By Kenneth B.E. Roxburgh, Ph.D.
Chair and Armstrong Professor of Religion, Samford University
Why Can’t We Fix It?
Deuteronomy 5:32–33; Galatians 3:10–12, 19a, 24–25
The heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart. Jeremiah expressed it in this way: “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (Jer. 17:9).
The issue is so serious that human beings cannot extricate themselves from their situation.
God established a standard for us to live in relationship with Him. (Deut. 5:32–33)
The Ten Commandments are familiar to all of us. Deuteronomy 5 is the second time when the Ten Commandments are recited in Israel.
The first rendition is found in Exodus 20, right after the Exodus, at the base of Mount Sinai. Between that first giving of the Ten Commandments and this one, we have a span of 40 years characterized by one failure after another.
As we read this passage Scripture seeks to inform, but even more to transform, to invite us to enter into the story of God and Israel and the story of Christ and the Church, and therein to find our own story.
Yet we are aware that in our strength we cannot live up to the standards of God’s law.
We sin and are incapable of meeting God’s standard. (Gal. 3:10–12)
Into this story of despair comes another message from Paul. Paul knows from his own experience that you cannot keep the law in your own strength.
Indeed in Romans 7 he confesses, “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (v. 15).
However, the message of the gospel is good news — that Christ has come to deliver us from the curse of the law and from the condemnation of sin, to liberate us so that we may live a life of liberty through the Spirit.
The law gave a temporary provision until Christ came. (Gal. 3:19a, 24–25)
Paul speaks of the law, our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith.
In wealthy Greek and Roman families, a paidagogos was a slave entrusted with the care and discipline of a child when the child was not in school, until the child reached the age of adulthood.
The metaphor suggests the authority of the law is transitory, lasting only until the fruition of the promise, until Christ came so that we might be justified by faith. Under faith in Christ one no longer needs the law in this disciplinarian function; one is freed from the requirements of the law.
Paul is trying to prevent the Christians in Galatia from boasting about their achievements: their race, their nationality, their religious identity or adherence to some feature of spirituality.
If Paul were speaking to us today, perhaps he would remind us that our identity does not lie in the number of people on our membership roll, the amount of money people have given to our church so far this year, the number of baptisms, the number of people on missions trips or participants in our music or youth programs. Our spiritual identity is rooted in Christ and our desire is to live a life which is pleasing to Him.
Christianity argues that our relationship with God is based upon a covenant and not a contract. We do not have to do anything to achieve the grace of God. It comes to us as a gift of grace, freely given and received by faith.
In the words of one hymn writer: “There’s nothing more that I can do, for Jesus did it all.”
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