Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster - The word rendered schoolmaster (παιδαγωγὸς paidagōgos, whence the word "pedagogue"), referred originally to a slave or freedman, to whose care boys were committed, and who accompanied them to the public schools. The idea here is not that of instructor, but there is reference to the office and duty of the "paedagogus" among the ancients. The office was usually intrusted to slaves or freedmen. It is true, that when the "paedagogus" was properly qualified, he assisted the children committed to his care in preparing their lessons. But still his main duty was not instruction, but it was to watch over the boys; to restrain them from evil and temptation; and to conduct them to the schools, where they might receive instruction. See, for illustrations of this, Wetstein, Bloomfield, etc. In the passage before us, the proper notion of pedagogue is retained. In our sense of the word schoolmaster, Christ is the schoolmaster, and not the Law. The Law performs the office of the ancient pedagogue, to lead us to the teacher or the instructor. That teacher or instructor is Christ. The ways in which the Law does this may be the following:

(1) It restrains us and rebukes us, and keeps us as the ancient pedagogue did his boys.

(2) the whole law was designed to be introductory to Christ. The sacrifices and offerings were designed to shadow forth the Messiah, and to introduce him to the world.

(3) the moral law - the Law of God - shows people their sin and danger, and thus leads them to the Saviour. It condemns them, and thus prepares them to welcome the offer of pardon through a Redeemer.

(4) it still does this. The whole economy of the Jews was designed to do this and under the preaching of the gospel it is still done. People see that they are condemned; they are convinced by the Law that they cannot save themselves, and thus they are led to the Redeemer. The effect of the preached gospel is to show people their sins, and thus to be preparatory to the embracing of the offer of pardon. Hence, the importance of preaching the Law still; and hence, it is needful that people should be made to feel that they are sinners, in order that they may be prepared to embrace the offers of mercy; compare the note at Romans 10:4.

The law was our schoolmaster - Ὁ νομος παιδαγωγος ἡμων γεγονεν εις Χριστον· The law was our pedagogue unto Christ. The παιδαγωγος, pedagogue, is not the schoolmaster, but the servant who had the care of the children to lead them to and bring them back from school, and had the care of them out of school hours. Thus the law did not teach us the living, saving knowledge; but, by its rites and ceremonies, and especially by its sacrifices, it directed us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. This is a beautiful metaphor, and highly illustrative of the apostle's doctrine. See the note on Romans 10:4, where this figure is farther explained.

Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster unto Christ,.... So the words should be read, as they are by the Syriac and Ethiopic versions; for the words "to bring us" are a supplement of our translators, and have nothing to answer to them in the original; and the sense of the passage is, that the law performed this office of a schoolmaster until the coming of Christ; which shows that till that time the church was in its minority, that the Jews were but children in knowledge and understanding, and therefore stood in need, and were under the care of a schoolmaster, the law, by which the whole Mosaic administration is designed. They were taught by the moral law, the letter, the writing on the two tables, with other statutes and judgments, their duty to God and men, what is to be done and to be avoided, what is righteousness and what is not, the nature of sin, its demerit and consequences; but these gave them no instructions about a Saviour, and life and righteousness by him. The ceremonial law gave them some hints of the Gospel scheme, and the way of salvation by Christ, but in a manner suited to their estate of childhood; by sights and shows, by types and figures, by rites and ceremonies, by shadows and sacrifices; it taught them by divers washings the pollution of their nature, their need of the blood of Christ to cleanse from all sin; by circumcision, the necessity of regeneration, and the internal circumcision of the heart; by the passover, the daily sacrifice and other offerings, the doctrines of redemption, satisfaction, and atonement; and by the brazen serpent, the necessity of looking to Christ for life and salvation, and by various other things in that branch of the legal economy: but besides the instruction the law gave, it made use of discipline as a schoolmaster does; it kept a strict eye and hand over them, and them close to the performance of their duty; and restrained them from many things their inclinations led them to, threatening them with death in case of disobedience, and inflicting its penalties on delinquents; hence they that were under its discipline, were through fear of death it threatened them with, all their time subject to bondage: even the ceremonial law had something awful and tremendous in it; every beast that was slain in sacrifice was not only an instruction to them that they deserved to die as that creature did; but carried in it a tacit acknowledgment and confession of their own guilt; and the whole was an handwriting of ordinances against them. Moreover, the law being called a schoolmaster, shows that the use of it was but temporary, and its duration but for a time; children are not always to be under, nor designed to be always under a schoolmaster, no longer than till they are come to a proper age for greater business and higher exercises of life; so the law was to continue, and did continue, to be of this use and service to the Jewish church during its minority, until Christ came, the substance of all it taught and directed to: both the Jerusalem Targum and that of Jonathan ben Uzziel, on Numbers 11:12 use the very Greek word the apostle does here, concerning Moses, rendering the words, as a "pedagogue" or "schoolmaster" bears a sucking child into the land, &c.

