Given the keys
This week's goodness is on Galatians 3:23-29:
I like how Paul's illustration starts out. "We were held in custody under the law." It evokes an image of a jail cell, stark and bare. We wonder why anyone would want to go there. But rules make people feel safe, as though the bars were meant to keep monsters out, not keep the prisoner in.
When we're little kids, our parents make rules for us to keep us safe. As kids, we don't like them all of the time, but there's comfort in someone bigger than us making the decisions for us. Eat your vegetables. Don't go outside like that. Come home before dark. Don't hit people. Don't talk to strangers. Don't eat raw meat. No drinking. No smoking. No dating. No R-rated movies. Keep your room picked up.
There's comfort in rules. I saw a commercial on TV for a coat for dogs, which tightens up when loud noises happen, so that the dog feels safe. Why else would a dog want to be constricted? Why would we want to be constricted? Freedom is scary. Responsibility is scary. We'd much rather defer to others be children for life. We like the "three hots and a cot" more than we like life on the outside.
Christ set us free from being bound by the moral law of the Old Testament. We're not in custody anymore. Does that mean we don't have to behave ourselves anymore? Not at all! It just means we're not locked into a set of constrictive rules we're too young to understand. As adults, do we still eat our vegetables, dress appropriately for conditions, stay out of the road, and keep our things in order? Is it because we're going to get spanked by our parents, or because it's a good idea? The law is the same way. God tells us what's best for us, but as adults we have to choose it for that reason, and not because we'll be punished if we don't follow the rules of the house.
As adults, we're responsible. And we're free. We've graduated from being kids under a set of rules to adults who are responsible for everything they do. Instead of being responsible for following a set of rules, we're responsible for doing the right thing, for loving ourselves and others. We're transformed from prisoners to free men and women.
Those of us who have been baptized as Christians are clothed in Christ. Our exterior is no longer based on our past or our ethnicity, but on being transformed into his likeness. We're not what we were born as, or what we chose as a career, or where we went to school. We're simply God's beloved creation, representing him to the world we're in. It's a new deal.
So we're not tied down by the law, or by our previous circumstances, or by the abilities and position we were born into. We're free people, created anew by Christ, who is our master.
Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.
So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
I like how Paul's illustration starts out. "We were held in custody under the law." It evokes an image of a jail cell, stark and bare. We wonder why anyone would want to go there. But rules make people feel safe, as though the bars were meant to keep monsters out, not keep the prisoner in.
When we're little kids, our parents make rules for us to keep us safe. As kids, we don't like them all of the time, but there's comfort in someone bigger than us making the decisions for us. Eat your vegetables. Don't go outside like that. Come home before dark. Don't hit people. Don't talk to strangers. Don't eat raw meat. No drinking. No smoking. No dating. No R-rated movies. Keep your room picked up.
There's comfort in rules. I saw a commercial on TV for a coat for dogs, which tightens up when loud noises happen, so that the dog feels safe. Why else would a dog want to be constricted? Why would we want to be constricted? Freedom is scary. Responsibility is scary. We'd much rather defer to others be children for life. We like the "three hots and a cot" more than we like life on the outside.
Christ set us free from being bound by the moral law of the Old Testament. We're not in custody anymore. Does that mean we don't have to behave ourselves anymore? Not at all! It just means we're not locked into a set of constrictive rules we're too young to understand. As adults, do we still eat our vegetables, dress appropriately for conditions, stay out of the road, and keep our things in order? Is it because we're going to get spanked by our parents, or because it's a good idea? The law is the same way. God tells us what's best for us, but as adults we have to choose it for that reason, and not because we'll be punished if we don't follow the rules of the house.
As adults, we're responsible. And we're free. We've graduated from being kids under a set of rules to adults who are responsible for everything they do. Instead of being responsible for following a set of rules, we're responsible for doing the right thing, for loving ourselves and others. We're transformed from prisoners to free men and women.
Those of us who have been baptized as Christians are clothed in Christ. Our exterior is no longer based on our past or our ethnicity, but on being transformed into his likeness. We're not what we were born as, or what we chose as a career, or where we went to school. We're simply God's beloved creation, representing him to the world we're in. It's a new deal.
So we're not tied down by the law, or by our previous circumstances, or by the abilities and position we were born into. We're free people, created anew by Christ, who is our master.
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