WHAT WAS WRONG WITH LAW?

May 7, 2008
Mike Blume

  Scripture Text:

 
Romans 7:25-8:2 KJV  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.  (8:1)  There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.  (2)  For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.


  Message:


WHAT WAS WRONG WITH LAW?

Romans 7:6-25 MSG  But now that we're no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we're free to live a new life in the freedom of God.  (7)  But I can hear you say, "If the law code was as bad as all that, it's no better than sin itself." That's certainly not true. The law code had a perfectly legitimate function. Without its clear guidelines for right and wrong, moral behavior would be mostly guesswork. Apart from the succinct, surgical command, "You shall not covet," I could have dressed covetousness up to look like a virtue and ruined my life with it.  (8)  Don't you remember how it was? I do, perfectly well. The law code started out as an excellent piece of work. What happened, though, was that sin found a way to pervert the command into a temptation, making a piece of "forbidden fruit" out of it. The law code, instead of being used to guide me, was used to seduce me. Without all the paraphernalia of the law code, sin looked pretty dull and lifeless,  (9)  and I went along without paying much attention to it. But once sin got its hands on the law code and decked itself out in all that finery, I was fooled, and fell for it.  (10)  The very command that was supposed to guide me into life was cleverly used to trip me up, throwing me headlong.  (11)  So sin was plenty alive, and I was stone dead.  (12)  But the law code itself is God's good and common sense, each command sane and holy counsel.  (13)  I can already hear your next question: "Does that mean I can't even trust what is good [that is, the law]? Is good just as dangerous as evil?" No again! Sin simply did what sin is so famous for doing: using the good as a cover to tempt me to do what would finally destroy me. By hiding within God's good commandment, sin did far more mischief than it could ever have accomplished on its own.  (14)  I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself--after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison.  (15)  What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise.  (16)  So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary.  (17)  But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help!  (18)  I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it.  (19)  I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway.  (20)  My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.  (21)  It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up.  (22)  I truly delight in God's commands,  (23)  but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.  (24)  I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?  (25)  The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

Romans 8:1-5 MSG  With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ's being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud.  (2)  A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.  (3)  God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that. The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it.  (4)  And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.  (5)  Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them--living and breathing God!


Let us notice from the start that there is nothing wrong with what law says.

7: (16)  So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. 

Paul consented that the law was good.
It was right and correct and proper.

The New Testament says this everywhere.

Romans 7:12 KJV  Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.

Romans 3:31 KJV  Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.

Romans 3:31 MSG  But by shifting our focus from what we do to what God does, don't we cancel out all our careful keeping of the rules and ways God commanded? Not at all. What happens, in fact, is that by putting that entire way of life in its proper place, we confirm it.



Romans 7:7 KJV  What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

When Paul said he was doing fine until Law came along, we read the same thing here and see that this was actually the PURPOSE of law.

Romans 5:20 KJV  Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:

Romans 5:20 MSG  All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace, grace wins hands down.


Grace living actually confirms what law said!
It says that law was correct!
But Grace can do in us what law could never do.


Romans 7:25-8:2 KJV  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.  (8:1)  There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.  (2)  For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

Paul was giving a summary in verse 25 concerning his struggle in chapter 7.
His mind was totally in agreement to serve the LAW of God.

Romans 7:15-16 KJV  For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.  (16)  If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good.

Romans 7:15-16 CEV  In fact, I don't understand why I act the way I do. I don't do what I know is right. I do the things I hate.  (16)  Although I don't do what I know is right, I agree that the Law is good.

Romans 7:15-16 MSG  What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise.  (16)  So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary.

He agrees.
As far as what he wants to do, what law says to live like is what he wants to do.
So HIS MIND serves the law of God.
But when iot comes to the flesh influencing him, with sin in that flesh, he does not actually serve law but he serves the law of sin and death.
What was in his mind was one thing, but what happened with his flesh in his behaviour was something else.
So by KEEPING LAW, Paul was seeing HIS FLESH rip his life apart.

Romans 7:11-18 CEV  Sin used this command to trick me, and because of it I died.  (12)  Still, the Law and its commands are holy and correct and good.  (13)  Am I saying that something good caused my death? Certainly not! It was sin that killed me by using something good. Now we can see how terrible and evil sin really is.  (14)  We know that the Law is spiritual. But I am merely a human, and I have been sold as a slave to sin.  (15)  In fact, I don't understand why I act the way I do. I don't do what I know is right. I do the things I hate.  (16)  Although I don't do what I know is right, I agree that the Law is good.  (17)  So I am not the one doing these evil things. The sin that lives in me is what does them.  (18)  I know that my selfish desires won't let me do anything that is good. Even when I want to do right, I cannot.


Romans 7:19-23 CEV  Instead of doing what I know is right, I do wrong.  (20)  And so, if I don't do what I know is right, I am no longer the one doing these evil things. The sin that lives in me is what does them.  (21)  The Law has shown me that something in me keeps me from doing what I know is right.  (22)  With my whole heart I agree with the Law of God.  (23)  But in every part of me I discover something fighting against my mind, and it makes me a prisoner of sin that controls everything I do.

