For many people Romans 8 is the high point of the Bible, especially because of its emphasis on the Christian’s assurance of victory over all opposing forces. Godet (295) remarks that this chapter begins with no condemnation and ends with no separation. It is truly the logical climax of the gospel of grace.

Paul’s heart-cry in 7:24, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?”, was immediately answered in brief: “Thanks be to God [because he has rescued me] through Jesus Christ our Lord” (7:25a).

While the main concern of this question and its answer is freedom from the power of indwelling sin, we need to be reminded again of the main point already established in 3:21-5:21, that the penalty for our sin has been paid in full by Jesus. In the midst of our intense spiritual struggle against sin, in which we are sometimes on the losing end, we need not fear that our forgiveness

This is a very difficult passage because it is so highly compressed, and because, all through it, Paul is making allusions to things which he has already said.

Two words keep occurring again and again in this chapter, flesh (sarx, <G4561>) and spirit (pneuma, <G4151>). We will not understand the passage at all unless we understand the way in which Paul is using these words.

(i) Sarx (<G4561>) literally means flesh. The most cursory reading of Paul’s letters will show how often he uses the word, and how he uses it in a sense that is all his own. Broadly speaking, he uses it in three different ways.

(a) He uses it quite literally. He speaks of physical circumcision, literally “in the flesh” (Rom 2:28). (b) Over and over again he uses the phrase kata (<G2596>) sarka (<G4561>), literally according to the flesh, which most often means looking at things from the human point of view.

For instance, he says that Abraham is our forefather kata (<G2596>) sarka (<G4561>), from the human point of view. He says that Jesus is the son of David kata (<G2596>) sarka (<G4561>) (Rom 1:3), that is to say, on the human side of his descent. He speaks of the Jews being his kinsmen kata (<G2596>) sarka (<G4561>) (Rom 9:3), that is to say, speaking of human relationships. When Paul uses the phrase kata (<G2596>) sarka (<G4561>), it always implies that he is looking at things from the human point of view.

(c) But he has a use of this word sarx (<G4561>) which is all his own. When he is talking of the Christians, he talks of the days when we were in the flesh (en (<G1722>) sarki, <G4561>) (Rom 7:5). He speaks of those who walk according to the flesh in contradistinction to those who live the Christian life (Rom 8:4-5). He says that those who are in the flesh cannot please God (Rom 8:8). He says that the mind of the flesh is death, and that it is hostile to God (Rom 8:6, 8). He talks about living according to the flesh (Rom 8:12). He says to his Christian friends, “You are not in the flesh” (Rom 8:9).

It is quite clear, especially from the last instance, that Paul is not using flesh simply in the sense of the body, as we say flesh and blood. How, then, is he using it? He really means human nature in all its weakness and he means human in its vulnerability to sin.

He means that part of man which gives sin its bridgehead. He means sinful human nature, apart from Christ, everything that attaches a man to the world instead of to God. To live according to the flesh is to live a life dominated by the dictates and desires of sinful human nature instead of a life dominated by the dictates and the love of God. The flesh is the lower side of man’s nature.

It is to be carefully noted that when Paul thinks of the kind of life that a man dominated by the sarx (<G4561>) lives he is not by any means thinking exclusively of sexual and bodily sins. When he gives a list of the works of the flesh in Gal 5:19-21, he includes the bodily and the sexual sins; but he also includes idolatry, hatred, wrath, strife, heresies, envy, murder. The flesh to him was not a physical thing but spiritual. It was human nature in all its sin and weakness; it was all that man is without God and without Christ.

(ii) There is the word Spirit; in Rom 8 it occurs no fewer than twenty times. This word has a very definite Old Testament background. In Hebrew it is ruach (<H7307>), and it has two basic thoughts. (a) It is not only the word for Spirit; it is also the word for wind. It has always the idea of power about it, power as of a mighty rushing wind. (b) In the Old Testament, it always has the idea of something that is more than human. Spirit, to Paul, represented a power which was divine.

So Paul says in this passage that there was a time when the Christian was at the mercy of his own sinful human nature. In that state the law simply became something that moved him to sin and he went from bad to worse, a defeated and frustrated man. But, when he became a Christian, into his life there came the surging power of the Spirit of God, and, as a result, he entered into victorious living.

