Romans 31: Paul's Negative Self-Revelation

[Rebbe]

PAUL'S LETTER TO THE ROMAN CHRISTIANS (31)
Analytical Commentary on Romans

PAUL'S NEGATIVE SELF-REVELATION

Copyright © BRI 2017 All Rights Reserved Worldwide by Les Aron Gosling,
Messianic Lecturer (BRI/IMCF)

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"Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you keep on doing whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not slaves, for the slave knows not in what his Lord is ultimately engaged -- but I have called you friends. For all things I have heard from my Father I have made known to you" -- Yeshua in Jn 15.13-15

"Sweet thought! We have a Friend above,
Our weary, faltering steps to guide,
Who follows with His eye of love
The precious child for whom He died"
-- Anon.

"Rabbi Yitzchak said, At first sin is like an occasional visitor, then like a guest who stays awhile, and finally like the master of the house" (Genesis Rabbah 22.6; See also Talmud Sukkah 52b).

Before we start in this lecture please review and study the TEXT of Romans 7 as it appears in the introduction of our previous Lecture 30. As we travel through Paul's Letter to the Roman Christians we can rightly assess Paul's theological views of law and Grace clearly finding that in his opinion there is certainly a distinction but no sense of separation between the Messianic Torah and the Gospel. BUT, and herein lies a seeming relevant complex issue: when we arrive at Romans 7 we are jolted back into our present reality of existence in this world of opposites -- the realm of dualism.

Virtually helpless, we plunge with Paul, as we read his progress in pursuit of Christian relevancy, into a revelation of depression which is not easily explained nor is it anticipated at this juncture in his correspondence. We ache along with him, if we are entirely honest, because his experience of the self (small "s") is oftentimes ours as well. We may well have "died with Christ" on the bloodied tree of Golgoleth 2000 years past, but we are not presently dead to our sinful nature. No, not by any means!

So very few of us Christians (call us "Messianic Christian believers" if you wish) ever launch the courage to actually face our inner person. We are so self-deceived due to our prevailing dualistic reality we think we are personified in our projection of "good, helpful person" one way... but those who get to know us are strangely taken aback when the person they think they know appears at times completely the reversal in both personality and nature as far as their expectancy is concerned, in their view of our particular perceived presentation. This is due to the fact that we have over years misused our creative abilities having created a number of complex facades -- with each facade finely orchestrated and accommodating to some aspect of our personality which we deem to be appropriate for the occasion and which we desire to share at various times with others. I well recall an older cousin who stayed with us when I was in my teens and still studying at a Technical College for my education (this college later became a boys High School) and she complained to my mother that each day I arrived home I was seemingly a different individual from the person she knew the day before. "I can't say I will ever get to know him," she once blurted out in a startled and somewhat frustrated manner much to my loving and doting mother's chagrin.

The fact is we spend years cultivating and grooming various aspects of our personality even venturing to the extreme of adopting an accentuated gait we think will be attractive to others. And all, of course, for ego (edging God out).

ROMANS 7 -- PAUL'S SUDDEN BI-POLAR PLUNGE
Over the past 40 years I have read, studied and analysed many volumes pertaining to Romans as well as sat in on numerous sermons in countless churches and sects extrapolating and verbally ejaculating with (sometimes) ex-cathedra pontifications from the pulpit over Paul's letter, and all without doubt missing the (to me) obvious fact that Paul's internal aggravating distress -- enunciated clearly in this horrendous chapter -- had to do entirely with his (not really so peculiar) psychological makeup! The truth is Paul was morbidly preoccupied with the depth of carnality in his human nature. So much so was this the case that there was no way he could get up and over it. He was unhealthily preoccupied with his horrible sense of personal moral depravity. In my opinion he and Martin Luther would have gotten on famously together.