That we might be justified by faith; by Christ the object of faith, by his righteousness, which faith looks unto and receives, and not by the law and the works of it; the people of the Jews were in such a state under the law, and the law of that use unto them before the coming of Christ, as above represented, that it might be made manifest, be a clear point, and out of all dispute, that there is no such thing as justification by the law; for how could ever such a blessing be expected from it, when men were kept under it as under a military guard; when they were shut up in it as in a prison, and were treated by it as malefactors, convicted and condemned; and when they were under the discipline of it, as a rigid and severe schoolmaster? this being their case till Christ came, when it ceased to be all this to them, he being the end of it for righteousness, it became a thing self-evident, that justification is only by him and his righteousness, and so the end here mentioned was answered.

Wherefore (ὥστε)

Better, so that. Theological consequence of the previous statements.

Our schoolmaster (παιδαγωγὸς ἡμῶν)

Our. Paul speaks as a Jew of Jews especially. Schoolmaster (παιδαγωγὸς P) is an error. The word means an overseer or guardian. See on 1 Corinthians 4:15. Tutor (Rev.) is defensible on the ground of etymology, tueri to look upon, thence to guard. In civil law a tutor is a person legally appointed for the care of the person and property of a minor. So Bacon (Adv. of Learning, ii.:19): "the first six kings being in truth as tutors of the state of Rome in the infance thereof." The later use of the word, however, in the sense of instructor, has so completely supplanted the earlier, that the propriety of the Revisers' rendering is questionable. The law is here represented, not as one who conducts to the school of Christ; for Christ is not represented here as a teacher, but as an atoner; but rather as an overseer or guardian, to keep watch of those committed to its care, to accompany them with its commands and prohibitions, and to keep them in a condition of dependence and restraint, thus continually bringing home to them the consciousness of being shut up in sins, and revealing sin as positive transgression.

Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

3:24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster. Tutor, in the Revised Version. In Roman families a trusted slave, a pedagogue, had charge of children, preserved them from harm, and took them to school. The law is such a tutor; not a schoolmaster, but a guide to lead us to the school of Christ. There we are justified by faith.

3:24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster unto Christ - It was designed to train us up for Christ. And this it did both by its commands, which showed the need we had of his atonement; and its ceremonies, which all pointed us to him.

[2] law

I. The law of Moses, Summary:

(1) The Mosaic Covenant was given to Israel in three parts: the commandments, expressing the righteous will of God Ex 20:1-26, the "judgments," governing the social life of Israel Ex 21:1-24:11, and the "ordinances," governing the religious life of Israel Ex 24:12 31:18.

(2) The commandments and ordinances were one complete and inseparable whole. When an Israelite sinned, he was held "blameless" if he brought the required offering Lk 1:6 Phil 3:6.

(3) Law, as a method of the divine dealing with man, characterized the dispensation extending from the giving of the law to the death of Jesus Christ Gal 3:13,14,23,24.

(4) The attempt of legalistic teachers (e.g.) Acts 15:1-31 Gal 2:1-5, to mingle law with grace as the divine method for this present dispensation of grace, brought out the true relation of the law to the Christian, viz.

