Law of God | July 12
What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.”
But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead.
I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.
And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death.
For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me.
Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.
Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.
Romans 7:7-13
Father, help us not to recoil from difficult teaching such as this. We know that everything written in the Bible has a purpose and that we should seek to understand. Here, Paul is emphasizing that if the law did not exist, we would not know that we were breaking the law. But when the law was given to Moses, it became our judge and we were all guilty. The law, Father, can never save us. It convicts us and only by dying to the dominance of our fleshly instincts can we be saved.
Paul asks; how can something good, like the law, destroy us? You have taught us that it is because our flesh is disobedient and can never be obedient, to the letter of the law, and that we need forgiveness and cleansing by the power of the Holy Spirit, sent by You. Father, if Jesus had never come and if He had not died for us, becoming a sacrifice for our sins, then our sins would still be with us.
We do not trust in our obedience to the law for our salvation. Only by the redeeming blood of Jesus, shed for us, can we ever hope to stand in Your Holy presence. That Father is what separates Christianity from every other belief system. We can not enter into Your presence stained by sin and Jesus takes away our sin, forever.
Such a simple fact should not be ignored by other faiths. Without Jesus there is no cleansing and forgiveness. Help us to understand, we pray, In His name, amen.
Bruce Caldwell
The Sola Scriptura Project
