ガラテヤの信徒への手紙3:19-22 Galatians 3:19-22,

しかし、聖書はすべてのものを罪の支配下に閉じ込めたのです。それは、神の約束が、イエス・キリストへの信仰によって、信じる人々に与えられるようになるためでした。

（ガラテヤ3:22）

「聖書はすべてのものを罪の支配下に閉じ込めたのです」とは、旧約聖書の律法によれば、すべての人が罪人であるため呪いを受けて滅びるしかない、ということです。それは、パウロが少し前の10節で引用した申命記の27章26節の「律法の書に書かれているすべての事を絶えず守らない者は皆、呪われている」という教えによって示されています。また、パウロはローマの信徒への手紙の3章20節で「律法によっては、罪の自覚しか生じないのです」と教えています。つまり、「〜せよ」「〜してはならない」と教える旧約聖書の律法は、それを守ることができないという罪の自覚を人に与えるけれども、罪から人を救うことはできない、ということです。しかし、罪の自覚を人に与えることはとても大切なことです。なぜなら、罪の自覚がなければ、人は自分が間違ったことをしているということがわからないからです。つまり、「優しい先生」と「きびしく注意してくれる先生」のたとえで言えば、律法は「きびしく注意してくれる先生」なのです。

律法という「きびしく注意してくれる先生」がいるおかげで、人はイエス・キリストへの信仰へと導かれます。つまり、自分が間違ったことをしているということがわかるからこそ、行いによってではなく信仰によって義としていただくために、キリストを信じようと決心するからです。22節の後半に「神の約束が、イエス・キリストへの信仰によって、信じる人々に与えられるようになるため」とありますように、「信仰によって義とされ祝福される」というアブラハムに与えられた約束が、キリストへの信仰によって信じる人に与えられるようになるのです。それは、キリストを信じてキリストと結ばれた人々も、キリストと同じように「義とされて永遠の命を受ける」という天国の財産を受け継ぐようになるということです。

律法が「きびしく注意してくれる先生」だとすると、信仰は「優しい先生」ということになります。つまり、律法を守る行いがなくてもキリストへの信仰があれば義と認められ、祝福されるからです。しかし、「きびしく注意してくれる先生」がいなければ、「優しい先生」の優しさがどれほどのものであるかはわからないでしょう。「きびしく注意してくれる先生」である律法は、「優しい先生」である信仰へと私たちを導いてくれるのです。　　　　　　　　　　　　（10月29日の説教より）

Ms. MIURA Ayako, a well-known Christian writer, wrote the following in her collection of essays titled For Tomorrow’s You: To Love is to Forgive.

Yesterday, neighbourhood girls came to visit me. They are both in the sixth grade in an elementary school. I asked them, “Which do you like better, a strict teacher or a kind teacher?” They replied, “A kind teacher.” “Then, which do you like better, a teacher who gives you a strict warning when you make a mistake, or a teacher who doesn’t say anything?” They replied, “The teacher who gives us a strict warning.”

I thought it was not a contradiction, to dislike a strict teacher and yet like a teacher who gives a strict warning. The desire for kindness and the desire for a strict warning are one at the bottom of the heart. Girls like a teacher who guides them correctly. And this is how I feel after decades of age.

Many people may read this and think it is true. However, it is not easy for one person to have a balance of both aspects of a kind and a strict teacher. It is only through one’s own experience of being under the guidance of a teacher who is both kind and strict that one can become such a teacher. The God in the Bible is like a teacher who is both kind and strict. Through today’s Bible passages, I would like to consider how God gives us strict warnings and kindly guides us.

In verse 18 before today’s passages, we read, “For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.” Abraham, who appears in Genesis in the Old Testament, lived in a city called Ur in southern Mesopotamia, which is said to be one of the oldest cradles of civilisation in the world. In today’s terms, this would be Iraq. Abraham moved with his family from there to a city called Haran in northern Mesopotamia. In Haran, he heard God’s call and set out on a further journey with his wife Sarah and his nephew Lot. From then on, Abraham’s life became that of a traveller who lived in one place for a period of time and then followed God’s voice to travel to another place. In the course of their nomadic life, moving with their livestock, Abraham and his wife Sarah grew old. As they grew old and childless, God promised Abraham and Sarah that their offspring would increase in number like the stars in the sky. And Abraham believed this promise, which is hard to believe in common sense. And God counted Abraham’s believing as righteousness.

