Liberated from the Warden
Psalm 42:14-15 Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? and why are you so disquieted within me? Put your trust in God; for I will yet give thanks to God, who is the help of my countenance, and my Αββα ὁ πατήρ!
Introduction
Whenever I let our puppy, Floyd, out of his room or crate, it’s like unleashing a floofy, fluffy, squiggly, wriggly, land-based leviathan (but a 30 pound one). Granted, Floyd isn’t yet one; a lot of that energy is just evidence of his being a “coot-baby-puppy.” But, to some degree, that energy comes from a sense of being liberated from whatever confinement he was experiencing—even if the confinement meant food! 99% of the time, when I open that door to release him, I’m met with a creature who is sooper-dooper happy to be reunited with the rest of his family…even his (at times) warden-like “Big Sissy” (no one delivers a major correction like Big Sissy can…)
I wish we responded to liberation from captivity like Floyd does. Too often, though, when given liberation, we prefer our confinement. We greet that flung open door with fear and anxiety rather than with puppy-like wiggle-squiggle vigor. If given a wide-open arena, we’d sit in the corner, with at least two walls hemming us in. If given unlimited choice, we’d freeze and retreat to the same old thing we always get. If given the autobahn, we’d go 65 because that’s sensible and reasonable. If told to just go love and live, we’d ask, “Who and How?” We are so afraid of being wrong and making a mistake, that we’d truncate our own liberty and the liberty of others to keep safe, secure, and right.
However, as Christians, we are exhorted (by liturgy and scripture) to live our justified/ing and sanctified/ing lives in the liberation that we receive from our faith in Christ, in our union with God, and by the power of the Holy Spirit. We’re exhorted by the gospels and the epistles, not to return again to a spirit of fear because we are indwelled with the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of the Living God, who has given us a new heart and a new spirit to live as Christ in the world to the glory of God and the wellbeing of our neighbor. As Paul explains in Galatians,
Galatians 3:23-29
Now before faith came, we were being kept in custody by means of imprisonment under the Law until the intending faith was revealed (v23). While Protestant history, specifically, and Christian history, generally, have disparaged the role of the Law, Paul is not drawing a binary of bad and good[1]—the law does restrain evil and create order and for this it is good (civic use).[2] Rather, Paul is highlighting the human relationship to the law as well as the role of “immediacy.” There are “eras” or “times”[3] of God’s immediacy to the people: the Law and the Christ.[4] According to Paul, people are caught under the confines of the era of the power of the Law. [5] The Law hemmed the people in to guide them toward God and God’s will in the world; but itself was not God.[6] While good, even considering how Paul is speaking of the Law and its power here in Galatians, it isn’t a direct encounter with God because both the Law and the mediator of the Law stand between the follower of God and God. The law points the way to and exhorts toward God; Christ is God bringing God to you.[7] Thus, there are two “times” or “eras” of power the one of the Law and its mediator and of the Christ who is Emmanuel, God with us.
