ROMANS UNWRAPPED 61

                                           LAW     VS.        PROMISE.


"For the promise that he should be heir of the world was not to Abraham, or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.  For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void  and the promise made of none effect: because the law worketh wrath; for where no law is there is no transgression. Therefore it is by faith that it , that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all."   Romans 4v13-16    

We have already seen in verses 1-8 that works cannot save a soul, that circumcision or ceremony cannot save us, verses 9-12; we now see in verses 13-16 that the law cannot save us.   In order to understand the complexity of this, it is best to borrow from a later chapter these words "what the law could not do."   Divine promise and Divine law are two separate events, with two separate purposes, and can never be mixed in terms of our salvation.   It is either one or the other, we either come on the basis of law (what we can do) or we come on the basis of promise (what God has said).   The promise God gave to Abraham had nothing to do with the law which was introduced 430 years later.   Galatians 3v17   In that verse Paul notes that the law "cannot disannul the promise."   The promise was not based on Abraham's goodness, or on keeping any set of rules, instead it was based on God's goodness and trust in God's word.   We look at this from two points of view;

a.   THE WEAKNESS OF THE LAW

If we are required to keep the law in order to be saved there follows three certain results:

1. It cripples faith.        Faith is made void, empty.   Faith and the law are mutually exclusive.   If you can get to heaven by keeping the law (and no one can c/f James 2v10), then you don't need faith.    If you can get to heaven by faith alone in God's word, it matters not if you keep the law.
2. It cancels promise.    The promise is of no effect, it is useless, it is worth nothing.   If salvation comes by keeping the law, I don't need God's promise, indeed I don't need God's help, I just have to always do what is right in accordance with the law.  
3. It condemns transgressors.   All who break the law, even just once,  are condemned.   The breaking of the law brings the wrath of God upon all transgressors and leads to eternal damnation.   Without law there is no transgression, with law everyone transgresses and thus invite, indeed incite the wrath of God against us.  

b.   THE POWER OF FAITH.

In contrast faith can do what the law cannot do.   The law is inherently good, it is only weak because it depends on me.   Faith triumphs because it depends on God, in whom there is no weakness or failure.   We look at it again under three headings:

1. It exchanges wrath for grace.      Instead of constantly breaking the law and bringing God's condemnation upon us almost on a daily basis (Romans chapter 2 talks about "treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath") we bring all the blessing and favour of heaven upon us in a beautiful word called GRACE.   Instead of God being against us, He is for us.
2. It ensures the end result.    If we depend on keeping the law we would never know till the very end whether we are saved or not.   We have no way of monitoring our progress.   This way, the way of faith means that we know immediately, because the whole thing does not depend on us but upon God who never breaks a promise.   John 10v28  "I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.   My Father which gave them Me, is greater than all and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand; I and my Father are One."
3. It enables the salvation of all the seed.    The law was given exclusively to Israel, and if salvation is by the law all Gentiles would miss out, and this was never the purpose of God.   The promise to Abraham was that he would be a "father of many nations", indeed they would come from every nation under heaven, if we properly understand later revelation.   Only the promise of God secures this.

There are today an estimated more than 2 billion professing believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, approximately one third of the earth's population.   We say professing believers, because it is impossible to tell the real from the unreal; however there is a vast number.   As Abraham stood before God in Genesis chapter 15, he had no seed, no one, his wife Sarah was childless.   God promised a seed, and said that that seed would be innumerable.   Today it is true, how did God know?   because He knows everything, even thousands of years before.   Wouldn't you like to join this vast number, stated in the book of Revelation "out of every kindred and people and tongues and nations" a vast numbers of believers in heaven not because of anything they have done or deserve but because of what God did through Christ at Calvary. Would'nt you like to put your trust today in the Lord rather than trust your failing self?

Tomorrow d.v. we consider the true meaning of faith.