Upholding the Law
Our hearts are filled with thankfulness to Christ who bore our pain, who reigns above, whose wisdom is our perfect peace, whose every thought is love. Now we ask that by your Word and Spirit, Heavenly Father, you would speak to us. Comfort all those in need of comfort. Give conviction to all those in need of the Spirit’s convicting work. And show to all of us the glory and the majesty and the mercy and the completed work of Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.
We come to the end of Romans chapter 3. We’ll be looking at verses 29-31. I will begin the reading at the start of this final paragraph. Some have said that these verses, 21-31, are the very heart of the Bible – if not the Mount Everest, then certainly one of the peaks in the Himalayas – and hopefully you have found that to be true. Whatever may be lacking in the sermons, there’s nothing lacking in the text. I’ll begin reading at verse 27.
“Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith, for we hold that one is justified by faith, apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also. Since God is one, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith, do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.”
Some of you are doctrine people, and some of you are “so what?” people. Obviously, we want to be both. But some of you are doctrine people, meaning you would take a sermon on propitiation any Sunday. Give me one on redemption. Give me one. If it ends in -tion, I want a whole sermon on it. Give me the history of the RSV. Boy, I can’t get enough of that. So, some of you, you love to read doctrine, study doctrine, and you love the doctrine here in Romans. And I make no apologies for giving doctrine because there’s a lot of it in the Bible, but others of you – not discounting that, I hope – but are “so what?” people. You say, okay, so what? I got to go live my life. What difference does this make? Well, we want to be doctrine people and “so what?” people, and some of the time the “so what?” to the doctrine is not “now here are five steps that you need to do this week” but rather “behold our God.” Glory be to Christ, overflowing with thanksgiving. Sometimes that is the wonderful point of the doctrine, of the theology, is doxology. But we do want to ask the “so what?” question and especially pay attention when the Bible will give us some of those “so what?” answers. We want to keep a close watch on our life and on the teaching. Both matter.
I want you to see that following the paragraph 21- 26, with all of that rich, deep theology of redemption, propitiation, justification, and then seeing justification by faith alone, that this subsequent paragraph gives us three implications. So, if you’re saying, “All right, the solas.” Clay was showing me beforehand his Bible. I said, “What you got in that Bible?” And it said Solus Christus on the side. And I said, “Well, look, I can do you one better. I got all five solas here on this Bible.” Somebody gave me this as a gift. What difference does it make? Sola fide, faith alone. Well, this paragraph gives us three implications. We looked at the first of them last week. So, justification by faith alone means there is no room for boasting. That’s verse 27 and 28. It also means there is only one way of salvation, and it is equally open to all peoples. That’s 29 and 30. And justification by faith alone means that faith upholds the law. So, let’s look at each of those.
Just two minutes on the first one, because we saw that last week. There is no room for boasting in ourselves. You see that point in verses 27 and 28. Because justification is by faith alone – not plus anything – there is no reason that we have to boast in ourselves. Not in anything you have done or not done (“I didn’t do those sins”). Or in what you know. I said last week that would be a very sad, tragic occurrence if we learned these great Reformation doctrines of faith alone and then we went out and became proud people – proud in all of our doctrines, boasting in the things we know, or boasting in what you feel. You may not be wired to boast in what you know, but perhaps you take some confidence that you feel things very strongly. There’s no ground for boasting in any of that. No boasting in who you are. Not where you come from, who your mama was, who your daddy was, where you’ve been, who you know, all the places you’ve been to with work, or all the places you’ve traveled to on vacation, or what kind of neighborhood or home you live in now. No boasting. The doctrines of grace alone and faith alone should make us profoundly humble, happy, thankful people. Now, we have trials – everyone does. Suffering. But they ought to say – people ought to say, if they were fair – well, that church, well, that’s a doctrine church. Yes, and then somebody should say, you know what, but it’s also a happy church and a humble church. Healthy, thankful, because how can we not when it’s grace alone, faith alone?
