The Importance of Knowing Our Sin

From Gospel Translations

Revision as of 13:00, 30 August 2008

The Importance of Knowing Our Sin

Romans 7:7-12

What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, "YOU SHALL NOT COVET." 8 But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died; 10 and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me; 11 for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

There Is Law!

The main point of the book of Romans up to this point is that God is gloriously righteous in justifying the ungodly by faith alone apart from works of the Law. Romans 4:5 says, "To the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness." How can this be? How can God justify – declare as righteous – the ungodly who simply look away from themselves to Christ and trust him? How can he acquit the guilty?

The answer came in one of the most important statements of the Bible, Romans 3:24-26. God put forward Jesus Christ, his Son, to die in our place "so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." There is the high point of the book so far: Jesus, who was crucified, is the sin-bearing Redeemer; we, who trust him, are justified; God, who gave him, is righteous. That's the glorious gospel of Christ.

Now, there is a massive assumption underneath this gospel. The assumption is this: there is law. The Creator of the universe has revealed his will. And it is law. When it is not done, there is real guilt and real condemnation and real punishment. So the existence of law in the universe – the revealed will of God – creates the foundation for law-breaking and guilt, and law-keeping and righteousness, and court and judge, and justification and condemnation. All of these great things rest on this one assumption: there is law.

So when Paul proclaims that there are lawbreakers and there is guilt, and there is court and there is Judge, and there is a guilt-bearing substitute and there is faith, and there is justification by faith alone apart from law-keeping – when Paul proclaims this, the grand assumption is: law!

No law, no law-breaking; no law-breaking, no guilt; no guilt, no court; no court, no judge; no judge, no justification and no need for incarnation or crucifixion. The whole reality and the whole glory of redemption hang on the existence and excellence of law.

Paul's Shocking Way of Speaking about the Law

The reason I stress this is to throw into stark relief the fact that Paul says so many negative things about the Law. It's amazing. It should make us tremble. To speak the way Paul speaks about the Law of God is shocking.

Some examples: