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Back to the Bible. Let it be our plea. God's Word alone, our authority, every word, every step in the name of Christ. Back to the Bible for the way of life. Welcome to this period of Bible study. We are so thankful that we have this opportunity to spend just a little time in a consideration of of God's Word together. This program is called Back to the Bible. And that is our aim. That's our desire, that's our goal. We want to go back to the Bible for it all. And as we do that, we hope that we are communicating in a clear way what we believe to be the truth about God and His work and his purposes and his will for us. And if at any point along the way you find us to be failing in communicating that in a clear way, and especially if you fail us to be failing to communicate that in a true way, we hope that you would reach out to us and that you would let us know your questions or your concerns or your comments so that we can seek to be faithful in our approach to God's Word and that we can seek to be clear in communicating that. In this lesson we're going to pick up in our study of the Book of Romans. This is going to be a study that we continue on. I think we've had 12 lessons so far on the Book of Romans. And now we come to the bulk of chapter seven that we'll consider for a little while this evening. As I was reading, one commentator on Romans Chapter seven, he said, now the first thing we need to understand about Romans Chapter seven is that it comes after Romans chapters one through six. And I think that is of course, exactly right. You know, I think that the audience of the Book of Romans is that Gentile group of Christians meeting in the churches of Rome. And perhaps we would say there that these are Gentiles who are seeking to be Judaized, or somebody is seeking to Judaize them. Because it seems that there is at least the threat that there are some who are suggesting that in order to be right with God, these people have to submit to the law. And they have to submit to the law through things like circumcision. And perhaps we would see other elements of that in the letter. And what Paul is saying to them is that the law of Moses was never intended to be the means by which Jewish people converted Gentile people to become followers of Jesus. That was never the point. That the point was never for Gentiles to come under the law in view of the fact that Christ had come. Now, I don't say that to diminish the idea of somebody potentially being a proselyte having converted to Judaism but prior to the time of Jesus. And I don't say any of that to minimize the value of the law of Moses for the Jewish people. But the law of Moses was always pointing towards Jesus and the promises to Abraham Paul shows in chapter four were always pointing to Abraham being the father of many nations, which would mean that Gentiles, the nations, would be able to come to God, Gentiles as the nations, not as people who had become Jews somewhere down the road. And so with that audience in mind, I think it really helps us in Chapter seven. The reason I believe the way that I do about, like Romans Chapter two and what kind of person he's talking to in Romans Chapter two is because as I read the audience in Chapter one and in other places in the book, I see that being Gentiles very clearly. So now I want to make sense of what's happening in Chapter two, and I think I see that potentially as a Judaizing conversation partner with Paul. But I'll tell you, the first place where I saw the payoff for that understanding, I believe, was Chapter seven. Now, that doesn't mean it doesn't add interpretive value to the rest of the letter. I think that it does. But I think the first place that I saw where it made a big difference and a helpful difference in understanding a difficult passage was probably Chapter seven. And I think there are a lot of good Bible students who have wrestled for a long time with ideas from Romans Chapter seven. And I don't know that the ideas that they put forward are wrong ideas. I think very often they are correct ideas. And yet I don't know that that's the point that Paul is making in Romans Chapter seven. And that's what I want to consider for a little while in this program. Now, In Romans chapter 5, Paul has moved from talking, I think, about the foundations of being righteous by Jesus faithfulness, when we give our faithfulness to him. And in chapter five, he encourages the Roman Christians and says that if God was willing to demonstrate his love towards us in Jes. We were sinners and while we were his enemies, then we can have all the more hope that he will raise this body to resurrection life. And I think at the end of Romans chapter 5, I think Paul is making the point that if by one act of sin, Adam's sin, death could be brought into the world, that all die because of Adam's sin, that in one person's act of Righteousness, namely, in Jesus, one act of righteousness that life could be made available. Of course, that one act of righteousness would be the death and the burial and the resurrection of Jesus, that Christ event. And so where death is in Adam, life is in Christ. Well, how do I get into Christ? I'm already in Adam. I'm born in Adam. I am an heir of his just by the very nature of AD but how do I become someone who can participate, who can share in the life that Jesus has? Paul makes that point in Romans, chapter six, where he says, we have died with Christ when we were buried in that watery grave of baptism. And we have been raised up to walk in newness of life. We have new spiritual life now. But he goes further than that, I think, and he says, we have that spiritual life now, which means that we can anticipate that resurrection life that is coming in a little while in the afterwhile. Now, what we need to see then is in chapter seven, Paul shifts the illustration from talking about slavery to sin. And then he talks about living and dying and the wages of sin being death and the gift of eternal life that comes by grace when he comes into chapter seven. And I think we should take the time to read this passage again. We talked about it in our last program, but I think it will help us build up into what we have. In the following verses in chapter seven, he changes that illustration just a little bit. He picks up with that master slave relationship. And he says that the law is master over a person as long as he lives. But here's the transition. Look at verse 2. For the married woman has been bound by law to her husband while he is living. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning her husband. 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. I think this is an important passage. It's not the point that Paul is making here. He is making a further point, but he is able to base it on something that they understood. They knew that if a woman married another man while he was still alive, she would be an adulteress. She would be called an adulteress. I think I made the point last time that that word called there is not a human calling. It is always a divine calling in the New Testament. And then what you have is that when he dies, she is free from that and can marry another now the interesting thing is, is that in verse four, who dies? They died. They died in Christ through the body of Christ they were made to die to the law. Now, of course, the illustration swaps a little bit, right in the first one, the husband died so the wife could remarry. And now we die. But what does that mean? That death means there is freedom to be joined to another. So they had died 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. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the law, having died to that by which we were constrained so that we serve in the newness of the Spirit and, and not in the oldness of the letter. Now he says that they had died to the law. Now, of course, I think that he is talking to Gentiles here. And so in what sense again, would he have said that they would have died to the law? I think he's saying that in the sense that it was going to be used as a means of judgment on them. They. They were dead to that. That was not the thing by which they were bound to God, by which they would be committed. And he says here that they died not the law, but them to it. And that thus they were free from the burden and from the obligation to the law that had come. Now they were free, the text says, to be bearing fruit, to be covenant bound to God through Christ. And the idea there that their sinful passions were aroused by the law, which is in the new American standard and the legacy standard. I don't think the idea it means that they were aroused. I think it's the idea that they were pointed out, that they were made known, that they were indicated and spotlighted. And under the law, the presence of God had been available. But now in the Gospel, with Christ in view, the only way that we can live in the life of the Spirit is dead to the law and unified with Christ. That is, both Jew and Gentile had been enslaved to sin. The Torah, the law had pointed out that sin of ours, and then it had brought judgment on it. But ultimately on its own, the Torah, the law could not be the ultimate means of salvation. It couldn't be the means of freedom from sin or death for either group. Now, of course, I think we're emphasizing the relationship of the Gentiles to the law. They had been enslaved to sin. And there may have been some who thought that the law was the solution to that. But all the law did was make their sin even more obvious. But now there was freedom from the law's decree against sin. We are in Christ, he says, transformed so that we serve from the newness of the Spirit and not from the letter. They were transformed from the inside, not just imposed on from the outside. Maybe we could summarize it like instead of providing the virtuous path and freedom from sin's dominance, the law had confirmed that Gentiles were indeed enslaved to sin and sentenced to death. But in Christ's death, there was freedom from subjection to the law. And now they could be freed from their sinful passions and desires and be under the reign of Christ. Now Paul is going to have, I think, a continuing conversation with the conversation partner that he is writing that perspective in order to answer questions that the Roman Christians are going to have. And I think that will help us understand these verses. There are good brethren who have wrestled with a long time how exactly Paul is communicating in this chapter. Just think with me as we go through the rest of this lesson. Think with me that perhaps Paul is talking about a Gentile person. Obviously, this is a person he is creating. In order to answer these questions, this conversation partner, who wants to do right and who says, the way I'm going to do right is I'm going to get the law of Moses on my side? Now, that's not always the way I've understood this passage, but I think it's helpful to think in those terms. Here is a person wanting to do