AUDIO<\/a><\/p>\n At 3:21 Paul turns a corner\u2013now to open up the gospel. His theme is Sola Scriptura, Sola fidei, Sola gratia, Solus Christus, Soli Deo gloria. He speaks of a saving righteousness from God that is imputed to the believer and of God\u2019s righteousness in doing this, i.e., of his honoring his own law in such a way that he may be just and the justifier of those who have faith in Jesus.<\/p>\n At 6:1 he turns another corner\u2013this time to speak of the implications of the gospel re. the possibility of believers continuing in sin. As he develops this question he assumes a number of truths, including the continuing prescribing function of God\u2019s moral law as a rule of life for the believer. This is woven into the canvas on which he displays his case. By the time we get to 7:25, this is explicit. Now, we can\u2019t follow Paul at every turn from 6:1 to 7:25, where he says, \u201cSo then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God\u201d\u2013but we need to see enough to understand how important that statement is to our appreciating the place of the moral law in our living the Christian life.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Having spoken of the role of the gospel in securing forgiveness of sins and a saving righteousness, in chap. 6 Paul begins to address the believer\u2019s relation to his indwelling sin (the \u201csin that dwells in me\u201d) and esp. the incongruity of the believer\u2019s continuing to practice sin as a pattern of life. He builds on what he\u2019s already said about our union with Christ and argues that the gift of his righteousness does not encourage a life of sin in those who embrace the gospel. In order to make his point, he treats two questions:<\/p>\n 1. Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? (6:1-14). The answer\u2013union with Christ makes continuing in sin absurd.<\/p>\n 2. Shall we sin, because we are not under law but under grace? (6:15-23). The answer\u2013though we are not under the law as a way of salvation, we remain under the law as a rule of duty.<\/p>\n Paul has just said, \u201cwhere sin abounded, grace abounded much more\u201d (5:20). Some took this to imply that continuing in sin not only is acceptable but also leads to a greater display of God\u2019s grace and thus to his greater glory in saving sinners. This was an attractive argument for those who wished to abuse the gospel of free grace in order to justify their sinful lives. But does God\u2019s grace in justification free men from any obligation to God\u2019s law?<\/p>\n The issue of course is not occasional lapses or sins. All believers \u201ccontinue (to some degree) in sin,\u201d but this is very different from the idea of a life of unchallenged sin. Later Paul will define \u201ccontinue in sin\u201d in terms of being \u201cslaves to sin\u201d (6:6) and of letting \u201csin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts\u201d (6:12). He refers to \u201ca supine indulgence of inward lust [of the flesh or indwelling sin], in distinction from a steady struggling with and conquest of it\u201d (Shedd, Romans, 145-46).<\/p>\n Paul\u2019s answer to such ideas is emphatic: mh. ge,noito, lit. \u201cit must not be.\u201d The idea of one joined to Christ continuing in sin (without repentance, mortification, and an earnest following after holiness) draws Paul\u2019s sternest rebuke, reserved for the most egregious abuses of truth. Any who think this way are as far from the truth as it is possible to be.<\/p>\n Paul next poses a question that shows how absurd this all is: \u201cWe who died to sin, how shall we any longer live in it?\u201d He speaks of a past event with profound present implications. Later he will exhort us to reckon ourselves now to be \u201cdead to sin\u201d (6:11), but he begins with the fact of our objectively having \u201cdied to sin\u201d at a definite point in the past. The when was at the cross, where \u201cour old man was crucified with Christ\u201d (6:6) and the how is that God reckoned us as united to his Son at the time of his death, so that when he \u201cdied to sin\u201d we \u201cdied to sin.\u201d<\/p>\n Elsewhere Paul speaks of Christ\u2019s death in terms of his dying \u201cin our place\u201d and \u201cfor our sake\u201d and \u201cbecause of our sins.\u201d We ordinarily think of this merely in legal terms\u2013that Christ bore our sins and died in our place so that the demand of God\u2019s law is satisfied in his suffering and death and our sins are forgiven because they have been punished in him. This is correct, but it does not exhaust the meaning of Christ dying \u201cin our place\u201d and \u201cbecause of our sins.