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SANCTIFICATION

The place of the law

Romans chapter 7

Having demonstrated that the believer is saved from the penalty and power of sin, we will now learn that the believer is also free of the Law of Moses.

Most of the Gentiles are unaware of this law, but God gave it through Moses to the Jews as a rule of civil and religious conduct to be kept by their nation. Some Gentiles who joined the Jews also submitted to it.

In view of what was now being taught, those who knew the law were still in doubt about whether they should submit to its precepts. This chapter is addressed especially to them, but it also applies to those today who, declaring themselves to be Christians, still want to use that law as a rule for their life even after having been justified by faith.

In Chapter 6:14 we already read "... you are not under law but under grace", and in this chapter this fact is explained in more detail.

Just as the believer must consider himself dead to sin (6:11), he also died to the law through the death of Christ. Here we have two arguments to demonstrate it (v.1 to 4):

1. The law has no validity on the dead, and the believer died spiritually in Christ. His new life belongs to Christ who rose from the dead, to give fruit to God.
2. The widow is no longer tied to a dead husband: she can marry again. Before conversion, the believer was imprisoned by sin and condemned by the law that led to death. Now he serves God in a new spirit, free from sin and not affected by the law.

The believer died to the law through the body of Christ, i.e. the human body that He handed to death (v. 4). He is no longer affected by the law, because he is united to the born again Christ. A marriage was broken by the death, another took place and, now, free from the law, he can produce fruit to God.

This fruit contrasts with what he produced before in his sinful nature, when he depended on himself and on what he could do to be accepted by God ("in the flesh" is the opposite of "in Christ"). He was ruled by the "sinful passions" aroused by the law (v.8): not that the law originated them, but simply by mentioning these sins and then banning them, it aroused the desire to practise them (as Eve and the forbidden fruit).

These passions of sins were temptations that, when falling into them, "worked in his members" a deadly poisonous fruit, which is described thus: "adultery, immorality, impurity, lewdness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions,  dissensions, heresies, envy, murders,  drunkenness, revelries, and the like” (Galatians 5:19 -21).

The believer was freed of the law in order to serve in "the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter" (v.6). It is motivated by love rather than fear, serving in freedom, not slavishly submitting to a ritual, conventions, regulations, procedures and ceremonies, as in Judaism and many religions and sects who call themselves Christians in our day – this is "oldness of the letter".

Now comes another question: "Is the law sin?" (v. 7). Note that Paul did not say that the law was dead, and to this question, he replies emphatically "certainly not". Actually, we could have got the impression that the law walked hand in hand with sin, and if the act of freeing from sin means freeing from the law, they must be in a state of equality.

It is then necessary to explain why the believer should know and learn the law even after being released from his conviction.

It is interesting that, in its explanation, Paul mentions his personal experience, referring to himself (47 times) as the converted Jew that he was. It was the internal struggle that he went through trying to live for God before his conversion, in the power of his sinful nature. It was an impossible task.

The law revealed to Paul the great evil of sin and mirrored his own heart. It is what it does with any one, because the word of God reflects who we are. It shows the evil that we have in us, but the law does not have the cure for it. Only God can cure us.

The law has no fault; the fault is in our sinful nature we inherited from Adam. The prohibitions contained in the law point out our shortcomings. Paul tells us that, the more he tried to obey the law, worse became his failures. He lost hope of saving himself by own efforts. In reality, the commandment brought him death instead of life (v. 11).

The law still has its usefulness, because it is holy and the commandment holy, righteous and good (v.12):

1. The law makes us know what is sin: we, however, when we measure ourselves by  it, find that we are sinners destined to death.
2. The law is spiritual (originates from God), and highlights the malignancy of our sin, to which we are prisoners.
3. Knowledge of the law brings inner conflict, for recognizing that the law is good, we want to obey it, but we cannot, because we are naturally inclined to disobedience. As much as we want to do good, we continue to be dominated by selfish interests and fail.

The law is perfect, but the sinful nature of man is unable to obey it, and it brings about the punishment for his transgression, eternal spiritual death.

Finally, Paul referred to his present situation, after being born again. Now he had two natures in conflict within himself, and saw the impossibility to get rid of the tendency to sin with his own efforts.

He acknowledged that the law is spiritual, that is, in itself it is holy and adapts to man's spiritual benefit. However, he was carnal because he did not feel that he was winning the power of sin in his life, and that he was "sold under sin", as a slave whose Lord is sin.

He then describes the struggle that rages in a believer who does not know the truth about the identification of the believer with Christ in His death and resurrection. It is the conflict that goes with the believer who wants to sanctify himself through his own personal effort to fulfil "the holy, righteous and good commandment" (v. 12), and is disappointed when discovering that the more he struggles, worse it gets. He is being defeated and this is not surprising because human nature is incapable to conquer sin and live in holiness.

By acting in a way that the "law of his understanding" condemned, doing what he did not want to do, he agreed with the law, which is good (v. 16). He concluded that who acted was not he himself, but the evil that was in him. However, we must take care not to use this argument as an excuse to carry out evil. We are responsible for what we do. Paul was discovering the origin of his bad procedure, but not excusing himself for it.

If we rely only on ourselves, we are wretched, because we cannot rid ourselves of this nature that leads to death.

Finally, Paul exclaimed, “I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!" What we cannot do by ourselves, the Lord Jesus Christ gives us strength to do through the Holy Spirit that we have in us since we were converted. With the renewed mind, the believer serves the law of God, even if the flesh is still serving the law of sin.

 

R David Jones

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1 Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband.
3 So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man.

 

4 Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God.
5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death.

 

 

 

 

 

:6 But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

 

7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, "YOU SHALL NOT COVET."

 

8 But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead.
9 I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.
10 And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death.

 

1 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me.

 

12 Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.
13 Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.

 

 

14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.
15 For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.
16 If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good.
17 But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.
19 For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.
20 Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
21 I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good.
22 For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.
23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
25 I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

Romans chapter 7