Prior to this event, when Abraham received God’s call and set out on his journey from the city of Haran, God gave Abraham the following promise: “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:2-3). Also, after Abraham entertained God’s messenger announcing the destruction of the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, God promised that “Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him” (Genesis 18:18). Based on these promises, Paul wrote in verse 14 that “in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles.” This means that those who believe in Jesus Christ are justified by faith in the same way as Abraham, and are blessed in the same way as Abraham.

Paul also interpreted the promise God gave to Abraham in a unique way in Genesis 12:7: “to your offspring I will give this land.” In the Old Testament context alone, this promise would mean that Abraham’s descendants, the Jews, would be given the Canaan region by God to possess. However, Paul interpreted this “offspring” as Jesus Christ. In other words, in verse 16, shortly before today’s passages, he says, “Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, ‘And to offsprings,’ referring to many, but referring to one, ‘And to your offspring,’ who is Christ.”

With this unique interpretation, Paul interprets the promise given to Abraham “to your offspring I will give this land” in a very broad sense. Firstly, by interpreting “offspring” as Christ, the blessing given to Abraham is also a blessing given to Christ. Then, secondly, the promised “land” is not just an earthly “land,” but refers to the heavenly estate where we are justified and receive eternal life. Thirdly, it means that those who believe in Christ and are united with him are also promised to inherit the same heavenly estate of being justified and receiving eternal life as Christ. Thus, according to Paul’s interpretation, the promise given to Abraham “to your offspring I will give this land” no longer means giving the land of Canaan to the Jews, but to those who believe in Christ the heavenly estate of “being justified and receiving eternal life.”

Now, in the time of Joseph, Abraham’s great-grandson, Abraham’s descendants migrated to the land of Egypt. This was because Joseph, after being sold into slavery in Egypt because of the jealousy of his brothers, became a minister of the kingdom of Egypt through God’s mysterious guidance. In the land of Egypt, Abraham’s descendants increased in number and became a large and powerful people. As time went on, a man who did not know Joseph became king of Egypt, and in order to prevent the Israelites from gaining more power, this king reduced them to the status of slaves and made them suffer. However, God listened to the cries of suffering of the enslaved Israelites and raised up a leader named Moses to deliver the Israelites from Egypt. Then, at Mount Sinai, on the way to the new land that God had promised, God gave the Israelites a set of laws that they were to follow. These were the Ten Commandments and various other laws. They were laws that taught God’s saved people how they were to live a life of thanksgiving to God. These laws are called “the law.”

“The law” supplemented “the promise” God had given to Abraham. But it in no way nullified the promise God had given to Abraham. In other words, “the law” did not replace “the promise” given to Abraham to govern the relationship between God and the people of Israel. This is what Paul tells us in verse 17, “The law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void.” “A covenant previously ratified by God” refers to the covenant/promise that God gave to Abraham. And “the law, which came 430 years afterward” refers to “the law” given through Moses after the Israelites had departed from Egypt.

With these things in mind, Paul asks in verse 19 at the beginning of today’s passages, “Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.” “The offspring …… to whom the promise had been made” refers to Christ, as I told you earlier. “It was added because of transgressions” means that the law was given in addition to the promise given to Abraham in order to reveal what teaching of God is violated when a person does something contrary to God’s will. “It was put in place through angels by an intermediary” means that the law was given to the Israelites through the hand of Moses, the “intermediary,” under the watchful eyes of angels. If you are familiar with the Old Testament, you will know that God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and various laws, which he read to the Israelites (Ex 24:3). But you may be wondering: were there “angels” there? In fact, the Hebrew version of the Old Testament, on which the Japanese Old Testament is based, does not explicitly state that “angels” were present when Moses was given the law. However, in the Greek version of the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 33:2, the presence of “angels” is mentioned. Furthermore, Psalm 68:17 that says“the chariots of God are twice ten thousand, thousands upon thousands; the Lord is among them; Sinai is now in the sanctuary” was interpreted as meaning that “angels” served God like “chariots” on Mount Sinai by Jewish teachers.

