April 9, 2017 In Defense Of God by Pastor Josh Sheldon

Romans 7:7-12 and the Law’s Role in Exposing Sin

Turn please in your Bibles to the book of Romans in chapter 7 as we continue in this series on the book of Romans. This morning's text is chapter 7 verses 7 through 12. Let me read these to you. What shall we say then.

Excuse me. Let's try again. What then shall we say? That the law is sin. By no means yet it had if it had not been for the law. I would not have known sin. I would 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 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.

Thank God bless the hearing and the preaching this morning of his holy word to us. Now as we've been going through this book of Romans You may have noticed that the Apostle Paul has been doing something at a kind of a steady rate here.

He's been steadily stripping us of something. Stripping us of all hope that we may have of becoming right before God by any means other than Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is it. Everything else is being stripped away.

It's the rubbish that Paul speaks of in Philippians chapter 3 your effort to make yourself. Holy is futile. Your effort to become right before God by following his holy and righteous and good law. Just as futile.

Not that there's anything wrong with the law as we will discover as we go through these verses. Nothing at all wrong with the law. What's the problem? The problem is us as the law accomplishes its purposes in us.

It shows us our need to step away from the law and flee to what? Jesus Christ. Him alone. Paul has left us bereft of any hope other than him what God the Father has done in him the Son Jesus Christ. To satisfy his demands by his law on us satisfied in Christ and that's the only hope we have and We can't move forward in this book of Romans and understand chapter 8 or 9 or 10 or 11 or any of it.

If we get not this. In chapter 3 he described our hopelessness outside of Christ by telling us that we have sinned each and every one of us without Exception all having fallen short of the glory of God.

He's proven that faith Superseded the law as the means of attaining this righteousness. By showing how Abraham was reckoned was imputed with righteousness centuries before the law. Chapter 5 was about our Representative heads this federal idea that we worked on Adam in whom we all sin Christ in whom we are made righteous.

And then chapter 6 in the first part of this chapter chapter 7 They told us how we are no longer bound to the law because in Christ we have died to it. Now if it sounds to you as If Paul has been denigrating the law of God.

If your ear hears him saying that there's some inherent fault in the law itself. I Can only tell you that? You're not alone. You're not alone. If you're thinking that way having gone through Romans with us Paul's first readers some 2 ,000 years ago seemed to have thought the same sort of thing.

Because Paul is anticipating this question. They say to him Paul. Did you just say that the law to which I have died and I'm no longer bound are you saying that there's something wrong with? The law itself was that the defective thing is the law sin to them and to us and To any and all who think there's something wrong with any jot or tittle anywhere in God's law.

The answer is immediate. The answer is unequivocal by no means by no means by no means this echoes chapter 6 verse 2 where the same response is given to whether this whether sin is acceptable because it magnifies God's grace by No means.

Or chapter 6 verse 15 where that is the answer to whether we might sin because grace has overruled the law. We shall we sin because we're under the grace and not the law. By no means one might say heaven forbid.

Some translations will say may it never be. Nothing could be further from the truth than to suppose that Paul has placed an equal sign between God's law and Sin, which is the way the original text would have it law sin law equal sin.

May it never be by no means heaven forbid. Drive the thought from your mind. Nothing could be further from the truth than that the law reflects the nature of him who gave it and It is as Paul concludes at the end of this short section Holy and righteous and good sin in every way imaginable is.

None of those things in fact the two are quite the opposite of one another. Now Paul hasn't quite arrived yet at the topic we call sanctification. The process whereby the Christian grows in holiness and righteousness becoming more and more conformed to the image of Christ he's still in the category the theological category of justification a one-time act whereby sins are forgiven and the sinner who flees in faith to Christ having repented of his sins is forgiven and By that faith declared righteous by God that's justification and This is what Paul is still speaking of.

