In this sermon, Jeff Pollard discusses the importance of understanding the covenants in the Bible, specifically the Abrahamic Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant, and the New Covenant. He emphasizes that the law was given to expose sin and lead people to Jesus and justification by faith. Pollard contrasts the temporary nature of the Mosaic Covenant with the everlasting nature of the New Covenant. He warns against turning to the law for salvation and encourages listeners to embrace the freedom found in Christ and the gospel.

Of very good questions raised regarding some of the comments I have made about the Covenants. I'm very thankful for those of you that have profited from that and have understood well what I was saying, but it hasn't been clear to everyone, so I hope in the next week or two to spend some time, Because that's clearly what Paul is arguing about here. While he is not saying the Old Covenant, the New Covenant, and those things as plainly as they are spoken of in other places, Everything that he's talking about in this chapter is connected to the Abrahamic Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant, and the New Covenant. So I want those things to be clearer for everyone from our young people to our older folk. So be in prayer about that.

I want to be able to make that as plain as possible because it's the backbone of the Holy Word of God. You don't understand the covenants. You don't understand the Scriptures as you ought. It's not possible because it's the way the very Scriptures unfold. God revealed himself in covenant after covenant.

He told what he would do and he's done it. That's this book. It isn't just part of it. It's the very unfolding of God's eternal purpose. If you don't see that, you're being robbed of some of the glory of God's word.

If some bad theology over the years or some of the people that have influenced you have turned your mind against the notion of covenant, I would urge you to reconsider that because the Baptists as we know them stood in the covenants of God from their earliest writings. If you doubt that, come have a look at my library. That being said, we're back in Galatians chapter three. Galatians chapter three, we're gonna read verses 19 through 25 again. This is a precious but difficult, a challenging portion of this letter.

I've heard it preached a number of ways over the years, very often not dealing with the hard parts. Now I don't know that I've made them any plainer, but at least I've pointed them out what they are, and I think what the keys to understanding them are. That being said, this is the Word of God. If there's a problem with it, it is we, not the Word. As I've said before, and as is stated in the holy Word of God, Peter said, Paul writes some hard things to understand, and we're in them.

There are others, but there are some difficulties here. So I will labor with all of my heart, make it as plain and as clear as possible. Because the more—I can say this—for those of you who were not taught the doctrines of grace. And you began to study and you may have been against them like I was. And when the Lord began to reveal his glorious grace to me, my Bible completely changed.

And so it is. When you begin to understand what God has promised and how He's brought it to pass, and how every single book of this Bible is touched by His covenant promises, His covenant work, you'll have a new Bible. That being said, please stand with me. We're going to read Galatians chapter 3 beginning in verse 19. I will say before I read, it's quite likely that I happen to know that should the Lord spare me, I will be dealing with the covenants in a major way because the Epistle to the Hebrews does.

And it makes very clear the vital aspect of the Old and the New Covenants and why we need to understand them and how the theology of the Scriptures works with them both. So I've attempted simply just to put our toes in the water, so to speak, just to feel it out a little bit, and I'm thankful that that has been helpful to some. But it has been helpful to others and I hope in the weeks ahead to make this very plain. Galatians chapter 3 beginning in verse 19. This is God's word.

Wherefore then serveth the law? That's a covenantal question. It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made. And it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one.

Is the law then against the promises of God? This is all covenantal language. Moses versus Abraham. If I can say it that way, or at least Moses and Abraham, is the law, Moses, then against the promises of God made to Abraham. God forbid!

For if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.

Amen. May the Lord add his blessing to the reading of his word. Let's remain standing. O Christ, we stand before Thee. Thou art our prophet.

Speak to us through Thy word tonight. Thou art our priest. Intercede for this little gathering and for all of thy gatherings around this world. Thou art our King. Rule us in thy holiness.

Rule us in thy grace, mercy, and love. Help this vessel of dust to speak thy words to thy people. Please help me to be clear. And I pray that thy spirit would fill each heart that we might hear the word of God and be transformed. I pray it in the name of Jesus.

