The Character of the Law

As we’ve been working through this second major portion of Romans 7, it is important for us to realize that in great measure, this section, starting in verse 7 and going all the way through to verse 13, is in essence an exposition of what the apostle Paul had stated in verse 5, saying...

Romans 7:5 LSB

For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.

And if you’ve been paying attention to the argument Paul has been developing since chapter 1, you will realize that in many ways he’s made something of a direct and sustained attack on the Law. He has already made it clear in the first three chapters that both Jew and Gentile alike were sinners, condemned and subject to the wrath of God.

And then Paul did something unexpected to the Jews – he declared boldly, that justification comes by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone – in other words, that justification does not come through the keeping of the Law! Saying in chapter 4,

Romans 4:4–5 LSB

Now to the one who works, his wage is not counted according to grace, but according to what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes upon Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,

And then doubling-down in Romans 5:20-21 to say,

Romans 5:20–21 LSB

Now the Law came in so that the transgression would increase, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

And then, finally in Romans 7:4, he makes his most audacious statement yet regarding this Law,

Romans 7:4 LSB

So, my brothers, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.

After all of this, it could be very easy, then, for a person to come to the conclusion that Paul hated the Law, that he despised it and had nothing good to say about it. And in fact, that was precisely what his detractors had been saying, that he despised the Law, crying out after they laid hands on him in the temple, “This is the man who teaches to everyone everywhere against our people and the Law and this place!” in Acts 21.

Now, let’s be clear, there are those who take precisely such a position, there are those who despise the Law, just as there were in Paul’s day, "ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” (Jude 4). These people use Paul’s own statements such these we’ve already looked at, such as Romans 6:14, in which he proclaimed joyously “For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.” And these people, who Peter rightly describes as untaught and unstable, distort his actual message, with the claim “We have no need of this focus on the Law,” they say, “Christ brought an end to the Law, what you must focus on now is the love of God, and on the grace of God!”

And so, the apostle Paul has brought to us in Romans 7 a very real and pressing question, namely, what is the purpose and the function of the Law? How should we view the Law? What place does it have in in our lives today? Must we try to keep the Law? Or alternately should we ignore the Law?

And so It is vital as we work our way through Romans 7 that we keep ever before us the realization that Paul is intent on answering this very question regarding the place and purpose of the Law, and so to simply pull out a verse and look at it outside of this context can be extraordinarily misleading.

So let’s think about this for a moment, why is it so very important that we be separated from the Law, as a wife separated by her former husband through death? That is, after all, what Paul had been saying in the first 4 verses. Paul had even written in Romans 6 that we have been separated from the reign and rule of sin by a death, so does this not now also mean that just as sin is evil toward us, so also is the law evil toward us? Is the Law itself then sin?

Indeed, the very question Paul opened this second section of the chapter with, asking “What shall we say than? Is the Law sin?”, is meant to recapture our attention to that very thing and to focus our minds on it, as he works out for us the details of what he is trying to say.

Even his own personal testimony in these verses was not shared for the sake of himself, but rather as a means to help us understand and comprehend that just as we are incapable of being justified by the Law, which he has established in this second portion of the chapter. And lest we forget the trajectory of his purpose, he will go on to say in the last portion that even as were we are incapable of being justified by the Law, so we are incapable of being sanctified by the Law.

But for the moment, we must realize the point and purpose of the Law in the realm of justification, dealing with the standing of the Law itself in verse 12, and only then may we deal with its effect upon a person in verse 13, these verses working together to draw us to the conclusion we must have in regard to justification.

Romans 7:12 LSB

So, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

Consider, for a moment, the nature of sin and sinfulness – ἁμαρτία in Greek. Sin is most appropriately defined as ‘a failure to match up to the requirement’, or ‘a failure to hit the mark’, which is how we most frequently describe it. And what Paul has been saying in these verses is most telling about sin, as much as it is telling about the Law.

Look first in verse 7, in regard to coveting, the desire and craving of something that’s not yours arising out of discontent with what God has given to you. Is coveting mark-hitting, or is coveting mark-missing? Of course it’s mark-missing. And Paul says here that it is the Law which says “don’t mark-miss by way of inordinately desiring what God hasn’t given you.” In other words, the Law tells us to hit the mark, not to miss the mark.

What the Law does do here, is to identify where that mark is. It affixes the target firmly in our minds; rather than being left blindly to fumble around and ask what way to point the arrow, the law declares “see all of this other stuff? That’s not the target, you need to face that direction and aim right there in order to meet the requirement.”

In other words, if sin can be best described as anything that misses the target, the Law is what identifies for us precisely what that target is; the target is this and nothing else.

