“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned… For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound…” Romans 5
Does the Law play any part in salvation at all? Well first we need to identify what Law Paul is talking about. It seems that the Law Paul had in mind was the whole Mosaic code which would include the statutes governing the liturgical, cultic life of Israel as in the times, objects, and manner of sacrifice and ritual. Circumcision would be one of these statutes. But the Law also includes what are sometimes called the dietary laws which detail what a faithful Jew may eat and what a faithful Jew is forbidden to eat. Finally the Law would include what we know as the 10 Commandments, but as you are well aware there are far more than 10 of these laws that we sometimes call the moral laws. These three – the cultic laws, dietary laws, and moral laws made up the whole Mosaic covenant or the Mosaic Law and they actually add up to 613 specific statues. It is important to know that Israel never made this distinction between the laws that I just made nor did Israel take any as more binding or important over the others. In the Gospel for today when Jesus answers the lawyer who was trying to tempt him, Christ after quoting what we call the Summary, states: “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” That is very Jewish. None of the laws were dispensable. The whole Mosaic Law was binding upon Israel and she believed it was meant for no one else. It is fair to say that, from Israel’s point-of-view, the Law was given in order that Israel might escape the ruin of Adam’s sin. So the answer to the question, “Does the Law play any part in salvation at all?” Israel will answer with an unambiguous yes. From a Jewish point-of-view the Law is God’s instrument of salvation.
Ever since I was a little boy this is the way Law and Grace has been explained to me: If I could keep the whole Law then I would be saved, but the Law is impossible for us to keep. Since it is impossible to keep the Law I am not saved and I cannot be saved that way -because it is impossible. But Jesus kept the whole Law and then he died on the Cross as though he had not kept the Law, in my place. Accepting his death as my sacrifice for sin will save me.
But there are some seriously mistaken presuppositions in that gloss of how we are saved. Neither St. Paul, nor any other Apostle, nor our Lord himself taught that if you kept the Law perfectly then you would be saved and right with God. Not one of them took Israel’s position that the Law was God’s instrument of salvation. Nor did they say that the big problem is that no one can actually keep the Law – the problem is deeper than that. If Jesus had asserted that the tricky part is that it is impossible to keep the Law he would have been laughed out of Jerusalem or at least he would have lost the argument because the Pharisees would have refuted him on the spot by pointing out that the Law makes abundant room and means for forgiveness through the sacrificial system.
The same goes for Paul and all the other Apostles; the Jews would have had a field day by exposing their ignorance of the Law. But Paul never asserts in any of his epistles that it is impossible to obey the Law though that has been read into his letters for centuries. In point of fact in Philippians 3:16 as he reminisced upon his life as a Pharisee he declares that he was:
“as to righteousness under the Law, blameless.”
Paul does not mean that he had not sinned but that whatever shortcomings were in his behavior they were dealt with according to the provisions of the Law of Moses. Paul was not a man eaten up with scrupulosity, shame and guilt, like Luther and some of his other interpreters. Paul meant exactly what he said, that he was blameless as to the righteousness of the Law, but that meant nothing to him. Being blameless under the Law was empty and worthless according to St. Paul:
“But what things were gain (as a loyal son of the Torah) to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him…”
So you see how different a Christian view of the Law is from a Jewish view? The Law is not God instrument of salvation – even perfectly observed it is powerless to save anyone, it is but dung compared to Christ. The Law is not meant to save us from the disaster of Adam’s sin.
Before looking more into the Law and Israel, lets ask what is the disaster of Adam’s sin? We can answer that by saying that sin itself is the disaster especially since sin has become entrenched in the human race, but that is a vicious circle. The disaster of sin is death:
“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned…”
Death entered the world through sin but we need to talk about what we mean by death. The description of creation in Genesis involves seasons, days and years as well flowering, decay and new life all of which point to a future that God placed into the hands of humanity to bring to fruition. The cosmos was ordered right side up, God even walking with man in the creation until sin. But if waxing and waning, death and new life were already part of creation what does it mean that death passed to all men through Adam’s sin?
There is a biological phenomenon that might throw light on this and that is called apoptosis, or PCD, Programed Cell Death. I owe Fr. Gene the credit for this since he is the one who first brought the theological implication to our attention in a sermon several years ago. Apoptosis is an elegant genetic code by which some cells are programed to die in order to achieve a specific end for the whole organism. For example in the development of an individual being as in the development of a conceptus to an embryo, an embryo to a newborn baby apoptosis is the sculptor of the mature child – body and all. What was once a mass of cells is shaped and whittled by killing certain cells so that a hand, an ear, or an eye is produced. Michelangelo’s famous quote, “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free,” is pretty much what apoptosis achieves in the development of embryos. I want to suggest to you that apoptosis is a remnant of God’s earliest order in creation, a very needful relic that continues its work.
“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned…”
Like everything else in man’s life, this goodly creation was cut off from the Creator and became disordered itself. What I am saying is this: that man was meant to husband the flowering, the decaying and the seedling of creation through seasons of growth and seasons of rest onto its purpose in God, but he failed. He turned from God to the creation itself, turning his world upside down and death that was commissioned by God, as creation’s sculptor became a serial killer. Instead of sculpting and releasing the angel in the marble, now death bore the sting of sin. After Adam’s fall humanity is always in the grip of the power of sin and death and all that is the case before the advent of the Law. This is the disaster of Adam’s sin.
“death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression…”
The point that Paul is making is that sin and death ruled over creation from the Fall and continued to do so until the faith of Jesus Christ trampled down death in his resurrection from the dead. All humanity inherited Adam’s disorder and the disordered world, but all humanity may also be the beneficiary of the faith of Jesus Christ:
“For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.”
Since before the Law of Moses sin already bore the sting of death, what part if any does the Law plays in our salvation? We have already seen that the Law cannot save anyone and in fact we will see in chapter 7 that the Law actually seems to give new life to sin as it puts a magnifying glass upon it:
“that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.”
Which is what Paul says at the end of chapter 5:
“Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound.”
The truth is that the Law causes sin to abound part of which means that it actually make sin visible. Like luminol that criminologists spray to detect traces of blood at a crime scene, the Law brings out and identifies sin. Of course whether sin is identified as sin or not that in no way alters the fruit of sin which is the sting of death. Far from the Jewish answer that the Law is God’s instrument for salvation, Paul lumped the Law in with sin and death, coming out of left field, and actually fortifying the power of sin and death over Adam’s race and summoning us all before the judgment seat of God. This of course is not good news at all.
But what follows is good news:
“Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound…”
There is an old Protestant tradition that assumes that Christ was faithful to the Law, being perfectly obedient to the Law so that in dying on the Cross his righteousness might be reckoned to those who believe in him. But the point that Paul makes over and over again is that Jesus was faithful to his Father while Adam was unfaithful.
Remember where we are in this long narrative: God called Abraham to undo the sin of humanity and we are still talking about this story and how it has unfolded – our salvation began with Abraham’s trust. That was the beginning of our redemption. That promise was confirmed and completed in Jesus in the events of his life, death, resurrection and ascension. We who believe in Jesus are members of God’s covenant family and children of Abraham, siblings of Jesus Christ, who are being by his faith. Regardless of how dark his world became, Jesus believe that God would keep his promise. This is the distinctiveness of Christian faith and exactly what we observe in both Abraham and Jesus Christ. Their faith, their trust in God is unconditional – a joyful devotion to the promise of God and his omnipotence. Jesus, in the moment of his deepest personal darkness, clung not to the Law of Moses, but to God’s faithfulness. This is the faith that saves us, not our own faith, but the faith of Jesus and the unchanging faithfulness and power of God.