4:15 13 Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, [there is] no transgression.
(13) A reason of the first confirmation, why the promise cannot be apprehended by the law: because the law does not reconcile God and us, but rather proclaims his anger against us, because no man can fully keep it.
This is a thought that I’ve never thought of: that is,that the law doesn’t reconcile God and us. Instead, it proclaims his anger against us.
Why was the law given? To give Israel a standard to live by. The law was given to govern the peoples’ behavior. Every functional society has a standard of behavior, without which anarchy will result. But perhaps the law is actually unable to reconcile people to God, because the standard is set so high that no man is capable of achieving it. God would know this, of course, and thus his law-giving is done with a particular end in mind; that is, to proclaim his anger against us.
But how does this work? God is angry with us because we can’t keep the law that he has set as an impossibly high standard? Is that really what is going on here?