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morning Romans chapter 7 we'll be looking at just two verses verses five and six as we try to navigate very choppy Waters that Paul
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has given us here in Romans 7 read those two verses I'd like to ask Ariel if he prayed for the ministry of the word this morning morning Romans chapter 7 beginning in verse
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5 for while we were in the flesh the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for
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death 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
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letter let us let us pray Heavenly Father we do come before you rejoice to gather around your word we were reminded this morning that
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we are very similar to your people of old who live in environment surrounded by evil heard judges how they followed
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after worship other gods but we know as we just heard PA that we are in the spirit we have the Holy Spirit so I pray that we would not
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turn aside from you Lord I pray this morning as your speaker brings that word that Spirit would be active in our hearts building
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us up as though it were the elders who remembered the things that God has
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I think it was 1996 that Atlanta hosted the Summer Olympic Games doesn't really matter if I'm wrong there but they did host the Atlanta the Olympic Games in the summer and one of
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the one of the um venues was whitewater rafting we had the privilege of doing that up in Western North Carolina this past fall but in thinking of Olympic
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whitewater rafting I think what we were doing was flashing in a bathtub I believe they ran the event on the chatuga and some other rivers that have like a category five Rapids well
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that's what we're getting into here in Romans 7 as far as the theologians and the commentators are concerned this is a category five rapid the water that flows
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through Romans 7 has sunk many uh theological canoe has driven quite a few commentators to One bank or the other and some of Simply Gotten Trapped Under
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the rocks and we haven't heard from them since um these are choppy Waters and I imagine that if you have read this passage you've read verses
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like so now it is no longer I'm the one who's doing it but sin which indwells me oh that sounds good he says that twice actually verses 18 and 20 kind of like um you know the devil made me do it um
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it's not really me it's the sin that dwells in me and we read through Romans 7 and we wonder um he begins to use the first person singular
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here verse 9 I was once alive apart from the law but when the Commandment came sin became alive and I died verse 14 for we know that the law
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is spiritual but I am of the flesh sold into bondage to sin Verse 18 for I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh for the wishing is present in me but the
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doing of the good is not is this autobiograph graphical or is it rhetorical Paul doesn't use the first person singular often unless he's talking about his own life and his own
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path to Jesus and then afterward he does that fairly often but in this case he's talking in terms of sin that tend to confuse us is he
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telling us about his own experience or is he developing a figure of speech a a rhetorical biography by which we might all see ourselves In this passage and I
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think we do find oursel In this passage but the question is do we find ourselves here before we became Christians or after we came to Christ is
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this a description of a righteous Jew for example like Paul was trying to find his way to God through Torah or is it the experience of a
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post Damascus Road Paul seeing that yet he yet sins and he's not able to do the things that he
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knows God wants him to do so again there are many opinions and all of them have some support from the text because Paul
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In this passage says things that an unbeliever just couldn't really say that for example I Delight in the law of God in the Inner Man can
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an unbeliever say that and is it true of an unbeliever that is not he who sins but the sin that dwells in him that doesn't seem right but then he also
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seems to say things that don't seem right for a Believer either and either and so there is much support for different views within the
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commentators and as I've read through them over the years and by the way for those of you who attended the Roman study in plumline um ages ago I think it was like 2012 or earlier I have pulled
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out those notes to see whether I still agree with agree with myself and I do commit to you that if I don't agree with myself I will call myself to account for that as to who it is Paul's talking about here maybe we're
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not really getting it right with the either or paradigms that we're trying to put upon the text and I think that the
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conundrum really begins in the passage we're looking at this morning verses 5 and six because it is here that Paul introduces the dichotomy that is so
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common in his letters and that is between the Flesh and the spirit now as his has been his practice he introduces an idea and then we'll get to it a
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chapter or so later and he's doing that here in verse 6 he introduces really for the first time the ministry of the spirit which he will not pick up again
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until chapter 8 so keep that in mind that he's kind of dropping an orderve on the plate and says the main course is coming later but the dichotomy between flesh and spirit that runs through all
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his letters listen to what he says in Galatians 5 because it parallels to a large extent what we read here in Romans chapter 7 Paul writes for the flesh sets
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its desires against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh for these are in opposition to one another that you may not do the things you
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please you may notice in your outline if you've looked at it that I have both a capital S and a lowercase s for Spirit again that's a little lorder that's a little appetizer we talked about that
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last week with regard to whether or not we capitalize law well we have the same question now as we get into this word spirit Spirit do we capitalize it throughout is it lowercase in some
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places and capital s in others and it does make a difference and we'll get into that so that's just kind of a little bit uh ahead and
