What does Paul say about the law?

73 This brings us to the main point of the chapter, not only flesh, of which we have spoken, but the operation of the law, and its effect, and that even on those who can delight in it spiritually. It works death; for we, Christians, know it is spiritual, but I as a child of Adam, am carnal, sold, that is a slave, under sin; and sin only becomes exceeding sinful by the law, working in me all manner of concupiscence. It has not, then, as such, sanctifying power. It cannot make me holy. Is not the law good then? Yes! it is holy, just, and good. But I, as in the flesh, am not subject to it.

It is not the law that failed but those who were under it. It cannot produce righteousness because of the material to which it is applied: a nature that is full of sin. Paul writes elsewhere, ‘Wherefore by works of law no flesh shall be justified before him; for by law is knowledge of sin’ (Rom. 3:20). For this reason it has been annulled as a means of life and righteousness for men which faith in Christ alone secures (10:4). The law itself continues to be ‘holy, and just, and good’ (7:12). It is legitimate to use it ‘lawfully’ as Paul writes elsewhere: ‘Now we know that the law is good if any one uses it lawfully, knowing this, that law has not its application to a righteous person, but to the lawless’,etc. (1 Tim. 1:8–9).

Since the law was from God, it was holy and just and good (Rom. 7: 12). If the Israelites had been able to keep it, it would have led them to life and righteousness (Lev. 18: 5; Deut. 5: 29). But this was impossible since natural man lacks the power to fulfil God's claims. Thus the law could only bring knowledge of sin without imparting the power to overcome it (Rom. 3: 20). It revealed sin and this led to death and condemnation (Rom. 7: 10; 8: 3).

"So that the law has been our tutor up to Christ" (v.24 - JND). The teacher and all he teaches is only a means to an end. He should of course strive with earnest energy to put his pupils on the right track, but he has completely failed in his proper function if those pupils settle down indefinitely in subjection to him and dependence on him. His teaching ought to make them independent of his help. Such is the true function of the law: it directs toward Christ. It is a powerful teacher to those who honestly listen to it. It will teach how urgent is our need for Christ. It will drive one to a deep sense of the ruin that sin has caused and of the consequent need of One who is able to cleanse from sin, the Lord Jesus Christ. It does not bring us to Christ, but was in authority in Israel "up to Christ." Christ was its end in view. Law pointed away from itself to Christ, who, now being revealed, is the Object of the faith that justifies. The Law was the signpost that has fulfilled its purpose.

Its right effect on the individual was, as it is expressed, "that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful" (Rom. 7:13). It could curse (Gal. 3:10). It could kill (Rom. 7:9, 11). It could not give life. So righteousness could not come by it (Gal. 3:21). Nor could it condemn sin in the flesh (Rom. 8:3). Yet it is even now good, we learn, if a man use it lawfully, being made not for the righteous, but for the lawless and the unruly (1 Tim. 1:9). Furthermore, to those put under it by God it was a schoolmaster up to Christ (Gal. 3:24), and they were like children in their nonage, under tutors and governors till the time appointed of the father (Gal. 4:2). And from its curse none, who had been put under it by God, could have got free, had not the Lord Jesus Christ become a curse for them (Gal. 3:13), its ministry being one of death, and of condemnation (2 Cor. 3:7, 9). Such was the law, freedom from which was requisite for the person to be fruitful to God.

Another question arises out of this. If law cannot bring souls into blessing, if it really only ruins all who place themselves under it, why was it given? A serious question surely. "Wherefore then serves the law? It was added because of transgression, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator" (ver. 19). The apostle always jealously vindicates the law, while contending for the liberty of the believer in Jesus. In Romans 3:31 he is careful to show that the principle of faith does not nullify the law, but that rather it is established, all its righteous sentence having been endured by Christ for us. In Romans 7:7, he shows that the law is not sin, that we turned away from it, but that it is holy and just and good. Here the same care may be observed. The law was God's perfect rule for man; but man is corrupt and bad, and therefore it can only condemn and curse him. It was added because, or for the sake of, transgressions. It makes manifest man's true state. Sin was in the world before the law was given, consequently none can impiously assert that law made man a sinner. It came by the way, as it were, after the promise and before the fulfilment of it, to demonstrate man's real state in the sight of God. Yet so blind are men as to their true condition, that they have taken up that which was intended to make plain their ruin, and have endeavoured to attain to righteousness and life by means of it. It is long since Paul wrote his Epistles to the Romans and to the Galatians, but the illusion is not dispelled to this hour.

