The Purpose of God’s Law – Evansville Bible Church

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We need a QR – Quick Review. Let’s remember Genesis tells us how we got here, created on day six in the image of God; Revelation tells us where we’re going, with two destinations, the lake of fire or the new heaven and earth; and Romans tells us how to get to that new heaven and earth. That’s why Paul’s not ashamed of the gospel – it’s God’s powerful message that brings salvation to all who believe in Christ. We desperately need the gospel because God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all sin and we’re all sinners; there’s none righteous, not even one. Not one human being except Christ has kept the Law of God perfectly. That’s where the gospel comes in. Christ came into the world to save His people from their sin. He’s our propitiation, satisfying God’s wrath against our sin. Now God is just and the justifier of all who believe in Christ (Rom. 3:26) and all who believe in Christ are justified by faith and have peace with God (Rom. 5:1).

Romans 6 and 7 tells us we who believe in Christ were united with Christ spiritually; we’re no longer under the Law but under grace. In Christ we died to the Law, and we now walk in newness of life. This all brings us to Romans 7:7-25, one of the most controversial (and difficult) passages in Paul’s letters. Paul gives us his own spiritual diary. Remember, Paul was a Pharisee of Pharisees before Christ arrested him on that Damascus Road. He says in Philippians 3:6 regarding the righteousness of the Law, he was blameless! But when Christ knocked Paul off his high horse on that Damascus Road, Paul came to see he is the chief of sinners. How did that happen? That’s what our passage is about this morning.

Romans 7:7, What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “YOU SHALL NOT COVET.”

In verse 7 Paul asks a huge question: “Is the Law sin?” Since believers are no longer under the Law but in Christ, then what is the purpose of the Law? Is there something wrong with the Law? Paul quickly hammers another sign in the biblical turf: “Don’t even think of parking here!” Nothing is more important than a right understanding of the Law. The Law will not save you. The Law has no power to change your heart. But the Law does have purposes. We’re not talking about the ceremonial or civil aspect of the Law, but the moral aspect summarized in the Ten Commandments.

The Law is like the steering mechanism and the brakes in a vehicle. We’ve got a generation of lawless pagans speeding around without steering wheels or brakes and creating chaos. To a large extent America was founded on the Judeo-Christian moral underpinnings. They used to read the Bible and have prayer even in the public schools. Now they teach that we evolved from animals and life is not sacred before God. Now they teach about changing your gender if you are a boy and feel like a girl. Now they teach teenagers how to get rid of an unwanted baby in the womb. We’ve become our own gods, decreeing what we want to be, and no one has the right to tell us we’re wrong. That happened in Genesis 19 when Sodom and Gomorrah went up in smoke. In Judges everyone did what was right in their own eyes, and it was a disaster just like today. Remember those sodomites in Judges 19 who tried to rape the Levite, so he gave them his concubine and they abused her all night and dropped her off, dead on the man’s doorway. When a people reject God’s Law, they become perverted and brutal.

The Law of God is our friend. We need the Law of God. The Ten Commandments are the God-given formula for human flourishing. Without it we turn into murderous, looting, raping raw pagans. Just read the miserable history of this world. God says in Hosea 4:6, “Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.” We pity this generation of children growing up in this lawless nation. First Timothy 6:8-11 says the Law is good if you use it lawfully. It won’t get you to heaven, but it will restrain and convict of sin. Listen to this and apply it to our nation:

1 Timothy 1:8-11, But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully, 9 realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers 10 and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching, 11 according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted.

The gospel never encourages lawlessness or antinomianism. We need God’s authoritative and perfect law. But what purpose does the Law have in our salvation? People use the law to try to work their way to heaven. That’s what that proud Pharisee in the temple thought, crowing before God about how good he was. Paul’s life was turned upside down when he finally came to understand the purpose of the Law right here in Romans 7. This is Paul’s spiritual journal. We’re going to apply it to ourselves. We’ll look at the passage through the eyes of verse 9 and see our relationship to the Law in three phases: first we were alive, then the command came, so we died.

THERE WAS A TIME IN YOUR LIFE WHEN SIN WAS DEAD AND YOU WERE ALIVE

Romans 7:9a, I was once alive apart from the Law…

“I once was alive…” This is the condition of most people. If they aren’t religious, they are happy pagans. I worked with happy pagans building houses. They can cuss and drink and shack up with someone and they can cheat with no qualms of conscience and no sense of offending God. They are happy pagans. They are following their heart, being their authentic self. He or she may have same sex attraction and feel perfectly just. Who are you or anyone else to say he’s wrong. They may even die happy. But they are spiritually dead, lost, doomed and blissfully ignorant that they are dancing on the edge of the lake of fire.

