Paul's Letter to Believers in Rome

by David M Pearce

Romans Chapter 7

Dead to the Law

The apostle has exhausted his analogy of slaves and their masters in chapter six. He now turns to another figure of speech to show we must leave the Law of Moses behind when we become Christians.

He reminds his readers that a when a woman marries, she vows to be faithful to her husband until death. But if her husband dies, that obligation ends, and she is free to marry another man.

If her husband is alive and she lives with another man she becomes an adulteress. But if after he dies, she decides to marry again, that is fine.

In a difficult interpretation of the analogy, Paul argues that his readers, especially his Jewish brothers (‘my brothers’), were once ‘married’ to the Law of Moses. When Christ died on the cross, they died, too. At that point they were no longer bound to the Law. When Jesus rose from the dead, they rose to a new life with him. Now they are ‘married’ to him, as to a new husband. This new marriage will bear as children, ‘fruit for God’.

Before our conversion, we were living ‘in the flesh’. The choices we made were prompted by our human nature. The fruit of those passions was death.

In contrast, having no commitments now to the Law of Moses, we are driven, not by the flesh (human nature), but by the Spirit, the way of God.

Sin and the Law

Another question. Does Paul believe that the Law is bad, because breaking it produces sin? Another denial. No, he says. All the Law does is to tell me when I am sinning. It did not make me sin.

In fact, once Paul was old to understand the Law, it taught him a whole range of sins he could commit! As a boy, he did not know what sin was. But as soon as he was old enough to have a conscience, he found it impossible not to sin, and so he was automatically condemned to death.

Ironically, the Law promised life if you kept it, but brought death if you broke it.

The Serpent deceived Eve into breaking God’s law, and so brought death to mankind. For us, our human nature, the source of sin, constantly whispers that God does not really mean what he says, and that we will get away with satisfying our desires. But God does mean what he says, and unrepented sin brings eternal death.

So, Paul decides, there is nothing wrong with the Law. It sets the highest standard for holy living.

Yet another question. Did a good law bring death to Paul? Absolutely not, he says. The fault lies not in the Law, but in us. Sin is our responsibility. The Law simply provides a standard against which we measure ourselves, and find that we fail.

The Law is spiritual, that is, it has its source in God. But Paul finds himself driven by the flesh. Flesh and spirit are opposites. Against his will, Paul finds himself sold as a slave to sin.

In a conundrum, the apostle finds himself doing exactly what his conscience tells him is wrong.

That means that the Law is good, but he is bad.

He would like to disassociate himself from what he actually does. Sin has taken him over – not some external, supernatural Devil, but his human nature, wrestling with his conscience.

There is no good thing in his human nature. It fights him, and stops him doing what he ought.

Chillingly, Paul sets out to do the right thing, but inevitably finds himself drawn to do what is evil. The sin he wants to avoid takes him over.

It seems to be a principle that in his heart Paul always wants to obey God, but he ends up sinning. He fights a war against King Sin, but loses. He is taken prisoner. We can all echo this feeling of despair. We recognise how many times in a day we find ourselves lusting after something that is forbidden, or saying something hurtful or untrue, or failing to step up and confess Christ before men – in a host of ways we regret with Paul how weak we have been.

Paul cries out to be rescued. Who can save him?

The answer comes with great relief. God has prepared a strong man to bind Satan (Matthew 12:29). He has sent Jesus into the world to open the prison door, and deliver us from sin and death.

Finally, Paul summarises his position in one sentence. His mind is obedient to God’s Law, but his human nature makes him sin.

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