Romans7

Romans Chapter Seven

Up to this point Paul has been presenting the Law and the Commandments as lofty concepts – Impersonal and austere standards of behaviour that are impossible to live up to. Now he gives the Law a personality. He uses the metaphor of marriage and represents the Law as the husband in what appears to be a difficult marriage, at least for the wife, who we are told, is bound to her husband as long as he lives, and that if she leaves him to marry another she is committing adultery. Paul is likening us, or at least people who know the Law, to the plight of a wife trapped in an impossible marriage. Paul says that if the husband dies then the woman is free to marry another, and this seems like the only solution for the doomed wife. It would appear that Paul is saying to us that the Law must die in order for us to be free from it.
But no! That is not what Paul is saying. He brings a beautiful and daring twist to the metaphor. Instead of having the husband killed off – Paul has the wife killed off!
Then she can come back to life and is free to marry another. That means us. We die with Christ, as has been explained in the last chapter, and are raised to life again with him, to be married to him. Paul says we are now in the perfect marriage, and this union will bring forth beautiful fruit. This is perhaps the most elegant parable in all the epistles of our new life in Christ. The Law is still alive and well and noble and virtuous – and demanding, but we are not under it – we are bound forever to Jesus.
Paul then traces his relationship with the Law on behalf of all of us. It is the old dilemma of the spirit being willing but the flesh being weak. Paul never once denigrates the Law – it is human nature again that comes under fire, as being fruitless and useless. Flawed humanity has all the good intentions but just isn’t capable of delivering the goods. Every time it wants to do good, it finds a base and selfish instinct pulling at the ankles and tripping it up. Guilt haunts its failed attempts down every corridor. Paul cries out against this distorted and deadly impasse, and pleads that he might be rescued from it.
Then comes the explosion of wonder. The magnificent work of Christ comes to the rescue and is able to transcend the humanity in us through the love and oneness he has obtained for us in establishing a partnership with him in his resurrected life. Then our selfish instinct loses its power to control our behaviour. This articulates the brilliant strategy of God in dealing a death blow to Satan’s weapon of accusation and condemnation of our ever impotent humanity. Paul has not only resolved the problem of the Law – and the problem of our flawed humanity - he has resolved the problem of the accuser who uses the Law to sentence us.

ROMANS CHAPTER 7 - CONTEMPORARY ALIGNED VERSION (SPIRITCODE)

1 You know don’t you brothers, and I am speaking to people who comprehend the Law, that the Law rules a man’s life as long as he is alive.

2 Just like a woman is duty-bound by law to remain with her husband for as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies she is of course no longer bound by marriage.

3 So that, if while her husband is still alive she gets married to another man she is committing adultery. But again, if her husband dies and she marries someone else, then she is not committing adultery, even though she has married another man.

4 So the same thing applies to you spiritually in regard to being bound by the Law, except that it is not your husband – the Law, that dies; it is you who dies. You died with Jesus. But now because Jesus has been raised up from the dead, so too have you, and you can now be married again, not to the Law this time, but to Jesus, and your life will now bring forth the fruit of this new union.

5 For before we were united in spirit to Jesus the negative influence of our flawed and defective nature which was intensified by the pointing finger of all the rules and regulations caused us to behave even more destructively.

6 But now our life is not being driven by rules and regulations because we have become dead to that system and we can become productive people living out of the new spirit dynamic and not the old rules and regulations obligation.

7 So what are we to think of all this?
Is it the rules and regulations that are flawed and defective? No, not at all, because I would not have even known I was defective unless there were standards to live up to. I would not have known it was wrong to passionately want something I was not allowed to have unless the rulebook had said I was not allowed to even want it in the first place!

1 You know don’t you brothers, and I am speaking to people who comprehend the Law, that the Law rules a man’s life as long as he is alive. 2 Just like a woman is duty-bound by law to remain with her husband for as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies she is of course no longer bound by marriage. 3 So that, if while her husband is still alive she gets married to another man she is committing adultery. But again, if her husband dies and she marries someone else, then she is not committing adultery, even though she has married another man. 4 So the same thing applies to you spiritually in regard to being bound by the Law, except that it is not your husband – the Law, that dies; it is you who dies. You died with Jesus. But now because Jesus has been raised up from the dead, so too have you, and you can now be married again, not to the Law this time, but to Jesus, and your life will now bring forth the fruit of this new union. 5 For before we were united in spirit to Jesus the negative influence of our flawed and defective nature which was intensified by the pointing finger of all the rules and regulations caused us to behave even more destructively. 6 But now our life is not being driven by rules and regulations because we have become dead to that system and we can become productive people living out of the new spirit dynamic and not the old rules and regulations obligation. 7 So what are we to think of all this? Is it the rules and regulations that are flawed and defective? No, not at all, because I would not have even known I was defective unless there were standards to live up to. I would not have known it was wrong to passionately want something I was not allowed to have unless the rulebook had said I was not allowed to even want it in the first place! 8 But the essentially defective me, spurred on by the 'don't you dare' of the rulebook, energised a totally new dimension of 'I just must have it'. But when there is no 'don't you dare' there is also an 'I don't even care'. That's when 'No rules no worries' operates. 9 When I was only very young, before rules and regulations came into my life, I freely and happily did whatever I wanted. But when rules and regulations came into my life the defective me emerged and the freedom and happiness disappeared. 10 And the wise rules that were ordained to lead to a life of fulfillment in fact led to a life of misery. 11 For my flawed and defective nature trapped me into reacting to the imposition of those rules and caused the rules to destroy me. 12 But the reality is that the rules are right and appropriate and the regulations are fair and just. 13 Does that mean that something that is good and right was designed to confuse and destroy me? No way! The point is this; My flawed nature, in order to be seen as defective as it really is has had to be shown up in such a contradiction as this; that the good Commandments that were supposed to make me good actually made me look bad and feel bad. 14 We must then acknowledge that the Commandments exist on a high spiritual plane, but my humanity is on a lower level, subject to corruption. 15 For I do not understand the things that I do. The good things I fully intend to do I end up not doing, and the things I would normally find detestable, those I do end up doing. 16 So when I end up doing those things I would not normally want to do, I am actually affirming the goodness and integrity of the Commandments. 17 Moreover it is not really the essential me that is doing those things but the flaw of a defective humanity that has its home in me. 18 For now I fully realize that within that dwelling place of my imperfect humanity there is nothing of any lasting virtue at all. My true self intends to act with the purest of motive and intention, but when it comes to living it out, the capacity just isn’t there. 19 For the good that I keep telling myself I am going to do I simply do not do, but the wrong things I have no intention of doing I just keep on allowing to happen. 20 Now if I just keep on doing what my true self admits as being wrong, then it can’t be the real me that’s doing that but some basically inferior disposition that I was born with. 21 So I have discovered a hard and fast predetermined principle, that whenever I decide to do something good, this basically inferior creature demands its equal voting rights. 22 For I feel wonderful in my deepest innermost self about doing good and virtuous things that please God, 23 But then I see another agenda at work in my attitudes that outsmarts the straightforward way I want to think and it begins to approve improper behavior. 24 What warped and distorted creatures we mortal beings are! Who can rescue us from this deadly impasse of disorder? 25 I thank God that Jesus Christ has become the rescuer and the rectifier of our human predicament by joining our innermost self to his innermost self. So now I can know I am pleasing and delighting God in my spiritual mind and heart while the other old mindset still tries to make its own arrangements.