Our Schoolmaster Gal. 3:21-27 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO
The law is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. There are people who believe that by keeping the commandments they can please God and wind up in heaven. But the problem is that no one can be justified by the law because no one can keep all the commandments. They think, “I have done enough good things to get to heaven and have not done enough bad things to keep me out of heaven.” Therefore, they judge themselves righteous enough to get to heaven.
The law doesn’t work like that. Gal 3:21 shows us that the law God gave cannot give you eternal life. People who believe that they can get to heaven by judging themselves righteous by the law are people who do not believe what God said. They are deceived.
The law shows us that all are under sin [Gal 3:22]. The rich young ruler [Matt 19:16-22; Mk 10:17-22; Lk 18:18-23] who came to Jesus looking for eternal life thought he had been justified by the law. The root of this man’s problem was covetousness [the 10th commandment] and he let money come between him and God [the 1st commandment]. Sin was this man’s problem and why he lacked eternal life.
It would be a tragedy for you to walk out of here without eternal life when you can have it as a free gift. A woman went to an oncologist with a cancer on her face. She refused the oncologist’s remedy. Nine months later she returned and the cancer had spread to the inside of her mouth and to other places in her body. Within a year, she was dead. It was a tragedy that she refused the remedy and it would be a tragedy for you to refuse the gift of eternal life from Jesus Christ when you can have it today. That’s his promise [Gal 3:22].
The law is your schoolmaster, not to show you that you are justified by the law but by faith in Jesus Christ [Gal 3:24]. The schoolmaster shows you that you have not kept all the law. You have not kept the first commandment [Matt 22:37-38]. If you were in school, you would have flunked the final exam for missing this great question. You can’t pass the final; no one can. Jesus Christ took the final and will stand in your place to take the final for you.
According to Gal 3:25, though you are no longer under a schoolmaster after you get saved, you are still going to live in accordance with the law. That’s because Jesus Christ wants to run your life after you get saved and he is not going to lead you contrary to the law. A person who gets saved doesn’t want to go out and live in sin when he is yielded to Jesus Christ. This current philosophy that Christians have the liberty to live a life of sin because of the grace of God is not right.
According to Gal 3:26, you do not become a child of God until you put your faith in Jesus Christ. If your faith is not in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are not a child of God. Jn 1:12, “But as many as received him, to then gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.”
According to Gal 3:27, water baptism doesn’t save you or make you a child of God. When you receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, you are baptized by the Spirit of God “into Christ.” You need to be in Christ and water baptism can’t put you into Christ. My wife was baptized when she was 12 and we thought this was associated with her salvation. She didn’t get saved until many years later when she trusted Christ as her Savior. That’s when she was “in Christ.”
Conclusion: I believe that there is someone here today without Jesus Christ who has been trusting your baptism and your keeping of the law for salvation. You are not saved until you trust Jesus Christ. I pray that you will receive him today. He is the only one who has the remedy for your sin.