GOD'S GREAT NEWS for MAN'S GREAT PROBLEM - Romans 1-8

Why a Yod Hangs on My Wall

This week there were several folks in my office looking at an odd little silver hand attached to a long silver rod dangling from a tiny silver chain. It hangs off a nail by the main light in my office. Invariably, when people come into my office and see this strange item hanging there, they ask me what it is.

It is a yod, which is the Hebrew word for "hand." The little silver hand is cast in the shape of a fist with the index finger pointing out. This device is used by orthodox rabbis to point out their place in the Torah scrolls they are reading and studying. Their respect for the Torah is so great that they will not touch the sacred writings with their own fingers to mark their place: they use the little silver finger instead. A yod is therefore a symbol of high respect for the Scriptures. Such a symbol I am delighted to have hanging beside the door to my office.

Last week we spoke of freedom from the Law in Jesus Christ. We explored how we are released from the Law, set free to serve Jesus Christ in newness of the Spirit. We are set free, but sometimes our freedom quickly translates into license, or into irreverence. I have a book on my shelves that is classified as "Religion/Humor" by the publisher, Harper & Row. It is entitled YHWH Is Not a Radio Station in Minneapolis, and it is an A-B-C primer on the Bible. "A" stands for Adam, "B" stands for Babel, "C" stands for Cain, etc. Here is his entry for "T," the Ten Commandments: "Some people don't like the Ten Commandments, but for a movie that was made back in 1956, you'll have to admit it was very impressive." The entry for "L," Law, was not much better: "The Law of God is perfection. Why does God have to be so strict? In a football game, you have to get the ball over the goal line to score a touchdown. Maybe it should be enough if you play fairly well and get the ball near the line. Why do you always have to get the ball over the line..." Somehow comparing the Law of God with a movie and a football game is a little lame. The writer is a Christian, and the book was written with profound irony, reflecting the face of part of the American Christian culture. Regardless, something is missing when we treat the Law of God so irreverently.

But wisdom lies in the balance: we are freed from the Law in Christ, but freed to respect the Law in Christ. Our indwelling Lord is the Author of the Law, the only One fulfilling the Law ("Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill."), and the model of respect for the Law ("For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the Law, until all is accomplished."). That is who Jesus Christ is: freed from the Law, fulfilling the Law, and respecting the Law. And that is exactly who He wants to be in and through us. Last week we saw how Jesus Christ freed us from the Law in Rom. 7:1-6, this week we will see how He set us free to respect the Law in Rom. 7:7-13, and when we study Rom. 8:1-4 we will discover how He fulfills the Law in us by the Spirit.

First Question: Is the Law Sin?

After Rom. 7:5, 6, Paul by all rights could have launched immediately into Romans chapter eight and his discussion of the role and glory of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian. Instead, Paul takes time to fully develop the Christian understanding of the purpose of the Law of Moses, the Torah. After stating three times in Rom. 7:1-6 that the Christian has been released from the Law, it seems as if the Law can be dispensed with, written off as having little or no discernible value. Especially when you read Rom. 7:5, it seems like the Law is in unholy collusion with sin to produce death in us. The Law seems like a prison in Rom. 7:6, one we are thrilled to be liberated from. Paul seems to say, "Good-bye and good riddance" to the Law in Rom. 7:1-6.

But freedom from the Law means freedom to respect the Law. Paul explains this by asking a rhetorical question that he imagines is an objection in the minds of his Jewish readers, who had been raised with a fanatical respect for Torah. In fact, one Jewish legend circulating in those years concerned the leading Torah scholar in Jerusalem at the time Paul was writing Romans. This rabbi, given the distinguished title of Rabban ("our master") was Johanan ben Zakkai. The legend went like this: "It is said that Johanan ben Zakkai never wasted time in idle talk; he never walked as much as four cubits without wearing tephillim or meditating on Torah; no one ever preceded him to the study house where he never once fell asleep even for a brief nap; he never left the school so long as there was someone there; he never contemplated on Torah in an unclean place and was never idle since he was always learning something." (Stories of the Sages, pg. 34). Johanan ben Zakkai was one of the two greatest disciples of the great Hillel. The other great student was Gamaliel I, at whose feet Saul of Tarsus zealously studied Torah during his years in Jerusalem.

I collect and read stories of the Jewish sages, and those stories are replete with tales of famous scholars zealously exalting Torah. Paul was raised on such stories, and so were the Jewish Christian converts in Rome. For them to hear the Law described as a catalyst to sin, as a prison to be liberated from, would have made them want to stand up and pluck out Paul's beard. So, Paul explains more precisely what he means about the Law in Rom. 7:7-13.

