Derek Thomas

The law could threaten me no longer.

I couldn't obey it, so I didn't try.

Nothing in my hands I bring.

I didn't bring to God any of my obedience, any of my attempted ways of obeying the demands of the law.

What is the function of the law?

Well, one of its functions is a pedagogic function.

It's to teach you, to show you, to reveal to you that you are a sinner.

that you have fallen short of God's glory, that you've broken His commandments.

That's what the law did.

So that the law, Paul says in Romans 7, makes me out to be exceeding sinful.

It exacerbates the sense of sin that I have about myself.

Well, this is all very counter-cultural, of course, because those who are theists in our culture—let's ignore those who are non-theists, they have other problems—but those who are theists think that, you know, God is nice.

That's the prevailing view.

Surveys will reveal again and again that people's view of God is that He's nice and that He wants us to be nice and everything will be nice.

and everything will be peaceful.

And so just don't get too worked up about it.

And here Paul is saying, no, our very salvation is at stake, and in order to be saved, the law has to be obeyed.

You can't obey it.

I can't obey it.

But Jesus obeyed it.