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so Paul also in verses five and six sets up an another pattern of speech that is very common to him and that is talking
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about things that once were and then using the phrase but now because what he has been talking about throughout is a transition from a condition in which we
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once all were both Jew and Gentile he points out in Romans 3 we were all brought under the Judgment of God and we were found wanting but
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now but now we who have been baptized into Christ's death have died to these different things died to sin died to the law died even to
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death so as we interpret the identity of the i in Romans 7 which is I think very difficult even for the most careful
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exog it is important that we stay in the channel of the flow of Paul's logic that we not bring into the
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argument things that Paul is not addressing here questions like is it okay okay that a Christian still sins am I am I okay just blaming it on
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the sin that dwells in me or should I be perfect am I The Wretched Man in Romans 7:25 or do I Rejoice that there is now
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no condemnation or is it both these are not actually questions that Paul was asking or that the Romans were asking Paul these actually did not
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really arise until about the 20th century and our modern therapeutic introspective culture we're worried about our own
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salvation so we read a passage like this or Hebrews chapter 6 heaven forbid anybody go there and we think that when we read these maybe we're not really Christians that's not what Paul was
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dealing with here he's dealing with something that is common to all who are in Christ all who have brought into Union with Christ's death and his resurrection and he's dealing with
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powers of the old age that have all been defeated in Christ and in his death and Resurrection so his transition here is
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from Death to life it's a transformation through Union with Jesus Christ I I don't think I can say that often enough to understand what Paul
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learned the Revelation that was given given to him is to understand that God has made Christ the representative head of a new humanity and those who by faith have
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been joined to him and have been baptized into his death are now according to Paul throughout in him in Christ in Jesus it is a matter of
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status and a transition and transformation of status We Were Once Dead in our trespass in sin we have been made alive in Christ if we don't
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understand that rubric that that umbrella then we are bound to hit the Rocks whenever we get in to the nitty-gritty of Paul's logic so that's kind of the overarching theme that we
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have been transferred from Death to life which means that rising in newness of life and frankly I think what we're dealing with here is Paul expanding on
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that phrase back back in Romans 6 that you have been buried with him in baptism to rise to walk in newness of Life what does that look like do we now do we Now
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obey the law because the spirit is within us to help us do so or do we do we Now obey the spirit of the law but not really pay attention to the letter is that what he means when he says the
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newness of the spirit you know that that our hearts are right even though our actions are wrong that is not what he's talking about at all in fact what he's trying to say here is if you go back to
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the law and try to seek the approbation of God through the law you're going back into death you're going back into bondage don't do that because what he is
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laying out before us is that our Union with Christ in his death means that we are dead to sin Christ cannot come again
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in Rel relation to sin Hebrews makes it clear that when he comes again it will not be in relation to sin he's dealt with that he will not deal with it again which is why it is appointed to man
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wants to die and then comes judgment because there's nothing else available Jesus has done that on the cross having raised from the dead he has
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died to death death can no longer have a claim on him he has everlasting life as the son of man so those who were in him are not only dead to sin they're dead to
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death though we die Jesus says yet we will live because death has no hold on him nor any who are in
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him now that we can accept because sin and death are terrible things but what about the law you can imagine the Jews and the Roman Church saying well Paul what what I hear is that you you're not
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very fond of the law explain to us what you think about the law now and he says well the law was given that transgression might transgression might abound the law was given to show how
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impossible it was for us to be obey God and to be sinless in fact the law as we pointed out before can never bring Salvation it
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can only ever bring condemnation so those who seek salvation in the law are seeking in the wrong place and so those who are brought into
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Union with Jesus Christ and his death have also died to the law and Paul says in Galatians 4 that he was born of woman born under the law
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that he might deliver those who are under the law he's now expanding that the law has no claim on Jesus Christ there has no claim on any who are
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in him but where does all of this take part these are the powers of the old age sin the law the law death but now he's getting in to the to
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the very personal realm of where this battle is fought and won by Jesus Christ's death and resurrection and that is the flesh so he's introducing a
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concept here some call it the fourth power of the old age but the problem is it's not very powerful it's pretty weak it might be I guess if you want to
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call it a power you you could compare it to to Italy being among the military po yeah right everybody else provides the guns they provide the spaghetti it's
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like this is not a power we're talking about here and in fact the word itself flesh as it's used in the New Testament is is sometimes neutral but it's never
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positive and what it generally means is weakness and weakness and vulnerability Now by neutral I mean that it's it's not as Plato taught and as the
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gnostics believe that sin dwells in our bodies and our Spirits or our souls have been condemned to be ENT trapped by these bodies until they are eventually
