From Law to Grace Pt. 1

Okay, so today we are in Galatians chapter 3 verses 25 through 29. Although we're not going to be dealing a whole lot with that passage this week, we're going to really get into it next week. But let's go ahead and look at the passage. I'll go ahead and read it. I'm going to start with verse 24, and I'm also going to end up with chapter 4, verse 1, just to keep everything in context.

Therefore, the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor, for you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ hath clothed yourself with Christ. 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 his promise. And then the first verse of chapter four, Now I say, as long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave, although he is owner of everything. But he is under guardians and managers until the day set by the Father.

The last half of chapter 3 and the first half of chapter 4, Paul introduces us to the fantastic life which we have as believers in Christ. That phrase in verse 27, having clothed yourself with Christ, sums up our position in Christ. We have been clothed with Christ. And of course as we get into Galatians, then later on into Romans, we're going to find out exactly what all that means.

Paul will take us from where we once were, back in Galatians 3.23, Before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law.

And he's going to take us all the way up to our position now in Christ, which is in Galatians 4.7. Therefore, you are no longer under a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. We are taken out of slavery under the law, and into an inheritance with all the blessings we have in Christ. Everything that Christ has, we have.

And I'll probably mention this later, but when it comes to inheritance, well, we don't have to wait till we die, although in fact we have already died to ourselves. But most people think when my dad dies, I'm going to, yes. is that there's no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. That's right. Right. And everything that we have in Christ, we have right now. We don't have to wait for like a normal family where the parents die to get the inheritance. The moment we believe, we have all that. We are in Christ. But first, a quick review.

From 319 through verse 25, Paul is making an argument for the temporary and inferior nature of the Mosaic Law. It has nothing to do with salvation in the New Testament, and it had nothing to do with salvation in the Old Testament. The Mosaic Law was temporary. Verse 19 of chapter 3, it was added because of transgressions until the seed, that is Christ, to whom the promise referred had come. It was not only temporary, but it was also inferior.

It was inferior because it was given through inferior mediators, angels and Moses, as opposed to Christ, who is both God and man. when it was given on Mount Sinai to angels and Moses. Moses and the angels was the mediator. But what we have in Christ is given to us by God, not any other mediator except Christ. In verse 19, the law was given to angels entrusted to a mediator. A mediator, however, implies more than one party, but God is one.

Everything we have is what God has done, has nothing to do with our side of it. It is also inferior in that it could not impart life. Verse 21, For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. The law's purpose is seen in verse 22. But scripture has locked up everything under the control of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.

Now, this morning, verses 23 and chapter 3 through chapter 4 verse 7 Paul compares the promise to Abraham which is grace to the Mosaic law which is works and he uses the illustration of the Roman family in the first century he uses different aspects of the Roman family structure to teach the spiritual life of the believer compared to the Mosaic law We need to understand the relationship between a slave and freedom, between a tutor and a son, a child and an adult son, two different things, adoption and the family inheritance.

For this, we're going to need to go down a rabbit trail. I keep bringing up these rabbit trails. We're going to ignore our passage today because we need to get some background information. So we're using that rabbit trail. There's another word for rabbit trail.

Anacoluthon. Yeah. Thank you, Heidi. I can never, I can never remember that word. You know, at my age. What is it? Anacoluthon. Anacoluthon. Why can't you remember that? Because rabbit trail is easier. Yeah, rabbit trail is easier. Also, my memory, it's like the old computers. My random access memory is getting smaller and smaller. And so I need something better than that.

You know how your mate, you have all these enduring words for them, like sweetheart, honey, sugar pie? Jay. Jay. Jake, your cat, right? My enduring word for my girl is external hard drive. She's so romantic. She is definitely my external hard drive. Every time I need something, I go to her.

Anyway, well, let's go on. So instead of dealing with scripture, we're going to go down this rabbit trail, and it's going to be a quick introduction to Bible study. Is it going to be one that we can share with people? I've been thinking while you're talking, I know I hate to interrupt you, but it makes me so sad that people don't know this. And it's in plain sight. Well, let me put it this way. Normally, this type of study isn't something you share in normal churches.

