Freedom To Live

Romans 7:7-25

In the past, this has been a difficult passage for me to understand. Most of the misunderstanding came from reading it without seeing the whole idea of the letter to the Romans. Through this study, I believe I have a better understanding of it. I, like many, have shied away too often from difficult passages.

I used several study notes to help me see a bigger picture. One such note says that Paul is discussing our freedom under grace: freedom from the power of sin (Romans 6); freedom from the domination of the law (Romans 7), and freedom to become like Christ and discover God's limitless love (Romans 8).

Paul echoes the cry of many people: "Who will rescue me from this body of death?" People try all kinds of things to reverse nature: wrinkle creams, special diets, face-lifts, body enhancements, etc., as a means to change the course of nature. In the same sense, people create all kinds of laws to make others submit to their will or their ideology as a means to change the nature of sin. Laws, laws and more laws. With so many laws, why do we fail?

What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet." Romans 7:7 (NIV)

Laws are good to a point but only when the laws have a standard of measurement. Paul is asking how does the law rescue us. Our sinful nature demands punish by death. Instead of helping us, the laws of man lead to treachery and to deceit and to manipulation. Man's laws cannot save people. Laws only make them more guilty because they reveal guilt. Laws are a standard for behavior yet they lack the mettle needed to motivate people to live by them or above them.

When we try to live by the laws alone (especially God's laws), we see that living above the law or meeting their requirements is impossible. In fact, we will live beneath the laws with many failed attempts at being lawful and with a greater desire to take short-cuts around the burden of the laws.

Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful. Romans 7:13 (NIV)

God's laws are not bad nor are they an attempt to destroy us. Sin, however, is magnified by the laws, and laws make sin utterly sinful. In other words, sin is bad and the laws show how bad.

We all make valiant efforts to keep the laws but for the Jews it was a lifestyle. They received the law from the hand of God. This by no means excuses those who are not Jewish from the law:

All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares. Romans 2:12-16 (NIV)

The law is written upon our hearts and through our conscience. Our failure to abide by the law comes from our slavery to sin.

Sin fooled people by misusing the law. It is filled with false promises and deceptions:

• Sin promises to satisfy our desires even more than the last time.
• Sin promises that our actions can be kept hidden, so no one will know.
• Sin promises that we won’t have to worry about consequences.
• Sin promises special benefits: wisdom, knowledge, and sophistication.
• Sin promises power and prestige in exchange for cooperation.
  

—Life Application Concise New Testament Commentary

We know the right things to do. We may even long to do the right things. Our sinful nature, however, demands we do the opposite. Sin directs our paths (when we are apart from Jesus). Sinful natures cannot do good. This spiritual war within us is a battle between the desire to delight in God's law while acting out sin's desire within us. We need deliverance from this desire of sin, and the law cannot do it.

We needed a sacrifice. We needed a deliverer. God's grace cuts through sin's hold and replaces it with the righteousness of Christ. We can only receive this grace by accepting Jesus as our Savior and turning our minds to the leading of God's Spirit.

I must not forget about this deliverance. I am wretched without it, and I am loved because of it. I have greater freedom under God's Spirit than I would ever have under the law.

• Has this passage been difficult for you in the past? In what ways?
• How do you approach difficult passages in Scripture?
• How does having freedom by God's grace affect the way you approach life?
• What other ways do you see sin "fooling" people?