Romans 7 "9/10 of the Law"

Romans 7 – Brandon Hatmaker “9/10 of the Law”
Thursday, May 29th, 2008

“So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.” – Romans 7:4

What a Word for each of us. I’ve heard it said, that “possession is 9/10ths of the law”. I’ve never really known what that means. So I did some research. Here’s what I found:

In a 1999 article in Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship, Nancy Magnuson Geise traces the phrase to a "play of uncertain authorship" called The Raigne of King Edward the Third, dating from 1596. Edward III of England is challenging the throne of King John of France. Phillip, one of John's sons, says, "I say, my Lord, claim Edward what he can, And bring he ne'er so plain a pedigree, Tis you are in the possession of the Crown, And that's the surest point of all the Law."

Geise finds the next variant, "[possession is] eleven points of the law," in A Dictionary of the Proverbs in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: A Collection of the Proverbs Found in English Literature and the Dictionaries of the Period by Morris Tilley, who credits William Camden circa 1623. "The Devil hath Eleven points of the law against you; that is, possession." This is the first confirmed example that associates "11 points of the law" with possession.

Meanwhile, in 1616, Thomas Draxe, in his book of proverbs, Bibliotheca Scholastica Instructissima, shaves a couple points off the total: "Possession is nine points in the law." After this instance and maybe one other, this variant of the proverb was dormant until 1809. 

A problem with early versions of the proverb was that nobody was really sure what the ten or twelve points of the law were. Some proposed lists of points, failing to grasp that the proverb was almost certainly meant ironically – if possession is nine points, the points are 1. possession; 2. possession; 3. possession … you get the picture.

So the most interesting question: what's the point that isn't possession? Nobody could satisfactorily answer that. No doubt it was confusion over the "points" that led to the modern version. As Geise puts it, "The jump … to the latest, and today by far the most prevalent form, “possession is nine-tenths of the law”, is logical. Unable to have a clear idea of what the legal points are that the original proverb could refer to, the proverb took on a more familiar form as a fraction: the implication of 'points' became superfluous."

Let’s read verse four again, “So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.”

What I read today is that we died to the law that we might belong to Christ. We are in possession of the King. What is the point that is not possession? Shall we argue? Nope, The final point is superfluous. The points that matter are (1) Possession, (2) Possession, (3) Possession, etc…

So as Phillip said in “The Raigne of King Edward the Third”, "I say, my Lord, claim Edward what he can, And bring he ne'er so plain a pedigree, Tis you are in the possession of the Crown, And that's the surest point of all the Law."

So what’s the point? The fact that there is no point worth regaining or attaining personal possession, Christ purchased it all. He is the ultimate Crown. And for what? That we might bear fruit. To whom? To God.

Father, may all that we have, all that we are, and all that we strive for simply be yours. Amen.