What does it mean that the strength of sin is the law (1 Corinthians 15:56)?

Yes, "the strength of sin is the law." It is astonishing the way people cling to the law for morality. I know nothing that shews more the perversity of man's mind than this. It is clear enough. "Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under law, but under grace." To put under law is to bring in sin, for you cannot keep it, and so it is "the strength of sin." The motions of sin were by the law. Law addresses itself to a nature, and forbids the sin, without changing the nature, or anything else; and it enfeebles the whole spirit of a man, by bringing his conscience into bondage. Indeed sin takes occasion by the commandment. If in this table, now, I had a drawer, and something in it, and I said, "Nobody is to know what is there," why, there are lots of heads in this room would be curious to know what it was directly. And the law is "the strength of sin," by binding the soul down to guilt: not that this is a fault in the law, but because of what my nature is, law does provoke. And then, besides, it ties the guilt down on the conscience. Law gives no life, no power, no object, but it provokes the lust, is the occasion of sin, and fixes my guilt upon me. Christ gives me an object, and life, and power, and delivers me from all that was against me. The law tells me to love God, and I ask, Why so? I have no nature that does. It states the duty, without acting on the person's heart one atom, but the sin that is committed it ties down upon the conscience. And it is very useful to tie sins down upon the conscience, but that is all it is useful for. Where Paul says, "Touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless," in Philippians 3, it was outwardly true: but he says in Romans 7, "We know that the law is spiritual," which is another thing. In Philippians he alludes to sins; so with the ruler, who says, "All these things have I kept from my youth up." But the Lord tests him with, "Go and sell all that thou hast," and that will not do for man.

Yes, "the strength of sin is the law." It is astonishing the way people cling to the law for morality. I know nothing that shews more the perversity of man's mind than this. It is clear enough. "Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under law, but under grace." To put under law is to bring in sin, for you cannot keep it, and so it is "the strength of sin." The motions of sin were by the law. Law addresses itself to a nature, and forbids the sin, without changing the nature, or anything else; and it enfeebles the whole spirit of a man, by bringing his conscience into bondage. Indeed sin takes occasion by the commandment. If in this table, now, I had a drawer, and something in it, and I said, "Nobody is to know what is there," why, there are lots of heads in this room would be curious to know what it was directly. And the law is "the strength of sin," by binding the soul down to guilt: not that this is a fault in the law, but because of what my nature is, law does provoke. And then, besides, it ties the guilt down on the conscience. Law gives no life, no power, no object, but it provokes the lust, is the occasion of sin, and fixes my guilt upon me. Christ gives me an object, and life, and power, and delivers me from all that was against me. The law tells me to love God, and I ask, Why so? I have no nature that does. It states the duty, without acting on the person's heart one atom, but the sin that is committed it ties down upon the conscience. And it is very useful to tie sins down upon the conscience, but that is all it is useful for. Where Paul says, "Touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless," in Philippians 3, it was outwardly true: but he says in Romans 7, "We know that the law is spiritual," which is another thing. In Philippians he alludes to sins; so with the ruler, who says, "All these things have I kept from my youth up." But the Lord tests him with, "Go and sell all that thou hast," and that will not do for man.

It is here that at last the triumphant appeal can rise: "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" The apostle answers: "The sting of death is sin." It is that which makes it what it is for man. For the animal it has no such sting as it has for him; but "the strength, too, of sin is the law" — a vigorous statement quite in keeping with the fearlessness of the apostle. Romans has shown us fully in what way we are to interpret this. The law gave sin its strength in two ways; first of all, by there being in it no power of deliverance, but power of condemnation only. Thus sin, according to it, reigned and must reign in death. But again, law gave sin its strength by the very tact that in prohibiting it, it aroused all the evil nature of man to resistance. The doer of his own will refused the curb of that which restrained it, and the result was that the evil under this treatment became not only the more manifest but the more intensely evil, — open rebellion against God his Maker. Law for us is past, with the reign of sin also. At the time that is contemplated here sin will have passed entirely. What a deliverance! "Thanks be" indeed "to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!" The result of our contemplation is to be the turning, in the meantime, with energy, to the work of the Lord that is in our hands. Every shadow has been removed from our path. Only the sure recompense of everything done for Him remains for us. What trial can daunt one who is in the full energy of this? "Be steadfast therefore," says the apostle, "immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."

No wonder that the apostle refers to the challenge of another prophet, "Death, where [is] thy victory? Death, where [is] thy sting?" (Hosea 13:14) with the comment, "Now the sting of death [is] sin, and the strength of sin the law; but thanks to God that gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (Vers. 55-57.) What a triumphant answer is the resurrection and the change of the saints at the coming of the Lord! It is sin which gives not only occasion, but its sting, to death; and the law, however righteous, could work no deliverance for the guilty, but proves in effect the strength of sin, by provoking its rebellious will so much the more against the commands of God. His grace; not the law, is the strength of holiness, as we learn from Romans 6:14; and therefore does the apostle here break forth into thanksgiving as he sees God giving us the victory so completely and for ever, through our Lord Jesus Christ. "Wherefore, my brethren beloved, be ye stedfast, immovable, abounding in the work of the Lord always, knowing that your toil is not vain in [the] Lord." (Ver. 58.) Christ's resurrection is the pledge of ours, the witness of salvation, the pattern of deliverance, and the spring of hope in the midst of labour as well as suffering for Christ,

