In the second half of Romans 7, Paul takes us through the misery of the believer’s battle with ongoing sin and the challenge of being a regenerate person in a body of flesh. With the birth of the new man, the flesh has become our adversary, and resisting the flesh can make us feel wretched. “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:24) This battle begs the question, “Who will win? Will the flesh be the ultimate victor? Will I succumb to the flesh and fall forever under condemnation?”

To this series of questions Paul has one triumphal cry: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” Whereas before, the condemnation had been universal, bringing doom to Jew and Gentile alike (1:18-3:20), now “in Christ Jesus” there is no condemnation. This is the genius of the gospel, that because of the finished work of Christ on the cross, those who were justly condemned by the Law are now declared not guilty and the penalty of eternal death that they richly deserved has been entirely and forever removed.

There is now no condemnation! God, who alone has the authority to condemn the sinner, has been propitiated. The death penalty required by sin has been lawfully paid by a sanctioned and sinless substitute and, because the Law has been fully satisfied, the guilty one is allowed to go free.

Hallelujah! Now there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus!

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BACKGROUND:

In 2 Samuel 11, David commits adultery with Bathsheba while her husband Uriah is away doing battle as part of David’s army. When Bathsheba announces that she is pregnant, David calls Uriah back from the battle so that Uriah can go to his home and sleep with his wife and so get David off the hook. Uriah, however, is too loyal and noble to enjoy pleasures with his wife while the army of Israel is waging war in the open field. Even when David gets him drunk, he refuses to go to his house, so David commands Joab to send Uriah into the fiercest battle so that he will be killed. Uriah the warrior obeys his commander and goes into the fray and is killed by the archers from the wall. David marries Bathsheba, the beautiful and grieving widow, and so his tracks appear to be covered. Everything is okay, except that the LORD has seen David’s sins and is not pleased.

In 2 Samuel 12, Nathan the prophet comes to King David and tells him a story about a rich king and a poor man. In the story, the rich man takes the poor man’s only ewe lamb and has it cooked for dinner. David is outraged at the evil of the rich man in the story and demands that the rich man die. “Thou art the man!” These are the famous words that Nathan declares to David. David is the sinner and he deserves to die, just as he himself declared and just as the Law demands. Adultery and murder are both punished by death and David has thus just issued his own death sentence and execution. The Law demands that he die.

But that is not what occurs. The LORD speaks through Nathan and recounts for David all of his sins and David simply replies, “I have sinned against the LORD.” Astonishingly, Nathan then says, “The LORD also has taken away your sin; you shall not die.” (2 Samuel 12:13)

And at this point the Law cries out, “Treason!” It is unlawful to forgive this adulterer and this murderer when the sins have not been punished. The Law stands in judgment over every sin and demands a just recompense (Hebrews 2:2; Genesis 2:17; Ezekiel 18:4, 20; Romans 6:23a; etc.) and here we have a confessed adulterer and murderer who is being set free! The Law demands death for adultery (Leviticus 20:10) and the Law demands death for murder (Leviticus 24:17; Exodus 21:12), and yet God’s prophet has told David that the LORD has taken away his sin and that he will not die. The LORD is not requiring the punishment that David’s sins deserve. Outrageous! Scandalous! How can the Holy One allow David to go free? How can David’s simple confession be accepted as the only requirement for his forgiveness?

Here we are thrust into one of the great theological difficulties: namely, “How can God forgive any sin without compromising His own justice and without violating His own Law?” For the LORD has given His Law as an expression of His holiness and His righteousness. In the Law the LORD sets forth His demands for righteousness upon every man, and these demands and requirements cannot be set aside and cannot be ignored even by the LORD Himself. To set aside or to ignore even one sin without receiving the just punishment that the Law demands is to transgress the Law. Thus it appears that forgiveness itself is necessarily unlawful, for the Law requires condemnation and punishment for a person’s sin and yet David is forgiven and his sin is taken away without him personally being punished for his sin. By His forgiveness of the sinner, has the LORD become a transgressor?

The huge problems is, in a word, forgiveness. How can our holy God, who has given us His Law as His inflexible standard for holiness and righteousness, ever forgive any sin without Himself becoming a Law-breaker?

