Chapter 61
“When
The Commandment Came”
"For
I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived,
and I died."
-- Romans 7:9
In this text the Apostle Paul, writing by divine
inspiration, tells us of three things he experienced, three things by which he
was brought to faith in Christ. These three things are experienced, to a
greater or lesser degree, by all of God’s elect. Here are three things that
happen to every truly converted soul.
1.
“I was alive without the law
once.”
When Paul says that he was alive without the law, he
does not mean that he had never heard or read the law before, or that he did
not know it. Of all men in his day, Saul of Tarsus was probably more fully
acquainted with and knowledgeable of the law of God (in the killing letter of
it) than any other. He knew and understood the letter of the law very well.
When the Apostle says, “I was alive without the law once,” his
meaning is this - “There was a time when the law of God had never come home to
my heart and conscience, I never knew the spirituality of the law. I never knew
what the law demanded.”
Saul
of Tarsus was a lost religious man. He was zealous, devoted, and strict. He kept the
law, in its letter, all the days of his life. Yet, he was as lost as the most
debased barbarian who ever lived in the darkest corners of Africa. Like all in
that state and condition, he was totally convinced that everything was well
with his soul.
Though
he was dead in sin, he was full of religious life. He had great joy; but it was
a false joy. He
enjoyed great peace; but it was a false peace. He walked with great confidence;
but it was a false confidence. Saul of Tarsus was a man of steadfast hope; but
it was a false hope. He had great faith; but it was a false faith. He lived
with complete assurance that all was well with his soul; but it was a false
assurance. His religion was altogether a satanic delusion. He was deluded by a
false security.
Saul’s
proud, self-righteous security made him very zealous in his religion. He looked down upon others
with disgust and scorn. He held those whom he looked upon as sinners in utter
contempt. He became a ferocious persecutor. As soon as a person thinks he is
better than others, he becomes the judge of others; and the next step is to
carry out his sentence upon others.
There
are many things which support men and give them security in self-righteous
religion. Saul
of Tarsus lacked none of those things which give men a false security. First and foremost, that proud Pharisee was
ignorant of the law’s spiritual character (Rom. 7:7). “Like the rest of
the Pharisees,” wrote John Gill, “he thought the law only regarded the outward
actions, and did not reach to the spirits or souls of men, the inward thoughts
and affections of the mind.”
Self-righteousness stems from a failure to
understand the spiritual character of the law of God. Uncleanness of mind in God’s eyes is
as obnoxious as uncleanness of life. An unclean thought is adultery. Anger is
murder. Covetousness is theft. Love of self is idolatry.
Saul
had the respectability and esteem of high office in the church. He was a Pharisee of the
Pharisees. He came behind no one in matters of religious devotion. Read the
third chapter of Philippians. Saul of Tarsus was a remarkable, highly respected
figure in the religious world.
This
man rested in a false evidence of God’s love and favor. He thought external
reformation was an indication of God’s favor (John 8:39-41). The fact is,
evidence based assurance is false assurance. The believer’s assurance of
salvation is Christ. It is the assurance of faith (Heb. 11:1).
Saul
strengthened his carnal security by comparing himself to those who were, in his
opinion, outwardly more profane and wicked than he was. He was one of those
men, utterly repugnant to God, who thought he was “holier[1]”
than others (Isa. 65:1-5). Saul the Pharisee had that love of self which causes
a man to overlook his own faults and exaggerate the faults of others (Matt.
7:3-5).
Moreover,
he was deceived with a wrong idea of God’s justice. He did not realize that the
law of God demands perfection and that the justice of God requires an infinite
atonement for every deviation from his holy law.
Through
all of these things, the god of this world had blinded his mind, lest the light
of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto him. Like some of you, Saul of Tarsus was a man lost in religion.
His religion kept him from Christ. He said, “I
was alive without the law
once.” Saul of Tarsus had such a
high opinion of his own personal
holiness that he actually presumed that he was good
enough to meet whatever demands the holy Lord God required! He was alive
without the law. He felt perfectly comfortable with himself. He was, in his
wonderful opinion of himself, good enough for God!
2.
“When the
commandment came, sin revived.”
Before the commandment came, piercing his heart and
soul, sin was a dead thing to him. He had mortified the flesh. He had
sanctified himself, at least outwardly. He did not believe that there was really
any great sin in him. In his own estimation, and in the eyes of others, Saul
was a truly holy man.
What does
Paul mean by this statement? -- “When the
commandment came, sin revived?” He
means for us to understand that the law exposed his sin. The law came
crushing into his soul, exposing his inward lusts. He particularly uses the
expression of the law, “Thou shalt not
covet” (Rom. 7:7), as the thing
which stirred up his lusts, the enmity of his heart against God. The law
aggravated his sin. Thus, “sin revived.”
For the
first time in his life, Saul felt himself to be a guilty sinner. This
conviction of sin is not an easy thing to experience; but it is necessary.
Without it, no man will ever be saved. A person’s sin must be exposed to
himself, or he will never come to Christ.
3. “And I died.”
At last, Saul was slain by the law. His mouth was
stopped. He stood guilty before God. But what was it in this man that died? It
was that which ought never to have lived. It was the great “I”. “Sin revived, and ‘I’ died.” The law
killed it. “I” was so secure. “I” was so proud. “I” was so
holy. “I” was so zealous. But now “I
died.” Any man whose heart has been exposed to the light of God’s holy law
sees himself as a vile, obnoxious, rotting corpse of human flesh.
What
does the Apostle mean by this statement - “I
died”? He means for us to
understand that he was made to see, for the first time in his life, that he was justly condemned to
die. All his hopes from his past life of self-righteousness died. All his hopes
regarding the future died.
He had
broken the law of God, and all his efforts to keep it in the future could never
atone for his sin. All his tears of repentance, all his sorrowful cries, all of
his sincere confessions, all his best deeds, could not mend God’s broken law.
“Could my tears forever
flow,
Could my zeal no langor
know,
All for sin could not atone;
Thou must save and Thou
alone.”
The
thunderous bolts of Sinai dashed all his hopes to the ground. The iron cold
sword of the law had wounded and slain his spirit. Then, but not until then,
did this broken man cry, “Lord, what wilt
thou have me do?”
Have
you ever been slain by God’s holy law? I hope you have. Perhaps, even as you have read
these lines, God the Holy Spirit has slain you by the law. Has he made you to
know yourself a sinner, a real sinner, utterly lost and undone before God? If
so, read on. I have got good news for sinners. Christ died for sinners. God,
for Christ’s sake, saves sinners. May God graciously compel you to fall down
before the throne of the sovereign Christ, suing for mercy, crying like the
needy publican of old, -- “God, be
merciful to me, the sinner.” -- “Lord, if you will, you can make me whole.”
In Galatians 3, this same man declares, “I through the law am dead to the law,” because
he had been crucified with Christ (Gal. 3:19-21). Once his carnal hopes were
slain, once he was made alive by grace, once Christ was revealed in him, he saw
and rejoiced to see that he was “dead to the law”. The same is true of
every believer.
How can we be dead to the law? Once the law has exacted all its
demands, once all its justice has been executed and the criminal is dead, he is
dead to the law. The law cannot require anything more from the executed felon.
That is exactly what happened at Calvary. All the sins of God’s elect were
imputed to the Lord Jesus Christ. When he was made to be sin for us, the fire
of God’s holy wrath fell on him, and fell on his people in him. When he died,
all his people died. Thus, when the fire of God’s law and justice consumed our
Substitute and he consumed it, we became “dead to the law – through the law!”
“Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we
establish the law" (Rom. 3:31). By faith in Christ, we who believe fulfill the law of God.
That is the only way any sinner can fulfill the law. Being freed from the law
in Christ, being dead to the law and married to Christ, we must never allow
anyone to bring us back under the yoke of the law (Gal. 5:1-4).
[1] The only time in the entire Word of God where the word “holy” is used in a relative sense when applied to man is found in Isaiah 65:5, where those who vainly imagine that they make themselves “holier” than others by what they do or do not do are exposed for what they really are, -- “a smoke in God’s nose!”