The life and work of St. Paul

482 THE LIFE AND WORK OP ST. PAUL.
it could not justify he saw at once, because had it been adequate to do so,
then the death of Christ would have been superfluous. But why was it
that the Law was thus inefficacious ? St. Paul rather indicates than clearly
states the reason in the next chapter (viii.). It is because the Law, as re-
gards its form, is external ; it is a command from without ; it is a letter
which denounces sentence of death on its
*
violators ; it has no sympathy
wherewith to touch the heart; it has no power whereby to sway the will.
" "
Spiritual in one sense it is, because it is " holy, just, and good ;
"
but it is
in no sense a "quickening spirit," and therefore can impart no life. And
why ? Simply because it is met, opposed, defeated by a strong counterprinciple
of man's being the dominion of sin in the flesh. It was " weak
"
through the flesh that is, through the sensuous principle which dominates
the whole man in body and soul. 2 In the human spirit, Paul perceived
a moral spontaneity to good; in the flesh, a moral spontaneity to evil;
and from these different elements results " the dualism of antagonistic
moral principles." s Man's natural self-will resists the Divine determination
; the subjective will is too strong for the objective command. Even
if man could obey a part of the Law he could not be justified, because the
Law laid a curse on him who did not meet all its requirements, which the
moral consciousness knew that it could not do. 4
ii But St. Paul's second proposition that the Law multiplied transgressions
6 "
sounded almost terribly offensive. The Law," he had already
said in the Galatians, was added until the coming of the promised seed,
"for the sake of transgressions." 6 To interpret this as meaning "a safeguard
against transgressions "
though from another point of view, and hi another
7
order of relations, this might be true is in this place an absurdity, because
St. Paul is proving the inability of the Law to perform this function at all
effectually. It would, moreover, entirely contradict what he says namely,
that the object of the Law was the multiplication of transgressions. Apart
from the Law, there may indeed be " sin " (a/j.aprla), although, not being
brought into the light of self-consciousness, man is not aware of it (Rom. v.
13 ; vii. 7) ; but he has already told us that there is not " transgression "
(iv. 15), and there is not "imputation " (v. 13), and man lives in a state of
relative innocence, little pained by the existence of objective evil.8
It was,
1 2 Cor. iii. 6.
2 The