taray

Because legalism and asceticism for show are only rules for the flesh; they do not transform us in our spiritual being. The real transformer is Christ, who circumcised our sinful flesh and created us anew. Only by "[continuing] to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as [we] were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness" can we truly learn and grow.

In Romans 7:15-25, Paul describes our wretchedness as not being able to do what we want to do and always doing what we do not want to do, as our flesh is "sold as a slave to sin." Our mind and our flesh serve two different masters. If we identify ourselves with our flesh, then we are utterly depraved, serving sin, but if we align ourselves with our mind, we serve God. Of our own will this is not possible, but Jesus Christ our Lord "delivered me from this body of death", that I may have life. It through the "amazing grace" of God that we are saved. Modern man's belief that man is basically good does not accord with the Bible's teaching, which says that by ourselves we are utterly incapable of doing that which is good, but only with the salvation of Jesus Christ that we are redeemed and made perfect.

While we were "dead in [our] sins and in the uncircumcision of your [our] nature," God forgave us our sins and made us alive in Christ. He forgave us by disarming, which means shedding, taking away all externalities, all the "powers and authorities", that ruled our flesh; these "powers and authorities" included "the written code, with its regulations." Therefore what was nailed to the cross were all these external authorities that ruled our flesh, so that we may follow another, inner authority, Christ and the Father. The forgiveness comes with our faith in Christ, in our willingness to follow Him through the cross, baptism in His death and the death of all the externalities that were made spectacle, and finally uniting Him in the inner life. As we are alive with Him inside, the external written codes and regulations no longer have sway over us. We live by His light alone.

The law is good at telling us right from wrong, good from evil, but it does not give us strength to resist evil, it does not give us understanding. It is, rather, life for sin. It is the light that shines on sin, for sin to grow (notice the plant analogy in the Scripture). This also reminds me of Jesus's parable about the seeds that fell on the side of the road. For some seeds, other weeds sprang up and choke them. But the problem is not the law, but the seeds of sin.

Sin existed before the law, yet we were not aware of it. We sinned yet we did not know. It was God's mercy that the law came and shone a light upon sin, that we may know we sinned; whereas before we simply sinned without knowing it, when the law came, we sinned against the law. As Dr. Wilson said, "knowing something is wrong is the first step toward truth," the law was given by God to instruct us, to give us light to save us from the darkness of ignorance. Yet our flesh is weak and we continued to sin under law, perhaps even more than before, enticed by our "sinful passions aroused by the law". But now that we are dead to the law and alive to the Spirit, we're no longer under the rulership of sin. We choose to follow the Spirit that guides us closer to God. "I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death." The first example of this was in the Garden of Eden, when God commanded Adam and Eve not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Sin "sprang to life" and they disobeyed God's commandment, and "died." It was not God's commandment that was sinful, but the disobedience of Adam and Eve. If God had not given them the commandment, they would've lived, but they would not have known sin either. They were in a state of ignorance, not knowing right from wrong; but when they did know, it was already too late; they had wronged. And they died. But through the death of Jesus, and our death in Him, we died one last time, this time to sin. And we are reborn into the Spirit. We still know right from wrong, but this time, guided by the Spirit, we choose to do what is right. The flesh no longer has power over us to drag us into sin. All these are in God's plan to teach us and grow us into the perfect image of Him that He created in the beginning.