There were always two systems

In my chronological Bible reading plan, I just finished reading through the OT and Gospels. Now, concurrent with the reading of the first half of Acts, falls the book of Galatians. It strikes me while reading Paul's description of the children of the bondwoman and the free woman, or the children of law and faith, that the struggle between faith and law was not new. It is evident from Genesis through the Epistles, and continues today. Paul says in Galatians that the law was given "because of disobedience." God's first plan was relational faith, and when men and women found the boundaries of that system too arbitrary, God gave them the law as "a schoolmaster," but only until Christ, who was to be the end of the law, would come. The law was not the ideal system, but a provisional one, always designed to be temporary. Now it should be obvious to all of us through the suffering of the Cross and the power of the Resurrection and the miracle of the Holy Spirit's arrival that God's original plan for relational faith is not only sufficient but far superior to anything that depends on human obedience. Somehow, though,in Galatians, and I might add, in Romans, Hebrews, etc., and in the American Church, even recipients of the Gospel need to be convinced to leave the human system of law behind and trust completely in Jesus. I wonder what we could do if we finally got it.