Chidi’s old Corolla had been coughing for weeks. It would idle roughly at traffic lights, shudder when he pulled away, and twice it had died completely on the Ikorodu Road with a danfo driver hooting behind him and a hawker of plantain chips peering in through the window. Every few days a small orange light would come on in the dashboard, glow for a while, and then disappear, as if it had changed its mind.
He finally took the car to a mechanic in Ojota, an older man with grease to his elbows and a reputation for honesty. The man did not open the bonnet first. He reached under the steering column, plugged a small grey device into a socket Chidi had never noticed, and waited. The screen filled with codes. He scrolled through them slowly, nodding, and then read them out one by one. A misfiring cylinder. A faulty sensor. A vacuum leak. A problem with the fuel pressure that had probably been there for a year.
Chidi felt strangely offended. “That machine is giving me bad news,” he said. “Maybe it is the machine that is faulty.”
The mechanic laughed. “My brother, this machine has never lied to me. It is telling you exactly what is wrong. But listen to me.” He tapped the screen. “It can tell you the truth all day long. It cannot fix one single thing. For that, you need a mechanic, and you need parts.”
Chidi has told me that story more than once, usually with a smile, because he says it was the moment the book of Romans finally made sense to him. He had spent years as a Christian either resenting God’s law or trying to drive on it. Some days he wanted to throw the scanner away. Other days he tried to make the scanner do the mechanic’s work.
Many believers live in the same confusion. Some treat the law as an enemy that grace came to defeat. Others treat it as the engine of the Christian life, as though reading the commandments with more determination would finally produce a holy life. Both have misunderstood what God gave the law to do, and both have underestimated what God gives grace to do.
The law was never the villain
We need to begin where Paul begins. In the very letter that has sometimes been read as an attack on the law, he says something that should stop us from speaking carelessly: “Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good” (Romans 7:12). And when he has finished explaining that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law, he anticipates the objection that he has thrown the law away. His answer is emphatic: “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law” (Romans 3:31).
Establish it. The gospel puts the law in its proper place and lets it do what God intended.
The Old Testament saints knew this. They did not experience the law as a cruel burden imposed by a reluctant God. David wrote about it like a man describing a treasure:
The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward.
Read those lines slowly. Perfect. Sure. Right. Pure. Clean. True. Sweeter than honey. Psalm 19 begins with the heavens declaring the glory of God, and then it turns to the law as a second, clearer witness. The sun speaks without words. The law speaks in words. Both are gifts from the same Creator.
Notice also when the law was given. The Ten Commandments open with this sentence: “I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (Exodus 20:2). God did not give Israel the law in Egypt and promise to deliver them if they kept it. He delivered them first, by blood and by power, and then gave them His law at Sinai. Redemption came before instruction. Even in the old covenant, the law was given to a people God had already rescued.
So when we speak of the limits of the law, as we must, we should never speak of it with contempt. A believer who sneers at the commandments has misunderstood the law, however much he talks about grace. The problem in Romans 7 is never the law. The problem is sin, which takes the good commandment and uses it as a weapon.
PunchlineIf the law is good, then, what is it for? Scripture gives us several answers, and each of them matters.
It shows us who God is
The first purpose of the law is to reveal the character of the God who gave it. Laws always tell you something about a lawgiver. If you read the regulations of a country carefully, you learn what its people value, what they fear and what they consider sacred. The law of Moses does the same, and what it reveals above all is holiness.
“Ye shall be holy: for I the LORD your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). That sentence stands behind everything else in that chapter. The commands that follow show holiness worked out in ordinary life: honouring parents, keeping the Sabbath, paying the day labourer before nightfall, refusing to curse the deaf or trip the blind, judging fairly in court, and loving your neighbour as yourself. In the middle of the chapter God tells farmers to leave the corners of their fields unharvested: “thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the LORD your God” (Leviticus 19:10).
Do you see what that tells us? The holy God cares about the widow gathering grain at the edge of a field. His holiness is warm with justice, mercy, faithfulness and care for the vulnerable. The law gives us a portrait of a God who is morally perfect and who wants His people to share His character.
The giving of the law at Sinai also revealed the majesty of God in a way Israel never forgot:
And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it , they removed, and stood afar off. And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die. And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.
The people trembled, stood far off and asked Moses to speak for them. Moses’ answer is remarkable. “Fear not.” And in the same breath he says God has come “that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.” There is a fear that drives people away from God and a fear that keeps them from sin. Moses wanted the first removed and the second planted. The thunder of Sinai was meant to teach Israel that God is not to be trifled with.
