Grow 08: Romans 7:7-12

Romans 7:7-12 (NASB)

⁷What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, "YOU SHALL NOT COVET." ⁸But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead. ⁹I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died; ¹⁰and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me; ¹¹for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. ¹²So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

False Dichotomy

A false dichotomy is a situation where something is presented as an “either/or and not both” situation when it not actually the case.  The  Paul anticipates the argument of his readers that they are going to say, “So you are saying that the Law of God (or law in general) is evil?  How dare you say that about God’s LAW?!”  People hearing the clear teaching of the Bible and grace today often fall into the same trap.  Because of a lack of understanding of the distinctions in scripture they cannot see how something can be objectively good, but not for us as church age believers.  The false dichotomy is “either you say everything applies directly to me, OR you are saying that it is an evil waste of time.”  Neither being the case we believe, along with Paul: “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)  We see the clear reality that God gave the Law of Moses for the children of Israel and not for the church.  Just as the promises of the land and physical blessing were made to Israel not the church, we find that we are simply applying the portions of scripture that are directly applicable to us.  Going to the beach in your swimsuit is usually appropriate, going to a wedding in your swimsuit usually isn’t appropriate.  Living life under the law was appropriate for Joshua, David and Solomon.  We are to live seated in Christ, beholding Him (as we have already seen in Romans 6) it is not a value judgment on the Law of Moses, it is a recognition that it isn’t directly applicable for us.

Romans 7:7-8

⁷What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, "YOU SHALL NOT COVET." ⁸But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead.

How to Fail (in one easy step)

Having taken verses 1-6 to describe how the believer in Christ is now out of the Law’s “jurisdiction”.  He goes forward describing what happens if the believer attempts to live his life under the Law system, or any kind of a law system.  The result of the believer putting himself under law again is failure.  Total and complete failure.  Every time.  All the time.

Another one of those rhetorical questions

In verse 7 Paul anticipates what his readers are thinking.  They may be wondering if Paul is saying by all of this that the Law is somehow evil, or that the Law causes sin.  Paul responds with his characteristic, “May in never be!” This, again, in the Greek text is the most extreme way to forbid even the possibility of something.  It could be translated as “Perish the thought” or “Don’t even let the idea be conceived!” 

The Good Thing about the Law

Paul repeatedly claims that the law is righteous.  It was given by God.  The shortcoming is not in the Law, it is in us!  The Law was the tool that showed Paul beyond a shadow of a doubt that he could not claim any righteousness of his own.  Because the Law is righteous it can show that we are not righteous based on our inability to live up to the perfect standard.  This mirrors what Paul wrote to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:8-9:

“⁸But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully, ⁹realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers.” 

The law can be useful when talking to an unbeliever to convince them of their need for Christ’s righteousness and Christ’s payment for their sin on the cross.

What about those Ten?

It is interesting that those who are resistant to the reality that believers are not to live under law are generally quite inconsistent. Very few people would suggest that we are under the dietary laws, and even fewer would suggest that we should continue to observe the sacrificial systems described under the Mosaic Law.  The inconsistency comes when they try to root through the law picking choosing which parts of the Law they are willing to be under.  Some (like the Seventh Day Adventists) try to fool themselves into thinking that they are under more of the law than anyone else.  Others (like the covenant-reformed camp) try to outline the parts of the moral law that they are still under.  People often get really animated when it comes to defending the 10 commandments.  However, here Paul uses one of the 10 commandments (“Thou shalt not covet” Exodus 20:17) as the specific example of how life under law is not appropriate, nor profitable, for the believer in Christ today. 

Opportunity Knocks

The idea here is not that the law is evil, but that the sin nature uses the commandment as an opportunity.  The sin nature is looking for things to disobey, is looking for rules to break.  The Law would be helpful, useful, even easy, if we were perfect.  However, in the hands of the sin nature it is just a weapon for greater destruction. 

