WWUTT 1253 Apart from the Law Sin Lies Dead? (Romans 7:7-12)

Romans 7 and the Debate Over Believer or Unbeliever

Romans chapter 7, verses 7 through 25, is one of the most debated sections of scripture. Is Paul describing the believer or the unbeliever? As Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones says, that debate distracts from the main point, when we understand the text.

You're listening to When We Understand The Text, an online Bible ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty. Find videos and more at our website www .tt .com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Thank you Becky. We come back to our study of Romans chapter 7, and today, we're going to begin in verse 7. I'm going to read all the way to the end of the chapter. The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome, What then shall we say? That the law is sin?

By no means. Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet. If the law had not said, you shall not covet. But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness.

For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive, and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.

For sin, seizing 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. Did that which is good, then, bring death to me?

By no means. It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Justification by Faith and Sanctification by the Spirit

Now this section of Romans 7, the latter two-thirds of this chapter from verses 7 through 25, this is the section of Romans 7 that has all of the controversy. I do not think that Romans 7 is the most controversial chapter in the Bible, nor do I think that Romans 7 is even the most controversial chapter in Romans.

I think that every chapter in Romans has its own controversies. So much ink has been spilled in the 2 ,000-year history of the church ever since this letter was written regarding various doctrines that Paul lays out through this particular letter.

Perhaps Romans is the most debated book in the entire Bible. That's an argument I may align with, but I don't think that Romans 7 is the most controversial chapter in all of the book of Romans. It is, however, very controversial, and the controversy surrounds this question.

With regards to what Paul has just taught here in Romans 7, 7 through 25, does this describe your Christian experience, or does it not describe the Christian experience? Maybe Paul is referring to himself before he became a regenerate Christian.

So that's the question. That's the controversy surrounding Romans 7. I tend to take the side of Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, and Dr. Lloyd-Jones has said it's very unfortunate that we're even having this debate at all about Romans 7, because whether or not this is describing the believer or the unbeliever is not even the issue.

For the first six chapters of Romans, Paul has been arguing that we are justified by faith and not by our works. By your keeping of the law, you will not be justified. No one will be justified by keeping the law.

That's what we've heard from him, this argument of justification by faith for the first six chapters of Romans. Then we get to chapter 7, and Paul's argument here is this. Just as you cannot be justified by your keeping of the law, nor can you be sanctified by your keeping of the law.

If you try to be justified by keeping the law, you're going to fall flat on your face. And same is true with your sanctification. Now you're justified by faith, but if you try to achieve your sanctification by looking at the law and trying to keep it, you will fail at it.

Now I know that my saying that sounds like I've contradicted myself, because on Monday and Tuesday, I was saying that our sanctification comes by our keeping of the law. But let me clarify that a little bit more.

This is coming from, again, what Jesus prayed to the father in John 17, 17, where he said, sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth. So it is by the word of Christ that we are sanctified. But let me be clear.

This is not by our ability to keep the law. And I did say that yesterday. It is by the Holy Spirit that is working in us. Not you in and of yourself, by your own will and your own power, keeping the law of God.

You're never going to achieve that. So you can't just be looking at the law and saying, I am going to keep this law because there is a sinful wretch that still exists in your members that wants to rebel against the law.

So even as you are looking at the law and desiring to keep it, you find this war that is waging inside of you that that wants to do the right thing. But the sinful man that is there and we even talked about this yesterday in verses four through six, the sinful person that is there wants to go against the law of God.

It's that rebellion that exists in our members because we're descendants of Adam. The passage we read yesterday in verse five, while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.

But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive so that we may serve in the new way of the spirit and not in the old way of the written code. So that's where we left off yesterday.

And then we're launching from that into this next section of Romans chapter seven. Previously, before we were saved, we could not keep the law to any degree of justification or sanctification because our hearing of the law aroused in us a desire to sin.

To bear fruit for death. But now we're released from the law. So we're released from the law, having died to that which held us captive so that we serve in the new way of the spirit. It is by the spirit of God that dwells in us that is now put in us a desire to obey God.

You do have a desire to obey God and to hear the commandments of God and for them to be a delight to you is to keep those commandments that you may bear fruit for God leading to your sanctification. So we're walking in the new way of the spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

But this is still not by our ability, like we still think we have this inherent human ability to decide I'm going to do the right thing and therefore you do the right thing. Because if you rely on your flesh to do that, even though you may have been transformed in your heart as one who is for God instead of an enemy of God, if you still try in your flesh to keep the law, you're going to fail at it.

And that's the argument that Paul is making here in the rest of Romans chapter seven. So then we get here to verse seven. What then shall we say that the law is sin by no means? Because as we just read, while we were in the flesh, our sinful passions were aroused by the law.

