So that the law indeed [is] holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.
Paul has just said that a commandment meant to give life ended up bringing death (v. 10), so a reader could blame God's law for it. Verse 12 is his verdict on that charge, and it clears the law of all fault.
If the law is cleared, someone else must take the blame:
Given how things stand, no blame of any kind attaches to the law. It is "holy, and just, and good." Sin, not the law, is the culprit. Sin worked death, though the law pronounced the sentence of death. Sin was already at work before the law came. But as soon as it came, sin had no excuse, and its defiance became outrageous.
Paul does not just say the law is fine. He stacks up qualities, and each one says something specific. (Where the ESV has "righteous," the older translations these writers quote read "just.")
Holy, it rejects evil outright. Just, it punishes only the sinner, so no one can question its justice. Good, it calls for love, which "is the fulfilling of the law." Can something good then be the means of my death? No. We cannot brush sin aside like that and blame the law for what sin has done.
Behind the law's hard effects, one writer finds love at work:
Even in the giving of the law, love reigns — however disastrous its first effects on people may be. The law itself is the servant of grace.
If the law were less good, it might have gone easier on us. Its goodness is not a comfort to a sinner but the reason for his sentence:
It makes no allowance for weakness, and it knows nothing of sincere but imperfect obedience. If it did, it would not be what it is — "holy, just, and good." The sinner cannot get life by the law for one reason: the law is what it is. If he could get life by it, either the law would not be perfect, or he would not be a sinner.
Why did a perfect standard produce such a wreck? Because of what it was applied to:
This statement of Scripture casts no discredit on the law, which was "holy, just, and good." The fact is that in the flesh there dwells "no good thing." So the flesh is hopeless material for the law to work on. Suppose a sculptor has first-class tools and an excellent block of marble to work on. If the result is a hopeless mess, the critics would rightly blame him. But if he only has a heap of dry sand to show his skill on, they would clear him of all blame. In that case the failure is all in the material and not in the sculptor.
Admitting the law is good does not make a person able to keep it. That is the discovery running through the rest of the chapter:
Sin becomes utterly sinful only through the law, which works every kind of wrong desire in me. So the law by itself has no sanctifying power. It cannot make me holy. Is the law not good then? Yes, it is holy, just, and good. But I, as a person in the flesh, am not subject to it.
That lesson lands on the person, not the law:
The law is all right, but I am all wrong. It is a healthy and necessary lesson to learn.
Does calling the law good put a Christian under it? One writer answers with a picture from the courtroom:
Some of our judges have cited Roman law in their judgments, because everyone admits its excellence. But who imagines that these judges held Roman law to be binding in our country? If God lays down principles in the law, they must be perfect, and Paul quotes them as such. A judge who refers to Roman law does not make it the law of this land. In the same way, Paul's quoting the law does not prove that we are under the law of the Ten Commandments.
- Good law. Holy because it rejects evil, just because it strikes only the guilty, good because what it asks for is love.
- Good verdict. The law goes free and sin stands guilty. Sin worked the death, though the law pronounced the sentence.
- Good, so fatal. It condemns because it is perfect. A standard that made room for failure would not be good at all.
- Good tool, ruined material. The sculptor is faultless; the sand is hopeless. In the flesh there dwells no good thing.
- Good, but powerless. A holy law can show a person what he is, but it cannot make him holy — and in the flesh he is not even subject to it.
Did then that which is good become death to me? Far be the thought. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death to me by that which is good; in order that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.
The verse itself calls the law good, so the law is not the villain here. That leaves a harder question. If something good ended in my death, who is to blame — and why would God plan it that way?
The verse refuses to let the law take the blame for what sin has done.
Is that which is good the cause of death? Not at all. Sin is the cause of death, not law. All the law does is show the presence and character of sin. Sin is so bad that it uses what is good to bring death on the conscience. So when the law meets a man who has sinful desires, it shows him not only that sin is there, but how exceedingly sinful it is.
If the law exposes so much, why does it change nothing? Three everyday pictures answer that.
The law came in alongside to show the exceeding sinfulness of sin. It was like a perfect mirror let down from heaven to show a man his own moral disorder. If I present myself, with untidy hair, before a mirror, it shows me the disorder, but does not set it right. If I measure a crooked wall with a perfect plumb-line, it reveals the crookedness, but does not remove it. If I carry a lamp on a dark night, it shows me all the obstacles and unpleasant things in the way, but it does not remove them. And the mirror, the plumb-line and the lamp do not create the evils they point out. They neither create nor remove. They only reveal.
Sin was already there. What the commandment adds is the character of defiance — evil done in the face of a clear prohibition. A homely illustration makes the difference plain.
Sin worked death through what is good — the law — so that sin might be fully shown for what it is, take on its true character, and become exceeding sinful, since it used what is good to bring about death. The evil does not show itself only as evil in itself. It also shows itself as disobedience, because God has forbidden it. So through that ban it becomes exceeding sinful. Sin in man has a strong will; he wills to do what is evil, even when God has forbidden it. Say my child runs out to play instead of doing his tasks. That is a bad habit. But if I forbid him to go out, and he keeps the habit up, it is disobedience as well. By the commandment sin has become exceeding sinful. It shows that in me there were not only evil desires. That self-will which does the evil despite God's ban is there too. It despises God and His word.
The words "in order that" show God intended this result.
If I am put under a law, the better that law, the worse my case. As Scripture says, "Now the law came in to increase the trespass," so that sin "through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure." This was how God convinced man that he had no strength of his own. And in that sense it was mercy. What is more difficult than to convince man of this?
This verse belongs to an experience, not a debate.
Notice the second question in the chapter, in the thirteenth verse… Now mark the reply… "For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin." The soul now says, as it were, "The law is all right but I am all wrong." It is a healthy and necessary lesson to learn.
Knowing how sinful sin is does not set anyone free. But it clears the ground.
His mistake was looking to himself. Then came the humbling discovery: he had no power for the good, however much he loved it, and no power against the evil, however honestly he hated it. Everything turns on the question of a Deliverer outside self. Every hope of beating self by himself proves utterly empty.
- Culprit — Sin, not the law, produced the death. The law is good; the blame falls on sin.
- Mirror — Like a mirror, a plumb-line or a lamp, the commandment only reveals. It neither creates the evil nor removes it.
- Verdict — Sin becomes "sinful beyond measure" when it keeps doing evil that God has forbidden. Bad habit turns into open defiance.
- Mercy — God designed the exposure, and it was kindness. It convinces a person of the one thing hardest to admit: he has no strength of his own.
- Deliverer — The lesson ends with "the law is all right but I am all wrong." There the soul stops looking inward and looks outside itself for rescue.