Sin and the Law
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Pastoral Reminder: Head Heart Hands
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
The book of Romans flows through the gospel of our Lord. As we read it the the theme of the letter to the Romans is continuously clear. That the gospel is the central idea and aspect of our lives as believers and Christians.
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.
It is the good news of Jesus that saves sinners. He weaves together the truths of God in a wonderful way as he works through core aspects of our salvation. He answers questions that all men and woman need to know the answers too. Questions that many will not ask, or will not like the answers that they find. But questions that pertain to eternity, hope, condemnation, love, life, the human condition, and the God who it the one true God.
What does God require? What does he require of me? What is sin? Why do I still sin? What are the consequences of sin? What must I do to be saved? What is faith? What is needed to be saved? How do I get it?
He weaves together; man’s sin, God’s grace, mercy and righteousness, faith.
The fallen man deserving condemnation for his unrighteous and ungodly life, who is dead in Adam. This man is made alive by faith as he receives God’s free gift of righteousness.
Chapter 7 focuses on the Mosaic Law and how it relates to the Jewish Christians and how they are to respond to it in Christ.
1 Since I am speaking to those who know the law, brothers and sisters, don’t you know that the law rules over someone as long as he lives? 2 For example, a married woman is legally bound to her husband while he lives. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law regarding the husband. 3 So then, if she is married to another man while her husband is living, she will be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law. Then, if she is married to another man, she is not an adulteress. 4 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you also were put to death in relation to the law through the body of Christ so that you may belong to another. You belong to him who was raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions aroused through the law were working in us to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we have been released from the law, since we have died to what held us, so that we may serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the old letter of the law.
The cherished words that were given to the nation of Israel that Moses recorded and that the Jews spent much of their time attempting to follow would have been taken back by Paul’s words on the Law. He is accused of speaking against the law but here in the letter to the Romans he is working through many answers that spring up in response to his preaching on the Law. Today we are going to look at the next objection to what Paul was saying.
7 What should we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! But, I would not have known sin if it were not for the law. For example, I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, Do not covet. 8 And sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind. For apart from the law sin is dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life again 10 and I died. The commandment that was meant for life resulted in death for me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me. 12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.
The question that has arisen is that “if we have been released from the law, if the death of Christ free us from the law so that we may belong to him, if when we were in the flesh, our sinful passions were aroused through the law bearing fruit of death. If we have died to what released us”
The Law Reveals Sin
The Law Reveals Sin
7 What should we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not!
Paul doesn’t even want them to entertain this way of thinking. The Law is good and holy and the commandments in them are holy, just and good. To make his case for this, he brings forth three clarifying truths about the relationship between the law and sin that we will look at today.
The first is
The law reveals what is sinful
7 … But, I would not have known sin if it were not for the law. For example, I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, Do not covet.
What make’s something right or wrong? How do I know what appropriate behavior is in a certain situation?
I go to work in the morning, I know what is expected of me each day. I know what I am expected to accomplish. I know that I should show up to meetings. That I should finish my tasks and meet the deadlines they have given me.
You know the expectations or your work as well. But your job will likely have different expectations than mine. So if I was to go to your work how would I know what is right. Some one would have to sit down and show me the rules of this place of business. What to wear. When to show up.
In much the same way, but with greater consequences, the law was given to the nation of Israel to show them what was right and wrong. What God expects from his people.
Sin. The three letter word that many never want to acknowledge exists. This is a word that means, in general, to miss the mark. Homer and other early Greek writers used the word to describe people who threw weapons like spears of shot arrows in archery and missed the opponent or target. Later in Greek philosophy it came to describe one who was in error of what the philosopher believed was good.
The word was translated in the Greek translation of the Old Testament to describe missing the mark like the Greek, but also iniquity, and transgression, and guilt.
6 We all went astray like sheep; we all have turned to our own way; and the Lord has punished him for the iniquity of us all.
Who here ever played pin the tail on the donkey or swung a bat a a piñatas? What is the issue with both of those games. You are blinded to the target. You even have a clue what the target looks like but the fun of those games is that you do not know where the target is.
The law is the way in which God had spoken to reveal the target to the nation of Israel. Like when the blindfold comes off it was now clear what they were swinging at.
In the law were commands of God and they revealed what is good before God and what is evil. They reveal the target they were to be shooting for.
Paul talks of the tenth commandment when he gives his example. I would not known what it is to covet if the law had not said do not covet.
20 For no one will be justified in his sight by the works of the law, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law.