There are happy religious people, too. Paul was one. He was a happy Pharisee, thinking he was building his own bridge to heaven with each good deed he did. He wore the outward garb of righteousness. In Philippians 3:6 he says, “As to the righteousness in the Law, found blameless.” He felt just like that young man running up to Jesus checking off all the commands: “All these I have kept from my youth.” He was alive apart from the Law. There are Protestants like that. They attend church every once in a while and throw God a ten or twenty. They’re just fine. Many Catholics are sure all is well between them and God as they go to confession and mass. Muslims have been told to confess belief in Allah and keep the commandments. Jews believe if you keep the Ten Commandments you’re just fine and dandy. I’ve heard Dennis Prager, who is Jewish, assure his listeners that good people are rewarded in the afterlife. Mr. Prager needs to meet Rabbi Paul in Romans 7. Ben Shapiro insists we need the absolute standards of the Bible, but he doesn’t see his need for Christ. Just being conservative doesn’t make you a Christian.

So, Paul says, “Before the Law came, I was alive and sin was dead.” Perhaps this is you. You have a surface view of what God commands, you feel like you keep the law, and you are good to go. You are alive apart from the law. “Hey, I make some mistakes, but who doesn’t? I’m not all that bad. There’s a lot of bad stuff I don’t do. Anyway, I believe in God and all that stuff. I’m just fine.” Paul says, “I was once alive apart from the law.”

THERE WAS A TIME WHEN THE LAW “CAME,” SIN BECAME ALIVE, AND YOU DIED.

Romans 7:9b, but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died.

There’s little Johnny up on a high stool reaching into the forbidden cookie jar to steal a cookie when father walks in. He was a happy little thief until that moment when he realized he’d been caught. Sin became alive for him and he “died.” What does Paul mean? There was a time, and it was probably more than just a moment or day, when the full force of God’s purpose of the Law hit him like a wrecking ball, demolishing all his self-righteousness and self-assurance. He’d been at Stephen’s stoning and God may have used that to begin a work in his heart. Then Christ arrested him on the Damascus Road while he was headed to kill Christians and Jesus confronted him, “It is hard for you to kick against the goads.”

We just don’t know when God used His Law to bring Paul to the end of his self-righteous self. It could have been when Christ taught him for those three years in the wilderness. Whenever, this is his testimony, and it should be ours as well. Before there was no conflict, but now God’s Law, God’s authority in His Word, comes in convicting power and force and suddenly there is a conflict. You may have heard and heard and heard, but now God knocks on your door and wakes you up. This is the only “woke” movement you want to be a part of. We need a great awakening like we had under George Whitefield’s preaching. He preached the Law for conviction of sin and then the wonderful gospel of free grace to all who would believe. Charles Spurgeon says, “You cannot draw the silken thread of the gospel through a man’s heart unless you first send the needle of the Law to make way for it.” Paul points out four ways God uses His Law to bring us to the gospel.

God uses the law to awaken you to the sinfulness of your heart.

The problem isn’t the Law. The Law is good; the Law is your friend. When you go to have a CT scan and it finds a kidney stone in there, the problem isn’t the two-million-dollar CT machine; the problem is in you. The problem isn’t the EKG machine, the problem is your heart. That’s the value of the Law. It reveals the sin nesting in our hearts.

Paul doesn’t mean he wasn’t aware of sin before this. But he uses coveting, the tenth commandment, for a definite reason. The Pharisees defined sin as external acts. Sin isn’t just a matter of what you do, but far more. Sin begins in the heart – what you think and want. Coveting is wanting what God says is forbidden. Our sinful desires are enough to condemn us. Jesus said, “Do you hate someone? You’re a murderer. Have you lusted after a woman? You’re an adulterer.” This is why same sex attraction is sinful and must be fought, not excused or affirmed. God uses the Law to define sin and awaken us to our guilt before God.

God uses the law to stir up or aggravate the sin in your heart.

Romans 7:8, But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead.

Paul is saying through this tenth commandment he became horribly aware of all kinds of coveting in his heart. Sin had been sleeping in his heart, but then the Law stirred up those sleeping dogs in there. There’s something in us that just doesn’t like to obey God. We want what we want whether God wants it for us or not. God uses the law as a prod to poke around in our hearts to wake up all kinds of vermin and serpents of sin. Have you ever split an old mostly rotten log and hundreds of ants come pouring out? This is Paul. He had no idea how sinful his heart really was.

James Boice tells about when he was a kid at school. The principal heard that some of the boys, including James, were going to bring firecrackers to school, so he made a big announcement: No firecrackers in school and if anyone brought one, they’d be expelled. James went home thinking, “I don’t own any firecrackers but now that the principal mentioned it, this is very intriguing.” So, he and some buddies found a firecracker and brought it to school. They took it into a closet, decided one of the boys would hold it by the fuse, they would light it and when it reached his fingers, it would go out. They got poised and ready with anticipation. They lit the fuse, it reached the boy’s finger and burned it, he dropped it, and it exploded with blue smoke and white paper everywhere. The principal told the parents, “I just can’t believe it. I told them not to bring firecrackers to school. I can’t believe it.”

That principal is like the neighbor or mother who insists that her son or neighbor who just murdered three people, “In his heart he’s a good boy.” No, in his heart he’s a rebel against God, just like all of us. The world does not like the biblical doctrine of sin and especially the doctrine of total depravity. Sin is in there and the Law stirs it up.

God uses the law take away what spiritual life you thought you had.

