Galatians 3:23-24

THE POSITION OF THE TRUE CHILDREN OF GOD BEFORE THE COMING OF CHRIST IS ILLUSTRATED BY THE CONTROL EXERCISED OVER CHILDREN IN THEIR FATHER'S HOUSE BY MEMBERS OF HIS HOUSEHOLD. These verses explain the position of the faithful under the Law. They are here associated with Christians by the use of the first person plural; for they too were in their generation believers in God, they belonged to the same blessed family and inherited the original promise. Yet since all Israel from the time of Moses to the Advent were subjected to the control of the Law, they too were subject to bondage. But this was really due to the watchful love of their Heavenly Father, who thus provided needful shelter and guidance, just as an earthly father places his young children during years of weakness and inexperience under the charge of household servants. τὴν πίστιν. The article, though ignored in our versions, is essential to the sense. By the coming of the faith is meant the historic fact of the Christian religion, the spread of the Gospel on earth. The term has the same objective sense as in Galatians 1:23; Galatians 3:25; Acts 6:7, and Romans 3:30, where also a clear distinction is drawn between πίστεως, faith in the abstract, and τῆς πίστεως, the faith of Christ. Obviously faith did not come with Christ, it was the most conspicuous virtue of the Jewish Church, and Abraham was but the first of many splendid examples of it. συγκλειόμενοι. MS. authority is strongly in favour of the present participle, which is also more appropriate than the perfect συγκεκλεισμένοι for describing the continuous process of legal condemnation which prevailed from generation to generation. παιδαγωγὸς. No English equivalent for this term can convey its real force, for it has no exact counterpart in an English home. The position of a nurse towards young children approaches more nearly than that of schoolmaster or tutor to the office of the παιδαγωγός, for he was a confidential dependent, usually a slave, neither qualified to instruct, nor invested with authority to control his young master, but appointed to attend on him, to safeguard him, and to report to his father any disorderly or immoral habits on which it might be necessary for the father to place a check. The Law in like manner regulated outward habits, enforced order and decency, and maintained a certain standard of morality among Israelites until in due time they became ripe for spiritual freedom. It was not the function of the Law to address itself directly to the conscience like the Prophets, or to claim spiritual authority over the whole man, but to impose a check on the open tyranny of evil, to enforce on the community a higher standard of morals, and so to foster indirectly the growth of spiritual life.