So when Paul begins to answer the question “is the Law sin?”, even in his very first words he is arresting our attention directly back to the idea that the Law of Moses – or rather, the Law of God given to the people through Moses – this Law identifies the opposite of sin.

The Law is Holy

And therein lies the true definition of “holy”, ἅγιος. In fact, holiness demands a separation from all which is profane, from that which is stained, from that which is sin. Sinfulness is the antithesis of holiness, and holiness is the antithesis of sinfulness; it is not possible to have two things more opposite each other than “sin” and “holy”, even the precise image of absolute black and absolute white can only but match these two opposites; and so it should be no wonder that was written for us in 1 John 1:5, “that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” It is this same precise difference between that which is sin and that which is holy.

In Exodus 19, God tells Moses to set the people apart as holy in verses 10 and 14, the priests were to be set apart as holy from the people in verse 22, even the mountain was to be set apart in verse 23. In the case of the mountain, they were to do so by setting bounds about it, to physically restrain any one or any thing from approaching it that didn’t belong there. The priests were to set themselves apart on account of them coming near to Yahweh, even from among the people who had already set themselves apart. And in their set-apart-ness, they couldn’t even remain in their typical clothing, the people had to carefully wash all of their clothes, and we learn as Exodus goes on, that the priests couldn’t even wear their normal clothes while serving Yahweh, but instead had to have a special, separate clothing - from their most private undergarments out to even the turban on their heads – to be holy, then, was to be completely separated from the every-day run-of-the-mill common and ordinary.

To be holy, is to be completely dedicated for use by God, and for service rendered to God. It is to be unstained by the sinfulness of the world.

And so, as we consider this question of the nature of the Law, our only possible conclusion is that it is indeed holy. It, by its very nature, separates from transgression, it identifies what is mark-making. Just because our only experience with the Law is that it points out our failure to meet its requirements, doesn’t mean that the Law isn’t holy! That failure is not speaking to a failure of the Law, rather it is a demonstration of the failure of each of us! If the requirement is to turn right, and we all were to turn left or to go straight, it doesn’t mean the requirement is wrong, it means that each of us failed to follow the instruction. And so it is with the Law – we all fail to perfectly conform to it, and yet that by no means becomes a condemnation of the Law, but instead is a condemnation of us.

It is precisely the same perspective that Paul had already written in Romans 3:3-4, “What then? If some did not believe, does their unbelief abolish the faithfulness of God? May it never be! Rather, let God be true and every man a liar, as it is written, “THAT YOU MAY BE JUSTIFIED IN YOUR WORDS, AND OVERCOME WHEN YOU ARE JUDGED.””

And what Paul is saying here, is that this Law is entirely useful simply because it is holy, it is set apart. The requirement isn’t the ever-changing law of man, but the holy Law of the unchanging God!

Consider just one of the laws of our own nation, the 18th amendment regarding alcohol. It stood as the settled law of the land from January of 1919 until it was repealed in December 1933 by the 21st amendment. For 14 years it was there, and then it wasn’t – the people of our nation changed their minds not just once, but twice, regarding the same subject.

That may be one modern example, but there are certainly many others going back to antiquity. The thinking and thoughts of man are ever-changing, we are “a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away”, James had declared. And what we think is important, what we think is lasting, even less so.

But, not so with God. And more importantly for our discussion today, not so with God’s Law. It is holy, it is a specific and particular revelation by God of His eternally unchanging character and His immutable, immovable will which is hostile toward all defilement.

And so God’s holy Law, then, reveals the character required of us in order to merit His favor toward us. It can only be described as “holy”, as a whole, “the Law”, and also each individual part, “the commandment”. It is entirely holy, through and through.

Is this not what the apostle has been saying throughout his testimony? That the Law has revealed in painful clarity that even the apostle Paul himself is not deserving of affirmation by God, that though he may have not done certain things, in his own heart he realizes that his own desires were sufficient to exclude him from God’s holy standard?

The Law is Righteous

But not only is the Law holy, says Paul, but it is also righteous. Now, of course we see this disputed all the time, perhaps more so today than in times past, this proposal that the Law is essentially unfair. We do, today have a great deal to say about our notion of fair-ness, and you even today see this proclaimed in churches and church pulpits. We look at a situation, we determine what the rules ought to be which govern it, and anything contrary to those determinations is deemed to be unfair, it’s not right, it ought not be allowed. Even in our own halls of justice today, there are mechanisms for the nullification of laws, a process by which a law can be deemed “out of bounds.”

And when there is a law or standard which no one is able to meet, there is a natural inclination to say that such a thing isn’t right, that it ought to be in a sense nullified, that because of the impossibility of meeting the requirement, that the requirement itself may then be ignored and set aside.

