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A tissue here, a tissue there.
I’m finding tissues everywhere.
My husband has been sick for a few days with a cold. Sneezing, coughing, a runny nose—you know, all the symptoms.
“Take this medicine.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said that.
“Will it get this sickness out of me?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then what’s it for? Why should I take it?”
“It will help with the symptoms and protect you from things getting worse.”
Galatians 3:19
“Why, then, was the law given? It was given alongside the promise to show people their sins. But the law was designed to last only until the coming of the child who was promised.”
We’ve been talking a lot about how the law doesn’t save you. Galatians is a letter Paul wrote to confront this false teaching. Over and over, he made it clear that faith alone saves—not following the law.
So the question might be in your mind, just as it was in the minds of the Galatians.
If the law can’t save us, what is it for?
It’s just like my husband asking why he should take medicine if it isn’t going to cure him.
The law exists to reveal our sin—to show us where we fall short. Without a standard, we wouldn’t even know we were breaking the law.
The law acts as a guide and a guard, pointing us to our need for something greater. It was never meant to be the cure; it was meant to lead us to the cure.
Paul continued in verse 24-25 “Let me put it another way. The law was our guardian until Christ came; it protected us until we could be made right with God through faith. 25 And now that the way of faith has come, we no longer need the law as our guardian.”
Even today, we know that keeping the Ten Commandments won’t save us. If we break even one, we stand guilty. And guilt carries a consequence. The result of sin is death, and every one of us stands guilty.
The Ten Commandments may help protect us in this life from things getting worse, but they will never cure the sickness of sin inside us.
Only Jesus can do that.
I get it. We want to believe that the harder we work, the more we do, the “better” we are—that somehow those efforts count for something when it comes to salvation.
And hearing that they don’t can be a hard pill to swallow.
But when you embrace the truth of grace, everything changes. Peace fills your soul, and you begin to understand that it’s not about being good enough; it’s about Christ bringing His goodness into you.
The only cure for our sin is Christ.
Do you know Him? Let me show you.
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