THE GOSPEL OF GOD
Meditations in St. Paul's Letter to the Romans
THE GOOD WORK OF THE LAW

"Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognised as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.”
Romans 7:13.

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PAUL is still seeking to vindicate his teaching concerning the Law of God from being misunderstood, and to help us to see the fact that the law is a great blessing to us even if it can not save us, or empower us to be good. He has just proved that the law is holy, righteous and good, he now tackles another problem which he sees might be levelled against his teaching, and that is the question of how something that is good can become a means of death to a person. Paul speaks in the first person in order to make his meaning more vivid, and also to identify with what he is saying by looking into his own experience.

In fact the law performs a good and most important function. Though the law does not save us and can't be a means of saving us, it performs a very useful function in the process of salvation. The great problem which faces all human beings is that we do not appreciate the true nature of sin. In fact we do not understand the nature of sin properly in any way. We do know that there is good and bad, and that there is wrong and there is right. We do recognise that human behaviour is not as good as it should be, but this is generally as far as it goes. With this view we see that some people who go beyond the general understanding of what is acceptable behaviour deserve to be condemned and punished, but for the rest of us, though we are not perfect, we are deserving of reward for an acceptable standard of living, and so, although we are not absolutely sure, we feel that God will accept us at the end and welcome us into paradise. This thinking is never explicitly defined, but it is implicit in so much thinking and attitude to death. In fact there is a belief that death seems to purify us and make us pure in the eyes of God.

Because of this, people find themselves satisfied with a little religion or no religion at all, and if they think about God it is to feel he is an insurance to whom we can apply when we need help and aid, but like an insurance policy we need not bother with it unless we need to. The idea is that we have paid our premium, and so it is our right to claim the help when it is needed. So translating this to thoughts on God, people feel that they have paid their premium to God by what is felt to be an acceptable level of good works, and so they feel they can forget about God until they need to cash in their premium payments. One thing people never do is to ask God first what the premium level should be, and this is where the law comes in. The law teaches us what the acceptable premium level is, which is totally beyond our ability to pay.

With this view of life and view of human behaviour there is no appreciation of the true reality, and the danger we are in because of our imperfect lives. In fact we are able to lower standards and accept these lower standards as acceptable, and this is what we are seeing in Britain today, where all sorts of practices are deemed acceptable, even though they were not deemed acceptable only a few number of years earlier. The fact is that we are in desperate danger. Far from being able to claim anything from God, we have no right to claim anything, and instead have built up a huge debt to God which we can not hope to pay off, and so the consequences of this debt hang over us all our lives, until the debt is called in at death, and we end up in the debtors prison of hell. If people are warned of this danger, they only deride it or abuse such an idea, and claim that such a view of God and righteousness is altogether unworthy of wisdom and what they feel is a true knowledge of God.

It is only when we see the debt we owe to God, and the danger we are in, and accept this as true, will we seek for a remedy, and this is where the law of God comes in; and this is where the law is so good and wholesome. Again we have to understand spiritual truth here properly. The law of itself will always be shrugged off by fallen humanity. Paul is speaking of the Law of God applied to our hearts and minds by the Holy Spirit, so that it comes with conviction and power.

THE LAW BRINGS DEATH.

When the law comes to us with conviction and power, it produces death. Paul has been dealing with this in the previous verses. He has been telling us that when the law is applied to our hearts and minds, our sinful and fallen nature rebels and retaliates and resists, and the consequence is that we sin all the more. The Law tells us we are doing wrong, and so we lust after that wrong all the more, and do the wrong more and more. Or if we are prevented by the penalty of the law from actually doing a wrong, we still lust after it and in our hearts desire to do it, and so we sin in our hearts and minds, which the law then warns us is sin just as much as the outward action.

The result of all this is that the law increases the sentence of death over us as it pronounces the condemnation against sin, and the sentence of death which is the penalty of a broken Law. So the more the law is applied, the more we sin against the Law, and so the more is the penalty of death enforced. So what is good, and holy - the Law of God - becomes a means of death. But as Paul has pointed out the fault is not with the law but with us and our sinful hearts.

THE BLESSING OF THE LAW.

It is true that we are only brought to our senses when we come to the end of our resources and find ourselves in a hopeless and dangerous situation. This is the good work of the Law of God.

