In his book, Fully Alive, Christian comedian Ken Davis recounted an incident from his college days. His class had been asked to deliver a persuasive speech in which they would be graded on creativity, persuasiveness and the ability to drive home their point in a memorable way.
The title of his talk was “The Law of the Pendulum”. He spent 20 minutes carefully teaching the physics principles that govern a swinging pendulum. Because of friction and gravity a swinging pendulum can never return to a point higher than the point from which it is released.
He then demonstrated what he taught by attaching a child’s toy top to a 3 foot string which was attached to the top of a blackboard with a thumbtack. He pulled the top to one side, made a mark on the blackboard and then released it. Each time the toy swung back, he made a new mark until the top came to rest in less than a minute.
He then asked the people in the room how many of them believed the Law of the Pendulum was true. The professor and all his classmates raised their hands.
The professor, thinking the presentation was over, began to walk to the front of the room. But in reality, Davis was just getting started with his presentation. Hanging from the steel beam in the middle of the room was 250 pounds of metal weights attached to four strands of 500 pound test parachute cord. Davis invited the professor to sit with the back of his head against a concrete wall. He then brought the 250 pounds of metal weights to within an inch of the professor’s face.
He once again explained the law of the pendulum and reminded everyone that if what he had said was true when he released the weights they would swing across the room and return short of the professor’s face. He then asked the professor once again if he believed in the law of the pendulum. After a long pause, he weakly nodded and whispered “yes”.
Davis released the pendulum. It arced across the class, came to a brief stop and then began to return, at which point Davis said he had never seen anyone move so fast in his entire life as the professor dove out of the way. Davis then asked the class again, “Does he believe in the law of the pendulum?” The students unanimously answered “no”.
That’s not the end of the story, though. A little later I’ll share the rest of it with you.
For nearly three full chapters, Paul has now been teaching us about the “law of faith.” He has made it clear that no one is capable of keeping the law as a means of being righteous before God and that therefore we all need the gospel. We all need to be justified and redeemed and have God’s wrath satisfied on our behalf by what God has done for us and not based on what we have done. That is the essence of the “law of faith.”
I don’t want to embarrass anyone this morning, so I’m not going to ask for a show of hands. But my guess is that if I were to ask how many of you believe in the law of faith, all of you, or at least nearly all of you, would raise your hands. But, as we’ll see this morning, the real test of whether you really believe in the law of faith is demonstrated by how your respond to it in your day-to-day lives.
Turn with me in your Bibles to Romans 3 and we’ll pick up our study this morning in verse 27. You can follow along as I read:
Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.
(Romans 3:27-31 ESV)
In this passage Paul summarizes everything he has written so far in his letter and draws a sharp contrast between the two possible approaches to salvation. Here is how we could summarize his summary:
The difference between salvation by faith in the law
and salvation by the law of faith
is the difference between “do” and “done”
Our first option is to seek salvation through religion, which is defined in the Merriam Webster dictionary as:
an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, and rules used to worship a god or a group of gods
Every religion in the world, including some that would claim to be Christian, basically chooses this option in which people are made right with God by “doing”. In essence the adherents of all religions are trusting that they can keep some form of law – a set of rules by which man is to live – to an adequate extent that God will accept them based on what they “do”. Paul has gone to great lengths to show the Jews that they were attempting to approach God in this way, but that this kind of salvation by faith in the law is impossible.
The second approach is to develop a relationship with God that is based on what God has already “done” for us. This “law of faith” recognizes that there is absolutely nothing that I can do that will be adequate to earn or merit my salvation. Paul has presented a comprehensive case to prove that this is the only way that anyone – Jew or Gentile – can be made right with God.
Here’s how I’d like to approach this passage this morning. First I want to answer a few questions that naturally arise from this passage. Then I’ll spend some time sharing some practical ways we can evaluate our own lives to see whether we really do believe the “law of faith” or if we’re actually trying to approach God based on faith in the law.
SOME QUESTIONS:
Paul has written a lot about faith and we’ve used that word a lot in our study of Romans, but we haven’t really taken time to define it, so the first question we must answer is:
1. What is faith?
Unfortunately, most definitions of our English word “faith” fall short when it comes to understanding how this word is used in the Bible, particularly in the New Testament. So, unfortunately, we’re going to need a brief Greek lesson in order to understand the way the Biblical writers use the word “faith” and its related word “believe”.
In Greek there are two related words:
• “pistis” - a noun that literally means “to be persuaded”. In almost all English translations of the Bible, it is consistently rendered “faith”.
• “pisteuo” – a verb that also literally means “to be persuaded”. I almost all English translations it is consistently translated “believe”. John uses this verb almost 100 times in his gospel account, but never uses the noun “pistis”.
Both words go well beyond what our English words “belief” or “believe” express. Biblical faith or belief is more than just an intellectual assent to set of facts. So developing faith is more than just believing harder. That is why it pains me so much to hear people say something like, “If you just have a little more faith, then God will answer your prayer, or take care of your need, or take some other action on your behalf.”
Some have suggested that we substitute the word “trust” for the word “faith”. And there is no doubt that gets us much closer to the Biblical concept of faith. But even that word doesn’t fully convey the meaning of “faith.”
