Romans 7:7-13

⁷ So, what should we say to this? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! Certainly, I would not have known sin except through its exposure in the law. Because I surely would not have known what it means to greedily seek after something belonging to someone else if the law had not said, “Do not covet.”[1] ⁸ But sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of wrong desires. For apart from the law, sin is dead. ⁹ And I was once alive apart from the law, but with the coming of the commandment sin became alive ¹⁰ and I died. So I discovered that the very commandment that was intended to bring life brought death! ¹¹ Because sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it I died. ¹² So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good. ¹³ Did that which is good, then, become death to me? Absolutely not! But sin, so that it would be shown to be sin, produced death in me through what is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.

the purpose of the commandment

The commandment – that is, any particular commandment in the law – had a purpose. That purpose was not to bring people into a relationship with God but to show them their need for that relationship. The law is very good at that.

Unfortunately, there are many people who try to use the written code of the law as a means to become righteous so that God will accept them. Paul had tried that. It did not work for him. In fact, the mote zealous he became for the law, the less righteous he got. The holy law produced un-holiness in him.

The problem was that sin was already inside him, so he could not approach the holy law without defiling and corrupting it for sinful purposes. His personal negative outweighed the positive effects of the law.

Now, Paul approaches some believers in Rome, and warns them not to go looking to the law to be their means of righteousness. The only effective means of righteousness is faith in Christ.

LORD, keep our minds on our relationship with Christ, not on trying to fix ourselves.

[1] Exodus 20:17; Deuteronomy 5:21.