Romans 3:19–28—Theologians use a Latin phrase that
describes our relationship with God’s Holy Law: “Lex semper accusat,” that is, ‘the
Law always accuses’. This is because none of us sinful humans can obey
God’s Law perfectly. Both our original sin and our actual sin condemn us.
But there is a righteousness before God apart from the
Law and apart from ourselves and anything we do. This righteousness is the
righteousness of Christ, which is imputed to us through faith in the
propitiating death of Christ on our behalf. Because of Christ’s fulfillment of
the Law, and His blood which He shed for us, God declares us ‘not guilty’.
Summation: The law cannot save us from our sin and the
penalty it deserves.
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. Therefore
by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law
is the knowledge of sin. V.19
Whatever the
law says: Paul points out that this
horrific description of man’s utter sinfulness come to us in the law; and it is
intended for those under the law, to silence every critic and to demonstrate
the universal guilt of mankind – that all the world may become guilty before
God.
It says to
those who are under the law: If God
speaks this way to those who had the law, and attempted to do the law, it is evident
that by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight.
Remember that many Jewish people of Paul’s day took
every passage of the Old Testament describing evil and applied it only to the
Gentiles – not to themselves. Paul makes it clear that God speaks to those who
are under the law.
Therefore by
the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight: The law cannot save us. The law can’t justify
anyone. It is useful in giving us the knowledge of sin, but it cannot save us.
Since the time of Adam and Eve, people have tried to
justify themselves by the deeds of the law. In the Garden of Eden Adam tried to
make himself presentable to God by making coverings out of fig leaves – and he
failed. In Job, the oldest book of the Bible, the problem is presented clearly:
how can a man be righteous before God?
(Job 9:2). God makes part of the answer clear here through Paul – the answer is
not in the performance of good works, in the deeds of the law.
How we need to deeply understand this – that by the
deeds of the law no flesh will be justified!
· This means that
the law, having been broken, now can only condemn us – it can never save us.
· This means that
even if we could now begin to perfectly keep the law of God it could not make
up for past disobedience, or remove present guilt.
· This means that keeping the law is NOT God’s way of
salvation or of blessing under the New Covenant.
For by the
law is the knowledge of sin: J.B.
Phillip’s paraphrase of this phrase is striking. He writes, “it is the straight-edge of the Law that
shows us how crooked we are.”[2]
[1] Luther’s Seal © Ed Riojas, Higher Things
[3] Collect for Thursday of the week of Pentecost 19, For All the Saints, A Prayer Book For and By the Church, Vol. II © 1995 The American Lutheran Publicity Bureau, Delhi, NY
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