Summary:

The discourse on Romans 7 elucidates the profound implications of the Apostle Paul's teachings regarding the law and its relationship to sin and grace. Paul articulates that under the law, humanity finds no justification; rather, it is through the redemptive work of Christ that one is liberated from the dominion of sin. By employing the metaphor of marriage, Paul emphasizes the necessity of death for a new union to occur. He asserts that believers have died to the law and, through baptism, have been resurrected to a new life in Christ. This transformative process allows for a relationship with Christ that transcends the constraints of the law, allowing believers to serve in the spirit rather than the letter. The complexities of human behavior are examined as Paul expresses the inner conflict faced by individuals striving to uphold the law while grappling with the inherent sinfulness of the flesh. This internal struggle highlights the essential role of grace in the believer's life, providing the necessary empowerment to overcome sin, thus reinforcing the notion that true justification is found not in adherence to the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.

Notes:

Paul articulates a critical perspective—that the law, while inherently good, cannot provide justification due to humanity's inability to fulfill its demands. He employs the analogy of marriage to illustrate that just as a woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives, believers too are bound to the law until they die with Christ. This death liberates them to enter into a new covenant relationship with Christ, where they are no longer under the law but under grace. The struggle against sin is poignantly depicted through Paul’s personal reflections on the conflict between the desires of the spirit and the inclinations of the flesh. This dichotomy serves to highlight the necessity of relying on Christ’s grace for strength and guidance.

Takeaways:

• In Romans 7, Paul elucidates the concept of being liberated from the law through death, aligning this with the death and resurrection of Christ.
• The law, while inherently good, serves to highlight human inability to achieve righteousness through works, thus necessitating faith in Christ for justification.
• Paul asserts that the true struggle lies not with the law itself, but with the sinful nature of humanity, which is incapable of adhering to the law's demands.
• The relationship between law and grace is fundamental; one cannot coexist with the other, as grace supersedes the legalistic approach to righteousness.
• Through Christ's sacrifice, we have the opportunity to rise above sin, embracing a new life that is no longer bound by the constraints of the law.
• The essence of the gospel rests not upon a system of legalism, but rather on a profound faith in the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.

Christianity is very diverse, but all denominations share a common source that by its nature has created problems for which there is no biblical antidote.

Tim Glover provides an alternative.

Join him each Wednesday at 10am to share his studies with you.

Good morning and welcome to our study.

We've been looking at chapter six of the Roman Letter and ready to start chapter seven.

In chapter seven, Paul talks about the law and that it has dominion over man for so long time as he lives.

That's an obvious truth.

I think when you're dead, of course you're not amenable to law.

But that principle is illustrated by the husband and wife.

The wife is bound by law to her husband so long as he lives.

And you might expect then Paul to be making the application that the woman here in this case would be the Christian and that she is bound by the law as long as it's alive, but when it dies, she's free from that law.

But that's not how Paul applies the principle.

He said, and there are two points very important, very significant.

I think that the first one is that Christians are dead to the law.

Notice the text says, therefore, my brethren, verse four, you have become dead to the law.

So what died in this text?

The law isn't what died.

Now, it's true.

You can look at Colossians 2:14 and perhaps other places in the Hebrew letter, and we understand that the law covenant was nailed to the cross.

Christ took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross, and so it's no longer binding.

The death of the testator has enacted a new covenant.

The Hebrew letter says, and therefore the old is null and void.

So when you look at the example of marriage, and I think this is why people misapply, seems as if you would expect Paul to be saying that the law died and therefore we're no longer under it.

But that's not what he says.

He resurrects the thought that he introduced in chapter six, that we have died to sin.

We're buried with Christ by baptism into his death, and that we're raised again to walk in newness of life.

So the thing that has died, or the person that's died here, is not the law, it's the individual.

That's the application that he makes.

For in this text, it's very critical, I think, that we see that because just as Paul would write to the Galatian letter, we have been crucified with Christ.

Nevertheless, it is not I that live, but Christ that lives in me.

Paul would go on to say, the life that I now live in the flesh.

I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

It's true that this would be of no value had Christ not died on the cross.

But having died and taken the penalty of sin, it allowed that for this death to take place.

But my point simply is, and Paul's point is this, is that we have died.

And so this death that we've died and the burial that we were buried with Christ by baptism into his death.

And now we've been raised to walk in newness of life, so we've died.

And it's true that in the sense the old law died too, makes it even more so.

Both are dead.

But in this case there's a resurrection.

And as a new resurrected life, this new person is no longer the old person.

Therefore, that relationship is no longer enacted, is no longer in force.

It has been terminated.

