“Why the Law?” Some Thoughts on Galatians 3:15-25
In light of Paul’s exposing of the Judaizer’s faulty understanding of redemptive history, the apostle returns to the fundamental question, “why the law?” No doubt, the law serves a very important purpose, but we must be very clear as to what that purpose is. In Galatians 3, especially verses 15-25, Paul explains that the primary purpose of the law is to show us that we are sinners who need a Savior. According to the second use, the law functions as a stern tutor of a guardian of a minor. The law holds us prisoner to sin until we are released from its tutorial function when we embrace Jesus Christ through faith. The law accomplishes its purpose when it exposes how sinful we truly are. Once we have come to faith in Jesus, the law is no longer a guardian for us, like that needed by small children.
When we consider the law from this perspective–the so-called “second” or “theological” use of the law– a number of things should be noted. For one thing, it should be absolutely clear that there will be no one who obtains the promise because they obeyed the law, or earned God’s favor through their good works, or through their obedience to God’s commandments. Paul is both emphatic and clear. The law was not given to bring life. It was given to inflict the curse and death.
When we die and stand before God on the day of judgment, God will not compare us to others. He will not inquire about our sincerity. Nor will he cut us any slack if we tried our hardest to be good people. God will measure us against the standard found in his law. He will demand perfect obedience to every command. In this sense, the law is like a ten-link chain. Break but a single link and the whole chain is useless, the point made in James 2:10 which states: “Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.”
When someone encounters God’s law and thinks to themselves, “well then, who can gain eternal life?” the law has done its work. In the words of one preacher, we must see the law like a mirror. We look in the mirror and we see we are dirty. The mirror shows us our true condition, driving us to the soap and water. We don’t take the mirror down off the wall and attempt to clean ourselves with the mirror! So it is with the law. The law shows us that we need Christ. This, then is the answer to the question, “why the law?” The law has taken all of us “prisoners of sin.” But now that Christ has come, the one to whom the law pointed, and then suffers its curse, Jesus put an end to the law’s role as our stern guardian. Jesus, Paul says, loved us, redeeming us by becoming a curse so that God can forgive our sins and grant us the inheritance (Galatians 2:20).
To argue as the Judaizers were doing, that we must add our obedience to the death and righteousness of Christ is to deny that the death and righteousness of Christ is sufficient to save. The Belgic Confession puts it this way: “to say that Christ is not enough but that something else is needed as well is a most enormous blasphemy against God–for it would then follow that Jesus Christ is only half a Savior” (Article 22). It is to say that God must accept us, in part, on the basis of our own righteousness. The Judaizing “gospel” undermines the covenant promises that God made to Abraham (which demands the “hearing with faith”), and distorts the meaning of the covenant God made with Moses in the giving of the law, which does not nullify, or redefine the prior covenant made with Abraham. In different ways, both of these covenants point us to Jesus Christ, his obedience, and curse bearing, not to our own merit earned by our own obedience.
What God promises to give his people through faith in Jesus–redemption from the curse of the law, the forgiveness of the guilt of sin, a righteousness which justifies, and the gift of the Holy Spirit–are freely given to those who trust in Jesus. He is that seed to whom the promise pointed. Through him, we might receive all the blessings of the promise made to Abraham’s children. The person who trusts in Jesus Christ alone for their justification is regarded by God as though they themselves had perfectly obeyed the law and as though they had never sinned. This is why the law does not nullify the promise. This, then, is Paul’s answer to the answer to the question, “why the law?” For what God demands under the law (perfect obedience) he has freely given us in Christ! And that righteousness of Jesus Christ becomes ours only through faith in him.
Taken from "For Freedom!" -- An Expositional Commentary on Galatians