Romans 7:9-10, I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died; 10 and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me;

When the Law comes with force to your inner being, you see yourself not as mostly good with a little cleaning up to do. Paul says, “This was the end of me in my self-righteousness. My legalistic religious efforts are worthless.” The Law doesn’t save sinners; it kills sinners. John Gerstner was preaching on sin one time and afterward a lady met him, obviously not very happy. “You made me feel this big this morning,” with her thumb and forefinger about one inch apart. Mr. Gerstner held his finger and thumb the same distance and replied, “That’s about this much too big.”

So, sin became alive in me and killed my self-righteous confidence. Sin comes alive and kills off the happy pagan – the end of godless, lawless self-satisfaction, self-reliance. Sin comes alive and kills off the careless religious person. No more confidence in my own goodness. I begin to see all the idols of my heart, all the loves of my heart, even the good things of this world that I put above God. I had spiritual life taken right out of me.

That’s when we become aware we cannot save ourselves, we cannot change ourselves, we need a Savior. This is the purpose of the Law – to expose our sin and drive us to Christ. Left to the Law alone we are without hope. Nothing in this world can help you except Christ alone. No religious works can deal with your sin. That’s why Paul said in Philippians 3:8-9 that he counted everything besides Christ as rubbish and wanted to be found in Christ not having a righteousness of his own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.

God uses the law to expose the deceptive nature of your sin.

Romans 7:11, for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.

How does sin use the law to deceive you? Sin has a way of twisting God’s command in our hearts. God is too hard on me. God doesn’t have a right to tell me what to do. God doesn’t’ really mean what He says. God is keeping you from legitimate pleasures. Or God won’t really make you reap what you sow. That’s the power of sin within. Instead of bringing you life, sin took God’s command and twisted it.

First you were alive, that happy pagan or self-righteous religious person, and sin was dead. Then sin became alive in your heart. And you died. Now, lest you think there’s anything wrong with God’s Law…

THE LAW IS GOOD AND DRIVES US TO CHRIST

Romans 7:12-13, So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. 13 Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? May it never be! Rather it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by effecting my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.

Paul concludes there is nothing wrong with the Law. In fact, the Law is holy. The Law reveals the holy character of God. The Law is righteous or just. The Law is good for us. The Law is our friend exposing our inner sin. The Law is like the doctor who tells you what your problem really is. Or like the x-ray or CT scan that looks right in us and exposes our disease. We love the Law. We need the Law, or we’d be blind to God’s character. We need the law to convict and restrain and guide. The Law can’t save, but it’s like the steering mechanism and brake system on a car. The Law has no power to make us go. We need a new heart, a new birth, that new life from the Spirit. But Paul wants us to see how good the Law is. The problem is not with the law, but with our own sin.

We should add that the Law is good for society. Without the Law in the minds of the people, they run wild. When a nation honors God’s Laws there is flourishing. It won’t save people, but it keeps people from killing each other and just going crazy like we see today. We are paying the consequences of throwing God’s moral standards to the wind, and it will only get worse. Hosea 4:6 says, “You have forgotten my law; I will forget your children!” This is divine judgment for suppressing God’s Law. In 2002 we wheeled a 2 ½ ton monument of the Ten Commandments out of the state judicial building in Montgomery, Alabama. Horrors, we can’t have these in our court rooms or classrooms – and we’re seeing increasing moral chaos as a result: baby murdering, no consequences for crime, suicide, gender-confusion, hyper-anxiety, overdosing, queering the culture, murder in the streets, inability to explain what a woman is. We are lawless and godless.

But there’s hope. God uses His Law to bring sinners to himself. Verse 13 says the Law makes sin utterly sinful. Sin is really the greatest of all evils in this world; sin is a monstrosity in God’s good universe. When you realize how godless and lawless you are and that sin is a direct attack on the Law of God and the character of God and God Himself, you have a new God-given view of your own sin. You understand why Paul went from being a proud Pharisee to seeing himself as the chief of sinners. Or that poor tax collector in the temple who was so gripped with conviction he couldn’t even look up toward heaven. He just beat upon his chest and begged God, “Be merciful to me – be propitiated to me – the sinner.” Not a sinner, but the sinner. Not even “I have sinned,” but be merciful to me the sinner.

That’s where the Law should bring us, like a spiritual CT scan exposing our sin in the depth of our being. When your sin becomes alive exposing your corrupt heart, you are humbled like those poor in spirit Jesus described in the sermon on the mount. Or as the hymnwriter put it:

“Nothing in my hand I bring;

Simply to Thy cross I cling.”

SO WHAT?

This passage doesn’t cater to the flesh. This isn’t a Joel Osteen “Cotton-Candy” message. But it is Paul’s spiritual autobiography of how God brought him from a proud, self-righteous Pharisee to a humble, Christ-loving, cross-clinging, God-exalting believer. Has any of Paul’s experience come into your heart? Has God’s Law convicted your heart of your sin and need of the Savior?

Only Christ by His Spirit can truly change your heart, give you a new heart, a new life, new desires, new hunger, and love for God. The more we see the exceeding sinfulness of our sin and are driven to the cross of Jesus Christ as our only refuge, the more joy and zeal and love for God and God’s people will be in our lives and in our fellowship.