Sons of God

Returning to the custodianship of the Law would mean rebuilding the wall of separation between Jews and Gentiles.

Paul compares the Mosaic Law to a “pedagogue” in its supervision of Israel “until the seed came” in his Letter to the Galatians. That “seed,” singular, was Jesus of Nazareth. In Greco-Roman society, the “pedagogue” was a slave with custodial and disciplinary authority over an underage child until he reached maturity. The minority status of the child and the authority of the custodian were both temporary.

Before the “Seed” arrived, all things were confined under the dominion of sin, just as the Jews were kept under the Law until the faith was revealed in Jesus. The Law guarded Israel until the “faith came.” The Law’s purpose was to make Israel aware of transgressions.

[Photo by Tim Umphreys on Unsplash]

The supervisory role of the Law would only last until the “faith was revealed… the promise from the faith of Jesus given to those who believe.” With the coming of the “Seed,” Jesus Christ, no longer are we under the custodianship of the Law or the overlordship of sin.

• (Galatians 3:23-25) – “Before the coming of the faith, however, we were kept in ward under the law, being shut up until the faith which should afterward be revealed. So that, the law has proved our custodian, training us for Christ, so that, from faith, we might be declared righteous. But the faith having come, no longer are we under a custodian.”

Paul’s analogy emphasizes the temporal aspect of the Law of Moses, the Torah. If the heir in the analogy was no longer under the authority of the custodian, then believers were no longer under the jurisdiction of the Mosaic Legislation.

However, if the Law could not acquit anyone before God, and if it was added after the “promise” and could not modify it, what was the Law’s purpose?

Paul addresses this very question (“Why, then, the law?”). It was given to teach Israel that sin constitutes transgression of the expressed will of God. The Law was the “custodian” assigned to guard the nation until the promised "Seed" arrived. The custodial function was always temporary and provisional, not final.

In Paul’s argument, the temporal aspect of the Law is front and center. It was given as an interim stage in God’s larger redemptive program. With the arrival of the “Seed,” it reached its termination point and no longer determined who was in the covenant community and who was not. Paul highlights the social implications of this change at the end of Chapter 3:

• (Galatians 3:26-29): “For you all are sons of God through the faith in Christ Jesus; For you, as many as into Christ have been baptized, have put on Christ. There cannot be Jew or Greek, there cannot be slave or free, there cannot be male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus: Now, if you are of Christ, by consequence, you are Abraham’s seed, according to promise, heirs.”

Returning to the custodianship of the Law would mean regression to an earlier stage in the plan of Redemption that was characterized by division between Jews and Gentiles, a barrier dismantled and eliminated by the sacrificial death of Jesus:

• (Ephesians 2:11-22) – “In Christ Jesus, you who at one time were afar off were made nigh by the blood of the Christ. He is our peace who made both one, and dismantled the middle wall of partition”.

Paul is stressing the oneness of God's people. The old social distinctions have no place in the One People of God since the “promised Seed” has arrived. To pressure other believers to pursue a Torah-observant lifestyle would rebuild the now outdated barriers.

One function of the Law was to keep Israelites distinct from Gentiles, and this was by design. The arrival of Jesus meant there was a new basis for defining and delimiting the people of God.

Before Christ’s advent, uncircumcised Gentiles were outside the Abrahamic Covenant, and therefore, not “sons of God.” They could only become members of the covenant community by undergoing circumcision and adopting a Torah-observant lifestyle.

The Law also distinguished between slaves and freemen, male and female. Women could not fulfill certain requirements of the Law or participate fully in corporate worship in the Temple because of periodic uncleanness from menstruation. Women were restricted to the Court of Women at a further distance from the presence of Yahweh. To once again place God’s people under the rules and regulations of the Torah would reinstitute this inequity.

Paul’s phrase in the passage “you are all” refers to Gentile and Jewish believers (“That the promise should be given to those who believe”). Before the coming of the “seed” all things were under confinement, both Jews and Gentiles. Now, both groups are no longer under the jurisdiction of sin or the Law; both have become sons of God “through the faith of Christ Jesus.”

Several times in Galatians Paul emphasizes the word “all.” Both believing Jews and Gentiles have been made “sons of God” through his faithful act on their behalf and their faith in what God did in His son. It is “in Christ” that believers become “sons of God” and “Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise.” All men and women who are of the “faith of Jesus” are heirs of the covenant promises.

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SEE ALSO:

• Rebuilding Walls - (Insisting on a Torah-observant lifestyle will result in the restoration of the old social barriers and distinctions between Jew and Gentile)

• One New Man - (By his death and resurrection, Jesus formed one covenant community - One New Man - based on faith in him, not ethnicity or nationality – Ephesians 2:11-22)

• Ekklésia, the Assembly - (The Christian use of the term church or ekklésia is derived from the Assembly of Yahweh gathered for worship as described in the Hebrew Bible)

• Un en Jésus-Christ - (Par sa Mort et sa Résurrection, Jésus a formé une nouvelle communauté d'alliance - Un Nouvel Homme - basée sur la foi en lui - Éphésiens 2: 11-22)