385 God's intention then in law was as to spiritual things to bring in transgression and convict of sin — man being already and hopelessly lost. As an outward dispensation for the Jews, it doubtless tended as a civil system to repress grosser evils: but then God was king of the country and people, and the people governed by it, and that in early times, emerging out of heathenism, before Christ came and was rejected. The Gentiles have nothing to say to it in this sense. It was a schoolmaster up to the time of Christ; then faith came and Judaism ceased. The only way a Gentile can be under law is as a principle of personal responsibility, in which he has to answer for himself, and on which ground it is a ministry of death and condemnation (2 Cor. 3), the strength of sin, and useful only to bring guilt on his conscience, and the sense that he has no power to free himself, or any possibility of his being freed from the power of sin while on this ground.

5 I am now shewing that scripture treats the question of law in another way from what I am here examining. Before faith came, we were kept under the law; but after that faith came, we were no longer under the schoolmaster. If the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise; but God gave it unto Abraham by promise. The law was added. Further, if there had been a law given which could have given life, righteousness should have been by the law. "But the scripture hath concluded all under sin." "I, through law," says the apostle, "am dead to law, that I might live to God." "If I am led of the Spirit, I am not under law." "Ye are become dead to the law, by the body of Christ, that ye might be married to another." It is "the ministration of death written and engraven on stones." How is it possible, if law could be used as the moral law, by which a Christian is bound, that the apostle should say, "Wherefore, my brethren, ye are become dead to the law by the body of Christ?" It would be, as Paul says, making Christ the minister of sin. Let it not be attempted to be said, Oh, but he is speaking of justification by works of law: he is doing nothing of the kind. His words are, "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 ye might bring forth fruit unto God." Being dead to the law is the way to bring forth fruit. So in Galatians: "I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God." If I would bring forth fruit and live to God, I must be dead to law. Law is a principle on which we cannot live to God any more than we can be justified. No doubt, we cannot be justified by works of law; but there is much more than that. It condemns us positively if we are under it. It "works wrath." It cannot give life: but that is not all; it is a ministration of death — is found to be unto death. It is "the strength of sin." By it, as an occasion, sin works in us all manner of concupiscence — bringing forth fruit unto death. The motions of sin are by the law. It makes sin exceeding sinful. Is all this scripture, or is it not?

6 Will it be said that this was the effect of law out of and before Christ? Let the reader remember that the apostle is writing to Christians, and reasoning against a tendency and an effort which beset Christians everywhere to bring in the obligation of the law after Christ. And he shews the working of the law for any that took it up to bring its obligations upon them when they were Christians, and declares that he who had been under law was delivered from it, and that it was a schoolmaster up to faith; but that when faith came men were no longer under it. The subject he is everywhere treating is law in its nature, or specifically an attempt to place men under its obligation after they had received the faith.

Paul's answer is virtually this, that the law was a provisional arrangement (Gal. 3:17), brought in to show up Israel's transgressions (v. 19), and acting as a schoolmaster "up to Christ" (v. 24), as it should read. Christ being come, redemption having been accomplished, and the Spirit having been given, the believer leaves the position of a child under age, or that of a servant, and becomes a son in the Divine household, being thus put in the liberty of grace (Gal. 4:1-7).

It is true that God had once a people under law, for His own purposes of unfailing wisdom. As the "ministration of death" and "of condemnation" (2 Cor. 3:7, 9), it was a "schoolmaster" under which in Israel even saints were "kept, shut up unto the faith which should afterward be revealed" (Gal. 3:23-24). The wholesome lessons of man's natural helplessness and hopelessness were taught by it, God saving of course all the time by a grace which He could not yet declare openly. But to believers it was necessarily bondage, "added" only "till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made," and when "faith came," as God's openly acknowledged principle, they were "no longer under the schoolmaster" (Gal. 5:19, 25). We are henceforth disciples of Christ and not of the law, although we have the good of the tutorship under which others were of old.