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4. The Law Prompts the Sinner to Sin (Romans 7:7-13)
ROMANS 7:8
7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be! However, I wouldn’t have known sin, except through the law. For I wouldn’t have known coveting, unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, finding occasion through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of coveting. For apart from the law, sin is dead.
Paul heard in his spirit the objection of his enemies: “If you have delivered us from the holy, greatest revelation, do you consider the law imperfect, weak, or wrong?” The apostle summed up all their arguments, and asked exaggeratingly: Is the law sin? And he immediately answered: “Do not let this by any means be supposed, for it is impossible that the commandments of God can be evil, since they show us the way to life.
The expression translated, “on the contrary” means more properly “but”; and this would have more correctly expressed the sense, "I deny that the law is sin. My doctrine does not lead to that; nor do I affirm that it is evil. I strongly repel the charge; BUT, notwithstanding this, I still maintain that it had an effect in exciting sins. Without the law I lived indifferently in sin, as a child who unconsciously ate forbidden fruits from his neighbor’s garden. Sin looks beautiful and pleasant in the beginning, and this is the devious condition of our sins, that we consider the devious, evil thing ordinary and good, while the good seems to us strange and harmful.
ROMANS 7:9-11
9 I was alive apart from the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. 10 The commandment, which was for life, this I found to be for death; 11 for sin, finding occasion through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me.
Where we raise a commandment, we cause disobedience in the heart of man; and the desire to transgression increases at all times. Paul refers to himself from verse 7 on using “I”, because he experienced in himself that man, without the knowledge of the law, thinks he is in a very good condition, very secure and confident of the goodness of his state, as if he were sinless, and evil had died in his body. But when the commandment of God came into his live, he became conscious and aware of his sins, and heard in his mind the command to deny sin and die to it, for the law means God’s attack against the human ego, since our self is nothing but desire and curiosity. Every meeting with the word and commandments of God means dying to self.
Once again the apostle explains to us that there is no other solution for our corruption but dying to ourself. This spiritual dying reveals the strange truth that the law shows us the way to life, but it leads us to death. Furthermore, it leads us to self-denial and to God’s condemnation against us to death and destruction.
Paul explains that sin appeared sweet like sugar in the beginning, but it led him to disobedience against the holiness of God and his natural laws. Dressed in fine clothing it led him directly to hell. This is the lie of Satan, and the hypocrisy of him who was a murderer from the beginning. With sugarcoated words and deceitful facilities he invites us to death.
ROMANS 7:12-13
12 Therefore the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, and righteous, and good. 13 Did then that which is good become death to me? May it never be! But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, by working death to me through that which is good; that through the commandment sin might become exceeding sinful.
Paul, the expert of the law and former Pharisee, stood fearfully before the truth that the holy revelation of God in the old covenant did not do good to man, but instead it hardened his heart and excited him to do evil. Thus being so since prohibition creates objection, and what is admitted to be good and pure leads to death. Paul cried out: “No. This analysis is wrong. The good reveals the evil, and induces the sinner to search for a healing and strive to be saved. So God often allows people to plunge into sin; to act out their nature, so that they may see themselves and be alarmed at the consequences of their own crimes.
PRAYER: O Lord, in your holiness and perfection my corruption and uncleanness appear. Forgive me my superficiality in godliness, and remove from our faces, with the sharpness of your law, every mask made by our hypocrisy that we may know and confess that there is no other way for us but to accept your death on your cross, and continue in this death forever, because your law condemns us and produces in us obdurate disobedience. O Lord, I submit myself to you that you may heal me, save me, and keep me in death to ego, and in life with you.
QUESTION:
- How can the law, which is good for us, be a reason for evil and death?
God, be merciful to me a sinner!
(Luke 18:13)