Some of you are – maybe you care about the baseball playoffs. We got a lot of Braves fans here, some sad Phillies fans, maybe some sad Braves fans this morning also. I’m a long-suffering White Sox fan, and they’re actually in the playoffs doing well. So, be encouraged for your pastor. The Pope prays for them. I don’t know that that helps any, but he does. I remember – I should actually follow up with this friend to see if his dad still has good tickets, but I had a friend in ministry. We grew up together. He was from south side of Chicago like I was, and for years and years, his parents had row five or something, right behind the dugout. So, when I was in Michigan, it was like a three-hour drive to go see a game. And I brought some of my sons, and I would call him up, as you know pastors sort of have a tractor beam for people with free things sometimes (you got stuff you want to give me?). So, you know, once a year or something we’d use these great seats right behind the dugout and went to some of these games. Now how do you feel if somebody gives you great seats to a sporting event – not the nosebleeds up there that you got as cheap as possible, and you had to spend your own hard-earned money – but the best seats that someone gave to you? Well, you don’t complain about the seats. You don’t even complain about the game. You don’t go in there like you own the place. You know somebody gave this to me as a gift. And whatever happens, this is going to be a wonderful day. More wonderful if they win, but you got the tickets for free. And we have something so much more infinitely valuable than any tickets to a concert or a sporting event. We have salvation – free. So, we ought to be humble people. No room for boasting.
Second, we see in verses 29 and 30, there is only one way of salvation, and it is equally open to all peoples. Now, let’s follow Paul’s logic here. If justification – standing right before God – came by obeying the law of Moses, then God would be a God of the Jews only. So, if obeying the law of Moses is required, then who can be justified? Well, only those who have received the law of Moses. And to whom was the law of Moses given? It was given to the nation of Israel from Mount Sinai. It wasn’t given to the people of Europe or the people of Africa or China. It was given to those people. So, it wasn’t given to the Gentiles. So, the logic, then, is that if justification is by something other than the law of Moses, then God must be a God not only of the Jews, but a God of the Gentiles. That’s his argument in verse 29. And then further confirmation in verse 30 – you see the connector “since.” So, here’s one of the reasons this is the case. God is one. So, he’s referencing the most fundamental, or one of the most fundamental, assertions in the Old Testament – the Shema from Deuteronomy 6: “Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” It’s called the Shema because that’s the Hebrew word for “hear.” So, that was absolutely foundational, that God is one, and there is only one God. That was unique among all the peoples in the ancient near east who had a great pantheon of gods and goddesses. They dared to say, no, there is only one God (“God is one”), and he is the creator God over everything. He’s not a tribal deity. He’s not just a God of the mountains or the plains or the people of Israel. He is the God over all the nations. So, that was their fundamental assertion as monotheists and believing in one God. Only one God.
Therefore, the God who created all things and before whom all people must bow, then that one God, the Jews must worship him, and the Gentiles must worship him. Is he not the God of Gentiles also? And even Jews in the congregation would have to admit, well, if I say he’s not the God of the Gentiles, then I’m calling into question our own monotheism, the supremacy of the one God of Israel. So, of course, yes. He is the God that the Jews must worship, and he is the God that the Gentiles must worship. So, there’s one God over all peoples, and there is only one way that each of those peoples can be saved. So, the circumcised, meaning the Jews, they are justified by faith. And what about the uncircumcised? The Gentiles, they also are justified by faith. One God, one way, one people. And we’re so used to this language of Jew/Gentile. It’s all over the place in Romans and in the Bible, and if you’ve been around the church, you know this Jew/Gentile – it doesn’t land on us. This isn’t how we usually think