Last week we studied Chapter 6. It ended with a well known and powerful statement of the Christian faith.

Transcription

1 The Book of Romans - Lesson 7 Last week we studied Chapter 6. It ended with a well known and powerful statement of the Christian faith. Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. In that verse Paul picked up the thread of thought from Romans 4:4 which said "Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation." Romans 6:23 completes the thought begun in chapter 4. Man's works of the flesh are never considered enough to obligate God to consider us righteous. However, the sin we commit does incur an obligatory wage. "The wages of sin is death." God, in His grace, offers instead, as a gift, atonement for sin and credited righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ. Romans 7 Romans 7:1 Do you not know, brothers--for I am speaking to men who know the law--that 1 / 10

2 the law has authority over a man lives (person) only as long as he lives the time he? [a] Paul makes clear that his is still dealing with the Jews who are struggling with Law versus grace when he says "I am speaking to men who know the law." Romans 7:2 For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. Paul is demonstrating that the application of the Law can change with circumstances. He uses the Mosaic Law of Marriage to make his point. Paul argues that on the death of the husband, the Law of Marriage no longer applies in the same way to the widow. Death changes the application of that Law. Romans 7:3 So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man. 2 / 10

3 Before the death of the husband, if the wife remarried, she would be rightly condemned as an adulteress. However, after the death of the husband, the application of the Law is changed, and her re-marriage is blessed under the Law. Romans 7:4 So, my brothers, 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 to God. Now, Paul gets to his conclusion. In the same way as the husband died in his analogy, so also we have "died to the law through the body of Christ." Because of that death, the application of the Law has changed for those (the Church) who live after the time of the Cross. The Law has not passed away, but its application has changed, particularly the rituals like circumcision, the sacrifices, and the feasts. But the purpose of our lives has not changed. It is to bear fruit to God. Romans 7:5-6 For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused shown forth [b] by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what (vs. 4 - the law) once bound us held us secure [c] 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. 3 / 10

4 When we were under sin's power we could only bear fruit for death. The Law only had the power to make Sin apparent. But now, because of the Cross and the gift of the Spirit, we can bear the fruit of the Spirit! Since, in Christ, we have died to sin, the role of the Law is changed. We are no longer under the Law that merely reveals sin, but we are under the higher Law of the Spirit that reveals God. This passage does not criticize the Law. Indeed it says it "held us secure" until Christ could come with the New Covenant of grace. Romans 7:7a What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Paul responds to one of the concerns of the Jews. Some were saying that Paul was teaching that the Law itself was now sin. His answer was "Is the law sin? Certainly not!" Romans 7:7b -9 Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet." [d] But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire (thus revealing sin). For apart from law, sin is dead. The Law does not make coveting sin, the Law shows that coveting is sin. It is not as though coveting is not sin without the Law, it has just not been 4 / 10

5 defined! Romans 7:9-10 Once I was alive (or seemed to be) apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. And this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me; [e] As without the Law sin is present but not so apparent, so also our Spiritual death is present, but not so apparent. This verse is not contradicting Paul's own statement in Romans 5:14 that death reigned from Adam to Moses or in 1 Corinthians 15:22 "in Adam all die." It is saying only that death, "sprang to life" in the eyes of those who knew the Law. The Law actually points the way to life through Christ who would provide salvation by grace. However, the way it was misunderstood by the Jews, it only pointed to death. Romans 7:11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. Caught in the arrogant coils of Sin the Jews were actually deceived into believing they could keep the Law by avoiding sin. And so, the Law which was designed to show the way to 5 / 10

6 grace, put them to death because of the deceit of sin. Romans 7:12-13 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced (revealed) death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful. The law is wonderful if used lawfully. It is a signpost to deliverance, but not deliverance itself. Romans 7:14-15 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. When Paul speaks in the first person in these passages, He is speaking of his representative experience as a Jew who tried to live a sinless life. Without the Law as a schoolmaster, he would not have understood his utter failure. 6 / 10

7 Romans 7:16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. Not wanting to do what is against the Law signifies agreement that one thinks the Law is good even if one can't keep it. Romans 7:17-18 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. Keeping the Law is beyond us because we have inherited our nature of rebellion against God and self importance from Adam. The essence of the Law is two commands, love the Lord your God, and love your neighbor as yourself. If we don't love God, we can never imitate Him who exemplified the second command and gave himself for the world. The legalist only can love himself, no matter how he camouflages it. The fact that he thinks he is keeping the Law reveals his extraordinary self love. In our old nature a type of good and evil co-exist! But it is not Divine good, but the human good that Adam and Eve assumed the right to define when they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden. It is a good which tries to operate apart from God. It is a good that is born in a lie! It is a good that is equally part of Satan's character! It is the kind of good that was typified in the "equality for all" advocated by atheistic communism, but resulted in "equality for none" and death camps, gulags, and the Red Terror of Stalin. 7 / 10

8 Romans 7:19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing. World history abounds with such "good" which is not rooted in God, and starts with a beautiful promise and ends with death and misery. This is also true in the personal histories of billions of individuals. Without the Law we could not so readily see this Law of death which started to work in the garden. Yet this was exactly what God promised Adam! [f] It is no accident that the Moral Code of the Mosaic Law is under attack in our day. The Code of Conduct being promulgated in our day is "If it feels good, it is all right." Satan would like nothing better than for that to be accepted because that would obscure the fact that we are dead in sin. Romans 7:20-23 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. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. Paul, as an observant Pharisee and Jew, had known the Mosaic Law well, and could see that it held the secret to a fair and just society, but because of his legalistic interpretation of the Law, he had found no answer to sin. 8 / 10

9 Romans 7:24-25a What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? T hanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! The only rescue from the good and evil of the old nature is through the grace of God and faith in Jesus Christ. Romans 7:25b So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. Paul himself, as a Jew, had admired the moral code and striven to keep it, but he had eventually had to admit that himself that his sinful nature was more powerful than his desire to do right. No doubt this had started to reveal itself when he found himself taking pleasure and revenge in the sufferings and deaths of the Christians he was persecuting before he was converted. [a] This is the literal translation from the Greek "χρá½¹νον ζá." [b] Strong's Greek Lexicon 1754,<,D(,T {en-erg-eh'-o} AV - work 12, show forth (one's) self 2, wrought 1, be effectual 1, effectually work 1, effectual fervent 1, work effectually in 1,be might in 1, to do 1; 21 9 / 10

10 1) to be operative, be at work, put forth power 1a) to work for one, aid one 2) to effect 3) to display one's activity, show one's self operative [c] The Greek word here is κατá½³χω {kä-te'-khå} which denotes holding something or tight for security. [d] Exodus 20:17 "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor." [e] I prefer the New ASV translation (which is also similar to the Darby and is more literal). The Law, if correctly, understood points to life, but for Paul who (along with the Pharisees) had misunderstood it, it pointed to death. [f] Genesis 2:16-17 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."(literally "Dying you shall die.") 10 / 10