Prison Break (Part I)

Imprisonment Under the Warden

Paul writes in Galatians 3:23-24 that “before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.” As Paul makes quite clear, this is the Law’s function: to keep us confined and imprisoned (Martin Luther).  No wonder we seek to escape the Law! No one loves their prison cell; in fact, some of the world’s most famous stories are about attempts to escape imprisonment (The Count of Monte Cristo and The Great Escape to name just two). The cell is not a room of comfort. Martin Luther writes in his Lectures on Galatians:

“No thief or murderer or criminal who has been captured loves his fetters or the foul prison in which he is held bound. In fact, if he could he would destroy his prison and his iron shackles and reduce them to ashes. In prison he does indeed refrain from doing evil, not out of good will or out of a love for righteousness but because the prison prevents him. Now that he is locked up, he does not despise and hate his sin and crime—in fact, he heartily laments that he is not free and is unable to commit further crimes—but he hates his prison; and if he could get out, he would return to his former life of crime. Such is the power of the Law…”

Luther concludes this imagery with “As vigorously as a thief loves prison and hates his crime, so readily do we obey the Law, do what it commands, and refrain from what it forbids.” In other words, we don’t obey the law readily at all!

Civically speaking, the law does restrain evil (to some degree); but only outwardly. The fear of being locked up or punished can sometimes deter the evildoer, but it will more likely send them underground, causing a focus more on not getting caught than on good behavior. In this light, the Law, theologically speaking, is a “spiritual prison and a true hell” that exposes sin and threatens the sinner with wrath and death. It is a prison from which there is no successful prison break, a Bastille in which we cannot find comfort and from which we cannot run.

Paul is not being hyperbolic in saying that we are imprisoned: “The custody or prison signifies the true and spiritual terrors by which the conscience is so confined that it cannot find a place in the whole wide world where it can be safe” (Luther). Under the Law, constantly being made aware of our sin and our guilt and shame, our only recourse is despair and despair leads inevitably to death. In the shackles of the Law, we are harassed by terror and humiliation.  Luther writes, “Therefore just as civic confinement or prison is the affliction of the body by which the prisoner is deprived of the use of his body, so the theological prison is the trouble and anxiety of the sprit by which the prisoner is deprived of peace of conscience and quietness of heart.” We prisoners sing with David, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?” (Psalm 42:11)

J. Louis Martyn, in his commentary on Galatians, says that we are in custody under the Law, our universal prison warden. The Law is our custodian—and not in a kindly way. The Greek word translated into English as “custodian” is paidagōgos, which means attendant (slave), custodian, or guide, and referred to a person whose duty it was to superintend the conduct of the boys in the family to which he was attached and to ferry them to and from school. The custodian, viewed as a repressive figure, is not loved—in fact, he is intentionally unkind, unsympathetic, and unlovable.  The custodian is unfriendly and confining (Martyn). Stockholm syndrome aside, no one truly loves their repressor; rather, we hate the thing that represses us and make it our enemy. This is the role of the Law: to be a custodian. It is here, in this verse and with this metaphor, “not a pedagogical guide, but rather an imprisoning warden” (Martyn). No prison inmate loves the warden, but instead fears him.

Under the custodial, watchful eye of the Warden, there is no word “freedom.”  There is only bondage, captivity, fear, terror, and turmoil. The Law can only convict, sentence and condemn lawbreakers, pointing out guilt; it cannot comfort or ease or grant peace. It can’t because we can’t satisfy it. We can’t be good enough. The Warden’s standard is perfection, and nothing less. The Law brings us to our knees and to an acknowledgment of our dire need for a rescuer, someone who can save us from our imprisonment and from our death sentence.

But our imprisonment is not forever. The time of the Law is temporary, according to Paul, not eternal: He says that “the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.” Luther explains: “The Law is a custodian, not until some other lawgiver comes who demands good works, but until Christ comes, the justifier and Savior, so that we may be justified through faith in Him, not through works.” And Martyn:  “…the Law was compelled to serve God’s intention simply by holding all human beings in a bondage that precluded every route of deliverance except that of Christ.”

The Law cannot be silenced by another law, but only by something more powerful than the Law. There is One who can not only silence the voice of the Warden, but abolish the role of the custodian altogether. The end of the Custodian, the Law, is Christ. He is the one who not only unlocks the cell but invades the prison and demolishes it, setting the captives free (Luke 4:18).

Referring to the imprisoned sinner, Martin Luther concludes: “The Law places his sin before his eyes, crushes him, leads him to a knowledge of himself, and show him hell and the wrath of God. This is the proper function of the Law. Then there follows the application of this function: the sinner should know that the Law does not disclose sins and humble him to make him despair, but that the Law was instituted by God so that by its accusation and crushing it might drive him to Christ, the Savior and Comforter. When this happens, he is no longer under a custodian.”

Christ has come; we are free.