"Our Schoolmaster"

Galatians 3:24

When I was a boy my mother and father sent me to school under the authority of several schoolmasters. I remember them vividly. Over the years we got to know one another very well. I had several encounters with them, none of which was pleasant. But it was the job of those schoolmasters (principals) to keep me in line, educate me, and bring me to maturity. And they all did their job very well, all things considered. But today, those schoolmasters have absolutely no authority over me. I am free, totally free, from their rule, their power, and their dread. When I was a schoolboy, everytime I met my schoolmaster, I trembled with fear, because I always knew that I was justly subject to punishment. Today, when I meet one of them, everything is pleasant. In fact, I like those very schoolmasters I used to dread. I never really knew them, saw their value, appreciated, or liked them until I was free from them.

This is exactly the believer's relation to the law of God, according to the Apostle Paul. "The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under the schoolmaster." Once the law held us in terror under its rule. Everytime we met it, quilt caused us to tremble. The fear of the law motivated us, governed us and restrained us from doing much that we otherwise would have done. The law showed us our need of Christ to be our atonement and righteousness. But once we came to faith in Christ we were totally freed from the law, our schoolmaster. Now that we are free from the law, we see its value, its beauty, its usefulness, and delight in it. Now we are friends of God's law. We love it. We would never, willingly, abuse it. But we refuse, in anyway, to be brought back under the schoolmaster. Only lawless rebels live under and by the law. Free born sons live by faith, love and gratitude. Only rebels fear the law. Believers find peace in seeing the law fully satisfied in Christ.

Don Fortner