Is The Law Bad? Series

Sermon Brief

Date Written: March 15, 2012

Date Preached: March 18, 2012

Where Preached: OPBC (AM)

Sermon Details:

Series Title: A Journey thru Romans

Sermon Title: Is The Law a Bad Thing?

Sermon Text: Romans 7:7-12 [ESV]

Introduction:

This morning we will be looking at one of the most difficult passages in all the New Testament to understand and comprehend… it is a tremendous challenge and my prayer today is that you will allow the Holy Spirit to speak to your heart and hear what God has to say through this message.

Turn with me to Romans 7:7-12 and we are going to look at the 2nd portion of this chapter… last week we looked at the v.1-6 and we learned that as believers… those who have professed Christ and experienced new birth in Christ… we have been made DEAD to the Law!

We are no longer held under the bondage of the Law, but we are freed to serve Christ… we are delivered by the actions of Christ on the cross of Calvary…

We have been freed FROM the law by being declared dead TO the law…

Let’s turn to Rom 7:7-12 and let’s read our passage…

7What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

Now to some this may seem a bit confusing because of what Paul has said about the Law already in this letter…

In 5:20 Paul says: “Now the law came in to increase the trespass…”

In 7:5 Paul says: “…our sinful passions, aroused by the law…”

Now, people reading what Paul was saying about the law could interpret it as Paul insinuating that the law stirred up within our hearts a desire to do what was wrong…and that the law was a bad thing…

But when we read what Paul has to say here in v.7-12, we can see that is NOT at all what Paul was trying to say!

I know when I read this… at first I was confused, but then I begin to study what Paul was saying and prayed over this Scripture and now I believe I can share with you what God wants us to know…

If we look at an overarching theme for the first few chapters of this letter to the Roman believers we can see ‘freedom’ in Christ as a very powerful and forceful theme that Paul was attempting to get across…

He set out how we were guilty and deserved nothing but destruction, but out of God’s love and thru the grace God gives in Christ Jesus on the Cross… a way has been provided for us to avoid destruction and be saved!

But Paul was saying so much more than just that!!! Paul was NOT saying, “Hey guys, if you will believe in Jesus he will keep you out of hell…”

As great of news as that statement is… this was NOT Paul’s message. The Good News of the Gospel of Christ is NOT that we escape hell (although that is good news)

The Good News that Paul was writing about was that not only were we saved FROM hell, but our standing before God was now pure and blameless. We have been declared not guilty in the court of God’s Law and we stand in front of God WITHOUT blame!

The penalty of our sin is removed and in chapter 6 we learned that sin no longer has power over our hearts either…

Then Paul begins chapter 7 as an explanation of how we have been freed from the Law as well…

Now first of all I want to clarify what ‘law’ Paul was writing about. Paul was NOT writing about any civil law… we cannot go out and do what we want to do and claim that we have been freed FROM the law…

I can’t go out and speed and expect to NOT be punished… You can’t go out and take something that does not belong to you and not expect to be punished…

The “Law” here is a reference to the Mosaic Law given by God to the nation of Israel at Mt Sinai after they had been delivered from Egypt!