I am walking in a beautiful garden, flowers, trees, all shapes and textures, fragrant aromas, all the colours of the rainbow. Then the shadow of one tree falls on the path – it is shaped like a cross. The cross which has made this walk possible as I meet my Saviour in His garden.
” I created you for this. This experience of being able to walk with Me and talk with Me. To be My close friend and companion, seeking to worship Me with your whole life. I created you for that continual experience and sadly the only way I could execute it was by substituting one of the trees for a cross. That cross which represents the ultimate joining point between you and I. So, indeed I am meeting you in the light of the cross and what it means so, that you can walk in the garden with Me today.”
Small steps at a time we are unpacking Paul’s argument, with the unseen adversary, in Romans. Read Romans 4:13-15.
We are still following the application of the amazing work of Jesus on the cross, described in ch 3. Paul wants the reader to understand the full implications of this act described in 3:25-26 and how it should correctly be understood and implemented by the reader, to receive the full benefi that is intended from it.
Prominent in His mind is the difference in his audience between the Gentile reader and the Jew. So in 3:29 he asks the searching question: “Is God the God of the Jew only? Is He not the God of the Gentiles too? Yes of the Gentiles too since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised by this same faith” So Chap 4 serves two purposes, it shows how Christ’s work on the cross applies to the reader and at the same time proves there is no difference between Jew and Gentile in receiving the benefit.
We have already seen how he emphasises that the benefit of the sacrifice ofJesus on the cross comes through faith and is free. Believing God’s promises is all that is needed for the reader to be credited with and to receive righteousness. He has ruled out the possibility that circumcision could put some people in a better position to receive the promised righteousness.
In today’s reading he picks up the role of the law, briefly. He will expand on it later in the letter. He has already introduced the law in his argument in 3:31. “Do we then nullify the law by this faith? No we uphold the law”.
He opens today’s reading with a reiteration of this statement: “It is not through the law that Abraham and His offspring received the promise that he would be the heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith.” This statement parallels the argument on circumcision, in a way. But the law had huge implications for the Israelites (Jews). They literally identified their very nationhood of Israel by the law. Having the law set them apart from all other nations. In a similar way many, many people would link their Christianity today to obedience to the law. Perhaps not so formally, but believing that their efforts, linked to their understanding of the law in some way or another, sometimes simply expressed as living according to the “Golden rule”, will gain them sufficient approval to reach heaven.
Paul does not have a detailed discussion here of the role of the law in salvation but simply makes two profound statements:
First: vs 14. if salvation could be achieved through obedience to the law, then the whole sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was worthless – a waste of time! A shocking thought, which every person should consider when they think they are achieving salvation or some special approval which contributes to that, by their own efforts.
Second: vs 15: “The law brings wrath”. What does he mean? Well to believe you can achieve righteousness by obeying the law, you must be able to do it perfectly 24/7. If you can’t, you are immediately exposed to God’s wrath. So the aim of the law is to remind the reader of our lack of ability to keep the law and should therefore cause us to throw ourselves onto the mercy of God, so that we can benefit from Jesus’ ability to keep the law perfectly on our behalf so that we do not have to face the wrath of God. The law awakes the realisation of the seriousness of our sin and our deep need of rescue.
There is much more to the discussion on the law which will come later in the letter, but these are the points Paul raises here, which are relevent to his argument at this time concerning Jesus’ work on the cross and the fact that the Jew has no advantage over the Gentile.
May you all have a blessed week as you let the Spirit drive home the reality that salvation is by grace alone – a veritable free gift. No law required.