He begins in vs. 7 by asking the question a disgusted Jew might ask Paul to shame him, in light of all he had just said: "What shall we say then? Is the Law sin?" If sin takes occasion through the commandment as Paul said in 7:5, is the Law sin?

Paul responds with his passionate cry, "May it never be!!" Then as if that denial is not enough, he immediately follows it with a statement of emphatic contrast: "On the contrary ..." Not only is the Law not sin, but in fact it stands so completely opposite to sin that it defines and reveals sin. If sin is darkness, then the Law is light, defining darkness as the opposite of light.

Paul tells them, "On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about lust if the Law had not said 'You shall not lust.'" It is important to realize that the Greek text uses the term "lust" here, not the more socially acceptable term "coveting." Paul read the Tenth Commandment, the one saying, "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor." The fact that the text specifically says "lust" here must mean that Paul was coveting his neighbor's wife.

When I realized what Paul struggled with, the Apostle Paul became for me far more than some distant writer of brilliant epistles, the august church-planter who changed the face of history. Paul became a red-blooded man struggling in his heart with lust. Paul the great Pharisee had a self-righteous pride in his ability to keep the Law, and his zeal was greater than all his cohorts. Yet he was a man who like so many men could not get a grip on the beast of lust. It was this lust raging in him, the secret sin of a fantasy life he struggled with, that revealed to him his terrible root problem as a human being: the root problem of sin. Sin dwelled inside him, and every time he studied Torah, the tenth commandment reminded him of his moral failure, of the sin he could not deny, gloss over, or hide under Pharisaical trappings.

For a number of years, I have met with small groups of men. I usually meet with a group of 8-12 men for a period of one or two years. At the beginning of each new group, I set out the course of study we will follow, and I ask the guys to think about one area of their character they want the group to be committed to pray about for the course of the year. This has to be the character issue in their lives that they think the Lord most wants to own their heart about. Every time I have ever done this with a group of men, at least half of the group will ask for prayer regarding the problem of lust, or in a more positive sense praying for greater purity in their thoughtlife. What so many men struggle with, the Apostle Paul agonized over, especially in the days before he became a Christian.

Paul Opens His First Biography, the Biography of Saul, to the "Law" Chapter

Metaphorically speaking, in Rom. 7:7-11 Paul takes out the first biography of his life, the Saul of Tarsus biography chronicling his birth up to that fateful day on the Damascus road. He recounts the chapter detailing how the Law specifically revealed the secret sin hidden in his own life. Paul was a man struggling with the sin of lust, and the Law clearly identified it when it said "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife." If Paul's fantasy life was a darkly hidden secret in his own heart, the Law came in and turned the light on, revealing the sordid sickness of his sin, forcing him to look at it honestly rather than trying to deny it or explain it away. The Law was straightforward with the moral command: do not lust. Paul's problem arose when he simply could not obey the command due to the sin within him.

So, is the Law sin? May it never be!! On the contrary, the Law reveals sin by stating the commandment that we cannot follow because of the sin residing within us. If it were not for the Law, we would have no knowledge of sin. In fact, Paul said exactly that in Rom. 3:20, a seminal thought he more fully explains here in Rom. 7:7-13.

But not only does the Law reveal sin, sin nefariously takes advantage of the commandment of the Law, and by the very virtue of the commandment propagates more sin. Paul explains how this works in vs. 8: "But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me lust of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead." The fact that the Law said, "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife" somehow tantalized the sin in Paul, producing more and varied lusts in his heart. Sin abuses and misuses the commandment to mutate into more and different sin.

This very clearly describes the opportunistic nature of sin, harkening back to the first picture of sin in the Bible, in Gen. 4:7: "... sin is crouching at the door" to overcome you and devour you. In a sense, the Law opens that door so that sin can enter and devour you!! Once sin gets its hold on you, its poison seeps into your bloodstream: through the initial lust and the Law stated clearly against it, a force was set in motion whereby sin "worked in me every lust." It was not just one lust here or one lust there, it was every lust everywhere!! Sin is like a rattlesnake: once its opportunity to strike you has happened when you read the Law and find out that the lust was sinful, then you find a poison has entered your bloodstream and you can't seem to get it out of your blood. You have a craving to sin again, and sin you do. Your blood has been poisoned.

