Gospel Wings: Romans 7:1-6
Introduction:
The problem was twofold. First, there was the problem I have already spoken about, namely that Paul’s teaching about being justified by God apart from law seemed to make the law worthless or, worse yet, harmful. How could any true Jew accept that? The Jew knew that the law had been given through Moses from Mount Sinai, accompanied by frightening manifestations of God’s presence. Nothing could have been more weighty or solemn than God’s giving of the law on Sinai. The Jew rightly regarded the law as God’s great, good, and beneficial gift to man. How could such an important gift be set aside?
The other problem was this: In a paradoxical manner, although the law was good, it was also an overwhelming burden. It imposed a strict code of legalistic behavior that was back-breaking for those who took it seriously. The Jews had a word for it. They called it a yoke, like those put upon animals to harness them for hard labor. That is what it was like to be a godly Jew. The Jew was proud of his yoke. It was from God; it set him apart from the godless peoples around him. Nevertheless it was still a yoke, and it was a great and overwhelming burden.
In his study of Romans, Ray C. Stedman suggests four proofs that all persons are naturally “under law,” even without possessing or being subjected to the specific law of the Old Testament. They are worth listing.
1. We are proud of our achievements. At first glance, this seems to prove recognition of a standard to which we have been able to measure up and to which others have perhaps not been able to measure up (at least not so well), not how we feel condemned by those standards. But it actually does show how we feel condemned, because our pointing to some area of moral achievement in our own lives is usually a diversion to keep people from looking at our failures in other areas. For example, the philanthropist may boast of the $100,000 he has given to some charity primarily because he is feeling guilty about how he or she acquired the money in the first place. Perhaps he neglected his family in order “to make his mark” or even cheated someone out of it. “The law reveals failure. Therefore, one of the first marks of a person who is living under the law is that he is always pointing out how well he is doing,” says Stedman.
2. We are critical of others. This is another diversionary tactic. It is the “scapegoat” ploy. Get people thinking about how others have failed, and perhaps they will overlook us. And there is this, too: In a strange way, we are usually most critical of others precisely in those areas where we are ourselves most at fault. It is the proud who most hate pride in others. It is cheaters who are most sensitive to being cheated by their associates.
3. We are reluctant to admit our own failures. This is the reverse side of boasting. It is because we instinctively feel the weight of the law over us that we attempt to cover up our failures. If we did not sense ourselves to be “under law” and rightly “under law,” would we bother? We would not deny breaking a standard the validity of which we do not recognize.
4. We suffer from depression, discouragement, and defeat. This gets to the real heart of the problem, for it shows how futile it is for people to try to raise moral standards merely by enacting or proclaiming new laws. Social reformers generally think that all that is necessary to raise the moral standard of a community is to inform people of what is right and provide a few incentives for them to choose it. But it does not work that way. All of us are already “under law,” and we are already breaking the law we have. What good does it do to have more laws? Or better laws? Or higher laws? All the so-called better laws do is increase our sense of failure and heighten our anxiety. We are defeated enough already.
“What a wretched man I am!” we might cry. “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” The answer, which Paul gives at the very end of Romans 7, where he asks those very questions, is not a new law but “God—though Jesus Christ our Lord!” (v. 25). The rescuer is a person!
The object of the new relationship is “that we might bear fruit to God” (v. 4). Commentators seem afraid of this last point, no doubt feeling that the thought of bearing offspring to Christ is somehow indelicate. I do not feel this to be the case at all. Paul is concerned for righteousness, which is the fruit of God, and the idea is: How are we to attain this righteousness so long as we are married to law (or, if you prefer, to Adam or to our old sinful nature)? The old husband is impotent. The law never engendered righteousness in anybody. So how can we be fruitful? The answer is: Death must terminate the old relationship in order that we might enter into a new, fruitful relationship to Jesus Christ.
How does this happen? It happens by our dying to the law in Christ. That is, his death becomes our death. Therefore, when we die in him we die to the law, and when we rise in him we rise to the new relationship. Now God says to us, as he said to our first parents in the Garden of Eden, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen. 1:28a). Not with physical offspring, of course, but with righteousness produced by the Holy Spirit.
“Do this and live, the law demands, but gives me neither feet nor hands. A better word the gospel brings. It bids me fly and gives me wings.”