That’s why Paul then says, Therefore the Law has become our pedagogue until Christ, for the purpose that we may be shown to be righteous by means of faith (v24). While some scholars argue that this pedagogue was a kind “guide”, a “slave who accompanied” a privileged son of a wealthy family to school (and back),[8] Paul’s language here is more severe and provokes an image of harshness, even if we can find ways that this pedagogue was important in the life of a schoolboy.[9] Paul refers to the Law’s presence as “imprisonment” (v23), and the word pedagogue gives us the idea of a “warden,”[10],[11] someone who has the power to keep the inmates in-line and under control, whether they like it or not.[12] Luther refers to this as the power of the Law over the people as a “true hell”[13] because from this severe power and oversight (threat of punishment and condemnation) no one can run and hide, there is no safety or assurance.[14] But the power of the Law, though constrictive and restrictive, is limited, for Paul.[15] In v24 we see the purpose of the Law; even under the era and power of the Law, there was a divine point for us: to be shown to be righteous by faith. Christ not only eclipsed the power and captivity of the Law, Christ removed the Law from the role of “warden” as the pedagogue. In other words, Christ shoved the Law out of the divine seat of power and installed himself in that divine seat, which is more appropriate considering the Law =/= God but Christ = God.[16] Thus why Paul can say in v25, But while faith has come we are no longer under the pedagogue. Because of Christ, all humanity[17]—considering Paul believes all are under the power of the Law[18]—can receive liberation from the wardenship of the pedagogue, sprung free from imprisonment under the Law because Christ is God (and not merely one who points to God).[19] In very Protestant terms, we are justified by faith and not by works to satisfy the law.[20]
Then, in v26, Paul extends the imagery that faith not only liberates humanity from the confines of the Law, but it creates a family, For you are—all of you!—sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. Paul addressed both men and women in this moment, and gave to all of them who have faith the legal right to be heirs as first born sons being siblings with Christ; there is no hierarchy here among the family defined by faith because the old way, the way inspired and influenced by imprisonment and the warden, is no longer the way of those who believe.[21] In fact, Paul goes one step further in his logic here, For how many [of you] were baptized into Christ, you [have] clothed yourselves [in] Christ (v27). Not only is Christ the sibling of those who believe, those who believe are clothed in him through the act of baptism. Those who have been baptized with Christ have died with him, and if they have died then they are raised into new life[22] with Christ.[23] Thus the believer in identifying with Christ in his death by baptism is stripped of their old identity as defined by the kingdom of humanity and given a new identity that’s defined by the reign of God,[24] (they “put on” Christ). [25] The Law had nothing to do with this event, it was all by faith and by God’s interventive, unmediated act. [26] For Paul, the Spirit now is in charge of these who are sons of God by the promise[27] fulfilled in Christ and by Christ[28] and not merely sons of Abraham by the Law (of circumcision);[29],[30] the warden (the Law) is now the one held hostage by the power and law faith and the Spirit.[31]
Now, we come to the v28, where Paul dares to say, There is neither Children of Israel nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female. For you, you—all of you!—are one in Christ Jesus. The erasure happening here is not an erasure of distinction and difference but the erasure of the structures of power keeping one group over the other by means of domination and subjection.[32],[33] For those who are not only in Christ by faith but also dressed in Christ, there are no approved hierarchies of persons;[34] domination and subjection are dead.[35] To put it bluntly, there is no room for bigotry, hatred, and malice toward those who are different than you; there is no justification for prejudice, discrimination, and oppression because of any variance from the status quo; there is neither theological nor biblical validation of systems, constructs, and ideologies that perpetuate any such biased orientations promoted by the kingdom of humanity.[36] All persons, because of the advent of Christ and faith, are equal and not interchangeable, they are representable and irreplaceable.[37] Thus why Paul closes chapter three with, But if you, you are of Christ, therefore you, you are of the seed of Abraham, heirs according to the promise (v29) and not the law.
Conclusion
For Paul, we are FREE, LIBERATED from the confines and imprisonment of the Law, released from the supervision of the Law as warden. Not just yesterday, but today, and tomorrow![38] According to Paul, without the advent of Christ, we have a tendency to dethrone God with God’s Law; we find comfort in the Law because it shows us what to do and what not to do. Or so we think. But this comfort becomes our Lord, and we will choose it over discomfort every time. We need/ed liberation from this toxic and maladapted relationship with the Law. We need/ed the Law to be torn from our hands so that it could be put back in its right and proper place in our lives: as a tool we use to love God and (more to the point) to love our neighbor to the Glory of God! According to Paul here in Galatians the Law has been debarked or, rather, put in its own sound-proof confinement. The Law is not bad, but we make it such when we force it into the role of God; the Law has a place and is good but as long as it isn’t being forced to be God. Praise God that Christ has taken that seat forever!