of the world. That doesn’t sound very polarizing to us. And I know this analogy I’m about to use isn’t perfect, but if you want to think in terms of polarization, and how people in our culture would instinctively feel like they did, well, Jew/Gentile – we’re good guys, they’re bad guys, whichever side of that divide you were on. Wait a minute. Those two groups right there are good guys and bad guys who are on different sides of the equation. So, let me just put this in an interesting way, because it might sound to them like this would sound to us. Is God the God of Republicans only? Is he not the God of Democrats also? See, you want to raise your hands, “But that’s not a perfect analogy, because they have platforms, and those are chosen things. They’re not ethnic identities.” Yes, understand all of that. But they would have felt similarly, whatever side. Well, one of those are good guys, and one of those are bad guys. The Jews certainly thought, well, Paul, but the Gentiles do a lot of bad stuff. Paul wasn’t ignorant about that. He listed a lot of it in chapter 1. His point was not to say that the Jews or the Gentiles had it all right or that they even had it all equally wrong, but to say that being a Jew did not get you into heaven, just like being a Republican doesn’t. Being a Gentile did not give you a free pass into heaven, just like being a Democrat doesn’t. Do you know how Republicans are justified before God? It’s not because they’re not woke or they own the libs or they know that boys should not play in girls’ sports. None of that will save you. Only faith. Do you know how Democrats can get justified before God? Not because they march in a No Kings event, because they post often about how much they don’t like Trump, or because they believe their side is the side that really cares for the hurting and the marginalized. None of that will make you justified before God. Only faith. Do you know how men are justified before God? The same way that women are justified before God. You don’t get into heaven because you think you are the patriarchy. You don’t get into heaven because you think you’re oppressed by the patriarchy. One God, one way. Do you know how well-behaved church kids are justified before God? Not by their parents, not by their Scripture memory, not by their family devotion – only by faith in Jesus Christ. And do you know how ex-church kids and non-church kids are justified before God? Not by being true to themselves or by being inclusive or by posting rainbow flags – only by faith in Jesus Christ. Do you know how a sinful spouse is justified before God? The same way that the sinned-against spouse is justified before God. Do you expect your husband to be justified in some other way before God than you are justified? Do you make your wife exist by works of the law when you are happy to stand before God by grace?
None of this is meant to excuse sin or to minimize the sin that some people promote or the sin that’s done by others or the sin committed against us. And Paul is going to talk about sanctification at length in the chapters ahead, but here he is talking about how one can be justified. And if we don’t ever hear the language in some of those polarities, the scandal of free grace will not land on us as it should. The way you can be justified – you personally can be justified – is the way that anyone can be justified. Americans, Mexicans, Brazilians, Dutch, British, German, French, Czech, Russians and Ukrainians – same way. Chinese, Japanese, Koreans – same way. Iranians, Fulani, Hausa, Kiwis, Australians – same way. God offers salvation to all persons and to all peoples on exactly the same terms. There are two different ways that we can have prejudice thinking about the nations of the world. There’s one kind of prejudice that thinks, though you wouldn’t verbalize it, well, I don’t really want people like that to be saved. The other prejudice is, well, I bet those people out there have some other way to be saved than justification by faith alone. Isn’t that just a western idea? Well, last I checked, Paul didn’t write any of his letters from America. I guess Rome is western. Paul converted on the road to Damascus and Syria. This is God’s Word for all people. One God, one way. He offers it freely to all. To you, to everyone you know, to every person who has the privilege of hearing the gospel, that you can be right by God. And this is the only way, that you rest and receive the finished work of Jesus Christ.
