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From: Galatians 3:22-29
The Law and the Promise (Continuation)
[23] Now before faith came, we were confined under the law, kept under restraint
until faith should be revealed. [24] So that the law was our custodian until Christ
came, that we might be justified by faith. [25] But now that faith has come, we
are no longer under a custodian; [26] for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God,
through faith. [27] For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on
Christ. [28] There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there
is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. [29] And if you
are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
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Commentary:
21-25. “But the scripture consigned all things to sin”: it is not easy to understand
this phrase but its meaning becomes clearer in the context of the whole passage:
God reveals that all men are under the power of sin, Jews as well as Gentiles,
despite the Jews having received the Law (cf. Rom 3:10-18). The reason this is
so is, again, the inability of the Law to confer justification; the Law had no power
to free us from the devil, sin or death. But now, in the fullness of time, God’s pur-
pose in giving the Law is made manifest — namely, to protect and guide mankind
during its minority, rather as a governess or tutor looks after a child until he has
grown up. The tutor keeps an eye on the child: the child cannot do whatever he
likes but must be guided by his teacher. And so it is with mankind: it was a mi-
nor, of whom the Law was the custodian, so to speak; but when the fullness of
time came God sent his son Jesus Christ, who set us free from sin, from death
and from the Law itself, our tutor. That is why the Apostle says, “Now that faith
has come, we are no longer under a custodian.” This faith is the new life which
has taken over from the harsh discipline of the Law.
To us, centuries later, these arguments and teachings of St Paul’s may seem
irrelevant. We need to put ourselves in the position of a Jew of his time — a zea-
lous upholder of the Law, and yet unable to cope with the sheer weight of all its
precepts and accretions — who, now that he has converted to faith in Christ, has
a real sense of liberation: he has been freed from all his old shackles and is now
eager to show his former Jewish brothers that they too can attain the same free-
dom in Christ Jesus.
24. The Law, like the whole of the Old Testament, had this function in relation to
the New — to prepare the way for its promulgation. Everything in the books of the
Old Testament refers directly or indirectly to our Lord Jesus Christ and his work
of redemption: the two Testaments are intimately connected, as Tradition tea-
ches and the Second Vatican Council reminds us: “God, the inspirer and author
of the books of both Testaments, in his wisdom has so brought it about that the
New should be hidden in the Old and that the Old should be made manifest in
the New. For, although Christ founded the New Covenant in his blood (cf. Lk 22:
20; 1 Cor 11:25), still the books of the Old Testament, all of them caught up into
the Gospel message, attain and show forth their full meaning in the New Testa-
ment (cf. Mt 5:17, Lk 24:27; Rom 16:25-26; 2 Cor 3:14-16) and, in their turn,
shed light on it and explain it” (”Dei Verbum”, 16).
27. St John of Avila, commenting on this passage, says, “The Holy Spirit was
not content with saying that we are bathed and anointed: here he says that we
are clothed, and the clothing we are given is not just something beautiful and
costly: it is Jesus Christ himself, who is the sum total of all beauty, all value,
all richness, etc. What he means is that the beauty of Jesus Christ, his justice,
his grace, his riches, his splendor, shine out from us with the splendor of the
sun and is reflected as in the purest of mirrors” (”Lecciones Sobre Gal, ad loc.”).
St Paul uses this metaphor of our being decked out in Christ in many other pas-
sages (cf. Rom 13:14; 1 Cor 15:43; Eph 4:24; 6:11; Col 3:10; etc.) to describe
the intimate union between the baptized person and Christ, a union so intense
that the Christian can be said to be “another Christ”.
28. In the order of nature, it may be said, all men are radically equal: as descen-
dants of Adam, we are born in the image and likeness of God (cf. Gen 1:26-27).
The different functions which people have in the life of society do not alter this
basic, natural equality. From this point of view there is no real difference, nor
should there be, between one person and another, no difference even between
man and woman: both are made in the image and likeness of God.
In the order of grace, which the Redemption inaugurates, this essential, original
equality was restored by Christ, who became man and died on the Cross to
save all. Bl. John Paul II points out that this true meaning of the dignity of man is
enhanced by the Redemption: “In the mystery of the Redemption man becomes
newly ‘expressed’ and, in a way, is newly created. He is newly created! ‘There is
neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor fe-
male; for you are all one in Christ Jesus’ (Gal 3:28). The man who wishes to un-
derstand himself thoroughly — and not just in accordance with immediate, partial,
often superficial, and even illusory standards and measures of his being — must
with his unrest, uncertainty and even his weakness and sinfulness, with his life
and death, draw near to Christ.He must, so to speak, enter into him with all his
own self, he must ‘appropriate’ and assimilate the whole of the reality of the In-
carnation and Redemption in order to find himself” (”Redemptor Hominis”, 10).
From this radical equality of all men is derived that universal fraternity which
should govern human relations: “Our Lord has come to bring peace, good news
and life to all. Not only to the rich, nor only to the poor. Not only to the wise, nor
only to the simple. To everyone. To the brethren, for brothers we are, children of
the same Father, God. So there is only one race, the race of the children of God.
There is only one color, the color of the children of God. And there is only one
language, the language which speaks to the heart and to the mind, without the
noise of words, making us know God and love one another” (St. J. Escriva,
“Christ Is Passing By”, 106).
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.