Through Jesus we are able to address the sin issue that the law creates. In other words, the Old Testament and its laws helps us understand what sin is. It defines it and makes it illegal. Then Jesus in the New Testament teaches us how and empowers us to deal with its effects. The law of the Old Testament requires human effort. To live the law would require that we do what it says in order to be righteous (living the kind of life God requires).

The New Testament message of grace destroys the legal requirements of the Old Testament law and gives us just one law to live by. The law of love.

Rom 3:20 (NIV) Therefore no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.

Rom 7:7 (NIV) What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not covet.”