Questions Stemming from Romans Ch. 7

I feel like we had some really good discussion last week and I'm going to try to reiterate those that I can remember here in the blog so that it will be available to us later on in times of distress, confusion, or curiosity. I'm pretty late in the week, though, please hop in with some comments to fill in the inevitable gaps I will create.

Romans Ch. 7 - Reflection & Intentions

A great breakdown and explanation of the chapter is found >> HERE <<. They do a great job of going over everything so I won't bother with what would be a poor job. PLEASE READ IT if you're still going in circles in your head. Instead I'll move on to one of the questions that is hinted at.

Why did God send the law if He would ultimately have to come down and die for us? That seems to be one of the big questions that hangs over this discussion. The most apparent theme throughout the chapter seems to be this constant dismissal of the Law of the Old Testament as junk.

• v.4 "Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another-"
• v.10 "And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death."
• v.14 "For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin."

Isn't God supposed to be omnipotent? Isn't He supposed to be outside of time, or beside time, or some confusing thing where there is no past and present and the realm of Time is completely laid out before him? Why, then, would he send the Law if He knows that it wasn't going to work? Why not come down straight away and become flesh and die for the sins of humanity instead of waiting thousands of years and letting thousands of souls perish, many at the direct hand of the OT-styled God of Wrath?

Of course you could go back all the way and get back to the question of "Why create humanity if He saw it was destined to separate itself from Him?" but I won't because that's a fairly basic, albeit fundamental question, the short-answer to which I understand as being that God created us that we might grow into being with whom He can share eternity.

Now--minus the paragraph above--while I seem to have digressed I don't really think I have. They are connected questions that all lead in to or out of one another and there isn't really a way to properly answer one and still have confusion on another. Some of it I'm going to try to touch on tomorrow (Oct. 25th) since it's my day to lead and I'm talking about Jesus, and since I still have some preparing to do I'm not going to be nearly as in-depth as I would like to be or as insightful as I need to be (though I doubt all the time in the world would change my level of insightfulness).

So, why did God bother with the Law first? The main imagery, and the actual theme behind Romans Ch. 7 is that the Law is the mirror that shows us how unclean we are; how dirty, retched, and filthy we are in the eyes of God. We have removed ourselves and our race from God's presence and as much as we might try we can't clean ourselves of the sin that resides in us. So God came down and became flesh and blood so that he might conquer sin within Time and therefore affect (effect?) sin's hold on humanity thoughout Time. Not just from 33 B.C. forward. And the Law came first so that we might know how unsightly we are before God's eyes because until we realize how truely hopelessly apart from God we are won't fully realize the grace and beauty of the salvation that is offered through Jesus Christ. And until we fully realize the grace offered we won't fully comprehend the need to go through the "over-demanding ordeal" of painfully putting our human nature to death and coming into true-life through Christ. And until we comprehend the actual need there's no chance of us actually doing it. We will, instead, simply "keep the faith" in a moralist way with academic discussions interspersed on Sundays.

Please comment, specifically if you disagree. This is me saying what I think, albeit strongly. But certainly not what I know for certain. I haven't done nearly enough reading and my conclusions are laid on unknown foundations.