ABSTRACT
But Paul has other things to say on the law in which it is not simply a protection. Early in Romans, having stated that ‘all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin’ (Rom 3:9), he supports that view with a sequence of texts from the Hebrew scriptures which speak of the reality of sin (Rom 3:10-18 quoting Ps 14:1-3; 53:13; 5:9; 140:3; 10:7; Isa 59:7-8) and then affirms that ‘every mouth’ and ‘the whole world’ are ‘accountable to God’ before climaxing this section in a highly significant statement about the law in relation to sin:
For ‘no human being will be justified in his sight’ by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. (Rom 3:20)
The purpose of this chapter is to explore precisely what Paul means by the phrase ‘through the law comes the knowledge of sin’ and how it can be reconciled with Paul’s view that the law has a positive God-given protective role.