It's something you learn in Bible college or seminary. Or Holly Hills. I really believe that Holly Hills, most everybody in here, if not everybody, is at a point in their Christian life where we can share this and it's profitable for all of us. In a lot of churches, I wouldn't even be talking about this, but we're going to do this quick Bible study and I want to do it simply because it's going to help us understand next week's passage and also chapter 4 of Galatians. So Bible study methods, I call it ICE, which isn't what I, I didn't come up with that name. A lot of theologians use the same thing.

And Donald Trump. Donald Trump. Okay, well, in that case, it's not... We're going to take our thoughts captive. It's not to be confused with our immigration policies. Oh, okay. Okay? Oh, okay, this is good. We needed that clarification. So here we are.

Isagogic, categories, and exegesis. Those are three words that most people don't really spend much time on. And if this seems a little bit too much for you, just go ahead and tune out. But I would recommend Sue, if Wayne falls asleep and starts snoring, go ahead and elbow him in the side so he doesn't disturb the rest of us. OK? Anyway, isagogics, what is it?

It's introducing study, introductory study, the background, the author, the audience, the customs, and the purpose of the book. Categories, systematic study, grouping doctrines across all of scripture, and then exegesis, that's drawing meaning from the text, getting right into the text, looking at every word, looking at every tense, understanding exactly what the word is trying to tell us. ICE is an acronym for Isogogics, Categories, and Exegesis that forms an overall method for interpreting scripture. This is normally, like I said earlier, this is normally what pastors really need to pay attention to in their study to bring the word to their congregation. When studying the passage of scripture, it's important to consider all three for a proper understanding of whatever text we are studying. We're going to start with the last, Exegesis. And we're going to work our way back to Isagogues. And the reason I'm going backwards is Isagogues has everything to do with our passage of scripture. Exegesis. To pull meaning from the original language, Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, paying attention to the words, the grammar, and the immediate context so that translation reflects what God actually said. It comes from the Greek word literally means to lead out. The prefix x means out of, and the verb is to guide or to explain. Egomai, exegomai is the word. The opposite is eisegesis, which is leading one's own idea into a text.

How many times have you thought to yourself, I know that God really says this, and I'm going to go find me a verse that proves that. That's the wrong way to study the Word of God. A lot of people read into the text whatever they want, wanted to mean.

A couple of principles. The normal literal meaning is usually the proper interpretation of a text. Don't look for deeper meanings or allegorize a text without a good reason to do so. Here's a good example. A few Wednesday nights ago in our John study, we went through John 3, 5.

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. And we spent a lot of time saying, what exactly does water mean? Patty, she said, hey, we're talking about physical birth and spiritual birth. Sounds to me like water is talking about physical birth. And I believe she was right. Why are we looking for a deeper meaning for what water means? Because of the context, the normal meaning of water would relate to physical birth.

When comparing scripture with scripture, let the easily understood texts interpret the more complex ones. You're going to come across texts that you're not quite sure what they mean. But you're going to find other texts referring to the same thing and they're easily understood. So go with that easily understood meaning. Here's another example. Just this last Wednesday night, we're studying John chapter 3. We didn't quite get to this verse because we ran out of time, but I'm sure Mike would have wanted to get to it because it would have been in the chapter.

He who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey The sun will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. Now what does it mean if you don't obey? That sounds like it's the opposite of belief. But let's not read into it any more than we should. The word there is believe us not. to not obey the gospel message so you take other scriptures there's just hundreds of scriptures that say faith and faith alone not by anything we need to do so let's not take this verse where that word could mean obey and change our whole system of thinking. Let the more easily understood verses interpret the complex ones. So when it says, but he who does not obey, that means to not obey the gospel message, is the way I would take it.

And we'll probably talk about that this Wednesday. And Mike might say something else. I don't know. Not only do we examine every word in the passage, but we must also consider the context surrounding the text. In our Bible studies today, when we study the Bible today, we will take weeks or months to go through a book in the Bible. As a matter of fact, in the New Testament church, when they took a letter or a book, the whole book was read in one setting. We don't do that today, obviously, because we don't know the language that well, we don't know the customs, we don't know who the people was written to, so we take a whole lot longer.

We started Galatians, I think back in March, and we're not even halfway through it yet. But in the New Testament, during the New Testament times in the first century, they got a hold of the book and they read through the whole thing. That's why we are encouraged to read through the whole epistle of Galatians repeatedly. This is something we pushed way back when we started, but I hope that we're still doing the same thing. As we study our lesson from week to week, we need to keep it in context with the whole book.

