Christians distinguish between three different uses of the Law of God. In our confirmation classes we use the picture of a curb (that serves to restrain the worst in humanity), a mirror (that serves to reveal the truth about our own sinfulness), and a rule (that is a guide and measure of how the Christian shows gratitude for their salvation).
Different uses of the Law is not an idea that Christians have imposed upon God’s Word-- but are revealed in the Bible-- and especially in Romans.
In the opening chapters of Romans, the apostle Paul talks about the first use of the law—the law that is written on every person’s heart so that even those who do not know the Ten Commandments can still know what is right and wrong—even if many choose to sin against their own consciences.
In Romans chapter eight Paul talks about the third use of the law—how it is only those who are saved—only those who walk according to the Spirit-- who can actually fulfill the righteous requirements of the law.
It is in the seventh chapter of Romans—especially the verses that we have before us today--that Paul talks about the second use of the law that reveals our sin and our need for a Savior. By the power and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, St. Paul writes:
Do you not know, brothers —for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives?
The Christians at Rome knew about the law. Both the Jewish and Gentile believers knew the Ten Commandments and the laws of Rome. We also know the law—the commandments of God and the laws of the society in which we live. And all of us together—ancient Christians and modern-- know the truth of what Paul writes: that the law only applies to living persons and that when a person dies they are set free from the law and can no longer be prosecuted or punished. We all understand that general principle. Paul goes on to a specific application of that principle. He writes:
A married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.
This is a specific example of the general principle above as it applies to marriage. A wife is bound to her husband for life-- but if he dies, she is free to marry another man-- for death severs the legal connection she had to her first husband. We understand this as well—we do not throw widows onto the funeral pyre when their husband dies. Parted from their husbands by death, wives are free to be joined to another—and this really is the point for what follows regarding our former connection to the law-- and our new connection to Christ. Paul writes:
Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.
The examples that Paul uses above—of freedom from the law’s demand through death—is also true of us in a spiritual sense. Death has changed our relationship with the Law.
Christ’s holy life and his innocent death on the cross fulfilled the law’s demands—both in the obedience God expects of us and the death for sin he demands of us—one innocent man, God’s own substitute, given for a world full of sinners.
But Christ’s death on the cross benefits no one who is not connected to him by faith. His death must become our own if it is to break the hold that the law has on us and the only way for his death to become ours is through faith in Jesus.
In Romans chapter six, Paul makes the point that the baptized, believing child of God has died with Christ and been raised with Christ—that Jesus’ death and resurrection has become our own through faith—so that a brand new relationship has begun for us just as real as when a woman marries a new husband after the old one passes away.
This new relationship with Christ ( in place of our old life under the curse and condemnation of the law) has been brought about by God for a purpose: that we would bear fruit for him—good works that serve our neighbor and bring glory to God.
This fruit that we bear as Christian people is completely different than the fruit that springs forth from the person under the law. Paul writes that:
While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.
Before we came to faith in Jesus Christ, there was fruit-bearing—but it was the sinful fruit of death because it came not from our connection to the true vine Jesus Christ—but it came from the sinful passions of our fallen flesh—passions that were “aroused by the law”.
Now what does Paul mean that our sinful passions were “aroused by the law”? Let me give you an example. When you see a sign that says: “Do not touch--wet paint”—what is the first thing you want to do? You want to touch it!
That is the perverseness of our sinful nature when it comes to the law-- that even when we know that something is wrong—even when we know we shouldn’t do it—that it is forbidden only serves to make it more enticing. Drug and alcohol abuse—illicit sexual affairs and the use of pornography—gossip that is shared among friends-- have an added allure to our flesh because they are forbidden by the law.
And acting on the desires of our fallen, human nature, our sinful passions become the evidence for the death sentence that God has pronounced upon sinners.
But for the believing child of God who has died and been raised with Christ in baptism-- this is all in the past because a new life in the Spirit has taken the place of our old life in the flesh under the law.
