Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3475
“For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.” Romans 7:8,9.
I REMEMBER once reading a chapter of a book which commenced with this heading, “The Inside of the World.” The book, of course, was occupied very much with geology and to speculations about the interior of the globe. Tonight I want you to consider not the inside of the world, but the little world within us, that microcosm, the human heart, and some strange things that happen therein—and especially one singular and mysterious work which goes on in the minds of those who become the children of God. They are brought from one state into another by a very remarkable process. A process which, while they are undergoing it, they do not understand. And for need of knowing what it is and what God is driving at, some of them are often driven to very great despondency—some even to despair. Whereas if they would see in the text what I shall try to hold up and expound—a kind of mirror in which they might see a reflection of their hearts and their own experience—they might, perhaps, come into light and liberty all the sooner. May it be so, even now!
We shall first speak of the words of the Apostle in this way. Here is life without the Law of God. Here is, secondly, sin coming to the Light of God. And here is, thirdly, the man himself—death brought by the Law to him. And, first, let me speak of—
I. Life without the Law of God
The Apostle says that sin was at one time dead in him and he was alive without the Law of God. Now, when he says, “without the law,” he does not mean that he never heard the Law of God read, for it was read in the synagogue every Sabbath. He does not mean that he did not know it, for he was probably acquainted with every letter of it. He sat at the feet of Gamaliel and he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees according to his own profession—and they were a sect much addicted to the study not only of the Law of God, but of the jots and tittles of it—they held, in fact, constant discussions and disputes with one another about the minute particulars of that Law.
He knew the Law in the letter of it, and understood it so far as it could be understood from his point of view, but yet he says he was alive without the Law, by which he means this—the Law had never come home to his heart and to his conscience. It was because of this, therefore, that he was living in a state of false security. He thought he had kept it. He believed that if anyone in the world had kept the Commandments from his youth up, he, Saul of Tarsus, was that man! He did not dread dying, or standing before the Judgment Seat of God—he felt himself perfectly ready for that. Wrapped up in his own Law-keeping, he felt himself perfectly secure. He was at ease and peace. Nothing disturbed him. He did not lie sleepless on his bed at night, thinking of his iniquity—on the contrary, he lulled himself to sleep with some such a prayer as this—“God, I thank You I am not as other men are—an adulterer or extortioner, or even as this Publican. I fast twice in the week. I pay tithes of all I possess.” He thought he was perfectly safe! He thought that he was doing all he ought to do, leaving nothing undone that he ought to have done! He thought that he was, in fact, in excellent repute in Heaven, and he was certainly on the very best possible terms with himself! The consequence of this was that he was alive without the Law of God.
In another sense his security brought him pride—he looked down upon all others. If by chance a Publican met him in the street, he gave him all the room he could. If he ever passed by a woman that was a sinner, he took care to look quite another way, or to let her see how scornfully he thought of her. If, perchance, he mentioned a Gentile, he called him a dog—for this great one, Saul of Tarsus, had so kept the Law of God, and felt so quiet and peaceful within, that he could afford to stand on the very pinnacle of eminence and look down with derision on those poorer mortals who were not so good as he was!
The next step that Paul, who was a thorough-going one, took—he indulged in persecution—for as soon as you think yourself better than others, you become the judge of others! And the next step is to carry out your own sentence upon others. And inasmuch as this Saul of Tarsus heard that there were some who did not believe that they were as good as he, who did not profess to be saved, as he expected to be by his own works, but who talked of one Jesus, who was the Son of God, who had died for their sins and who had risen from the dead and given them pardon—when he heard that they were trusting to the merits of this Glorious One, whom, they said, had ascended to the right hand of God, he was exceedingly angry with them! Why, they were opposed to his theory of his own excellence! They were practically protesting against his very comfortable state of mind! They were, in fact, setting up altogether an opposition Doctrine which laid the axe to the root of the tree of his belief and might fell the goodly tree beneath which he found such shelter! So he began at once to haul them to prison, to compel them to blaspheme in the name of Christ, if he could, and when he had harried them through Jerusalem, and punished them with all his might in his own country! Then he must seek letters from the high priest that he might go to Damascus to carry out the same measures there! Paul was indeed alive! He was not only as good as he ought to be, but he was rather better—and he now set out to make other people better. If he could not make men better by his talking to them, he would make them better by scourging and killing them! Great “I,” how lofty it stood! How it held up its head! “I was alive,” he said. But alas, Paul, you did not understand the Law of God that soon would have cut you down and killed you, and killed your, “I,” and brained you and left you dead on the spot!