Romans 7:7

What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet" [Exodus 20:17; Deuteronomy 5:21].

Paul has been building up to an explanation of the law’s place since chapter 3 when he first mentioned that the law couldn’t save us. Chapters 3-8 give us a comprehensive view of the law and its role. It can’t save us (Chapters 3-5). It can’t make us holy (Chapter 6). We saw that the law can’t condemn us if we’re in Christ (v1-6). Now we’ll see that the law can convict us of sin (v7-13), but it can’t deliver us from sin (v14-25). Later we’ll see that the law is fulfilled by the power of the indwelling Spirit (Chapter 8:1-4). By the end of chapter 5, Paul was in trouble with some of his listeners because of what he says about grace, because he says it justifies the ungodly and he seems to open the door to license and lawlessness. And he was in trouble because of what he says about the law, because he seems to say that keeping the law it is not necessary for justification and that the law even joins hands with sin to defeat its own demands. So in chapter 6 (6:1-7:6) Paul defended grace. And in chapter 7 (7:7-25) he will defend law. 7:7-13 answer the following question: If the law can’t save us or sanctify us, what good is it? This passage teaches us that the law is good because it can convict us by revealing sin (v7), arousing sin (v8), devastating the sinner (v9-11), and reflecting the sinfulness of sin (v12-13). In v7-13, Paul looks back on his pre-conversion experience when he was under conviction of his sin. But in 7:13-25, he speaks as a maturing Christian still wrestling with sin. Remember also, Paul previewed all this in chapter 3. Notice several things:

V7 – Knowing sin through the law. Paul has made it clear that he is not against the law. Because the language that Paul has used to get people’s trust away from the law has made it possible for them to think that Paul believes the law to be worthless for the Christian, or even worse, evil, Paul wants to make sure his audience understands that the law is a good thing. His audience wonders, “What good is the law? If we’re saved and made holy by our union with Christ, what place does the law have? Why did God go to such extremes to give such a complex law?” And we might be asking, “Why do we need to have a correct view or understanding of the law? We know that it does not save us, so what’s the big deal about it?”

First, the answer for us is this: we need to have proper understanding of the law to avoid the 2 extremes within Christianity—legalism and antinomianism. The biblical realism of Romans 7 is meant to save us from moral pride on one side and immoral, irreverent hopelessness on the other side. A proper view of the law will keep us in the proper place, not legalistic or prideful and not hopeless in our behavior. See 1 John 5:1-3.

Paul is saying in v7-11 that we don’t understand the Bible’s teaching on the law until the law’s fullness has humbled us. The only person who can understand the law is the one who has been humbled by it. Paul gives an example of the inherent righteousness and goodness of the law when he says that it was the law that taught him the sinfulness of sin. Paul is not saying that no one knows right from wrong without a copy of the Ten Commandments in their homes. Paul has already argued that everybody knows right and wrong. God has written on men’s hearts the works of the law so that they know right and wrong. It is ingrained; it is put on their consciousness by the finger of God. So Paul is not denying that there is a universal sense of right and wrong. But what he is saying is this: That the law, when it registers with people, when it comes into play, shows them the inwardness of sin, their sinful nature, the magnitude and depravity of themselves.

Notice that Paul uses the tenth commandment, “You shall not covet,” as his example. All of the other commandments have physical outworkings except this one. Of course, Christ pointed to the strict inward authority of the law, but there is clear, explicit physical outworking of the commandments, except this one. There is no way to externally covet; it is a matter of the heart. And Paul is confirming Christ’s teaching when he gets to the tenth commandment and suddenly realizes that there is a lot more to those first nine commandments than just merely refraining from doing what they say point blank on the surface. There are a lot of ways to break those first nine commandments without ever going through the physical action of committing murder or adultery or stealing or lying. Paul is saying that coveting taught him that the law was inward, and that righteousness was inward, and suddenly he realized that he had never kept the law.