“The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.”
(Romans 7:10)
The Law represents the virtue, goodness and holiness of God and was initially given to bring life to Adam and his descendants after him. In fact, God’s commandment to Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:17 actually “promised life,” (Rom. 7:10). This means that if Adam and Eve had obeyed God’s command, the law would have brought life – eternal life for them and their descendants after them.
But Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s Law and, as a result, through Adam the whole of creation was cursed (Gen. 3). Adam broke this covenant of life, so all his descendants after him are conceived in sin (Ps. 51:5) and at birth are already condemned by the Law they cannot keep. So instead of the Law being life to us, it brings us death (Rom. 7:10, 10:5; Gal. 3:13).
It shows us how far we would have to go to be perfect. Romans 3:20 says, “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” The Law acts as a mirror to show us who we are before God (James 1:23). It demonstrates the curse against man (Rom. 3:19) and is the tool the Holy Spirit uses to show sinners their need for a Savior.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism says in Question 44, “What doth the preface to the ten commandments teach us?” The answer is given, “The preface to the ten commandments teaches us, that because God is the Lord, and our God, and Redeemer, therefore we are bound to keep all His commandments.”
And as we are still bound by its terms, our only hope is for someone else to keep the Law perfectly in our place and on our behalf (Gal. 3:13). Christ did for us what we could not do for ourselves – He fulfilled the Law for us, thereby redeeming us from the curse of the law (Gal. 3:13) that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him! (2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:24-26).
“For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit,” (Rom. 8:3-4).