Well, there’s a third implication. You look at verse 31. So, the implication of this doctrine of faith alone – no boasting, one God, one way. And then finally, even more difficult – at least we’ll have to work our way through some interpretations – is that faith upholds the law. You see Paul’s argument, do we then overthrow the law by this faith? Paul anticipates an objection, and it’s an objection that you yourself might even feel. Certainly, if we were hearing this whole letter read to us for the first time – many of us have studied this, and we know that there’s things coming after chapter 12 about how you live your life, and we know chapter 6 is going to have a lot about sanctification, so we kind of know that Paul’s going to clean up his seeming messes later – but if you were listening to this for the first time, right about now in Paul’s presentation of the gospel you might be having some questions, because especially if you’re a Jew, you grew up hearing about the importance of the law. And now Paul seems to be completely setting aside the law. Look at verse 20, “For by works of the law, no human being will be justified.” And then again in verse 21, “Now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.” And then in verse 28, “We hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” Paul uses the word in verse 30 “we” – probably indicating that his message and those around him who have been preaching and teaching this message, they’ve received this kind of feedback before. Paul lectured in some places for years. He’s undoubtedly preached these truths in different contexts, and he’s probably had somebody queuing up after the service to say, “Now, wait a minute. So, what about the law?” And again, we may be so used to hearing this language “law,” and we sort of know that there’s a new covenant, and that’s old covenant, but what if we heard Paul saying in each of those instances “the Ten Commandments”? It’s not identical with that, but it includes the Ten Commandments. Might we be feeling a little squeamish? Verse 20, “For by the Ten Commandments, no human being will be justified in his sight.” Verse 21, “We know the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the Ten Commandments.” Verse 28, “We hold that one is justified by faith apart from the Ten Commandments.” You parents would be saying, wait a second, that’s not very fair to Pastor Bruce. He’s preaching on commandment six tonight. Don’t we teach our kids, and they got 10 fingers, and they memorize all the Ten Commandments? Post them up on your lobby walls. We memorize it. We learn it. We do our ethics by it. It’s in our confession and catechism. We believe in the Ten Commandments. We’re saying, “Wait a minute, Paul. So, the Ten Commandments don’t matter? We just overthrow the law? Is that what you’re saying?” And it solicits one of these responses – the Greek expression is me genoito – the ESV translates it “by no means.” You’ve got to be kidding me. Absolutely not. Completely wrong. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? He says, “No way do we overthrow the law by this faith.” So, what does it mean, then, that he concludes the chapter by saying, “On the contrary, we uphold the law”?
There are three ways in which this is interpreted. If you think that the last way is going to be the correct way, you’re right. One way – and these are all, it’s not that our doctrine has changed but it is important to understand in this passage – one way that some people understand upholding the law is that this points to the testimony of the law. And the testimony of the law is a testimony of those who are justified by faith. We’ll come in chapter 4 to the example of Abraham, who was justified by faith. And so they say, we uphold the law by recognizing that the Torah itself teaches that justification came by faith. Now, that’s a true doctrine, but I don’t think that’s what Paul is saying here. For one reason, if verse 31 were speaking of the testimony of the Old Testament, if chapter 4 were given then as an example of this, chapter 4 would start with the word “for” instead of starting with the word “then,” or it could be translated “therefore.” So, he’s ending the argument. Verse 31 is not the beginning of the new argument in chapter 4 about Abraham justified by faith. But verse 31 is concluding this whole argument about justification before he then looks to Abraham. But more importantly is the use of the word “law,” because law almost never refers generally to the Hebrew Scriptures or to the Old Testament. In fact, look back up at verse 21. Paul makes this distinction. “Now, the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law” – meaning apart from the law of Moses or maybe more broadly apart from the commandments of God – “although the law and the prophets bear witness to it.” You see how he makes clear Law and Prophets – that’s why the ESV capitalizes it – he’s talking there about Scripture. So, we shouldn’t equate law – he means the Old Testament, or he means the commands of God. Or if you look over to chapter 4:3, “For what does the Scripture say?” And that’s where he quotes, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” So, Paul doesn’t cite from Genesis by saying what does the law say? But there he calls it Scripture, or in verse 21 he calls it the Law and the Prophets. So, this use of the word law in verse 31 is very unlikely that he means here simply Old Testament revelation, Scripture.
There’s another understanding – more common, and many of the best commentators would give this interpretation – they would say this: we uphold the law not because we can be justified by keeping the law, but Paul is talking here about the life of justified believers. As if he were saying, of course we don’t overthrow the law by faith – we’re not saved by keeping the law – but born-again Christians, we do try to keep the law. That’s what I thought this verse was about years ago. This is one of the passages – part of this passage – I preached on about 16 years ago. I did a four-week series on Romans, and I did this paragraph, and when I planned it out, I thought the verse meant one thing, and then when I spent all week studying it, I came to the conclusion that it meant something different. It’s always good to have your mind open as you study the text. I thought that what Paul was saying was just connecting this to Romans 7:12. The law is holy. The commandment is holy and righteous and good. So, I thought initially, there you go. Paul is saying the law is good. We’re justified by faith, but we try to uphold the law, because it’s a good law. Many commentators go that route.
