Galatians 3 v 23, 24 - Covenant law – a guardian for infants

 ‘Now persuasion and entrustment came in front. Under the law we were guarded, protected and kept watch over, enclosed and shut in together penetrating into the persuasion and entrustment intended to be uncovered, 24 so that the law has come into being our guardian and tutor of children, penetrating into His Anointed, in order that we might be judicially approved and made right wise from out of persuasion and entrustment’, (Galatians 3 v 23, 24).

Persuasion and entrustment, like that of Abraham’s, came first, long before the law. Then, for Jews, over four hundred years later, the law was added. Jews, who are God’s chosen ethnic group, came to exist under the authority of Covenant law, they ‘were guarded, protected and kept watch over, enclosed and shut in together’. Covenant law was (and is) not given as a means to divine judicial approval. It was not (and is not) an alternative to, or a means of fulfilment of, that which was made known by the announced promise of God to Abraham. The function of the law was (and is) to penetrate into persuasion and entrustment, as individuals under the law came to know their self-forfeiture and hopeless position. The function of Covenant law was (and is) to enable individuals to perceive their need of God’s promise. The law provides knowledge of self-forfeiture, it is the starting point that reveals the sinfulness of sin, and the extent and increase of sin within our fleshly constitution. The law does indeed lead wayward Jews to entrustment in God. The particular details of how God would bring His promises into effect, and what this entrustment would mean in particular, were yet to be revealed. Jews were in a state of infancy.

Covenant law came in towards Jews like a tutor or guardian of children or infants. It points out what God judicially disapproves of and indicates the penalties that certain behaviours incur. The law also provided the means of paying for and sending away self-forfeiture and loss by means of the infrastructure of Levitical priests and the various prescribed ceremonies and sacrifices. All of this constitutes an ‘outline shadow’ pointing to, and penetrating into His Anointed and judicial approval by means of hearing, persuasion and entrustment in him.  

That was the position of Jews prior to the coming of the Messiah. It remains the position of those Jews who are still not persuaded that Jesus is the Messiah and who therefore do not place their trust in him.