(Text Only)
Title: The Point of the Law
v19 “law” As we stated last week, we can understand “Law” here to mean the entire O.T. because Paul’s quotations come from Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and Isaiah, and not from the Pentateuch.
V19 “says” This is subtle, but don’t miss this, Paul sees the scriptures as living and organic, able to meet the needs of all people at all times. Essentially, the scriptures are eternal, there is no need to adapt or revise them.
V19 “To those who are under the Law…” We must understand who these people are, and that can be a tricky answer because of the way verse 19 is worded. There is a danger of interpreting Paul’s words this way:
Everyone shut your mouths. Everyone is under God’s Law. Everyone has sinned. Everyone is guilty before God.
But a closer look at the “we” and “those” prepositions reveals a deeper, much more profound reading of this verse:
We (the Christians) know that whatever the message of the Law is, that message was reserved for those who have been given the Law, that is, the Jews. And that message to the Jews is that everyone is guilty before God, and no one has the right to boast about having “less sin” especially the Jews, for if there is one thing the Law should have taught the Jews, it was that they were sinners, incapable of not sinning.
You see, what had been happening ever since the split of Israel and the fall of the two kingdoms in the O.T. was that the Jews were perverting the message of the Law, and claiming their possession of the Law as giving them a privileged place before God. When matters of sin would arise, the response of the typical Jew was, “I’m not a sinner, I follow the Law!”
When, in fact, the entire message of the Law was that everyone, Jew and Greek was a sinner.
V20 (read)
Paul then says, you cannot “earn” you way to rightness with God though “doing” the Law. If the Law reveals anything, it not “how to get to heaven” rather it’s “how you can’t get to heaven.”
Now, time for my favorite all time question.
Why?
Why would the point of the Law be to explain to God’s Chosen Nation, that they were sinners, just like the rest of the world?
Answer: To lay the path for the fulfillment of the Law, that in their inability to please God through the Law, the Jews would understand the magnificence of Grace in Christ.
Application Points:
1. We cannot share Jesus without explaining sin. People will not be interested in a savior unless they realize that they are dying. If I go up to Jim Fox and say, “Hey Jim, let me take you to the doctor.” Jim’s response will be “Why? I don’t feel sick.” It is the same with Jesus. “Hey Jim, let me take you to Church.” “Why? I don’t feel sinful.”
2. The Jews were not God’s chosen people because he gave them the instructions to Holy living. The Jews were His chosen nation because He chose them. Likewise, if you are a Believer today, it is not because someone showed you how to believe and you fulfilled the requirements of belief and therefore are accepted before God. No, fried, if you are a believer today it’s because of Ephesians 1:4
“He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.”
3. There are exactly two people in the world. The Lost and the Saved. Everything else gets thrown out. Money. Family. Nationality. Race. Creed. Gender. Height. Weight. Athletic Ability. Talent. Charisma. Motivation. Reputation. Knowledge. Degrees. Housing. Friends.
The scary part of that statement is that many of us spend far too much time working on improving portions of that list I just went over in an effort to “better our lives” when only the first divider can make anything better.
The joyful part of that statement is that we can be a group of people that have nothing in common except Christ, and be closer than the closest family based solely on that one thing that we have in common. Why? Because, brothers and sisters, that one thing, is everything.