Returning to a consideration of Romans 7, we should note what Paul says about the law and sin. Since the law was given by God, we know that it was upright and spiritual (Romans 7:12, 14).
So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. (Romans 7:12)
Yet Scripture itself has some hard things to say about the effect of the law. Sinful passions were aroused by the law “to bear fruit for death” (Romans 7:5). Paul’s example is the commandment about coveting. That law produced every kind of coveting, and resulted in death (Romans 7:8, 10).
What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. (Romans 7:7-10)
The commandment that promised life proved to be death.
Sin, said Paul, killed “through the commandment” (Romans 7:11). The law was a standard of right and wrong. But sinful people kept on doing the wrong, which brought against them all the law’s penalties and punishments. Hence the law’s effect was to show the ugliness of sin (Romans 7:13), and to bring death to all under the law (Romans 7:9, 10, 13).
Such an effect was no surprise to God. The law played its part in God’s plan. Humans needed to understand how far they had fallen short of God’s high standard. The law proved how helpless humans were (and are) to save themselves. The law brought sin and spiritual death into clear, sharp focus. The law showed the desperate need for sinners to be rescued. In all these ways and more, the law prepared the way for the coming of the Savior sent by God, Jesus Christ. Even though we today “serve… not in the old way of the written code” (Romans 7:6), it continues to teach us important lessons about God’s holiness and His rejection of sin. Its history reminds us in many ways about our own need for God’s solution to our sin problem.