Without going into detail, Galatians 3.29 illustrates this perfectly.

And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, heirs according to the promise. Promise? What promise? Well, to understand this, we've got to go back three weeks when we studied 3.14. in order that Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham, might come to the Gentiles so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

This is the reason we spend time in a review every week. But it's also important to look ahead. So many times we only want to review But we don't want to look ahead to see what the scripture is having to say. In 329, the promise of inheritance can only be understood by going back to 318, for the inheritance is based on law. It is no longer based on a promise. But it can't be fully appreciated without going forward to chapter 4, verse 7, where we read, Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

So we cannot divorce particular passages from either what has gone on before or what's coming up in the future. We've got to keep the context Keeping all this in context, that's what exegesis is all about. 2 Timothy 2.15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. Remember, if you take the text out of context, you end up with a con job. Okay? To be effective students, one needs to be grounded in what we will also call biblical categories, what the whole scripture is teaching us. Categories.

Comparing scripture with scripture to build a full doctrine of biblical truth. Comparing every bit of God's word to fully understand what a passage is saying. We compare every pertinent passage with each other and let the easily understood text, which I mentioned earlier, interpret the more complex one, progressively building truth upon truth. You just don't willy-nilly go through the scriptures saying, hey, this is true, but back there, it wasn't true back there, or it wasn't true up here.

We need We need to come up with categories, and we do that. Categories is like assembling a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle with a picture on the box top. One passage is a piece while the complete Bible becomes the picture. Other terms for categories would be doctrine or systematic theology.

Those are two words that people don't like to use in churches today. Go to Holly Hill's website and you will find a doctrinal statement of what our church believes. Many churches today are actually doing away with the doctrinal statement in order to be more inclusive. Get rid of that doctrinal statement and we'll be able to get more people in no matter what they believe. That's how they feel. There is no longer just one way. And I use this term one way in many different ways. Christ is the only way. And in Bible study methods, ICE, we use categories to organize what God teaches us.

Never underestimate the importance of the local church. And I have asterisks on each end of this because this is very important. Don't underestimate the importance of the local church and the spiritual gift of our elders in our study of God's word. God called the local church to edify the saints. And he called elders, or you might call them pastor teachers, in order to bring that. Their job isn't to run the church. Their job isn't to take care of what Wayne and Sue do. They do such a great job taking care of the business of the church. Their job is to study God's word and impart it to the congregation. And we need to be praying for our elders continually, every day, actually. That brings us to the eye in ice, which we bring up because it has everything to do with our passage in Galatians.

Eisegagix, to interpret the text in its historical, cultural, prophetic setting, the time, the place, the writer, the audience, and the customs. Isagogics means to introduce or to lead. Is means into and, again, to lead. Isogogics. Isogogics demands consideration of the time in which a passage was written as well as the background and the customs and the author's intended audience. When we started our study in Galatians, that first study we used Isogogics, although I never mentioned the word, in the first lesson. We normally do this starting all of the books of the Bible.

The what, where, when, and why of the book. It's very important. Now in the last half of chapter 3 and the first half of chapter 4, Paul uses a comparison of a Roman family to teach Bible doctrine. So now you see why I have come up with everything I have said before. We need to understand the custom of what was going on with the Roman family in the first century.

Starting in Galatians 3.23 and extending down through 4.7, and actually further on into the book, we see certain phrases relating to family life in the first century.

In 3.23, we were kept in custody. 324, has become our tutor. 326, you are all sons. 41, the heir is a child. 41, different at all from a slave. 42, guardians and managers. 45, adoption as sons. 47, no longer a slave. and resulting in chapter 4 verse 7, then an heir through God.

All of these phrases have to do with the family life of the Roman family being illustrated to show our relationship with Christ. Unless we understand the Roman family structure in the first century, we will never fully grasp what we have in the family of God and our position in Christ. This is where Isagogics comes in. Paul used the analogy of the Roman family to illustrate the relationship between law and faith.

In comparison, Paul mixes three different principles, that of slavery, that of the pedagogue, which is the tutor, and that of adoption. Now slavery, actually it's used 12 times in the book of Galatians, and most of those times are in chapter 4. It's used 14 times in the book of Romans, and most of those are in chapter 6. Much could be said concerning slavery in the Bible, but it is important to acknowledge that slavery was never condoned in scripture, but it was allowed as a fact of life. both Romans and Jews owned slaves.

