“Where rules enter in”

By Rev. Michael Stonhouse

Meditation – Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Romans 7:1-12 (Forward, p. 61) CEV p. 1178

Here, in today’s passage, I am reminded somewhat of the perversity of human nature. This perversity expresses itself in so many ways: in the roadside sign that read ‘no shooting’ and yet was full of bullet holes, or in the way people seem to instinctively put out their hands to a newly painted bench or fence that that says, ‘wet paint – do not touch’, or in how children and youth almost automatically do something they have been told not to do.

Here the apostle Paul suggests that the Law of Moses functions in this way. Not only does it point out, detail, what constitutes wrong-doing, sin, but it also provides an occasion, a motivation, to do so. He goes as far as suggesting that it actually gave us sinful desires, actually wanting to do what was wrong. In a sense, it brought sin to life within us—and, in so doing, brought us into death. Sin used the Law, something good and valid and legitimate, to trick us into doing what was wrong, therefore incurring death within us.

But now, Paul says, the Law of Moses is dead as far as we are concerned. It no longer applies to us and no longer has any power over us. That means that its power to wreck sin in us is broken, dead and gone. We have been raised to a new life and a new existence. And so we are set free to serve God, and in a new way.

And so, we don’t have to be so perverse as we humans often are, deliberating flouting and disobeying our civic rules and regulations, or the rules and regulations of our society or churches either. Instead, using these rules and regulations not as something rigid and demanding absolute conformity, and so quite naturally resisted at times, but as guidelines for the common good, as starting points for our own behaviour.

Forward notes: “What then should we say? That the law is sin? By no means!” (verse 7a)

“Leviticus is one of the books composing the law Paul refers to. It has a fearsome contemporary reputation because of its sometimes-arbitrary rules, its bloody system of sacrifices, and the shameful ways it has been used to harm women and sexual minorities.

“But beneath the strange details, a deeper set of values emerges. It describes an economy where no class of people is permanently burdened with debt. It tells farmers not to harvest their full crop so the poor can glean from the fields. The elaborate instructions for how sick people can or can’t be in the camp show care for the health of the whole community. The concern about sexual behavior is not altogether obsolete; it signifies that what we do with our bodies matters.

“By no means should we say the law is sin. Read with love for God and neighbour as its foundation, the law outlines a hope for what life is like in the kingdom of God.”

Moving Forward: “Read a few chapters from Leviticus, setting it in the context of love for God and neighbour.”