understand sometimes which leaves room for “ignorant and unstable” people to twist his words “to their own destruction.” So, even though Paul has the spiritual gift of not saying things clearly sometimes, we need to be ultra-careful not to twist what he says to our own destruction. We do not want to be ignorant and unstable twisters of God’s Word.
This is a serious matter, interpreting how Paul answers the question of the purpose of the Law for us today. Why do we need the law today? I think Paul’s simple answer is that we need the law today because of sin and we also need the law because it is limited in its power.
First, we need the law today because of sin or as Paul puts it in verse 19, we need the law today “because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made.” Let me be clear here, transgression is the reason we need the law. Transgression is one aspect of our rebellion against God that began with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden in Genesis 3. Rebellion against God is something that has infected the entire human race from Genesis 3 forward.
This human rebellion that all of us are infected with is revealed in three different ways: Sin, Transgression, and Iniquity. Sin is simply missing the mark of perfection. Transgression is simply the breaking of a specific law. Iniquity is simply acting wickedly or immorally. These definitions are the three-pronged fork of our rebellion against God; the rebellion that all of mankind was infected with in the Garden of Eden, as Paul says elsewhere, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). We are all rebels who love to play outside the boundaries of God’s demands, we love to disobey God’s rules, and we love to dip our toes into wickedness and immorality.
This is the reason that God first gave the Promise to Abraham regarding the way of salvation in the future coming Christ, who according to Paul in verse 19, is “the offspring… [who would] come [and] to whom the promise had been made.” After that promise was made, God added the law some 430 years later because of transgression, sin, and iniquity.
Now along these lines of thinking, we have to understand that the law outlines what is right and good in a very clear fashion but in doing so, it not only convicts us of our guilt, but it also invites us into more rebellion. Just as any child who sees the clear boundaries of their parents’ rules and seeks out new ways to rebel against them because something deep down inside is awakened by the law and creates the lure of excitement in breaking that law.2
So, just like children, we need the law today because it gives us clear boundaries between what is right and wrong, it convicts us when do break the law, and it also awakens the negative desires within us to break the law even more. We need the law today because of sin!
Secondly, we need the law today because it is limited in its power. Paul illustrates this by saying in verses 19 – 20 that we need the law today because “it was put in place through angels by an intermediary… [and] an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.” The point in Paul’s confusing illustration here is that the promise is eternal because it was given by God who is one, but the law was given through created mediators therefore the law is limited in its power.3
You might ask, why would we need something that is limited in its power today when have the gospel that is more powerful and more than adequate for salvation? That is a valid question. If the law is limited in its power, then why do we need it? Why can’t we just discard the limited power of the law and hold onto the limitless power of the gospel? I think we need the law because it is the limited power of the law that makes the limitless power of the gospel so good. In this way, the law finds its proper place as a good (not a bad or useless or broken) tool in the toolbox of the Christian life.
As one commentator, quoting Charles Spurgeon says, “A handsaw is a good thing, but not to shave with. A handsaw is good for cutting wood, but not facial hair… if you put your handsaw to that sort of use, you’ll wind up losing more than hair.”4
This is why I began by saying “Do not use the law to shave with!” The point here is that the law is a good tool in the toolbox of the Christian life because it not only reveals the difference between right and wrong, and it not only convicts us when we get things wrong, and it not only awakens the desire to sin within us, but it also reveals the limitless power of the gospel in light of its own limited power.
These truths – that the law is needed because of sin and because of its limited power – could lead us (as it has many others as previously noted earlier) to think of the law as something that either completes our faith or is totally contrary to our faith. Paul has gone to great lengths to show us that the law does not complete what faith began.
So, it would be natural to think that while the law is certainly useful in how it reveals, convicts, and awakens sin within us that it somehow must be in opposition to the promise of the gospel. It would be natural to think that because the law, in its limited power, shining light on the limitless power of the gospel, must be contrary to the promises of the gospel. This would be natural to think but it is not what Paul has in mind. He does not believe that the law is contrary to the promise of the gospel. This is why he asks the very next question.
#2: IS THE LAW CONTRARY TO THE PROMISES OF GOD? (VV. 21 – 26)
Paul’s simple answer to this natural question is an emphatic, “Certainly not!” (v. 21).The law is certainly not contrary to the promises of God. And at this point, Paul foresees some confusion, so he explains why the law is not contrary to the promises of God in Christ Jesus.
Look at how he begins to explain himself in verses 21 – 22 where he says that the law is certainly not contrary to the promises of God, because “if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law [and therefore contrary to the promises of God]. But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.”
