And the Jews knew well the will of God, for to them He had revealed it through Moses and the prophets; with them He had made His covenant, and had chosen them out of all the nations of the earth, to be a peculiar people unto Himself. How was it that they too fell so far short of what was required of them? Must it not have been (so Paul reasoned) because the divine Law[10] that was given them was the very means and occasion of sin? To fail in regard to one single precept was to break the harmony between man and God; and, when once that harmony was broken, there was nothing in the Law itself to restore it. By its multiplication of commandments, the Law offered so many occasions for the breaking of that harmony; and whereas it was "holy, and the commandment righteous and just and good," its ideal was one that no human effort could reach. Its effect was to multiply sin. Righteousness under the Law was impossible; meaning by righteousness the state of perfect harmony of man with God. [10] I use in quotations from Paul the word Law instead of Torah, because Paul spoke of Νὁμος. The fact that he did so is characteristic of his whole conception of Judaism. If the Greek language did not provide an equivalent of the word Torah (any more than the English language does), the fact still remains that an equivalent is needed, or the argument becomes for want of it invalid. "But now," says Paul (Rom. iii. 21 fol.), "apart from the law a righteousness of God hath been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ unto all them that believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ," etc. Through faith in Jesus Christ there was offered to sinful man the means of attaining that righteousness--harmony with God--which had been vainly sought under the Law, or lost in the darkness of Gentile corruption. And this was evidently what God had willed from the beginning. Christ was the instrument, or the agent, by whom this divine purpose was to be fulfilled. And the meaning of what might seem to be the age-long delay of his coming was that God would "shut up all under sin, that he might have mercy upon all."[11] [11] The theory, of course, is conditioned by the fact of Christ's coming when he did. It is an attempt to interpret a historical fact in terms of world-history and eternal wisdom.