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released now that's not biblical that's not true in fact that's a denial of the Resurrection our bodies were created by God and we are naked without them so the
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word for body is different than the word for flesh and the word for flesh is significant in that it denotes the weakness of human nature and yet it's not in itself
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evil so we read in John chapter 1 that the word became flesh and tabernacled Among Us same word does that mean he became sinful was he tainted by the
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flesh that he took on no he became what he became weak and vulnerable he became perhaps we can say limited Philippians 2
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teaches us that he took that on on himself that himself that self-limitation even though he was himself God and so
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flesh represents we might say our our nature as created beings but since Adam it represents our sin nature the nature that is prone to
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Rebellion against God the nature that is powerless to save itself one author says existence in the of the flesh is determined by the three
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powers of the old age sin the law and death this is where the battle is fought is in the flesh and this is why Paul says in Roman 8 he
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says um verse three for what the law could not do weak as it was through the flesh see there's that weakness God did sending his own son in the likeness of
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sinful flesh his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin he condemned sin in the flesh we know that Paul was given a
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tremendous Revelation he says so himself and he paid a great price for that Revelation for us to understand the Revelation that Paul was given I don't
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know I think it might take eternity to really grasp what Paul understood but I think we begin to see it when he tells us that Jesus taking on himself weak
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flesh was a means by which God concentrated all the Wrath against sin upon one person and
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condemned sin in that flesh Jesus Christ that was the battlefield and that was where the victory was one now we benefit from that
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Victory by being United with Christ in that death and more importantly perhaps United with Christ in his resurrection in that life after
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death but we have to deal with the Flesh and this is where I think as we've been talking about Sin and death and the law now we have to add this fourth component the component the Flesh and it seems to me that one of the
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keys of understanding Paul's current of thought here is to remember that though we have died to sin sin has not
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died though we have died to death yet death still is a reality though we have died to the law the law remains but what about the
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flesh it's still here you see we want to see some type of onoff switch you know we would like God to make us perfect
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but he doesn't choose to do that or to Deliver Us from all influence and Temptation and sin no that is not how he is preparing us for his kingdom or to
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eradicate death now he will do that the law Remains the flesh remains and what Paul is trying to teach us here
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is how now that we have been risen to walk in newness of Life how do we now relate to these powers that he says in verse 5 or verse six had once bound
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us these were our masters and we had no choice but to obey their edicts but now we have died to them which means we have been freed and released from their
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bondage and yet they remain so in chapter six he says do not go on presenting your members as instruments of unrighteousness do not go
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on living living under the law for you are now under grace what about the flesh well elsewhere he makes it very clear
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that we are to put to death the Deeds of the Flesh and that if we walk by the spirit we will not fulfill the desires of the flesh Galatians 5 so for Paul in
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the flesh is the condition of all who are outside of Christ you see either in the flesh or you're in
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Christ the Christ the person who is outside of Christ is fully under the power of sin the law and death
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and so in chapter uh verse 5 he says those while we were in the flesh the sinful passions which were aroused by the law see that's where the law becomes
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the instrument the power of sin is the law and what did we do we we bore fruit for fruit for death but up in verse five and it's
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important that you catch his repeating phrases he said therefore my brethren you also were made to die to the law through the body of Christ that you might be joined to another to him who
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was raised from the dead why so that you might bear fruit for God the only two choices whatever man says whatever the
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philosophers reason there are only two choices we will bear a crop either to death or to God but by the law we will only ever
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bear fruit for death and so he is he's making an unequivocal statement here that even though you are in Christ you do not live under the
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he mentions the flesh a lot now once he's introduced it in verse 5 he's going to he's going to be talking about it all the way through chapter 8 he immediately introduces it in verse 6 by telling us that there is a
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dichotomy between the Flesh and the spirit so the key to understanding the first person first person singular is realizing that this fourth
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power the flesh continues so I'm going to read a couple P verses here that I've already mentioned verse 14 for I we know that
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the law is spiritual but I am of the flesh sold into bondage to sin now see that sold into bondage to sin can that apply to a
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Believer if it applies to a Believer then that contradicts what Paul has already said that you have been freed from sin if you are in Christ you are not in bondage to
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sin but what if he's talking about his flesh well you see his flesh was sold into bondage to sin who
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sold it Adam that's Romans 5 he sold it for all of us thank you very much okay but we are all sold in our flesh into bondage to sin which is why
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he can say in verse 18 for I know that nothing good dwells within me and then he modifies that that is in my
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flesh this Remains the remaining reality of sin of the law of death are still concentrated in the remaining reality of
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My Flesh that I still live in this body of death and that I yet await await the Redemption of Redemption of it so everything Paul
