mP,
I think the first scripture (Galatians 3:21) means that the law is like a cancer screening test that shows us there is something seriously wrong inside us.
As Paul says in Romans 7:18 it was through trying to keep the law that he learned "...that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it."
That is, we can't even live up to our own stated moral codes, let alone the law of God, and certainly not the standards Jesus enunciated in the Sermon on the Mount.
That's what the law was designed to do; it was our tutor to show us our need for the great physician (Christ).
But trying to become righteous by keeping the law is as futile as trying to get cured of cancer by taking more and more cancer screening tests.
Galatians 2:15: "...if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"
The law shows us our need to be transformed from the inside out by the Holy Spirit in order to live the kind of righteous life that God desires. The goal of this transformation is to enable us to keep the requirements of the law and go beyond them. Jesus described this transformation to Nicodemus as the new birth (John 3) and to the Samaritan woman as living water (John 4). This is the solution for everyone, not for some small "anointed" group of 144,000.
Romans 8:1-11: "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot; 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 But you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you."
To me, the saddest thing about the Memorial is that the WTS has the vast majority of JWs convinced that this transformation is not for them. To the contrary, it is the whole point of the law -- showing us all our need.
