What? How well did Paul do with the law? It made him miserable! Defeated! Guilt ridden! Do you not realize that the "perfect law" being discussed says that if you break even one of the commandments, you are guilty of breaking all of them? Do you not realize that it is not just adultery that is against the perfect law of God, it is lust in our hearts that Jesus said is doing the same exact thing? Can man choose to not lust by his own volition? Good luck.
The law can make no man righteous. Those who try to fulfill it in the flesh will end up in a life of Romans 7, and yes, they ARE a burden until we figure out the only way to get out of the grip of the curse of the law is to die. Unfortunately, we have assumed that means when our fleshly bodies die, but the truth is it is our fleshly natures, our tainted hearts that must die. Only then can we find that obedience, demanded under the law, and unattainable to even the most dedicated of men, IS our promised portion when we finally agree to reckon ourselves as dead. It is only then that the strength of sin in our lives is broken, for the strength of sin is the law itself and the law has dominion over us as long as we live. The solution? BE DEAD. Believe that we are no longer in the flesh and owe it nothing. It is the only way.
If we want to lift up the law as our guide, rather than relying on the indwelling Spirit to fill us and lead us and keep us from falling, we will find we are in direct opposition to God, who set us free from the law and its unyielding demands. We simply need to start with the first commandment to see the impossibility of simply following the ten commandments..
Thou shalt love thy God with ALL your heart and ALL your mind and ALL your soul and ALL your strength.
When we can finally admit that we are not doing so, and that there are rooms in our soul that Jesus has no access to even after many years of walking as His child, it is then that we are ready for the next step. But not until then.
Blessings,
Gideon