Romans 7:25 CEV  ...So with my mind I serve the Law of God, although my selfish desires make me serve the law of sin.

Romans 8:1 EMTV  There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.



THEREFORE in Ro 8:1 is a word that tells us to consider the info mentioned earlier in order to understand the info mentioned next.
When yo do not walk after the flesh, BECAUSE serving God with the flesh is so defeating, but instead walk after the Spirit, there is not that condemnation mentioned in chapter 7.
This means that you are not condemned when you stop serving God by LAW-KEEPING, because law keeping is using FLESH to serve God.

And this FLESH involved in using lawkeeping to live right is what is meant when we read:

Romans 8:4-8 KJV  That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.  (5)  For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.  (6)  For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.  (7)  Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.  (8)  So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

Walking after the flesh is tryinhg to serve God by using a law that leaves yo all alone to succeed with your flesh, and the problem is that your flesh has sin in it that ruins all of this.

Romans 7:6 KJV  But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

Serving in OLDNESS OF THE LETTER is the problem.
It is serving God with the flesh.
We need to serve in NEWNESS OF THE SPIRIT.

It is the METHOD WE USE THAT IS THER PROBLEM.
Your desires may be good, but using the wrong method is the problem.

We are not delivered from law because law is bad.

Romans 7:6 KJV  But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

It is so that we can serve God in the successful way.
You take a rule and write it down and keep it for you to always obey it, and you are walking after the flesh.
God's Spirit never enters into the picture.
God wants us to do good, but how to do it is the issue.

Knolwedge fo good and evil's problem is not that the good is not correctly good, nor the evil correctly evil.
The problem is that YOU EXPECT TO AVOID THE GOOD AND DO THE EVIL YOURSELF, without any help from God, when you are given a list of what is good and evil.
What is good and what is evil is actuallly good and evil.
But what do you do when you are given a list of right and wrongs?
Try IN YOUR OWN POWER TO obey it.
That is the problem.

THE ORIGIN OF YOUR GOOD DEEDS is the issue.
What do you resort to in order to do good?
When God is the source of our power to do good, then you successfully do good./

God not only wants us to be delivered from bad deeds.
You can know bad deeds are bad, but still not be free from them no matter how much you want to if you are using FLESH to stop them.
You must ALSO be dleivered from Bad methods.

Romans 3:20-22 KJV  Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.  (21)  But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;  (22)  Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:

Deliverance from law is requried because it is a method to serve God that does not work.

Romans 7:7 KJV  What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

What the LAW SAYS IS GOOD IS GOOD!
Some believe that if it is in law, then it is bad and we shoudl not do it.
WRONG.
What law said was good was good.
It is just that it told us to do certain things as a means of becoming righteous.
AND THAT CANNOT WORK.

Romans 7:9 KJV  For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.


How does keeping a good rule cause sin to rise up in us?

FLESH is the problem.

Romans 7:7 KJV  What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

Romans 7:12 KJV  Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.

So why do we read?:

Romans 7:4 KJV  Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

It is like being married to LAW.
Instead of producing nice children of God as the behaviour of our lives, we are producing little monsters!

We need deliverance from law, but law is not the guilty party!
So who is the guilty party>

Romans 7:13 KJV  Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.


SIN!

When sin is so miserable that it makes you do MORE evil things when you try to obey a good law, this shows how rotten sin really is!

Romans 7:14 KJV  For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.

WE are the problem.

You can desire to serve God, BUT THERE IS A WRONG WAY TO DO IT.

Romans 7:6 KJV  But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

YOu must do more than get into Christ.

Romans 8:1 KJV  There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

You have to ALSO leanr the CORRECT method to serve God.
The correct way is to walk after the Spirit and not the flesh in law-keeping.
Law-keeping is YOU DOING IT YOURSELF.

Everyone knows they must serve God.
But they do nto realize there is an improper way that will not succeed and a proper way.

Romans 6:14-15 KJV  For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.  (15)  What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.

Paul knew people will immediately think there is no such thing as sin now becuase he said we are not under law.
That is exactly what he is NOT saying.
There is sin.
Law is right in everything it said was sin.

Romans 2:14-15 KJV  For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:  (15)  Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)

The difference is that LAW is in the heart -- man's NATURE -- and man does not WANT to do sin, where law keeping is stopping it whether you want to or not.

SIN IS SIN.

Romans 6:12 KJV  Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.

Romans 6:13 KJV  Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.

Romans 6:23 KJV  For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

1 Corinthians 15:34 KJV  (34)  Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame.

Ephesians 4:26 KJV  Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:

1 Timothy 5:20 KJV  Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear.

Hebrews 10:26 KJV  For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,

James 2:9 KJV  But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors.

SIN IS STILL SIN and still exists.

1 Corinthians 5:1 KJV  It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife.

1 Corinthians 5:12-13 KJV  (12)  For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?  (13)  But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.

So we know Chapter 6 is dealing with that issue as fornication.

1 Corinthians 6:12-15 KJV  (12)  All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.  (13)  Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.  (14)  And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power.  (15)  Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.

The power of God is SQUEEZED out of our lives and our minds are stolen from the things of God when we entertain things that may be lawful.

It is not that law and things it said were wrong.
It is the part of law that said do these things to become righteous.