So, today, maybe, we rejoice. Like Floyd being released from his room, may we wiggle and squiggle our way back into the world, released from the condemnation and threat[39] of our dysfunctional relationship with the Law. May we lunge into the world from our captivity, eager to live fully into our new life in Christ by faith as those who both represent and imitate Christ,[40] clothed in Christ.[41] May we be sooper-dooper happy to greet the world, our neighbors, all the flora and fauna knowing that our identities are sealed in Christ by faith and that we are guided by the loving, life-giving, liberating Spirit of God so we can participate in God’s mission of the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation in the world.
[1] LW 26:335. “For the Law is a Word that shows life and drives us toward it. Therefore it was not given only for the sake of death. But this is its chief use and end: to reveal death, in order that the nature and enormity of sin might thus become apparent. It does not reveal death in a way that takes delight in it or that seeks to nothing but kill us. No, it reveals death in order that men may be terrified and humbled and thus fear God.”
[2] LW 26:336-337. “Meanwhile however, the Lw has this benefit: Even though men’s hearts may remain as wicked as possible, it restrains thieves, murderers, and public criminals to some extent, at least outwardly and politically.”
[3] LW 26:336. “This means that before the time of the Gospel and of grace came, it was the function of the Law to keep us confined under it as though we were in a prison.”
[4] J. Louis Martyn, “Galatians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary,” The Anchor Bible, gen. eds. William Foxwell Albright and David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1997), 361-362. “Paul continues to speak of the era of the Law, saying three things about it: (a) It was the period in which ‘we’ existed under the Law’s power; (b) it had a definite terminus, the arrival of faith…; (c) even in the era of the Law’s dominion, God was on the verge of executing his ultimate purpose, thinking ahead (mellô) to the faith by which he would terminate it.”
[5] Martyn, “Galatians,” 362. “All human beings were caught under the Law’s power.”
[6] Bedford, “Galatians,” 87. “For Paul the law cannot be expected to do what only God can do: the law is penultimate by nature, and not ultimate, and yet it is a good and holy thing, given by God, even if it is not in itself God.”
[7] Bedford, “Galatians,” 88. “If the law is not in itself God, but rather points the way to God, it cannot have a role other than an intermediate one.”
[8] Bedford, “Galatians,” 88. “To try to make his point he uses the analogy of the law as a guide (paidagōgos), able to steer humans in the right direction (v. 24). In that cultural context the ‘pedagogue’ was not a teacher but rather a man, usually a slave, who accompanied a young male of privileged social status to school and back, watching over his conduct as a custodian or supervisor …”
[9] LW 26:346. Law as “schoolmaster” whom no student really loves (also, medieval schoolmasters were tough), “Nevertheless, a schoolmaster is extremely necessary for a boy, to instruct and chastise him; for otherwise, without this instruction, good training, and discipline, the boy would become to ruin.”
[10] Martyn, “Galatians,” 362. “Like Sin, the Law was the universal prison warden.”
[11] Martyn, “Galatians,” 363. “The Law of v. 23, that is to say, is not a pedagogical guide, but rather an imprisoning warden. To be sure, one might consider the possibility that the explication in v 24 exceeds its foundation in v 23, were one not confronted with a second factor. (b) …in six of the ten times Paul refers to humans being ‘under the power of,’ he identifies that enslaving power as the Law.”
[12] Martyn, “Galatians,” 363. “When he says in v 25, therefore, that since the coming of faith we are no longer ‘under the power of’ the paidagôgos, he shows clearly that in that verse, as in 24, he is using the term paidagôgos in the sense of a distinctly unfriendly and confining custodian, different in no significant way from an imprisoning jailer.”
[13] LW 26:337. “That is, the Law is also a spiritual prison and a true hell; for when it discloses sin and threatens death and the eternal wrath of God, man can neither run away nor find any comfort.”
[14] LW 26:338. “The custody or prison signifies the true and spiritual terrors by which the conscience is so confined that it cannot find a place in the hole wide world where it can be safe.”
