İ2001 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
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2/11/01
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And The Law Came In
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Romans 5:20
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2/11/01 And The Law Came In
Rom. 5:20 And the Law came in that the
transgression might increase; but where sin
increased, grace abounded all the more,
Rom. 5:21 that, as sin reigned in death,
even so grace might reign through
righteousness to eternal life through Jesus
Christ our Lord.
Most of what our God says to us
we never really hear,
not because He didn't speak clearly,
not even because we were not listening,
but rather because
what He said
was not what we thought He was going
to say,
and because we were so convinced
He was going to say something else,
by the time we finally filter His words
through the grid of our expectations,
the original message
is reshaped into what we expected
rather than what He really said.
Some examples will help.
More than 60 times God calls us "His Holy Ones",
but by the time it filters through our grid of
expectations
we hear Him saying, "You SHOULD BE my
Holy Ones".
And so we keep trying to become
what God says we already are.
Paul tells us that "... our old self was crucified
with (Christ)...",
but we filter it through our grid
and hear him saying,
"Our old self should be crucified...".
We are told that we now "...have peace with
God through our Lord Jesus Christ...",
but the truth is many of us are so convinced
that the battle is still raging,
and we hear him saying,
"We should be at peace with God."
And we run into the same problem
with the last two verses
of Romans chapter 5.
Only, with this passage,
our expectations are so strong,
so fixed,
so certain in our minds
that we don't just mentally modify the passage,
but more often than not
we don't hear it at all,
or we allow ourselves to hear
the exact opposite of what is being
said.
As we saw last week,
the passage begins with the words,
"And the Law came in that the
transgression might increase..."
God gave the human race His moral law
in order to cause us to sin more.
But that single statement
is so absolutely incompatible
with everything we know,
everything we believe,
everything we understand to be true
about what makes a person
a good person
or a bad person,
that our minds simply do not hear what is being
said.
By definition
a "good person" is a person who knows,
accepts,
and keeps the moral laws of God,
or at least the moral laws of society.
A "bad person"
is one who breaks those rules.
Our entire social structure
assumes the tremendous value
and the absolute necessity of THE LAW.
We are in an endless social evolution
of seeking to legislate better and better rules
so that through those rules
we can shape ourselves into a stronger,
better,
more ethical,
more caring,
more honest,
more moral society.
Everyone knows
that, if there were no rules,
and no rigid enforcement of those rules,
the result would be absolute chaos.
And yet Paul tells us here
that "... the Law came in that the
transgression might increase...",
that God gave His moral law
not to make us good,
but rather to cause us to sin.
Now, to make some sense out of this,
I want us to take these two verses
and look carefully
at where Paul goes with them
and what it means for us.
He reveals two radically different
3-step progressions in these two verses,
the first of which begins with the law
and ends in death,
and the second of which begins with
grace
and ends with eternal life.
I want us to walk through each of them
so we see what's really going on.
But before we look at the first one
I want to make just one additional comment
about this whole business of laws in society
and why they do serve to hold a society
together.
I think we often allow ourselves to believe
that it is the rules, the laws themselves,
that keep a society together.
But the truth is
it is not the rules,
it is the fear of the consequences of breaking
those rules
that keeps a society in check.
Our legislators could pass the best laws ever written,
but if there were no consequences for breaking
those rules,
and no enforcement for their violation,
those laws would have no affect on the
behavior of people whatsoever.
What happens when the teacher leaves the room?
Why do spit wads suddenly start flying through
the air,
and notes suddenly get passed from row to
row?
Why do children suddenly start looking
at the answers to the homework
on the student's paper next to them?
Have the rules suddenly changed?
The only thing that's changed
is the consequences.
Just after the speed limit changed
from 55 to 65 mph
on the road from here to Anchorage
there was an article about the change in the paper.
The person responsible for the change
was being interviewed,
and in the interview he said,
"Well, we've done studies on that section of the
road and discovered that everyone was going 65
anyway."
His comment suggested that a sane, rational driving
public
examined this section of road
and determined that it was indeed
safe to go 65 through this section.
That is so stupid.
Why were we all going about 65 when the speed
limit was 55?
We were all going 65
because we all know
the police will not stop you
unless you're more than 10 miles over
the limit.
