Sin and the Law, Part 1

Unsaved people cannot expect salvation or sanctification from the Law. They can't, and that's what Paul was experiencing in his life. He was saying, the commandment which was ordained to life I found to be unto death. The Law of God which I thought would make my life meaningful, I found to be nothing but devastation to me, so I looked at all of the things that I had done and I said it is all done. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Question for you. What's the purpose of the Old Testament Law? It can't save you and it can't make you holy, so what good is it?

That's actually a very important question. John MacArthur helps answer it today as he continues his compelling study called Freedom from Sin. But before we get to the lesson, there's something we can't say often enough, and that is thank you. Thank you to the people who run this radio station. John, I know these people are dear to you.

Maybe you could talk about that for a minute. Well, obviously it's a partnership that is essential, it's necessary, and we are still such strong believers in radio, even with all the modern technology and the Internet and all of that. Our partnership with radio station staff, managers, owners, networks is at the very foundation of this ministry. We just want to pass along our thanks to all of you who come alongside and make it possible for us to have this ministry.

You literally provide the place in the world where the Kingdom of God can be proclaimed and where the Kingdom of God can be advanced through the salvation of sinners. Thank you for that partnership. We're so grateful. We don't really have any words to say it, but let me borrow from some folks who wrote us.

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That's right. And friend, if I could ask a favor, contact this radio station and let the people there know that you are thankful for all the work they do and for airing programs like Grace To You. You'll encourage them more than you know. But right now, join John in the book of Romans as he continues to show you the path to freedom from sin. Romans 7, beginning at verse 7.

What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin but by the law, for I had not known coveting, except the law had said thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of coveting. For apart from the law, sin is dead. For I was alive apart from the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment which was ordained to life I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me and by it slew me. Wherefore the law is holy and the commandment holy and just and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me?

God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good, that sin by the commandment might become exceedingly sinful. Now we saw that in chapter 6, verse 14, there's a key verse of Romans. Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you're not under the law but under grace. He says here, you're not under the law but under grace. That's a wonderful statement.

We know what that means, don't we? We're no longer under law in what sense? The curse of it. The curse of it. Because Christ, says Paul, Galatians 3, was made a curse for us that we might be set free from the curse of the law. So in the message here, Paul says, look, we're not under the law anymore, we're under grace. We're out from under that curse. Now at this point, any thinking Jew is going to say, well, if the law can't save us and the law can't sanctify us, and we want to get out from under the law which can only curse us, then what good is the law?

Right? I mean, you're just saying, Paul, you're just picking up the whole law of God and dumping it and saying, just get rid of that whole thing. It's useless. It's meaningless.

Is that what you're saying? Now that brings us to 7, 7 to 13. If the law can't save us and the law can't sanctify us, what in the world good is the law? And the answer comes, it's good because it can convict us. It can convict us. Four elements of that conviction are in the text.

Here's the first one. The law reveals sin. That's the first element of its convicting power. The law reveals sin. Look at verse 7. What shall we say then? Is the law sin?

God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin but by the law, for I had not known coveting except the law had said thou shalt not covet. So the intention of the law is to come and show sin to be what sin is, something that has corrupted the very nature of man deep within his being.

When Paul saw that, he knew that all of his legalism was manure. The law reveals sin. Secondly, the law aggravates or rouses sin. Verse 8. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of coveting. For apart from the law, sin is dead. Now let me begin at the end of the verse where the axiom is. Apart from the law, sin is dead. The idea is not that sin has no existence because we know it does. The idea is that until you see the law of God in its fullness, until you're really convicted of your sin, sin is dead in the sense that it doesn't overwhelm you. It doesn't rise up to pounce on you. It's dormant.

It's sort of not fully active. Sin is just sort of there. That's why later on in chapter 7 when we see the apostle Paul say, there's something in me that longs to obey the law of God, he is not talking as an unbeliever because an unbeliever when he sees the law of God is not drawn to do right, he is aggravated to do wrong by that law. So the law reveals and rouses sin and it is a good work that the law does that.

Thirdly, it not only reveals the sin and rouses and aggravates the sin that's in him, but it devastates and destroys him. Verse 9, he says, I was alive apart from the law once. Here he doesn't mean spiritually alive, he means I was...I was doing fine. I was really living. I mean, I was going along in my complacent, unperturbed, self-righteous life, everything was fine. I was just doing real well and all of a sudden this convicting upheaval when I was exposed to the law showed what sin really was. Verse 9 says, when the commandment became clear to me, sin came to life and I was devastated. I died. What do you mean you died?

I died in the sense of all my hopes and all my dreams and everything I counted on and everything I hoped in were shattered and destroyed and ruined and devastated. Now the law was given to provide blessedness in life. The law was given to bless, to make life full and rich and meaningful and purposeful and joyous and happy. That's why God gave the law. In fact, if you read the Old Testament over and over again, you're going to find that the text of the Old Testament says, if you do these things, you shall prosper in life. That was the purpose of the law.

