Go This Way, Not That Way!

Go This Way, Not That Way By Rev. Res Spears You may recall that when we began this series on the grace of God I suggested that grace is the opposite of karma. Karma says we get what we deserve; grace says we get what we could never deserve. Karma says what goes around comes around; grace says the innocent died for the guilty. Karma says I'll be judged on my own merits; grace says we have no merit, so God judges we who have followed His Son in faith according the merits of Jesus. One of the reasons I have spent so much time drawing a distinction between grace and karma is that I wanted to lead you away from what I consider a false distinction that is often made between grace and Law. Perhaps you have heard that distinction made in the past. The people of Israel were under Law, but we, the New Testament church, are under grace. That's how it's often put. And that's true, as far as it goes. But one of the things I have tried to do throughout this study of grace is to remind us that the God of the New Testament IS God of the Old Testament. As we have looked at the patriarchs of the Old Testament and at events in the history of Israel and of mankind, we have seen God's grace as the driving force of biblical history, all the way back to the Garden of Eden. We see God's grace manifest in nearly every chapter of every book of the Old Testament. Indeed, we can hardly read these scriptures without concluding that grace is one of the defining characteristics of God. From the gracious way He dealt with the rebellion of Adam and Eve and then with their murdering son, Cain, to His gracious choosing of Noah and then Abraham and then the people of Israel; from His gracious provision of deliverance and the Promised Land to Israel to His gracious protection of them from their enemies; from His gracious provision of judges and prophets and priests and kings to lead them and to protect them and to draw them to Him, God's grace spills from the pages of the Old Testament like water from a spring in a desert oasis. But we New Testament Christians, especially those of us in the reformed tradition of Martin Luther and John Calvin, have a tendency to look at a huge portion of Old Testament Scripture through a lens distorted by a misunderstanding of the Law that God gave through Moses to govern the chosen people, Israel. And, unless we correct that distortion, we will never fully understand the argument that Paul makes in the seventh chapter of the Book of Romans, which we will begin examining in a few minutes. I wonder how many of you remember the first photo that NASA showed the world from the Hubble Space Telescope. This was in 1990, 30 years ago, and you may recall that there was giddy excitement about the images of the universe that this telescope in space would return. This $2.5-billion telescope promised new insights into the universe; it promised amazing views of stars and galaxies that could only be hinted at by earth-bound telescopes, whose view is distorted by the Earth's atmosphere. And so, on May 20, 1990, as the first image from Hubble came through in front of a crowd of reporters who were invited to watch history being made, NASA officials were utterly embarrassed to hear the question, "Is that how it's supposed to look?" You see, the mirror at the heart of Hubble's imaging system had been ground ever-so-slightly out of specification, and so the images from Hubble came back fuzzy and out of focus, much as things are out of focus if you're wearing the wrong glasses. Since then, we have all seen incredible and awe-inspiring images from Hubble, but that's only because three years after that first photo, a space shuttle crew went up and effectively gave the telescope a pair of glasses. They corrected the distortion. I hope that's what will happen here today, so that when we look at the first half of Romans, chapter 7, we can see much more clearly the argument that Paul makes about the Law and grace. So, let's start by talking about Law in the Old Testament. The Hebrew word for law is Torah. It comes from the verb yarah, which means "to point," and one of the uses of it for the ancient Hebrew people was "to point out with one's fingers." So the idea of Torah is that it is God pointing His people in the right direction, providing instruction to them. Much as you might point toward a safe path for your children or grandchildren, God used Torah to point His children toward the way that would give them a long and blessed life. Now, when we think of the Mosaic Law - and this is the sense of Torah that we will consider today - we think first of the 10 commandments the people of Israel received in the Book of Exodus and then, perhaps of the many other commands He gave them throughout the rest of that book and into the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. There were commandments for what to eat, what to wear, how to deal with criminal behavior, how to worship, how to atone for sins, and even how to deal with mildew. More than 600 in all. And we're tempted to look at all these commandments and conclude that this is a long list of often-strange restrictions. But we must remember that Torah was given by God to a certain people in a certain place at a certain time in history. These were the people He had delivered from Egypt, His chosen and redeemed people, and they were going to the Promised Land, where they would live near pagan cultures that did not know Him. God had called Israel to "be holy as I am holy," to be set apart and different from those other cultures, and Torah would help them achieve that. So Torah was given to help them live in the covenant blessings God had promised them. Torah, in other words, was an act of grace on God's part. Torah, as we see over and over again in the psalms, was a gift of blessing to God's people. Torah provided a way for them to better come to know the God who had redeemed them. Now, if we're looking back at the Old Testament through a distorted lens, we might find it hard to understand how a system of 613 often-arcane laws could be a