In the second part of the passage Paul speaks of the effect of the work of Jesus on us. It is complicated and difficult, but what Paul is getting at is this. Let us remember that he began all this by saying that every man sinned in Adam. We saw how the Jewish conception of solidarity made it possible for him to argue that, quite literally, all men were involved in Adam’s sin and in its consequence—death.

But there is another side to this picture. Into this world came Jesus; with a completely human nature; and he brought to God a life of perfect obedience, of perfect fulfilment of God’s law. Now, because Jesus was fully a man, just as we were one with Adam, we are now one with him; and, just as we were involved in Adam’s sin, we are now involved in Jesus’ perfection. In him mankind brought to God the perfect obedience, just as in Adam mankind brought to God the fatal disobedience. Men are saved because they were once involved in Adam’s sin but are now involved in Jesus’ goodness. That is Paul’s argument, and, to him and to those who heard it, it was completely convincing, however hard it is for us to grasp it. Because of what Jesus did, there opens out to the Christian a life no longer dominated by the flesh but by that Spirit of God, which fills a man with a power not his own. The penalty of the past is removed and strength for his future is assured.

(Romans 8:1-2 NIV)  “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, {2} because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.”

At the end of chapter 7, Paul assures all believers of having power to overcome sin and the assurance of final deliverance from this evil world. But he includes the reminder that during this lifetime, there will be constant tension because in the sinful nature, even a believer is “a slave to the law of sin” (7:25).

The question arises, So, are we to spend our entire lives defeated by sin? The answer is a resounding no! In this chapter, Paul describes the life of victory and hope that every believer has because of Christ Jesus.

Paul’s heart-cry in 7:24, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?”, was immediately answered in brief: “Thanks be to God [because he has rescued me] through Jesus Christ our Lord” (7:25a). While the main concern of this question and its answer is freedom from the power of indwelling sin, we need to be reminded again of the main point already established in 3:21-5:21, that the penalty for our sin has been paid in full by Jesus. In the midst of our intense spiritual struggle against sin, in which we are sometimes on the losing end, we need not fear that our forgiveness is in jeopardy. Christ has already secured this for us on the cross.

With the suddenness of Pentecost, Paul begins his description of the victorious Christian life, referring repeatedly to the Holy Spirit. Up to this point in the letter, Paul has only mentioned the Spirit twice and not at all in 7:7-25; from here on, the Holy Spirit is mentioned specifically nineteen times. In the overall framework of the letter, Paul seems to have held this teaching in restraint. We must be aware of our need for the Holy Spirit before we are ready and willing to appropriate his help. The Holy Spirit’s presence and power answers much of the momentary despair of chapter 7. “The law of sin” triumphed in chapter 7 but is defeated in chapter 8 by the power of the Spirit of life.

This great chapter is, in a sense, the heart of Romans, being a shout of victory contrasting with the wail of despair which closed the seventh, the transition from the bleak and depressing condition of the unregenerated there, to the enthusiastic and joyful optimism of the eighth, being signaled by the adverb “now.”

In the very first clause of this chapter, one encounters the dramatic affirmation and proof that the condition just described in Rom. 7 was not describing Paul’s or any other Christian’s experience, but was a depiction of something prior to and diverse from the situation prevailing “now.”

On January 6, 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed Congress on the state of the war in Europe. Much of what he said that day has been forgotten. But at the close of his address, he said that he looked forward “to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.” He named them: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. These words are still remembered, even though their ideals have not yet been realized everywhere in the world.

Romans 8 is the Christian’s “Declaration of Freedom,” for in it Paul declares the spiritual freedoms we enjoy because of our union with Jesus Christ. A study of this chapter shows the emphasis on the Holy Spirit, who is mentioned 19 times.

The basis for this wonderful assurance is the phrase “in Christ Jesus.” In Adam, we were condemned. In Christ, there is no condemnation

The verse does not say “no mistakes” or “no failures,” or even “no sins.” Christians do fail and make mistakes, and they do sin. Abraham lied about his wife; David committed adultery; Peter tried to kill a man with his sword. To be sure, they suffered consequences because of their sins, but they did not suffer condemnation.

