The Law is Good

As we begin our more detailed exposition in this last section of Romans 7, I urge you to keep firmly in the front of your mind the two-fold theme we discovered last time.

First, the Holy Spirit through the apostle Paul is now fully and finally putting down and refuting any notion at all that the Law is in some way evil toward us itself; for it isn’t evil, but holy and righteous and good, in that it placards up the exceeding sinfulness of sin so that we may see it for what it truly is.

Second, the ultimate place and purpose of the Law is to drive people to Christ; whether you are talking about salvation or else about sanctification; it will never justify us, nor make us holy in itself. Neither the unregenerate who remains in Adam outside of any union with Christ, nor the regenerate who has now been joined to Him who was raised from the dead, namely the Lord Jesus Christ – can come to any other conclusion.

And I will again mention, if you should go out and study this on your own, you must take great care to not get overly caught up in discussions as to who the “I” is in these verses; to do so is to miss the forest on account of the trees, you will begin to think that the speaker is the focus, rather than the place and purpose of the Law.

And lastly, I will readily and freely admit that this portion is indeed difficult, giants of our common faith once and for all handed down to the saints have disagreed significantly with each other in various interpretations of these verses, so while it is my calling to teach what I believe the apostle is saying, we must all take great care to not become contentious on the whole. But I shall prayerfully lay out how I am convinced this passage may be best understood as we work through this together, which is why I took last time to lay out for us the basic thrust of this entire last section of Romans 7.

So, let us now turn to our immediate text for this morning. I know that we had looked at verse 13 in detail this past September before our break, but we must of necessity look at it once again on account of the word “for” we read at the beginning of verses 14 and 15; each of these verses are providing supporting evidence for what was said in verse 13, leading up to the deductions he makes in verses 16 and 17, themselves pointing back to verses 13, 14, and 15.

I remind you again that verse 13 serves as the culminating statement for the preceding section up to the revelation of the purpose of the Law, but the last phrase where Paul turns ahead:

Romans 7:13 LSB

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 working out my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.

So, to clearly call it out, it is this last phrase, which transitions us into this final affirmation of the Law, “so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful”, that’s the point he is now emphasizing to us in 14 and 15, these verses are in a sense merely the natural extension to this last thought:

Romans 7:14–15 LSB

For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, having been sold into bondage under sin. For what I am working out, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.

Paul isn’t just filling space here, the teaching which follows is vital for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness – we won’t be complete and thoroughly equipped for every good work if we simply bypass this teaching because it is hard and makes us think.

So let’s consider how the apostle is showing and demonstrating this important doctrine to us: “through the commandment, sin is shown to be utterly sinful”, the sinfulness of sin is displayed for what it is by the Law, it is exposed.

Now there are those who emphatically point here and say that no man can understand the spiritual nature of the law unless he is a Christian. I cannot agree with this interpretation, as I hope to show as we consider this verse. But I will likewise say that no man can be in Christ unless he does understand this.

So please think logically for a moment: the apostle is building an argument the way a bricklayer builds a house: piece by piece, course by course, that each piece in each layer fits perfectly with what came before.

In the same way, this new section is the natural extension of the argument of verses 7 through 13, understanding the latter rightly depends upon understanding the former. There, we learned that the Law has to come to a person, and that when it does so there is a certain and inevitable result, namely, when I begin to truly comprehend the Law, kills me. We see this explicitly in Romans 7:9, “Now I was once alive apart from the Law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died;”

Paul said there that he had once thought himself alive, and conversely sin to be dead. It was that wretched estate which Paul wrote of when he says he had been blameless according to the Law in Philippians 3, when he had a merely external view of the Law.

But when the commandment – in particular, the tenth commandment, regarding coveting – then came to him; the only possible way he can describe what then happened was to say, “sin revived, and I died”. He was filled with the overwhelming realization of his own sin, such that the realization of it deeply and profoundly affected him.

For the coming of the Law was not simply a matter of acknowledging the prohibition of external actions. No, that is the way of the pharisee, with a focus merely upon the letter. But the coming of the Law is subjective, it is personal and experiential. When the veil over the Law is removed by God, that person realizes that it is more than just a cold letter, but that it applies to me and it even of necessity condemns me. For the doing of certain actions is not the true limit of the Law, rather it reaches into the matters of the heart which we hide from all others, it deals with the spirit within a person.

And so here in verse 14, this characterization of the spiritual nature of the Law is not divorced from its other characterizations of being holy and righteous and good – even if that good includes my death on account of my sin which I now perceive since the Law has come to me – but it is also spiritual. The Law is holy, and righteous, and good, and spiritual. These are things that we who the Law has come to, in our innermost being know and understand!