Romans 6 treats entirely of living to God, not of justification. "The law," we read, "entered that the offence might abound," chap. 5:20. "Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace," chap. 6:14. "Wherefore, my brethren, ye are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God," chap. 7:4. "For without the law sin was dead; but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died" (vv. 8, 9.) In 1 Corinthians 15:56, "The strength of sin is the law." Now here, especially in the passages cited from Romans, the question is not justification, but dominion of sin over us, or ours over sin. The apostle takes pains to say all he can for the law; it is not the cause of sin. The cause is concupiscence, but while under law, concupiscence has dominion over us, nay, the motions of sin are by the law. Such is the positive testimony of the apostle. Although it would be quite false to say the law is the cause of sin, yet sin has dominion wherever a man is under it. Being delivered from the law is necessary to bringing forth fruit to God. Such deliverance is as needed for this as for justification. The strength of sin is the law. It is, even if grace be there, the ministration of death and condemnation.*

Strong as is the language of these passages, there is one yet more so: "The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law" (1 Cor. 15:56). It is evident in all of them that the apostle is speaking, not of justification, but of the life or conduct of the Christian, for he is treating of the power of sin, and how it is to be resisted, as the being "led of the Spirit" and the figure of the schoolmaster also, indicate. What is the meaning of such statements as these, and if they are true, what can those Christians be about who seek to put themselves, or others, under the law, for "the law," says the apostle, "is the strength of sin?" Is it that the law is evil? by no means; it is the opposite; holy, just, and good; yet the word of God declares it gives power to sin instead of power against it. How can this be? The answer is, that the Scripture always sees in the law the pure absolute principle of requirement (not to speak of the curse from which its infringement in the very smallest degree cannot be separated), and this is what man, such as he is, cannot bear. The believer needs that God should help him, for he is weak and sinful; whereas a mere demand assists him in nothing, but, on the contrary, deprives him of all force, for in it God says I must and will have such and such things, or such a state of heart, and it must be a perfect one. Thus all it does is to make the soul sensible of its poverty, feebleness, and depravity, and reduce it to the lowest state possible, as is taught us in Romans 7. This is its invariable effect; it can do nothing else, and nothing less than this, whilst it even provokes the evil which it judges. This is why the apostle speaks of it as "the strength of sin." The force of these passages is evident and undeniable.

384 But if it be asked, what was the intention of law by the light — the true light which now shines, the whole aspect is changed, because the truth, grace and truth, are come. In the first law has no place at all. The second gives to law (not the law merely) the necessary and inevitable character of condemnation and death; because men have to say to God, not in governmental relationship in the earth, but as personally responsible to God according to the requirements of His revealed nature. As viewed thus in the light of Christianity then it takes a double character. First, as the law dispensationally given to Israel, it was after an unconditional promise which it could not disannul and was the schoolmaster until the Seed came to whom the promise was made. This ceased when faith came. As law spiritually known, it aggravated sin and brought death and condemnation on the sinner. The welfare of man it has nothing to do with, for man is lost and a sinner; and the law was never given to men in general dispensationally. If I argue religiously on law (not the law,) the scripture affords an immediate and very clear answer: "Law entered that the offence might abound" — not that sin might, but that offence might. Its effect is "sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good, that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful." "The motions of sin were by the law." "The strength of sin is the law." It is so doubly. It condemns the sinner and brings in death. Sin is provoked by it. So perverse are we, that prohibitions set will and lusts in activity.

A passage I have not yet quoted requires to be noticed. "The law was added, because of transgressions." This is constantly cited as if it meant to restrain them. But it really means, I have not the least doubt, to introduce them — thus convincing man of his perverse and wicked will. The law could not be added to restrain them, because there were none until it came; for where no law is, there is no transgression. It was added to turn evil in man's heart into transgression by positive commandment, and give the knowledge of sin to the easy conscience of man. It is important to distinguish between the law as a dispensed government of a single people, and law, the effect of law, on the human heart. The English Authorized Version will help us little as to this, though the great body of the Apostle's argument is founded on the nature and effect of law on the human heart.

But more. The law is not merely powerless to change the flesh; its prohibitions but irritate and arouse the enmity against God which is its "mind," and which surely rebels against them. The motions of sin are thus by it, although the sin which is now roused into activity was there before. The law detects it only, and brings it out as "transgression" of the divine command — sin by the commandment becomes exceeding sinful. But thus also it is the strength of sin, and not of holiness. Its very perfection for the purpose for which God gave it necessitates this.

It is painful to see how those who profess to believe the gospel, valuing both Christ and His work, elude the force of His word, and essay to foist on the Christian subjection to law, which the Spirit is here flatly negativing. The law is the strength of sin; for by its restraint and interdict it can but provoke the flesh. It never gives power of holiness any more than life: grace, not law, quickens, saves, and strengthens. If believers could be under law, sin must have dominion over them.

Nothing is so generally misunderstood as the law. We mean of course the law of God as given from Mount Sinai. Many to this hour regard it as the appointed means of blessing for men, and so they pursue it zealously. But what says the Scripture? The PURPOSE of the law is to convict. "By the law is the knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3:20). As a faithful monitor it brings guilt home to the person who submits himself thereto. Its EFFECT is to provoke. "The motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit to death" (Rom. 7:5). Flesh being abominably evil, the law by its prohibitions only stirs up its devilry. The very thing the law forbids is the very thing flesh longs to do. "I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known covetousness, except the law had said, 'Thou shalt not covet' (Rom. 7:7). This being its effect on man, the law is called in 1 Cor. 15:56 "the strength of sin " — a tremendous passage for those who seek either salvation or holiness by means of works. The POWER of the law is to slay. Says Paul in Rom 7:10, "I found it to be to death," and in 2 Cor. 3 he calls it "the ministration of condemnation" and "of death." Since man cannot render its righteous demand, the law can but pass its stern sentence upon him.