Amen. Please be seated. Paul, the apostle of Jesus Christ, has told us that the Mosaic Covenant did not and does not cancel or change God's promises in the Abrahamic Covenant. God promised Abraham a great nation, a land, and blessing to all families of the earth. Four hundred and thirty years later, God made the Mosaic Covenant and its laws, curses, and blessings to Abraham's covenant descendants.

The Mosaic Covenant was of a different nature than the Abrahamic. That is, it was a different kind of covenant. It was the civil and religious constitution, the organizing principle for Abraham's descendants in the land God promised them. It was a development of the Abrahamic covenant, but they were different in their natures. Nevertheless, they were the outworking of God's sovereign, eternal purpose of redemption.

And they both played important parts. The kinds of law in the Mosaic Covenant, the moral law, the civil law, and the ceremonial law governed Abraham's physical seed in every aspect of their lives in the land that God promised them. There were those that argue about the threefold law, but that's not our discussion this evening. Nevertheless, Paul makes several arguments to show that the Mosaic covenant was inferior to the Abrahamic Covenant and served a vital but temporary purpose. As a great teacher, Paul anticipated that the Galatians would ask, Why then the law?

He answers that question thus. It was added. Who added it? God did. It was added because of transgressions.

Till the seed should come. There was a time limit on it. It ended when the seed came. And by the way, that lays out the basis and foundation for understanding the entire New Testament because we see the Jews and the Gentiles at odds all the way through the book. That's why we have Romans, that's why we have Galatians, that's why it's mentioned in other letters and teachings of the Scripture.

The Jews and the Gentiles had trouble getting together and it was because of their understanding of the covenants that they were used to. The Jews grew up under Moses. Gentiles didn't. They didn't have any problems with the Jewish covenant because they were never part of it. But in Galatia, Jews were coming in and trying to turn the Gentile Christians into faithful Jews in order to be faithful Christians and brought heresy as they did.

So, God gave the law, it was added, because of transgressions. In other words, to expose these sinful people. God's law exposes our sin. The law isn't bad. I'll say that probably through the entire series of sermons on this book.

It isn't the law that is bad. It is we. And it is because of the weakness of our sinful flesh that we cannot obey the perfect law of God perfectly. We can't do it. Thank God in heaven that Jesus did.

So it was added because of transgressions. God gave the law to expose the sin in his people and to make them know their need for a Savior. And we'll see that further this evening in the text we'll be considering. Now, the purpose of the law lasted until the seed, quotation marks, until the seed, Jesus, established the new covenant in his blood. Paul then answers the next question.

Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid. May it never be. God gave both. The law could not, cannot, and never can give life.

It can only command and condemn. That's what the law does. It commands. Its commands are pure and righteous. Sinful people have trouble with them.

It is because of our flesh. Romans chapter 8, as I've quoted numerous times in this series. It was the law was weak because of the flesh. Romans 8. So, if the law could give life, Paul tells us, the righteousness that saves the soul would have been by the law.

It could not, it cannot, it will not. Paul's argument is to show the Galatians that the Mosaic law cannot save them. The forgiveness of sin and eternal life come only by faith in the crucified and resurrected Christ Jesus. That's where life is. We can read about righteousness in the law, but we will never have the righteousness that saves apart from faith in Jesus Christ, who perfectly kept the law.

He did that in our place. And it is that perfect righteousness that is ours when we believe in him. So now we will continue Paul's argument for the gospel of the new covenant against the law of the old covenant. The title of our message is Under the Schoolmaster Until Christ. Under the Schoolmaster until Christ.

May our blessed Father send His Spirit to enlighten our hearts and to make us more like Christ Jesus our Savior. Our first major heading is this. Before faith came, we were imprisoned by the law. Let me repeat that. Before faith came we were imprisoned by the law.

This is verse 23. We've looked at verses 19 through 22. We take up at verse 23. And Paul now says, but Before faith came, and we gave the entire message last week to the three words, before faith came. That's a covenantal statement.

