“According to his own testimony Paul had struggled for years and with great zeal for the righteousness which is of the law. And he had gone a long way in it. As touching the righteousness which is in the law (Phil. 3:6) and which is obtained from the law (Phil. 3:9 and Rom. 10:5; 9:32), he was, humanly estimated, blameless.
Nobody could say anything against him. On the contrary, everybody praised him. He got esteem and prestige out of it, and he would have opened up a famous career for himself among his people, if he had continued in this way. He had gained much from it (verse 7).
But when it pleased God to reveal His Son in him, then for the sake of the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ His Lord, he reckoned all this old righteousness as loss, casting it off as something to be repudiated and as something useless, in order that he might win Christ, be found in Him, not having the righteousness which is in the law, hut that, rather, which is by faith in Christ and which comes from God to faith.
Why the righteousness which is of the works of the law is inadequate the apostle explains elsewhere more than once. The law is indeed holy, just, spiritual, and good, but man, being carnal, was sold under sin (Rom. 7:12, 14); it cannot quicken and it cannot by its judgment obliterate sin for it is weak through the flesh (Rom. 8:3 and Gal. 3:21).
It makes demands indeed, but it grants nothing, confers no benefits. It says only that the man who does these things will live by them (Rom. 10:5 and Gal. 3:10, 12). It cannot, however, itself grant this life because the flesh does not subject itself to the law of God and cannot so subject itself (Rom. 8:7).
Instead of justifying and giving life the law is now precisely the strength of sin (1 Cor. 15:56). If there were no law there would be no sin and no transgression (Rom. 4:15 and 7:8).
But in the sinful condition in which man finds himself the law rouses sin, prompts desire, and causes man to long after the forbidden thing; or, rather, the sin which lives in man takes occasion through the commandment to excite all kinds of desire in the heart and to sin exceedingly.
What the law can do, consequently, is to give the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:20 and 7:7), to work wrath (Rom. 4:15), and to place people under the curse (Gal. 3:10); but by the works of the law no man can ever be justified. Judged by the law the whole world stands guilty before the face of God and is subject to its penalty (Rom. 3:19). For the wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.
But, if such is the righteous judgment which according to the law God pronounces upon men, who then can be saved? Even as Jesus did in Matthew 19:26, so Paul has this answer to that: With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. With Him this impossibility, too, is possible that He justifies the wicked and nevertheless Himself remains perfectly righteous (Rom. 3:26 and 4:5).
What God most strictly condemns in His holy law, namely, the justification of the wicked, what He says of Himself He will never do (Ex. 23:7), that He nevertheless does, but He does it without jeopardizing His righteousness. This is the wonder of the Gospel.
For God has proclaimed His righteousness not only in the law but in the gospel also. In the gospel His righteousness is revealed without the law, without its contribution, quite apart from it, and apparently in opposition to it (Rom. 1:17 and 3:20). This gospel existed long before; it had its beginning in Paradise.
The righteousness of God which was revealed in the gospel has the witness of the law and the prophets and of the whole of the Old Testament Scripture (Rom. 3:21). Abraham was justified by it when he was still in the uncircumcision (Rom. 4:1ff.).
David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness without works (Rom. 4:6), and Habakkuk makes it a general statement: The just shall live by faith (Rom. 1:17 and Gal. 3:11).
But now, in the present time (Rom. 3:21 and 26) that righteousness of God has become much more obviously manifest, for Christ has appeared and has been made righteousness unto us (1 Cor. 1:30).
The law which was given to Israel was itself of service to that full revelation of the righteousness of God in the gospel. For by exciting sin and causing the knowledge of sin, by exciting wrath and placing people under the curse, the law has been a schoolmaster and governor leading us to Christ, in order that those who were under its tutelage should in the fulness of time graduate to Christ and be justified by faith (Gal. 3:22–25).
Thus the people were prepared by the discipline of the law for the appearance of the gospel. But from God’s side, too, the law served the fulfillment of the promise. For in the times before Christ God in His long-suffering permitted the nations to walk in their own ways, and He overlooked and permitted the sins of His people in this sense that He did not punish them according to desert (Rom. 3:25).
That is why it became necessary for Him to manifest His righteousness in the other way of the Gospel, quite apart from the law (Rom. 3:25–26). Through the law He concluded all things under sin in order that the promise of the inheritance should be given to the believers, not out of the works of the law, but out of faith in Jesus Christ.
The righteousness which God reveals in the gospel consequently has its own peculiar character. It takes place without the law and yet must harmonize with the law (Rom. 3:21). It must condemn and at the same time preserve. It is a manifestation of God’s justice but also of His grace (Rom. 3:23–24).
It must be such that God can justify the wicked by it and in doing it nevertheless remain perfectly righteous (Rom. 3:26 and 4:5). This takes place objectively by presenting Christ as a reconciliation in His blood and subjectively by counting faith in that Christ as righteousness (Rom. 4:4–5 and Gal. 3:6).
In short, the righteousness which God reveals in the gospel consists of a granting of a righteousness of faith which as such stands in diametrical opposition to the righteousness of the works of the law, to the self-righteousness of man. It is a righteousness from God through faith in Christ (Phil. 3:9).”
–Herman Bavinck, The Wonderful Works of God (trans. Henry Zylstra; Glenside, PA: Westminster Seminary Press, 1909/2019), 431-433.
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