“But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed” (Gal. 3:23).
This verse repeats, in different words, the particular thought of the two verses immediately preceding. Verse 21 declares that the law is not against the promises of God, and shows that it is a helper unto the fullness of the promises that are in Christ. Verse 22 declares that “the scripture hath concluded all under sin” and this for a purpose. And what is the purpose? —“That [in order that] the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe” (Gal. 3:22).
Now, “By the law is the knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20); (Rom. 3:20) and it is the law of God, the Ten Commandments, by which is the knowledge of sin. Then since “the scripture hath concluded all under sin,” and “by the law is the knowledge of sin,” the scripture hath concluded all under the law. And it has concluded them all under the law so that “the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.”
Then, that law by which is the knowledge of sin, —by that law it is that “the scripture hath concluded all under sin.” And since it is by that law that all are concluded under sin, in order that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might by given to them that believe, therefore, as stated in the previous verse, the law is not against the promises of God, but is an aid to all men in their attaining to the promise by faith of Jesus Christ.
Now the same thought is carried forward in the verse at present under consideration; namely, “Before faith came, we were kept under the law.” Under what law? —Plainly under the law by which alone “the scripture hath concluded all under sin.” Even as it is said in another place: “Now we know that what things so ever the law saith, it is said to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.” This is the condition of every soul upon earth before faith comes to him. But when faith does come to him, when he awakes to the exercise of faith, then “the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, . . .even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe” (Rom. 3:19-22). Thus it is true, and thus it is, that all are concluded under sin and kept under the law until faith in Jesus Christ delivers them.
However, there is another expression in the verse that is particularly to be noticed: that is, that we were “shut up.” We were “under the law,” “shut up.” We were “kept under the law, shut up.” It was “before faith came” that “we were kept under the law, shut up.” And “before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.”
How was it that we were shut up? —“Under the law, shut up.” But to be under the law is to be “guilty before God” (Rom. 3:19). To be “under the law” is to be under the dominion of sin. Rom. 6:14. And since we were “under the law, shut up,” it was the law that shut us up. And what law is this? —It is the same law as that of the previous verse, by which “the scripture hath concluded all under sin.” And the only law, by which anybody can possibly be concluded under sin, is that law by which “is the knowledge of sin,” which is the law of God, the law of Ten Commandments.
The Greek word thus translated, “shut up” is the same word that, in the previous verse, is translated “concluded;” and also that in Rom. 11:32 is translated in the text “concluded,” and in the margin “shut up.” So that the expressions translated alike in the two verses, would be: verse 22, “The scripture hath shut up all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe;” and verse 22, “We were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.”
This makes it certain that the law by which, in verse 22, “we were shut up under sin” is the same law by which, in verse 23, “we were kept under the law, shut up.” And by these twin expressions it is plain that to be “under the law” is to be “under sin,” for to be “shut up under sin” is to be “kept under the law, shut up;” to be “shut up under the law” is to be “shut up under sin.” And the only law by which anybody can be shut up under sin, is that law by which alone is the knowledge of sin; and that law is the law of God, the law of Ten Commandments.
Therefore, since all are shut up under sin, in order that the promise of faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe; and since the law of Ten Commandments is the only one by which anybody can be shut up under sin, it is certain that law is not against the promises of God, but is the only certain means of attaining to the true faith, and so to the fullness of the promises in Christ.
[Advent Review and Sabbath Herald | March 27, 1900]