The Law of Sin and Death

Paul sees condemnation in the Law of Moses, i.e. the law of sin and death:
And the law is not of faith: but, the man that does them shall live by them. (Gal 3:12).

Here Paul quoted from Lev 18:5. It says that if any desires life by the law, then he must fulfil the whole law. If any seeks justification by the law, he must not transgress any single part of the law, even in his past or in his heart. This therefore has condemned all men to death, for that all have sinned.

And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be to death. (Rom 7:10).
It is not the law that is bad, but sin working in the unregenerate, “sons of disobedience”. The law is not the problem, but sin. The law shows us our sin and pronounces God’s judgement against us.

What shall I say then? Is the law sin? God forbid, no. I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law said, You shall not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, worked in me all manner of evil desire.
For without the law sin was dead (not seen by me). For I was alive (so I thought) without the law. But when the commandment came (when I saw the law), sin revived and I died. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment deceived me and by it slew me. (Rom 7:7-11).

This shows how the sin nature uses the law to bring us into bondage. After seeing our condemnation, the self-will rebels and provokes us against all the law. Lost in hopelessness, we set out to please only ourselves. Only Christ can deliver us from this.

Was then that which is good (the law) made death to me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good. (Rom 7:13).

The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. (1 Cor 15:56).

The law brings the knowledge of sin, which condemns and enslaves the man and brings him under the power of death. Man loses hope, blames and hates God and finds his sin nature deepening. When our sin is highlighted its power grows.

The Message Bible (paraphrased) puts Rom 7:8-10 like this:

Don’t you remember how it was? I do, perfectly well. The law code started out as an excellent piece of work. What happened, though, was that sin found a way to pervert the command into a temptation, making a piece of "forbidden fruit" out of it. The law code, instead of being used to guide me, was used to seduce me.
Without all the paraphernalia of the law code, sin looked pretty dull and lifeless, and I went along without paying much attention to it. But once sin got its hands on the law code and decked itself out in all that finery, I was fooled, and fell for it. The very command that was supposed to guide me into life was cleverly used to trip me up, throwing me headlong.

The Phillips Bible (paraphrased) likewise states:

But the sin in me, finding in the commandment an opportunity to express itself, stimulated all my desires. For sin, in the absence of the Laws has no life of its own. As long, then as I was without the Law I was alive. But when the commandment arrived, sin sprang to life and I "died". The commandment, which was meant to be a direction to life, I found was a sentence to death.

Sin brings death or separation from God by the law and death brings us more under the power of sin. We look at the answer to this in other chapters, especially the chapter on sanctification.