Paul is very careful to repeat one of the basics of the gospel. He does this in many places such as Ephesians 2:8 “By grace you are saved through faith, and this is not of yourselves but is the gift of God.” Note his interaction with the idea of law here in Romans 3:27-31:

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. ²⁸ For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. ²⁹ Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, ³⁰ since God is one. He will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. ³¹ Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

This simple truth repeated here by Paul cannot be repeated enough. This is the gospel, a.k.a. justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. As I read this text I asked myself, “Why does Paul repeat this truth so clearly in so many different places?” I think the reason is that we are bent towards trying to earn righteousness independently. We like to do things on our own. This is evident even when we look at children. They like to accomplish things by themselves without the help of their parents. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but it can be if it is the sort of independence that selfishly seeks the exaltation of me, myself, and I. Unfortunately, I think we are all more prone to this independent selfishness than we think, probably because we are so independent we don’t listen to anything else. So to counteract this, and to make sure we get the basics of the gospel, let’s meditate upon this truth this morning. “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.” And in conjunction with Paul’s explanation of the gospel in Ephesians, we know that our very faith is a gift from God, so all boasting is excluded. Meditation upon this should bring about some real applications.

First, let’s stop thinking we are better than others. Sure, we might not say it, or even act like it, but what do we really think about others in relation to ourselves. “They don’t attend church regularly.” “He is divorced and remarried.” “Do you know what I saw them doing?” Now, I am by no means justifying any sort of sinful behavior, rather I am saying we have no grounds to think we are better than anyone else. If we are saved it is by grace. If we are living by faith, it is a gift. If our lives look better than others, rather than take an opportunity to think that somehow we had anything to do with it, maybe we should take an opportunity to praise God or share the gospel with the person we are reviling in our thoughts. When this truth gets drilled into our heads, that when we do good works they are simply, “God at work in us,” and “the good works prepared beforehand,” then we will think about others in a much different manner. I believe that someone who views his or her own salvation correctly will treat the unrepentant sinner in a manner that looks very different than that to which we are accustomed. No, we can never endorse sin, but we can be there providing for physical needs and the eternally more important spiritual needs. We have lost the art of disagreeing with someone while still making them feel that they are loved. I believe that there is a way to engage the lost that shows them the love and forgiveness of Christ while still disapproving of their lifestyles. Unfortunately, because a majority of the church forgets this simple truth about salvation, instead of seeing the righteousness of Christ, the world usually sees self-righteousness in the church. This is wrong, and we must correct it.

Also, the application of this truth does not ignore the law. To discard the law altogether would be against what Paul is arguing. He is simply saying that obedience to the law does not bring righteousness or salvation. Also, when one is saved and they desire to “love the Lord their God with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength,” they will in effect be obeying the law. Here is a truly difficult thing to accomplish, to obey the law through faith, and not allow our pride to make us think we are better than anyone not obeying the law. It is much easier to be legalistic or licentious than to live by the law of faith. Here we see that both legalism and license are forms of selfishness. Legalism says, “look at me, I am obeying the law.” License says, “I’m doing whatever I want because Christ saved me.” The truth is in the middle, “I am doing in love and humility whatever Christ wants me to do because I am saved completely by Christ.” Only this sort of accurate thinking about the gospel will allow us to humbly obey the law and to love the lost.