Justification. So what does the law do? After all these verses all these passages driving us away from the law. What does the law do? Well it defines sin it defines sin and sin wants to find takes form in our actions and This is what the law highlights, this is what the law actually does.

This is the agency of it the law makes you aware of your sin proving that it the law is good and Sin the opposite of the law is evil. It's that simple for you. What does the law do when you read Psalm? 119 and read about all the glories of God's law if you look in Exodus and Leviticus and those sorts of books and read the precepts of God's law.

What's the purpose for you today. To become aware of your sin and becoming aware of your sin by looking at God's good and holy law. You see how good it is and how bad sin is. Our passage begins with the question is the law sin and there's two answers to it that Paul actually gives.

He answers the same question twice he begins is law sin. The first answer is the last part of that verse 7 for if it had not been for the law I would not have known sin. And then quickly the example of covetousness the second answer.

That's the first answer the second answer is Is the last verse it's verse 12, so the law is holy and righteous and good. So a very simple outline for these verses first the laws work in exposing sin and Second sins work in exposing our nature and third the conclusion of the matter.

Now there is one piece of housekeeping. I need to deal with up front. We need to Determine we need to define Who is I? What is meant by I and it begins very quickly in here yet if it had not been for the law I Would not have known sin.

It produced in me. I was once alive and so forth who is I? Who is the Apostle Paul mean? Commentators are divided as to whether he means himself as he giving us an autobiography as he's speaking of his personal experience.

And if it's his personal experience is he speaking of himself before or after he was converted. Which I is that if it's Paul or is it a royal an inclusive sort of I the royal we as we say. In casual discussions with many of you.

We're almost as divided as the commentators are this is important, and we're preaching. We're not giving you a lecture. So we're not going to devolve into a lecture on this. But this is important because the answer here needs to carry us through the rest of this chapter and really beyond that.

So you need to know my conclusion for those of you who are very familiar with this book and the controversy around Who is I and the importance of determining who that I? actually is. I'll tell you in just a moment who I think I is.

But I'm not going to prove it at length here. This is not a lecture. We're preaching the gospel the Lord Jesus Christ my job to you is to have a biblical reason for what I think and Knowing that this is a fairly controversial idea that there's very good men on both sides of this issue.

Then my job for you my task in preaching is to tell you what I think briefly. Why I think and I say briefly because we've got a gospel to preach. But you need to know Where I'm going with this and when I get to the rest of chapter 7 and chapter 8 and chapter 9 I need to be consistent so I've concluded that I is Paul's inclusion of himself in Israel's corporate experience with the law.

He's speaking of himself and he's imbuing himself or immersing himself as it were in Israel's experience it's I but it's us together and it's that experience with the law. When I come back to Romans not next week, but the week after this is going to be really important.

Because who is this I and at which point in Paul's spiritual journey is he speaking? But going all the way back to chapter 4 for Paul's opening questions as it was here in chapter 7 verse 7 are Corporate their statements or their corporate questions.

What then shall we say was gained by Abraham? Therefore chapter 5 verse 1 since we have been justified by faith chapter 6 verse 1. What shall we say then chapter 6 verse 15? What then are we to sin and now chapter 7?

What then shall we say and he goes on? In the first person singular to spell it out for us. That was chapter 7 verse 1 now We'll move on quickly here, but many of you think differently than this. And as I said, my job is to tell you plainly what I think briefly why I think it and then to consistently preach.

That way if you disagree me with me when we're done and I don't mean these few verses I mean really the book if you still disagree with me when you when I'm done then I can only say that you have good evidence to support your position and Some of the greatest minds in the church agree with you.

And I can tell you that I have good reason for my position and there's some pretty bright scholars on my side as well. There's not something to divide over. I hold myself accountable to you to have a biblical reason for my position and To keep it consistently and to be open to correction as we all must be.

So all that because I know that I in chapter 7 of Romans is a very important I. And we need to know what we think and why and if you disagree with me. And if we at the end of all this still disagree at least I've been consistent as I go through and neither of us I will tell you up front our heretics and nor as much as in my power.

