I asked this question within another thread and recieved no coherent answer. I'll try again with an exclusive thread.
Can you reconcile these three statements by Pul which seem to offer a contradiction?
"...The just shall live by faith." Romans 1:17b KJV
"For not the hearers of the law arejust before God, but the doers of the law shall bejustified." Romans 2:13
"Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." Romans 3:38 KJV
The former is in regards of the OT, the latter is in regards of the NT. Apples and Oranges.
I'd rather give you the big picture.
God is to build an eternity called heaven. God's thus set forth a complete set of Law such that those with free will break the Law will not be able to stay in this eternity.
Adam broker the Law and was driven out of Eden. Eden is a godly place emulating what heaven is. God showed through Adam that humans cannot be directly brought to heaven. Planet earth is a must place for humans to divide. Only those with faith and obedience will be brought to heaven. While Adam's fall is due to the lack of faith and obedience.
After Adam, humans are all living outside God's realm. They are put in a wilderness full of beasts. Planet earth is a wilderness where the beasts, the goat (beast wannabes) and sheep living together. Satan is said to be the god of this realm.
It is a place further away from the influence of God but nearer influence from Satan and his horde. Humans thus are unable to keep God's Law in full. They can never behave better than Adam in Eden. God thus showed through Noah that without God's grace, humanity can only go to its own destruction.
God thus starts to grant His grace via a covenant. A covenant is a combination of a chosen set of Law together with God's grace. Humans can't keep God's Law in full, but humans can keep a specific set of Law, and be redeemed with God's grace through Christ.
Thus you need stick to law of a covenant in order for God to save you by grace. That is, you need to stick to law of a covenant in order for God to deem you as the righteous.
As time goes by, however humans keep going downhill. This is expected in a realm, a wilderness, where Satan is the god. God however keep updating the covenant to give out more and more grace till the last one. The last one is the Second Covenant brought by Jesus Himself. In this covenant, the Law part has been minimized to none, while the grace part has been maximized to 100%. Under this New Covenant, humans are saved by faith alone. Law has lost its effect, that is, as long as you are qualified to be under the protection of the New Covenant, you don't need to face the Final Judgment by Law.
God keeps increasing His Grace till humans need only faith to be saved.
Romans 5:20 (NIV)
The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more