But listen carefully. It cannot accomplish that purpose in an unsaved person because an unsaved person can't obey the law, therefore cannot receive its benefits of blessing. And that's what Paul is saying here. The law which God ordained to give me full, rich and meaningful life just killed me, devastated me, slew me. So listen, unsaved people cannot expect salvation or sanctification from the law.

They can't. And that's what Paul was experiencing in his life. He was saying the commandment which was ordained to life I found to be unto death. The law of God which I thought would make my life meaningful and fill up my life with purpose and so forth, I found to be nothing but devastation to me. And then he said this in Philippians 3, so I looked at all of the things that I had done and I said it is all done.

The law couldn't produce anything in me but manure because it is incapacitated by the sinfulness of man. Now verse 11, and here he repeats basically the same idea, for sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me and by it slew me. And here again he comes back to say that sin killed him again when the law came along. He was literally devastated. Sin, finding its platform in the law, became obvious to me and I was devastated.

And there really is a death in this sense. I mean, Paul thought he was alive. I mean, he was going along doing what he thought was righteousness. He thought he was blameless. He was zealous for God. He was persecuting Christians. He was a member of the leadership of Israel and he must have looked at himself and thought, oh, how God must be pleased with me. Boy, I'm spiritually alive.

I got my act together. And then he was confronted with the reality of God's holy law. He looked inside of himself and saw the evil of his own nature and his own heart and he realized that all the stuff he'd been doing didn't at all bring blessing.

He counted it all manure. He threw himself on the mercy of Jesus Christ because he knew the law had not made him alive, it had just killed him. Paul felt that, here's an important thought, that all desirable spiritual goals were available through the law. But when he learned the truth, he knew he'd been deceived. And there are millions of people in our world who are so deceived. I guess you could say this, the exceeding deceitfulness of sin is this. It makes people think they can please God and gain His blessing by their works.

Did you get that? That is the ultimate deceit of sin. It makes people believe they can gain the favor of God and His blessing by their own works. That is a deception, isn't it? Because it isn't true.

It is not true. Sin deceives. So, the law reveals sin, the law arouses sin, and the law ruins the sinner with its deceit. You say, well, then the law must be bad. Oh, it must be awful. It must be a bad thing if it does all these bad things to people.

No, not at all. That takes us to the fourth and final point. The law reflects the sinfulness of sin. It reveals sin, arouses sin, ruins the sinner and reflects the sinfulness of sin. Verse 12, listen carefully. Wherefore, the law is holy and the commandment holy and just and good.

What are you saying, Paul? You just said the law reveals sin and the law arouses sin and the law ruins people by sin using it to deceive them. How can it be holy, just and good?

This is the key idea here, folks. In this chapter, it's really the key idea. Look at verse 14. He says the law is spiritual.

Look at verse 22. I delight in the law. Verse 16, the law, it is good. Paul says the law is good. The law is holy. The law is just. The law is spiritual. I delight in the law.

Nothing wrong with the law. If the law reveals sin, it's not anything that is the fault of the law. And so it is that the law is holy. That is, it is as pure as God is pure.

And if God reveals His standard, it will be as pure as He is. It is just. That means it is equitable. It is fair. It is right. It is pure then and it is right. There's no wrong in the law. There's nothing unjust in the law. And finally, it is good.

What does that mean? It promotes man's blessedness. So we could say it is holy in the sense that it reveals God's perfection. It is just in the sense that it is totally fair and it is good in the sense that it promotes man's highest blessedness.

You say, well how in the world could it do that? How in the world could the law by causing all this sin to flourish promote the good of man? Because where sin flourishes, where sin abounds, what? Grace does much more abound. And as the law stirs up the sinfulness of sin, a man sees what he is and then he knows he needs a Savior.

And when he runs to the Savior, grace is available for him. So the law is holy and the law is just and the law is good and the law is spiritual and the law is delightful. And if man can't keep it, there's nothing wrong with the law.

There's something wrong with man. Now verse 13, we come to a conclusion. Was then that law which is good made death unto me? In other words, does the law get the blame for my sin? And I take you right back to our analysis of a crime, a murder, a robbery or something. Is the law to blame?

No. The law is not to blame. The law simply reveals the sinner. So he says, was the law which is good made death?

God forbid. The law wasn't made into something deadly. Sin is deadly. The law was still given to produce blessing, the fullness of life. Just because man can't live up to the law doesn't mean the law is bad.

It means man is bad. Now verse 13 sums up everything by saying, But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good, that sin by the commandment might become what? Exceedingly sinful. You see, he's simply saying that the law reveals sin. Notice the phrase, But sin that it might appear sin. Its true character is exposed when you really understand the law of God. Now let me just say this again so you'll understand. The reason you preach against sin and the reason you delineate the law of God so strongly in your message, and you must do this, you must preach against sin and you must preach the holy standard of God, the reason you do that is so that sin might appear to be sin.

So that men can see how short they come. You are exposing sin. And so he says, When sin that it might appear sin is unmasked by the law, it works death in me by that which is good, that which is good is the law.

