Throughout Romans chapter 7, the Apostle Paul delivers some hard-to-decipher semantics about sin, the law, life, death, being a slave to sin, death through the law, knowledge of sin because of the law—it can make your head spin. Let’s see what we can do:
Paul was in no way disagreeing with the law of Moses—he loved the law. Paul’s entire previous life was dedicated to the letter of that law (and holding others accountable to it as well). The law demonstrated to Paul every right way of living; and yet, because Paul claimed that knowledge, the law had become a vehicle for measuring his worth, and Paul realized that his efforts would always be inadequate.
The law of Moses accomplished a curious circumstance: even though those laws were “good,” they actually revealed our tendency toward rebellion (sin) and death. Why else would we need laws, but to define right and wrong? The law promised us life if we could just abide by the whole law, but no one could do it. No person could take the burden of being THAT perfect, THAT righteous by their own efforts.
And now, to quote the Christmas hymn O Little Town of Bethlehem, “the dear Christ enters in.” Jesus, by his death on the cross, was the only One who could take the overwhelming burden of sin away from us. Jesus was the only One who was qualified to offer His life in exchange for ours, because His life was perfect. The law revealed a path to death. The immeasurable love of Christ conquered death, released us from the burden of the law and freed us to be with Him forever—never separated from Him by anything or anyone (but that’s in Romans chapter 8.)