“The law was our tutor to bring us to Christ …” (Gal 3:24, NKJ)
Every person born wanders by default under the dispensation of the law, until their rebirth. Gal 3:23 explains it as follows: “But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law …” The different dimensions of the word ‘tutor’ are highlighted in various translations – the law is called: “our teacher” (CEV), “a servant” (BBE), “our custodian” (EMTV), “our guardian” (ESV), “our schoolmaster” (KJV), “a trainer” (LITV), “a tutor-slave” (WNT) en “our child-conductor” (YLT)! All legitimate and lovely translations, but I would like to explain it in this way: the law was our crush-pen to freedom.
If you have worked on a farm with cattle, then you will know that ticks are a huge problem – they steal the animal’s life blood and strength. A farmer could daily examine each cow and try to remove the ticks, but this would be an impossible task. Usually the tick’s head remains sucked onto the animal if you try to pull it off – it’s clearly not an effective method. The solution, as every farmer will tell you, is to dip the cattle. Dip is a strong liquid that the cattle wade through, which then kills the ticks.
Cattle are dipped one by one, but it is preceded by a process where every cow is ‘pushed’ with a crush-pen to go through something that appears terrifying to them.
In view of this, Gal 3:27 becomes more visual spiritually: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” The dip can represent three-in-one: conversion, rebirth and baptism (the unified testimony of Spirit, water and blood – see 1 John 5:8). Preceding this, the law is the crush-pen to get us to move to the life-changing experience.
After you have been through the spiritual dip, the ticks fall off by themselves and you can walk around freely in the veld! You no longer need a crush-pen – “But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.” (Gal 3:25). You have truly been delivered from the law (Rom 7:6)!
- Sela: To what degree is your functioning in faith still bound to religious laws?
- Read: Judg 11; Ps 101; Acts 11
- Memorise: Acts 11: 9 (very important for today’s teaching!)
- Going deeper: Read Juan Carlos Ortiz’s Living with Jesus today.