We still need that lesson. A great deal of modern Christianity speaks of God as though He were a helpful assistant who exists to support our plans. The law corrects that picture. It tells us that God is holy, that sin matters to Him, and that His standard is His own character. Grace, rightly understood, never makes God smaller. It makes His kindness more astonishing, because it is the kindness of the One who thundered at Sinai.
It tells the truth about us
The second purpose of the law is to expose sin. Paul says plainly, “for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20). The law is the scanner under the steering column. It reads out the codes.
Paul gives his own example. “I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet” (Romans 7:7). Of all the commandments, he chooses the one that cannot be kept by outward behaviour. You can avoid stealing, lying and adultery by careful self-control. You cannot avoid coveting the same way, because coveting happens inside. A man may give generously in public and still resent his neighbour’s promotion. A woman may smile politely at the new car in the church car park and go home quietly bitter. The tenth commandment reaches past the visible life into desire, and it shows a respectable person that the problem lies deeper than he thought.
Then Paul explains what happened when the commandment met his heart:
Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.
“That sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.” This is one of the law’s great services. It drags sin into the light and shows it for what it is. Sin likes to hide behind softer names. We call our harshness honesty and our envy a concern for fairness. We call dishonesty in business “how things are done here.” We describe a man who controls his household through fear as having “a strong personality.” The law refuses those descriptions. It names the thing.
That honesty is a mercy, even though it does not feel like one. A diagnosis is painful, but nobody is healed of an illness they refuse to name. When Chidi heard those codes read out, he did not enjoy the experience. But the alternative was another breakdown on the Ikorodu Road, possibly a far more expensive one.
There is a warning here for preachers and teachers. We do people no favour by making the diagnosis vague in the name of grace. If someone is wounding others, the wrong must be seen clearly enough for repentance to become specific. Grace is not served by blurring sin.
But exposure has a limit, and we must be equally honest about it. The scanner does not fix the engine. Knowing the depth of your envy does not by itself make you generous. A person can read the commandments every morning, agree with every word, and find himself failing at exactly the same point every evening. That is why stronger self-condemnation can never be the final answer to a recurring struggle. It makes a person more aware of the fault without supplying any new power to overcome it. The law has done its work when it brings us to the end of our excuses. It was never meant to leave us there.
It restrains evil and protects the weak
The law has a third purpose that is sometimes overlooked. It restrains wrongdoing in a fallen world. Paul writes to Timothy:
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; According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.
“The law is good, if a man use it lawfully.” That phrase is worth holding on to. There is a lawful use of the law and an unlawful one. Using the law as a ladder to climb into God’s favour is an unlawful use. Using it to restrain evil, protect the vulnerable and convict the conscience is entirely lawful.
Notice the list Paul gives. The law is made “for the lawless and disobedient,” for those who kill their parents, for slave traders, liars and perjurers. Paul is describing the social function of God’s moral standard. Where people have no inner love for their neighbour, a clear command and its consequences still hold back a great deal of harm. Paul says something similar about civil government in Romans 13, where the ruler is described as “the minister of God to thee for good” (Romans 13:4).
Think of the speed limits and lane markings on the Third Mainland Bridge. Nobody becomes a gracious, patient driver because a sign tells him how fast to go. The sign has no power to change a man’s heart. But on a bridge that long, carrying that much traffic, you would not want the signs removed. The rules hold back the worst of human impatience, and the threat of a fine or a court date protects the schoolchildren in the bus beside you. The law does something similar in society. It cannot make anyone righteous, but it limits how much damage the unrighteous can do.
The same is true in families and churches. Clear boundaries protect children. Clear standards in a church protect the vulnerable from those who would exploit them. A church that talks about grace while refusing to set boundaries around abuse has misunderstood both grace and law. Where there has been harm, the proper authorities must be involved. That is a lawful use of the law, and it honours God.
It points beyond itself to Christ
The fourth purpose of the law, and in many ways the greatest, is that it points to Jesus. Paul asks the obvious question in Galatians: “Wherefore then serveth the law?” His answer is that “It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made” (Galatians 3:19). The law had a starting point at Sinai and an appointed goal in Christ. Then Paul adds:
Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.
The law was never in competition with the promise. “If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.” But no such law exists. The law could describe life, but it could not give it. So the Scripture “concluded all under sin,” shut every mouth and closed every door except one, in order that the promise might be given through faith in Jesus Christ.