Now there's a difference. The difference between the Roman and Jewish slavery, well one thing, the Roman slaves considered their slaves as property or a thing, not a person. Jewish slaves were more of an indentured servant. Who knows what an indentured servant is? Can anybody give me a Good definition? Don't they pay off their, by their service? Yes, yes. Although this wasn't true for all slaves, but many of the Jewish slaves were slaves because they sold themselves to someone to pay off a debt. And that's what condensured service, we have a lot of those today.

We won't go into that. When Paul speaks of slavery here in Galatians, he is referring to the Roman system and how it relates to the family. When a young child was born or adopted into the family, he was no different than a slave. It wasn't until the father proclaimed him as an adult son, usually at the age of 14, did he receive all the privileges and inheritance of a family member.

Yes? You know, Bob, there's a principle here, too, of parenting in that ultimately young children are under law, are they not? Yes. And having had five children, we had so many because we needed to learn so many lessons. Ultimately, each child kind of transitioned from this legal kind of scenario or atmosphere to grace or faith. And I think there are the families well represented in that principle.

And going along with what you just said, I think it would be well for us today to start treating our children the same way. You know, our young children They say that it's not fair. They do say it's not fair. But, you know, I don't really believe young children should have all these freedoms. We heard that a lot. It's not fair. Yeah. And we said, you know, life is not fair. Life is not fair.

I just wanted to say... What's that? I just wanted to say that out here in Zoom land, it's difficult to hear Bob Echol. I got the mic on. It's on. Okay. Okay. I don't think you can repeat what I said. Well, basically saying young children, they shouldn't have all these freedoms and all these rights that mature people have. And we're really We're really doing a disservice to our families and to our nation by letting all these young people just control everything. I think it's crazy.

The Toga Varelas, that's what, that ceremony is what took place when a Roman boy transitioned from childhood to manhood. It granted him civic rights in the community, many freedoms, responsibilities, and all that the family had, including the family inheritance.

Up until that time, he was nothing more than a slave. As a matter of fact, well, the ceremony involved replacing the child's garment with what's called the boa, with the father's white toga. Before this, the child was no better than the slave. And we'll see that the tutor, usually a slave, was actually higher in status than that young child.

And this is going to come out in chapter 4, verse 1, which I think Miles is going to tell us all about. Let's move on to the pedagogue, or the tutor. In Roman culture, The pedagogue, the tutor, was not a school teacher in the modern sense, but a trusted slave owned by the father, assigned to care for the son and supervise his education. His function was both practical and moral. Here's the key functions of the pedagogue or tutor.

He was a guardian and an escort. He accompanied the boy wherever he went, especially to and from school and wherever he went. He ensured the child's safety in public and protected him from bad influences. He supervised the boy's behavior. He kept watch over the boy's behavior, correcting manners, his speech, and his conduct. He supervised the boy's education. While not his teacher, he made sure the boy studied properly, memorized lessons, and applied himself. He was also the boy's moral compass.

He was to guard, supervise, and discipline a child until he reached maturity, acting as a moral custodian more than an academic instructor. So, many times you hear, well a tutor, that's just a school teacher. No, it was much, much more than that. The role of the tutor became a metaphor for strict discipline that guides someone until maturity.

The young son was actually in subjection to the slave until the toga virilis. Then at that time, the adult son was no longer under the authority of the tutor. On his 14th birthday, the child became an adult. At that point, he has all the rights and privileges of adulthood, and he is now in control of the Pentagon.

So Bob, don't you think, when I looked at this passage a couple of weeks ago, I thought that guardian was the best translation, rather than tutor or schoolmaster. I like the King James schoolmaster term, but it doesn't accurately reflect this job description. I think if you look at verse 2 of chapter 4, If you're using the NASB, it actually says guardian. This is exactly how Paul used the term in chapter 3, verses 24 and 25.

