Romans 3:27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.
The law of faith. Paul has just summed up his entire teaching in this little phrase. What is the law of faith? This is that by which we are saved. The law of faith is that God set forth Christ to be a propitiation through the faith which was connected to His blood for all sins both before and after that cross that we might be seen as holy and just and good in the eyes of God. The law of faith was all that God did to save us. It was the death of His Son that left us justified, declared by God to be righteous. That is the law of faith. It was the law that took man completely out of the equation and left God as the actor in the salvation of His chosen people.
Paul contrasts this law of faith with the law of works. He is stating that anything apart from this law of faith stand in contradiction to this law of faith. The religion of works and conditions stand in opposition to what Christ has accomplished. To see our justification in the eyes of God as linked to a work or condition is against this law of faith.
Romans 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
Salvation solely in the actions of God excludes all boasting of man. None can say that I did this and finally God accepted me. This includes even our faith. To say that Christ performed a work and that faith finally puts the cherry on top and now God can accept me is to turn faith into a work. God requires nothing from the sinner to stand before Him as holy and without blame and accepted. We stand before Him because another came before us and by mercy took the wrath of God we deserved. Nothing I do now can change that Christ stood in my place. Nothing I can do now can change the fact that God is satisfied in my representative. The first Adam passed on to me his sin and therefore death. The last Adam passed on to me His righteousness and therefore life. Romans 5 will illustrate this more, but this is the law of faith. It is salvation by the propitiatory act of Jesus whereby He satisfied God’s holy wrath earning righteousness that was then and there imputed to the accounts of His people. It was imputed then and there as there was nothing else standing in the way. There was nothing left to do. All boasting is excluded as we did not lift even a finger in the event that saved us.
All of religion is summed up in this verse. You have the law of works, and you have the law of faith. Search the scriptures and you will see the law of faith proclaimed from beginning to end. All of scripture is funneled down to one event. Where do we find redemption? Where do we find forgiveness? Where do we find satisfaction? Where do we find reconciliation? Where do we find adoption? Where do we find the propitiation? Where do we find justification? Do not look outside the cross, for to do so is to pervert the gospel of Jesus Christ and to join the world in the law of works.
From this point on Paul will summarize this law of faith often by the word faith. When moving into chapter 4 we cannot forget this law of faith that he has established for us. When we see Abraham as the example of God justifying sinners and David as the example of God forgiving sinners, we cannot forget what has occurred because of the propitiation. For these two men, they looked forward to the coming Messiah and the salvation that He would bring.