Who does the law reach and condemn?
The law reaches every human being, not only the Jew. It extends to the Gentile as thoroughly as to the Jew, and its purpose is not to save or justify anyone but to condemn. It exposes guilt and gives the knowledge of sin, declaring guilty, guilty, guilty.
Les explains that the law reaches out to everybody, not just the Jew. It was given to the Jew, who practiced it as his religion and his approach to God, but the law—primarily the moral law, the Ten Commandments—did not stop with the Jew. It reached out to every last human being. Its purpose was never to save, because it could not save a Jew either, but to condemn and show guilt. Les emphasizes that people have totally misconstrued the role of the law. It was on cold tables of stone and could do nothing to help a person keep it, nor could it keep someone from stealing or committing adultery or anything else it names. All it can do is condemn: guilty, guilty, guilty. It convicts the Gentile just as thoroughly as it does the Jew. By the deeds of the law no flesh is justified in his sight; by the law is the knowledge of sin, not salvation.