Book of Romans - Ch. 7, Vs. 1-25 (02/06/2000)

Romans 7: The Law’s Dominion and the Believer’s Death to the Law

In the book of Romans, chapter 7, verse 1,. Romans, chapter 7, verse 1,. Know ye not, brethren, for I speak to them that know the law, how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth. Now Paul is fixing to prove that the law is needed no longer and how it is perfectly legal to be under the gospel.

Legal terms are only binding on a man so long as he is alive. Well, that just makes sense. If you were not alive, it'd be hard for the law to have anything to do to you, Greg. Paul is going to use the husband and wife relationship as a demonstration to show that they have died to the law and are now free to marry again, this time to the gospel of Jesus the Christ.

We're in the book of Romans, 7th chapter, verse 2. For the woman which hath a husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth. But if the husband be dead, she is loose from the law of her husband.

Go to the book of Colossians, please, to the second chapter, verses 13, 14, and 15. Paul is citing the law of marriage, that by the legality of the law, the husband and wife are bound together until one of them dies.

In Colossians 2, 13. Greg, would you read 13, 14, and 15? Yes. Alright, this gives us a little bit of insight as to what Christ did. He fulfilled the law. In fact, the scripture says he nailed the law to the cross, meaning he was nailed to the cross.

So we have established the fact now that the law is passe, as far as a ceremony under which to live. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress.

But if her husband be dead, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. Now please understand, we're not discussing marriage this morning, we're discussing law and gospel.

Look at it like this, when the husband dies, the wife dies as a wife. David, we're gonna turn that heat down. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ. Notice that phrase, by the body of Christ.

It means that we have become, past tense, dead to the law by the union with the body of Christ. It was the body of Christ which was what? What was the body of Christ? Who was the body of Christ? Jesus.

And it was Jesus that was nailed to the cross. It was Jesus that died, the human. Not the spiritual Christ, but the human. It had to be the human, Debbie, because that's what we are. We are humans, and we were dead in trespasses and sins.

He had to come to the very place in which we were. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the union with the body of Christ, that you should, or so that you can, be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

Debbie, this Debbie up here, I forgot there's two here. Why were we resurrected with Christ, with Jesus, and do what? What did we just read? Right. That's our purpose. He set the purpose, we didn't. Body, soma, that which cast a shadow as distinguished from the shadow itself.

So it had to be the physical body, Jesus, of Christ, that you should be married to another, even to him that is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth, or to be productive, fruit unto God. Notice, we are to bring it forth.

It does not say that we are to distribute it. David, what, give me an example of the fruit of a Christian, to gain knowledge. We're to bring it forth, we're not to be distributors of it. The Father's already done that.

Fruit Unto God and the Spirit’s Work in the Believer

In 1 Thessalonians 5 and 10, we find this written, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. Now what do you suppose, Russell, is that you back there? Is that Russell back there?

Who's behind David? Oh, well just so you'll know, the top of your head looks just like Russell. Now you made me forget. What does it mean, Russell, whether we wake or sleep? Roger, help him out. Dead or alive.

And, of course, whether you're awake or asleep, too. But the sleep here refers to physical death. So is God the God of the living or of the dead? Both. Why do you say here? All right, for next week, come with a scripture to prove that he is not the God of the dead.

Can you do that? Here we find, well, first of all, if a Christian follows, listen to me real close, people. If you've ever listened before, listen to this. If a Christian follows any interpretation other than the truth, they are living in adultery.

Understand? How many do not understand? How many do understand? All right. Our Father has given us the truth. We are not free to interpret it as we see fit. We must follow it exactly as the Holy Spirit leads.

I had a man in class years ago said, well, that's just your idea. And I told him right quick, I hope in a firm, loving way, even though he never come back, that I was not here to give you my thoughts.

This is not my thoughts. This is the prompting of the Holy Spirit as it was written. We find here that the very body of Jesus, it is by that that we were set free from the old nature. Now, did the law die or did you die?

We died to the law. Five, for when we were, it's an imperfect verb, past tense, meaning that one time you were, if it hadn't happened, you would still be in that state of were. When we were in the flesh, and in the flesh we were just living merely earthly lives, we are now in the Spirit.

By not being in the flesh, we're in the Spirit. For when you were in the flesh, the motions, emotions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth dead fruit unto death. You could not produce spiritual fruit unless you're in Christ.

