A prevailing deception in modern theology seeks to turn the grace of God into a license for lawlessness by completely misinterpreting the purpose of the divine standard. Nowhere is this more evident than in the casual, dismissive handling of the Apostle Paul’s letters, particularly where the Law is described as a schoolmaster. The modern commentator stands before his audience or his camera and confidently declares that because the believer has arrived at faith in Christ, the Schoolmaster has been dismissed, his rules have been abolished, and the classroom of righteousness is officially closed.
To treat God’s Law as an obsolete, outdated map that a traveler throws out the window upon reaching his destination is a profound logical and spiritual failure. It completely misunderstands the very nature and character of a tutor.
A schoolmaster’s purpose is not to enforce temporary, arbitrary rules that become completely meaningless once the student matures. A tutor’s true objective is to instill permanent principles of conduct, truth, and character into the heart of the child. When a schoolmaster teaches a young man the laws of mathematics, the principles of grammar, or the boundaries of civil behavior, the young man does not graduate from that instruction by suddenly declaring that two plus two equals five, or that he is now free to commit assault. His graduation does not grant him the liberty to violate the very rules he was taught; rather, it demonstrates that those principles have become an inseparable part of who he is.
The Apostle explicitly lays out this foundational truth: “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith” (Galatians 3:24). The Schoolmaster exposed our wretchedness, defined our sin, and pointed directly to the absolute necessity of a Saviour. But the Holy Spirit does not come into the life of a believer to make them forget the Schoolmaster’s lessons or to tear down the classroom walls. The New Covenant explicitly promises the exact opposite—that the King will put His laws into our mind, and write them in our hearts.
To claim that faith in Christ nullifies the necessity of keeping the Commandments is to slander the work of both the Schoolmaster and the Saviour. The standard has not been neutralized or lowered to accommodate human rebellion. Grace was given because we broke the Law, not so that we could continue breaking it with impunity. True faith does not look for clever theological loopholes to bypass the Sabbath or to ignore God’s clear definitions of holiness. Instead, a genuine, living faith establishes the standard and walks in active, physical obedience through the power of the indwelling Spirit.
As the scriptures forcefully declare in response to this very error: “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law” (Romans 3:31). The Schoolmaster taught us what righteousness looks like, Christ paid the penalty for our failure to meet it, and the Holy Spirit empowers us to live it. Anyone preaching a message that treats the eternal decrees of the Creator as a discarded relic is not standing in the liberty of the Gospel; they are simply wandering in a lawless fog of their own making.