Why can the law not save us?

How could sinful man be saved by the law? It was not given to save sinners. It was meant to convince such as seriously tried to obey it, that none could stand on that ground before God. Life is of His grace to the believer. We are saved by grace through faith. He that breaks the law must surely die. Hence no matter what helps may later accompany the law, it is said in 2 Cor. 3 to be the ministry of death and of condemnation. Its real aim is to overwhelm the guilty, that they might turn from self and law to the Saviour.

But there is more than remission of sins, that most deeply needed, in itself inestimable but initiatory, boon of the gospel: 'And from all things, from which ye could not in Moses' law be justified, in Him every one that believes is justified.' How boldly the apostle can speak! and this, not because his preaching or the style of it was any peculiarity of his position in the church, but in honour of the Saviour's victory over every hindrance and all evil. To speak timidly might be well, if it were simply a question of man addressing or of men addressed. But the preacher of the gospel is not only free but bound to forget himself by grace in his magnifying of Him Who died and rose, in order that divine mercy might triumph for the worst, and this without money and without price for the sinner: Christ has paid the penalty — paid it long long ago. Here Moses' law is wholly unavailing, whatever the pride, the unbelief, or the ignorance, of the Jew might think. There is no possibility of justification by that law, holy as it is, and the commandment holy and just and good. Law is all in vain to save. It can give neither life nor pardon, neither holiness nor power. It puts a restraint on, and so alike discovers and provokes, lust; it is the power of sin, and works out wrath, it is thus a ministration of condemnation and death. What possible deliverance can it bring to the needy and lost sinner? Negatively indeed the law is used by grace to break him down, to deepen his distrust of self even when converted, and to cast him wholly on Christ outside and on high, Who gives him to know that he died with Himself, that he might walk and serve under grace, as being alive to God

The law proposed life for man, but it was unable either to give life or secure righteousness from man in the flesh. We are told, “It was weak through the flesh” though in itself “holy, just and good.” Do and live, it said to the sinner of Adam’s race; but the sinner could not do, therefore the holy law of God could only condemn him, and “the commandment which was for life, was found,” says the apostle, as to himself, “to be unto death” (Rom. 7:10). Had there been a law which was able to give life, “then indeed righteousness were on the principle of law” (Gal. 3:21); but before the law, yea, “before the ages of time” God had promised life for man. That promise is in Christ Jesus, therefore He must come where we were to free us from sin and death, that we might have life in Him. The law, as we have seen, said, Do and live. The Lord Jesus, when we could do nothing, died that we might live,—died that the promise might be ours actually,—died that we might be joint-partakers of it in Him. How great the grace of God to give such a promise! How wonderful the love that brought His beloved Son to die to secure it for us! How marvellous the wisdom that devised the plan! All glory to God.

(V. 20) Moreover the law, that brings all under judgment to God, holds out no possibility of man removing the judgment by any efforts of his own. "By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight". The law, indeed, convicts of sin, "for by the law is the knowledge of sin", but it cannot remove the sins, or deliver from the power of sin. The law is but a plumb-line to show the crookedness of the wall. It would be as foolish to think that a crooked wall could be made straight by holding a plumb-line against it, as to think that a guilty sinner could be justified by the law. Thus the law convicts us of, not only being sinners before God, but also of being helpless sinners. Our ruin is total, and irretrievable, as far as we are concerned. Man is not only a fallen creature driven out from Paradise, he cannot find his way back. The law which was given for life, if a man kept it, has become a ministration of death and condemnation.

"Wherefore then serves the law; It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come," etc. Here we have God's answer to the query. All hope of salvation for men rested from the first on the long-promised Seed — the Son of God. For His advent the pious yearned and prayed for ages. God filled the waiting time with instruction of the deepest possible importance, using various means for this purpose. Thus the law was given in order to make manifest the awful evil of sin, God intending in this way to prepare men for the coming of the Sin Bearer. Tested by the holy enactments of Sinai, men found themselves transgressors. Such is man's nature that the application of God's law to it only provokes its evil. Hence the startling statement "the strength of sin is the law" (1 Cor. 15:56). As a natural consequence, therefore, "the law works wrath" (Rom. 4:15); it can do naught but curse all who are under its claim (Gal. 3:10). In keeping with this the law is described in 2 Cor. 3 as the ministration of condemnation and of death. As a plummet it shows man his crookedness; as a mirror it shows him his vileness; but help him it cannot. "It is weak through the flesh" (Rom. 8:3).

