3:10
Paul then points out the stark reality of relying on observance of the Law in order to achieve righteousness. It is an enterprise doomed to failure. Indeed, if we rely on the Law then we are under a curse. Now we need to understand the word curse, and this will be important when we come to verse 14. We may tend to think of a curse as being a kind of spell, something a witch puts on someone in fairy stories. This is not the what curse means. A good working definition of curse is “God’s judgement on man’s sin”. And the Law demands that we obey all of the Law, doing "OK" is not good enough. Every single law has to be obeyed, otherwise we are under judgement. So relying on the Law is not a sensible course of action. We should appreciate the irony in this verse. The Pharisees regarded the “people of the land”, who did not pay much attention to the law, as accursed (John 7:39). Here Paul is saying that it is actually those who seek to follow the Law who are accursed.
3:11
So we have the negative side. No one can be justified by Law because the demands of the Law are so great, absolute perfection. Paul then quotes from Habakkuk 2:4, a favourite verse of Paul’s. The righteous shall live by faith. Faith in God is the way we are to live. Faith is not just how we come to Christ in the first place, it is the a whole way of life.
No comments:
Post a Comment