If I were to take a long piece of super-duper duct tape and stick it firmly to your hairy arm, how would you prefer to have it removed if you only had these two choices: Slowly, pulling out one hair at a time, or suddenly, ripping it off instantly?
Most of us would prefer a quick rip. Well, when we look at how Paul describes our condition under the law, he pulls it off very, very slowly. He describes in detail the pain of living under law and seeking to satisfy the righteous requirements of it with merely the power of the sinful flesh. Ouch! Who will deliver me! Let’s look at it together.
We have learned in Romans 6 that all of us who have been baptized
into Christ have been baptized into his death and are thereby
freed from sin. In chapter 7 we see that we are also freed from
the law. But, are we completely out of touch with sin and the
law now that we are in Christ? The answer to this question is
not as clear cut as we would like it to be. Let’s study this
chapter in its three sections and see what it says about our
dealings with the Law and sin. We see in the text that there are three questions that nicely divided this chapter into three sections. Those questions occur in verses 1, 7, and 13.
1. The marriage analogy (1-6)
Death abrogates legal bonds. Just as in a marriage when one of
the mates die the other is free to marry because the legal bond
is broken. Now notice what Paul does with this. What has
happened to the law in this text? It is alive and well, but who
dies? We who have been baptized into the death of Christ!
The law did not die. Jesus died. And we who enter the death of
Christ are dead to the law. It was an unhappy marriage anyway.
The law was much too perfect for us. We were always cheating on
it. We were unfaithful in our relationship. Can you see that in this text? The law was not unfaithful. We were. But when we died with Christ we were no
longer married to the law. Our relationship to the law was not
based on faith and love anyway. It was based on a written code
that held us captive and aroused our sinful passions.
But we died to the law, (when we entered the death of Jesus Christ – see 6:3-4) and are united to a risen Savior, a savior who freed us through his own death and who claims us in his resurrection.
Therefore, our relationship to the law is this: we are freed
from the law by the death of Christ. Jesus didn’t destroy the
law, he fulfilled it. Only those who are in Christ are actually
freed from the law. Just as we are freed from sin, we are freed
from the law. But sin and the law still affect us. As we study
further we will see more on this. But just remember that the law
is not the one who died, we who entered the death of Christ by
baptism have become dead to the law. If not, how?
Next we get a personal look at the Apostle Paul and his
autobiographical sketch. Again, he begins these next two sections with
a question. He fears that there may be some who equate the law
with sin.
2. Is the Law the problem? (7-12)
Look with me at some of the earlier statements of Paul about the
law. 3:20; 4:15; 5:13, 20; 6:14; 7:5.
With those verses in mind someone might think that the real
problem here is the law!
“Free from law? That’s the ticket!” The flesh cries out in us, “What we really need is to be set free from law and be allowed to have uninhibited
self-expression and unrestricted freedom.” That’s what some of the
modernists tell us today. Some think that man is basically a good moral being
who is evolving upward and needs simply to be set free to discover his own way. They say we need to be left alone and freed from all the things that inhibit him, such as belief in God and religious, moral standards. They tell us that then, man will soar to virtuous heights. Are you kidding?
When left alone, man plummets into moral and relational chaos! Just look at Romans 1!
It is not God’s Law that ruins us! Never! But while the law is not the
problem, neither is it the answer. In order to explain this he
tells us his own story. In it we hear echoes from the garden of
Eden.
Look at verses 7-13
Remember the garden of Eden? God had created a perfect place
with a perfect environment and he created man and woman to work
in the garden he prepared for them. Adam and Eve were in this
wonderful sinless place. Then the command came. Do not eat from
the tree of Knowledge of Good and evil or you will die. It is as
if this very command gave sin the opportunity to come to life and
produce death in Adam and Eve. And how did it work? The serpent
deceived Eve. It was deception based on desire.
We are warned in Hebrews 3:13 to encourage each other daily so
that we will not be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. And listen
to James 1:13-16...
Besides being deceptive, sin is personified as a sort of monster,
waiting on the opportunity to attack. Paul says here in Romans
that there was a time when he was alive apart from the law.
Probably in childhood. Before the dawn of the conscience. Then
when the commandment came sin sprang to life and killed me. That
very law that was intended to bring life was used against me to
put me to death! What happened? Without a law to break, sin
cannot express itself fully. (It is still just as deadly, but it does not reveal its true evil nature). But where there is a law, sin finds an
opportunity to come to life and condemn me. Some lady at a
church once said that she didn’t like the 10 commandments because
they put too many ideas into peoples minds. Sin is a powerful
foe, taking advantage of even the Law of God to use for evil.
