“Christ Is The End Of The Law.”

The Purpose Of God’s Holy Law Romans 10:4

What does Paul mean when he says that Christ is the end of the law? He means for us to understand that the Lord Jesus Christ is the end of the law’s purpose. He is the purpose and object of the law. The law was given to lead us to Christ. It was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ (Gal. 3:24-25).

The law is the sheriff’s deputy who shuts men up in prison for their sin, concluding them all under condemnation, so that they may look to the free grace of God in Christ for deliverance. This is the purpose of the law. It empties, that grace may fill. It wounds, that grace may heal. The law was given to lead sinners to faith in Christ, by showing them the impossibility of salvation in any other way. “The law,” wrote C.H. Spurgeon, “ is God’s black dog, by which he fetches his sheep to the Shepherd.”

How does the law perform its work? How does the law bring men to Christ? It exposes our sin (Rom. 7:7-9), and shows us what the result of our sin must be. The law makes it clear that as Adam, for sin, was driven from the garden, so sin must forever separate the guilty sinner from the holy Lord God. The result of sin, in the words of the law, is death, eternal death in hell. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezek. 18:20).

The law reveals our utter helplessness (Psa. 24:3-4). Any man who thinks he can keep the law, and thereby win God’s favor, simply does not know what the law requires. “Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?” (Gal. 4:21). The law demands perfection. The law demands satisfaction. If you ever see what God requires in his law, you will beg for a Mediator (Ex. 20:1-19).

The law shows us our great need of Christ as our Substitute. Our only hope before God is that God himself will send One who is able and willing to satisfy his holy law for us. We must have a Substitute, --one who is able to make me righteous, --one who is able to redeem. The only way any man can obtain mercy from God is to approach him with a bloody sacrifice, a holy sacrifice, a sacrifice of infinite worth, merit and efficacy, a sacrifice which fully satisfies all the demands of God’s holy law. There is only one such sacrifice; and that sacrifice is Christ (Rom. 3:24-26).

Give me Christ. I want nothing to do with God’s strict, holy, unbending, merciless law! The law strips. Christ covers. The law condemns. Christ pardons. The law kills. Christ gives life.

“Not to Sinai’s dreadful blaze,

But to Zion’s throne of grace,

By a way marked out with blood,

Sinners now approach to God.”

Don Fortner