If they were to survey that section of road again
now
do you know what they'd find?
"Well, they're all going about 75."
It is not the laws that keep society in line,
it is the fear of the consequences of breaking
them.
But letıs get back
to the two 3-step processes
revealed to us by Paul in these two verses.
Paul says,
Rom. 5:20 And the Law came in that the
transgression might increase; but where sin
increased, grace abounded all the more,
Rom. 5:21 that, as sin reigned in death,
even so grace might reign through
righteousness to eternal life through Jesus
Christ our Lord.
So what Paul says is this:
THE LAW
produces
TRANSGRESSION or SIN
and sin produces
DEATH
But then
GRACE
produces
RIGHTEOUSNESS
and righteousness produces
ETERNAL LIFE
If you like little charts it looks like this:
Now, that's a great little deal
to jot down in the margin of your Bible
next to Romans 5:20-21
so that you have the feeling you really
understand the verses.
There they are, right there,
all distilled down into six words
connected by boxes and arrows.
I remember that phase of my Christian life
when I had my notebooks filled
with all the best charts,
and drawings,
and outlines,
from all the teachers I most respected.
And I certainly don't mean to minimize
the value of an academic study of the Word of
God,
because that's an important part
finding the truth we need.
But if we are not careful
there is a pitfall in an academic
or intellectual study of the Bible.
If we are not careful
it is easy to believe that
understanding the concept intellectually
is the same thing as grasping it in our
spirit,
and integrating it into our lives.
That is certainly true
with the concepts in the two verses
we are looking at this morning.
Intellectually Paul is saying,
But how does that play out in our lives?
We are going to take the rest of this morning
to look at the first of those two progressions.
The LAW
leads to SIN
leading to DEATH.
Then, next week we'll take a look at the second
one.
About a year and a half ago
we were involved in a study
talking about some of these same concepts.
At that time I summarized the truth
that I see Paul wanting to communicate to us
here about the law driving us into sin
by offering you a series of numbered
statements.
On looking back over those statements
I've decided that they are probably
the easiest way for me
to remind us once again of what's really
going on here.
#1. We start right from the beginning:
God created man.
#2. Soon after that creation, however,
man asserted the free will God had given him
by turning his back on his Creator.
In fact, Adam and Eve entered into a full-scale,
willful rebellion against Him,
declaring themselves to be independent
from Him,
and denouncing His Lordship in their
lives.
#3. Once that rebellion took place
that same spirit of rebellion
was passed onto every human being
from that time forth.
Every one of us enters this world
believing we have both the right
and the ability to run our own lives.
#4. The remarkable thing, however,
is that even though we
collectively shook our little created fists
in the face of our God,
our God continued to love us
and to implement His plan
for the restoration
of His relationship with us.
God never tells us WHY He loves us.
He just tells us that He does.
And He tells us
that He loves each one of us personally, equally,
and eternally.
#5. OK, now here is the situation God faced:
the people He loves have a heart rebellion against
Him.
It isn't just that we
are not acting the way nice people ought to act.
It's that we are immersed in our rebellion
at the deepest level of our being.
Just getting us to act a little better, and be a little
more moral,
will never solve the problem.
What we need first of all
is to face honestly our root problem
of an independent heart in rebellion against
God.
EX. It's a little bit like a problem
our little dog, Pepper, faced this past fall.
Well, actually, he'd been facing it for several years,
but we didn't know why.
For the past several years, now,
we have noticed his breath becoming more and
more offensive.
It was getting to the point where
just being in the same room with him
was a rather painful experience.
We'd been told the problem was his teeth-
they needed to be cleaned.
We tried brushing them...once.
Have you ever tried brushing a dog's teeth?
NOT a good idea...
At one point we even took him to the vet
and had his teeth cleaned.
It was a BIG deal -
general anesthetic,
several teeth had to be pulled,
a bill somewhere around a hundred
dollars...
We even got him special prescription doggie
biscuits
that were guaranteed to clean his teeth as he
chewed.
It did seem to help for a while,
but it wasn't long until the problem reoccurred.
And then something else started happening as well.
Pepper gradually became less and less energetic.
