The Nature of Law and the Nature of Sin

Having argued that we are dead to sin and law, and that we cannot go on sinning so that grace may abound, Paul now tries to define sin and explain its hold on us in Romans 7:7-13.

Having shown that we are not under the law, the natural question that would then arise is, is the law sin, which should be avoided like plague? Paul’s argument is that the law is not sin, but it has a useful purpose, that is, we come to know what sin is only through the law. Verse 7.

Law is not equivalent to sin, but apart from the law, sin is dead. We become conscious of sin only through the law. Romans 3:20. Paul goes on to give an illustration. The law lays down, “Do not covet.” Exodus 20:17 and Deuteronomy 5:21. Because the law said so, we come to know that coveting is a sin. Earlier, when there was no law, one did not realize that coveting was wrong. This knowledge about a sin is imparted by the law. Verse 8.

Paul now shows that sin, seizing the opportunity given by the commandment, produced in people all kind of covetous desire. Human nature is to do the forbidden thing. For example, a small child told not to touch a thing, would immediately try to touch it. Forbidden fruits are always tempting and appear sweeter.

In his book Confession, St. Augustine narrates an event. He and his friends as young boys, used to steal pear fruits in a neighbouring garden, not to eat them, but to throw them to the pigs. It was the pleasure of the forbidden act that attracted them to do the stealing, knowing fully well that it was a wrong thing to do. It was the pleasure of acting against the law, with impunity, that made them commit such an act.[1]

The desire to steal was aroused simply by the prohibition of stealing. The command not to steal gave an impulse to sin, to covert the forbidden.

Similar thing happened in the Garden of Eden. God had laid the rule that Adam and Eve shall not eat the fruit of Knowledge of good and evil. The command incited their curiosity. Well, ‘curiosity killed the cat,’ and so when Satan tempted, they yielded and committed the sin and died spiritually. The serpent beguiled them. Because it was forbidden, the fruit became desirable. ‘Adam was seduced into sin by the forbidden fruit.’[2]

Before the law was given, one was not aware of sin, but once the commandment came, sin sprang to life, became active and seduced the person and he/she died. A small child is unaware of right and wrong. The child simply cries to get what it wants. This is before the baby became mature.

Once the child grows into an adolescent, restrictions start appearing and the tendency is to break it and rebel against it. Sin of disobedience springs and he/she dies, because as per Romans 6:23, the wages of sin is death. Verse 9.

 The very commandment which was meant for our good, actually brought death. ‘Do not covert,’ is a good command, but it brought death in us, as it created a desire in us to do the very wrong thing it tried to prevent. Verse 10.

Through the same law sin gains entry into a man. This it does in two ways. One, the law defines sin. A grown-up person ought to know what is right and wrong and has fairly a good knowledge about what constitutes sin. Second, the fascination for the forbidden thing makes it desirable to break the law. In that sense law produced sin. That way it brought ultimately death.

The commandment offered an opportunity to sin, and taking advantage of this, sin deceived a person, and through the very commandment, which was meant to bring good to the person, it brought his death. Verse 11. We needed law to define sin, but sin took a good thing, the law, and twisted it into something that served the ends of evil. Sin is that bad and treacherous.

So, Paul asserts that the law is holy, and the commandments given there on are holy, righteous and good. There is nothing wrong or evil in the law itself. It is righteous and good and holy. It is sin that twisted the whole operation of the law. Verse 12. The Law represented an objective moral ideal, and thus is good and holy. Law is definitely not sin.

Paul is asking, did the law which was supposed to be good, brought death to us? He replies in the negative. What happened was, sin had to be recognized as sin, defined as sin and the law did that. But sin being what it is, produced death in us, through something that was good. It just showed the terrible nature of sin, which could thus use a good command to produce something horrible as death. Verse 13.

Thus, law reveals sin, it provokes sin and results in death, while offering no help to get out of such a situation. Law is only a warning in that it makes people realize they are sinners. More than that it cannot do anything.

To get out of the iron grip of sin, we need more than the law; we need grace and the sacrificial death of God’s very Son, faith in whom alone would save us from the horrible and deadly sin.

More about that in the next blog.

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[1] C.H. Dodd, The Epistle of Paul to the Romans, Fontana Books, Great Britain, 1959, p.127.

[2] The Daily Study Bible: The Letter to the Romans, William Barclay, Saint Andrew Press, Scotland, Rev. ed., 1975, reprint 1992, p. 96.

Marriage as an Illustration for Deliverance from Law

Having given water baptism and slavery as illustrations to demolish the argument that we cannot go on sinning so that grace may abound, Paul now gives as the third illustration the concept of marriage in Romans chapter 7, verses 1 to 6. He is also arguing his case that it is no longer possible for us to be under the Law.

Under the Law, the wife is under the obligation of remaining with the husband to whom she is married to only as long as he lives. Once he dies, she is set free and her obligation to the dead husband is set aside and she is now free to marry another person and continue her life. But, if the woman marries another man while her legally married husband is alive, then she is called an adulteress. Death of her husband sets her free to marry another. Death cancels the contract.

This law of marriage is clearly laid in the Old Testament and reiterated by Jesus in Matthew 19:9. He categorically states there “anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness and marries another woman commits adultery.” In Luke 16:18, he further qualifies this by stating, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

The idea is whom God has joined together, let man not separate. Matthew 19:6. When God created the institution of marriage, the command was that they will leave their father and mother and be united with each other and become one flesh. Genesis 2:24. When it is so, to marry another person would be equivalent to committing adultery, which is prohibited under the Law. Law says, “Do not commit adultery.” Exodus 20:14.

However, once the partner dies, the contract is cancelled and the surviving person is permitted to marry any one he or she wishes. According to Deuteronomy 25:5, if a man dies without a son, and if he has brothers, the widow must not marry outside the family. That is mainly to keep up the family line of the dead man, for the first child born to the widow and the brother of the dead man would bear the name of the dead man – levirate marriage

That also means on the death of the husband a woman can marry again. Paul later in 1 Corinthians 7:8-9 and 1 Timothy 5:14, encourages widows to remarry. The point of emphasis here is a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but once he dies, she is released from the law of marriage. Verse 1, 2.  

When her husband is alive, if she marries another person, she is counted as an adulteress, but if she marries another person after the death of her husband, she is not considered as an adulteress, but it would become a legal marriage. This is so because she is released from the obligations of the Law. The contract binding her to her husband is broken by his death and she is set free to marry another man. Verse 3.

Similarly, Paul says, we died to the Law through the body of Christ. Through the broken body of Christ on the cross, we have been released from bondage to Law. When Christ died on the cross, we also died to the Law. We have been set free, so that we can belong to another, to Christ who has been raised to life. We can now belong to Christ who is alive, because we also live in Him. Verse 4.

 The fruit of this union of us with Christ is to life and to serve the Lord God. We bear fruit to God. If fruit of law is sin leading to death, the fruit of this union with Christ is life and service to God.

Thus, a person who was wedded to Law, by death to the Law, marries another, that is Christ. A Christian is dead to the Law. And death puts an end to all obligations. We are no longer obliged to law and sin to follow their dictates. Yes, it is to the living husband that the wife belongs.

Before our conversion, when we were controlled by the sinful nature of the body, sinful passions were at work in our bodies, and we bore fruit for death. We brought in deeds that led us to our spiritual death. Verse 5. The Law would include keeping up ritual rules and traditions and customs of the church and Christianity.

Being regular in attending the church, giving charity, organizing fasts, festivals, feeding people, etc., are all good in themselves, but would be only works and law. We cannot buy our salvation through any of these. Neither can we earn our way to God through these meritorious services. These are just the external code and will not get us the approval of God.

On the cross Christ met the demands of the law and paid it with his very own life, releasing us from bondage to sin and death. Faith in this act of Christ alone will save us from our fallen nature and bring us close to God.

We have died to sin and death through the broken body of Christ. By dying to our sinful nature and the law which induced it, we are no longer bound to it, but are released from it. This helps us to live in the new way of life, a life controlled by the Spirit and not the written code, the Law. Verse 6.

In being married to the new husband, Christ, it is not the law, but love for Christ and love for other will rule the life of such a person.

In the final analysis, the principle of a holy life and a saved life is not obedience to the law, but union with the risen Christ.

Are you dead to the law? Or are you still bound to sin and death?

Are you alive with the resurrected Christ? Are you liberated from sin and death?

To whom do you belong? To the old nature or the new nature through Jesus Christ?

Answer to these will decide where you spend eternity. 

To whom are you a slave?

When someone asks, to whom are you a slave, the immediate and indignant reply of a de-colonized citizen of the Developing World would be, ‘To no one, of course.’

Paul is asking the question in a century when slavery was the normal course of life. Roman Empire thrived on slaves. There were slaves slogging and sweating in the underground chambers to heat up the water, so that in the communal bath on the ground floor above, the rich and the aristocrats could have their most relaxing bath of the day.

Paul is answering the twisted argument raised by some in the church, why not go on sinning since we have a merciful God, ready to forgive our sins. Paul gave the illustration of baptism to prove this argument wrong in Rom.6:1-14. Here in Rom.6:15-23, Paul is using another illustration, that of slavery, to argue his case.

Basically, Paul’s premise is “through faith in Christ a man passes from the sinful order into a new order of life in which sin has no place.”

When a person offers himself or herself to someone to obey him or her as slaves, one becomes a slave to the one whom he or she obeys. Paul’s question is whether “you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness.” Verse 16.

A slave would totally belong to his/her master, unlike a servant who can be free after his/her working hours. Slaves were not even paid, except being maintained. Entire allegiance and exclusive obedience are expected from a slave. He belongs to his master, master’s property.

Remember Jesus’ words, no one can serve two masters? Matthew 6:24. Total loyalty is demanded. Same is true of marriage and the relationship between husband and wife. So also, is expected in apprenticeship under a skilled master. You are either God’s slave or slave of the world and its lust, and hence the slave of sin. The former leads to righteousness and the latter to death.

Paul, says once the followers of Christ were slaves of sin, but no longer, because they wholeheartedly have obeyed the teaching of the apostles, which is the Gospel or the Good News. Verse 17. Though we all inherited sinful nature from Adam in our flesh, on conversion, by accepting Christ in faith, there is a swapping of the owners of the slave, from one master to another.

When Paul says obey wholeheartedly, it means to love the Lord with all our heart, and with all our soul and with all our mind. Matthew 22:37. A Christian is one who has given complete control of his life to Christ. We cannot give one part of our life to Christ and another to the world. It is all for God or nothing. There is no neutral ground here.

Followers of Christ, according to Paul, have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. Verse 18. Once we were slaves to sin, but now we are slaves to righteousness. We are transferring our allegiances from sin to righteousness; from Satan to Christ. We have a different Master now and need to live accordingly.

So, Paul’s command is, just as the believers before conversion, gave themselves in slavery to impurity and wickedness, now that they have got a new Master, should offer themselves in slavery to righteousness, which would lead to holiness. Verse 19.

There has been the transfer of the slave to serve under a different master, which demands a transfer of allegiance too. A Christian is not someone who can never sin, but we are not under slavery to sin. We have been redeemed. We belong to God and His kingdom.

The Roman world of Paul’s time was steeped in vies, not unlike today’s Western world. Moral depravity was and is the order of the day. Not that other parts of the world are any better, but the leaders are those who wield supreme political power in the world. Such cultures probably seem to think that there is no one to question them. Others emulate them.

However, the new life in Christ is entirely different. It is a life given to righteousness. It is having the right relationship with God and human beings. It is a life that will lead to holiness. The process is called sanctification, that which leads us to holiness. It has to be seen in our everyday life.

We don’t become holy the day we accept Christ as our Saviour. It is a struggle that we will face as long as we are in flesh, living in the world. But we are on the road to holiness, to be transformed like Christ, by the work of the Holy Spirit, who resides in us. The direction of our life is set. There is no altering that.  

When people were slaves to sin, they were free from the demands of righteousness. But of what use was that freedom? Was it of any benefit? The things one did while being unsaved, one will blush to even recall after being saved. Aren’t we ashamed of what we did when we were not saved? Not only we did not gain anything by such conduct, but, in Paul’s categorical verdict, it would only condemn us to death. Verses 20, 21.

Paul now comes to the transformed life of the believers. After accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as our Master, we have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God. The benefit we would reap by this is a life that leads to holiness, which will result in eternal life. Verse22.

From death, we have passed on to life. From being slaves to sin, we have accepted Jesus Christ as our Master. We are no longer slaves to sin but are slaves to Christ and His righteousness. We have gained a life leading to holiness which would result in eternal life for us.

Paul concludes the chapter with a very poignant remark: wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ. Verse 23. There are two options before us; one is to lead a sinful life and face death; not just physical death but eternal death. For ever. The other is to follow Christ and accept the gift of eternal life that is guaranteed in Christ.

Sin offers wages, but God gives us a gift. A gift is never earned, but a wage is earned. So, do we work hard, indulge in sin and earn death and doom or do we accept Christ as our Master and receive the loving gift that He would give us, eternal life – that is the life-threatening or life giving question Paul is asking his readers in Roman church.

Same question faces us also. What would it be? Sin and death or Christ and eternal life? None of us can be righteous on our own strength, neither can we earn eternal life by leading a meritorious life. It is by pure grace of God that we get eternal life as a gift. We do not merit it, but grace of God offers it to us in His Son Jesus Christ.

When we count the cost God had to incur to buy our redemption from sin and death, by offering the supreme sacrifice of His Son’s life on earth, we will not argue that because of God’s grace let’s continue in sin.

Yes, Lord is merciful and will forgive our sins, but not wilful disobedience. That is equivalent to crucifying Christ again on the cross. Let us not commit such a crime, for which there will be no pardon, but just punishment.

God’s grace be upon us.

Dead to Sin but Alive to God

The argument of Paul is a sinner is justified and declared ‘not guilty’ by the grace of God. The question is if forgiveness and justification are so easy and grace abounds where sin abounds, then why not go on sinning, so that grace also may increase?

This misunderstanding is what Paul is trying to clear in the first section of Chapter 6, from verses 1 to 14. This misunderstanding was hinted upon and condemned by Paul at Rom.3:7-8, “Let us do evil that good may result?” Such an attitude would be to take advantage of God’s goodness. Paul analyses this misunderstanding by taking first the rite of baptism. 

 

God’s grace is abundant and sin is forgiven, but it does not make sin any less serious. Jesus had to die a gruesome death on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. That was the price sin extracted. It is not something to be fooled around.

Paul’s stand is we have died to sin and hence we cannot go on living in it any longer. Paul takes up water baptism to show we are dead to sin. According to him, when we are baptized into Christ Jesus, we are baptized into his death.

During Paul’s time, in the first century AD, the church had only full immersion baptism. Baptism, as is today also, a public proclamation that the new believer has taken Christ as his or her Saviour, in the presence of the church as a witness. Thereafter the person is admitted into the Body of Christ, the church. As such it is an important sacrament and one ordained by the Lord. Matthew 28:19.

When we went under the water during baptism, it is symbolic of the fact that we were buried with Christ into death. Our old self was buried, along with sin and our sinful nature. But the bright point is we also arise victoriously with Christ from death just like He rose from death in His resurrection, to a sinless life, a new and victorious life in Christ.  

Immersion in water during baptism is a burial and emerging from the water after baptism is a resurrection. Paul’s view is, if we are united in Christ in death through baptism, then we are also united with Him in His resurrection. One follows the other.

This formula is also the “Christ-mysticism” of Paul. Whoever is baptised is baptised into Christ and that person is ‘in Christ.’ It is not an Eastern mysticism where the bakt or the devotee enters ecstasy, losing senses and experience merger with the object of devotion.

It is an act of being included in the ‘corporate personality’ of Christ, which is manifest in the church. It includes an active fellowship with the other believers in the church, which is the body of Christ.

Paul’s argument is our old sinful self has been crucified with Jesus Christ on the cross and then buried along with Him. This meant the body with tendency to sin has been done away with. We can no longer sin or no longer want to sin. We are no longer slaves to sin. We are not under the influence and control of sin, but have overcome sin. The power of sin over us is broken. 

The exhilarating news is, if we died with Christ, we will also live with Him. When Christ rose from death, he won a victory over death and provided us also a hope that we will also be raised from death. This is the assurance of eternal life, which we received on the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Christ rose from His grave on the third day, raised by the power of God. He can no longer die; He died once and for all for sin of the world and now that he is resurrected, he lives his life for God. Death has no hold or mastery over him. He defied death and rose victoriously against it.  

Similarly, we are also dead to sin but are alive to God in Christ Jesus. The cycle of death that reigned from the time of Adam to Moses is broken and we have the assurance of eternal life. Death has been conquered, so also sin.

This was accomplished by Jesus Christ, who while he was in flesh, though tempted, never succumbed to sin; by obedience to God unto death, He won a victory over the sinful nature of mankind. Phil.2:8.

Since we are dead to sin, let there be no misunderstanding regarding sin. We can no longer go on sinning, since we are once and for all, dead to sin. We are alive to God in Christ. By the help of the Holy Spirit indwelling us, we are given a new start and a new life.

The doubt persists in our minds, where are the believers sinless? The most devoted man is still in flesh and is still fallible. But with the help of the Holy Spirit, it is still possible to lead a sinless and victorious life on earth. It is Jesus who has won the victory over sin and it is ours to claim.

We need to orient our minds toward such a sinless life. We must refuse to let sin reign in our bodies or to obey its evil desires. We need to appropriate what Christ did for us on the cross; He broke the hold of sin on human race. He won a victory over sin and death. This we need to appropriate in our lives.

Instead of offering the parts of our bodies to sin as instruments of wickedness, Paul is exhorting us to offer the parts of our bodies to God as instruments of righteousness.

The seat of sin is the body, the flesh; it emanates as illegal sexual desires, boasting, covetousness, desire after power, money, position and authority; seeking vengeance and so on. These are the natural instincts of the human body and human nature. Paul’s advice is not to yield to these tendencies, since we are dead to sin, but turn to God to live a life worthy of godly standards. God calls each one of us, “Be holy for I, your Lord God, am Holy.” Leviticus 19:2.  

Sin is not to be our master, because we are no longer under Law, but under grace, says Paul. Law does not give us the power to resist and win over sin; but grace does. With this Paul concludes his first analysis of sin and the misunderstanding that we can sin more as grace abounds.

Grace of God let God’s Son be sacrificed for our sins and apply the victory He won over sin and death to us. Especially as we got buried in baptism with Christ and got resurrected along with Jesus Christ. Grace showered on the believers the Holy Spirit, who gives us victory over sin.

We are lifted above the sinful nature of our flesh and given the taste of the sinless nature of Christ as we appropriate this nature from what Christ had done for us on the cross.  

Hallelujah! 

Death and Life, Ruin and Rescue

In Romans 5:12 to 21 Paul deals with how sin entered the human world through the mistake of one man and how remedy also came by one Man. It is an important concept to behold.

Sin entered the world through one man, Adam and on its heels, came death as a punishment for sin. This came to every one of human race because all have sinned. This thinking is basically the Jewish concept of human solidarity. According to this, the moral unit in the world is not an individual, but the whole community.

When Achan broke the law to covert and hide enticing treasures from the Jericho, the entire Israel faced the wrath of God and got defeated in the battle for Ai. It was a corporate responsibility. Only after Achan and his whole family with his cattle and sheep and his belongings were destroyed by fire, did the sin was pardoned and they could win Ai. Joshua 7:20-26.

Similarly, when the first man Adam sinned, the whole human race got affected. One can ask why God should be so unreasonable as to punish the whole human race for the sin of one man? Genesis 2:17. But in Adam’s fall everyone fell. One can say that our DNA got mutated for ever at that juncture and our genetic composition changed, with a tendency to sin being incorporated.

It is this concept of human solidarity coming into play, when Paul depicts Adam as the representative of the whole human race. Moreover, every one of us sin, due to both heredity and environment, and thus death comes to all of us, because of this universal lapse on our part. Paul has already said in Romans 3:23 that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

The punishment for sin is death. Romans 6:23 says ‘the wages of sin is death.’ Again, it is the corporate punishment, covering the entire human race. Verse 12. Paul continues his argument to say that there was sin before the coming of the Law, but it was not considered as sin, because there was no law. But people still died, not for contravening the law, but because of Adam’s sin. Their sins were not as great as that of Adam’s, still they died. All men sinned in Adam.

We need to understand here that Law was given to Israel and through them to the whole world, to point out our sin, to show what is right and wrong and to place the responsibility of contravening the Law on our shoulders. That should drive people to God to seek forgiveness. Law itself does not contain any remedy for sin. Adam is also a pattern of the one to come, that is, Jesus Christ.

Then, in due time, a gift from heaven came about. Gift was not like the trespass or sin. It was different. Many died due to the sin of one man, Adam, but the gift that came due to God’s grace, in the form of Jesus Christ, overflow to many.

Adam is the representative of the created humanity, in which we are all part of, with the tendency to sin and face death. Jesus Christ became the representative of the spiritual humanity, that is created by sinners accepting the gift of salvation offered by Christ, a renewed humanity. John 1:12, 13. Verse 15.

The difference between the gift and the sin is that, because of sin, judgment of God came and condemnation followed, consigning us to death. Gift covered the sins of many and brought in their justification, before the eyes of God and gave them eternal life. Verse 16.

Paul again clarifies the difference between sin and the gift, which came through Adam and Christ respectively. By the sin of one man, Adam, death reigned through that one man. Death ruled the roost. On the contrary, by the gift of righteousness through one Man Jesus Christ, which was offered to humanity because of God’s abundant provision of grace, life reigns in us.

In sin through Adam, death reigned; in righteousness through Christ, life reigns. Verse 17. That makes all the difference.

Adam --- man ---              sin                   --- death --- physical death

Christ --- Man --- gift of righteousness --- life     --- spiritual life

In Christ, we receive the power to win over sin and its power over us and escape eternal death. In John 5:24, John gives Jesus’s words, “whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.” Yes, He is the only way and the truth and the life. No one can come to the Father except through him. John 14:6.

Paul now clinches the final argument in verses 18 and 19. Just as the result of one sin was condemnation for all men, which brought them all death, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification for all men who believed in Christ, bringing them all life.

The disobedience of one man Adam made many men sinners. Similarly, the obedience of one Man Christ, made many men righteous. Jesus obeyed and humbled himself even unto his death on the cross. Philippians 2:8.

This is the obedience which negated the results of the disobedience of Adam in the Garden of Eden. This act of obedience on the part of Jesus will also be the act, which will bring us back to the Garden of Eden, from where man was driven out because of his disobedience.

That is what it took for God to provide for the rescue of humanity – obedience of Christ unto his death on the cross. Do we grasp the significance of this enormous sacrifice by Christ for our sake?

Law was given to make us aware of our sins. It looks as if sin increased after the law, only because it made people to know a sin when they committed it. When you tell a child not to touch a thing, the child will forthwith go and touch the very thing forbidden to touch. That is human nature. When the law says do not do it, people contravened and did it anyhow. Law in itself had no power to offer to people not to sin. Verse 20

On the other hand, grace increased much more wherever sin abounded. Sin reigned in death, but grace reigned in life. Jesus lifted us above the law and gave us the strength not to offend God by our sins and to inherit eternal life. We in ourselves do not have the strength not to sin, neither does the law give us that strength. Verse 21

Only the grace of God, through which we received Christ’s righteousness, can give us victory over our sinful nature, by empowering us through the Holy Spirit, who indwells us, the believers. Even if we fall, we fall straight into the loving arms of Christ, who will catch us and steady our feet in righteousness.

Moses beautifully puts this across in Deuteronomy 33:27, “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” His arms are not short that He cannot catch us when we fall and steady us. We need just to trust in Him.

We were in Adam, but now we are in Christ; we do not belong to the race of Adam any longer, but we are born into a new race, the race of the redeemed people and a new family, the family of God.

All praise and glory be to God and his Son Jesus Christ, for this glorious future of ours and the gift of eternal life.

Amen.