\u201d In his death, Christ also broke the dominion of indwelling sin over us, so that even as \u201csin reigned in death\u201d because of Adam\u2019s sin (a rule made stronger by our own \u201cmany offenses\u201d), \u201ceven so grace reigns (i.e., rules over us) through (his) righteousness unto eternal life\u201d (5:21). It is in terms of this experiential liberty from sin\u2019s dominion that Paul here says that \u201cwe died to sin\u201d in the death of Christ. This means not only that we are freed from sin\u2019s penalty and the law\u2019s power to condemn us, but also that Christ\u2019s death freed us from slavery to our indwelling sin and its dominion over us. This, as much as the forgiveness of our sins, is the fruit of his death for us. And it is this that makes sense of Paul\u2019s challenge at 6:2. \u201cWe who died to sin, how shall we any longer live in it? Continuing in a life of sin\u2013not marked by on-going repentance, mortification, and the pursuit of holiness is incongruous with union with Christ in his death for us and for our sins.<\/p>\n In 6:3-5 Paul makes his point from the symbolism of baptism, which portrays union w\/ Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. When you were baptized, you were symbolically professing that your union with Christ is complete, so that you died to sin in his death to sin, were buried with him in his tomb, and were raised with him to walk in newness of life. Paul\u2019s point is that if we meant this, continuing to live in sin is triply absurd.<\/p>\n Union with Christ in his death is foundational. By virtue of this union, your indwelling sin\u2019s mastery has been broken. Burial with him confirms the definiteness of your union in his death. Burial is a decisive event that unequivocally testifies that a man\u2019s life is no longer his own but belongs to God. Burial with Christ is the seal set to the fact of your death with him and shows that your old life is over and that you no longer are under your indwelling sin\u2019s dominion. Therefore you are to \u201creckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin\u201d (6:11). And this is meant to arm you to say no to sin\u2019s devices so that you do not \u201cobey it in its lusts\u201d or \u201cpresent your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin\u201d (6:12-13).<\/p>\n And yet in the claiming of your life imaged in burial with his Son, God calls you to much more than a negative morality (in which you simply say no to sin). There also is a positive morality to be embraced, a new life to be lived, in which you reckon yourself to be alive to God (6:11) and present your members as instruments of righteousness to him (6:13). Paul also includes this in his argument from baptism. Death and burial w\/ Christ have a larger purpose than death to sin. Continuing with the imagery of baptism, Paul says, \u201cwe were buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.\u201d<\/p>\n The ultimate purpose of union with Christ is a new life marked by walking with God in obedience to his law. And this is the ultimate symbolism of baptism. Just as believers are reckoned as in Christ in his death and burial, so we are also in his resurrection. And joined to him in his resurrection, we are to live in the light of this fact. As Paul says later in this chapter, \u201cFor the death that he died, he died to sin once for all [and we in him]; but the life that he lives, he lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord\u201d (6:10-11).<\/p>\n This being \u201calive to God\u201d is seen in our \u201cwalking in newness of life.\u201d The image of \u201cwalking\u201d of course refers to conducting one\u2019s life in a certain way or direction\u2013in this case, in a life of fellowship with God and service to him and in obedience to his moral law. Thus the term \u201cnewness\u201d refers not just to something new in our experience but also to a quality of life unlike the lawless life to which we have died in Christ. In view is a present experience of what Paul later calls that \u201ceternal life\u201d that is \u201cthe gift of God in Christ\u201d (6:23). This is the kind of life that we will be enjoy in fulness at the end of our earthly life, but it is also the kind of life that we now may experience in a substantial and an increasing measure as part of a normal earthly Christian life.