se money does not justify, would you say that money is good for
nothing? Because the eyes do not justify, would you have them taken
out? Because the Law does not justify it does not follow that the Law
is without value. We must find and define the proper purpose of the
Law. We do not offhand condemn the Law because we say it does not
justify.

We say with Paul that the Law is good if it is used properly. Within
its proper sphere the Law is an excellent thing. But if we ascribe to
the Law functions for which it was never intended, we pervert not only
the Law but also the Gospel. It is the universal impression that
righteousness is obtained through the deeds of the Law. This impression
is instinctive and therefore doubly dangerous. Gross sins and vices may
be recognized or else repressed by the threat of punishment. But this
sin, this opinion of man's own righteousness refuses to be classified
as sin. It wants to be esteemed as high-class religion. Hence, it
constitutes the mighty influence of the devil over the entire world. In
order to point out the true office of the Law, and thus to stamp out
that false impression of the righteousness of the Law, Paul answers the
question: "Wherefore then serveth the Law?" with the words:

VERSE 19. It was added because of transgressions.

All things differ. Let everything serve its unique purpose. Let the sun
shine by day, the moon and the stars by night. Let the sea furnish
fish, the earth grain, the woods trees, etc. Let the Law also serve its
unique purpose. It must not step out of character and take the place of
anything else. What is the function of the Law? "Transgression,"
answers the Apostle.

The Twofold Purpose of the Law

The Law has a twofold purpose. One purpose is civil. God has ordained
civil laws to punish crime. Every law is given to restrain sin. Does it
not then make men righteous? No. In refraining from murder, adultery,
theft, or other sins, I do so under compulsion because I fear the jail,
the noose, the electric chair. These restrain me as iron bars restrain
a lion and a bear. Otherwise they would tear everything to pieces. Such
forceful restraint cannot be regarded as righteousness, rather as an
indication of unrighteousness. As a wild beast is tied to keep it from
running amuck, so the Law bridles mad and furious man to keep him from
running wild. The need for restraint shows plainly enough that those
who need the Law are not righteous, but wicked men who are fit to be
tied. No, the Law does not justify.

The first purpose of the Law, accordingly, is to restrain the wicked.
The devil gets people into all kinds of scrapes. Therefore God
instituted governments, parents, laws, restrictions, and civil
ordinances. At least they help to tie the devil's hands so that he does
not rage up and down the earth. This civil restraint by the Law is
intended by God for the preservation of all things, particularly for
the good of the Gospel that it should not be hindered too much by the
tumult of the wicked. But Paul is not now treating of this civil use
and function of the Law. The second purpose of the Law is spiritual and
divine. Paul describes this spiritual purpose of the Law in the words,
"Because of transgressions," i.e., to reveal to a person his sin,
blindness, misery, his ignorance, hatred, and contempt of God, his
death, hell, and condemnation.

This is the principal purpose of the Law and its most valuable
contribution. As long as a person is not a murderer, adulterer, thief,
he would swear that he is righteous. How is God going to humble such a
person except by the Law? The Law is the hammer of death, the thunder
of hell, and the lightning of God's wrath to bring down the proud and
shameless hypocrites. When the Law was instituted on Mount Sinai it was
accompanied by lightning, by storms, by the sound of trumpets, to tear
to pieces that monster called self-righteousness. As long as a person
thinks he is right he is going to be incomprehensibly proud and
presumptuous. He is going to hate God, despise His grace and mercy, and
ignore the promises in Christ. The Gospel of the free forgiveness of
sins through Christ will never appeal to the self-righteous.

This monster of self-righteousness, this stiff-necked beast, needs a
big axe. And that is what the Law is, a big axe. Accordingly, the
proper use and function of the Law is to threaten until the conscience
is scared stiff.

The awful spectacle at Mount Sinai portrayed the proper use of the Law.
When the children of Israel came out of Egypt a feeling of singular
holiness possessed them. They boasted: "We are the people of God. All
that the Lord hath spoken we will do." (Ex. 19:8) This feeling of
holiness was heightened when Moses ordered them to wash their clothes,
to refrain from their wives, and to prepare themselves all around. The
third day came and Moses led the people out of their tents to the foot
of the mountain into the presence of the Lord. What happened? When the
children of Israel saw the whole mountain burning and smoking, the
black clouds rent by fierce lightning flashing up and down in the inky
darkness, when they heard the sound of the trumpet blowing louder and
longer, shattered by the roll of thunder, they were so frightened that
they begged Moses: "Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not
God speak with us, lest we die." (Ex. 20:19.) I ask you, what good did
their scrubbing, their snow-white clothes, and their continence do
them? No good at all. Not a single one could stand in the presence of
the glorious Lord. Stricken by the terror of God, they fled back into
their tents, as if the devil were after them.

