Although strict obedience to God’s commandments can produce a legitimate legal righteousness, the “law of faith” establishes that this human righteousness is entirely insufficient for the forgiveness of sins, dictating instead that justification is achieved exclusively by receiving the distinct and perfect righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, entirely apart from the deeds of the law.
There is, perhaps, no greater illusion haunting the religious mind than the belief that moral exertion can erase moral guilt. Mankind possesses an almost pathological inclination to construct a ladder to heaven out of his own good works, assuming that a life of respectable conduct must surely compel the Lord to grant him entry. Yet, the Bible thoroughly dismantles this concept. To understand how God justifies the ungodly, we must first abandon the comforting fiction that our own righteousness is sufficient to save us, and acquaint ourselves with an entirely different principle of God’s operation: the “law of faith.”
“Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.” (Romans 3:20-28)
Herein lies the profound contrast between two irreconcilable systems. One demands that man ascend by his own merit; the other decrees that he simply receive by God’s grace. To grasp the necessity of the latter, one must reckon honestly with the reality of the former.
The Reality of Legal Righteousness
It is a common misconception, I believe, to suppose that keeping the law of God is, and always has been, a sheer impossibility. The scripture acknowledges a very real standard known as “the righteousness which is of the law.” Moses described it with stark clarity: “For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them” (Romans 10:5). This is not a mythical standard; it is a measurable metric of human obedience.
This reality is vividly illustrated in the Gospel narrative of the rich young ruler who approached Christ to inquire what he must do to inherit eternal life. When Jesus recited the commandments, the young man confidently replied, “Master, all these have I observed from my youth” (Mark 10:20). Strikingly, the Lord did not accuse him of perjury or suggest that his claim to legal obedience was a delusion. Instead, Jesus simply replied, “One thing thou lackest” (Mark 10:21). The man possessed a legitimate righteousness of the law, yet Christ revealed that it was inherently insufficient to secure eternal life; he needed to leave his self-reliance behind and follow the Saviour.
Consider also the testimony of the Apostle Paul. Before his conversion to Christ, he did not view himself as a wretched failure under the Jewish legal system. On the contrary, writing under the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he looked back upon his life as a strict Pharisee and declared himself, “touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless” (Philippians 3:6). He had meticulously observed the ordinances, the sabbaths, and the sacrifices. Furthermore, the scripture plainly states that the essence of the law is entirely practical and attainable in its horizontal application: “He that loveth another hath fulfilled the law” (Romans 13:8).
To deny that a man could walk uprightly before the commandments of God is to deny the plain reading of the text. A crucial caveat, however, must be noted. While maintaining this legal righteousness was possible for figures like Paul in antiquity, the structural elements required to strictly keep the Mosaic Law, the physical Temple in Jerusalem, the functioning High Priest, the levitical sacrificial system, have been swept away by the relentless currents of history. Today, it is structurally impossible to fulfill its exact ceremonial demands. Yet, even when the apparatus of the law was perfectly intact, and men walked blameless in its statutes, that precise obedience harbored a fatal limitation.
The Fatal Limitation of Obedience
The tragedy of the religious man is not that he fails to do good; the tragedy is that his good is entirely impotent to absolve his bad. The law is holy, just, and good, functioning as a strict “schoolmaster” (Galatians 3:24) to govern behaviour and illuminate our desperate need for a Saviour. But the law was never designed to be the mechanism of salvation.
Romans 3:20 issues the terminal verdict: “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” The law is a diagnostic tool, not a cure. A thermometer may accurately reveal that a man has a deadly fever, but one does not cure the fever by swallowing the thermometer. By the law is the knowledge of sin; it exposes the moral rot, but it possesses no power to remove it.
Even if a man could perfectly keep the law from this day forward, that pristine obedience cannot reach backward to expunge the sins that are past. A man who stops accumulating debt today still owes everything he borrowed yesterday. Because of this indelible stain of past transgression, the Apostle Paul concludes the universal indictment: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Thus, the law of works leaves every mouth stopped, and the whole world guilty before God (Romans 3:19). Legal righteousness, no matter how meticulously cultivated, is utterly bankrupt in the court of God’s justice.
The Law of Faith
If human obedience cannot secure justification, then mankind is lost unless God intervenes. Romans 3:21 declares the glorious alternative: “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested.” Notice the phrase “without the law.” This is a completely separate, distinct, and perfect righteousness. It does not cooperate with human exertion; it operates on an entirely different axis.
This brings the argument to its zenith: the “law of faith.” The word “law” in this context does not refer to a list of regulations; it refers to an established, unchangeable principle of operation, much like the physical law of gravity. Just as the “law of works” dictates that perfect obedience earns a wage, the “law of faith” is the immutable decree that justification is granted exclusively to those who receive God’s righteousness by faith in Jesus Christ.
“Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith” (Romans 3:27).
The law of faith is the great leveler of human pride. It demands the humbling acknowledgement that man has absolutely nothing to offer God in exchange for his soul. God’s justice is not satisfied by our legal obedience, but by the blood of Christ, the “propitiation” (the satisfying sacrifice) set forth by the Father. Because Christ paid the penalty for sin in full, God can be “just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Romans 3:26).
The distinction between these two systems is absolute. One may spend a lifetime attempting to weave a garment of righteousness out of moral achievements, religious observances, and charitable deeds. It may even be a very fine garment by human standards, earning the title of “blameless” among peers. But when held against the blazing holiness of the Almighty, that garment is exposed as woefully insufficient to cover the guilt of past sins. The law of faith establishes that justification is not a reward for the righteous, but a gift for the guilty. It is the unyielding rule that salvation is found solely in abandoning reliance upon the righteousness of the law, and resting entirely in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
Pastor Thomas Irvin
George County Baptist Church
Lucedale, Mississippi
