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No One Is Good
9What does all this mean? Does it mean that we Jews are better off than the Gentiles? No, it doesn't! Jews, as well as Gentiles, are ruled by sin, just as I have said. 10 The Scriptures tell us,
“No one is acceptable to God!
11Not one of them understands
or even searches for God.
12They have all turned away
and are worthless.
There isn't one person
who does right.
13 Their words are like
an open pit,
and their tongues are good
only for telling lies.
Each word is as deadly
as the fangs of a snake,
14 and they say nothing
but bitter curses.
15 These people quickly
become violent.
16Wherever they go,
they leave ruin
and destruction.
17They don't know how
to live in peace.
18 They don't even fear God.”
19We know that everything in the Law was written for those who are under its power. The Law says these things to stop anyone from making excuses and to let God show that the whole world is guilty. 20 God doesn't accept people simply because they obey the Law. No, indeed! All the Law does is to point out our sin.
God's Way
21Now we see how God does make us acceptable to him. The Law and the Prophets tell how we become acceptable, and it isn't by obeying the Law of Moses. 22 God treats everyone alike. He accepts people only because they have faith in Jesus Christ. 23All of us have sinned and fallen short of God's glory. 24But God treats us much better than we deserve, and because of Christ Jesus, he freely accepts us and sets us free from our sins. 25-26 God sent Christ to be our sacrifice. Christ offered his life's blood, so by faith in him we could come to God. And God did this to show that in the past he was right to be patient and forgive sinners. This also shows that God is right when he accepts people who have faith in Jesus.
27What is left for us to brag about? Not a thing! Is it because we obeyed some law? No! It is because of faith. 28We see that people are acceptable to God because they have faith, and not because they obey the Law. 29Does God belong only to the Jews? Isn't he also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, he is! 30 There is only one God, and he accepts Gentiles as well as Jews, simply because of their faith. 31Do we destroy the Law by our faith? Not at all! We make it even more powerful.
Reflect
When the Jews were rescued from Egypt under the leadership of Moses, God gave them the Law. This was much more than what we normally think of as the law. It comprised all the things that God wanted them to do to represent him as their God. This included the building of the tabernacle according to his precise instructions as a place which would symbolize his presence in their midst, detailed instructions about how they were to worship him, and, most importantly the Ten Commandments.
The problem with the Law was that they believed that keeping these detailed instructions was all that God required of them, without seeing that the instructions were meant to point to something greater. They were like a dog who looks at your finger when you are pointing to something and not at the object you are pointing out. Over the course of time they added to these commandments in an attempt to make it clearer what to do and what to avoid. In the end keeping the Law became a near obsession with them.
The problem was that none of them was able to keep their Law. Even their own Scriptures say this. You just have to read the quotation from Psalms 14 and 53 (vv 10-18). It was never meant to make them acceptable to God. None of us, Jew or Gentile, can live a perfect life.
The Law was meant to point them to Jesus, who did live a perfect life, and died for us. If we commit ourselves to Jesus, he forgives us, takes us into himself and presents us to God. God gives us the Holy Spirit to change us from the inside out. We are saved by our faith, not by keeping the Jewish Law.
Respond
Lord Jesus, I am overwhelmed by how much I matter to you. I am overwhelmed by your love for me. I am overwhelmed that you would die for me. I love you, and trust you with my whole self. Amen.
Annabel Robinson
Annabel was born in Kew, near London, England. She committed her life to Jesus Christ at a Scripture Union camp when she was 16, and immediately found joy and peace. At Oxford she was active in the Oxford Inter-Collegiate Christian Union, where she met her husband, Reid. They emigrated to Canada in 1965, where she taught Classics at the University of Regina until 2007. She has two children, Heather in Oslo and Alasdair in Calgary.