Romans 7:7-13
First, we should be clear that Paul is writing about the law, not trying to answer the questions that modern people ask. This passage is not primarily a piece of personal autobiography or a psychological study of the Christian experience. It is a sustained treatment of the place of the law. For the Jew the law was central, and Paul has denied that the Jew was right. He has said that in any case the Jew has broken the law (2:27). He has denied that anyone is justified by the law (3:20). He has argued that the believer is not under law (6:14), and that he has died to the law (7:4). He has spoken of “the sinful passions aroused by the law” (7:5). Where does that leave the law? Is the Christian to regard it as something evil and discard it? Or is it still God’s law? It is with such questions that Paul is concerning himself, and we should not lose sight of where his argument leads in our anxiety to get answers to questions Paul is not asking.
How subtle sin is! In his commentary on these verses, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones lists nine ways in which sin commonly deceives us.
1. Sin gets us to misuse the law, convincing us that as long as we have not sinned outwardly and visibly, we are all right, forgetting that with God the thoughts and intentions of the heart are all important.
2. Sometimes sin changes its tactics and tells us that everything is hopeless and we might as well keep on sinning.
3. Sin tells us that it does not matter whether or not we are holy. It says, “Why don’t you keep on sinning so that grace may abound?”
4. Sin deceives us by making us angry at the law, feeling that God is against us if he prohibits anything. If he were for us, we think, he would let us do what we want to do and be happy.
5. Sin gets us to believe that the law is unreasonable, impossible, and unjust.
6. Sin makes us think very highly of ourselves. It makes us ask why we should be bound by any law. Why shouldn’t we become what Friedrich Nietzsche called a “superman” or a “superwoman” and be a law unto ourselves?
7. Sin tells us that the law is oppressive, keeping us from developing the wonderful gifts and talents we have within us, all of which would emerge if only we did not have to be held back by God’s commandments.
8. Sin makes righteousness look drab and unattractive.
9. Sin causes us to discount the consequences of willful disobedience. It whispers what Satan said to Eve, “You will not surely die” (Gen. 3:4). It says that the most preposterous idea in the whole world is hell, forgetting that the Lord Jesus Christ spoke of hell more often than anyone else in the Bible.