Romans 7

While not possible in our 1-1 1/2 hour sessions, it would be best to study chapters 5-8 together without a break, because they are so interconnected. Therefore, we're going to read those chapters through together and then look at the following study on chapter 7before going on: Law - What Law? by Wil Pounds© 2008 at www.abideinchrist.com/messages/rom7v1.html which I highly recommend reading before going

The most important thing to remember from Chapter 6 is God gives us the power to overcome ANY AND ALL SIN.
What we need to do is harness that power.
In chapter 6, we died to SIN. In chapter 7, we died to the LAW.

Chapter 7 of Romans is on the frustration of “wanting to be better” and then failing.

Romans 7 is an expansion of Romans 5:20: God's law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God's wonderful kindness became more abundant.

Romans 6:15-23: So since God's grace has set us free from the law, DOES THIS MEAN WE CAN GO ON SINNING? Of course not! Don't you realize that whatever you choose to obey becomes your master? You can choose sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God and receive his approval. Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you have obeyed with all your heart the new teaching God has given you. Now you are free from sin, your old master, and you have become slaves to your new master, righteousness. I speak this way, using the illustration of slaves and masters, because it is easy to understand. BEFORE you let yourselves be slaves of impurity and lawlessness. NOW you must choose to be slaves of righteousness so that you will become holy.In those days, when you were slaves of sin, you weren't concerned with doing what was right. And what was the result? It was not good, since now you are ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom. BUT NOW you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life. For the wages of sin is DEATH, but the free gift of God is eternal LIFE through Christ Jesus our Lord.

(1) NOW, dear brothers and sisters -- you who are familiar with the *law -- don't you know that the law applies only to a person who is still living?

• People back then (and most today too) believed that obedience would bring salvation and acceptance by God or the gods. Grace is not license to break the law but offers forgiveness and power to live in righteousness free from the law which would then be unable to condemn them.
• *law:
  • The Greek wording here has no "the" before law. This means that Paul speaks of a principle broader than the Mosaic Law.
  • Matthew 5:17: "Don't misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to fulfill them.
  • Here is what Romans and Galatians say about the law:
    • "We are not under the law" (Romans 6:14; Galatians 5:18).
    • We are dead to the law (Romans 7:4).
    • We are delivered from the law (Romans 7:6).
    • Christ is the end of the law (Romans 10:4).
    • The law was our guardian and teacher to lead us until Christ came. So now, through faith in Christ, we are made right with God. But now that faith in Christ has come, we no longer need the law as our guardian." (Galatians 3:24-25).
    • "The law" has been abolished (Ephesians 2:15).

(2) Let me illustrate. When a woman marries, the law binds her to her husband as long as he is alive. BUT if he dies, the laws of marriage no longer apply to her.

•  Under the Old Testament law, a man has a right to divorce a wife, but a wife does not have a right to divorce a husband. (See Deuteronomy Chapter 24). The only way a wife could get out from under obedience to a husband was by his death. A great temptation to some wives, I'm sure.
• Think of Boaz and Ruth! While Ruth was married to Mahlon of Judah, she could not travel to a strange new land to meet, to know, to fall in love with and to marry Boaz, who was a type of Christ. Think of Ruth as us, Mahlon as the law and Christ as the one who loves us and frees us.

(3) SO while her husband is alive, she would be committing adultery if she married another man. BUT if her husband dies, she is free from that law and does not commit adultery when she remarries.

(4) SO this is the point: The law no longer holds you in its power, because you died to its power when you died with Christ on the cross. AND NOW you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, you can produce good *fruit, that is, good deeds for God.

• In Romans 6:3-8, Paul carefully explained that we died with Jesus and we also rose with Him, although Paul there only spoke of our death to sin. Now he explains that we also died to the law.
• Colossians 2:14: He canceled the record that contained the charges against us. He took it and destroyed it by nailing it to Christ's cross.
• *fruit: The aim of this joining (this "marriage"), he says, is that you "produce good fruit for God.", continuing the illustration using marriage. If you are in Christ, justified and married to your Savior, Jesus, you bear fruit for God. That means that new desires and attitudes and choices and actions grow like fruit from this all-satisfying relationship between you and your living "husband," Jesus Christ.

