Romans 7:7-12 (ESV)
The Law and Sin
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. For 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. For 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. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
What’s the deal with sin? How did it start in man’s life? What is the connection of sin and the “law?” How do we defeat it?
The above passage is Paul’s answer to those questions. When Paul refers to the “law” in the above passage he is speaking of all of God’s commandments, not just the Law given by God to Moses. He is also referring to the commandment given to Adam and Eve, the first commandment ever given in the Bible. Before that commandment (to not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil), sin was dormant in man. It was, as one commentary states, in a “latent” condition (hidden, not yet developed). Man had a sense of blissful ignorance. Sin was in him, but he neither knew its existence or the wickedness of it power. Like a pool of gasoline it sat in his heart, simply waiting to either be consumed by the nature of God and give man freedom, or to be ignited in order to burn him to death. The Serpent, wanting to destroy man, had no ability to ignite the gasoline until this message from God:
Genesis 2:15-17 (ESV)
The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
The spark that would have come from God to consume the gasoline and set man free was instead a match from Satan to consume man. The law was not wrong but it was used by the Serpent to ignite the flame of death in man. The “law” was holy, but because of man’s disobedience to the commandment of God, it stirred sin and the blaze continues to burn in man, desiring to kill him. That is why Jesus had to die on the cross. To extinguish sin positionally (forever) permanently, but only practically daily. Our faith is in a fight with sin that, although extinguished by Christ’s blood in regard to our condemnation forever, continues to flare up and is only controlled by the Spirit of God. We don’t defeat it, but by faith in the Spirit’s work we diminish it each day. When we take a day off sin smolders and attempts to ignite to destroy us. Grace must come along, through the power of the Spirit, each day, and control these hot spots in our life where sin still wants to burn and separate us from God. The law was holy, but condemns us if we try to keep it ourselves. It is only through Christ’s keeping the law for us that grace can come along, through the Spirit, by faith, to extinguish the sin that law continues to ignite. Our obedience to His Word is the fire extinguisher in the hands of the Spirit to continue to quench and control sin’s blazing fire within us.
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