The Relationship Between Faith and the Law | Journeying Through the Book of Romans

Rabbi K.A. Schneider: Just because we can't be justified through the law, it doesn't mean we throw it away. Paul said, may it never be. He said, on the contrary, we establish the law. The book of Romans gives us what the gospel is. There's a lot of different gospels that are being preached today in the name of Jesus and in the name of Christianity, but Paul warned us that many false gospels would arise during the last days. False gospels, false teachers. Paul said, if there's another gospel that you're hearing that's different from this gospel, reject it. And so by dwelling with me into the written word of God that was once and for all, church, given to us through Jesus's apostles, you and I will be grounded in the truth and not be led astray by all these contemporary versions of what Christianity is, which is really not what the Lord Jesus gave us and what our foundations are. Number one, the whole world is guilty before God, Jew and Gentile alike. Jewish people being guilty for not keeping the written law, the written Torah that God gave them. Gentiles being guilty because they sinned against God when they didn't obey the witness of the the Holy Spirit in their conscience. So Jew and Gentile alike are all guilty before God. There's none that doeth good, saith the Lord. No, not one. And then Paul honed in a little bit more specifically to the Jewish people because there was a sense among the Jewish people of his day that because they had the law, because they had the revelation that they received on Mount Sinai, that somehow that alone made them right before God and made them superior to the other nations. So Paul speaks to the Jew in the first three chapters of Roman and he says, listen, it's not the hearers of the word that are justified. It 's not enough that you have the law. It's the doers of the law that are justified and you are guilty before God because you haven't kept it. And so he says, by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. And then after Paul brings the whole world to a place of conviction, which by the way is a prerequisite to truly knowing the work of God's salvation. It's not enough just to know that it'll bless us. We have to understand that there's evil in our soul that we need to be cleansed and forgiven of. So once Paul establishes that, he then begins to introduce the good news of Messiah Jesus, which is called the gospel. And this is what he said, that the righteousness of God has been revealed from heaven apart from the works of the law. Let me say it again. Paul, after he convicts the world of sin, brings the good news. He said, but now, here's the new word that I've got for you. You're guilty, but I don't want you to die in guilt and shame. But now, he said, the righteousness of God has been revealed from heaven apart from the works of the law. What is he meaning there? No, you're not going to get justified through your own efforts. Whether you're a Jew or a Gentile, you just can't do it. But God's righteousness has come to us apart from good works through a gift of grace in the person of Messiah Yeshua. I want to begin in verse number 28 of chapter three. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of Hashem abides forever. Paul says, we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. So I've been covering that, but what I haven't really dwelled on too much in this series is this concept of faith. What is faith? And how can we be justified by faith? Listen again. Paul said, for we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Faith, beloved, is truly taking a hold of God in trust and in an expectation that he'll do what he said he's going to do. You see, when you trust somebody, when you have faith in somebody, your heart is open to that person. If you don't trust somebody, your heart is closed to that person. So when we have faith in God through Jesus, what happens is our heart is open to receive the ministry of the Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit, and to enter into a relationship with God. So it's faith, an open heart that believes in God, trusts him in goodness and in love. It's faith that opens us to receive all that God is and all that he's done for us. So Paul once again said, we maintain that a man comes into a right relationship with God by faith, not based on his own goodness, not based on his own efforts, but based on confidence in who he is. Let's continue on. We maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. And then he goes on to say, is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes of Gentiles also? And he just continues with this concept that the entire world only has one way to enter into right relationship with the Lord and that is through faith. And then finally with the last verse in chapter three, do we nullify the law through faith? Because Paul just went on saying, you know, no man will be justified by the works of the law. That all have fallen short of the glory of God. So it sounds like we should just throw the law away, which unfortunately many Christians have done over hundreds of years because the Brit Chadashah, the New Testament, teaches that by the works of the law shall no man be justified, the church has understood that to mean well the law is irrelevant now. There's no place for it. They kind of throw it away. But Paul says something very different than that. Listen carefully with me. The last verse in chapter three. Paul says, do we nullify the law through faith? Get these next words. May it never be. In other words, just because we can't be justified through the law, it doesn't mean we throw it away. Paul said, may it never be. He said, on the contrary, we establish the law. The law, beloved children of God, whether you're a Jew or a Gentile, is a self-revelation of Hashem. The law reveals to us who God is. The law reveals to us God's holiness, his compassion. The law shows us God's heart for the oppressed and the underdog. In the law, for example, the Lord told the children of Israel when they harvest their fields to leave the four corners of the field unharvested for the poor and the alien and the foreigner. See, God's law is a self-revelation of who he is. Just because we can't earn God's righteousness by keeping the law, it doesn't mean we throw the law away. This is why Jesus said, this is why Yeshua said, do not think I have come to abolish the law and the prophets, for I have not come to abolish, but to establish. Now think about Jesus's words there in the book of Matthew that I just quoted and compared to what Paul said. Yeshua said, do not think I've come to abolish the law and the prophets, for I've not come to abolish, but to fulfill. Now listen what Paul said here. Do we nullify the law through faith? May it never be. On the contrary, we establish the law. It's the same thing that Yeshua said. Beloved, through studying the law, we gain a self-revelation as to who Hashem is and it helps us to be able to discern good from evil, wrong from right, good for bad. And in that discernment, we are trained how to follow the spirit in Messiah Jesus, not as those that are under the law, not as those that are trying to work out our salvation in terms of earning salvation through the law, but understanding the law gives us glimpses into God's character and nature. And as we know God's character and nature, it gives us better discernment and clarity as we're being led by the spirit. You see, the New Testament tells us that those that are mature have been trained by the spirit to be able to discern good from evil. And Yeshua said, everybody that knew the law, everybody that knows the law, Jesus said, that becomes a disciple of his will be like the owner of a mansion that's able to bring forth out of his mansion treasures old and new. So don't make the mistake of thinking that the law has no relevance. Beloved, there's tremendous value. There are tremendous riches and nuggets of truth that we can discern and receive through knowing God's law.
