So that the law has been our tutor up to Christ, that we might be justified on the principle of faith.
Paul has just said the law was added because of transgressions, until the promised offspring came. Now he gives the law a job title. One word settles how the whole verse reads. Was the law a teacher who drives sinners to Christ? Or a minder who kept God's people until Christ came?
Older Bibles call this person a schoolmaster; the ESV calls him a guardian. The picture came from ordinary household life in Greece and Rome. It was not a picture of a classroom.
Wealthy families in Greece and Rome often put a man in charge of boys from about age six until about sixteen. This man would have complete charge of the boy, and would be responsible for his manners and for his morals. He would have the authority to punish him when necessary. He would take him to school, though he would not generally teach him. This man was very often a slave... You will understand this man was really more of a guardian than a teacher... This is just what the law was to Israel. It was given to train them, to show them their own wickedness, and to punish them.
Older English Bibles print the words "to bring us" in italics. That means the translators added them. The ESV leaves them out, and the writers here say they should go.
"To bring us" has no business here. The meaning is that the law was a schoolmaster dealing with these Jews, until Christ came... This is not about bringing people to Christ now. The effect of the law is instead to minister death and condemnation, as Scripture tells us plainly elsewhere. God may let people come under sentence of death in this way, and afterwards bring them out of it by Christ. But no one can say that a power that kills is itself the means of bringing people to Christ.
The same point cuts down a popular use of the verse:
Upon this the statement is often made that the law is like a whip to bring us to accept Christ. But that is not the meaning. The law was the schoolmaster for the Jews until Christ came — the schoolmaster up to the time of Christ.
Paul writes "our" in this verse, then "you" two verses later. The switch marks off who was ever in this school.
The law was a schoolmaster to the Jews, not to the Gentiles. Paul said "we" in Gal. 3:24, in contrast to "you" in Gal. 3:26. It was their schoolmaster until Christ came, but any led to Christ were no longer under that schoolmaster.
If the law was not driving people to Christ, it was still teaching while it waited for Him.
There were two lessons to learn. First, we cannot keep the law. Second, the system of sacrifice pointed on to the sinner's only hope: Christ and His finished work. Thus the law is a tutor, a schoolmaster, till Christ appears on the scene.
The verse says justification comes by faith, not by the schoolmaster. One writer lists what the law could and could not do:
It could curse. It could kill. It could not give life. So righteousness could not come by it. Nor could it condemn sin in the flesh. Yet even now it is good, we learn, if a man uses it lawfully. It was made not for the righteous, but for the lawless and the disobedient... And no one whom God had put under the law could have got free from its curse, if the Lord Jesus Christ had not become a curse for them.
The picture also marks what the law never gave, and what faith gives instead.
The schoolmaster is not the Father. He is the one the child is put under, to be cared for until the child is ready to deal directly with the Father's mind. Under law, it was like saying to a child under age, "Do this, and do that," without giving reasons. But those brought to be Abraham's seed by being put in Christ are all "sons of God, through faith."
Verse 25 sets the believer free from the guardian. That freedom can be taken in two wrong ways.
When we grow up, we usually respect and value our schoolmasters more than we ever did before. We do not want to get rid of them — that would be lawlessness — nor to stay under their authority — that would be the Galatian error, and against Christ.
- Guardian: the "schoolmaster" was a household servant who walked a boy to school and disciplined him. His job was charge and restraint, not teaching.
- Until: "until Christ came" fixes an end date. The law minded Israel until Christ came; it was never the whip that drives sinners to Him.
- Ours: Paul says "our," meaning the Jews. Gentiles were never put in that school at all.
- Unable: the law could curse and kill, but it could not give life. So justification had to come by faith. Freedom from its curse came only because Christ became a curse for them.
- Sons: the guardian is not the Father. Once faith came, the schoolroom ended. Believers stand as sons — free from the law, but not free to live as they please.
But, faith having come, we are no longer under a tutor;
Paul has just called the law a guardian — older translations say "schoolmaster" — who watched over Israel until Christ came. Now he draws the conclusion: the guardian was only ever meant to serve until a fixed date, and that date has arrived.
The word "faith" here is not first about your believing. It points to something that arrived in history, and the arrival ended an era.
But once faith — that is, Christ and the system of faith — had come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. What existed only for the time of waiting lost its whole reason for being once the One it pointed to had come. The schoolmaster had been useful for keeping them safe until the appointed time. But once the awaited One arrived, there was no motive left to keep him — he belonged to the time of waiting.
One writer fixes the moment, and explains how God's truth justified people before it came:
Faith came, in this sense, when the Son of God appeared. God's truth always had a justifying power, but that was because both law and prophets spoke of Him who was to come. The service of the guardian expires with the arrival of the true speaker of the words of God.
The picture behind the verse is a household job, not a classroom. And notice who was under him — Paul writes "we," meaning his own people.
This is literally "child conductor," pedagogue: originally a slave who took his master's children to school. The law was a schoolmaster to the Jews (not to the Gentiles: Paul said we, Gal. 3:24; in contrast to you in Gal. 3:26) until Christ came; but any led to Christ were no longer under that schoolmaster.
The change is not that the rules got easier. The relationship itself is new.
Instead of being under a slave, with strict and humiliating discipline, there is now the place of a child before his Father. Through faith in Jesus the Christian stands in direct relationship to God.
The next verse supplies the reason. Everything turns on one word:
In the Greek, the word for "sons" means a son who is of full age. This is the important part of the argument. You are no longer children, so you are no longer under a child trainer. Now you all are full-grown sons. You are no longer subject to the severe and humiliating discipline of the child trainer, who was very likely a slave himself. Now you are a son, now you are mature, now you are free.
Sending the guardian away is only one item on a longer list of what faith does.
Here are precious deeds of faith! It dismisses the schoolmaster. It brings the soul to God as to a father. Then it clothes the believer with the value of Christ in God's sight and acceptance... We are brought out from under the law — the schoolmaster — and with him, tutors and governors are gone. We are "sons" at home in the Father's house.
The Galatians wanted a law God had never given them. One writer says the same mistake is widespread today.
The Galatians had never been devoted followers of Judaism, so they had no excuse for trying to mix the two principles. Once a believer has known the liberty of the gospel, it is a terribly serious backward step to try to mix that liberty with the principles of law. We know all too well what happens today. The Gentiles, to whom God never gave the law, have brought it into many systems that boast the name of Christianity.
But dismissing the guardian is not the same as dismissing all restraint:
That liberty does not mean license. A young man freed from his schoolmaster's authority is still bound by honour and good manners, and it is the same here. "Liberty" has its boundary in "Christ." When we grow up we usually respect our old schoolmasters more than we ever did before. We do not wish to destroy them — nor to stay under them.
- Faith came. Not your believing first of all, but Christ Himself and the whole order that rests on Him. What belonged to the time of waiting ended when the awaited One arrived.
- The guardian's job ended. He was a household slave who walked children to school: useful, strict, temporary. That role belonged to Israel, never to the other nations.
- Sons replaced children. The believer is no longer a child under humiliating discipline. He is a full-grown son, in direct relationship to the Father.
- Faith clothes as well as frees. Faith dismisses the guardian. It brings the soul to God as Father and clothes the believer with the value of Christ.
- Freedom, not license. Going back under law is a backward step. But freedom has a boundary, and the boundary is Christ.