So does that mean that when we hear the law and we disobey the law, that the law is sinful because our disobedience to the law is is what turned into this this sinful corruption, this rebellion against the law.

So therefore, does that mean the law is bad because it made us bad? We heard the law. We did the opposite thing. We just fell further and further into our sin. Therefore the law must be bad. Paul says no, no, a thousand times.

No, my good Noita in the Greek by no means. And he's going to solidify the point in verse twelve by saying the law is holy. It's the law of God. God gave it to us. What comes from God is holy. The law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

So when you hear the law of God and you want to rebel against it, it's not the law that makes you do that. It's the sinfulness that exists in your members. Yes, when we were born again, when the Holy Spirit of God was poured into our hearts, we died to sin and became alive to righteousness.

That's true. Absolutely true. But there's still that old man deep down inside of us clawing to try to get out. We're still descended from Adam. We still exist in these corrupt bodies which are aging. They're dying because they're part of this world that's been subjected to futility as a result of our sin.

Paul is going to talk about that when we get to Romans chapter eight. And so as we live in this corrupt world, we're still fighting against passions of the flesh. We're not to be ruled by them, but they're still there.

And so as we are growing in sanctification, we're suppressing the old man down all the more and growing in this new person that we become in Christ. So we understand the word that Paul gave to the Colossians in Colossians chapter three.

You've taken off the old self with all of its practices and put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of our creator. So we're becoming less and less like Adam and more and more like Christ.

You are immediately justified, but you're not completely sanctified. That's the work that is being done in you in the present as you are being shaped in that image of Christ. And Paul is going to put that to the Romans as well, coming up in Romans chapter eight, that we are being shaped in the image of our creator.

We're even being recreated in Christ Jesus. So there is still that desire in our members. And that's you know, that's the argument that Paul is going to continue here in Romans chapter seven. So the law is not sinful.

The law does not cause us to sin. It's the sin nature that dwells within us. The law is not sin if it had not been for the law. And we start that that part with the conjunction yet, yet if it had not been for the law.

So Paul says the law is not sin by no means. The law is sin. No, no, by no means. Yet if it had not been for the law. So he still means he's still meaning to make this point, to bring this understanding about that the giving of the law did awaken a sin in us.

It's not because of the law did it, but it's the sinful nature that is within us. And the law reveals to us our rebellion against that law reveals to us the sin and exactly what the name of that sin is even.

Maybe, you know, before you become a Christian, that you're not a good person. OK, I've heard unbelievers say something like that. Well, nobody's good. Nobody's perfect. You know, you might hear it stated that way.

But of course, they say it that way to try to justify some sort of sinful behavior. Right. It's not really that bad. Yeah, I stumble sometimes because everybody does it. You know, they just try to justify themselves by saying something like that.

So maybe you did have some sort of understanding before you became a Christian that you're not a good person, but you didn't know what the evil was or even the bad thing that you did, that it was all that evil, that it was worthy of judgment.

You didn't know that until you heard the law. And then once the law gave a name to it, coveting, then you became aware of your coveting. So if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin, Paul says.

The law says this is wrong. This is what sin is. And then you become knowledgeable that, oh, OK, well, I didn't know what sin was. Until the law told me what sin was. And then Paul goes on there, for I would not have known what it is to covet.

Now he's even naming a particular sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, you shall not covet. That's the 10th commandment. And I really think that Paul is picking that commandment for a very specific reason.

Why would he pick coveting and not any of the other nine? It's because that one commandment, thou shalt not covet. That's the one of the 10 commandments that reveals that sin is a matter of the heart and not of simply something that somebody does, therefore making them a sinner.

You were a sinner before you did the sin. So sin is a matter of the heart. David says in Psalm 51, in sin did my mother conceive me. So we're sinners from our conception. If you have life in you, you've got sin in you because we have been descended from Adam.

Everybody who was born in the line of Adam is born in sin. And it takes being reborn to become a person that desires righteousness rather than somebody that is walking in consistent lawlessness. So when that law reveals to us our sin and our need for a savior, then we become knowledgeable of that sin.

We even know that those sins have names like do not covet. The desire in your heart to have that which does not belong to you and thinking that I need that thing in order to be happy. So you want what somebody else has and I will never be satisfied until I have that.

That's coveting. And that comes from the heart. That sin in particular is a heart issue. That is not something that you do on the outside. Coveting is not something that you can see being done in action.

It comes from a desire within your sinful heart. So when Paul picks that commandment, he picks that for a very specific reason, to demonstrate that sin is a matter of the heart. Sin is not simply a matter of doing something on the outside, which the law is outside of us.

