Law Brings Sin to Life

So as I'm reading through chapter 7 of Paul's letter to the Romans, I'm again just blown away at how much truth Paul preaches. Paul begins by describing how true believers view the law and then dives into how the law brings sin to life. Paul explains that before the law was revealed to him, he was simply going through life unaware of the sin that was hidden within him. However, "when the commandment came, sin sprang to life"(7:9). I'll give you an example of what Paul means by this...

As soon as we are aware that we are not to be jealous people, the sinful nature springs to action in an attempt to make us jealous of something. This can be more clearly seen through small children. As soon as you tell a child, "NO! you can't have that", they begin to want it even more. That is the sinful nature coming to life.

Therefore the law reveals the sin hiding within us making the law holy, righteous, and good (7:12). According to Paul, we are to uphold the law "in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code" (7:6). The new way is service to glorify God out of gratitude rather than out of obligation. If you are a true believer, you desire to uphold the law rather than upholding the law because we feel that we have to in order to please God. When we become true believers, we begin to delight in God's law even though our sinful nature prevents us from consistently acting the way in which we now desire to act. This is evidence that we know the law is good because in our minds, we desire to obey the law. It is the sinful nature within us that wages war on this desire and corrupts our bodies to act in ways we wish that we didn't act. And so, it is a non-stop battle within the believer between the things we want to do and the things we actually do.

Paul says it best, "For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate to do I do....... So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin" (7:14-25).

Praise God that He has given us His commandments in order to reveal and bring to life the sin hidden within us so that we may recognize our wretched state and look to Jesus Christ our Lord for rescue from this body of death!!!

- TEvans

Note: A non-believer isn't fighting this same war because they have no true desire to uphold the law. That is in no way declaring that non-believers are immoral people. I am simply stating that perhaps a non-believer is not completely aware of any battle being fought at all. The sinful nature is winning that war without drawing any attention to itself. And this subtle approach is Satan's most dangerous weapon (read Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis). However, that is a whole other discussion.