2022_02_28 Insight Post- Jessica Woodcock

One of my clearest memories of raising our kids (thus far), is when my oldest was just two years old. We were at my parents’ home and my two year old was happily banging away – repeatedly banging a brightly colored wooden block on my mom’s antique chest. She’d been told to stop banging a few times, but the desire to continue making that satisfying “thunk” simply outweighed her desire to do what she was told. After the second warning, I told her that if she banged the block again, she would have to sit in time out. My sweet, sweet girl was faced with a tough dilemma, I can still see her furrowed brow as she looked at the block and then at the chest, deciding if continuing to be disobedient was worth it. A few seconds later, you could see it click in her head and she triumphantly banged that bright red block one last time and then promptly set it down, walked to the bottom stair and sat down in her designated timeout spot.

In Galatians 3, Paul focuses on the importance of the Spirit and living by faith, and the diminishing of the Law. Paul writes in verses 23-25, ²³But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. ²⁴Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. ²⁵But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. Galatians 3:23-25 (nkjv)

Much like a parent with their child, God the Father knew that His children would be unable to follow Him perfectly, so He put up guard rails (the Law) to train them in the way they should go. Knowing they would often fall short He also built into His Law a process for atonement.

^21-22If such is the case, is the law, then, an anti-promise, a negation of God’s will for us? Not at all. Its purpose was to make obvious to everyone that we are, in ourselves, out of right relationship with God, and therefore to show us the futility of devising some religious system for getting by our own efforts what we can only get by waiting in faith for God to complete his promise. For if any kind of rule-keeping had power to create life in us, we would certainly have gotten it by this time. Galatians 3:21-22 (msg)

While in this example, my daughter did not do what was asked, she stayed within the framework of the law I had put into place. She decided that her pleasure was worth the sacrifice that would come after. Like the futility of trying to keep in God’s good favor by our own efforts, her actions are a simple demonstration that rules and regulations alone cannot consistently lead her actions to those I desire. A major roll of parents is to give children guardrails so that they can, in time, make good decisions on their own. As in Galatians 3:22, parents’ rules do not create life, but allow children to live with the framework of society until a time when they can make good decisions on their own.

⁶In the same way, “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.”  ⁷The real children of Abraham, then, are those who put their faith in God. ⁸What’s more, the Scriptures looked forward to this time when God would make the Gentiles right in his sight because of their faith. God proclaimed this good news to Abraham long ago when he said, “All nations will be blessed through you.”  ⁹So all who put their faith in Christ share the same blessing Abraham received because of his faith. Galatians 3:6-9

Christ’s sacrifice justifies us by faith. While the law guides us towards Christ, we are no longer bound by it, but are still included in Abraham’s blessing. Not only shall nations be blessed through us, but we have the freedom to live in relationship with Christ rather than under the law.