• Preliminary Observations
  • Romans chapter 7 is not a necessary experience
    • Paul —experience is highlighted by his background
    • Not every believer must go through Paul —anguish
  • This cannot be a continual experience
    • No Christian can live in constant defeat
    • Every Christian will experience some growth
  • This is the experience of a believer
    • Paul was hating sin
    • Paul was desiring holiness
• The Purpose of the Passage
  • To demonstrate the inability of anyone to fulfill the demands of the Law — personal holiness
  • To demonstrate the necessity of the indwelling Spirit of Christ for the new position of justified to walk in holiness
  • To demonstrate that the same sovereign grace of God that justifies, gives a new position, and continues to operate in the life
  • To demonstrate that when the new nature "moved in," the old nature just "moved over" not "out"
  • To demonstrate that the Law is "good" but sin is "bad"
• The Analysis ofRom 7:7-13
  • The Law and sin
    • Law reveals the fact of sin — Rom 7:7
      • To commit sin is to sin
      • The law makes it apparent
      • The Law did not create sin
      • The Law exposes sin
      • The exposure of Paul
      • The "evil desires" revealed — 10th commandment
    • The Law reveals the awareness of sin
      • It affects the conscience
      • It increases the sense of sin
      • It provokes sin
    • The Law condemns sin — Rom 7:8b
      • The judgment of the Law
      • The fact of spiritual death
    • The Law reveals the power of sin — Rom 7:9
      • The Law has legal power to convict
      • The Law has no life — power to deliver
      • Sin over-powers us and holds us helpless
      • We must die to self-reliance
    • The Law reveals the effect of sin — Rom 7:10
      • Sin brings death
      • Law legalizes
      • Paul —discovery of indwelling sin came after conversion
    • The Law reveals the deception of sin — Rom 7:11
      • It deceives us into thinking wrongly about God — that He will condone sin
      • It deceives us into thinking wrongly about ourselves that we are not really responsible
        • By making us think that we can stand in our own strength
        • By producing the illusion that we can meet any situation
    • The Law reveals the sinfulness of sin — Rom 7:12-13
      • The Law exposes sin
      • The Law imposes penalty upon the law-breaker
      • The Law protects the law-abiding person
      • The Law proves the sinfulness of human nature
        • Sin as leprosy
        • Sin as leaven
        • Sin as evil desire
        • Knowledge of right and the command to obey are incentives to evil
        • There is no defect in the Law
        • The defect is in us
        • "Search me, O God, and know my heart"
    • "Under grace" means we are not "under Law"
      • We have been discharged from the Law
      • We have been cleared and will never face trial by the Law
      • The Law must be out of the way for the Lord Jesus Christ to live by faith in our hearts

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