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The general theme of Romans: How to be right with God.
Lesson eight: Law: Good or Bad? (Romans 7)
[To watch this on YouTube as it was given live on Zoom and on Facebook Live, click https://youtu.be/srLigerpUY0 ]. [The whole biblical text is at the end of this blog]
Introduction
Welcome to those of you who are new to our class in this the 8th lesson, as we take up Paul’s comments recorded in chapter 7 of The Book of Romans. If you are watching this video on YouTube long after our class ended today, then please pause the recording and read the 7th chapter. It will only take 3 minutes, or maybe 4 if you get a wee bit confused, then unpause and come back as we will try to bring meaning to it all. OK, welcome back. For those of you on the Zoom call just now, have your Bible open, will you? And next week, please read the chapter before you come to ‘class.’ Thanks.
The overarching question of the day: Is Law good or bad? And how will this help me get right with God?
Paul uses three relationships to help us with the question of Torah: 1) we are freed from Torah as a widow is free from her dead husband, 2) we are to show faithful regard and delight (v. 22) for Torah and 3) we have a war between our will and the reality of our failures, so law is on the side of ‘flesh’ and ‘sin’ and therefore ‘death.’ Knowing the law will only lead me to death… who will deliver me? That’s the apostolic cry at chapter’s end, and wait for it, there is an answer too.
1. First then, we are freed from Torah
Some of you watching will get very nervous just now. There are two such groups who might be thinking the same thing, but with different considerations. Some messianic folks will be thinking that I’m relinquishing my honorable views of Torah, abandoning Jewish life and culture, and that I’m going to reach over and pull out a ham and cheese sandwich (probably on white bread with mayonnaise) and will scandalize the most Jewish of Jewish believers in Jesus.
Others will imagine that same actions on my part and will be rejoicing thinking I’ve finally come to my senses about this whole “Jewish” thing and that I’m going the way of all the good Gentiles for Jesus. You will both be wrong as we shall see. I will eat no ham and I’m still very Jewish, and I intend no scandal to Jew, to Gentile or to the Church of God.
Paul’s metaphor of the widow being freed from her husband has many meanings, but the most obvious is that a believer, both the Jew first, and also the Gentile believer, is freed from Torah. Although the metaphor’s picture doesn’t exactly fit. The Law doesn’t actually die, but the believer dies to the Law.
OK, back to verse 1: “are you ignorant?” This should be seen as following chapter 6, verse 14, rather than 6.23. Paul has argued against Torah and then goes on an excurses as is his custom. He now returns and assumes that both the Gentile and the Jewish believers know the Law. I find that fascinating already.
By the way, the question “are you ignorant?” will probably not make it into the book I’m writing which some of you know about. It’s a selection of the top 52 questions in the Bible, actually asked in the Bible, and both my and the biblical answers will follow. Some, like this rhetorical one, will not make it into the collection.
Verses 2 and 3 showcase the bondage of the woman in a marriage to the husband. If she goes off with another man while her husband is alive, she is an adulteress. If however, her husband dies, she is free to relate to another man. The issue is merely exemplary and not to be a full teaching on divorce, remarriage, etc. The argument is that Torah is dead and we, as the former wife, ruled by Torah, are now free! Don’t push the analogy too far; it’s merely exemplary.
That’s why verse 4 works. Obviously Torah (husband) should die for this example to work perfectly. But Torah doesn’t die; we have been put to death to the law.”
Please hear me, the imagery is forced and although it serves a single purpose, pushing the whole to an allegory for something won’t work. Jesus is the one who died, not Torah. And we are not free to do whatever we desire either. Thus, there are limits to this imagery. The point is clear: the Torah does not master us, nor does it rule over us. In Yeshua’s death we are liberated from the Law’s death sentence. And we are actually joined to another already, Messiah in his resurrection.
Verse five and six tells us that our sinful passions were triggered by the Law, which speaks both to the inefficacy of the Law and what he says in verse 7, that we wouldn’t have even known about sin but that the Law taught us of its existence. Knowing I’m not supposed to sin by murdering another never would stop an angry man from doing so.
Do you know the story told by Rev Ironside about a native American and spitting?
Some years ago, I had a little school for young Indian men and women, who came to my home in Oakland, California, from the various tribes in northern Arizona. One of these was a Navajo young man of unusually keen intelligence. One Sunday evening, he went with me to our young people's meeting. They were talking about the special subject was law and grace. They were not very clear about it, and finally one turned to the Indian and said, "I wonder whether our Indian friend has anything to say about this."
He rose to his feet and said, "Well, my friends, I have been listening very carefully, because I am here to learn all I can in order to take it back to my people. I do not understand all that you are talking about, and I do not think you do yourselves. But concerning this law and grace business, let me see if I can make it clear. I think it is like this. When Mr. Ironside brought me from my home we took the longest railroad journey I ever took. We got out at Barstow, and there I saw the most beautiful railroad station and hotel I have ever seen. I walked all around and saw at one end a sign, 'Do not spit here.' I looked at that sign and then looked down at the ground and saw many had spitted there, and before I think what I am doing I have spitted myself. Isn't that strange when the sign say, 'Do not spit here'?
