Napoleon Bonaparte is credited with having said that “The role of the leader is to define reality and give hope.” I was familiar with the first part of that quote for years, but it was only recently that I read the final words, which completely changed my viewpoint. For most of my adult life, I have served in positions that have entailed the need to define reality for others. Whether while running a non-profit organization, teaching middle school students, or being one of your pastors, I have worked with others so that we all might come to know where we are and also who we are and whose we are.
Paul’s words about the nature of the law and of sin have always intrigued me. This passage helps us to see how the Apostle is working to define reality for Christians. Even more these words help us to understand the deeper reality that as we seek to define sin we become more exposed to it. God’s words in the Hebrew Scriptures helped the Israelites define what was and was not appropriate behavior. The six hundred and thirteen laws of Moses spelled out this reality in great detail. Yet in defining what is and is not sin, the law revealed to them the knowledge of sin.
When we stop and think about these words, it can almost feel as though we are moving into a circular argument. Without being told which actions are sin, we cannot know what sin is. But when we are told what sin is, we inevitably see it in our lives. The law, however, does serve in that role of the leader about which Napoleon spoke: It defines sin. But in Christ we find that final phrase: We are given hope to be free of the wages of sin and of death.