A Great Transition

Galatians 3:19-29

Introduction

I want you to think about different jobs that you have had over your lifetime. What did it look like when you would first show up to work? What that looked like may or may not depend on how long you had been in that position. There are two scenarios in particular that I am thinking of. One is that you would arrive and then would be told by your supervisor what you would have to do. The other is that you would arrive and just know what to do. I have had both of those. I had one job, working in a warehouse, that I had for many years. And yet no matter how long I had been working there, the first thing I would do was to look at the whiteboard and see what they had determined for me to do. They might move me around from packing to shipping to receiving but it would be based on what they decided and not what I thought was bast in the moment. But I have had other jobs in which I had much more autonomy. As a pastor, I have a sense of what needs to be accomplished in a week. I will make a list of what I would like to get done in a day and start working through that. No one else tells me that I need to start my day with sermon prep or a hospital visit. I know by instinct what I am to do. This is not just the difference between working in a warehouse and working in a church. I remember showing up at the office for my first full-time pastor job and I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I remember that I was hoping that the senior pastor would tell me what to do, at least at first.

I share this for a very specific reason. For the last number of years, I have been asking the question: what does the Christian life look like? We often put the emphasis on how one becomes a Christian but how one lives as a Christian is equally important.

If we were to compare the Christian life to a job, what kind of job would it be? Would the Christian life be about following the commands that have been given to us or would it be about living instinctively in a Christ-like way? I know which way I was taught. There were rules to be followed. When you obeyed a rule, your spiritual life went up. When you broke a rule, your spiritual life went down. While it is east to criticize that way of thinking, I actually find it attractive. I really like rules. It is one of the reasons why I enjoy the military life so much. Things are black and white. Do this and do not do that. My family could give you a lengthy description of what a rule follower I am. And yet rule following may not be the way Christianity was meant to be. I say that, knowing that will make some people uncomfortable. And I know that, because it makes me uncomfortable. So let’s turn to the Scriptures for guidance.

The Guardian

Paul has been working through the tension of obedience to the Law with a life reliant on faith. We have addressed how one becomes a Christian and that it is by faith alone but there is still the issue of how we live as Christians. There are plenty of Christians today who believed we are saved by faith alone, apart from any of our works, but that we can lose our salvation if we break too many of the rules. That is not quite the same issue that the Galatians were wrestling with. For them, it comes down to what is the guiding principle for the Christian life. What tells us if something is permissible or not? The people who came to them following Paul’s departure had a ready answer: the Law of Moses. The Law addresses most questions of life and it provides principles for situations not directly addressed in the Law.

And yet Paul argues that the righteous live by faith. Specifically, it would be wrong for Gentile Christians to adopt the Law, either as a means to be saved or as the guiding principle for living the Christian life.

As we have been talking about this, you may have noticed one of the problems. Who was it who gave the Law of Moses? According to the Scriptures, it was God. So how can the Law be bad if God gave it? Good question and the answer is that the Law is not bad.

Paul explains the role of the Law in way that was very clear to the original readers of this letter but with an illustration very foreign to our culture and time. With some explanation, it may help us.

Paul describes the childhood of a male young person in a patrician family, that is a wealthy family. Such a family would have slaves that worked in many different areas. By slaves, we should not think of slaves from the American south working in plantations. Paul describes the role of one of these slaves. The greek is the word that we get pedagogue from but this is not an educator in the modern sense. A good translation would be a guardian, one who disciplines the child in their care to keep them on the straight and narrow. There is an educational aspect but more in terms of keeping a disciplined life than of passing on knowledge. There is an ancient story that spoke of one of these guardians. The young person had eaten too much at a meal and the guardian punished the cook but was then corrected and told they should have punished the young person. There was an irony here in that you had a slave who was in charge of a free rich person. The slave even had the right to slap the person if they thought necessary. But this relationship did not last forever. At some point, the young person would come of age and would no longer be under the authority of the slave. In fact, as an adult in the family, they had authority over the slave and could punish them if they wanted.

Paul compares the role of the Law with this pedagogue or guardian. The guardian has an important job of keeping people on the straight and narrow. But at some point, there is a coming of age and that authority will come to an end. This is not an excuse to live any way that we want. The hope with the guardian was that by the time they reached adulthood, they would instinctively live the right way. The lessons were learned. In the same way, the Law should have helped shape how life looks. According to Paul, the coming of age is the coming of Christ. The Christian life is meant to be marked by spiritual maturity and not blind obedience to rules.

Freedom in Practice 

What Paul is doing here is giving us the big picture rather than the experience of one individual. If we think of the long story, we find the righteousness comes through faith at the time of Abraham, the Law is given to Moses as a guardian to help shape the foundation, and freedom comes in Christ, one in which life is guided by the same faith that saved us.

But what does that look like on the ground? Ideally, when someone puts their faith in Jesus and they become a Christian, they will be spiritually mature enough to live instinctively like a Christian. In some cases that happens but most often we need a lot of growing to take place. So how do we get to the place of just knowing how to live? It is a process as we worship and pray and submit to the will of God. I would say that there is a place for rules as well, although we need to be careful. I know for my life, I have needed to focus on certain rules. There are areas of my life that I need to impose personal rules and not just rely on how I feel in the moment. However, I have found that in many of those areas, it is no longer the rules that guide my life, but rather I have changed from the inside out over time. As we will see later in this letter, Paul himself will describe certain things that we should avoid and other things that we should strive for. The purpose of this is not to create a new Christian Law but to help us along the way as we become more spiritually mature. But ultimately, our guide is not to be a set of rules but Christ living in us and through us, changing us so that we naturally live like Christ. I will admit to you that there is part of me that would prefer the rules. The idea of just naturally doing what is right, while attractive, leaves me with a hundred ‘what ifs’. I can see so many ways this could be abused or even misunderstood. At the same time, I have seen firsthand what happens when churches adopt a rules-based faith. I suppose, trusting that a Christian life can be poured by faith rather than rules takes faith.

Conclusion

“As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” This is the end state that Paul offers for what real Christianity looks like. Not a bunch of people following rules for the sake of following rules but people who are clothed with Christ. This being clothed with Christ is not some minor accessory to our wardrobe. It is so powerful that it completely takes over other identity markers. The ethnic, economic, and gender identities were the primary categories of Paul’s day and yet he claims that being clothed in Christ is greater than any of that. 

We, as a people of God, have come of age with the coming of Christ. The Law has done its job. It has been a worthy guardian that has helped to create a moral foundation. But the time has come for us to be clothed in Christ. While there are guidelines that are helpful on our maturity process, ultimately it is about allowing the life of Christ to be lived out in us.