Our assumptions on a topic naturally lead to our conclusions about that same topic. This is what Paul was getting at when he summed up his thoughts regarding God’s forgiveness of man’s unrighteousness and ungodliness. The Jews of Paul’s day, as do most everyone today, believed that the way to be acceptable before God was by obeying the commands of Moses, summarized in the 10 commandments. Today, most people do not refer to the 10 commandments, but they make the same assumption, which is: if your good works are greater than your failings, you will be acceptable to God, or at least that is the hope.
In Romans 3, Paul explained the error and misunderstanding of that approach, that assumption. Paul demonstrated that the purpose of the 10 commandments, in particular and the law of Moses in general, was never to provide a means of justification before God. In fact, that belief was a misguided assumption. Rather the purpose of the Mosaic law was to demonstrate guilt, not to God, but to man himself. The law was a means of putting man in a dilemma. If man was not able to justify himself by obedience to the law, then how could he ever be forgiven? Paul answered that question by explaining what Jesus accomplished. When Jesus, being God himself in the flesh, died he bore the full weight of the consequences of all of mankind’s unrighteousness and ungodliness, so that any individual who placed his or her trust in Jesus would be forgiven. By God bearing the consequences of man’s sin Himself, he remained righteous when he also justified man.
The assumption that we can somehow make ourselves righteous before God through our own efforts does not lead to being forgiven. Rather it leads to pride in our own accomplishments, which is by definition unrighteous and ungodly. An errant assumption about ourselves, God’s laws and even God himself, actually leads people away from God rather than to him. Paul explained the truth to the Romans so that they would have the opportunity to draw close to God rather than distance themselves from him. While it is a good thing to do what is right and moral, those actions do not make us righteous and moral, when we assume that they do, our good and moral actions lead us into pride in what we’ve accomplished. We see this in the Pharisees and religious Jews of Jesus’ day. These men obeyed the law of Moses, but were not righteous, they were actually proud of the way they lived. Their pride led them to being in opposition to Jesus. Paul understood his own dilemma Romans 7, when he wrote a question we should all ask ourselves: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” While we still seek to live good and moral lives, we still need a Savior to deliver us from ourselves.
David Freitag 