This is a vast and complex topic, as difficult to understand as to convey.
To explain it requires a stream of consciousness style of explanation, with some repetition, a style much like Scripture uses!
The law is a means, a process, by which a harvest is reaped. A business, by which treasure is gathered.
An example of treasure being gathered through law is the traffic system. That system is put in place so that safe travel is made possible, leading to all the benefits of travel: ability to access goods, services, relationships, leisure, etc. The people who benefit from the system are those who have a vested interest in it, and when the system works, they enjoy the fruit, a safe facility. It's an asset, not a liability. It's a liability to the rule breaker.
That's why the law is for the unrighteous. It limits THEIR benefit, their profit, their treasure. The benefit for them is to do unsafe things. They see no value in having a safe system in place. For example, they get angry at being stopped at a red light when the streets are deserted. The rule benefits the owners of the system, because it provides a margin of safety, the eventuality that another vehicle may be approaching the light at a high speed, to beat the lights. Defensive driving, high safety systems, requires anticipation of abnormal situations, unsafe driving, by other users of the system. The lawbreakers love short term benefits, short cuts, saving time, etc. They have no investment in the system, they only obey rules to avoid penalties.
The benefits for the law breaker from the system by following the rules is avoiding penalties.
The benefits for the law maker from the system by following the rules is having a safe system.
The benefits for the law breaker, the son of the slave woman, old humanity with the body of death, from the law by following the rules is avoiding penalties, because of grace, undeserved favour shown to those who hear with faith, believe God's words, that obedience is required.
The benefits for the law maker, the son of promise, new humanity IN Christ, with the Holy Spirit, the power to put to death the deeds of the body of death, from the law, by following the rules, hearing with faith, believing God's command to submit our sins for cleansing, is inheriting a system that produces people who love God, Christ's brothers.
What is the Sinaitic Code?
The Sinaitic code is analogous to Sarah's attempt to bring to fruition by human effort what God had already promised unconditionally. Basically unbelief, revealed by Sarah's laughter. It was putting God to the test. God had promised a son for Abraham. She ASSUMED all attempts to make that a reality should have God's sanction, His blessings. Israel did the same thing when she tried to defeat the Canaanites without God, put God's plan to defeat the Canaanites using Israel to the test, and suffered a disaster. Sarah suffered a disaster too. As did Israel, when she asked for the law, to bring the promise to Abraham come to fruition, make Abraham's seed a blessing to the world. She lost the opportunity to enter God's rest, since God said she would never enter His rest. Unbelief leads to disaster, belief leads to success.
Jesus could have tried to bring to fruition God's promise to make Him a blessing to the world by jumping off the high building and surviving, bringing all the world to His feet, to follow Him into the kingdom of God. But Jesus said that would be putting God to the test, checking to see whether His word would come true, not being loyal, not believing Him, not hearing with faith. Jesus believed God and waited, heard God's word, with faith, unlike Sarah and Israel.
God allowed Israel to have the law. It was a subset of the law that all men have, embedded in the conscience. Romans 2 makes it clear that law and conscience were equal. Then what advantage did Israel have? Much. She was an oracle bearer. Salvation would come from the Jews, the Messiah would be Jewish. Abraham's spiritual AND fleshly seed would be a Jew.
The relevant verse is packed with information:
Romans 3:1Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the benefit of circumcision? 2Great in every respect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God. 3What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it?4May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar, as it is written, “THAT YOU MAY BE JUSTIFIED IN YOUR WORDS, AND PREVAIL WHEN YOU ARE JUDGED.”5But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is He? (I am speaking in human terms.) 6May it never be! For otherwise, how will God judge the world? 7But if through my lie the truth of God abounded to His glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner? 8And why not say (as we are slanderously reported and as some claim that we say), “Let us do evil that good may come”? Their condemnation is just.
What advantage does the Jew have? Much. They were to reveal to the world how God would save, through the sacrifices, and the identity of the messiah, through circumcision. The Messiah would be a Jew! Were they unfaithful? Yes they were, but it doesn't make the prophecies any less true, God's promise cannot be nullified by bad behaviour from those entrusted with manifesting those promises. Did they also claim that their unfaithful behaviour would only make God's righteousness more distinct, as Paul was accused of preaching? They did, falsely. Their condemnation was well deserved.
They were right in revealing to the world that salvation would come from the Jews, but God laid a stumbling block in Zion and that stumbling block was Christ. The blessing to the world was "A" Seed, not "the" seeds of Abraham. Only IN Him would those who had faith in God, spiritual children of Abraham, be blessings to the world, through receiving the Holy Spirit.
Galatians 3:13Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE”— 14in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
Why is the law a curse?
Because Adam put God to the test.
Genesis 3:1Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden '?"
Loss of innocence
The old covenant was a covenant of requirements and benefits. Like all contracts, it required one party to pay and the other party to provide goods or services.
Humanity had lost the benefit of being in God's presence because of culpability, knowing good and evil and doing evil. In God's presence, Adam could, by the Holy Spirit subdue creation, subdue his body. This body had sinful thoughts, could think about disobeying God, could disbelieve God's warning, could attribute bad intentions of God's warning to a deprivation of good things by Him, things like withholding the power of being like God. The only reason Adam could be in God's presence was because these sinful thoughts and disbelief were not sin, because Adam did not have critical facilities, the ability to judge, the ability to know good from evil. This is called juvenility, the absence of complete critical ability, the reason minors are not prosecutable under criminal law. In God's presence, Adam could learn obedience, subdue his body (meet the requirements of the covenant of law) and then God would have allowed him to acquire the ability to know good from evil (be competent to chose) this being the ideal way to be under law, as it would make Adam a functional member of God's family. Away from God's presence because of loss of juvenility and subsequent culpability, humanity was stuck. Thankfully, God sent Christ.The work for Christ was to get humanity back into God's presence without dying because they were sinful: Adam's original situation. Christ had to get humanity out of the jurisdiction of the law or protect them from the ill effects of being in God's presence whilst still sinful. He couldn't reverse loss of juvenility. However He could suspend law, the obligation man had to obey the law, through putting old humanity to death.
Humanity was tied to law. The only way humanity could be untied was by death. Christ's death was the death of the old humanity, just as Adam's creation was the beginning of the first humanity's existence.Christ's obedience led to redemption of humanity in the form of payment of restitution leading to lifting of a sentence, just as Adam's disobedience was the condemnation of humanity, in the form of the removal of juvenility and the pronouncing and execution of a sentence. One led to the end of the power of the law over humanity, the other had led to the operationalization of the jurisdiction of the law on humanity.The first fruit of this act of obedience was Christ. His death was nullified and he was raised. Into an existence free of Law.Those who are baptised into Christ are baptised into His death, losing their membership in the old humanity and share in His resurrection into a new life, the life of living an existence free of Law.
Christ is not under the law and those who are IN Christ are not under the law as well. However, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, the new man can become a functional member of God's family.
Remember, there is no pressure for those IN Christ from the law. However we can use this freedom to become functional members of God's family, and live, or revert back to being slaves to sin, nurture the deeds of the body, and die.
As to, should the church teach about law, no. Why should we learn about law, when we have been taught how to make the body free of desires of the flesh?
