Sermon Tone Analysis

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Romans 7

!! Romans 7

*Tape #8124*

*Pastor Chuck Smith*

 

Chapter seven, actually takes up at verse fourteen of chapter six.

For in verse fourteen, Paul said, “For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”

The rest of the sixth chapter is parenthetical.

Here in chapter seven, he picks up that idea again.

He continues from that concept that you are not under law but under grace.

And so you need to really think of this now in chapter seven under the title of , “You are not under law by under grace.”

/Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), /So this first part is addressed to the Jewish people.

Not talking to Gentiles at this point.

He will in a moment.

But right now to Jewish people.

Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law) /that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?

/As long as you are alive, law has dominion over you.

And then he uses an illustration of how one is bound to another as long as they live, but how that death frees that bond.

/2//For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives.

But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband.

//3//So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man.

/Now it is not Paul’s intent here to teach on marriage.

He is only using this as an illustration of how that death frees a person from the bonds that existed under the law.

So that as long as a person lives he is under the law.

Only death frees you from that relationship to the law, even as only death frees a wife from her husband.

/4//Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another--to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God.    /You are not under law.

You are under grace.

You are under law as long as you live, but we have died with Christ.

We have been crucified with Christ.

And thus the fact that I am dead with Christ, buried with the likeness of His death and risen in that newness of life.

In that new life that I now have in Christ, I am no longer under the law, but I’m under grace because of death with Christ.

It has freed me from the law.

/5//For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death.

//6//But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

/Or not in the fine points of the law.

The letter of the law.

So our relationship now and the Jewish relationship to the law.

You are dead.

Not unto law but unto grace.

But as Paul goes on in the chapter, he turns from just a pure Jewish standpoint, to deal with all of us who have had our consciences made alive through the Spirit of God.

We who have come  to Jesus Christ.

And having to come to Jesus Christ, we have this excitement over the Lord and the things of the Lord!

And we find there is a desire in our hearts now to please the Lord.

To do those things that He would have us to do.

To live the life that He wants us to live.

And so in this endeavor that we now have to live the life, you know the first little bit of your Christian experiences are so thrilling and so exciting, all you can think about is Jesus!

And you’re just bubbling over with your excitement and your joy in your love for Him.

And then we begin to settle down.

And I realize that the Lord has required that I love like He loves, that I show mercy like He shows mercy, that I be kind as He is kind, tenderhearted, forgiving.

So I say, yes, that’s right.

I should be that way.

I will be that way.

And then, we as Paul, come to the discovery of this nature of sin.

And how we in ourselves are incapable of being what God would have us to be.

The weakness of our flesh.

With Peter, the spirit indeed is willing, but our flesh is weak.

But we come to the consciousness and awareness of the sin within our nature or that nature of sin.

So Paul declares when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death.

Paul points out and recognizes that the law was not intended to be a standard that you can live by in order to be righteous before God.

The law properly understood, reveals unto us the sinfulness of our nature.

And how far short we have come of God's standards.

And so by the law we have then, this awareness and consciousness of our sin.

And so Paul goes on to say /7//What shall we say then?

Is the law sin?

Certainly not!

On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law.

For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, "You shall not covet."

/So Paul is declaring that the law was intended to reveal sin and our sinful nature.

I had not known that it was wrong to desire that which belongs to someone else, except the law said, “You shall not covet.”

And in Deuteronomy it listed several things.

Thy neighbor’s house or thy neighbor’s wife or thy neighbor’s donkey or whatever.

We’re not to covet something that belongs to our neighbor.

And yet how many of you have never desired something that belonged to someone else?  How many of you can plead innocent when you saw your neighbor drive up with his new sports car?

We all have been guilty of coveting.

/8//But sin, /(And here is the problem.

This sinful nature of mine.

The law isn’t sin.

It’s a revealer of sin.)/ taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire.

For apart from the law sin was dead.

/I wasn’t conscious of my sin until I understood the law.

The moment I understood the law then I became conscious of my sin.

I began to then to have to reckon with this sinful nature.

I had to reckon with my desires.

I had to start dealing with them because now I realize these are sinful.

So Paul said, /9//I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.

/I believe that Paul is probably referring when he said I was without the law once, to that experience that he had on the road to Damascus.

And when he really met Jesus, committed his life to the Lord, came into the city of Damascus, met Ananias, the disciple who laid hands on him.

He was filled with the Holy Spirit.

And Paul began to go to the synagogues and preach Christ.

It was a new life.

It was a new revelation.

Suddenly things fell into place.

And he realized that Jesus is Lord!

And he began to share in the synagogues the scriptures, showing that Jesus was the Messiah.

But then Paul headed out to Arabia.

For three years there, I believe, is where Paul went through then this struggle as he began now to realize that the law was spiritual.

And so I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.

/10//And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death.

/Again for this nature of sin.

This sinful nature, /11//For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me.

/One of the most difficult and frustrating things is to try in our flesh to obey the law of God when you recognize it’s Spiritual.