But I’m convinced that’s not what Paul means in verse 31. Two quick reasons why. One, Paul would not normally speak this way about our obedience. You notice even in the passage that we read earlier in the liturgy, it talks about fulfilling the law of Christ. Just fulfilling or upholding the law is not the way that Paul generally talks about Christian obedience, because you think about it – even as Christians, you don’t uphold the law. Not perfectly. We don’t keep all the law. And then, second reason is that the topic Paul is addressing here is about justification, not sanctification. Justification is that legal declaration of righteousness before God, and then sanctification, theologically speaking, is the process by which we are made progressively holy and renewed into his image. Even the commentators who argue that verse 31 is a statement about sanctification – that is, they say Paul is just jumping ahead a little bit. He’s saying, well, don’t think that obedience doesn’t matter. We do try to keep the law. They all acknowledge that that’s not really what he’s talking about here. For example, one of the commentaries says the charge of antinomianism – that term anti (against) nomos (law). So, antinomianism is the belief that we don’t have anything to do with the law as Christians. We don’t need to obey God’s commands. And Paul is going to make very clear that’s not what he’s teaching. This commentator says, “The charge of antinomianism Paul will decisively refute in Romans 6-8, but he anticipates the charges here by a simple affirmation that faith upholds the law.” Here’s another commentary says, “Paul deals with antinomianism in detail in chapter 6, but here anticipates the objection and answers it summarily.” One other good commentator says, “Those who have faith in Christ will keep the law. Paul doesn’t expand on this point here, but he forecasts a matter that will receive more extended discussion later.” So, the commentaries that give that interpretation tend to say, well, Paul’s not really talking about that here, but he must just be sort of raising the flag quickly, and he’ll get to it later. He’s not been saying anything about sanctification, but he just does it for a moment, and he’ll come back to it. I think a better way to understand is he’s not talking about sanctification – not anticipating something, and he just says it quickly and then moves on – but he is still talking about justification.
So then, what’s the third way to interpret it? I think what Paul is saying (that we uphold the law) is his affirmation that the law is completely fulfilled through the completed work of Christ – that the doctrine he’s teaching does not overthrow the law, does not say the law is unimportant. How could it? He’s talked about Christ’s work of redemption and his work of propitiation, his work of turning away the wrath of God. If anyone were to say, “Well, you obviously, Paul, you don’t care anything about the law.” He could say, “Hold on. I so care about the righteous requirements of the law that I’m teaching you that the law could not be set aside, which is why God’s only Son had to die on the cross as a curse under the law.” You could connect this with what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5:17, “I have not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it.” And we know that not everything in the Mosaic covenant is still a requirement for us. We’ll have more to say about that in the chapters ahead. But Jesus says everything in that requirement finds its fulfillment in Christ. The cross shows that the law was not set aside. Could there be any greater respect shown to the law than God sending his Son to suffer under the law’s curse as a redemption, a purchase price for our freedom, and a propitiation, the wrath-bearing substitute for our sakes?
What we have here is, by implication, Christ’s active and passive obedience. Those are two important terms. What’s meant by Christ’s active and passive obedience? Well, we are not talking about different timestamps in Christ’s ministry, that years 0-33, active obedience; and then the last week of his life, passive obedience. But rather the distinction is between all that Christ did to observe the law – that’s his active obedience, his activity of obeying every requirement in the law – also what he did in discharging the debts that the law demanded. That’s called his passive obedience. Why passive? Because it’s what he suffered, and the word passion means suffered. So, his active obedience refers to all that he did in requirement of what the law commands. And then the passive obedience, all that he experienced as a curse under the law. In his passive obedience, he endured the suffering we deserve as sinners. In his active obedience, he offered complete, heartfelt obedience to God’s commands. If you want to understand active and passive obedience, here’s two words: Christ fulfilled all the prescriptions of the law, and he fulfilled all the penalties of the law. That’s his active and his passive obedience. He fulfilled all the prescriptions. There was nothing that the law demanded – its perfect obedience – that Christ did not perfectly perform. And there was nothing that the law required – though he was not himself a sinner, he was reckoned to be a sinner for our sakes so that he paid in his body and soul all the penalties of the law. His active and passive obedience.