Will I allow this to become a divisive point between any two people or even within the church? That's all I have to say about I the first question. Verse 7 is the law sin. No, says Paul. It is so much not sin that the very knowledge of it is.

What both defines and exposes sin. If not for the law he says I would not have known sin and he goes on to the Example of coveting coveting. I would not have known not to covet. I wouldn't have known what it is.

Had not the law said don't do this Jewish doctrine and theology at that time Held that the tenth command. You shall not covet you shall not cover your neighbor's wife or his house or his donkey or his ass or anything that is his.

They felt that that tenth command Was the summary of all the commandments? Much the same way Jesus said that Deuteronomy 6 4 you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul. With all your mind with all your strength.

He said that that was the greatest command. In that sense it encompassed all of the commandments of God. Paul would say in Galatians chapter 5 verse 14 that all the law is fulfilled is summarized. It's emblemized by this one word.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself. And in the same way the Jews in Paul's day Felt that the tenth command Was the word summarized all ten all ten of them. What he's saying here is That the law has done something.

With sin it is laid it bare. It is exposed it now. We don't need a law do we we don't need a law that tells us coveting is wrong. We really don't. Cain coveted his brother's favor with God long before the law was set in stone pun intended.

The unhappy bitterness that coveting wells up within us makes it obvious to us that it's wrong. It's sinful. What did the law do. Well the law defined it the law gave it a name. Coveting isn't just something that makes you unhappy.

Coveting isn't just a snarky attitude that tomorrow you might conquer and feel better. What is coveting? It's sin. If we don't call it sin then coveting is something that we will give a different name to.

I Was just angry. I was just feeling this poor attitude. I need a good night's sleep. I need to have a better dinner, and I'll feel better in the morning. It'll be over. No no no no no. The law doesn't allow us to get off that easily.

The law exposes it for what it is. It's sin. Coveting is that the law says so it is sin. Coveting is against God because sin is against God. The law Paul says made him know this intellectually. He knows this now.

You can't read the law and come away and say other than that that this thing is sin. We can go on and read and what does David say against you you only Have I sinned. Sin is against God and the law gives it a name coveting as I've been arguing.

We can't just call it a bad attitude. Coveting this is what God calls it. The law has a way of doing this doesn't it giving things a name things that maybe we don't want to name it. Sorry might be sort of Moldering there in our spirit something we know is wrong, but we won't call it what it is.

We don't have the courage to call it what it is. Read the law. Read the law and see what what it says if you read the law in the sermon on the mount. Then you know. What adultery is? Now we men. We turn our head and we look lustfully if even for a moment.

We might say well, I was just appreciating her beauty from a safe distance and God made her beautiful. I was just appreciating that I have a roving eye. No, this is not what the law calls it when Jesus Christ in the sermon on the mount says you have committed Adultery in your heart.

We must call it what it is murder. Calling your brother a fool hating your brother in the heart. We can call all kinds of things. We have all kinds of excuses. I'm not even going to try and think of examples of the excuses we make because we're great factories of excuses.

As Calvin told us as he wrote. But if you read the sermon on the mount you read the law. That the lawgiver gave in the sermon on the mount. Well, you can't call it anything other than murder or false oaths.

They're not just peccadilloes. They are Sin. The bible has a way of doing this. Paul speaks of the mosaic law and then just one of the ten commandments, but the principle applies very broadly. Pulling no punches having no fear of our opinions.

The scripture calls any and all untruth a lie. If you say yes, but you don't mean yes. What does jesus say? It's not a mistake. It's a lie. If you say no, and you didn't mean no if we're equivocating.

What does jesus say you have lied? This is what the law does. It uncovers our sin and he gives it a name. There's just no way out. If you read it with open eyes. Idols are not just images idols or anything we place higher than god and on it goes.

