The Secret of Freedom From Law

(Galatians 3:23-29)

Psst! Wanna know a secret? And not just any secret but one that is going to make your life as a Christian so much better you won’t ever want to look back?

Well…it’s all about the laws of Moses and where they really fit with regards to your walk in Christ.

We all know that Jesus came to set us free from the law and to set us free from sin. But it’s one thing to know something and quite another to understand it. For instance, everyone knows the formula that Einstein posed regarding his theory of relativity. We all know E = MCsquared. But apart from physicists, do we or does the average man on the street understand what it means? Probably not.

It’s the same for Christians. Most Christians know the words “We are set free from law,” but do they truly understand how it works and what it means to be set free? The scriptures I am reviewing today give us some powerful insights into this dilemma.

The Law As Custodian

The first verses here explain that for all people before they come to Christ, the law is a custodian. Some bibles translate this same word as “schoolmaster,” which is also helpful to explain where we stand in relation to the law.

A custodian is someone who is in charge of something or someone. They have that thing or person in “custody,” and they control that thing or person while they are in their custodianship. Likewise a schoolmaster is a custodian of the students under his or her care during the period that the students are under their control. Furthermore, a schoolmaster is employed not just to have custodial control of the students, but to teach them so that the students learn.

In verses 23 and 24 of this section we see this custodial role applied to the laws of Moses to a person in the per-Christian state.

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. (Galatians 3:23-24)

Under the custodial care of the law, we were confined. We were held in bondage and were punished by the law whenever we broke it and committed sin.

But in these verses we see that this custodianship lasted only until faith came. At the time when we came to Christ in faith, believing that He has set us free from the custodial power of the law, we were set free from the power of the law.

In faith we are justified by the grace of God and we are set free from the law.

Freedom At Last

While we were under the law we were under the power of sin. The law condemned us at every turn and called us sinners. We were awash with guilt and condemnation and without a means to overcome the sinfulness that existed within us.

But when Jesus came and died for us, in His death we became released from sin.

God in His grace says that if we follow the instructions of Jesus and we believe in the redemptive power of the blood and the death of Jesus Christ, then He will blot out all of our past sins, AND set us free from the law so that it cannot be broken as we walk forward with Christ. As the next verses of the text today show:

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. (Galatians 3:25-26)

As you see here, when Christ came and died for us we were released from the custodial control of the law. We are no longer under the custodian of the law, but have been adopted as the sons and daughters of the living God, through faith in Christ Jesus.

But what do we need to believe and how does this work? This is where the real secret comes in to play.

The Secret of Baptism

As we continue on in the next couple of verses, the method is described and the secret unfolds. We know that we are set free by faith, and we know that it is a faith in Jesus Christ, but what specifically are we meant to believe to receive this freedom from sin and freedom from law? What is the secret?

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. (Galatians 3:27-29)

Here is the secret laid out plainly for all to see and believe upon. The secret is in baptism.

Verse 27 tells us that as many of us who are baptised, and by this Paul means being baptised into the death of Jesus Christ, have put on Christ.

What does it mean to “put on Christ?” To put it simply, it means to take on the death Jesus died for us as our own death. It means that as Jesus died and was raised from the dead, we too die with Him and are raised with Him when we go through the waters of baptism. We enter and go down into the water, which is to die with Him symbolically, and we are resurrected with Him as we are lifted up out of the waters.

When we go through baptism in this way we believe that we have died with Christ and been reborn as new creations in Him through faith. And we are born again not as citizens of this world, but as citizens of the kingdom of God; as the sons and daughters of God.

But you may be wondering why we have to believe we have died with Christ in the first place? Why is it that baptism is representative of our death and resurrection with Him?

Death is important because it is ONLY by death that we can be set free from sin and the law.

Death is the penalty all sinners face, and in this world everyone is or has been a sinner. Furthermore we all have the sin factor abiding in us from our birth because we inherit sinfulness and sin from our forefathers Adam and Eve. It is because they sinned that we all now are under the power of sin, and it is because we continue to sin that we die. We earn death because we sin, as the scripture says:

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)

Wages are something that are earned in return for something done. In the case of humanity, the “something” that is done is sin, and so the wage that is earned is death.

