The Law: Understanding Its Purpose and Function
Outline – The Law was given to:
1. Intentionally Not Save Us.
2. Cause Our Offense to Abound
3. Remove All of Our Excuses
4. Show the Extent of Our Sinfulness
5. Bring Us to Christ
1. The Law was never given in order to save us. This was not only the fallacy of the Jew, but also the misconception of most today. If we don’t understand why the Law was given we can’t respond to it in the right way.
a. People think that because the Law was given all they have to do is follow it and then they will be accepted in God’s sight. This was the common response of both Jews to the explicit writ and Gentiles to natural conscience.
b. Go into town and start asking people why God is going to let them into Heaven. The most common response will be, “Well because I’m a good person”, or something to that effect. Without realizing it they are –
i. Appealing to their conscience.
ii. Justifying themselves on their ability to obey their conscience.
c. The person who gives that simple and common answer is actually saying I am keeping the Law of God, and on that basis God will declare me just.
d. God knew the Law could not save us, because of the weakness of our flesh. He never gave it in order to save us.
2. The Law was given to cause our offense to abound.
a. Romans 3.19 – Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
b. Romans 3.20 – Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
c. Romans 5.20 – Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more
3. The Law was given to remove our excuses. The entire function of the Law is to define sin and reveal its nature; and that’s why we are without any excuse at all. The Law is in our hearts, but God made it even clearer by writing it down explicitly.
a. Romans 7.7 – What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.”
i. The Law shows us our sin, that we may claim it as our sin. It offers us the opportunity to take ownership.
4. The Law was given to show us the extent of our sin.
a. The Law was given to pinpoint our sin, to define it to bring it out of its hiding place, and to show its sinful character. Sin is so deep within us that the very Law which should help us causes us to sin all the more.
b. Nothing can show us the exceeding sinfulness that we possess as the Law of God can. The more we try to keep it, the more we break it.
5. The Law was given to bring us to Jesus.
a. Galatians 3.19-25 – What purpose then does the Law serve?…[24] the Law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. [25] But after faith has come we are no longer under a tutor.
i. The Law was never given to save man, but it was given as a ‘tutor’ to bring him to the Savior. The whole object and purpose of the Law is to show that man can never save himself.
ii. Once we really understand the Law we know that we can’t keep it! We obviously deceive ourselves to we think that we can.
b. The purpose of us keeping the Law wasn’t merely to keep us from fornicating, smoking and drinking beer out of skulls. The purpose in keeping the Law was that if we did, we would love the LORD with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength. This is ultimately what God has asked of us, and ultimately what we have failed in doing.
i. This is what we should be totally grieved over. All God has asked of us is love, and by continually breaking His Law, we consistently prove that we are incapable of loving Him.
6. Summary:
Has anyone (besides Jesus) kept the Law? No. Read Romans 3. Half of the chapter is spent convincing you that ‘All are under sin, all have fallen short’. This is glorious because ‘by the deeds of the flesh no man shall be justified. We can stop striving to earn our Father’s approval. Why? Because He’ll never give it to us on the basis of our own merit. We can’t earn it. And because it is Christ Who saves us and not the Law we don’t have to bear that burden any longer. This is part of the glorious liberty we have as sons and daughters of the Living God, that Paul spoke of in Romans 8.
Filed under: Themes in Scripture