When we take a good in-depth study of his letters and the contents of the Lukan Acts -- penned by Paul's own personal physician -- we cannot escape the view that the apostle to the Gentiles found rejection of friends difficult to cope with, often psychologically plunging headlong into manic fits of deep despair and depression. I have written on this subject on a number of occasions and to recognize that Paul had immense difficulty coping with personal loss would be somewhat of an understatement.

As a prime example, and which I have mentioned many times before, Paul had no peace of mind (by his own admission) in missing his close friend Titus, so he diverted his attention away from the city of Troas which the holy Spirit desired the rabbi to evangelise. This incident involved a rejection of an important populated city of myriads ripe for the Gospel of Messiah choosing instead to forsake those thousands of souls in order to find one lone individual.

His headstrong and powerful will overrode the freely urged promptings and instructions of the Ruach HaKodesh -- and he was prone to do this on other occasions as well. I insist again that it is on record by Paul's own hand that he rejected a city God's Spirit had led him to evangelise, opting otherwise to search out his buddy and spiritual brother Titus. Listen to his own admission:

"Now when I went to Troas to preach the Gospel of Messiah and found that THE LORD HAD OPENED A DOOR FOR ME, I still had no peace of mind, because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said goodbye to them and went on to Macedonia" (2 Cor 2.12,13).

This is but one example of Paul's sullen negative disposition and need for close personal contact with people who could presumably elevate his spirits. There are other examples I could share. Certainly scholar F.F. Bruce admits fleetingly to Paul's melancholia (acute depression) but prefers not labor the point (F.F. Bruce, Paul: Apostle of the Free Spirit, 1977, 274).

Be all this as it may be, at the end of his first Neronian Roman imprisonment, "Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Yeshua the Messiah, with all confidence, no man forbidding him....." (Acts 28.17-31).

Greek Christian scholars all acknowledge that Luke breaks off here with a sudden abruptness as if his attention has been dramatically diverted. He never returns to complete his manuscript nor, it seems, to retrieve it. It's my personal view he narrowly escaped an unexpected late night Roman visit. Whatever the case, after Paul's two year tenure under house arrest he would have been automatically freed under Roman law. Which of course he was.... so Luke's account of Paul may have stopped at this point but Paul's ministry certainly continued. (I might add at this point that Luke died peacefully at 84 of old age, we are assured by some scholars of ecclesiastical history, in central Greece at Boeotia. Acts might also, within the realm of possibility, have been further revised by Luke at the start of the Jewish/Roman War with his original ms incomplete.)

All scholars agree that the Rav was without any question a man of high ideals and attainments, yet they also (occasionally) admit he was continually subjected to long bouts of paralysing depression some suggesting that his "Black Dog" would descend with unanticipated suddenness. With little doubt as to his affliction with depressive illness there are numerous NT indications that this is certainly the case. Let me share a couple of instances:

"But I trust in the Lord Yeshua to send Timotheus shortly unto you, that my spirits may be lifted, that I may feel encouraged and cheered, when I know your state. For I have no man like-minded, who will naturally care for your state" (Phil 2.19,20).

"So when we could not stand it any longer, we decided that the best thing to do was to remain at Athens alone; and sent Timotheus, our brother, and minister of God, and our fellow labourer in the gospel of Mashiach, to establish you, and to comfort you concerning your faith: That no man should be moved by these afflictions: for yourselves know that we are appointed thereunto" (1 Thes 3.1).

"Only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with you: for he is profitable to me for the ministry" (2 Tim 4.11).

In describing the troubles through which he passed in Asia, he said, "We were pressed out of measure, above strength, and despairing even of life" (2 Cor 1.8).

Most folk reading Paul's writings fail to grasp what it is to which he is actually acknowledging. Too many of us spiritualise away his sufferings or have placed his travails entirely in the arena of physical, situational circumstances ignoring or otherwise remaining ignorant of an ongoing unrelieved mental affliction.  