[15] LW 26:337. “Thus the law is a prison both politically and theologically. In the first place, it restrains and confines the wicked politically, so that they are not carried headlong by their passions into all sorts of crim. Secondly, it shows us our sin spiritually, terrifying and humbling us, so that when we have been frightened this way, we acknowledge our misery and our damnation. And this latter is the true and proper use of the Law, even though it is not permanent…”
[16] Martyn, “Galatians,” 362. “On the whole, however, his apocalyptic language refers not to an unveiling of some thing, but rather to an invasion carried out by someonewho has moved into the world from outside it….”
[17] Martyn, “Galatians,” 363. “Just as Abraham’s faith in God was kindled by God’s promise….so the Christians faith is now awakened by the gospel of Christ …Between these two occurrences of the faith-inciting gospel there was only the world characterize by the Law’s curse. Paul envisions, then, a world that has been changed from without by God’s incursion into it, and he perceives that incursion to be the event that has brought faith into existence.”
[18] Martyn, “Galatians,” 363. “…the Law was compelled to serve God’s intention simply by holding all human beings in a bondage that precluded every route of deliverance except that of Christ.”
[19] Bedford, “Galatians,” 89. “Paul fears (and it is tempting to imagine that this fear is a reflection of his own past zeal) that the law can take on an ultimate character that properly belongs only to God. To his must be added his belief in the divine character of Christ. If Jesus Christ is indeed both human and divine, as Paul believes, not just a guide who points the way to God, then his life and work take on a centrality for Paul that take priority over all other possible ways.”
[20] LW 26:347. “The Law is a custodian, not until some other lawgiver comes who demands good works, but until Christ comes, the Justifier and Savior, so that we may be justified through faith in Him not through works.”
[21] Bedford, “Galatians,” 91. “Paul assures the Galatians in verse 26 that through the faith of Jesus Christ they are all children of God, or quite literally that they (both men and women) are all ‘sons’ of God, inasmuch as all have the full rights that only male heirs received in that context. From this male-centered filial metaphor Paul then switches to a more inclusive image: inasmuch as we are baptized in Christ, we put on Christ as a garment and are propelled in the right direction y virtue of Christ’s work of justification in us. In putting on Christ, we are in Christ and Christ in us, in a mutual indwelling that echoes the perichoretic dynamic of the Triune God.”
[22] Martyn, “Galatians,” 377. “One senses in the formula itself, then, an implied reference to new creation…”
[23] LW 26:352. “But to put on Christ according to eh Gospel is a matter, not of imitation but of a new birth and a new creation, namely, that I put on Christ Himself, that is, Hi s innocence, righteousness, wisdom, power, salvation life, and Spirit.”
[24] LW 26:351. “The Law cannot beget men into a new nature or a new birth; it brings to view the old birth, by which we were born into the kingdom of the devil. Thus it prepares us for the new birth, which takes place through faith in Christ Jesus, not through the Law, as Paul clearly testifies…”
[25] Martyn, “Galatians,” 374. “Paul … reminds the Galatians that in their baptism the Law played no role at all, either positive or negative … Standing in the water of death…and stripped of their old identity, they become God’s own sons, putting on Christ, God’s Son…as though he were their clothing, thus acquiring a new identity that lies beyond ethnic, social and sexual distinctions.”
[26] Martyn, “Galatians,” 374. “When they were baptized, being incorporated into Abraham’s seed (v. 16) they became true descendants of Abraham quite apart from the Law, thus inheriting the Abrahamic promises, the Spirit.”
[27] LW 26:341. “The time of grace is when the heart is encouraged again by the promise of the free mercy of God…”
[28] Martyn, “Galatians,” 375. “They became sons of God by being incorporated into God’s Son…..He reminds the Galatians, therefore, that in their baptism they were taken into the realm of the Christ whose faith had elicited their own faith.”