"I come to Oakland and go to the home of the lady who invited me to dinner today and I am in the nicest home I have been in. Such beautiful furniture and carpets, I hate to step on them. I sank into a comfortable chair, and the lady said, 'Now, John, you sit there while I go out and see whether the maid has dinner ready.' I look around at the beautiful pictures, at the grand piano, and I walk all around those rooms. I am looking for a sign; and the sign I am looking for is, 'Do not spit here,' but I look around those two beautiful drawing rooms, and cannot find a sign like this. I think 'What a pity when this is such a beautiful home to have people spitting all over it -- too bad they don't put up a sign!' So I look all over that carpet, but cannot find that anybody have spitted there. What a queer thing! Where the sign says, 'Do not spit,' a lot of people spitted. Where there was no sign at all, in that beautiful home, nobody spitted. Now I understand! That sign is law, but inside the home it is grace. They love their beautiful home, and they want to keep it clean. They do not need a sign to tell them so. I think that explains the law and grace business."
As he sat down, a murmur of approval went round the room and the leader exclaimed, "I think that is the best illustration of law and grace I have ever heard." -H. A. Ironside, Illustrations of Bible Truth, Moody Press, 1945, pp. 40-42.
Back to our text.
Verse 5: Paul uses a term “when we were in the flesh” This from Craig Nelson, a pastor in the US state of Arizona. “In the Hebrew thought, the understanding of a human being is that there is nothing merely physical because humans do not have flesh, but are flesh. God created human beings (i.e., flesh) as good, just as all other parts of His creation (Job 10:8-12; Ps 119:73; Isa 45:12). God desired that human flesh be fully dependent upon Him for everything (Gen 2:7; 6:3; Isa 31:3). However, because of the Fall, the flesh was exposed to the endless assault of sin and is now frail and transitory (Gen 6:3,5,13; Ps 78:39; Isa 40:6). All of the New Testament uses of the word 'flesh' are built upon the foundation of Old Testament understanding.”-- Craig Nelson, LifeSprings USA (church), in Arizona)
John Murray in his commentary on Romans says, “flesh in this ethically depreciatory sense means, “human nature as controlled and directed by sin.”
The contrast in verses 5 and 6 is clear. Fruit which is good comes from Yeshua and fruit which is bad comes from Torah and our natural inclination to sin. Verse 5: past. Verse 6: now. Note the other contrast: letter (old) and Spirit (newness).
Now in the 2nd case, Paul has to answer what would appear to be the obvious follow-up question: IS the Law sin?
2. Demonstrating regard and honor to Torah
Verse 7: Paul again puts on his clip-on shouting microphone and reminds us that the Law is not sin. God forbid! Verse 12, the Law is good and holy and righteous. But as he has and will continue to teach, the Law reminds us of our failures and sets the greatest standards of living with God, with our neighbours, with ourselves. Knowing not to spit doesn’t stop spitters. Knowing not to murder doesn’t prevent my ruining other people’s reputations or listening as others defame others. Simply put the law does not deliver us from sin. In fact, the law aggravates and adds to our bondage to sin.
Look at verse 9, he says he “was alive apart from the Law.” Not alive like eternal life, but self-complacent, self-righteous and undisturbed and then came conviction of sin, and ‘sin came alive and I died.” It’s not Torah which is the problem; it’s sin in my body, and sin took the occasion for knowing what to do and what not to do and found its strength. As he says in another epistle, “the strength of sin is the Law.”
Of note in verse 9, the dying is not the same as dying to sin (6.2). Dying from sin or due to sin is what he’s highlighting here. In chapter 6 he was talking about dying to sin and being united with Messiah.
Verse 10 reminds us of the purpose of Torah itself. It was not to help us to sin but rather to guide and regulate our lives in the right path. But with the reality of sin in our lives, that same law enacted punishment on us leading to spiritual death, or separation from God. Listen, the prophets had long ago taught this. Isaiah said that 700 years earlier, “my hand is not so short that it cannot save, but your sins have made a separation between us” God said. (59.2) Ezekiel had said, “The soul that sins shall die.” (18.2)
Look at verse 12 of chapter 7 of Romans, “so then, the law is holy”. This is a deduction, almost a therefore. How did Paul come to that? Isn’t the Law the guilty party here? Not at all. It’s not sinful (verse 7), but due to our own actions and deep-seeded thinking we make our own lives to be not alive, and thus dead.
He says the law is ‘holy righteous and good.’ Fantastic perspective on Torah, isn’t it? “holy” reflects God’s awesome nature and purity. “Righteous” because he is fair in all his doings and judgments, and “good” as it would show us the higher, brighter, better way of living.
Verses 16 and 22 say that Paul delights in the law of God which he considers ‘the good.’ On so many levels he was ever the faithful Jew who never spoke against Torah in his teaching nor in his living. Those antinomians will do well to hear that word particularly.
