February 13, 2022 - INSCRIPTIONS FROM THE HEART

By Pastor Immanuel Garcera

To Be Humble and Preserve

A handful of people have asked me in my time in the church a very good question regarding the Law of the Old Testament. They asked, "if God was sending Jesus, why give the Laws in the first place?". Ah, what an age-old question; why indeed, would God give us rules to follow if He was going to send Jesus later on for us to be saved by grace through faith? The answer, according to our passage this morning, Galatians 3:15-29, is this:

"23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith."

Our passage mentions that the Law was to be a guardian until Christ came. Notice also how words like "held captive by" or "imprisoned" are used by Paul, yet to Paul, the Law is "holy & righteous" (Romans 7:12). The reason as to why the people of old were held captive by the law, imprisoned by it, is because while the Jews desired to be God's people, under the Law, they could not fulfill its demands (neither can we perfectly).

The Law was placed, in a way to preserve God's people, prepare them for Christ, and was placed to humble them. Preserve them so that they would be set apart (somewhat – not completely like the world). Prepared in that they would know sin through the Law. Finally, humbled, so that they would know, through the Law and through failure to uphold it, that they needed a Saviour. Church, I hope and pray that we don't disregard the Law, but may it remind us that we need to be set apart for God, know through it when we have sinned, and realize through it that we need Jesus.

To God be the glory!