Later, in the same letter to the Corinthian Greek Christians Paul confesses to being troubled, perplexed, persecuted and cast down (2 Cor 4.8,9). It is entirely unrealistic both in regards to Scripture, and to life, to believe that we can always be singing, "Joy Joy Joy, with joy my heart is singing." That is not the biblical testimony. Paul was often fighting bouts of depression -- he wrote that he was "pressed out of measure and despairing of life itself," and his letter to Timothy reveals that even his convert was beset with bouts of timidity, nervous dyspepsia and anxiety, and longed to escape from the difficult situations by which he was daily confronted. While one of Paul's qualifications for ministry was that an overseer had to avoid the plague of alcoholism (1 Tim 3.3) understanding Timothy's "high anxiety disorder" -- described as "for your stomach's sake and for your often infirmities" in 1 Tim 5.23 -- Paul went out of his way to advise the young man to stop drinking water with his meals and to enjoyably substitute water with fermented wine (Greek, oinos equivalent to Hebrew yayin) in order to relax his highly strung emotional disposition (same verse). Paul could readily relate to his disciple's problematic disorder: "birds of a feather" comes readily to mind.

So after touching on, and expressing the need for knowledge, consideration, and the necessity for yielding -- that is, after immediately instructing us on the necessity to KNOW, RECKON, and YIELD -- leading to self-sacrificial servanthood he suddenly and abruptly spirals and plunges into self-obsessed misery! Please understand that I am not condemning Paul. Oh no! Indeed how much like all of us is Paul!

OF SIN AND LAW
I want my students all to be alert here to something rather intriguing. In Romans 6 Paul orients his narrative around SIN. It's all about the true believer and sin (Romans 6.1,2,6,7,10-18,20,22,23). In Romans 7 it's all about the believer and LAW. Notice that Romans 6 mentions sin a total of 17 times. In Romans 7 the mention of law occurs on 23 occasions (I refer specifically at this juncture to the translation of the NKJV).

Romans 6.14 says "Sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under the law but under Grace." And therefore we ought to take Romans 6, in which Paul stresses the matter of the believer and sin, and Romans 7 in which Paul stresses the matter of the believer and law together as a unit and examine each statement made by the apostle carefully. Again, realise that both "chapters" (recall they were not "chapters" when Paul penned the letter) should be appreciated TOGETHER both for contrast and comparison. Remember, this is a LETTER not a book, and the document ought to be read as it was originally intended -- merely as a means of teaching through correspondence. With a letter in mind there is a better opportunity for us to mentally sweep through the contents as Paul's brilliant thoughts (even as introspection) -- Pauline thoughts that are both imperative and instructive and at the same time a little rambling -- precisely as we would read any other letter or even email involving personal correspondence today. Read as a book, Romans can lead one to "cut and paste" mentally and this disconnecting procedure oftentimes causes us to entirely miss the patently obvious concerning that which the author is attempting to emphasise.

And what is it that Paul is taking pains to actually aggressively emphasise? It is simply this: he firstly teaches us in Romans 6 that we have "died with Christ" -- that is, we died with Christ WHEN Christ died on the bloodied tree of Golgoleth 2000 years ago. We were crucified with him and consequently because of his action so long ago we should consider ourselves now as legally dead to sin. But secondly, in Romans 7, under the inspiration of the holy Spirit, Paul comes to the realisation -- progressively unfolding in his intellectually liberal open-mindedness -- that precisely because we DIED with Christ when he was crucified -- we are consequently DEAD TO THE LAW.

This would have been a staggering view for him to consider but enlightenment was upon the great apostle's mind and when that occurs NOTHING -- I mean nothing -- can prevent the free flow of the Ruach HaKodesh from accomplishing an acceptance of the freewill revelation of a holy God in His creative New Administration of the NEW Covenant.

But Paul's internal agony surfaces and surges into the text of his Letter to the Roman Christians and the apostle to the Gentiles feels the burden of necessity to reveal his heart to the Christians. He leaves off from his objectivity and makes a terrible mistake -- yes, a mistake! He suddenly takes his eyes OFF his central theme and allows himself the subjective privilege of a negative thought, and that thought with an unexpected suddenness grows prominent indeed within nanoseconds and envelopes his tenuous and fragile psychological profile.