The law was a tutor leading us to Christ, but once maturity, that is faith, arrived, that supervision was no longer needed. And this is what we need to understand as we study this passage. We need to understand this custom of the Roman tutor. Therefore, the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ so that we may be justified by faith. The law functioned like a strict guardian. There's that word. Pointing out sin, disciplining, restraining, and showing the need for Christ. We're talking about the law here. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. Faith in Christ marks a shift from childhood under discipline of the law to adulthood as sons and heirs.

And then this third point, adoption. Adoption in the Roman culture was far different than what we think of adoption today. Roman adoption was rarely about giving an orphan a home. Instead, it was mainly about family continuity, inheritance, and political alliances. We think of adoption today as if we don't have any children, we'll go out and adopt a child. That's what we think of adoption. But adoption in in the Roman family is completely different. Roman adoption was related to adulthood and inheritance. There are two aspects of Roman adoption. The first one is what we hold to today.

Well, I take that back. The first one, even the natural born son went through the adoption process. Even the son that was born into the family at the Toga Drillis was actually adopted as an adult. He became a full-fledged member of the family. In Roman adoption, the second aspect is one could adopt a man from the outside, the family, making him a legal heir of the family.

We don't normally think of adoption like that. But it's very important in our study of Galatians and the Book of Romans to understand this. This would happen when a father had no son or he felt his son was not fit for the position. Under the succession of emperors in Rome, many times the son was not qualified to take over as Caesar or emperor, so they would adopt someone else, another man, completely apart from that family. While Judaism had favorable attitudes toward fostering and raising children, it lacked the formal legal concept of adoption found in Roman law.

Roman adoption transferred a person completely from their old family into the new family. This meant a new identity, new rights, and full inheritance. Now this is where we come into study in our passage. Roman adoption allowed Paul to illustrate how Gentiles, once outside of God's family, could be fully included with all the privileges and be true heirs of God's family. Paul used Roman adoption to illustrate three main theological truths. Number one, we have a new identity, just as one Just as the one adopted lost all ties to his own family, believers lose all ties to the bondage of sin and the law's condemnation.

2. Inheritance Adoption guarantees the sharing of everything that Christ has. The moment we are believers, we are in Christ. We have everything that Christ has. Assurance. Adoption was legally binding in Roman law. Paul uses this to stress the unshakable security of the believer's relationship with God. Yes? But we still have one thing that Christ did not have. An old sin nature. Yeah. That's true. I don't want to talk about my old sin nature.

Adoption also illustrates, well let me back up, Roman adoption gave Paul the perfect cultural and legal metaphor to explain how God makes all believers as children, both Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female, granting them full status and inheritance and security in Christ. Adoption also illustrates how Gentile believers are now included in God's family alongside Jews. And this is very important because we're talking to Galatians who had a problem bringing the Gentiles in. The Roman family perfectly illustrates our relationship with Christ. From minority to maturity, the law was temporary like a guardian, From slavery to sonship, believers move from bondage to full heirship, from distant to intimacy. God is not distant. He's not a distant ruler. He's Abba Father.

Yes. I think it's also necessary to iterate the fact that the adoptee, the son that was adopted, was not adopted on his own merit. He was not adopted by his own choice. It was the father's choice. That's right. That's right. It's the same thing with us. As a matter of fact, when I talked about adoption of the natural son, this usually took place at age 14, but it was totally up to the father. It could have been at 14, or it could have been earlier, or it could have been later. It was all dependent upon the father. That's good.

So, next week, We're already over. With Roman customs in mind, isagogics, that's a word which you either get used to or completely forget about, we will exegete this passage. Let me go through it one more time, because this is what we're going to be dealing with next week. Therefore, the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under the tutor.

For you are all sons of God, through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female, for you all are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, heirs according to the promise. And then in chapter four, verse one, now I say, as long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave, although he is owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father.

Now you notice that I went a little bit further than what our passage said, but I don't think you can really understand our passage unless you are acquainted with what goes on further on in the book of Galatians. So I encourage you to go out there and read through the whole book of Galatians again, so you can get a great idea of what we're talking about in this one passage.

I've opened it up to questions, but we've got to get these ladies out there for the music. Any comments? Thanks, Bob. Yeah, good information. Alright, so let's go ahead and close in prayer. Wayne, do you want to close us? Heavenly Father, we just thank You so much for the truth that You have in Your Word, and that we can understand it as we delve into the words that Bob has brought to us today. And we just thank You now for this class, in Jesus' name, Amen.