Romans: Under the Law or Under Grace? Mar 25, 2007
ROMANS M7… Under the Law or Under Grace?… March 25, 2007
When our team from Tenth was visiting a village Cambodia earlier this month, a staff member with Food for the Hungry Cambodia told us that the villagers could significantly reduce their incidence of disease by washing their hands before meals, but that it was very difficult to get the villages to make that change.
I mentioned that we in North America are not that different… Studies coming out of Johns Hopkins and Harvard Medical schools note that 90% do not follow our doctors counsel, if that counsel requires any change of habit.
According to Dr. Edward Miller dean of the Medical School at Johns Hopkins University (whom I cited last Sunday) says 90% of who have such a serious heart disease that they require very expensive heart surgery are told in order to stop your heart from killing you, you’ve got change your lifestyle… you drink less, eat less, exercise more, etc. After a year according to Dr. Miller 90% have not changed their life style.
A study of 37,000 patients with serious heart diseases were told you need to take a pill a statin for the rest of your life, “in order to save your life.” The study found that found that in 2 months, half had stopped taking the pill and in one year 80% had stopped taking the pill that they were told to keep taking the rest of their lives.
Alan Duestschman the author of Change or Die says the only way people will change is if they establish a relationship with a person or a community that inspires hope and helps a person to establish a new set of habits and a new way of seeing the world.
Change occurs through a relationship, that helps us set new habits and that gives us a new perspective.
Last Sunday we looked at Romans chapter 6. We saw how a person can change if they establish a relationship with Jesus Christ, and out of that relationship establish a new set of habits we talked how a person is not only changed from the inside, outside but by the outside in… through what we do, and finally out of that relationship a new way of seeing ourselves and the world..
We also talked how through our relationship with Christ we can form a new set of habits and a new way of being in the world
In Romans 6 Paul explains our new way of being through the illustration of baptism—and Paul says it is through our baptism we have died with Christ and been raised to a newness of life with Christ… (a new Christian in our community is going to be baptism is next service).
He also explains how in Romans 6 as we saw last Sunday if we are “in Christ” we are no longer slaves to the old “landlord” sin, but that we belong to Christ…
Then in Romans 7 Paul talks about how if we are in Christ, we have a new identity we have a new relationship to the law of God as given through Moses.
This morning we’re going to see the old way of trying to relate to God through the law cannot effect real change in us and how the new way of relating to the law can effect change us...
If you have your Bibles, please turn to Romans 7.
(please focus, this of the most one difficult passages in the book of Romans)
In Romans 7:1-6
In this passage Paul says a married person is bound to their spouse as long as their spouse is alive… but if their spouses dies… they are free to re-marry…
What does Paul mean when he uses this seemingly strange illustration?
What Paul is teaching here is that people who know Christ experience a kind of death in their relationship to the law of God as given through Moses…
4 So, my brothers and sisters, 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 for God.
What does this mean?
Paul points out in Romans 7:4 that because of Christ died a sacrificial death for our sins on the cross, we don’t need to be “under the law” of Moses, but instead we belong to Christ.
What does Paul mean when he says we don’t need to be “under the law of Moses” if we are in Christ?
First of all, when Paul says we don’t need to be under the law he does not mean that we are to disregard the Ten Commandments or to not use God’s law given as an ethical guide.
When Paul says here and in Romans 6:14 we are not “under the law” he is saying that because we under Christ, we are no longer under the power of the law to condemn us before God for failing (as we have) to perfectly keep it.2x.
When Paul talks about how we no longer belong to the law, but to Christ, Paul is aware that certain people will conclude that the law must be there sinful.
So, in Romans 7:7, Paul explains isn’t sinful.
7 What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "You shall not covet."
But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead.
Then in verses 7-12, describes how the law helps us to see what sin really is.
