Law vs. Grace — Stephen Kaung

Studying the Letter to the Galatians

As you notice on the schedule, this is a time of Bible study. In other words, we are going to study something in the Bible. Now a study should be different from a time of ministry. In other words, in a time of ministry, probably the one who ministers to us and we who are sitting there are being ministered.

But in a time of study, well, the very word study means that you need to do something. Now because of the shortness of time, we are not able to tell you beforehand what our study will be. So that you may prepare for the study.

But starting from this morning, now you know what you are going to have. So I hope that it is not just we come together for a time of explanation, but I do hope that brothers and sisters, in your spare time, if you have any, that you will do some study.

Now, what we choose for this time of study is a book in the New Testament. It is a book which Martin Luther calls, this is my epistle. I am betrothed. It is my wife. And I hope you know what that epistle is.

It is the epistle to the Galatians. This time we would like to spend some time together. Just make a study of that letter to the Galatians. Now of course the letter to the Galatians is such an important in the Bible.

As a matter of fact, every book in the Bible is important. But the letter to the Galatians is very essential to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I think it has more influence on Reformation than even the letter to the Romans.

We often think that the letter to the Romans is the backbone of Reformation. But actually it is the letter to the Galatians. Before we enter into some study, I would like to give you a little bit of the background of this letter to the Galatians.

In the first place, we call this is the letter to the Galatians. It is a letter written to the Galatian believers. It is a letter written to the churches in Galatia. Now what is Galatia? People call Galatians are the churches of Galatia.

At the map you will find that geographically Galatia is an area in Asia Minor. On the north of Galatia you have Cappadocia and Pontus. On the west of Galatia you have Phrygia. On the east, on the west of Galatia you have Asia.

Asia a province and Mycenae. And on the north you have Dithynia. So in other words geographically Galatia is situated between, among these places. Celtic people from Europe. They migrated from Europe into Asia.

And they settled down in that area. These people were Gauls. And they settled down in that area called Galatia. But later on we know that during the Roman Empire, the Roman Empire made Galatia a province, a Roman province.

And the Roman province of Galatia, politically, is bigger than Galatia as a geographical name. Because the Roman province of Galatia includes not only Galatia as a geographic area, but also some of the places in Phrygia.

And it calls Galatia as a Roman province. So when Paul wrote the letter to the Galatians, now whom did he write to? Did he write to Galatia as a geographic area in which the Gauls were situated? Or did he write to Galatia as a Roman province?

That means that in the upper part of Galatia the Gauls lived. And in the lower part inhabited the Greeks and the Jews. These are different views to whom Paul wrote this letter to the Galatians. Now I will not go into details because this is not our purpose.

But to me I feel most probably, Paul wrote this letter to Galatia as a Roman province. Because we find in his other letters, or in his writings you find Paul often mentioned, for instance, the churches of Judea, the churches of Macedonia, the churches of Asia.

And we know these are all Roman provinces. So we believe that the churches of Galatia refer to the Roman province of Galatia. Now if this is the case, then it is easily understood. Because in the book of Acts, Paul was in so-called upper Galatia, that is Galatia as a geographical area, only twice.

In Acts chapter 16 verse 6, in chapter 18 verse 23, you find Paul did go through the country of Phrygia and Galatia. And in these two instances they were geographical areas. But aside from these two instances, we do not have any mention of Galatia as a geographical area.

And the Bible does not give us any instance of any church in the upper area of Galatia. On the contrary, we find in the lower area of Galatia, which is a part of Phrygia actually, you find that Paul was there.

In the very beginning when he went out with Barnabas. You remember in the book of Acts in chapter 13, God, the Holy Spirit, set apart Paul and Barnabas for this ministry, apostolic ministry. And they started from Antioch of Syria.

And there they went to Cyprus, that island. They went through the whole length of Cyprus and from there they took a boat and they landed in Pisidia, Antioch of Pisidia. And from there they went into Lystria, Derbe, and these places.

Now these places were in Phrygia. And they were the lower part of the Roman province of Galatia. And you remember how Paul and Barnabas, they were in these different places, in Derbe, in Lystria, and so forth.

And they went through these places, they suffered a lot for the Lord, and afterwards they came back and they established elders in these various churches. So the churches in lower Galatia were well known to us.

