AUGUST 13, 2025 – THE LAW

READ: Gal. 3:19–22: What purpose then does the law serve?…

But if the promise is given by grace to those who believe, what role does the law still have? The law was and is not a path to eternal life—not even alongside the way of free grace. The law cannot cause a person to be born again or grant salvation.

Yet God’s law was given alongside the promise. Why? Because God’s law helps us to recognize our sins so that we may go to our Saviour with them to receive forgiveness and to expect everything from Him (Rom. 4:15; 7:7ff).

In this way, the law reinforces the unique importance of Christ’s atoning sacrifice, His imputed righteousness, and the gift and working of His sanctifying Spirit. By confronting us with our inability to keep the law, the law continually shows how our only future lies in God’s promises as pure gifts of grace.

The history of Israel in the Old Testament teaches how deeply God’s people failed to keep the law. Through this inability, God taught His people to increasingly long for the coming of the Christ. The law has the same role in our lives.

As Lord’s Day 44 of the Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 115, says: “God wants us to recognize our sinful nature more and more during our whole life and, because of that, to seek more earnestly the forgiveness of sins and righteousness in Christ.”

Verse 19 also says that the law was ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator (Moses). What exactly this means is not fully clear. But it does indicate a difference between how the covenant promise was delivered to Abraham and how God’s law was delivered to Israel. The former was directly from God to Abraham, while the latter was mediated through angels and Moses. This shows that the law is not greater than the promise, nor is there any contradiction between them (v. 21).

The promise remains, while the law convicts people of guilt and causes them to look forward to the fulfillment of the promise. Indeed, everything from man proves sinful. Only Christ can set us free from that.

Why are you still guilty yourself?

Sing: Ps. 32:1