"What shall we say then? is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin but by the law." What does this mean? Would God give a law that man could not keep? why should He give it? This is the working of the natural reason. Why was the law given? That sin may abound. "I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." Man finds out that he cannot keep the law, and he must get to this point. The apostle, as man, says, "The law is spiritual, but I am carnal, and sold under sin." This is not exactly the right place. He must get further still: "That which I do I allow not; for what I would that I do not." And it is worse than even this: "What I hate, that I do." All must come to this place. We must find out that we are without strength, and cannot get help through the law; but we are slow to learn this lesson. God never meant to save by the law. The law was given between the promise and its fulfilment to test man, to shew out what was in his heart. And this is the case often with us, after we have grace; the law comes and shews us our sin, but gives us no help; it only makes us cry, "O wretched man that I am." There is the end of all strivings. I am in a ditch, and I have to cry out, Who shall deliver me? It is too late to help myself, I cannot get up. Where can I turn to? To whom can I look?

The law was as absolutely right, as man and favoured Israel were thoroughly wrong. On the ground of law sinful man could only meet with death and condemnation. But man is blind both as to God and as to himself, and having no confidence in His grace, willingly accepts earning life by his well-doing. As he did not believe, he must learn to his cost that in the things of God he is as weak as he is ungodly (Rom. 5:9). Through law is not acquirement of righteousness but knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:20). The law also works out wrath, and thereby the offence abounds. As the sting of death is the law, so is the law the power of sin. But Christ only is the Saviour whom God made sin for us in His atoning death; which glorified God even as to sin, and left Him free to display His grace to the uttermost for all that believe on His Son.

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).

In verse 21 another question is raised, which springs out of the foregoing. Some might jump to the conclusion that if, as shown, the law was not supplementary to the covenant of promise it must necessarily be in opposition to it. This is not so for one moment. Had the law been intended by God to provide righteousness for man, He would have endowed it with power to give life. The law instructed, demanded, urged, threatened and, when it had been broken, it condemned the transgressor to death. Yet none of these things availed. The one thing needful was to bestow upon man a new life, in which it would be as natural to him to fulfil the law, as now it is natural to him to break it. That the law could not do; instead it has proved us all to be under sin, thus revealing our need of that which has been introduced through Christ.

And who is it, and what is it, that has had the first and the fullest opportunity of saving and redeeming the poor, lost, guilty sinner? It is the law. The other kinsman could do very well with the land. And most excellent and necessary is the law, for God’s moral government in the world. But can the law, which utterly condemns the sinner, can it redeem the sinner? Impossible! it can only curse him. (Gal. 3:10.) Can it raise from the dead? Never! that would be to mar its own inheritance, for it is the inheritance of the law to kill; but not to make alive. For hundreds of years it had the fullest opportunity of saving men, but could it do so? No. As the ten elders bore witness that the other kinsman could not redeem, so the ten commandments bear witness, that, on the principle of keeping law, no man can be saved. If my reader were perfectly righteous, and continued so, in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them, then could it give you life? But is this the case? Nay, does not each of the ten condemn you? Have you not sinned in thought, word, and deed? You may hope to be righteous some day, by keeping the law. But is it not written, “If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain?” (Gal. 2:21.) How can you then find rest and life in that which is the ministration of death? (2 Cor. 3:7.) And if the plucking of the shoe, proved the ability and claims of the other kinsman to be ended, how much more when Jesus took the writing of law, and nailed it to His cross? Does He not prove both the utter end of all question of the law’s ability to save, and the utter end of its claim on the sinner also? Oh why, then, would you cling to the other kinsman? Why go back to the law, which can never redeem the guilty sinner?