What is the answer to this dilemma? The answer is the gospel of Jesus Christ. In the gospel we see how God can forgive the sinner and remain perfectly just, for in the gospel, the sins of believers can be legally and justly forgiven because they have been fully punished in the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. Since Christ has borne the punishment for the believer’s sins, the Lord can justly forgive. The Law’s requirement for punishment of sin has been satisfied in the death of Christ.

How was David justly forgiven? David was forgiven because he was a man of faith and he believed that the LORD would someday reveal a means whereby even his heinous sin could be wiped away. Without knowing the details, David believed that the LORD was merciful and gracious and that the LORD would take his sins away as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12). Although the details were still wrapped in mystery, David knew that one day the Messiah would be revealed and would bring about justice in the earth.

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QUESTION: What does it mean “to use the Law lawfully?”

In 1 Timothy Paul is giving instruction to his true child in the faith, Timothy, and is warning about some dangerous teachers who were leading others astray by placing too much emphasis on keeping the Law and thus giving to the Law salvific power. In response to this, Paul says,

But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully. 1 Tim. 1:8

In this study we will explore what it means to use the Law lawfully. It will be seen that the answer to this question has practical applications for our lives today.

It is obvious that using the Law correctly (“lawfully”) is important to Paul and should therefore be important to every minister of the gospel. This implies that there is a “lawful” way to use the Law and an unlawful way. (In this context, “Law” is to be understood as the commandments and ordinances and statutes given by the LORD at Mt. Sinai. The Law would include all the LORD’s moral imperatives, which are timeless and are never obsolete, and would not include the ceremonial law concerning the priesthood and concerning clean and unclean things and so on, since this portion of the Law has been obsoleted by the coming of Christ.)

Here in 1 Timothy Paul repeats what he has said elsewhere in his writings, that “the Law is good.” And in Paul’s mind the Law is, in fact, good. It is the Law that brings the knowledge of sin (Romans 3:20).It is the Law that showed Paul his own sin of coveting (Romans 7:7-10) and thus led him to repentance and faith. Paul states that “the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good (Romans 7:12).” And again Paul says, “I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good (7:16).” For Paul the Law is good, because it is most often the instrument which God uses to convict a person of their own wretchedness (Romans 7:24) and so lead them to repentance and faith.

From these texts it is crystal clear that the Law is good. What does it mean, then, for Paul to say that we must use the Law lawfully? We must understand that, while the Law is holy and righteous and good, the Law is also limited, for the Law is not salvific. As we think about human laws we see that this is true. Obedience is required and assumed; it is disobedience and violation that brings response and recompense. In the same way, the Law is the expression of God’s holiness and so violation condemns every man by presenting to man God’s holy requirements for righteousness. When used lawfully, the Law inflexibly demands absolute obedience from fallen and sinful people and thus shows man his dreadful peril before the Holy One. When used lawfully, the Law drives condemned sinners to seek for an alien righteousness, the perfect righteousness of the crucified King Jesus (2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Peter 3:18). When used lawfully the Law reveals the glory of Christ as the one who fulfilled God’s righteous demands and who also atoned for sin by His sacrificial death on the cross.

But when used unlawfully, the Law is presented as an instrument of salvation. When used unlawfully, instead of being a means of condemnation and conviction, the Law is a ladder of works up which the sinner climbs to salvation. When used unlawfully, the Law acts as a goad to demand of us more and more effort to achieve an external performance, which mere men deem to be righteous. When used unlawfully, the Law is the end of righteousness rather than the means of crying out for Christ’s righteousness (Romans 10:3-4). Thus when used unlawfully, the Law never leads the guilty to the cross where cleansing and forgiveness may be found, but instead leaves the guilty mired in their guilt while they endlessly seek to work themselves into righteousness.

And so let us use the Law lawfully.

1. Let us proclaim the demands of the Law as inflexible and absolute and as impossible as they appear to convict the unbeliever of their sin and to drive the unbeliever to the cross of Christ for salvation.
2. Let us use the Law to reveal remaining sin in the life of the believer to bring about confession and repentance and cleansing, so that the believer will grow in sanctification.
3. Let us understand the absolute demands of the Law so that we see the glory of Christ, that He perfectly kept the entire Law and all the Law’s requirements. He is thus perfectly righteous and has earned righteousness for all those who place their faith in Him. Hallelujah, what a Savior!

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