We know from experience that a law, rather than inducing us to do good, can actually tempt us to do evil. In Augustine’s Confessions, Augustine talks about how before coming to know God, he enjoyed stealing pears, not because he wanted to eat them, but because he wanted to experience the pleasure of breaking the law against stealing. So Augustine would steal the pears and then just throw them to the pigs. I can relate to that. As an adolescent, I enjoyed stealing, not so much because I needed, or even wanted things, but simply to experience the pleasure of breaking the law.
The staff at hotel beside a bay of water in Florida were frustrated because their guests were not obeying the prohibition that the hotel had against fishing off the balcony. There were clear signs on the hotel balconies NO FISHING OFF THE BALCONY. The staff didn’t know what to do or how to enforce it. Then someone suggested that they remove the signs. Once they removed the signs, people no longer fished off. The reason people were fishing off the balcony at this hotel in Florida was because there was a sign that said NO FISHING. Paul says in Romans 7:5 that the law can arouse sinful passions that are at work inus…
Paul, in Romans 7:13 explains that one of the purposes of the law is to help people understand how sinful they really are…
If we have the law of God, we feel at some level obligated to keep and if we try to keep it we discover how very hard it is to keep the law of God.
C.S. Lewis the Oxford Scholar says in Mere Christianity
No person knows how bad they is till he has tried very hard to be good (or to keep God’s law). A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means.
This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is…
It as we try to keep God’s law and fail that we recognize how sinful we are.
In Romans 7:14-25 Paul shows how law on its own is powerless to transforms us in our battle with sin.
Romans 7: 14-25 is one of the most controversial passages in all of Scripture, as people disagree on how to interpret this text where Paul describes a person’s battle with sin…
13 Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! Nevertheless, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. [c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in my sinful nature [d] a slave to the law of sin.
Many people believe that when Paul describes this battle with sin, he is speaking about his own battle with sin as one who knows Christ. People who hold to this view argue that Paul’s battle as a Christian demonstrates that even people who are truly Christians will battle with sin. It is certainly true that people who are truly in Christ battle with sin, but is this the correct interpretation of this passage?
The context of Romans 7:14-25 is one where Paul is talking about the role of God’s law in a person life…
Stay with me as I get a little technical here, when Paul speaks about person being under the law as he does, e.g. Romans 6, he is talking about human beings who are people who are outside of relationship with Christ… Those outside of relationship with Christ are described by Paul as being under the law, i.e. the power of the law of God to condemn people for not keeping, but once a person enters a new relationship with God by trusting that God in Christ… absorbed our sin on the cross, Paul says we are not longer under the law (i.e. the power of the law to condemn, but under grace (Romans 6:13)…
We tend to think of people as being in one of three categories… people are really, really good—saints like Mother Teresa or Billy Graham… or their really, really evil like Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, or Robert Pickton… and then there are those in between, not really, really good, not really evil, most Canadians, most of put ourselves in the middle…
But the Bible doesn’t describes 3 categories, but 2 categories… those “outside of a relationship with God” and those who are “in a relationship with God.”
The Bible teaches you either…
Under the law or under grace…
In Adam or in Christ
Your in flesh in the Spirit
Paul in Romans is describing person’s relationship to the law and in Romans 7:14-25 Pauls seems to be describing who is living “under the law” rather under grace, a person is living in Adam rather in Christ, a person who is living in the flesh rather than by the Spirit.
Paul in Romans goes back and forth describing people who are under the law and therefore are enslaved to sin and those who under grace (forgiven by Christ and are therefore free from slavery to sin).
Most people who just pick the Bible and read Romans 7 believe that what Paul is describing in Romans 7:14-25 is a Christian who is battling with sin…. (partly they know from experience that even those who believe in Christ struggle with sin).
But a majority of Pauline scholars believe that what Paul is describing in 7:14-25 is Paul’s life as a Jewish person under the law, but not in relationship with Christ.
Prior to studying Romans for this series, I believed that Paul in Romans 7 is describing his battle with sin as a Christian person. As I have studied the passage in light of the larger context of the book of Romans and in the light of the context of Paul’s other writings in the New Testament, I have now come to the conclusion that Paul in Romans 7:14-25 is describing his experience as a Jewish person living under the law, but not connected to Christ (having said that, I want to freely acknowledge that there are many excellent teachers of the Bible whom I greatly respect who do not share this particular view).
