Sin And The Law

Romans 7:7 states:

I would not have known what sin was except through the law.

In the Age of Grace, we all recognize Law and Gospel. We're pretty happy to be Gospel Christians and leave the Law part to the side, convinced that it's an outdated relic that should be consigned to the museum of How We Used To Live. After all, we're a forgiven people, aren't we?

Paul spends the better part of Romans 6-7 explaining what can be a confusing topic, this idea of forgiveness through Christ's death and resurrection. If all of your history had been spent observing the law as a condition of righteousness, it's a pretty big deal when someone says otherwise. I've written on this topic so much this year I fear that I'm becoming numbingly repetitive, but I don't think I can emphasize enough the tremendous change that these early Christians were being asked to make.

Just because we don't talk about the Old Testament much doesn't mean that it still doesn't have meaning in our lives. I haven't mentioned this as much, but I know I have on at least two occasions, but without the law, how do we know what standard we're being compared to? Unless "sin" is explicitly defined, how do we know what it is? The rules need to be written down somewhere, and that's what the Levitic Law was, the scorecard by which the people of Israel were to be judged.

It's a delicate thing to explain, this idea of forgiveness through no effort on our part, and it can be a slippery slope to think that our sin has no consequence--after all, if we're forgiven, why not get our money's worth? That's why Paul takes these two chapters in Romans to explain why this is not the case and how we should live, not lives of freedom to do what we want when we want because we'll be forgiven, but lives of thanksgiving for the sacrifice that Christ made for us. We're forgiven, and we should be thankful for that always, but without the Law, we'd have no idea of for what we were forgiven.

Scott