He spent more and more time just sleeping
until he was sleeping at least 20 hours a
day.
He lost interest in his doggie toys and games,
and even going for walks with us
seemed to be more and more of an effort for
him.
Then this past fall when we were in Texas
we met a veterinarian at the conference
and I told him about our little dog.
He said the problem was an infection
that started in his mouth,
but had now spread throughout his entire
body.
He gave us a special doggie antibiotic.
Within two days after starting him on the pills
it was like our dog suddenly woke up
from some horrible sleep of death.
His energy level soared,
and he's been great ever since.
That's us when we enter this world.
We think our only problem
is a little moral bad breath
when the truth is our entire body is filled
with moral decay.
We think all we need to do
is get on top of this anger problem,
or stop lying so much,
or take care of this little battle with lust.
When we find ourselves thinking
that all we need
in order to move ourselves closer to God
is to work harder at obeying the Ten
Commandments,
it's the same thing as me thinking a
little squirt of breath spray in Pepper's mouth
will clear up the whole problem.
If there was ever going to be any hope
of a restored relationship between us and our
God,
God knew it would take a total cleansing of
us
at the deepest level of our being.
#6. But for that to take place,
first of all He would need to face us with the
truth about our own condition -
He would have to force us to face
the reality of our own sinfulness.
#7. And this is where the Moral Law of God comes
into God's plan.
For, you see, God did not give us His moral law
in order to help us sin LESS,
He gave us His moral law in order to force
us to sin MORE.
Romans chapter 5, verse 20 says this:
The Law came in so that the transgression
would increase...
God gave the law to force us to sin more.
And then, in Romans 7:5,
Paul explains how the law does this.
For while we were in the flesh, the sinful
passions, which were aroused by the Law,
were at work in the members of our body
to bear fruit for death.
In that verse Paul tells us that when our sinful
passions,
that is, when that rebellious nature within us
encounters the moral law of God
it's like holding a lighted match
over an open can of gasoline.
The law drives us to rebellion.
Many of you have heard one of my favorite
illustrations before.
I have some urgent, critical instructions for you,
and it is imperative that you listen
and obey what I am going to say.
Under no circumstances
do I want you to touch the chair in front of you.
I don't want you to touch it with your finger.
I don't want you to touch it with your toe.
I don't want you to touch it with your knee.
I don't even want you to THINK about touching it.
Now look at this!
Thirty seconds ago
the last thing in your mind
was the thought of touching that chair.
And yet now you find your finger just itching to
touch it.
There is no reasonable, logical reason why you
would want to touch it.
You just do,
because my little law
aroused your natural rebellious nature
and gave you a desire
to reach out and touch that chair.
In fact, the law itself brought the action to mind.
...the sinful passions, which were aroused
by the Law...
And the Law came in so that the
transgression would increase...
If God had never given His moral law
we would never have been driven to sin
and forced to face our own heart rebellion
against our God.
Does that mean, then,
that we are wrong to write moral laws for our
nation,
or to set moral boundaries for our children?
Certainly not,
so long as we never forgot
that obedience to the rules
because we fear the consequences if we
break them,
or even because we have discovered
that it works to our advantage if we keep
those rules,
is not the same thing
as having a heart for righteousness.
From the very beginning
it has never been about keeping the law,
it has always,
only been about God calling to Himself a
people who love Him.
It is possible for a parent,
dealing with a rebellious son,
to structure that child's life so tightly,
with such strict consequences for disobedience,
that the child is forced into submissive
obedience.
But does that obedience satisfy
the heart longings of that parent?
What the parent longs for
is a child whose heart longing
is to live a life pleasing to the parent.
God imposed His moral law on the world
to provide us with a mirror
in which we can see our own disease -
not our disobedient actions,
but our rebellion of the heart.
Paul was talking about this in the 5th chapter of his
letter to the Galatians,
and in that discussion
he showed us the contrast between
submission to the law,
and true heart obedience.
He said,
Gal. 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness,
Gal. 5:23 gentleness, self-control; against
such things there is no law.
Love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, self-control...
no law has ever been written
that can produce those qualities in a person.
And so, the Law
drives us into sin,
forcing us to face
the reality of our own death.
Then what is God's alternative?
We'll look at that next week.