Looking in a mirror (Romans 7:1-12)

[jars of clay]

7:1 Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? 2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. 3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.

4 Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.


Christians in Rome as well as Christians today often ask what part does the law play in Gods plan? Is it still relevant if we are saved by grace, or is it crucial to our salvation that we obey it? Paul answers this very well. In chapters three through five, Paul has gone in detail on how we cannot earn our salvation in any way. Both in a logical sense, and in one that is backed by the old testament. Now what Paul is doing is saying that although we are saved by grace, we are not to just go out and live as we please. Something that I should point out in our own Christian lives, one way to know you are saved is to feel the Holy Spirit nagging you about certain sins that are in your life. If you have the holy Spirit in you (which is the seal and promise of salvation on the last day), then you will feel bad about things, you will not want to do them anymore. In short, you will slowly see them as God does, an abomination.

Paul's point in all of this to eliminate both extremes, to sort of get rid of the two popular ideas on what the law is for and what it means to a Christian. He later goes on to give a new picture, one that you might be familiar with, but we will examine it again.

One question Paul asks in this passage is if the law is sin, because as he had said earlier, our sinful flesh was aroused by the law. Something I should note before moving on, is that again I do not believe he is speaking specifically about the laws that God passed down to Moses. Go back with me to chapter 2, sort of harkening back to devotionals that I gave a long time ago on CTF. Notice in verse 12 through the end of the chapter, Paul says that even the gentiles who were not born with the law will be judged by it, and even though they do not have the physical record (Mosaic law again). Paul is saying this because all (who are born knowing the written law of God, and those not born with the written law of God) will be judged by something much much deeper. C. S. Lewis, in his book "Mere Christianity" wrote that Man is judged by something called natural law. This law (otherwise known as the law of right and wrong) is implanted in every human being, giving them a picture of what to do, and not to do.

Now, Paul says that God gave us the law (I will assume it is the law of right and wrong as it is the law that all have and can equally be judged by) To show us all our sin. Paul, a Pharisee, is saying that the law was given, not because it could be perfectly obeyed, but so that we could see our sin. Something I must interject here, is that we alone cannot see our sin. I mentioned in the Theology section under the Holy Spirit that the Spirit comes to us to show us our need for God and is with us if we can sense Him or not. It is by the Spirit that we see our sin, and our need for grace, but no matter if we see our transgression or not, the law is there, implanted in every human being. The law does not make us holy, but is in fact a mirror, An instrument that the Holy Spirit uses to convict our hearts of our sin.

Tonight's devotional was sort of all theology, no really practical instruction... Oh well! I would encourage all of you to examine your hearts. See if you are again trying to prove your salvation by human works, instead of fruit that the Spirit gives. Look at how you view the law, how you see it in contrast with your life.