Why did God give a law that was almost impossible to keep?
God gave the law to demonstrate that mankind could not measure up to His standard of holiness and righteousness. Its demands were almost impossible to keep, serving as a yoke no one could bear. The law could not remove sin; it could only convince people of their sin.
Les explains that the law had demands on the human race that were almost impossible to keep because God had to show mankind there was no way they could measure up to His standard of holiness and righteousness. The law became a yoke which neither the forefathers in Old Testament days nor the Jews of Peter's day were able to bear. Paul refers to them as beggarly, begging to be something better than it was. The law could not do anything to bring a person out of his sin; all it could do was convince him of his sin, as pointed out all the way back to Romans chapter 3. Israel came out of Egypt surrounded by pagan culture, and when God gave them the law at Mount Sinai, He did not lift them out of the world. They still had to live and move and eat and sleep in the midst of all that paganism, so the whole world system was still working even though Israel was now under the law. God did not suddenly transport them into a whole spiritual world all their own, and that is why they failed so often.