So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.Therefore the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, righteous, and good.Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.So that the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and righteous, and good.
3 sermons cite this verse
… It's always good to have your mind open as you study the text. I thought that what Paul was saying was just connecting this to Romans 7.12, the law is holy, the commandment is holy and righteous and good. So I thought initially, there you go. Paul is saying the law is good, we're justified by faith, but we try to uphold the law because it's a good law. And many commentators go that route. But I'm convinced that's not what Paul means in verse 31. Two quick reasons why. One, Paul would not normally speak this way about our obedience. You notice even in the passage that we read earlier in the liturgy, talks about fulfilling the law of Christ, just fulfilling or upholding the law is not the way that Paul generally talks about Christian obedience because you think about it, even as Christians, you don't uphold the law. Not perfectly. We don't keep all the law. And then, second reason, is that the topic Paul is addressing here is about justification, not sanctification. Justification is that legal declaration of righteousness before God, and then sanctification, theologically speaking, is the process by which we are made progressively holy and renewed into His image. Even the commentators who argue that verse 31 is a statement about sanctification, that is, they say, Paul is just jumping ahead a little bit. …
8. The more he strive, wishes, labours to be free, the more does he feel his chains, the grievous chains of sin, wherewith Satan binds and “leads him captive at his will;” his servant he is, though he repine ever so much; though he rebel, he cannot prevail. He is still in bondage and fear, by reason of sin: Generally, of some outward sin, to which he is peculiarly disposed, either, by nature, custom, or outward circumstance; but always, of some inward sin, some evil temper or unholy affection. And the more he frets against it, the more it prevails; he may bite but cannot break his chain. Thus he toils without end, repenting and sinning, and repenting and sinning again, till at length the poor, sinful, helpless wretch is even at his wit’s end and can barely groan, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” 9. This whole struggle of one who is “under the law,” under the “spirit of fear and bondage,” is beautifully described by the Apostle in the foregoing chapter, speaking in the person of an awakened man. “I,” saith he, “was alive without the law once:” (Verse 9:) I had much life, wisdom, strength, and virtue; so I thought: “But, when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died:” When the commandment, in its spiritual meaning, came to my heart, with the power of God, my inbred sin was stirred up, fretted, inflamed, and all my virtue died away. “And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me:” (Verses 10, 11:) It came upon me unaware; slew all my hopes; and plainly showed, in the midst of life I was in death. “Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good:” (Verse 12:) I no longer lay the blame on this, but on the corruption of my own heart. I acknowledge that “the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin:” (Verse 14:) I now see both the spiritual nature of the law; and my own carnal, devilish heart “sold under sin,” totally enslaved: (Like slave bought with money, who were absolutely at their master’s disposal:) “For that which I do, I allow not; for what I would, I do not, but what I hate, that I do:” (Verse 15:) Such is the bondage under which I groan; such the tyranny of my hard master. “To will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do:” (Verses 18, 19:) “I find a law,” an inward constraining power, “that when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in “or consent to “the law of God, after the inward man:” (Verses 21, 22:) In my “mind:” (So the Apostle explains himself in the words that immediately follow; and so, o eso anthropos, the inward man, is understood in all other Greek writers:) But I see another law in my members, another constraining power, warring against the law of my mind, or inward man, and bringing me into captivity to the law or power “of sin:” (Verse 23:) Dragging me, as it were, at my conquerors chariot-wheels, into the very thing which my soul abhors. “o wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Verse 24.) Who shall deliver me from this helpless, dying life, from this bondage of sin and misery? Till this is done, “I myself” (or rather, that I, autos ego, that man I am now personating) “with the mind,” or inward man, “serve the law of God;” my mind, my conscience is on God’s side; “but with my flesh,” with my body, “the law of sin,” (verse 25, ) being hurried away by a force I cannot resist. …
“Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” 1. Perhaps there are few subjects within the whole compass of religion so little understood as this. The reader of this Epistle is usually told, by the law St. Paul means the Jewish law; and so, apprehending himself to have no concern therewith, passes on without farther thought about it. Indeed some are not satisfied with this account; but observing the Epistle is directed to the Romans, thence infer that the Apostle in the beginning of this chapter alludes to the old Roman law. But as they have no more concern with this, than with the ceremonial law of Moses, so they spend not much thought on what they suppose is occasionally mentioned barely to illustrate another thing. 2. But a careful observer of the Apostle’s discourse will not be content with theses light explications of it. And the more he weighs the words, the more convinced he will be, that St. Paul, by the law mentioned in this chapter, does not mean either the ancient law of Rome, or the ceremonial law of Moses. This will clearly appear to all who attentively consider the tenor of his discourse. He begins the chapter, “Know ye not, brethren (for I speak to them that know the law,)” to them who have been instructed therein from their youth, “that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?” (What! the law of Rome only, or the ceremonial law? No, surely; but the moral law.) “For,” to give a plain instance, “the woman which hath an husband is bound by the” moral “law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law: so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.” From this particular instance the Apostle proceeds to draw that general conclusion: “Wherefore, my brethren,” by a plain parity of reason, “ye also are become dead to the law,” the whole Mosaic institution, “by the body of Christ,” offered for you, and bringing you under a new dispensation: “That ye should” without any blame “be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead;” and hath thereby given proof of his authority to make the change; “that we should bring forth fruit unto God.” And this we can do now, whereas before we could not: “for when we were in the flesh” — under the power of the flesh, that is, of corrupt nature, which was necessarily the case till we knew the power of Christ’s resurrection, “the motions of sins, which were by the law,” — which were shown and inflamed by the Mosaic law, not conquered, “did work in our members,” — broke out various ways, “to bring forth fruit unto death.” “But now we are delivered from the law;” from that whole moral, as well as ceremonial economy; “that being dead whereby we were held;” — that entire institution being now as it were dead, and having no more authority over us than the husband, when dead, hath over his wife: “That we should serve him,” — who died for us and rose again, “in newness of spirit;” — in a new spiritual dispensation; “and not in the oldness of the letter;” — with a bare outward service, according to the letter of the Mosaic institution (Rom. 7:1–6.) …