Now this verse reveals something that is so shocking that I spent quite a few years of my Christian life not being able to believe it.

My comprehension just couldn’t fathom what Paul was saying here. And the problem was my own preconceived opinion of what I thought was necessary to make God happy with my life.

Paul couldn’t have been more clear about what he was saying. But what he was saying couldn’t have been more CONTRARY to my religious tradition.

What is it that is so radical that it blew up my religious tradition all to pieces when I finally got it?

He is saying that the Old Testament Law (all of the 613 rules and regulations, including the 10 commandments) was not designed to reveal God.

What does this mean? It means that the Law does not teach you anything about God. Rather, it teaches you everything about SIN.

Until the Law was given, sin had never been defined. And because it had never been defined, people didn’t know they were sinners. And if you don’t know that you are a sinner, you can never understand that you are desperately in need of a Savior.

But the Law itself tells us nothing about the Savior that we need. It only reveals that, left to ourselves, our plight is truly hopeless.

Now this is something that every Christian needs to understand or they will end up having a faulty view of God and think that He is perpetually disappointed with them. Like I did for so many years.

If you think that the rules and regulations were meant to reveal God, then you will read them and conclude that God is harsh, critical, stern, angry, and full of vengeance. He’s ready to put some terrible thing on you to teach you a lesson at the drop of a hat.

I did EXACTLY THAT! And I am telling you that it messed me up big time. Missing this critical point will mess you up too.

When you think that the Law was meant to reveal God, you will have no choice but to conclude that God is angry with you. And He’s angry with everyone else. He’s angry at the nations. He’s just in an overall cranky mood that makes Him difficult to interact with.

It’s REALLY HARD to trust God if you understand Him this way.

But the purpose of the Law was to make sin clear so that you could understand that you need a Savior. When the knowledge of sin becomes clear, you come to an understanding that it is impossible to save yourself through good deeds.

And once you have this knowledge, that is as far as the Law can take you. It doesn’t bring you close to God. It merely reveals how horrible you look when you look into the mirror of your life.

It is only the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that reveals the true nature of God.

You can only come to a knowledge of what God is like by looking through Jesus. If you look through any other lense you will always have a faulty view of who God is.

And what do we see when we look at God through the lense of Jesus?

God loves you so much that He was willing to spend the entire treasury of heaven to bring you into His family.

Stop looking through the wrong lense and you’ll be able to see that God loves YOU with lavish and perfect love. And He’s not angry with you in the least.

That’s Good News!