The Law condemns; but the believer has a new relationship to the Law, and therefore he cannot be condemned. Paul made three statements about the believer and the Law, and together they add up to: no condemnation.

Although the Bible is a book offering the good news of salvation from sin, it is also a book that presents the bad news of condemnation for sin. No single book or collection of writings on earth proclaims so completely and vividly the totally desperate situation of man apart from God.

In his letter to the Romans, Paul declared, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).

Because of that sinfulness, all unbelievers are under God’s condemnation and are “by nature children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3).

Sin places men under the power of Satan, the ruler of the present world system (John 12:31). They are under the control of “the prince of the power of the air” and “of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2).

As Paul went on to remind the Ephesian believers, all Christians were once a part of that evil system (v. 3). Jesus declared that Satan is the spiritual father of every unbeliever (John 8:41, 44), and that “the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning” (1 John 3:8; cf. v. 10).

Because of sin, all the rest of  “creation was subjected to futility (and] … groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now” (Rom. 8:20, 22).

Because of sin, the unbeliever have no future to look forward to except eternal damnation in hell. The lost will be in a place of “outer darkness,” Jesus said, where “there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 8:12).

Jesus’ perfect teaching and sinless life actually increased the condemnation of those who heard and saw Him.

“And this is the judgment,” Jesus said, “that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed” (John 3:19-20).

As the Lord had just explained, that was not God’s desire: “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him” (John 3:17).

Some have called Romans 8:1 the most hopeful verse in Scripture. It is bewildering that any thinking mind or searching soul would not run with eagerness to receive such divine provision. But perhaps the greatest tragedy of sin is that it blinds the sinner to the life-giving promises of God and causes him to trust in the false and death-giving allurements of Satan.

The Reality of Freedom—No Condemnation

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (8:1)

“Condemnation” is κατάκριμα (katakrima), used only here and in 5:16, 18. This is a judicial or forensic term. It refers to a judge’s sentence upon a guilty person, not only as pronounced but also as carried out. I.e., it means “penalty, punishment, doom.”

The word for “no” (οὐδέν, ouden) is emphatic and means “not a single one” of any kind (Lenski, 494). “In Christ Jesus” identifies those to whom this wonderful blessing applies, namely, those who have entered into the saving union with Christ described in 6:1-11.

The point of the verse is this: even though sin still lives in our bodies, causing us at times to do sinful things that we hate, we can be assured that these sins will not condemn us because Christ has already died for them and we belong to Christ

. Though we may still sin, we are “justified by his blood” (5:9); there is “no penalty” for us, none of any kind. No disaster or tribulation suffered in this life should now be interpreted as a punishment sent by God. No damnation to eternal hell awaits us after death, and even the sting of physical death has been blunted by the promise of resurrection from the dead:

1 Corinthians 15:53-57 (ESV)
⁵³  For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.
⁵⁴  When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
⁵⁵  “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
⁵⁶  The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
⁵⁷  But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

We feel condemned because Satan uses past guilt and present failures to make us question what Christ has done for us. Our assurance must be focused on Christ, not our performance.

• Our own conscience reminds us of guilt.
• Non-Christian friends will notice (and point out) our inconsistencies.
• Past memories of how we lived can haunt us.
• Personal dysfunctions such as shame, low self-esteem, or compulsions will trip us up.
• The perfection of the law will show how imperfect we are.
• We can allow Christ’s perfect example to discourage our efforts rather than encourage our trust.
• Unhealthy comparisons with other believers will make us feel inadequate.

“This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything” (1 John 3:19-20 niv).

Often, we are like the criminal who hates his incarceration while at the same time denying that he finds any security in his cell. Then, beyond all expectations, the warden announces a pardon and unlocks the cell. As the door swings open, the prisoner meets the delight of freedom and a tinge of fear of the unknown.

What will this new life be like? Many find a strange comfort in the familiar state of condemnation. Christ invites us to leave the cell behind. Some rush out joyfully, some calmly and thoughtfully, and others leave the cell of their old life with painful slowness. Once outside, most of us experience, from time to time, a strange longing for the old familiar cell. We must remember that what may seem appealing was actually a filthy holding cell on death row.

