This article is part of the series: The Chapters That Changed My Life

The Chapters That Changed My Life: Part 3

Romans 7 helps us see why our struggle exists and why we need Christ.

By Ben Brinkerhoff

Read Time: 6 minutes

As we begin in earnest to get into Romans 7, I think we’ll do well once again to remind ourselves of Paul’s line of reasoning up to this point.

Paul begins by explaining that Jews, Gentiles, you, me, everybody has sinned. But, he explains, God is willing to count faith as righteousness if that faith is genuine and focused on God’s means for salvation. That means salvation is finally explained, in Romans 3 and again in chapter 5, to be Jesus Christ. In Romans 3, we learn that Christ declared God righteous, and in Romans 5, we see that Christ, through his righteousness, overcame the condemnation of Adam.1

I know it must sound like the most basic of questions, but why can Jesus save you? Since I originally developed these studies for young people, I will do my very best to forego eloquent answers here. There is a time and place for more sophisticated explanations, but these articles will not attempt to provide one. Instead, I’ll err on the side of clear, even if perhaps blunt, answers.

So, once again, why can Jesus save you?

• Firstly, Jesus can save you because he did not sin, i.e., he perfectly obeyed his Father in all things, and
• Secondly, on the cross, he destroyed his physical nature, that thing in him that worked to rebel against doing God’s will, so that
• By these two means, Jesus declared that God alone is righteous, not our nature or desires, and therefore

Jesus was resurrected to eternal life, and he now rules over death.

With God’s righteousness now completely demonstrated, God is willing to save those who have sinned but faithfully consider God to be righteous, just as Jesus did. We declare, or show, that God is righteous, initially through baptism.

But how do we who sin declare God to be right, as Jesus did? Romans 6 explains it clearly. Follow the bolded word with:

• Our nature [old man] is crucified with him (6:6).
• We are buried with him (6:4).
• We are dead with Christ (6:8).
• We choose to live with him (6:8, 11).

Notice we do this “with” Christ. This togetherness is why we say he is our representative rather than our substitute. He doesn’t do it instead of us (substitution), rather we do it with him (representation).

In baptism, we symbolically put our bodies into the grave because we acknowledge that God was right in His judgment against sin, and over our rebellious desire to sin, which we’ve inherited naturally from Adam. Because we join with Christ in his death and declare God’s righteousness as Jesus declared, God is willing for us to share in Jesus’s resurrection and be made alive in him. In this way, his life is our life. He becomes the life in us, and our life is hidden in his life in heaven.

But as Romans 6:1 illustrates, some were saying that a forgiven life in Christ was just a free license to sin. This corrupt logic suggests that, if the result of our sin (something bad) is grace (something good), what’s the real problem with sin? If sin is forgiven independent of our personal righteousness, why not forego personal righteousness altogether and instead enjoy a profane and sinful lifestyle, without consequence?

Paul shows that this serpent logic would be totally inconsistent with life in Christ. His first argument in Romans 6 is that, when we were baptized, we in symbol put to death our sinful nature just as Jesus did, declaring God righteous in the process. After that, to sin recklessly and willfully would declare to everyone that this nature did not symbolically die, but that our baptism was merely ceremony not substance.

Paul instead says that, as Christ was resurrected to a new life free from sin, we should come out of baptism into a new life as well. In this new life, we try (at least) to be like Jesus as he currently is, free from sin; we do this by trying to live a sinless life. The new life in Christ is based on the premise that the rebellious, sinful nature with its willfulness deserves death. This thought implies that after baptism, we must offer a full surrender of ourselves to the will of God.

In Paul’s second illustration, he shows that this surrender to a new life and a new master is even more encompassing than our former surrender to the old life and the old master, which led only to death (Romans 6:16-23).

That is Romans 6 in a nutshell. But what about Romans 7? In Romans 7, Paul shows that a life lived under the Law renders sin inevitable, even if not voluntary. Once a law is given, our flesh creates within us an urge to sin that we cannot overcome. Hence, we must ask the question: if transgression is inevitable after God gives us a law, is the problem the law? Is the law sin? Or, as an alternative, does the law merely illustrate the real problem, our human nature (our wretched body of sin)?

To see where the issue really lies, Paul takes up the question, “What then was the purpose of the law?” In Romans 7, he shows conclusively that the purpose of the Law was to show us our sin.

Let me digress for a moment. When we were small children and wanted something, we simply took it and were (at least momentarily) happy. That want/take cycle was natural, and all children enjoy it. But now let’s imagine that the small child matures, reads the law, and comes to understand that “taking” or even “wanting to take” (covetousness) is a sin. Now, in place of happy self-centered taking, a conflict ensues within the maturing child.

Let me extend the digression with another example of the same emerging conflict, perhaps more applicable to adults.

Imagine a society where envy and jealousy were considered virtues. In this society, everyone wanted to have the toys, the jobs, the looks, the status of someone else. The more you wanted what someone else had, the harder you worked to get it, the more money you spent in the pursuit, and the more commerce was enhanced. In fact, in this society, envy was such a virtue that whole industries were created solely with the intention of making you want someone else’s things. Attractive people were hired just to show off their things to make you feel small and insignificant without them.

Now, imagine a law was then introduced into this society that reflects the mind of God, and teaches that covetousness is wrong, because it takes you away from God.

Prior to the law, people coveted without remorse. But now, once God’s mind is revealed in the law, the internal conflict ensues. Through the lens of this law, everyone in the society begins to understand that their body, their nature, does not care at all about God’s law, either obeying it or reverencing the mind that declared it. Their bodies (their natures) simply want other people’s stuff, whether God likes it or not.

So, what would God’s law do to this society? It would show that men are sinners and teach them what sin is. Further, it would teach the people the contrast between their character and God’s.

You see, without the Law, we would naturally act contrary to almost all its statutes, but not really know it was a problem. So, the Law really shows us who we are. It reveals to us the flame of sinful passion inside. It shows us the real problem is not the Law, it is us.

Romans 7:5 says this: “For when we were in the flesh, the motion of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.” (KJV).

Since the Law is so closely linked to showing us our sin, Paul asks the question: is the Law sin? Is the problem the Law? (verse 7).

No, Paul explains, the Law is good. The Law just shows us that we are sinful.

But once it has done that, what additional good can it provide? Let us say that you agree the Law is good. And you set all your effort on not coveting. But, despite all the effort, you simply fail and fail and fail. If you cannot control the desire to have what belongs to someone else, what are you supposed to do? How can the Law help you?

And that is the crux of the problem. The Law offered no help.

In our next article, we’ll continue in Romans 7, where Paul clearly shows that the problem lies in our nature, through which we will find help in Jesus Christ.

Ben Brinkerhoff,
Christchurch North Ecclesia, NZ