Galatians 3:24
New International Version
So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith.

New Living Translation
Let me put it another way. The law was our guardian until Christ came; it protected us until we could be made right with God through faith.

English Standard Version
So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.

Berean Standard Bible
So the law became our guardian to lead us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

Berean Literal Bible
so that the Law has become our trainer unto Christ, so that we might be justified by faith.

King James Bible
Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

New King James Version
Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

New American Standard Bible
Therefore the Law has become our guardian to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.

NASB 1995
Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.

NASB 1977
Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith.

Legacy Standard Bible
Therefore the Law has become our tutor unto Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.

Amplified Bible
with the result that the Law has become our tutor and our disciplinarian to guide us to Christ, so that we may be justified [that is, declared free of the guilt of sin and its penalty, and placed in right standing with God] by faith.

Christian Standard Bible
The law, then, was our guardian until Christ, so that we could be justified by faith.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
The law, then, was our guardian until Christ, so that we could be justified by faith.

American Standard Version
So that the law is become our tutor to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
The Written Law was therefore a guide for us to The Messiah that we would be made right by faith.

Contemporary English Version
In fact, the Law was to be our teacher until Christ came. Then we could have faith and be acceptable to God.

Douay-Rheims Bible
Wherefore the law was our pedagogue in Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

English Revised Version
So that the law hath been our tutor to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
Before Christ came, Moses' laws served as our guardian. Christ came so that we could receive God's approval by faith.

Good News Translation
And so the Law was in charge of us until Christ came, in order that we might then be put right with God through faith.

International Standard Version
And so the Law was our guardian until the Messiah came, so that we might be justified by faith.

Literal Standard Version
so that the Law became our tutor—to Christ, that we may be declared righteous by faith,

Majority Standard Bible
So the law became our guardian to lead us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

New American Bible
Consequently, the law was our disciplinarian for Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

NET Bible
Thus the law had become our guardian until Christ, so that we could be declared righteous by faith.

New Revised Standard Version
Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith.

New Heart English Bible
So that the law was our guardian to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

Webster's Bible Translation
Wherefore the law was our school-master to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

Weymouth New Testament
So that the Law has acted the part of a tutor-slave to lead us to Christ, in order that through faith we may be declared to be free from guilt.

World English Bible
So that the law has become our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

Young's Literal Translation
so that the law became our child-conductor -- to Christ, that by faith we may be declared righteous,

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
The Purpose of the Law
23Before this faith came, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. 24So the law became our guardian to lead us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25Now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.…

Cross References
Romans 9:30
What then will we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith;

Romans 10:4
For Christ is the end of the law, to bring righteousness to everyone who believes.

1 Corinthians 4:15
Even if you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.

Galatians 2:16
know that a man is not justified by works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

Galatians 3:25
Now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.


Treasury of Scripture

Why the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

the law.

Galatians 3:25
But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.

Galatians 2:19
For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.

Galatians 4:2,3
But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father…

justified.

Galatians 2:16
Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

Acts 13:39
And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.

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Acted Charge Christ Custodian Declared Faith Free Guilt Justified Law Order Part Principle Righteous Righteousness Schoolmaster School-Master Servant Tutor Tutor-Slave Wherefore
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Acted Charge Christ Custodian Declared Faith Free Guilt Justified Law Order Part Principle Righteous Righteousness Schoolmaster School-Master Servant Tutor Tutor-Slave Wherefore
Galatians 3
1. He asks what moved them to leave the faith, and hold onto the law.
6. Those who believe are justified,
9. and blessed with Abraham.
10. And this he shows by many reasons.
15. The purpose of the Law
26. You are sons of God














(24) The law was our schoolmaster.--Not quite a satisfactory translation; yet it is difficult to suggest a better. The Greek word is that from which is derived the English "pedagogue." Originally it meant the slave who was placed in charge of a child, and whose duty it was to conduct it to school. The idea is that of moral rather than of intellectual discipline. The care of the "pedagogue" ceased where that of the school-master began, but it was he who had more especially to form the character of the child. Horace notes as a peculiar advantage of his own that his father himself had taken the place of pedagogue to him (Sat. i. 6, 81, 82).

