Sunday 29 July 2012

Paul taught us that faith establishes the law


ROMANS 3:30-31 (Paul)
30 Seeing it is one God, who shall justify the circumcision by faith, and un-circumcision through faith.
31 Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yes, we establish1 the law.
Note: The word translated we establish1 (Romans 3:31) is from the Greek verb isthmi (Gtr. histemi) which means "to make to stand", or "to cause to stand". Paul's conclusion in this context was that "a man is justified by faith without the works of the law." (Romans 3:30), by which he meant that justification could not come through sacrificing animals to cover sin(See #4.04), but only through a genuine faith. There are two ways you can seek to be justified by the law, one was by making animal sacrifices every time that you made a mistake, called the "works of the law" (See #4.04), and the other was by faith. Only faith worked:
(Romans 9:31-32) "But Israel, who followed after the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness.
Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling-stone;"
The implication here is, that if they had sought to attain to the law of righteousness by faith, then they could have done it. James also taught that a man is justified by faith which produces works of faith (James 2:17-26), and therefore a genuine faith will give us the ability to keep the law in a spiritual sense, including the ten commandments. So how does faith establish the law? Simply by giving a person the ability to obey the commandments, which a person without faith cannot do. We could therefore say this:
(Romans 3:31) "Do we then make void the ten commandments through faith? God forbid: but, we establish the ten commandments."

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