The Law is meant to produce the same effect today which it produced at
Mount Sinai long ago. I want to encourage all who fear God, especially
those who intend to become ministers of the Gospel, to learn from the
Apostle the proper use of the Law. I fear that after our time the right
handling of the Law will become a lost art. Even now, although we
continually explain the separate functions of the Law and the Gospel,
we have those among us who do not understand how the Law should be
used. What will it be like when we are dead and gone?

We want it understood that we do not reject the Law as our opponents
claim. On the contrary, we uphold the Law. We say the Law is good if it
is used for the purposes for which it was designed, to check civil
transgression, and to magnify spiritual transgressions. The Law is also
a light like the Gospel. But instead of revealing the grace of God,
righteousness, and life, the Law brings sin, death, and the wrath of
God to light. This is the business of the Law, and here the business of
the Law ends, and should go no further.

The business of the Gospel, on the other hand, is to quicken, to
comfort, to raise the fallen. The Gospel carries the news that God for
Christ's sake is merciful to the most unworthy sinners, if they will
only believe that Christ by His death has delivered them from sin and
everlasting death unto grace, forgiveness, and everlasting life. By
keeping in mind the difference between the Law and the Gospel we let
each perform its special task. Of this difference between the Law and
the Gospel nothing can be discovered in the writings of the monks or
scholastics, nor for that matter in the writings of the ancient
fathers. Augustine understood the difference somewhat. Jerome and
others knew nothing of it. The silence in the Church concerning the
difference between the Law and the Gospel has resulted in untold harm.
Unless a sharp distinction is maintained between the purpose and
function of the Law and the Gospel, the Christian doctrine cannot be
kept free from error.

VERSE 19. It was added because of transgressions.

In other words, that transgressions might be recognized as such and
thus increased. When sin, death, and the wrath of God are revealed to a
person by the Law, he grows impatient, complains against God, and
rebels. Before that he was a very holy man; he worshipped and praised
God; he bowed his knees before God and gave thanks, like the Pharisee.
But now that sin and death are revealed to him by the Law he wishes
there were no God. The Law inspires hatred of God. Thus sin is not only
revealed by the Law; sin is actually increased and magnified by the
Law.

The Law is a mirror to show a person what he is like, a sinner who is
guilty of death, and worthy of everlasting punishment. What is this
bruising and beating by the hand of the Law to accomplish? This, that
we may find the way to grace. The Law is an usher to lead the way to
grace. God is the God of the humble, the miserable, the afflicted. It
is His nature to exalt the humble, to comfort the sorrowing, to heal
the broken-hearted, to justify the sinners, and to save the condemned.
The fatuous idea that a person can be holy by himself denies God the
pleasure of saving sinners. God must therefore first take the
sledge-hammer of the Law in His fists and smash the beast of
self-righteousness and its brood of self-confidence, self-wisdom,
self-righteousness, and self-help. When the conscience has been
thoroughly frightened by the Law it welcomes the Gospel of grace with
its message of a Savior who came into the world, not to break the
bruised reed, nor to quench the smoking flax, but to preach glad
tidings to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, and to grant
forgiveness of sins to all the captives.

Man's folly, however, is so prodigious that instead of embracing the
message of grace with its guarantee of the forgiveness of sin for
Christ's sake, man finds himself more laws to satisfy his conscience.
"If I live," says he, "I will mend my life. I will do this, I will do
that." Man, if you don't do the very opposite, if you don't send Moses
with the Law back to Mount Sinai and take the hand of Christ, pierced
for your sins, you will never be saved.

When the Law drives you to the point of despair, let it drive you a
little farther, let it drive you straight into the arms of Jesus who
says: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest."

VERSE 19. Till the seed should come to whom the promise was made.

