The Law Upheld

This is an exegetical sermon from Romans 3:31. It explains how getting right with God by faith, not works, establishes and upholds the law. This sermon was originally preached by Pastor Justin Bragg at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA. Audio unavailable.

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:: The Resolved ::

Justin Bragg (elder)

Romans 3 “The Law Upheld”

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.

Remember the function these verses serve – vv 21-31 is the proclamation of justification by grace through faith.
21-26 is the positive affirmation, and 27-31 serves to uphold this justification against critics who presume justification by faith alone to be erroneous
27-28 proved that justification by faith alone excludes boasting from the life of the believer
29-30 proved that justification by faith alone means that all can be saved, and are in fact saved in only one way – namely by faith
And 31 is going to prove how justification by faith alone actually confirms the law, rather than overthrow it is many assume that it will

Our focus tonight is going to be on v 31 alone.
Where does this question come from?
“Do we then overthrow (nullify) the law? What kind of question is this?
Why did he ask this? There must have been somebody thinking that Paul was doing this in his teaching – nullifying the law

Romans 3:31 “do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.”

Or in different language – “but by shifting our focus from what we do to what god does, don’t we cancel out all our careful keeping of the rules and ways god commanded? Not at all. What happens, in fact, is that by putting that entire way of life in its proper place, we confirm it.” (The message)

Someone is saying, ‘Paul you are overthrowing the law. What you are teaching abolishes the law of god.”
Paul obviously does not agree with this. But before we see why he does not, it is important to ask what causes this question to come up?
Why would anyone accuse Paul of nullifying the law?

It helps to get the context. When you come to a text like this, it helps to remember that a lot has been said leading up to this point, so let’s go back and look at some of his statements that might warrant this accusation

3:20 “for by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”
He says that nobody will be justified by doing commandments of the law like “do not work on the Sabbath,” “be circumcised,” don’t lie, steal, commit adultery, or kill” – no sinner can get right with god by doing the “works of the law”

Then 3:21 “but now the righteousness of god has been manifested apart from the law”
God’s righteousness is given to us “by his grace as a gift” (24) through Christ apart from the law of commandments.
Keeping commandments is not how you and I get made right with god

3:27 “then what becomes of our boasting? It s excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.”
Again, Paul seems to trash the “law of works” it can’t get rid of boasting, only a “law of faith” can get rid of boasting – so what good is the law anymore?

Notice 3:28 “for we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law”
There is again. Paul is not satisfied to just say “a man is justified by faith” – he insists on trash talking the law again “apart from works of the law”

This is what is getting his critics so pissed off – there is no doubt that Paul is saying that the law cannot set us right with god.
We get right with god by faith “apart from the works of the law”

Now with this context in mind, when we come to v 31 and he asks “do we then overthrow the law by this faith?” It isn’t really a surprise that Paul is getting asked this question.

“you keep saying that a person gets right with god by faith apart from ‘works of the law’ and the ‘law of works’ can’t overcome boasting, so it seems that you are virtually throwing out the law – you are saying that all those commandments in the moral law of god have no authority and are no good for salvation and can just be ignored by god’s people. You are commending a ‘lawless’ Christian life.

To which Paul emphatically responds – ‘may it never be!’ absolutely not. That is in no way what I am doing.
It may look like that on the surface, but don’t jump to conclusions, dig deeper, follow the entire argument – all the way to the end. One should not press his/her assumptions on the argument without hearing it out. Paul claims that he is not overthrowing the law when he preaches justification by faith alone apart from works of the law.

In fact, he goes on to say, “on the contrary, we uphold (establish) the law.’
This is incredible. He turns the tables on the critics. He says ‘not only do we not overthrow the law when we teach justification by faith alone apart form works of the law, but we uphold and establish the law in our teaching. Justification by faith alone, apart from works of the law, does not destroy the law, it builds it up.
Getting right with god by faith, not works, establishes or upholds the law.

What does this mean? – that you can get right with god by faith, and apart from the law actually upholds the law.

First and foremost, the doctrine of justification by grace through faith upholds the law in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

I believe Paul is affirming that the law is upheld and established by what we do as saved sinners by the power of the new life of god within, more on that in a moment, but primarily, because context shows the emphasis to be justification rather than sanctification, it is that the lord Jesus Christ has established the law in the process of providing salvation for us by his death on the cross.
Boice: “god has established the law by seeing that the demands of the law were met in the way he provided salvation for us.”

Three thoughts here on why this is crucial:
1. The law is so perfect, so high and holy that we who are sinners could never have fulfilled it. If god deemed it unnecessary for Christ to die for sins, if he just allowed us to do good deeds and try to keep the law, and set up some sort of passing grade for entrance into heaven, then he would not have not upheld the law – but rather would have diminished or nullified it.

