Maybe today, in a single clause, Paul is teaching us that the Law (the Old Testament Legislation given by God on Mount Sinai to Moses) would have never been necessary … had man not sinned in the Garden of Eden. (Or sinned repeatedly since the Garden, for that matter!) Forget the “maybe” I just used, this is a “fact!” 

Galatians 3:19 … “It (the Law) was added because of transgressions ….”

Wow!

Eve and Adam sinned around 4,000 BC, Biblical conservatives believe. So did their children and grandchildren! All their posterity have sinned … egregiously! (Including you and me, their rather distant relatives!)

The Law was given (roughly) 1,500 BC, years and years after the first human transgression. Twenty-five centuries later! 

Still … Paul claims it (under the Guidance of the Holy Spirit too) … “It (the Law) was added because of transgressions ….”

That Greek word “added” is interesting. It is a blend of a preposition and a verb, really … “pro” + “tithemi” … meaning “to place” something right “in front of” a person! God “dropped” the Law on Israel because they needed to know some Standard of His Righteousness! A “direct hit,” you might say!

By the way, the noun “law” is “nomos,” meaning “anything established, a custom, something that has been acknowledged by lots and lots of accepted “usage!” These many precepts (613 of them) of the Law reveal God’s (normal, approved) Way of conducting human life!

Wow!

It is as if man needed some sort of “yardstick” (a gauge”) to show him how far short he was living in respect to God’s Perfect Standard! 

The Law is NOT a means of salvation!

It is a means of showing us what dirty sinners we are, in God’s Eyes!

How terribly we fail in being really “godly!”

In this sense, the Law is good!

Now tomorrow morning we shall learn of a precious Adjunct to this “why-we-need-the-Law” proposition, Declaration.

Sort of a Termination (better word, “Fulfillment”) to the Law!

One might almost say … JESUS IS THE LAW, anymore!

But now, I am getting ahead of myself.

— Dr. Mike Bagwell