There is a great lesson here for all of us to learn. And that happens to be that none of us can afford the luxury of a single negative thought! None of us!

Paul kept the ten commandments. Paul observed the ten commandments as best he could. And Paul highly respected the Torah, which we have already acknowledged in our previous lectures. So did the original Messianic Community, and so do we today. Paul has argued right throughout his Letter to the Roman Christians that in us the Torah finds its fulfillment (Rom 8.3,4). None of us can break the Law of God without a repercussion that finds its deadly exaction in those of us who misuse the law with impunity. Paul highly prized God's expectations of His created human Images set out accordingly in codified form in the Decalogue. Remember that the first four commandments in the Decalogue inform us of how to properly love God, and the last six commandments inform us as to how to appropriately love our fellow human being.

But, Paul was making a HUGE error in his life in relation to the Law of God, and in Romans 7 he is despondently admitting it! Paul has been a saved man trying to be holy by keeping the Law. Please stop right at this point and make a mental note on paper. It is at this juncture in his Letter to the Roman Christians that the holy Spirit opens Paul's mind to grasp that the Law cannot be kept to make any of us HOLY. Perhaps intellectually he agreed with the assessment, but in reality our human nature -- and Paul's nature -- precluded the grasp and understanding and authentic comprehension of that astonishing truth. If any here disbelieve what I am suggesting just go to ANY rabbinic site on the internet and see for yourself the central teaching that we can and must be accepted by God by becoming holy in the keeping of the ten commandments (actually any or all of the 613 stipulations of the law of Moses).

None of us who name the Name of Christ can become HOLY by the keeping of the Law -- any law for that matter. Of course, upon conversion -- with the holy Spirit Of God and FROM God merging with our spirit -- the characteristics of God's holiness become our own and we need the injunctions of God's Word to point us in the direction of God's expectations for his children. The LAW remains our STANDARD of conduct. No argument at this point from me. However, while this remains the truth of the matter, we are not made HOLY by law-keeping. HOLINESS is a total separation from, and absence of, SIN. The very description of the Ruach HaKodesh as "the holy Spirit" is much better assessed to be, from the Hebrew, "the Spirit of holiness."

Later, Paul accepts and enumerates the insight from God that "the strength of the law is sin" (1 Cor 15.56). This is not to denigrate the Torah. Not at all! This is the furthest thing from my mind to suggest. But Paul was sincerely attempting and earnestly desiring "to attain holiness in life" and willing within himself to "break the power of sin" by the keeping of the ten commandments and the other laws of Torah. While lecturer Alva McClain speaks on this subject (Romans, 1973, 150) I do not think he has extended the principle to actually apply to the apostle to the Gentiles. But I have extended the principle because it is right.

How does Paul begin the seventh chapter of Romans? It would do us all good to reflect on what he wrote.

"Surely you know, brothers -- for I am speaking to those who have an experiential knowledge of Torah -- that the Torah has authority over a person only so long as he lives?" (Romans 7.1).

One must ask the question, to what degree does the Torah have authority over a dead man or woman? FACT: A Christian believer has "DIED with Christ." But Paul goes on to say...

"Thus, my brothers, you have been made dead with regard to the Torah through the intermediate agency of Messiah's body, so that you may belong to someone else, namely, the One who has been raised from the dead, in order for us to bear fruit for God. For when we were living in the sphere of our old nature, the passions connected with sins worked through the Torah in our various parts, with the result that we bore fruit for death. But now we have been discharged from this aspect of the Torah, because we have died to that which had us in its clutches, so that we are serving habitually as a slave in the new way -- a sphere that is new in quality -- provided by the Spirit and not in the sphere outworn as to its usefulness, in a sphere of that which was written down" (Romans 7.4-6 Please note emphasis).

QUESTION: Paul affirms as we have already seen that the Law is holy, just and good. Yet here he manifestly declares that "passions connected with sin worked through the Torah (the law) in our various bodily agencies." So in what way have we been "discharged" from the requirements of the Torah? (Whether that be the Sinai Torah OR the Messianic Torah of Yeshua.)

ANSWER: The Torah remains as God's STANDARD of righteousness. God's LAW in its totality will never be annulled. Certainly God's Messianic Torah remains. But our adherence to the law has brought forth the fruit of -- DEATH. Why? Because we have all broken the holy LAW of God.

QUESTION: But if the Torah, the LAW of God, is HOLY then why cannot we observe it to make us HOLY as well?

ANSWER: Paul answers the question quite logically. "We know that the Torah is spiritual: but I AM CARNAL" (Rom 7.14).

This is why a person -- Christian man or woman -- cannot use the law to make one's self holy or to keep one's self "holy." Yes, it is instructive, and intended to remind an individual to direct their steps in the right sphere of living. But the fact remains that we fail. There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of the Ten Commandments. The problem lies with human beings. Paul confesses that he (and we) are "carnal." So he stresses the rest of the equation. And what would that be?

The dead Christ was made alive in spiritual resurrection -- resurrection into spirit from among the dead. And we were raised into newness of life along with him!

"But now we have been discharged from this aspect of the Torah, because we have died to that which had us in its clutches, so that we are serving habitually as a slave in the new way -- a sphere that is new in quality -- provided by the Spirit and not in the sphere outworn as to its usefulness, in a sphere of that which was written down" (Romans 7.6).

"The sphere of that which was written down" was the Torah -- and the Messianic Torah.

And the "new sphere in quality" is provided by the indwelling of the Spirit of God -- a sphere that is "new in quality."

In Romans 7.4-6 Paul grants an illustration of the law of marriage and illustrates it in application to those of us who have become Christians. Notes McClain:
 
"Paul wanted to establish the fact that the marriage bond" -- as it existed under Sinai -- "cannot be broken except by death. It does not matter who dies. He could not say that the law dies. The law of God never dies. The Jews would have had Paul in a moment, had he said the law died. He says that we were made dead through the death of Christ. We died with Him, and that broke the relationship. That is the application" (Alva McClain, Romans, 153).

Because the relationship between servant of God and the LAW has been severed -- as Paul writes "broken" -- do we therefore proceed to neglect the expectations of God which are to be understood by the commandments God has provided for us? Absolutely not! We keep God's commandments. John wrote that if we say we love God and then refuse to observe the commandments we are condemned by God as liars and the truth is not in us. "If you love me," said Yeshua, "keep the commandments." What Paul is stating is that we do keep the commandments of God but we live in the realm of the holy Spirit in an entirely different sphere of reality -- in UNION or UNITY with Christ. And that is a resurrection union or resurrection UNITY with the resurrected Christ and IN the resurrected Christ. No dualism here! We are to rise above, and beyond, duality in our deep, loving, caring relationship with God the FatherMother Anochi.

The ONLY way we can achieve this is to view our loving and caring God as our Friend. We all ought to strive (as it were) to recondition our hearts and minds, not to reduce God as El Shaddai, or Eloah, or Yehovah, but to exalt God in our heart of hearts as more our Friend. Abraham was called "the friend of God," and God was more-so Abraham's Friend. Was He not? God wants, desires, is eager for, a loving relationship in intimate communication with each of us.

THE BOTTOM LINE IN ALL THIS
So the bottom line is this: NONE of us can break THE POWER OF SIN by the keeping -- the observance -- of the Law, whether that be the 613 laws of the Sinai Covenant or the 1050 commandments, regulations, laws, ordinances, statutes, judgments and good sound advice of the Messianic New Covenant. I have already accented that HOLINESS by definition means the total separation from, and absence of, sin. While the Torah observance builds our character, the actual holiness is developed by the literal indwelling OF the Spirit of Holiness from GOD Himself.

