The Torah would lead to righteousness and still does when it is kept as God intended.
Scripture never presents the Torah as unrighteous or incapable of defining righteousness. On the contrary, the Torah describes what righteousness looks like in lived form. Those who truly keep it walk in righteousness, and Scripture affirms that such a walk is just.
Paul does not deny this.
What Paul denies — especially in Galatians and Romans — is the idea that righteousness can be established or recovered through the Torah after it has been broken.
That distinction matters.
The Torah defines righteousness.
It does not erase guilt once unrighteousness has occurred.
Because:
All have sinned
All have violated covenant
All have failed to walk perfectly
The Torah, though righteous, cannot undo our past unfaithfulness.
This is not a weakness in the Torah.
It is a testimony to the seriousness of covenant.
Only Yeshua can restore what was broken.
Scripture is clear that:
Those who do the Torah are righteous
God delights in obedience
Faithfulness is not imaginary or symbolic
But justification must be understood covenantally, not abstractly.
If a person had never broken the Torah, that person would indeed be righteous by it.
The problem is not the standard.
The problem is us.
This is why boasting is excluded, not because obedience is meaningless, but because none of us arrived there on our own.
What Messiah does is not lower the standard.
He restores the relationship so the standard can be lived out rightly.
The Spirit is given because:
True obedience cannot be reduced to external compliance
Righteousness is not checklist morality
Covenant faithfulness flows from love and trust
Keeping Torah is not:
“I didn’t murder”
“I didn’t steal”
“I observed the day”
I’m “good”.
It is:
Wanting to please God
Trusting His ways as good
Ordering one’s life around loyalty to Him
Walking in gratitude, humility, and reverence
Allowing him to mold every aspect of our character to align with his will
This is why the Spirit writes the instruction on the heart.
Not to replace Torah — but to make its fulfillment genuine.
Even when we walk faithfully:
It is not self-generated
It is not independent righteousness
It is not something we produced apart from Him
We obey because:
He restored us
He dwells with us
He enables what He commands
The way is His.
The instruction is His.
The faithfulness is made possible by His presence.
Our obedience is real, but it is responsive, not self-originating.
The Torah shows us how to live faithfully.
Yeshua restores us so we can live faithfully.
Obedience is not about proving we are “good.”
It is about believing God, trusting His word, loving His ways, and walking with Him because we are thankful and devoted.
This is not law versus grace.
This is grace restoring us to true covenant faithfulness.
Deuteronomy 6:25
Romans 3:20
Romans 7:12
Galatians 3:21
Romans 8:4
Jeremiah 31:33