Chapter 21. Eternal Life Is “Grace For Grace” (continued)
CHAPTER 22.
WHO IS THE TRANSGRESSOR OF THE LAW?
THE OLDNESS OF ITS LETTER; THE NEWNESS OF ITS SPIRIT
Therefore, brethren, by free will you should not do evil, but good; this indeed is the lesson taught to us in the law of God in the Holy Scriptures—both Old and New. Let us, however, read, and by the Lord’s help understand, what the apostle tells us: “Because by the deeds of the law, no flesh shall be justified in His sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”Rom 3.2o Observe, he says “the knowledge,” not “the destruction,” of sin. But when a man knows sin, and grace does not help him to avoid what he knows, undoubtedly the law works wrath. And the apostle explicitly says this in another passage. His words are: “The law works wrath.”Rom 4.15 The reason for this statement lies in the fact that God’s wrath is greater in the case of the transgressor who by the law knows sin, and yet commits it; such a man is thus a transgressor of the law, even as the apostle says in another sentence, “For where there is no law, there is no transgression.”Rom 4.15 It is in accordance with this principle that he elsewhere says, “That we may serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter;”Rom 7.6 wishing the law to be understood here by “the oldness of the letter;” and what else is to be understood by “newness of spirit,” than grace?
Then, so it might not be thought that he had brought any accusation or suggested any blame against the law, he immediately takes himself to task with this inquiry: “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid!” He then adds the statement: “No, I would not have known sin but by the law;”Rom 7.6-7 which has the same import as the passage quoted above: “By the law is the knowledge of sin.”Rom 3.20 Then: “For I would not have known lust,” he says, “except the law had said, ‘You shall not covet.’Exo 20.17 But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, worked in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law, sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained for life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Therefore the law is holy; and the commandment is holy, just, and good. Was, then, that which is good made death to me? God forbid! But sin, that it might appear sin, worked death in me by that which is good—in order that the sinner, or the sin, might by the commandment become beyond measure.”Rom 7.7-13 And to the Galatians he writes: “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, except through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, so that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified.”Gal 2.16