The Double Edged Nature of the Law and Its Fulfillment

“If we imagine that ‘law’ simply means a moral code- as many readers of Romans have done- we will miss much of the point.”
– N.T. Wright (Into the Heart of Romans)

21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.
– Romans 7:21-23

In locating the heart of Romans in chapter 8, Wright notes the “therefore”, or the ‘so then’, that opens the chapter as the conclusion of the argument Paul has been making in chapters 1-7. The emphasis of chapter 7 is on the dual nature of the Law, which, as Wright notes, was not a set of moral codes but the first five books of the Torah, the formative story of Gods acting in the world and Gods promise to make the world right.

The question at hand is, how can the Law do two seemingly opposite things:
10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death
13 Did that which is good, then, become death to me?

Paul responds definitively;
7 What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not!
13 Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means!

So how do we then reconcile the end of chapter 7 with the beginning of chapter 8:
7:25b
I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
8:1
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus

The answer, seemingly is found in two pointed realities concerning cheaters 7 and 8. First, Sin is depicted as something that has agency. It is able to “seize the opportunity”. It “springs to life”. It “uses what is good”. “It is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.”

And this agency is depicted as “another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.” Earlier Paul locates this “in the realm of the flesh” where the “passions” are aroused. So its not only a matter of Sin as agency, it is a matter of a fleshly reality, which for the ancients was marked by Death, or finiteness which breeds suffering.

Second, Paul says in chapter 7:6 that;
6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit

Later in 7:25a, Paul offers this precursor to the direness of 25:b;
25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Therefore, it is Jesus who releases is from the Law, not ourselves, nor any good moral works.

Now notice how how 8:1 repeats the claim of 7:25a, adding the specifics in relationship to the broader argument in chapter 7 regarding the Law;
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.

God fulfills the “aims” of the Law, the thing it was powerless to do in the realm of the flesh where the agency of Sin holds sway, by “sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering” (vs 3). And in so doing God condemns “sin in the flesh”.

What is the aim of the Law, or as Paul puts it, “the righteous requirement of the law”? It isn’t to follow a moral code perfectly. It isn’t to be sinless in those terms. It isn’t for us, or Jesus on our behalf, to prove faultless in terms of perfect obedience to a set of moral commandments. The righteous requirement was found in the aim of the Law, which was the story of the first five books of the Torah that shaped Paul’s Jewishness, and that aim was the three fold expectation of the defeat of Sin and Death, resurrection, and the establishment of the eternal king on his throne.

In other words, a new reality brought about in our midst “8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. 9 You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit.”

Now read these words in 8:18-21
18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

What is the subjection? If we have followed Paul’s argument, we can see that the subjection was the giving of the good Law which promises life, which became the means by which this agency called Sin acts and enslaves according to the flesh and fleshly reality. What is the hope? Liberation of creation from this fleshly reality. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

Attentive readers can then note the connection between this present fleshly reality and the hope of this liberated reality in Jesus, with the connective piece being our own obligation as a people already occupying space in the spirit, or the spiritual reality. 12 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.

Why is this an obligation? Because through life in the Spirit we bear witness to the fleshly reality of our hope in the person and work of Jesus. And not just to one another, but to creation itself. Through our living the new liberated reality is experienced even as we experience life in the flesh as slavery to Sin and Death