Thought for Thursday
Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. Galatians 3:24
What does the word ‘schoolmaster’ in our text mean? It depends on who you ask. The original Greek word is ‘pedagogue’, and it seems to have as many meanings as there are Greek scholars to explain it. At one end of the line are those who say the pedagogue was merely a slave who safely conducted a child to and from his lessons each day. At the other end are those who claim a pedagogue was the primary instructor at the school. Some other translations of the Bible render the word as ‘tutor’, ‘guardian’, and ‘servant’. The most likely meaning, according to some very credible experts, is the pedagogue was a servant or slave who was given responsibility for the primary education of a child. That included teaching the child basics such as reading and arithmetic, taking the child to instructors who would provide additional instruction, and making sure the child was taught proper behaviour and deportment. Regardless of how you define it, the role of the pedagogue would come to an end when the child became an adult and took up adult responsibilities. Just like the law that provides instruction is no longer needed when it has led us to Christ.
The Lord Jesus never downplayed the law, but He did make sure that those who saw the law as the ultimate end were properly corrected. He told the Pharisees, ‘Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me’ (John 5:39). Nobody knew the Scriptures like the Pharisees did, with most of them capable of reciting entire books of the Old Testament by heart. But with all their knowledge, they missed the intent of the Scriptures, to testify of Christ. And so, they rejected the One of whom the Scriptures spoke. They are like the religious world around us today that makes much of the law but misses the real message. And that message is that the law cannot be kept by sinners, but has been fulfilled in Christ.
Those who claimed to keep the law thought they were justified. Because they could never keep the law, they were never justified. But we can be justified. There is a way. Actually, there is a Person Who is the Way. We who have trusted in Jesus Christ as our Saviour are justified, because He confers His righteousness on us.
The law as our schoolmaster teaches us a valuable lesson: we cannot keep it. Not until we learn that can we move on to the glorious truth of justification by faith. – Jim MacIntosh