Question:
Please explain Romans 3:28. Why should we keep the law if we are justified without the deeds of the law?
Answer:
Justification, or counting just that which is not just, has reference to the past. For example, take a man who has been a criminal for forty years. He desires to be a good citizen. He can not say, “I will keep the law from this time forward, and then I will be accounted a good citizen.” That would not do. The judge would say: Your future obedience will satisfy only the future; it will not change the past. It can not undo the crimes you have committed. No deeds of the law you can do will ever restore you to citizenship, but the governor is merciful; he will pardon all your crimes. He goes to the governor, and in his goodness of heart, the governor pardons or justifies the criminal, and he does this without fulfilling the deeds of the law on the part of the criminal. Should the pardoned criminal now say: Well, the governor has forgiven me for my crimes, which I could not undo; why should I keep the law in the future? I will return to a life of crime again—we all know that everyone would condemn a course like that. The governor pardons that men may obey the law. Christ forgives what we may not undo—not that we may sin again (Romans 6:1), but that we may keep the law (8:4). He not only forgives sin, but He changes the heart so that it will not hate God’s law (8:7), but love it, and love to obey it (1 John 5:3). He who feels that he is justified of Christ so that he may again go into sin, is not justified at all.
