Righteousness and Law

People often talk of God's standards and 'doing what is right' in terms of immutable laws, i.e. things God has decreed or ordained since the dawn of time that we are all supposed to live by.

Curiously though, the understanding of OT Law to be told to Hebrew children doesn't quite match this. Deuteronomy 6:20 - 25 spells out that the law is more about maintaining the people's identity as God's saved & covenant people, the people He rescued out of Egyptian slavery.

The law of Moses in these terms therefore would seem to be a boundary marker for who they are as a people - keep within the Law and you will be able to go on prospering as a covenant people. Their sense of righteousness is therefore 'conferred' on them by staying within these bounds: v25 says 'keep the law and God will continue to see us as His righteous people'.


Now I do believe in immutable laws myself - I think there are certain aspects of how God has created us in the universe that requires certain behaviour, both to avoid it all going horribly wrong, and to live up to the expectations and plans God has for us. Yet seeing a 1:1 mapping between these and OT laws may well be a mistake.

Which of course is what Paul effectively spells out in Romans. The OT law, he writes, was not 'bad' as such, but as an identity marker it shrinks into insignificance when compared with the righteousness that can be conferred on anyone by faith in Christ.

And so it is that the records we have of Paul & Co witnessing to the non-Jewish people show them not pointing to chapter & verse of OT law, but focussing on what is possible in Jesus Christ.