But what Paul has told us through his personal testimony, is not to say “every person covets, so that prohibition is unreasonable, it is not righteous to hold a person to account for it!”

No, when the commandment “you shall not covet” came to him, it truly did come to him! He took “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male slave or his female slave or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor” from Exodus 20:17 and realized by its very holiness we just spoke of, how very abhorrent his coveting was to God! Not only that, but he found himself agreeing with God that a pronouncement of guilt is warranted!

The Law was in no way unjust, it was even-handed and fair in its application, there was no preference given to any, no “rule for thee but not for me” sort of partiality. Because of the Law’s inherent reflection of God’s own holiness as the unwavering standard, its righteous and just both in what it approves and also in what it abhors; its character is certain, it is right!

But we cannot leave it at that – not only is the Law just and righteous in its identification of what is acceptable to God, it is likewise perfectly just and righteous in the penalty it imposes upon all who uphold it as well as all who transgress it.

In the Garden, Adam and Eve were given the command - “from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat from it”, and likewise the penalty was equally disclosed, “for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” When they rebelled and ate, they had no right to complain, to say “we didn’t know”, for even in Eve’s response to the serpent, there was knowledge and understanding of the prohibition and its consequence. And that consequence persisted in unrelenting effect until the Law was given to Moses, which was to lead to life, “the man who does these things shall live by them”.

And so the Law, to more strictly arrange our thinking, was to lead to life; in a sense, it provides a way to escape the judgement of Adam for all who perfectly honour it and keep it. It’s penalty, however, is that all who fail to meet its holy requirements remain under condemnation! And that is precisely the position of every single person, the judgement against us is fully entrenched and certain, for none are able to truly meet the requirements of the Law.

And so, no man or woman is able to cry out “unjust”, “unrighteous”, when they receive the due punishment for their own failure to meet the demands of the Law.

Why? Because the Law of God is inherently righteous, it is just in every respect!

The Law is Good

With such a view of the holiness of the Law, with such a view of the just-ness or righteous-ness of the Law, it seems hard to imagine just how we might thing that such a thing is also called “good”, but that is precisely how Paul concludes his characterization of the Law: “the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.” How can something which seems to result only in death, in the revival of sin, be considered “good”? How can that which supremely emphasizes and requires the pure, unvarnished holiness like that of God Himself be characterized as positive and desirable?

The Law, by its very nature, declares to us most supremely how we might live a life pleasing to God! Recall to mind what David wrote of this Law,

Psalm 19:7 LSB

The law of Yahweh is perfect, restoring the soul; The testimony of Yahweh is sure, making wise the simple.

The Law is not lacking in anything, when it came to Paul, when he truly understood what it meant by “you shall not covet”, he realized just how fully the Law was attempting to turn him away from coveting, to restore and turn his soul to the path of holiness and acceptableness to God.

Its meaning is plain and clear, there is no ambiguity in the Law, nor is there uncertainty; rather it is solidly emplaced, it is eternally secure and unchanging, so that we may faithfully rely upon it to never change, nor to mean anything other than what God desires. God’s Law is not some fleeting, politically correct catchphrase whose meaning shifts with the tides of public opinion.

And most importantly, by paying attention to the testimony of this Law, even the simplest of minds are made wise. How wise? The 13th octet of Psalm 119 makes it abundantly clear:

Psalm 119:97–98 LSB

Oh how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day. Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, For they are mine forever.

Psalm 119:99–100 LSB

I have more insight than all my teachers, For Your testimonies are my meditation. I perceive more than the aged, Because I have observed Your precepts.

Psalm 119:101–102 LSB

I have restrained my feet from every evil way, That I may keep Your word. I have not turned aside from Your judgments, For You Yourself have taught me.

Psalm 119:103–104 LSB

How sweet is Your word to my taste! Sweeter than honey to my mouth! From Your precepts I get perception; Therefore I hate every false way.

It is through the Law that a man may learn not only what is good for him, but also what is best for him. It makes a person wise and perceptive, it identifies sin that we may avoid it!

It is the Law that reveals to ourselves the truth about ourselves, it is by looking at ourselves through God’s measure that we may finally correctly and accurately see ourselves as we truly are.

For without a true application of God’s Law to myself, I will ever and always see myself through rose-colored glasses; my perspective will undoubtedly magnify my good qualities, and either minimize or dismiss those things which cast me in a lesser light. I would always consider myself “blameless”, just as Paul himself had done.

The only way to realize, to truly understand the truth and nature of ourselves, is through the Law’s illumination of our deficiencies, by its holding up the view of His perfect holiness and righteousness in its commands.

We must thank God for the Law, it is vital toward our realization of our need for salvation. It is truly holy, and righteous, and good.

Thanks be to God!

Let us pray.