Why I do I side with the Pauline scholars who take the view that Paul here is describing his life as a Jew under the law?
It seems to me that this view better fits the overall context of book of Romans better.
Paul’s description of the person in Romans 7:13-25 also clearly contradicts his description of a Christian in Chapters 6 and 8.
For example, Paul says in Romans 7:14, “I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin,” but in Romans 6:18-22 says, “You have been set free from sin.”
In Romans 7:23, Paul says, “I am made a prisoner of the law of sin” but in Romans 8:2, Paul says, Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit set me free from the law of sin and death (Use in powerpoint).
In Romans 7:23, describes himself as a person, under the law of sin… and in Romans 3 Paul describes those “under sin” as who do not have a relationship with Christ…
So, Paul, in verses 13-25 of Romans, seems to be describing a person’s experience under the law rather that under grace. A person is still “in Adam” and not in Christ, a person in the flesh and not in the Spirit.
Paul implies here that even if that person is religiously devout and wants to do God’s law, that person can not in their in strength…
In verse 22.. Paul says, For in my inner being I delight in God's law (now some people say this phrase is evidence that Paul must have been a Christian, because he delights in God’s law, but we know from the Psalms it’s very common for devout Jewish person outside to delight in God’s law. We know also the Greek phrase of inner being can be used people who are and are not Christian).
What Paul seems to be describing here is that though he and many of his fellow Jews delighted in God’s law, they were unable to keep it. Paul is saying law itself and not even delighting in the law itself has the power to enable us to keep the law.
Paul in Romans 7 is describing his experience and the experience of his fellow Jews who sought to follow the law of God without the Spirit of God.
In contrast in Romans 8, Paul describes what’s like to not be not under the law, but under grace, not in Adam, but in Christ.
Paul says in Romans 8:1-4, Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the sinful nature, [b] God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful humanity to be a sin offering. [c] And so he condemned sin in human flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.
And in verse 9, You, however, are not controlled by the sinful nature but are in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you.
What Paul is saying then in Romans 8 is that those who are in Christ have been set free from the law of sin and death…those who are in Christ are no longer controlled by the sinful nature, but by the Spirit of God.
What are the implications of this?
One of the implications of Romans 7 is that we cannot change on our own.
Even if we have been given something as wonderful and as wise as the law of God, we cannot change on our own simply by trying to obey that law.
In Robert Louis Stevenson’s story, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll comes to the realization that every human being has two natures within him or her--good and evil, which constantly wage war with each other. In the story, Dr. Jekyll creates a potion that he hopes will separate his evil side from his good side. The potion does not work, however, as planned. The evil part of Dr. Jekyll known as Mr. Hyde begins to grow stronger beyond Jekyll’s ability to control it. One day Dr. Jekyll wakes up in bed to discover that he has turned into Mr. Hyde overnight. The evil Mr. Hyde does not just indulge himself, but he commits murder. Dr. Jekyll attempts to redeem himself for the actions of Hyde by being charitable. However, as a result of his vain, glorious pride in being charitable, Dr. Jekyll turns into Mr. Hyde in broad daylight.
What Paul is saying in Romans 7 is that through our human efforts apart from God we cannot do good consistently. And even when we “do good” without God, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde our good is tainted by evil in some way. The only way we can consistently do good is if we are in Christ, animated by the Spirit of God.
One of the clearest signs that we are under grace, in Christ is that God writes his law on our heart by Spirit and we feel compelled to do what right…
I gave my life over to Christ as a teenager. Theologically, I didn’t really understand what I was doing, but I did notice that I was experiencing something inside me. I remembering going home after committing my life to Christ and searching out for a pornographic magazine that I had hidden in our garage behind some logs for the fireplace. I had bought that magazine with a good friend of mine at 7-11… we both went together. When we got I said to my friend, I’m guard the door in case your parents show, you by the magazine (here’s 2 dollars). So, it was our magazine, but I made a unilateral executive decision to burn that magazine.