Because we have been rescued by Christ (7:24-25), and are thus in Christ Jesus, we are not condemned. To be in Christ Jesus means to have put our faith in him, becoming a member of his body of believers as you have believed, repented, confessed, and been baptized in order to have sins forgiven.

Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life” (John 5:24 niv).

There can be no condemnation, for “we have been justified through faith” and “have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (5:2).

In the original manuscript, there was probably no break between Paul’s summation in 7:25 of the struggle between the two allegiances (two minds) within himself and the proclamation in 8:1 that in Christ Jesus, there is no condemnation for our vacillations.

Christians must never forget the reality of our rescue and our indebtedness to God’s grace in Christ. We can persevere in our daily struggles knowing that “if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself’ (2 Timothy 2:13 niv).

Our need for the ongoing presence of the Holy Spirit is so clear at this point that some early manuscripts add, after Jesus, the phrase from verse 4, “who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.” But putting that phrase here completes the thought too quickly, an approach Paul seldom used.

By simple definition, therefore introduces a result, consequence, or conclusion based on what has been established previously. It seems probable that therefore marks a consequent conclusion from the entire first seven chapters, which focus primarily on justification by faith alone, made possible solely on the basis of and by the power of God’s grace.

Chapter 8 marks a major change in the focus and flow of the epistle. At this point the apostle begins to delineate the marvelous results of justification in the life of the believer. He begins by explaining, as best as possible to finite minds, some of the cardinal truths of salvation (no condemnation, as well as justification, substitution, and sanctification).

God’s provision of salvation came not through Christ’s perfect teaching or through His perfect life but through His perfect sacrifice on the cross. It is through Christ’s death, not His life, that God provides the way of salvation. For those who place their trust in Christ and in what He has done on their behalf
there is therefore now no condemnation.

The Greek word for condemnation appears only in the book of Romans, here and in 5:16, 18. Although it relates to the sentencing for a crime, its primary focus is not so much on the verdict as on the penalty that the verdict demands. As Paul has already declared, the penalty, or condemnation, for sin is death (6:23).

That is the heart and soul of the gospel—that Jesus completely and permanently paid the debt of sin and the penalty of the law (which is condemnation to death)  for every person who humbly asks for mercy and trusts in Him through baptism for remission of sins.

Through the apostle John, God assures His children that (1 John 2:1-2)  My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense–Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. {2} He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

Jesus not only pays the believer’s debt of sin but cleanses him “from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Still more amazingly, He graciously imputes and imparts to each believer His own perfect righteousness: “For by one offering He [Christ] has perfected for all time those who are sanctified (Heb. 10:14).”

(Romans 5:17)  For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

(2 Corinthians 5:21)  God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

(Philippians 3:9)  “…and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ–the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.

The truth that there can never be the eternal death penalty for faithful Christians is the foundation of the eighth chapter of Romans. As Paul asks rhetorically near the end of the chapter, “If God is for us, who is against us?” (v. 31), and again, “who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies” (v. 33).

It is extremely important to realize that deliverance from condemnation is not based in the least measure on any form of perfection achieved by the believer. He does not attain the total eradication of sin during his earthly life.

John declares that truth as unambiguously as possible in his first epistle: “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). The Christian’s conflict with sin does not end until he goes to be with the Lord.

But remember: the believer is to be judged for his faithfulness to Christ. He will be judged for how responsible he is—for how well he uses his “spiritual gifts” for Christ—for how diligently he serves Christ in the work of God. The judgment of the believer will take place at the great judgment seat of Christ.

The key to every aspect of salvation is in the simple but infinitely profound phrase in Christ Jesus. A Christian is a person who is in Christ Jesus. Paul has already declared that “all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death,” and that “therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection” (Rom. 6:3-5).

Our being in Christ is one of the profoundest of mysteries, which we will not fully understand until we meet Him face-to-face in heaven. But Scripture does shed light on that marvelous truth. We know that we are in Christ spiritually, in a divine and permanent union. “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive,” Paul explains (1 Cor. 15:22).

Believers are also in Christ in a living, participatory sense. “Now you are Christ’s body,” Paul declares in that same epistle, “and individually members of it” (12:27).

We are actually a part of Him and, in ways that are unfathomable to us now we work when He works, grieve when He grieves, and rejoice when He rejoices. “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body,” Paul assures us, “whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13). Christ’s own divine life pulses through us.

