How do we know that the law brings death?

The Apostle Paul elucidates in Romans that the law was intended to illustrate our inability to meet God's perfect standards, ultimately leading to spiritual death. Paul testifies of his own experience, declaring, 'For the commandment which was ordained unto life, I found to be unto death.' This illustrates that what was meant to guide us toward life only serves to highlight our shortcomings and pronounce condemnation when we fail to uphold its commands. The law's true function is to reveal sin, fostering an awareness of God's righteous demands which we cannot meet on our own.

Furthermore, the law instills a knowledge of guilt that weighs heavily upon the conscience, bringing the sinner to a place of realization that they are under judgment. As the law exposes our moral failings and incapacity to achieve righteousness, it completes the cycle of conviction that leads one to despair without the redeeming grace of Christ, affirming the necessity of salvation by grace alone.