We’re going to take some time to further develop this idea during “Connections” this morning, so let me just summarize the 3 elements that must be present for one to possess Biblical faith [adapted from Vines]:
Three elements of Biblical faith:
1) A firm conviction that what God reveals is true
2) A personal surrender to that truth
3) Conduct that is inspired by such a surrender
Or, as several others have described it, it is complete fidelity to God as we bind ourselves to Him in a covenant relationship.
There is one more important idea about faith that we must address here:
• Biblical faith is a gift from God, not something I can produce on my own
Most of us are familiar with Ephesians 2:8-9:
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
(Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV)
Notice that Paul addresses the idea of boasting here, just as he does in our Romans passage. And here he makes it clear that we are prohibited from boasting because even our faith is a gift of God. That makes sense if we think this through completely because if faith was something I could develop myself, then I would have something I could boast about. But since it is a gift of God, that prevents me from boasting even about the fact that I have faith.
The second question we must answer arises out of verse 31:
2. How does the law of faith “uphold the law”?
Paul anticipated the charge that the Jews were likely to lodge against what he was teaching. If they couldn’t be saved by adhering to the law, didn’t the salvation that God provides through faith in Jesus overthrow the law?
But Paul turns the tables on them and reaffirms the point he has been making all along:
The law of faith upholds the law…
• by carrying out the law’s requirement that sin be punished by death
The law said that if you sin, you die. But, as we saw last week, God had exercised His divine forbearance and not carried out that sentence immediately. But on the cross, Jesus died to satisfy that demand of the law on our behalf. And when we appropriate His death into our lives through faith, God considers the law to have been completely upheld. Justification by faith not only does not overthrow the law – it is, in fact, the only way that the keeping of the law is even remotely possible.
The third and final question we’ll pose is this:
3. Is there more than one way to be saved?
That is the question Paul is answering in verses 29-30. Once again he is addressing an objection that He expects his fellow Jews to raise. That objection went something like this: “This idea of justification by faith is just fine for these Gentiles who don’t have the law. But God gave us Jews the law so that we could be saved by observing the law.” So they were basically claiming that God had two methods of salvation – one for the Jews and another for the Gentiles.
By now, the answer to that objection should have been clear, but since the Jews still hadn’t “got it”, Paul takes another approach here and answers that objection like this:
• Since there is only one God, there is only one way to be saved.
Paul reminds the Jews of the Shema, the central prayer in the Jewish prayer book that begins with these words:
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.
(Deuteronomy 6:4 ESV)
Paul reminds his readers that there is only one God. He is God of both the Jews and the Gentiles. Therefore God has only one plan of salvation for everyone. The theme which he develops in this passage is true for Jews and Gentiles alike:
The difference between salvation by faith in the law
and salvation by the law of faith
is the difference between “do” and “done”
Now that we’ve answered those important questions, let’s close by making this really practical. Let’s face it. Even if we have come to God through the law of faith, it’s easy to fall back into basing our relationship with God on our faith in the law. And when we do that it impacts both our relationship with God and our relationships with others.
I know we’re walking a fine line here. So I want to make it clear that I’m not suggesting that if some of things I’m going to share are true in your life that you are not saved or that you haven’t responded to God on the basis of the law of faith that trusts in what God has done for you.
My goal is only to point out some things that all of us probably do from time to time that might indicate that we’ve gone back to operating on the basis of what I can do rather than what God has already done for me.
SOME INDICATIONS I’M LIVING BY “FAITH IN THE LAW”
1. Constant doubts about my salvation
First, let me just point out that doubts are normal, even for genuine disciples of Jesus. The Bible is full of examples of people who were fully committed to God, but who had their doubts from time to time:
• Elijah fled from Jezebel and asked God to take his life because of his doubts.
• David and the other authors of the Psalms often expressed their doubts about God.
• When John the Baptist was in prison, he sent some of his disciples to ask Jesus if He really was the person who John had earlier described as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”.
• While I can’t be dogmatic about it, it seems to me that one of the reasons that Paul spent 3 years in Arabia after his conversion experience on the road to Damascus (Galatians 1:17-18) is that it took him some time to deal with his doubts about how faith in Jesus could be consistent with his Jewish roots.
But in spite of their doubts these people were all able to be used by God after they took those doubts to God and let Him remove them.
But what I am addressing here is those who consistently struggle with doubts about whether they are really saved and about whether their sins have been forgiven. They often worry that if they commit some sin and die before they get a chance to confess it that their salvation will go right out the window.
That kind of constant worry about my salvation is an indication that deep down inside I am still holding on to the idea that I am responsible for my own salvation, that my faith is in what I can do and not what God has already done for me.
If I am living by the law of faith, I will recognize that my salvation is 100% God’s work. As we saw earlier, even the ability to exercise faith is a gift from God. So if my salvation is all based on what God has done and not what I do, then there is nothing I can do that will undo what God has done for me through Jesus. Jesus confirmed the security of my salvation with His own words:
I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.
