“When we speak of the Law, we are speaking of the effect proper to the Law: what it as a whole is able to accomplish or perform in this corrupt nature.  We all know already by experience that the only thing the Law is able to do is to create despair. (It kills; it works wrath [Rom. 4:15]; it is utterly unable to justify us or to help in justification.)  The Law does not make me a better person; it does not make me loving or hopeful or obedient.  Indeed, it cannot.  For by itself it cannot do anything but afflict, ruin and alarm consciences.  This is what we are talking about whenever we refer to the Law.”

Martin Luther, addressing Thesis I of the Second Antinomian Disputation, the 8th Argument.  December, 1537.  “The Antinomian Disputations (1537-40).  Luther’s Works, vol. 73, “Disputations II”.  St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House.  2020.  Pg. 134.