Other arguments: First, that the righteousness of the Law is accused, and yet the Law does not accuse itself.
Other arguments: First, that the righteousness of the Law is accused, and yet the Law does not accuse itself.
§ 112. The remaining arguments have been joined together with less difficulty and have an easier explanation. (I) “The righteousness of the Law, on account of its imperfection, is subject to condemnation; but now, the Law is unable to condemn itself. Therefore it must be stated that the Gospel does this and not the Law.”
We respond. “The righteousness of the Law” is used in three ways. It refers to Christ’s perfect righteousness by which He fulfilled the entire Law with His utterly perfect obedience and satisfaction, and which is imputed to us through faith. Or it refers to the pharisaical righteousness which produces an external obedience to the Law; or to the righteousness of a good conscience, that is, the pursuit of good works in the reborn.
The righteousness of the Law taken in the first sense is not accused by the Law because it has a completely perfect conformity with the Law. In fact, we are freed through it from the accusation of the Law. The righteousness of the Law taken in the second sense certainly is accused by the Law because the Law demands not just any kind of obedience but a perfect inner and outer obedience. When the Law does not find it, it brandishes the lightning bolt of its curse and does not allow itself to be satisfied by an obedience of just any kind: “Cursed be he who does not abide in all the things that are written in the Book of the Law” (Deut. 27:26). “Whoever keeps the whole Law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it” (James 2:10). The righteousness of the Law taken in the third sense is not in perfect conformity with the Law and does not stand before God in the article of justification. Nevertheless since believers are no longer under the Law but under grace, and since they have been reconciled with God through Christ, their inchoate obedience is pleasing to God and is compensated with temporal and eternal rewards.