The law points to Christ in more than one way. Its moral commands show us our need of Him. Its sacrifices, priesthood, tabernacle and feasts were pictures of Him. Hebrews says the law had “a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things” (Hebrews 10:1). A shadow is real, and it has the shape of the thing that casts it, but you cannot live in a shadow. Every lamb on Israel’s altars was a shadow of the Lamb of God. Every high priest who entered the Holiest once a year was a shadow of the High Priest who entered once for all.
Jesus Himself read the law this way. After His resurrection He told His disciples “that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me” (Luke 24:44). Concerning Me. The whole law was leaning forward toward Him.
That is what Paul means when he says faith establishes the law. At the cross, the law’s verdict on sin was not ignored. It was carried out on our Substitute. The law’s demand for perfect righteousness was not set aside. It was met in the perfect obedience of Christ. And the law’s prophetic witness was not disappointed. Paul says the righteousness of God is now manifested apart from the law, “being witnessed by the law and the prophets” (Romans 3:21). The law stands at the cross as a witness, pointing to the Saviour and saying, This is the One I was speaking about.
NuggetThe law reveals God’s holiness, tells the truth about our sin, restrains evil and points to Christ. Grace gives what the law could only describe: the life and strength of God Himself.
Grace is more than pardon
If the law is the scanner, grace is far more than a kind word from the mechanic. Many believers think of grace only as forgiveness, God’s decision to overlook their faults. Grace certainly includes forgiveness, and we could never praise God enough for it. But in the New Testament, grace is also power. It is God’s own life and strength at work in a person.
Nowhere is this clearer than in Paul’s account of his thorn in the flesh:
And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.
Paul does not tell us exactly what the thorn was, and we should be careful not to pretend we know. What he does tell us is that it was painful, persistent and humbling, and that he pleaded with the Lord three times to remove it. The Lord’s answer was not removal. It was grace. “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”
Look at how the Lord defines His grace in that sentence. “My grace is sufficient” is explained by “my strength is made perfect.” Grace and strength are spoken of as the same gift. The word translated strength is the Greek dunamis, the ordinary New Testament word for power. Grace here is the power of God made complete in a weak man. Paul’s response confirms it: “that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
This changes how we think about weakness. The law exposes our weakness and stops there. Grace meets our weakness and fills it. Paul could say, “for when I am weak, then am I strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10), because his weakness had become the place where Christ’s strength was displayed. None of this excuses staying weak in areas where God calls us to grow. Paul had simply discovered that his inadequacy was no barrier to God’s power.
The early church knew grace this way. After Pentecost, Luke says, “And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all” (Acts 4:33). Great power and great grace sit side by side in the same verse. Grace was the atmosphere in which they lived and the strength by which they witnessed.
Strong in grace and established by it
Paul spoke of his own life in the same terms. “But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10). Grace made Paul what he was. Grace laboured in him. The hardest-working apostle insisted that grace was the reason.
So when he wrote to Timothy, his son in the faith, he did not tell him to be strong in his own resolve, his education or even his calling. He wrote: “Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 2:1). Timothy was facing false teachers, opposition, timidity and the weight of leading a church. Paul’s answer was not a list of techniques. It was a source. Be strong in the grace.
Hebrews adds another dimension:
Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.
“It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace.” The writer was warning against teachers who wanted to steady believers through food laws and ceremonial rules. Those things, he says, “have not profited them that have been occupied therein.” Rules about meats could not stabilise a wavering heart. Grace could. And the grace that establishes the heart comes from the One who is “the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” A heart anchored in an unchanging Christ is far steadier than a heart anchored in its own performance.
What does this look like in an ordinary life? Let me describe a woman I will call Faith. For three years she has cared for her mother, who has dementia, in a flat in Yaba. Her siblings send money but rarely visit. Faith is exhausted, and the exhaustion comes out in sharp words. She snaps at her mother when the same question is asked for the fifteenth time. She knows it is wrong. Every night she promises God that tomorrow she will be patient, and every morning she wakes already empty.
Faith does not need someone to lower the standard. Patience is still beautiful and love is still the goal. Nor does she need another reading of 1 Corinthians 13 used as a scanner, telling her once again how far short she falls. She needs grace as power. She needs to come “boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). Mercy for yesterday’s sharp words. Grace to help for today’s long afternoon.
