The Law: Friend or Foe?

Series on Romans

IX The Gospel and Indwelling Sin

B Revealed by the Law

Text: 7:7-13

Introduction

Paul has gone out of his way to point out that the law is not only useless for saving us, but also that it is an hard taskmaster and slave-driver for those who do not know the gospel. The world is filled with religions and with people who think they can be saved by keeping various laws and ordinances. The Apostle is sensitive to the fact that this might lead to despising and depreciating the law, but Paul’s only goal is to discredit the law as a way of salvation. Therefore he embarks on an explanation of the goodness and usefulness of the law in this portion of Scripture, and we read his unequivocal celebration of the law in verse 12, So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. I am reminded of David’s words in Psalm 119:97, Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long. You know enough about human nature to know that rules and regulations were made to be broken. It is very hard for us to say that we love laws because of our sinful natures. It is difficult to love what restricts you and produces a sense of guilt in you. It is hard to love something that is always reminding you of your weakness. For the unrepentant sinner the law is worse than a nagging spouse or relative. Yet David says he loves it. This can only be because David is redeemed and renewed by the grace of God, and God’s grace has given him that love for the law which he did not naturally possess. The three useful things I learn from the law are that I am sinning, sinful and sentenced to death.

I Sinning

From the law I learn that I am sinning as Paul says in verse 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.” The law does not produce sin, it discovers it, and therefore the law is not sin. Once I was putting up posts for a fence. Placing a string from one surveyor’s mark to the other, I tightly stretched and secured it at both ends. However when I went to hammer in the posts it was a windy day and the string kept bowing in the wind. My straight line was gone. We may huff and puff at the law of God and we may try to make it say what we want it to say, but it is not a string, it is a rod of iron. It is unchangeable and it tells me when I have sinned. Paul’s reference to a specific commandment here is instructive. When the Apostle is telling us in Philippians how he regards his heritage and performance as worthless, he says in 3:4-6, If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. Paul believed he was keeping the law, but the tenth and last commandment is “Thou Shalt not covet.” This is the only commandment which cannot be outwardly violated. Outwardly Paul was in his estimation keeping the law, but inwardly he realized he was not. As Jesus pointed out in the sermon on the mount, the law not only exposes our outward sins, but it exposes our heart. Thus he said in Matthew 5:21 and 22, You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. This leads to the next thing we learn from the law, namely that we are not only sinning, but we are sinful.

II Sinful

Paul goes on in verses 8-11 to discourse on our sinful nature, But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. The importance of this point can hardly be overly stressed. There is a big difference between saying, “I have sinned,” and saying, “I am a sinner.” The former is a statement about a specific act, but the latter is a statement about my character. It answers the question, “Who am I?” I am a sinner. This is a statement about the core of my being, a statement about my heart, and a statement about what I am likely to do in any given situation. Paul’s autobiographical comments here make clear that he believed he was a sinner, dead in trespasses and sin, and incapable of obeying the law of God, In fact, he is suggesting that the law had exactly the opposite effect than that for which it was intended. The premise of the law was, “Do this and live.” But the effect of the law on a sinner is to produce covetous desire. That is, the law aggravates our sinful condition. The law reveals my sin, but it also aggravates my sinful nature, and encourages my rebellion because my sinful heart remains unchanged by the law. People like to speak of their deeds as either good or bad. Some people even count the good and weigh them against the bad in their minds. However, on the scale of God’s perfect judgment no act is entirely free of sin because of our sinful hearts and minds. In the Westminster Confession we read in Chapter 16 about good works. We are told that none of our works is truly good, “because, as they are good, they proceed from His Spirit; and as they are wrought by us, they are defiled, and mixed with so much weakness and imperfection, that they cannot endure the severity of God’s judgment.” I am reminded of the fable of King Midas who wanted to be the richest man alive, and was given the power to transform everything he touched into gold. Then he could not even touch his loved ones. As sinners, everything we touch is effected too, and everything we touch turns to lead.

III Sentenced

We have seen that the law reveals our sin and aggravates our sinful conduct, and now Paul turns to the last effect of the law, that it sentences us to death. We read in verse 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. Several times in this passage Paul reminds us that the law deals death. We have debates on our society about capitol punishment, but there is no debate here. The penalty is unchanged since the dawn of creation when God said to Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:15-17, The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” The law was holy and good and was for man’s benefit and blessing. However, it carried with it a penalty and when man disobeyed, that penalty was exacted and he died spiritually and then physically. The punishment of death does not come from the law but from God because the law is simply God’s Word. He is the one who inflicts death and we should be glad he does because the alternative is to live in a chaotic universe where there are no consequences for our actions. Unfortunately if there are to be consequences for the sins of others, there must be consequences for all of us. But, ultimately this turns to our salvation when we recognize it. As Paul says, It produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful. This is how we see our sinful condition and this is how we recognize our need for salvation and this is why Jesus said that He came to seek and to save that which was lost. I know that people are sometimes skeptical of what they call “foxhole” repentance, or of criminals repenting on death row, or of what we call “death-bed” repentance, but ultimately all repentance is death-bed repentance because all repentance occurs when we realize that we are under the sentence of death. Some people realize it sooner and some later, and some very late, yet the important thing is that we realize our plight and turn to Jesus Christ.