The Heart of St. Paul
One of the central disagreements between Paul and the other Jews regarded the meaning of the Jewish Law. Both saw the Law itself as good and useful. It reveals sin to them and presents them with the right path to serve God. While the Jews believed that salvation comes through the Law, Paul comes to a diferent conclusion. The Law serves only as rules. It does not make believers follow it. They have to choose to follow it themselves. It does not effect salvation for the person. It is rather a means given by God to work in the world until the arrival of the Messiah. Paul believes that when the Word became flesh in Jesus Christ, the Law itself has been fulfilled and even surpassed.
He writes to the Romans: “For God has done what the Law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the first requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. (Rom 8:34)
Simply put, the Law does not save us. Jesus Christ by his death and resurrection saves us. This means that our faith is placed in Jesus Christ and not in the Law. It does not mean that the Law is insignficant, but rather that God has given us the Someone greater than the Law; in effect, the Law-Giver who through the power of the Holy Spirit makes us holy and helps us live a virtuous life.
While the Law was given to the Jews to show God’s plan for them, they compromised on it and made it ineffective. Jesus Christ gives us the Law of God from his own lips, so that we might attain the goal that the Father has planned for his children. That is why St. Paul makes it clear that the way to salvation is through Jesus Christ, who shows us the fulfillment of the Law in his self-emptying love to the Father for the salvation of the world.
