[7] What then can we say? That the law is sin? Of course not! Yet I did not know sin except through the law, and I did not know what it is to covet except that the law said, "You shall not covet." [8] But sin, finding an opportunity in the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetousness. Apart from the law sin is dead. [9] I once lived outside the law, but when the commandment came, sin became alive; [10] then I died, and the commandment that was for life turned out to be death for me. [11] For sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and through it put me to death. [12] So then the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. [13] Did the good, then, become death for me? Of course not! Sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin, worked death in me through the good, so that sin might become sinful beyond measure through the commandment.
(CCC 2542) The Law entrusted to Israel never sufficed to justify those subject to it; it even became the instrument of "lust" (Cf. Rom 7:7). The gap between wanting and doing points to the conflict between God's Law which is the "law of my mind," and another law "making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members" (Rom 7:23; cf. 7:10). (CCC 1994) Justification is the most excellent work of God's love made manifest in Christ Jesus and granted by the Holy Spirit. It is the opinion of St. Augustine that "the justification of the wicked is a greater work than the creation of heaven and earth," because "heaven and earth will pass away but the salvation and justification of the elect… will not pass away" (St. Augustine, In Jo. ev. 72, 3: PL 35, 1823). He holds also that the justification of sinners surpasses the creation of the angels in justice, in that it bears witness to a greater mercy.
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