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teaches he teaches in a forward-looking way he looks back to what Christ has done he looks to the present as to what God has done for each one of us in
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Christ by bringing us into Union with Christ's death and resurrection and then he immediately looks forward because although sin
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although sin remains we are not to be under Dominion to it although the law remains we are no longer bound to it although death
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Remains the final enemy it also will one day be utterly defeated so Paul in Romans 7 is looking to 1 Corinthians
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15 that we live in an age where these realities these powers of the old age still surround us and even as it were indwell
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us and yet they all have a date upon which they will be utterly destroyed that is the perusia of our Lord Jesus Christ the second
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coming Paul makes it clear that on that day sin will be completely eradicated and even death will be itself
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destroyed the law will have no longer any jurisdiction for where there is no sin there is no need of law but most importantly to his thinking
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I believe is on that day we will exchange our corruptible flesh for The Incorruptible that will be the time at
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which everything will be consummated and we will be as he is that is something that we look forward to but by God's wisdom we move toward that
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day in a world that is still inhabited by sin the law death and flesh and we see the weakness of our flesh and we must walk by faith and not
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by sight knowing that God has condemned sin in the flesh and therefore there is no condemnation for those who were in Christ Jesus this is the stream of Paul's
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thought because he says in 1 Corinthians 15 verse 15 now I say this brethren that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God there must be even in
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that a complete transition we will have glorified bodies that will be physical as Jesus's resurrected body was physical
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but it will no longer be flesh it will no longer be weak it will no longer be vulnerable it will no longer be susceptible to Temptation or
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to sickness to sickness it will be as he is and this is what we look forward to this is our hope flesh is weakness flesh
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is vulnerability flesh is what we live with now but when we live with flesh and sin we in our own nature especially our
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religious nature turn back to law how do we deal with the fact that we still sin well let's make more rules in fact let's build Hedges let's
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not simply say what you what you could cannot do let's move back and start making requirements as to where you can go and what you can look at and what you
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must wear so that you don't even get close to what you're not supposed to do don't go into a store that sells alcohol because you know it's like a
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magnet to the Flesh and before you know it you'll be buying up the whole aisle no that's not true but that's the law that comes back in and that's what
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sadly that's what Christianity has been largely about throughout its history is going back into the law not necessarily the law of Moses it may Simply Be The
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Law of that particular denomination or that particular pastor but it's a law nonetheless in fact if is especially prevalent sadly among
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reformed and I've mentioned this before and we'll have opportunity to talk about it more I think but what we've done with the law of Moses has been uh an example of
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exegetical malpractice without parallel I think we've divided the law up into three categories we say there's the ceremonial law that's what they did when they went
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to the altar that's what we're talking about on Thursday evenings in Leviticus that's the ceremonial law and we know that Christ has fulfilled that and then we say there's the civil law that pertained to Israel and its Kings and
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how it was to administer its country well that has has passed away because Israel is no longer some people think that will all come back in the Millennium some people want it to come
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back in Washington that would be a scary site but there's the the ceremoni and the Civil we those are gone but there's always the moral law okay the Ten
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Commandments the moral law we we need to keep the moral law as if any of the other laws were not moral because the breaking of any of the Commandments was
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a violation and a rebellion against God and it was treated very much as a moral infraction but we've made a distinction because we can't seem to get our mind around the idea of a people of God
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without a law because in our minds there is either law or lawlessness right but in Paul's mind there's either the oldness of the letter or the newness
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of the of the spirit see we don't like the spirit because to trust the spirit is to trust something that I can't control which means you all might behave
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in ways that I don't like and therefore I need a law to keep you from doing that no Paul would not accept that nor would
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Jesus Christ Jesus Christ Paul would see that as going back into the shadows and bringing one back into bondage to law what he would say is no the letter
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the letter kills it is the spirit that gives life but does that do away with the law well that would be a funny thing since the the primary exposition of the New
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Covenant in Jeremiah 31 is that he would write his law Upon Our Hearts and so the law La Still Remains but our relationship to that Law
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changes Adolf Schauer said it is not the law that is transformed but rather the individual that is transformed and so the law Paul can say
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remains holy and righteous and good but we in our relationship to it have utterly have utterly changed and so we're not talking when he
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says in verse 6 that we serve in newness of spirit and by the way I do think it's capitalized there but we'll get into that later and not in the oldness of the
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letter we have to and this is somewhat dangerous especially within reform circles we have to disagree with John Calvin in his institutes he writes here
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is the best instrument for them talking about the moral law okay here is the best instrument for them to learn more thoroughly each day the nature of the
