Romans 3

I started memorizing Romans 3 a month or so ago, because I love its message so much. As far as I'm concerned, the essence of the gospel is explained so well in this one little chapter.

Basically, Paul starts out by saying that God didn't give us His Law so that we could perfect ourselves by keeping the law: He gave it so that we could see how far short of perfection we fall. That's what verse 20 means, ". . .rather, through the law we become conscious of sin." I think of it like this: what we were doing was wrong all along, but it was not formally wrong till there was a law against it. You know, they can't charge you with a crime if there's no law against it yet. There was a time when baby car seats were not the law--that meant you could carry your baby in your arms in the car and the police wouldn't stop you and write you a ticket. But it was still dangerous: if you'd crashed your car, the baby still would have been hurt or even killed. The pre-1970's world went along totally oblivious to the danger of babies riding in cars; but the law made us conscious of the danger by holding the threat of a ticket over our heads. The law made of conscious of the sin of carrying a baby loose in a car that's speeding down the highway.