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Gal_3:24. Accordingly the law has become our paedagogue unto Christ. As a paedagogue (see on 1Co_4:15) has his wards in guidance and training for the aim of their future majority, so the law has taken us into a guidance and training, of which Christ was the aim, that is, of which the aim was that we in due time should no longer be under the law, but should belong to Christ. This munus paedagogicum, however, resulting from Gal_3:23, did not consist in the restriction of sin,[168] or in the circumstance that the law “ab inhonestis minarum asperitate deterreret” (Winer, and most expositors, including de Wette, Baur, Hofmann, Reithmayr, but not Usteri, Hilgenfeld, Wieseler),—views decidedly inconsistent with the aim expressed in Gal_3:19, and with the tenor of Gal_3:23, which by no means expresses the idea of preparatory improvement; but it consisted in this, that the law prepared those belonging to it for the future reception of Christian salvation (justification by faith) in such a manner that, by virtue of the principle of sin which it excited, it continually brought about and promoted transgressions (Gal_3:19; Rom_7:5 ff.), thereby held the people in moral bondage (in the φρουρά , Gal_3:23), and by producing at the same time the acknowledgment of sin (Rom_3:20) powerfully brought home to the heart (Rom_7:24) the sense of guilt and of the need of redemption from the divine wrath (Rom_4:15),—a redemption which, with our natural moral impotence, was not possible by means of the law itself (Rom_3:19 f., Rom_8:3). Luther appropriately remarks: “Lex enim ad gratiam praeparat, dum peccatum revelat et auget, humilians superbos ad auxilium Christi desiderandum.” See also Weiss, bibl. Theol. p. 287 f.; Holsten, z. Evang. d. Paul. u. Petr. p. 315 f. Under this paedagogal discipline man finally cries out: ταλαίπωρος ἐγώ , Rom_7:24.
ΕἸς ΧΡΙΣΤΌΝ ] not usque ad Christum (Castalio, J. Cappellus, Morus, Rosenmüller, Rückert, Matthias), but designating the end aimed at, as is shown by ἵνα ἐκ π . δικ .; comp. Gal_3:23. Chrysostom and his successors (see Suicer, Thes. II. pp. 421, 544), Erasmus, Zeger, Elsner, and others, refer εἰς to the idea that the law ΠΡῸς ΤῸΝ ΧΡΙΣΤΌΝ , Ὅς ἘΣΤΙΝ Ὁ ΔΙΔΆΣΚΑΛΟς , ἈΠΉΓΕ , just as the paedagogi had to conduct the boys to the schools and gymnasia (Plat. Lys. p. 208 C; Dem. 313. 12; Ael V. H. iii. 21). But this introduces the idea of Christ as a teacher, which is foreign to the passage; He is conceived of as reconciler ( ἵνα ἐκ πίστ . δικ .).
ἽΝΑ ἘΚ ΠΊΣΤΕΩς ΔΙΚΑΙΩΘ .] is the divine destination, which the paedagogic function of the law was to fulfil in those who were subject to it. The emphatic ἐκ πίστεως (by faith, not by the law) shows how erroneously the paedagogic efficacy of the law is referred to the restriction of sin.
[168] Comp. Liban. D. xxv. p. 576 C: πρῶτον μὲν νομῷ παιδαγωγήσομεν αὐτῶν τὴν προαίρεσιν , ὡς ἂν τὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου ζημίαν ἀναδυόμεναι σωφρονεῖν ἀναγκάζωνται . Comp. also Simplic. Epict. 10, p. 116, ed. Schweigh.; and see Grotius on our passage.