spise
or dishonor God's Law? Is not a chaste and honorable life a matter of
beauty and godliness? Such facts, it may be contended, are implanted
by God in reason itself, and all books teach them; they are the
governing force in the world. I reply: Paul's chief concern is to
defeat the vainglory and pretensions of false preachers, and to teach
them the right conception and appreciation of the Gospel which he
proclaimed. What Paul means is this: When the Jews vaunt their Law of
Moses, which was received as Law from God and recorded upon two
tables of stone; when they vaunt their learned and saintly preachers
of the Law and its exponents, and hold their deeds and manner of life
up to admiration, what is all that compared to the Gospel message?
The claim may be well made: a fine sermon, a splendid exposition;
but, after all, nothing more comes of it than precepts, expositions,
written comments. The precept, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself," remains a mere array of
words. When much time and effort have been spent in conforming one's
life to it, nothing has been accomplished. You have pods without
peas, husks without kernels.

25. For it is impossible to keep the Law without Christ, though man
may, for the sake of honor or property, or from fear of punishment,
feign outward holiness. The heart which does not discern God's grace
in Christ cannot turn to God nor trust in him; it cannot love his
commandments and delight in them, but rather resists them. For nature
rebels at compulsion. No man likes to be a captive in chains. One
does not voluntarily bow to the rod of punishment or submit to the
executioner's sword; rather, because of these things, his anger
against the Law is but increased, and he ever thinks: "Would that I
might unhindered steal, rob, hoard, gratify my lust, and so on!" And
when restrained by force, he would there were no Law and no God. And
this is the case where conduct shows some effects of discipline, in
that the outer man has been subjected to the teaching of the Law.

26. But in a far more appalling degree does inward rebellion ensue
when the heart feels the full force of the Law; when, standing before
God's judgment, it feels the sentence of condemnation; as we shall
presently hear, for the apostle says "the letter killeth." Then the
truly hard knots appear. Human nature fumes and rages against the
Law; offenses appear in the heart, the fruit of hate an