Well, does the law empower our sin nature? Are we more sinful after the law arrives? It seems like that's the case from what we read in the New Testament. The question is from a listener named Sam to Pastor John, who joins us over Skype today. Pastor John, the more I read Paul, the more I think I see that the arrival of the Mosaic law did not weaken sin, but actually empowered and inflamed sin within us.

Is that right? Can you explain this? How does the law make sin more alive and potent inside of us? I'm thinking of when Paul talks about how our sinful passions are aroused by the law, Romans 7, 5. He says the law came to increase sinning in Romans 5, 20.

Of course, the number of our sins increases as sins are named. But Paul seems to be talking about a new influence when he writes, "The power of sin is the law." That's 1 Corinthians 15, 56. Then he says, "Apart from the law, sin lies dead." That's Romans 7, 8.

Or where there is no law, there is no transgression. Romans 4, 15. Maybe most provocatively of all, Paul speaks autobiographically in Romans 7, 9 when he makes this claim, "I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died." If this is true, it's an incredible argument against legalism and any law-centered attempts to defeat the sin within us.

We'd need a far greater power. How do you explain Paul's understanding of law and its empowerment of our sin? Wow. That's huge. Yeah, it is. That's huge. Good. I was so many parts. The issue of the role of the Mosaic law in Paul is big and it is complex.

So let me begin with a book recommendation because I can barely begin to dig into all those pieces that he just strung together. Thomas Schreiner, good friend, teaches at Southern Seminary. His book, Forty Questions About Christians and Biblical Law. So go get that book and then my little attempt here can be just a taste of what feast you're going to find in that book.

So what I think will be helpful for me to do here in this limited scope where people write volume after volume of books on this issue is to make seven kind of summary statements about the Mosaic law with a couple or maybe one or two supporting Bible verses so people can actually hear where I'm getting the statements.

And then I'll try to end by showing practically how this makes a difference. And now keep in mind that when I say Mosaic law, law of Moses, I don't mean the whole Old Testament and I don't even mean the whole five books of Moses, the Pentateuch it's called, the five books.

The law has a distinct role to play within the Pentateuch. This is important to see. It's not synonymous with the first five books of the Bible. Paul saw justification by faith being taught in Genesis 15 and he points out that 430 years later the law came in, Galatians 3.17.

In both of these realities, justification by faith and the Mosaic law, they're both in the Pentateuch. So the Old Testament has its own way, the Pentateuch has its own way of teaching justification by faith apart from works of the Mosaic law. So don't equate law, as I'm about to talk about it, with the Old Testament.

And don't equate law, as I'm about to talk about it, with the Pentateuch. I'm talking about the Mosaic stipulations, especially in the book of Exodus, that come in 430 years after the covenant made with Abraham with its distinct purpose to play in the redemptive history. So here are my seven statements.

Number one, through the law comes the knowledge of sin, not the deliverance from sin. Romans 3.20, for by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight since through the law comes the knowledge of sin. Or Romans 7.7, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin.

Statement number two, the law, therefore, secures and increases the accountability of all the world. Romans 3.19. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped, every mouth may be stopped, not just Jewish mouths, and the whole world made accountable to God.

Statement number three, without the law, sin lies, quote, dead. That is, unrecognized and unstirred by the aggravations of commandments. Romans 7.9, apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive, stirred up by those commandments, and I died.

Statement number four, the law turns sin as a power into sin as a transgression, actual breaking of a specific commandment. Romans 4.15, the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, there's no transgression. Or Romans 5.20. Now the law came in to increase the trespass. So the specific commandments of the law turn sin into commandment breaking.

Number five, the law doesn't just turn sin into trespasses of specific commandments, it actually aggravates sin itself and makes it more active. See that in the rest of Romans 5.20. Now sin came in to increase the trespass. That's the part we had just seen in statement number four. And then it adds, but where sin increased, not just where transgressions increased, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.

So the effect of the law is not just to turn the power of sin into specific law breaking, but actually aggravates sin into greater virulence. Number six, so we see that sin is a power, a kind of slave master or ruler that turns commandments into aggravated incitements to transgress.

