Romans 7:7 in order for this passage to make sense we will need to read back from verse 4 at least…I will try not to repreach Alister’s sermon from last week, but just in case you were not here or were not listening…..
4 So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. 5 For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. 6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
Alister got the easy and exciting part…..
Today’s passage is not an easy one… on the first reading it is actually going to be a bit overwhelming and confusing……Just keep in mind these few things…..
In this passage Paul is specifically addressing the Jewish believers in Rome.
We know this because he says so in vs 1..’for I am speaking to those who know the law’...
Dishwasher…. Paul is trying to explain that Jesus is the fulfillment of the law and the time of the law has come to an end…..it is now a time for grace…
We were once slaves to sin under the law ..the law shows us what sin is but the law has a problem it cannot save….and now we are slaves to God under Grace….so that we can bear fruit….
Let’s have a look….
This whole chapter is about the law …..And today’s passage can be separated into two sections 7 -13 and then 14 - 25
My title for this first section is, ‘The purpose of the law”
What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. 11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. 12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.
13 Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! Nevertheless, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful
As Ali explained last week, there were sometimes Jewish believers who drifted back to the importance of following the law…. And Paul is addressing any doubts…. That the law is a thing of the past….
He is laying out his theology….explaining clearly….and repeatedly…
In vs 6 he said by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
Today’s passage explains this verse….
The law bound us….the law holds captive those who follow the law….
Paul asks in vs 7: Is the law sinful?.... Certainly Not!! He says
The law was not sinful… It was from God….The law was not bad…. It was right for the time being…. It had a role …… it was an important thing given by God….
Paul uses the next few verses to explain why the law is useful….its main role was to make us aware of sin…..I would not have known what sin was if it was not for the law….
I would not have known what coveting was without the law……
But he also says…..sin produced in me every kind of coveting…. apart from the law sin was dead…. I was alive apart from the law….when the law came, sin sprang to life…. The commandment that intended to bring life brought death…. the commandment put me to death….
It seems like sin was empowered by this law, these commandments…..that sin came from the law……. Yet we have vs 12 So then, the law is holy(no sin), and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.
A bit confusing…. Fortunately vs 13 clears it up a bit….Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! Nevertheless, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
In order to understand this we need to go back and ask….
What is sin?
A great place to start is Romans 1: The whole of, but let’s just look at vs 21-23….
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
Sin at its most basic…. is giving glory to other things,,,, specifically ourselves,,,,, instead of God…
This is man’s condition ……and has been so since the beginning… our desire to reject the truth and instead enslave ourselves to stuff and self glorification….
The base sin….. of ‘not giving glory to God’… is always present as a part of the human condition…..
The law however revealed details of this sin….which specific actions and thoughts betray our sinful nature……
Without the law man was caught in the famous Dunning Kruger effect…. That is, when we know so little about a topic, we are under the impression that we are experts…. We overestimate our own expertise….. The more we learn about a something the more we realize how little we knew…….
Before the law man knew so little about what sin was that they didn’t realise how much they were sinning…….
I teach a very special group of children…. All of them lovely…. Maths group… i was asked this week…. Why do we use letters in Maths? She thinks that she is doing well in Maths…. I spent five minutes explaining some of the complexities of life and the need for patterns to interpret and explain them….
They thought Maths was about how many bananas each person gets or how many pieces a plank can be cut into…..this is not even scraping the surface of what Maths can do…. The planets and the galaxies and nuclear improbabilities…. Stresses on building a bridge….
The Mosaic law detailed how sin is actually enacted… how our thoughts and actions reveal our inner motivation for self glorification over giving God glory…
The law is great at revealing sin to us…. To show us what is right and wrong….to give us examples…. Project example…….
The law gives us examples of sin and helps us compare ourselves to what is holy…. This is why the law was given…. The law was useful for generations of Jewish society.. it unified them made them successful and gave a picture of what God desired for them….
It is useful……..But the law has a huge problem….
The problem with the law 14-25
14. We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
This is a somewhat controversial passage….
The disagreement is around whether Paul is speaking about himself and his own experience as a Christian someone saved and spirit filled, but struggling to do the right thing…. or…… if he is using the pronoun ‘I’ as a hypothetical case explaining the human condition before they are saved…. When they are under the law…before grace..
My reading of this is that Paul is using the hypothetical case….. that he is not speaking about himself, but rather a generic unsaved person and he is placing himself in that position because it is more relatable.
