As former Adventists we struggle for years detangling our ideas of law, faith, and salvation. It was not surprising, therefore, that we recently received an email articulating our common confusion: if salvation is by faith, why did Israel have the law? Was the law a source of faith for them?
I will share the central passages of this email, and then I will share our answer to the writer. I owe my understanding of this question to Paul and his epistle to the Galatians. In fact, I often thank God for “our” apostle to the Gentiles and for his incredible clarity about God’s covenants which the Lord Jesus fulfills, revealing God’s eternal plan to justify those who have faith in Him.
Good morning
Transitioning out of the Adventist paradigm is very difficult because of the fear it generates in those of us who were life-long Adventists.
My wife and I have had numerous discussions about old covenant Israel wandering in the desert, going through their ceremonies, and keeping the law. My position is that they were ignorant of the gospel, and righteousness by faith wasn’t an option. After all, the Bible says they were captives. My wife thinks they understood the plan of salvation and looked forward in faith to the coming Messiah.
Paul, after all, describes their situation with this comment: “But the law is not based on faith; instead, the one who does these things will live by them” (Gal. 3:12 CSB).
My wife thinks that the law (Torah) was a basis for faith. I say it was a basis of works. She thinks the system deteriorated until Christ was born into a nearly unbelieving society, whereas I feel the Israelites were not much more that animals blindly following God’s law out of fear. Since the law was added because of sin and ignorance, it seems obvious that Israel needed something on which to build the plan of salvation. Apparently the Israelites thought the law could save them, but it contrasted starkly with the truth as found in the gospel.
I base my thoughts on the fact that Jesus talked in parables and told the disciples the gospel wasn’t for the people to understand, but they, the disciples, were given the understanding as the gospel and new covenant was revealed through God’s mystery.
Thank you for writing
You have asked a good question, and the book of Galatians will help us understand the Israelites’ relationship to faith and the law.
In Galatians 2 Paul tells the story of his opposing Peter “publicly because he stood condemned” (Gal. 2:11) when he withdrew from eating with the Gentile believers. Judaizers from Jerusalem had come to Antioch and shamed Peter and Barnabas and the other Jewish believers who were there into returning to their old law-based rules of separation from Gentiles.
Peter had been fellowshipping with the Gentile believers as full brothers in Christ. After all, God had given him the vision of the unclean beasts with the triplicate command, “Kill and eat!” before sending Peter to stay in Gentile Cornelius’s home for several days (Acts 10:9–23). Peter knew the old laws were obsolete because of Jesus’ finished work of atonement. Nevertheless, the Judaizing “false brethren” (Gal. 2:4) had come to Antioch and had intimidated Peter into withdrawing from His Gentile brothers.
Paul, with pointed words, challenges Peter and points out his sin against the Gentile brothers. He continued by explaining that the point of the law in his own life was to cause him to die to the law so he could live to God. Thus he was crucified with Christ, and now the risen Christ lives in him instead of his old self. (Gal. 2:19-20).
In other words, the law exposed Paul as a sinner worthy of death. In fact, the law DEMANDED death for sin. Jesus died that death demanded by the law, and through faith in Jesus and His finished work, Paul is now living a new life made possible by the risen Christ living in him. Because Jesus died for his sin, Paul died to the law when he trusted Jesus. The law condemned him to death, but Jesus died that death, and by rising from death, Jesus broke the curse of sin. Thus Paul, by believing in Jesus’ completed work of atonement, is also brought to life—spiritual life—and he is no longer under the law’s condemnation.
Thus Paul can say he has died to the law by trusting Jesus’ death as payment for his sins, and because Jesus has broken the curse of sin by rising from death, Paul has been made alive by Christ’s resurrection life.
In this way Paul showed that the law was not demanding that born again Jews should cling to the law and separate themselves from Gentile believers. On the contrary, Paul is explaining that Jewish and Gentile believers are on the same plane: they are not to put themselves under the law but are to live directly “to God” (Gal. 2:19). Furthermore, this argument sets the stage for chapter 3 in which Paul explains the way both Jewish and Gentile new covenant believers are counted righteous.
Counted Righteous
In chapter 3 Paul reiterates that that Galatians were incredibly foolish for returning to the works of the law when the Judaizers intimidated them into observing its requirements. He asks them if God works His miracles among them because they keep the law or because they heard the gospel and believed by faith (Gal. 3:5).
Then Paul says, “Even so, Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness” (Gal. 3:6). In this verse, Paul quotes Genesis 15:6 where Abraham believed God when God made a covenant with him promising him descendants, land, and blessing.
