Systematic Theology - Sin

Sin and the Law I

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: Government

Genre: Speech

Track: 17

Dictation Name: 17 – Sin and the Law I

Year: 1980

Oh Lord our God, who art Lord of heaven and earth, we come to Thee knowing how grave and serious our times are and how the heathen rage against Thee and Thy Kingdom, against Thy Son and His Church. Give us in the face of all these things, oh Lord, the strength of Thy Spirit. Arm us by Thy Word and make us more than conquerors through Jesus Christ, that we might bring all things into captivity to Him who is our Lord. In His name we pray, amen.

We have been studying the doctrine of sin in the scripture. And it is important for us to understand the nature of sin in order to understand what Christ has done for us in salvation. Tonight in both our first and second sessions, we will deal with “Sin and the Law.” Our text in the first session is Romans 7:10. Romans 7:10, “And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.”

It is important for us to understand what sin means to fallen man. For him, it is the principle of life and freedom. It is his opportunity to be his own god and to determine good and evil for himself. This after all, is what the tempter’s program is in Genesis 3:5. The tempter told Eve, ye shall be as god (every man his own god), knowing (determining for yourself what constitutes) good and evil. But because man is God’s creature, man is always uneasy in his sin. God made him. God’s imprint is on every atom of man’s being and therefore man cannot escape from God, nor from His witness in all his being. As a result, man has a variable and an unhappy attitude to sin, one which fluctuates and changes. Sin is what he wants, and yet in all his being, the witness of God in every atom of his being witnesses to God’s Word, to God’s Law.

As a result, the attitude of fallen man toward sin is variable. One common attitude is tolerance for sin. Such people say we are all people who have our faults and our weaknesses and we need to be tolerant of each other and one another’s weaknesses, even though someone else’s weaknesses may seem offensive to us. And so these people pose as very understanding men, people with a grace and a kindliness toward their weaker brethren, and tolerance is made by them into a virtue. Those who disagree with them are accused of being short on love and grace. In other words, they make their toleration of sin into an attribute of nobility. Moreover, they cheapen the meaning of sin. They turn it into a weakness, when sin is actual a strength—an evil strength, a will to be a rebel against God. But the attitude of our time is that sin represents a weakness in people; they do it because they’re weak. No. They do it because all the strength of their being is directed into evil. The seriousness of sin is downgraded by those who make a plea for tolerance. The Law of God is bypassed and tolerations, toleration of sin—which is a sin—is converted into virtue, into an attribute of nobility. From the Garden of Eden to the present, fallen man has always presented himself and his sin as a virtue.

This should not surprise us because Paul tells us in II Corinthians 11:14 that Satan himself presents himself as an angel of light, as a being who brings light, who brings reason, who brings understanding to the world. So if Satan presents sin and himself as light, why shouldn’t the sinner take that attitude? He is the person who is the bringer of light into the world.

On the other hand, other sinners have a very different view. Instead of tolerance, they have intolerance, or more accurately, selective intolerance. Sin is not viewed in terms of God’s total Law, but in terms of their personal intolerance. They dislike something intensely and so they pick a particular sin or some imagined sin and say this is the root of all problems. And they exercise all kinds of zeal and wrath in condemning that particular thing.

I knew a man some years ago and I’m glad I no longer have any contact with him, who had one sin to his bow. It was the one string he would play constantly. And the root of all evil, the ultimate sin for him was smoking. And he would thunder out that all smokers were going to Hell for sure. And I’ve known people who, at the other end of the spectrum were sure that the root of all evil in the world was racial bigotry. Well, you name it. You can think of people who have some idea and this is the problem of the world. But actually, they’re evading the meaning of sin, because our Lord says in Matthew 15:19, out of the heart precede evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. In other words, the source of sin is not in some act, or something, like liquor or tobacco or narcotics, it’s in the heart of man.

Now, when you single out something like that for selective intolerance, what you are doing is to make something peripheral basic to your doctrine of sin. Then you do not face up to the principle of sin, but you concentrate on some particular sin. Remember, sometime back when we began our study of sin, we saw that sin at its root is anomia (lawlessness), being anti-law, anti-God’s Law. Particular sins are expressions of lawlessness. Now, the believer does not commit lawlessness, but he can commit a particular sin.