We, as sinners, do not keep even the tiniest part of the law perfectly, and god would be required to actually set aside the entire law – declaring it to be an unimportant standard. But the doctrine of justification by faith alone establishes the law because it shows that god takes each and every requirement of the law seriously, even though nobody can fulfill it. Remember – the law is god’s perfect revelation of himself to his people – he must value it and uphold it. And letting people into heaven for fulfilling 20 percent, or 50 percent, or 70 or even 98 percent of it would be god, in effect devaluing his own law, and thus, devaluing himself.

2. Punishment of sin by death, as required by the law, has been completed
The law had two chief spiritual functions aside from the basic role of regulating civic life in the Jewish nation
It taught that all are sinners,
And it taught that the punishment for sin is death
Again, suppose god said that he knew nobody could keep the law, and exercised grace in simply ‘loving’ sinners into heaven. If he did this, he would have dispensed the whole law, showing the punishments for disobeying to be arbitrary and meaningless. The only way the law can be established in the case of a speeding motorist is for him to get a ticket and pay the necessary fine. God took the law serious, in full measure.

By basing salvation on what was accomplished by Jesus’ death rather than on what we could or could not do, god established the law while at the same time providing a way by which sinners could be saved. 3:31 is a natural expression of the principle announced in 26 he did this, “it was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be the just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” God upheld the law by having Jesus bear the full penalty of the law for those he was saving.

3. It is on the basis of true righteousness, as required by the law, that we have in fact been justified. Christ fulfilled the law perfectly, and it is faith in his righteousness that we are saved. Having become man, he willingly submitted to the righteous demands of the law of god – he deliberately set himself under the law as a man, setting out to fulfill the law in each of its particulars.

God saves us by imputing to us this actual righteousness of Christ. It is given to us
This righteousness is nothing other than true righteousness, achieved in full by Jesus Christ. In saving us through this righteousness, and not by any lesser standard, god establishes the law that defines this righteousness

So Paul is saying primarily, that the law is upheld by faith in Jesus Christ fulfilling the law, and bearing full penalty of the law on our behalf, and this is why the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone establishes the law.

There is also a meaning, in part, that what the moral law of god requires of us, we do in faith –as people who are already justified – not in order to get justified.
There is a big difference.
If we get right with god first, by faith alone, we can then live in that freedom of acceptance and love and we will be changed from the inside out and will actually begin to love the very things the moral law requires so that they become established in our lives – not as meritorious works, but as the products of faith

Remember the objection at hand: if salvation is apart from the law, doesn’t the doctrine of salvation by grace set god’s law aside and show it to be worthless?
And if it does, shouldn’t Paul’s gospel be rejected as being false?
Shouldn’t we reject any doctrine that would nullify the revealed law of god?
If this objection is true, then yes, it would be a false gospel and rightly to be rejected.

The first error in this thinking is psychological, and the second theological.

1. Think about the imagined negative impact of the teaching of salvation by grace on the Christian life (dealt with fully in Romans 6) The argument goes like this: “if we do not have to keep the law of god in order to be saved, why should any of us want to keep it? If we are saved by grace apart from obeying the law, we must be free to sin. So let’s all sin. Let’s indulge ourselves by doing any and every sinful thing we want to do – because after all we will get to heaven anyway.”
This argument is wrong simply because it assumes that the only motivation for right moral conduct is fear of hell or of losing heaven, when actually those are the least significant motivations. It is erroneous to suppose that a person will live a moral life only if by doing so he or she can earn heaven. The highest motivation for godly conduct comes not from fear of hell but from love of god. It is because of what god has done for us, and because he is so wonderful that we want to know, please, love and worship him.

The parent who instills fear in his or her child in order to ensure desired behavior will be disappointed to learn that the child will respond much more to love and care and encouragement than fear and negative consequence.

2. The second error is theological because it falsely assumes that when a person is justified by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, he or she is personally unchanged in that process. It supposes that one can be justified without be regenerated, or in silly church language – born again. The one who is justified always shows it by striving for righteousness.

This is a big issue within religion and personal faith. I have spent time talking to many people struggle with this very issue. Many people will look at Christianity, and if they come from a background of believing that works somehow save, or assist in saving a person, they will reject the doctrine of justification by grace through faith because they fear it will produce people who say they are saved, but sin like hell, knowing that the consequences will never come their way because they are saved, and god’s grace is guaranteed. This thinking is, to put is simply, a blatant distortion of the doctrine of grace, and shows that a person has not understood and comprehended who god is, and the grace that he has for his people.