The covener may have known by his inbred conscience that it was wrong or at least not good. But the law calls it what it is. Now, you know. Now, you know. And that's the first part of paul's answer here the law isn't sin.

May it never be. Sin is what the law exposes sin is what the law names. So far is the law from sin that by the very difference. It exposes sin next in verses 8 through 11. There's this extended proof of just how sin does its work once exposed once we become aware of it.

Once it's now in our faces we might say today. Verses 8 through 11 sins work in exposing our nature. When we hear god's good and holy and righteous and just and perfect law. What does sin do with it? It makes us want to do exactly what the law says not to do.

Or not do what the law says to do. He who knows the good to do and does not do it. It is sin and we could turn that around just as easily as a mathematical formula. It still works just as well. Verses 8 through 11 sins work in exposing our nature.

Now here we have that corporate and personal eye. It is we he is addressing about an experience that's common to us all. Before we go through these though. I want to make at least one observation about these verses verses 8 through 11.

So i'm going to read them again but sin. Seizing an opportunity through the commandment proves to me all kinds of covetousness. 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.

Excuse me life proved to be death to me. For sin seizing an opportunity through the commandment deceived me and through it killed me. What we have here is sin personified as this living breathing thing seeming to have a life of its own.

It's sort of the way james portrays it in james chapter 1 verse 15. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. Think all the way back to genesis chapter 4 cain was told that sin is crouching at the door.

Here in romans 7 sin seizes. Sin produces. Sin comes alive. Sin kills. Sin deceives. The standard way of illustrating all this is the old wet paint sign. And you've heard it all before. And i'm not so conceited as to think that I have to think of something new and innovative every time I preach.

Or even a few times I preach. But the old wet paint sign you see that sign you immediately wonder. Is it true? Is the paint really wet? I mean it's shiny, but maybe it's high gloss paint. And it's meant to be shiny.

And I don't see anyone actually painting and maybe it's been done hours or even days before. And i'm in a county park and you know how efficient our local government is. I'm smarter than that dumb old sign.

And then you lay your hand on it or just a finger and lo and behold. The paint is wet. And you have sort of a mark of cain. You are a transgressor. Wondering if the sign meant anything. But if you hadn't seen the sign you may have had no interest at all in that bench or the paint on it.

The sign just makes you want to test it. Other signs are ignored to much greater peril. Again, i've used this illustration before. And i'll use it again because i've actually been there several times at nevada falls in yosemite.

There's a place when you get up there. You've been climbing and climbing and climbing and there's this nice outcropping of granite into the merced river. That's just a good place to kick off your shoes.

Take a drink of water and relax before you finish the hike and have the joy of going up to half dome. Just downstream from that outcropping is nevada falls. And there's sort of a Fence, it's not very obtrusive and on the fence is a sign in many languages.

It says in essence something like this. Don't go in the water. You won't get away with it. You will go over the falls you cannot come back you will die. And it says it in many languages. You cannot survive it and after services after services.

You can look up on your smartphones. How many people disbelieve that sign. And died because they don't come back. You see there's a desire to test the limits to see if the sign is true like the wet paint.

There's more than curiosity, but there's this out now disbelief you say well the water looks so inviting. I surely won't die. I can swim back. And sin is like that. Crouching at the door looking for an opportunity.

This living breathing thing this organism. That seems to have an intellect to it. Looking for a chance to pounce on you. Opportunity is a very interesting word is used only seven times in the new testament all of them by our author the apostle paul.

It's a military term. And it means something like a bridgehead. A base or a circumstance from which other action becomes possible. And just what is that bridgehead what is that opportunity. Remember it's sin that has the opportunity.

It's sin that took the opportunity that found the bridgehead. What's our rebellious curiosity about the sign? It's reading god's law against coveting murder. Adultery and wondering just how much of that I can get away with it.

How many excuses I can make that keep me in good graces with my friends if not god. It's that desire to test the limits to see if that sign that's put there for our safety. That can be proven over time if you take a minute to look.