When you look at the Roman letter and emphasis that we've placed upon the the principle of law and that of grace, several times, Paul says they are, you know, they are diametrically opposed to one another.

Law and grace would annul each other, just mutually.

So you, if you have one, you can't have the other.

And so if sinners are given justice and then there is no mercy, these two thoughts are cannot coexist.

And so if it's justice that you're interested in, and if justice is the principle by which we're seeking justification and salvation, then it's just simply based upon law.

Justice, the law principle, states that one is justified by keeping the law.

And of course the problem is man can't do it.

It's not the problem with the law.

Paul's argument in the seventh chapter is the law is good and holy.

There's nothing wrong with the law.

It's righteous, it's good.

It's just that we can't keep it.

And since we can't keep it, it's not justice that's going to be the solution to the sin problem.

It's mercy.

We need another means.

And so it is justification by faith in Christ Jesus apart from the works of the law.

So if you receive mercy, then the application of law is certainly impossible.

Again, the two cannot coexist.

The truth reveals the error.

What I've always heard and grew up hearing all of my life is that the law died.

It's been replaced by the law of Christ.

And now we're under the law of Christ.

And so it's a law of forgiveness that when we do sin and we Will, we can always appeal to God for his mercy to forgive us.

So it's based on law still.

It's just that when you violate it, you can ask God to forgive you and be forgiven.

I don't think that's the point.

The teaching that Apostle Paul is making here, I don't think he's saying that we've just added another law.

What we're saying is that it is not law at all.

That law principle has been put to death, and now we're not under law.

In fact, that's exactly what Paul says.

We're not under law.

He doesn't say that we've changed, and now that we're under law, to Christ, he says we're not under law.

That system of justification is not the means to accomplish that.

It is justification on the basis of.

Not a legal system, but on the basis of trust in the work of Christ at Calvary.

And the weakness of the Jewish law did not lie in the fact that it was given by Moses and that now we have a perfect lawgiver in Christ.

That isn't what Paul is saying.

Please understand.

Paul is saying, you died.

See, because you have died to sin and resurrected a new man in Christ.

That person is no longer alive.

You buried him, and so now you're a new man in Christ, and therefore you can be married to another either way.

And you might think, why argue about that?

Because it's dead, whether it's you or the law, and therefore you could be married to Christ.

Well, because you're not talking about changing the law.

You're talking about doing away with law.

You're not under law, but you're under grace.

This is Paul's argument in the Roman letter.

And so it is important, I think, that we understand that.

And the implication, of course, is that one can't be joined to Christ so long as he's under a legal system.

It is a case of the incompatibility of law and grace, or works in faith, justice and mercy.

So it should be carefully noted that whether one is under law or whether one is under grace, that which determines it is the death of Christ and his resurrection.

The cross is death to law.

It is death to the principle of works as conditions of justification.

So the consequence in respect to service is also noted by Paul.

So that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

Well, then Paul would ask the question, based upon what he has already written in the seventh chapter, 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 said, you shall not covet.

Instead of saving man from sin.

Law reveals the power of sin over man.

It gives occasion for sin.

It indicates that man is not perfect.

Man cannot keep it perfectly in order to be justified by it, because that's what it requires.

Remember Galatians 2:10.

Cursed is everyone who continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them.

That was the demands of law.

He had to keep it.

And he had to keep it perfectly in order to be justified by wasn't that if he couldn't be, then he could always ask Christ to forgive him.

But rather he can't keep it.

So there has to be another means by which he can be justified.

If it's not through law, it's through some other means.

But it wasn't the fault of the law.

It was the system that the law required of of man.

That that is perfection.

He had to keep it.

If he violated it in one point, James says he's become guilty of all.

See, I'm trying to drive at the idea that man couldn't keep this perfect law.

Not that it was anything wrong with Matt.

With the law, but the imperfection was in man.

And of course that was the weakness of the law because it wasn't conducive to.

To justifying man.

They could not.

That wasn't a good fit.

Let's just put it that way.

And so Paul would say that the law of Moses accentuated the very nature of sin and the requirements of law.

It said, I would not have known.

He said covetous, except the law said, thou shalt not covet.

The law can't overcome the power of sin.

But sin, that it may be shown to be sin by working death to me through that which is good, that through the commandment sin might become exceeding sinful.

In other words, it's as if Paul is saying the law made it more bold and apparent so that you could not miss this consequence and this inevitable condition of man that required something outside of himself to justify himself.

It couldn't be by law, because he could keep it and hasn't kept it.

This simply means that no legal system the sinner needs more than a new set of rules.

He needs the blood of Christ to atone for sin which was done at the cross and God's help to overcome the law of sin in himself.