(5) When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced sinful deeds, resulting in death.

• The context suggests that Paul had pre-conversion days in mind in this verse.

(6) BUT NOW we have been *released from the law, FOR we **DIED WITH Christ, and we are no longer captive to its power. NOW we can really serve God, not in the old way by obeying the ***letter of the law, but in the new way, by the Spirit.

• Galatians 5:1,13,16: So Christ has really set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don't get tied up again in slavery to the law. ... For you have been called to live in freedom -- NOT freedom to satisfy your sinful nature, but freedom to serve one another in love. ... So I advise you to live according to your new life in the Holy Spirit. Then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves.
• *released from the law: Paul summarized verses 1-5 here. We died to the Law just as we died to sin (6:5). The same Greek word (katargeo - to render idle, unemployed, inactivate, inoperative) occurs in both verses. Christ's death as our representative changed our relationship to both sin and the law. It is as though God shifted the transmissions of our lives into neutral gear. Now something else drives our lives, namely, the Holy Spirit. Sin and the Law no longer drive us forward, though we can engage those powers if we choose to do so and take back control of our lives from God.
• The law does not justify us; it does not make us right with God. The law does not sanctify us; it does not take us deeper with God and make us more holy before Him.
• Some might think, “Yes, we were saved by grace, but we must live by law to please God.” Here Paul makes it plain that believers are dead to the law as far as it represents a principle of living or a place of right standing before God.
• “Believers are through with the law. It is not for them an option as a way of salvation. They do not seek to be right with God by obeying some form of law, as the adherents of almost all religions have done.” (Morris)
• Romans 2:15: They demonstrate that God's law is written within them, for their own consciences either accuse them or tell them they are doing what is right.
• Hebrews 10:16: "This is the new covenant I will make with my people on that day, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their hearts so they will understand them, and I will write them on their minds so they will obey them."
• Galatians 3:24: Let me put it another way. The law was our guardian and teacher to lead us until Christ came. So now, through faith in Christ, we are made right with God.
• If you are justified by faith, you are inhabited by the Spirit of Christ and he is not neutral or passive. He is at work in you to create a newness of mind and heart that loves and serves. Therefore, we will not sin that grace may abound. Sin will not have dominion over us because we are not under law, but under grace.
  • Philippians 1:6: And I am sure that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on that day when Christ Jesus comes back again.
• **Died: Galatians 2:20: I myself no longer live, but Christ lives in me. So I live my life in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
• ***letter: The "letter of the law" is a modern English idiom implying the details of a requirement be followed. But "letter" here is from the Greek gramma which means a note, a bill, writing or an epistle (a letter). Here we see it as the law that God wrote. It represents the old way of life without Christ. It is in contrast to serving "by the spirit." Thus, we cannot take this verse as license to ignore the specifics of divine requirements.

(7) Well then, am I suggesting that the law of God is evil? Of course not! The law is not sinful, BUT it was the law that showed *ME MY **sin. I would never have known that coveting is wrong if the law had not said, "Do not ***covet."

• *ME: Suddenly, the "a person", "we" and "us" changes to ME! Is Paul getting personal now, expressing his own experience and frustrations? Paul is now going through his own personal experience of the total inability of the law, obeying the law, reading the law, listening to the sages to overcome his natural impulses and sinful nature. Whether this describes Paul before he was saved when he was such an outstanding Pharisee or after, I can't tell. Paul. From his childhood, he knew the law. He knew it better than his contemporaries, took it more seriously than they, struggled desperately to keep it, declared in fact, that insofar as the law was concerned, he was perfect. In other words, until Paul met JESUS CHRIST on the road to Damascus, he did not know the law; he only thought he did. See Philippians 3:6:  "...I obeyed the Jewish law so carefully that I was never accused of any fault."
• Here we see the purpose of the law is to show us our sinfulness.
• Paul is referring to the Exodus 20:17:  "Do not covet your neighbor's house. Do not covet your neighbor's wife, male or female servant, ox or donkey, or anything else your neighbor owns."
• The law is like an x-ray machine; it reveals plainly what might have always been there, but was hidden before. You can’t blame an x-ray for what it exposes.
• **sin: Paul's use of "sin" in this paragraph shows that he was thinking of sin as a force within everyone, our sinful human nature. He was not thinking of an act of sin. It is that force or sin principle that the Law's prohibitions and requirements arouse. The basic meaning of the Greek word translated "sin" (hamartia) is "falling short." We see that we fall short of what God requires when we become aware of His laws.
• ***covet: Why did Paul pick this particular commandment? I wonder whether this was Paul's "besetting sin". Was this a problem he struggled with before Christ? Then, I wonder what it was that Paul coveted. Was it the recognition of others of how great and perfect he was?

