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

"But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.”
Romans 7:8,9.

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IN this section of Romans Paul is intensely practical. He is drawing from his experience, enlightened by the Holy Spirit and informed by the Old Testament Scriptures as a whole, and telling us of the action of the Law of God in the life of a soul whom God is working on in love by the Holy Spirit. We need to appreciate this fact if we are to understand what the teaching is that Paul is giving us. If we are Christians we will have an empathy with what Paul is saying here in some measure, though the degree to which we felt this work of God varies.

The great reformer of the sixteenth century, Martyn Luther, spoke of this experience, which he knew in his life very vividly, as the Spirit's strange work. He could have said the Law's strange work. It is a work wrought by the Holy Spirit applying the Law of God to the soul, which is very painful, and can be very terrifying, but it is an action which is a blessing and and act of love by God, because without it we would never know our desperate plight and so never seek the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ.

THE ACTION OF THE LAW

Paul gives his experience which he found very disturbing. He had known the Law all his life, and been taught in it according to the theology of the Jews at the time, and taught more deeply than most. He had sought to keep the precepts of the Law meticulously, and succeeded to such an extent that he could say as he looked back over his life before he became a Christian that as far as the righteousness of the law was concerned, he was blameless. But this was before the Spirit of God had applied the Law to his heart in a true and real way. When the Spirit did such a work something dreadful and frightening happen.

Paul describes this experience in verse 8. He tells us as soon as the Law was applied by the Spirit to his mind and heart, sin went into action, and he found that far from the Law killing desire to sin, it seemed to excite him to sin more and more. The word 'covetous' used in our translation is better translated as 'lust', and speaks of all the strong and unmanageable desires within us, which cause us to do wrong and evil actions.

What is Paul speaking of when he speaks of sin here in his experience? As we saw in the last sermon, sin here is not just an expression of evil, but an expression of the state of the human heart as we are naturally in our human life. We have a bias and corruption towards evil and away from God. This is the fallen nature we have inherited through the sin of our first parent Adam. Most of the time this sin within lies reasonably dormant. We see its action in the many wrong things we do, and in the failure we have to live up even to our own standards, but this does not bother us, and we are able to believe that we have done quite well, and that we are good people, and that we have a right to expect God to be favourably inclined towards us.

However this complacency suffers a rood shock when the Law comes and is applied by the Holy Spirit. We find that we have a strong antipathy to the Law and want to resist it. We also find an anger towards the Law, because the Law of God exposes our complacency, and shows us that our supposed righteousness is not righteousness whatsoever. We are frightened because we find that there is within our souls lusts we never thought were present. These lusts have been stimulated in opposition to the Law applied to our hearts, and we see ourselves as we have never seen ourselves before. We are appalled at the evil of our hearts, with lusts and desires rising up which resists the holy Law of God. We also see how far short we have fallen from the glory of God, and the danger we are in. But worst of all we find that we resist the Law, and lust all the more because we find we love the lusts which the Law is condemning. We find this awful truth about ourselves as human beings, that we are not good but evil at heart, and want to be evil, and do not want to give up our lusts. This is what Paul is describing when he says here in verse 8 that sin took opportunity afforded by the commandment, and produced all manner of lusting within us.

THE RESULT OF THE LAW'S ACTION

So we see the truth of the next statement the Apostle makes. He says "For apart from the law, sin is dead". This describes the truth. Before the Law comes and is applied to our lives, our sinful nature lies dormant and is not aroused. Yes! we do wrong things, but these are hardly regarded. In fact many things we do not regard as sin, like selfishness, and greed, and carelessness of others, and pride, and justifying below standard actions because we want to do them, and so on. We are alive. We can imagine quite genuinely that we deserve the favour of God because we believe our lives are above average and worthy enough to merit reward from God. We have no problem is asserting that God will accept us into heaven when we die, though we are not entirely sure. We are alive or imagine we are alive.

Then the Law comes and produces a reaction in which we see that sin and evil is alive and not dead, that is that we are not righteous but evil, and far from hating this condition, we find within us that we like the sin which is being condemned by the Law, and we don't want to give it up. The more the Law of God condemns the sin, the more alive sin becomes, and resists the Law, and hates the Law, and hides from the Law.

This is the strange thing. Far from curbing sin the Law seems to have the opposite result. The Law seems to excite sin, and this is because this is what we are. We are sinful at heart, and so the Law is going against our very nature. The trouble is that the work of the Holy Spirit applying the Law excites also the remains of the image of God within us, and causes a conflict that is painful and upsetting.

DEATH THROUGH THE LAW

Paul then goes on to describe what follows from this result of the action of God's Law in our lives. He tells us that in his experience when the commandment came he died.

