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

The Chapters That Changed My Life: Part 2

If salvation is by grace, does that mean sin no longer matters? Paul reminds us that the Law exposes our guilt so we truly understand our need for Christ.

By BEN BRINKERHOFF

Read Time: 7 minutes

Let’s start this article with a summary of where we got to last time.

In our last article, we looked at a sketch of Romans 1-5, seeing Paul demonstrate that humanity is still under the curse of the garden, having repeated the sin of Adam and Eve, and proving conclusively how corrupt the wisdom of man really is (chapter 1). The Jew had no answer in the Law; they continually broke it (chapter 2), and all humanity has fallen short of God’s glory, unable to be made righteous by their own works (chapter 3). But God has provided a way for men to be justified: faith. This idea isn’t new (chapter 4); it was how God saved David and counted Abraham righteous. It flows from God’s own character and love (chapter 5), giving us confidence in it. That confidence is in the Lord Jesus, the one man who has overcome the condemnation of sin and death, which came through one other man, our father Adam.

How might a man with natural (non-spiritual) thinking respond to salvation via God’s grace, through faith in Christ? He might reason this way: “Since salvation isn’t earned through good works, grace gives me license to sin.”

Paul summarizes this evil logic through the question, “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” (Romans 6:1). If this question described the truth, it would mean you can sin freely and not bear consequences, which, if you think about it, sounds awfully like the serpent when he said, “You shall not surely die.”

By the time we reach chapter 7, Paul is still defending the gospel against this slanderous attack. This is the context immediately before Paul asks this confusing question.

How could someone argue that the Law is sin? Well, just observe this truth: every time God makes a law, sin is the inevitable consequence for man. In fact, Paul will remark in verse 5: “For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death.” (NKJV)

The Law seems to “arouse” sin. But here’s a question: if the Law arouses sin, maybe the problem is the Law itself. Maybe the Law is to blame. Perhaps it causes us to sin.

Could that be right?

Paul responds, “No,” in Romans 7:7 (NKJV), “On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law.”

According to Paul, the Law shows us what sin is. That raises a relevant question that I’d like to digress on for a moment.

Paul says he knows sin because of the Law. But do we know what sin is? That sounds simple, but I’m not sure it is. When following our own inclinations and patterns of thought, almost everything we do feels justified. You’d have to observe that, in our relativistic society, in which we can all define our own truth, “knowing sin” is even harder.

This concept highlights the value of the Law. It’s challenging to appreciate the grace of Christ unless the Law has first taught us to see both our own sin and the bias toward sin that dwells within our nature.

In Romans, Paul has gone out of his way in chapters 1-3 to show us that, before God, we are guilty because of sin, and the Law is central to his argument.

The exclamation point of Paul’s argument is Romans 3:19: “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.”

I suggest that, unless you appreciate the point Paul is exclaiming in Romans 3:19, it is difficult to appreciate the blessings outlined by Paul in chapters 4 and 5.

Paul is writing chapters 1-3 to help you understand that, because of your transgressions, you are condemned before God. It did not matter what particular laws you kept personally. And if it was true in Paul’s time, it is also true in our own age. Absent Christ, it does not matter that you keep any law, divine or secular. Without Christ, you have no hope via your works or your personal righteousness!

But do you understand this today? I would suggest it’s becoming harder, not easier, to know what sin is. Today, young people especially are bombarded by messages about a god (lowercase “g”) that has no right and wrong—a god that has no truth, but truths (plural). There is no wrong but self-justification and excuses. There is no path, but paths that, according to the wisdom of our age, all lead to the same place. In today’s thinking, spiritual practice is a matter of personal choice. No one can decide for another what their path should be, or judge one path as better or superior to another. We cannot even judge morals.

Is getting drunk okay?—I don’t know, did you hurt anyone?

Are same sex unions okay?—I don’t know, are you in love?

Is mouthing off to your parents and elders okay?—I don’t know, do they deserve it?

Is it okay to listen to music with trashy lyrics?—I don’t know, it’s just a song.

The answer to most questions today is: I do not know, it depends, maybe/maybe not, or some other wishy-washy answer that turns anything God has said into a grey soup where we must exercise our own personal wisdom. And my decision is right for me, and yours is right for you, and no one can tell you otherwise.

Digression over, but here’s my point: was there the same level of ambiguity under the Law? Did the Law so desperately confuse good and evil, right and wrong, holy and profane?

I’ll tell you who confused right and wrong, good and evil—and that’s the serpent. It was the serpent that said, “You shall not surely die.” (Genesis 3:4). The serpent’s message was that you can sin without consequence. And that serpent thinking is in you, and it is in me, and it is enmity with God and must be crushed. But it most certainly will not be crushed based on its own thinking, represented by your personal righteousness.

Getting back to Romans 7, the Law is not sin. It stood there as an announcement of God’s decision on the matter, showing you that you were guilty and condemned, with no prospect in its pages of relief.

Although Paul could understand, we’d all admit that it’s difficult to appreciate that we are “guilty.” (Romans 3:19).

Yet, if we don’t accept that there is a right and wrong—that God is righteous and has shown us, and that each of us has fallen short naturally of that righteousness, then we have no basis on which to continue in Romans. Because in that world, every mouth has not been stopped. In that world, you do not need Christ, you do not need baptism, and you do not need truth (certainly not someone else’s version).

So, Paul’s point is that, although the Law showed us our sin and aroused within us an evil desire to rebel, the actual problem is not the Law. It’s us. With this in mind, let’s reread Romans 7:7-12 (NKJV).

There’s more to say about this in future articles. But for the moment, I want you just to observe that Paul concludes that the Law is good, holy, and just—but we are not. By revealing God’s command, the Law shows us how naturally antagonistic our instincts and actions are to His will. By knowing God’s will through the Law, and seeing how we fail to keep it, the Law shows us that we are guilty.

But my main exhortation is that we live in a world that does not accept the premise that there are absolute right and wrong behaviors. For us, this is the real danger. Paul concludes that the commandment is good, but he isn’t. By contrast, the world claims there is no commandment. The god of our times has no right and wrong, no path, no truth, but shades of grey, sufficient for you to live on your own terms. It’s only natural to want to believe in a god that satisfies our own desires, or a god that owes us something. That’s not Yahweh. That’s not what He is, nor ever will be. If we read Romans 7 and we’re still holding on to that thinking, the letter cannot help us.

As we conclude this article, let’s look back on Genesis 3:5 (NKJV)—the original temptation in the Garden. “For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” What would you call that temptation? Maybe you could call it covetousness. They coveted being like God, knowing good and evil. Is it any different today? Man wants to step into God’s place, deciding good and evil on his own terms, acting like God in the place of judgment. Isn’t it so perfect that the first temptation presented by the serpent was to put man in God’s place and challenge His authority? And I ask you, were Adam and Eve just? Not according to Scripture, as it reads, “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Corinthians 15:22 NKJV).

So, covetousness was an appropriate choice by Paul to illustrate sin in Romans 7. It was covetousness in the Garden of Eden, and it is covetousness now that can keep us from the mercies of Christ. It is a humble declaration through baptism, that God is righteous and that we need Christ—that sets you and me apart as being chosen. But what do you do once you realize this? We’ll take up that matter in our next article.

Ben Brinkerhoff,
Christchurch North Ecclesia, NZ