Then what about the law: What then was the purpose of the law?

 Why the Law then? It was added because of trespasses, having been ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator, until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made. Gal. 3:19

Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by obeying the law of Moses?

 Of course not! You received the Spirit because you believed the message you heard about Christ. How foolish can you be? After starting your new lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort? Ga 3:2–3.NLT. 

The Law was given through an intermediary; the promise came directly from God.

Henry Wansbrough, ed., The New Jerusalem Bible (New York; London; Toronto; Sydney; Auckland: Doubleday, 1990), 1927

you who have received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it. Ac 7:53. cf.(Ac 7:38; Gal 3:19; Heb 2:2)  What is the use of the Law? It was given later to show that we sin. But it was only supposed to last until the coming of that descendant (Lit. seed; Jesus) who was given the promise.

 In fact, angels gave the Law to Moses, and he gave it to the people. There is only one God, and the Law did not come directly from him. Gal. 3:19–20. 

In this regard Heb 1:14 is decisive: the angels are “ministering spirits sent to serve those about to inherit salvation.” 

Christ’s accomplishment of salvation brings to an end this defining role for the angels in relation to God’s people.

 The verse places the entire catena into an eschatological context, with angels as the ministers of the old age and Christ as the one who inaugurates the new. Heb. Chapter 1 thus pictures the “passing of the guard” from the angels as mediators to God’s people on earth to Christ as a heavenly mediator who provides direct access to God. Hebrews 2:5 picks up this thread and confirms the eschatological orientation of the author’s thought regarding the angels.

Kenneth L. Schenck, “A Celebration of the Enthroned Son: The Catena of Hebrews 1,” Journal of Biblical Literature 120 (2001): 480.

Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. Heb. 2:5

What is this “world to come” of which Hebrews speaks? It is not heaven or a future millennium or the new heavens and new earth after the general resurrection. Rather, it is the world of the New Creation and of the New Covenant, which was established through Jesus’ suffering, death, resurrection, ascension, and outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost, but which overlapped for a time with the Old Creation and the Old Covenant. James Jordan explains:

    The New Creation began at Pentecost, when the ascended and enthroned Jesus sent the Spirit to enable us to disciple the nations and in that sense to rule the world. The Old Creation did not end at that time, however, because God gave the Jews and God-fearing Gentiles a period of time to make the transfer from the Old to the New. According to Matthew 23:34–38, all the sins and crimes of the Old Creation were to be rolled up and judged with the destruction of Jerusalem, which happened in AD 70.

Jesus receives dominion at His ascension, and Christian tradition has wisely taken Psalm 8 as an Ascension Day psalm. Ephesians  alludes to Psalm. 8, when it says that God raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. (Eph 1:20–22 NKJV)

Jesus, Paul says, has been exalted over “all principality and power,” titles given to angels in the Bible. He is enthroned over everything, “not only in this age but also in that which is to come”—that is, not only in the time Paul is writing but also in the age after AD 70, after the end of the Old Creation and Old Covenant. 

John Barach, “The Glory of the Son of Man: An Exposition of Psalm 8,” in The Glory of Kings: A Festschrift in Honor of James B. Jordan, ed. Peter J. Leithart and John Barach (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2011), 23–24.

Heavenly signs are part of the world under the stoicheia, the elementary principles of the world, the world under angels.

 Now that human beings have reached majority in Christ, there is no longer any need for such portents, and the heavens no longer play this role.

 There is no mediator between God and man but the man Jesus. 

The meaning or meanings Paul attached to ta stoicheia (tou kosmou) elementary principles in the four instances in which he used it (Gal 4:3, 9; Col 2:8, 20; cf. Heb 5:12; 2 Pet 3:10, 12) has been a matter of exegetical debate. Interpreters have usually understood Paul’s usage to fall into one of the following semantic fields: (1) basic principles of religious teaching such as the Law; (2) essential, rudimentary substances of the universe such as earth, water, air and fire; or (3) personal spiritual beings of the cosmos such as demons, angels or star deities.  

Daniel G. Reid, “Elements/Elemental Spirits of the World,” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin, and Daniel G. Reid (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 229.

  These are the spirits who were thought to move the stars and, consequently, the universe. They lived in ‘the heavens’, (Eph.1:20; 3:10; Phil. 2:10), or in ‘the air’, Eph. 2:2, i.e. the space between the surface of the earth and the heaven where God lives. Some of them are among the ‘elemental principles of the world’, Gal. 4:3. They disobeyed God and want to enslave the human race to themselves in sin, Eph.2:2. We used to be their slaves but Christ came to free us, (Eph.1:19–21; Col 1:13; 2:15, 20), and if Christians are armed with the power of Christ, they will be able to fight them. 

