The Good News (9): Bound No More To The Law: The Marriage’s Over, But He Wasn’t the Problem, It Was Me… Well, My Sinful Nature, Really (Romans 7:1-25)
Introduction
If you’ve been a Christian for more than a couple of weeks, you would have discovered that you are still sinful. Accepting Jesus Christ, submitting to his Lordship, trusting in his death and resurrection, doesn’t make life easier, at one level. In fact, being a Christian makes some bits of your life harder. Some things that weren’t an issue before Christ are now an issue for you.
And as you read God’s word and consider God’s law, you begin to learn some things about yourself. You begin to learn how really sinful you actually are. Sure, you could tick the box that says, ‘I’m a sinner, too. I’m just like everyone else’. But over time, you actually see that some of your thoughts and attitudes are pretty bad. And sometimes you wonder whether Christianity and the gospel has actually worked in your case. You hear about ‘if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature, the old has gone, the new has come’. You hear ‘you must be born again’. And sometimes you wonder if you’ve actually changed that much. Some of your attitudes have surprised you in how sinful they are. Some of your thoughts are plainly disturbing. And while on the outside you are respectable enough, but you know your own miserable thoughts and attitudes on the inside.
Well, welcome to the normal Christian life. The normal Christian life is a fight. It is a fight against the world, the flesh and the devil. And the enemy ‘the flesh’, or sinful nature, continues to cling to us. It will fix itself onto us until we go to be with Christ or Christ returns to raise the dead.
In the recent wars on terror, we have seen that the most fearsome enemy is the enemy within. The most dangerous attack is the insider attack. In Afghanistan, they call it the ‘Green on Blue’ attack. It’s the enemy in the camp, who looks like a friend, but viciously attacks with deadly force when you least expect it. In August 2012, a ‘Green on Blue’ attack occurred against Australian troops in Afghanistan. The Aussie diggers were relaxing at 10pm at night, playing cards and board games. And a sergeant of the Afghan National Army opened fire on them, killing three and wounding two. It was an ambush from within. A rogue man, a Talliban sleeper cell, who waited till the Aussies were relaxed, and then shot them in cold blood. The Talliban helped the terrorist escape (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-25/survivor-recalls-australias-green-on-blue/4981264). He was captured after 12 months on the run and now awaits trial in Afghanistan for murder (http://www.news.com.au/national/aussie-digger-saved-lives-during-insider-attack-in-afghanistan/story-fncynjr2-1226747626997). These attacks continue. One occurred four months ago, foiled only by a quick thinking digger, who killed the would-be attacker.
Friends, I want to say today, that each of us has a sleeper cell of terrorists living within us. This is not being alarmist, nor is it to deny that God has done an amazing work in us by giving us his Spirit. But it is holy realism. This side of glory, we live in a constant state of war against the sin within.
Context
In chapter 6, Paul has twice answered the question, ‘Shall we then keep on sinning?’ And Paul’s answer was ‘No way’. Through the death of Jesus, we have been released from sin as a power over us. We have died to sin, so we owe sin nothing. So must not live in it any long, but rather consider ourselves dead to sin (Romans 6:1-14).
And we are no longer slaves to sin. So we must not serve sin any longer (Romans 6:15-23). We are now slaves to righteousness, and to God, not to sin.
But Paul hasn’t talked about the law of God in dealing with the issue of how sin dominated us. The law, or the Torah, which is summarized in the 10 commandments, is a complicating factor. Paul hasn’t really dealt with it as he has talked about how we have been released from sin’s dominion. But in chapter 7, Paul now deals with the question about the law. Have we been released from the law? And if so, is law, like sin, a bad thing?
No-one who knows the bible thinks the 10 commandments are bad or evil. The law of God is the law of the creator who made us and knows us better than we know ourselves. It is good, indeed necessary, for creatures to pay attention to God’s law. Obey God’s law is simply following the maker’ instruction manual. It’s good to have God as the only God, and not make idols, not misuse God’s name, to rest one day in seven, to honour mum and dad, to not murder, commit adultery, steal, lie and covet (Exodus 20; Deuteronomy 5). God’s law is good. And all the other laws are good too. After all, it’s the Old Testament law that says to love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength (Deuteronomy 6), and to love your neighbor as yourselves (Leviticus 19). When Jesus quoted those good laws, he was only quoting Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
But Paul has said things so far in Romans that might make us think that the law is bad. The law has real limitations in a fallen world. Chapter 3 verse 28 says that we must be ‘justified by faith apart from works of the law’. In Chapter 4 verse 15, Paul said that the ‘law brings wrath’. And Chapter 5 verse 20, Paul said ‘The law was added so that the trespass might increase’.
