Is the Law is the Christian's guide to living a righteous life?
Written by: Wes Plaisance

The Holy Spirit is our guide to living a righteous life (John 14:26, 16:13, 1 John 2:27) and it is of my belief that the greatest gift we have ever received is the Holy Spirit. Father withheld none of His riches from us in that He gave us Himself.

In Romans 7 Paul gave us the greatest testimony of failing by looking to the Law for righteousness that I know. I am truly grateful for his humbleness and openness that we may know that we are not alone in our struggles, learn from his mistakes, and find freedom for ourselves. Let’s take a look at it.

In Paul’s testimony in verse 9 he says “I was once alive apart from the Law.” Now this is a very important part for us to understand because the only ones who can experience life apart from the Law are those in Christ (believers). So keep in mind that in this chapter Paul is talking about his experience after he came to Christ. He experienced being alive having been separated from the Law and being made right with God in Christ at the moment of his conversion because Christ is true Life (Romans 7:4-6). In other words he experienced his now being alive to God in Christ. He continues on in this verse to say “but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died.” So somehow the commandment comes along and gets in the way of his continuing to experience his new life in Christ.

In the next verse he says “and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me.” Now in this verse I can see a couple of things that were contributing to Paul’s problem. First, the Law was never given that we may have life (Gal 3:21b). The Law is actually like a mirror and a perfect reflection of God. The mirror was given to the Jews to show them their lack of perfection in comparison to God and as a result of seeing their imperfection they would hopefully look to God for what they could not do on their own. Not only was the Law incapable of giving life and a mirror to show them their short comings, it was also given that sin would increase (Romans 5:20), it is the power of sin (1 Cor 15:56), and it is a ministry of death and condemnation (2 Cor 3:6-9).

So the Law was meant to be a guide to Christ by causing those under it to sin more, bringing condemnation, followed by the experience of death, leading to brokenness and despair in their pursuit of the righteousness of God by their self effort (Gal 3:24). This was also Paul’s experience in Romans 7:9-11.

The second problem was that the word ‘life’ here in the Greek means “Zoë” which is God’s life. Whatever you look to for life has to be able to produce that life or it leaves you empty. So in Paul’s case he was looking to the Law rather than to God for His life and the result was that he experienced death. Paul’s heart and desire was great, he wanted to serve God but his method was all wrong. This happens to many well meaning Christians today, we have a heart and a genuine desire to walk with God but our means of carrying out that desire leaves us experiencing emptiness because we look to and try everything before looking to God for that which only He can produce.

Now I don’t know how much you know about Paul, but prior to his receiving Christ he served the Law as his guide to righteousness (Philippians 3:1-6). I believe that the real problem was not the commandment but that Paul resorted back to his old way of living. So when the commandment came along not to covet instead of Paul renewing his mind in accordance with who he now was in Christ he resorted back to a lifestyle of performance under his old guide the Law in the flesh. The result was his utter failure in the flesh driving him to Christ (Romans 7:25) who was the only one who has ever fulfilled the Law in the flesh. Let me put it another way, Paul took his eyes off of Christ and put them on the Law. The Law drove Paul back to that which he already had and was not depending on, Christ.

So in conclusion the Law is not a guide to living a righteous life, but actually will lead you to Christ the only True Guide by causing unrighteousness in your life (Romans 5:20). Depending on Christ is the only way the Law is fulfilled in us (Romans 8:4). He is the only one that truly leads to a righteous life.