Dustin Roberts: This is Discovering the Jewish Jesus and Rabbi Schneider will be back in a moment. Did you know that you can receive direct communication from Rabbi? Sign up for text messages today. He won't bombard you with messages, but he'll send encouraging words and updates for special live shows as the Lord leads him. It's easy to join. Just text the keyword Rabbi to the number 88777. That's Rabbi to the number 88777. It can be easy to spend money on small things without thinking twice, but have you considered how big of an impact if all of you listening right now give a small gift? Maybe you've thought about it but said, one day if I have enough, I can give a big gift. But any gift matters and maybe God is calling you to invest in his kingdom right now. So please give today. Call 800-777-7835. And now back to Rabbi Schneider.
Rabbi K.A. Schneider: Additionally, what Paul is saying here is that when we receive Messiah Jesus, listen again, do we therefore nullify the law through faith, he said? May it never be. On the contrary, we establish it. The other thing that's being said here is that when we receive the spirit through Messiah Jesus by faith, we then receive the power to carry out the deeds of the law or the works of the law or the principles is a better word of the law, not as those that are trying to do it in the flesh, but those that are doing it from the inside out because Messiah Jesus is in us. You see, the highest call of the law is to honor God, to love God, to fear God. And when the spirit of the son lives in us, that becomes natural to us. And so we actually establish the law through faith because when we receive the son of God who perfectly kept the law, we begin to do those ethical things that are in the law as part of our character because the character of Messiah Jesus is imparted into our soul and we become transformed into his likeness. So I hope all that makes sense. We need to appreciate, beloved, the revelation of the Hebrew Bible. Paul said, don't become arrogant against the Jewish people or what God has given them because it's what God has given you through the Jewish people that is now supporting your faith, our faith in Messiah Jesus. Well, let's go down now to the third verse of chapter number four. I'm not going to cover every verse because many of the verses simply are speaking about the same things that I'm explaining to you. But let's go down to verse three of chapter four. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God. We're talking about faith again. Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. The whole point Paul is really stressing here is salvation is by grace through faith. And this is the same thing even the church in the Middle Ages didn't really understand this because the church in the Middle Ages was telling people that you can go to heaven by doing certain things and even by buying what the church called at the time indulgences. What is that? It's the same thing that Paul was coming against here was people trying to earn salvation through their own deeds. But Paul saying, no, salvation has always been by coming in to a right relationship with God, by loving him, trusting him, believing in his word as he spoke it to you, whether it was through the Holy Spirit in Abraham's life or whether it was by the law in the life of Jewish people, it's believing God and loving him that brings us into a relationship with them. And he's continues on about Abraham who came into a relationship with God. Again, not because he kept the law, because there was yet no law when God spoke to Abraham and Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. And listen to this now because this is important. Abraham now becomes righteous before God because he believed God when God spoke to him. And now we hear here that God spoke to Abraham. Listen, before Abraham was circumcised. We know that circumcision is part of the covenant with the Jewish people. Abraham's descendants were circumcised, but Abraham, listen now, entered into a right standing with God before he was circumcised because Abraham heard God's voice and obeyed it before he was circumcised and thus he became righteous before God by stepping into obedience through faith before being circumcised. And so we read here in verse number 11, he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of faith which he had while uncircumcised so that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised that righteousness might be credited to them. And the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also follow in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham which he had while uncircumcised. For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be the heir of the world was not through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. So what is happening here is Paul is helping us to understand that Abraham, in a sense, Abraham is the father of all believers, all that are truly righteous before Hashem, whether they're Jews or Gentiles. Because Abraham entered into the relationship that he had with God while uncircumcised. And so in that respect, he's the father of all the uncircumcised that believe. And then after he believed, he was commanded to get circumcised and became the father of the Jewish people. And so he's the father of everyone that believes, whether you're a Jew or a Gentile, he's the father of us all. And by the way, when we read the Brit Chadashah, the New Testament, we really read about three primary covenants. This is an interesting side step here that you'll want to get. The New Testament talks about three primary covenants. It talks about the Abrahamic covenant that we've been talking about today. And then it talks about the Mosaic covenant. And