Who will be declared ‘right’ on the day of judgement? This is the key question behind Paul’s discussion in Romans 2-3. This question about the day of judgement is important because it allows us to see what is most important in the present. What really matters in the end? What does God really want? Does God really just want us to keep the rules? No, according to what Paul says in 3:21-31, what God really wants is faith. This is actually what the Old Testament law itself was calling for throughout (hence Paul speaks here of “upholding the law by faith”). So why faith? This doesn’t make any sense if we define faith as intellectual assent to a body of ideas. The meaning of ‘faith’ tends to be reduced to that, but it involves so much more. Faith is much more than intellectual; it is deeply relational. It is the trust born out of a deep love connection. The best way to understand it is to picture it in the way that Jesus did in Matthew 18:3. It is the trust of a child for a parent. Think about when you were a child or think about your own children and picture this kind of trust. This is what God wants. This is why he paid the price in Jesus Christ to free us from guilt: because he wants his kids back. If you entrust yourself to God like a child then you will fulfill exactly what God most wants and you will never be condemned or lost.
Entrust yourself to God.
Read Matthew 18:1-14 in the light of Romans 3:25-26