Paul is describing experience. It is what seems to be happening. The truth about all of us in our natural state, and specially if we are religious, is that we feel happy in our lives, and feel all is well with our souls, and that God is there for us and our lives merit his favour.

In the case of Paul it was a very real sense of being alive. He was a Jew of high pedigree. He was a Pharisee and one of the best. He kept the rules and duties of his religion so perfectly that he could say that in this respect he was perfect. Because of all this he truly felt that God was pleased with him, and that his life deserved and received from God great blessing, and as a Pharisee he believed in resurrection from the dead, and so he expected to enjoy everlasting bliss in heaven. In every sense he felt himself to be alive.

Of course this is not the truth, but this is what Paul felt, and which in varying degrees all feel, specially the religious. It is this innate sense in us all that we are justified before God by our works and that being good, as we perceive good, we have earned the favour and blessing of God. The truth is, in fact, quite different, because the perfection we perceive as sufficient to win life falls short by a very long way from the perfection which is truly required. God requires sinless perfection, which means that just one sin destroys all hope of life, and condemns the soul to death. However this is not perceived by us in our natural state until the Law of God is applied to our hearts and minds by the Spirit. Then things are different. Then we are put to death.

It is not that the Law that comes and kills us, but the fact that the Law reveals to us our true state, which is not that we are alive to God, but that we are dead. The Law reveals this to us by exposing what we are really like, that is exposes the sin within us. The Law does this because when it is powerfully applied to the soul it causes our true natures in sin to rise up and oppose the Law, and then we see the true state of our hearts. Far from being acceptable to God, we see ourselves as deep dyed sinners. This is what David found when the Law was applied to his heart and soul over his bad behaviour towards Uriah and his wife Bathsheba. He says in Psalm 51 "Surely I have been a sinner from birth, and sinful from the time my mother conceived me." So we die, or rather see that we are dead, and everlasting death is waiting for us.

We are only able to perceive that we are alive, when sin is not perceived to be our true nature. It is because we do not understand the corruption of our nature as we are naturally as human beings, that we can feel complaisant about ourselves, and feel that all is well. This is living in a dream that is not true, but it is the state of all before the Law of God is applied by the Spirit to the soul.

OUR NEED FOR THE LAW TO BE APPLIED TO OUR HEARTS

This shows us the blessing which the Law is in our lives and how much we need the Law applied by the Spirit. It is not a pleasant experience, and when it comes we fight it and resist it, but if we are brought truly low by the Law, and are brought to acknowledge the truth about our sin and corruption, it is a great blessing because then we see our need of salvation and are ripe for the Spirit to speak to us of Jesus and his saving love.

To a great extent the church today suffers by a dreadful curse and that is that the Law of God is not known in this fullest of senses, and so people do not appreciate their sinfulness and the corruption within. Because of this people are satisfied with a religion which can not save. They are satisfied with religious duties and religious feelings. These make people feel good and as if God is truly near, but their sense of life is dream, and this will fade away at last, and leave them lost and without hope.

However unpleasant it may be, and however unacceptable to the natural self within us all, the church needs to return to the expounding of the Law of God in its fulness. But this in itself is not enough and will only turn people off unless the Spirit of God is engaged in applying such preaching and teaching to our souls. Thus we need to be urgent in our prayers that God may send his Spirit amongst us to convict of sin, and righteousness and judgement, so that it is not the preacher who is telling us what we are like, but God himself.

We must not confuse the issue here. This work of God is nothing to do with many actions today within the church to resist what is felt to be evil in the church. This action looks at a particular issue; then sees where this issue is perhaps marring the image of the church, and so attacks and condemns in order to eradicate this evil. Whether such action is productive or counter productive, or whether such action is being judgements does not matter in regard to what Paul has opened up to us here. What we need to understand is that this application of the Law of God to our hearts by the Spirit, which is described by Paul in the verses before us, does not major on a particular issue, but is God exposing this inner corruption of our hearts. This may focus on a particular issue in an individual persons heart, but for each this will be different, because the manifestations of corruption in us all differs.

The work of God which is the truly blessed but painful work of the Spirit is a secret and inner work. We see its effect as people repent from the heart for what they are, and not so much for particular sins, those these are repented of too. It is a deep work which causes the soul to cry out to God for mercy, and a work which leads the soul to Christ who is revealed as our sinner bearer, and calls the soul to believe and receive Jesus. Then there is a glorious acceptance within of this salvation and a resting of the soul on the Saviour. This result is seen very much in the life, as praise and love of Jesus is seen in the life, and also a true humility of spirit, as we see our own righteousness as filthy rags in the sight of God.