I also remember going into my bedroom and taking down posters of these rock groups that I didn’t feel would honor God and in burning them too. I just had a new desire to live in a new kind of way. That was an example of what the Holy Spirit was doing in me.
And then in time doing some positive things like studying for the first time in my life, as I came to realize that my mind to offer to God…
What Paul is saying is that through our giving our life to Christ and through our baptism in Christ we have been made new, we receive a new Spirit.
You’re experience might now be exactly like mine, but if you are in Christ… you sense a new force within you to do what’s right….
That does not mean you will not battle with sin and addiction… it doesn’t mean that you won’t need to make an effort to change… But it does mean if you in Christ, your nature will be Godward, rather than sinward…
If you’ve never that kind of force within, then you check your passport to see if you are really under grace, in Christ…
A second implication of this is that if you are in Christ, you will begin to understand that you are not just new as individual, but you are part of a spiritual new family whose nature is not to sin, but live for God… One of the most practical ways we can learn to become more like Christ, is to experience relationship and community with people who are also walking with Christ…
Craig Barnes for a number of years pastored in Washington, DC, and some of us here have like met him through connection to Regent College.
Craig says that when he was a child, his father, who was also a minister, brought home a 12-year-old boy named Roger. Roger’s parents had died from a drug overdose. There was no one to care for Roger, so Craig’s parents decided that they would take Roger in and raise him as if he were one of their own sons.
Craig says that at first it was quite difficult for Roger to adjust to his new home, in an environment free of heroin-addicted adults! Every day, in fact several times a day, Craig said he hear his parents saying to Roger, “No, no, that is not how we behave in this family….no, no, you don’t have to scream or fight or hurt other people to get what you want…no, no, Roger, we expect you to show respect in this family.”
In time, Roger, began to change. Now, did Roger have to make all those changes in order to become part of the family? No, he was made part of the family simply by the grace of Craig’s father and mother. But then Roger did do a lot of hard work because he was in the family. It was tough for him to change and he had to work at it, but he was motivated by gratitude for the incredible love that he had received.
Do we have to do a lot of hard work, if we have been in Christ, under grace, adopted into God’s family and have the Spirit? Certainly, but not in order to become members of God’s family… we become part of God’s family simply because of God’s generosity to us. We make those changes not to become son and daughter of God, because we are sons and daughters of God. And from will revert back to the old habits, and addictions and the Holy Spirit will say to us, “No, no, that is now how we act in this family.”
Sakiko and I, Wayman, Dalen and Jennifer were in Cambodia. One night we had dinner with the staff of a Christian NGO called “Food for the Hungry.” One of the people we had dinner that night was a Cambodian staff person who works for Food for the Hungry. Most people in Cambodia are not Christians. Most of the people in Cambodia are nominal Buddhists.
How did this Cambodian staff member come to know Christ? The Cambodian staff, prior to becoming a staff member, had worked as a pimp. This young described how had been servicing a number of hotels as people working with the UN and other NGO’s had come into town. This pimp went around to each of the hotels, taking orders from people working with the UN and other NGO’s for prostitutes. He was going door to door, asking people if they wanted people working in the sex trade. Pretty much everyone was saying, “Yes, yes, bring one to me tonight.” He was doing a really good business.
But there was one man from Africa who declined. Night after night this man from Africa really stood out because he was the one person who was saying ‘no” to this pimp. The pimp was intrigued as to why this man from Africa would refuse a prostitute.
So he went back to the man’s room and asked him, “Why don’t you want a prostitute?”
The man said, “My God will not allow me to do that.”
The pimp asked him, “Who is your God?”
And the man from Africa described how he had come into a relationship with God through his son Jesus Christ. As result of that testimony this pimp gave his life to Christ and is now serving Christ through Food for the Hungry, Cambodia.
When we recognize who our God is, and when we walk in the Spirit, not only will we not fulfill the desires of the flesh, but we will become new people whose lives can
only be explained by the presence of living, loving and holy God.