But not stopping even there, we must realize that the Law is God’s own Law, it proceeded forth from His Holy Spirit, not our own spirit, and so it is not now my own manner and measure of righteousness which it demands – even in this matter of coveting – but rather it is God’s manner of righteousness which is demanded.

In other words, it does not take a Christian believer to understand Paul’s first statement that the Law is spiritual, but it does mean that everyone truly in Christ Jesus ought to understand this. “We” – We who? It is “we who the Law has come to”! We know that the Law is spiritual. There is a certain obviousness in this character which is easily and readily recognized when the Law comes to a person.

For it is not only the Christian believer who understands the law is spiritual, as some claim – and indeed, this view of only a Christian can see the Law as being spiritual is a popular thinking today, with many great teachers who I have often agreed with convinced this is the case.

But I cannot agree with that interpretation, as it imposes something of caricature of the Christian as being opposed to a caricature of the non-Christian upon the text before us.

And I say this for a specific and distinctive reason contained within what the Apostle actually says here: that everyone to whom the Law has come to at some basic level understands this spiritual aspect of the Law, otherwise it could never come to them! The believer in Christ must, of course, move on from this point, he must not merely recognize the spiritual nature but also walk by the spirit, the mind must be transformed so that he may in truth set his mind on the Spirit of God in truth, for we read in Romans 8:7–8 “because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh are not able to please God.” The struggle between the Christian and the desires of their sinful flesh is in Scripture: you will find that in Romans 6, you will find that in Galatians 5, you will find it in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, you will find it in Hebrews 12:4-13, and elsewhere. But it is not particularly present here in Romans 7:13-16.

Though a person may not be able to precisely articulate it in these words, the Law must come to a person that they may recognize in this manner, as being holy and righteous and good and spiritual; this of necessity precedes a person truly turning in Christ Jesus, for saving faith of necessity is a denying of one’s self, picking up of your cross, and following of Jesus Christ. Holding on to a vestigial thought of my own righteousness isn’t the denial of myself demanded by God.

But that’s not all he says; he also writes in Romans 7:14 “… but I am fleshly, having been sold into bondage under sin.” And once again, I will put forward that at a minimum, the Law has come to the person who says this. Indeed, it really is something of a restatement of the prior section, said in such a way as we now look at it and say “well now, I guess that’s rather obvious, isn’t it? The Law is spiritual, but I am not, I must be something different.

What am I? Carnal. Sold. Owned. Under sin. This is no mere occasional twinge of guilt felt by the man who think’s he’s in general alive and the Law dead as far as it’s relation to him! No! This is a person overwhelmed by the realization of his inadequacy before a holy God!

And so this phrase presents certain issues for those who have it set in their minds that this is Paul describing himself when he, as a mature believer and apostle, was writing this.

First, notice that he is not now talking about a part of himself, as he had when he had referred to his “mortal body” in Romans 6:12-13. There, you recall, Paul was explicitly describing the authority of the me that is to restrain and control my members of v13 and my “body of sin” of verse 6. There was an awareness of the parts, an awareness of a split between what I truly am, and what I find myself actually doing.

But the conflict described here in Romans 7:14 does no such dividing – I am fleshly, I have been sold into bondage under sin – and if you notice the perfect passive nature of “having been sold into bondage under sin”, you will realize that bondage remains. It is a conflict of the entire person, the whole man is at ongoing odds with the Law, not occasionally but as the general rule, not as an exaggeration but as a present reality; on account of the fact that I have been sold into bondage under sin, he says, that bondage yet continues. This is the person who has not yet been freed of the slavery he never knew existed before, but which he now realizes does exist on account of the Law coming to him.

So now with our minds focused upon what is actually being said, our minds ought to immediately go back to the last half of Romans 6 in which the apostle explained to believers in Christ that “you were slaves of sin” in verse 17, it is something which you must be freed from, and if you are now in Christ Jesus, you have been freed from.

But the man in Romans 7:14 has not yet been freed from his bondage to which he was set down and appointed to back in Romans 5, and furthermore he still remains in that bondage.

The difference for the person in Romans 7:14, however, is that he is now aware of this enslavement, on account of the force and thrust of the Law coming to him, and seeing that even with that coming to him he is unable to meet its mandates. The man who the Law has not come to, is still thinking that he is alive and the Law is dead, he has no such understanding that there is any such discrepancy between himself and the Law. This man, however, has that disparity looming large in his mind, far from being dead to the law it is very much alive to him.

Further yet, Romans 7:15 serves to underscore and emphasize this awful state yet even more for us, “For what I am working out, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.”