The people who are intolerant with a selective intolerance have a great advantage in being so, because if you single out a particular sin, it’s certainly not going to be one you’re addicted to! [laughter] and you can be very self-righteous as you point to a certain class of people or certain groups of people and say they are the root of all evil in our society; so selective depravity fosters self-righteousness, Phariseeism. These people by their intolerance localize sin in others, when sin is a reality in all of us, something we are all familiar with because we are all born sons of Adam.

There is still another attitude toward sin which is very common in our day and dominates our politics. And most Republicans and most Democrats believe in this perspective, that sin is something you can deal with by legislation. Let’s control Congress or the presidency and we’re going to deal with the evils of our time. We’re going to outlaw sin by getting this and that type of legislation. Solutions are seen in legislation in the government by man over man. This is why we have problems in this century. Man is trying to solve through government what only Christ can solve. Most of the laws on our books are designed to reform men, to remake man, when only Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit can do this. When people have this perspective, they have no recognition of the true meaning of sin. Moreover, they define sin falsely. They call it anti-social behavior when it is anti-God behavior.

Fallen man thus has a very pressing problem. He cannot live with sin and he cannot live without it. Everything in his being, because he is God-created, witnesses against sin. But because he is a fallen man, he’s bought the tempter’s program that sin is his way to become his own god. It is his principle of life and freedom. So he can neither live with sin nor live without it. it is the principle of life for him, but it is also the nemesis of his life and of his society, and because God is God, what he calls the principle of life, his sin, is death.

And so the sinner is a haunted man. Every atom of his being cries out that the Lord is God. Paul tells us that all things visible and invisible witness to God. That means ourselves. So every atom of our being witnesses continually and even though a man may feel that this is it, nobody knows, I’m on my own, his own being haunts him.

The shorter catechism defines sin thus: What is sin? Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the Law of God. Now, this is what Paul is talking about in Romans 7:10. “And the commandment which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.” (The commandment, meaning the whole of the Law). What is Paul saying? Well, first of all, he says the purpose of the Law as ordained by God is life. When God says this is the way; walk ye in it, He is saying that the Law is the way of life. Now, it’s not the way of salvation, it’s the way of life. It’s the way of dominion. The Law sets forth the holiness of God and His righteousness, the way for man to walk in. David sings joyfully of the blessings of the Law in Psalm 19:7-11 and he says “7The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. 8 The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. 9 The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever: the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. 10 More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. 11 Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward.” What is David saying? He calls the Law the testimony of the Lord, the statutes, the commandments. And he says that it is sure, it makes us wise, it is right. It gives us joy. It is pure. It gives us light. And for us to be afraid of violating God’s Law is a clean thing according to David.

The commandment was ordained to life. Not for salvation, but for the saved it is the way of life, because it shows God’s righteousness. Then Paul goes on to say, I found to be unto death. For the sinner, God’s Law is death. It is life to the righteous, but it is death to the sinner. It is an indictment. It’s like a wanted poster that meets a man every time he turns around. Wherever he goes he sees that wanted sign with his face on it, his name on it. Thou art the man! Here is the bill of indictment from Almighty God. That’s the witness of the Law both in scripture and in every atom of man’s being.

The Bible tells us the sinner cannot see God and live. Remember when Manoah, Samson’s father and his mother were visited by the angel of the Lord and Samson’s father cried out, “We shall surely die, for we have seen God and we are sinners!” Well, this is what happens to the sinner when God comes to him and he sees God. When we see Christ, when Christ comes into our life, we die. We die in Christ and then we are resurrected in Christ to be a new creation. So to come face-to-face with Christ in our spiritual experience is death, but it is also life.

For the sinner, it is death. The commandment which was ordained to life I found it to be unto death. Paul says I found it to be unto death. I found it! The Law is registered on man’s being. John Murray says, “The more Law is registered in our consciousness, the more sin is aroused action.” The sinner sees the Law as an indictment, as chains, and he is in rebellion against it. And so the Law incites him to more sin.

