David Bahn – Reflections

Romans 7:1-14

Or 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? 2 For 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. 3 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.

4 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. 5 For 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. 6 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.

7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet 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.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

The growing social movement toward legalization of marijuana is an example, some would say, of forbidden fruit creating desire. The idea is that if the fruit were not proscribed we would be less likely to desire it. It’s the fact that the fruit is forbidden that makes it so appealing. Legalize pot, so the argument goes, and it will become less and less desirable. That may not be the main argument, but it certainly is one of the reasons put forward.

Paul speaks of the war against his soul by the unholy alliance of the Law and sin. Here he speaks of the 10 Commandments, and of the 9th and 10th commandments against coveting. Because he knew it was wrong to covet, any temptation to covet became an opportunity for the law to incite sinful desires in him.

The solution to this, however, is not simply to legalize covetousness, or any other sinful behavior. In fact the purpose of the Law is to awaken in us a knowledge of our sin, so that we may be drawn by the Gospel to the cross of Jesus. The Reformation Study Bible has it this way:

The God-ordained role of the law in a fallen world is to reveal the nature of human sin. The law not only defines sin, but acts as a catalyst, provoking the precise sinful reactions that it forbids and condemns (vv. 8–11). In itself the law, which brings us to know the reality of sin in our moral and spiritual system (3:20; 5:13, 20), is “holy and righteous and good” (v. 12). The law is a faithful revelation of what is right or wrong, and does not lose its validity to measure and direct our moral behavior.

God’s higher desire is that we live and serve in the new way of the Spirit, rather than in a misguided attempt to dot every “i” and cross every “t” of the law. That is not to say we are being urged to covet so long as we do it in a godly way! It is to say we are to live out of our new and true identity as sons and daughters of God in faithful obedience inspired by the Holy Spirit. We don’t obey our way into a right relationship with God. We obey because of our relationship with God.

This is the new way of the Spirit. Rather than asking, “What good thing must I do to be saved?”, we now ask, “How shall I live today as a child of God?” Our identity defines us. Our obedience expresses our identity. We don’t even obey so that we may retain our identity as God’s sons and daughters. We are his, by his grace, and through the redemption of Christ.

I wish I could express the heaviness of heart that I feel when I think of keeping the laws and commands of God, of keeping every theological nuance perfectly expressed, or of making certain that I have kept all my life and ministry within the proper lines. Believe me, I want to please God; I have no desire to abandon that which he has said is good. But to live in the new way of the Spirit is a joy and delight to my soul. How about you?