No Wiggle Room

Romans 7:1-13

In 1990, our family visited the area of Mt. St. Helena, a volcano that blew up ten years earlier in the week of our daughter Caitlin’s birth. This was a marvelous vacation but I did something that was very difficult for me to do on that vacation. Near the site of the eruption, there is a park where there is evidence of prior volcanic eruptions. In prior eruptions, trees were blown down by the blast of the volcano and then were buried with ash. Over time, these trees decayed leaving a straight tunnel under the ground. So there was a place where you could go down a hole, into this tunnel and then wiggle your way forward about 7 meters to a second hole in the ground where you could climb out.

If I am ever tortured to get me to tell any secrets I have, this would be a good way to get me to talk. I almost panicked in the middle of that tunnel, imaging what I would do if I became stuck there. I went through that hole that was just wide enough for me and could feel the sides of my hips touching on both sides of the tunnel. I made it though but what would I have done if halfway through I had encountered a snake or rat? I shudder at the thought of that. I had to slither my way through the hole, dragging my body forward. There was no wiggle room.

To say there is no wiggle room is also used in a metaphorical sense to say that I am trapped by an argument, or set of rules or circumstances in life.

I had a friend in high school that would make bets with me. He would bet that it would rain on Monday. When Monday came and it was not raining, I would say that I had won. But he said it was raining somewhere in the world and I had not specified that it would have to rain in our town. So I had to get more specific. I had to bet that it will not rain in Flemington on June 5, 1967. I had to add that rain is defined as water falling from clouds overhead in the form of precipitation. I had to add enough specificity to the bet that there was no wiggle room for him. I had to be specific enough that he could not wiggle out of the bet.

In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he is very good at this.

I began in January 2003 to preach from Romans. My intention is to preach from Romans each year from January up to the beginning of Lent until I get to the end of the book. In the four years I have been doing this, there have been 24 sermons, taking us through the first six chapters of Romans.

Paul wrote his letter to the church in Rome during his three month stay in Corinth, just before his departure for Jerusalem with the collection that had been gathered by the Gentile churches for the poor in Jerusalem.

As Paul contemplated his future, he felt led to take the Gospel to the Iberian Peninsula, what is today Spain. As he had used Antioch in Syria as a base for his church planting in what is today Greece and Turkey, so he needed a base for his church planting in Spain and decided that Rome would be the best location.

So Paul wrote this letter to the church there. The church in Rome had not met Paul but they had heard of him and what they had heard was not all positive. So Paul felt the need to explain his Gospel. He needed to set the record straight to defend himself and his Gospel from the accusations made against him. He wanted to establish a personal connection with the church in Rome so they would welcome him and support him.

This letter was one of great importance to him and so he put a lot into it. As a consequence, it stands as the greatest of his letters and the source of much of our theology.

Paul began by writing of the wrath of God. Before he could share the good news of Jesus, the bad news had to be presented. And the bad news is that all of us, every one of us, deserves the wrath of God. Note how Paul presents this truth in his letter.

Romans 1:18

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.

The reaction for most of Paul’s readers and most of us is that this is true and just, because there are a lot of wicked people in the world and they do deserve God’s wrath. And as Paul goes on, we are gratified that we are not like these people.

Romans 1:21-32

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

²⁴ Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. ²⁵ They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

²⁶ Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. ²⁷ In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

²⁸ Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. ²⁹ They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; ³¹ they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. ³² Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

Depraved, non-religious society deserves the wrath of God and we say “Amen!” to that. But Paul goes on. Critical moralizers who think they are basically good people, better than those around them, also deserve the wrath of God. Ouch. That hurts because that is exactly what we were thinking.

Paul continues. Self-righteous, religious people who think because of their religion and behavior they are good deserve the wrath of God. That is also us.

So when we think we are better than all the wicked people around us and better than others because of our religious life and devotion, Paul cuts off our room for maneuvering and we are trapped. And then just to make sure that there is no escape, Paul summarizes by saying that if we thought we escaped one of the three previous categories, the whole human race is sick and deserves the wrath of God.

Romans 3:10

“There is no one righteous, not even one;

There is no wiggle room. I am trapped. Although I am pastor of a church, help with charitable projects, pray for people regularly, do lots of good things, Paul has put me into a tight spot that I cannot escape. I, along with everyone else, deserve the wrath of God. God who created the world around me, who is all powerful and all knowing thinks I deserve to be the object of his wrath. That is not a good position to find myself in. That is not a good position for you to be in.

What is so wonderful about Paul’s letter to the Romans is that just when he has you trapped and there is no wiggle room, he delivers absolutely marvelous news that sets you free.

Romans 3:21-24

But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. ²² This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

We all, everyone of us, every single one of us, without exception, deserve the wrath of God but God has provided a way for us to get out of the trap we find ourselves in. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God but we are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

We all deserve the wrath of God but then God made known to us a way of escaping the consequences of his wrath. Paul goes on to detail what exactly this righteousness is that is given freely to us and then in chapter 5 he begins to describe the benefits that come to the Christian who has been justified by faith alone.

Although we are sinners, we are viewed by God as being righteous because we are viewed through the blood of Jesus shed for us that covers our sinfulness. God is holy and the purity of his holiness burns away any impurity. For us to exist in his presence means we must be pure. This purity cannot come from us because we are sinners, but it comes from Christ. The purity of Christ is given to us so we can be pure in the presence of God. This is justification, the first stage of salvation.