As a matter of fact, aside from Antioch of Syria, where Paul labored with Barnabas for a period, these churches in Lystria and Derbe, they were the churches of Paul's first love. And no wonder, if these were churches of Paul's first love.

And for Paul to write a letter to these people, that will be understandable. So, probably, most likely, the letter to the Galatians was written to Galatia as a Roman province. And because it is a province, therefore you have the churches of Galatia, not the church of Galatia.

Because in the Bible, the local church usually is related to a city, not to a province. And the churches of Galatia means that in the province of Galatia there were many different local assemblies. Probably, between the years A .D. 57 and A .D. 58, from what we could gather now, from the writings of Paul, you can divide Paul's writing into several different periods.

And this letter to the Galatians seemed to fall into a period where he wrote 1st and 2nd Corinthians, and Galatians and Romans. You will find a similarity in these four letters. And most likely, Galatia, the letter to the Galatians was written after 2nd Corinthians and before the letter to the Romans.

As a matter of fact, there is a similarity between Galatians and Romans. Seems to be an enlargement, a development of Galatians. So we believe that Galatians was written before the letter to the Romans.

And most likely he wrote this letter on his journey between, say, Macedonia and Achaia. He wrote this letter while he was travelling in that area. Now, brothers and sisters, the one thing we must know is why did Paul write this letter?

This is one of the most personal letters of Paul. You will find in this letter lots of feelings. He loved these churches in Galatia as his first love. And because he loved them so much, you will find that he reacted very strongly when he discovered there was something in their midst that wasn't good.

Somehow, the churches in Galatia, Some people, probably some so-called Jewish believers, they came in after Paul. And they tried to teach these Galatian believers that if they wanted to be perfect, they had to be circumcised and they had to keep the law of Moses.

And because of that, they had departed from the pure gospel of Jesus Christ. They have gone off to another gospel which is not a gospel at all. And for that reason, he wrote this letter to the churches in Galatia to help them, to bring them back to the purity of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

But dear brothers and sisters, this is not a negative letter. Even though it deals with something negative, and yet it is very positive in nature. Why? Because it discloses to us what the gospel of Jesus Christ really is.

In other words, it gives us the basics of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Sometimes we think that we are so advanced that we do not need the basics anymore. There are two different problems. Sometimes our problem is we do not have the basics.

Try to go on. In other words, we do not have a firm foundation and yet we try to build. Now if we do not have a good foundation and try to build, the whole thing will collapse. But at other times, you will find that we have the foundation, but we go round and round the foundation and never progress and try to build up.

The problem with the Hebrews, in the letter to the Hebrews, you will find that their problem is they lay the foundation, they lay it again, and they lay it again, they lay it again, they never go on to perfection, to maturity.

And the writer to the Hebrews said, well after you have laid the foundation, then don't lay it again because you cannot do it. The foundation is already there. Now let's go on to perfection, which means go on to maturity.

Let us press on into Christ, into the fullness that is in Christ. Now that is the problem with the Hebrews. Now with the Galatian believers, their problem is, they want to go on very much. They are very anxious to go on to perfection, so they just forget about the foundation.

Their foundation is not firm, and yet they want to go on into maturity, maturity, and this is something they just cannot do. Anxiousness for perfection. They will accept anything, any easy method, any easy way, any easy technique, that can help them to perfection without much time, and much problem, and much problem.

In other words, instantness. Now instantness is an American disease. You want everything to be instant. You know, when I first came to this country, I find that you have lots of instant things, instant coffee, and so forth, and then to my surprise, in recent years, you know, with the Chinese, we even had instant noodles.

To be instant, want to be quick, and with the Galatian believers, they want to be instant, spiritual. They think that if they can get hold of the formula, if they can do something, if they can get hold of a kind of technique, and perfect that technique, then they will be instantly spiritual.

They will arrive at spiritual perfection without time. But dear brothers and sisters, you may have instant this and instant that in other things, but when you come to spiritual things, there is no such thing as instantness.

You have to have a firm foundation, and you have to build patiently, with patience and with faith, we inherit the kingdom of God. So, in the letter to the Galatians, actually you find, Paul is trying to lay a firm foundation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

He deals with the basics of the gospel. Now, this is something of the background of the letter to the Galatians, but this is not our purpose for this study, so I just let it go. Now, we want to study this letter to the Galatians, but our study this time is not a verse by verse study, nor is it a systematic study of the whole letter, because if we want to do verse by verse or a systematic study, well, we'll keep you over the Labor Day.

