In this thought-provoking episode, delve into Romans Chapter 7, a text rich with compelling theology and insightful psychology. We explore the astounding contrast between law and grace as expounded by Paul, once a rigid Pharisee himself. Journey through the intricacy of human nature, the purpose of the law, and the transformation that comes through Christ’s grace. This discussion challenges the traditional understanding of law in creating noble societies, revealing instead how it incites sin and why this realization is crucial for believers.
00:13:30 Psychological Insight and Theological Explosiveness
SPEAKER 01 :
I kid you not, Romans chapter 7 contains some of the most stimulating and fascinating theology, explosive in its meaning, and some of the most insightful psychology anywhere in the history of psychology. I kid you not, I am not exaggerating. It has been missed and and it is our privilege to explore it and to discover great things. Paul has said, then, that we are dead to the law. We have been delivered, he says so boldly. We have been delivered from the law. Now think of it. This man was a Pharisee. This man was a member of the Sanhedrin. This man was a Benjamite. This man died in the wool, religious and convicted. He speaks of himself in Philippians chapter 2, or is it, well, somewhere there anyway, of being as touching the law perfect. This man, a young guy, he was at the time that he was keeping the law in this rigid way, was dedicated to absolute conformity to the law of God. And that he should say we are delivered from the law is utterly incredible. Paul is a mystery in himself, apart from the glorious mystery of Christ that he is preaching and teaching. If it weren’t for Christ, I think Paul is unexplainable. That is his change from being such a rigid legalist to becoming a man full of grace and peace and joy to the world. So he explains, as I said last time, when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions were aroused by the law. That statement in a simple line is a reinterpretation of the history of the whole of Israel. It is, in fact, a reinterpretation of the history of the world. It is a contradiction to the flow of human history. Human history is an attempt, among many, many other things, of course, to create civilization, to create honorable, good people who were to be people to take charge of the world, and to create good societies, fair societies, and all the other. And in order to do that, laws were enacted, written and enacted. Laws were promulgated throughout every society. Wherever you live in the world, there are laws, no matter how primitive the society is. What is the purpose of those laws? To create noble human beings, fair human beings, human beings who would not tread on each other but give equal rights to everyone. The laws of the Western world are the most elevated and sophisticated that one could come across anywhere else in the world. And it is what has made Western civilization. But Paul is here telling us that the law stimulates criminality, sin. And why is that? Because human nature is wrong at the core. Human nature is bad at the core. We are not good people at heart who simply need a little brush-up. We are people who have been riven with sin from the start. When Adam and Eve fell, then corruption entered. And so then we have to give a new interpretation of the law, because if the law is trying to create good people who are intrinsically bad, then the law is dead from the word go, impossible from the word go. What Paul is saying is that God didn’t give to the human creation an impossibility in the law. He gave the law for a different purpose from what we think it is. And that is, get ready for it, to stimulate sin. To not only reveal sin, as Romans 3 verses 21 and 22 say, but also to incite sinful passions. They are aroused by the law. Now, this is not an isolated verse here. You might think that Colin is just taking an isolated verse and twisting it or something. No, you look at what follows. because when you see what follows, you will see that this is a core idea that Paul is bringing, and it is revealed to him through the whole of the Old Testament history, and also by virtue of the presence of Christ in the world. First, then, he says, after having said that the sinful passions are aroused by the law, but now we have been delivered from the law, Delivered from it, you see, delivered. Dare a preacher say that? I’m telling you, I’ve spent most of my life surrounded by Christians, and I do not hear Christians talk this way, and preachers talk this way. What’s wrong? What are we missing? Why are we avoiding this reality? We have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by. Now look, I’ve said again before, and I’ll say it again, that we are not delivered from the law and we have not died to the law in the sense that we have accomplished enough discipline in life as to not feel temptation anymore and to not be defeated by our human nature. That is not what we’re talking about here. We don’t die in the sense that we live long enough to discipline ourselves so as to subdue all sin and not have any temptations anymore. That’s what some people think this means. And so they become holy flesh people and all kinds of fanatics throughout the religious world. No. This is saying, as I’ve pointed out so many times, that Christ, the substitute for the human race… the one head of the human race representing all humanity, took the execution of sin upon himself, the execution of