So Paul has said negative things about the law. It brings wrath, we can’t be justified by it, it increases trespass in sinful people. And Paul will continue to speak negatively about the law in chapter 7 verses 1 to 6. We were in bondage to the law, and needed to be freed from it. Our marriage to the law is over, and that’s a good thing.
But in verses 7 to 13, Paul will re-affirm that God’s law is good. We must not infer that the problem is the law itself. The problem is not the law, but sin, the power of sin over fallen people.
And in verses 14 to 25, Paul will say that even as he writes, in the narrative present, as a Christian and Apostle and Missionary, after God has opened his eyes to his own sinfulness and given Paul the Holy Spirit, Paul is a divided man, frustrated, with one hand attempting to do good, but with the other hand fighting himself as he fights his own sin. He is caught between what he was and what he will be. And so he – or part of him, at least – is his own worst enemy.
Death Has Ended Our Marriage to the Law (verses 1 to 6)
Paul has said in chapter 6 that ‘we are not under law but under grace’ (Romans 6:14-15). And in chapter 7 verses 1 to 6, Paul uses the illustration of marriage to show how we are no longer under the law.
We are not under law in this way: we were once married to the law; but now, through faith in Christ, we are no longer married to the law, because a death has happened.
Some of you here are widows. And widows are free to marry. Isn’t that good to know! Widows are no longer under the thumb of their former husbands. Now, hopefully, your husbands were good and kind, not difficult. Although I admit husbands can be very difficult indeed.
And here, in Romans chapter 7 verses 1 to 6, Paul says, that Christians are like widows freed from an onerous and difficult marriage to marry our knight in shining armour, who rode into our difficult situation and rescued us.
In Australian law, as you know, marriage is brought to an end by one party wanting out, separating for 12 months, and going off to see the lawyers. But in the Bible, it is death that brings an end to marriage. Even where there was adultery, strictly under the Old Testament law the marriage was to be ended by the death of the adulterer[1]. In that situation, ‘Till death do us part’ really meant something. So a death of one party was required for the other party to be free to remarry (Romans 7:2-3).
Paul uses the illustration of marriage because a death has occurred. In our marriage to the law, Christ has died for us. The illustration sounds a bit strange, because Christ wasn’t a party to the marriage between us and the law. In the illustration, it is Christ’s death that ended the marriage between us and the law[2].
But remember when we looked at Romans 6, we saw that we were united with Christ in his death. We died with Christ. We were buried with Christ. Spiritually, though not bodily, we were raised with Christ. And we are even regarded as being seated at the right hand of God with Christ.
The point of Paul’s illustration is twofold. First, just as a marriage between husband and wife is ended by death, so our marriage to the law is ended by death, this time by our death in and with Jesus in his death. And we are now free to marry Jesus. Verse 4:
So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. (NIV)
Let me tease out how Christ’s death brought and end to our marriage to the law. The law has precepts, commands. Do this, Do that. Don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t commit adultery, don’t covet. And the law has penalties, punishments, curses and condemnations. They too are part of the law. The law says ‘The soul that sins shall die’. The law says, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not do everything written in the book of the law.’ And we were married to the curses and condemnations, the punishments and penalties of the law. Because we are sinners, it was therefore a harsh marriage, a difficult marriage. It was indeed a ball and chain, that said, not only ‘till death do you part’, but ‘in death you will depart, because you’ve disobeyed’.
But a death has occurred that ended that difficult marriage. That is the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, who bore the curse of the law for us. Jesus’ death exhausts the curse of the law and frees us from the law’s judicial demands on us. We don’t have to die and be punished, even though we’ve sinned. Because Jesus Christ is the one propitiation, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. So the condemnation of the law ‘the soul that sins shall die’ no longer hangs over us and binds us. A death has brought an end to the union between us and the law. Jesus took away the law’s condemnation, nailing it to the cross.
