TITLE: Free Grace and the Wretched Man
• Romans 7 begins with a marriage illustration to teach the Christians in Rome the difference between being married to the law (and the impossibilities/frustration it causes) and being joined to Christ (and the possibilities/fruit it brings).
• This illustration must guide us through all of Romans 7.
Michael Bird, “Paul is trying to get the Roman Christians to reflect on how in hindsight they can see that their prior life under the law was a continuous moral struggle where they were never able to arrive at a sense of assurance that they were right with God or that they really belonged to God’s people.”
• Romans 6 teaches that free grace frees us from the lordship/dominion of sin.
• Romans 7 teaches that free grace frees us from the lordship/dominion of the Law.
1. The Release from the Law. (Romans 7:1-6)
Romans 7:6 (NASB), “But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.”
2. The Defense of the Law. (7:7-13)
Romans 7:7 (NASB), “What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? Far from it! 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.’ 8 But sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin came to life, and I died; 10 and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me; 11 for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it, killed me. 12So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.”
Romans 7:13 (NASB), “Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? Far from it! Rather it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by bringing about my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.
Q - Is the law sin?
• A – Far from it! The law is holy, righteous, and good. v12
Q - Is the law a cause of death?
• A – Far from it! Sin causes death, not the law.
• Paul defends the law from these two false accusations.
God’s law does four good things for us...
• The law explains sin. What it is and how it is an offence to a Holy God.
• The law provokes sin. It kicks up sin like a broom in a dusty room (so we can’t ignore it).
• The law condemns sin so we never minimize/excuse it, but know it to be utterly sinful.
• The law analyzes sin on the heart level. Sin is not just external, it is internal (coveting).
• Tim Keller, “To ‘covet’ is to be discontent with what God has given you. “Coveting” includes envy, self-pity, grumbling, and murmuring. Coveting is not simply “wanting,” it is an idolatrous longing for more beauty, wealth, approval and popularity than you have. It is not wrong to want such things, but if you are bitter and downcast when you don’t achieve them, it is because your desire for them has become idolatrous coveting.”
• God’s law is good. It does not cause sin, it explains sin/evil on the inside and the outside.
3. The Weakness of the Law. (7:14-25)
Romans 7:14 (NASB), “For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold into bondage to sin. 15 For I do not understand what I am doing; for I am not practicing what I want to do, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 However, if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, that the Law is good. 17 But now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin that dwells in me. 18 For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. 19 For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. 20 But if I do the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin that dwells in me.”
Romans 7:21 (NASB), “I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. 22 For I joyfully agree with the law of God in the inner person, 23 but I see a different law in the parts of my body waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin, the law which is in my body’s parts. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?”
Who is this Wretched Man? Who talks like this? (There are more than a dozen views!)
• V14 – “I am fleshly, sold into bondage to sin.”
• V15 – “I do the very thing I hate.”
• V19 – “For the good that I want, I do not do. I practice the very evil that I do not want.”
• V22 – “For I joyfully agree with the law of God.”
• V24 – Wretched man that I am!
• Wretched means, “afflicted, miserable, exhausted.”
I don’t think Paul is talking about himself (either before Christ as a Pharisee or now as Christ’s apostle).
• I don’t think that Paul is describing the typical Christian, with a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde duel nature.
• Who is the wretched man? The wretched man is the person who is trying to live in both humanities -- In Adam AND in Christ! (see Romans 5). The wretched man is doing the impossible – trying to serve two masters.
• The wretched man is anyone trying to live in ADAM (under law) and in CHRIST (under grace). It can’t be done. That is the fruitless life described here.
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, “Now we cannot, in that sense, discover our failure to keep God’s law except by trying our very hardest (and then failing). Unless we really try, whatever we say there will always be at the back of our minds the idea that if we try harder next time we shall succeed in being completely good. Thus, in one sense, the road back to God is a road of moral effort, of trying harder and harder. But in another sense it is not trying that is ever going to bring us home. All this trying leads up to the vital moment at which you turn to God and say, ‘You must do this. I can’t.’”
• Corrie Ten Boom, “When I try, I fail. When I trust, He succeeds.”
• The wretched man described here is the one trusting the unholy trinity of “Me, myself, and I.”
Conclusion: Doxology
Romans 7:25 (NASB), “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.”
• V24 - Who will set me free? That’s the final question.
• V25 - Jesus Christ our Lord! That’s the final answer.
• That’s the doxology! Christ is the answer to the wretch like me in need of grace and freedom.
