The Slavery of Sin Under the Law Part 1
Notes
Transcript
Introduction: Understanding Who Paul Is Talking About
Introduction: Understanding Who Paul Is Talking About
We now get into one of the most difficult passages in the entire book of Romans. It begins with a rhetorical question in verse 13 and takes us through until 8:4. In these verses, Paul will continue referring to the first person tense, not to speak of himself personally, but to create a character for us to follow through a story. We may call this story the Demise of the Carnal Man. Carnal, or fleshly, is what he is called in verse 14. This story is of a man who wants to serve God, but continues under the law. And there is a problem. Rather than the law helping them get rid of sin in their lives, it seems to expound sin and therefore they are left in a wretched state. Is this talking about a believer? Perhaps an unbeliever? I will say neither, but rather Paul is painting a picture of what it would look like if we were not redeemed from the law.
Martin Lloyd Jones has helped me walk through this issue, and a lot of my points are adopted from him, although I disagree with him in certain areas. You can listen to his sermons in a series called “The Carnal Man” online if you want to go more into this topic.
It’s Not the Regenerate
It’s Not the Regenerate
Is this text talking about a Christian and their struggle with sin? Let’s consider a few points.
First, he is identified as being of the flesh in verse 14. This is opposed to the nature of the law being spiritual. He is a carnal man. Now if we are going to think this is talking about a Christian, we have to be okay with Christians being called carnal. Many have used this as an excuse for ongoing sin in their lives, claiming they are carnal Christians, still saved but not following Christ in their life. The problem is that the language of a Christian being carnal is found no where in the New Testament, and in fact the very opposite is found.
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
There is one place where Christians are referred to as being on the flesh in the New Testament.
But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.
So we can conclude this at the very least. This carnal man is not speaking of the normal Christian life. If there is a place to call a Christian ‘carnal’ it is to refer to them in the same sense that Paul does in 1 Cor 3 as being infants in Christ, still untaught and inexperienced in the Christian faith. Babes who need instruction so that they may be of the flesh no longer.
Certainly is not talking about the Apostle in his current state, since he is able to feed Christians with spiritual food he himself must also be spiritual and not like the infant Corinthians.
Beyond this, the text identifies this carnal man as being sold under sin.
This is perhaps the more shocking of the two. If we take this carnal man to be sold under sin, we must look at the language of chapter 6 and see what Paul has just said about being sold under sin.
MLJ “People seem to take chapter 7 as if they’ve never read chapter 6.”
Let’s take a look at chapter 6 and into chapter 7 and what it says about being a slave to sin.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.
For 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 serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.
From these verses alone we can say for certain that a Christian is not a slave of sin. There may be times where you feel like you are still a slave, but the text tells us to consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
We can therefore conclude that this is not talking about a believer, since he is talking about someone who is if the flesh and still a slave to sin. There’s just no way that Paul would contradict himself like this by telling us we are free from sin, only to now tell us we are still bound to sin and a slave to it.
On top of all this, we see that this person is under the law (vs 22-23).
Chapter 8 backs this up. Rom 8:2-4
For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 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.
Here it is clear that the believer walks not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
It’s Not the Unregenerate
It’s Not the Unregenerate
Now that we have established that this text is not talking about a believer, I want to stress that this is also not talking about an unbeliever. Why is that?
Vs 15 tells us that this person wants to do the law, but does the very thing they hate. Vs 16 says that they agree with the law, that it is good.
This doesn’t line up with what the NT tells us about the state of the unsaved individual.
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
Unbelievers are Eph 4:18
They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.
This individual is not hard in their heart. They see clearly the goodness of the law and they want to do it. So they cannot be called ignorant or hard of heart. They are not like the Israelites who despised God’s Word over time, but this man eagerly wants to do the things of the law. They are, however, still under the law not under grace. So what are we to make of this man going forward in the text?
A Person Who Desires to Keep the Law
A Person Who Desires to Keep the Law
With this neither being about the regenerate or the unregenerate, the Christian or the Non-Christian, we cannot view this as something literal.
To answer who this is, we need to look at Paul’s point, which is that he is still answering a rhetorical question from verse 13.
The question is: is the law the agent of death?
The answer is: no, the law is not the agent of death, sin is the agent of death (5:14).
How does Paul explain the answer? By saying that the law is spiritual by I am of the flesh (vs 14).
For Paul there are two states, one of the flesh and one of the spirit. The flesh is associated with being a slave to sin under the law, the spirit is associated with union with Christ in our salvation.