But the inescapable fact is that our being witnesses to and judges us in our sin. In our own being, we are under judgment because God’s witness is always in every one of us. The sinner therefore always feels that he is under judgment. He hates that fact. He resents judgment. He strikes out. He lashes at the idea of judgment. You know, over the years I think the verse that has been quoted more often to me by ungodly men in prison by the way, and out of prison because I’ve preached in prison and visited more than once, has been Matthew 7:1, “Judge not lest ye be judged.” They never bother to quote our Lord when He says judge righteous judgment. They don’t want judgment. And yet it cries out in all their being and they are haunted by it. They have nightmares because of it, because they feel the judgment.

Perhaps the greatest single poem in the English language is “The Hound of Heaven” by Francis Thompson. How many of you have read it? Two. Well, more of you should read it. Three. Wonderful. Francis Thompson there describes his experience, how “I fled him down…” the nights and down the days and down the labyrinthine arches of the years and so on, and all the time as he’s running, running, running, he feels pursued by God as though there is a bloodhound always in pursuit of him and he can feel and hear the feet of that pursuit close behind him. Man feels pursued in sin.

Man’s being is like a haunted house. He cannot eliminate the witness of God which cries out from the stones and the walls and the boards thereof, “Thou art the man,” indicting man of sinning against Almighty God. There is no escaping for any sinner from God and His judgment.

Are there any questions now?

[Audience] We know a young woman who found out that a young man that had been dating her and was supposedly a Christian was sleeping with one of their classmates, and she said nothing. She just ran into this situation, and he immediately accused her of being self-righteous and of judging her, and she didn’t say a thing to him. So it was… and this is a very common reaction if you are a Christian. You just by living according to God’s Law, according to His Word, without saying anything immediately, people become defensive and accuse you of judging.

[Rushdoony] Yes, I learned of a very ugly situation once just because someone who was in the church and had been there for years and years and was a pretended Christian confronted me very angrily once and accused me of preaching at him every single Sunday since I had gone to that church [Audience commotion] That’s what tipped me off to the fact that there was a lot under the surface there. Well, I barely knew the person or anything about him, but it was the Holy Spirit who had spoken to him and indicted him week in and week out.

Any other questions or comments?

[Audience] I’d like to know if you would give explanation on verse 9 of your chosen text, Romans 7.

[Rushdoony] Verse 9?

[Audience] That was once I was alive apart from….

[Rushdoony] Yes. “For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.”

[Audience] …. {?} bothers me…

[Rushdoony] Ah…

[Audience] I don’t understand in other words. Once I was alive, and then the commandment came. I know the commandment came before ….

[Rushdoony] Yes. Now, the first question to deal with as we deal with this whole chapter that confronts people, did this happen when Paul was unconverted or after he was converted, and that’s the question that many people fuss about.

The answer to that is that it isn’t quite an either/or. Paul, after he is converted, analyzing his experience and how God works in the unregenerate and looking back, describes all of these experiences in light of the knowledge that he has. So he says, ah, let’s go back so that we can get the context. In [Romans 7] verse 7 he says, “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. 8But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. 9For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. 10 And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.”

Now when Paul speaks of the Law here, he speaks of the Bible because the term as he uses it applies to every Word of God—not only the Law as it’s given in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, but the whole of it; God’s righteousness, God’s holiness. But he’s also using it to mean the witness in our being. So what Paul is saying is that he felt alive, content in his apostasy, or unbelief in sin, in his self-righteousness, because he was a Pharisee. But the Law came to him, so when the Law came to him, he was alive before the Holy Spirit began to work in his heart, before he became aware of all that the Law meant.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] What?

[Audience] As a Pharisee he had to have knowledge of the Law.

[Rushdoony] Yes, but he had the knowledge of the Law as the Pharisee did by reinterpretation, you see. They read it in a different sense. They obscured the meaning so that what the Pharisees said was the Law was what the rabbis interpreted to be the Law. In other words, the rabbinic statement was that the Word is like water, but the interpretation is like wine. What God says is like water, but our interpretation of it is better.

Now, when by the Holy Spirit, the meaning of that broke through and it spoke to the heart of Paul, suddenly he was dead. He felt condemned by the Law, but it made him all the more rebellious.

Let’s shift gears and look at another man with a similar experience: Martin Luther. Martin Luther became a monk; an Augustinian monk. He was very happy and joyful at first, at his service. He was reading Romans. He was reading the whole scripture. He was teaching from it, and teaching according to the traditional doctrine so that it meant something very different. [Tape cut-off]