
Article by Jason Francis
We have been working our way through the book of Romans at our church for a little
over a year now. We have seen in chapters 1-11 The condition of man which could be
summarized by Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”
Sin is defined by our failure to keep the commandments of God as found in Exodus 20.
His commandments are His very nature as seen in the person and work of Jesus Christ
who is the only person to ever keep them perfectly. The problem is we cannot keep
them.
I worked with an atheist that said, “I feel that the Bible is just a means to control man.”
My response was “You are absolutely right!” I then asked him to give me a
commandment of God that was not beneficial to humanity as a whole. He couldn't do it.
We all want to be treated fairly. We want others to apply the law in dealing with us but
fail to treat others with the standard we expect, which is the law. I can’t think of anyone
that likes being lied to or dishonored by their children. I’ve not come across any sane
person that wanted to be murdered or to be the victim of adultery. No one wants their
belongings stolen. Coveting is the root of most, if not all, of these things. We fail at
treating others rightly and this is breaking the Law of God. This is due to our fallen
nature going all the way back to Adam, as Romans 5:12 reiterates, “Therefore, just as
through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin...”
In Matthew 22:37-40 Jesus summed up the law with these words, “You shall love the
Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first
and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as
yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and prophets.” To love God is
to keep the first four commandments. To love your neighbor as yourself is to keep the
last six, but again we fail miserably. Charles Spurgeon notably said this about the law:
“Moses could not carry the tablets they were written on without breaking them, nor can I
do any better.”
The commandments are what’s best for humanity as a whole, but what are they at their
core? The common denominator in Christ’s summation of the law is love. Paul, in
Romans 13:10, echoes this sentiment in saying, “Love does no harm to a neighbor;
therefore, love fulfills the law.” Breaking the law is a failure to love. A failure to love
brings condemnation. In Psalm 5, David is lamenting over his great sin of adultery with
Bathsheba. He had failed to love his neighbor rightly as he had let his lust
overtake him. He is confessing and begging for restoration. “Have mercy on me Lord
according to your lovingkindness; according to your tender mercies,” he says. He had
failed to love God rightly in breaking the commandment of not committing adultery.
“Against you only, have I sinned, and done evil in your sight- that you may be found just when you speak, and blameless when you judge.” David’s sin was great but it was
far greater than the physical act of adultery. David also murdered Bathsheba’s
husband. The Lord’s name was profaned, which is a violation of the 3rd
commandment, in that everyone knew he was a Godly man. We tend to think that taking
the Lord’s name in vain is using it as a cuss word. It definitely is, but it goes so much
deeper than that. Any time we fail to rightly love, we have taken His name in vain. We
have committed “cosmic treason” as R.C. Sproul puts it.
We see in Romans 7:13 -23, Paul’s inner struggle with his failure to rightly love. Just like
Paul, we all have this inner struggle. We still battle sin as defined by the law which is “at
war in our members,” as he puts it. Paul goes on to say, “In me, that is my flesh nothing
good dwells.” We have new desires in Christ, but our flesh is yet to be redeemed; and
we still fail, giving in to our fleshly desires. So our desire is to rightly love, but often still
fail. In vs. 24, Paul, much like David, is broken hearted, lamenting over his failures as he
says, “O wretched man that I am, who will deliver men from this body of death?” We
tend to think of the word “wretched” as something vile or nasty don't we? In the original language It is telaiporos, which is a compound word derived from talanton meaning
“heavy” or “burdened,” and peira which is a trial or troubles. He is heavily burdened by
his sin in failing to rightly love. This “body of death” is an analogy from a tribe near
Tarsus where Paul is from. If you murdered someone in their culture, your punishment
was to have your victim tightly lashed to your body forcing you to carry it around. The
dead body would decay and eventually infect you and ultimately kill you. I can’t think of
a more vivid picture of Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death.” Then Paul in his
understanding to rightly love looks to his only hope in v. 25: “I thank God-through
Jesus Christ our Lord!”
The reality is that we have all failed at love. Our failure has earned us an eternal death
sentence. The good news is that our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, did not fail at
love. He condescended, took on flesh, loved His Father perfectly, loved His neighbor
perfectly, and then took our inability to love, AKA sin, upon himself; and died a sinner's
death on our behalf. He was tried by sinful man. He was beaten by sinful man. He was
mocked by sinful man. He was spit on by sinful man. He was nailed to a cross by sinful
man to die a death of a common criminal in the most brutal death anyone could endure.
Then he prayed this: “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” What great
love is this? Praying for those actively murdering you? Amazing! On top of all of this, His
Father, out of His great love for us, poured out His wrath on His Son whom he had loved
perfectly from all eternity. Christ, the only person to have ever lived that knew what the
righteous wrath of God looked like, took this wrath owed to us out of His great love for
both the Father and us! The sheer thought of this brought so much stress He perspired
blood. Dear children, we will not be able to rightly love but Christ our Lord has always
and will always rightly love. His love, AKA righteousness, is credited to us. Our failures have been covered by the love of a Holy God. “For it is by grace through faith you have
been saved…not of works” (Eph 2:8-9). Why? Because we cannot love rightly in and of
ourselves. It’s only in Christ we are capable. It is through “The renewing of our minds”
(Rom 12:2) that we are able to rightly love. It is only in Christ that our failure to rightly
love is made perfect in Him. Love is the law working through the Gospel of Christ, and
in the end, beloved children, all you need is love.
Jason Francis is an elder at Shepherd's Rock Bible Church in Kingsport, TN. He and his wife, Kelly have two wonderful children and faithfully serve the Lord through their local church and the Northeast TN area.
Spot on. Thanks for sharing.