The Law is Holy
Thinking about Romans 7:12.
Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. (Romans 7:12)
Paul had already mentioned that the law was not sin.
He described how sin produced all kinds of evil desires using the law as its “base camp of operations.”
In Romans 7:12, Paul reminds his readers that the law was not the problem.
The law is not to blame.
This verse seems to look back to verse 7. In spite of what [Paul] has related in verses 8-11, he wishes to remind his readers that the Law is just fine. The problem doesn’t lie in the Law. It is far from being evil, it is holy. It is far from being a promoter of ungodliness; it is righteous. It is not at all intended to corrupt or hurt man by leading him into badness; it is good. - McGuiggan, Romans, 209
God Himself had given the law. He was the lawgiver.
Then the LORD said to Moses, "Come up to Me on the mountain and be there; and I will give you tablets of stone, and the law and commandments which I have written, that you may teach them." (Exodus 24:12)
For the LORD is our Judge, The LORD is our Lawgiver, The LORD is our King; He will save us (Isaiah 33:22)
How could the law be anything other than holy, just, and good since it had come from the holy, just, and good God?
The problem did not lie with the law. The problem did not lie with the lawgiver either.
Nothing about the Law was wicked or deceptive, unlike the sly, enticing ways of sin. Instead, the intention of the Law was only to encourage “righteous” behavior (dikaios) and “good” things (agathos). - Pollard, Truth for Today Commentary, 242
Reading and studying this passage reminded me of what James wrote.
Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. (James 1:13-16)
The Bible makes it plain that God is not to blame for sin. God is holy, just, and good.
As James points out, the problem lies with what we have chosen to do - we have been tempted by sin and chosen to follow after it.
God is not to blame for sin. God is not to blame for death - physical or spiritual.
He is to be thanked and praised for graciously offering us something other than what we deserve.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)
Amen!! Praise God that Jesus fulfilled the perfect Law and came to indwell us, now openly willing to live out the Law in and through our mortal bodies. His work is my rest.
With four more books to go in my NT reading cycle before returning to Romans, I wasn't eager to dig in to Romans 7, which presents as quite a difficult chapter to understand, but OK, I guess it was time for another look. In another reading cycle I am currently in Psalm 119, reading one or two "letters" a day. That chapter also has proven difficult for me in the past.
This time through, I have backed off a little in trying to understand the words chosen by the translators, and instead focused on the patterns of response of the psalmist to those words. I recognize those patterns -- I feel those things myself. It's the translated words that aren't clear to me.
Back to Romans 7, and specifically v. 12. Same thing. What do these words mean? Time to go into the Greek. Forget the commentaries, just look at what we have from the original text. Two words stand out, a familiar one, νόμος (law) and a less familiar one, ἐντολή (commandment). I am using lexical forms here, which should correlate with Strong's. BDAG defines this latter word in context as "a mandate or ordinance, command". νόμος is defined in context as "constitutional or statutory legal system".
This is quite a distinction. I can't stop to explore it in depth right now (I have a small group study to go to), but through the Septuagint this distinct usage can be matched with Psalm 119. As I begin to do that, the words of the Psalm begin to make more sense. A well-written and referenced commentary could be very helpful here.
While I have a sense of what might be going on with these words, I have a memory that Paul sometimes uses νόμος in what seems like conflicting ways. I would rather wait until I have more time to look at both words before saying anything more.