2 Thessalonians 1:11-12 Paul prays for the church “that our god may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him”

Look at the language here ‘ god makes you worthy of his calling – not only are you justified in Christ positionally – where god no longer sees you as a sinner, but as a justified child, but he will practically and progressively make you worthy of that justified calling.

He will further ‘fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power’
God, by his power will give you resolve to do good and to work in faith – this is the work of god in you, not the work of you for god – he does the work, you get the satisfaction, and he gets the glory

Now why is this what this passage is saying?
Remember the issue at hand – whether the doctrine of justification by faith alone, apart from works of the law, overthrows the law – producing lawless, disobedient Christians. Or whether it produces obedient, loving Christians is a huge deal, and it is dealt with extensively in chapters 6-8 of Romans. It seems that Paul here, in his discussion of justification, and not necessarily sanctification (the justified sinner’s life and growth in holiness) merely deflects the criticism to hold off the opponent until he gets to a full discussion of it in those chapters.

Paul does not give the full reason behind how justification by faith alone, and not by works of the law actually produces more loving and more obedient believers than a system of works and law-fulfilling – but it is present here, so I want to look briefly at what is coming later in Romans to highlight what it is that Paul is really saying in this verse. This is not a full treatment, that will come later, but it helps to clarify this important issue.

6:1-2 “what shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in sin?”

Look how closely this resembles 3:31 – Paul, you teach justification by grace alone through faith alone, apart from works of the law.
So are you really saying that sinning doesn’t matter and that the more we sin the more grace will be given and the more glory god will get in forgiving it – and to this Paul emphatically says no – you are dead to sin

6:14-15 “for sin shall have no dominion over you, since you are not under the law but under grace. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means”

Paul says this is false thinking as well because the gospel of justification by grace alone through faith alone does not produce sinning, but produces love.
Under the power and control of grace the law is not overthrown, but it is confirmed and upheld

8:2-4 “for the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For god has done what the law, weakened by faith could not do.”
Stop the law, this perfect standard for living was not bad – it was perfect.
But how was it weak – it was ‘weak through the flesh” it wasn’t made to be fulfilled by you or I in our own efforts.
Humans, in their own flesh and strength were not designed to fulfill the law.
The law was meant to be fulfilled for you – not by you.

Now continue “by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.”
God sent Christ to execute sin so that we might be justified by faith alone, apart from the works of the law, and so that ‘the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us.”

Fulfilled in us – a real and true transformation in life – that is what is confirmed in the phrase ‘who walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit.”
Walking by the spirit means being empowered to live a law type of life, but not by your own power. That is how the moral law is fulfilled and established and upheld.
We are justified by faith alone, apart from works of the law. And the Holy Spirit is given to us and by his power we fulfill the law – that is, we love.

9:30-32 makes the same point “what shall we say, then? Those gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching the law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone.”
The gentiles have attained righteousness because they did not pursue it by the law, but by faith.
The Jews have not attained righteousness because they strived after it by attempting to fulfill the law, not by faith,
And so true justification – through faith and not works – has become a stumbling block for them, and they do not trust god for their salvation, but they trust themselves instead

13:8-10 “owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, ‘you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ love does no wrong to a neighbor’ therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”

So here it is, plain and simple – love fulfills, establishes, upholds the law.
And where does love come from? It is a fruit, or a product of the spirit in our lives
And how is this spirit supplied to us – by works of the law or by hearing with faith?
Gal 3:5 “does he who supplies the spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith?”
Does he come with power and give you love because you work and show yourself to be worthy, or because you are justified by faith alone?

Paul answers in Romans 7:6 “but now we are released from the law,”
You don’t have to fulfill the law – you walk away from it, you die to it.
You receive it by grace through faith, and you are given life through faith by the power of the spirit
Now the rest of 7:6 “having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the spirit.”

Yes, we serve. Yes, we love. Yes, we read our bibles and say our prayers and avoid and despise sin – but not in the old way. Not by pulling ourselves up by our moral bootstraps and sucking it in and ignoring the pain and moving forward in the power of the flesh, which is so weak
But because we are justified by faith alone, apart from works of the law, we serve and live by the power of the spirit, whose fruit is love.
And love upholds the law
And therefore Paul can say, “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary we uphold the law.”

Getting right with god, living for his glory, isn’t accomplished by climbing the mountain of “works of the law.”
Trust in justification by faith alone, and be carried up that mountain by the grace of god given to you freely.

It really is a matter of trust. Trust. Again and again. Trust. Faith. Believe. Hope.
This is the life I recommend. This is the life that is worth pursuing. The life that stops attempting to solve all your problems and fix your life through your own efforts, and starts trusting Christ to save you from all your sin, and to give you the ability and desire to love. To love god and to love one another.