I mentioned in our last visit that Paul was “a happy sinner.” He put it this way in Romans 7:9, “Once I was alive apart from law.” Then, all of a sudden something happened. Listen to how Eugene Peterson puts it in The Message, “Sin found a way to pervert the command into a temptation, making a piece of ‘forbidden fruit’ out of it. The law code, instead of being used to guide me, was used to seduce me.” 

 

Paul began to realize when he coveted things he experienced guilt. The law like a searchlight exposed him for what he really was, a sinner. Paul concluded, therefore, that the law was not sinful, rather it was used to exposed sin. “So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good” (verse 12). 

 

This raised another question in Paul’s mind, “Did that which is good…become death to me?” (verse 13). He again answers, “By no means!” and explains, “In order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.” 

 

God wants us to see how sinful we really are. He wants us to see how much we need His grace. He loves us so much that He provides what is necessary for us to be set free from whatever enslaves and destroys us. This is true before we become Christians. It is what brings us to Christ. 

 

After we become Christians God continues to love us and provide for us what will lead us into the fullness of life He planned for us. God’s law is one of those provisions. It shows us that we can’t make it happen on our own.