The Purpose of the Moral Law

Romans 3:

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.

But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

This passage is commonly used by Protestants to justify Luther’s idea of “salvation by faith alone.”

I think they are missing it.

Nothing here suggests that the Law—the moral law—has been superseded. No; through it “the whole world” is to be held “accountable to God.” It “testifies” to whatever Jesus represents.

To suggest that nobody can fulfill the law—that nobody is justified by it—is a very different thing from saying that nobody should try to fulfill the law, or that it is irrelevant to try.

And the difference is exactly that between a good and a bad person, between Jesus’s sheep and goats on Judgement Day.

The real point of the law, Paul explains, is to make us conscious of sin. “Through the law we become conscious of our sin.”

This involves accepting that we are not, ourselves, God; we are imperfect beings. That there is a Being and an objective moral standard that is more important than ourselves and our desires.

Which is no doubt why Jesus says, in the Beatitudes, “blessed are the meek.” With William Blake’s useful clarification: “humble before God, not before men.” Jesus himself was hardly humble in the latter sense.

When Paul says it is faith in Jesus Christ that justifies us, he does not mean faith in, say, the historical accuracy of the gospel record, or faith in the proposition that the historical person we know as Jesus of Nazareth was the son of God. He does not mean calling upon the name “Jesus” in prayer.

For if he meant only using that name in prayer, “Jesus,” it would be nonsensical. That is not even the man’s real name; it is a conventional Latinization. And how is anyone to blame if they do not know it?

If he meant belief in the proposition that the gospel is historically accurate, or that this man was the son of God, the standard is both nonsensical and immoral: morality consists in seeking truth based on the best evidence available, not in arbitrarily declaring true what you want to believe. And were it the latter, what makes one arbitrary belief better than another? On what grounds could we choose one over the other, and how could God hold us accountable if we chose wrongly?

Paul must be referring here to faith in Christ in a cosmic sense: “the Way, the Truth, and the Light,” as Jesus identifies himself in the Gospel of John.

That is the Logos: the moral law and the truth. One is justified by one’s commitment to the moral law, and one’s commitment to truth. This is distinct from always obeying the moral law—it is an acceptance that one is bound by it.

I am the Way: Morality is naturally imaged as a “way,” and the metaphor is used elsewhere in the Gospels: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.” Or St. John in the wilderness: “’Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’"

I am the Light: “light” is defined elsewhere in the Gospel of John to refer to both morality and truth:

“Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”

This is no doubt why Jesus says, in the Beatitudes, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness”: the blessed are those who believe deeply in the moral law.

And, no doubt, “Blessed are the pure in heart”: those who do not dissemble or operate on ulterior motives.

For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.