Lorenzo Palon

“What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? Far from it! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “YOU SHALL NOT COVET.” But sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me [m]coveting of every kind; for apart [n]from the Law sin is dead.  –  Romans 7:7-8 (NASB)

Here is another rhetorical question; another diatribe that Paul uses. In Galatians chapter 3, verses 24 through 27, we learn that the purpose of the Law in a sense was to show man his sinfulness. It was to prick man’s conscience as to his need. It was to prepare a vacuum in the life of every human being that only God could fill. The Sermon on the Mount, I think, has that same kind of function. So, here we see the purpose of the Law was to bring men to Christ; “I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “YOU SHALL NOT COVET”, Paul says. I think what really got Paul was that ‘coveting’ had really something to do with a mental quality of wanting what someone else had. It’s obvious to me that we’re talking about Paul’s life. Now, some would say that the time he did not know the Law was when he was a child, but when he reached the age of 13, when he went through his bar mitzvah, and became responsible to the Law, that that was the period he’s talking about. Others would say, no, it’s his period as a young rabbi; very committed in keeping all the Mosaic laws of his day, and his culture was he responsible for. In fact, in Philippians 3, he says, ‘I kept all the law from my youth’, but suddenly, I think it was the sermon of Stephen, and the death of Stephen in Acts chapter 7 that brought to Paul’s (then Saul) mind, this wonderful message about God’s love for all men through the Messiah. And I think from that point on, Paul began to have a terrible inner struggle about what he had always been taught, and about this new revelation that was coming to him from Jesus of Nazareth.

Verse 8: “But sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead.” – this word ‘taking an opportunity’ is a word for a base of military operations; it’s that little point where an invasion force gets a foothold on the land it’s trying to invade. And Paul says, ‘this one little desire awakened in me all kinds of evil thoughts and desires. You know, it’s just really true that when someone tells us not to do it, it makes all the more desirous for us to do it. Have you found out that to be true to your experience as well? When someone says you can’t go in that street, and you never thought about going in that street anyway, but suddenly, just because they told you, you can’t go in that street, your interest is aroused, and go in that street and find out what’s in that street. There’s something in us that rebels against any authority, and it’s called SIN. And the very fact that Paul saw he shouldn’t do this, it made him want to do it all the more. “for apart from the Law sin is dead. I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin came to life, and I died; (vs. 9) – Leviticus 18:5 says that ‘if you keep the Lord’s commands, you will live.’ It’s a great promise. The Law was meant to be good; it was meant to be life. God gave the Old Testament, not because He wanted us to have a bad life, He wanted us to have a good life. God knew, with our fallenness, that if He did not put some boundaries on us, we would destroy each other. So, God put some fences and says, ‘for your happiness and for your well-being, stay in the fences. And man said, ‘not in your life. I’m free. I don’t respect these fences.’ And so, that what was meant to give us life, it killed us. “Sin came to life, and I died”. “For sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it, killed me” (vs. 11) – this is exactly the same word in the Septuagint where Eve was ‘deceived’ by the serpent. ‘It deceived me and killed me’. So, the Law in itself is holy, and its specific commands are holy, and right, and good. And Paul kind of sums up and says, ‘I’m guilty as a rabbi trying to do everything I found in my mind, a lust toward what others had, be it their position, be it their wealth, be it their knowledge’. Paul says, ‘I coveted what others had. And suddenly I realized that I was not right with God. Now, if that’s true that’s Paul past before he came to Christ, and if that’s true that verses 14 and following is Paul as a believer, then what does this have to say to us? It’s so embarrassing to have to talk about this. But it’s so important that we do. I believe with all my heart that this chapter refers to Paul as a saved individual. And what bothers me is that we, we act as if everything is okay. And we’re doing so well. And we think we have our life under control. But the truth of Romans 7 is that no one has his life under control. Yes, we are free from the power of sin; that’s what verse 6 says, that we’ve been freed. But God help us, we’re like the hog that returns to its sty, and like the dog that returns to its vomit, you and I return to sin. We’re addicts to sin, and we’re destroying ourselves. We’re claiming spirituality, but all the while we wear this façade. We’re so afraid to admit that we have problems, but the truth is, every one of us has problems with sin. We do believe we have been forgiven of sin, but why is there such a struggle with sin? I think we can put it this way: it’s one thing to be saved and to know the grace of God in the forgiveness of sin, but it is quite another thing to know the grace of God in victory over sin. Perhaps, the struggle with sin helps us to know that though we’ve been freed from the penalty of sin, but none of us are free from the presence of sin in this fallen world until we stand before God, wrapped in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Amen!