I was in a conversation regarding whether my interpretation of Gal. 3:19-25 is a good interpretation or not. Here are the contents of that conversation:
http://spirited-tech.com/Council/index.php/2020/12/10/why-then-the-law/
19 Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. 20 Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.
21 Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. 22 But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.
BigBear:
“In one sense the law itself… remains holy, righteous, and good as a divinely sanctioned mandate, has become one of these evil powers insofar as it serves as an instrument of condemnation, judgment, and death.”
If I’m understanding your view correctly, do you mean to say that the OT law does not condemn us before God? If so, then what does? By what standard are we condemned…?
Perhaps a line by line interpretation would help, if you hold to that “the law” means the entire OT law, then how would you interpret these verses? Wouldn’t they suggest that the law ended?
(The previous three verses speak of the Law as coming after the original Abrahamic covenant. Considering the following I would think it would therefore be set for a specific time of authority) 3:9
9 Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.
3:19
Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.
TheSire:
Perhaps a line-by-line interpretation would help. If you hold that “the law” means the entire Old Testament law, then how would you interpret these verses? Wouldn’t they suggest that the law has ended?
The previous three verses speak of the Law as coming after the original Abrahamic covenant. Considering the following, it seems that the Law was set for a specific time of authority:
Galatians 3:19: “Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.”
Galatians 3:23-24: “Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.”
The law isn’t in conflict with the promises to Abraham because the Law was never meant to give life. The Law’s function of condemning us under its curse is over (given we have Christ or faith) and it is no longer meant to separate Israel from Gentiles. These are no longer the functions of the Law. It still remains the moral standard, but we’re freed from its curse.
This is similar to Romans 7, depending on your interpretation.
I think Galatians 3:19 explains why God gave the Law and why it isn’t contradictory to the promises given to Abraham. Paul uses the angels or rendered intermediaries to highlight that God unilaterally gave the promise, making it irrevocable, given the assurance that God is one (The Shema). The phrase “it was added because of transgressions” is challenging because it could mean to provoke in order to point to Christ, but others think it was to condemn sin and keep Israel’s ethnic purity. I lean towards the latter interpretation.
Faith was operative in the Old Testament, so it isn’t entirely chronological but reflects the incoming revelation of the Son poured out on His followers. Without Christ, we are under the teacher of the law, but Christ redeemed us from that.
BigBear:
“function of condemning us under its curse”, could you elaborate on what this curse and condemnation mean? It sounds like a rather abstract concept.
It seems to me that you make a distinction between the Law as prescription, and the law functioning as a “curse”. I don’t see that in the text, the text speaks of “the law” being added until “the offspring” (Christ should come) and making us “Imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed”. “The Law” seems quite clearly to me to be whole and undivided in its nature.
Likewise, it says “The law” is a “guardian”, not the aspect of it that condemns, or is a curse (notwithstanding the lack of such a distinction).
TheSire:
The “under” language starts earlier in the chapter, and we see this idea in Romans as well, appealing to the larger Pauline corpus. We see this aspect of the Law earlier in Galatians 3:
“For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.’ Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’ But the law is not of faith, rather ‘The one who does them shall live by them.’ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’—so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:10-14).
The idea here is that the Law condemns people because they violate God’s commands but is completely unable to grant life, leaving us in our sins with no hope. But Christ comes and becomes cursed for us, thus ending this condemnation.
Furthermore, it is hard to understand all the pro-law statements in the New Testament. I’ve argued that many texts teach the ongoing authority of the Law.
The problem arises if this is interpreted as prescribing the Law as something to live by, then only non-progressives, dispensationalists, or those adhering to New Covenant theology are not Judaizers. Anyone that holds to covenant theology would be guilty of putting people under bondage.
It also seems that you may be making Paul’s point too chronological in verse 25. I take Dr. Keener’s perspective to be correct:
“In God’s purpose, this particular role of the law ended for God’s children when a more adequate means of fulfilling the promise arrived—namely, when this way of faith came (3:23, 25), when Christ came (3:24). Faith was already part of God’s plan before the law (3:6), but now that the promise is fulfilled in Christ, faith has been revealed (3:23). Paul’s term for revealed (ἀποκαλύπτω, apokaluptō) is the same term he used for God’s Son being revealed in him in 1:16, as the revelation of Jesus Christ in 1:12. Paul speaks here not of individuals’ experience but rather of the course of salvation history. Faith refers to trusting God for salvation, rather than referring to ‘the faith’ as a title for the Christian message or beliefs per se. Again, this experience is not novel in salvation history (3:6), but its total sufficiency, because of the completed revelation of its object, Jesus Christ and his salvific work, has supplanted any interim arrangements” (Keener, Craig S. Galatians, p. 289).
If the Law as prescription was always in conflict with the promise, then it seems that the Law and the promise would have been inconsistent with one another at the same time. That contradicts Paul’s claim in verses 19-21 that they were never in conflict.
It seems rather that it was the Law as a means to acquire life that conflicted with the promise, as it could only bring death.
Jimmy Stephens:
One of the biggest problems that needs to be resolved if you want to reject some sort of covenantalist approach is the use of the law in the prophets. The prophets act as prosecutors against Israel for their “marital” unfaithfulness, their covenant infidelity. Israel broke the law.
However, there is no clean clear distinction between their infidelity in terms of OT law and infidelity in terms of universal moral condemnability. Often the prophets call out the nation of Israel in terms of her heart problem.
How can an abrogatable law condemn sin qua sin? If it can be abrogated, it can at best condemn manifestations of sin, not sin itself. But if it can touch moral universals, then it itself has at least some universal element.
In general, I’ve never understood how in the world non-covenantalists make sense of meta-ethics. If the law reveals God’s character and God’s character is unchanging: let me summarize how easily you’ll see where this goes.
-takes a breath-
Duh
Now if the law in its entirety can be dropped, then that’s just to say it never communicated anything about God at all.
The Council 