[29] Martyn, “Galatians,” 374 “Perceiving that development to be based on an ethnic interpretation of Abraham, Paul takes all of the Galatians back to their origin as children not of Abraham, but of God.”
[30] Martyn, “Galatians,” 374-375. “Thus shifting the ground abruptly and fundamentally by speaking of descent from God through Christ, Paul lays the foundation for putting descent from Abraham into second place…indeed for eventually eclipsing it in favor of descent from God (4:5-7).”
[31] Bedford, “Galatians,” 92. “…to be a child of God means to receive the Holy Spirit, and to have the Holy Spirit is to be set with Christ in the transition from death to life. One final pneumatological dimension of putting on Christ as the justified children of God that emerges from this text is its relation to Wisdom….Augustine suggests that to put on Christ is in this passage means to put on Wisdom: to be clothed with Wisdom, to participate in Wisdom, and to perform Wisdom. This is an intriguing possibility, especially from a Liberationist and feminist perspective: putting on Christ is not dependent on social status or gender, and as a garment it bring with it new performative possibilities opened up by the Spirit of Life…”
[32] Bedford, “Galatians,” 97-98. “Each of the contrasting pairs offers a glimpse into a web of complex power relations. Different people with diverse ethnicities, social status, and genders are invited to relate in new ways in Christ. They are not forced into sameness: to be equal does not mean to be identical. In other words, equality in Christ as envisioned by Paul does not negate cultural, sexual, social, or religious differences.”
[33] Bedford, “Galatians,” 98. “….we need to realize that the three pairs point respectively to very different dimensions affecting relationships within the church and in society. …Each of the pairs need to be examined in turn, without the presupposition that they overlap precisely with the categories of ‘race, class, and gender’ familiar form recent anthropology and sociology.”
[34] LW 26:356. “In Christ, on the other hand, where there is no Law, there is no distinction among person s at all. There is neither Jew nor Greek, but all are one; for there is one body, one Spirit, one hope of the calling of al all, one and the same Gospel, one faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all, one Christ, the Lord of all….”
[35] Bedford, “Galatians,” 101. “Whatever the origins of sin and white racism, Galatians 3:28 subverts any distortion of ethnocentrism or sense of innate superiority based on social class, income, or any other characteristic that might be prestigious in a given culture and time: in Christ such hierarchies are to have no traction.”
[36] Bedford, “Galatians,” 102. “The doctrine of the incarnation of the eternal Second Person of the Trinity in the specific (fully) human being Jesus of Nazareth suggests that God is profoundly committed to particularity, to the point of becoming (a particular) one of us, in order that we might 9nin all our particularities) become as God is. To suggest that some humans with specific characteristics (such as a particular skin color or gender or sexuality) should lord it over all the others deeply opposes the liberating message of the gospel, as does the attempt to use violence to enforce domination and hierarchy.”
[37] Martyn, “Galatians,” 377. “Religious, social, and sexual pairs of opposites are not replaced by equality but rather by a newly created unity….Members of the church are not one thing; they are one person, having been taken into the corpus of the One New Man.”
[38] LW 26:340. “But you should apply it not only to the time but also the feelings; for what happened historically and temporally when Christ came—namely, that He abrogated the Law and brought liberty and eternal life to light—this happens personally and spiritually every day in any Christian, in whom there are found the time of Law and time of Grace in constant alteration.”
[39] LW 26:336. “Such is the power of the Law and such is righteousness on the basis of the Law that it forces us to be outwardly good so long as it threatens transgressors with penalties and punishment.”
[40] LW 26:353. “Therefore Paul teaches that Baptism is not a sign but the garment of Christ, in fact, that Christ Himself is our garment. Hence Baptism is a very powerful and effective thing. For when we have put on Christ, the garment of our righteousness and salvation then we also put on Christ, the garment of imitation.”
[41] LW 26:343. “By faith in the Word of grace, therefore, the Christian should conquer fear, turn his eyes away from the time of Law, and gaze at Christ Himself and at the faith to come.”
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