Romans 7 (Click scripture reference for audio access)
"Get This Dead Man Off Of Me" •
4.22.12 • Sunday Morning Service, Calvary
Christian Fellowship
Intro.
- When we
entered Romans 6, I mentioned that
Paul was transitioning his readers into a new section regarding the believer's
sanctification.
- This is God's
work in which He imparts Christ's character to the believer by the continuing
ministry of the Holy Spirit. In chapter 6,
Paul instructs us about what has changed in regard to sin.
- The facts are
that we are in Christ, and are therefore dead to sin. Our old man is crucified
and a new reign of obedience to God has begun in our lives.
- We are to
know this as fact, to reckon or account it by faith, and function in that truth
by perpetually yielding ourselves to the Lord.
- Having
answered the question about sin, Paul seeks to answer our next logical
question: What about the law?
- A Christian
might say, "I know that I cannot be saved by the law, but will the law
sanctify me?" This section will provide some critical information in that
regard.
- I wanna
suggest the following outline for us, as we examine scripture today. God wants
us to know three realities regarding the law.
I. The Law's Rigidity (v.1-6)
II. The Law's Revelation (v.7-13)
III. The Law's Real Intention (v.14-25)
Text
I. The Law's Rigidity (v.1-6)
• Romans
7:1 : "Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the
law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?" : This chapter starts connected to the last thought. When the
Bible was written, no chapter breaks were included.
- The best way to read chapter the Bible is to
ignore the chapter divisions and follow the thought. Paul's last thought in Romans 6 pertained to the wages of sin
bringing forth death.
- This is the penalty for sin! Death happens
because sin happens. That is God's judgment upon sin. This brings Paul
naturally to the subject of the law.
- Paul's Jewish brothers knew the stringency of
the Mosaic law. One could really include any law. All laws have a way of being
unbending and unsympathetic irrespective of circumstances in life.
- While we live, the law rules and is
undeterred by time or circumstances. While the person gets older and their
resolve slips, the law remains strong and vibrant.
- The law is a relentless taskmaster exercising
dominion, or lordship over man, with no room for grace periods or human
weakness.
- The only release from the law's relentless
nature is death. Otherwise, the law dominates, ruling over men in absolute
severity. Paul provides an illustration through marriage.
• Romans 7:2-4 : "For the woman who has a husband is
bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies,
she is released from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband
lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her
husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though
she has married another man. Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through
the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised
from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God." : A married woman is not free to enjoy the company, affection or
intimate love of another man while her husband lives. If she does, she becomes
an adulteress.
- But the same actions are uncondemned when the
husband dies! She is free from the law and is not an adulteress, if she were to
choose to remarry another man after her husband's death!
- Paul's point is simple: We died to the law
and it's demands! For the Jewish Christian, Christ's death released us from the
legal obligations of lawkeeping.
- We have become dead to the law through the
body of Christ and have been united to Christ.
- You and I, as members of the household of
fatih, are the bride of Christ! Those of us who are men have a difficult time
with this concept.
- Visuals aside, Paul's point is not about a ceremony,
but the strength of commitment!
- Ironically, wonderfully, while Jesus lives,
we who are bound to Him, are bound forever, for Jesus lives forever! Now, in
that condition, we are able to bear fruit to God!
- We are bearing all kinds of fruit. The fruit
of repentance, the fruit of the praise of our lips, the fruits of Christian
service, the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of evangelism!
- Our lives in Christ, apart from the law, are
lives that will be fruitful! A genuine Christian will bear fruit! He or she
cannot help that. It's what you and I are meant to be!
• Romans 7:5,6 : "For when we were in the flesh, the
sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to
bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what
we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not
in the oldness of the letter." : Sadly,
we were not always in a position to offer God fruit! When were were "in"
or under the power of the flesh, we were under the sway of an evil, unredeemed
nature living in sinful passion.
- The word "passions" comes from the
same Greek word family as "pathos," which refers to an emotional
suffering characterized by an enduring longing, in this case, for wickedness!
- The fruit of that kind of life is death or as
Paul says in 6:23, the wages of sin
is death!.
- Look at what Paul says: The law stimulated
our desire for sinful passions, which every child knows is a reality! We only
want that which we are told we cannot have!
- Listen to how we sinned. In our members. Our
eyes looked toward sin, our mouths spoke forth sin, our hands engaged in sin,
our feet walked toward sin, our legs carried us to sin!
- In Christ, we have been rescued from the
law's demands. How? By His death! We vicariously joined His death. The law only
holds onto that which is living!
- So now we are free, but not free to live a
life without a purpose. Jesus died and was resurrected so that you could serve
God, in the life of the Holy Spirit and not in the letter of the law!