In Defence of God’s Law & Pointing Out the Real Villain, Sin (verses 7 to 13)
So the question then is raised, ‘Well, the law must be a terrible thing, then? Paul, you are describing the law as a harsh and abusive husband, that we are better off without. We’re glad that the marriage is over. But doesn’t that mean that the law is bad? Doesn’t that mean that the law is sin?'
So then, Paul moves to defend God’s law from this misunderstanding. It is, after all, the law of God. The problem is not with the law of God. The problem is sin. Paul will put the blame where it belongs, in verses 7 to 13, at the door of human sin, of the sinful passions of you and me (verse 5). The blame really belongs with sin, not with law. Read with me verses 7 to 8:
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." But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. (NIV)
The law is simply a good doctor, saying ‘I’m sorry, your condition is terminal’. The law is simply a just judge, saying ‘You are guilty, and the law I must apply is death’. The law is simply the messenger who shouldn’t be shot because it brings an unpopular message. It reveals to us a tragic state of affairs about ourselves: that we are sinful to the core. And Paul, in this autobiographical section, says ‘It was the 10th Commandment, “Do not covet”, that nailed me.’ Paul knows first hand the convicting power of the law.
The 10th commandment says do not covet anything belonging to your neighbor. Not his wife, or house, of fields, or children, or modes of transport, or chattels or servants, or anything. Underlying this is an expectation of contentment. We should be happy and content with what we’ve got. We should trust God that he is a good provider who says, ‘Never will I leave you or forsake you’. If we need something, we should ask God, and work for it. We should trust God, and don’t get jealous of others. That is the principle underlying the 10th commandment, ‘Do not covet’.
Covetousness is an important command for this reason. It is internal. It happens on the inside, inside a person’s head and heart.
See, I could be breaking the 10th commandment right here and now, and you might never know. God knows, and will judge, but humans don’t necessarily know. Sure, if I steal something from you, I would have broken the 8th, do not steal, along with the 10th, ‘Do not covet anything belonging to your neigbour’. If I commit adultery, I’ve broken the 7th commandment ‘Do not commit adultery’, and the 10th, ‘Do not covet your neighbour’s wife.’ Because the coveting led to the taking.
But what if I stop short before I take what belongs to you? What if I’m too scared or ashamed to take what I covet? Or I’ve been socially conditioned to believe that coveting is wrong? Or what if I just think it is a terrible sin to covet, and fear God? Suppose I’m really practiced at hiding my covetousness, because I’m ashamed of my own thoughts?
You would never know if I was coveting or not. Which leads to this observation. That you can break the 10th commandment ‘Do not covet’, even if you locked yourself in solitary confinement and asked that your hands be tied behind your back and your feet put in stocks. You can break the 10th commandment in a pulpit as you breach a brilliant sermon, and none of your congregation might ever know. Unless of course, you confess the secret of the covetousness of your heart, and you open your heart to your congregation, and that is what Paul does here, in verses 7 to 25.
Coveting reveals something about the law. God’s law itself is an internal, spiritual matter. God cares about thoughts and attitudes of the heart. And so God’s law cares about the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. So the law of God is a barometer, a litmus test. It tells us things about ourselves. It is God’s way of showing us to ourselves. Thus, the law of God is a mirror. The Law of God is a mirror on our sin, and tells us that we are sinful. God’s Law tells us our hearts are deeply sinful and wicked, and that we are all together corrupted. God’s law is meant to show us what God’s word tells us. The law shows us that every inclination of the thoughts of our hearts are only evil all the time, even from infancy (Genesis 6:5, 8:21). Paul explains how the law of God does this in verses 9 to 12:
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. So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. (NIV)
The law is holy, righteous and good. But our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked. You educate a devil, you just get a clever devil. And so what happens, is that our sinful hearts hear the law of God ‘Do not covet your neighbour’s wife or house, or ox or ass, or anything belonging to your neighbour, and sin seizes upon it, and perversely says: ‘My, what a good idea! I hadn’t thought about coveting. But now you mention it, there are many things I would like to covet, and I wish I had them’. The law prompts the sin it prohibits in a sinful person.