(John 10:28-29 ESV)
First, it is clear that eternal life is something Jesus gives to us, not something we earn or merit. I also want you to note the words “no one” that Jesus uses twice in these verses. “No one” includes me, too. If God has given me eternal life as a gift, no one, not even me, can snatch me from God’s grasp.
2. Comparison
• To unbelievers
This is why Paul had to remind the Jews that the gospel excludes boasting. The Jews believed that they were superior to the Gentiles and they continually boasted of their adherence to the law, even when they failed to do that perfectly, or even close to perfectly.
I think the church often does exactly the same thing today when we come across as arrogant to the world around us. When Christians do things that make them appear to the world as being “holier than thou” it is almost always because we are boasting in some way in our own human righteousness and claiming that it somehow makes us superior to unbelievers.
Most of you are probably familiar with Kim Davis, the Kentucky County Clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to homosexual couples. While I certainly admire her desire to stand up for her Biblical beliefs about marriage, I do have concerns that her actions have actually turned people away from Jesus rather than attracted people to Him.
A couple weeks ago I wrote a blog posting in which I outlined some reasons that I believe that Mrs. Davis was wrong to handle this situation the way she did. And I still believe the reasons I outlined there are valid. But after thinking about this further, I’m convinced that the bigger issue here is related to today’s passage.
Whether or not it was her intention, the message that Mrs. Davis presented to unbelievers was basically that she was superior to these “sinners” because she believed what the Bible teaches about marriage. The problem is that in her own life she has not lived in a way that is consistent with what she claims to believe, having been married four times to three different men and having two children outside of wedlock. And those who opposed Mrs. Davis were quick to pick up on that hypocrisy.
While all or most of that marital infidelity occurred prior to Mrs. Davis becoming a disciple of Jesus from what I can gather, the fact remains that the message that is perceived by the public is focused on the idea that being right with God is a matter of what a person does or doesn’t do rather than on what God has already done for us.
But before we’re too quick to condemn Mrs. Davis, I think we need to take a look at our own lives. Like Mrs. Davis, I think we have a tendency to expect unbelievers to act like believers when they are not. When we do that, we are essentially comparing their lives to ours and drawing the conclusion that we are somehow superior to them in God’s eyes because we keep the law better than they do. That is exactly the kind of boasting that the gospel should prevent.
• To other believers
It is also easy to start comparing my life to those of other believers. And when I do that, one of two things is going to occur. I am either going to end up boasting in my spiritual maturity because I view myself as being more mature than someone else or I’ll be discouraged in my walk with Jesus because I don’t feel like my life measures up to that of others.
The law of faith invalidates either of those mindsets. God’s love for me is not dependent on how mature I am. Certainly it is God’s desire that all of His children grow in their relationship with Him and continue to become more and more like Jesus because God knows that is what is best for us. But His love for me is not dependent on how well I do that.
So when I begin to measure my life against those of other believers I am essentially living in a manner that is more consistent with faith in the law than with the law of faith. I need to constantly remember that my salvation and my worth to God are not a result of anything I have done, but only a result of what God has already done for me.
3. Dependence on my religion
Earlier we defined religion as “an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, and rules used to worship a god or a group of gods.” While being a disciple of Jesus is a relationship rather than a religion, it is easy for religion to begin to take the place of that relationship. Things like the form of our worship gatherings, and even things that Jesus commanded like baptism and the observance of the Lord’s Supper can easily become nothing more than mere religious observances in which we believe we are somehow earning favor with God.
When we do that we are essentially mixing in “works of the law” as a means of our justification and that leads to boasting which undermines the law of faith.
Obviously, I am not at all suggesting that being baptized or observing the Lord’s Supper aren’t important. After all, Jesus commanded that every single believer participate in those religious observances. But they are merely evidence of a relationship that has already been entered into based upon what God has done for us, not something we can do to merit His favor.
Once again, I’m not suggesting that if one or more of these things are true in your life that you aren’t saved or that you’re in danger of losing your salvation. If you find yourself occasionally doing these things, I hope this message will just be a reminder to you to guard against falling back into relying upon faith in the law rather than the law of faith.
On the other hand, if you live like this consistently, then perhaps you do need to evaluate whether you have really received the gift of salvation through faith in Jesus or whether you’re merely deceived into thinking that you’re right with God as a result of your own righteousness.
The difference between salvation by faith in the law
and salvation by the law of faith
is the difference between “do” and “done”
Earlier I told you that I would share the rest of the story about Ken Davis’ presentation of the law of the pendulum.
Davis recounts that one of the most fascinating and unexpected outcomes of his lesson was that after the professor had bailed out of the chair, one of the other students volunteered to sit in that same chair. Although he flinched when the pendulum swung toward his head, he stayed put. And once the entire class saw the validity of the law demonstrated, they all wanted to do it. As Davis writes:
The desire to live out demonstrated faith is not only adventurous; it’s contagious.
The same is true, with the law of faith. No doubt, it is adventurous to live according to that law. It goes against every single part of my human nature that tells me that I have to do something to be right with God. But when I live in a way that bears witness to the fact that I belong to God because of what He has already done for me, there is no doubt that is also contagious.
