The teacher and all that he teaches is only a means to an end. He should, of course, strive with earnest energy to put his pupils on the right track. But he has completely failed in his function if those pupils settle down indefinitely, always continually in subjection to him and remaining dependent on him for everything. Rather, his teaching should make the pupils independent of his help.

Such is the true function of the law: it directs towards Christ. The law is a powerful teacher to those who honestly listen to it, for it will teach how inexpressibly urgent is our need of Christ. It will drive the soul to a deep sense of the ruin that sin has caused and the consequent need of One who is able to cleanse from sin—the Lord Jesus Christ. Not that the law brings us to Christ, but, as this careful translation renders it, “The law has been our tutor up to Christ.” That is, the end of the law was Christ: the law pointed away from itself to Christ. He is the One, now revealed, who is the Object of faith which justifies. “For Christ is the end of law for righteousness to every one that believes” (Rom. 10:4).

Now that Christ has come, faith has come. Faith is the energy independent of everything but God known in Christ. Why then put legal restraints on one who has learned what it is to walk by individual faith in God? The schoolmaster is no longer needed. “Christ has set us free in freedom; stand fast therefore, and be not held again in a yoke of bondage” (Gal. 5:1).

A good and faithful teacher we appreciate,

And to learn his wisdom is our wisdom too;

But when the proper time has come to graduate,

Shall we demand his services our whole life through?