Take Paul, newly converted, and at prayer. Before Christ, Paul was satisfied with the external meaning of the law[3]. He thought he’d done pretty well at keeping it, really. Like the rich young ruler, he could say, ‘All these I have kept since I was a boy’. But once Christ shined his light into Paul’s heart, and with the coming of the Holy Spirit[4], who convicts of sin, righteousness and judgment, Paul gets nailed. Paul discovers the law doesn’t justify him, but condemns him. He used to think, ‘Yeah, adultery and murder and stealing is what those filthy “Gentile Sinners” do’. But all of a sudden, through the Spirit of God, reading the 10th command, he finds that 3 fingers are pointing right back at him.
Let’s do a little thought experiment to think how this process might work. Suppose a Christian, newly awakened to the deeper, internal demands of the law, is praying. Here is his prayer, and I’ll use ‘him’ rather than ‘her’, but you can make the adjustments if you are a ‘her’.
“Quite time today. Psalm 1 and the 10th Commandment. Psalm 1, blessed is the man who meditates on God’s law day and night’ OK, I will meditate on the 10th commandment, ‘Do not covet.’ OK, coveting is wanting what someone else has. Do I want what someone else has? Me, not really, I’m pretty happy with what I’ve got.
My beautiful wife Mabel. I’ve got happy, successful children, a lovely house, car, good job. Thanks God for everything you have given me.
What else does it say? ‘Do not covet your neighbour’s wife’ OK, who is my neighbour’s wife? Well, there’s Bronwyn, she’s pretty and married to Kerry. I get a smile and wave from her in the morning. She seems nice. Kerry’s really punching above his weight, getting her. I don’t know how he did it. But no, I’m glad I’ve got Mabel. Though Bronwyn is nice.
And then there’s Ben’s wife, Veronica. My, she’s a good sort indeed! I wonder, do I want her? And such a good hostess. She did such a good job with that work function. Mabel would really struggle putting that one on. No wonder Ben’s put on a few pounds lately. Hmm, Veronica is very nice.
Stop, what am I thinking!
Back to meditating. Don’t covet your neighbours wife. What about that girl I see down the street? She’s genuinely beautiful, isn’t she? No harm in acknowledging that. That’s just stating a truth. Perhaps she’s not married. It wouldn’t technically be coveting your neighbour’s wife, then. She’s no-one’s wife, really. She’d be a good catch! I wonder if I was a bit younger whether I’d have a chance?
No, stop, what are you doing! OK, OK, get a grip. It’s a bit risky thinking about your neigbour’s wife, what about your neighbour’s stuff. That’s less risky. I think I’m a bit better at not coveting things. ‘Do not covet your neighbour’s ox or ass’. Yes, I’m doing a bit better at that. I really can say I’ve never be really interested in livestock. I don’t care about Kerry’s ox, and definitely not his ass. An ass was a mode of transport, like a car, wasn’t it? Do I covet other people’s cars? Well, I’m pretty good at this, I reckon.
After all, I’m happy with my old car. I don’t want a Farrari or Harley, after all. I can be happy with my 15 year old wagon. Except the squeaky brakes. I’ve really got to get those brakes fixed on my car. Jeff the Mechanic will just shake his head at me and say ‘Well, the car is 15 years old, what do you expect?’ I’m sure Pete doesn’t have this problem. He’s got a new Landcruiser. Or Glenn, he gets a new company car every 6 months. Why do I have to struggle with this 15 year old thing? Stop, stop… Do not covet your neighbour’s ass. I’m now coveting my neighbour’s ass!'
There’s a reason why that little thought experiment is so lifelike and realistic. Because I wrote it. I’m an expert. And I’m like Paul. And Paul is like me. And Paul and I are like you: covetously sinful. We are covetous to the core. Of course, Marketing Experts and TV executives know this. Why else do they put on our billboards and screens and on the internet the tripe they do?
And all of a sudden, the coveting command has killed Paul. Paul is killed by the law he loves and wants to follow, because as he meditates on the command, he realizes he is breaking it. In fact, thinking about the coveting command prompts all kinds of coveteous desires.