So, the first moral of the story here is that the law is not contrary to the promises of God because the law does not promise everlasting life through our obedience to it. The law cannot do what only faith in Christ can do; the law cannot save us because only Christ can save us. Therefore, the law and the gospel are not contrary to one another. The law merely shows us our sin and our guilt and our helplessness to save ourselves by our own performance and in doing so it points us to Christ who is our only hope for eternal life.
In this way, the law is not contrary to the promises of the gospel; it acts instead like an “onramp to the highway of gospel rooted living” by faith in our crucified, risen, and returning Christ!5 So, the law is not contrary to the promise of the gospel. The law actually compliments the gospel by pointing us to our need for Christ just as an onramp compliments a highway.
But Paul is not finished yet! He has one other point to make about the useful and complimentary nature of the law in verses 23 – 26 where he says that the law is not contrary to the gospel because it “was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith… [and] now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus [we] are all sons of God, through faith.”
In Paul’s second and final point here, he simply says that the law is not contrary to the promise of the gospel because it acts like a babysitter. Just as a babysitter compliments parents in their work, their plans, their expectations, and their dreams of a future good life for their children, so too, the law compliments the purposes of God in the promise of the gospel for his work, his plans, his expectations, and his dreams of a blessed life for all who become his children by faith in Christ’s finished work at the cross of Calvary, as he left the tomb empty, and gave the final promise of eternity to those who look to him as sons and daughters.
So to summarize Paul’s entire thought on whether or not the law is contrary to the promise of the gospel, Paul would emphatically say that the law is certainly not contrary to the promise of the gospel because the law does not promise everlasting life but it does act like a babysitter who points us to and releases us into the saving arms of the One who can give everlasting life.
CONCLUSION…
So, in conclusion, Paul has asked and answered two very important questions in regard to the relationship between the law and the promise of the gospel.
#1: Why do we need the law today (vv. 19 – 20)? Paul’s answer is, we need the law because of sin. We need the law to show us right from wrong, to show us how we fail, and to even increase sin within us. We also need the law today because of its limited power. We need to regularly observe the limited power of the law to save us so that we can stand in awe of the limitless power of God in Christ Jesus at the bloody cross, and the empty tomb, in light of the promise of eternity.
#2: Is the law contrary to the promises of God (vv. 21 – 26)? Paul’s answer is that the law is certainly not contrary to the promise of the gospel because the law does not promise everlasting life, but it does act like a babysitter who points us to and releases us into the saving arms of the One who can give everlasting life; namely Christ crucified, risen, and returning.
Can you see how we would be terribly hopeless without the law? What would we turn to if we unhitched ourselves from the Old Testament laws and its sacrificial systems? I believe we would turn to false gospels such as the false gospel of faith plus works equals salvation, or the other false gospel of grace without justice because of God’s love which ensures that all will be saved regardless of right or wrong since everything is relative anyways.
I believe that we must stay strongly rooted in the gospel of God’s gracious salvation through Christ’s work at the bloody cross, and the empty tomb in light of his promise of eternity. But the way that we remain focused on the gospel is by letting the law do what it was always intended to do. The way that we remain on the highway of gospel rooted living is by using the onramp of the law. The way that we resist using the law to shave our faces is by using the law for its intended use.
When I look to the law for the definition of right and wrong, for conviction of my guilt, and for realization that sin will deepen within me the longer I look at the law, then and only then will I realize the limited power of the law and begin to look more fully to the limitless power of Christ Jesus and his finished work on my behalf.
And it is not just that I need the law because of my sin and for its limited power, I also need to be reminded that the law is not contrary to the gospel. On the contrary, the law is complimentary to the gospel in that it does not promise everlasting life, but it acts as a babysitter, constantly reminding me, as a child of God, of how deeply dependent I am upon Christ and his completed work of salvation and sanctification on my behalf. It is not like the babysitter turned me over to a life of living on my own; the babysitter turns me over to the care of Christ as a child of God who is in complete dependence upon Christ for my every need. You and I are nothing but babies in the care of Christ if we have trusted in him!
So, do we really need the law today? We should all say it together… Yes!! We need the law today because it is not contrary to the gospel. On the contrary, the law is what makes us more and more reliant upon the gospel; more and more dependent upon Christ, so long as we use the law properly. So long as we do not use the law to shave with! – Amen!
1 Unless otherwise specified, all Bible references in this paper are to the English Standard Version Bible, The New Classic Reference Edition (ESV) (Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, 2001).
2 Philip, Graham, Ryken, Galatians, Reformed Expository Commentary, (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Company, 2005), 131 – 132.
3 Ibid., 132 – 135.
4 Todd, A., Wilson, Galatians: Gospel Rooted Living, Preaching the Word Commentary, (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Publishing, 2013), 119.
5 Philip, Graham, Ryken, Galatians, Reformed Expository Commentary, (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Company, 2005), 132.