What the Law Could Not Do

The book of Romans is packed with doctrinal truth about salvation and the Christian life. I just finished reading it in my yearly read-through of the Bible, and for several weeks, I kept running into the same verse at church, in my own study, and then in my normal Bible reading for the day. It was this one:

“For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:

That the righteousness of the law might not be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” (Romans 8:3-4)

What struck me about the verse each time I encountered it was the phrase, “what the law could not do”

We usually don’t think in terms of God’s law having any limitations, it being the perfect standard of right and wrong. And it isn’t that the law is somehow wrong, only limited.

In the chapter before, we are clearly told that, “the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” (7:12)  But God gave us the law for a specific purpose, and contrary to how we would have set it up, the law wasn’t intended to be our way of salvation. Romans 8 highlights this. Here is our verse with more of its context:

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:

That the righteousness of the law might not be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” (vv.1-4)

The law could not make us free from sin and death. Under the law we find only condemnation, for, “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23)

So, if the law cannot save us from our sin, what is it for? Galatians explains:

“But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.

But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.

Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” (3:22-24)

The law is to show us that we need Christ to save us, to show us that our own “good” can never be good enough to clear us from the condemnation we have already justly earned. The law brings us to the end of our desire to do it ourselves, then points to Christ’s free gift already purchased for us with His own blood. I love how Romans 3 puts this:

“Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

To declare, I say, at this time His righteousness: that He might be just and the Justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”(24-26)

And that, dear Reader, is what the law cannot do. It cannot provide us propitiation for our sins, it cannot make us righteous in the eyes of our just and holy God: but it can point us to Jesus, and show us the One who fulfilled the law in our behalf, paying for our sins Himself.

And once we have run to Christ and put our faith in His sacrifice for our sin, what is the role of the law then? Do we keep trying to live by the law we failed to keep before salvation?

No, but that also does not mean we utterly disregard it. The point of life in Christ is to live in constant unity with the Holy Spirit, to do good, not so it will earn us something, but because it is simply the outpouring of our life in Christ as we yield to the Holy Spirit. Galatians 5: 22-25 illustrates this:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”

This isn’t a “to-do” list of things we have to live up to, but rather a list of things that will naturally flow out of us if we are walking in the Spirit, choosing to say yes to God and no to sin.

Dear Reader, where are you with the law today? Are you trying in your own strength to do and say the right things in an attempt to earn God’s favor? Or are you looking at the things God wants to naturally flow out of your life in Him as a burden, something you need to just “try harder” to accomplish?

The secret to the Christian life is to stay close to God, in constant unity and submission to the Holy Spirit. When walking in the Spirit starts to feel like a heavy burden, run to Him with it—He never intended you to bear its weight on yourself. He wants to give you the power and strength to do what He is calling you to do.

“As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him: Rooted and built up in Him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.”

Colossians 2:6-7