My Sunday Skl

Freedom in Christ. Interesting…we’ll put that on pause for the minute.

So back to Romans 17, Paul opens the chapter with the illustration of marriage, with the law being the husband and the believer being the wife.

² For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him.

This death somewhat represents two though. First, in Christ the law becomes dead to us, and secondly, we become dead to the law. Like a bad divorce? Well yeah. What Paul is trying to say is that the law is no longer the standard by which we are judged, and to be honest that’s a good thing for us.

So, I can break all the laws I want. I always wanted that coat, let me go take it.

Nope.

Why is it a good thing then?

Paul answers that in verses 7-13. See, the law of God is good and perfect, but it does nothing in terms of helping us obey its commands.

BLASPHEMY!

Give it a sec.

All the law can do is make us aware of sin and condemn us when we’re not faithful children of God. Whether you like it or not, if you want to truly obey God’s law, you have only one standard – perfection.

I don’t get it.

Okay so Paul illustrates this all with the law against coveting.

Coveting? (Yearn to possess (something, especially something belonging to another)).

“For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet’.”

His point being that having knowledge of the tenth commandment didn’t help him stop being a covetous person, it just made him painfully aware of how covetous he was.

Hmm, I kinda get what you mean.

Okay, lets look at it like this. The law is like a mirror. You look in it in the morning and all it’ll do is show how messy your hair is, the little spots on your face, that shirt you buttoned up wrong. Cool, you now know that you have imperfections that you need to fix. But you know what you’re not going to do? You’re not going to pick up the mirror and comb your hair with it or wash your face with it. A mirror can’t fix what’s wrong. It can only show you what’s wrong.

Alright I get you, so what was the point of the 10 commandments?

Honestly, I don’t think the 10 commandments were written with the expectation that we’ll be able to keep them. Key word being able. They were written to show that we can’t. But the only way we would know that is by having the commandments in front of us.

Some of you won’t be able to relate, but if I’m being real, I had a point where swearing was completely normal. It became a part of my vocabulary. I remember one day deciding that I won’t anymore, and it wasn’t until then that I truly realised how much I and the people around me swore. F-this. F-that. You trip. Oh Sh*t. Something cool happens. Oh Sh*t. Forgot to do the homework. Oh Sh*t. It was everywhere, but it wasn’t until I set this “rule” or “law” that I truly realised how easy it was to do.

The law prevents us from deceiving ourselves and thinking we are doing fine, but it doesn’t directly stop us from breaking them.

I wonder what even got Paul to think about all this.

Well if we carry on reading, we first get a breakdown of how Paul is feeling in that moment.

¹⁴ We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. ¹⁵ I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.

…

¹⁸ For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.

…

²¹ So I find this law at work: although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.

Paul felt like a lot of us do; as if the “new Paul” was locked up still in the “old Paul”, his flesh.

New. Old. Flesh. What?

When you come to Jesus, it’s like he put a brand-new you inside your old flesh. And when he says “flesh” or “sinful nature” Paul isn’t talking about the meat on our bones. He’s talking about humanness, our bodies and its appetites outside of Christ.

“Flesh is the term the Bible uses for the human in contrast to the divine – for the things that are material as opposed to the things that are spiritual.”

Paul is saying that even though he is saved from the consequences of his sin, and even though his desire is to please God, his flesh is still like a magnet, attracting sin. When God redeems and justifies us, He does not just repair our flesh. You can argue He never really disconnects the magnet, if you will. This is what makes it hard to please God in the flesh and trying to start New Year’s resolutions and such things.

Oh yeah, that whole no swearing thing. That lasted maybe 2 days before I tripped and fell.

We make human attempts to fix this flesh, when God has already assigned our flesh to the grave. It’s so corrupted by sin, there’d be no use in repairing it.

Instead of trying to repair the old house, God is going to give us a brand-new one at the resurrection.