Our good and holy God gave Israel the Mosaic Law. “The law is holy” (Rom 7:12), “the law is good” (1 Tim 1:8), and “we uphold the law” (Rom 3:31). The law is fulfilled in us through Christ who works in us to carry out its greatest commandments—loving God and our neighbor (Rom 8:3–4; 10:5; 13:8, 10; cf. Matt 22:37–40).
While we are not responsible to live out the law as Israel did in the Old Testament, “if one uses it lawfully,” it can be used “in according with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God” (1 Tim 1:8, 11). Christians can use the law “for the lawless and disobedient” in order to lead them to Christ (1 Tim 1:8), explained further below.
First, the law exposes sin as sin.
“Through the law comes the knowledge of sin” (Rom 3:20). It defines sin for what it is (1 Tim 1:8–11). “Sin indeed was in the world before the law was given” (Rom 5:13), and now sin is defined by the written law. “The law came in to increase the trespass” (Rom 5:20).
Second, the law exposes indwelling sin within the sinner.
When someone is given a commandment from the law, indwelling sin comes alive to desire and do the opposite, deceiving the sinner and delivering death instead of life (Rom 7:7–11). In this way, good though the law is, it gets hijacked by sin, and “the power of sin is the law” (1 Cor 15:56). Man comes to have “known sin” inside and out through this process (Rom 7:7; cf. 7:8–11).
Third, the law shows how sinful sin really is.
If indwelling sin takes the good and holy commandments of the law to produce in us a desire to do the opposite and give us death as a result, it us something truly sinful indeed (Rom 7:7–11). In this way, “sin… through the commandment” has “become sinful beyond measure” (Rom 7:13).
Fourth, the law condemns sinners for their sin.
“The law brings wrath” by condemning sin as transgression—willful disobedience to the written commands of God (Rom 4:15). This wrath extends to Gentiles who “show the work of the law… written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them” (Rom 2:15). So, “All who have sinned without the law will perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law” (Rom 2:12).
Fifth, the law teaches us our need for Jesus Christ.
“The law came in” alongside the promise of eternal life to show us that life is only possible through faith in Christ (Rom 5:20) who Himself “is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Rom 10:4). “The law was our guardian” to expose our sin and need for Christ “until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith” (Gal 5:24).
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