But why, it may be asked, were such terms proposed to Israel, when they had no strength to keep them? God saw that it would be good and wholesome for man to know the truth about himself, and the nature and extent of God's claims upon him; and for this end He gave the law. It was the perfect standard of what God required of man, of what man ought to be, and the prohibition of that to which he was strongly inclined. The ten commandments, for the most part, are like an interdict on the human will. " Thou shall not.".... " Thou, shalt not," is the stern, prohibitory voice of the moral law.
It will now be seen that the office of the law was to. detect and register man's deeds, and put in evidence his character as a transgressor. " Wherefore then serveth the law?" says the apostle; " it was added because of transgression." From the fall, down to the promulgation of the law at Sinai, man had been left to prove what his fallen nature is without the restraints of law: after that period we see what he becomes when subjected to an authority which forbids and opposes the desires of the flesh and of the mind. Without law men were lawless, under law they are law-breakers; and when Christ came, full of grace and truth, Him they rejected and crucified.
But to return to the question. " Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgression." Not because of sin, observe, but because of transgression. It is important to mark the difference. Again, the apostle says, " Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound." Not, of course, that sin might abound. God could never sanction anything that would cause sin to abound. But what is the difference? some may inquire. Sin is the lawlessness of the flesh, a much deeper and wider thing than transgression. Sin was in man from the fall, but transgression is the violation of a known and positive law. Who filled the world with corruption and violence? And who afterward filled it with idolatry? Sinners, most assuredly. But this was before the law entered, and they are not called transgressors. " For where no law is there is no transgression."-The apostle does not say, observe, " Where no law is there is no sin." This he could not say, for sin was as much in man before the law was given as after. At the same time let us not forget that all transgression is sin, though sin in its root and principle is never called transgression; it is not necessarily the violation of a given law.
Through the subtlety of Satan, some have endeavored to mystify the apostle's reasoning, and affirm that where there is no law there is no sin. This is a most ruinous doctrine, entirely opposed to all scripture, and intended by the enemy to encourage men in doing their own will. We know that the natural tendency of the human heart is to do its own will, in spite of God, if it can. Thus Cain went and built a city, and established himself and his family, outside the presence of God. This was sin-the lawlessness of the flesh-and long before anything was heard of law as given by Moses. " Whosoever committeth sin," according to the literal reading of 1 John 3:4, "committeth lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness." Thus it was that God saw it to be necessary and important to introduce a law that would put man thoroughly to the test, place in evidence his real condition as a sinner, and raise the question of righteousness on the part of God. It never was intended that the law should bring man into blessing; that was infallibly secured by promise through the seed of Abraham; for man, being already a sinner, and loving sin, the holy law of God could only prove him guilty, and condemn him to its penal sanction. " For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." Gal. 3:10.