Imperishable Inheritance

The Personal Tutor View

Another erroneous interpretation of this passage is the personal tutor view. This view views Gal 3:23-25 as referring about the individual experience of every believer.¹ That means that the [Mosaic] law leads every believer to Christ. While it is true that law can lead to an awareness of sin and need for the Messiah, but there is disconnect on how this passage is used by Paul.² Beyond the question of what covenant law leads the believer to Christ at their specific point in redemptive history, it is clear from the next few chapters of Galatians that the source of a "tutor" is now the Holy Spirit in the New Covenant. The source of sanctification changes from the Mosaic Law in the Old Covenant to the Spirit in the New.

The Redemptive-Historical View

The redemptive-historical view on this passage is, I believe, the true summation of Paul's lesson on the role of the Mosaic Law against the Judaizers who sought to bind the Galatian Christians. Paul is not saying that only 2/3 of the law has passed, and he is also not saying that the Mosaic Law leads every person to Christ throughout God's economies. In contrast to these two positions, this view sees Paul as explaining a redemptive-historical shift in terms of law.³ Let's revisit the passage.

Paul starts by saying that righteousness was never meant to be conferred through the Mosaic Law (3:21), and that the Law (Scripture) shut up everyone under sin while looking forward to the promised Messiah (3:22). He then extrapolates on that last passage by stating that before this "faith" came that "we" or the Israelites were kept in custody until the faith was to be revealed which is the Messiah (3:23). The Mosaic Law then become a tutor to lead Old Covenant Israel to Christ, and this lesson was imparted so that they may be justified by faith (3:24). In other words, the Mosaic Law had an eschatological focus that has now been realized and fulfilled in Christ. This is the very teaching that Jesus espouses in Matthew 5 when He claims He came "not to abolish the Law but to fulfill" (Mat 5:17).⁴ The word translated 'tutor' παιδαγωγός is a slave-attendant whose duties including seeing a child until their time of maturity. F.F. Bruce extrapolates:

"As the slave-attendant kept the boy under his control until he came of age, so the law kept the people of God in leading-strings until, with the coming of faith, they attained their spiritual majority in Christ."⁵

The translation provided by the NASB: "Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ" is misleading (the italicized text being inferred). The preferable rendering of the passage ημων γεγονεν εις χριστον is more properly rendered by the ESV as: "until Christ came" with the "until" having the meaning of a temporal force.⁶ The focus of Paul's analysis is that the time of the law was temporary to show old covenant Israel her need for justification.

The next verse is important to understand Paul's redemptive-historical analysis of the Mosaic Law. After saying that the Mosaic Law led Israel to Christ, then what became of the Law you Galatian Christians? Paul's lesson is that the Judaizers want them to subscribe to something that's purpose has passed! Paul says, 'But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor." (3:25). The appearing of the Messiah in the "fullness of time" (4:4) has rendered the Mosaic Law's purpose in redemptive-historical culminated and released. That is why Paul can finish the chapter with a startling lesson in God's soteriological plan for all nations.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, heirs according to promise. (3:28-29)

Paul's argument throughout this chapter is that to be a child of Abraham all one has to do, is not be circumcised and subscribe to the Mosaic Law, but only believe in the Messiah. The Law served only a temporary, pedagogical role in God's redemptive history. The Galatian Christians needed to understand that if they were to subject themselves to the yoke of the Mosaic Law that they would, in fact, be going backwards in redemptive history!⁷ The Mosaic Law is presented by Paul as a parenthetical time between the Abrahamic and New Covenants.

1. One of the most pronounced advocates of this view is the evangelist Ray Comfort. [Back]
2. I believe this issue (the role of law in evangelism) is treated fairly by Steve Lehrer in New Covenant Theology: Questions Answered (Independently Published), pg. 127ff. [Back]
3. By stating that I hold a "redemptive-historical view" does not exclude other opinions on the issue from maintaining such a contrast. Most notably is Geerhardus Vos in his monumental work Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (7th ed.; Carlisle: Banner of Truth Trust, 1975). Regarding the permanence of the Decalogue he says: "If we may apply the term ‘Christian' thus retrospectively to the Decalogue, we should say, what it contains is not general but Christian ethics" (pg. 132). [Back]
4. This text is a pivotal one in understanding the Christian's relation to the Mosaic Law. After much exegesis it would seem to have the same manner of "fulfillment" as the first few chapters of Matthew strive to prove. The Mosaic Law pointed forward to Christ, and with His advent He has "fulfilled" (πληρόω) the Mosaic Law. I like the interpretation that stresses the "until all is accomplished" meaning His life and death on the cross, but even that interpretation has its pitfalls. For an even-handed analysis of this text see Fred Zaspel's exegesis in New Covenant Theology, pgs 77-123. [Back]
5. Bruce, F.F. The Epistle to the Galatians, pg. 182. See similar analysis by Phillip Ryken in Galatians (New Jersey: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 2005), pg. 138-41. It should be noted that both Bruce and Ryken adopt both a "salvation-historical view" but also see the lesson as applicable on an individual level thereby combining the personal tutor and redemptive-historical view. As I argue in this paper, Paul is not talking about an individual experience but explaining solely the redemptive-historical shift with the appearance of the Messiah. [Back]
6. F.F. Bruce. Galatians. pg. 183. [Back]
7. 'Paul is trying to convince the Gentile Christians in Galatia of the foolishness of adopting Jewish practices by showing that the time when those practices were necessary has now passed' (Douglas Moo, "The Law of Christ", pg. 361). [Back]