<\/p>\n In the rest of the chapter Paul expands on the moral implications of union with Christ. He directs us to a life of faith in which we receive as true our union with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. By faith we embrace the truth of the end of sin\u2019s lawful rule over us, and we embrace as fact that we have been made \u201calive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord,\u201d so that we may walk in newness of life. Yogi Berra said that 90% of baseball is half mental. We can say the same about the Christian life\u2013at the mental level, we are to reckon ourselves dead to sin but alive to God. But that\u2019s only half the story. The imperatives of vv. 12-13 take us far beyond any idea of passivity. Here he speaks of a life of active resistance to indwelling sin\u2019s efforts to reassert its rule. He does not say, \u201cReckon yourself dead to sin and alive to God and his Spirit will step in and you can step out of the battle with your remaining sin.\u201d No, he addresses you, and exhorts you to resist. You have not been made \u201cdead to sin\u201d and \u201calive to God\u201d so that you need do nothing.<\/p>\n As with resisting the devil, so resisting your sin\u2019s efforts to reassert its mastery over you is active business, in which you are to use means. This is the one-half of the battle with sin that is not mental but that involves all the members of your body, guided by a new will that is set free from the necessity to serve sin. Paul here then exhorts you to exercise the faculty of choice (the choice of a will now freed from sin\u2019s dominion) one temptation at a time. You are to do this negatively and positively, choosing \u201cnot to present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but to present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.\u201d<\/p>\n Your members are the parts and faculties of your redeemed humanity, i.e., of your new man\u2013physical and mental\u2013your hands, feet, eyes, ears, tongues, sexual organs, as well as all the faculties of the inner man\u2013your minds, affections, consciences. Faced with temptation, and armed with the truth that these things are not under sin\u2019s mastery, you are to say to the flesh,<\/p>\n These are not yours, to do with as you please. These are free of your rule. You have no right to their service. They will not be for you the instruments of unrighteousness but instruments of righteousness to God. They will serve him. They belong to him. By the strength that he gives, I resist you. And by the strength that he gives I will serve him.<\/p>\n This is to be our continual response to sin\u2019s efforts to reassert its rule. And the promise that the Lord makes to all who pray and trust and energetically resist the flesh is this: \u201cFor sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace\u201d (6:14).<\/p>\n The last part of this verse, of course, is one of the most abused statements in Scripture. God\u2019s law has two powers: the power to prescribe right and wrong, and the power to condemn transgression of its precepts. This second function is \u201cthe curse of the law\u201d (Gal. 3:16). Evangelicals agree that Christ\u2019s death has ended the condemning power of the law in the case of all those for whom he died. Many however also argue for a view of the Christian life in which the believer is freed from the prescribing power of God\u2019s law as well. This view usually includes the idea that Christ has put self-denying love in the place of the moral law. But when we ask, what does love look like in specific situations, if we are biblical in our answer, we must say that the specific commands of the moral law define the duties of love. Paul makes this point at 13:8-10. It will not do then to say that the Christian ethic is about love but not about law.<\/p>\n Paul has spoken therefore of our liberty from the rule of indwelling sin. H has also called us to \u201cpresent ourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and our members as instruments of righteousness to him.\u201d From these words we must deduce that our liberty from sin\u2019s dominion is not meant to be used independently of any master but in the service of righteousness and under God\u2019s rule. And the standard by which this life is to be lived is God\u2019s law. The terms that Paul uses make this deduction inescapable. He speaks of \u201csin\u201d not just as a law in our members but also as acts against God\u2019s law. The terms \u201crighteousness\u201d and \u201cunrighteousness\u201d also have no meaning apart from the idea of God\u2019s law. So also with the term \u201choliness\u201d (6:22). It is no surprise then that in chap. 7, Paul at last comes to the subject of the believer\u2019s relation to God\u2019s law.