Many people are concerned about their family heritage, about who their ancestors were, where they lived, and what they did. For better or worse, we are all life—linked physically, intellectually, and culturally to our ancestors. In a similar, but infinitely more important way, we are linked to the family of God because of our relationship to His Son, Jesus Christ. It is for that reason that every Christian can say, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me” (Gal. 2:20).

The story is told of a man who operated a drawbridge. At a certain time each afternoon, he had to raise the bridge for a ferry boat and then lower it quickly for a passenger train that crossed at high speed a few minutes later.

One day the man’s young son was visiting his father at work and decided to go down below to get a better look at the ferry as it passed. Fascinated by the sight, he did not watch carefully where he was going and fell into the giant gears. One foot became caught and the boy was helpless to free himself.

The father saw what happened but knew that if he took time to extricate his son, the train would plunge into to the river before the bridge could be lowered. But if he lowered the bridge to save the hundreds of passengers and crew members on the train, his son would be crushed to death.

When he heard the train’s whistle, indicating it would soon reach the river; he knew what he had to do. His son was very dear to him, whereas all the people on the train were total strangers. The sacrifice of his son for the sake of the other people was an act of pure grace and mercy.

That story portrays something of the infinitely greater sacrifice God the Father made when He sent His only beloved Son to earth to die for the sins of mankind—to whom He owed nothing but condemnation.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS

Seven times already in this letter, Paul had stressed the significance of being “in Christ.” Faith (Rom. 3:26), redemption (Rom. 3:24), peace (Rom. 5:1), rejoicing in God (Rom. 5:11), abundance of grace and of the gifts of righteousness (Rom. 5:17), being alive unto God (Rom. 6:11), and eternal life (Rom. 6:22), were all mentioned by Paul as blessings available to man “in Christ” and nowhere else. The expression “in Christ” opens and closes this chapter, and no understanding of Paul’s gospel is possible without emphasis upon this concept.

What does it mean to be “in Christ”? Smedes wrote: “Incorporation into Christ means, in practice, incorporation into the church. The church is the social organism which forms Christ’s earthly body now … Being in the church, incorporated into it by baptism, the Christian is in Christ himself. “

This view is disparaged by some as sacramentalist; but Paul himself stated exactly this conception in his declarations that people are baptized into “one body” (which is the church) (1 Cor. 12:13), and that all Christians are likewise “baptized into Christ” (Rom. 6:3; Gal. 3:26,27). Of course, being “in Christ” means far more than mere enrollment in an earthly society that calls itself a church.

Being truly “in Christ” means having been born again, having believed with all the heart, having received the remission of sins and the Holy Spirit of promise (Eph. 1:13), walking in newness of life, rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God, etc.; in short, it means having become a partaker of the salvation Christ came to deliver. However, the participation in community is without any doubt included. No man is an island; and since it true that, from the very beginning, God added to the church those that were being saved (Acts 2:47), it is axiomatic that one not in the church is not saved either.

This view does not fit in with modern man’s passion to be relieved of any obligation toward the church; but it is nevertheless the viewpoint of the word of God. The Scriptures affirm that Christ gave his blood for the church (Acts 20:28); and no philosophy of religion that downgrades the church and reduces it to a non-essential status can ever be reconciled with such a truth as this. If men may truly be saved without the church for which Jesus shed his blood, then the death of Christ upon Calvary is reduced to futility.

No condemnation … refers to man’s justification, defined negatively as a state wherein is no condemnation. The ground of justification is the perfect righteousness in Christ; and it includes the perfect faith and obedience of Christ, in whom the righteousness of God truly exists; and the availability of that righteousness of Christ for the salvation of sinners does not derive from some magical transfer of Christ’s righteousness to them in consequence of the sinner’s faith nor of anything else that the sinner might either believe or do; but it derives from the fact of the sinner’s being transferred into Christ Jesus where the righteousness is. Briefly, salvation is not procured by the transfer of righteousness to the sinner, but by the transfer of the sinner into Christ.