We have to keep you longer. We do not have the time for this conference, so our study will be concentrated on three points. These are the basics of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And if we can lay hold of these basics, their opponents, the opposites of these basics, if we can have a clear understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ that we believe, then we have a ground for future building.

So, we will concentrate ourselves from these three sessions on these three different points. Number one, number two, works. Number three are the three points that we will study this time. Now, an assignment.

Finding Grace in Galatians

This morning, for tomorrow. In the letter to the Galatians, these two words, to find out for tomorrow. No assignment for this morning, because it's too late. Now, let's open the letter to the Galatians.

First of all, what we will do is, now this time we will like to do it in such a way that probably in the future, when you are studying a book or you're studying a certain topic or you're studying a certain subject, then you know how you will approach that subject.

So, we do it in such a way, you know, just try to help you for the future. So, first of all, we will like to go through the letter to the Galatians and pick out every verse where the word grace is mentioned.

Now, let's do it this morning. Galatians, chapter one, verse three. From God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Where does grace come from?

Grace comes from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. The second place is in verse six of chapter one. I wonder that ye thus quickly change from him that called you in Christ's grace to a different gospel.

The grace of Christ. We are in the grace of Christ or we are called by his grace. Now, verse fifteen. But when God who set me apart even from my mother's womb and called me by his grace, we are called by the grace of God.

We are called into the grace of Christ. He initiates the whole thing. We do not initiate any grace. It is God who calls us by his grace. Chapter two, verse nine. Recognizing the grace given to me, James and Cephas and John, who were conspicuous as being pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship that we should go to the nations and they to the circumcision.

Paul went to Jerusalem and there you'll find James and Cephas and John, the pillars of the church in Jerusalem, they recognized the grace given to Paul. Now, grace is something that can be recognized.

If there is grace in you, people should be able to recognize it. They should be able to recognize grace either in the form of your manner of life. Your life should express the grace of Christ. Or it may be expressed in the form of service.

So here you'll find these men in Jerusalem recognize in Paul the grace of God upon him. Verse 21, second chapter. I do not set aside the grace of God for if righteousness is by law then Christ has died for nothing.

We say that grace is given to us by God and yet there is the possibility of our setting aside the grace of God. You can put it aside if you think that you will go back to law. You can keep the grace of God, put the grace of God aside and that is a possibility.

So keep this in mind. Chapter 3, verse 18. The inheritance be on the principle of law. It is no longer on the principle of promise but God gave it in grace to Abraham by promise. How is the promise of God concerning inheritance given to Abraham?

It is given on the principle of grace. We receive the promise of God. We receive inheritance of God. We receive the promise of the Holy Spirit. We receive the promise of eternal life on the basis of grace.

Chapter 5, verse 4. Ye are deprived of all profit from the Christ as separated from him as many as are disjustified by law ye have fallen from grace. There is the possibility of not only set aside the grace of God.

In other words, the grace of God is there with you but you set it aside. You do not use the grace of God properly. But there is also the possibility of falling from grace. You fall out of grace when you try to justify yourself by law.

And then, finally, chapter 6, verse 18. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brethren. Amen. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with your spirit. It means that if the grace of God is with your spirit, then your spirit is discerning.

Then the spirit of God is able to work through your spirit the work that he has in mind. So, altogether, you will find there are eight times the word grace appears in the letter to the Galatians. The letter to the Galatians begins with grace and it concludes with grace.

It is from grace to grace. It is all of grace. So, brothers and sisters, do bear this in mind that the letter to the Galatians tells us of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the gospel of grace. Now, what is grace?

The Meaning of Grace as Christ Himself

Now, first of all, try to find out that word in the letter to the Galatians and try to see the thought. Now, I did not arrange the thoughts for you because you haven't read these verses before. Now, after you have read these verses, then you try to arrange the thoughts in these verses.

Now, we didn't do that this morning. So, I just comment a little bit on this verse, a little bit on that verse. But, if you want to really study, after you put all these verses down when grace is mentioned, you try to familiar yourself with the thought in each verse and then the next thing to do is try to place the thoughts in order.