Chapter seven, verse eight of Romans, sin seizing an opportunity through the commandment produced in me all kinds of covetousness. It's a kind of slave master that takes a hold, reaches out and grabs a commandment instead of humbly submissively obeying it. Sin uses that very commandment to multiply sinning. And then finally statement number seven, the law pointed toward Christ.

But until Christ came, it functioned mainly to show the hopelessness of salvation by law. So the law functioned, you could say it negatively, as a prison, or you could say it positively as a guardian. Paul uses both in Galatians, until Christ came. Here's the key text, Galatians 3.23. Now before faith came, that is before faith in Christ preached in the gospel came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.

And then he says it a little differently. So then the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith. Now I think that to benefit from these statements, we need to get at the essence of what sin is. We've been using, I've been saying that word over and over again, but I haven't ever defined it.

What are we talking about? What is this awful power that takes this beautiful thing called holy, good, just law, as Paul says, and makes it and prostitutes it and turns it to such evil uses. It's clear from these statements that sin is the underlying force that takes something essentially holy and just and good, namely the law, and makes it an instrument of evil.

So we really won't make much progress, it seems to me, in holiness or freedom or right use of the law if we don't get at what sin is and how it works. And I think the best place to get at what sin really is, at its essence and power, is first Romans 3.23 and then Romans 1.23.

Romans 3.23 is real familiar. It says, "All have sinned and fall short." And that literally means, "Eustereo," the Greek word means "lack." They lack the glory of God. Sinning is, whatever it is, it involves a lacking of the glory of God. Now what does that mean? And I think Romans 1.23 gets at the essence of what it means.

Describing all of humanity, Paul says, "They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images." Now that, I think, is what Paul means when he says, "We've all sinned, and the essence of it, the heart of it, is we lack the glory of God." That is, we've traded it away.

We've looked at it. We've despised it. We've demeaned it. We've preferred other things to it. We've taken the infinite value and beauty and greatness of the glory of God, and we've said, "I prefer cars," or, "I prefer food," or, "I prefer family," or, "I prefer fame," or, "I prefer sex," or, "I prefer alcohol," or, "I prefer just a good name in the community," whatever.

We've just put the glory of God aside. It's not our primary pleasure. It's not our treasure, and we have thus despised, blackballed, committed treason against the glory of God. So I define the essence of sin—it's the heart of every human being born into this world—as the powerful condition of the human heart which prefers other things over God, prefers anything, any other things, over the value and beauty and greatness, the glory of God.

And that preference for other things, especially our own exaltation and our own authority, is the power that takes hold of the commandment, say, the commandment not to covet. And I think there's a good reason why Paul chose that commandment to illustrate the point. It takes hold of the commandment not to covet and necessarily produces all kinds of covetousness through that very commandment, because the command not to covet is the very command not to desire anything in a way that shows we are not satisfied in the supreme value and beauty of God.

So the law itself can be an aroma that stinks and kills, and it can be an aroma that is sweet and precious. The psalmists in their best moments said, "I love your law. It's a delight to me." The difference is whether we have trusted Christ, turned to Christ, who's called the goal of the law in Romans 10, 4, and have received forgiveness for our sins, have been born again, so that now we don't use the law in our sin, preferring other things to God.

We don't use the law as a way of exalting ourselves through moral performance in the hope that we might get ourselves right with God by our own bootstraps and thus present ourselves in some acceptable way that preserves our own ego and our own self-exaltation. No, no, no. In Christ, we are already, through the blood of Christ, already right with God.

Our old, proud, arrogant, self-sufficient selves are crucified. We no longer exchange the glory of God for the glory of self-exaltation. Instead, now, we treasure the glory of God, and his law then becomes a pleasing reflection of his character and his will, which we delight in. And maybe the way to draw it all to a close would be to use Romans 7, 6.

Now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive so that we serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the written code. Man, what a precious little survey of the law. We put you to work with this one.

And thanks for listening, and thank you for supporting DesiringGod.org and this podcast, Pastor John. Even with all the disruptions in this crazy year, ministry has been full throttle for us in 2020. In fact, it feels like the Lord has given us even more work to do this year in addressing the pandemic, particularly with the international launch of Pastor John's new book, Coronavirus in Christ.

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Join us today by going online to DesiringGod.org/donate. That's DesiringGod.org/donate. Thank you for supporting us. I'm Tony Reinke. We'll see you back here on Wednesday. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. you