Our passage today explains that the Law served a very useful purpose, namely to provide a guideline for right living between the time when the promise was made to Abraham and when it was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. An analogy pictures life for the people of God before Jesus Christ came as like a child (Greek paidos) in custody of a tutor (Greek paidagogos). In Greek culture, a ‘paidagogos’ functioned as a personal life-trainer for a child, and had authority over the child until it became an adult.

So how was the Law a ‘paidagogos’ for the people of God? It taught them the holiness of God, a reflection of the standard that would make a person acceptable to God. It demonstrated to the Jews (and to all people) that we all fall hopelessly short of being like God. Ever since the Garden of Eden, humankind has endeavored to be like God (Genesis 3:5). The irony is that since we are created in God’s image, we are already like Him by virtue of our creation. So the effort to become like Him is futile, and can only be seen as a rejection of God’s pattern already in us, and therefore a rebellion against our Creator. Adam and Eve’s taking of the fruit was tantamount to settling for a godlikeness of human making, rather than of divine origin.

The Law inherently teaches that godliness must come from some other means than by keeping the Law. Because that proves disastrous, it is a constant reminder of our failure. The godliness God desires is a righteousness that is given to us—His righteousness. And that is available to all who believe, not just to those under the Law. The advantage of the Jews is that they had the tutor (that is, the Law) while the Gentiles did not. Now that faith has come through Jesus Christ, like a child reaching adulthood, why would one go back to the Law, like an adult going back to a ‘paidagogos’? Furthermore, why demand other adults take on the ‘paidagogos.’ Why then should Gentile Christians who have already come to faith in Christ take on the tutor of the Law? That would be absurd.

Praise God, the Law did what it was supposed to do—it led people to the need for a new kind of righteousness, one that comes through faith in Christ. This is true in particular for the Jewish people, but also for all people who have had a sense of religious and moral law.