“…and I died. So I discovered that the law’s commands, which were supposed to bring life, brought spiritual death instead.  Sin took advantage of those commands and deceived me; it used the commands to kill me.” Romans 7:10-11 NLT 

Footsteps #323. The law promises life (RSV). God never meant His law for death. He created it as a standard of righteousness. It presents the principles that lead to life. The psalmist was quite clear about the blessedness of those “who walk in the law of the Lord” (Ps.119:1,2). Jesus said the same (Luke 10:28, Matt.5:17-19). 

The trouble is that since Adam’s fall it has been impossible for people to fully obey God’s law. We have inherited Adams ‘fallen’ nature. Because of his sin, our natures are fallen and we cannot make ourselves righteous. Since we are unholy, we cannot perfectly obey the holy law. But sin doesn’t tell us that. Rather it assures us that if we try hard enough we will become good enough, that we can even become sinlessly perfect through obedience to the law. Or as Paul puts it, “sin, finding opportunity in the commandment,” deceives us into believing the lie. The lie is that we can do it on our own, that we can become good people by keeping the law, that we can even make God look good by doing what he commanded. The deceptiveness that had trapped Paul and others is that one does not expect God’s commandment to be the occasion of death. Since the law appears to be the way to life, when actually it isn’t, sin utilises this misunderstanding to bring about death. 

The principle that man can save himself by his own self-effort lies at the foundation of every false religion, including erroneous approaches to Christianity; it had become the principle of the Jewish religion. It is Cain’s offering; the work of our own hands instead of the blood substitute sacrifice God required. 

The law, for all its good points, never sought to save from sin. To believe that will only lead to our eternal death. But the law does have a good side. It is, “holy just and good,” Paul declares in v12. Sin may have abused the law and sinners may have put it to wrong use, as Paul emphasised in Rom.7:8-11, but that is no reflection on the law itself. It is sin that is the culprit and that the law itself is as good as things can get. In fact, for the rest of the chapter he continues to uplift the law, calling it “spiritual,” (v14) and “good” (v16,) while claiming that his “inward man” delights in it (v22.) There is not the slightest doubt that Paul the apostle has extremely positive feelings about the law. His expression of those positive feelings is just as definite as his negative ones toward the wrong use of the law. C.f. Ps19.  

The fact that the law reveals, arouses, and condemns sin and brings death to the sinner does not make the law itself evil. When a person is justly convicted and sentenced for murder, there is no fault in the law or with those responsible for upholding it. The fault is in the one who broke the law.  

Paul the converted Christian still loves God’s law. Only now he sees how he and others had employed it for purposes for which God had never intended. But when it is rightly used it is indeed “holy, and just, and good.”