Righteousness through Faith

“Do we then make the Law void through faith? Let it not be! But we establish the Law.” (Romans 3:31)

When we speak of the Law, we are talking about the Law given to Moses, including the Ten Commandments. It’s all God’s law. But the Law of Moses had regulations concerning eating, drinking, family, law breakers, murders, deviant behavior and rules of rituals that had to be maintained for covering their sins and other activity that defiled man.

The rituals are all foreshadows of what the Messiah would accomplish when He would come. The sacrifices of the pure innocent animals represented the Lamb of God Who was to come and take the sins of the world and take death the penalty for sin for the world. It began in Egypt. When death came to all the first born of anyone who was not under the blood that had been placed on the lintel of the door. Death passed over the blood. That was the first Passover. And death passes over us who are covered by the blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus.

 Our Scripture asks if the Law is void through faith. There are two things here. The first is that Abraham who lived before the Law was righteous before the Law and without the Law. “And he believed in Jehovah. And He counted it to him for righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6) Those who live by faith in Jesus, live like Abraham, by faith. Our faith in Jesus makes us righteous, just like faith did Abraham. “Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5:1)

The other thing is that the Law isn’t done away with. People still live under the Law, which is righteousness by works. The problem is that they can’t keep the Law. And so, they can’t be justified without the Savior, the One Who did keep the Law. “But we know that whatever things the Law says, it says to those who are under the Law; so that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may be under judgment before God, because by the works of the Law none of all flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law is the knowledge of sin.” (Romans 3:19-20)

Because we believe in Jesus, God the Law Keeper, we are justified through Jesus, through His righteousness. It’s not our righteousness. We could never come to be righteous on our own. Our righteousness is like filthy rags (I will not get into the meaning of that-just to say our righteousness is disgusting in God’s eyes.) Isaiah wrote about it. “But we are all as the unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as a menstruation cloth. And we all fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” (Isaiah 64:6)

How about the Law? It exists in our hearts. “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My Laws into their mind and write them in their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” (Hebrews 8:10; taken from Ezekiel’s and Jeremiah’s prophecies – Ezekiel 11:19, 20; Jeremiah 31:33) We know what is right before God. When we miss the mark, we know it immediately. The Holy Spirit who indwells lets us know something is wrong even before we sin. There’s a check and if we ignore it, we sin. Then afterward we know for sure we missed it. We don’t follow the written Law of old, but the Law God has written in our hearts. We live by it.

Although we don’t follow the Law and its rituals of the Old Testament, we do follow the Law through Jesus Who was represented in the Old Testament Law. Through the New Covenant of Jesus, the law of God is in our hearts, written by God and regulated by the Holy Spirit. We are righteous through faith in Jesus, the Law Keeper, the Messiah and our Lord and Savior.