What can the law do to free a person from sin?
The law cannot do anything to bring a person out of sin. Its only function is to convince the individual of sin, revealing that no one can measure up to God's standard of holiness and righteousness. The law is a yoke neither the forefathers nor the Jews of Peter's day could bear.
Les explains that the law had demands on the human race that were almost impossible to keep. God gave the law to show mankind there was no way they could measure up to His standard of holiness and righteousness. The law became a yoke that neither the Old Testament forefathers nor the Jews of Peter's day were able to bear. Paul refers to these elements as beggarly, because they begged to be something better. The law could not bring a person out of sin; all it could do was convince him of his sin, as taught back in Romans chapter 3. Even though Israel was under the law at Mount Sinai, God did not lift them out of the world system, and they still lived among paganism, which is why they failed so often.