The Law of Faith

Romans 3:19-31

19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

God's Righteousness Through Faith

21 But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, 26 to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Boasting Excluded

27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. 29 Or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, 30 since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. 31 Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.

Since nobody is righteous apart from the Lord we are left with the bad news of being born conde in our sin against God’s righteousness in our willful disobedience to His Law of the commandments directing our moral behavior and love towards Him and others.  The Jewish Law includes these ten directives but added so many more ceremonial laws meant to teach them good from evil (Hebrews 5:14) with acceptable foods and ritual cleansing (Mark 7:8-9, 18-19).  Remember that Jesus said, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (Mark 7:6–7), and did not intend for us to add to the Law nor teach it as a checklist to evaluate and judge us worthy of salvation and the kingdom of heaven.  God intended willing adherence to the moral laws ot the Ten Commandments as a way to put direction and guardrails on our behavior and hearts and not checklists to claim righteousness by because we all fall short of keeping even these ten, let alone the other six hundred or so added laws.  The Law then was given to demonstrate our inability to keep it perfectly from our hearts and actions that our boasting would cease as He shuts our bragging mouths from claiming we are righteous in and of our works or birthright.  We are shown to be guilty by the filthy rags of righteous deeds soiled with the corruption of original sin from Adam (Romans 5:12-13) even before the Law of Moses was given.  Knowing the Law only reveals that we are hopeless sinners and cannot justify ourselves by works of penance or confession to anyone but God alone who can change our hearts from stone tablets of checklists to fleshy ones (Ezekiel 36:26, 2 Corinthians 3:3) enabling love for God and our fellow man (Mark 12:30-31) in return by faith and standing in His righteousness alone (Romans 3:26) by trusting faith in Him as our only goodness and holiness.  We are then given the ability to do good as we are enabled by God’s Spirit living in us driving regenerated hearts and minds (1 Corinthians 2:12, 16) learning to choose good as Jesus exercises our consciences according to His word and Spirit filling and guiding us.  This righteousness revealed in Christ is apart from keeping the Law under our own power (which is simply not possible as our bragging mouths are shut when we dare claim this) just as the prophets and Law of Moses testified to us throughout the scriptures before Jesus came into flesh to walk with us and talk to us of these truths.  It becomes a Law of sorts of Faith that trusts His work and not our own (John 6:28) which we are to exercise.  Every single person who ever lived and ever will live is born in sin.  Nobody is born good and loses that goodness because it has been tainted in our spiritual DNA from Adam.  Our only redemption therefore is in Jesus Christ the righteous according to the gift of grace to redeem or buy us back from the consequences of sin by the sacrifice of God’s only Son in our place to be that mercy seat of propitiation or atoning sacrifice acceptable to God for our redemption from our sinful condition.  By that self-sacrifice He has become our Passover Lamb to keep the Destoyer away as the children of God were before leaving the bondage of Egypt as a shadow of our redemption from sin’s destruction of eternal judgment.  This passing over of our sin is justified by the only righteous one who brings us into His righteousness by faith in His word and work which demonstrates this for and to us.  Jesus Christ is truly both the Just One (Acts 7:52, 22:14) and the only One who can justify us before the Father in heaven for all eternity!  There is no other way except through faith in Him (John 14:6).  No church membership, no mere intellectual assent to creeds, no emotional response alone can substitute for a regenerated heart in believing and rec Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Savior anointed by the Father as our Messiah and Redeemer (Job 19:25-27) who ever lives to give eternal life to all who see and hear and come to Him.  This is the Law of Faith.  It establishes the Law of God according to faith in God’s work in Jesus Christ just as promised to Abraham long before Moses and the Law which the Jews held to without understanding its foundation of purpose that is to demonstrate God’s righteousness and our sin in comparison that we might trust Him and then be enabled to keep His word with renewed hearts and minds.  God justifies us through our faith and not according to our works which always fall short of perfection that only the divine Jesus can attain.