As we learned last time, before faith came means before faith in the person and work of Christ was revealed. We took time to establish that the Word of God makes clear that there were saints in the Old Testament that were wonderful, glorious people of faith. Of faith! They exercised faith. That's the only way anyone has ever been saved.

If you come from a tradition, like I do, that says that in the Old Testament people were saved by keeping the law, then some of this will sound unusual to you. But the fact of the matter is no one has ever been saved apart from faith and faith in the truths and promises that ultimately were of Christ. Paul has already shown us that in this chapter. Now, the scriptures bear witness that the saints of old were certainly people of faith. Habakkuk, two, four.

Abraham believed God. And it was counted to him for righteousness. And it's in Habakkuk, it is found in Genesis, it's repeated four times in the Old Testament. Salvation by faith alone is the teaching of the Old Testament. It was that the Jews didn't see it for whatever reason.

They knew Abraham was a man of faith. They looked to Moses as a great and mighty man of God, but somehow they became confused and believed that their law keeping would make them righteous and acceptable to God. Paul knew that. That's what he believed until Christ of grace stopped him on the road to Damascus. But with the arrival of the New Covenant, the crucified and resurrected Savior, Jesus Christ, was revealed as the object of faith unto salvation.

The Gospel of Mark begins with Christ's public ministry and these words, repent and believe the gospel. Jesus' ministry was calling the world to believe in him. It began with the Jew first, but then it would go to the Gentiles. Faith wasn't new. The objective faith was when Jesus came, the revelation of God's eternal purpose of saving people from their sins became clear.

It was all by faith in Jesus the Christ. Now Paul's words are telling here. He says Before faith came, now what that means is the entire Old Testament period. Before faith came, and again it's not the exercise of faith, it is the object of faith. Before faith in Christ Jesus came, he says we were kept under the law.

We were kept under the law. The words we were kept are one Greek word, which means to guard, to confine, to keep under watch, to hold in custody, how about that? Paul chose a very strong word here. Kept under is correct, but it doesn't convey to us, generally speaking, the power of being confined by something. It doesn't seem to say to us, I'm being held in custody.

And that is what Paul is saying. The law gave no liberty, but blessed only for obedience and cursed for disobedience. It had a sacrificial ceremonial law that could cleanse the Israelites, but it was a ceremonial cleansing. It was no transformation of the heart. As a matter of fact, it says, Hebrews 10 four says, if it's not possible, not possible, that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.

It didn't take their sins away. It ceremonially cleansed them. It taught them generation after generation that an innocent victim must shed his blood, that you would be right and cleansed before God. That was a precursor, that was a foreshadowing of the gospel of Jesus Christ, who was the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. Therefore, Paul's argument to the Galatians is this.

Until faith in the person and work of Jesus was revealed to us. We were under the custody of the law. Contrast of the two covenants, the new covenant and the old covenant. This is not Moses and Abraham. This is the glorious new covenant in Christ in contrast with the Mosaic covenant.

Once again, different kinds of covenants. More of that in the weeks ahead. Now, Paul then adds to the fact that we're under the custody of the law, he adds, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed." Clear contrast if we're thinking while we're reading. This is a clear contrast. We were shut up under the law until Christ came, until Christ came.

The words translated, shut up, actually mean imprisoned. Imprisoned. Confined once again. These are remarkable statements. These are remarkable words.

What Paul is doing... I've said this before. Please humor me. Let me say it again. It's like Paul is grabbing their minds.

He says, I want you to think I preached the gospel to you. I told you about Christ. I told you about the glories of the eternal Son of God made flesh who came into this world to save his people from their sins. You believed it. The power of the Holy Spirit swept into your lives.

You were transformed. And now you want to be circumcised and keep the food laws. Let me get ahold of you with this. The purpose of the law was to imprison us. The purpose of the law was, if I can put it this way, it was the legal lockdown.

It was the law lockdown. It held us down. Why? Because it was telling us about the righteousness of God and our sinfulness. That's how the Jews lived.

