Discontinued

"You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?" Galatians 3:1-3

While discussing Galatians 3, a popular Christian radio and television host says, "Remember he (Paul) is dealing with the Judaizers ... don't listen to them, you're under grace. You are not under the Law. Don't forget, the Law drives you to Jesus, and it continues to guide us, but we are no longer under the power and authority of the Law." Did you catch it?  After correctly stating that the Law "drives you to Jesus," he nullifies it immediately when he says that the Law "continues to guide us." If something is meant to drive you to something, effectively being the vehicle you take to arrive at your destination, how then is that "vehicle" supposed to continue to guide you when its job is complete? We don't take a taxi cab and then stay in the cab when we arrive at our destination. We pay the driver and exit the vehicle. We don't take a plane across the ocean to our vacation spot and then stay on the plane after it lands. We exit the plane, get our luggage and begin our vacation. Yet, we are told to believe that in our Christian lives we are supposed to stay in the cab or aboard the plane even after we have arrived at our destination; Jesus. This Christian brings up the fact that Paul was talking about Judaizers when making his point about the Law. Judaizers, by definition, "is a term for Christians who decide to adopt Jewish customs and practices such as, primarily, the Law of Moses." Well, if we use this definition, which is pretty accurate, isn't this person contradicting himself?  How can the Law drive you to Jesus only for you to remain under it in order to guide you in your Christian life? It is like saying, "adopting the Jewish customs and practices of the Law will drive you to Jesus and then those same customs and practices will guide you as a Christian." This makes no sense. In fact, this person is actually guilty of being a Judaizer himself for what he says. In the chapter he mentioned, Galatians 3, Paul called the Galatian Christians foolish and said they were bewitched for believing the message of the Judaizers. To be foolish is to lack good sense or judgment. To be bewitched means to fascinate and mislead with words. The Galatian church's lack of good sense and judgment led Judaizers to mislead them into believing that it was the Law of Moses that was to guide them in their Christian walk with Jesus. 

Paul asks the Galatians, "After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?" He is asking them a rhetorical question; they knew they received the Spirit of God at salvation, but now are trying to live the Christian life in the energy of their flesh through the Law of Moses. The Law of Moses, any law, has no place in the life of the believer. The job of the Law of Moses is to drive us to Jesus by stirring up sin in our lives. This is so we realize that the only way for us to be saved and to be righteous in the eyes of God is by His grace and mercy through faith in Jesus Christ. The Law is for unbelievers, not believers. 1 Timothy 1:8-9 says, "We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers ..." The proper use of the Law is for the lost, not the righteous. Why would Christians be guided by something not meant for them? The answer is, we are not guided by the Law of Moses. We are not supposed to "finish by means of the flesh," which is what it means to live by the Law. If you continue reading in Galatians 3, you will see how a Christian is to be guided. 

"Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith (Galatians 3:11)." It is obvious that the Law does not guide us and it doesn't even justify us. We are to live by faith. In short, Christians are to live by responding to the truth God reveals to us through His indwelling Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit indwelt us at salvation and now It guides us in our daily lives as Christians. If a Christian uses the Law, it is to bury somebody under its impossible demands on the flesh, so a person will come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ. When someone says that the Law guides us it is evident to me that they have no idea what the purpose of the Law is for and that the Law hasn't finished its work in that person. "So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law (Galatians 3:24-25)." The Law has done its job. We are not to continue in it. Faith has come. The object of our faith is Jesus Christ. Now that Jesus, through the indwelling Holy Spirit, lives in us, it is He that guides us from now on, not the Law. Believe what you have heard.