Now, after you have placed all the thoughts in order, then you see a better picture of grace. And, after you have done that, then the second thing you can do is if you have a word dictionary or you have, well, doing the first thing, you can find some help with a concordance.

If you are lazy, then you use a concordance. If you are diligent, then don't use a concordance, but go through the whole letter and find the word. Actually, the letter to the Galatians is so short, you can easily do that.

And, I'll suggest that you do. I hope you didn't bring your concordance with you. Now, the second point is, after you have finished with the concordance, then probably the next thing you can do is you can get some help from dictionary.

Either it is a bible dictionary or a bible encyclopedia or if it is a word dictionary. Now, you look up the word grace and try to find out what is the meaning of that word in Greek, in the original. Now, that sometimes is of great help.

Now, in the matter of grace you'll find if you look up the word Greek, word grace carries. Now, the transliteration in English will be C-H-A-R-I-S. C-H-A-R-I-S. Now, if you look up the word grace carries, you will find the original meaning of the word grace is very rich.

Very rich. You know, when we think of the word grace, now, what does it come to your mind? You think what it comes to your mind is something that is given to you freely. Now, that's grace. The word grace does carry that meaning.

But this is not the first meaning of the word grace. If you look up the word grace, you'll find the first meaning is, well, actually, it includes a threefold meaning. The first meaning, grace, is something that is intrinsically beautiful, attractive, that will cause within you a feeling of joy and satisfaction and delight.

Now, that is the first meaning. Here is a picture. That picture is freely given to you. Now, it is not given to you. Don't take it. A beauty, effectiveness, that when you look at it, it causes within you a feeling of joy, of lifting, of delight, of satisfaction.

Now, that's grace. That's grace. So, grace, first of all, is in a person. Grace, first of all, is in the person of our Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus is full. Jesus is grace itself. There is such effectiveness in our Lord Jesus that when you look at Him, it gives you such delight, such joy, such satisfaction.

In other words, this is the foundation of grace. There can be no grace freely given to you if grace is not there. If there is, I don't have that picture, how can I give it freely to you? I have to have that picture first.

So, here you'll find, in the first place, grace is intrinsic, is inherent, in Christ Jesus. He is grace. So gracious. He is so loving. He is so kind. He is so attractive. He is so good. He is, that is our Lord Jesus.

Now, that is the first meaning of grace. Then, the second meaning is graciousness in that person. That he has such a willing disposition, he wants to give freely and universally to everyone. Now, that is the second meaning of grace.

Of the graciousness of his heart, he gives generously, graciously, liberally, freely, universally to all. Now, that is the second meaning of grace. So, the emphasis of the second meaning is one, freely, second, universally.

If it is the grace of God in Christ Jesus, then it has to be freely given. You cannot buy it. It is not something to be earned. It is not even something to be borrowed. It is not something to be given to you first and then pay later on installment.

We are so clever today. Everything is on installment. If you want anything, buy by installment. But how many people fall into that trap? God never gives his grace by installment. Travel first and pay later.

Grace, it is given freely, no cost. It costs God everything. It costs God his only begotten Son. But it costs you nothing. And it is given universally. It is given not because you are better than anybody else.

It is given not because you belong to a certain group. It is given universally to everyone who desires it. Now, that is the second meaning of the word grace. Now, the third meaning. Of the graciousness of the person, he gives graciously to us, then when we receive it, the grace of God shall so touch our heart that we return with thanks.

The word thanks, in the New Testament, you will find in some places, is the word grace. In other words, after we have received the grace of God, so deeply, that we begin to thank God. That's why we say, when we, before we eat, let's say grace.

Now, do you ever think that, why do we say, let's say grace? Let's say thanks! So graciously, liberally, and freely to us. So, let's thank Him. Let's thank, let's say grace. That is what it should be.

If the grace of God does not touch your heart, and draws from you thankfulness, then you waste the grace of God. Not only in the sense of giving thanks, but because His grace is now within us, therefore it transforms us, and makes us gracious.

Dear brothers and sisters, if we say we receive the grace of God, and we are not gracious to other people, we do not know what grace is. Remember that wicked servant? Oh, he owed that master, how many?