(The sermon can be heard on line at: www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)
When our team from Tenth was visiting a village Cambodia earlier this month, a staff member with Food for the Hungry Cambodia told us that the villagers could significantly reduce their incidence of disease by washing their hands before meals, but that it was very difficult to get the villages to make that change.
I mentioned that we in North America are not that different… Studies coming out of Johns Hopkins and Harvard Medical schools note that 90% do not follow our doctors counsel, if that counsel requires any change of habit.
According to Dr. Edward Miller dean of the Medical School at Johns Hopkins University (whom I cited last Sunday) says 90% of who have such a serious heart disease that they require very expensive heart surgery are told in order to stop your heart from killing you, you’ve got change your lifestyle… you drink less, eat less, exercise more, etc. After a year according to Dr. Miller 90% have not changed their life style.
A study of 37,000 patients with serious heart diseases were told you need to take a pill a statin for the rest of your life, “in order to save your life.” The study found that found that in 2 months, half had stopped taking the pill and in one year 80% had stopped taking the pill that they were told to keep taking the rest of their lives.
Alan Duestschman the author of Change or Die says the only way people will change is if they establish a relationship with a person or a community that inspires hope and helps a person to establish a new set of habits and a new way of seeing the world.
Change occurs through a relationship, that helps us set new habits and that gives us a new perspective.
Last Sunday we looked at Romans chapter 6. We saw how a person can change if they establish a relationship with Jesus Christ, and out of that relationship establish a new set of habits we talked how a person is not only changed from the inside, outside but by the outside in… through what we do, and finally out of that relationship a new way of seeing ourselves and the world..
We also talked how through our relationship with Christ we can form a new set of habits and a new way of being in the world
In Romans 6 Paul explains our new way of being through the illustration of baptism—and Paul says it is through our baptism we have died with Christ and been raised to a newness of life with Christ… (a new Christian in our community is going to be baptism is next service).
He also explains how in Romans 6 as we saw last Sunday if we are “in Christ” we are no longer slaves to the old “landlord” sin, but that we belong to Christ…
Then in Romans 7 Paul talks about how if we are in Christ, we have a new identity we have a new relationship to the law of God as given through Moses.
This morning we’re going to see the old way of trying to relate to God through the law cannot effect real change in us and how the new way of relating to the law can effect change us...
If you have your Bibles, please turn to Romans 7.
(please focus, this of the most one difficult passages in the book of Romans)
In Romans 7:1-6
In this passage Paul says a married person is bound to their spouse as long as their spouse is alive… but if their spouses dies… they are free to re-marry…
What does Paul mean when he uses this seemingly strange illustration?
What Paul is teaching here is that people who know Christ experience a kind of death in their relationship to the law of God as given through Moses…
4 So, my brothers and sisters, 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 for God.
What does this mean?
Paul points out in Romans 7:4 that because of Christ died a sacrificial death for our sins on the cross, we don’t need to be “under the law” of Moses, but instead we belong to Christ.
What does Paul mean when he says we don’t need to be “under the law of Moses” if we are in Christ?
First of all, when Paul says we don’t need to be under the law he does not mean that we are to disregard the Ten Commandments or to not use God’s law given as an ethical guide.
When Paul says here and in Romans 6:14 we are not “under the law” he is saying that because we under Christ, we are no longer under the power of the law to condemn us before God for failing (as we have) to perfectly keep it.2x.
When Paul talks about how we no longer belong to the law, but to Christ, Paul is aware that certain people will conclude that the law must be there sinful.
So, in Romans 7:7, Paul explains isn’t sinful.
7 What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "You shall not covet."
But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead.
Then in verses 7-12, describes how the law helps us to see what sin really is.
We know from experience that a law, rather than inducing us to do good, can actually tempt us to do evil. In Augustine’s Confessions, Augustine talks about how before coming to know God, he enjoyed stealing pears, not because he wanted to eat them, but because he wanted to experience the pleasure of breaking the law against stealing. So Augustine would steal the pears and then just throw them to the pigs. I can relate to that. As an adolescent, I enjoyed stealing, not so much because I needed, or even wanted things, but simply to experience the pleasure of breaking the law.
