Romans 7.5-The Mosaic Law Aroused Sinful Passions In The Unregenerate Jew Producing Personal Sin Related To Spiritual Death
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Sunday August 24, 2008
Romans: Romans 7:5-The Mosaic Law Aroused Sinful Passions In The Unregenerate Jew Producing Personal Sin Related To Spiritual Death
Lesson # 214
Please turn in your Bibles to Romans 7:1.
Thus far in our studies of Romans chapter seven, we have noted the following:
In Romans 7:1-6, the apostle Paul uses the analogy of marriage and argues that the Christian’s bondage to the Law has been severed because they have died with Christ and have been freed from the Law and placed in union with Christ.
In Romans 7:1, Paul poses a rhetorical to the Jewish Christians in Rome and asks if they are ignorant of the fact that the Mosaic Law has jurisdiction over a person as along as he lives.
Then, in Romans 7:2-3, he employs the marriage analogy by teaching that according to the Mosaic Law, a woman is not bound legally to her husband if he dies.
Then, in Romans 7:4-6, he makes an application for his readers by stating that in the same way the Christian is freed from the Law and is thus no longer under its authority since He died with Christ and has been placed in union with Him.
In Romans 7:1, Paul poses a rhetorical question to the Jewish Christians in Rome and asks if they are ignorant of the fact that the Mosaic Law has jurisdiction over a person as along as he lives.
Romans 7:1, “Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives?”
That Paul is addressing the Jewish Christians in Rome specifically in this passage is indicated in his parenthetical statement “I am now addressing those who are very familiar with the Law through instruction.”
Thus, when he uses the term “Law” he is referring specifically, to the Mosaic Law, i.e. the Jewish law and not to an axiom of political justice both Jewish and Roman.
Then, in Romans 7:2, Paul presents the principle found in the Mosaic Law that a woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives but if he dies, she is discharged from her marriage contract with her husband.
Romans 7:2, “For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband.”
Paul teaches in Romans 7:3 that if a Jewish woman’s husband dies, then she is not an adulteress if she remarries.
Romans 7:3, “So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man.”
In Romans 7:4, Paul teaches that in the same way that a Jewish wife is discharged from the marriage contract with her deceased husband and free to marry another so the Christian has been discharged from the Law and was married to Christ through the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 7:4, “Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.”
In Romans 7:4a, he teaches that the Jewish Christians in Rome were dead with respect to the Mosaic Law through the body of Christ or in other words their identification with Christ in His physical death.
Then, in Romans 7:4b, the apostle teaches that the Jewish Christians in Rome and all Christians for that matter have been married to Christ in order to bear fruit for God the Father.
This morning we will study Romans 7:5, which teaches the Roman believers that prior to their conversion to Christianity, when they were in bondage to the sin nature, the sinful passions of their sin natures produced personal sin as a result of their permitting these desires to be operative in their human bodies.
Romans 7:5, “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.”
Romans 7:5 describes the Roman Christians prior to their conversion to Christianity whereas Romans 7:6 describes their present status of having been freed from the Law, having died to it.
“For” is the “explanatory” use of the post-positive conjunction gar (gavr), which introduces Romans 7:5-6 together as an “explanation” of Paul’s statement in Romans 7:4.
Therefore, Romans 7:5-6 explains why the Roman Christians were dead with respect to the Mosaic Law through their identification with the death of the physical body of Christ with the result that they were married to Christ in order to produce Christ-like character, which is a benefit to the Father.
“While we were in the flesh” is a temporal clause identifying the time when the Jewish Roman Christians were unregenerate and under real spiritual death and condemned by the requirements of the Mosaic Law.
“In the flesh” indicates that the prior to their conversion to Christianity, the Jewish Christians in Rome existed perpetually in a state of bondage to the indwelling sin nature whose sinful passions were stimulated by the Mosaic Law.
“Sinful passions” refers to desires that originate from the sin nature and wage war against the human soul and when the human soul gives into these sinful desires of the sin nature, personal sin is committed whether mental, verbal and overt acts of sin.
“Which were aroused by the Law” indicates that the Mosaic Law was the means by which the sinful desires originating from the sin nature were aroused in the Jewish Roman Christians prior to their conversion to Christianity.
Paul explains in Romans 7:7-11 why the Mosaic Law stimulates or arouses the sin nature in the unregenerate.
Romans 7:7-11, “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. 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.”
That the Law aroused the sin nature in the unregenerate and manifested that unregenerate man is spiritually dead is further implied in Romans 3:20, 4:15, 5:20, 1 Corinthians 15:56, 2 Corinthians 3:5-9, Galatians 3:10, and James 2:9-10.
The fact that the Mosaic Law aroused the sinful desires of the sin nature can be illustrated by the effects of the Laws of Prohibition in the 1920’s.
The law that banned alcohol stimulated the old flesh nature and the sinful passions were aroused so that men’s appetite for alcohol increased.
The results of this were deadly fruit so that the twenties were euphemistically referred to as the “Roaring 20’s.”
It was a tragic chapter in American History.
The Mosaic Law affected the nation of Israel much like the Law of Prohibition affected America.
Romans 7:5, “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.”
The statement that these sinful desires “were at work in the members of our body” denotes that prior to becoming Christians, Paul’s Jewish Christian readers permitted these sinful desires that were aroused by the Law to become operative in the various parts of their human bodies.
The “permissive” middle of the verb energeo, “were at work” means that prior to becoming Christians the Jewish Christians in Rome “allowed” these sinful desires to become operative or active in their bodies.
“To bear fruit” is composed of the preposition eis (ei)$) (ice) and the definite article definite article ho (o() (ho), which is modifying the aorist active infinitive form of the verb karpophoreo (karpoforevw) (kar-pof-or-eh-o).
The verb karpophoreo appeared in Romans 7:4 where it was used in a figurative sense for fruit bearing or in other words, producing or bearing the character of Christ in one’s life.
In Romans 7:5, the verb is used again in a figurative sense and means, “to produce fruit” but unlike the word’s usage in verse 4, in verse 5, it refers to the production of fruit with respect to real spiritual death.
This fruit refers to all types of personal sins whether mental, verbal and overt acts of sin.
The word verb functions as an “infinitive of result” indicating that the production of personal sin in the unregenerate period of the Jewish Christians in Rome was “the result of” them perpetually allowing the desires of the sin nature to become operative in their various parts of their bodies.
“For death” means that these personal sins are related to real spiritual death since real spiritual death is related exclusively to the unbeliever and in context Paul is writing concerning the unregenerate condition of the Jewish Christians in Rome.
“Real spiritual death” means that each and every member of the unregenerate member of the human race, without exception, has absolutely no merit with a holy God and has absolutely no capacity whatsoever to establish and experience a relationship and fellowship with Him as well.