Sinclair Ferguson

I never noticed that there were any restrictions really placed on me.

There was so much to enjoy.

There was freedom until I moved on to the next stage and then by comparison saw that the previous stage had been so restricting.

And it seems to me that that's how the New Testament Christians who had gone through the barrier between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, that's how they saw things.

In fact, Paul says precisely this at the end of Galatians 3, beginning of Galatians 4.

He says, as Old Covenant believers, we were like underage children.

We were heirs, but none of the inheritance was actually coming to us.

We were still waiting for it.

Now we have entered into the full privileges of sonship, and we say what no Old Testament believer ever said, never said, Abba, Father.

And so we are to understand that when the New Testament seems to speak critically of the law, it's not an absolute statement.

It's really saying, now look at how the law worked.

There were the commandments of God and then those commandments were surrounded by civil regulations.

And then there were all those regulations about the liturgy so that you were restricted and constrained because just like children, just exactly like children, God was saying, it's for your good that I don't just let you loose.

But then when you look back, you understand that the Mosaic administration, the law in that sense, by comparison with the internationalism and the liberty and the sense of God being Abba Father, all of this is gloriously new and so by comparison.

Those old days look as though they were the shadow lands, and now you're beginning to live in the sunshine.

And the fact of the matter is, there is more yet to come.

We may be enjoying the Christian life now, but it's little compared to the glory that is to be revealed.

So you see, God moves his purposes on in these staging posts.

Remember I said the problem was not just that antinomians misunderstood the gospel.

It was that they misunderstood the law.