The apostle Paul’s letter to the church in Rome is regarded as one of the most important pieces of literature ever written. But most people miss the point. Paul was used as a humble instrument of God to give pastoral guidance to Christians in the city of Rome. It was written about the middle of the first century AD to correct problems in the church.
We can’t be sure about how or when the church in Rome started but we do know what started it …. the wondrous ‘good news’ of Jesus’ substitutionary death and resurrection reached people in Rome. Many of them would have been Jews. With the spread of the gospel message we can appreciate that there would also have been tensions within the Jewish community as some of them believed in Jesus and others rejected Him.
We can therefore understand the reaction of the Roman Emperor, Claudius, who issued an edict that all Jews were to leave Rome. There is evidence of this in Acts Ch 18 which tells us about Paul’s meeting with two such Jewish Christians at Corinth in Greece. We read from Vs 2 as follows:
There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them and, because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them.4 Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks. Acts 18:2-4 (NIV)
Five years after the edict, Claudius died and the Jews, along with the Jewish Christians, returned to Rome. During their absence, however, the Gentile believers in Rome would, no doubt, have been increasing in number. The joining of the two groups of believers together again, after such a long absence would have created a very complex pastoral situation in the church.
Approximately three years later the apostle Paul, wrote Romans. The central part of this letter is the teaching that people are made right with God, justified, by believing in what Jesus has done for them ….. not anything in or of themselves. It is the great leveler in the church.
There are all kinds of ways, however, in which people try to justify themselves. There are things like the quantity, value or rarity of certain types of material possessions. There is the family home, where it is located and the condition in which it is maintained. Other examples might be the type of work a person does and the positions which are obtained. It could also be the country lived in, the group of people with whom someone associates or the opinions which are held.
In the case of Jewish people it is likely to be the relationship they have to the Law of God. This carried over into the early Christian church which was mostly a mixture of Jewish and Gentile believers. Certain views of the place and purpose of God’s Law created big problems in the church. There were two extremes in particular. One was the teaching that a Christian must keep the Law, in addition to believing in what Christ accomplished, in order to be right with God. This is referred to as legalism and Paul addressed a type of this very forcefully in his letter to the Galatians. The other extreme was the complete opposite. Some said that for Christians the Law was irrelevant and started to live carelessly. The Greek word for this is anomia (Romans 6:19) from which we have the English word lawlessness.
There is also a third matter which needs to be considered in relation to God’s Law. It is not as obvious as the other two but no less important. It comes up for our attention in the second part of Romans Ch7 which we have just read. Paul uses a ’personal’ type of illustration to show that, whilst the Law is good, a believer can be very troubled because of indwelling sin. The situation here occurs when a believer has divided loyalties ……… coming to Christ but not dying to the Law. This involves a contradiction because, we see from the marriage illustration a person dies to the Law in order to be united to Christ. We should therefore not be surprised that in this illustration we see a type of division or conflict in the life of the person ……. at times we see something which is true of a Christian and then we see something else which is true of a non-Christian.
So let’s now come to the passage as we find the apostle’s ‘guidepost’ question and answer. Let’s see how he works it all through for the pastoral care of the church in Rome and, through the illumination of the same Holy Spirit, for people half a world away … two centuries later.
PASSAGES EXPLAINED/MAIN POINTS
V13 is pivotal for understanding what Paul is saying in the remaining part of this chapter.
Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! Nevertheless, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful. Rom 7:13 (NIV)
Paul has earlier stated that the Law is holy and righteous and good. Here he goes further and asks ‘did that which is good become death to me?’ and immediately answers this with ‘by no means’. The problem is sin not the Law. He goes on to say that sin ‘used what is good’, that is the Law, to bring about “death” ‘so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful’. So the problem that we are going to be looking at in what follows is a result of the presence of the Law, which is good, and sin which is deadly……. and all of this is in a gospel atmosphere ……. the church in Rome.