It is like one Football team giving their playbook to the opposing football team.  Is the playbook good?  Yes.  However, if the other team knows exactly what you are planning to do then they will also know the most efficient way to undo it.

Or if you wanted to sabotage a piece of electronics the instruction book may be the most helpful thing.  It would tell you exactly how to operate it so that you could simply do the opposite to destroy it. 

Just like this, the Law is a good thing, it would have caused people to live good and happy lives, but in the hands of the sin nature (which every human possesses) it only gave the sin nature a more direct plan for destroying the person, giving them something to focus on besides the relationship with God. 

Sin is Dead

Apart from the Law the Sin Nature has no standard to violate…no “instruction book” to use against the person.  This is closely related to Romans 5:13: “for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.”  As chapter 5 demonstrated, even without imputation sin still only yields death, loss, pain and separation.  However, facing our sin nature on the battlefield of Law is a war that we can never win.

To illustrate this we may look to another sports analogy.  For most of us playing one on one with the greatest living basketball player will result only in loss.  No matter how many times we play, no matter if we have a “good game” based on our abilities or a “bad game” the professional player will always defeat us.  However, if we weren’t playing basketball with him we would never have known how much better he is.  This illustration shows the insanity of the Christian attempting to live under law.  We can try again and again and again but we will never “beat the champ”.  Repeatedly doing so only improves our ability to lose.

Romans 7:9-12

⁹I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died; ¹⁰and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me; ¹¹for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. ¹²So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

Once alive

Paul looks back here to chapter 6.  When he first put his faith in Jesus Christ he was alive to God.  He trusted in Christ’s righteousness alone and rejoiced.  How many have this exact experience.  When they first come to know the grace and love of the Lord they are on fire for Christ.  The first days after their conversion they want to tell everyone about Christ’s amazing love, grace and provision for them has been.  They are fully satisfied with Christ’s sacrifice for Him, having been saved by His grace, and giving Him the glory.

But then…

Sadly the resulting command comes to them after that.  Like so many new believers that are desperately in love with Jesus something changes.  Someone comes into our life who tells them that they should be obeying these rules.  Or our own spiritual pride starts to puff us up and we start to think that we should be accruing our own righteousness by now.  Paul is not saying that the commandment MUST come in, but he is saying that it came into his life and caused a very clear result: death.

If we apply this to our previous analogy it may look like this:

Chapter 6 – I finally realized that I could never ever beat the professional basketball player in a game of one on one.  I realized that I couldn’t win, so I let Christ play the game for me and I found that He already won the game.  I trusted in His victory and I enjoyed fellowship with God.

Chapter 7 – After a while I figured that maybe, since I fooled myself into thinking that I am stronger now, I thought I could win the game, so I decided to accept my Sin Nature’s challenge and try to win, and I lost again.

Was to be life

Once again, the commandment was supposed to result in life.  If I could ever “win” that game then it would result in life.  I would have righteousness of my own with which I could approach God.  Essentially, the Sin Nature, knowing that it can never win against the perfect and absolute righteousness of Jesus Christ attempts to deceive Paul into another game of one on one. 

Deceived me

There is a deception going on here.  The deception that is being played by the sin nature is that Christ won the battle of Justification for us (when we were declared righteous by means of our identification with Christ), we are somehow responsible for our own righteousness in or Sanctification (the process by which we are being set apart for God in our daily condition).  The Sin Nature knowing it cannot defeat the saint who is resting in Christ’s life, power and righteousness attempts to tempt the saint to back to the game that it can win – one on one between the saint and the sin nature. 

Conclusion

So Paul is being very clear – the Law is not evil.  It simply cannot do anything for me.  The problem that we have is that we cannot live up to it.  When we attempt to do so we inevitably wind up focusing on ourselves, and not on our perfect Savior.  We end up trying to come up with some righteousness of our own and wind up back in the place of having to realize our own inability and need to abide constantly in our relationship of relying on Jesus Christ every moment and every day, in the r