3) War exists between our will and the reality of our failures
The issue for Paul in chapter 7 remains the problem of sin in his own life and in the lives of all faithful people. Did Torah cause us to sin? Not on your life. But sin itself, which has roots in our First Parents, lives on in us and we are pleased that Law exposes our sin. If you will, sin is shown to be sin, and we are better for that.
John Murray says, “the law exposes sin and convicts of it. The law becomes the occasion of sin in that the depravity residing in us is thereby aroused to activity. The law aggravates sin—it is the instrumentality through which sin is aggravated in its expression. But the law is not sinful.”
Some commentators argue energetically that the Paul of chapter 7 is not a believer, but rather the words of an unregenerate Saul, and Paul is remembering his former estate. That’s easy to conclude and it makes everything neat and tidy. Except for one thing, and that is that Paul and you and I still have sin. And we still operate often in the flesh. And we still fail. Chapter 8 will clarify for us the mind of the Spirit and the mind of the flesh and Paul is clearly thinking and being a regenerate man as he unpacks chapter 7. But in verse 18 we read, “The willing is present within me.” That’s not the sound of an unbeliever. And his conclusion in verse 24 of his own wretchedness is hardly the sound he was making as he described his pre-regenerate condition.
If these words are confusing, I apologize. What I’m saying is that there is a war that exists between our will and the reality of our failures. And that’s true of those who are born again and of those who are not yet born again. We all fail. We all fall short of God’s standards. Earlier in the letter Paul said, “we all fall short of the glory of God.” (3.23) Paul’s aching in chapter 7 highlights the desperation of every person who understands the holy, righteous and good God who gave us a blessed book and foundational information manual in the Torah.
Verse 14: “I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. 16 But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. 17 So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.”
Remember I told you that the word ‘law’ is used 70 times in this letter. Here we see ‘the law of sin’ (.23) and it’s not Torah; it’s perhaps better for us to say, ‘the reality that sin will eventually bring about death.’
This is not the apostle saying like Flip Wilson, the 1960s American comedian, that ‘the devil made me do it.’ Wilson’s character was self-excusing; Paul’s declaration here is an indictment of himself and causes a longing for salvation somewhere. Unless you know your own desperate need for redemption and salvation, you will continue to self-excuse. The Law shouts against our own sinfulness. The Law is unable to release us from its indictments. We all need someone outside us to save us. Who will save us? That’s what Paul cries from the depth of despair. “Who will save me from the body of this death?” (.24)
Miriam had led the Jewish woman in song at the Red Sea along with the Song of Moses (Ex. 15) singing “The Lord my God my strength and song, and he has become my salvation.” (.2) If you had the Egyptians chasing behind you and the Red Sea disallowing you going forward, then your cry for help would have been very real. David said it in Psalm 18. Isaiah said it in chapter 12. Isaiah also quoted God as saying, “I am the Lord, there is no savior besides me.” (43.11)
When you get to this end of your rope and see that you have no hope apart from the Lord, you will not attempt to impress God with your religion or your religious activity. You will deny your self-celebrations and look outward for the Almighty to bring you to himself.
You will shout as the apostle here in verse 25.
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
He alone is our hope. His is the eternal gift of life. His actions and his life give us the charisma of eternal life. He died and rose again to open the way into the presence of God to give us a holy, righteous and good life ahead with the Lord.
Dear friends on Facebook and on this zoom call, if you are not yet a believer in Yeshua, I urge you today, call on him while he is near. If you know your Torah, and you know yourself, you know you need a Saviour. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be rescued, will be saved will be made to be in right relationship with God. It’s worth all the social distancing people will give you when you tell them about God. It’s worth all the rejection of others who don’t want to know about God’s love in Messiah Yeshua.
If you want, you can pray a prayer with me just now to solidify your choice. Something like this, “Father in Yeshua’s name, thank you for loving me. Thank you for sending Yeshua to save me from myself, from my selfishness, from my despair and the harm I cause so many. Thank you for making me right with God by your sacrifice. I receive Yeshua (Jesus) as my saviour and the lover of my soul. He frees me to love others. I repent of my sins and ask for God’s forgiveness to be my portion. I receive the free gift of God, eternal life in Messiah Jesus our Lord. Amen.”
If you prayed that prayer, will you let us know via the messages or write me directly. I would appreciate that. (bob@jewsforjesus.org.au)
NEXT WEEK we will look at the 8th chapter and find some of the most beloved promises ever made to believers. It’s designed to comfort us, and with global pandemic cases passing 5 million this week, that chapter will be very worthwhile to study.
I’m delighted to be able to read and help us understand this book each Friday here from my home in Sydney. Shabbat shalom!
Rom. 7:1 Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives? 2 For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. 3 So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man.
Rom. 7:4 Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.
Rom. 7:7 What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “YOU SHALL NOT COVET.” 8 But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died; 10 and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me; 11 for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12
Rom. 7:13 Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? May it never be! Rather it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by effecting my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.
Rom. 7:14 For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. 15 For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. 16 But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. 17 So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. 19 For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. 20 But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
Rom. 7:21 I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. 22 For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, 23 but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.
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