Was accurate and the warnings were real. And we just want to test it out. We just want to know. Surely my perception of the pleasure of that water is more accurate than that silly sign. Sin crouching at the door.

Jumps into action. It's not willing to let the opportunity pass. It found its bridgehead this military term this base of operations. And it produces in us the very desire to do what is prohibited. Excuse me, the last few words of verse 8 are apart from the law.

Sin lies dead. Dead here means something more like dormant. Much like ephesians chapter 2 verse 1 where paul writes you were dead in trespassing sins not literally dead. But spiritually dead. Sin is like that.

It exists, but it's in sort of a dormant state. It's not dead. It's watching. Not impotent but waiting for its chance. It's looking for a favorable circumstance. From which and on which to pounce. It's the roaring lion of first peter chapter 5 verse 8.

And look here. What does it see. It sees the law of god. A law intended to give life to all who will hear it and do what it says. Sin like this living breathing intelligent malevolent monster hides away until our spirit is awakened by god's word and then it strikes.

Did god really say is the paint really wet. Is the water really that dangerous. And god by his spirit in all he's given us in his word fairly screams at us. Yes, it is that dangerous. Yes, the water it will suck you away and kill you.

Yes the paint will leave a mark on you believe me. And not the sign at nevada falls on yosemite not the wet paint sign. God's word not just going down a false. You're speaking eternal life here we're speaking matters of eternal import.

Did god really say yes, he did say. Paul is taking us all the way back to adam in the garden here. Just as he had in chapter 5 verses 12 to 21. Where he explained how we all died in adam in adam in the garden when adam sinned we all sinned in him.

He was our representative our federal head. And why are we born tainted with sin? Why are we conceived in sin as the as the psalmist says in psalm 51? Because of adam. Because we were in him. Because he federally represented all who were in him.

That's the garden. And now we know how. Look again, please at verse 9. There in romans 7 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came sin came alive and I died. Sin came alive and I died.

The commandments what he's talking about the one given to adam and through him to us all the commandment. The one unique command that he had the only prohibition he had. And what did we learn earlier in this book of romans when he when adam disobeyed.

I disobeyed. We all disobeyed. Because we were in adam. Look again, please at verse 10. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. It proved to be death because that threat was part of the commandment.

For the day you will eat of it the day you eat of it. You shall surely die. You shall surely die in the hebrew mote to mote in the hebrew it means something like in dying you will die. There's no other choice here.

There's no other way. This is the commandment of god and this is the threat or we could say promise attached to it. Had adam not taken from that tree. He would have lived forever and we with him because we were in him.

Had he not. We would not but he did so we did you see. There's nothing wrong with god's law. Far from it. We can't add up quickly enough. We don't have paper enough for the superlatives. To describe god's law the longest psalm in the whole psalter is all about god's law.

Psalm 119. Nothing wrong with it. It's not just a collection of aphorisms little truths that you can kind of sort through and pick the one. That fits you today. It's more than a manual on how to live a more fulfilling life what it promises.

Whether by way of blessing for obedience or punishment for disobedience what it promises it accomplishes. Better to say god accomplishes because that word comes from god. God does do what the law says he will do.

Speaking recently, there's an episode in the old happy day series where there's this character the local thug. Thug, no, not a thug. He's kind of a tough guy, you know, he's a nice way named the fawns.

And he's telling not so tough ritchie how to scare off some guys who were bullying him at school. And he's showing me how to you know, just give him a quick punch in the nose. I don't remember exactly how the scene works, but it's basically a bluff and Ritchie goes and he acts tough and he gives the bluff and he comes To fonzie at the end of the day and shows him his black eye.

He says what happened? I did everything you said. He says oh I forgot to tell you ritchie. For this to work at some point in your life, you have to have punched somebody. You have to have actually done it.

