Paul’s letter to the church in Rome can be very difficult to follow but contains the most complete recording of his theology as it had evolved over his life. Today’s scripture comes after a difficult discussion of the Jewish law and why it is both holy and a problem. Before Paul’s encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus he was a devout Pharisee, a Jewish sect which sought to live in complete observance of the Jewish Law. Their life centered around knowing every detail of the Jewish Law including all of its interpretations, i.e. what specifically constitutes working on the Sabbath. You can almost sense his struggle to come to terms with his radically different understanding of the role of the Law as something both holy and now irrelevant as you read Romans 7. This may seem only of academic interest but it raises question for us in our times.
Paul and the Law:
Romans 7:6 But now that we're no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we're free to live a new life in the freedom of God. 7 But I can hear you say, "If the law code was as bad as all that, it's no better than sin itself." That's certainly not true. The law code had a perfectly legitimate function. Without its clear guidelines for right and wrong, moral behavior would be mostly guesswork. Apart from the succinct, surgical command, "You shall not covet," I could have dressed covetousness up to look like a virtue and ruined my life with it.
· What problem did Paul have with the law?
· What does he now see as the purpose for the law? Is a moral structure with do’s and don’ts important to us for right living?
· Where did your understanding of right living come from? How much of it developed as a part of your Christian faith?
· What do you feel are the consequences for living outside of your understanding of proper behavior? What do you feel badly or worry about when the inevitable shortcomings occur? Has any consideration of your relationship with God ever occurred.
The following from Paul by C. K. Barrett might help us understand some of Paul’s concerns about relying on the law for a right relationship with God:
Law is in essence religion and religion is a specific way of dealing with the supernatural. It may leave man confident that the supernatural is being kept firmly in its place, that God personifying the supernatural – is being properly handled by the appropriate procedures and will do no harm or even make impossible demands …
· What is your reaction to his observation of a reliance on proper behavior as the basis for a right relationship with God?
In spite of the awareness he has of good and bad living Paul writes of the frustration that he experiences trying to be true to it:
Romans 7:21-23 It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.
24I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?
25The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.
· What has Paul discovered about himself? Can you relate to this sense of frustration? Paul says that “Parts of me covertly rebel”, are there basic flaws in human nature that cause this to happen?
· In verse 24 Paul says that he is “at the end of my rope.” How important does it appear that inappropriate behavior affects him? Are there particular shortcomings that you carry with you and give you this kind of angst?
· This scripture is the point of departure for Paul to living a spiritual life with God’s saving grace. Has your faith life helped you deal with the “contradictions” he speaks of? Do you think that guilt can be proportional to our desire to serve God?
· What did Jesus do to “set things right”? How are our shortcomings dealt with now? Paul gives us a hint in Galatians 2:21:
I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"
Honoring the Law is was not restricted to the Jews of Paul’s time, early on in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus gives us his teaching on the law:
Matthew 5:17-18"Don't suppose for a minute that I have come to demolish the Scriptures— either God's Law or the Prophets. I'm not here to demolish but to complete. I am going to put it all together, pull it all together in a vast panorama. God's Law is more real and lasting than the stars in the sky and the ground at your feet. Long after stars burn out and earth wears out, God's Law will be alive and working.
· Jesus seems to place heavy emphasis on compliance with the Law. Does this seem to contradict Paul’s ideas we discussed above? Can you see why the Jerusalem Christian converts might place a strong emphasis on continuing to live in compliance with the Law?
· Jesus tells us he came to complete the Law, what do you think that he meant by that? What might have been missing before Jesus came? Does this make any sense to you?
Maybe a final word from Paul might help:
Romans 12:1-2 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
· Where does our understanding of and ability to live in accordance with God’s will come from?
· What have you learned from this, what questions do you have?
Closing Litany
For it is by grace we are saved through faith, it is not our own doing. It is God’s gift, not a reward for work done. We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the life of good deeds which God designed for us. Amen From Ephesians 2:8-10
Next Week’s Lectionary Scriptures: Genesis 25:19-34 or Isaiah 55:10-13, Psalm 119:105-112 or Psalm 65:(1-8), 9-13, Romans 8:1-11, Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
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