Romans 7, verse 9, presents a very puzzling statement, and, while we cannot be dogmatic about our understanding of it, it, nonetheless, deserves our consideration, especially since Paul presents it in an almost matter-of-fact manner as if its meaning is a given. And, while we think we are grasping its meaning, we still admit we are not as certain of it as we would like to be. So, see what you think about it. Here we go: In verse 9 of Romans 7, the inspired apostle states, quote, “For I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.” End quote. Whatever could Paul have meant by that? Let me repeat it: “For I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.”
Well, we must first appeal to a widely understood truth that there are twin realities of life and death. Throughout the Bible, it is abundantly clear that there is physical life and death, and spiritual life and death. So, logic compels us to reject the idea that Paul was saying he was physically alive without the law. Of course, he was. That makes no sense at all. So this leaves only the spiritual. Paul, then, must mean he was spiritually alive without the law. That is, he was spiritually alive and connected with God, reconciled and redeemed apart and without the law. The “law”, of course, meaning the law of Moses. But, when was that when he was spiritually alive? It appears to have been from the time of his birth. Thus, Paul was born redeemed, or reconciled to God, in the same way everyone is. This is affected by the death of Christ whereby He reconciled the entire world to God through His corporate redemption of the entire world. So, had Paul died as a newborn baby, or sometime thereafter when yet a child, he would have been covered by the redemptive work of Christ wherein Christ reconciled the entire world to God. All infants, not having reached an age of personal accountability, are likewise covered by the blanket redemption provided by Christ. This is when Paul was alive before the commandment came. “But, when it did,” he said, “I violated it and forfeited the redemptive status with which I was born.” Sin overtook him, and he, then, became alienated from God.
No one knows precisely when it is that one becomes accountable to God, knowing right from wrong and acting out of the sin nature with which we were born even though born redeemed. Now, the need the great apostle had was to be reconnected to God through the new birth. This, we may assume, took place on the Damascus Road, or shortly thereafter in the city of Damascus. Said he, “I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.”
CC 10-04
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