But now, meaning what? But now, but now, right now, as you sit here this morning, at this very moment, we are delivered, interesting word, from the law that being eternally dead, to be subject to eternal misery in hell, wherein you were held, that we should serve in newness of what, life?

Newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. Alright, let's look at this. Right now, this very moment, we are delivered, passive, hapl, A-P-L, not hapl, but hapl. Delivered means to be severed from, separated from, discharged from, loosed from any one or thing, of separation of one thing from another thing.

What's a union, a union of fellowship of two is destroyed, delivered. Delivered from the law, we were separated from the law, that being eternally dead, we, wherein we were held in the law, we were held down, restrained, hindered, that we should serve, active, in a good sense, to yield obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ, and we do it in the newness, in the new state of life, in which the Holy Spirit places us, so as to produce a new state, which is eternal life.

Notice all of that occurred without any of our help. We were separated, we were delivered from the law, Greg, we have been placed in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit, we were placed in him, into him, at his death, we were resurrected with him at his resurrection, we now spiritually are in him, in heaven, and we're left here to produce good fruits.

The Law as the Occasion for Sin and Concupiscence

What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid such a thing. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law. For I had not known lust, except the law had said, thou shalt not covet. David, what's that verse mean, verse 7?

The Bible says, thou shalt not covet. When he heard that, that was the law, that was God's law, not to covet, that all of a sudden he felt within his flesh the desire to covet. That's right. And lust, that's the thing he became aware of.

Why is it that when we're told we cannot do something, we immediately want to do it? Why?

It's part of all of us, danger.

That's not your Christianity, is it? My carnal mind does not recognize sin. Is that true or false, Greg? Does not recognize sin. So, no, it's true. There has never been, shall never be a lost person that knows he's lost.

You see why it's impossible to witness to a lost person outside of the Holy Spirit being involved. It is only after notification by the Holy Spirit that we know sin. To talk to a sinner, Richard, about sin is like talking to a tree stump about the atomic energy.

You get just about as far. Now, verse 8, and Richard thought he figured out what this was. But sin, verse 8, taking occasion by the commandment wrought on me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law, sin was dead.

The word occasion, affirmay, we get our word fulcrum. F-U-L-C-U-M. What's a fulcrum, Richard?

You have to pry something up. You gotta have a triangle there to pry.

What part of this is the fulcrum?

The, uh, brachial tube.

Okay. It's this little point right here. Now, I've got a lever, we've got a weight. In order to move the weight, if we put it over something, in this case a fulcrum, it becomes much easier to move it.

That fulcrum is the word occasion. And sin took opportunity of the law, by the very law itself, to cause you to sin. How can it do that, Richard? Say it again, sir. Alright. Sin used the law itself as a point in which to cause you to sin.

In present tense, you're talking about now. Well, whenever.

The law made you sin.

Sin used the law to entice you to sin.

You don't want to do the old man.

Okay. Let me help you a little bit. I've told you this before, but the mother was going to run to the grocery store right quick, and left her little five-year-old boy at home because she was just going to be gone.

The last thing she said as she went out the door, don't you dare put beans up your nose. Now, what do you suppose he did as soon as she got out of sight? I don't know. Let me see about that. See, the law was, don't you put beans up your nose.

Now, he'd have never even thought about doing that if there had not been a law against it. But once there was a law, then sin used that law to get him to do it. That's right. Absolutely, because if there's no law, you wouldn't know the sin.

So, is the law still necessary today? In what respect? To show us what not to do. So, it's very much in effect, isn't it? So, sin took occasion, that's the point of the fulcrum, over which the lever can break to raise a tremendous load.

I grew up in the grain elevator, and I don't know if many of you have been up very close to a boxcar or not, but the closer you get, the bigger they are, especially to a ten-year-old boy. But we had a pinch bar, we called it.

And it was a long thing, longer than I was tall, but one of the men was going to move the car, which we had to do after it was loaded, with 80 ,000 bushels of wheat, and it weighed a tremendous amount.

But it was sitting on a track, had wheels on it, so it could be moved, it could be rolled. And we'd take this pinch bar out and put it underneath one of the back wheels. Now, the bar was all about a foot or two longer than that mic stand, and it was a pretty good size.

The foot of it, the end of it, was cast iron, and it had a little bitty pad about that square, and it fitted into this foot. And the outside of that foot then would come against the wheel, and against the track.