As soon as Paul wrote in Romans 6.23 "The ration of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Yeshua the Messiah Our Lord" Satan came against Paul. He darkened his mind and got the great apostle to navel gaze. He became immediately introspective and concentrated (in the flesh) upon his failure to observe the Torah as he believed God expected of him. As soon as Paul did this he let his human nature -- the yetzer hara -- take over. But even in this failure God left Paul's words exactly as they were penned in order to teach each of us this mighty lesson that God is above our mental aberrations. God is WAY ABOVE our feelings, emotions, wrong concepts, viewpoints and urges in the flesh as John later pointed out (1 Jn 3.20). God kept Paul's admissions of personal misery in His Word so that each of us can be encouraged by God's peaceful love and acceptance of each of us in the shed blood of his firstborn Son, Yeshua the Messiah.

You doubt what I am saying is anywhere near the truth of the matter? Take the time to add up each mention in the devastating narrative in Romans 7 of the personal pronoun "I" and association with Paul's negative defeated self-image in the number of times he resorts to "me," "my," and "myself."

From Romans 7.7-25... "I" appears a total of 30 times. "Me" appears 12 times. "My" occurs 4 times. "Myself" occurs once.

That's 47 occasions that the personal pronoun appears in a short section of a mere 19 verses. That's a lot of internalised navel gazing, an astonishing utterance of personal and persistent negative failure and orientation constellating around defeat in the flesh. And THAT was Paul! So law-bound was he that he failed to savour the positive in his life though he had just enumerated the JOY of salvation in the Messiah stressed throughout the entirety of the first six chapters of Romans. Then when he wrote that he delighted in the revelation of the GRACE of Christ (Romans 6.23) he fell flat on his face! Paul may well have kept the Law, but he could not but look upon his failure in strict law-keeping to weed out the negative power of sin, and the lively impulses of the yetzer hara -- the evil inclination -- dwelling deeply and intractably in his heart.

Despite all this, Paul "comes to himself" in sharp relief out of his bi-polar descent into deep depression. Paul has experienced in his negative mental breakdown (very evidenced from Romans 7) the crashing in to his world of the powerful Ruach HaKodesh bringing new meaning and inner psychological healing to the great apostle of Christ.

"O, wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death?" (Rom 7.24).

I mentioned in the audio recording in our last lecture of the death sentence occasionally carried into effect through the law courts of the Gentile world in the Second Temple period. A person guilty of murder or some other capital offense was bound tightly to an exhumed corpse face to face, eyeball to eyeball, mouth to gaping mouth, and then sent forth from the city to die an horrendous death by breathing into his own person the rotting putrefaction of the putrid decaying cadaver. It was an utterly horrible way to die. Paul considered his sinful flesh to be one with this body of death.

This is why Paul wrote, "Now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that wherein we were held; so that we serve in newness of the Spirit, and not in oldness of the letter" (Romans 7.6).

WE ARE ALIVE IN THE SPIRIT NOT THE LAW
We Christians are alive in the Spirit and not the law. Let me qualify this statement: Being discharged or delivered from the law simply means that we are Spirit oriented, rather than constellating around the reign of death. After all, when we break the commandments we reap the wages of sin (Rom 6.23). None of us desire the fruit of death. In this new way of the Spirit -- the holy Spirit indwelling each of us in an everlasting way -- we can bring our fruit to LIFE itself and it will result in abundance of LIFE. Yeshua never said that our keeping of the Law would grant us an "abundant life" but rather stated "I am come that they might have life and have it more abundantly."

This could not be achieved through observance of a law that ushered forth in death when one failed to live up to the expectations and stipulations of the commandment. But by the Spirit we can keep the law without it being a means to produce eternal life or (in other words) a way to break the power of sin which in reality as I have already pointed out means the very same thing!