Ten thousand pounds? He couldn't, he couldn't return? God have mercy on him, and forgive all his debts, but when he went out, he saw another fellow man, and he got hold of his throat, and returned me the money that you owe me, and it is only a little bit.

And finally, when the master heard it, he called him back and said, I forgive you all these, and you don't do it for your fellow brother. Dear brothers and sisters, how can we receive the grace of God, and yet, our life is not transformed, is not influenced, is not changed by the grace of God, that we too may be gracious, we too may have the beauty of Christ in us, that we too may be attractive, drawing people not to us, but to the Lord who loves us so much?

Of course. That is what grace ought to produce in our lives. And, you know, in the original Greek, all these three meanings are included in the word grace. Now, what a word! What is the grace of God? The grace of God is not a thing.

The grace of God is a person. Think of grace of God as things. Now, suppose today, you find that you are a person who is burdened with your sin, and you come to the Lord and say, Lord, what I need is forgiveness.

And you think of grace as forgiveness. Not true. Forgiveness is grace. Or, when you discover that your life is so poor, so empty, and you go to the Lord and say, Lord, I need a full life, a good life, an eternal life, and God gives you eternal life, and eternal life is grace.

Another thing. Or, suppose you do not know where your food will come from tonight, and you go to the Lord and pray, and say, Lord, give me this day my daily bread, and God supplies you with a meal for tonight, and you say, this is grace.

Now, this is grace. Or, if you are sick, and you ask the Lord to heal you, and He answers you, and healing is grace. In other words, so far as we are concerned, we often think of grace as this thing, or that thing, and many other things.

But, dear brothers and sisters, no. Grace is a person. Grace is our Lord Jesus. The grace of God is nothing less than the Lord Jesus Himself. When God gives grace to us, He gives His Son to us, and in His Son, all things.

All things. So, we need to remember that grace is in the person of our Lord Jesus. We have the Lord Jesus, we have the grace of God. Now, in the letter to the Galatians, you find there are three things concerning the Lord Jesus as grace to us.

Number one, it pleases God to reveal His Son in me. Grace is Christ revealed. Number two, I am crucified with Christ. No longer live I, but Christ who lives in me. And now I live in the flesh. I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.

Grace is Christ lives in me. Number three, I prevail for you until Christ is formed in you. So, grace is Christ formed in us. Now, brothers and sisters, as we experience the grace of God, you'll find we experience the grace of God starting with Christ revealed in us.

It goes on till Christ lives in us. And it ends up with Christ formed in us. Now, I will not go into details because that will be another message. But anyway, we find in the scripture, roughly, I go over, I have to go over very quickly.

Law as the Contrast and Background to Grace

This is what you'll find concerning grace. Now, let's go over to this matter of law. The opposite of grace is law. In the letter to the Galatians, you'll find Paul contrasts grace with law. So, if you want to know more fully what grace really is, you have to know what law is.

You know, just like when you paint a picture. If you want to bring out something in bold relief, you have to use kind of background. And if you paint some background, that will bring what you want to bring out more boldly.

So, in the letter to Galatians, you'll find the law serves as a kind of setting, a background to bring out the meaning of grace. Now, what is law? Again, do it. First, go through the letter to the Galatians and try to find out every place where the word law is mentioned.

Now, I won't go through with you because that would take our whole time. The word law in Galatians is used 31 times. Now, you try to count them and correct me if I'm wrong. I will not analyze the word law in the letter to the Galatians.

But I would rather like to go on and try to present law as we find in the whole New Testament and see its relationship, its contrast with grace. So, first of all, what is law? Now, if you go to a dictionary of the Greek word nomos, N-O-M-O-S, you will find the word law in the use of the word law in the New Testament on many folds.

It can be used in many different ways. But I think this morning we don't need to get into all these ways. But I will just mention two. The word law in the Scripture, first of all, tells us that God being holy and righteous, he has a just demand upon us who are created by him.

That is the first meaning of law in the Scripture. Law means something that is distributed, something that is assigned, something that is put upon you by one who has a right of demand upon your life. Now, God being holy and righteous, he demands us who belong to him to be holy and righteous.

And the demands come in the form of law. For instance, the Ten Commandments. Now, what are the Ten Commandments? The whole Mosaic law is summed up in the Ten Commandments. And the Ten Commandments are divided into two tablets.