The staff at hotel beside a bay of water in Florida were frustrated because their guests were not obeying the prohibition that the hotel had against fishing off the balcony. There were clear signs on the hotel balconies NO FISHING OFF THE BALCONY. The staff didn’t know what to do or how to enforce it. Then someone suggested that they remove the signs. Once they removed the signs, people no longer fished off. The reason people were fishing off the balcony at this hotel in Florida was because there was a sign that said NO FISHING. Paul says in Romans 7:5 that the law can arouse sinful passions that are at work inus…
Paul, in Romans 7:13 explains that one of the purposes of the law is to help people understand how sinful they really are…
If we have the law of God, we feel at some level obligated to keep and if we try to keep it we discover how very hard it is to keep the law of God.
C.S. Lewis the Oxford Scholar says in Mere Christianity
No person knows how bad they is till he has tried very hard to be good (or to keep God’s law). A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means.
This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is…
It as we try to keep God’s law and fail that we recognize how sinful we are.
In Romans 7:14-25 Paul shows how law on its own is powerless to transforms us in our battle with sin.
Romans 7: 14-25 is one of the most controversial passages in all of Scripture, as people disagree on how to interpret this text where Paul describes a person’s battle with sin…
13 Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! Nevertheless, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. [c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in my sinful nature [d] a slave to the law of sin.
Many people believe that when Paul describes this battle with sin, he is speaking about his own battle with sin as one who knows Christ. People who hold to this view argue that Paul’s battle as a Christian demonstrates that even people who are truly Christians will battle with sin. It is certainly true that people who are truly in Christ battle with sin, but is this the correct interpretation of this passage?
The context of Romans 7:14-25 is one where Paul is talking about the role of God’s law in a person life…
Stay with me as I get a little technical here, when Paul speaks about person being under the law as he does, e.g. Romans 6, he is talking about human beings who are people who are outside of relationship with Christ… Those outside of relationship with Christ are described by Paul as being under the law, i.e. the power of the law of God to condemn people for not keeping, but once a person enters a new relationship with God by trusting that God in Christ… absorbed our sin on the cross, Paul says we are not longer under the law (i.e. the power of the law to condemn, but under grace (Romans 6:13)…
We tend to think of people as being in one of three categories… people are really, really good—saints like Mother Teresa or Billy Graham… or their really, really evil like Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, or Robert Pickton… and then there are those in between, not really, really good, not really evil, most Canadians, most of put ourselves in the middle…
But the Bible doesn’t describes 3 categories, but 2 categories… those “outside of a relationship with God” and those who are “in a relationship with God.”
The Bible teaches you either…
Under the law or under grace…
In Adam or in Christ
Your in flesh in the Spirit
Paul in Romans is describing person’s relationship to the law and in Romans 7:14-25 Pauls seems to be describing who is living “under the law” rather under grace, a person is living in Adam rather in Christ, a person who is living in the flesh rather than by the Spirit.
Paul in Romans goes back and forth describing people who are under the law and therefore are enslaved to sin and those who under grace (forgiven by Christ and are therefore free from slavery to sin).
Most people who just pick the Bible and read Romans 7 believe that what Paul is describing in Romans 7:14-25 is a Christian who is battling with sin…. (partly they know from experience that even those who believe in Christ struggle with sin).
But a majority of Pauline scholars believe that what Paul is describing in 7:14-25 is Paul’s life as a Jewish person under the law, but not in relationship with Christ.
Prior to studying Romans for this series, I believed that Paul in Romans 7 is describing his battle with sin as a Christian person. As I have studied the passage in light of the larger context of the book of Romans and in the light of the context of Paul’s other writings in the New Testament, I have now come to the conclusion that Paul in Romans 7:14-25 is describing his experience as a Jewish person living under the law, but not connected to Christ (having said that, I want to freely acknowledge that there are many excellent teachers of the Bible whom I greatly respect who do not share this particular view).