II. The Christian doctrine of the law:

(1) Law is in contrast with grace. Under the latter God bestows the righteousness which, under law, He demanded Ex 19:5 Jn 1:17. See Scofield Note: "Rom 3:21". Rom 10:3-10 1Cor 1:30.

(2) The law is, in itself, holy, just, good, and spiritual Rom 7:12-14.

(3) Before the law the whole world is guilty, and the law is therefore of necessity a ministry of condemnation, death, and the divine curse Rom 3:19 2Cor 3:7-9 Gal 3:10.

(4) Christ bore the curse of the law, and redeemed the believer both from the curse and from the dominion of the law Gal 3:13 4:5-7.

(5) Law neither justifies a sinner nor sanctifies a believer Gal 2:16 3:2,3,11,12.

(6) The believer is both dead to the law and redeemed from it, Song that he is "not under the law, but under grace" Rom 6:14 7:4 Gal 2:19 4:4-7 1Tim 1:8,9.

(7) Under the new covenant of grace the principle of obedience to the divine will is inwrought Heb 10:6. Song far is the life of the believer from the anarchy of self-will that he is "inlawed to Christ" 1Cor 9:21 and the new "law of Christ" Gal 6:2 2Jn 1:5 is his delight; while, through the indwelling Spirit, the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in him Rom 8:2-4 Gal 5:16-18. The commandments are used in the distinctively Christian Scriptures as an instruction in righteousness 2Tim 3:16 Rom 13:8-10 Eph 6:1-3 1Cor 9:8,9.

Margin to bring us

Omit "to bring us."

Margin unto

up to, or until.

24. "So that the law hath been (that is, hath turned out to be) our schoolmaster (or "tutor," literally, "pedagogue": this term, among the Greeks, meant a faithful servant entrusted with the care of the boy from childhood to puberty, to keep him from evil, physical and moral, and accompany him to his amusements and studies) to guide us unto Christ," with whom we are no longer "shut up" in bondage, but are freemen. "Children" (literally, infants) need such tutoring (Ga 4:3).

might be-rather, "that we may be justified by faith"; which we could not be till Christ, the object of faith, had come. Meanwhile the law, by outwardly checking the sinful propensity which was constantly giving fresh proof of its refractoriness-as thus the consciousness of the power of the sinful principle became more vivid, and hence the sense of need both of forgiveness of sin and freedom from its bondage was awakened-the law became a "schoolmaster to guide us unto Christ" [Neander]. The moral law shows us what we ought to do, and so we learn our inability to do it. In the ceremonial law we seek, by animal sacrifices, to answer for our not having done it, but find dead victims no satisfaction for the sins of living men, and that outward purifying will not cleanse the soul; and that therefore we need an infinitely better Sacrifice, the antitype of all the legal sacrifices. Thus delivered up to the judicial law, we see how awful is the doom we deserve: thus the law at last leads us to Christ, with whom we find righteousness and peace. "Sin, sin! is the word heard again and again in the Old Testament. Had it not there for centuries rung in the ear, and fastened on the conscience, the joyful sound, "grace for grace," would not have been the watchword of the New Testament. This was the end of the whole system of sacrifices" [Tholuck].

3:23-25 The law did not teach a living, saving knowledge; but, by its rites and ceremonies, especially by its sacrifices, it pointed to Christ, that they might be justified by faith. And thus it was, as the word properly signifies, a servant, to lead to Christ, as children are led to school by servants who have the care of them, that they might be more fully taught by Him the true way of justification and salvation, which is only by faith in Christ. And the vastly greater advantage of the gospel state is shown, under which we enjoy a clearer discovery of Divine grace and mercy than the Jews of old. Most men continue shut up as in a dark dungeon, in love with their sins, being blinded and lulled asleep by Satan, through wordly pleasures, interests, and pursuits. But the awakened sinner discovers his dreadful condition. Then he feels that the mercy and grace of God form his only hope. And the terrors of the law are often used by the convincing Spirit, to show the sinner his need of Christ, to bring him to rely on his sufferings and merits, that he may be justified by faith. Then the law, by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, becomes his loved rule of duty, and his standard for daily self-examination. In this use of it he learns to depend more simply on the Saviour.