Due for Collision

It is by faith and not law that one is blessed by God, being freely justified. However, this does not at all solve our dilemma. The law remains written on tablets of stone by God himself, the same God who blessed Abraham without law, and this God curses those who are guilty of transgressing it. The tension could not be greater for “it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for ‘The righteous shall live by faith’” (Galatians 3:11), while at the same time “the law is not of faith, rather ‘The one who does them shall live by them’ (Galatians 3:12). The difference between cursing and blessing can be defined in the distinction between law and gospel. The gospel or promise brings blessing for it comes from God, the fount from which all true blessings flow but the law can only give a curse for every thought, word, and deed of man is tainted with sin.

How can this dilemma ever be solved? How can the blessing of Abraham and the curse of the law ever be reconciled? These two seem to be striving against one another for supremacy in the redemptive story, they are bound for a head on collision and they finally meet in the cross of Jesus Christ.