But it brings about death. What does the law know? Sin working off of the law. In other words, I see the law, I see myself fall short and I say, O wretched man that I am, O merciful God, help me, I am a sinner. Remember the publican beating on his breast, God be merciful to me, a sinner.

Why did he say that? Because he saw he was a sinner. Because he understood the law of God.

It came into his consciousness. Now Paul's argument then is tremendously powerful. The law is holy, just and good. The law reveals and aggravates sin and uses sin to literally devastate and ruin the sinner. Now listen to this. All of this demonstrates that sin, verse 13 at the end, is exceedingly sinful.

What does he mean? Listen carefully. See how sinful sin is?

And here's how you can see it. That sin can use the law of God, which is holy, just and good, to produce such terrible effects. The point being that sin can even twist, pervert the purest thing there is. That's how sinful sin is. And the law which was made to bring life, sin twists and perverts to bring death. So we say that...and what Paul is saying is sin is so sinful that it will manipulate and use the holy law of God to damn people and deceive them all the way to their damnation.

The law is not at fault. Sin is. Men are so evil that instead of realizing the holy purpose of God's law, they slam themselves against it or deceived. That's the wretchedness of sin.

So the good work of the law, its power can be seen. As it drives us to despair and out of despair comes salvation. But we can also see the utter sinfulness of sin that it takes the holy, just and good law of God and uses it to work death. Now as we come to a conclusion, I want to draw you to Galatians chapter 3 and just read you several verses. Galatians 3, very important. Verse 19, wherefore then serveth the law? What good is the law? It was added, says Paul to the Galatians, because of transgressions. The law came that men might see their sin. That's the whole point we've just been making. Now watch.

Until the seed should come...who's that? The Savior, the Messiah. You see, the law came to show men their need of a Savior, to show them how utterly sinful they were until the one who could come and save them appeared. Verse 21, is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid. Verse 22, but the Scripture or the law, same thing, hath concluded all under sin.

Why? That the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. Now watch this verse. But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up under the faith which should hereafter be revealed. Wherefore the law was our tutor to bring us to what? Christ that we might be what? Justified by faith.

Now you understand the whole point of the law? To bring us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Robert Murray McCheyne died in 1843 at the age of 30, left a mark on this world. I have lingered long over his writings. He wrote a poem.

It goes like this. I once was a stranger to grace and to God. I knew not my danger and felt not my load. Though friends spoke in rapture of Christ on the tree, Jehovah said, Canu was nothing to me. And that, by the way, means Jehovah, our righteousness.

I oft read with pleasure to soothe or engage Isaiah's wild measure in John's simple page. But even when they pictured the blood-spinkled tree, Jehovah said, Canu seemed nothing to me. Like tears from the daughters of Zion that roll, I wept when the waters went over my soul, yet thought not that my sins had nailed to the tree.

Jehovah said, Canu was nothing to me. When free grace awoke me by light from on high, then legal fear shook me. I trembled to die.

No refuge, no safety in self could I see. Jehovah said, Canu, my Savior, must be. My terrors all vanished before that sweet name.

My guilty fear banished. With boldness I came to drink at the fountain, life giving and free. Jehovah said, Canu is all things to me. Jehovah said, Canu, my treasure and boast. Jehovah said, Canu, I ne'er can be lost. In thee shall I conquer by flood and by field, my cable, my anchor, my breastplate, my shield. Even treading the valley, the shadow of death, this watchword shall rally my faltering breath. For while from life's fever, my God sets me free. Jehovah said, Canu, my death song shall be.

And in that, Robert Murray McShane put himself through the same experience of the Apostle Paul. When exposed to the true light of the knowledge of God's law, he died a ruinous death and out of the ashes came the redemptive faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The law cannot save us. The law cannot sanctify us. But the law can convict us to lead us in desperation to Jesus Christ.

Closing footnote. There's a word here for Christians also. If you're a Christian, I think the law still has that function in your life.

Now listen to what I say. You need and I need constant exposure to the divine holy standard of God so that we can see the sin in our life too and confess it so that we may experience the full blessing that belongs to His children, right? So when you came to Christ, you came because you saw your sin and you cried out to Him. And as you live with Christ every day, you need to see your sin also so that you can confess and seek His forgiveness. And so as you study the Word of God, let the Word of God be always lifting up the standard. And as you see the standard of God's holiness lifted up and as you see the beauty of God's law lifted up, may you find yourself falling short and crying out in repentant contrition to God, even as one of His own. I think when David said, Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee, he may have been indicating this, that I keep exposing myself to your law so that I'll see the sin in my own life and repent and turn from it.

If you've come to Christ, it's because the law convicted you and you knew you needed a Savior, and He was that Savior. Bless His name. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur. He's the pastor of Grace Community Church and chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, and today he helped you grasp, maybe for the first time, how through Christ you can experience freedom from sin. Now just a reminder, you need to let the people at this station know that you appreciate their airing Grace to You.

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