What's the Point of the Old Testament Law?

Once when I was ministering in Houston, Texas, at a Holiday Inn, a man walked past the doors of the room we were in and just stood outside watching. Finally, he came inside but just stood at the back of the room and listened for a while. Then he started speaking while I was preaching. What he said was incoherent, so I asked him a couple of questions.After a while it was obvious that he was just there to interrupt the meeting, and I realized that there was a demonic presence in him.

I looked right at him and said, “I command you to sit down and shut up in the name of Jesus,” and he just plopped right down.

So, I went ahead and finished preaching, and after the service ended, I started talking to this man. I began telling him about the love of God, and I said, “God loves you. God wants to set you free from whatever it is that’s binding you.” And I just began to minister grace to him.Instead of receiving that, he responded by saying, “I don’t need God. I am God.” I think he must have been drunk or high on something, and he kept proclaiming, “I am God.” Obviously, he was deceived, and he needed to be brought out of his deception. At that point, I reverted to the Law. I had been telling him about the love of God and the grace of God, but once he started saying he was God, I used the Word to knock some sense into the guy.I said, “You think you’re God? You sorry thing! You’re a stench in God’s nostrils.”

I began to show him things he was doing wrong, and within moments, this man’s conscience came back to him.

He began crying and said, “Oh God, have mercy on me!” He realized his need for God.Ray Comfort illustrates the use of the Law very well. I’ve seen his videos where he goes up to college students and asks them if they are going to heaven. Most of them say they are. Then Ray asks them why they think that. They usually give some answer along the lines of them being a good person.Next, Ray asks them, “Have you ever lied?” They admit they have, and then Ray shows them Revelation 21:8, which says: But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.Then Ray asks them, “Have you ever lusted after someone?” Of course, they say they have, and he shows them the scripture that says lusting after someone is the same as committing adultery (Matt. 5:27-28). Then Ray says something like, “Have you ever hated someone? The Bible compares that to murder (Matt. 5:21-22).”After Ray uses the Law, the people recognize they have sinned. Their consciences are brought back to center, rightly condemning them and showing them their need for a Savior.I use this story to further illustrate the purpose of the Law.

The Law shows people their ungodliness and brings them to the end of themselves so they will have to call out to God.

“But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully; Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient” (1 Timothy 1:8-9a).The Law isn’t made for Christians; Christians aren’t supposed to be relating to God based on do’s and don’ts and how well they measure up.There’s a different way for New Testament believers to relate to God. Under the New Covenant, we have something better than the Law and the conscience: “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference (Romans 3:21-22).For those who have not yet committed themselves to God, though, the Law was given to make sin come alive on the inside of them, and there is a godly purpose for that.

We Want What We Can’t Have

“What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead” (Romans 7:7-8).

Our consciences would not function properly if God hadn’t given us His standard of morality. The Law taught us right from wrong.

The word concupiscence in verse 8 means “‘a desire, craving, longing, mostly of evil desires,’ frequently translated ‘lust’” (Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words). Did you know that the Law actually draws you to sin through condemnation? God didn’t create us to live by do’s and don’ts. He created Adam and Eve to live in freedom.There’s something inside of us that longs to be free and hates restrictions and limitations. When the Law says “thou shalt not,” it makes us lust for the very thing that it tells us we can’t have. Even if you didn’t like chocolate, I could say, “I’ll give you a million dollars if you can go one year without eating chocolate or even wanting chocolate.” Before long, you would be thinking about it and lusting for it, and me telling you that you can’t have it would make you want it more.Did you know the Law makes you more vulnerable to sin? Romans 7:9 goes on to say, “For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.” The Law, contrary to what people think, didn’t diminish sin; it actually made sin come alive.

Born into Sin

When you were born, you had a sin nature. It’s not your sins that made you a sinner. You were born with a sin nature.

Everyone is born separated from God.

