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TORAH!
"Why, then, was the law given at all? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was given through angels and entrusted to a mediator. A mediator implies more than one party; but God is one.
"Is the law opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law was given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. But Scripture has locked up everything under the control of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Christ Jesus, might be given to those who believe." Galatians 3:19-22.
Wow! This is a mouthful! What was Paul getting at? Let's unpick this passage bit by bit and try to understand what he was explaining.
Why did God give His people the Law? We must understand the word torah, which is translated law, from God's point of view. It does not mean law in the same way as we understand it from a western point of view. Torah means teaching, rather than a rigid set of rules. Through the Torah, God was teaching them how to live the right way in line with who He is.
We must remember that, for 430 years, the descendants of Jacob lived in Egypt under Egyptian rule. When they finally left Egypt, they were an undisciplined bunch of slaves who had lived under the whip of Egyptian taskmasters. Once they were free from their cruelty, they had to learn how to live with one another under a different set of rules. It was not okay to do to one another what the Egyptians had done to them. But who was going to set the standards and tell them how to live?
Firstly, then, the Torah defined for them what was right and wrong and how to put right what they did wrong. Paul said it was because of transgressions. Sin is sin, but we don't know what sin is until we are told what it is. That's what the law does. For example, how do we know it is wrong to steal unless we are told that it is wrong and what to do about it when we do steal?
Secondly, God's people had to learn that they could never reach His perfect standard by obeying His teaching. There was always a pull towards doing wrong and, just like little children, as soon as they were told not to do this or not to do that, they did it because of their natural bent towards rebellion. No amount of rules would keep them on the right way. They needed a change on the inside and no law could do that.
Thirdly, the Torah was intended to develop a culture that would prepare them for the coming of the Messiah. The sacrificial system with its different kinds of sacrifices, many reasons for offering sacrifices, and rituals they had to observe, were all intended as visual aids to show them and prepare them for the coming of God's perfect sacrifice, the Lord Jesus Christ.
They had to understand what sin was, a falling short of God's holy standards, and what it did, making the sinner unclean; hence the need for the death of an animal and the offering of its blood, not only as a substitute for the sinner but also to cleanse the offerer from the pollution of sin.
The priestly system taught them that they could not bounce into the presence of a holy God because sin separated them from Him. He was unapproachable except through His appointed mediator, the high priest and the offering of the prescribed sacrifices. When Abraham's "seed", Jesus, came, He fulfilled all the pictures the law painted of the right way to approach God.
So, the Torah was not opposed to the revelation of God's grace through His Son; it was a preparation for His coming. Without the Law, who He was and what He did would have made no sense to His people. But when He came, and when He died on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for all the sin of all the people for all time, there was no need for anyone to obey the law as a way of approaching God any more. The priesthood and the sacrificial system were fulfilled and done away with in Christ.
God does not need human mediators to stand between Him and His people. Jesus is the perfect Mediator because He is both God and man. God does not need animal sacrifices to teach us how terrible sin is - that it demands the shedding of blood to be forgiven. His own Son shed His blood, a once-for-all sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins, not just for Jews but for the whole world.
Why would Gentiles need to be circumcised, then? They do not need a physical sign to set them apart as God's children. The Holy Spirit in them is the sign of God's ownership. Doing all the things that the law demands and that are only pictures of what Jesus came to do is a foolish backward step. God did away with all that by sending His Messiah and now all we have to do is receive Him by faith and He takes us right into the presence of the Father, forgiven, clean and acceptable to God.
And He changes our nature and puts His Spirit in us so that we live according to His torah, not because we have to but because we can.
Acknowledgement Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
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