The law when set before the mind shines light onto what is good before God. One would think that this is all there is to it. Tell me what to do and I will just do. But that isn’t where Paul stops.
Sin Reveals the State of Man
Sin Reveals the State of Man
8 And sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind. For apart from the law sin is dead.
The law puts forth what was right before God and Paul knew this well. What is found is that simple obedience is not found under the law, but all kinds of wickedness. The second truth he uses is
The law reveals the sinfulness of man
Once the law was known to him and he was looking at his own life, when he set himself down before the magnifying glass of the truth of God, he finds not just that he covets but that the sin in him produces coveting of every kind.
Sin, seized the opportunity. Set up a base of operations, like in a military campaign. The law is the starting point for sin to abound in a person’s life. Not that sin did not exist before, but now it become visible and alive.
Sin produces that which is against God or it would not be sin. The fallen nature of men, that are dead in Adam, do not do the things of God naturally. They are fully inclined to do just the opposite. Hostile towards God in their thoughts and actions.
So sin is personified as this continuous part of a person that produces, accomplishes, works out in us every kind of evil. It proves the sinfulness of the hearts of man.
9 What then? Are we any better off? Not at all! For we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin, 10 as it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one. 11 There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away; all alike have become worthless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one. 13 Their throat is an open grave; they deceive with their tongues. Vipers’ venom is under their lips. 14 Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. 15 Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 ruin and wretchedness are in their paths, 17 and the path of peace they have not known. 18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.
Have you ever heard the saying ignorance is bliss?
Those that do not know the law. Those that do not know what is right or wrong believe they are free to do what ever they want. With empty thoughts and motives and hard hearts they live out their life excluded from the life of God.
17 Therefore, I say this and testify in the Lord: You should no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thoughts. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them and because of the hardness of their hearts.
But when the law shines its light into the heart of a person they will find that sin has taken the opportunity to produce all sorts of iniquity and transgressions that continue to grow without any end in sight. They find the truth that simply knowing the law and obeying it are not within their grasp. They find that they are not free to do what they want but they continue to do the what is against God.
Without the Law, sin is dead in the sense that it is inactive in the knowledge of the person. And so there isn’t guilt for in their mind there is no wrong doing.
Look around today and we see sin everywhere. We see it in the schools, the market place, in the government, in the churches, in homes. It is on tv, in the paper, written in the texts of men. There is no place that is free of sin, and in all of those areas there are people that are oblivious that there is a God who has defined right and wrong.
There were many nations around the nation of Israel and they did not have the blessing of the law, so they did what was right in their own eyes. And one would think that if the nation of Isreal was given the law that they would live differently than those without.
25 In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did whatever seemed right to him.
The law made known what was right before God and also demonstrated that man lived in a constant state of sin, for sin deceives.
Sin Deceives the Man
Sin Deceives the Man
9 Once I was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life again 10 and I died. The commandment that was meant for life resulted in death for me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me.
As we said before, Paul knew the law in great detail but here he uses this language that there is perceived life apart from knowing the law of God. But when it came forth, sin sprang to life. It shot up and it was revived. And when sin was made alive he had died.
23 For the wages of sin is death, …
The law being good and holy was not what caused men to die, it was the failure to follow the law as sin took the opportunity to put him to death. The law was meant to give life with all of its promises, if one was to follow it. But due too sin none were able to do that. No one save Jesus lived out a life under the law that never lead to death.
The third truth Paul uses it
Sin deceives and kills under the law
For sin deceived him. But didn’t Paul know the law before he was saved. Absolutely he did.
4 although I have reasons for confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised the eighth day; of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; regarding the law, a Pharisee; 6 regarding zeal, persecuting the church; regarding the righteousness that is in the law, blameless.
How does a man who knows the good commands of God, who knows the law, who has great zeal for God. How can a man like this believe he was blameless before the law.
Paul is speaking in a general sense here as he says that before his encounter with Jesus on his way to Damascus. He knew the law. He knew every detail of it. He had great zeal for the law. He was recognized for his life before the law. He was a religious leader as a Pharisee. The training he would have had and the aptitude would have made him well versed in the law of God and it commands.
6 regarding zeal, persecuting the church; regarding the righteousness that is in the law, blameless.
At the same time he is persecuting Christians, he sees himself blameless. All the time going against the law. how can he be so blind that he believes that he was blameless.
