Paul's Passing Thoughts

I. The standard for righteousness is perfect law-keeping. This is not righteousness “apart from the law.”

II. Since perfect law-keeping defines righteousness, the law must be maintained through perfect obedience (by Christ as part of the “atonement”) which makes salvation progressive. Righteousness must be maintained because perfect law-keeping is the standard and definition of righteousness/justification. Hence, we are not saved by believing in a finished work since we cannot keep the law perfectly, but rather a perpetual imputation of perfect obedience to keep the “righteous demands of the law” satisfied. Salvation, therefore, must be progressive because a perfect standard to the law must be maintained for righteousness to exist.

III. A righteousness based on the law negates the new birth. The new birth is redefined as a process that fulfills the law of sin and death rather than a one-time transformation that releases us from the law’s condemnation. Instead of being free to fulfill the law for purposes of love via the new birth, the new birth is redefined as something that fulfills the law of sin and death.

IV. People are either lost and “under law” or saved and “under grace.” If the law has to be continually satisfied in order for us to be declared righteous, that is “under law.”  A standard of perfect law-keeping, therefore, demands that Christians are still under law which is the biblical definition of a lost person.

V. Righteousness/justification defined as perfect law-keeping, according to Galatians chapter 3, adds an additional “seed” to “the promise” that can give life. The law of sin and death cannot give life—no matter who keeps it.

VI. The purpose of Christ’s resurrection is redefined as fulfilling the law of sin and death instead of ending it, and freeing God’s people to fulfill the law of the Spirit of life.

VII. It redefines the death of Christ as having perpetual efficacy because we are supposedly still under law and need forgiveness for “present sin,” but where there is no law there is no sin—the motive is now love. No further imputation is needed; imputation only occurs once.