Romans 10:5 “Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law: ‘The man who does these things will live by them.’”

Here is a simple, straightforward way to eternal life that we instinctively want to follow. The plan is easy to understand: Keep the commandments, and you will live; break the commandments, and you will die. The plan is fair: Each person gets exactly what he or she deserves. The plan is reasonable: Good behavior should be rewarded, and bad behavior should be punished. The plan is appealing: I get to control my own destiny. Let’s admit it: every day we are surrounded by people who let us down in one way or another. Work doesn’t get done. Instructions aren’t followed. Important details are forgotten. But here I own the whole project from start to finish. I am in control. “Do these things and live” sounds like the way to go.

The plan is guaranteed to fail from the start. In order to understand why Paul states it without further comment, we need to understand a little bit about the earlier chapters of Romans. Note that Moses didn’t say, “The man who does some of these things will live by them,” or “the man who does most of these things will live by them,” or even “the man who does 99 percent of these things will live by them.” In order to live, to truly gain eternal life, by the law, you must keep it without fail 100 percent of the time. Not a single exception is allowed.

You can guess how many times that has happened since the beginning of the world. This is why Paul strings together this list of quotes in the middle of Romans 3: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” Righteousness by the law doesn’t work. It’s too demanding.

Most Protestant Christians understand this in theory. But let’s take a look at how we may still find ourselves drawn to this impossible plan. A relative of mine attends a liberal Christian church. His pastor questions the idea that only Christians will go to heaven. It seems to him that a good Buddhist, or a good Muslim, ought to be able to get there, too. On the surface, such an idea might sound rather humble and gracious. After all, we don’t want to give the prejudiced and prideful idea that we are better than everybody else just because we are Christians.

But what false assumptions do such ideas reveal? Isn’t it clear that a person who thinks this way is thinking in terms of people being “good enough” to get into heaven? Doesn’t this suggest salvation comes by keeping God’s laws well enough to qualify? No Christians are “good enough” to enough to get into heaven, either. God’s law is simply too demanding for that to happen.

We may find ourselves listening to this kind of righteousness in more subtle ways. There is no virtue in spilling out all of the seediest details of our private lives in front of people for whom it is none of their business. But when we approach the fellow members of our congregation as though we must hide our struggles and constantly keep up a happy and holy false face, is that not because we believe we are acceptable only based upon how good we are, how well we keep the law? If people who struggle with sin will not seek our help because they are afraid of what this will do to their reputation, have not both they and we forgotten that none of us can keep the laws demands, that none of us are saved by our works, that all of us are utterly sinful and under God’s condemnation by nature?

We all confess together on Sunday mornings, “I am by nature sinful and…I have have disobeyed you in my thoughts, words, and actions.” Do we say these words only in theory, then deny that they have any basis in the realities of my life? Are they true, or aren’t they? And if they are true, then why are we so desperate to give others the impression that, in my case, they are not? While we must never embrace defiant, unrepented sin, we must never lose sight of the fact that the law is too demanding for any of us to keep.

We hear the real solution in the words the pastor speaks after we confess. “God our heavenly Father has been merciful to us, and has given his only Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” That is for all of us, too. Whether it is easy to see or not, we are all in the same boat.