The Law is Not the Answer to Sin (Romans 7)

Over the past two weeks, we have discussed the reality that you can and must say no to sin. Sin is a challenge in every individual’s life. The struggle is very real. So how do we overcome sin? How do we say no to sin?

Often when a particular sin struggle enters into a life or to a society, the regular response to that struggle is to make a rule to keep you or others in society from that sin. In our personal life, we begin to make rules for ourselves to make sure that we keep from sinning. Perhaps we have the sin struggle of gluttony. So we make a rule that we will never go to the buffet. Maybe we struggle with anger. So we make a rule that we will always count to 10 before answering anyone.

We see this trend in some churches as well. Young people struggle with morality. So we make a rule that the girls need to dress like little house on the prairie. People struggle with commitment to God, so we make a rule that you have to be in church every time the doors are unlocked.

We see this trend in society as well. Gun violence takes place and there is a call for stricter gun laws. Abortion is rampant and so there is a call to outlaw abortion. 

Now we need to note that for the most part, rules are not bad things. There are such things as bad laws and bad rules, but society, churches, and our own lives would be in absolute disarray without rules. But we must understand that rules are not the answer to sin. Rules don’t fix sin problems.

This is not a new issue. By the first century, the Jews had come to view the Law as the solution to sin. If you made sure to follow the rules the Law laid out and you followed the rules the Rabbis added to the Law, you would be good. The problem was that this did not work anymore then than it does today. The Law is not the answer to sin.