The Tape Measure and the Saw: Rediscovering the Purpose of the Law

Lachlan Reed

Welcome to the study of Galatians everyone, I'm Lachlan Reed, here with Simon Carver. And Simon, I want you to picture the most DANGEROUS opponent to the gospel you can think of. Because I was reading this essay by A.T. Jones from February 1900, and he points out that the greatest threat isn't some angry atheist or a pagan emperor. It's a very SPECIFIC group of people from Acts chapter 15, verse 5, called... "the Pharisees which believed."

Simon Carver

Wait, Acts 15? "The Pharisees which believed." So they actually accepted that Jesus was the Messiah, but they just... kept their Pharisee membership cards?

Lachlan Reed

Exactly. They added Jesus to their existing framework instead of letting Him replace it. And Jones says these believing Pharisees had this one massive objection that they threw at the Apostle Paul every time he preached justification by faith. They'd point to Galatians 3:19 and ask, "Wherefore then the law?" Or basically: "If the law CAN'T save us, what is the use of it?"

Simon Carver

"If it can't save us, what is the use of it." That is such a revealing question. Because it shows that their entire mental model for religion was completely TRANSACTIONAL. Like, if a rule doesn't actively manufacture righteousness for me, then it's a waste of time.

Lachlan Reed

Spot on, mate. Jones says that question actually exposes the theological poverty of the person asking it. If you can only imagine ONE use for the law — which is justification — then yeah, when Paul says the law can't justify you, you're gonna think he's tossing it in the bin. It's like... it's like walking into my shed, picking up a tape measure, and saying, "This thing is completely useless, it hasn't cut a SINGLE piece of timber!"

Simon Carver

Right, because the tape measure isn't a saw! It's doing a completely different job. But if you think every tool has to cut wood, you're going to throw out half the toolbox. And Jones says this wasn't just a first-century problem, right? He saw the exact same thing happening with Protestant ministers in 1900.

Lachlan Reed

He absolutely did. These ministers would read Romans 3:20, where Paul says, "By the deeds of the law shall NO flesh be justified," and they'd use that exact verse to dismiss the Sabbath, or the moral law entirely. They were using the ancient Pharisee argument to reach an anti-law conclusion. Both sides agreed the law couldn't save, but the ministers decided that meant the law was OBSOLETE.

Simon Carver

Which is a tragic flattening of how God works. It really highlights how dangerous it is to be a "believing Pharisee" today. You can have all the right theology on paper, you can say "saved by grace" on Sunday, but if you spend Monday through Saturday anxiously wondering if you've done enough to keep God happy... you're still treating the tape measure like a saw.

Lachlan Reed

So if the law isn't a saw — if it isn't meant to justify us — what actually IS it? Jones breaks down two grand purposes for the moral law. First up, it's a revealer of sin. Romans 3:20 says, "by the law is the knowledge of sin." It makes sin concrete.

Simon Carver

"By the law is the knowledge of sin." And he quotes Romans 5:20 there too, right? "The law entered, that the offense might abound." Which, honestly, sounds a bit backwards at first glance. Why would God want the offense to ABOUND?

Lachlan Reed

Because it's a diagnostic tool! It doesn't create more sin, it just shows you how much is already there. It's like a thermometer. A thermometer cannot CURE your fever, but you absolutely need it to show you how sick you are so you'll actually go to the doctor.

Simon Carver

Or a mirror! A mirror cannot wash your face, but it is essential for showing you where the dirt is. And the point of seeing the dirt isn't to make you feel worthless, it's to DRIVE you to the sink. If the law just produces guilt and leaves you there, it's been totally misused. The diagnosis is supposed to point you to the cure.

Lachlan Reed

Exactly. But here's where Jones drops the real kicker. Once you've gone to the sink, once you're saved by grace, the law doesn't just vanish. It takes on its second purpose: it becomes a WITNESS to righteousness. Listen to the sequence in Romans 3:21. "But now the righteousness of God WITHOUT THE LAW is manifested, being witnessed BY THE LAW and the prophets."

Simon Carver

"Witnessed by the law." That is such a stunning legal maneuver. So the very thing that used to condemn you, the thing that pointed out every flaw, now takes the stand in your defense.

Lachlan Reed

Right! The law didn't produce your righteousness — Christ did that. But the law looks at what Christ built in you and says, "Yep, that meets the code." It's the building inspector of the universe. It didn't pour the concrete, but it certifies the foundation.

Simon Carver

Which completely resolves the tension! The law isn't discarded, but it's also not the savior. It's the diagnostic tool on the front end, and the verifying witness on the back end.

Lachlan Reed

But Jones doesn't stop with the moral law. In Lesson 26, he expands this exact same question — "Wherefore then the law?" — to the ceremonial law. The sacrifices, the Levitical priesthood, all of it. Because the believing Pharisees thought you had to DO all those rituals to get saved.

Simon Carver

Which again, completely misses the point of them. Those Old Testament rituals were never a currency to buy salvation. They were a LANGUAGE to express faith in a salvation that God had ALREADY promised.

Lachlan Reed

Yeah, Jones walks through Leviticus 4 — the sin offering. Three steps. Step one: the law reveals the sin. Step two: they bring a bullock, lay hands on it, and confess. Step three: the priest ministers the blood and forgiveness is granted. But then... Jones pulls a quote from Hebrews 10:4 that throws a massive SPANNER in the works: "It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins."

Simon Carver

Hebrews 10:4! Right, so if animal blood couldn't actually take away sin, what were they DOING? Were they just playing dress-up in the desert for fifteen hundred years?

Lachlan Reed

No, they were writing checks! The animal sacrifice was like a paper check. The paper itself is worthless, but it represents real money in an account. Revelation 13:8 calls Jesus the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." The ancient Israelites were genuinely forgiven, but the payment was drawn on Christ's FUTURE sacrifice, not the goat's blood.

Simon Carver

Wow. They were writing checks on a future account. That completely reclaims the Old Testament. Because a lot of modern Christians look at the Levitical system and just write it off as the "dark ages." But Jones points out that dismissing the shadow just because the Israelites misused it is a tragedy. We lose so much light.

Lachlan Reed

And that brings us to the most mind-bending literary connection Jones makes in this whole study. We've been talking about Galatians, right? Well, chronologically, Paul wrote Galatians BEFORE he wrote Romans or Hebrews.

Simon Carver

Wait. Galatians was written FIRST?

Lachlan Reed

Yep. And in Galatians, Paul is dealing with a crisis that involved BOTH the moral law and the ceremonial law. So Galatians is like this dense, concentrated seed. And from that seed, Paul later grew two massive trees. ROMANS is Galatians expanded, focusing entirely on the moral law. And HEBREWS is Galatians expanded, focusing entirely on the ceremonial law and the sanctuary.

Simon Carver

That is brilliant! "Romans and Hebrews meet in Galatians." It's not three different theological arguments, it's one unified theory of EVERYTHING. The moral law reveals our need, the ceremonial law modeled the solution, and Christ is the reality of both.

Lachlan Reed

Exactly. The shadow wasn't wrong, it just had to give way to the substance. And if we can hold all of that together — that the law is essential for revealing sin and witnessing to righteousness, but utterly powerless to save us — then we actually understand what the gospel is. Something to chew on next time you open the Old Testament. Thanks for listening, everyone. Catch you next time.