blessing, especially if we consider them to have been impossible to keep, which is another mistake we often make. The fact is that the people of Israel readily agreed to keep the commandments of Torah: "All the words which the Lord has spoken we will do!" they said as they stood at the base of Mt. Sinai. And Moses seemed to think it was possible to keep the commands and that in doing so, the people would be blessed. Here's what he said to the people of Israel in Deuteronomy, chapter 7. Deuteronomy 7:12-13 NASB95 "Then it shall come about, because you listen to these judgments and keep and do them, that the LORD your God will keep with you His covenant and His lovingkindness which He swore to your forefathers. "He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock, in the land which He swore to your forefathers to give you. Moses believed the people could keep God's commandments, and in fact God said through Moses that doing so was within their reach. From Deuteronomy, chapter 30: Deuteronomy 30:11-14 NASB95 "For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach. "It is not in heaven, that you should say, 'Who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?' "Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?' "But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it. In fact, it borders on heresy to suggest that the commandments were impossible to keep. At the very least, suggesting such a thing besmirches God's character, because as we saw a moment ago, He had promised great blessings for His people's obedience. What kind of God would God be if He promised blessings only from some impossible task? He is a God of grace and mercy, and it was in His grace and mercy that God had given His redeemed people Torah - direction - pointing out the way for them to know Him more fully, the way for them to be blessed. But something happened, and we know it wasn't simply the failure of His people to keep Torah, because we also know that atoning sacrifices for sins were themselves part of Torah. God, in His grace, had provided a way of forgiveness for those who failed to keep the commandments. What happened was that the people, following their religious leaders, began to look at keeping Torah as their way to salvation, rather than their thankful response to salvation by grace through faith. Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. The people of Israel put their faith in God, and He delivered them from Egypt - they were redeemed, and Torah was graciously given to them as a way for them to demonstrate their gratitude for having been saved and to show their love for the God who had saved them. But by the time of Christ, we see that the picture of Torah had become blurred by the distorted lens of the Pharisees, who thought they should be saved by their own righteousness in having kept the letter of the law. They were using Torah in a way it had never been intended. Instead of seeing Torah as a manifestation of God's grace, they saw it as a tool of karma, and in doing so they opened God's gracious gift to the destructive force of sin. And sin used God's gracious gift of the law to bring condemnation rather than blessing. So, with all that as background, let's look at the first 13 verses of Romans, chapter 7. I'm going to read this passage from The Message paraphrase first, because I want you not to get bogged down in the details, but rather to get the gist of Paul's argument before we look at some of the details. Romans 7:1-13 The Message You shouldn't have any trouble understanding this, friends, for you know all the ins and outs of the law-how it works and how its power touches only the living. For instance, a wife is legally tied to her husband while he lives, but if he dies, she's free. If she lives with another man while her husband is living, she's obviously an adulteress. But if he dies, she is quite free to marry another man in good conscience, with no one's disapproval. So, my friends, this is something like what has taken place with you. When Christ died he took that entire rule-dominated way of life down with him and left it in the tomb, leaving you free to "marry" a resurrection life and bear "offspring" of faith for God. For as long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths. But now that we're no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we're free to live a new life in the freedom of God. But I can hear you say, "If the law code was as bad as all that, it's no better than sin itself." That's certainly not true. The law code had a perfectly legitimate function. Without its clear guidelines for right and wrong, moral behavior would be mostly guesswork. Apart from the succinct, surgical command, "You shall not covet," I could have dressed covetousness up to look like a virtue and ruined my life with it. Don't you remember how it was? I do, perfectly well. The law code started out as an excellent piece of work. What happened, though, was that sin found a way to pervert the command into a temptation, making a piece of "forbidden fruit" out of it. The law code, instead of being used to guide me, was used to seduce me. Without all the paraphernalia of the law code, sin looked pretty dull and lifeless, and I went along without paying much attention to it. But once sin got its hands on the law code and decked itself out in all that finery, I was fooled, and fell for it. The very command that was supposed to guide me into life was cleverly used to trip me up, throwing me headlong. So sin was plenty alive, and I was stone dead. But the law code itself is God's good and common sense, each command sane and holy counsel. I can already hear your next question: "Does that mean I can't even trust what is good [that is, the law]? Is good just as dangerous as evil?" No again! Sin simply did what sin is so famous for doing: using the good as a cover to tempt me to do what would finally destroy me. By hiding within God's good commandment, sin did far more mischief than it could ever have accomplished on its own. Now, Paul begins this section of his letter to the