Henry Wansbrough, ed., The New Jerusalem Bible (New York; London; Toronto; Sydney; Auckland: Doubleday, 1990), 1939.

But the close association between angels and stars in Scripture (e.g., Rev 9:1, 11; 12:4) suggests that rule over the moon and stars implies rule over the angels as well. Second, we should bear in mind that moon and stars are associated with night. Night is the time of transition, the time of waiting for the new day (or new creation) to dawn (e.g., Ps 130:6; Isa 60:1–3). Passover, for instance, happens at night; the new day brings the Exodus.

 In a sense, the whole period of the Old Creation up to the coming of Jesus is nighttime. When Jesus comes, it is a new dawn, as the “Sun of Righteousness” arises “with healing in His wings” (Mal 4:2 NKJV; cf. Rev. 1:16b NKJV, where Jesus’ face is “like the sun shining in its strength”). When the Sun rises, the glory of the moon and stars fades away and disappears.

 The Old Creation night has passed away, and now it is New Covenant day  

Finally, the exaltation over “moon and stars” has liturgical significance. The heavenly lights were for “seasons” (Gen 1:14), and that term refers to festival times. There were new moon festivals (e.g., Num 29:6); Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles were all on a certain day of the month, counting from the new moon (Lev 23:5–6, 34; Num 28:11–14; 2 Chr 8:13; Ps 81:3). One result of being exalted over the moon and over the Torah given by angels is that our worship times are no longer governed by the heavenly lights. “In the New Covenant, we are no longer under lunar regulation for festival times (Colossians 2:16–17). In that regard, Christ is our light” (Jordan, Through New Eyes, 54,56-57). 

Peter J. Leithart and John Barach, eds., The Glory of Kings: A Festschrift in Honor of James B. Jordan (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2011). 

For this reason we must pay closer attention to the things we have heard, or we may drift away, because if the message spoken by angels was reliable, and every violation and act of disobedience received its just punishment, how will we escape if we neglect a salvation as great as this? It was first proclaimed by the Lord himself, and then it was confirmed to us by those who heard him, Heb 2:1–3. ISV. 

And you are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power: Col. 2:10

And you are complete in him. He adds, that this perfect essence of Deity, which is in Christ, is profitable to us in this respect, that we are also perfect in him. “As to God’s dwelling wholly in Christ, it is in order that we, having obtained him, may possess in him an entire perfection.” 

Those, therefore, who do not rest satisfied with Christ alone, do injury to God in two ways, for besides detracting from the glory of God,

 by desiring something above his perfection, they are also ungrateful, inasmuch as they seek elsewhere what they already have in Christ.

 Paul, however, does not mean that the perfection of Christ is transfused into us, but that there are in him resources from which we may be filled, that nothing may be wanting to us.

John Calvin and John Pringle, Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 183.

  See that you do not disregard him that speaks. For since they did not escape, when they disregarded him who warned them on earth, much rather shall not we, if we turn away from him who is from the heavens; whose voice then shook the earth, but now he hath proclaimed, saying, “Once more I will shake not the earth only, but also the heaven.” And this “Once more” signifies the removal of the things shaken, as of things made by hands, so that the things not shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that can not be shaken, let us be thankful, so as to offer service acceptable to God with reverent fear and awe; for, “our God is a consuming fire.”  Hebrews 12:25-29

  What, then, is the great catastrophe symbolically represented as the shaking of the earth and heavens? No doubt it is the overthrow and abolition of the Mosaic dispensation, or old covenant; the destruction of the Jewish church and state, together with all the institutions and ordinances connected therewith. There were ‘heavenly things’ belonging to that dispensation: the laws, and statutes, and ordinances, which were divine in their origin, and might be properly called the ‘spiritual’ of Judaism—these were the heavens, which were to be shaken and removed.

There were also ‘earthly things:’ the literal Jerusalem, the material temple, the land of Canaan—these were the earth, which was in like manner to be shaken and removed. The symbols are, in fact, equivalent to those employed by our Lord when predicting the doom of Israel. ‘Immediately after the tribulation of those days [the horrors of the siege of Jerusalem] shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken’ (Matt. 24:29).

