Post by tomdurst on Feb 18, 2015 23:44:31 GMT -5
THOSE WHO OBEY THE LAW
"For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous."—Romans 2:13 NIV
Under the Mosaic law the emphasis was on DOING what the law commanded and by so doing you would find life (see Leviticus 18:5). I used to be perplexed by what Paul meant when he said "it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.” It sounded like I would have to be perfectly obedient to God’s law before I could be accepted of God. Paul said this to the self-righteous Jews and told them that IF they could obey the law perfectly God would accept them. He knew full well that such was impossible but he was meeting them on their own ground. Later in Romans 3 he delineates in detail that such obedience by any human beings, Jew or Gentile, was never the case and no man could be justified (declared righteous) by keeping the law for no one had ever kept it perfectly (see Romans 3:20). In Romans 3-5 Paul especially makes clear that IN CHRIST we are declared to be perfectly righteous, completely obedient to the law, and so instead of DO and live it is DONE through the redemptive work of Christ in our behalf and thus we LIVE. Life is now in Christ and not in keeping a written code of any kind (see John 10:10; Galatians 3:23-29). The expression “law” included the entire Mosaic corpus and was especially relevant to the Jews to whom Paul was writing. The Jews had been seeking to find righteousness through obeying the law for many centuries but hadn’t attained it and so Paul was telling them that every jot and tittle of what the law required had been fulfilled in Jesus Christ (see Romans 9:30–10:4). When they received Him they would be declared fully righteous before God, regarded as perfectly fulfilling all of the demands of the law. All of our good works will never make us righteous in God’s sight but in Christ we are fully righteous, without spot or wrinkle.
The systematic presentation of the gospel in the book of Romans is awesome and worthy of study over and over. My heart is filled with pure joy as I consider the powerful teachings of this wonderful book.
I invite you to read GOOD NEWS FROM GENESIS which is on the link below:
GOOD NEWS FROM GENESIS
