“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” (Rom. 3:23)
If you are like me, you have received a few traffic tickets in your life. Suppose with me that you are driving down the road and a police officer stops you for running a red light.
You say to the officer, “I ran that red light, but you ought not give me a ticket because I stopped at all the other streets and, besides, I have obeyed the speed limit too.”
To which the officer responds, “Don’t tell me about all the good things that you’ve done. You have just broken the law.”
You see, if you think that you are going to be saved by keeping the law, then you must keep all of it because God is perfect and to be like Him you cannot break any law – ever. God’s character demands perfection. No amount of obedience can make up for one act of disobedience.
If you keep the whole law and yet offend in one point you are guilty of it all. Indeed, “by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ.” (Rom. 3:20-21)
There is no room here for any personal pride or self-justification. God in His love for you and me took our inability to live righteously, our sin, upon Himself and put it to death on the cross through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. As Paul says in the 26th verse of this chapter God can now “be just and the justifier of one who has faith in Jesus.”
So, you see, our salvation and acceptance into the Kingdom of God is never based on any work of our own but solely and completely on the law of faith. God loves you too much to leave you to yourself; through faith in His Son we have new life and a fellowship with the Father that was not possible before.
Oh, yes, the law is still in effect for in Christ all its demands of perfection are satisfied as we are found in Him blameless and filled with joy unspeakable. Amen!
Pastor Brunner is the founder and director of Jim Brunner Ministries