When the Law of God is applied to our hearts and minds by the Holy Spirit, the Law helps us to appreciate the true nature of sin. Paul describes this in our verse by saying that the Law produces death in us "in order that sin might be recognised as sin" because it produces death.

a. Producing death.

When the Law of God is applied to our hearts by the Holy Spirit, we are made to understand and realise what sin is doing for us. Before the Holy Spirit applies the Law, we see the Law is against our sinning, but this is not perceived as any big deal; and because the sinning is pleasant to our flesh, we carry on doing it, and the only effect the Law has on us is to make us sin all the more. Things are different when the Holy Spirit takes a hand in the action of the Law. The Holy Spirit applies not only the precept of the Law but also the penalty. We are brought to realise that every sin committed has a penalty, and that the more sins we commit the more we increase the penalty, and that even one sin activates the penalty of death, and that more sins only increase the misery of death.

The Holy Spirit also causes us to appreciate the nature of the penalty. We appreciate that God hates the sins, and it is his wrath and justice that reacts against sin, and so the death we deserve and suffer on account of sin is to be under the condemnation, judgement and sentence of death of the judge of all the earth.

From this the Holy Spirit gives us some understanding of the awfulness of the death. We appreciate the nature of Hell and the endless misery that is the experience of all that find themselves there. We see and fear the awful misery described by the rich man who ended up in torment in hell, where his thirst could never be assuaged. We begin to appreciate that this thirst is not simply a physical thirst, but more particularly a thirst of the soul, where there is not happiness, and no satisfaction, and there is nothing that is good which can in any way quench the raging need in our soul.

b. Producing understanding of sin.

Paul goes on to show us that in this process, worked through the Law by the Holy Spirit, we are taught to appreciate what sin is truly and what it is really like. Paul tells us "through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful".

Here is our problem as fallen human beings. We just can't appreciate the true nature of sin. We do not see the evil of it, and the hatefulness of it, and the vileness of it. When the Law is applied by the Holy Spirit, we not only begin to see this concerning sin, by we appreciate that the smallest sin or failure is vile also and that there is no degree, really, when we come to tabulate sins. The smallest of sins in human understanding, has all the flavour and stink of the devil on it, as much as any perceived greater sin.

The Holy Spirit applies the Law of God so that we begin to see it as God sees sin, and we are caused to feel the horror of sin as God views it. It is like this, that before the Holy Spirit opens our eyes, we are like people who are walking though manure, but their sense of smell is missing, and it is dark so that people are unable to see what it is they are wallowing in. All that they know is the feel that is rather smooth and caressing, and in a way comforting. Then the Holy Spirit lightens the darkness and returns our sense of smell, and to our horror we see where we are, and what we are in, and where we are treading, and we are overwhelmed with disgust.

At this point the Holy Spirit does not show us the way out and all we see is a never ending swamp of filth we are in, and with no means for rescue from it. This is the good work of the Law. It brings us to understand the true nature of sin, and that we are helpless to save ourselves from it. It is when this work of the Holy Spirit has been truly done that the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to the Gospel.

THE GOOD WORK OF THE LAW.

In all this statement in the verse before us, the Apostle is simply seeking to show us how valuable the Law is to us, and what a good work it does. It can not save us. It can't help us out of the mire of our sin. It can only terrify us, when truly applied. But it does shake us out of complacency, and it does show us our helplessness. It does reveal to us the truth about human nature and our own characters. It does warn us that sin brings death and misery, and it is not the enjoyable thing we thought it was.

This is good because such a terrible revelation causes people to cry for help. We begin to cry to God in a way we never did before. We cry for mercy. We seek a rescue outside of ourselves. We cease to have any confidence in ourselves and our own merits. We cry in desperation, knowing we deserve nothing and it will only be grace, unmerited favour, that can save us.

This is a gracious and good work, for without it we would blindly travel on our way to Hell, and everlasting perdition.

CONCLUSION.

So we need to be freed from the Law by death in Christ, but this does not mean the Law is evil, nor does it mean that the Law does us no good. Without the Law there would be no true knowledge of sin, and so no one would seek Christ and salvation.

Further the Law remains good even after we are saved from it by Christ. For the Law not only gives the knowledge of sin, and but it gives the knowledge of righteousness, and so although we never trust in it for our acceptance before God, and our being accounted righteous by God, yet when in love we want to please the Saviour who has loved us so much, the Law is there as our guide to all that pleases God, and shows us the way we may live to please the Lord who has loved us so much.