right says, here's God's standard of the law. Let me apply that to myself. And what's going to happen? Well, let's read verses 7 through 13. In verse 7, Paul says, what shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be. Rather, 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. But sin, taking an opportunity through the covenant worked in me, coveting of every kind. For apart from the law, sin is dead. Now, I was once alive apart from the law. But when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And this commandment, which was to lead to life, was found to lead to death for me. For sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Therefore did that which Is good become a cause of death for me? Rather, may it never be. Rather, it was sin in order that it might be shown to be sin by working out my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful. I think this is the conversation partner who says, does that mean that the Torah is sin? Does that mean that the law is sin? Absolutely not. Paul responds, the law is not sin. It is God's word. All of it is God's word. Now the conversation partner, I think, is responding and saying, well, you say absolutely not. You say, may it never be. But I didn't even know what sin was without the law. You know, just think about this. And I would not have even known something was wrong about coveting if the law had not said to. So here the conversation partner is kind of wrestling with this and he's saying, okay, Paul, you say that I'm free from the law and I've come under the law, and now I've thought about coveting in a way I'd never thought about it before. Now Paul says that what sin did was that sin took advantage of that. Now the law identifies and confirms our sin. I think if we look back at Romans chapter 3 and verse 20, we'll see Paul say something very similar where he says there, because by works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. I think that this gets right at the heart of Paul's understanding of the law. Gentiles had been ruled by sin and death. I mean, just read chapter one, verses 18. And following that they had rejected God, that they had turned to idolatry, that they had abandoned the natural use of their bodies for those things that were not natural, that they were doing things that were worthy of death and approved of those who did them. You think about Romans, chapter 6, verses 17 and 18. He says, I thank God that you were the slaves of sin. Over in chapter six, verses 19 and 20, he said, you presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, leading to further lawlessness. So these people were trapped. They were caught up. They were owned and mastered by sin. Now for a Gentile, are you ready? For a Gentile, all the law could do on its own was to highlight that. I think that verses 9 and 10 are a description of the conversation partners experience coming under the law. Now consider that there is a sense in which all Jews are born under the law. Galatians, chapter 4, verse 4. Jesus came be born of a woman born under the Law at just the right time. But we understand there's an age of accountability, that's for sure. But I think that what's happening here is that this is a Gentile who is saying, there was a time where I did not know that coveting was a problem. And then I came under the law and I realized that coveting was a problem. And what happens now? All of a sudden, this thing I didn't even know was an issue now has overtaken me. Now I'm involved in this sin. And it took an opportunity through that commandment, and it killed me. Now, sin was the cause of our death. Paul makes sure that everybody understands that. Because somebody might look at the law and they might say, the law has failed me here. No, sin is the problem. The law, the commandment was holy and righteous and good. Sin took advantage of that. But what the law did was it did in fact put a spotlight right on our sin. Now, Jesus, if he's not in view. If the law is not in view of Jesus, it could not provide a solution. Now, I think that we should emphasize that Paul is not saying that this is a weakness or a failure of the law, but it is a failure of a Gentile who already subjected to sin, could not find a remedy in the law. Rather, the Torah only restates and highlights that sinfulness. It is not the way that the readers will get a hold of themselves. Now, when we come to verse 14, we have this conversation here of this conversation partner. And I think that this is the conversation partner talking here. Paul is, of course, putting these words in his mouth. Now, there will be some who will suggest that this is Paul talking about his experience of life before the law. I don't think that's the case because I think Paul talked about living in good conscience before that. There are some people who would suggest that this is Paul talking about his life as a Christian in that struggle. And I understand that there is a struggle of a Christian who's trying to fight off sin. I think we see that throughout the New Testament. But this idea that they are in bondage and enslaved to sin in verses 14 through 25 does not sound like a Christian to me. I think the best explanation, as so far as I found, is thinking about a Gentile again who's trying to escape the sinful passions that come from being part of that Gentile world and now putting himself under the law. And notice what he says, for we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, having been sold into bondage under sin for what I am working