Roman church by reminding these Christians that they were no longer under the authority of the law. As those who had died with Christ as their representative, they had been raised with Him to be joined with Him in new life. They were no longer bound to the law, but rather bound to Christ. When they were bound to the law - as Paul puts it, "while we were in the flesh" - what had been the result? Look at verse 5 (and from here I'll be reading from the NASB). Romans 7:5 NASB95 For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. When the people of Israel turned away from faith in God as their path to salvation and substituted faith in their own righteousness - their own ability to keep the Law - what happened was that instead of becoming more righteous, they became less so. Sinful passions were aroused by the law, just as the "Keep off the grass" sign makes us think how nice the grass might feel under our feet. And life in the flesh - life lived according to sinful nature - results in death. Verse 6: Romans 7:6 NASB95 But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter. We who have followed Jesus Christ in faith live not by the flesh - not according to our sinful nature - but in newness of the Spirit. We live according to the law of Christ: Love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. And the interesting thing about that is that Jesus Himself said these two commandments were the summation of the Mosaic Law. In other words, just as the redeemed people of Israel were given Torah as a gracious gift meant to draw them closer to God, and not as a means to salvation, we are given the law of Christ as a means of drawing nearer to God - of being sanctified, made more like Jesus - and not as a means of salvation. Our obedience to the law of Christ should be a loving response of gratitude for our salvation, just as the Israelites' keeping of Torah was to have been a loving response of gratitude for their salvation. But Paul realizes here that some may get the wrong idea about the law because of what he said about it arousing sinful passions within them. Verse 7: Romans 7:7-8 NASB95 What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, "YOU SHALL NOT COVET." But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead. The law was not the cancer; the law was the X-ray machine that showed the cancer within the people of Israel. It exposed their sinful natures. Paul says here that he only understood covetousness because the Law had revealed it to him. The sin had been dormant within him until it was awakened by the law. So, going back to our definition of Torah, what Paul is saying here is that when God pointed and said through the law, "Go this way; don't go that way," the sinful nature of man caused him to rebel and do just what God had said not to do. The law was given to the people of Israel to guide them toward the abundant blessings of a covenant relationship with God, but sin's destructive force changed everything. Verse 9: Romans 7:9-11 NASB95 I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died; and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me; for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. With his sinful nature aroused by the prohibitions of the law, Paul says here, he was spiritually dead. The commandment that was to result in life, instead resulted in spiritual deadness. He had been deceived by the sin within him, and the result was his separation from God. This is true of all who sin. Sin causes separation from God. If you have never followed Jesus Christ in faith that His sacrifice on the cross for your sins is your only hope for salvation, then your sins have separated you from a relationship with God. If you are a believer, your sins do not break the relationship, but they injure your fellowship with God; they separate you from Him in the sense of putting something between you and Him. So Paul has argued that it was sin's perversion of the Law that separated him from God, that resulted in his spiritual deadness before his conversion. The Law itself, he affirms here in verse 12, was good. Romans 7:12 NASB95 So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Remember that the Law was God's gracious gift to a people who had been redeemed. Torah was God standing alongside the road and pointing and telling His people, "Go this way, not that way, and you will find great blessings." Verse 13: Romans 7:13 NASB95 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 effecting my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful. We must be careful about how we think of the Old Testament Law, because what we think of the Law says something about what we think of God. Did God give the law to bring condemnation upon His chosen people? May it never be! Of course not! He would not be a God of grace if He had given these instructions only to watch His people suffer and die because of them, if He had made these promises only to snatch them away because the obedience upon which they were conditioned was impossible. Our God is gracious, and He is gracious all the time. He is gracious from everlasting to everlasting. His mercies are new every morning. He gave the people of Israel 613 commandments so that they could have blessings and life in Him. Sin took that good thing, Torah, and turned it into something that resulted in death. But Jesus came that we might have life, and that in abundance. He came to rescue mankind from the trap that sin had made of the Law. He came to fulfill the Law, to show us the full measure of grace that the Law had revealed only in part. The God of the Old is the God of the New. God has always been the God of all grace and mercy. He is still the God who stands alongside the road and tells His children, "Go this way, not that way." This week, as you consider His Law with vision-corrected lenses, take some time to thank Him for His gracious direction. Take some time to thank Him not just for your salvation, but for showing you how to draw nearer to Him. Page . Exported from Logos Bible Software, 1:38 AM September 13, 2020.