Law can’t save me. But it does do one thing – it condemns me. It exposes my sin, and through that process it can drive me to repentance and grace (hence, to Christ).
That is what God's law is for. It exposes the fact that the evil force of sin is in me, waiting only for the right circumstance to spring into being, overpower my defenses, and draw me into doing things I never dreamed I would do.
In condemning me, law can also make me remorseful and repentant so that I sense my need for deliverance.
The “law of the Spirit” - which Paul will say in Romans 8:2 broke his bondage to the law of sin and death that he's discussing right now - gives me the freedom to not be a slave to sin. But it does not force that freedom upon me.
So Paul’s focus now turns to how to not be a slave to sin – how to overcome sin in your life.
He teaches us this freedom from sin's slavery through two very personal anecdotes - taken first from before he was aware of sin (7:7-13), and then from after he was aware of sin (7:14-8:4).
It's easy to tell these anecdotes apart, as he uses the past tense to describe the time before he was aware of sin, and he uses the present (or what I’ll call “
transitional tense” to describe the time after he became aware of his sin.
This current study is of Paul's past-tense experience - before he was aware of sin. We will look at his experience after becoming aware of sin next time.
Romans 7:7 What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! 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."
Paul was absolutely zealous about legal righteousness. He had a lifetime commitment - beyond that of most people - to obeying God’s law and earning His favor and salvation.
But then, on the Damascus road, God brought Paul to an intense awareness of his sin. And when he saw his own sin as the result of the law that stood against his sin, he was convicted. The law was no longer an external force in Paul’s life, it was personal and internal.
Paul said we’ve died to sin (Romans 6:2; Romans 6:10) and to the law (Romans 7:4 ff, Galatians 2:19). So it's understandable that his readers should respond “Then the law must be sin!”
In my study notes on Romans 6:1, I said Paul was responding to 3 hypothetical objections to his teaching. We covered the first 2 already. Each objection stems from a basic misunderstanding of the nature of either faith or grace.
The first two we already covered.
They were:
- OBJECTION 1 - Grace encourages people to sin more so they can have more grace (Romans 6:1-14)
- OBJECTION 2 - Righteousness through Grace makes sin acceptable (Romans 6:15-7:6)
Paul is now responding to OBJECTION 3, that the if the increases my guilt, the law must be sinful (Romans 7:7-25)
Paul's answer in Romans 7:7 is that the Law can’t be sin because it exposes sin.
An X-ray machine can’t be a broken bone because it reveals broken bones.
Sin does not expose sin. Only something that is holy can do that.
It is true that the law increases our guilt. There is no guilt where there is no law. Without law, what could we be guilty of?
Merriam-Webster’s 10th edition defines guilt as "
the fact or state of having committed a crime" defines guilt as "the fact of having committed a breach of conduct, violating law and involving a penalty" (Ref:
dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/guilt).
Guilt requires law. So a person can be innocent only buy either (1) not breaking the law, or (2) the law being eliminated.
Romans 7:8-9 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.
Sin is a foreign substance in us, just as weed seeds are foreign substances in a garden.
Just as the garden wasn't made for weeds, we weren't made for sin.
Just as weed seeds exist in a beautiful garden but aren't recognized until the sun causes them to grow, sin can sit inconspicuously inside us and everything can seem just fine - until the law causes sin to grow.
And just as the sun serves the dual purpose of not only causing weeds to grow, but revealing those weeds to us, so also the law both causes sin to grow and also makes us aware of sin.
Compare this to what Paul wrote in
Romans 3:20,
“No one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin”].
Revealing weeds doesn't make the sunlight a weed. Nor revealing our sin make the law sin.
Laura's hypersensitivity seems like a good illustration of the relationship between law and sin. I imagine law to be the sunlight and sin to be the unidentified chemical.
In the dark (without the sun/law) everything seems fine. The foreign substance (the chemical/sin) is still there, but it is “dead” (inactive).
The light (the sun/law) not only makes us aware of the foreign substance (the chemical/sin), it causes that substance to develop and thrive.
Romans 7:10-11: 10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. 11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.
Researchers have just recently begun to discover how important the Vitamin D from the sun is to sustaining our lives.
But just like sunlight, which brings life caused Laura’s body to destroy itself, so also the law that was intended to bring life brought death to us - even before we were aware of sin - because it condemned us.
Notice how Paul says it did this in Romans 7:11). He says sin “deceived me.”
It deceived me by causing me to rely on its life source (law) to combat it! It increased my desire to obey - "Oh no! I have sinned! I need to work even harder at not sinning!" - all the while setting me up for more failure because I simply can't will or discipline my sin away.
The world is full of people who are deceived. They exhaust themselves trying to keep religious rules, follow elaborate rituals, attend churches and seminars, and any number of other ill-conceived actions in an effort to gain a better life and God’s favor.
Legalism (which teaches or righteousness by law) is a futile process. It always ends in destruction.
There is nothing wrong with the law. But there is something terribly and inherently wrong with man. He is deceived and is taken captive by sin.
As already stated, when it exposes our sin, the law also exposes the futility of our own efforts. This can cause us to feel remorseful and repentant and sense our need for deliverance.
And, if we allow it to, through this process the law can compel us toward grace!
Romans 7:12-13:So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. 13 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 death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
Regarding verse 12, sunlight isn’t bad just because a foreign skin cell substance thrives on it.
Neither is the law bad just because sin thrives on it.
Sunlight is still good and necessary to sustain life. The law is still holy, righteous and good.
V. 13, The question is, does the law kill me? The answer is no. The law doesn’t bring death to us any more than sunlight became death to Laura's skin cells.
But law does cause the thing that kills us to grow.
It causes sin to grow, but it also reveals sin so that it could be treated!
Law doesn’t kill, but it does bring life to sin, which does kill.
We cannot blame law for our sin. It has done its job - it has revealed sin and pronounced guilt.
The fact that man cannot live up to the law doesn't mean that the law is bad. The law is not the problem. The criminal - the one who breaks the law - is the problem.
Paul closes this section by saying that the law isn't bad - it is holy, righteous, and good. Sin (the "it" in v. 13), rather than law, produced death in Paul. And it used a good thing (law) to do it.
To my knowledge there is still no treatment for photosensitivity other than wearing heavy clothing. In extreme cases, people wear full cover face masks when the sun is out.
During her worst times, Laura wore something that today we might compare to a burka, although it was usually white or light colored. Paul will say much later in this letter, “clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature” (Romans 13:14, cp. Galatians 3:27).
The law caused sin to be recognized for what it was, and it made us aware that we needed to be clothed!
The law brings both death and life - death by causing sin to grow, and life by exposing our sin and driving us toward God.
If you think you are ok and that you will go to heaven based on good things you do or the lack of really bad things in your life, your view of reality is tainted with deception. This is why I believe it is very dangerous when churches pander only to the “good” feelings that accompany Christianity, but never talk about the wretchedness and destructive nature of sin that has been exposed by the law.
Some churches never help people deal with repentance because doing so can be uncomfortable. It'd essentially church growth through good feelings good works.
But if we sidestep the fundamental principle that Paul so elaborately addresses in this text, we end up with weak religious programs at best.
The first step in a healthy spiritual life and growth is not to feel good about yourself and/or improve your to self-esteem.
The first step in a healthy spiritual life is to come face to face with the reality of your sin, exposed by the law and dealt with by repentance.
One who has truly come to Christ should have experienced, at some point in his or her life, the horrible feeling of dread and weight of a life entrapped by sin.