Much more seriously than that. For example, our president took us quickly from threats of what he will do if the syrians continue to gas their own people. To actually doing something about it. At some point you have to do what you say you will do and more seriously even than that God carried out the threat embedded in the commandment.

Adam died. And when he died we died. I died when sin came alive and exacted what god had warned. God does carry out his word. Look, please at verse 11. Here again for sin seizing an opportunity through the commandment deceived me and through it killed me.

Where verse 8 said the scenes sin seized the opportunity provided by the commandment to produce in us exactly what the commandment forbids. Now sin deceives and kills. And deceives of course is another clue that paul's taking us back to the garden.

The serpent deceived me and I ate. He deceived me. He gave me wrong thoughts to think about something. I want to spend just a very short amount of time on this word for deceived because deceived in the greek is apatow.

Apatow just means to deceive to mislead. When paul uses it here in romans 7 verse 11 Sin deceived me. It's that same word apatow, but there's an ex as it were in front of it. There's a short prefix. If deception is to make someone think wrongly this compound word has more of a sense of suit to seduce holy or entirely.

Entirely I think paul uses it here because it indicates that man was holy completely entirely seduced by the temptation. The effect was to bring death to the body. Adam died. And death to the spirit. He was banished from the temple of god's immediate presence.

Now i'm not going to devolve into a lecture in calvinism and its banner tulip. But there's some support here in this word that he uses for for deceived. For our tea in tulip total depravity. The doctrine that man as a result of the first sin and his transmission to all who followed.

Is pervasively is holy is totally affected by sin is pervasive in us. No part of us is excluded from the inheritance of sin through adam. We're thoroughly tainted and affected at various levels, but in all our parts influenced by that first deception wholly seduced.

So what do we learn here? What does the christian take away here? Well think of sin as an organism of sorts. Think of sin as a living thing with intellect. That can plan something that seizes and produces.

Something that lies dormant and then when it has opportunity when it sees the bridgehead it comes alive. And when it comes live, what does it do? It deceives you it makes you think wrong thoughts. It makes you say well, I just have that roving eye.

No, no, no, no, no. That's deception. Makes you say well, i'm just a little angry at my brother. No. You've been deceived. It twists. What is good so that by the time it's done? We can't even remember where we started.

We don't know what the original intent was. Have you ever been. In an argument like that where you know, you're right. And the person you're debating even if it's a good nature debate the arguments that come at you are so convoluted.

But they sound so smart and at the end of it you go. Well, I know you're wrong and I know i'm right. But I can't prove it. So Can we just stop and have a cup of coffee and be friends somehow have you ever been in a situation like that?

This is what sin does. It convolutes things. To the point that you don't even really know where you started. Wait a second. Did god yeah god did say that wait, but I don't know anymore and i'm so confused.

There's so many factors you threw in here. Your arguments are so Other. I don't even know where we started. It seems like a cancer. Once awakened it replicates itself. It grows it spreads everywhere that finds weak defenses.

And what do we find? We find excuses coming more easily. We find that we give different names to things that the bible gives plain names to. And we give softer gentler names to them. Compromise flowing more more freely from us.

One of the best self-tests we can do. To see if this is us or you is to look for this symptom. How do you respond for example when a brother or sister confronts you does it make you angry? Does it make you defensive?

Do you criticize them? Do you question their motive? Find another friend. Do you find a church that's more accepting more loving? I'd say beware the cancer of sin may have taken opportunity and taken more control of you than you realize.

Because the what does the scripture call it if a brother or sister confronts you. Calls it edification. It calls it brotherly love and concern. It calls it we need to grow together. Into the image of christ who saved us.

Jesus christ tells us to confront one another in matthew 18 15 and all the rest of it 18 15 through 22. And what do we say? Well, you're just being judgmental. No, that's not what the scripture says though.

That's the deception. Ask yourself. How do we respond to these things? Just one sign I could think of that this the sin is in there and is looking for this opportunity to say yes. There's defensive pride.