The law, therefore, is powerless to help me. It is not designed to empower
me, it is designed to enlighten me. It is holy, righteous and
good. But it does nothing to make me better. In fact the law
shows me just how miserably wretched sin is. Because when the
law comes along sin fully expresses its sinfulness. The law reveals just what a grip sin has on me. It produces
death in me. So is the law what produces death? Did the law
become death to me? No, no, no! The problem is not the law.
The law is not sin, and the law is not death. The problem is
that sin is in me! Death is in me!
3. Death in me, freedom in Jesus! Verses 14-25
Notice all the “I’s” in this section.
Notice also that this is told in the present tense not in the
Past. Some believe that Paul is describing living under law before he became a Christian. Others insist that this is Paul, the Christian, dealing with sin even as a mature follower of Jesus. Personally, I see it as Paul the Jew under law walking with the power of his flesh before he had the power of the life of the Spirit.
But because so many of us live a carnal life even as Christians, this description is familiar to many Christians as they follow
Christ. In that light, Paul describes us as in a great battle. Warring against
sin. He speaks of buffeting his body daily to keep it in
subjection to Christ. He describes himself as striving for the
goal of the high call of God in Christ Jesus. The point is, we
may be dead to sin, but sin does not seem to be very dead to us.
Likewise we may be dead to the law, but the law still guides us
as a tutor to Christ. It still speaks words of warning and
instruction and encouragement to we who are dead to it. By the
cross the law has simply been removed as a source of strength for
sin.
So, now that we are free from sin and free from the law isn’t
life in Christ a bed of roses? Paul would say, If we only have
hope in this life, we are of all men most miserable. We are not
living for the temporal world but for the eternal home with
Christ. But we are living in this temporal world as strangers
who face many dangers and deal with many struggles.
On the other hand, if this is speaking mainly about life under the law as one who seeks God by the power of his own flesh the message is different.
In that case, Paul is saying that you can’t live for God with your own strength! There is nothing in you that helps you keep the law! Even if you desire to keep it in your mind, sin in you will have the upper hand! There is no power in the law to help you. There is not strength in you to beat sin’s grip of death. “I do the good I want to do, no the very evil I hate I do! This is the cry of one trapped under the law without the strength of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus!
When we look at chapter 8 next time, we will see that chapter 7 is NOT the normal life of the Christian walking in the Spirit! There is power for a victorious life in Jesus Christ! It is not found in the law. It is not found in the flesh. It is only found in Jesus Christ!
When I was in Concord, New Hampshire selling Real Estate, one of our associates at the real estate office sold a
property for 650,000 dollars. The man who bought it walked
through the house and out on the back deck and said, "I can touch
God from here! I’ll buy it!"
Paul says that the place you touch God is not on the beautiful
deck of a 650,000 house, but at the foot of a bloody cross, where
Jesus’ death gives us life.
Long after that house is dust, the
glorious hope of the saints will be still be new. We must set
our focus higher than the things of this world or they will
swallow up our vision of eternity.
Our victory is sure but our battles still rage. We find that we
are living in the in-between time. Already we have received grace and power to live for Christ. But we are not yet glorified. We are not yet home.
Spiritually, we have passed from the kingdom of darkness into the
Kingdom of light, but temporally we live in this world with flesh
and blood. We are subject to the conditions of mortal life.
It is as if we are in two worlds simultaneously. And so we are
in a state of tension between the two.
Romans 6-7 tell us about our freedom of deliverance from sin, death and the law through entering the death of Jesus Christ. But we have yet to see what this book teaches about God’s power to live the new life in Christ! He saves that until chapter 8. In chapter 6 we learn how Jesus death, burial and resurrection and our uniting with Jesus in this set us free from sin. When we are baptized into Christ we enter his death. We are buried with him through baptism into death that like Jesus was raised from the dead, we also may walk in newness of life! Chapter 7 has shown us how we are set free from the law by that same death with Christ. After describing life under the law by the power of the mere flesh, we hear the cry, “Who will deliver me from this body of death!” and the answer: “Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ his Son!”
Our salvation finds its roots in three sources:
The Father’s love
The Savior’s sacrifice
And the Holy Spirit’s empowerment.
Get ready for a wonderful view from the Spirit in Chapter 8!