(8) BUT sin took advantage of this law and aroused all kinds of forbidden desires within *ME! If there were no law, sin would not have that power.

• In American history, we know that the Prohibition Act didn’t stop drinking and our present "war against drugs" doesn't seem to be faring much better. In fact, Prohibition made drinking more attractive to people, because of our desire to break boundaries set by the commandment - it was now "cool" and "sophisticated" to go to a "speak-easy".
• The weakness of the law isn’t in the law - it is in us.

(9) I felt fine when I did not *understand what the law demanded. BUT **when I learned the truth, I realized I had broken the law and was a sinner, doomed to die.

• *understand: Paul was thoroughly educated in the law - he sat at the feet of Gamaliel. So, how could he not understand the law? He knew the words, he knew the interpretations by the great rabbis of his time, he could recite any verse from memory, he could read it in both Hebrew and Greek. But, to UNDERSTAND means to know why God implemented the law, why we have the natural inclination to sin, and the fact that it was impossible for him to meet the demands of the law! He said of himself before he knew Christ, "Concerning the law, perfect" - Philippians 3:6 (KJV). Yet, that only led to pride and persecution of the church - which he probably thought could make "a name for himself".
• **when Paul realized that the law applied deeper than the externals!
• Paul was relatively alive apart from the Law. No one is ever completely unrelated to it. However in his past, Paul had lived unaware of the Law's true demands and was therefore self-righteous (Philippians 3:6 above). His pre-conversion struggles were mainly intellectual (e.g., Was Jesus the Messiah?) rather than moral.
• Babies have no idea what “law” means. They have no concept of right and wrong. Can a baby be guilty of covetousness? of stealing?  of not keeping the sabbath? of not honoring their mother and father? They just want their bottles, blankets and clean diapers. But, they quickly exhibit their sin nature. So, what is the "age of accountability?" Do babies go to heaven since they're outside the law? What about a brain-damaged baby who becomes an adult barely functioning but without any concept of the law - of right and wrong, of God?

(10) SO the good law, which was supposed to show ME the way of life, instead gave ME the death penalty.

• Romans 6:23: For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
• Let me paraphrase Paul’s line of thinking here:  “There was a time in my (Paul’s) life when I thought that I could get into heaven by being obedient to the law. After all, the Old Testament has a whole set of animal sacrifice rituals to perform when I sinned.  I thought that all I had to do is obey all of the laws. I studied all of the famous rabbi’s and their interpretation of the laws and how to obey them. I mentally put a “check” next to my name as I thought I was following them with a strict sense of obedience.”
• Walk down the street and ask people if they believe they are going to heaven. The most common answer will be “Yes, because I am a good person”. They will list the good things they have done with their lives. Many people mistakenly think of their life as an accomplishment list for God to accept and then let them into heaven. People tend to make their own list of right and wrong and live by those standards as opposed to God’s laws.

(11) Sin took advantage of the law and fooled ME; it took the good law and used it to make ME guilty of death.

• Paul figured out that no matter how hard he tried, how disciplined he became, he could never be perfect. No matter how hard he tried to please God by keeping the law, it was never enough - like a demanding husband or wife who's never pleased no matter what we do. Once Paul fully comprehended God’s standards for obedience, Paul realized he couldn’t do it.
• The law dealt with specific sins, but never dealt with the sin nature itself - the very source of the sins for which a sacrifice was required.
• Sin deceives us:
• Because sin falsely promises satisfaction.
• Because sin falsely claims an adequate excuse.
• Because sin falsely promises an escape from punishment.

(12) BUT still, the law itself is holy and right and good.