When David said “in sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps. 51:5), he wasn’t talking about an illegitimate conception. He was just saying that he was born a sinner.Paul confirmed this in Ephesians 2:3 when he said that we “were by nature the children of wrath.” We were all born sinners. A toddler has a sin nature. If you don’t believe me, just watch one. They have no problem thinking only about themselves, taking something from someone else, throwing a fit, hurting others, or criticizing others. Children don’t have to be taught to be bad; it’s in their nature. They were born with a sin nature, but according to Romans 5:13, “sin is not imputed when there is no law.”The word impute basically means to charge to your account or hold against you. When children are born, they have a sin nature, which you can see the effects of. But if children die before the Law makes their consciences come alive, their sin would not be imputed to them. They would go to heaven, even though they had sinned, because they hadn’t knowingly activated that sin on the inside of them. Some people are born with mental disabilities, and they could be thirty or forty years old and still not have sin come alive on the inside of them. Their sin nature wouldn’t be imputed to them because they don’t have the mental faculties to understand what’s going on.In 2 Samuel 12:23, when David’s son died, David said, “I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.” David wasn’t going to hell; he was going into the presence of God, where his child was. David said that when his child died, he went into the presence of the Lord. There are certain sects, like the Catholic Church and some others, that baptize infants. They do this to deal with this original sin, or the sin nature. The only problem is that the baptism is just a formality; it doesn’t do anything. Infant baptism doesn’t mean a blooming thing, and it can’t be found anywhere in Scripture.In Acts 8:35-37, the Ethiopian eunuch heard Philip preaching. The eunuch basically said to Philip, “Here’s some water. What would keep me from being baptized?” Philip responded, “If you believe with all of your heart, you may.”You have to believe with all of your heart, which means you have to be old enough to rationalize and understand what’s going on for baptism to do any good. It’s true that children are born with a sin nature, but that sin nature isn’t held against them until they knowingly violate their consciences. Once the Law comes alive, their consciences revive. Then when they violate their consciences, that is when they’re held accountable for their sin nature.The first time that I remember the Law coming alive in my life (and it’s possible that it happened before this), I was eight years old. I realized I hadn’t just violated Mom and Dad’s instructions by disobeying them, but I had also sinned against God. When I saw that, fear hit me. Sin came alive in me, and the next day I got born again.

Never Good Enough

If you understand that we all have a sin nature and a conscience but that God gave us the Law so our consciences would come alive, it will totally change the way you relate to God. “But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully; Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine” (1 Timothy 1:8-10).The Law was not made for a righteous person, or someone who is born again. The Law is not for New Testament believers. Religion preaches the Law as being our savior; if you do this and this and this, then God will bless you. That’s not the purpose of the Law. The Law was given to show you that you’re incapable of ever fulfilling it.A lot of people honestly believe that if their good deeds outweigh the bad, then God will accept them. They believe that although they’re not perfect, if they are relatively good then God will accept them. But that’s not what God says: "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all" (James 2:10).

 God doesn’t grade on a curve.

He doesn’t accept you if you’re better than somebody else or if you’re making a passing grade. You either have to be perfect, or you need a Savior. God raises the bar so high that no one can ever reach His standard. Nobody can live perfectly according to the Law, but that’s the point of why it was given: to prove that we’re incapable of saving ourselves so that we’d have to throw ourselves on the mercy of God.A friend of mine told a story about a guy who went to heaven, and when he got there Peter met him at the gate. Peter said, “You’ve got to take this test, and you’ve got to get 100 points on the test before we’ll let you in.” The guy said, “No problem. I’ve been a Christian my whole life. I’ve gone to church. I’m a good person. I can get 100 points, no problem.”The first question was, “Did you go to church?”The guy said, “I never missed church.” He showed Peter all of his attendance pins and said, “I had perfect attendance.”Peter said, “Okay, that’s worth half of a point.”Next question was, “Were you faithful to your wife?”The man responds, “Yeah, I never cheated on my wife.”Peter said, “Well, that’s worth one point.”Then Peter asks, “Did you tithe?”The guy said, “Yes, I tithed.”Again, Peter said, “Okay, that’s worth half of a point.”After about five or six questions, the man only had three points. Finally, he said, “My God, if this is what you demand, have mercy on me.”Peter replied, “Come on in!”Peter was trying to get him to come to the end of himself. That’s exactly why the Law was given. We have to realize that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).

We need to quit trusting in our self-righteousness and look to God for salvation.

If the Law is used for this purpose, it’s good.There’s still a right use of the Law today for our lawless society, which says that anything and everything goes. People today don’t feel like they need to be forgiven because they don’t see what’s wrong with having sex with somebody of the same sex, “shacking up” with people, lying or stealing, and so forth. God had to do something to bring our consciences back to a state of understanding right and wrong, so He gave us the Law.

If people had this knowledge of right and wrong, you wouldn’t see them flaunting their sins.

You wouldn’t see people committing murder then killing themselves and thinking they just got by with something. They would recognize that they didn’t get by with anything but rather just ushered themselves into a Christ-less eternity where they’ll suffer forever.People need to realize that they are sinners so they can come to the end of themselves. But once they do and they begin following the Lord, they are no longer under that schoolmaster. From that point forward, they become Christians who must deal with their consciences that condemn them.Yet, the truth is, God doesn’t want us—His children—ruled by condemnation either. He wants us to purge ourselves from an evil conscience and recognize that there is now a better way to relate to Him. The Law could never set us free from feeling unworthy and condemned. But, as born-again believers, the blood of Jesus can!