Law of Sin & Death

Review & Intro

I would like to continue our study into Romans 7 with the same quote as last time from Joseph Shulam:

In chapters 5-6 [Paul] primarily deals with the issue of God’s justification of the Gentiles through faithfulness. He now takes up the claim (verse 1) that Jewish believers are, by the same token, either no longer responsible to the Torah [nor] able to overcome their evil inclination through Torah-observance alone.

We are going to look at the second half of Rom. 7:12-8:2

Romans 7:12–8:2 TLV

So then, the Torah is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Therefore did that which is good become death to me? May it never be! Rather it was sin working death in me—through that which is good—so that sin might be shown to be sin, and that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful. For we know that the Torah is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold to sin. For I do not understand what I am doing—for what I do not want, this I practice; but what I hate, this I do. But if I do what I do not want to do, then I agree with the Torah—that it is good. So now it is no longer I doing it, but sin dwelling in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me—that is, in my flesh. For to will is present in me, but to do the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do; but the evil that I do not want, this I practice. But if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I doing it, but sin that dwells in me. So I find the principle—that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I delight in the Torah of God with respect to the inner man, but I see a different law in my body parts, battling against the law of my mind and bringing me into bondage under the law of sin which is in my body parts. Miserable man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—it is through Messiah Yeshua our Lord! So then, with my mind I myself serve the Torah of God; but with my flesh, I serve the law of sin. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Messiah Yeshua. For the law of the Spirit of life in Messiah Yeshua has set you free from the law of sin and death.

Did the Torah become death?

I deliberately read verse 12 again, because vs 13 is a natural question that follows. The Torah is good, righteous, holy, etc., so why do we have such a hard time following it? Why does the good Torah seem to produce death in our lives?

Paul’s immediate answer is to point out that it is not the Torah, but rather our sin-filled reaction to the commandment of God. Several weeks ago I made a statement:

We don’t keep God’s commands because we don’t want to, because we think that we know better, and we are not interested in having someone else tell us what to do.

This holds true, however, Paul is deliberately personifying “sin” and “the flesh” in order to demonstrate the conflict that we all experience within ourselves. David Stern puts it this way:

The Jewish New Testament Commentary Romans, Chapter 7

Sha’ul’s purpose in drawing the distinction between “the real me” and “the sin housed inside me” is not to excuse me but to point up the fact that salvation brings one a new nature attuned to the Holy Spirit.

We find a conflict in our selves. We desire to do what is right, but we end up finding ourselves doing the things that we did not want to do.

In reality the more we know of the Torah, the more we realize that we do not measure up to Adonai’s perfection. The very reality that we are pre-disposed to go our own way, and reject the Torah that Adonai has set in front of us, amplifies just how bad is the sin in our own lives.

Sin & the flesh

The personification of “Sin” or “the flesh” is not unique to Paul. In fact, we see that Adonai asking Cain the following question in Gen. 4:6-7

Genesis 4:6–7 TLV

Then Adonai said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, it will lift. But if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the doorway. Its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

As I have mentioned several times, the personification of “sin” and “the flesh” as Paul uses it, is the same as the evil inclination (yetzer ra). There is one significant difference which I will address in a minute. The Talmudic commentary of this passage in Genesis points out that:

Rabbi Yitzḥak said: Initially [sin] has the status of a guest, but ultimately, it becomes the master of the house. … Rabbi Abba said: The evil inclination is similar to a hunched robber who was sitting at a crossroads. To everyone who passed, he would say: ‘Give me what you have with you.’ A certain clever person passed, and he realized that he had no hope of robbing him of anything, and the man began beating him back. So, too, the evil inclination caused the demise of several generations: The generation of Enosh, the generation of the Dispersion, and the generation of the Flood. When Abraham our patriarch stood and [the evil inclination] saw that it had no hope against him, he began beating it back. That is what is written: “I will beat his foes before him and smite those who hate him” (Psalms 89:24). Rabbi Ami said: The evil inclination does not walk on the sides of the street but rather in the middle of the highway. When it sees a person beautifying his eyes, fixing his hair, and raising his heels, it says: ‘This one is mine.’ What is the source? “Have you seen a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him” (Proverbs 26:12). Rabbi Avin said: Anyone who indulges his evil inclination in his youth, it will ultimately become his master in his old age. What is the source? “One who indulges his servant from youth, will have him ultimately become the master” (Proverbs 29:21).

Sin, or the flesh, or the evil inclination (whatever you prefer) begins with temptation, but ends up beating you when you attempt to fight back. Secondly, our pride blinds us and causes us to do the very things that we rail against. And thirdly, sin never stays dormant, it always grows until it is eventually in control. Paul agrees with all of these conclusions, but has one significant difference. In Rom. 7:24 he states the following:

Romans 7:24 TLV

Miserable man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

The Romans would sometimes take a murdered person’s corpse and shackle it to the back of the one who murdered them. The murderer was then released, but no one was allowed to help them, or else the one helping would also suffer the same fate. Other than Paul’s writings, one of the earliest mentions of this practice was the poet and historian Virgil who lived between 70 BC to 19 BC, who wrote in The Aeneid, Book 8:

The living and the dead at his command Were coupled, face to face, and hand to hand, Till, chok'd with stench, in loath'd embraces tied, The ling'ring wretches pin'd away and died.

