Getting right with God and escaping judgment are perennial challenges that every human faces. Paul’s audience, people who put their trust in the law and law-keeping to get them right with God, also faced them.  

Getting right with God by being good isn’t a monopoly of first-century Jews. Using the law unlawfully soon over-flowed into Christianity. It is a well-beaten path but it ends only in frustration. Humans might be able to distance themselves from temptation, but they are still sinners. Only God in His grace provides an adequate solution to the problem of sin and salvation.  

The law cannot do the one all-important thing – it can’t save us. Paul tells us that the function of the law is not justification but telling us where we have gone wrong. (see e.g. Rom.7:7.) James 1:23-25 compares the law to a mirror. The function of the mirror is to point out the things that need improvement. With that knowledge, I go to the soap, washcloth, and comb. But it won’t do to rub the mirror on my face to get the egg off or run the mirror through my hair to comb it. The purpose of the mirror is to remind me of needed improvements.  

So it is with the law. When I compare myself with God’s law I find that I have problems in my life. But the law is powerless to correct them. It has another function: to tell me that I am a sinner. The law shows me my problems and needs, but it does not solve them.  “For no one can ever be made right in God’s sight by doing what His law commands. For the more we know God’s law, the clearer it becomes that we aren’t obeying it.” (Rom.3:20 NLT)  

The law is not a stairway to heaven. But it makes us aware of the way. The law points beyond itself to Jesus and the real solution to our problems. It is to that topic that Paul now turns as he moves beyond his extensive analysis of the sin problem to the good news about justification.