Before the command came, I’d not been thinking about anything really. My brain was in that happy, neutral place, empty, except perhaps fixated on one of the many pretty young girls I’d happened to see that day. And then I remembered the command. I wasn’t thinking of a cigarette until I saw that blasted no smoking sign. I forgot I had my mobile phone until I saw the sign, ‘Turn mobile phones off in X-Ray room’. And my perversity thought about how I can get around the command. ‘Get stuffed, who are you to tell me not to smoke. Nanny state! Now I want to smoke just to annoy you.’
And so, says Paul, the law killed me. And good thing too, because what God is doing is showing us what we are really like. 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. (NIV)
We recognize our sin by having a law that condemns it. The law merely said what was right and what was wrong. The real villain in the piece is sin. The law is the messenger. The law simply showed me what I was like. It showed me I was utterly sinful.
The Divided ‘I’: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me (verses 14-25)
And so now Paul faces the reality of what he is and what each of us in Christ is while we wait for the new heaven and the new earth. We are each of us caught between two worlds. Christ’s death has paid for our sins and done away with the curse of the law. Yet we do not yet have new bodies. We have the first fruits of the Spirit as we eagerly wait for Christ’s return. But we still have not been liberated from our bondage to death. Unless Christ returns in our lifetime, you and I are going to die, the wages of our sin. We are going to die because of our sin. Our sin is working death through our bodies. And these twin principles of sin and death still resides in us.
Now, I should say that some Christians say that Paul is not speaking about himself as a Christian in verses 14 to 25. It is too negative, they say. Paul says we are not slaves to sin but to God, in chapter 6. So how can he say in verse 25 that he is a slave to the law of sin. And so they say that while Paul says, ‘I’, ‘me’, ‘my’ again and again, and while he even changes to the present tense, it is not really himself he’s talking about. He is taking the place of Israel without the Spirit. Or the unregenerate man, or the unbeliever. Or the carnal, weak, Christian. Paul might say again and again ‘I, I, I, me, my’, and speak in the present tense, but he doesn’t really mean it.
This is all too subtle and clever for me. I believe the way it reads is the way it is. Paul uses the present tense because it is Paul’s present experience when he writes. Paul says, ‘I, I, I, me, my’, because he is talking about him, his experience when he writes. Paul is speaking as a Christian, regenerate, born again, with the Spirit of God. Romans 7 is describing, not the whole story, but a significant part of the story of God’s children. And my experience is that Romans 7:14-25 resonates with my Christian experience. When I go to do good, evil is right there with me. Many eminent Christians have been saved from despair by seeing in Romans 7 the true Christian. Indeed, it is because Paul has the Spirit of God that he sees the deeper meaning of the law in Romans 7 and has such clear insight about himself.
Deep down, Paul realizes that there is part of him that is evil. And this bit of him clings to him and continues to afflict him. He will have it until Christ gives him the new resurrection body. Verses 14 to 19:
We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing. (NIV)
Paul is not saying he goes out and commits rape and murder as a Christian. He says in the words of U2, ‘I Believe in Love’, “Don’t believe in skid row, don’t believe in rape, but every time she passes by wild thoughts escape.” I don’t act it out, but I know my own thoughts, I know my own heart. Paul is talking about his coveting, remember. It is the Spirit of God that has given him insight into the true meaning of the 10th commandment.
And Paul says, ‘I have thoughts that come from within me, that are my thoughts.’ And they are with me whenever I want to do good. And they are wicked. Jesus himself says that it is, from within, out of men’s hearts, that comes evil thoughts… The root of all sin, says Jesus, is evil thoughts. And evil thoughts are legion, even in believers.
So Paul divides himself up. He says there is the real me, the new me, with the Spirit of God. And there is the old me, the evil me, which is unspiritual, the sin living in me. There is the fleshly, carnal me, the bit of me that wants to sin. That’s the old me. And then there is the real me, who I am in Christ, which is always fighting against that old me. As Paul says in Galatians 5:17, ‘the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.’ There is a battle in each and every true Christian between the Spirit and the sinful nature. Verses 17 and 18:
As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. (NIV)
Again verses 22 to 23:
For in my inner being I delight in God’s law. But I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. (NIV)
There is a conflict now in the believer. Every Christian is now a walking civil war.
