In Him

Suppose that you are a fairly unflappable, easygoing, thick-skinned person "in the flesh" – an unbeliever without the Spirit of Christ. And suppose the Law says, "Bless those who curse you." You don't know this law and nobody says it to you, and so in general, you seem to act like that. You're not quick to fight back. You like to make peace and don't easily get upset.

Then comes the Law. Somebody, or some book (like the Bible) says, "Bless that person who cursed you." And suddenly the you that was seemingly peace-loving and compliant (as long as you were in control and calling the shots) bristles with resistance at being told what to do. And the very thing that you might have done outwardly – smooth things over to make peace, say something nice – you now refuse to do. You were doing it outwardly as long as you were in charge. But as soon as someone or some book was elevated above you with the right to tell you what is right and what is good for you, your sinful nature awakens (comes to life as it were, verse 8), and you do not bless.

So the Law came, and sin partnered with the Law – took occasion in the Law, was aroused by the Law – to do the very thing which the Law condemned. The Law itself stirred up active disobedience to what the Law demanded. This is what is happening in Romans 7:5, "For while we were in the flesh [while we loved being god and hated being told what to do], the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death."

So now we have seen how the Law (which is good) becomes a partner with our self-deifying, insubordinate, sinful nature to bring about the very things that the Law condemns, and to hinder the very thing that the Law commands, namely love.

Paul is absolutely passionate that we Christians be known by our Christ-like, Christ-exalting love – love for each other, love for our neighbors, love for our enemies, love for the unreached peoples of the world, love for the weak, love for the suffering. And that we not devote ourselves to maximizing our material ease and our physical comforts or our religious reputation, but that we devote ourselves to doing as much good for others as we can, both for time and eternity. And because that love is his passion for us, he is equally passionate that we be dead to the law.

Paul says, for love's sake we must die to the Law (Romans 7:4, 6), which itself is summed up in love (13:8, 10). You go out of existence with reference to the Law. That's Paul's solution to the catastrophic conspiracy of flesh and Law coming together to multiply sins. We must die "through the body of Christ" (7:4; 6:5). By faith in Christ we die with Christ. Galatians 5:24, "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." Our old, insubordinate, rebellious, self-deifying, law-hating self dies with Christ. And we rise to walk in the newness of life (6:4). And this newness is "the newness of the Spirit, not the oldness of the letter (the Law)" (7:6).

Now we are in a position to love, Paul says. And love fulfills the whole Law (13:8, 10). So what kind of service does freedom from the law produce? Legalistic service? No. Verse 6 says it produces service "in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter."

Here is Paul's new answer to the objection of Romans 6:15. The reason that being under grace and not under law produces love and not lawlessness is that God pours out his Spirit into the hearts of justified people. And what that Spirit does is work a "newness" from the inside out. He writes the law on the heart and shapes the will and the affections into Christlike, loving service. We are freed from the "letter" carved in stone, or written on paper – an external list of duties pressing on your will from outside to comply when there is no heart to comply. We have died to that!

Why is it that we must die to the law if our aim is the fruit of love, and love is the fulfillment of the law? If the law is summed up in love, and love is the fruit God wants, then why must we die to the law? Romans 13:8, 10: "Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. . . . Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." Galatians 5:14 says, "The whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.'" So why die to the very thing you want to fulfill?

Because God has ordained that the goal of the law be fulfilled in us through Christ-loving, not law-keeping.

Let's try to say it with a picture. And I will tell you at the outset that the picture has a truth in it and a falsehood in it. I'll use it for the truth and then I will scrap it because of the error.

Suppose the law is like a house with a front door and a back door. And in the house is the treasure of love, the fulfillment of the law. We want to be there. We want to become radical, loving, sacrificial, Christlike people. On the locked front door are written the laws for getting into the house. They are the combination to the great padlock on the door. Right turn, don't kill; left turn, don't steal; right turn, don't lie; left turn, don't commit adultery; right turn, don't covet; and so on.

Paul says if you want to get into that house – if you want the treasure of love – you must die to the front door as a way in. And when you die to the law as the door to the house, you are joined to Christ who picks you up, takes you to the back door and carries you in. He alone has the power to do it. You can only get in by trusting him and riding in him. You must be united to him if you would get into the treasure of love. In him and by him you bear the fruit of love and fulfill the law.

In other words, to fulfill the law you must die to law-keeping as a way in, and replace it with Christ-loving. Attachment to the living Christ, not the written law, is the key to life and love. That is the truth in the picture: If you want to fulfill the law, you don't approach it through the front door of law-keeping, but through the back door of Christ-loving.

So what is wrong with this?

Well, it is that it puts the law at the center and makes Christ the servant of the law, instead of putting Christ at the center and making the law a servant of Christ. Or to say it another way, it makes the law the goal of our being in Christ, instead of making our being in Christ the goal of the law. The danger is that what we may want is to get into this house of law; and to that end Christ becomes useful as a key, a doorkeeper.

Oh how easy for us to come so close to getting the Christian life right (the newness of the Spirit – Christ! – instead of the oldness of the letter – law!) and then fall right back into the old legal way of living by making Christ a new list-giver and a new means of finally getting the old list "right." And so we wind up going from room to room in the house turning all the combinations that we got from Christ. And we think that is the aim of the Christian life.

