Romans 7-12: An Apology Of The Law

If there is any consensus among interpreters of Paul, it is that Paul's teaching on the law is highly complex. Romans 7:7-12 presents a Pauline perspective on the value of God’s law and its unveiling of sin in the life of a believer. The passage itself has been called “An Apology for the Law”. While Paul in Rom 6 defends grace (6:1,15), in Rom 7 Paul defends the law. The argument of Rom 7 flows directly out of the former chapter. Chapter 7 describes both corporate and individual dimensions of redemption in Christ in a brilliant literary style. Paul seeks to explain that the law is the one that is written on men’s hearts and claims that the Mosaic Law is written outside of man’s self, both teaching what men should and should not do. It

They are morally helpless and cannot bring forth the intended fruit of righteousness, which is spelled out in the law. How then may one understand what sin is unless there be a standard of righteousness that enables one to differentiate between that which is good and that which is evil? Without the revelation of the law there is no sin. “Just as a black speck is made “visible” against a pure white background, so is sin made visible by the purity of the law. The law reveals what was there all along, but was “invisible” since everything around it was the same. In a world of “black” sins, individual acts of sin are unknown until a pure white standard is introduced. Immediately all of the individual acts of sin become visible”. Without the commandments, there can be no offenses. Thus, sin is defined as any desire opposite of that which is of correspondence to the law. Sin depends on some type of standard by which performance and conduct is measured. Therefore, it is through the law that sin is exposed. This is not to say that there would be no evil without a law, but an individual could not have knowledge without the law. The linking of God to the law adds the ethical importance of the law. Since God is the creator of the law and the source, the failure to abide by the law is an offence against God himself. Therefore, it is an act of sin against his deity. This is why Paul does not speak in a

9 to speak of his own individual past. From this verse, a reader could question if Paul intends to mean that as a child he was born without original sin and that here was a stage in his life, before he understood the law, which was sinless. That is clearly not the case. Paul is approaching this matter comparatively here. There was a season in his life when he did not know and possess the realization of actual sin. This passage, however, is where students of scripture make distinctions about the age of accountability. Paul describes a period of innocence until people reach an age of accountability. They are “alive” without guilt and spiritual accountability until they knowingly and willfully choose to defy God’s law and standard that is revealed in his word or their hearts (2:14-15, 7:7,9,11). One does not know when that age is, but readers of scripture recognize that in the child there is a lack of understanding of what is commanded and what is prohibited. Paul is recalling that the more he learned about the law as a child, the more sin was agitated up within him and invigorated. Paul is also referring to his post-salvation state. Paul thought himself in a very good condition. Paul was alive in his own opinion. He was very secure and confident of the virtuousness of his life when he was a Pharisee. This was the common practice of those men to have a very strong opinion of who they were. This was due to the lacking revelation of the law. Paul had the