hen, shall we think of the Law? Is it sin?
No. It reveals the sinfulness of sin, and it irritates dormant sin
into activity. A thing cannot be identical with another thing which it
exposes and irritates. But why did God permit the Law, which is holy,
to prove fatal to my soul (vii. 13)? He did not. The Law was not
fatal, though sin was all but fatal. Sin was permitted to do its worst
that its real hideousness might be apparent. This is what took place.
The Law gave me an ideal, but my better self, which corresponds to the
Law, could not keep me from ding wrong or make me do right. I became
involved in a terrible conflict. This was the opportunity of Christ.
He has delivered me from that state of the body which involved me in
sin and death. Without Him, I should still be serving the Law of God
with my conscience, and the law of sin with my body (vii. 25).

Where the Law of Moses failed, Christ splendidly succeeds. He not only
sets before men an ideal, but also helps them to attain it, and fulfil
the righteous claims of the moral Law, by uniting Himself with them by
the Spirit (viii. 1-10). Men are now in a new relation to God: they
call Him Father, He sees in them His sons. Though with all creation we
wait still in fruitful pain for the fulness of redemption, we wait with
confident hope. The Spirit is with us to help and to pray, we remember
God's high purpose for us, we have known His love in the past, Jesus in
infinite exaltation is interceding for us; {166} who, then, shall ever
be able to separate us from the love of God (viii. 11-39)?

St. Paul turns now to a parenthetical discussion which necessarily
suggests itself here. It has practically happened that God's own
people, the children of Abraham, in spite of their privileges, are
excluded from this new salvation which comes from acceptance of Christ.
This does not mean that God has been unfaithful. St. Paul vindicates
His action toward them, and he shows that it has been consistent with
His previous action towards the Israelites (ix. 6-13), righteous (ix.
14-21), and merciful (ix. 22-29). God has always shown that He is free
to select whom he likes to carry out His purpose in the world.[1] The
Jews are rejected because they seek to be justified, on the strength of
their own works (ix. 30-33; x. 1-3): now, the method of the Law has
been superseded by Christ's, which is an easier method (x. 4-10) and
universal (x. 11-13). And the Jews have had eve