How then is it to be pursued? Paul answers at two levels. He says to pursue justification and sanctification by faith alone apart from works of the Law. That's one level. And he says to pursue justification and sanctification in the newness of the Spirit, not the oldness of the letter. That's the other level. Die to the Law for justification and die to the Law for sanctification. And in the place of the Law as a means of justification and sanctification, put faith in Jesus Christ and the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

What then shall we, as Christians, do with the holy, just and good law of God?

Answer: we will look into this law for two purposes:

• We will look into the law to see Christ so that we can know him and trust him and love him more.

• We will look into this law to test ourselves to see if we do know and trust and love Christ as we ought. God's law reveals Christ in many ways, and we may use it to know him and stir up our love for him. And the law is a litmus paper to test the genuineness of our love to Christ. Christ is the key to unlocking the meaning of the law; and then the law displays Christ for our heart's satisfaction – and transformation (see John 5:39; Luke 24:27).

Now, there is a massive assumption underneath this gospel. The assumption is this: there is law. The Creator of the universe has revealed his will. And it is law. When it is not done, there is real guilt and real condemnation and real punishment. So the existence of law in the universe – the revealed will of God – creates the foundation for law-breaking and guilt, and law-keeping and righteousness, and court and judge, and justification and condemnation. All of these great things rest on this one assumption: there is law.

The reason I stress this is to throw into stark relief the fact that Paul says so many negative things about the Law. It's amazing. It should make us tremble. To speak the way Paul speaks about the Law of God is shocking. The words of Paul must have landed on some humble saints like an utterly unjustified indictment. Does this matter to Paul? Does he care what people think about the Law? It matters tremendously. It matters to him what you think of the Law, and what you do with the Law. It really matters.

When Paul says the Law is holy and righteous and good, he means that the Law is not only a rigorous standard of what is right and just, but also what is helpful. The Law expresses care as well as correctness. Paul's defense of the Law as holy and righteous and good. Everything from the middle of verse 7 to the end of verse 11 is Paul's defense of the Law, after all his seemingly negative descriptions.

The first thing I see in that defense of the Law is that we need to know sin. It is important for us to know our sin. It is good for us to know our sins. Paul assumes this, doesn't he? He says, The Law is not sin! On the contrary, the Law helps me know my sin. And this knowledge is a holy thing. This knowing my sin is a righteous thing. This knowing my sin and myself as a sinner is a good thing. A precious thing. A caring, loving thing…

In verse 13 he repeats in the strongest language possible that sin, not the commandment, killed him. "Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? May it never be! Rather it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by effecting my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful." This is verse 11 all over again: "Sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me."

Picture the Law as a surgeon's scalpel. It is meant for life and healing. And here comes sin and takes the scalpel of God's commandments and slashes people's throats with it. In other words, sin takes the Law in hand and kills us with one of two kinds of deception about our future. It either offers hopelessness relieved by self-indulgence, or it offers hopefulness supported by self-righteousness. One by telling you that you can't keep the commandments and so you should be hopeless. The other by telling you that you can and so you should be hopeful. They are both lies. And to believe either of them is suicide.

What is the remedy? Die to the Law and live to God through the crucified and risen Christ. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the remedy. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes (Romans 1:16). It is the only message in the world that gives hope to both the self-indulgent and the self-righteous, leading us to one of the most famous texts in the book of Romans and one of the most controversial in verses 19 through 25- the divided man.

First, Paul is arguing for the goodness and spirituality of the Law of God.

Second, he is arguing for the reality of what he calls "indwelling sin" to explain why Christians are not perfect and don't measure up to their own highest standards.

So on the one hand he is arguing that the Law is good, and on the other hand that indwelling sin is the culprit in the Christian life.

Third, he is arguing for his own genuine Christianity – that he is a new man, a new creature in Christ, even though he still sins.

So, is Paul is describing part of his own Christian experience, not his experience before conversion or the way a Christian would see his experience before his conversion? I will list what I studied and you can decide for yourself…

• Paul's Use of First-Person Pronouns

• Paul Speaks of the Law as Only a Christian Could

• Paul's Other Pre-Conversion Descriptions Do not Match Romans 7

• Paul Speaks of Himself as Only a Christian Could

• Peter as an Example of a Divided Man

• A Divided You

• Sin as a Slave Master

• The Body of This Death

• The Law of Sin and Death

WHAT. A CHAPTER. BIBLENERDS!

Lord, deliver us from being Your Church like all of this - with its pasted smiles, and chipper superficiality, and blindness to our own failures, and consequent quickness to judge others. God give us the honesty and candor and humility of the apostle Paul. In Jesus' precious name - Amen!

By the transforming power of the Spirit I set my mind on the treasure of Jesus Christ and all that God is for me in him (2 Corinthians 5:19; 1 Corinthians 1:30; Colossians 2:3, 9); and all that I am in him (2 Corinthians 5:17) and all I will become through him (Philippians 1:11). And I believe him and trust in his help and power. And I act on that faith. And if I stumble, I do not yield to the temptation to deny Christ or my true life in him. I repent and I revel in his forgiveness and I fight on.

So that is the view I want to defend. Romans 7:14-25 is part of Christian experience - not ideal, but real and authentic! It's the earnestness of the war and the response to defeat that show your Christianity, not perfection.

Happy Reading, precious Biblenerds!