[Chapter 7-1] Introduction to Romans Chapter 7
Reflecting
on the fact that before his redemption his flesh was condemned to death
by the Law of God, the Apostle Paul made the confession of faith that
he was, by believing in Jesus Christ, dead to sin. Before we met the
righteousness of God—that is, before we were born again—those of us who
believe in Christ used to live under the dominion and curse of the Law.
Thus, the Law would have had dominion over us had we not been redeemed
of our sins by encountering Jesus Christ, who brought us the
righteousness of God.
Paul
spoke of spiritual matters that cannot easily be understood in
flesh—that is, those who are dead to sin are no longer under the
dominion of sin, just as a woman whose husband has died is completely
freed from her obligation to her husband. This passage may sound simple,
but it is a spiritually crucial passage. It means that, whether they
like it or not, those who have not met the righteousness of God are, as a
matter of fact, fated to live under the curse of the Law. This is
because they have not yet resolved the problem of their sins.
Romans
6:23 tells us that “the wages of sin is death,” meaning that sin will
disappear only when its wages have been paid. If one believes in Jesus
yet does not know the righteousness of God given by Jesus, then he is
still living in sin and must pay the wages of sin. This is why we have
to meet God’s righteousness through Jesus Christ. Only by encountering
the righteousness of God can we be dead to our sins, freed from the Law,
and be married to our new groom Christ Jesus.
We
can find God’s righteousness through Jesus Christ, but without
believing in this righteousness of God, no one can be freed from the
Law. The only way to break away from the curse of the Law is to know and
believe in God’s righteousness. Have you found this righteousness of
God through Jesus? If not, now is the time for you to abandon your own
righteousness and humbly return to God’s Word.
Toward Christ after being dead to sin
Paul
told his brethren in Rome, “You also have become dead to the law
through the body of Christ.” You have to have a precise understanding of
what it is ‘to have become dead to the law through the body of Christ.’
No one can go to Christ without becoming dead to sin through the body
of Christ. Our sins, in other words, must die with the body of Jesus
Christ. This is possible only when one believes in the baptism of Jesus
by John and His death on the Cross.
We
can die with Christ to sin by believing in Jesus’ baptism by John.
Because Jesus died with all the sins of the mankind passed onto His body
with His baptism by John, our sins, too, have died with Him when we
believed in this. That all the sins of the world were passed onto Jesus
through His baptism by John is the truth. This truth should not just be
known but kept in our hearts in faith. We must keep this faith until we
enter the Kingdom of God. This is why Paul said that we became dead to
the Law through the body of Christ. As such, those who believe in this
truth can go to Jesus Christ, live with Him, and bear the righteous
fruits for God.
We
should not believe in the oldness of the letter, but in the new truth
of the Spirit. Sinners actually commit more sins because of the Law.
This is because the Law reveals more sins that are hidden inside of
them, thereby making them more knowledgeable of their sins and allowing
them to sin even more. One of the functions of the Law is to make us
recognize our sins, but it also functions to reveal more of the nature
of sin and to make us commit more sins. Were it not for the Law that God
gave us, we would not know that there was so much sin hiding inside of
us. But God gave us His Law, and this Law not only makes sin even more
sinful, but it also makes us commit more and more sins.
Therefore,
Paul says that since we have become dead to sin through Christ’s body,
we now have to serve the Lord with the faith of believing in God’s
righteousness. He is telling us to serve the Lord with the help of the
Spirit and the gift of redemption given to us for our faith held deep in
our hearts, instead of serving Him with faith in the literal letter of
the Word. As the Bible tells us that “for the letter kills, but the
Spirit gives life,” we must follow the Lord by realizing the true
meaning of the gospel of the water and the Spirit, which is God’s
righteousness. When we believe in the Word of God, in other words, we
have to know and believe in the true meaning hidden in the written Word.
Then is the Law sin? Certainly not!
Paul
explained the Law of God by emphasizing its functions. This shows how
important it is to believe with a proper understanding of the function
of the Law. Paul looked at his sins in his own way before, and because
of this he did not know his own sins, but through the Law of God he was
able to realize that he had a covetous heart in him.
I
hope that the believers in Jesus today are also able to reach the same
understanding about the Law as the one reached by Paul. There are so
many people who, not having realized the truth of the Law, try ever
harder to live their lives by the Law. They go to church thinking that
if they try a little harder, they will be able to keep all of the Law.
But in reality, these people will actually not be able to find God’s
righteousness at all.
They
have not realized the profound meaning of the Law given by God and have
thus become legalists. They are hypocritical blinds unable to see even
their own hearts, and they don’t know they are standing against the
righteousness of God in the Christian community. There are many such
people in today’s Christianity. Those who do not truly know God’s
righteousness and have accepted Jesus as their nominal Savior in
legalistic faith will not be exempt from the punishment of eternal
death.
Paul
stated that through God’s commandments, he came to realize the
covetousness inside his heart. When he realized his sins through the
commandments, Paul was still a legalist who thought that he had to keep
God’s Law. God’s commandments revealed the covetousness in Paul’s heart
and made Paul’s sins even more sinful. This is how Paul came to realize
that he was nothing but a grave sinner.