By the Spirit we can have not just newness of life but we can work miracles involving LIFE. We could not accomplish this through law. Our inner Opponent strikes out against us when we set the will to act in Faith (even as a fruit of the Spirit of God). This is the reason Yeshua himself could not work miracles in his own residential area because the people of that city did not believe in him.

While Our Lord Yeshua had power over nature (Jn 6.19), and over the world of demons (Mt 12.22), and even exercised resurrection healing over cadavers (Lk 7.11ff), it remained true that Yeshua could not accomplish many miracles in his own region (Mk 6.1-6) because of their unbelief in an individual who had grown up in their communities and was well known from childhood. They were contemptuous of his homegrown familiarity (Mt 13.53-58).

Being alive in the Spirit means that we are in UNION with Yeshua, with Messiah, with Christ. We are by the power of the Spirit bringing forth fruit unto GOD and no longer, by being subservient to laws, rules and regulations (all of which are vital key factors in any kindergarten elementary experience) which bring forth fruit unto sin.

Understand! The knowledge of God's Law is good and beneficial for us all. The Laws of God reveal to us what constitutes sin in the first place. Paul noted that he would not have fully grasped the concept of covetousness had the law not stated, "You shall not covet"(Romans 7.7). So,

(1) the Law reveals sin.

And,

(2) The Law also provokes sin.

McClain really understood this fact. He writes, "Law does not cause sin, but law in the carnal mind provokes sin. The moment a man tries to be holy or righteous by keeping the law, the very commandments that came to him will provoke him into acts of sin. Paul says, 'Apart from the law sin is dead.' It does not mean that it does not have an existence. It means that it is dormant. The law only exposed his true nature. Sin lies torpid like a serpent in the sun, until stirred up by the law.

"When was Paul 'alive without the law'? It was when he was a child. Brought up at his mother's knee, he was taught to trust Jehovah; but there came a time in his life, at the age of twelve, when he was made a "son of the law." Then the whole body of the law was imposed upon him in a regular ceremony as a rule of life. When Paul was a child, he was taught just to trust and believe His promises, "but when the commandment came, sin revived." Sin was there all the time. He was born in sin, but it lay dormant until this moment. "Sin revived and I died." He passed under the doom and curse of the law, and he died spiritually. When we bring our children up, we have a right to teach them that the atonement saves them until they come to the age of accountability, when death comes by sin and they must have the new birth.

"(Romans 7.10) goes on with an affirmation concerning "the commandment which was ordained to life." As God has declared, "This do and thou shalt live!" The law was intended to be unto life. But Paul says, "I found it to be unto death, for sin, finding occasion, through the commandment, beguiled me, and through it slew me" (7.10-11 ASV). "Finding occasion" means finding a base of operation. This is a military expression. So sin, taking up a base of operations, through the commandment, deceived and slaughtered. In that verse is a picture of the fall. Substitute for the word sin the word serpent. Every man falls some time in his early life, just like that" (ibid., 155).

In Romans 6 we read that we ought to reckon (or consider) that we have "died to sin." At the start of Romans 7 we read that we are "dead to the law." Reckoning both these concepts to be right and good we must come to realise that the only way to escape this hellish situation wherein we find ourselves in bondage to human nature is to freely present ourselves to the Messiah. Paul sums that up in a nutshell. "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death?"

Notes McClain: "There is a parenthesis in this passage. 'O wretched man that I am! What shall I do?' Does Paul say that?  Paul never would have said, what. 'Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' His answer: 'I thank God though Jesus Christ our Lord!' He will deliver me -- He has delivered me, in fact. For if we have become united unto Him in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him" (Romans 6.5,6).

