Romans - Chapter 7

Romans 7

Craig picked up where Ed left off this week on Chapter 7 - which Craig entitled Law School.  Paul in the first 6 chapters of Romans has discussed our sin, sin entering the world through one man, righteousness through one man, the Grace that gives us Hope and now he comes back to the Law. 

Verse 1-2, "Do you know, brothers - for I am speakig to men who know the law - that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? 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." 

He goes on to say that because she is released, she is free to marry another.  In this same way, we are now dead to sin and our free to be married to God or be in union with Christ.  Verse 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."

But Craig asks the question: Why was the Law Given

1. The Law was given to expose our sin nature (Rom 7:7)
2. To incite the sin nature to sin more (Rom 7:8-23); sin nature cannot be reformed.
3. To drive us to despair of self-effort (Rom 7:24,25)
4. To drive us to dependence upon the Holy Spirit alone (Rom 8:1-4)

But the law is not bad, as Paul states in verse 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'." 

Recently a new believer asked me, what does this dead to sin mean.  I had to step back, because reading Paul's words made sense, but trying to explain it was not easy.  I knew that Paul was right, but his argument is so back and forth and so putting his words into meaning was difficult for me.  But what God through the Holy Spirit brought to my attention while I was speaking was the concept that Paul talks about later.  Being dead to sin means it no longer has control - it now becomes a battle.  We now can battle with sin before we could not.

Verse 23-25 - "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. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death. 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."

Table Talk Questions

1. How do you think, as a new believer in Rome, would you understand this letter from Paul?
2. How would you take home what you heard and discussed and explained it to your household?
3. How do you think you can explain it to nonbelievers today?