Romans 7 Summaries
"Many Christians have puzzled over the place of Old Testament law within the life both of the individual Christian and of countries that claim, or try to be 'officially' Christian. As soon as that sort of question comes up, Romans 7 will be seen to be extremely relevant, even if it is uncomfortable.
"In particular, it insists that when God gave the Torah it was not a kind of 'first attempt' at teaching human beings in general the first principles of morality - as though humans needed a few ground rules to get them going, eventually being topped up with the Sermon on the Mount. God's intention was far, far more subtle than that. The problem of evil, the real problem underneath questions both of salvation and of ethics, is far more radical than such an account would imply. When God gave the Torah his intention was to further the purposes for which he called Israel. These purposes were not simply about teaching the world a better standard of morality. They were about rescuing the world from sin and death.
"To accomplish this aim, God sent not just his Torah, but also his son and his spirit, to do at last what the Torah wanted to do but by itself could not. At which point we turn over the page, ready at last for one of the greatest chapters written by Paul, or any other Christian writer." - NT Wright
"In particular, it insists that when God gave the Torah it was not a kind of 'first attempt' at teaching human beings in general the first principles of morality - as though humans needed a few ground rules to get them going, eventually being topped up with the Sermon on the Mount. God's intention was far, far more subtle than that. The problem of evil, the real problem underneath questions both of salvation and of ethics, is far more radical than such an account would imply. When God gave the Torah his intention was to further the purposes for which he called Israel. These purposes were not simply about teaching the world a better standard of morality. They were about rescuing the world from sin and death.
"To accomplish this aim, God sent not just his Torah, but also his son and his spirit, to do at last what the Torah wanted to do but by itself could not. At which point we turn over the page, ready at last for one of the greatest chapters written by Paul, or any other Christian writer." - NT Wright