Romans 4:15

the law worketh wrath: for "For" indicates that this statement confirms that just made, namely, that inheritance by law must bar the fulfilment of the promise. "The faith" in question was said to be "reckoned for righteousness" to the believer; "the promise" in question was that that believer, as such, should "inherit the world." But if once the Law, with its only possible terms, interposes between the sinner and justification, he is hopelessly cut off (1) from a valid "righteousness," and (2) therefore from the "heirship" attached to it. Justification and inheritance are equally out of his reach; because inevitably, as applied to fallen man, the Law (just because holy and absolute) "works wrath;" produces what in the nature of things calls down the Judge's pure but inexorable wrath; for it produces "transgression" by the fact of its application to man as he is. Note that "transgression," not "sin," is St Paul's word here. "Sin" is wherever the Fall is; "transgression" is a narrower word; the "overstepping" of a definite condition.