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As if this were not enough, note the answers of the Scriptures to the
question, 'Wherefore then serveth the law?' (Gal. 3:19):
(1)
'It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should
come to Whom the promise was made' (Gal. 3:19).
(2)
'If there had been a law given which could have given life,
verily righteousness should have been by the law' (Gal. 3:21, cf.
2:21).
(3)
The return of a believer to the law is described as going back to
'weak and beggarly elements' (Gal. 4:9).
(4)
'As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse'
(Gal. 3:10).
(5)
'The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ' (Gal.
3:24).
(6)
'The law, which was 430 years after (the promise to Abraham),
cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect'
(Gal. 3:17).
(7)
The old Covenant is described as 'the letter that killeth', 'the
ministration of death' and 'the ministration of condemnation'.
It was destined to be 'abolished' (2 Cor. 3).
(8)
The law 'worketh wrath' (Rom. 4:15); and entered that sin 'might
abound' (Rom. 5:20).
(9)
The apostle, writing as a faithful believer, declared that before
his conversion as 'touching the righteousness of the law' he was
'blameless'. This condition he called 'mine own righteousness
which is of the law', yet so poor and futile was it (although no
reader of these lines has ever reached it), that, when compared
with the righteousness which is through the faith of Christ, he
was constrained to fling aside his own righteousness as so much
'refuse' (Phil. 3:6 -9).
(10)
To this law, its claims, its righteousness, its rewards, its
works, its promises and its penalties, Paul 'died', that in and
with Christ he might 'live' unto God (Gal. 2:19).
(11)
Though the law itself was 'holy', 'just', 'good' and 'spiritual',
man was carnal and the law was 'weak through the flesh' (Rom.
8:3; 7:12 -14).
Unconditionally and of set purpose, the apostle sets the law aside as
having no place whatever in the plan of the gospel of grace. When this fact
is established beyond the possibility of doubt, he returns to the primeval
law of love:
'For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt
love thy neighbour as thyself' (Gal. 5:14).
'Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling
of the law' (Rom. 13:10).
The law of Moses given at Sinai, therefore, was a covenant destined to
fail because of the inability of Israel to fulfil its terms, and so it
becomes a demonstration for all time that 'by the deeds of the law shall no
flesh be justified in the sight of God'. The apostle's announcement at
Antioch sums up the matter:
'Through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: and by
Him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could
not be justified by the law of Moses' (Acts 13:38,39).