Romans: Why don’t the works of the law justify?

In Romans (Galatians agrees but has additional arguments because it is addressing people in the Church trying to go back in time in order to go forward), the works of the law do not justify because it is not the hearers of the law who will be justified but the doers of the law. The works of the law mark one out as a hearer of the law, a Jew who is entrusted with the oracles of God. But if one does not keep the law, one’s circumcision will become uncircumcision and, thus, the works of the law do nothing for you.

The law, rather than stopping the spiral of sin to more sin, actually increased the trespass. Those who are designated hearers of the Word who are entrusted with the oracles of God are, if they are unfaithful, worse off than they would have been if they had never received the Law.  Israel as a nation has been unfaithful to the Law as a whole and thus has increased the trespass and increased the wrath of God.

This, Paul argues, was God’s plan all along to save both Jew and Gentile by condemning sin in the flesh of Jesus and putting him forward as a propitiation of God’s wrath.

Therefore, you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things…

For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified…

You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision…

Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God…

Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin…

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin…

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin….

Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

 

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