And when you pulled down on the lever, that little foot would come up, and it would move the car. And I, being a ten-year-old boy, could move that tremendous weight with a lever, fulcrum. It can be very useful, and it can get you in trouble.

I won't tell you about the trouble. Sin, taking occasion, making use of the law, by the commandment. Sin, taking occasion by the commandment, or by the law, worked in me all manner of concupiscence. What in the world does that $20 word mean to me?

Desires, cravings, longings, desires for that which is forbidden. Lust. Because if it had not been for the law, I wouldn't have known that it was a sin to break the law. Where there is no consciousness of law, sin shows no signs of life.

For sin, in the absence of law, has no chance to function technically as sin. I have heard people in the past say that, not talking in this part of the scripture, but they'd say, well, it'd be better than if I would just lock my child away and never let him mingle with the world.

Why would that not work? Would the law not reach her and the child in the closet? Sure. Yes. Then he says, for I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. Now, Roger, I was alive without the law once.

What's he mean?

He was ignorant. Of what? Of the law. What do you want to say, Richard? He says he was ignorant of the law once. I mean, after death.

And he got saved. Before he was saved, he considered himself alive, but he was ignorant of the law. Oh, he knew about it. And he understood that he was enforcing the laws but he did not really understand the very law itself until he became saved.

That's what I was getting at. Once he was saved, for that brief moment in time there, after you're saved, you're sin-free. And you're completely clean until the next day.

Did you ever think about that moment in which you were saved? Those of you that know when it happened, doesn't mean you have to know. There was a time when that happened and you never felt so good in your life.

It's because you were completely free of sin for a split second. But it doesn't take long, does it, Richard? That's right. Paul says, when the commandment came, when I understood the real meaning of the law, then sin was revived.

Sin come alive, come alive in my life when I understood the law. So, John, he's saying, I understood the law, but I didn't really understand the law. I understood it legally, but it had no mercy or any...

Well, the law doesn't have mercy. It had no meaning to me beyond just the legalistic part. But salvation changed that. Sin awoke, then I died. Sin arose to life, and I died. Sin sprang into life while I died.

The sense of sin found new life, and with that, I died. I realized that I had broken the law and was a sinner doomed to die. Sin is in the saint, and that grieves him. His soul is not in sin, and that consoles him.

The Commandment, Deception, and the Holiness of the Law

Verse 10, and the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. I found that the very law was a sentence to death. For sin, taken occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.

He says, sin fooled me, but taking the good laws of God, using them to make me guilty of death. Sin is kind of like a lawyer asking you a question that you can only answer yes or no. So let me do this.

Ask John Karpiak. You can only answer yes or no. Do you still beat your wife? See, that's the way Satan works. Very wise. In the spirit. Sin always presents a situation that may sound fine, but the end is death.

It may look fine. If you were not as advanced in the truth of the word as you are, I imagine you could visit most any church in town today and come away feeling pretty good. But none of you can do that.

Twelve, wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid, but sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good, that sin, by the commandment, might become exceedingly sinful.

He says it was sin that killed me, and thereby sin exposed its true character. It used a good thing to bring about my death. Were it not for sin, death had never had a beginning. Think about it. If it were not for death, sin would never have had an ending.

Think about it. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I was carnal. It says I am carnal, but he's going to disprove that in just a moment. Sold under sin. Now, John, how were we sold under sin? What one thing sold us out?

Go all the way back to Adam. Russell, what one thing in Adam sold out the whole human race, or sold out the elect? What was it in Adam that caused him to do what he did? His wife. Well, if I understand he's the only one that had a free will, he did have the opportunity to make a choice.

Well, rather than free will, let's just say he was innocent, and he did have the right to make a choice, but he made a choice based upon what besides his wife. What is required for us to be saved first?

What? What is the first thing that the Bible says is required of us for salvation? What? Belief. Is that what you're saying? So if belief is what is required as the first thing, what was in Adam that caused him to sin?

Unbelief. Every sin can be traced to unbelief. Every sin. I don't know if Adam was aware or not, but he disbelieved God when he did what he did. That's exactly what happens to us. Now, for the next few verses, I'd like for you to underline or circle the pronoun I.

Starting with verse 15. For that which I do, I allow not. For what I would, that do I not. But what I hate, that I do. Now, please follow along with Paul's thinking. If then, I do that which I would not do, I consent under the law that it is good.