And yet some still talk about the old law and the new law and still want to remind us that we're still under the law of Christ.

Well, it's true we're under the law to Christ.

But just exactly what is that law?

Is it another law system of works whereby one is justified by keeping it?

This is a problem.

It reduces Christianity to another legal system.

And if we do that, my friends, we'd have been better off staying under the old law.

I mean, if you think about pure law, which is easier to keep, a law that says do not commit adultery, or a law that says whoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.

It seems to me that Christ elevates law.

He gets behind the nature of law and the reason they were given.

So if it's law that we want, we don't want the law of Christ if we're going to look at pure law.

But the law of Christ is not just a law system of works.

It's a system by which one is justified by faith in Christ Jesus.

And based upon that faith, righteousness is imputed unto the faith person.

So Paul would argue in the seventh chapter, while he's not blamed putting any fault upon the law, he says, but I am carnal, sold under sin.

That's where the fault lies.

The law is good, the law is holy.

But the sin which is in man taking occasion by the commandment it deceived me, and by it it killed me.

Now it only takes once.

I mean, as far as even you go back to Adam and Eve.

I don't know how long it was before Adam and Eve sin and violated.

They may have been in the garden for a long, long time.

But the point simply is, at any point that we violate law, we're law breakers and deserve the penalty.

And that's death.

In the day you eat, you will surely die.

And that's the consequence of any violation of law.

Nothing is wrong with the law.

It is what's wrong is with us.

And through that commandment, sin is becoming exceeding sinful.

We know that the law is spiritual.

But I am carnal, sold under sin.

Then verse 15, Paul says, 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 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 that 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 sand that dwells in me.

I find then a law.

Now, this may be a bit confusing.

When Paul uses this word law.

He's not talking about a codified law here.

He's talking about a law principle, kind of like what we might call the law of thermodynamics or the law of gravity.

This law is a law principle.

Or he says, I find a law that evil is present with me.

And remember he said it twice.

In me that is, in my flesh dwells no good thing.

He illustrates it by the things that he wants to do, he wills to do.

He doesn't do it.

The things he does, he doesn't will to do it.

He doesn't want to do it, but still ends up failing anyway.

So how to perform what is good, I don't find.

He keeps coming up short.

So he says, it isn't me, it's sin that dwells in me.

He talks about delighting in the law of God according to the inward man.

There you go.

Now he's getting at the real point here.

He says, I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.

But I see another law in my members, this law principle of death that's in my body, in my members warring against the law principle of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

And then he exclaims, o wretched man that I am.

So the struggle under the power of sin finally issues this cry, O wretched man, that I who shall deliver me out of the body of this death.

Now notice Paul said who.

He didn't say what will who.

And the answer is, I thank God through Christ Jesus, my Lord, that's the who.

So then, with the mind I serve the law of God, and with the flesh, the law of sin.

See, in the inward man he delights in the law of God.

He wants, he wills, to do good.

But there is a law principle in his members, in his body, in me that is, in my flesh, Paul would say, dwells no good thing.

This principle, this law that is in his members is warring against the law principle that's in his mind, that is the desire to do.

But so the desire is there.

That's the inward principle of the mind.

But in the flesh, the performing of it, he doesn't.

He doesn't do that doesn't mean he never does it.

It doesn't suggest that he just utter failure.

But he cannot do it perfectly to be justified by it.

Paul is illustrating the struggle to be justified by this law principle.

So we're asking, well, the thought might lie in the fact that we have law.

God's to blame.

He's given us a law, and that's the problem.

No, and see, this, I think, is trying to put the blame where it belongs to.

It's not the law that's the problem.

It's what the law is working with.

And that is, it's working with sinful man.

In me that is in my flesh dwells no good thing.

I want to do what's right.

That inward man is saying, this is how I want to live, but I keep falling short of it.

This goes back to chapter three and illustrated by the life of Abraham in chapter four, that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Paul would ask in Philippian letter in chapter three, or mentioned in chapter three and verse seven.

He said, I count all things for loss for the Excellency the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.

He wants to be found in him not having his own righteousness, but the righteousness which is by faith in Christ.

So we're not exchanging the law of Moses for the law of Christ.

We're exchanging the law of Moses for Christ, See, not for another law, but for Christ.

So faith is the faith, not in the law of Christ, but faith is in Christ.

Don't you see the point?

And so we need to understand that we're not exchanging one law for another for exchanging law for faith, for grace.

We're exchanging works by means that is a works of law for faith in Christ Jesus.

Paul's description of this inward conflict between the will to do right and overcoming sin and all that, it's almost.

Well, it sounds pathetic.

He just fails utterly.