If you have any question about how this works, think about what happens when you start to make rules and draw ethical lines you are never to cross in a male-female relationship prior to marriage. Let's say you just fell madly in love with a young man or woman, and you both heartily agree with the word of God that you should not have pre-marital sex. But, up to that drastic point, the Bible doesn't seem to draw many hard lines. So, wanting to be right in your relationship, you start by saying, "Okay, we won't kiss until we are engaged." Then you go walking one night under the moonlight, and you end up kissing. You like it ... in fact, it's great. So, you draw another line, saying that you won't lie down horizontally next to each other. But then, late on some Friday night, you wind up staying up far later than you should have, you end up in each other's arms, and you lay down and snuggle together until it is much later. And it felt good, in fact it was all the more exciting because "you crossed the line," and yet nothing real serious has happened yet. But then at some point, at some line, it starts to get out of your control. So, you go back to a more strict line: absolutely no kissing. But then one day the next week or month you are alone together when nobody else is at home, and oops!, you're kissing again. But again, it was kind of thrilling to cross over the line. In fact, the land on the other side of the line seems better and better all the time. See how the Law works? Those lines drawn in the relationship are in themselves just moral guidelines, but somehow sin works in them, through them, and around them to entice you to venture beyond them into uncharted territories. The Law is not the root problem: sin is.

Now God has a wonderful way of helping to check these things at times. Here is one of my favorite stories. One night, a young Christian man and the Christian woman he was courting went out for a date. They were in a season of drawing lines, trying not to lie down horizontally next to each other. But that night they went out to their favorite beach in northern California, and while they were waiting to eat at the Charthouse restaurant, they took a walk on the beach in the moonlight. In the romantic moment, they kissed under the moonlight. Before they knew it, they were laying down in the sand kissing passionately, and things were getting a little steamy. But at about the steamiest moment, God appointed a wave, and that wave crashed into them with a blast of cold water, giving them both a good wetting. God had to appoint a fish to save Jonah from his folly, and a wave to save them from their's! The point is that the commandment, the rule, or the ethical line will not stop sin; it will in fact propagate it. And God alone can save us from our sin, primarily through Christ on the cross, but sometimes in a heated moment when a frigid wave is handy!

So, is the Law sin? May it never be!! The Law reveals sin, and sin uses the Law as a catalyst to propagate more and different kinds of sin. I have never read a more eloquent statement of how this works than in a priceless letter from a little girl named Darla, found in the booklet Children's Letters to God. Darla wrote to God: "Did You Really Mean Do Unto Others As They Do Unto You, Because If You Did Then I'm Going To Fix My Brother." Sin breeds sin, even through the golden rule.

We laugh at the truth in Darla's letter, but with sin comes spiritual death. In Rom. 7:9-11, Paul explains the downward spiral from commandment, to deception, to death in his own life. This is the human tale of sin and sorrow, first told in Genesis three, but true in the history of the nation Israel, true in the life of Saul of Tarsus, true in your life, true in my life. Paul tells us his story in Rom. 7:9-11: "And I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive, and I died; and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me; for sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me."

The command, "From any tree in the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it, you shall surely die," was twisted by the serpent in the garden. He openly deceived Eve into believing she would not die, but rather lead her husband into a brave new world of being human on a higher plane, like unto God Himself. "Just eat the fruit, and then you'll really start living," to paraphrase the serpent. But the very eating of that fruit tolled death for her.

Saul of Tarsus had been a growing young man, full of normal passions, with a healthy, God-given sex drive. But at some point, we don't know when, although Paul painfully remembered exactly when, he came across the Law that said, "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife." He then deceived himself into believing that he was upholding the Law because he never had actually slept with his neighbor's wife, even though all the while he kept struggling with the inner beast of lust. Sin deceived him into believing he was externally holy, adding the sin of hypocrisy to the original sin of lust. Soon this hypocrisy produced in him a self-righteous pride, the worst offspring of original sin. Looking back on all that, Paul the Christian realized that Saul of Tarsus was a spiritual dead man.

Now what about us? What was the point of Law that revealed sin in your heart, the command that sin used to produce more sin in you? What was the Law that revealed the process whereby sin brought about your spiritual death? If you are a man, was it the same Law that condemned Paul's sin, "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife?" Was it a reading of the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus said that committing adultery is not just a command not to sleep with another woman, but a command not to lust after her in your own heart? If you are a woman, was it the command "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor," i.e. you shall not hold court about a person's character behind their back? Surely that Law condemns all gossip. If you are a fearful person like so many of us are, is it the Law against finding security in anything in this world apart from God, the command that "You shall have no other gods before Me"? Ask yourself, just how did the Law reveal my sin, just how did sin then use that Law to replicate and mutate itself, and how did all that result in spiritual death for me?