And that's how And that's how men that are Gentiles often lived. Paul wants the Galatians to feel the weight of what they're doing. He wants them, and He wants us, to realize that the purpose of the law was not to save the soul. It is true if someone was born sinless and kept the law perfectly, that they would be acceptably righteous to God. But after Adam and Eve, there wasn't anybody like that until Jesus, And He did it.

He was born sinless. He kept the law perfectly, and that's the righteousness that God imputes to us when we repent and believe on him. So you can see then how you're backing up when you say, well, yes, we believe on Jesus, but now we want to go under these laws and keep them so that we can be good Christians. Paul is telling them, no, you're not getting it, and I want to make sure that you do. He repeats himself.

He uses different language, but he's saying the same thing. You're putting yourself back under the law which was not given to save you. I've told you what saves you. It's the blood of Christ. It's the resurrection of Christ.

The law was to make the soul long for liberty. The law was to make the soul hungry, intense for release. It was a preparation for the coming New Covenant faith in Jesus Christ. And I repeat again, purposefully, who perfectly kept the law and won a perfect righteousness for us, a preparation for the God-man who would die on Calvary's cross for our law-breaking. A preparation for the Lord and Savior who would rise again for our justification.

This is good news. But it's coming to us through thick theological arguing. Number two, before faith came, we were under a schoolmaster. That's what Paul says. This is his next angle.

Paul has been emphasizing the role of the law as kept under watch, held in custody, imprisoned. How about those words? How many of them love them? You want that on your T-shirt, Gage? Of course you don't.

Kept under watch, I mean, people would be staring at you. Held in custody, imprisoned, and he stays on this theme. Why does he do that? To defend the gospel of Jesus Christ. He wants them to understand they are making a tragic error.

They're moving away from the truths of the gospel that he spent his life preaching to them. I don't mean spent his life in the length of it, but the very fact that he was among them and he went from place to place and preached the gospel. He gave his life into those people so that they would know the truth that sets us free. Now they're going back to the Old Covenant. So I repeat, Paul says, Wherefore, the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ." Wait a minute.

Do you hear that? While God gave the law to show men their sins, It was to lead them to Jesus Christ because he was promised Messiah and he was the fulfillment of the new covenant. He fulfilled the Abrahamic covenant. He fulfilled the Mosaic Covenant in his coming and in his life and in his death. In English, the word schoolmaster means he that disciplines, instructs, and leads.

Now that is in harmony with Paul's thought. But Paul's Greek is actually more specific. It's often the way it is with translations, even the very best of them. Paul's Greek is more specific. The word that Paul uses does not mean a teacher as such in the way that we normally think of a schoolmaster.

The exegetical dictionary of the New Testament says that it means a man, usually of the slave class, who was in charge of the external education, conduct, courtesy, table manners, general deportment — deportment means behavior — of boys of about 6 to 16 years of age. That's a group that needs to be taught all those things. Well, conduct, courtesy, table manners, general conduct and behavior. Boys 16, 6 to 16 years of age. Thus the Greek should be understood as a supervisor as opposed to schoolmaster.

Again, that There's a connection between the two, but it's cleaner here as far as the Greek goes. Supervisor and disciplinarian. To bring us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Who would do that but God. He gave us a law to expose our sins, but it wasn't so that we would just drop our heads and feel bad about ourselves, but so that we would know and understand that we need righteousness.

We don't have a righteousness that God will accept. I can do good works every single day, but every one of them is stained with my sin. My best day as a Christian would send me to hell because it's not perfect righteousness. But I have a perfect righteousness. That's why God accepts me.

And that's why he will accept you when you repent of your sins and believe on the Lord Jesus. We receive the perfect righteousness of Christ, and God loves it, and He loves us in it. That's the only clothing that's fashionable in heaven. That's it, we are wearing robes of righteousness that were bought with the blood of Christ. The most expensive garments in existence, but the most beautiful.

Oh brethren, what a glorious thing to be covered with Christ's righteousness. We will not stand naked in that day before God. Now Let me add a little bit to what we've just said. The Lowe and Nida lexicon says, a guardian, a guide, his task was to conduct a boy to and from school. So he had the basic job of teaching him the basics of how to act, and he would protect him coming and going.

