Folly of Salvation by The Law

Folly of Salvation by The Law

"Therefore, no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the Law." (Rom.3:20)

Some have drawn the absurd conclusion that the believer of our day is obligated to keep the law in order to be saved.  We must not forget that the law is not merely the code which we know as the Ten Commandments, but that it includes all the ordinances for life and living which were given by God through Moses and which constitute the whole of the priestly code.  Christ came to fulfill it all.  No one who lived before that moment had ever fulfilled the law.  Therefore, everyone who lived under the law was under the curse which was necessarily attached to the breaking of the law.

Mark well: no one who lived before Christ came had kept the law.  Therefore everyone came under the curse.  This was true of Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, Elijah, Elisha, and all the mighty men of the old dispensation.  God knew when He gave the law that no one would ever be able to fulfill it, and so He provided a lamb at the same time that He gave the law.  When the law was broken, the lamb was to be sacrificed.  This was an imperious necessity, from the heart of a loving God, because He knew that His holiness demanded a perfection as expressed in the law, which no man could fulfill.

So there was to be salvation through faith in God’s Word about the blood of a sacrifice. This was because God had in His plan that Man Christ Jesus Who was to come and fulfill the law. As soon as Christ had lived His perfect life, the law was fulfilled. It could have no further hold on those who would believe in the Lord’s sacrificial work.  This is the great principle which is laid down throughout the Bible: there will be no one in Heaven unless he is as holy as God, as perfect as the law, as righteous as the Lord Jesus Christ.  Anyone who cannot live up to these demands must take his place as a lost sinner.  This was the curse of the law.  Christ came and fulfilled the law, took the curse upon Himself, so that those who believe in Him may know that this curse is gone forever.

Dr. Barnhouse once again dispels any false hope of salvation by Law works.   Where is your hope of salvation?  Do you add to grace legalistic burdens as part of your justification before a holy and righteous God?  Do you add to the finished work of Christ?

Further Reading: Romans 3:19-26