To put it another way, throughout our lives, every person on the planet is building up a debt of sin. As they go through their lives doing the wrong things from time to time, they add to the pile of this sinful debt until the day they die. At the time of death, the debt is paid in full because the “wages of sin is death.” The only way that the debt of sin can be satisfied is by a death occurring.

Even under the law a death was required to atone for the sins of the nation of Israel. Once a year the high priest would take a sacrificed lamb into the temple and offer the blood of the lamb on the altar as a sin offering for the people. And God would accept the offering and forgive their sins.

This is part of the reason why Jesus was called the Lamb of God. He became the sacrifice for ALL of the sins of ALL mankind. And His sacrifice was greater than any lamb offered on the altar because He died only once, not annually, and He died for the sins of all. Furthermore, the effect of the sacrifice of Jesus was not just to offer forgiveness of sins like the lambs offered on the altar in the temple. Jesus died to TAKE AWAY our sins, not just forgive, but to remove permanently and for all time.

The same applies to the law. Under the law there was no way to be set free from the law, so the people were confined permanently by the law.

But under grace by faith, the way is now open to be set free from the law, and like the freedom from sin it involves a death: the death of Jesusw Christ.

We see Paul make this statement about the freeing effect of death in relation to the law.

Do you not know, brethren–for I am speaking to those who know the law–that the law is binding on a person only during his life? (Romans 7:1)

Paul shows that the law is only in force while people are alive. When they die the law ceases to be in force because the law cannot go through the boundaries of death.

This is why in baptism we die with Christ. We die with Him and “put on” His death as our own by faith so that we can be set free from the law and sin. When we have died with Christ, the law will no longer confine us and have us in it’s power. We will be truly free to live and to worship the Lord outside the confines of the law.

Now you may be wondering about this whole baptism equals death thing, so I will add in these final few scriptures to show this is the case.

3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For he who has died is freed from sin. (Romans 6:3-7)

This verse makes it clear that we have been baptised into the death of Christ and that we have been buried and raised with Him through baptism. And as the last verse in this section shows, those who have died have been set free and are freed from sin. Sin is gone for those who have been baptised into Jesus Christ and who believe they are set free.

But the scripture above talks about sin only. What about the freedom from law, which is what this article is about? How does that work? In the same way as we see in this next verse.

4 Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit. (Romans 7:4-6)

So again we see that through the death of Jesus Christ, which we take on in baptism, we are dead to the law as well. We are discharged from the law and we are no longer under the law but are now serving God under the power of His grace.

It is necessary that the law be removed if we are to become fully transformed into the image of Christ because the law condemns us as sinners and we know that no one who sins will or can come into the presence of God.

But the only way we can be set free from sin IS to come into the presence of God so that He will help us and do the work of transformation. We can’t do it ourselves. We need His help, which He gives through the receiving of the Holy Spirit. But without being set free from sin and the law this process cannot even begin.

That is why baptism is so important. That is why Jesus said to John the Baptist to baptise Christ, even though He didn’t need it, because it is necessary to fulfil all righteousness. (Matthew 3:14-15) That is why in the Great Commission the second point Jesus instructed the disciples to do when they made new disciples was to baptise them. Matthew 28:19) That is why when the Holy Spirit fell on the Gentiles in the house of Cornelius, Peter COMMANDED the people to be baptised. (Acts 10:47-48) That is why Paul re-baptised the people he met at Ephesus, who had received the baptism of John but were not yet baptised into the death of Jesus Christ. (Acts 19:1-6)

Jesus told His disciples that “L am the way.” And He IS the way by which we come to salvation. But baptism is the method He established so that we could enter into the kingdom as we take on His death as our own and by faith commence the journey to perfection.

So let me ask a final question. Have you been baptised into the death of Jesus Christ? Oh, and by the way, infant baptism doesn’t count.

If you haven’t, or if you are not sure, do it as soon as possible, because until you do you cannot receive the freedom offered in Jesus Christ and the free gift of righteousness given by God to those who have faith. This is the secret of freedom from law. The freedom comes through faith in the process of baptism.

You might also like:

The Great Commission Part 2
The Truth Will Make You Free
Lazarus Resurrected
Why Jesus Died
Baptising The Ethiopian
Christians And The Law
You Are Not A Sinner
You Are Not Under Law
The Law Ends At Death
How Freedom From Law Works
Bought With A Price
Baptism Defined
Curse Of The Law