TO SUMMARISE AN IMPORTANT POINT
Again, I feel the imperative need to clarify the fact that when Paul states that we are "not under the law but under Grace" this does not mean what a lot of people think it means. Paul is not saying that we are now free to commit adultery, to steal, to bear false witness against our neighbour, or to murder. We are not now suddenly free to do all these, and other, wicked crimes. In no way can this be the case! It simply means that we are now "swallowed up in a new relationship. The expulsive power of a new affection has swept out all your old habits. The best way to get the darkness out of a room is to switch the light on. You don't sweep out the darkness with a broom. The best way to get air out of a bottle is not to try and suck it out, but to fill it with something else. Water, for example. So, God fills us with His Spirit, and the old stuff is deluged away. We're preoccupied with something bigger and better" (Des Ford, Right With God Right Now, 104).

Bigger and better indeed. Ford goes on to comment: "The first five chapters of Romans are: "Free from wrath." Chapter 6 is: "Free from sin." It remains, but it can't reign; because I died to sin when I died in Christ. Sin is no longer my boss when I see myself on the cross. Now chapter 7 (says) "Free from the law." Then, in chapter 8, "Free from death." But each of them (as in the last verse of chapter 5) is "through Jesus Christ our Lord." The devil will do anything to divert our attention to anyone or anything other than Jesus. Jesus is to preoccupy us. "Looking unto Jesus" (Hebrews 12:2 KJV). "Consider him" (Hebrews 12:3). "We, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory" (2 Corinthians 3:18 NIV). That's the way we are to go. Preoccupied by, and fascinated with, Jesus" (ibid, 104,105 emphasis is Ford's).

Paul, a rabbi who encouraged others, and who wrote brilliant discourses on the need to cultivate a positive mental attitude within, himself passed through many dark and gloomy days. He was decidedly not a man to leave alone for long periods. He constantly needed other people surrounding him to keep his mind off his own deep conflicts and troubles. Indeed in Acts 17.14-16 we find Paul alone in Athens and he sends urgent word for the company of Silas and Timothy.

I believe a truly converted believer will align completely with the Messianic Rabbi to the nations. What he is admitting is that he recognised his human nature for what it was.  It was that he was completely authentic when it came to seeing what he was really like in the flesh. The closer we get to God, and the closer He is really seen to be to us, the worse we will appear in our own eyes. God's glory penetrates us fully and exposes to our gaze the intensity of our propensity to both maladjustment and misalignment with Him. Paul shares with us his personal psychological self-appraisal with brutal honesty in Romans 7.14-25.

Paul had the courage to look deep within himself and was horrified by that which confronted him -- the LAW of sin dwelling in human nature, like a tenant in a rented premises: The vibrantly alive PERSONIFICATION of sin. The rabbinic writings refer to this personification. It really is time for scholars to rightly reappraise the great Jewish apostle to the Gentiles.

As we emerge at the conclusion of Romans 7 we are disturbed on a variety of levels. I admit that fact. What I think Paul has stated in so many words in this section of his Letter to the Roman Christians is that death works a change in our relationship to the Torah, or to any law for that matter. I agree with Ford when he articulates that we Christians are not married any more to the old way of doing things. He says, "Now, you can be married to Christ and bring forth fruit unto God. That is a beautiful thought."

"Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the law through the body of Christ" (Romans 7.4 KJV). Des Ford again says, "You see, it is we who have died, not the law. You have died, not the law. Further on in this chapter it says, "The law is holy... and just and good" (Romans 7:12). That's an odd description for a corpse, isn't it? The law is holy, just and good. It isn't, "The law used to be..." The law never dies. It loses its claim over us, because we're not under the law as a method of salvation. But it never dies as a standard" (ibid 106).

Again: "Life begins with death -- death of our old life. Life begins with resurrection, resurrection to a new life. Then, and then only, comes the true fruit. This has to be the order, the sequence. God will accept no other" (107).

With Romans 8 we come to what is my own most appreciated section of the entire Bible. The contents of Romans 8 remain largely undisclosed to those who believe in Yeshua the Messiah. It's high time to lift the lid off the inclusions of this particular section of Paul's Letter to the Roman Christians.

THIS CONCLUDES LECTURE 31

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