not under the law

"Not Under the Law"
A Sermon on Galatians 3

Todd Bordow

Galatians 3 is the Apostle Paul's most definitive statement as to the purpose of the Law and the distinction between the law and faith. Such a radical change has occurred in the coming of Christ that Paul can describe the time of the Mosaic Law in verse 23 as a time "before faith came." In verse 25 he says that now that faith has come we are no longer under a disciplinarian, which he has just described as the Law.

Of course you are also familiar with Paul's statement in Romans 6 that we are not under the law but under grace (verse 14). We must allow the full force of these statements to hit us, and not allow Paul's words to die the death of a thousand qualifications.

In Galatians 3 when Paul speaks of the Law he is speaking of the Law of Moses in its entirety. The theologians of the middle ages, men like Thomas Aquinas, came up with a three-fold distinction of the Law. These distinctions have come to be known as the ceremonial law, the civil law, and the moral law. Although the Reformers criticized many of the traditional doctrines of the Roman Catholic church, they accepted this medieval division of the Law.

Now while these distinctions are helpful, and you can find each of these types of laws in Moses, we cannot read these later distinctions into Galatians 3. When Paul speaks of the Law he is speaking of the entire Law that Moses received from God on Mount Sinai. The Law does not divide itself into these three parts. Nowhere in the Law do we have the phrase, "this is now the civil law," or, "this is the moral law." The Law was the Law.

The same is true in Galatians 3. Paul does not qualify his words by saying, "we are not under the ceremonial law," or, "we are not under the civil law." He clearly and simply states in verse 25 that we are not under the Law.

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