To bring us unto Christ.--The words "to bring us," it will be seen, are supplied. They may be retained, provided that the metaphor is not pressed to the extent of supposing that Christ represents the schoolmaster proper to whom the child is led by the pedagogue slave. The work of Christ as a Teacher is not what the Apostle has in mind. It is rather a higher kind of guardianship, which is to succeed that of the Law, and to which the Law hands over its pupil. Once brought within the guardianship of Christ, and so made a member of the Messianic kingdom, the Christian is justified by faith, he receives an amnesty for his past sins, and is accounted righteous before God. (See Epistle to the Romans, Excursus E: On the Doctrine of Justification by Faith and Imputed Righteousness.)

Verse 24. - Wherefore the Law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ (ὥστε ὁ νόμος παιδαγωγὸς ἡμῶν γέγονεν εἰς Ξριστόν) wherefore the Law hath been the keeper of our childhood to keep us unto Christ. With St. Paul, ὥστε, so that, frequently is used to introduce a sentence which is not dependent in construction on the preceding words, but is one which makes a fresh departure as if with the adverbial conjunction "wherefore," or "so then." Thus ver. 9; Galatians 4:7; 2 Corinthians 4:12; 2 Corinthians 5:16; 1 Thessalonians 4:18, in which last passage it is even followed by an imperative, Γέγονεν differs from η΅ν or ἐγένετο by describing, past action as ending in a result which still continues. The verb γίγνεσθαι frequently denotes "prove one's self, ... act as" (comp. 1 Thessalonians 2:7; Acts 1:16; Acts 7:52). The Law hath done with us (says the apostle) the work of a child's caretaker (paedagogus), with an eye to Christ, to whom we have now been banded over. (For the use of εἰς, see note on ver. 23.) Paedagogus has no equivalent in the English language; "pedagogue," "schoolmaster," "tutor," "guardian," are all inadequate, covering each one an area of thought more or less quite different. "Tutor," as the masculine of "governess," comes perhaps nearest; but a tutor to a gentleman's children is generally an educated man, and often of like rank in life with those he is with; whereas a paedagogus was usually a slave - an element of thought probably very near to the apostle's consciousness in his present use of the term. In illustration of this and other points bearing upon this subject, the reader will be interested by a passage cited by Bishop Lightfoot out of Plato's 'Lysis' (p. 208, C). Socrates is questioning a young friend. "' They let you have your own ruling of yourself: or do they not trust you with this, either?' 'Trust me with it, indeed!' he said. 'But as to this, who has the ruling of you?' 'This man here,' he said, 'a tutor. 'Being a slave, eh?' 'But what of that?' said he; 'yes; only, a slave of our own.' 'An awfully strange thing this,' I said, 'that you, freeman that you are, should be under the ruling of a slave. But further, what does this tutor of yours, as your ruler, do with you?' 'He takes me,' said he, 'to a teacher's house, of course.' 'Do they rule you too, the teachers?' ' Certainly, of course.' 'A mighty number it seems of masters and rulers does your father think proper to set over you.'" Teaching, except possibly of the very first rudiments, was not the padagogus's business, but only the general care and superintendence of his charge - taking him to and back from his teachers' houses or the schools of physical training, looking after him in his play hours, and the like. In applying to the Law the figure of a paedagogus, the features which the apostle had in view were probably these: the childhood or non-age of those under its tutelage; their withdrawal from free parental intercourse; their degraded condition probably as being under servile management; the exercise over dram of unsympathizing hardness (comp. 1 Corinthians 4:15, "Though ye have ten thousand tutors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers"); coercive discipline; the rudimentary character of their instruction (this particular, however, is likewise of questionable application); the temporary and purely provisional nature of the condition under which they were placed; its termination in the full enjoyment of freedom and of participation in their father's inheritance. The clause, "unto Christ," can hardly mean "to bring us to Christ," tempting as this interpretation may seem, in view of the verbal constituent (ἄγω)" bring" in παιδαγωγός, and of the fact that it was one part of the duty of the child's keeper to take him to his school. For there are the following objections to taking it so:

