This view has led many to believe that God’s love and acceptance is directly proportional to their own moral and religious cooperation and obedience to the New Testament. And because of this, many believe that unless they can do everything right, they cannot be loved and accepted by God.
However, the purpose of the Old Testament law was to make our sense of right and wrong more acute and to make us realize how much we are in need of a Savior.
Jesus said that “unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven,” (Matt. 5:20) And many people have tried in vain to attain this level of perfect righteousness.
But the Bible says that if we will place our faith and trust in Jesus Christ, that the very righteousness of Christ Himself is given to us. That is why Romans 3:31 says that by faith ‘we uphold the righteous requirements of the law,’ for the righteousness of Jesus is credited or imputed to us.
The law was never intended to save anyone, but rather to magnify our sins to such a degree that we would despair of ever trying to save ourselves by keeping the Law. It’s real purpose was to cause us to say, ‘God, if this is your standard of perfection, holiness and righteousness, -I can’t do it. Please forgive me and have mercy on me through Jesus Christ.’
In Roman society, children were often committed to the care of trusted slaves. This would happen when the child was between six or seven, and would last until puberty. These slaves and tutors were severe disciplinarians and were charged with guarding the children from the evils of society and giving them moral training.
In the same way, Galatians 3:24 says that “the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be saved by faith.”
So how does the Law point us to Christ?
By showing us our inability of keeping the law perfectly, we come to realize we must stop trusting in ourselves and our own moral and religious goodness and to place our faith in Jesus Christ; He is the only way to heaven.
As our substitute, Jesus lived holy for us so that the basis of going to heaven would be based on His perfect life and not our own. Jesus also paid the penalty for our sin that we deserved so that God would not have to punish us.
It is God’s desire is to reconcile mankind to Himself, not to judge them…”not imputing their sins against them…” 2 Cor. 5:19. And a perfect, righteous and holy God seeks to take away our sin and anything that would separate us from Him.
God has done this through Jesus Christ and He offers us the perfect righteousness we need, not based on our own goodness, piety or moral or religious goodness, but to all who will place faith in Jesus Christ.
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"For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the (our) sinful nature, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful humanity to be a sin offering. And so He condemned sin in human flesh in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit." Romans 8:3-4
Other References:
Romans 4:3, 5:17, 6:23, 10:3, 1 Cor. 3:9, 2 Cor. 5:19, Phil. 3:9, 1 John 1:9