Why I do I side with the Pauline scholars who take the view that Paul here is describing his life as a Jew under the law?
It seems to me that this view better fits the overall context of book of Romans better.
Paul’s description of the person in Romans 7:13-25 also clearly contradicts his description of a Christian in Chapters 6 and 8.
For example, Paul says in Romans 7:14, “I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin,” but in Romans 6:18-22 says, “You have been set free from sin.”
In Romans 7:23, Paul says, “I am made a prisoner of the law of sin” but in Romans 8:2, Paul says, Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit set me free from the law of sin and death (Use in powerpoint).
In Romans 7:23, describes himself as a person, under the law of sin… and in Romans 3 Paul describes those “under sin” as who do not have a relationship with Christ…
So, Paul, in verses 13-25 of Romans, seems to be describing a person’s experience under the law rather that under grace. A person is still “in Adam” and not in Christ, a person in the flesh and not in the Spirit.
Paul implies here that even if that person is religiously devout and wants to do God’s law, that person can not in their in strength…
In verse 22.. Paul says, For in my inner being I delight in God's law (now some people say this phrase is evidence that Paul must have been a Christian, because he delights in God’s law, but we know from the Psalms it’s very common for devout Jewish person outside to delight in God’s law. We know also the Greek phrase of inner being can be used people who are and are not Christian).
What Paul seems to be describing here is that though he and many of his fellow Jews delighted in God’s law, they were unable to keep it. Paul is saying law itself and not even delighting in the law itself has the power to enable us to keep the law.
Paul in Romans 7 is describing his experience and the experience of his fellow Jews who sought to follow the law of God without the Spirit of God.
In contrast in Romans 8, Paul describes what’s like to not be not under the law, but under grace, not in Adam, but in Christ.
Paul says in Romans 8:1-4, Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the sinful nature, [b] God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful humanity to be a sin offering. [c] And so he condemned sin in human flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.
And in verse 9, You, however, are not controlled by the sinful nature but are in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you.
What Paul is saying then in Romans 8 is that those who are in Christ have been set free from the law of sin and death…those who are in Christ are no longer controlled by the sinful nature, but by the Spirit of God.
What are the implications of this?
One of the implications of Romans 7 is that we cannot change on our own.
Even if we have been given something as wonderful and as wise as the law of God, we cannot change on our own simply by trying to obey that law.
In Robert Louis Stevenson’s story, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll comes to the realization that every human being has two natures within him or her--good and evil, which constantly wage war with each other. In the story, Dr. Jekyll creates a potion that he hopes will separate his evil side from his good side. The potion does not work, however, as planned. The evil part of Dr. Jekyll known as Mr. Hyde begins to grow stronger beyond Jekyll’s ability to control it. One day Dr. Jekyll wakes up in bed to discover that he has turned into Mr. Hyde overnight. The evil Mr. Hyde does not just indulge himself, but he commits murder. Dr. Jekyll attempts to redeem himself for the actions of Hyde by being charitable. However, as a result of his vain, glorious pride in being charitable, Dr. Jekyll turns into Mr. Hyde in broad daylight.
What Paul is saying in Romans 7 is that through our human efforts apart from God we cannot do good consistently. And even when we “do good” without God, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde our good is tainted by evil in some way. The only way we can consistently do good is if we are in Christ, animated by the Spirit of God.
One of the clearest signs that we are under grace, in Christ is that God writes his law on our heart by Spirit and we feel compelled to do what right…
I gave my life over to Christ as a teenager. Theologically, I didn’t really understand what I was doing, but I did notice that I was experiencing something inside me. I remembering going home after committing my life to Christ and searching out for a pornographic magazine that I had hidden in our garage behind some logs for the fireplace. I had bought that magazine with a good friend of mine at 7-11… we both went together. When we got I said to my friend, I’m guard the door in case your parents show, you by the magazine (here’s 2 dollars). So, it was our magazine, but I made a unilateral executive decision to burn that magazine.