<\/p>\n He begins with an illustration taken from the law of marriage. In applying this imagery, he says, \u201cyou also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another\u201d (7:4). Earlier he said that we are not \u201cunder law but under grace\u201d (6:14), meaning that God\u2019s grace has freed us from the law\u2019s condemning power. So also here, when he says that you have become \u201cdead to the law,\u201d he means dead to its condemning power. If he also means dead to the law as a rule of righteousness, then we will be at a loss to say what he means by the purpose of our marriage to Christ being to bear fruit unto God. Even as sin (disobedience of God\u2019s law) bears \u201cfruit unto death,\u201d so the \u201cfruit unto God\u201d which is the issue of our marriage to Christ must be understood in terms of acts done in obedience to God\u2019s law. And this is confirmed by the words of 7:6: \u201cwe have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve (whom? God and righteousness, and God\u2019s law in its prescriptive role as a rule of life, cf., 7:25, and how?) in the newness of the Spirit, not in the oldness of the letter.\u201d<\/p>\n The unbeliever\u2019s life is the old way of the letter, i.e., of the law as condemner. This life of service to the law leads to death (\u201cfor the letter kills,\u201d 2 Cor. 3:6). The believer\u2019s life, however, is lived in the new way of the Spirit, who performed a circumcision of the heart that the law could not perform (2:29, \u201cthe letter kills, but the Spirit gives life,\u201d 2 Cor. 3:6). And it is by the Spirit\u2019s power that we serve God\u2019s law as a rule of life. Note also Paul\u2019s remarks at 8:5-9. The plain implication of these words (esp. \u201cthey that are after the Spirit mind the things of the Spirit\u201d) is that the renewed mind, which is set on the things of the Spirit, can and will submit itself to the law of God as a rule of conduct. As Paul says at 7:25, \u201cwith the mind I myself serve the law of God.\u201d<\/p>\n Beginning at 7:7, Paul adopts the first person and his words become very personal. His own experience illustrates the relation that the Christian has to God\u2019s law. He speaks first of his relation to God\u2019s law as an unbeliever and then as a Christian\u2013as Shedd says, first as unconvicted and then under conviction, then as a believer contending with his remaining depravity. In the process of doing this, Paul defends the character of God\u2019s law. It is holy, righteous, and good. Its function is to reveal sin. And because of this, it is a rule of life, since that which reveals the boundaries of sin reveals also the features of the righteousness that pleases God. We pass by vv. 7-13, where he speaks of the role of the 10th Commandment in his own conversion. He says that God\u2019s moral law came to bear on his conscience and convinced him that he was a sinner in need of a righteousness that he did not possess. And in this role, he concluded, \u201cthe law is holy, and the commandment holy, and righteous, and good\u201d (7:12). This, of course, is an illustration of our earlier premise\u2013that the work of the law in the unbeliever\u2019s conscience prepares the way for the work of the gospel.<\/p>\n At 7:14ff. he depicts his experience as a Christian, for whom the moral law is a rule of life. If you do not approach the text this way, you will never make sense of it in any way that relates to experimental Christianity. Here Paul describes his experience as a believer\u2013not at all times but on those occasions when he yields to the efforts of his remaining sin to reassert its mastery over him. Psychologically this is a complex experience (as Paul\u2019s description of it shows), but we must pass by all that to come to what Paul says about the law.<\/p>\n Paul the Christian describes the battle between what he calls \u201cthe law of my mind\u201d and \u201cthe law of sin that is in my members,\u201d i.e., between his renewed will and his remaining sin. But in this battle how did he view the moral law and his relation to it? Four things:<\/p>\n 1. \u201cThe law is spiritual\u201d (7:14). This may point to the divine origin and character of the moral law or to the fact that the law addresses our inner man as well as our outward actions, holiness of heart as well as holiness of deed. This is how Paul experienced the 10th commandment in his conversion. He certainly uses the word \u201cspiritual\u201d to describe the law\u2019s character in contrast with his carnal behavior, so that he is saying that the law of God accords with the pattern of a \u201cspiritual\u201d life, i.e., a life of walking in the Spirit. However conceived, in this role the moral law is still in force: \u201cthe law is (present tense) spiritual.