And grace will often help her through very practical means. She may need to repent of the hurtful speech and ask her mother’s forgiveness, even if her mother does not fully understand. She may need to tell her siblings honestly that she cannot carry this alone, and ask them to share the care. She may need rest, a support group, or advice from a doctor about her mother’s condition. She may need to learn to notice the moment when tiredness begins turning into contempt, and to step outside for two minutes and pray before she speaks. None of those steps compete with grace. They are the shape grace often takes when it comes into a real life. The command tells the truth about love. The Lord gives the strength and wisdom through which love can be learned.
The law and grace in the same room
So we come back to the relationship between the two. The law and grace have different tasks, and confusion comes when we ask one to do the other’s work.
When we ask grace to do the law’s work, we end up with a gospel that never tells anyone the truth about sin. Everything is affirmed and nothing is named. People are told they are loved, which is true, but never told that their bitterness, greed or lust is destroying them. That is not grace. It is a refusal to let the scanner speak.
When we ask the law to do grace’s work, we end up with a Christianity of endless resolutions. Every sermon diagnoses and nobody is healed. People leave church knowing more precisely what is wrong with them and with no new strength to change. That is not holiness. It is exhaustion dressed in religious language.
The gospel lets each do its own work. The law shows us God’s holiness, tells the truth about our hearts, restrains evil and points us to Christ. Grace forgives us through Christ, unites us to Him, and strengthens us by His Spirit to live the life the law described. Paul summarises the way grace sets believers free from sin’s rule: “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace” (Romans 6:14). Grace does what the law, for all its goodness, never could.
This should also change how we help one another. Paul reminded Titus of the life from which believers have been saved: “For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another” (Titus 3:3). We ourselves. Paul included himself. The memory of mercy removes the position of superiority from which correction is so often given. We may still need to speak firmly, set boundaries, or require that someone makes restitution. We can do all of that without pretending we belong to a naturally better class of people.
A church shaped by both law and grace learns to ask two questions whenever someone is struggling. What truth needs to be faced here? And what help will support a faithful response? The first question protects us from evasion. The second protects us from thinking that exposure alone is transformation. The answer to the second question may include patient teaching, prayer, a trustworthy friend for accountability, practical help, or skilled professional care for a serious difficulty. All of it should point the person toward Christ as the source of change, and away from dependence on the helper.
Chidi’s Corolla spent four days in that workshop in Ojota. The mechanic replaced the sensor, sealed the leak, cleaned the fuel system and fitted a new pump. When it was finished, he plugged the grey scanner in again. This time the screen was quiet.
Punchline“You see?” he said. “The machine did not fix your car. But it told us what to fix, and now it tells us the work is done.”
Chidi still keeps a small scanner in his glove compartment. He told me he is no longer afraid of it. When the orange light comes on, he does not curse the dashboard or pretend he has not seen it. He takes the car to the workshop.
That is the believer’s relationship to God’s law. You do not need to throw it away, and you do not need to drive on it. Let it show you the holiness of God and the truth about your own heart. Let it hold back evil in the world. Let it point you, again and again, to Christ. And then come to the throne of grace, where the strength of the Lord is made perfect in weakness. You will find that the One who gave the law has also given His grace, and that His grace is sufficient.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- Which of the four purposes of the law described here had you overlooked or undervalued? How might honouring it change your reading of the Old Testament?
- Where have you been treating God’s commands as an engine, expecting more determination to produce a holy life?
- What weakness in your life might become the place where Christ’s strength is displayed, as it was for Paul?
- What would it mean for you this week to “be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus” rather than in your own resolve?
- When you help another believer who is struggling, do you tend to name the problem without offering help, or offer comfort without naming the problem?
This Week
Read Psalm 19:7-11 on the first morning of this week and thank God for His law and what it reveals about Him. Then choose one recurring struggle and write it down honestly, without excuses and without exaggeration. Each day, bring it to the throne of grace with Hebrews 4:16 in mind: ask for mercy for the past and grace to help for today. Then identify one practical step that cooperates with that grace, such as an apology, a conversation, a boundary, or a request for help, and take it.
A Prayer
Father, thank You for Your law, which is holy, just and good. Thank You that it shows me who You are and tells me the truth about my heart. Thank You that it points me to Jesus, who fulfilled it for me. I confess that I have sometimes resented Your commands, and at other times tried to make them the source of my strength. Today I come to the throne of grace. Give me mercy for what I have done and grace to help for what lies ahead. Let Your strength be made perfect in my weakness, and establish my heart with grace. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.