This does not discount the fact that for all of us on occassion…. ‘do what we do not want to do’.... We let ourselves and our saviour down.
Some take the other view….I was speaking to school parent the other day about this passage he commented that he found this passage so encouraging. After all even Paul struggled with sin….
The close parallel to Galatians 5 is used as proof that Paul is speaking about Christians in this passage:17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.
Everyone agrees that this is speaking about Christians…….. I don’t think they are mutually exclusive….
In this passage Paul is talking about a person’s position under the law…. But yet we also as Christians struggle against our sinful nature…. These are different things..
We are going to look at the passage as if it is explaining the unsaved person’s problem with the law. The reason for Paul doing this is to show why the law is not a solution, but a temporary measure…… remember vs 6… The purpose of this whole chapter is explaining why the law is no longer valid….
In verse 14 He says. The problem is that the law is spiritual(of God), but humans are unspirtual(carnal)... we naturally see our existence from a physical view point. As Carnal beings we are sinful, slaves to sin, not our fault, we were born like that…. This is how we find oursleves….
As someone who is a follower of the law… a good jew…. Someone dedicated to the law, as Paul was before his conversion… no matter how hard they try they cannot follow the law, their sinful nature rules.. They are not spiritual…they are carnal…
Vs 16-17 Paul says…by the very fact that I want to do good and can’t, I am agreeing that the written code is good…. The law is good… it teaches me the right way to live…. I just don’t get it right…
The sin in me dominates…. I am a slave to sin…. My very nature is sinful….
I want to do what is good… I just can’t carry it out…. He repeats himself with different nuances like 5 times…. He is making the point that in our own strength we cannot follow the law…therefore, under the law…… there is no hope for me…
And this is the problem with the law………..As useful as the law is for pointing out sin I cannot follow the law to anywhere near the way I would need to…… I am lost….in fact….. it condemns me….
While I am convinced that this passage is about a generic Jewish man, trying to be the best person possible… I can’t help but feel Paul reflecting on his own personal journey through life in vs 21-23… there is a depth of feeling in this which must reflect personal experience…
Paul describing himself before meeting Jesus says:
5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless……
extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.
He followed every aspect of the law…he was the most learned, he was from the best family, his parents had followed all the required rituals… he says… according to the law I was faultless … that is quite a claim…..He is the ultimate Jew….
He wanted to do good… more than most anyone… He wanted to be good….
Yet in all that following the law……..he knew that evil was right there with him….
Vs 22 Did Paul delight in God’s law? Yes. completely… in my innermost being….. Even when my whole heart is dedicated to God’s law… i want it so much…. But my desire, my mind, is at war with another desire inside of me…. I was always a slave, a prisoner to the sin in my being……., my carnal nature….
What a wretched man I am…..(said with a bit of feeling).....Wretched…. What a perfect word…. What an unfortunate man…. What an unfortunate position I found myself in… even though it was my greatest desire to obey God, I couldn’t… how sad…..
I may seek life and purpose and meaning and…… that …that eternity that has been placed in my heart ….. But it is unattainable….
Romans… Do you see the problem with the law? It cannot save you… even if your greatest desire is to follow God…. You are a slave to your sin….. The same sin that the law reveals to us, the law cannot save you from …. It only condems….
What a wretched man am I…..
Paul has spent the whole passage detailing the role of the law and then the problem with the law…. And then the last line he summarises and says, “So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, (I want to do what is right)....but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.”
In ch 8 he will then explain how life in the spirit is different and has the power to release us for ……..bearing fruit… but he can’t help himself… he has to give a hint of the solution here…..
He cries out in vs 24 Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?
I am desperate!!!!
Thanks be to God!!! Who delivers me through Jesus Christ.
God has made a plan … this wretched man is delivered through Jesus Christ….
The law becomes redundant because I don't need to chase around trying to follow the law in my own strength. The power of sin is dead… I am released from bondage to the law……. I now follow God through his power in the holy spirit
Interesting….. Is the law still useful today? We live in a world that does not know the law….that does not have God’s spirit, that does not know what sin is……in fact our World celebrates sin and ridicules anyone who stands for God’s truth…..
I guess the law would be useful because it would reveal sin to people…..it would point out how our actions go against God’s way…… a society run the law would function well and justly….as the old testament Jewish nation did…
Yes the law would be useful to reveal sin, but the law cannot save….. Without Jesus …if we just used the law to run our society, we would have a well run society, but all would still be lost….