However, the point is not the presence of “angels.” The point is that the law was given to the Israelites “by an intermediary” i.e., Moses. In other words, it was not given directly by God. In verse 20 of today’s passages, Paul says, “Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.” The Israelites could not receive the word of the law directly from the Holy God. The Israelites were guilty of various sins against God and would have died from the shock of facing God and receiving God’s word directly. Therefore, Moses who was “an intermediary” conveyed the law as God’s word. However, when God gave Abraham the promise, He spoke directly to Abraham without “an intermediary.” The fact that there was no “intermediary” means that the word was given by God in such a close relationship. In other words, Paul is trying to say that the promise given to Abraham was a more direct statement from God than the law given through Moses.

Is Paul then trying to say that the law given through Moses was contrary to the promise given to Abraham? Never, for in verse 21 Paul says, “Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.” “If a law had been given that could give life” is an assumption that contradicts reality. In other words, the reality was that the law, given through the hand of an intermediary, Moses, could not make the people of Israel alive. This is evident if we read the history of the Israelites as recorded in the Old Testament. The Israelites continued to violate God’s law during their journey from Egypt to the promised land and after settling in Canaan, the promised land. As a result, the kingdom of Israel was divided into two kingdoms, north and south, with the northern kingdom falling in 722 BC and the southern kingdom in 587 BC. Although the Israelites had been rescued from slavery in Egypt and had been taught by the law how they were to live a life of thanksgiving to God, they failed to keep the law’s instructions. And because of this, they were judged by God and their kingdoms were destroyed. In other words, the conduct of the Israelites was not counted as righteous according to the standards of the law. So Paul makes the unrealistic assumption that “if a law had been given that could give life,” and he notes the opposite result to reality: “then righteousness would indeed be by the law.” In other words, he is trying to remind us that the Israelites were not justified by the law and that their kingdoms were destroyed.

In verse 22, Paul concludes today’s passages by writing as follows. “But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.” “But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin” means that, according to the Old Testament law, all men are sinners and therefore must be cursed and perish. This is illustrated by the teaching in Deuteronomy 27:26, which Paul quoted a little earlier in verse 10: “cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Paul also teaches in Romans 3:20: “through the law comes knowledge of sin.” In other words, the Old Testament law, which tells us “to do” and “not to do,” gives people knowledge of sin for failing to keep it, but does not save them from sin. However, it is very important to give people knowledge of their sins. This is because without knowledge of sin, people will not know that they are doing wrong. In other words, in the analogy of the “kind teacher” and “the teacher who gives a strict warning,” which I mentioned at the beginning of today’s sermon, the law is “the teacher who gives a strict warning.”

It is because of the law, “the teacher who gives a strict warning” that we are brought to faith in Jesus Christ. The second half of verse 22 says, “so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.” As it says, the promise given to Abraham, “being justified and blessed by faith,” comes to be given to those who believe in Christ. This means that those who believe in Christ and are united with him will also inherit the heavenly estate of being “justified and receiving eternal life” in the same way as Christ.

If the law is “the teacher who gives a strict warning,” faith is “the kind teacher” because those who believe in Christ are justified and blessed even without law-keeping behaviour. However, without “the teacher who gives a strict warning,” we would not know how kind “the kind teacher” is. The law, which is “the teacher who gives a strict warning,” leads us to faith, which is “the kind teacher.” And while Christ is the “the teacher who gives a strict warning,” who has perfectly obeyed the law, he is also “the kind teacher” who saves those who believe by their faith. Through communion with Christ, both strictness and kindness are cultivated in our character.