Law: Failed Attempt to Justify Ourselves

During His earthly ministry, Jesus confronted self-righteous individuals who wanted to prove their standing before God by what they did.

"25And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? 26He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? 27And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. 28And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live. (Luke 10: 25-28)

 

In this text, there are a few revelations worth manifesting.

 

A lawyer during Jesus' earthly ministry was not an advocate who represented clients in a court of law, but a master-teacher who knew the Torah, or the law of Moses thoroughly. In this passage, we see the teacher as a type of the law, while Jesus, who is grace and truth combined (John 1: 17), responds to the lawyer's temptations to justify himself through the law rather than magnify God's grace.

 

When Jesus says to the lawyer "Do this, and you shall live", one has to wonder: how can anyone do anything in order to live? We have to live first before we can do anything. We have to have life in order to accomplish anything.

 

"I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing." (John 15: 5)

 

Yet the law was given to man precisely to show that he is dead, has no life, and needs more than just a set of rules:

 

"Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin." (Romans 3: 20)

 

and

 

"Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:" (Romans 5: 20)

 

Man needs the death in trespasses removed from himself (Genesis 3: 8; Ephesians 2: 1-4). Instead of recognizing the impossibility for man to earn righteousness by his works, the lawyer tries to justify himself.

 

Such is the effect of living under law: the never-ending efforts to make oneself righteous, when the law was never designed to make us holy in the first place (Romans 5: 20; Galatians 3: 19)