So who is this carnal man, this man of the flesh who is sold a slave to sin? I suggest to you that it is talking about the one who is still, in their mindset, under the law. Paul is answering the question, “was the law the bringer of death.” The answer is no and Paul moves from the aorist tense to the present tense in a way to bring the story of this man of the flesh to life. We do this all the time ourselves. The question assumed is, “well if the law doesn’t bring death, then all we ought to do is obey the law.” And Paul paints himself as this hypothetical person who wants to keep the commandments of God while under the law. Even if the mind of the Gentiles wasn’t blinded, and even if the Jews didn’t have their self-righteousness blinding them, even if someone wanted to obey the law and please God with all their mind, they would not be able to do so because of sin.
We see this play out as we go into verse 14-15. This person recognizes that they law is spiritual, that means it comes from God and is pure and holy. This refers both to the Torah, the OT, and to the consciences of the Gentiles, since those manifestations of God’s common grace become a law unto themselves (2:14). But who is this person? They are not spiritual, they are not holy, they are of the flesh. So when the law encounters this, there becomes a war between the mind, which wants to follow the law, and the flesh, which wants to follow sin. So even someone who had the pure and holy intention of keeping the law would be a slave of sin under the law because their flesh is sold under sin. Paul’s wants to show us that there is nothing but death through sin under the law, and brings us this hypothetical person who desires to keep the law in order to show us that even having a somewhat redeemed desire to serve God is not good enough to save us from sin and the death that comes about as a result.
The ability to desire law-keeping and the unwillingness to sin show that this person agrees with the law. Some Jews may have been thinking, “I try to follow the Torah with all my heart. I do my best. How can you say that sin in me is going to produce death under the law?” Some do, in some capacity, want to please God through false religion. They do so through works to either the true God or a god who is false, but the faded desire to please God is still there, but there is a problem, indwelling sin.
Paul personalizes this person, for he himself was once a self-righteous pharisee. So from one perspective he may be alluding to his own experience of wanting to please God but being oppressed by the law because of remaining sin. Luther felt this way when, as a monk, he desired greatly to please God but could never find any comfort in his own works. Those who seek God under the law will find themselves still trapped in sin because of the original sin within them.
All this is happening under the law, which Paul aligns with sin and death, but I believe there is a true application for the believer here. I define the man of the flesh as anyone who pursues God with the law rather than through Christ. Now, I think many may find my view of this man upsetting, perhaps because you’ve read this text so many times and you know that you have been here before many times. You see yourself in the image and wonder, “if this is not the regenerate man, then am I truly saved?”
The truth is, many times we all find ourselves living as the old person instead of the new. This not only means we embrace sin as our old master, but we are also submitting to the law again. When we sin, that is exactly what we are doing. We are acting as if the law is still there, and therefore sin pops up in your life as a result. Sometimes it feels entrapping, sometimes it feels enslaving, but remember what Paul said back in chapter 6. Consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Martin Lloyd Jones points out how depressing this man’s situation is, unable to do what he wants, sold to sin as a slave, serving the law of sin with his flesh. Is this the Christian life as Paul has been describing it so far?
For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
For 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 serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.
And again, lets look at the victory in chapter 8
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 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.
It is impossible to sin without submitting to the law again, and when we do so we, Christians, are lying about who we really are. This defeated, fleshly, sin slave that is described here may be how you feel about yourself, but it is not you. You need to consider yourself dead to sin, to the law, and alive to God in Christ Jesus. So you’ve sinned. Think about what is true. Do you believe you’ve been united with God in Christ? Then you live a life of victory.
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
No where is the New Testament are Christians told to feel defeated and discouraged. We have victory in Christ. We are no longer of the flesh. So when you read this text and you cannot help but think that it is describing you, don’t believe it. You are pure, you are holy, you are justified, you are raised to life for righteousness. You may have found yourself submitting to that old life under sin powered by the law, but that is not who you are. You are free!
Conclusion
Conclusion
Now that we have hopefully settled in context who this carnal man is, let us be strengthened in our freedom. Jesus did not die so you could feel like a miserable sinner the rest of your life. He came to free you from the oppression of the law so you can walk in the Spirit. You, Christian, are not carnal, you are born again to a living hope which produces an abundance of good works and holy living that is a pleasing aroma to God on high. Look at yourself with redeemed eyes, and see that you are free from the law of sin and death.
But when we find ourselves under that old yoke of slavery, we need not stay there. Remember a few weeks ago that our old master has been defeated by Christ. He wants you to drawn near to him and experience a change of life that proves you are no longer under the charge of the old master. For the sake of his grace, for the beauty of his love, for the joy of his life, come and find in him who you really are.