The Law: A User’s Guide
The Outline:
1) The law and us. (Verses 1-6)
2) The law and sin. (Verses 7-12)
3) The law and personal experience. (Verses 13-20)
4) The law and grace. (Verses 21-25)
Some notes:
I’m using a slightly different structure in this outline with four basic points.
The law is God’s gracious means of allowing us to know our need of His gracious salvation.
This chapter opens with a difficult analogy. Difficult because it does not perfectly serve the situation with it illustrates. The law is pictured as the husband and the Christian as the wife. Yet it is we who die, thus ending our relationship. In our new life we are bound to another. Formerly we were compulsively law breakers, producing ‘fruit for death’. Now we are in a new relationship with new fruit being produced.
The ‘fruit for death’ did not point to a deficiency in the law, but rather demonstrated the deficiency in us. It was not imperfect, rather it fulfilled its purpose by starkly demonstrating our sinfulness.
Even in our lives as Christians the law is the continued means by which we appreciate our need of God’s grace. This deals more with sanctification firstly. Though we are accepted by God as righteous our old nature still can choose to disobey. Again this is no deficiency in the law. In addition it is not a complete defeat for us, either, as our acceptance by God is not based on our law keeping.
Our personal inability to keep the law continues to drive us toward the fulfillment of God’s gracious salvation offered to us in Jesus. The law helps us to know that there is more to come.
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