The Law is Not Bad, It is Redemptive: Holy and Righteous and Good

But the deeper question is this: does all this mean the Law is somehow bad? The process seems horrible enough!! Is the Law bad? NO!! May it never be!! It is not bad, it is redemptive. Without the Law, we would have no knowledge of sin; without knowledge of sin, we would feel no need for repentance; without seeking repentance, we cannot be saved. So, the Law at first may seem to aid and abett sin, but in reality it aids and abetts repentance leading to redemption when we bring our sin to Jesus Christ. In sum, the Law is not the problem, sin is the problem. The Law points us to the solution of our problem by revealing our need for Jesus Christ.

Therefore, the Law is not bad, but redemptive. Paul reached a similar conclusion in Rom. 7:12: "So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good." Having asked the question "Is the Law sin?" back in vs. 7, Paul answers that question decisively here in vs. 12: not only is the Law not sin, but the opposite of sin -- the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Holiness is the opposite of sin; it is the complete absence of sin in the balance of moral perfection and beauty. The Law is not the problem, it is in fact holy.

Then Paul concludes that the commandment is "holy and righteous and good." Notice that he repeats the term "holy." The Law and the commandment are both "holy." As before, "holy" signifies the complete absence of sin in the balance of moral perfection. It sheds light on sin, and identifies sin as falling short of the holy standard. It is also "righteous," in that it is consistent in its internal holiness and its external purpose in revealing sin. Further, its righteousness condemns sin and the sinner. Finally, the commandment is "good." This is a sense of "moral goodness," i.e. it is not designed to be a trick from God or some evil tease, but a key to God's redemption of sinful humanity, since the Law produces the knowledge of sin, leading to repentance, and repentance with faith leading to redemption.

Paul thus concludes on a note of highest respect for the Torah, the Law of Moses, the Ten Commandments. What a marvelous conclusion to reach, because it somehow deepens our respect for God Himself, and His inscrutable history of redemption. When Blythe and I honeymooned for six months in Ireland, we had no idea that God was going to teach us this same deeper truth. When we got to Ireland, we encountered an ancient people of fierce passions, a people living in a Western culture that had never been touched by the Reformation. Think about that: no Luther, no salvation by faith alone, no word of freedom from the Law in Jesus Christ. They were Catholics of an ancient variety. But these Catholics had something to teach us. They had a reverence for God and a solemnly moving respect for the divine that our American, "Jesus is my friend" Christianity had somehow missed. Perhaps all of our freedom in grace in Jesus Christ, our freedom from the Law, has unwittingly transformed itself into a subtle irreverence for the deeper ways of God. Wherever there is real freedom from the Law, there is the real danger of irreverence. But with mature freedom from the Law, we realize we are freed from the Law in order to respect the Law as a crucial key to God's master plan of redemption.

Does the Law Cause Death?

So, is the Law sin? May it never be!! Rather, the Law reveals sin, sin leapfrogs off the Law to mutate into more and varied sin, and through sin comes spiritual death. But is it true that somehow the Law causes death? Paul raises this final objection regarding the Law in vs. 13: "Therefore did that which is good become death to me?" Could the Law be truly morally good and still be the doorway by which sin entered and devoured me unto death? Is not the Law thus the accomplice of sin, and thus an accomplice with death? How can such an accomplice be called "morally good?"

In response to this objection, Paul exclaims once again "Let it never be! Rather it is SIN." Here is where Paul states clearly what man's great problem is, once and for all: SIN is the problem!! The problem is not the Law, it is sin.

Sin is revealed as the root problem by the Law, "in order that it might be shown to be sin by effecting my death through that which is good, that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful." Sin is especially horrible in that it perverts the holy, righteous and good Law to bring condemnation and death. The command in the garden was meant to make the man and woman like God through the supreme test of obedience that would produce in them hearts wholly yielded to God out of love for Him and reliance on His word as the only truth. There was nothing wrong with the command in the garden: what spoiled things was how the serpent twisted the command to make God seem miserly, and even worse when the serpent patently lied and said the command was not true, thereby pitting the hiss of the serpent against the word of God. The command stood as holy, righteous, and good; sin perverted it, used it to deceive the woman, and by the deception ensnared her in a trap that directly produced her spiritual death. The fact that sin so perverts something holy and good perfectly demonstrates how evil and crafty sin actually is, or in Paul's words, how "utterly sinful" sin truly is.

