The following has been attributed to Karl Barth:

“The law is the form of which the gospel is the content.”

To some this would rub against certain theological sensitivities. After all, the law condemns and shows us our sin, whereas the gospel brings grace. How can the law contain the gospel?

I do not know the context of the above quote, but allow me to us it for my own purposes.

We are separated from God by our sin. Even the one who has received new life from Christ, often times misses many of the blessings in Christ because of his sin. The purpose of the law is indeed to show that sin. It also is to instruct on the right path.

It is like the instructor that teaches the elementary student to read. The process is painful, and it may seem to the student that all the discipline and rules and memorization is quite a burden. Why should it matter that “I is before E except after C”? What a bore! Yet in that work itself is the gift of reading that will open up to the student so many thousands of wonders during the course of his life.

So it is with the law. True, seeing our sin drives us to grace. This is one use of the law. Another is to see that in the law itself is the gift of the gospel, that we might abide in Christ, our savoir and the lover of our souls. Jesus said that if anyone loved him he would keep his commands.

Our problem is that we think we’ve already passed the first grade, we think ourselves to be adults. No my friend, you have only just enrolled. This burden of obedience and faithfulness to the work of God’s calling to you is itself the administration of the gospel to you. To set aside the passions of human nature, the desires of human ambition, to be quietly and faithfully obedient to the simple commands of God to serve him and love your neighbor is the gift of the power of Christ and the gospel to your life, to enable the resurrected life to be lived through you and bless those around you.