\u201d<\/p>\n 2. \u201cI agree with the law that it is good\u201d (7:16). Here Paul describes his attitude towards God\u2019s law even when he disobeys it. When he sins against the prevailing commitment of his mind and heart to God\u2019s law (when \u201cwhat I would not, that I do\u201d), he does not, however, in his conscience repudiate the law as the moral standard by which his actions are to be judged. Describing his experience of self-condemnation that inevitably follows, he says, \u201cI agree with the law that it is good.\u201d Again, he maintains the present validity of the moral law. In his thinking, it remains the standard by which his sin is to be measured, even as a Christian.<\/p>\n 3. \u201cI delight in the law of God after the inward man\u201d (7:22). Read 7:22-23. In his battle with his flesh, in resisting the efforts of his indwelling sin to reassert rule over him, Paul recognizes the presence and vigor of a \u201cdifferent law.\u201d The prevailing disposition of his inner man, however, is commitment to God\u2019s law. As he says, \u201cI delight in the law of God after the inward man.\u201d In spite of the struggle and frustration that he experiences in his battle with his remaining sin, he delights in God\u2019s law, not in a surface, external way, but in the deepest recesses of his soul. He regards God\u2019s law as spiritual and good and he acknowledges that it is the rule by which he is to live as a Christian and by which his conscience is to judge him. He does not resent the moral law. It is the delight of his heart. Paul echoes the words of the psalmist:<\/p>\n I love your commandments above gold, yea, above fine gold. Therefore I esteem all your precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way. Your testimonies are wonderful; therefore my soul keeps them. The opening of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple. I opened wide my mouth, and panted; for I longed for your commandments . . . Your law is my delight (Psa. 119:127-31, 174).<\/p>\n Does Paul delight in a law which is no longer in force? Does he have merely an antiquarian interest in a dead code? No. He delights in what God\u2019s moral law is to him now as a Christian.<\/p>\n 4. \u201cI of myself with the mind, indeed, serve the law of God\u201d (7:25). Here he sums up this warfare. He acknowledges the continuing presence of the flesh and concedes that it serves the law of sin. This is the source of the cry of verse 24. He also says, however, that \u201cwith the mind,\u201d with the consent of who he most deeply and centrally is as a new man in Christ, he \u201cserves the law of God.\u201d The moral law is more to him than an object that he avows is spiritual and good. And it is more than an object in which his soul delights. It is much more! His positive view of God\u2019s law came to practical expression in his seeking to serve God\u2019s moral law in his walk as a Christian. If this had not been the case, he would have had no reason to believe that he was a Christian. And though he struggles greatly with his remaining sin, God (not his remaining sin) is his Master. And he serves God\u2019s law because it is his Master\u2019s revealed will.<\/p>\n In sum, God\u2019s moral law, which once convinced Paul that he was a sinner in need of a righteousness that he did not possess, continues as the rule of his Christian life. He serves his Lord by walking in the light of it\u2013all of it, for there is no hint in what he says that he regards any moral commandment differently from the rest.<\/p>\n Our time is gone, but in closing I want to press one point. Is Paul\u2019s experience your experience? In spite of the struggle and frustration of continual war with the flesh, do you still regard God\u2019s law as holy and righteous and good. Do you delight in it, and most importantly do you strive to serve it? For example, the 7th commandment when you are at your computer? The 3rd commandment in your handling holy things (including preaching the word)? The 4th commandment in how you spend the Lord\u2019s day? As a general rule, holiness will rise no higher in our sheep than it does in us. And therefore before we preach the law to our people, let us be sure to preach it to ourselves.<\/p>\n All rights reserved.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dr. Robert Martin AUDIO At 3:21 Paul turns a corner\u2013now to open up the gospel. His theme is Sola Scriptura, Sola fidei, Sola gratia, Solus Christus, Soli Deo gloria. He speaks of a saving righteousness from God that is imputed to the believer and of God\u2019s righteousness in doing this, i.e., of his honoring his … Continue reading The Moral Law II![\"\"](\"http:\/\/heraldofgrace.org\/biblicalexpositions\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/robert_martin_conference.jpg\" "\\"robert_martin_conference\\"")
<\/a>Dr. Robert Martin<\/strong><\/p>\n
The Moral Law and the Christian Life, Romans 7:25<\/span>