Can you see, do you realize, that this is a practical description of what is going on in verse 14? Let’s look at it in detail!

Now I’m very thankful for the Legacy Standard Bible’s translation here, because even the NASB ‘95 is missing something important, because the word translated here as “working out” was translated in the ‘95 as “what I am doing”, the ESV says “my own actions”, and the Authorized is even worse with “that which I do”.

But the word here is κατεργάζομαι, it is the same “work out” Paul uses in Philippians 2:12 when he writes “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” And I remind you that it is a term used of laboring to reveal something, often used by those mining the earth for precious metals. But where in Philippians it was used of something we want to reveal, here in Romans 7 the thing that is revealed after our labor is not salvation, but rather sin.

And the trouble in our verse is, I am the one who is doing all of the labor. And it’s not like I don’t know the goal – I do know the goal, he writes, there’s something particular that I want to do, and there’s something particular that I don’t want to do! It’s not that I’m aimlessly running around, or a rudderless ship. No! I have direction and a destination fixed firmly in my mind, and I even have a clear and unambiguous desire to go in that direction and reach that destination. I’m being purposeful in my actions, doing the labor I am convinced is necessary for me to achieve my goal. We’re not talking about aspirations or intentions or thoughts, we’re talking about the concrete concept of action here!

And my actions don’t work the way I intend them to. I fall short. I fail. I look up to get my bearings and realize that I’m no closer to my destination than when I started.

Are you starting to realize the despondency in his voice? “For what I am working out, I do not understand!” Why? “…for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.”

I see the law, I see that it is holy, that it is righteous, that it is good, that it is spiritual. I understand the weight and measure of the Law right now is falling upon me, and so I’ve been trying with all of my might to keep it, and I’m no better now than I was when the Law first came to me.

And so, he comes to the inevitable conclusion:

Romans 7:16 LSB

But if I do the very thing I do not want, I agree with the Law, that it is good.

It as if he is finally conceding, “I know I love the Law, I understand and admire it now in a way I never did before, and even with that I’m no better off. It still justly and righteously condemns me, even now! Even after all of this work!” But he doesn’t stop there, but goes on to declare that his great desire is to follow the Law, to do what it requires.

We must remember that the focus of this entire discussion is not about me, but rather is an affirmation and defense of the Law.

The very conclusion he comes to is an affirmation of the fact that the Law is indeed above all other descriptions, good. He sees his actions in light of the Law, concurring in full measure with the Law that his own actions condemn him. He has given the Law its place, recognizing and agreeing that it has every right to judge him, and not only to judge him but also to condemn him. “I agree with what the Law says.”

In other words what he’s saying here is that the Law is in no way responsible for his own failure to meet its demands; he and the Law are in total agreement regarding the general character of his own conduct.

Furthermore, he is also saying that this doctrine of salvation by faith alone through grace alone is not an attack upon the nature and character of the Law. No! Rather, Paul is saying that this teaching of salvation being by faith alone through grace alone is instead the greatest possible affirmation of the continuing ministry of the Law!

For far from the Law being disposed at the coming of Christ Jesus, and in His death, burial, and resurrection, it is here in Romans 7 that the apostle Paul’s great and profound respect for the Law, within its rightful place and purpose, shines most brightly!

For there are many today who denounce and disparage this same Law of God, even going so far as claiming it is necessary to “unhitch” ourselves from the Old Testament. There are are those who say “we no longer must deal with the cruel and wrathful god of the old testament, we now have the god of love, the god of the new testament.”

Here in Romans 7, Paul once and for all is declaring that nothing could be further from the truth! The Law is absolutely vital for salvation by faith, for it is by the Law that we realize our complete and utter lack of ability to please God on our own.

Before a person can turn their mind favorably and subject itself to the Law of God, in the manner described in Romans 8:7-8, the Law must first come to him, he must of necessity reach this point of understanding it is spiritual and that he is unable to meet its requirements.

In other words, the Law does not, by itself, enable us to keep the Law. But let me go a step further: even the Law coming to a person does not enable a person to keep the Law. Knowing it, loving it, affirming it, understanding and agreeing with its true nature as being holy and righteous and good and spiritual, likewise do not enable a person to keep the Law, to meet the extent of “subjecting” themself to the Law of God in the manner described in Romans 8.

For the problem is not with the Law, the problem is within us, and we will find before the end of this chapter that the only remedy is found in the Lord Jesus Christ. The purpose of the Law is to drive us to faith in Him, and in Him alone. And because of that fact, the law is above all else good, it is necessary for our salvation!

Let us pray!