Why Did God Give the Law?

“Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.”  Galatians 3:19

As Paul continued his explanation of God’s law that was issued to Moses at Mt. Sinai nearly 1,500 years before Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he knew what the believers were thinking, so he asked the question for them:  What good is the law?  Why did God send the law if it had no power to redeem mankind?  Paul had been so insistent of stepping away from the law that some would think the law was completely useless.  Thus, Paul needed to clarify the reason for God giving the law in the first place.  The reason was simple: the law spelled out sin.  How could people know what God viewed as sin if it wasn’t made clear to them?  He wrote in Romans 7:7 that it was the law that showed him his sinful nature.  He would not have known lust if the tenth commandment regarding covetousness had not been issued by God.  He even went so far to say that “without the law, sin was dead” (7:8).  However, the law was only in effect as far as temporarily making man to be at peace with God until the promise of Abraham’s Seed, Jesus Christ, came to be the once and for all final sacrifice for sin.

There was another major difference in how the promise and the law came about.  The law was given to a mediator, Moses, who was the man God chose to go between Him and the people of Israel.  God gave Moses the law through His angels (Deuteronomy 33:2; Acts 7:38,53).  However, a mediator was not required when God spoke to Abraham personally.  Moses was a mediator between God and the people of Israel, and not between God and the spiritual Seed of Abraham, thus the law could not affect God’s promise to Abraham.  In other words, Moses was not involved in God’s promise to Abraham.  A promise made to someone through a mediator does not have the force behind it to make certain that it will be fulfilled.  How would the recipient of the promise be assured that the promise was genuine?  The mediator would have no obligation to see that the promise was carried out.  He was basically just a messenger.  However, when a promise is made directly one on one, then it is a binding contract.  When God made His covenant with Abraham, there were no strings attached other than for Abraham to believe God.  However, when God gave the law, He commanded that the people obey it in order to continue to be blessed with God’s protection and provision (Exodus 34:10-17; Leviticus 26) which meant observing all the laws, purifications, ceremonies, and sacrifices.

Paul then asked another question which his readers were likely thinking:  does the law work against God’s promises?  Paul answered that God forbid anyone to think that.  He continued by saying that if the law could have provided eternal life, then the law could have made its followers righteous before God.  There is nothing inconsistent between the promise and the law.  People could not be left with no direction at all.  From the time of God’s promise to Abraham until the fulfillment of that promise in Jesus Christ, a little over 2,000 years passed.  What would have happened had there been no law, no standard by which people could live?  Would not everyone live by his or her own rules?  Would not these rules bring conflict between families?  Would not chaos reign over the earth’s inhabitants?  We know that it would.  We have seen evidence of this in our own nation.  We have laws and are governed by the rule of law, but when the law is not enforced, the criminals run free, and the law-abiding citizens live in fear.  Imagine having no traffic lights at intersections.  It would be too dangerous to drive one’s car.  Israel’s history has shown us that every time the Israelites abandoned God and His law and turned to idolatry, destruction and despair followed.  Solomon wrote in Proverbs 29:18:  “Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he”.

Had the law been able to make a person righteous and not just show him how God expected him to live, then it would have kept Christ from suffering and dying on the cross.  Don’t you think that God would have preferred to not send His Son to suffer the shame, indignity, and pain if the law would have sufficed to cleanse the sinner from his sin and bring him or her into a right relationship with the Creator?  What sort of law would God have to issue that would have that amount of power over one’s free will?  There is no law that can do that because man’s pride and his free will makes him incapable of following the law perfectly.  The law showed man his sinful state but could do nothing to alleviate his guilt before a holy God, who had commanded the sacrifices of bulls and goats as a temporary means to make peace with Him, but, as the writer of Hebrews wrote, “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin” (10:4).  The promise of a Redeemer that God gave to Abraham would replace all of these sacrifices, rituals, and purification rites as a permanent remedy for the guilt of sin for all who would believe in Christ and acknowledge Him as Lord and Savior.  No more sacrifices, circumcision, or following the law to appease God, but rather repentance of sin and faith in Christ are all that is necessary to be justified and reconciled with God the Father.

Even with Paul’s in-depth explanation of why the law cannot save anyone and with the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ in all the years since then, people still believe that they can work their way to heaven by keeping rules and regulations.  What will it take to convince them otherwise?