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!
The “law” that is referenced here was a way of life prescribed BY God to guide and direct these people… it was a set of solid and determined boundaries that God wanted them to use to live their lives!
No longer could they say they did not know what God wanted from them… God gave them the boundaries and guidelines by which they were expected to live…
But what they did not understand was that these boundaries and guidelines were NOT permanent because they were INCOMPLETE! The sacrificial system established BY this law, only pushed sin further and further into the future…
But IN CHRIST, Paul understood that the LAW of God had been completed and that IN CHRIST all things were restored to the created order… an therefore once we were IN CHRIST there was no need for the LAW to guide us because we have Christ to guide us!
Now when we look at these verses this morning we see Paul asking a question to set up an argument to which he wants to give an answer that will explain a very difficult theological truth…
In the first portion of v.7 Paul says
7What then shall we say? That the law is sin?
This was Paul attempting to cutoff his critics at the pass (so to speak) He knew what they were going to say or ask… He may have already had this question posed to him by those who traveled with him… in either case Paul is asking this question to set up his answer to it…
Basically this is what they were asking… “So Paul, you say we are free from sin and the law, we know sin is bad and what you have said about the law seem pretty bad too, Is the law bad? Is the law sin?”
Paul answers them with an emphatic NO! Certainly not… Absolutely NOT! Paul answer here seems almost dismissive of what they are asking… almost as if Paul is saying, “Not at all…”
And then Paul begins to explain WHY the law is NOT bad! “...if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin...”
Paul is telling them… you see the law is not bad, first of all because it is the LAW that lets us know what is sin! If it were NOT for the law I would not know that I was sinning…
Now what does Paul mean by this statement? Does he mean that before the law there was NO sin? No what Paul is saying here is that before the law, we were unaware of our sinful state and separation from God… and thereby unaware of our sinful/wrong behavior!
It is like this… let’s say my grand-daughter decides to go down the street, cross the intersection and walk over to Walgreens! And let’s say I catch her as she is walking BACK from the store…
I would be very angry, I would be very upset, I would probably be in the mood to punish her… WHY? Well, she left the house without telling us, she went across the street without us, she crossed the intersection without us, she went into a public place all alone as a 3yr old…
She did all this and placed herself in a very dangerous situation! I love her and want to protect her and want her to know that what she did was very wrong and that she should NEVER do it again!
She had put herself in great danger, but she did not see it… she had been having a great time. The manager at the store gave her a candy bar and someone had helped her to cross the street…and she does not understand why I am upset!
I would tell her… Carah, what you did was WRONG! She could tell me (and she is smart enough to come up with this…) “Well Papi, you never SAID I couldn’t cross the street, you never SAID I couldn’t cross the intersection or go to Walgreens alone… why am I in trouble?”
At this point, she is like the world was BEFORE the law… there was sin and wrong in the world, but many simply did not know it was sin or wrong!
My grand daughter was in the wrong, but she did not know it because of 2 things… ONE she is human and self centered and this was pleasing to her mind. TWO, she had NEVER been told that this was wrong, even though it was wrong.
So Paul is saying… Hey without the Law we would NEVER know what sin is… so the first reason why the law is NOT bad is that it lets us know what is sin!
But there is a 2nd reason Paul wants to get across… Paul then says, “The law is not bad because it lets us know what is sin… but also I want you to know that it is NOT the law that’s the problem here, it is sin itself!”
Let’s look at v.8
8But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.
Here Paul basically tells them its NOT the Law that’s the problem but it is SIN… Sin taking advantage of our weakness through the opportunity of the law!
Paul wants to paint the picture that sin is the evil here and NOT the law! The law sets the boundaries, it is sin that entices us and leads us and forces us to cross those boundaries!
The boundaries are set by the law for our protection and guidance, but our fallen human nature in us seeks out our pleasure and if our pleasure is seeking to cross a boundary then sin takes us there…
Now understand I am NOT saying… “The devil made me do it!” I am NOT saying that you do NOT have a choice! But what I am saying is that sin is the culprit…
We are tempted and have the choice to turn away, but it is the sin in our hearts that gives birth to disobedience which leads to destruction…
Paul wants the reader to know that the law is NOT evil… it is good and that SIN is the culprit in this situation!
This is when Paul begins to use his own experience to help them to understand just what he is saying to them… look at v.9
9I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.
Here Paul is using himself as a picture of humanity and telling his readers that before the law came, we could live as we chose because we were not aware of the sin… we were not held captive to it because we did not know it even existed…even though it did!
BUT once the law came, and we came to the knowledge of the law and the boundaries… we came to the knowledge of our own sin, and thus Paul says we DIED!
We were placed under the bondage of sin… burdened by the law… burdened by the boundaries!
Have you ever been told that you could NOT do something because it was wrong? Hmmm?
What is the natural human tendency when we are told that we cannot do something? First it makes us desire it even more…
2nd it makes us think that the boundary was set up to kill our fun or take away our joy… that the one setting the boundary just did not care about us!
When boundaries are set we feel trapped and in bondage and we feel as if we are unable to live freely…
This is what Paul means here that he ‘died’…
Notice how he explains it in the next 2 verses, v.10-11:
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.
The commandment… which is a subsection of the overall LAW proved to be TOO much! One commandment proved to be too much and caused a downfall!
Sin in the life of humanity seizes the opportunities it has though the law to deceive us into thinking that 1st of all the boundary is bad… 2nd that the boundary is keeping us from happiness and joy… and 3rd that the one who set the boundary does not care about us or our lives!
Here Paul is saying that we are pressed down and deceived into believing that the boundary is the enemy here… when in reality we are blinded to the death and bondage we are in through what sin is doing…
Here Paul is letting us know the ABSOLUTE EVIL nature of sin. It exists to deceive and destroy… it cares NOT who it deceives and it cares NOT whom it destroys… it’s sole purpose is to reek havoc on God’s creation!
It all started in the Garden with the One command, “you shall not eat of the tree…” and some biblical scholars believe that until that commandment was given, Satan had NO opportunity for sin to enter the world, but THRU the commandment, temptation and sin came crashing into our world!
Paul wants us to understand that sin is our enemy, not the law! He wraps up his teaching in this section in v.12 by clarifying just what he believes is the right thing about the Law…
12So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
What God has created is GOOD! What God has set forth is GOOD, RIGHTEOUS and HOLY! What Jesus came to fulfill was not something broken and evil, but it was something incomplete and highly misunderstood!
Jesus came to fulfill the law of God in that we could know righteousness… the incompleteness of the Law was that it could it only point out sin, but could not cure it! Jesus came to be the cure for sin!
Jesus came to fulfill the law of God… He came so that we could not only KNOW sin, but have victory over it!
There are so many people today who are caught up in the deception of sin… believing that the boundaries set are wrong because they keep us down… they hold us back…the stifle our freedom!
Many people lash out at the One who set those boundaries… but the boundaries are NOT the issue! This is NOT about a set of rules and regulations by which we MUST perform for God!
Like I said last week the Christian life is NOT about ‘performing’ for God to get his attention… its about believing in Him and having a relationship with His Son!
Jesus came to fulfill the law… Jesus DID fulfill the law… and thru a relationship with Jesus we can know that we have been delivered FROM the law and the oppression of sin, and the deception of sin…
Do you want to be freed to live with God today… I call on you to come as Bro Ken comes to lead us… come and give your heart to Him this morning!
