“When The Commandment Came…”

"For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died."        Romans 7:9

            In this text the Apostle Paul, writing by divine inspiration, tells us of three things experienced, three things by which he was brought to faith in Christ. These three things are experienced, to a greater or lesser degree, by all of God’s elect. Here are three things that happen to every truly converted soul.

Alive Without The Law

i was alive without the law once.” When Paul says that he was alive without the law, he does not mean that he had never heard or read the law before, or that he did not know it. Of all men in his day, Saul of Tarsus was probably the most well-acquainted with the law of God. He knew and understood the letter of the law very well.

When Paul says, “I was alive without the law once,” his meaning is this - “There was a time when the law of God had never come home to my heart and conscience, I never knew the spirituality of the law. I never knew what the law demanded.”

Saul of Tarsus was a lost religious man. He was zealous, devoted, and strict. He kept the law, in its letter, all the days of his life. But he was as lost as the most debased barbarian who ever lived. Yet, he was totally convinced that everything was well with his soul. Though he was dead in sin, he was full of religious life. He enjoyed joy, peace, confidence, assurance, hope, and security; but it was all a delusion.

Saul’s proud, self-righteous security made him very zealous in his religion. He looked down upon others with disgust and scorn. He held sinners in contempt. He became a ferocious persecutor. As soon as one person thinks himself better than others, he begins setting himself up as the judge of others. The next step is the execution of his sentence upon others. Legalism always leads to persecution, to one degree or another.

Sin Revived

“When the commandment came, sin revived.” Before the commandment came, piercing his heart and soul, sin was a dead thing to him. He had mortified the flesh. He had sanctified himself, at least outwardly. He did not believe that there was really any great sin in him. In his own estimation, and in the eyes of others, Saul was a truly holy man.

            What the apostle mean by this statement - “When the commandment came, sin revived?” - he simply means for us to understand that the law of God exposed and identified his sin, and by exposing it aggravated it, stirring up the enmity of his heart toward God (Rom. 3:19; 8:7).

For the first time in his life, Saul felt himself to be a guilty sinner. This conviction of sin is not an easy thing to experience; but it is necessary. Without it, no man will ever be saved. Our sin must be exposed to us, or we will never come to Christ.

Slain By The Law

“And I died.” At last, Saul was slain by the law. His mouth was stopped. He stood guilty before God.

What was it in this man that died? It was that which ought never to have lived. It was the great “I”. “Sin revived, and ‘I’ died.” The law killed it. “I” was so secure. “I” was so proud. “I” was so holy. “I” was so zealous. But once the law came, Paul says, “I died.” The fact is, any man whose heart has been exposed to the light of God’s holy law sees himself as a vile, obnoxious, rotting corpse of human flesh.

What does Paul mean by this statement - “I died”? The apostle is telling us that once he saw the spiritual character of God’s holy law, (by divine revelation, through the revelation of Christ in his heart -- Zech. 12:10), he realized that he was justly condemned to die. All his hopes from his former life of self-righteousness died. All his hopes regarding the future died.

            He had broken the law of God, and all his efforts to keep it in the future would not atone for his sin. All his tears of repentance, all his sorrowful cries, all of his sincere confessions, all his best deeds could not mend God’s broken law.

Could my tears forever flow,

Could my zeal no langor know,

All for sin could not atone;

Thou must save and Thou alone.

            The thunderous bolts of Sinai dashed all his hopes to the ground. The iron cold sword of the law had wounded and slain his spirit. Then, but not until then, the broken sinner cried out to God for mercy, in utter surrender to his dominion and rule, “Lord, what wilt thou have me do?”

Have you ever been slain by God’s holy law? Do you know yourself to be a sinner, a real sinners, utterly lost, undone, guilty and helpless before God, and justly condemned? The gospel of God declares glorious good news for sinners. Christ died for sinners. God, for Christ’s sake, saves sinners.

Don Fortner