• Psalms 19:7: The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The decrees of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple.
• It’s not the laws themselves that are bad, just me. I have no problem with God’s laws themselves. They are a great set of rules in order to live a happy and productive life. My (Paul’s) problem is no matter how hard I try, I can’t obey them all of the time.  No matter how hard I push myself, I can’t do it.
• Here is a concluding reaffirmation of the answer to Paul's question in verse 7 (Is the law evil). Far from being sinful, the Law is holy. It comes from a holy God and searches out sin. It is righteous because it lays just requirements on people and because it forbids and condemns sin. It is good because its purpose is to produce blessing and life (verse 10).

(13) BUT how can that be? Did the law, which is good, cause MY doom? Of course not! Sin used what was good to bring about MY condemnation. So we can see how terrible sin really is. It uses God's good commandment for its own evil purposes.

• Spurgeon: "We need sin to appear sin, because it always wants to hide in us and conceal its true depths and strength. This is one of the most deplorable results of sin. It injures us most by taking from us the capacity to know how much we are injured. It undermines the man’s constitution, and yet leads him to boast of unfailing health; it beggars him, and tells him he is rich; it strips him, and makes him glory in his fancied robes.”
• Until Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, there was no knowledge of good and evil. Sin entered into the world through Adam.

(14) The law is good, THEN the trouble is not with the law but with ME, because I am sold into *slavery, with sin as MY master.

• *slavery: The Jewish reader would have thought of Joseph who was sold into slavery of Egypt by his own brothers.
• I Timothy 1:8-11: We know these laws are good when they are used as God intended. But they were not made for people who do what is right. They are for people who are disobedient and rebellious, who are ungodly and sinful, who consider nothing sacred and defile what is holy, who murder their father or mother or other people. These laws are for people who are sexually immoral, for homosexuals and slave traders, for liars and oath breakers, and for those who do anything else that contradicts the right teaching that comes from the glorious Good News entrusted to me by our blessed God.

(15) I don't understand MYSELF at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do the very thing I hate.

• The law says: “Here are the rules and you had better keep them - or else!” But it gives us no power for keeping the law.
• It is a daily struggle for all of us. To live for Jesus, the spirit has to overcome the flesh.
• Galatians 5:17: The old sinful nature loves to do evil, which is just opposite from what the Holy Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are opposite from what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, and your choices are never free from this conflict.

(16) I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and MY bad conscience shows that I agree that the law is good.

(17) BUT I can't help MYSELF, because it is *sin inside ME that makes ME do these evil things.

• *sin: The sin nature.
• Is Paul denying his responsibility as a sinner? No. He recognizes that as he sins, he acts against his nature as a new man in Jesus Christ. A Christian must own up to his sin, yet realize that the impulse to sin does not come from who we really are in Jesus Christ.
• Paul was not trying to escape responsibility but was identifying the source of his sin, his sinful nature. Viewed as a whole person, he was dead to sin. Nevertheless the source of sin within him was specifically his sinful human nature that was still very much alive.
• Our problem with sin is complex. We are sinners not only because we commit acts of sin (chapter 3) and because, as descendants of Adam, we sin because he sinned (chapter 5). We are also sinners because we possess a nature that is thoroughly sinful (chapter 7). Jesus Christ paid the penalty for acts of sin, He removed the punishment of original sin, and He enables us to overcome the power of innate sin.

(18) I know I am rotten through and through so far as MY old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn, I can't make MYSELF do right. I want to, but I can't.

• Psalm 14:3: But no, all have turned away from God; all have become corrupt. No one does good, not even one!
• Galatians 5:24-26: Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. If we are living now by the Holy Spirit, let us follow the Holy Spirit's leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited, or irritate one another, or be jealous of one another.

(19) When I want to do good, I don't. And when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway.

(20) BUT if I am doing what I don't want to do, I am not really the one doing it; the sin within ME is doing it.

(21) It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.

• C.S. Lewis: “No man knows how bad he is until he has tried to be good.”

(22) I love God's law with all MY heart.

• Paul knows that the “real self” is the one who does delight in the law of God.

(23) BUT there is another law at work within ME that is at war with MY mind. This law wins the fight and makes ME a slave to the sin that is still within ME.

