Romans 3

My neighbor is a tool freak. In 2001, shortly after we moved into our current home, he told me not to purchase any new tools from the hardware store because, whatever it was I needed, he probably already had it and I could just borrow it from him. He is a little bit tool crazy. Once, he rang my doorbell at 3:30 in the morning dressed in his pajamas and holding a nail gun...I was concerned. As it turned out, he had heard the wind crack my fence post and we secured it before it was ruined.

My neighbor is a tool freak because he is firm believer that there is a proper tool for every job. He does not believe, as some men do, that a flat-head screwdriver can be used as a mini-pry bar, or that it can be flipped backward to double as a hammer. For my neighbor, a screwdriver has one application...the proper application. For my neighbor, a screwdriver is used to drive screws...hence the name..."screw-driver." He says that misapplying a tool is a recipe for disaster.

He is right.

Paul tells us that "by works of the law no human being will be justified in [God's] sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin." Here, he clarifies for us the good and proper application of the law, the Ten Commandments, as a teaching tool. The law is designed to teach us about sin, the ways people fall short of God's perfection. The law is not designed to fix people, to perfect them, to justify them before God. To use the law as a tool for salvation is a recipe for disaster.

Do we ignore the law? Paul answers clearly when he says, "By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law." Paul wants us to understand that our salvation does not come from our efforts to obey the law but from faith in Christ. However, he also wants us to understand that the law is the still the standard of God's perfection and that God intends to transform us into that perfection through the work of the Holy Spirit and that we should work toward that obedience.

Grab your tool belt.

Go to work.