Why the Law Came In

…What need, then, was there, as a matter of necessity, for the laws given through Moses? Against such thoughts the inspired Paul all but rises up again, saying, “The law came in, so that the trespass might increase” (Romans 5:20). The words “came in” mean that the law was brought in between the condemnation in Adam and the righteousness in Christ. And if one asks again what need there was for the law’s coming in, he will hear Paul say plainly, “So that the trespass might increase.” What are you saying, Paul? Was the law, then, also a promoter of sin, and has the trespass multiplied through it? By no means.

We must, then, open out more fully the way this sacred teaching works. David said, accordingly, “All have turned aside, together they have become worthless; there was none who did good, there was not even one” (Psalm 14:3). For after the transgression in Adam all who were on the earth had corrupted their way (Genesis 6:12). That is why they were punished: all of them together underwent a common penalty, the flood, and they were also punished in particular ways, at certain times and in certain lands and cities. For even though there was no law, human nature was still being trained by God, through its inborn impulses, toward the knowledge of what is good.

So God took pity on those on earth, who were faring wretchedly, and in his love of goodness he planned to set them free in Christ from the sin that tyrannized them. But he judged, and very rightly, that those on earth must first be shown to be gravely sick, so that the justification in Christ might then be seen to make its entry into the world as something most needed. For we say that it is not the one already righteous who is justified, but whoever is liable for sins. How, then, were those on earth to be shown beforehand as needing the grace that is in Christ? “The law came in, so that the trespass might increase” (Romans 5:20); that is, so that among those under the law the trespass might appear great, since plainly no one could be justified because of the weakness of nature, and all, as it were, fell under the charges that arise from transgression. The law, then, was laid down as a kind of proof of the weakness of all, so that human affairs might be seen to need the healing that comes through Christ alone. That is why he says, “But where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more” (Romans 5:20). For grace had to be so great that it would be seen to surpass the law that condemns.

“Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus…?” (Romans 6:3). As all agree, we have been baptized into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). Yet if he should say that we have been baptized into Christ Jesus, he will not be speaking beyond what is reasonable. It is quite true that by names, by hypostases, and by the differences of the persons, the Father stands apart from the Son in a certain particular otherness, and the Spirit from both. For the Father is the Father and not the Son; again, the one who is from him by nature is the Son and not the Father; and the Holy Spirit is, in his own proper way, the Spirit. But since the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son (John 14:10), and the Holy Spirit is in both because the substance is the same, then even if someone names only one, by the force of the ideas involved, the declaration of the whole…