So, does sin somehow cause death? No!! In fact, the Law is inherently "that which is good," and the goal of the Law is eternal life through the revelation of sin, heartfelt repentance, and redemption through faith in Jesus Christ. But the end result of sin is death, death only and death always. Law does not cause death, it was given to promote life. Moses understood this at the end of Deuteronomy, when he admonished the second generation Israelites to let the Law work its magic unto life in Deut. 32:47: "'For it is not an idle word for you; indeed it is your life.'" Sin alone produces death, perverting that which is meant to produce life in the process. Thus, sin is the root problem, and the Christian freed from the Law is freed to have the highest regard and respect for the Law.

Conclusion: Why the Yod Hangs on the Wall, Not on My Wrist

As I was looking at the yod hanging on my wall as a symbol of respect for the Scriptures, I asked myself why it was hanging on the wall and not hanging from my wrist as I studied. Do I not respect the Torah, the Law of Moses, the Ten Commandments, as highly as do the orthodox rabbis? For those rabbis, the Torah is in itself life-giving. They are convinced that it is in their power to live in obedience to Torah. They therefore respect the Law as their only path to salvation, and thus they are fanatical in showing their reverence for it.

But wisdom lies in the balance. I respect the Law by realizing IT'S NOT UP TO ME to fulfill it. Jesus Christ respected the Law, He authored the Law, He fulfilled the Law perfectly on the cross, and He exalted the Law as holy and unalterable. And He still respects the Law in and through me, He still opens my understanding to the intent of the Law to point to Himself, He fulfills the Law in me through the indwelling Spirit, and He exalts the Law in me even in this moment. But when He is in me doing all those right and good things in honor and respect for the holy, right and good Law of God, then I don't need a silver finger pointer in my hand. Respect for the Law is written not on a page I need to distance myself from, but it is written on my heart by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of my indwelling Christ.

SPEAKING NOTES:

INTRO: Several folks looking at silver hand, silver rod, tiny silver chain. What?
It is a yod, which is the Hebrew word for "hand." Show it! BUT: Freedom into license, irreverence.

YHWH Is Not a Radio Station in Minneapolis, and "T," the Ten Commandments: "Some people don't like the Ten Commandments, but for a movie that was made back in 1956, you'll have to admit it was very impressive." The entry for "L," Law, was not much better: "The Law of God is perfection. Why does God have to be so strict? In a football game, you have to get the ball over the goal line to score a touchdown. Maybe it should be enough if you play fairly well and get the ball near the line. Why do you always have to get the ball over the line..." TC/Movie, Law into football game: LAME.

- But wisdom lies in the balance: we are freed from the Law in Christ, but freed to respect the Law in Christ. Our indwelling Lord is the Author of the Law, the only One fulfilling the Law ("Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill."), and the model of respect for the Law ("For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the Law, until all is accomplished."). That is who Jesus Christ is: freed from the Law, fulfilling the Law, and respecting the Law. And that is exactly who He wants to be in and through us. Summarize: Rom. 7:1-6, 7:7-13, 8:1-4.

First Question: Is the Law Sin?

- READ PASSAGE: Into Rom. 8, reflect on Law. Three statements of freedom: 7:5, 7:6 ... Paul seems to say, "Good-bye and good riddance" to the Law in Rom. 7:1-6.

- But freedom from the Law means freedom to respect the Law. Paul explains this by asking a rhetorical question that he imagines is an objection in the minds of his Jewish readers, who had been raised with a fanatical respect for Torah. In fact, one Jewish legend circulating in those years concerned one of the greatest disciples of the famous Hillel. The disciple was a man named Johanan ben Zakkai. The legend went like this: "It is said that Johanan ben Zakkai never wasted time in idle talk; he never walked as much as four cubits without wearing tephillim or meditating on Torah; no one ever preceded him to the study house where he never once fell asleep even for a brief nap; he never left the school so long as there was someone there; he never contemplated on Torah in an unclean place and was never idle since he was always learning something." Gamaliel ... Saul of Tarsus. Paul and Roman Jewish Christians ... raised with fanatic love for Torah.

- "What shall we say then? Is the Law sin?" Paul responds with his passionate cry, "May it never be!!" Then as if that denial is not enough, he immediately follows it with a statement of emphatic contrast: "On the contrary ..." Not only is the Law not sin, but in fact it stands so completely opposite to sin that it defines and reveals sin.