out I do not understand. For I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want, I agree with the law that is good. So now no longer am I the one working it out, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh. For the willing is present in me, but the working out of the good is not for the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one working it out. But sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that is in me is evil is present in me who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man. But I see a different law in my members waging war against the law of my mind, making me a captive to the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death, 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. The I. Here, I think he's talking about this Gentile proselyte who has put himself under the Torah. And it has just highlighted. It has just spotlighted. It has intensified their recognition of guilt. I think Paul could be writing all of this from the perspective of the conversation partner. This person doesn't want to do wrong, but he's enslaved. Paul isn't describing a follower of Jesus. They were free. Look back at chapter 6 and verse 14. In that passage he says, for sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. That's not what's happening here in chapter seven. They're not free. Sin still dwells in the person under the law. That Gentile proselyte who was already enslaved, that doesn't find any relief under the Torah. Now I want you to consider here the language of dwelling in sin was in control. Even the law was pointing out how sin was in control. Now Paul, taking on the Gentile's place, says, wretched man, I am wretched. Who can save me? Who will set me free from the body of this death? Now we've seen this back and forth with death and life, going all the way Back to Romans 5, Romans chapter 6. We've died and we've been raised alive. Here in chapter seven, Paul is saying, who can set me free from this body of death? This Gentile who has put himself under the law is dead. Who's going to set me free? Paul will answer fully in chapter eight, but he cannot wait to burst out in thanksgiving, thank you to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. He's going to go back and say, but here's the situation, let's not misunderstand that. But before he can even get to finishing the problem, he is bursting with thanks for the solution. How powerful that is the Torah. The law can't save a Gentile who puts himself under its regulation. They only end up being on the receiving end of the law's judgment. But what the law was limited in was what it was always pointing to, is that God can do something and does do something through Jesus Christ, he can set us free from this body of sin and death. There was a writer named Anthony Father Thistleton, and this is how he summarizes this. The law, in spite of it being holy and good and designed to bring life, comes to perform the very opposite effect in the context of human sin and bondage. Romans 1 and Romans 5 underline human culpability, which the law appears to intensify as a kind of slavery. But that's not the final word. Sin is not the final word. Slavery to sin is not the final word. The consequence of death is not the final word. It is not the case for those who are in Christ. As we just preview what's coming in chapter eight, he says, there is now therefore no condemnation for the one who is in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. Do you see that? That what Paul is saying is, is that while some have tried to come and impose the law and bring it as the supposed solution to your problem, it is not the solution. You are just indicated, highlighted, spotlighted to be in that sin. But thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ, because in him that condemnation is removed in him, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus sets us free from the law of sin and death that we see reigning in, in chapter seven. Now, what we will see as we go through chapter eight is that in Christ we have the ability not just to have our sins spotlighted, but to one, be forgiven and two, to be transformed as we have Christ and the Spirit dwell in us as we dwell in them. And we can know, we can have the assurance that that we are in right standing with God so that even when we face difficulties and suffering, we can face those things in hope. Knowing, as we echo from chapter five, knowing that what God has done for us in Christ not only provides the forgiveness of our sins, but is just one part of a much bigger plan by which we are made right, by which we are made holy, by which by which we are going to be glorified. And all of those things demonstrate that if God would do that for us, there's nothing he won't do in order to make sure we make it to the end, if we are faithful to him, that he will not allow anything to separate us from his love, which is in Christ Jesus. Now, we'll have to pick up that consideration next time, but I just want you to see that what Paul is trying to communicate here is that if you try to impose the law on somebody, it's not going to help them overcome themselves, but in Christ, with the Spirit, dwelling with Christ, dwelling with us in him, with us, giving our allegiance to Him. Resurrection life is on the horizon. Until next time, we bid you a pleasant good day. Back to the Bible. Let it be our plea. God's word alone, our authority, every word, every step in the name of Christ. Back to the Bible for the way of life.