Moses told Israel that “the Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way until you reached the Promised Land” (Deuteronomy 1:31). In Christ we have inherited the promised estate and the Lord will carry us home. He is our Dad.

Picture the young Paul growing up in Tarsus, a port of half-a-million people on the north-east corner of the Mediterranean. Visit Tarsus today in Türkiye you will see Cleopatra’s Gate, the massive stone arch which once divided port from Sea.

Paul’s family are both Jews and Roman citizens and their son shows early signs of brilliance.

It’s Monday morning and time for school. The lad sets forth from home into a sultry Mediterranean day. The sea is turquoise, cool and clear, inviting. Smells of fresh bread and broiled fish waft over from seaside vendors. Friends call out: “Paul! Forget school! Come to the seaside! Let’s swim and fish and eat grapes and figs! Let’s have fun!”

At this very moment Paul feels a hard grip on his shoulder. The heavy hand of Leonidas the pedagogue, the slave tasked by Paul’s father with one job: to make sure the boy gets to school, behaves, learns his lessons, and gets home again. Leonidas carries a rod and uses it freely.

So there’ll be no swimming and larking with friends today. The pedagogue and his stick will ensure that.

In ancient Greek and Jewish culture the paidagōgos (παιδαγωγος) was not—like the English equivalent—a teacher, but a respected guardian and strict disciplinarian of highborn children until they came of age. He took the boy the right way and beat him when he went the wrong way.

For Paul the pedagogue was an excellent illustration of the Mosaic law.

The Law Drove Us to Faith

Galatians 3:23

Before the coming of this faith, we were held under guard/in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed.

The circumcision group mandated a return to the Mosaic laws of circumcision, kosher food, and festival-keeping. But Paul likens those laws to a prison guard that locks people up with no chance of escape. They show what is required of us, our failures and inability to do what is required, the punishment we deserve, and our helplessness to free ourselves.

The law drives us to faith in the Saviour, the only One who can free us from our sin and the consequences of our sin.

Paul now illustrates that same truth with the pedagogue:

Galatians 3:24

So the law was our pedagogue [NIV guardian; KJV schoolmaster] until Christ came that we might be justified by faith.

The Talmud called Moses a pedagogue. Paul goes further, the law itself is a strict guardian that drives us to Christ, to trust in him alone to be declared righteous in God’s sight.

The Westminster Confession of Faith echoes this when it says that the law “is of great use” to people, in

discovering the sinful pollutions of their nature, hearts, and lives; so as, examining themselves thereby, they may come to further conviction of, humiliation for, and hatred against sin, together with a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ, and the perfection of His obedience (19.6).

But having been led to Christ, we no longer need the pedagogue:

Galatians 3:25–27

Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a pedagogue. ²⁶So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, ²⁷for all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

Why would the Galatians listen to the circumcision group and go back to circumcision and food laws and festivals? By faith in Christ they had come of age. These pedagogical laws had completed their task.

Our baptism into the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit reminds us of this: we have been joined to Christ and he has reconciled us to the Father, who has adopted us as his children.

In God’s household the old Jewish-Gentile social divide has no place:

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