Romans 3:20 - For by works of the Law no one is justified

3:20

“For by the works of the Law no human being will be justified”. There are several ways in which this could be taken. Various aspects of the Law, and circumcision in particular, marked out the Jews as separate from the other nations. This is one of the reasons the food laws were given. They were indeed marked out as different, but the various laws and circumcision did not make them righteous, they did not justify them. In the same way we are not saved by baptism or communion. Baptism and Holy Communion are important, but they don’t save us. We find it difficult to get our attitude towards ritual aspects right. We either make them into something they are not, which the Jews had done and we are all prone to do, or we consider them to be of little or no importance, which is perhaps the more common error today. “Since through the Law comes knowledge of sin”. This was the attitude that the Jews ought to have had towards the Law. Far from making them righteous, it made them aware of their need to be made righteous.