So I heard the law that was said to me, you know, do not lie. And when I heard the law say, do not lie, well, then I went, I went out and did lies. Okay, that's why Paul doesn't pick that law or that commandment.

He doesn't pick the commandment. Do not bear false witness against your neighbor, because otherwise the illustration would be that he wasn't a sinner until he lied. Then he became a sinner. No, he means to show here to the reader, you were a sinner before you did anything that could be seen by somebody else.

So the commandment he chooses is coveting. That's the commandment he uses as his example, because that is a sin of the heart. Every other commandment is too, but it's more difficult to make the argument that sin is a matter of the heart when you are using a commandment that is something somebody sees on the outside.

Well, that guy's a murderer because I saw him kill somebody. Okay. But Jesus says in Matthew chapter five, we're all murderers at heart just because we would hate somebody else. So anyway, Paul using the commandment, do not covet to show that sin comes from the heart verse eight here, but sin seizing an opportunity through the commandment produced in me all kinds of covetousness.

So when you heard do not covet, it didn't awaken you this desire not to covet. Instead it produced even more covetousness. You were already a covetor before the law told you do not covet. But instead of becoming obedient to the law, you became all the more rebellious.

Suddenly you have the knowledge of, well, I'm a covetor. Okay. The law says do not covet. Now I know that it is a sin to covet. But instead of generating repentance in your heart, it generated rebellion and you wanted to go against that law and start doing all more manner of covetousness.

Well, I want that. I want that. I want that. And there's nothing wrong with that because once I have that, then I'll be happy and then I won't be a covetor anymore. You know, that's the way that our sinful selves react.

We want to do what is opposite of what God has told us to do. So sin seizing an opportunity through the commandment produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Sin wakes up, wants me to go contrary to what God's word says.

For apart from the law, sin lies dead. This is continuing the motif that we've been using in Romans 6 and here also in Romans 7. But where it says that sin lies dead, that doesn't mean there was no sin until you heard the law.

You were a good person until you heard the law and then once you heard the law, you rebelled against it and you became a sinner. That's not what that means. It just means that sin was latent. You did not understand sin as lawlessness until the law was presented to you.

For that's the definition that the apostle John gives to sin in his first epistle. Sin is lawlessness. It is rebelling against the law of God. So the sin was there. It was in your heart, but you did not know it as lawlessness until the law was presented to you and you rebelled against it.

So without the law, sin was latent. It lies dead. I once was alive apart from the law. That's verse 9. And that's similar to an argument he made back in chapter 6, verse 20. He said, when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.

So as a slave to sin, you were free from righteousness. But now as a slave to righteousness, you're free from sin. So it's the same sort of like vice versa that he's using right here in verse 9. I once was alive apart from the law.

You were alive to sin and you were dead to righteousness. But now you're alive to righteousness and dead to sin. So I once was alive apart from the law. But when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.

The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. Now, we really don't get the best clarification of this statement until we get to chapter 8, where Paul makes this statement in verse 3, for God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh.

And for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. I believe once you get to chapter 8, that statement that's made there in the middle of Romans 7 gains a little bit more clarity.

So where Paul says, the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me for sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. Because the law does not have a power to save you.

The law doesn't save you. Who saves you is Christ. So in Romans 8, 3, you have that statement, God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do. The law could not save you, but Christ has saved you.

He condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us. So again, just as I said yesterday and on Monday, we have written upon our hearts that desire for Christ, according to the spirit, the law is within us now.

That desire to keep God's statutes is not something that's on the outside of us. It's something that has been poured into us by the Holy Spirit of God, that we may produce fruit for God, as was said here in Romans 7, back in verse 4, in order that we may bear fruit for God, that we may grow in righteousness and holiness and sanctification.

If you try to do that on your own, you're going to fall flat on your face. You're not going to be able to do it. Justification does not come by our keeping of the law. Sanctification does not come by our keeping of the law, but by looking to Jesus and walking in the spirit.

And if our focus is Christ and to be like our savior, all of these things will happen by the power of the spirit that is within you, not by the power of the law. Make sense? Let's wrap up there. We'll finish our study of Romans 7 next week.

Prayer for Sanctification and Closing Announcements

Heavenly Father, thanks for your goodness and for your grace. And give us an understanding of your word that we may keep it and be blessed by it and grow according to the picture of Christ that's been given to us in your word.

May your spirit guide us today to be Christ-like in all that we do and in our interactions, giving glory to God our King in heaven above, where we desire to be with you forever in glory. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.

You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book.

On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow, we'll pick up on an Old Testament study, When We Understand the Text. You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes.