The theme of Paul’s letter to the Romans is found in 1:16-17: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith.’”
Paul has indicated that some in his audience were Jews (chapters 2 & 3). Once they became Christians, or if they were contemplating becoming a Christian, one of their first thoughts would be: “What about the Law of Moses?” It had been God’s law with God’s people for 1,500 years. What was a Jewish Christian to do with the law? What good was it if men were saved, now, through Jesus Christ?
To those questions, Paul turns in Romans 7. First, he points out that Jewish Christians died to the law through their union with Christ (through immersion in water, 6:3-4). That point is based on the fundamental understanding that death severs the marriage bond (7:1-3). If a woman marries while her husband lives (unless he is put away for adultery; Matt. 19:9), then she is an adulteress. But once he dies, the marriage bond is severed and she, if she marries, is not an adulteress. So it is with the Jewish Christian and the law of Moses.
He has died to the law (vs 4) so that he might be joined together with Christ. The law aroused sinful passions in the Jew (vs 5) so that it produced death. But, dying to the law, Jewish Christians could serve God in the new life (6:4) that is brought about through the Holy Spirit (7:5). The old life was lived under the law.
If the law aroused sinful passions, does this mean that the law itself is sin? “May it never be!” (7:7). Rather, the law defined sin, such as covetousness. How would we know that covetousness offends the nature of God and repels us from His holy presence if God (through the law) had not told us: “Do not covet!” However, the only way Satan can work is to use the good and bring bad from it.
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The law was intended to produce life. “So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, by which a man may live if he does them; I am the Lord” (Lev. 18:5). But, when “Thou shalt not covet” aroused the passion to covet and Paul coveted, the commandment “resulted in death” for him.
How? Verse 11 states that sin took its opportunity through that commandment to deceive Paul and killed Paul (spiritually speaking, of course). The law itself is holy, righteous and good (vs 12). Was the law the cause of death in Paul? “May it never be!”
Again, personifying sin, it was the cause of death in Paul. The result was that coveting was shown to be sin by bringing about death in Paul, by utilizing the commandment (which is good): “Thou shalt not covet.” The result, in other words, is that: “Thou shalt not covet,” caused sin to become “utterly sinful.”
Paul Holland