And Paul knew what was right.

He desired to do what was right.

And he desperately tried to do what was right.

But he failed anyway.

The sinful power in him, that law principle, he calls it the law of sin.

It is this power that was a sinful power.

And it was this law of sin in Paul which the law was helpless to overcome.

It is not the function of law to give man the power to crucify the old man.

It is the function of law to reveal the obligation of man to keep it.

I would have not loaned law not to covet, except the law said, thou shalt not covet.

But that's not the fault of the law.

It is fault with a man not being able to keep it.

And of course the nature of law to punish him when he doesn't.

So the answer is, I thank God through Christ Jesus my Lord.

Paul isn't condoning sinning.

He said, I don't want to do that, but thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

So then here's the consequence, here's the result.

Rather so then, with the mind I serve the law of God, and, and with the flesh, the law of sin.

When I sin, it is not my desire to do so.

Just like Paul's struggle under the law of Moses in the inward man, I delight in the law of God.

I want to do what's right, but because I'm not under a law system, I'm not brought into this penalty of death because justification is not by works of law, but by faith in Christ Jesus.

And so Paul would say, I thank God through Christ Jesus my Lord.

So then with the mind I serve the law of God.

I put my faith in Jesus Christ and with the flesh, the law of sin.

This is the, the answer to the sin problem in chapter seven, I think, really puts a cap on it and helps us understand why there's no justification by the law and what justification by faith in Christ really means.

I thank God through Christ Jesus my Lord.

Why?

Because now I can serve God.

I can serve God in the heart and with the mind.

And when I sin, when I do fail, which he illustrates in this chapter, that he will, it is only because I'm in the flesh.

Now someone might say, well, what's the difference between that, what he did when he was under the law?

Well, it's not, I mean, he still, he's still.

It's the same man has the same problems, he has the same temptation, has the same sin law principle of sin in his members that's warring against the law of his mind.

But, but in Christ there's victory, there's not death because number one, he took the penalty of sin at the cross.

And number two, it is no longer dependent on me to keep law in order to be justified by it.

But it is replaced not by another law, but by faith in Christ Jesus.

Oh, my friends, there's the victory, there's the victory and there's.

That's the solution to the sin problem.

No one who knows Christ desires to be under law.

And it is strange to me how many, many people prefer the bondage of law to the freedom of grace in Christ Jesus.

Another passage that Paul uses that confirms the same teaching to another group of saints is in Philippians chapter 3.

In Philippians chapter 3, notice he says, for we are the circumcision who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.

This is exactly what Paul teaches in the seventh chapter of Romans.

In me that is, in my flesh dwells no good thing.

He you see, Paul is saying here that the true circumcision, those that are circumcised, spiritually worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ having no confidence in the flesh.

Though he says in verse four, I also might have confidence in the flesh.

If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh.

I more so circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, Hebrew of Hebrews, concerning the law of Pharisee, concerning zeal, persecuting the church, concerning their righteousness which is in the law.

Blameless, you might think, well, Paul, why do you need Christ?

Well, Paul discovered the same thing that Abraham did.

What did he find as pertaining to the flesh?

He can't keep it.

Chapter seven says, remember he describes that struggle of trying to keep the law under that system.

He says, the.

The good that I want to do, I.

I do not and the things that I do, I don't.

I don't want to do those bad things and the good.

So there's this onwards in.

In me that is, in my flesh dwells no good thing to will that's present with me.

I want to do better.

But how to perform that which is good, I.

I don't find it.

Why, there's a law in my members that's warring against the law of my mind and and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin.

And that is the flesh.

So Paul would say, I have no confidence in the flesh.

But if anybody did, if anybody could base any kind of justification, I would be on the top of the list.

And he gives his credentials.

But now notice what he says about them.

But what things were gained to me with regard to his past heritage and his relationship in the law of Moses, what things were gain to me?

These I have counted loss for Christ, but indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ the righteousness which is from God by faith that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed unto his death.

If by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead, Paul would go on to say, not that I have already obtained, or am already perfected, but I press on that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.

Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended but one thing I do.

Forgetting the things that are behind and reaching forward to those things that are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

That's the kind of mind, he goes on to say in the 16th verse, that we need to that's the kind of rule that we need to walk by and to be of that same mind, that same attitude.

And so.

And so we leave you with Paul's solution.

In the seventh chapter, I thank God through Christ Jesus, my Lord.

So then, with the mind I serve the law of God, and with the flesh the law of sin.

In the eighth chapter, beginning in verse one, Paul introduces it, and I think we'd be amiss if we just stopped right here, because it continues into the eighth chapter when Paul makes this concluding remark.

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.