We need to be careful that we maintain a proper understanding of the significance of these matters, because some people talk as if OT Jews should have disregarded the Mosaic law completely and just waited for the Messiah to come. That represents utter biblical ignorance because Paul makes it clear in Rom. 7 that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the law, since it is holy and righteous and good. Instead of some deficiency in the law, one problem arises when man’s sinful nature finds much conflict with God’s standards and rebels against it. Those hundreds of laws weren’t meaningless, for they were very purposeful for a certain time and for a certain people, namely the nation of Israel, but they find their ultimate significance and fulfillment in Christ. In fact, Paul argues in Galatians 3 that the law was a tutor or guardian to lead sinners to Christ.
Another problem was when people viewed the law in a way in which it was not intended, namely to become a measuring rod to prove one’s own righteousness.
So instead of becoming unclean because of what Gentiles did or didn’t do according to the law, they were viewed as unclean just because they weren’t born a Jew. So the Jews actually had an excellent view of total depravity, except that it was far too limited in its scope, namely that it didn’t apply to them; only to those outside of Judaism. They completely missed the fact that law keeping could never cleanse the heart and therefore could never solve the Jew and Gentile’s greatest problem—an innate wickedness that alienates a sinner from a holy God. The law’s design for Israel was to create separation from the other nations in order to ensure they worshipped God alone. It was not designed to create a self-righteousness over the other nations. Likewise, this is the identical disposition all Christians are to have with those in the world. Christians are to be completely separate from the world, but not become self-righteous towards the world.
One way we might be able to tell if this self-righteousness is present is if we are more surprised that God would save someone different than us, than someone similar to us. How could preexisting characteristics of someone’s life ever be a barrier to the cleansing power of the God through the gospel? In Acts 10, the Apostle Peter and probably many of us are confronted with a deficient view of God’s cleansing power through Christ due to believing we are somehow superior to others. This superiority, of course, restricts glory from going to God for his complete salvation and prevents gospel ministry from taking place to all types of sinners. Let us be on guard against this beloved.