Part 1 - IF WE ARE SAVED BY FAITH, WHAT HAPPENS TO THE LAW?
Paul says we are justified by faith apart from works of the law. So why does he immediately say, “We establish the law”?
There is a moment in Paul's letter to the Romans when the argument seems to collide with itself.
First, Paul says:
“We conclude that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.”— Romans 3:28
Then, almost immediately, he asks:
“Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.”— Romans 3:31
Wait.
If we are justified apart from the works of the law, what happens to the law?
Has faith replaced it?
Has the Gospel made it unnecessary?
Did Christ come because the law was too demanding?
Or does Paul mean something entirely different?
To answer that question, we cannot begin with Romans 3:31.
We have to follow Paul's argument.
And Paul's argument begins with the Gospel.
1. THE GOSPEL REVEALS GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS
Paul introduces his great theme in Romans 1:
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.”— Romans 1:16
Then he tells us why:
“For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.”— Romans 1:17
Notice where Paul begins.
Not with human performance.
Not with law keeping.
Not with religious achievement.
He begins with the Gospel and the righteousness of God.
Something God has done is being revealed.
But before Paul explains that righteousness, he has to show us why humanity needs it.
And that takes him through Romans 1, 2, and into Romans 3.
2. THE LAW DOES ITS JOB PERFECTLY
Paul begins exposing the human condition.
Gentiles have sinned.
But Paul does not stop there.
In Romans 2 he turns toward those who possess the law.
Having the law is not the same thing as being righteous.
Knowing God's standard does not automatically produce righteousness.
And then Paul reaches his conclusion in Romans 3:
“There is none righteous, no, not one.”
And:
“There is none who seeks after God.”
Then Paul says something crucial about the purpose of the law:
“Whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.”— Romans 3:19
Then comes the conclusion:
“Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”— Romans 3:20
Stop there.
Paul has not said the law is bad.
He has not said the law failed.
He has not said the law has become irrelevant.
He has said something much more devastating:
The law reveals sin.
And it does its job perfectly.
Paul later explains this personally:
“I would not have known sin except through the law.”— Romans 7:7
And then he gives a very specific example:
“I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, ‘You shall not covet.’”
Why choose coveting?
Because coveting exposes something deeper than an outward act.
You can control an action and still harbor the desire.
The command reaches beneath the deed into the desire itself.
The law exposes not merely what the hands do, but what lives in the heart.
Thought.
Desire.
Motivation.
Word.
Deed.
The law shines its light into the whole person.
And when the light comes on, we discover something uncomfortable:
The problem was never that God's standard was defective.
The problem was us.
That is why Paul says:
“Every mouth may be stopped.”
The law removes our excuses.
It removes boasting.
It removes the possibility of standing before God and saying, “I have established my own righteousness.”
The law tells the truth.
And the truth is that we cannot make ourselves righteous by our performance.
3. BUT NOW…
Then comes one of the most important transitions in Scripture.
Romans 3:20 ends with:
“For by the law is the knowledge of sin.”
And verse 21 begins:
“But now…”
But now.
Something has changed.
Not God's character.
Not God's standard.
Not the truthfulness of the law.
God has acted.
Paul says:
“But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets.”
Think about that carefully.
Paul says the righteousness of God is revealed apart from the law.
But then immediately says it is witnessed by the Law and the Prophets.
So “apart from the law” cannot mean:
“God's righteousness has nothing to do with what the law reveals.”
Paul is talking about the basis of righteousness.
Human beings are not made righteous by performing works of law.
Instead, God's righteousness has been revealed.
And Paul identifies its center:
“even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe.”
Then:
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
And then:
“being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
This is Paul's answer to the human problem.
The law exposes.
Christ redeems.
The law reveals the problem.
God provides the answer.
4. GOD IS BOTH JUST AND THE JUSTIFIER
Paul continues:
“whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness…”
And then comes a statement that we should never rush past:
“that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”— Romans 3:26
God is just.
And God justifies.
Paul is not presenting the Gospel as God simply deciding that righteousness doesn't matter anymore.
The Gospel is not:
“The law demanded righteousness, but God lowered the standard.”
Paul's argument is much more profound.
God's righteousness is revealed in Christ.
God's grace is revealed in Christ.
Redemption is found in Christ.
And God remains just while justifying.
That brings us directly to Paul's next question.
5. WHERE IS BOASTING?
Romans 3:27:
“Where is boasting then? It is excluded.”
Why?
Because salvation cannot be turned into a human achievement.
Paul then asks:
“By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith.”
Notice that.
Paul does not simply place “faith” and “law” on opposite sides of a battlefield.
He actually speaks of a “law of faith.”
The Greek expression is:
νόμου πίστεως — nomou pisteōs
“law of faith.”
The genitive pisteōs functions to define or characterize the kind of “law” Paul has in view.
So Paul contrasts the principle of works with the principle of faith.
And then he states his conclusion:
“Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.”
Human boasting is excluded because righteousness is not something we establish for ourselves through our works.
But now Paul immediately asks the question we started with.