There
are twelve natures of sin in human mind. When Paul did not know about
the actual functions of the Law, he thought of himself as a fine person,
not realizing just how sinful he really was. But the result of his
effort to live by God’s commandments showed to him that he was far from
being able to keep the commandments, and that these commandments
actually revealed his sins even more.
How
are people when they believe in Jesus? When you first started to
believe in Jesus, you might have been all fired up with your faith, but
as the time passes, you would have found the many sins that are
fundamentally in you. Through what did you find these sins? It is
through the written Law and commandments that we have found out just how
full our hearts with the twelve kinds of sins. And we shrink from
seeing our sinful selves before the Law. This is because we find,
through the Law, that we are truly grave sinners.
That
is why some people created the Doctrine of Justification to comfort
themselves. This doctrine claims that even though we have sin in our
hearts, just because we believe in Jesus, God would regard us as
righteous. This is only a man-made doctrine. People have made and
believed in such a doctrine to hide their sins, trying to live in the
complacency of this doctrine. But because they are still revealed as
sinners before the Law, their sins come to weigh down heavier and
heavier on their minds. To be freed from all our sins, we have no other
choice but to believe in the gospel that contains God’s righteousness.
This is the only way to be delivered from all our sins.
As
Paul in his past had thought that God gave the commandments to be
followed, he considered it only natural that he would try and do his
best to keep them. Yet contrary to this, he found out that these
commandments actually put his soul to death because of sin. Paul
ultimately realized that he had been misunderstanding and mistakenly
believing in God’s commandments.
Everyone
has in his heart the twelve kinds of sins mentioned in Mark 7:21-23.
“For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts,
adulteries, fornications, murders, Thefts, covetousness, wickedness,
deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these
evil things come from within and defile a man.”
Paul
and all other people ultimately came to recognize their sins through
God’s commandments. By the Law they realized their sins and were put to
death, and then they discovered the righteousness of God through Jesus
Christ and believed in it. What is your understanding of the
righteousness of God? Are you still trying to observe the commandments
while thinking that you can keep them all? God gave us His Law so that
we would recognize our sins and return to Him—to be delivered from sin,
in other words, by believing in the righteousness of God. We must have a
proper understanding as to why God gave us His commandments and believe
in them correctly. Once you realize this truth, you will know just how
precious the gospel of water and the Holy Spirit is.
Those
who believe in God’s commandments can realize how great of a sinner
they are in the sight of God. People who do not know the role of the
commandments and do not believe in God’s righteousness will come across
great difficulties in their religious lives and ultimately be led to
their own destruction. This is because it is simply impossible to stay
away from sin while living in a world that is full of sins. This is why
some people even seclude themselves in the remote mountains and try to
live ascetic lives. They think that by living in deep mountains and
retreating away from the sins of the world, they can avoid committing
sins, but this is not the case.
We
must realize that, though it is true that everyone in this world
commits sin and thus has sin in his heart, the redemption from all such
sin can be found in knowing and believing in God’s righteousness. Even
if we were to avoid the world in order to escape from its sins, we would
still be unable to escape from the sins of their hearts. This is
because our sins are found in our hearts. To truly rid ourselves of sin,
we must believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. The Law of
God and His commandments make our sins even more sinful. Those who know
the severity of their sins must know and believe in the righteousness of
God, revealed to us through the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
“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” (Romans 7:10-11). We must have a proper understanding of the Law.
Those who have not properly understood the Law will spend their whole
lifetime drowned in legalism, trying to escape from the Law until their
very last day. Only those who know the true role of the Law will love
and believe in the righteousness of God fulfilled by Jesus. Do you,
then, know this righteousness of God?
Paul
the Apostle said that because he was not born again in the past, he had
then belonged to his flesh and been sold under sin. He also confessed
that although he wished to live by God’s Law, he ended up doing that
which he did not wish to do—to commit sin, that is. This was because he
did not have the Holy Spirit in him, as he did not have the
righteousness of God. Paul then admitted that the reason as to why he
committed sin against his desire was because of the sins found in his
heart, for He was yet to find the righteousness of God at the time.
Nevertheless,
Paul realized one law, and that law was the law of sin—his most
fundamental realization of the fact that man, who has sin in his heart,
cannot avoid sinning. He also realized that the inner person still
desired to always live according to the Law of God. But Paul confessed
that, just as a tree of sin bears the fruits of sin, he was a sinner who
could only continue to live in sin, because he, not having met Jesus
Christ yet, had not received the redemption of his sins. It was proper,
in other words, for him to be put to death because of his sins.
This
is why he confessed that he was a wretched man, lamenting, “Who will
deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24) This was Paul’s
recollection of himself when he had been a sinner. You should consider
applying this confession of Paul to yourself. Are you not still
imprisoned in this body of death that cannot keep the Law? We must
believe in the righteousness of God. In the gospel of the water and the
Spirit is this righteousness of God hidden, and we can attain His
righteousness by believing in this gospel.
Paul could be freed from all his wretchedness by believing in the baptism of Jesus Christ and His death on the Cross.
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