But, in order that our guilt may arouse us to seek pardon, it behooves
us, briefly, to know how by our instruction in the moral law we are
rendered
more inexcusable. If it is true that in the law we are taught the
perfection of
righteousness, this also follows: the complete observance of the law
is perfect righteousness before God. By it man would evidently be
deemed
and reckoned righteous before the heavenly judgment seat. Therefore
Moses, after he had published the law, did not hesitate to call heaven
and
earth to witness that he had "set before Israel life and death, good and
evil" [ Deuteronomy 30:19
p.]. We cannot gainsay that the reward of
eternal salvation awaits complete obedience to the law, as the Lord
has
promised. On the other hand, it behooves us to examine whether we
fulfill
that obedience, through whose merit we ought to derive assurance of
that
reward. What point is there to see in the observance of the law the
proffered reward of eternal life if, furthermore, it is not clear
whether by
this path we may attain eternal life.
At this point the feebleness of the law shows itself. Because
observance of
the law is found in none of us, we are excluded from the promises of
life and fall back into the mere curse. I am telling not only what
happens but
what must happen. For since the teaching of the law is far above human
capacity, a man may indeed view from afar the proffered promises, yet
he
cannot derive any benefit from them. Therefore this thing alone
remains:
that from the goodness of the promises he should the better judge his
own
misery, while with the hope of salvation cut off he thinks himself
threatened with certain death. On the other hand, horrible threats
hang over
us, constraining and entangling not a few of us only, but all of us to
a man.
They hang over us, I say, and pursue us with inexorable harshness, so
that we discern in the law only the most immediate death. Keep Reading...
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