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Lord's will to which they Aspire and to conform them in their understanding of
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it he would be better to write here is the best the best instrument for them to be clapped again in irons and Shackled with a burden that neither they nor their fathers have been
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able to to bear that would be a more biblical statement of what John Calvin is saying here but we still don't like to disagree with him we don't like to
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not have the Ten Commandments posted in our public buildings do we why should we defend the posting of the Ten Commandments
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anywhere they are instruments of condemnation and death they are not vehicles of vehicles of Salvation and that is again it's hard for us to get our mind around
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that but Paul gives us a solution here in verse six and this is this is the um this is the calm Waters that we will experience after the category five
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Rapids that's Romans 8 we go through the Rapids of sin of the law of death of the
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Flesh and that final SLO that brings us out into calm Waters is the holy
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spirit we understand that Paul himself was massively impacted by encountering the resurrected Jesus we understand that the death and resurrection of Jesus was foundational to his reoriented
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theology his redeemed Judaism but often times what we miss in Paul is just how much he talks about the Holy Spirit and how
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exclusively he places upon the spirit all the all the ability to do what pleases God and that's where Romans 8 is going to come
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in so he says in chapter verse 6 we have been released from the law dying to it dying to that by which we were bound and so I think in that phrase he's not just
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talking about the law he's talking about all of the powers of the old age that that bound us to themselves sin death the law the
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Flesh and what do we do now well look he uses that word nness again the same word he used back in Romans 6 when he said We rise to walk in newness of life he uses
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it here we serve served now in the newness of the spirit whenever he uses the same word he's probably drawing our attention back to that first use what does it mean to walk in newness of life
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it means to serve God in the newness of the spirit it doesn't mean as I said earlier that we Now understand the spirit of the law it's not some
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spiritualizing of the law either okay didn't agree with that statement um it's not a spiritualizing of the law either what it is is a new
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source of power real power ability that none of us possessed before we were in Christ because it is the same spirit
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that raised Christ from the dead that is now in work at you see this is Paul's theology don't try it on your own with the law don't try coming up with a
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different law that might work better realize that law itself is condemnatory and not salvific and when you make your rules
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you're doing the same thing that Moses did on Sinai only you're not half as qualified but what you're doing is you're bringing people into bondage and condemnation not into freedom and
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life only the spirit of Life can do that and so this is what leads to that that incredible climax there is therefore now no
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condemnation for those who were in Christ Jesus because the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of
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Freedom if the son has set you free you are free are free indeed it is for Freedom that Christ has set us free Paul says freedom is what this is all about but
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not freedom fre from some political bondage because countless millions of our Brethren have learned this lesson in the midst of political bondage the likes
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of which we've never experienced and couldn't even imagine and even this day today our Brethren throughout the world are living under oppression living under forms of government far worse than ours
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and that is completely irrelevant to Paul because in the midst of their bondage whether it's physical bondage of slavery or political bondage economic bondage social bondage ethnic bondage
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they live as free in Jesus Christ and none of the other socioeconomic situations matter because they have been set free from the real powers of the
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darkness sin death the law the Flesh and so Paul exhorts us I think to live as free men not to be as the freed
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slave after the Civil War who remained on the plantation and continued to refer to the owner as master I think that's somewhat how we reform theologians look
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at the law oh we know we're not really on the plantation as slaves anymore but we kind of like it there it's become our home and we stay there and we comment on
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it and pontificate on it and we say to the law the law Master no the law is no longer our Master the holy spirit is our
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master so we're getting into choppy Waters I ask your patience as we try to work through this text carefully and not be inaccurate though explaining it fully is is probably not something that anyone
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has been been able to do there are some things in Paul that are hard to understand as Peter said but we need to keep our compass on
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true north and that is we serve in the newness of the spirit we walk by the spirit we do not serve in the oldness of the letter nor do we walk by the flesh
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let us pray father we do ask that you would open your word to us into our understanding but even more father I ask
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that you would help us to overcome prejudices and doctrines that we have been taught concerning the
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law doctrines that would bring us back under its under its bondage doctrines that try to make part of the law sanctifying if not
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saving as if if bondage could ever sanctify if it cannot save help us to walk by the spirit and keep in step with the spirit that we
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might not fulfill the desires of the flesh for we ask these things for your glory for you have done all of this on our behalf and we ask it for our good in
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Jesus name Jesus name amen please rise for the benediction Hebrews chapter
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13 now the God of Peace who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the Eternal Covenant even Jesus our lord equip you in every good thing to do his will
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working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ to whom be the glory forever and ever
