"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