What Is the Point?

What Is the Point?

Comments on Galatians with an ear to Luther’s commentary

Scripture Text: Galatians 3:2 and John 7:53-8:11

Series: Comments on Galatians

Today's Scripture Jigsaw

Many times, in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy especially, one reads that unholy people are to be cast out of the community or even killed. The effect of this capital punishment was that evil would be purged from among God’s people (Deuteronomy 13:5). God’s people are to be a holy people. Anything unholy comes under the law’s judgment — even if it means death. This is why the scribes and pharisees brought Jesus a woman who had been caught in adultery. The law of Moses called for her to be stoned to death (Deuteronomy 22:21). Yet Jesus forgives the woman. How could he do such a thing when the point of the law was to purge such evil from the people of God? How could Jesus offer grace to the unholy if the law was required to make people holy? 

Jesus was able to forgive, to offer grace, and to seemingly break the law of Moses because he had come to fulfill the law’s purpose. Now it would be Jesus alone who makes people holy. No amount of stonings, no measure of clean living, no quantity of law would ever make people holy before God now. Only Jesus who wholly satisfied the demands of the law for all people can make us holy. That was the point of his death. Because of his death you too, like the adulterous woman, have no legitimate accuser. When Satan brings his charges against you, admit your sin and remember that Jesus has already accomplished your righteousness. At that point, the accuser will have left, and you and Jesus alone will remain (John 8:9). No one will be left to condemn you; and neither will Jesus. 

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