I. The Word: Romans 7:7-12 

⁷ What then should we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” ⁸ But sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law sin lies dead. ⁹ I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived ¹⁰ and I died, and the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. ¹¹ For sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. ¹² So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.

Reflection Questions:

1. If you saw a large area marked off by yellow “Caution” tape, would you exercise caution by walking away or walk as closely as possible?
2. Since many people gravitate to areas marked off by “Caution” tape, should the police department stop using the tape?  Does it still serve a purpose?
3. Finally, is it the police department’s fault that the average individual doesn’t exercise caution around taped-off crime scenes? Or is it a fault in the individual?

We love to be bad. When we hear rules, our nature burns with a desire for autonomy from them. We regularly throw the Lord’s wisdom & knowledge to the wind for the sake of proving our superiority. In the reflection questions, you likely noticed you wouldn’t have felt an urge to walk toward that area if it wasn’t restricted. This urge is not new under the sun, and Paul explains its role in our lack of justification by the Law. Clearly, the yellow tape is not causing the masses to disobey; it’s perfectly enforcing a rule to prevent danger to the public and compromise of the investigation. Yet, once the tape is there, a desire to rebel bubbles up inside us. The yellow tape functions as the Law does in our lives; it in itself is perfect and provides superior guidance, but our fallen tendencies corrupt the final result of its existence. You can’t depend on the Law to save you not because of rules’ inadequacy, but because of your incessant failures as a human.

So now that you’re feeling like less of a Rockstar, the more experienced Christians reading this are expecting an immediate, “but feel happy and relieved because of Jesus!!!” And, this is absolutely true! However, the passage brings up a hard to swallow truth about our sanctification: the Law matters so much even though it can’t save you. Cultural Christianity wants to move in the direction of forgetting the Old Testament and basking in a feel-good Jesus that never existed. Yet, we need the Law to show us the dangers of sin, so that we can act in freedom from it. Christian freedom does not mean running our lives by the wind of our pleasures, but recognizing the most exploitive slave master, Sin. The Law is a beautifully specific description of a life in freeing sanctification. And we get the amazing gift of walking that life, not out of fear of condemnation, but out of all-consuming gratitude and joy.