˚
"We were discharged from the law
having died to that in which we were constantly held down in so much that we
are habitually rendering a bondslave's obedience to God." Kenneth Wuest
- This is a new condition that the believer can
live in: A life ruled by the Holy Spirit! That is what you and I are to
understand as our new and wonderful norm!
II. The Law's Revelation (v.7-13)
• Romans 7:7-9 : "What shall we say then? Is the law
sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through
the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, 'You shall not covet.' But sin, taking opportunity by the
commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law
sin was dead. I
was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and
I died." : The law's nature is not sin
because of what it produced in us. The law accentuated and brought our sinful
nature to life and light!
- The law reveals to you what sin is, take the
10th commandment. You shall not covet anything that belongs to another person.
Often, this is done in secret.
- The law then is not only that which governs actions,
but attitudes! It is the law that
condemns this as a sin. With the law in place, sin now has an opportunity that
it will make the most of!
- "Taking opportunity" pictures an
enemy establishment of a base of operations!
- Sin saw the law as the perfect beach head for
an effective and multifaceted attack!
- The law produced all sorts of evil desire! It
began with coveting, but it revealed so many other places where sin could
thrive!
- The law caused sin to revive, to sping into
action and Paul was as a dead man. His testimony of the law's affect was not
life as the people of Israel believed, but death!
• Romans 7:10-12 : "And the commandment, which was to
bring life, I found to bring death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by
it killed me. Therefore
the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good." : The Jewish people believed that they had life because they had
the law. This was the advertisement! "Just do this and that and you'll
live!"
- What Paul discovered was exactly the
opposite! In trying to keep it, he kept finding failure.
- Superficially, the Jewish person kept the law,
but woefully came up short in keeping the heart of it, especially before God!
- This is one of the saddest features of law
keeping. A person picks up a set of standards and meticulously tries to follow
them, miserably walking lines, thinking that he is pleasing God.
- Sin deceives them and in the end, they lose
their life in trying to keep commands that made them miserable AND they get to
stand before God who says to them, "I never knew you!"
- Sin seized the opportunity afforded by the
commandment and deceived Paul. The law did not deceive Paul. Sin did. How does
sin deceive? Sin deceives by justifying any transgression.
- Sin deceives by causing you to believe that
you can live a certain way, sparking the sin of pride in ourselves. The law is
not to blame for this problem.
- The law is holy and the commandment just and
good. Universally, in the pages of scripture, God's people love the law of God!
The law hath no flaw!
- What Paul is saying is that the law's
revelation of sin is right on every single time!
• Romans 7:13 : "Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But
sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good,
so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful." : Some may have wondered if Paul was impugning the character of
the law. Is Paul calling the law a source of death!? Paul's customary answer to
his own objections applies here as well: God forbid!
- Paul's argument is this: Law made sin
exceedingly sinful, greatly sinful. As a person grows in the knowledge of the
law, sin appears as sin, but then appears to be more wicked!
- His recognition was that the sin that dogged
him was greatly sinful. The more one knows about the law, the more one is
oppressed by it!
- In your life, you should experience this
yourself. Looking at God's law will make you see sin as sin. Law exposes what
sin really is and sin takes it from there!
- Listen to verse 13 in the NLT: "So we can see how terrible sin really is.
It uses God's good commands for its own evil purposes."
- Every time you look at the law and you look
at yourself, if you do not see ever increasing wickedness, you have some really
bad eyes!
III. The Law's Real Intention (v.14-25)
• Romans 7:14 : "For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold
under sin." : We know. We understand. We confess
that the law of God, given to Israel, is spiritual. It comes from God's Spirit.
It is part of God's divine nature. That's wonderful, except that I am carnal!
- I am stuck in a human body, complete with
appetites that are at war with the Holy Spirit who lives within me! That body,
that carnal nature is sold under sin. It is unredeemable!
- We are carnal, often given over to that
nature which caters to our bodies. We get tired, hungry, weak. Here is where
the information presented in chapter 6 becomes undeniably helpful!
- Please note the parallels. As with sin, we
are dead to the law. Fact. As with sin, it no longer has dominion over us.
Faith. I can yield to righteousness or unrighteousness. Function.
- Here, in recognizing the fleshly nature, Paul
is discussing the function of how we sin. Our flesh, our humanness is a slave
to sin, even though we are not! How does that work?
• Romans
7:15-17
: "For what I am doing, I do not
understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate,
that I do. If, then,
I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now, it is no longer I who do
it, but sin that dwells in me." : I like the
ESV rendering of verse 15: "I don't understand my own actions!" Have
you ever felt that way?