Now then, it is no more I that do it. That's the important phrase in all of this. It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. Does anyone not understand that? Russell, do you see how we are no longer sinners?

Paul says, I'm not a sinner. It's the sin that's doing it, my whole nature, but that's not me. For I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present with me but how to perform that which is good, I just can't find it every time.

For the good that I would, I do not. But the evil which I would not, that I do. Now, if I do that, that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but the sin nature that dwelleth in me. I don't ever hear any of you again say I'm just a sinner saved by grace because you're not.

That borders on blasphemy, to call one of God's children unrighteous. Now, we look at the outside, we look at the body and I grant you it's not righteous. But that's not the real you. Richard said in here that I haven't seen in a year and a half, and I dare say once in a while he does some things that's not very righteous.

Fortunately, he's the only one here that does that. But it's not Richard. Now, Debbie may think it is, but it isn't. The real Richard is spiritual, holy, just as righteous as God. Hey! You scared me. Has just as much right to be in heaven as Jesus Christ.

For every good deed, there is the possibility of doing evil. This is proof that we are no longer a sinner. We are a new person, born again in Jesus the Christ. For I delight in the law of God. After the inward man.

David, what do you suppose the inward man refers to? I forgot there's two Davids here too. I delight in the law of God after the inward man. But I see another law continued next week.

Someone read the rest of that. I see another law of my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of my members. Okay. In our members.

Roger, what does it mean in our members? Our body. So this law, this other law then is in our members. It's in our body. It's not in us. It's in our body. That's why we are to force our body to be members of righteousness unto God and not just let them run wild.

Every appetite we have is given by God, Russell. But they're not supposed to control us. We must control everything in Christ. Paul says I can do anything as long as I'm where? In Christ. Meaning that he could do what outside of Christ?

Nothing. But we try to. Anytime you judge somebody's spirituality by what you see them do, you're teaching or believing salvation by works. Do you believe that? Salvation by works? The only works involved was that of Jesus.

The Wretched Man and Deliverance Through Jesus Christ

Is there any more to that chapter?

I don't know why I left it out. Yes, sir. O richest man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this dead? I thank God through.

Jesus Christ our Lord. For in His mind I myself serve. For the flesh.

Belongs to me. Let me see if I can help you understand what Paul's saying. Read again. O richest man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this dead? Right there. Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?

In the days of Paul under the Roman government, there was, they had lots of different ways of killing people. One of those was that the condemned man would be taken and a freshly dead corpse would be chained to him face to face tight against him.

Now get that picture in your mind. Richard's standing up here. He's been condemned to death, but they don't kill him. They take a body of a dead person, just died, and they fasten it to him face to face.

He cannot get loose from it. The ultimate consequences of that is as the body rotted and disease set in, it would eventually kill the man. It's a horrible way to die. Paul says, O wretched man, who will release me from this body of death?

Who is there that can unchain.

And get rid of this old corpse that I'm strapped to? Then he goes on to say what? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. I thank God. Jesus is the one. He can sever me.

From this dead corpse. He can take it away. He can take me away from it. And I no longer have to face that kind of death. Never again. Forever. I hope you've got that picture in your mind. That's just how stinking and rotten death is without Christ.

Is there any left? Yes.

So then with the mind, I myself serve the Lord God. So with the flesh is all sin.

Paul was no different than we are. He had the same problems. May not have dressed just like we do. Driven as fancy a car as we do. But he had exactly the same problems. In the world and in the spirit.

He looked forward to death. He wasn't anxious for it as long as he could be of service here. But when that was finished, he was ready to go. And David, how did he go? He took him a mile or two outside of Rome.

I used to know the road and the place but there was a small brick, I guess you'd call it, building in which they did the beheading. And that's where they took Paul. But he was ready. Alright, next week we'll go to the next chapter.

The New Heart, the Holy Ghost, and the Believer’s Real Self

Yes. First question.

That's right. First we have to have a new life. Our heart has to be cleansed. So God could not overhaul his old life. He gave us a new one. And it is in that life that operates in my mind. In the real you.

And it'll never change. Oh, you sin once in a while but it bothers you when you do. If you're here this morning and you can live in sin and it not bother you, then you have no right to be here this morning.

Because it should bother you. That's the reason the Holy Ghost is here. Like a little motorcycle cop riding right along with us. Anything else? Richard dismisses.