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Wednesday September 30, 2026

Man’s Real Trouble

Now law, as the elementary religion for humanity, has done its first work. It had compelled those who respond to admit that they are law-breakers, and therefore exposed to the consequences of broken law. Its first work is to produce and pronounce guilt: ‘what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that…all the world may become guilty before God.’ So far so good. Every sinner saved by grace knows this. But law has not yet finished its work. That is why Paul makes these references to the law in relation to the believer. There was a subtler, profounder purpose in the giving of the law, which can probably only be realized after the law has done its first work. Man’s real trouble is not the sins he commits and their consequences, but the root cause of his sinning. That root cause is the spirit of error living in him and having total dominion over him, because the fundamental fact of human nature is its helplessness. Man is created to be possessed. But the Spirit of error in him has carefully hidden this fact from him, so that he thinks he is self-sufficient. That was the ground of God’s challenge to him through the law: ‘If you can, do it!’

Conviction of sin and admission of condemnation through the law is really also admission of helplessness; but few see that at the time of conviction, because we are more concerned with consequences than causes. We still labor, therefore, under the delusion that we can do much to serve God aright; and the pulpit is often the worst culprit in making us think so and exhorting us to do so. Even the Bible, misread by those who don’t yet understand (and meant to be so misread, till they learn their lesson) appears to be full of exhortations to us to obey the commands of God.

This is why Paul reintroduces law in his statements about effective Christian living, and heads it up in the great law chapter, Romans 7. Most significant is that it follows Romans 6 and precedes Romans 8. It was not put here idly. Paul is following through his masterful train of thought in the whole letter. Romans 6: We, the redeemed, have been freed once for all from our old slavery to our old master in the cross of Christ. Let us now walk in newness of life. How do we so walk? Not under law, but by the Spirit, and Romans 8 outlines that triumphant life.

But wait a moment. Before we can walk confidently in Romans 8, we have a lesson to learn. We have lived under a form of elementary religion, the law; and the law kept telling us to do this or not do that. Why? Because it had a deep and subtle error to expose. We thought we could do things by our own strength, so God sent the law, in grace, to catch us out. We did not do the things we thought we could. We did not keep God’s law. But more than that. We could not keep it.

Now, said Paul in Romans 7, watch the effect of being ‘under the law.’ It says to you: You do this. We say we will and want to (we delight in the law after the inward man). But we find a contrary principle at work in us, compelling us to do the things the flesh wants to do, not the Spirit–and we follow the flesh. We find we are ‘sold under sin,’ and that ‘sin dwells in me.’ How is this? Because, not having yet fully understood our selves, we have not yet grasped the fact that self-reliant self is sin, that is what Satan is, and self-reliant self can only desire to please itself, that is the power of sin in it. But in Christ we are no longer self-reliant selves; instead, we are containers of Him. We are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. He, who is love, is Himself the law, and lives that life of love through us.”

Taken from: God Unlimited

By Norman Grubb

Pages 106-108