then it talks about the new covenant. Once again, there are three primary covenants that the New Testament, the Brit Chadashah, highlights. The Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, and the new covenant. What's the difference between them and how do they relate to each other? The Abrahamic covenant, beloved ones, is the foundational covenant. And it was never eradicated or done away with because the Abrahamic covenant was based on faith. Remember, Abraham is not circumcised. He hears God's voice. He obeys God in the book of Genesis. And the Lord then says to Abraham, Abraham, because you've done this thing, because you obeyed my voice and offered up Isaac, your only son to me, he said, I'm going to bless you. You're going to be the father of many nations. And now listen to this, church. And through your seed, God said to Abraham, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. And so the Abrahamic covenant was entered into by faith and the promise made to Abraham was that through his seed, and the book of Galatians tells us that that seed was Jesus because Jesus was a descendant of Abraham's lineage. Through your seed, Abraham, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant in the book of Galatians chapter three. Then there's secondly the Mosaic covenant. The Mosaic covenant, the Bible tells us, was a temporary covenant that God gave the Jewish people to keep them together as a nation to prepare the world for Messiah's return because it kept the Jewish people together as a nation so that Messiah could come through their lineage in a pure form. But it was based on the Mosaic covenant. If you keep it perfectly, you'll be blessed. If you break it, you'll be cursed. We find that no one was able to keep it. And so the Mosaic covenant was temporary. It kept Israel in place until Yeshua came. Now that Yeshua is here, we're no longer trying to earn our salvation as the book of Deuteronomy taught, if you do these things, I'll bless you. If you don't, I'll curse you. We're no longer trying to relate through God to obedience to the Mosaic covenant. But now the Mosaic covenant has been replaced by or renewed by the new covenant in Messiah Yeshua who is the final, everlasting and what scripture calls the eternal covenant. Jesus lifted up the glass of wine at Passover and he said, this is my blood shed for you in the covenant for forgiveness of sins. The Hebrew prophets spoke about a time where there would be a famine for the word of God in the earth. And beloved ones, I think in a very real way we're in that time. I know there's a lot of teaching out there, a lot of YouTubes, but so much of it's based on spectacularism and the next quote prophetic word. But when it gets down to just sound teaching of the word of God, it's pretty rare in the earth. And what grieves me even more is that so many of God's people are not interested in just the line by line teaching of God's word. But here Discovering the Jewish Jesus, that's what we're committed to do. And if this ministry is blessing you, I'd like to humbly ask you for your financial support because the truth is it cost us a lot of money to do what we're doing. Everything costs money and without you, my friend, I can't do it. So if the Lord is using this ministry and my teaching to help you and bless you, would you offer up an offering to the Lord through Discovering the Jewish Jesus? Thank you for your support.
Dustin Roberts: Amen. You can support Discovering the Jewish Jesus. Just visit us at discoveringthejewishjesus.com or you can call us. Our number is 800-777-7835. Finally, you can send your gift in the mail. Our address is Discovering the Jewish Jesus, P.O. Box 777, Blissfield, Michigan 49228. We'd love to help you stay connected to God's word throughout your week. And so I'd like to share with you what we call Seeds of Revelation. Seeds of Revelation is a short weekly video devotion from Rabbi that's directly delivered to your email inbox. It's an opportunity to spend a few focused minutes receiving biblical encouragement from Rabbi wherever your week may take you. Sometimes a brief word from scripture, it can arrive at exactly the moment you need it. And Seeds of Revelation, it gives you another way to hear from Rabbi between broadcasts and keep your attention centered on the Lord. You can sign up for Seeds of Revelation at discoveringthejewishjesus.com. Just click stay connected with us. And I want to thank you so much for partnering with Discovering the Jewish Jesus through your prayers and through your financial giving which helps us continue bringing sound biblical teaching to people all over the world. I want you to know it's your generosity that keeps Rabbi's teaching going out through television, radio, digital platforms and reaching people who are hungry for the word of God. We're grateful to have you a part of Discovering the Jewish Jesus. Give at discoveringthejewishjesus.com. And now here's Rabbi Schneider to speak God's sacred blessing over your life.
Rabbi K.A. Schneider: The words from the Aaronic blessing in the book of Numbers chapter 6 verses 22 through 27 helps us to realize how good God is to you and I personally. So receive his blessing into your life and then, beloved one, go bless somebody else in Jesus's name today. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift you up with his countenance and the Lord give you, beloved one, his peace. And now in Hebrew. God bless you and shalom.
Dustin Roberts: I'm Dustin Roberts and this program is produced and sponsored by Discovering the Jewish Jesus. Coming up Tuesday, Abraham believed God even when the promise seemed impossible. Discover how you can develop that same kind of faith and trust in God right here on Discovering the Jewish Jesus.