Paul tells us in Galatians the law did not come to tell us about salvation but to tell us about sin. “It was added because of transgressions.” Some have said the law is a mirror that when we look into it, we see who we really are. But you know that no one who looks in a mirror and sees dirt on his face then takes the mirror off the wall to clean the dirt away. The law can only show us our sinfulness. It cannot remove it. Paul said in Romans 7 that without the law he would not have known what sin was. “I would not have known what it is to covet,” he wrote, “if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’” On the one hand, then, the law was given to constrain mankind by clearly revealing God’s standard for holiness. It tells us how to live a life pleasing to the Lord.
That is why we don’t have free-range children. At least, we shouldn’t. Instead, I would urge you to constrain your children’s tendencies toward misbehavior with rules and with loving discipline. We teach our children right and wrong because God tells us to! One of the things my wife and I did as we raised our children was to ask this question when one offended or hurt another: “What was in your heart to make you do that?” We did not want to just correct behavior, we wanted to teach our children to examine their hearts. We wanted to teach them to pray with David, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts…Lead me in the way everlasting!” That’s what God does through the law when we read it and apply it: He shows us our sinful hearts, which causes us to cry to Him for help.
On the other hand, we know that the law exposes and even inflames our sin. Paul wrote, “But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness.” Is that the commandment’s fault? No, Paul says, “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.” Why then do we delight in breaking ourselves against the law? Augustine, an early church father, described how this worked in his own life: “There was a pear tree near our vineyard, laden with fruit. One stormy night we rascally youths set out to rob it and carry our spoils away. We took off a huge load of pears – not to feast upon ourselves, but to throw them to the pigs, though we ate just enough to have the pleasure of forbidden fruit. They were nice pears, but it was not the pears that my wretched soul coveted, for I had plenty better at home. I picked them simply in order to become a thief. The only feast I got was a feast of iniquity, and that I enjoyed to the full. What was it that I loved in the theft? Was it the pleasure of acting against the law? The desire to steal was awakened simply by the prohibition of stealing.” The law against stealing inflamed a desire to steal. It did not cause a sinful heart, it exposed one.
A brand-new waterfront hotel in Florida was concerned that people might try to fish from the balconies so they put up signs saying, “NO FISHING FROM THE BALCONY.” After that they had constant problems with people fishing from the balconies, with sinker weights breaking windows and bothering people in rooms below. They finally solved the problem by simply… taking down the signs – and no one thought to fish from the balconies. Because of our fallen nature, the law can actually work like an invitation to sin.
The law shows us our need for salvation. It can lead us to Christ, but no further. When Jesus draws us, by grace and through faith, He is waiting with open arms to release us from the prison of the law and call us sons and daughters.
J. Mark Fox 