And he would make sure that he got to the school, that he learned what he was supposed to learn, and he made sure that he got back. So then, why did God give us a supervisor and a disciplinarian? Because we desperately needed it. That's what the law was doing. It was just like that slave taking the boy back and forth to his schooling, and every time he would get there to the school he'd learn some more.

And he had to be taught some more about just daily how to live. That's what the law was doing all the time. You should do this. If you sin, do that. If your neighbor does this, this is how you act.

Here's how you govern your tongue. Here's how, it's constant. Was it there to drive us to despair? Almost. It's there to drive us to someone who can wash away all the stains of our sins forever.

Forever. Forever. So, by putting it like this, under a schoolmaster, under a disciplinarian, under a guardian, Paul was contrasting the importance but temporary work of the law. Once again, he's proving beyond any shadow of a doubt that the Mosaic law was not given as a covenant to last forever. That's what the New Covenant does.

It lasts forever. And we'll spend some time on that. But you see, all of that's what Paul's talking about here. He's talking about the new covenant. I brought you the glories of the blood of the new covenant.

I brought you the glories of what the Lord's Supper represents. I brought all these things to you. You want to go back to the Guardian. You want to go back to the Disciplinarian instead of coming to the freedom and the liberty of Jesus Christ. You've gone the wrong way.

You say, well, you know, that was the Galatians. Ah! Well, let me ask you, have you ever sinned against the Lord and said, I'll read my Bible more now. I'll be a little more faithful about going to church. Have you ever done that?

If you have, You're playing the Galatian game. You're going back to be accepted by God by what you do. Now, you go one place. You go to Jesus Christ. You should go to church more.

You should read the scriptures. You should pursue a holy life with every fiber of your being because you love Christ. You know, God doesn't bargain. He's done everything you need done. He's done everything you need done in His Son as far as the righteousness by which we stand before Him.

Now does He expect us to obey him? He does. And why? Jesus said, he that loves me keeps my commandments. The whole issue of the law to begin with, and I think many Christians, especially coming from certain theological backgrounds, continue to look at the law somehow as something really bad, when Jesus said, you know what it's all about?

It's all about love. All that law is about love, but we don't know how to do it. That's why we need Christ, who showed us what the law looked like on two legs. Filled with the Spirit, he went about doing good. He was fulfilling the law.

Well brethren, let me say, Paul is contrasting the importance but the temporary work of the law of the liberty of the gospel in Jesus. The law could not save. The law could not give life. The law could give no power to obey. It had one task to show us that we could not obey the law perfectly and that each person under that covenant stood in need of forgiveness.

Although the law cannot give life, its purpose was to guide him to life. That's what Paul just said. I mean, let's be honest with the way some people preach the law, that doesn't make the first bit of sense. But Paul himself said, here's what it did, it was to lead people to Jesus. It was to lead people to Jesus, that's the Spirit-inspired words.

One task, lead to Christ, or condemnation. Although the law cannot give life, As I just said, it leads to the one who does give life, Jesus Christ the righteous. The law showed us our desperate need of forgiveness. The law could teach us our need of righteousness. The law could not give life to our souls, but only command and condemn.

But it could lead us to Christ. It was to bring us to the place where we knew what we were. You won't come to Christ till you see your sinfulness. It's not going to happen. You are not going to come to Jesus Christ.

Oh, you can say in your head, well, I don't want to go to hell, so I believe in this Jesus guy, but your life will tell on you. Your tongue will, your ax will, and your heart when you're not around, anybody will. They'll tell you what you really are. You can't save yourself. There's not a drop of anything you have to offer to God that He wants as far as a swap for righteousness.

Other than this, believe my son. That's what He wants. Repent of your sins and believe my Son. It can't be that easy. It's what the scriptures teach.

It goes completely the opposite of the flesh. Fleshy religion always wants to rest on the good things we do. Now, The law could lead us to Christ, to the gospel of God's grace, to Him that is the light of the world and the only Savior of never-dying souls. In the New Covenant, the Gospel age, sinners of every sort are justified by faith. That's exactly what Paul says here in this passage.