• This natural inner force leading to evil, Paul says, is a law. He sees a law as a guiding or controlling element. This law in his body parts fights God's delightful law and makes him a captive of its evil ways. See Romans 8::
  • Romans 8:2: For the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you through Christ Jesus from the power of sin that leads to death.
• This is one reason for alcoholism and other drugs - to escape from reality. This is one reason so many men and women keep inordinately busy; they do not want to think about themselves. This is one reason people escape into pleasure, into society, into gossip, into soap operas, into "reality TV" shows. And when they are no longer able to hide, if they can afford it, they go to a psychiatrist. Or they may take their life. Paul is describing what man is like in the old Adamic nature, but in the next verses he is also showing us we need not any longer be bound; we have been released, emancipated by the power of GOD in JESUS CHRIST.
• Morris quoting Griffith Thomas: “The one point of the passages is that it describes a man who is trying to be good and holy by his own efforts and is beaten back every time by the power of indwelling sin; it thus refers to anyone, regenerate or unregenerate.”

(24) Oh, what a *miserable person I am! WHO WILL FREE ME FROM THIS LIFE THAT IS DOMINATED BY SIN?

• *miserable (wretched in the KJV): The ancient Greek word is more literally, “Wretched through the exhaustion of hard labor.” Paul is completely worn out and wretched because of his unsuccessful effort to please God under the principle of Law.
• No matter how hard Paul tried, he could not be perfect in keeping God’s commands. This is not based on a one-moment experience, but on years and years of his life trying to please God. We see something like this with driven (and often "successful") men who are still trying to please a father who died long ago - Randolph Hearst portrayed in the classic movie "Citizen Kane" is an example.
• We get frustrated because we want to please God. Yet, there are moments, or long periods where we ignore God. Further, there are issues in our life we try to solve through our own efforts instead of praying over them. In the end, we fail in our efforts.  In summary, “without God, we can’t”. That motto applies to every part of our life. We get frustrated when we fail on our own.
• This is Paul’s self-disgust because he couldn’t live up to his own expectations.
• Where Paul is going with this is the idea that, “The more we realize how depraved we are as human beings, the more we realize our dependency upon God for every aspect of our lives.”
• Legalism always brings a person face to face with their own wretchedness, and if they continue in legalism, they will react in one of two ways. Either they will deny their wretchedness and become self-righteous Pharisees, or they will despair because of their wretchedness and give up following after God.
• Spurgeon: “It was the custom of ancient tyrants, when they wished to put men to the most fearful punishments, to tie a dead body to them, placing the two back to back; and there was the living man, with a dead body closely strapped to him, rotting, putrid, corrupting, and this he must drag with him wherever he went. Now, this is just what the Christian has to do. He has within him the new life; he has a living and undying principle, which the Holy Spirit has put within him, but he feels that every day he has to drag about with him this dead body, this body of death, a thing as loathsome, as hideous, as abominable to his new life, as a dead stinking carcass would be to a living man.”
• What Christian has not felt the guilt and pain of doing things that he or she knows are wrong? We will never escape this battle with temptation in this life. Eugene Peterson recast Paul's thought in this verse as follows: "I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me?"

(25) Thank God! THE ANSWER IS IN JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD. SO you see how it is: In MY *mind I really want to obey God's law, BUT because of MY **sinful nature I am a slave to sin.

