Romans 3:27

Where then is the glorying? It is excluded. By what manner of law? of works? Nay: but by a law of faith.

The glorying that Paul spoke of in this verse is the type of boasting that a man might indulge in if he had always lived an absolutely perfect life, never having committed any sin whatever, and never having violated in the slightest instance any commandment of God. Such a man, if any had ever so lived, might presume that he stood justified in God's sight, upon the basis of his own glorious record of a spotless life; but in the first part of this chapter, Paul proved from the scriptures that all have sinned and have fallen short of God's glory, and that both Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin and utterly unable to claim justification on the basis of any kind of moral, upright conduct, regardless of any relative superiority over one's fellow-creatures. True, the Jew might have been closer to God than Gentiles; but, whether from a greater or lesser distance, both are hopelessly separated from God. In Romans 3:21-26, Paul outlined the plan of redemption, through which Jews and Gentiles alike might "in Christ" share the benefits of God's righteousness in Christ; and why is boasting excluded by such a plan? Because it was achieved, not by man, but by Christ, being grounded upon nothing that people might either believe or do, but totally upon the achievement of Christ. As Whiteside expressed it:

In recognizing oneself as a condemned sinner, there is cause for humility, but no grounds for boasting. And the greatest ground for humility is the knowledge that an innocent Person died to save me from my folly. Instead of being the proud possessor of a spotless character, I have to rely on another to cleanse me from my own defilement; and this depending on the innocent to justify the guilty is what Paul calls the `law of faith."[37]

Of works? Nay, by a law of faith ... Here, and in Romans 3:28, below, there are two laws in view, these being: (1) the law of works and (2) the law of faith. Paul's purpose in bringing both laws into view was to avoid confusion of anything that he had written with the proposition that people are saved without any obedience at all. True salvation is not of the works of the law of Moses, nor of any other ceremonial or morality system; but, nonetheless, justification is still by means of "a law," that of faith (justification here meaning "in the secondary sense" of that which the sinner must do to enter a state of justification, and not meaning the ground of his actual justification in Christ). And what is the law of faith? It is defined thus in the word of God:

A law of faith (Romans 3:27).

The law of the Spirit of life (Romans 8:2).

The perfect law (James 1:25).

The royal law (James 2:8).

The law of liberty (James 2:12).

I will write my laws in men's minds (Hebrews 8:10).

In a word, the law of faith is the law of the gospel of Christ and is inclusive of all that people must do to be united with and identified with Christ, as being "in him," as well as all that may be necessary to remaining "in Christ" and being found "in him" at the last day.

Paul, in these words, categorically excluded the law of faith as being in any wise under consideration when he wrote that works could form no basis of man's glorying. The law of faith, through which sinners believe and obey the gospel, excludes all glowing on man's part in that it requires the sinner to die to himself, mortify the members of the body, forsake his own identity, and become perfectly united in love with Jesus Christ "in him." The saved therefore cannot glory, for his own works are dead, through the operation of the law of faith, and he lives "in Christ." Thus it is true that the law of faith nullifies the glorying through any works at all of the sinner; and even such things as the work of faith performed under the law of faith, necessary as those things are, cannot be the basis of any human glorying.