This was known in Paul’s day as a “body of death” and Paul sees this as an apt example of the struggle with sin and the flesh. Just as it was vain or pointless for the murderer to attempt to rid himself from the shackles, so also Paul finds that the struggle with sin can not be overcome by ones own power.

Therefore, the difference that Paul has with the Rabbis, is that the Rabbis think that people can simply “fend [sin] off with matters of Torah”. While this is partially true, as we see Yeshua fending of the temptations of the Devil by quoting the Torah in Luke 4, Paul is pointing out that the more of the holy Torah that we know, the more that our flesh fights against it. It becomes an endless internal conflict and eventually we fail in our own strength.

Thanks be to God!

So all of Romans 7 sounds hopeless until verse 25. Let us re-read Rom. 7:25-8:2

Romans 7:25–8:2 TLV

Thanks be to God—it is through Messiah Yeshua our Lord! So then, with my mind I myself serve the Torah of God; but with my flesh, I serve the law of sin. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Messiah Yeshua. For the law of the Spirit of life in Messiah Yeshua has set you free from the law of sin and death.

We mentioned before that Yeshua was able to fend of the temptations of HaSatan by quoting the Torah, so why is that not enough?

Well, when we look at Yeshua fending of the temptations of sin and the flesh, this occurs when? Luke 4:1-2 tells us:

Luke 4:1–2 TLV

Yeshua, now filled with the Ruach ha-Kodesh, returned from the Jordan. He was led by the Ruach in the wilderness for forty days, being tested by the devil. Now He ate nothing during those days, and when they had ended, He was hungry.

So what we see Yeshua doing, we also see Paul confirming. It is not enough to simply quote the Scriptures, you must be living the new life established by Yeshua the Messiah and empowered by the Ruach HaKodesh!

In his book, The Old Testament Law for the Life of the Church, Richard Averbeck recounts that the point of Romans 7:25-8:4 is that Yeshua, through His death, burial and resurrection, cut through all of the sin that ties us up. God does not attempt to untie the knot of sin, but rather cuts through it entirely. We should not therefore attempt to untie the knot of sin, because:

We cannot untie the knot anyway! In fact, as far as God is concerned, the knot does not exist. It has already been completely severed by [Yeshua the Messiah] who became a sin offering for us to set us free from now through all eternity.

Paul goes on to say in Rom. 8:3-4

Romans 8:3–4 TLV

For what was impossible for the Torah—since it was weakened on account of the flesh—God has done. Sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as a sin offering, He condemned sin in the flesh— so that the requirement of the Torah might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Ruach.

We will cover Chapter 8 of Romans over the next few weeks, For now we will finish by looking at the comparison of the “law of the Spirit of life” versus the “law of sin and death.”

Spirit of life vs. Sin & Death

We will start by pointing out what Paul is NOT saying. Paul is NOT saying that Yeshua gave one law that brings life, and Moses gave another law that brings death. Instead David Stern puts it this way:

The Jewish New Testament Commentary Romans, Chapter 8

The right answer is that the Torah of the Spirit is the Mosaic Law properly apprehended by the power of the Holy Spirit in believers.… The second “torah” … is not a God-given Torah at all but an anti-Torah. More specifically, it is the Mosaic Law improperly understood and perverted by our old, sinful nature into a legalistic system of earning God’s approval by our own works.

Paul is using the word “law” in a metaphorical sense. Paul has already pointed out that there is a “law of sin” that is battling in me against a “law of my mind”. And the question is, which “law” will win?

Averbeck points our that:

We are captivated by our own depravity, and the [Mosaic] law, as good as it is, cannot deliver us from that captivity - only the Spirit [of God] can.

This brings us to the application.

Application

When we share the Good News about Yeshua, we usually need to explain the bad news first. Paul has basically take the last 7 chapters to talk about the bad news. The message is basically broken up as follows:

We are all sinners (Rom. 1-3)

We are made right with God by trusting what Yeshua did (Rom. 4-6)

We are empowered to live right by the Ruach HaKodesh (Rom. 7-8)

Yeshua breaks this down in John 3:14-21

John 3:14–21 TLV

Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life! “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. The one who believes in Him is not condemned; but whoever does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not put his trust in the name of the one and only Ben-Elohim. “Now this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world and men loved the darkness instead of the light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light, so that their deeds will not be exposed. But whoever practices the truth comes to the light, so that it may be made known that his deeds have been accomplished in God.”

In this passage, Yeshua is focusing in on the first 2 points in inverse order. Yeshua is pointing out to Nicodemus that trusting in Him sets a person right with Adonai. Yeshua then goes on to point out that He did not come to condemn the world, but everyone in the world is already in a state of condemnation. We have all sinned, and there is none of us who is righteous before God. Yeshua points out that we hide in the darkness, away from God’s light, because we do not want to be exposed. We all know, deep down, that we do not measure up to perfection. And that is what God demands, perfection.

Once we have admitted that we are sinners, and once we have been set right through trusting in what Yeshua accomplished, Paul will go into great detail to point out that we now live by the power of the Ruach HaKodesh/the Holy Spirit of God!