How? Sin taking the opportunity deceived him. It led him to believe, like the other Jews, that they were right before God because of how well they followed the law in practice. They did what all sinners do when they are confronted with a law or rule. They set forth a way to justify their sinfulness.
For the Jews they set a scale to measure men against men. They took the bar and set it at a level that men can achieve and then they stood around boasting in their great accomplishments. Who are usually recognized as the great saints in a church? Isn’t is usually by their actions and their knowledge.
There are great scholars of the bible that will stand at the white throne of judgment and realize that knowing what is right will not saved them.
There will be many that will stand before the judgement of God with all of their achievements that man honored them for. They will hold up their accolades and their trophies. They will play back all of the cheers of men and they will find that the evidence is not admissible before the court of the almighty God, as he looks down from the throne and says “I never knew you”
How will they end up like this? Their sin deceived them into thinking that salvation is based on works and established by some man made standard. They will fail to realize the truth of James.
10 For whoever keeps the entire law, and yet stumbles at one point, is guilty of breaking it all.
They will be confident in what they have done here, instead of the one who did a work here(point to the heart).
19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are subject to the law, so that every mouth may be shut and the whole world may become subject to God’s judgment. 20 For no one will be justified in his sight by the works of the law, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The law could not save Paul as he had believed. It wasn’t until he had a meeting with the Lord would he see that it is the heart of a man that the Lord is after and that justification and salvation is through faith in the only life that did not experience what is written here. Jesus Christ.
21 But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the Law and the Prophets. 22 The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. 23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24 they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
Paul provides the following conclusion to the question, is the law sin? Absolutely not for...
The Law is Good, Sin is Bad
The Law is Good, Sin is Bad
12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.
What is not in question, is the quality of the law for the law represents the quality of the law giver God. It is the recognition that first and foremost that God’s law is true, trustworthy and beneficial to all life. But it is the sin of man that leads them down the path of death. The Mosaic law had a role to play in that as a guardian for a time until he who would come and fulfill the law arrived.
The Mosaic Law was given along with the covenant of God that has blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. And so Paul is focusing on the covenantal part of the law. Many times in the new testament the law is referred to as continuing in the lives of believers.
3 For what the law could not do since it was weakened by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sin offering, 4 in order that the law’s requirement would be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
For those that have saving faith the law’s requirements are fulfilled though the sin offering of our Lord Jesus. And in our new life we live we will love God and our neighbors. Jesus said
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commands.
And if you love others.
8 Do not owe anyone anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, Do not commit adultery; do not murder; do not steal; do not covet; and any other commandment, are summed up by this commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself. 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Love, therefore, is the fulfillment of the law.
Why is the law good? It is because it comes from the good God. Why are there so many arguments about law? It is because man wants to know the line. What must I do to inherit eternal life? Who is my neighbor? When is good enough good enough? How far is to far? We want to now the lines and even then we cannot stay inside of them.
So what do we as Gentile that were never under the law of Moses do with this passage?
17 I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, would give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him.
11 And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness.
As we are equipped and built up in the body of Christ we are told that we will grow in unity in two areas, our faith and our knowledge of God’s Son. When you grow in the knowledge of Jesus. Do you know what you will find? HIs law. God hasn’t changed what is good hasn’t changed. Each command in scripture will help us see God and what he deems good. The law will unfold in your heart and give life and conviction to our conscience.
But we cannot recreate the same deception that the Jews had fallen under. We cannot trust in our own works of the la but in the law giver himself.
Conclusions
Conclusions
Paul’s three points here lead us to the following conclusions.
Point 1: Just because someone has great zeal and knowledge of the Law it does not mean they are saved.
Many Christians today are neither of these things. They are apathetic toward the knowledge of the creator God, who Loves and dies for his people. Ignorant of the truth. Unaware of what is really sin. A man who is mature is not free from ever sinning. He has recognized more of what is inside himself and relies on the Spirit to give him the fruit of God as he denies that which has been put to death in his flesh.
We must seek the knowledge of the Son
Point 2: Just because you recognize sin, does not mean you are saved.
Many live knowing they have broken God’s laws but there is not godly sorrow or repentance. They see the sin and they see it more and more but they try to conquer it themselves.
A man who recognizes his sin but is not led to the cross as the means to reconciliation before God.
A man who only knows the words of God but doesn’t apply them is a fool indeed.
Point 3: Just because you think you have great standing among men does not mean you will be saved.
Do not be deceived by sin.
Let us pray.
Let us pray.
Prayer
Blessing/Benediction
2 May grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. 3 His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
