Romans 7
An Illustration From Marriage
1. Do you not know, brothers for I am speaking to men who know the law that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? 2. For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. 3. So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man.
4. So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. 5. For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. 6. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
Struggling With Sin
7. What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” 8. But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. 9. Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.
11. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. 12. So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. 13. Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
14. We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do this I keep on doing. 20. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23. but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25. Thanks be to God–through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
God’s plan for us is to live happy, balanced lives. There are a lot of things that we should and shouldn’t do in order to live our lives according to God’s perfect design. This world is not perfect, and certainly we ourselves are not perfect.
The laws that govern our lives point out just how imperfect we really are. If we are honest, we realize that we have hated, lied, envied, lusted, and done many other things that are contrary to God’s perfect plan for us. These rules are good rules to live by. It’s just that our bent for selfishness just can’t handle them.
The answer to this dilemma is very easy, yet becomes difficult the more we try to calculate it. We must die. But if we die, we no longer exist. God sent a substitution for us to die, so since the high price has been paid, we are no longer subject to the guilt and shame associated with being a breaker of the law.
The example that God has set for grace and forgiveness should be a model for us in our lives. We need to forgive as God has forgiven us. We need to be able to pray without fear “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”.
Do your feel forgiven?
Have you forgiven others?
Are you still striving to live within the law?