I also remember going into my bedroom and taking down posters of these rock groups that I didn’t feel would honor God and in burning them too. I just had a new desire to live in a new kind of way. That was an example of what the Holy Spirit was doing in me.
And then in time doing some positive things like studying for the first time in my life, as I came to realize that my mind to offer to God…
What Paul is saying is that through our giving our life to Christ and through our baptism in Christ we have been made new, we receive a new Spirit.
You’re experience might now be exactly like mine, but if you are in Christ… you sense a new force within you to do what’s right….
That does not mean you will not battle with sin and addiction… it doesn’t mean that you won’t need to make an effort to change… But it does mean if you in Christ, your nature will be Godward, rather than sinward…
If you’ve never that kind of force within, then you check your passport to see if you are really under grace, in Christ…
A second implication of this is that if you are in Christ, you will begin to understand that you are not just new as individual, but you are part of a spiritual new family whose nature is not to sin, but live for God… One of the most practical ways we can learn to become more like Christ, is to experience relationship and community with people who are also walking with Christ…
Craig Barnes for a number of years pastored in Washington, DC, and some of us here have like met him through connection to Regent College.
Craig says that when he was a child, his father, who was also a minister, brought home a 12-year-old boy named Roger. Roger’s parents had died from a drug overdose. There was no one to care for Roger, so Craig’s parents decided that they would take Roger in and raise him as if he were one of their own sons.
Craig says that at first it was quite difficult for Roger to adjust to his new home, in an environment free of heroin-addicted adults! Every day, in fact several times a day, Craig said he hear his parents saying to Roger, “No, no, that is not how we behave in this family….no, no, you don’t have to scream or fight or hurt other people to get what you want…no, no, Roger, we expect you to show respect in this family.”
In time, Roger, began to change. Now, did Roger have to make all those changes in order to become part of the family? No, he was made part of the family simply by the grace of Craig’s father and mother. But then Roger did do a lot of hard work because he was in the family. It was tough for him to change and he had to work at it, but he was motivated by gratitude for the incredible love that he had received.
Do we have to do a lot of hard work, if we have been in Christ, under grace, adopted into God’s family and have the Spirit? Certainly, but not in order to become members of God’s family… we become part of God’s family simply because of God’s generosity to us. We make those changes not to become son and daughter of God, because we are sons and daughters of God. And from will revert back to the old habits, and addictions and the Holy Spirit will say to us, “No, no, that is now how we act in this family.”
Sakiko and I, Wayman, Dalen and Jennifer were in Cambodia. One night we had dinner with the staff of a Christian NGO called “Food for the Hungry.” One of the people we had dinner that night was a Cambodian staff person who works for Food for the Hungry. Most people in Cambodia are not Christians. Most of the people in Cambodia are nominal Buddhists.
How did this Cambodian staff member come to know Christ? The Cambodian staff, prior to becoming a staff member, had worked as a pimp. This young described how had been servicing a number of hotels as people working with the UN and other NGO’s had come into town. This pimp went around to each of the hotels, taking orders from people working with the UN and other NGO’s for prostitutes. He was going door to door, asking people if they wanted people working in the sex trade. Pretty much everyone was saying, “Yes, yes, bring one to me tonight.” He was doing a really good business.
But there was one man from Africa who declined. Night after night this man from Africa really stood out because he was the one person who was saying ‘no” to this pimp. The pimp was intrigued as to why this man from Africa would refuse a prostitute.
So he went back to the man’s room and asked him, “Why don’t you want a prostitute?”
The man said, “My God will not allow me to do that.”
The pimp asked him, “Who is your God?”
And the man from Africa described how he had come into a relationship with God through his son Jesus Christ. As result of that testimony this pimp gave his life to Christ and is now serving Christ through Food for the Hungry, Cambodia.
When we recognize who our God is, and when we walk in the Spirit, not only will we not fulfill the desires of the flesh, but we will become new people whose lives can
only be explained by the presence of living, loving and holy God.
(The sermon can be heard on line at: www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)
posted by Shigematsu at 12:23 PM
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