Diagnosis

Passage: Romans 7:7-13

In university I took a philosophy course called “A History of Medical Ideas”. The professor’s thesis was that diseases are actually human constructions – labels we give collections of symptoms. She argued that you don’t have a disease until you’re diagnosed. One of her examples was high blood pressure. She said, “Here’s something you don’t even know you have until you go to Walgreen’s and stick your arm in one of those machines. You don’t feel high blood pressure. You aren’t ‘sick’ until you get the printout and fill the prescription.”

In Romans 7 the Apostle Paul presents a similar argument regarding God’s law and sin. Paul says,
Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.
It seems Paul believes that he didn’t have a sin problem until he encountered the law. It almost sounds as though Paul is saying that the law caused the problem. What’s Paul getting at?

Paul’s argument throughout the first half of Romans is that the law can only be used to diagnose humanity’s problem. A doctor who diagnoses fatal cancer without offering any treatment is only giving a death sentence. The best the law can do, says Paul, is give a diagnosis that, without a treatment option, is terminal. If this is the case, what good is the law?

Well, says Paul, the first step is admitting the problem. You may feel you’d be better off living in blissful ignorance, but if you’ve got a fatal infection you’re going to find out one way or other. The fact that the diagnostic tool can’t cure the disease doesn’t mean there’s no cure. If left untreated your sin will kill you. You can’t seek treatment if you don’t know you’re sick. The law is in fact a gift so long as it’s paired with the right prescription.