6. DOES FAITH MAKE THE LAW VOID?
Romans 3:31:
“Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.”
Paul's Greek is striking.
He uses καταργέω (katargeō) for “make void,” meaning to render ineffective, nullify, or abolish.
And he contrasts it with ἱστάνω (histanō), related to ἵστημι, meaning to make stand, establish, or uphold.
Paul deliberately puts the two ideas against each other:
Do we nullify the law?
Absolutely not.
We establish the law.
The Gospel does not make God's law meaningless.
But what does Paul mean by “establish”?
That is the question.
And notice something important.
Paul does not immediately answer by telling Christians:
“Now you must establish the law through your own performance.”
Instead, he immediately turns to Abraham.
And Abraham is going to become Paul's test case.
7. ABRAHAM: THE TEST CASE
Romans 4 begins:
“What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh?”
Why Abraham?
Because if righteousness by faith were a brand-new idea invented for Gentiles after the cross, Abraham would be a terrible example.
But Paul deliberately reaches backward.
Way backward.
Abraham lived before Sinai.
Before the Mosaic covenant.
Before the nation of Israel existed.
And, most importantly for Paul's argument, Abraham was counted righteous before circumcision.
Paul quotes Genesis:
“Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”
Paul then asks:
Was Abraham counted righteous before circumcision or after?
The answer is:
before.
Circumcision came afterward as a sign and seal of a righteousness already received through faith.
That means the sequence is:
Faith → righteousness → circumcision.
Not:
circumcision → righteousness.
And certainly not:
law keeping → righteousness.
Paul's point is not that Abraham lived without any divine commands. Genesis itself describes Abraham as obeying God's voice, commandments, statutes, and laws.
The point is more precise:
Abraham's righteousness before God was not established through the Mosaic law.
The promise came before Sinai.
Faith came before circumcision.
And righteousness was reckoned before circumcision.
8. ABRAHAM WAS NOT YET A “JEW”
This matters more than we sometimes realize.
Abraham was a Hebrew.
Genesis 14:13 calls him:
“Abram the Hebrew.”
But Abraham was not a Jew in the later historical sense.
Judah had not yet been born.
Israel had not yet existed as a nation.
And Joshua 24:2 tells us that Abraham's ancestors:
“served other gods.”
Then God called Abraham out.
Abraham's story therefore begins not with:
“I was born inside the Jewish covenant.”
It begins with:
God called. Abraham believed. God promised.
That makes Abraham an extraordinarily important figure in Paul's argument.
Because Abraham stands before:
circumcision,
Sinai,
the Mosaic law,
Judah,
and the Jewish nation.
Yet God counted him righteous through faith.
And Paul uses that fact deliberately.
9. ABRAHAM BECOMES THE FATHER OF BOTH
Paul says circumcision was given to Abraham:
“as a sign, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised.”
Why?
“that he might be the father of all those who believe…”
Not merely Jews.
Not merely the circumcised.
All who believe.
Paul then says Abraham is also:
“the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of the faith…”
The faith Abraham had before circumcision.
This is where Paul's argument begins to open into another enormous question.
Because back in Romans 3 Paul had asked:
“Is He the God of Jews only? Is He not also the God of Gentiles?”
And he answered:
“Since there is one God…”
Therefore He justifies both circumcised and uncircumcised through faith.
Now Romans 4 gives us Abraham as the historical demonstration.
Abraham himself stands on both sides of the boundary.
Before circumcision: faith.
After circumcision: faith.
And therefore Abraham becomes father to both.
10. THE PROMISE DID NOT COME THROUGH THE LAW
Paul goes even further.
Romans 4:13 says:
“For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.”
There it is again.
Promise.
Faith.
Righteousness.
And Paul deliberately distinguishes this from the law as the means by which the promise is received.
The Gospel therefore did not originate at Sinai.
The principle of righteousness by faith did not suddenly appear after the cross.
Paul reaches back to Abraham to show that God's promise has always rested upon God's initiative and faith rather than human achievement.
And then something remarkable happens.
Paul takes us even farther back.
11. FROM ABRAHAM TO ADAM
Romans 4 ends with Abraham believing in the God who gives life to the dead. Paul then applies Abraham's faith to those who believe in the God who raised Jesus from the dead.
And then Romans 5 begins with a single word:
“Therefore…”
Paul is moving somewhere.
Romans 4 has given us Abraham.
Romans 5 now takes us to Adam and Christ.
And suddenly, Paul's argument becomes corporate.
Through one man, sin entered the world, and death through sin. Paul then develops the parallel between Adam and Christ: one man's offense brought death, while through Jesus Christ grace and the gift of righteousness abound.
Then he says:
“For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one…” — Romans 5:17
Stop there for a moment.
Paul has moved from Abraham to Adam.
He has moved from the question of how Abraham was counted righteous to the much larger question of how Adam's failure affected the entire human race—and what God has accomplished through Christ.
And this is where Paul's argument takes us somewhere we might not have expected.
Because if righteousness is truly God's gift through faith, what does Adam have to do with the law?
And what does Christ, the Second Adam, have to do with establishing it?
Paul is about to answer that question.
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