Because we are justified by faith, we have peace with God; we stand in grace; we have hope of the glory of God; and we rejoice in our sufferings.

Paul has focused on justification, the first stage of salvation, what happens to us when we first submit and choose to follow Jesus. He boxed us in, making sure we understood we were trapped and then delivered the good news that God provided for us when we were helpless and gave us freely our salvation.

In chapter six, Paul begins to look at the second stage of salvation, sanctification. This is the process by which we are gradually transformed into being the righteous person God sees us to be when we are justified. The Holy Spirit works with us to help us become more righteous. And just as Paul painted us into a corner with his arguments about our desperate need for justification, so in chapters 6 and 7 he paints us into a corner with his arguments so we see how desperately we need God’s help in the process of becoming holy.

Paul begins by reminding us that if we have been justified by Christ, that is, if we have been given the gift of God that makes it possible for us to exist in his presence, we have died to sin.

So Paul reminds us,

Romans 6:2-4

We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? ³ Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

And this leads Paul to the problem we face. If we have died to sin, why do we continue to sin? Chapters 6 and 7 address this in a variety of ways.

Paul reminds us that we need to exercise our will to resist sin.

Romans 6:11-14

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. ¹² Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. ¹³ Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. ¹⁴ For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

Paul informs us that we are slaves. This is not something we have a choice about. We are slaves and we will be slaves to sin or slaves to God. This is the choice that lays before us. We choose and if we choose to be slaves to God, we move on the path to life. If we refuse to become slaves to God, we will, whether we choose to or not, become slaves to sin and that is a path that leads to death. Metaphorical death in this life and eternal death as well.

Romans 6:23

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Again, Paul is painting us into the corner. We have a choice but we cannot be neutral or indifferent. To be neutral or indifferent about Christ is to choose to be a slave to sin.

Paul takes a different tack in Chapter 7. Paul is speaking to people who were raised to believe that by obedience to the law, salvation could be found. If we are saved by grace, a free gift of salvation from God, what function does the law have?

He begins chapter 7 using marriage as an analogy. A married woman cannot marry another man while her husband is alive. If she does, she commits adultery. But when her husband dies, she can marry another man and it is legal. The analogy is not meant to be looked at too closely, it is only reinforcing the point that we have to die to ourselves to become alive in Christ and that by being given life by Christ, we have, in fact, died to ourselves.

For Jews brought up under a culture and religious system that mandated obedience to the law as the means to salvation, this was a heretical statement. If the law had to die for us to receive the free gift of salvation, what was the purpose of the law? Was it evil?

Romans 7:7-13

What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not covet.”

If the law does not save us, what is the purpose of the law? The law teaches us about what is sin. It helps to make clear our need of salvation because it shows how we have drifted from the will of God.

Obedience to the law does not save us. This is not because the law is evil or deviant in any way. The law does not save us because we are incapable of obeying it. We can obey parts of it here and there. The better of us may be able to obey more than the rest of us. But we all fail to be obedient to the law in some way or another and this makes the law invalid as means of salvation. The problem is not with the law, the problem is with us.

All the world religions except for Christianity are stuck at this point. Each one requires that we do these eight things or five things or one thing but each one requires that we do something. Christianity is the consequence of the realization that nothing we can do will ever bring us salvation. We are simply not capable of doing what is required to be saved. So Christian faith celebrates the good news, the amazing news, the astounding news that God has acted on our behalf and done the work required by himself. God has done for us what we were unable to do for ourselves. God has made real what is impossible for us. God has created a path to a living relationship with himself.

We are saved because of what Christ did for us. We can never deserve what God does for us nor will we ever be able to repay God for what he has done.

The law cannot save us because we are incapable of the obedience to the law that is required, but the law still serves a valuable purpose for us. The law shows us how to live to please God. The law helps us to see the sin that separates us from God. The law helps us to see how desperately needy we are of God’s help.

Next week we will cover the second half of Romans 7 and get to the climax of chapters 6 and 7.

How do we become holy in the second stage of salvation?

Paul will continue his argument and get us again into a place where there is no wiggle room and he will cry out in desperation:

Romans 7:24

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

In Paul’s argument, he and we along with him are brought to a point where there is no wiggle room and we are desperate. And then in the piece of liberating, wonderful news Paul leads us to whenever he has us caught in a tough spot, he answers this question: Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Romans 7:25

Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

This is the good news we come to communion with this morning. On Christmas Eve I talked about how Jesus is for the desperate. Those who are shipwrecked, drowning in the ocean cling to whatever will save them. Paul leads us to this point in his letter. In 3:21 when we were trapped by the realization that we deserve God’s wrath, Paul delivered the news that we have a righteousness that comes from Christ. And now, a second time, when he has us trapped by the realization that we will never be able to be the holy person we are meant to be, he delivers this good news that it is through Jesus Christ our Lord that we will grow in holiness.

Paul helps us to see how desperate we are so that we will cling for life to what can save us.

Who can rescue us from this body of death?

Cling to Jesus who alone can save us.

The temptation when you climb on a raft in the ocean is to feel that now you are safe. When we come to Jesus and accept his free gift of salvation, the temptation is to begin to feel safe and feel that we are OK now, but we are still desperate people in need of salvation. Because of the work of God in your life, you may be a pretty good person. You probably are a better person than many others in the world. But you are still a shipwreck victim clinging to what can save you.

When you come forward this morning for communion, come in desperation. Cling to Jesus. Give thanks to Jesus. Give your life to Jesus and cling to what has saved you, what is saving you and what will save you.