How can I not mention this famous story about J. Gresham Machen? Maybe some of you have heard his name before, from a hundred years ago. One of the most important Reformed theologians. He was at Princeton and more or less kicked out of there and kicked out of his denomination for his Orthodox beliefs. On June 11, 1936, Machen and others started a new denomination called the Presbyterian Church of America. Huh, that sounds like a good name. But the Presbyterian Church USA filed suit against the new denomination, claiming that it was too similar to its own. So, we couldn’t get the PCA quite yet. So, you may know the denomination was renamed the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and Machen (who had founded in 1929 Westminster Seminary) was at Princeton. Machen became the first moderator for the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and here is your wonderful piece of trivia for today. Machen’s name was put forward for moderator by a ruling elder named Gordon H. Clark, the grandfather of our very own Nathan Clark George. You didn’t know you had Presbyterian royalty, and he plays the guitar, too. Nathan’s grandfather. Machen became the first moderator. During 1935 and 1936, he gave (Machen) a series of addresses on a local radio station in Philadelphia on the Christian faith and Reformed theology. Think about what C.S. Lewis would do – what became Mere Christianity – those radio addresses during World War II. Machen did it 10 years earlier, and the book has recently been published with those addresses. It’s very good, very readable. Here’s what he said in December of 1936: “The first passage that we shall speak of next Sunday afternoon, that great passage in the 10th chapter of the Gospel according to Mark, where our Lord says that the Son of Man came to give his life as a ransom for many, on this last Sunday of the old year” – so, it’s December 1936 – “I just want to say to you who have been listening in on these Sunday afternoons, how encouraged I’ve been by your interest and by your Christian fellowship. I trust that you have had a very joyous Christmas, and I trust that the new year, which is so soon to begin, may be to you a very blessed year under the mercy of God.” Machen never did another radio broadcast. While traveling through North Dakota on a preaching trip after Christmas, he contracted pneumonia, and he died. And it is, among other things, a sobering reminder. We do not know – any of us – that we have next year or next month. What are we doing with Christ today?
Just before his death, he sent a telegram to his colleague John Murray, and he said, probably perhaps the only last telegram ever with these words: “I’m so thankful for the active obedience of Christ. No hope without it.” Last recorded words. He died on January 1, 1937, only 55 years old. That is what is taught in verse 31. The active and passive obedience of Christ. No hope without it. That’s why Paul can say we don’t overturn the law, but by faith, resting and receiving Christ, we affirm that the law’s demands must be met, and the law’s penalties must be paid for. And they were met, and they were paid for in the completed work of Christ, in his life and his death and his resurrection and his ascension and exaltation and in his coming again, so that if you are in Christ this morning, the law cannot condemn you, not because it’s just been set aside, but because it’s been fulfilled. It’s been established. It’s been upheld. It is on the basis of righteousness – the Lord, our righteousness – that you and I can be declared righteous, so that you need to know you are not justified by parenting. I am not justified by preaching. We are not justified by how well we counsel people. We are not justified by our praying or by our family worship. We are not justified by tithing. We are not justified by exercising. We are not justified by evangelizing. We are not justified by any works of the law. In his torn flesh, our sinful flesh was condemned. In his righteous life, Romans 8:4, the righteous requirement of the law has been fulfilled in us. The law that you and I know deep down we must keep – we want to prove that we keep it, and yet we know we cannot keep it – this law has been upheld, and by faith we receive all that Christ did for our sakes.
I wonder if you can sing with me just one verse of this hymn which you know, which is why sola fide ought to mean everything to you? We’ll just do it a cappella. I think we can get the words. When Satan temps me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, upward I look and see him there who made an end to all my sin. Because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free, for God the just is satisfied to look on him and pardon me, to look on him and pardon me.
Our gracious heavenly Father, what good news. Because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul – not another, but my sinful soul – by faith is counted free. And you, O God, with infinite justice are infinitely satisfied to look on us and to give us the pardon that we so desperately need. We give you thanks in Jesus’ name, and for his sake we pray. Amen.