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Abundant Life in the Son: A Study of Salvation

mirror all day, but no amount of looking will cleanse a dirty face. The
Law shows us what God’s standard of righteousness is. It also shows us
our inabilities and shortcomings and how we fail to line up with God’s
law. But it cannot change us. Just as the priest and the Levite left the
man attacked by robbers to his fate, the Law leaves us hopeless and
helpless (Luke 10:30–37). It has no power to recover us from our awful
fate. Only Christ can do this!

Second, the Law cannot justify because it cannot be changed. It
measures out just punishment to the one who breaks the Law, but it
knows no mercy. To be justified by the Law, a person would have to
keep the Law without ever making a single mistake (Galatians 3:10;
James 2:10). And our corrupt human nature cannot do such a thing.

Third, the Law cannot change the past or cleanse the inner corruption of
Adam’s descendants. A person might suddenly decide to begin keeping the
Law perfectly. That person’s life from that point on might be acceptable
to God, but the record of his or her past would not be. It is the whole
life that must be straightened out before God. Only the blood of Jesus
can wash away a person’s sins
of the past and create a new
nature within him or her.
The Law can never justify

anyone because the Law For these reasons, Paul says
that the Law can never justify
was not given to relieve anyone (Galatians 2:21). It

sin but to reveal it. should be plain to us that the
Law was not given to relieve
sin but to reveal it.

The Law was thus necessary to provide a standard of righteousness.
It was given to reveal people’s sin, their sinful nature, and their
helplessness so that they could be guided to grace. Although the Law
cannot bring a person to salvation, it can bring him or her to the Savior:
“So the Law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be
justified by faith” (Galatians 3:24).

We may compare the relationship between keeping the Law and
justification to a trip on an airplane. An airplane is a means to an end.

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