(1) The child-keeper's relation to his charge did not end with his taking him to school, but continued on throughout his non-age;

(2) the function of Christ is not viewed here as instruction;

(3) if this construction had been in the apostle's view, he would have written πρὸς Ξριστὸν or εἰς Ξριστοῦ, as in the εἰς διδασκάλου ("to the teacher's house") of the passage above cited from Plato. We must, therefore, understand the preposition as in the preceding verse, "with a view to." The next clause is the explanation. That we might be justified by faith (ἵνα ἐκ πίστρεως δικαιωθῶμεν); in order that by faith we might get justified. This clause is the most important part of the sentence. Not from the Law was to come righteousness; the Law was no more than introductory or preparatory; righteousness (once more the apostle reminds the Galatians) was to come to us as a free gift through Christ, upon simply our faith, the Law having now nothing to do with us. Hence the emphatic position of the words ἐκ πίστεως. The apostle does not, in the present connection, make it his business to explain in what way the Law was preparatory, which he does in Romans 7; his purpose at present is to insist upon its purely provisional character. What we have here is a description of the relation of the Law to God's people viewed collectively; but we can hardly fail to be reminded, that this experience of the collective people of God very commonly finds its counterpart in respect to the ethical bearing of the Law in the experience of each individual believer. Only, we have still to bear in mind that the apostle is thinking of the Law just now more in its ceremonial aspect than its ethical.

Parallel Commentaries ...


Greek
So
ὥστε (hōste)
Conjunction
Strong's 5620: So that, therefore, so then, so as to. From hos and te; so too, i.e. Thus therefore.

the
(ho)
Article - Nominative Masculine Singular
Strong's 3588: The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

Law
νόμος (nomos)
Noun - Nominative Masculine Singular
Strong's 3551: From a primary nemo; law, genitive case, specially, (including the volume); also of the Gospel), or figuratively.

became
γέγονεν (gegonen)
Verb - Perfect Indicative Active - 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 1096: A prolongation and middle voice form of a primary verb; to cause to be, i.e. to become, used with great latitude.

our
ἡμῶν (hēmōn)
Personal / Possessive Pronoun - Genitive 1st Person Plural
Strong's 1473: I, the first-person pronoun. A primary pronoun of the first person I.

guardian
παιδαγωγὸς (paidagōgos)
Noun - Nominative Masculine Singular
Strong's 3807: A boy's guardian or tutor, a slave who had charge of the life and morals of the boys of a family, not strictly a teacher.

to lead us
εἰς (eis)
Preposition
Strong's 1519: A primary preposition; to or into, of place, time, or purpose; also in adverbial phrases.

to Christ,
Χριστόν (Christon)
Noun - Accusative Masculine Singular
Strong's 5547: Anointed One; the Messiah, the Christ. From chrio; Anointed One, i.e. The Messiah, an epithet of Jesus.

that
ἵνα (hina)
Conjunction
Strong's 2443: In order that, so that. Probably from the same as the former part of heautou; in order that.

we might be justified
δικαιωθῶμεν (dikaiōthōmen)
Verb - Aorist Subjunctive Passive - 1st Person Plural
Strong's 1344: From dikaios; to render just or innocent.

by
ἐκ (ek)
Preposition
Strong's 1537: From out, out from among, from, suggesting from the interior outwards. A primary preposition denoting origin, from, out.

faith.
πίστεως (pisteōs)
Noun - Genitive Feminine Singular
Strong's 4102: Faith, belief, trust, confidence; fidelity, faithfulness.


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NT Letters: Galatians 3:24 So that the law has become our (Gal. Ga)
Galatians 3:23
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