So the words of the law are spoken, not to assert the power of the will, but to illuminate the blindness of reason, so that it may see that its own light is nothing, and the power of the will is nothing. ‘By the law is knowledge of sin,’ says Paul (Rom 3:20). He does not say: abolition, or avoidance, of sin. The entire design and power of the law is just to give knowledge, and that of nothing but of sin; not to display or confer any power. The knowledge is not power, nor does it bring power; but it teaches and displays that there is here no power, and great weakness….It is from this passage that I derive my answer to you; that by the words of the law man is admonished and taught, not what he can do, but what he ought to do; that is, that he may know his sin, not that he may believe that he has any strength. (Luther, The Bondage of the Will)
Luther’s approach to the Law should awaken many to their own unexamined presuppositions that they have. When many read or hear the Law of God, they assume that man must have enough power in the will to obey the Law. It does take, after all, power to obey. But human beings simply assume that they have the power to obey the Law without really thinking about it. Could God have another reason in giving the Law? It is just as logical to think that God gives the Law to show man his inability in order to show man his need of Christ. The real question, then, is what Scripture teaches on the issue.
The Law is a transcript of the holiness of God. Can we be like God in our own power? Can man be like God in the power of the flesh? As seen above, the Law was given and men both then and now approach it in two (broadly speaking) categories. They look at the Law and assume that they have the power to keep it and to do that they must think of themselves as sufficient to do so. The second group looks at the Law and knows that they don’t have the power to keep it and need to be saved from their sins of breaking it and to have grace in the heart to keep it. Paul was very clear on this issue and the second approach is the biblical approach.
Galatians 2:19 “For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God 20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. 24 Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith
In these three verses from Galatians Paul could not have been much clearer. One use of the Law is in order that sinners may die to the Law. But note that it is not the Law that dies, but that the sinner dies to the Law. In other words, sinners are not to look to themselves and their own power to keep any part of the Law, but instead they are to die to their own ability and any strength in themselves to keep the Law. Sinners are to die to themselves in relation to keeping the Law as their own righteousness. It is in this way that Law serves as a tutor to lead sinners to Christ. It drives them to an end of their own strength and ability to keep the Law and so they must have Christ.
Romans 5:20 The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 7:4 Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. 7:6 But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter. 7:9 I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died;
The verses listed above from Romans should nail the case down and put it beyond question. The Law does not assume ability in human beings at all in terms of keeping it. But instead the Law was given so that transgression would increase and grace would abound. Once again we see that the sinner must die to the Law and the sinner must die to the power and ability of self to keep the Law. The Law was not given to sinners so that they could see the power they have in themselves and keep the Law, but to show them their sin so that they could see that they have no power to keep the Law and so die to themselves and their own ability to keep it. Until the sinner dies to self the sinner is in bondage to the Law as a way of salvation. But the Law was never given as a way of salvation or for sinners to save or partially save themselves, but as a way for sinners to die to themselves and so rest in Christ and Christ alone. The fallen mind says we have the ability, but Scripture emphatically says we don’t.
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