3. The text would be unintelligible unless we observed its antithetical setting. It is a contrast between law and love as redemptive forces in human life. Paul does not discuss it with the philosopher's pleasure in abstract reasoning. He is dealing with facts. Law was a fact. Love was a fact. In times past God had sought to govern the world by law. Now, through Jesus Christ, God was seeking to rule life by love. Which was the successful redemptive principle ? On this point Paul's mind
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was absolutely convinced. Law is powerless, helpless, impotent. Love is infinitely capable and eternally omnipotent. " For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh," God has achieved by " sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh," and He, being " an offering for sin, condemned sin in the flesh," and, because of that, the end of the law is attained, " the ordinance of the law " is now " fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit."
The text contains the following statements : —
1. The Law could not free us from sin and death, — its failure being due to the weakness of the flesh.
2. God sent His own Son
(1) in the likeness of sinful flesh ;
(2) and (as an offering) for sin.
3. He thus condemned sin in the flesh.
(1) In order that the requirement of the Law might be
fulfilled in us.
(2) Who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit.
I.
The Failure of the Law.
i. The Fact of the Failure.
1. What is it that the Law could not do ? It could not condemn sin in the flesh in such a way as to ensure that the righteousness of the law shall be fulfilled in us. The law demands righteousness : the law condemns sin. But the law cannot secure the fulfilment of the demand which it makes upon us ; it cannot accomplish the destruction of the sin which it condemns ; in other words, it cannot condemn sin effectually. It has indeed a terrible power to condemn; it can, it does, condemn the sinner most effectually, so as to secure his destruction ; but it cannot effectu- ally condemn the sin rooted in the flesh, so as to effect its destruction.
2. What is needed is that the sinner should be brought heartily to renounce the service ©f sin, and heartily to embrace the service of God, that, in the words of the Apostle himself, he should
372 LAW OR LOVE
become " dead to sin " and " alive unto God." The sinner must be brought into thorough, hearty agreement with God's opposition to sin ; and the law cannot produce such a change of heart as this : it may prevent the man from committing overt acts of sin, but that is a very different thing from destroying the love of sin itself, and inspiring a heart-hatred of the abominable thing which God hates. That the law could not do this for him, Paul had learned from his own experience. So long as he remained a stranger to God's saving grace, the law, far from delivering him from the dominion of sin, only roused to greater activity the evil principles that were within him. He had to learn, by passing through struggles of the most painful kind, that it is not to the law that we must look for deliverance from the ruling power of sin.
Tf The makers of our human laws know that they are weak. They know that while they promulgate their regulations they cannot reckon on obedience. We have laws against gambling, but gambling still goes on. We have a great body of laws to regulate the drink traffic, but you cannot pick up the newspapers without reading of the prosecution of some offender, or of some crime for which some one should be punished. It is because we know the law is weak that we engage inspectors and policemen. We build prisons, and penitentiaries, and reformatories, and keep them up at great expense, because we know that, while the laws are known, the simple knowledge is no guarantee of obedience.1
3. But, even though the law is weak, it cannot be said to be useless. It serves other and necessary purposes. The Apostle recognizes that. "Through the law cometh the knowledge of sin." " Where there is no law neither is there transgression." " Sin is not imputed where there is no law." " Howbeit, I had not known sin except through the law." It is by the law that we have the knowledge of sin. If we crossed the field and never saw the signboard, while we should be actual transgressors, there would be no guilt in the trespass. If, however, we saw the signboard, and sinned against knowledge, we should be verily guilty. And so, God, by the promulgation of His law, has created a conscience of sin, even as the State, by the announcement of its laws, has created a national sense of sin. The law, then, is necessary as an educational factor. It is the "schoolmaster."
•» 1 J. G. Bowran.
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But, as the pedagogue cannot manufacture geniuses, so the law cannot make saints.