08-22-10 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 that 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 cell phones suddenly start texting at 80 words a minute?

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

are 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?

They would find that this same sane, rational driving public

has reexamined that section of road

and recognized that 75 is really a far better speed.

It is not the laws that keep society in line,

it is the fear of the consequences of breaking them.

But let’s 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 a time in 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

of our 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.

Many years 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.

It’s a little bit like a problem

our little dog, Pepper, faced in his final years with us.

For several years

we’d 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.

And since he was an “inside” dog

and liked to be wherever we were

it was a hard situation.

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 we happened to meet a vet in a social situation

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,

his breath improved,

and he did great for several more years.

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.

Most 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 child,

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.