Paul Describes Law Verses Faith

Paul describes Law verses Faith for paper Jan 27           Rev. Terry Goerz, Redeemer Lutheran Church

In speaking about the law Paul wrote: “What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.”  Romans 7: 7-11

The Law always accuses us; it always kills us; it always condemns us. For all the nice things you can say about the Law – that it is holy and righteous and good and just, that it’s good for morals, it cannot save a sinner. It only amplifies and magnifies Sin to the point that sin becomes utterly sinful so that we make no mistake that it is only through faith in the Promise that we are justified before God. If we would understand this one point, our churches would become less of the Law factories that they are and more the Gospel sounding boards they are supposed to be.

Sin and Death go together. The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God, a gift given out of God’s grace through faith in the Promise, is eternal life in Christ Jesus. A rabbi named Nicodemus came to Jesus at night for a little rabbi to rabbi conversation. He had heard great things about Jesus, all the miraculous signs that He had done, and had concluded that He was a great teacher come from God because no one could do the signs that Jesus did unless God was with Him. Nicodemus was focused on doing. That’s what his Jewish religion was about. Doing resulted in righteousness before God.

Jesus flips the religious tables on him and comes out with a statement that at first hearing sounds like He wasn’t even listening to Nicodemus: “In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”’ John 3:3 The word translated “again” can also be translated “from above.” It’s one of those multi-purpose words that can mean two different things at the same time. Nicodemus understands it in the sense of “again” and wonders “How can a man enter his mother’s womb and be born a second time?” But the birth Jesus was speaking of was a different kind of birth, a spiritual birth from above: “Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.”’  John 3:5

Of course, this all puzzles Nicodemus greatly, and who can really blame him? He’s losing his religion one sentence at a time. He was a teacher of Israel, a respected member of his community. He stood before his congregation every Sabbath and preached the righteousness of God from the books of Moses. And yet, as the apostle Paul would write later to the Corinthians, it was as though a veil were pulled over his eyes so that he could read the words but not grasp their meaning. He could quote the Bible and yet missed the message entirely. Occupied with works and doing and commandment keeping, he missed entirely the central theme and focus of the books of Moses: Abraham believed God and that faith was credited to him as righteousness before God. Faith alone in the Promise alone by God’s grace alone. Luther didn’t invent this at the Reformation. It was already there with Moses!

As we said in a previous column “This was the whole theme behind Paul’s letter to the Romans: that the bible is not a bible of works to do the righteousness of God but a bible of faith that is credited as righteousness before God. The Promise must be believed, trusted, as Abraham trusted God and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

We must believe that we have become new creations in Christ, that the old has gone, that the Law with its commandments are fulfilled, that Death has lost its sting. We must believe that we have been born anew from above in the Spirit-ed water of Baptism. We must believe that this Jesus, lifted up on the cross as Moses once lifted up the bronze serpent in the wilderness is the antidote to the venom of Sin and that looking on Him in faith we will live even though we die.

We must believe that God loves the world in this way: That He sent His only-begotten Son that whoever believes in Him, that is, trusts in the Promise of forgiveness, life, and salvation in His name, has what he believes, namely eternal life. We must believe, take God at His Word, that God did not send His Son to condemn the world, for the world was already condemned by the Law. Instead, He sent His Son born of a woman, born under the Law to redeem fallen humanity, to save the world by His own dying and rising.

Take God at His Word. Stand in the faith-full shoes of Abraham. Trust the promise of salvation in Jesus. It will be counted to you as righteousness. You will inherit the eternal life we all long for.

Blessings