All Shut Up in Prison

Note the similarity between verses 8 and 22. “The Scripture hath concluded [that is, shut up] all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.” “The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the Gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.” We see that the Gospel is preached by the same thing—the Scripture—that shuts men up under sin. The word “conclude” means literally “shut up,” just as is given in verse 23. Of course, a person who is shut up by the law is in prison. In human governments a criminal is shut up as soon as the law can get hold of him; God’s law is everywhere present, and always active, and, therefore, the instant a man sins he is shut up. This is the condition of all the world, “for all have sinned,” and “there is none righteous, no, not one.”GTI 146.1

Those disobedient ones to whom Christ preached in the days of Noah were “in prison.” 1 Peter 3:19, 20. But they, like all other sinners, were “prisoners of hope.” Zechariah 9:12. God “hath looked down from the height of His sanctuary; from heaven did the Lord behold the earth; to hear the groaning of the prisoner; to loose those that are appointed to death.” Psalm 102:19, 20. Christ is given “for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.” Isaiah 42:6, 7.GTI 146.2

Let me speak from personal experience to the sinner who does not yet know the joy and freedom of the Lord. Some day, if not already, you will be sharply convicted of sin by the Spirit of God. You may have been full of doubts and quibbles, of ready answers and self-defense, but then you will have nothing to say. You will then have no doubt about the reality of God and the Holy Spirit, and will need no argument to assure you of it; for you will know the voice of God speaking to your soul, and will feel, as did ancient Israel, “Let not God speak with us, lest we die.” Then you will know what it is to be shut up in prison,—in a prison whose walls seem to close on you, not only barring all escape, but seeming to suffocate you. The tales of people condemned to be buried alive with a heavy stone upon them, will seem very vivid and real to you, as you feel the tables of the law crushing out your life, and a hand of marble seems to be breaking your very heart. Then it will give you joy to remember that you are shut up for the sole purpose that “the promise by faith of Jesus Christ” might be accepted by you. As soon as you lay hold of that promise,—the key that will unlock any door in Doubting Castle,—the prison doors will fly open, and you can say, “Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we are escaped.” Psalm 124:7.GTI 147.1