In verse 19 Paul gives us the reason: "It was added because of the transgressions." What does it mean to add something? Recently I went to a certain place to work. During my stay there, I went with a few brothers to a restaurant for dinner one night. Because we do not have a home there, we went to a restaurant and ordered a meal of five dishes. These dishes were eaten very quickly, and so we asked the waiter to add one more dish. The addition of another dish was not our original intention; it was added to meet the immediate need. In a similar way, Paul said that the law was added. Actually, God does not have to give us the law, and neither did He need to give it to the Jews. God gave the law to the Jews because He wanted to show the world through the Jews that He gave the law because of transgressions.

Why was the law added because of transgressions? Let us look now at the last part of Romans 4:15: "But where there is no law, neither is there transgression." And let us also look at Romans 5:20: "And the law entered in alongside that the offense might abound." The purpose of the law is to cause the offense to abound. What does this mean? Sin entered the world through man, and therefore, sin is in the world. Death came from sin and began to reign. From the time of Adam to the time of Moses, sin was in the world. But how can we prove this? It is evidenced by death being in the world. If there were no sin from Adam until Moses, man would not have died. The fact that from Adam until Moses all died proves that sin was there. Although there was sin during that time, there was no law. Hence, there was only sin but no transgression. What is transgression? Sin was real and present in the world, but man did not know that sin was here until the law of God came. Through the law God showed us that we have sinned. Actually, there was sin already within us. We were corrupted already, but we did not know about it until the law came, at which time the sin within was manifested as transgressions.

The law is like a thermometer. A person may be sick with a fever. But if you say to him, "Friend, your complexion does not look very good; you have a temperature," he may not believe you. All you would have to do is get a thermometer and put it in his mouth. After two minutes you could show him definitely that he has a temperature. We were already sinful; we already had a "temperature"; but we did not know about it. So God gave us a standard. Although the law may not be a perfect standard, it is a sufficiently high standard. God uses the law to measure us. By it we see that we have transgressed. Once we see that we have transgressed the law, we know that we have sinned. Sin was within man already; but without transgressions, he would never have confessed that he had sin. It was only after he transgressed that he would confess that he really had sin.