Abraham’s belief in God was remarkable—a miracle of God’s grace. God called a non-Jew to leave his home country and move to a land which he did not know—a land which God promised his descendants would one day inherit and inhabit. Furthermore, Abraham and his wife Sarah had no children; how could he ever have descendants at all, much less so many that they would inhabit the land God promised?
Yet Abraham believed God. He did not have proof of God’s promises—he just had God’s word. He BELIEVED Him, and God credited Abraham with perfect righteousness because of that faith by which he believed God’s promises.
Paul explains Abraham’s faith even further in Romans 4, and he shows that Abraham’s faith in God preceded his being circumcised. Thus, Paul tells us, Abraham became the father of faith both for those who are circumcised and those who are uncircumcised. In other words, Abraham’s faith came before he received circumcision, the sign which became the mark of being a Jew. His saving faith preceded circumcision, and thus he is the father of faith for both Jews and Gentiles.
The Gospel to Abraham
Galatians 3:7–9 explains this reality more clearly. In verse 7 Paul states that those who have faith are considered sons of Abraham. Then verse 8 gives us our crucial insight that addresses your question: the Scriptures foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith. They would never be required to keep the law. Yet Scripture reveals God’s promise to Abraham: “All the nations will be blessed in you.” Again, Paul is quoting Genesis, this time 12:3. This promise came at the time God first called Abraham to leave Ur; He promised him that through his descendant, the whole world would be blessed!
Then again, in verse 9, Paul reiterates the central promise: “those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham the believer”.
The law was not the source of Israel’s knowledge of faith; God’s promises to Abraham—God’s infallible word—was the source of Israel’s faith. The law did not replace God’s covenant with Abraham nor override His promise of righteousness and blessing. In fact, Paul develops this idea in chapters 3 and 4 of Galatians. In 3:18 he says, “For if the inheritance is based on law, it is no longer based on a promise; but God has granted it to Abraham by means of a promise.” God promised Abraham that He would grant his descendants an inheritance and a blessing—and the law did not nullify that promise.
Israel knew they were Abraham’s descendants, and they knew God’s promises for them through their father Abraham. The law was added, not to override the promises but to provide them with a shadow (see Heb. 10:1 and Col. 2:16, 17) of the salvation Jesus, Abraham’s SEED (Gal. 3:16) would accomplish. The law made it clear that the Israelites were SINNERS. The law was never a source or object of faith.
Yet Israel was not without faith. They had Abraham’s promises.
The law provided a means of governance and worship that taught Israel that they were sinners. They had to know that the promises that were theirs through Abraham were not automatic on the basis of their physical birth. Rather, they had no natural “right” to God’s promises. They had to know they were sinners, and the law was given to reveal their sin to them. Further, it foreshadowed the blood sacrifice necessary for the atonement of their sins. The law was given (Gal. 3:19–22) in order to make Israel know they were imprisoned in their sin with no way of escape except by faith in the One whom God had promised to Abraham.
The law was not the means or the source of Israel’s faith, but the Israelites, like every other person on earth, were saved one way: by faith in God’s promises which He articulated first to Abraham before the law was ever given.
The belief of faith
All Israel knew God’s promises to Abraham, and all Israel knew the law. The Pharisees knew that the promised One would do the works of God: healing the sick, making the blind see, making the lame to walk and the dumb to talk, casting out demons, and raising the dead. Yet the Pharisees looked right at Jesus and refused to believe. They KNEW who He was—they knew only God could do the works He did. Yet they didn’t want the Messiah to be Him—and they refused to believe.
Because Jesus came and fulfilled God’s promise to Abraham that his Seed would be the source of the promised blessing, both Jews and Gentiles who trust Him are saved. Israel was not saved by keeping the law but by believing God’s promises to Abraham—promises which preceded the law. Nevertheless, those who had faith in God did honor the law because it was God’s revelation to them, His shadow foretelling the sufficient sacrifice of the coming One who would be the Light of the world, the Bread of Life, the Water of Life, the atoning Sacrifice, and the new Law-giver who would fulfill the old covenant law and give us His new commandments: believe in Him and love one another as He loved us.
The law was temporary, a system of worship and governance that made Israel part of God’s revelation of the coming Fulfillment: the Lord Jesus, the Perfect Israel who fulfilled every shadow of the old covenant.
Faith, on the other hand, preceded the law. It was demonstrated by Abraham, and everyone who believes—Jew or Gentile, with or without the law—is a son of Abraham. The law foreshadowed Jesus’ work of atonement, but faith in God’s unfailing promises has always been the way people are counted righteous. Jesus made the promised blessing tangible, and He is the reality which the law foreshadowed. †
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