Life at PazNaz

Catching Up With Paul’s Argument:

- Problem: Jewish and Gentile believers reconciling together over following Christ and obeying the law (in particular the law of circumcision).

- Chapter 3: Righteousness (setting our relationship right) with God is a free gift given simply out of the loving character of the Father and it does not come through obedience to the law or through the nature of our character.

- Chapter 4: Abraham followed God before being circumcised. Abraham’s faith was demonstrated in his willingness to participate in God’s blessing of all the nations through him. God is reversing the destruction of sin in his creation and Abraham has “joined the revolution” and his faith was credited to him as righteousness.-Chapter 5: God’s grace is greater than the power of sin. A new pattern of life has been established in Jesus that we can draw on – particularly as we participate in the redemptive suffering of Christ.

- Chapter 6: The resurrection of Jesus has ushered in a new opportunity for life. He put to death the dominion of sin and makes it possible for us to be transformed by his grace. We were once slaves to sin, but through baptism, we have been set free and are now the people of God. We should no longer present our bodies to sin as master, but we must now present the members of our body to God for his service and purposes in the world (sanctification).

No Longer Bound to the Law (7:1-6)

- The main subject of chapter 7 is the law. Although sometimes people read chapter 7 as Paul’s description of the difficulty of living the Christian life, it is really more a description about the inadequacy of the law.

- The argument Paul makes here is very difficult because on the one hand he wants to praise the value of the law, demonstrate how it did the work God set it up to do, and how it was fulfilled in the work of Jesus and the Spirit, but on the other hand he also wants to describe why the law itself could not give the life it had promised but instead became a kind of negative force as well.

- The key to the chapter is the deep-level transition that Paul is describing from the covenant family defined by the law to the covenant family defined by the Messiah and the Spirit.

- Paul uses another metaphor here at the beginning of chapter 7 to describe what he means by freedom from the law. When a woman is married she is bound by covenant to her husband, but if the husband dies she is no longer bound to that covenant. She is free. In the same way, like the first husband, the law has been put to death thus freeing those who were under the law to discover a new covenant partner. But what does it mean to say that the law is now dead?

Sin Seized the Opportunity (7:7-12)

- It is hotly debated among NT scholars who the “I” is that Paul refers to throughout this chapter. Some believe that Paul is giving us a kind of spiritual biography of his journey before knowing Christ. But it is more likely that the “I” here is meant to be something more general. In the same way that we often generalize in English with the first person plural (we), people in the ancient world often wrote generalized statements in the first person singular.

- He is not necessarily talking about the human race in general (although what he writes is true for humanity) but about Israel, who received the law as a good gift from God but who found that there was something lying in wait ready to take advantage of the gift of the law. Paul can speak about Israel’s history using “I” because it is his story too.

- Israel is still “in Adam.” When Adam was given the law in the garden, he broke it. Likewise, when Israel was given the Torah, Israel copied Adam by breaking it.

- It is important that we realize that the law is not the problem. For Paul it is not the law that creates the problem, but sin. For Paul, sin is that force which is opposed to God’s creation. It is bent on spoiling the world God made, the humans who reflect his image, and the chosen people called to be agents of redemption.

Shown to be Sin (7:13-20)

- It is unlikely that Paul’s description of frustration here is meant to be an exact description of his, or any one else’s, spiritual experience, yet it resonates so clearly with all of our experiences.

- On one level this section is about the struggle that every person goes through to do what is right. All people struggle with the discipline to put their best intentions into action, but there is something deeper taking place here. There is an irony in both the story of Jesus and of Paul that we have to struggle with: it was the most disciplined law-keepers who became the most ardent enemies of Christ. It is important for Paul to demonstrate that the solution is not found in more obedience to the law.

Who Can Deliver Me? (7:21-25)

- The more Paul embraces the law, the more he discovers his sin. How can we break out of this pattern? Can we be rescued from the power of sin?

- One of two things can happen. Either God will simply have to overlook our sin or he will have to find some way of dealing with it.

The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus (8:1-8)

- The human problem has been brought to light and exposed. God knows the problem humankind faces and now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For two forces have combined to set us free from the law of sin and death: Christ Jesus and the Spirit.

- Jesus came to both embody and fulfill the law (or way) of God. Jesus, who is the perfect image of God, was both a keeper of the law but also a law breaker. What we needed was not more law written on stone but to see the law incarnate.

- What Christ did was expose the inability of the law to do what only the Spirit of God can do and that is to reshape the human heart.

- For Paul, the division that the Jewish believers are creating in the church is due to the fact that they are still living according to the flesh (following the law), what is necessary is the following of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Only the Spirit can bring about the life God desires.