This brings us to the need to comment on the ‘personal’ illustration which has caused so much unnecessary debate. Some people take it to be Paul himself. Others assume it is a hypothetical person and there is also another school of thought which says the ’ I’ is symbolic of the nation of Israel. We don’t have to know who the person is in order to understand what Paul is getting at here. We just need to follow where the guidepost question points and the line of Paul’s reasoning from there. Let’s read it again ….’did that which is good become death to me?’
In the illustration which follows and forms part of the answer to this question we find three things about the Law. Firstly, that the Law is spiritual, secondly that the Law is good and thirdly that it is a delight to this person …….. even though he experiences a terrible tension within because of indwelling sin. Let’s re-read part of the illustration (Vs 14-23):
14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. Romans 7:14-23 (NIV)
So here we see one more thing about the Law …. a limitation. Even though it is good it cannot save a person from sin ….. it can only highlight the deadly problem. The person cries out in the next verse (Vs24):
24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Romans 7:24 (NIV)
In Ch7 of Romans we have two illustrations ……. one at the beginning and the second one which we have just read which is at the end. A particular application from the first illustration is very helpful for us in our understanding of the second one. It needs to be stated, once again, that the primary focus in this chapter is on the place and purpose of the Law as indicated by the question ……. ‘Did that which is good become death to me?’
So in considering the tension and conflict within this person we should be careful that it doesn’t take away from the main emphasis. We should also be aware that the teaching here would appear to be mainly directed towards those from a Jewish background. It follows from what Paul had said earlier in this letter about justification by faith apart from the works of the Law. This would have raised questions in the Jewish mind because of their strong connection to the Law of God. We can almost hear the question …..’What is therefore the place and purpose of the Law.’
With this in mind, we need to come back to the illustration at the beginning of Ch7 concerning marriage. Let’s re-read it (7:1-4):
Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives? 2 For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. 3 So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man.
4 So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. Romans 7:1-4 (NIV)
This illustration shows us that a person must be released from the Law, the first husband, in order to be ‘married’ to Christ. This release is brought about, however, not by the first husband dying, but by the person dying to the Law and being set free from it. In other words, the person is no longer trying to be justified by keeping the Law but by becoming ‘married’ to Christ …… justified by faith in Him.
A particular harmful situation, however, is depicted in Vs3 where there is an adulterous relationship. Let’s re-read the first part of Vs3:
So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive she is called an adulteress. Romans 7:3 (NIV)
We can understand this situation by what we have in the second illustration. Here the person is being drawn in two different directions and ends up with ‘divided loyalties’.
So we see in the final verse, Vs25, a type of conclusion to what we have in the latter part of this chapter. Here Christ is held out as the one who saves but the conflict remains for this troubled person. The reason is given in the final words (Vs25b):
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. Romans 7:25b (NIV)
Can these be the words of a healthy Christian? The following may be helpful. Most, if not all, of us would be familiar with the expression ‘buy one get one free’. This raises the question: Is the one we get for free really free? No …… because we had to pay something to get it. What we have in the ‘personal illustration’ of Romans 7 is someone who appears to be in a similar situation. Trying to be justified by keeping the Law whilst, at the same time, coming to Jesus Christ for the free gift. You cannot have it both ways because the two are opposed to each other …… ‘divided loyalties’.
Continuing with the ‘buy one get one free’ analogy , ‘legalism’, which is what Paul addresses in Galatians, is when the free one is received first and then you are told that you must also buy one. The gospel way is when someone pays for the first one on our behalf. We can then freely receive the precious gift of forgiveness by faith.
APPLICATION
Christ’s disciples are constantly tempted to justify themselves by the things we do and the things we do not do. When it comes to God’s good Law, on the one hand we have legalism and its cousin, divided loyalties. These say that we must keep the Law in order to be fully justified. On the other hand we have ‘anomia’ and lawlessness which are telling us that now we have come to faith in Christ the Law is dead and irrelevant .We, however, must fix our eyes on Jesus, being justified by faith alone ……. ‘married’ forever to our wonderful Saviour who died on the cross and then rose again…………. to HIM be all the glory.
The Gospel in Canberra 