It leads us to Jesus and to justification by faith. Now It's obvious that the Galatians had some idea what that meant. And it's sad to me, thankfully at least most people that would call themselves evangelicals today know that we're saved by faith alone in Christ alone. But we can slide off of that really quickly. We'll start dealing with God.

We'll start trying to do enough to feel better about ourselves. You wanna feel good about your heart? Go to the foot of the cross and see your filth nailed to Jesus." Then you can have rest. It's done. That's why he said, It is finished.

Spurgeon's Catechism, question 32, beautifully puts it this way. Justification is an act of God's free grace in which he pardons all our sins and accepts us as righteous in his sight only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone. That's a wonderful, short catechism question. What a beautiful answer. And it's all full, of course, it's all full of biblical references for every single phrase, every clause.

I'll go a little further, then we'll bring this to a close because this is what the law does. It brings us to justification by faith alone. Once we've worn ourselves out on the anvil of the law or our good works, there's one place and one thing to do. One place to go and one thing to do. Let's go to Christ and believe Him.

Our confession, of course, expands this and gives us a little fuller biblical detail. This is chapter 11. It says this, Those whom God effectually calleth, that's regeneration, He also freely justifieth, not by infusing righteousness into them, that's what Roman Catholicism believes, Not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous, not for anything wrought in them or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone. Not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them." There are those that teach that your faith is what God values. Now, he wants us to have faith, but that actually our faith, exercising of our faith, is what he accepts.

No, we accept Christ by our faith. Period. Period. Period. There's no other gospel.

That's why Paul's arguing this way. Theological nail after theological nail in the coffin of the false teachers in Galatia. Our confession goes on to say, but by imputing Christ's active obedience unto the whole law and passive obedience in his death for their whole and soul righteousness." Your whole and soul righteousness is because Jesus kept the law in our place, and then he died in our law-breaking place. I don't know how to make that part any simpler. All our sins upon him, all his righteousness upon me.

So, the law was given. It was like a pedagogue. It was like an overseer. It was like a guardian that took us to Christ and to justification by faith. Well, let me close with this.

The coming of Christ liberated us from our supervisor. The coming of Christ liberated us from our guardian, the law. Paul's words in this verse show without any question that the law as a covenant ceased with the coming of our precious Lord Jesus Christ. But after that faith, faith in Christ, faith in the God-man, faith in the crucified, Faith in the resurrected Son of God. When that came, our supervisor was out of a job.

Our guide was out of a job. We're thankful that it would point us to one whose righteousness saves us. But we don't live under it anymore. This is why Paul's arguing. I'm not repeating myself for lack of anything else to say.

Everything in here is an argument against what the Galatians are doing. They're backing up on the gospel. That's why Paul says in chapter one, even if an angel comes and brings you another gospel, God's curse upon him. God's curse. So the Galatians had been deceived into taking the hand of the guardian and walking under his oversight of condemnation when its original purpose was to lead to Christ and the gospel of grace.

The Galatians were living in reverse. They were living backwards theologically. They had run off the rails and were dishonoring Christ to the eternal peril of their own souls. Without saying the words again, Paul's argument says loud and clear, Oh foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you? It's as though someone has cast a spell on you that you would walk away or at least blend the gospel with the guardian.

So brethren, may each of us realize that our works, our good works, gain us no favor with Christ. As far as being justified, our hope is not in the Guardian, whose instruction ends in everlasting torment. Let us flee to the freedom that resides only in Christ and in his blessed gospel. Amen. Holy Father, thy gospel is glorious good news.

May we love it, may we delight in it, strengthen us with it. Now bless thy people. You have fed thy sheep I trust, and I pray their hearts are lifted up in thanksgiving unto thee for the glorious mercies that thou dost show to us all the time. We thank thee for Christ. We even thank thee that The Guardian pointed us to Christ.

How sad that we would ever think the Guardian is the only way to heaven. O God, help us to walk with Thee in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Amen.