The real me is the inner person now inhabited by the Spirit. The Holy Spirit now has entered the Christian. So the Christian loves the commands of God, ‘Love God, Love neighbor’. Yet, the Christian also observes the corruption of sin still at work within. Before Christ, he didn’t care. Before her conversion, she didn’t notice her sin.
Now she sees she is sinning in her mind and heart all the time. And now the Christian is grieved that they have such awful, abysmal thoughts and inclinations They have always thought that way, perhaps. But now, with the Spirit, the Christian’s eyes are open. Is that what I’m really like? Now he or she is amazed when they can do anything good, because there is this evil principle everpresent, living within them. Verse 21:
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. (NIV)
My dear brother or sister, ‘Do you want to do good?’ You bet. As a Christian, of course you do! God has made us eager to do good works. Every Christian wants to spend the rest of their earthly days doing good to say thank you to Jesus.
Yet, this side of glory, there’s always evil welling up within us. There are always the wrong motives, the temptations to boast and brag, to think yourself better than others, to be proud and arrogant, to look down on others. And we dare not say, ‘OK I’ll give up doing good’. That’s simply not in our DNA. We must do good.
But our own evil is our constant companion. Just as God’s people in Nehemiah’s day, who rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem with a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other, so we go about doing the good works God has prepared in advance for us in this world, with one hand doing the good works with trowel, and the other hand on the throat of our own sinful nature, as we try to put our own sinfulness to the sword as it rises up within us to pollute the good we so want to do with all manner of stinking muck and effluent streaming out of our hearts.
There is a traitor in the camp. There is an enemy within trying to undo everything good we are doing. The enemy is me, or part of me, anyway. It is the nothing good that lives in my sinful nature. Verses 22 to 23:
For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. (NIV)
Only one who is a slave to God and to righteousness delights in God’s law in his inner being. But the enemy within, the law of sin, wants to betray us. Who can blame Paul for his cry in verse 24:
What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (NIV)
And we know that we have such a rescuer. Verse 25:
Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord! (NIV)
In Romans 8 verses 23 to 24, we read that ‘we who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.’ (NIV) We hope for what we do not yet have. So we wait for it patiently.
The final defeat of our flesh of sin and death will only occur in the future. It will occur when we put off our body of death, and be completed with our resurrection from the dead, when sin and death is no more. Our bodily resurrection is future. We will be raised. But in the meantime, in this body of sin and death, we groan. Our body is dead because of sin (Romans 8:10). Nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. Yes, we have the Spirit. Yes, we are slaves to righteousness and to God. But the remnants of a defeated sin remain. Verse 25, the last part:
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. (NIV)
Conclusion
That is the reality that remains, even beyond the realization that Christ will rescue us. The reality is I still am a slave to God and righteousness and God’s law. For I delight in God’s law. But in my sinful nature, the old me, which I must kill off, and which died on the cross, I am still a slave of sin. I am a contradiction, a walking frustration. The fight remains. The conflict continues. But there will be victory. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. But there will be rest and rescue beyond the grave. So don’t give up.
Let’s pray.
[1] We don’t have any examples of execution for adultery being exercised. We have Jesus’ grace to the women in John 8 and the woman at the well in John 4. But let us take the OT law as we find it. There was divorce and remarriage (Deuteronomy 24; John 4). How this operated with the penal provisions for adultery I do not know. There is no actual case I know of in Scripture where the sentence of execution on the adulterer is carried out.
[2] The point of the analogy is only these two things. First, just as a death must occur to free the parties to a marriage, so with our marriage to the law. It is besides Paul’s purpose that Christ was not a party to the marriage between us and the law. Second, now that the death has occurred, we are free to be married to another.
[3] Eg, Philippians 3:1-9
[4] Note Calvin ‘so also he himself, while he has his eyes veiled, being destitute of the Spirit of Christ, was satisfied with the outward mask of righteousness. Hence he represents the law as absent, though before his eyes, while it did not really impress him with the consciousness of God’s judgment: Comm Romans 7:7, XIX:255’