Romans 7:7-13: "Purpose of the Law"

Paul saw the depths to which he had to go to help his readers understand the purpose of the law. His last remark of the previous section, "oldness of the letter", lead him once again to defend his love and appreciation for the law. The big question everyone is asking themselves is: If we are now dead to the law and no longer under it's curse; if we cannot be saved by obeying the Law; then why would God have given us the Law? MacArthur helps explain this, "His purpose was not only to reveal the standard of righteousness by which the saved are to live but also to show them the impossibility of living it without His power and to show them the depth of their sinfulness when honestly measured against the law. The law was not given to show men how good they could be but how good they could not be". In other words, the law was meant to point us to God and our need for His righteousness since we could not attain it on our own. Paul will make his case for this in this section of chapter 7.

Paul again begins the way he so often does, by asking a question he quickly and emphatically responds to, with, "May it never be!" The question he begins this section with is, "What shall we say, then? Is the Law sin?". Paul now begins his defense of the law and we get a better understanding of what the purpose of the law is. He writes, "On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law;" Paul is telling us that he would not have understood the depths of his sinfulness and his need for salvation if the Law never came. When contrasted with God's perfect Law we can only then come to know what sin is, and what it isn't. For example, he writes, "I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, "You shall not covet." Paul uses himself as an example, as he has already told us the universality of sin, and wanted his readers to understand Paul includes himself in all he has spoken of. MacArthur writes, "Throughout the rest of the chapter, Paul uses the first person singular pronouns I and me, indicating that he is giving his personal testimony as well as teaching universal truth. He is relating the conviction of sin that the Holy Spirit worked in his own heart thought the law before and during his Damascus road encounter with Christ and the three days of blindness that followed". Paul is saying if the law had not told him what it meant to covet, then he would have continued to live his life in ignorance of the fact that he was sinning against God. It was better for him that he understand that what he was doing was wrong. If a child begins to steal things without understanding that it is wrong, it is in the parent's best interest to teach that child that it is wrong. In fact, his parents would not be loving to him, if they didn't tell him what he was doing was wrong. Regardless of the child's ignorance to it, if he were to get caught later on in life, he will still be tried and convicted of it, whether he knew it was wrong or not. Therefore, God, in His love, desired to show man his sinfulness by giving us His Law.

Paul now differentiates that it is the sin in us, not the law, that is wrong and causes us to stumble. He writes, "But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind". F.F. Bruce writes, "The villain of the piece is Sin; Sin seized the opportunity afforded it when the law showed me what was right and what was wrong". Paul defends the law in Gal. 3:21 as well, "Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be!" We must understand that the law was for our benefit, and it is our sinful hearts that cause us to be aroused to sin by the law. We have all seen this work. What happens when we tell a child to not touch something. Everything in them desires to go over grab the forbidden. Is it our fault for trying to help them from something harmful to them? No, of course not. Was it wrong for God to tell Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of knowledge? No, of course not. It was their curiosity and ultimately sin that caused them to desire the forbidden. Paul goes on to say, "apart from the Law sin is dead". On this MacArthur writes, "It is not that sin has no existence apart from the law, because that is obviously not true. Paul has already stated that, long before the law was revealed, sin entered the world through Adam and then spread to all his descendants (Rom. 5:12). 'Until the Law sin was in the world,' he goes on to explain, 'but sin is not imputed when there is no law' (v.13). Paul's point in Romans 7:8 is that sin is dead in the sense that it is somewhat dormant and not fully active. It does not overwhelm the sinner as it does when the Law becomes known".

Paul, still using his own personal experience writes, "And I was once alive apart from the Law; but when commandment came, sin became alive, and I died". Paul is saying that he was once self-deceived into thinking he understood and knew all he needed to understand about the Law as a Pharisee. Matthew Henry writes, "He thought himself in a very good condition; he was alive in his own opinion and apprehension, very secure and confident of the goodness of his state . . . Though brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, though himself a great student in the law, a strict observer of it, and zealous stickler for it, yet without the law. He had the letter of the law, but he had not the spiritual meaning of it - the shell, but not the kernel". However, when "the commandment came, sin became alive". When Paul finally understood the Law in his heart, when he grasped the spiritual ramifications of it, he became so acutely aware of his sin. Matthew Henry continues, "But when the commandment came, came in the power of it (not to his eyes only, but to his heart), sin revived, as the dust in a room rises (that is, appears) when the sun-shine is let into it. Paul then saw thin in sin which he had never seen before; he then saw sin in its causes, the bitter root, the corrupt bias, the bent backslide". Paul had been puffed up his whole life. Growing up as a Pharisee he looked to cram as much knowledge into his head and he would puff up and puff up. When God truly opened his eyes to his sinful wretchedness, it must have been like all the air was let out of him, and he dwindled to nothing: "I died". When he finally saw the commandments, God's full law, for what they truly were, "which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me". The Law, which he had looked to for salvation his life, was now proving to be the very death of him, because for the first time he realized his wretched sinfulness. Paul also explains of self-righteousness deceit. For as Paul was thinking he would go to heaven through following the Law, he found out it only lead to death. MacArthur writes, "Deceit is one of sin's most subtle and disastrous evils. A person who is deceived into thinking he is acceptable to God because of his own merit and good works will see no need of salvation and no reason for trusting in Christ". Paul proved this by saying, "for sin . . .deceived me, and through it killed me".

"So then" is another way for Paul to bring back up the question and answer it directly. "Is the law sin?" He answers, "the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good". Paul has spent the first part of this section explaining the wretchedness of sin and how the law exposes that. He now moves to exalt and lift up the holiness and righteousness of God's Law. Again, defending the law, "Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me?" Basically, Paul is asking how the Law could be considered holy and righteous if it causes death for all mankind? Again, he retorts, "May it never be!" It is not the mother that tells his son not to do something harmful that is wrong, it is the son who disobeys his mother that is wrong. Paul explains that, "Rather it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by effecting my death through that which is good". Sin was exposed for what it truly was in God's perfect Law. Sin was now shown as the counterfeit it truly is. In fact the Law was given in order "that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful". MacArthur explains this, "Paul's point here is that sin is so utterly sinful that it can even pervert and undermine the purpose of God's holy law. It can twist and distort the law so that instead of bringing life, as God intended, it brings death".

This passage is so applicable to each of us who is saved, and is necessary in all who will come to the saving knowledge of Christ. It is the law, the wonderful word of God that comes and crushes us. We understand what we truly are in the law, that is: sinful. Before we know we need a Savior we must know what we need saving from. It is when we expose ourselves to God's standard that we understand our utter wretchedness before Him. We then see Christ for what he is: our only way to God. When we see our sinfulness we understand our great need for our Savior, and this sinfulness is recognized in the Law. This is the purpose of the Law.