The Law is not to have its say indefinitely. We must know how long the
Law is to put in its licks. If it hammers away too long, no person
would and could be saved. The Law has a boundary beyond which it must
not go. How long ought the Law to hold sway? "Till the seed should come
to whom the promise was made." That may be taken literally to mean
until the time of the Gospel. "From the days of John the Baptist," says
Jesus, "until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the
violent take it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied
until John." (Matthew 11:12, 13.) When Christ came the Law and the
ceremonies of Moses ceased.

Spiritually, it means that the Law is not to operate on a person after
he has been humbled and frightened by the exposure of his sins and the
wrath of God. We must then say to the Law: "Mister Law, lay off him. He
has had enough. You scared him good and proper." Now it is the Gospel's
turn. Now let Christ with His gracious lips talk to him of better
things, grace, peace, forgiveness of sins, and eternal life.

VERSE 19. And it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.

The Apostle digresses a little from his immediate theme. Something
occurred to him and he throws it in by the way. It occurred to him that
the Law differs from the Gospel in another respect, in respect to
authorship. The Law was delivered by the angels, but the Gospel by the
Lord Himself. Hence, the Gospel is superior to the Law, as the word of
a lord is superior to the word of his servant.

The Law was handed down by a being even inferior to the angels, by a
middleman named Moses. Paul wants us to understand that Christ is the
mediator of a better testament than mediator Moses of the Law. Moses
led the people out of their tents to meet God. But they ran away. That
is how good a mediator Moses was.

Paul says: "How can the Law justify when that whole sanctified people
of Israel and even mediator Moses trembled at the voice of God? What
kind of righteousness do you call that when people run away from it and
hate it the worst way? If the Law could justify, people would love the
Law. But look at the children of Israel running away from it."

The flight of the children of Israel from Mount Sinai indicates how
people feel about the Law. They don't like it. If this were the only
argument to prove that salvation is not by the Law, this one Bible
history would do the work. What kind of righteousness is this
law-righteousness when at the commencement exercises of the Law Moses
and the scrubbed people run away from it so fast that an iron mountain,
the Red Sea even, could not have stopped them until they were back in
Egypt once again? If they could not hear the Law, how could they ever
hope to perform the Law?

If all the world had stood at the mountain, all the world would have
hated the Law and fled from it as the children of Israel did. The whole
world is an enemy of the Law. How, then, can anyone be justified by the
Law when everybody hates the Law and its divine author?

All this goes to show how little the scholastics know about the Law.
They do not consider its spiritual effect and purpose, which is not to
justify or to pacify afflicted consciences, but to increase sin, to
terrify the conscience, and to produce wrath. In their ignorance the
papists spout about man's good will and right judgment, and man's
capacity to perform the Law of God. Ask the people of Israel who were
present at the presentation of the Law on Mount Sinai whether what the
scholastics say is true. Ask David, who often complains in the Psalms
that he was cast away from God and in hell, that he was frantic about
his sin, and sick at the thought of the wrath and judgment of God. No,
the Law does not justify.

VERSE 20. Now a mediator is not a mediator of one.

Here the Apostle briefly compares the two mediators: Moses and Christ.
"A mediator," says Paul, "is not a mediator of one." He is necessarily
a mediator of two: The offender and the offended. Moses was such a
mediator between the Law and the people who were offended at the Law.
They were offended at the Law because they did not understand its
purpose. That was the veil which Moses put over his face. The people
were also offended at the Law because they could not look at the bare
face of Moses. It shone with the glory of God. When Moses addressed the
people he had to cover his face with that veil of his. They could not
listen to their mediator Moses without another mediator, the veil. The
Law had to change its face and voice. In other words, the Law had to be
made tolerable to the people.

Thus covered, the Law no longer spoke to the people in its undisguised
majesty. It became more tolerable to the conscience. This explains why
men fail to understand the Law properly, with the result that they
become secure and presumptuous hypocrites. One of two things has to be
done: Either the Law must be covered with a veil and then it loses its
full effectiveness, or it must be unveiled and then the full blast of
its force kills. Man cannot stand the Law without a veil over it.
Hence, we are forced either to look beyond the Law to Christ, or we go
through life as shameless hypocrites and secure sinners.

Paul says: "A mediator is not a mediator of one." Moses could not be a
mediator of God only, for God needs no mediator. Again, Moses could not
be a mediator of the people only. He was a mediator between God and the
people. It is the office of a mediator to conciliate the part