Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
Read Chapter 3
Ambrosiaster
AD 400
Paul never says that they will not be justified before God because they have not kept the law of righteousness in the commandments but because they have refused to believe the sacrament of the mystery of God, which is in Christ. For God has declared that they should be justified by Christ and not by the law, which may justify for a time, but not before God. Therefore those who keep the law are justified in time, not before God, because faith, by which they are justified before God, is not in them. For faith is greater than the law. The law pertains to us but faith pertains to God. The law has a temporary righteousness, but faith has an eternal one. When Paul says “all flesh” he means every human being … but when he says “in the flesh” he means those who are bound by sin. For just as righteousness makes them spiritual, so also sins make them carnal, and they take the name from the deed. By faith the law is abolished, and faith then follows. What then is this law through which he says th...
Some think that statements like this are an attack on the law. But they must be read very carefully, so that neither is the law condemned by the apostle nor is free will taken away from man. Therefore, let us distinguish the following four states of human existence: before the law, under the law, under grace and at rest. Before the law we follow the lust of the flesh. Under the law we are dragged along by it. Under grace we neither follow it nor are dragged along by it. At rest there is no lust of the flesh. Prior to being addressed by the law, we do not struggle, because not only do we lust and sin, we even approve of sinning. Under the law we struggle but are defeated. We admit that what we do is evil and that we do not want to do it, but because there is as yet no grace, we are defeated. In this state we discover how far down we lie, and when we want to rise up and yet we fall, we are all the more gravely afflicted. The law is good because it forbids what ought to be forbidden and r...
How, then, is the law still said to be not good by certain heresies that clamorously appeal to the apostle, who says, "For by the law is the knowledge of sin? ".
Well, the body tills the ground, and hastes to it; but the soul is raised to God: trained in the true philosophy, it speeds to its kindred above, turning away from the lusts of the body, and besides these, from toil and fear, although we have shown that patience and fear belong to the good man. For if "by the law is the knowledge of sin".
as those allege who disparage the law, and "till the law sin was in the world; "
The purpose of the law, says Paul, is to give us a knowledge of sin not only to forbid the doing of things which are inappropriate but also to punish those who do such things. .
To the end of this chapter, the apostle shows that the Jews cannot be truly justified, and sanctified by the works of the written law of Moses only; that a knowledge of sin, or of what is sinful, came by the law, but if they did not comply with the precepts of the law, this knowledge made them more guilty. Now, at the coming of Christ, the justice of God, that is, the justice by which he made others just, and justified them, cannot be had without faith in Christ, and by the grace of our Redeemer Jesus Christ, whom God hath proposed to all, both Gentiles and Jews, as a sacrifice of propitiation for the sins of all mankind, by faith in his blood; that is, by believing in him, who shed his blood and died for us on the cross. It is he alone, (ver. 26.) that is the just one, and the justifier of all. And as to this, there is no distinction. The Gentiles are justified and sanctified without the written law, and the Jews who have been under the law, cannot partake of the justice of God, that ...
Once more Paul jumps on the law but this time with restraint, for what he says is an accusation not against the law but against the negligence of the covenant people…. The law accomplished its task of disclosing sin to them, but then it was their duty to flee it. But since they did not flee it, they brought an even greater punishment on themselves, and the good deeds of the law have just provided an excuse for greater chastisement from God.
