“Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.” -Romans 3.31
Have you seen the jump Felix Baumgartner made last Sunday? If you have 91 seconds, you should take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHtvDA0W34I. He sets the record for the highest jump ever, as he jumped from 24 miles above the earth. After hearing about it and watching it, its pretty amazing. Because it seems like something I could never do, it makes the jump even more impressive to me.
Paul has spent this first part of Romans pounding us with the truth that we are sinful and that we deserve hell. And he’s right. Paul has shown us God’s law and shown us that we cannot live up to it. Nobody is sinless, nobody keeps the law, nobody has any hope of keeping it. Then, Paul delivers the good news. The Gospel is that Jesus has taken the punishment we deserved by dying on the cross. He rose again and if we believe in Him, we have eternal life. It is a gift of God. This is a wonderful Gospel. But, there’s a part of the Gospel that can get left out and that we can forget about. Its in verse 31.
Here, Paul answers the question of what to do with the law. Do we just get rid of it? We couldn’t keep it and Jesus took our punishment anyway, so do we just skip over it? No! Not at all! Instead, we uphold it. What’s Paul getting at? Yes, we could not keep the law. Yes, it condemned us to hell. Yes, Jesus took that punishment for us. But, Someone did keep the Law. Because He kept the law, He was able to take our condemnation. Because He kept the law, He was able to take our punishment. Jesus did something we could never do–He perfectly obeyed God’s law. He kept it, every word of it, every bit of it. This truth of the Gospel should amaze us! And because He kept the law, now we (as God’s children), follow in His footsteps, by walking in obedience to the law of Christ.
So, yes, I’m amazed by Baumgartner’s jump. It seems like something I could never do. But, I want to spend this week being in awe of Jesus. He did something that was impossible for us to do–keep God’s law. Let’s worship Jesus this week for His holiness and perfection in doing something we could never do.