Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadWilliam Burkitt Notes and Observations - Galatians 3:23 - 3:23
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Before faith came, that is, before Christ came, and the doctrine of faith was preached, we were in bondage under the law; the ceremonial law was a very great bondage; their frequent going up to Jerusalem at their festivals, was burthensome; their ceremonies were many, inconvenient and chargeable; their laws for uncleanness and purifications, rendered them unconversable, at all times, with other people, and sometimes unconversable one with another; yet was the law very useful to the Jews, that so they might be prepared by it to receive the doctrine of Christ, and salvation by faith in him.
Hence it is that he calleth the law their schoolmaster to bring them unto Christ: the schoolmaster excercises authority over minors only, not over grown persons; he teaches only rudiments and first principles for beginners, not such things as require mature judgment and perfect age.
Such was the law in comparison of the gospel, and Moses with respect to Christ. Moses and the law is a rigid and severe schoolmaster, who, by whips and threats, require a hard lesson of their scholars, whether able to learn it or not: But Christ and the gospel is a mild and gentle teacher, who, by sweet promises and good rewards, invite their scholars to their duty, and guide and help them to do what of themselves they cannot do; by which means, they love both their master and their lesson, and rejoice when he is nearest to them, to direct them in their studies. As the law is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, so Christ is our great prophet that leads us to God.
Note, farther, that though the law was a good schoolmaster to the Jews in their infancy and minority; yet it has no authority over Christians now grown up to maturity. The gospel-church, that is, both believing Jews and Gentiles, being like a son come to age, believing in Christ already come, are no longer to be treated as children under the discipline of the law as a schoolmaster; for they are now under the evangelical, not Mosaical dispensation of the covenant of grace. After that faith is come: that is, Christ, the object of faith manifested, and the gospel, the doctrine of faith revealed, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.