A Fourfold Summary of Romans Seven

1. The law (that system which makes obedience the condition of life and makes righteousness depend on perfect obedience) can never deliver a person from the curse and dominion of sin. If a man is to be justified, he must be delivered from the law as a covenant or method of obtaining life and be brought into Christ, who is our righteousness.

1. The law can tell a person what is right and what is wrong. It can command a man to avoid wrong and do right. It can threaten, condemn, and curse him if he does not comply; but it cannot eradicate his sinful inclinations (rather, it irritates and stimulates them). So, instead of becoming better and happier under the law, we become more depraved and more wretched as knowledge of the law increases.

1. The law in the hands of the Holy Spirit does not stop sin; it reveals sin. It does not give life; it kills. It does not make men holy; it exposes their un-holiness.

1. Even now that I am regenerated and in Christ, now that I am brought under influences which make me love and delight in God's law, I still feel my inability and my imperfections. The struggle is like a civil war within me. I did not look to the law for justification, nor can I look to the law for sanctification! I look to Christ for both. Paul proved from his past experience that the law cannot make a saved man holy. Both justification and sanctification are in Christ.

    Oh, unhappy, pitiful, and wretched man that I am! Who will release and deliver me from the shackles of this body of death? Oh, thank God, he will, through Jesus Christ the Anointed One!