- "Why did I say that?" "What
got into my head to make me do that?" "I can't believe that I did
that!" This is not a new phenomena. Paul felt the exact same way!
- When I give in to my carnality, when I yield
myself over to sin, I'm in a place where I do not comprehend what is happening.
There is a conflict within myself, in essence, two "I's."
- There is the "I" that is the new
man, governed by God's Spirit, alive to the Lord's call. At the same time,
there is another "I" that is along for the ride: My flesh!
- What Paul the regenerate wanted to do, Paul
the flesh man didn't practice!
- Instead, Paul the regenerate, experienced
what he hated! When that happened, the law and Paul the regenerate were in
agreement! "The law is good and right!"
- In the present state, when sin did take place
in Paul's life, it was not his intention to do so. It was the sin that dwells
or that was living in him.
- Yielding ourselves over to sin allows sin to
be alive in us, which isn't the life that God intends for you and I! But know
that it dwells there!
- In trying to consider an illustration, I came
to think of it like this: A deliverer has come and taken control of the compound
of our life, but the former Captain has a cell that's very close nearby!
- Sin still dwells in you, but it does not
dominate you! You are still capable of sin, even if sin is not your Captain as
he once was!
• Romans
7:18-20
: "For I know that in me (that is, in
my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to
perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will
not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it,
but sin that dwells in me." :
In Paul the man. In Frank the man. The person, divorced from the Lord,
has nothing good dwell in them. I can expect nothing good from my flesh. Ever.
- There is nothing redeemable about me or you apart
from the Lord's intervention and intersection in my life. There is that part of
me.
- That part of me might want to do good, but
without God's Spirit, I lack the ability to do it.
- The law gives me the power to see it, agree
with it, and even love it, but never to live it!
- On the other hand, when there is evil that I
take part in and practice, it's not the me that is regenerated and lives in the
spirit. It's the sin that dwells alongside of me!
- As you grow in your faith, you need to
understand that this is a part of your walk with God! And like Paul, it should
frustrate you! Conflict within is a basic issue in sanctification!
•
Romans 7:21-24 : "I find then a law, that evil is
present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God
according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of
my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my
members. O
wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? " : Here is a law that
Paul finds at work, that we attest to as well.
-
We are filled with God's Spirit and are ones who desire to honor God, to do
God's work and to do good unto others. Right alongside that person is the evil
that is present with me!
-
I love to do good. I love to serve the Lord. It's my delight to do that! But my
body, my appetites fight against my mind and I'm brought again into captivity
to the law of sin.
-
I'm a wretch! I'm miserable! I hate being this way! I hate feeling conflicted! Do
you see where Paul has led us? He has led us to the point of weariness! That's
what the word "wretched" means!
-
The word bespeaks a person who is weary from battle. That is Paul. Miserable
when he looks at this conflict within his own body and mind.
-
He leaves his readers with a stunning illustration. In Tarsus, there was a well
known punishment for murderers, who were to be joined by ropes to the corpse
for a few days.
-
The decaying body would infect and overtake the living body and kill it in just
a few days!
-
Paul sees his carnality in this light. It is a stinking weight, attached to his
body that he cannot get rid of! If left alone, it would kill him because of the
choices that it would choose!
-
Paul is crying out in misery, hating his condition! For someone who loves the
Lord and has tasted the joy of life in Christ, they join Paul readily!
-
Law has made the case crystal clear! Do you want to relate to God based on the
law? If Paul the Apostle did not, why in the world would you? No, Paul was led
to a different conclusion.
• Romans
7:25 : "I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve
the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin." : Who can change my condition? Who can deliver me from this? That
is what Jesus does!
-
The law's real intention is to frustrate us to a point where we put our hands
up, give up and look up to Jesus to deliver us from our helpless case!
-
It shows us what we must do, but never gives us the power to do it! It lead us
to how we must function: As people who have been delivered through the agency
of Jesus Christ our Lord!
-
The conclusion is something that we must take with us to our graves. We are
delivered people who will serve the law with our minds!
-
This is why our minds need scripture. This is why we need to hear from Him!
With our mind, in the inner man, we will serve the law of God!
-
Wait a minute Paul? I thought we were dead to the law? We are. The law cannot
save or sanctify us, but because of our love for the Lord, the law will seep
out of us!
-
Because He lives in us, it's inevitable that we will serve the law of God
because He served the law of God! Our flesh will only ever serve the law of
sin!
Conclusion
- The law stands
as God's standard until a person enters into Christ through faith. The law
reveals sin in greater clarity as any attempt to follow it, leading to it's real
intention: To draw us to Him, that we might love Him and thank Him for delivering us from ourselves!
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