James Stuart Russell, The Parousia: A Critical Inquiry into the New Testament Doctrine of Our Lord’s Second Coming (London: Daldy, Isbister & Co., 1878), 289–290.

Running your race got twisted in the church to mean that God set up a distant goal of virtue and provided the means for you to reach it through two gifts: one a created free will and the other the law as a guide.

 The old trope is all about two things: the free will and the law as guide.

Salvation is not the progress of a spiritual athlete for whom practice in the law makes perfect. It is not even like a sick person getting well on the medicine of grace, for those pictures of Christian life leave Christ on the sidelines while human free will takes center stage. Such notions leave Christ idle, displacing him by the star of that drama, the free will that dreams of becoming ever more holy under the law.

 Why then the cross?

 Did Christ come simply to remind people of the law that Moses already gave, or even to give an improved version of the tablets of stone?

 Is Christ to be patient while you try to solve the puzzle of God’s law? The story of Scripture, Luther began to understand, is not how we make our way up the mountain by getting grace and then topping it off with love and works.

 Scripture is the story of how God came down to meet us—while we were yet sinners. Christ is the mover and shaker, the active subject, the star of the show. And when Christ comes the law ends.

 Luther coined a phrase—crux sola nostra theologia (the cross alone is our theology)—and put it in capital letters to stand out boldly as the chief truth he found while lecturing on Psalms for the first time.

Steven Paulson, Luther for Armchair Theologians, Armchair Theologians Series (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 62–63.

And how is it that this faith that is made by God as righteousness apart from the law comes? It comes by a simple promise. Reason is bewildered at this.

 It comes apart from deeds, apart from judging and giving to each according to what is due; it comes apart from merit, wrath, punishment, and the law; it is apart from harmonies, various participations in God’s being, equalities of material and spiritual goods, virtues, morality, orders, systems, and reason itself. 

The Father makes right in this old world only by raising his crucified Son from the dead and giving that Son to his enemies as a gift that comes in the form of a simple promise “for you.” 

Nothing could remain the same if that were true—not the identification of a self, or of God, or of what is “good” or “true” or “right” or, for that matter, what the course of history itself is. 

Faith in Christ’s promise, not works of the law, alone saves. But we will have to be very careful, since the word “faith” is one of the most abused words in our vocabulary.

 It does not mean for Luther “accepting,” or “deciding for,” or “committing oneself to Christ,”

 or any of the misuses this word has received. Faith is perfect passivity (that is, they do absolutely nothing at all) for Luther—being done unto by God, or simply suffering God.

 It is literally being put to death as a sinner and raised as a saint, which is decidedly God’s own act through preached words.  

Steven Paulson, Luther for Armchair Theologians, Armchair Theologians Series (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 49,51–52.

Man, with all his powers, including reason, Luther holds, is a creature of God and has some knowledge of God. Reason, therefore, is naturally aware of God’s law, and knows that we ought to do good and to worship and serve God.

 What it does not understand, however, is how and why we ought to do these things.

 It is with reason as with the rest of our powers, for they are all corrupted by sin. The flesh, for instance, is a creature of God, yet it is not inclined to chastity, but to unchastity; and the heart is a creature of God, yet it is not inclined to humility and the service of its neighbors, but to pride and self-love.

 In a similar way, reason, knowing that good is to be done and God is to be served, imagines the good to be that which pleases itself, and thinks to serve God by rites, ceremonies and observances, which it elects to regard as ‘good works’.

It is of interest at this point to refer to what some of his critics have been pleased to regard as Luther’s most infamous words—his well-known, but little understood, description of reason as ‘the devil’s whore’.

 In the light of what has just been said, his meaning is not very difficult to perceive.

 If reason opposes Christ with His message of grace, then it espouses the cause of His adversary, it prostitutes itself to the service of the enemy of God.

Because God is the God of the law, men assume that He must deal with them on a legal basis of merit and reward, and they seek to establish their own relationship with Him accordingly. They seek to gain His approval by performing what they elect to regard as ‘good works’.

For this [says Luther] is the imagination of them all: 

If I do this work, God will have mercy upon me: if I do it not, He will be angry. 

And therefore every man that revolted from the knowledge of Christ, must needs fall into idolatry, and conceive such an imagination of God as is not agreeable to His nature: as the Charterhouse monk for the observing of his rule, the Turk for the keeping of his Alcoran-Koran, hath this assurance, that he pleases God, and shall receive a reward from Him for his labor. 

Philip S. Watson, Let God Be God!: An Interpretation of the Theology of Martin Luther (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2000), 87–90.