• * mind: the inner man - Hebrew nous.
• **sinful nature: the old nature.
• Dennis Davidson in "Battling Besetting Sin: "WATCHMAN NEE was once staying in a place with some twenty other Christian brothers. There was inadequate provision for bathing in the home where they stayed, so we went for a daily plunge in the river. On one occasion a brother got a cramp in his leg, and suddenly saw he was sinking fast, so Watchman motioned to another brother, who was an expert swimmer, to hasten to his rescue. But to Watchman's astonishment he made no move. Growing desperate Watchman cried out: "Don't you see the man is drowning?" The other brothers, as agitated as he was, shouted vigorously too. But the good swimmer still did not move. Calm and collected, he remained just where he was, apparently postponing the unwelcome task. Meantime the voice of the poor drowning brother grew fainter and his efforts feebler. In Watchman's heart he said: "I hate that man! Think of his letting a brother drown before his very eyes and not going to the rescue!" But when the man was actually sinking, with a few swift strokes the swimmer was at his side, and both were soon safely ashore. Nevertheless, when Watchman got an opportunity, he aired his views. "I have never seen any Christian who loved his life quite as much as you do," he said. "Think of the distress you would have saved that brother if you had considered yourself a little less and him a little more." But the swimmer, Watchman soon discovered, knew his business better than he did. "Had I gone earlier," he said, "he would have clutched me so fast and hard that both of us would have gone under. A drowning man cannot be saved until he is utterly exhausted and ceases to make the slightest effort to save himself." Do you see the point? When we give up the case, then God will take it up. He is waiting until we are at an end of our resources and can do nothing more for ourselves. God has condemned all that is of the old creation and consigned it to the Cross. The flesh profited nothing (John 6:63)! God has declared it to be fit only for death. If we truly believe that, then we shall confirm God's verdict by abandoning all fleshly efforts to please Him. For our every attempt to do His will is a denial of His declaration in the Cross that we are utterly powerless to do so. [Nee, Watchman. The Normal Christian Life. Tyndale House. Wheaton, IL. 1977. p 167f].
• The solution to this dilemma is not escape from temptation but victory over it. Look how the Muslim mean try to overcome temptation by making sure all women are covered from head to toe with a shapeless ugly black sack.
• Calvin calls Romans 7:25: “A short epilogue, in which he teaches us, that the faithful never reach the goal of righteousness as long as they dwell in the flesh, but that they are running their course, until they put off the body.”
• Paul shows that even though the law is glorious and good, it can’t save us - and we need a Savior. Paul never found any peace, any praising God until he looked outside of himself and beyond the law to his Savior, Jesus Christ.
• Paul continues to develop these thoughts in the next chapter:
• Romans 8:1-10: So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. For the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you through Christ Jesus from the power of sin that leads to death. The law of Moses could not save us, because of our sinful nature. But God put into effect a different plan to save us. He sent his own Son in a human body like ours, except that ours are sinful. God destroyed sin's control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the requirement of the law would be fully accomplished for us who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit. Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. If your sinful nature controls your mind, there is death. But if the Holy Spirit controls your mind, there is life and peace. For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God's laws, and it never will. That's why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God. But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them are not Christians at all.) Since Christ lives within you, even though your body will die because of sin, your spirit is alive because you have been made right with God.

This chapter is very important for several reasons:

1. It corrects the popular idea that our struggle with sin is only against specific sins and habits whereas it is also against our basic human nature.
2. Second, it shows that human nature is not essentially good but bad.
3. Third, it argues that progressive sanctification does not come by obeying laws (legalism) but apart from law.
4. It also proves that doing right requires more than just determining to do it.
5. All these insights are necessary for us to appreciate what Paul proceeded to explain in chapter 8.

Out of curiosity, I checked a few Jewish sites to see how they believe they're saved today. Here are some quotes:

• www.whatjewsbelieve.org/ (Rabbi Stuart Federow):
  • We don't need to be 'saved'; this is a Christian attitude and forms no part whatsoever of Judaism. We have no concept of 'original sin'. Judaism teaches that everyone who leads a moral life will reach heaven, whatever their religion.
    1. Jews believe that one person cannot die for the sins of another.
    2. We do not need a blood sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins.
    3. Jews believe that Jesus was not the messiah.
    4. Jews believe that Gd hates human sacrifices.
    5. Jews believe that one is born into the world with original purity. Jews do not believe in original sin.
    6. Jews believe that Gd is one and indivisible. Jews do not believe in a trinity.
    7. Jews believe in The Satan, but not in a devil. There is a difference between The Satan and the devil.
    8. Jews believe that Gd is Gd, and humans are humans. Gd does not become human nor do humans become Gd.
    9. Jews believe that "Jews for Jesus," "Messianic Jews," and "Hebrew Christians" are no longer Jews, even if they were once Jews.

NOTES:

• Unless otherwise noted, the scripture version used is the New Living Translation, copyright 1996, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois.
• Disclaimer: Source material for this study has been gleaned from many different sources. I have attempted to acknowledge these sources at romansoverview.blogspot.com/2012/12/romans-references.html
• Index to all our studies are at http://oakview-bible-fellowship.blogspot.com/