sin for the breaking of the law, the disharmony of humanity against God, and took that upon him on our behalf so that you and I are counted as if we had died to the law ourselves. We haven’t. We’re still living in our human nature. We still get tempted. We still fail and fall. But we are delivered from the judgment of the law, and we are delivered from it as a standard by which we are to live in order to be saved. Now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by. It had us in its grip. We were prisoners to it. And those of you who are still struggling with addictions will know what I mean when I say you are a prisoner to that addiction, because the core of addiction is guilt and shame and fear. The core of addiction is not your drug of choice. It is the guilt and the shame and fear that locks you into self-isolation for fear that God will judge you, so that your soul becomes afraid and hides away, and you become isolated and separated even from your own soul. And so what is left is more relationship to sin for the comfort that it brings, supposed comfort. We have died, been delivered from that. We do not have to live by this judgment against us anymore, because now we serve in newness of the Spirit, not in the oldness of the letter. The oldness of the letter is the tables of stone. This doesn’t mean that Jesus gives us power to keep the law. That’s not the message of the gospel, because the law and grace are contrasted in the gospel. They are not presented to us as grace brings us towards the law. How can I best say that? The gospel contrasts law and grace. It doesn’t line them up. and make grace lead us towards the law. No, the grace that we now have is that we discover Jesus. We discover our friend, the one who comforts us, the one who strengthens us, the one who forgives us, the one who treats us as if we were as good as he himself is. That’s our relationship now with God. So then, here is this incredible dynamic, this incredible mystery of psychological insight and theological explosiveness. Verse 7, what shall we say then? Is the law sin? No, 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. Now look at verse 8. But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. Now that one to two lines is the reinterpretation of history. Sin, and of course Paul is personifying it, and who is behind, who is the person behind sin? Satan, of course. Sin. takes opportunity of the commandment. Now what in the world does that mean? How in the world could Satan be possibly interested in the commandments? He’s a lawbreaker. He’s a liar from the beginning. He is lawless. He is the epitome of lawlessness. Why should he be interested in the law? Because he’s going to take advantage of it. How so? In what way? by making you feel guilty and making you feel ashamed and making you feel afraid of God because you and I have broken the law. And so, Satan… rubs our nose in it and says, what about the law? What about the law? Come on now, what about the law? And he makes us concentrate on the law, which gives us more guilt and shame and fear for not coming up to it than at any other time. And so what happens? Well, we are so overwhelmed by our guilt, shame, and fear that we then pull away from God and go right back into the sin that we were using the law for to try to overcome it. And so this verse, but sin taking opportunity by the commandment produced in me all manner of evil desire, is a reality of the life of a Christian. And as I said yesterday, if you do not understand this, if you do not know the meaning of the atoning work of Christ, who took your judgment upon himself so that you need not feel judgment again, if you do not understand that, then you are of all people most miserable as a Christian, because you have found the law in the Christian faith, but not the antidote to it. and the result is that you become a religious neurotic. Do you get that? I’m telling you that… Christian counseling has walked away from the gospel by simply trying to meet the standards of Christian life through the counseling we get, but without the faith that that Christian life gives us through the sacrifice of our Savior Jesus. And the result is that ultimately we either become rather good people without Jesus or become devastated people with the law. Do you get it? I’m going to keep teaching it until you do, until my last breath. Thank you for listening, everybody. This is Colin Cook, and you’re listening to How It Happens. This broadcast, as most of you know, is listener-supported. That is to say, KLT doesn’t pay me for broadcasting. I pay them for the cost of airtime. So if you would consider a donation, it would be so much appreciated. You can make your donation online at faithquestradio.com or you can send your donation to FaithQuest, P.O. Box 366, Littleton, Colorado, 80160. One-time donation or monthly whatever, I won’t harass you with mailing. Thank you so much. See you next time. Cheerio, and God bless.
In this thought-provoking episode, delve into Romans Chapter 7, a text rich with compelling theology and insightful psychology. We explore the astounding contrast between law and grace as expounded by Paul, once a rigid Pharisee himself. Journey through the intricacy of human nature, the purpose of the law, and the transformation that comes through Christ’s grace. This discussion challenges the traditional understanding of law in creating noble societies, revealing instead how it incites sin and why this realization is crucial for believers.
