THE SIX FUNCTIONS OF GOD’S LAW
Understanding the Six Functions of God’s Law
by Traver Dougherty
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Pre-salvation, the Torah helps people see their switch. Post-salvation, the Torah helps people keep a close eye on the narrative they’re serving.
Function 2: To Reveal Sin
The Sinaitic Covenant helps people recognize sin and its narrative. For two reasons, Paul’s letter to the Romans is complicated. First, Paul uses the word law or nomos in a multiplicity of ways. For example, Paul refers to the letter of the Law (2:27), the law of faith (3:27), the law of sin and death (7:23; 8:2), the law of one’s mind (7:23), the law of God (7:25), and the law of the Spirit of life (8:2). Therefore, the only way to determine how Paul is using nomos is by analyzing its context. It’s confusing in English. It’s confusing in Greek. And it’s masterful. Why? Because Paul is at once describing the laws or forces at work in people’s lives while keeping the people he’s looking to persuade off balance.
The second complication emerges from the first. How is one to properly understand Sinaitic Law in relation to the other laws—or forces? To get at the answer, Paul wants his readers to understand sin—in three senses.
Sin Type A: the manifestations of sin (called trespasses or transgressions)
Sin Type B: the generator of those transgressions (a heart controlled by evil)
Sin Type C: the law of sin (evil’s impulse)
If one’s heart is absent the generative work of the Spirit, Paul asserts, then that person’s heart is controlled by sin (Type B). In this way, one’s heart—or soul—is like a switch with two positions. Position 1 (P1) is the condition of sin, and its wages is death. Position 2 (P2) is the condition of life, and its wages is life (6:23). The only way to move from P1 to P2 is to see sin (Type B) for what it is, repent, and trust YHWH to bury that sin-inhabited heart “with Him through baptism into death” (6:4).
So then, if the only way to move from P1 to P2 is by faith, why Sinaitic Law? Why Torah? First, the Torah helps people see their “switch.” With justification in his purview, Paul writes, “for through the [Torah] Law comes the knowledge of sin [Type B]” (3:30). Later in Romans, Paul expounds.
Step 1: I would not have come to know the P1 condition of my heart had it not been for YHWH’s Torah; for I would not have known about coveting if the Torah had not said, “You shall not covet.”
I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “You shall not covet” (7:7b).
Step 2: But my sinful condition, taking the opportunity through the commandment, produced in my heart coveting of every kind; for apart from the commandment, my heart’s P1 status was unknowable to me.
But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead (7:8).[1]
Step 3: I was once alive apart from the Torah—that is, going about my life as all people do—but when I took seriously YHWH’s command to “not covet,” the commandment exposed the position of my switch, laying bare my P1 status.
I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died; and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me (7:9, 10).
Step 4: For sin (Type B), exacerbated by the Torah’s command to “not covet,” did nothing more than highlight how depraved I was.[2]
… for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me (7:11).
Step 5: So then, the Torah is holy, and the command “You shall not covet” is holy and righteous and good.
So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good (7:12).
Step 6: Therefore did the good Torah or one of its good commandments cause my P1 status? No way!
Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? May it never be! (7:13a).
Step 7: Rather, it was my sinful condition. All the commandment did was shine a light on my heart’s condition, showing me how dead I really was.
Rather it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by effecting my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful (7:13b).
With regard to sin (Type B), the Torah in conjunction with the Spirit helps those with hearts in P1 to see their P1 status. In this way, the Torah serves a practical role. The Spirit does the convicting (Jn 16:8). From there, salvation is a matter of calling on the name of the Lord (Rom 10:13).[3] Again, this is Paul’s first argument.
Now for the second. Once salvation is a reality—that is, once an individual (or community) has moved from a narrative of death to a narrative of life, having trusted in Jesus’s sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins—the Spirit (P2) now inhabits their heart. They’ve been freed or “saved” from Egypt’s (sin) narrative and are now free to serve (abad) the narrative of Jesus’s Kingdom (life). Pre-salvation, the Torah helps people see their switch. Post-salvation, the Torah helps people keep a close eye on the narrative they’re serving. Paul writes of sin (Type C),
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law [i.e., the law of sin, all types] but under grace. (Rom 6:12–14)[4]
Post-Passover and post-escape, the Israelites are saved. Egypt, in one sense, is in the past. In another sense, however, Egypt is still very much in the present. You’ve heard it said, “You can take a boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of a boy.” The same principle applied to Israel. The same principle applies to us. The Israelites were saved. And we, too, are saved. But here’s what we all know. While salvation releases us from Egypt’s or sin’s (Type B) jurisdiction, Egypt and sin (Type C) still knock at our heart’s door. For this reason, the Law (Torah) was added: “because of transgressions”—to help people see the narrative to which they’re presenting the members of their bodies. Egypt’s or YHWH’s?[5]
[1] Many have interpreted “for apart from the Law sin is dead” to mean that if the hurdle of the Torah is removed, then there’s nothing to condemn us. This cannot be. John 3:18 tells us, “but whoever does not believe [in Jesus] stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” The presence or absence of Law doesn’t change one’s status—Jesus does.
[2] Paul packs a lot in a short sentence. An extended paraphrase might read: The effect of the commandment was counterintuitive; you’d think the command “You shall not covet” would have helped me walk in life, but it did the opposite. Instead of resulting in life, it resulted in death. How so? Well, as it turns out, calling out the trespass of coveting only exacerbates the covetous singularity, exposing its position. And when I came face-to-face with my singularity, I saw how dead I really was—my heart was clearly in the P1 category. So effectually, the commandment duped me, exposing the condition of my heart, showing me that I was a dead-man walking.
[3] Calling on YHWH necessitates repentance (Lk 5:32, 15:17, 24:47; Acts 5:31, 20:21, 26:20; Rom 2:4; 2 Cor 7:9, 10; 2 Tim 2:25; Heb 6:1, 12:17; 2 Pet 3:9). Notice, too, that Acts 26:20 reads, “that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance.” Although the text doesn’t explicitly connect “deeds” with Torah-prescribed mitzvot, it’s clear that a person whose heart is in P2 will bear fruit in alignment with the Spirit’s activity.
[4] Depending on the passage, scholars differ as to whether Paul is reflecting in an unregenerate (P1) or regenerate (P2) state. In Romans 7:14–16, for example, the circumstantial evidence leads me to believe Paul is writing in a P2 state. When this occurs, Paul bifurcates one’s “flesh” from one’s “mind,” asserting that a P2 state doesn’t necessarily preclude evil’s impulse in one’s flesh or “members.” Even still, Paul concludes, “there is … no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1).
[5] It was also added to further show how Yahweh would deal with sin—that is, to show how Jesus’s death and resurrection would open the door to eternal life for all who repented and believed.