The first table contains four laws that regulate man's relationship with God, what is right, what is holy, as to our relationship with God. God demands that we should have only one God, that we should not worship anything else, that we should not mention his name in vain, that we should keep the Sabbath.

And then you'll find the second table includes six laws that relate our relationship one with another. Honor your father and mother and the rest of the commandments. So, in other words, you'll find the law expresses God's demand of holiness and righteousness upon us.

Now, that is the first meaning of law. But law in the Scripture has another use. It is a principle, a rule. It is something that happens often, all the time. It just happens again and again. For instance, in the physical world, God puts in the physical world the law of gravitation.

No matter where you go, no matter at what century you live, if you drop something, it goes downward. That is the law of gravitation. It is a principle, a rule that governs the universe. And morally, you'll find in the moral world, God has his law too, has his principle too.

And when you enter into that area, then you'll find, for instance, in Romans chapter 8, you have the law of death, of sin and of death. If we are in Adam, if we live in the flesh, then the law of sin and of death operates.

But if we live in Christ, if we live by the Holy Spirit, then the law of the spirit of life operates. So here you'll find law is used in a very different way. It means a principle, a rule, something that always happens and cannot be changed.

The only way to change it is to get out of the field of that operation of that law. So basically you'll find the word law in the New Testament are used in these two different ways. Now we would like to do a little bit of analysis of the law in the New Testament.

In John chapter 1 verse 17,. For the law was given by Moses, grace and truth subsist through Jesus Christ. The law was given by Moses. Of course the law was given by God. But it was given by God through Moses.

But grace subsists, that means exists and continues in Christ Jesus. Now of course, before Moses, before the law was given by Moses at Mount Sinai, was there any law? Yes and no. Before the law was given by Moses, there was no law as such as the Ten Commandments.

There was no written law defining our relationship with God, our relationship with another. There was no law. But on the other hand, law as a principle always. That's the reason why in Romans chapter 5 verse 13 and 14,.

For until law, sin was in the world. But sin is not put to account when there is no law. But death reigned from Adam unto Moses, even upon those who had not seen, in the likeness of Adam, St. Gresham, who is the figure of him to come.

Before the law was given by Moses, there was no law in one sense. And yet, from Adam to Moses, death reigned. Now why? Sin was in the world. But sin was not put to account. Not because before the law was given, there was no sin.

We know that Adam sinned. And after Adam, from Adam to Moses, people sinned. And the wages of sin is death. And from Adam until the time of Moses, people died. And yet there was no law given. Just like before Newton discovered the law of gravitation.

The law was there. And it always worked. But Newton just discovered it when he stepped under a tree and an apple fell upon his nose. And then he began to think and discover the law of gravitation. But the law of gravitation was there since the time of Adam.

So, morally speaking, the law of sin and of death were there in the universe from the time of Adam until the time of Moses. That's why people died. But the difference is, before the law was given, sin was not put into account.

In other words, there was no charge. No charge. If the Lord does not say 65 miles limit, maximum speed, 65 miles. If the Lord does not put a sign there on the street, then you can drive 70 miles and there is no charge.

But that doesn't mean if you drive recklessly, you will not get into an accident. Not because there is no speed limit. Therefore, you can drive any speed and you will be safe. Not at all. But if there is a law that says 65 miles, and if you go 60 miles or 65 miles, then you will see that you will not only be more prone to accidents, but when the police catch you, there will be a charge.

That's the difference. There will be a charge. Why then the law? If before the law was given, sin wasn't the word. And the wages of sin is death, it works. Then why the law? Why should it be the law? Why should it be the charge?

The Law Reveals Sin and Leads to Christ

Now you come to Galatians 3, verse 19. Galatians 3, verse 19. Why then the law? Paul asked the same question. It was added, for the sake of transgression, until the seed came to whom the promise was made, ordained to angels in the hand of a mediator.

And Mr. Darby has a footnote here. He says, law is to bring evil into relief by transgression. And Romans, chapter 7, verse 7 to 9. Romans, chapter 7, verse 7 to 9. What shall we say then? Is the law sin?

Far be the thought, but I have not known sin unless by law, for I had not the conscience also of lust, unless the Lord had said, Thou shalt not lust. But sin getting a point of effect by the commandment wrought in me every lust, for without law, sin was dead.