<p>3:23<i>Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law</i><i>- </i>Paul sees the Law as a prison house, a law which held us captive in bonds. In the first century, a person was defined not so much by their unique personal character, credit was not given for who they had become or stopped being... but rather by the place in society into which they were born. And so these group-oriented people came to live out the expectations of society- and so the whole process rolled on through the generations. It was continuity rather than change, tradition rather than transformation, which was valued. Change was seen as some kind of deviancy- whereas the Christian gospel is all about change The past was seen as more glorious than the present and the future, a pattern to be followed- whereas the Gospel of the future Kingdom of God on earth taught that the best time is <i>ahead</i>. And so often Paul compares the &quot;past&quot; of our lives with the much better &quot;now&quot; in Christ (Gal. 3:23-27; 4:8,9; Rom. 6:17-22; Eph. 2:11-22; 5:8).</p><p><i>Imprisoned </i><i>until the coming faith would be revealed</i><i>- </i>On one level, the Mosaic Law was a set of such intricate regulations that was almost impossible to keep. And yet it led men to Christ as a gentle slave leading the children to the teacher. I don&rsquo;t think that the Law of Moses led people to Christ in the sense that they cracked the various types and worked it all out. There&rsquo;s not one example that I can think of where an Old Testament character did this. Indeed it could appear from Gal. 3:23 and other New Testament passages that until Christ actually came, the Old Testament believers were &ldquo;shut up unto the faith which should afterward be revealed&rdquo;. Therefore the types etc. of the Law of Moses couldn&rsquo;t have been perceived by them in the same way as we understand them. Hence the Lord&rsquo;s comment that many righteous men had longed to understand the things of Jesus which the disciples saw and heard in reality. &ldquo;In other ages&rdquo; those things of Christ were not made known to men as they were revealed in the New Testament by the preaching of the apostles and New Testament prophets (Eph. 3:5). The Old Testament prophets even seemed to understand that the things they saw and wrote were not so much for themselves as for us (1 Pet. 1:12). Or as Paul says here in Gal. 3:23: &ldquo;Before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith in Jesus which should afterwards be revealed&rdquo;. The Law was a shadow created as it were by the concrete reality of Christ. We can look back and see it all now, but I don&rsquo;t think the types predicted anything to the people of the time. So how then did the Law lead people to Christ? Was it not that they were convicted of guilt, and cried out for a Saviour? &ldquo;The law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that&hellip; grace might reign&hellip; unto eternal life by Jesus&rdquo; (Rom. 5:20,21). This was the purpose of the Law. And thus Paul quotes David&rsquo;s rejoicing in the righteousness imputed to him when he had sinned and had no works left to do- and changes the pronoun from &ldquo;he&rdquo; to &ldquo;they&rdquo; (Rom. 4:6-8). David&rsquo;s personal experience became typical of that of each of us. It was <i>through </i>the experience of that wretched and hopeless position that David and all believers come to know the true &lsquo;blessedness&rsquo; of imputed righteousness and sin forgiven by grace. Perhaps Gal. 3:22 sums up what we have been saying: &ldquo;The Scripture in the context, this refers to the Mosaic Law hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe&rdquo;. And Paul goes on to say in this very context that the law brings us unto Christ (Gal. 3:24). It brings us- not those who lived under the law. How does it do that? By convicting us of sin, &lsquo;concluding&rsquo; us as being under the control of sin.</p>