What is the purpose of law? Is it to make people righteous? No; rather, the Scripture says law is what makes men know they are sinners. “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20). Sin was in the world from the time of Adam’s fall until the Mosaic Law was given, but sin was not known to be sin as such until the law was given (Rom. 5:12-14). “Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. . .” (Rom. 5:20). Paul further writes, “. . .I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet” (Rom. 7:7).

Today men despise law. Old laws are being erased from the statute books of states and municipalities. These laws were based primarily on God’s eternal moral law as recorded in His Word. Man, wanting to practice what God’s law forbids, wants these laws repealed so that he will not be a lawbreaker in men’s eyes. But no matter how many laws men erase from their books, they cannot nullify the law of God. The very law they despise will one day judge them.

The downside to abandoning God’s law is that men are left without a conception of God’s grace. One cannot know grace until he understands law. Romans 5:20 states in the latter part of the verse, “But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” Where the law is not taught, there will be little grace experienced. Is that not what is happening in our land today? A new generation has risen among us, that has not experienced God’s grace because they have not been taught the laws of God as they are revealed in His Word. Not knowing sin, they see no need of grace or the salvation it alone gives (Eph. 2:8).