Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2012
Delivered on Lord’s Day Morning, March 4, 1888
“Moreover the Law entered, that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” Romans 5:20.
THE first sentence will serve as a preface. The second sentence will be the actual text. “Moreover the Law entered, that the offense might abound.” Man was a sinner before the Law of Ten Commandments had been given. He was a sinner through the offense of his first father, Adam. And he was, also, practically a sinner by his own personal offenses. For he rebelled against the light of nature and the inner light of conscience. Men, from Adam downward, transgressed against that memory of better days which had been handed down from father to son and had never been quite forgotten.
Man everywhere, whether he knew anything about the Law of Moses or not, was alienated from his God. The Word of God contains this truthful estimate of our race—“They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable. There is none that does good, no, not one.” The Law was given, however, according to the text, “that the offense might abound.” Such was the effect of the Law. It did not hinder sin, nor provide a remedy for it. But its actual effect was that the offense abounded. How so?
It was so, first, because it revealed the offense. Men did not in every instance clearly discern what was sin. But when the Law came, it pointed out to man that this evil, which he thought little of, was an abomination in the sight of God. Man’s nature and character was like a dark dungeon which knew no ray of light. Yonder prisoner does not perceive the horrible filthiness and corruption of the place wherein he is immured, so long as he is in darkness. When a lamp is brought, or a window is opened and the light of day comes in, he finds out to his dismay the hideous condition of his den.
He spies loathsome creatures upon the walls and marks how others burrow out of sight because the light annoys them. He may, perhaps, have guessed that all was not as it should be but he had not imagined the abundance of the evils. The light has entered and the offense abounds. Law does not make us sinful but it displays our sinfulness. In the presence of the perfect standard we see our shortcomings. The Law of God is the mirror in which a man sees the spots upon his face. It does not wash you—you cannot wash in a mirror. But it prompts you to seek the cleansing water. The design of the Law is the revealing of our many offenses, that thereby, we may be driven out of self-righteousness unto the Lord Jesus, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
The Law causes the offense to abound by making an offender to stand without excuse. Before he knew the Law perfectly, his sin was not so willful. While he did but faintly know the commands, he could, as it were, but faintly break them. But as soon as he distinctly knows what is right and what is wrong, then every cloak is taken away from him. Sin becomes exceedingly sinful when it is committed against light and knowledge. Is it not so with some of you? Are you not forced to admit that you commit many sins, now that you have been made to know the Law and yet willfully offend against it, by omission or commission? He who knows his Master’s will and does it not, will be beaten with many stripes—because he is guilty of abounding offenses. The Law enters to strip us of every cloak of justification and so to drive us to seek the robe of Christ’s righteousness.
Next, I think the Law makes the offense to abound by causing sin to be more evidently a presumptuous rebellion against the great Lawgiver. To sin in the front of Sinai, with its wonderful display of Divine majesty, is to sin, indeed. To rebel against a Law promulgated with sound of trumpet and thunders and pomp of God is to sin with a high hand and a defiant heart. When you have heard the Ten Commands, when you know the Law of the kingdom, when your Maker’s will is plainly set before you, then to transgress is to transgress with an insolence of pride which will admit of no excuse.
Once more—the entrance of the Law makes the offense to abound in this sense, that the rebellious will of man rises up in opposition to it. Because God commands, man refuses. And because He forbids, man desires. There are some men
who might not have sinned in a particular direction if the commandment had not forbidden it. The light of the Law, instead of being a warning to them to avoid evil, seems to point out to them the way in which they can most offend. Oh, how deep is the depravity of human nature! The Law itself provokes it to rebel. Men long to enter because trespassers are warned to keep away. Their minds are so at enmity against God that they delight in that which is forbidden—not so much because they find any particular pleasure in the thing itself but because it shows their independence and their freedom from the restraints of God.