The question then is this: Does this new life in the Spirit lead us away from God’s will as it is expressed in the law? No! In fact, it is only those who walk in the Spirit who can fulfill the righteous requirements of the law because their obedience flows from the love of Jesus rather than the compulsion of the law. Paul writes:
What then shall we say? That the law is sin? Paul recognizes that he might be misunderstood. After all, if it is a good thing that we have been set free from the law through Christ’s death for us and our death in him—and if our sinful passions are aroused by the law—does this somehow mean that God is responsible for our sin since he gave us the law? By no means! But there is a connection between our sin and God’s law: the law reveals our sin. Paul writes:
If it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”
When Paul says that apart from the law he would not have known sin, he does not mean that he would not have known right and wrong. He spends the first two chapters of this letter teaching that very thing—that even Gentiles who do not have the law given at Sinai still know what is right and wrong. But what we do not know by nature—and what we cannot know apart from the law-- is the depth of our sinfulness that extends not just to the immoral actions that every society condemns—such as stealing—but also extends to the sin that is hidden in our heart.
That is why Paul uses coveting to make his point—that the demands of the law extend not just to adultery and murder and stealing—things that every culture forbids and punishes--but goes all the way to the desires of our heart that lead to these sins—desires that are hidden to others—but known by God. Only through the law can we see the depth of our sin and the greatness of God’s holiness—spiritual truths that grow ever greater the more closely we look into the mirror of the law. Paul writes that:
Sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.
Once Paul’s eyes had been opened by the law to just exactly what sin was, then he saw it everywhere in his life! So it is with us. Once the law reveals that it is not only adultery that is a sin but the lust in our hearts—not just murder that is the sin but the anger—not just idol worship that is a sin but the worry—then we see sin everywhere—in our actions and thoughts and motives-- so that the law acts like gasoline in taking a spark and turning it into a raging inferno that cannot be hidden away—but is seen for the soul-destroying fire that it is. Paul had gone through that very thing. He writes:
I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.
When Paul learned the depth of his sin through God’s commandment on coveting (that God cared not just about his outward actions but what was hidden in his heart) he was awakened from his blissful ignorance and sleepy false security—to the true state of his soul: that he was a sinner through and through and that the God whose holiness is revealed in the law must punish sin with death. He knew about himself that he was spiritually dead, alienated from God, an object of his just wrath.
Every person who would have life in Christ must come to that same place of recognizing that in ourselves, according our flesh, even doing the best we can to keep the law—there is only death. The demands of the law are that we would be holy even as God is holy and to fail at just one point of the law—is to be a lawbreaker through and through—under the penalty of death in time and eternity. Paul writes that:
The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.
God made a promise concerning the law: do these things and you will live. There is a promise of life attached to the commandments by God --but only if they are kept perfectly. Just one man who ever lived did that-- and his name is Jesus—and truly there is life in him. For everyone else, the commandments reveal the deadly nature of sin within us—that we want, above else, the things that God has wisely denied to us.
But sin blinds us to the truth that the commandments are given by God for our good. The law appears to be a terrible imposition on our freedom. We chafe under its restrictions.
Sin also deceives us into believing that we alone, of all people, can escape the consequences of our sin--that we alone of all people can do something to make things right again between us and God. But there is an inescapable, divine decree attached to the law: the wages of sin is death. So it is for all of us—not because God’s law is deadly—but because our sin is deadly. Paul writes:
So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.
Here then is the crux of the matter: is God responsible for our sin? Is his holiness expressed in the law and his refusal to abide with sin—the reason for mankind’s spiritual plight? No! It is our sin that brought us to a place of alienation from God and set our feet on the road to death.
The purpose of the law is to reveal that truth to us—a truth that would be forever hidden from us if God did not step in and show us just exactly what he expects of us in the law—and that is a holiness like his own.
The law shows us the truth of how far we are from that holiness—that the gap between sinners and a holy God is beyond measure—and that we need a Savior—someone who can make a way for us back to God.
Only in Christ can the chasm between the sinner and God be bridged. Jesus lived the holy life that God expects of you and me. The moral perfection that God demands of us—Jesus provided for us every moment of his life. He went to the cross as the perfect, sinless sacrifice for the sin of the world—yours and mine-- and God raised him from the dead on the third day—his resurrection the promise of a new life for you and me.
In the waters of Holy Baptism, through faith in Jesus, his holiness was given to us as a gift and God’s wrath was taken away. We died to the curse and condemnation of the law and were made alive through the One who was raised from the dead.
God accomplished our salvation this way for one purpose: that we would be the people he created us to be in the beginning—people who serve him gladly and willingly and without compulsion—people who are led by the Spirit to freely produce the fruit of good works-- simply because we love our heavenly Father and are thankful for what he has done for us in his son Jesus. Amen.
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