Before and after faith.
I. BEFORE FAITH CAME. "But before faith came." The faith which is here brought into prominence is that which was historically manifested when Christ came. Faith existed before Christianity, as is evident from the eleventh of Hebrews. There was trust in the Divine word. But the attitude toward Christ was that of expectancy. "We who had before hoped in Christ." It had been faith along with the observance of the Mosaic Law. But when the gospel of salvation was preached, it was faith, pure and simple, on Christ.
1. The state of God's people under the Law. "We were kept in ward under the Law, shut up." They were wards of the Law. A strict watch was kept over them, as those who could not manage themselves. This went the length of their being in custody.
2. The goal intended for them. "Unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed." It is to be remembered that the Law existed alongside of the promise, to which it was simply an addition. It is to be remembered, also, that the ceremonial part of the Law had promise largely mixed up with it, many of the types being really promises. And, so far as the promise was concerned, there could be, in the religious life of those times, a feeling of liberty in the enjoyment of forgiveness and in the hope of the attainment of their ideal. There was grace, too, in the heart of the Law. It was a disciplinary institution, preparatory to Christianity. It was with a view to the people of God being brought into a higher state, into the freer relation of faith, which was to be revealed when Christ came. Illustration. "So that the Law hath been our tutor to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith." The pedagogue (formerly translated "schoolmaster," now "tutor") was one who got his name born leading the child to school. He had the responsible office of superintending the education of the child, and also his morals and manners. He had strictly to regulate and watch over the employments and deportment of the child, and he was armed with the power of punishment. The pedagogic function is what belongs to every parent. He has himself or by deputy to educate his child, physically, intellectually, morally, and spiritually. The restrictions he has to lay on the employment of his time, thoughts, energies, are not agreeable to him, but they are with a view to his being of age. The Law is thus laid upon him that it may be ultimately within him, and that he may do that which is right and proper with no sense of bondage. The people of God were under the Law as under a pedagogue. They were treated as children, and had their duty minutely prescribed to them and their fears appealed to. This produced a sense of bondage, but it was that by-and-by they might the better welcome Christ and those higher influences he was to bring with him. The feeling of guilt and condemnation which the Law produced was that Christ might be longed for in his justifying merit to be received through faith.
II. NOW THAT FAITH IS COME. "But now that faith is come."
1. Christian emancipation. "We are no longer under a tutor." We are no longer under the discipline of the Mosaic institution. We do not need rules outwardly imposed on us, nosy that the higher Christian influences are operative in us. We are absolutely freed from the ceremonial Law, which received its fulfilment in Christ. The moral Law could never be called Mosaic, rather it was that round which the whole Mosaic institution was gathered. We are freed from it as the ground of our justification or condemnation. But it is still needed to hold up before us higher ideas of righteousness. It is still needed to work in us deeper conviction of sin. It is still needed to keep us to the true source of our security. But what thus disciplines us, is the Law as it has received its highest exhibition in the cross of Christ. From it, as connected with the Mosaic institution, we are freed.
2. Christian sonship.
3. Christian equality.
HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY