Legalistic Bondage (Part 1)

The next portion of our daily study is best looked at as a unit. However to do so would take more time each day than every person has to commit to this study. So I will break it into several parts, but each part needs to be viewed as just one portion of the larger whole.

As we begin to move through chapter seven of the book of Romans we are embarking on one of the toughest journeys that one can make spiritually. It is so important that we understand what God is saying to us through the apostle Paul here in this passage, yet we can only understand it with much diligence, prayer, and meditation. If we fail to understand what Paul is saying here then we just might be missing the whole point of the Gospel, and why Jesus even came. With that being said I would like to remind you what God via Paul has said. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. Romans 7:5 Paul was a Pharisee of Pharisees, zealous for the things of God and for the observance of the law. (See Philippians 3:3-7) Even with all of this though he was still bearing fruit for death! This leads us to the verses I want to look closely at now.

What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet." But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. Romans 7:7-9

Are we to say that the law is bad and sinful? Like the apostle Paul we answer NO! The law is not sin, breaking the law is sin. If God had not given the law we would not know what sin was. When God gave the law though it did not bring life and salvation, but instead it brought death and further separation from God. How did this work? Paul would explain it like this – I would never have known what coveting, or desiring other people’s things was if the law had not told me not to. However once the law said that I should not covet I said ok, I won’t covet. But instead of being able to quit coveting I found out just how much I was coveting. The law did not make me covet more, it merely pointed out all of the places that I was already doing so.

You see apart from the knowledge the law brought sin was a dead thing that didn’t make any sense, but once I had knowledge of the law I saw sin as the deadly poison it was, and I withered under its weight and inwardly died. Does this mean that the law is bad and that we should not abstain from sinning? No that is not what it means, but it does mean that we need to redefine in our own minds what the law is for.

Dear God,
Help me to understand your word. Open my mind and heart to hear your voice. May I meditate day and night on your precepts and your glorious works and ways. May you be my hearts cry. Amen!