- Vs. 7: LUST. Paul read the Tenth Commandment, the one saying, "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor."

- When I realized what Paul struggled with, Paul became a red-blooded man.

- ILLUS: Small groups of men ... prayer requests ... half pray against lust, for purity.

Paul Opens His First Biography, the Biography of Saul, to the "Law" Chapter

- Metaphorically speaking, in Rom. 7:7-11 Paul takes out his first biography: Sin made him unable to obey!! So, is the Law sin? May it never be!! On the contrary, the Law reveals sin by stating the commandment that we cannot follow because of the sin residing within us.

- But not only does the Law reveal sin, vs. 8: sun misuses the command: mutates.

- This very clearly describes the opportunistic nature of sin, harkening back to the first picture of sin in the Bible, in Gen. 4:7: "... sin is crouching at the door" to overcome you and devour you. In a sense, the Law opens that door!! Sin "worked in me every lust." It was not just one lust here or one lust there, it was every lust everywhere!! Sin is like a rattlesnake: opportunity to strike ... poison into blood.

- ILLUS: Courtship. Whole process. No kissing ... kiss. No horizontal laying beside each other ... you do that. Progress, out of control. No kissing ... kiss. Grass is greener. The Law is not the problem: sin is.

- ILLUS: WAVE story.

- So, is the Law sin? May it never be!! Letter from a little girl named Darla, found in the booklet Children's Letters to God. Darla wrote to God: "Did You Really Mean Do Unto Others As They Do Unto You, Because If You Did Then I'm Going To Fix My Brother." Sin breeds sin, even through the golden rule.

- We laugh at the truth in Darla's letter, but with sin comes spiritual death. In Rom. 7:9-11, Paul explains the downward spiral from commandment, to deception, to death in his own life. This is the human tale of sin and sorrow, first told in Genesis three, but true in the history of the nation Israel, true in the life of Saul of Tarsus, true in your life, true in my life. Read Rom. 7:9-11

- Serpent twisting command in the garden.

- Saul of Tarsus: healthy young man ... deceived himself into believing external compliance okay ... hypocrisy ... self-righteousness, worst offspring of original sin. Paul Christian realizing Saul of Tarsus a dead man.

- What about us? Men: Tenth Commandment, Sermon on the Mount. Women: not bearing false witness against your neighbor. Fearful folk: no idols for security.

The Law is Not Bad, It is Redemptive: Holy and Righteous and Good

- But the deeper question is this: does all this mean the Law is somehow bad? The process seems horrible enough!! Is the Law bad? NO!! May it never be!! It is not bad, it is redemptive. Process. Law not sin: holy, righteous, good. Holy: absence of sin in the balance of moral perfection and beauty. The Law is not problem, it is holy.

- ILLUS: Moving to Ireland. Ancient Catholics. Reverence ... contrast to our culture.

Does the Law Cause Death?

- So, is the Law sin? May it never be!! Rather, the Law reveals sin, sin leapfrogs off the Law to mutate into more and varied sin, and through sin comes spiritual death. But is it true that somehow the Law causes death? Read Rom. 7:13. IT IS SIN: that's the problem.

- Sin is especially horrible in that it perverts the holy, righteous and good Law to bring condemnation and death. The command in the garden ...

- So, does sin somehow cause death? No!! In fact, the Law is inherently "that which is good," Moses at the end of Deut. in 32:47: it is your life.

Conclusion: Why the Yod Hangs on the Wall, Not on My Wrist

- As I was looking at the yod hanging on my wall as a symbol of respect for the Scriptures, I asked myself why it was hanging on the wall and not hanging from my wrist as I studied. Do I not respect the Torah, the Law of Moses, the Ten Commandments, as highly as do the orthodox rabbis?

- But wisdom lies in the balance. I respect the Law by realizing IT'S NOT UP TO ME to fulfill it. Jesus Christ respected the Law, He authored the Law, He fulfilled the Law perfectly on the cross, and He exalted the Law as holy and unalterable. And He still respects the Law in and through me, He still opens my understanding to the intent of the Law to point to Himself, He fulfills the Law in me through the indwelling Spirit, and He exalts the Law in me even in this moment. But when He is in me doing all those right and good things in honor and respect for the holy, right and good Law of God, then I don't need a silver finger pointer in my hand. Respect for the Law is written not on a page I need to distance myself from, but it is written on my heart by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of my indwelling Christ.

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