There is an argument I see coming up time and again, from Mormons and others, even from within the body of Christ, that the law that doesn’t save is the Law of Moses. Paul in Romans writes:
‘Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin’ (Ro.3:20, NIV)
‘For by the works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.’ (Ro.3:20, ESV)
The fallacy arises when people fail to understand the role of the law in salvation.
The argument is made that we are not saved by Moses, by the ceremonies of the cult of the temple, by the civil law peculiar to the nation of Israel. Nevertheless adherence to the eternal statutes of God contained in the Ten Commandments do have a role to play in the saving of men and women. The fallacy arises when people fail to understand the role of the law in salvation.
The text makes the same distinction but to reach a very different conclusion as it goes on to say, ‘through the law comes knowledge of sin.’ The ceremonial laws don’t make us conscious of sin, neither the civil laws. It is the commandments that make us conscious of sin. What the Bible does not say anywhere is the law makes us right before God. Rather, it explains why we are not right before God.
In the next chapter, Paul tells us, ‘the law brings wrath.’ (4:15) We face the wrath of God because we cannot keep the law. What law? The ceremonial, the civil law? No, the commandments. The law, in part or in its entirety, cannot justify us before God because we cannot keep it.
Doctor Law
Some years ago I woke one morning and found I was unable to move. It wasn’t a paralysis but an inability to move an inch without experiencing considerable pain all over my body. The doctors took some time to diagnose the problem (arthritis triggered by a virus) but when they did their diagnosis didn’t help me one bit. What helped was the prescribed medication and treatment.
‘That which proves a man sick, doesn’t heal him; neither does the cause of wrath bring to favour; neither can that which damns a man save a man.’
Just as my diagnosis did nothing to alleviate my suffering but simply told me what the problem was, so the law does nothing to justify me before God but only tells me why I cannot have peace with my Maker. To paraphrase Tyndale:
‘That which proves a man sick, doesn’t heal him; neither does the cause of wrath bring to favour; neither can that which damns a man save a man.’
When the law insists I should not lust, covet, lie, steal, practice idolatry, it does nothing to help me keep the commandments. I can’t keep them, neither does the law help me keep them. God is justly angry with me for it, and rightly so since my fallen will stands against God and his statutes.
Paul struggles with this question later, in Romans 7, ‘I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing’ (Rom.7:19) He goes on to say that it is sin that keeps his life contrary to God and his ways.
You might well ask, what is the point of the law then? Paul asks and answers it in his letter to Galatia. Having explained that the inheritance promised Abraham, a promise made before the law was given, does not come by the law, he goes on:
‘Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.
Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.’ (Gal.3:19-24)
Note that Paul specifically addresses the question of salvation by works, in whole or part. ‘For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.’ The only conclusion we can come to is, a law was not given that could give life, therefore righteousness cannot be by the law.
We conclude:
The law does not save, it simply diagnosis our sin problem, our imprisonment, our paralysis and inability to do the good we want to do.
The law, which cannot save, was put in place because we are sinners in order to diagnose the sickness and point us to the remedy.
The law then acts as guardian until our remedy comes in the person of Christ, a remedy gained through faith and faith alone.
It is then that we find, ‘...we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.’ (Gal.3:25-29)
Did you catch that? '...we are no longer under a guardian.'
Any who consider themselves still under the guardianship of law have not come to the Christ to whom the law points. Those who are striving to become sons of God by any other way than through faith are not and will never be sons of God. Those who see the diagnosis but fail to use the prescribed treatment are still in their sick beds, indeed in their spiritual graves, for Paul writes of them as being, ‘dead in sin.’ (Eph.2:1)
If you, as Paul in Romans 7, see your own helpless state, you need a Saviour not a system. The law doesn’t point us to an organisation, a system, to a church, to a battalion of intermediate ‘authorities’ having office and priesthood. it points us to Christ; come to Christ, then, and know freedom and sonship.
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