Romans 7:7-13

The Law and Sin
7 What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "You shall not covet." [b] 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from the 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.


Dig Deeper
When I was teaching high school in the inner city, before going into the ministry, we had a staff meeting one day when we decided to open up lunchtime. This meant that students could go out and go to restaurants or go home for lunch and did not have to stay in the school building or even on school grounds. The new rule was designed to give freedom to students who wanted the opportunity to go out and enjoy food other than the horrible food that was provided by the school district or even to have a few minutes to relax at home before coming back to school. It was a good thing but what we found out was that many of the students began to misuse the freedom that they were given during this open lunch period. As teachers, we had mostly thought of the good things that they could do with this thirty or so minutes but because of where the minds of the students were at, they began to do some things quite out of the realm of what we had ever envisioned. Many of the students used to opportunity to go to their own or a friends house but so as to get high rather than grab a bite to eat. That became a standard problem but one year things got much worse. In short, some students had created a fight club of sorts at a park a few blocks away where students would go and fight during the lunch period. Because of the condition of their hearts and minds, they took something that was good, in and of itself, the open lunch, and made it seem bad. In fact, you could argue that the open lunch aroused what was in them already, inducing them to these sorts of behaviors that they never would have otherwise taken during lunchtime. Thus, the good policy of open lunchtime worked together with their evil hearts to increase their evil and create situations that were expressly against the kind of behavior called for in our school.

Paul has alluded, throughout his letter, to the role that the law played in Israel and particularly its connection and role with sin and death. He made such a connection between the two in 5:20 and 7:5 that he now has to answer the question, is the law sinful. Is the law synonymous with sin and does it, in itself, have evil purposes. This is position that has been taken at various times throughout history. It’s a position that we now called Marcionism, based on Marcion, a 2nd century heretic that taught that the law and the Old Testament were completely un-useful for Christians and that the God of the Old Testament was a different and somewhat malevolent God compared to the God of the New Testament. Paul will have none of that line of thinking. He will not play into a Gentile audience or give any fuel to a movement that, once they have thrown off the realization that they are bound to the Jewish law as Christians, might go overboard and completely reject the role of the law in the history of the covenant people. Paul will carefully explain that the problem wasn’t with the law but with Israel itself and the way that it used and abused the law.

Before we proceed any further, we have to ask, because it will become quite important throughout the remainder of the chapter, who is Paul talking about here? In other words, who is the “I” of this chapter. That will come up again later because Paul will use a double “I” in a similar way that he used a double “you” in the previous section. Without the space to go into all of the arguments concerning this point, it will have to suffice it say that it is unlikely that Paul’s “I” is referring to himself. He has been systematically arguing the role of Israel as he re-tells the narrative of the Exodus and how it relates to the new exodus, the new humanity, and where that leaves ethnic Israel. It would not seem to flow with Paul’s line of argument to suddenly break in with his own personal story. Rather Paul is using a fairly common technique of his day which was to use the first person singular when they wanted to apply things to a more general group, similar to the way we use the word “we” to do the same thing. Paul’s “I” then refers to Israel. He has likely carefully chosen that term rather than they or simply referring to Israel so as not to appear that he, as a Jew, is trying to exclude himself or make himself appear to be better than his fellow countrymen.

In the last chapter Paul began the narrative of the new exodus through the language and imagery of the escape from the slavery of Egypt and the journey through the Red Sea. Now he moves his narrative into Mt. Sinai where Israel first received the law. But, while his current narrative echoes the incidents in Mt. Sinai, the incidents in Mt. Sinai echo even older incidents in the Garden of Eden. It was in Sinai when Israel was given the law just as it was in Eden where Adam and Eve were given God’s command. In both cases, the choice was between obedience and life or disobedience and death.

The law is not, Paul has firmly declared, sinful in any way. The law was not the source of sin nor is it identical with sin. It was the hole in the wall through which the torrent of sin came rushing. Paul is not claiming that one cannot sin or rebel against God without the law, he has already made quite clear that that is not the case. His point is that there is a difference between sin and the willful trespassing of a known command. When he says that sin was dead apart from the law we must keep 5:13-14 in mind. It’s not that sin doesn’t exist where there is no law but it doesn’t have the power and life that it has where the law provides the opportunity for intentional disobedience. Paul likely has one eye here on Adam’s original breaking of God’s command but also alludes to Israel who were in the throes of covetous and idolatrous behavior at the very moment that Moses descended from Mt. Sinai to give them the law.

At one time, before the law came to Adam or to the corporate people of God, they were alive but when the law came it exposed the sin and rebellion that were lying in wait in the form of their free will. The promise of the law was always life to those who obeyed it but death to those who disobeyed: “See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live ” (Deut. 30:15-18).

But it goes back farther than Israel. When they failed to obey God’s will, they were mimicking Adam. God gave Adam the tree of life but once the command came, sin sprang to life in Adam and the result was death. In both cases, the good intent of the law, if obeyed, was to bring life but it brought death because of sin. Sin took the opportunity given by the law and used it, as theologian Tom Wright terms it, “Its base of operations.” Certainly physical death was involved but for Adam the “death” in the present age was exile from the Garden of Eden and for Israel, as it continued to echo Adam’s failures, they were exiled from the promised land.
Paul confirms that the law is holy, righteous, and good. He exonerates the law from guilt while at the same time showing that it could not bring life but death. Gentiles who might be tempted to now completely reject the Judaism that they likely had some kind of connection to before becoming Christians, should not go that route, though. To completely label the law as evil would be to rip up the roots of the tree that they were sitting on. God’s covenant with Israel and the role that his commands, his law, played in the life of Adam and Israel was no mistake. But if the law could not defeat sin and could not bring life then what could? Paul will turn to that soon but he still has a bit more to say about the role of the law.


Devotional Thought
Do you truly see the potent danger inherent in sin if we do not take advantage of the life of Christ and completely die and stay crucified to sin? Take some time to consider the fact that sin is diametrically opposed to God’s purposes in the world and in our lives. What happens when we return to sin which we have died to?