The addition to this verse found in the KJV has been rejected by the scholars on what surely appears to be sound critical judgment, because it is not found in any of the oldest manuscripts that have been handed down through history. There is a plausible explanation of the error by Murray, who wrote:

It is most likely that it was inserted from the end of Rom. 8:4 in the course of transcription.

* Coffman Commentaries – Coffman Commentaries – Coffman Commentary: Romans.

Romans 7:14-25: “We are aware that the law is spiritual; but I am a creature of flesh and blood under the power of sin. I cannot understand what I do. What I want to do, that I do not do; but what I hate, that I do. If what I do not want to do I in point of fact do, then I acquiesce in the law, and I agree that it is fair. As it is, it is no longer I who do it, but the sin which resides in me-I mean in my human nature. To will the fair thing is within my range, but not to do it. For I do not do the good that I want to do; but the evil that I do not want to do, that is the very thing I do. And if I do that very thing that I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but the sin which resides in me. My experience of the law, then, is that I wish to do the fine thing and that the evil thing is the only thing that is within my ability. As far as my inner self is connected, I fully agree with the law of God; but I see another law in my members, continually carrying on a campaign against the law of my mind, and making me a captive by the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this fatal body? God will! Thanks be to him through Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore with my mind I serve the law of God, but with my human nature the law of sin.

This passage is obviously a poignant account of a person’s inner conflict with himself, one part of him pulling one direction and another part pulling the opposite. The conflict is real and it is intense.

For perhaps as long as the church has known this text, however, interpreters have disagreed as to whether the person described is a Christian or a non-Christian. Whole movements have arisen to promote one of those views or the other. One side maintains that the person is too much in bondage to sin to be a believer, whereas the other side maintains that the person has too much love for the things of God and too much hatred of sin to be an unbeliever.

It is obviously important, therefore, to determine which sort of person Paul is talking about before any interpretation of the passage is attempted. It is also of some importance to determine whether Paul’s first person singular refers to himself or whether that is simply a literary device he uses to identify more personally with his readers. The answer to those two questions will automatically answer a third: If Paul is speaking of himself, is he speaking of his condition before or after his conversion?

Those who believe Paul is speaking about an unbeliever point out that he describes the person as being “of flesh, sold into bondage” (v. 14), as having nothing good dwelling in him (v. 18), and as a “wretched man” trapped in a “body of … death” (v. 24). How then, it is argued, could such a person correspond to the Christian Paul describes in chapter 6 as having died to sin (v. 2), as having his old self crucified and no longer being enslaved to sin (v. 6), as being “freed from sin” (vv. 7, 18, 22), as considering himself dead to sin (v. 11), and as being obedient from the heart to God’s Word (v. 17)?

Those who contend Paul is speaking about a believer in chapter 7 point out that this person desires to obey God’s law and hates doing what is evil (vv. 15, 19, 21), that he is humble before God, realizing that nothing good dwells in his humanness (v. 18), and that he sees sin as in him, but not all there is in him (vv. 17, 20-22). He gives thanks to Jesus Christ as his Lord and serves Him with his mind (v. 25). The apostle has already established that none of those things characterize the unsaved. The unbeliever not only hates God’s truth and righteousness but suppresses them, he willfully rejects the natural evidence of God, he neither honors nor gives thanks to God, and he is totally dominated by sin so that he arrogantly disobeys God’s law and encourages others to do so (1:18-21, 32).

In Romans 6, Paul began his discussion of sanctification by focusing on the believer as a new creation, a completely new person in Christ. The emphasis is therefore on the holiness and righteousness of the believer, both imputed and imparted. For the reasons given in the previous paragraph, as well as for other reasons that will be mentioned later, it seems certain that in chapter 7 the apostle is still talking about the believer. Here, however, the focus is on the conflict a believer continues to have with sin. Even in chapter 6, Paul indicates that believers still must continually do battle with sin in their lives. He therefore admonishes them: “Do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness” (Rom. 6:12-13).

Some interpreters believe that chapter 7 describes the carnal, or fleshly, Christian, one who is living on a very low level of spirituality. Many suggest that this person is a frustrated, legalistic Christian who attempts in his own power to please God by trying to live up to the Mosaic law.

But the attitude expressed in chapter 7 is not typical of legalists, who tend to be self-satisfied with their fulfillment of the law. Most people are attracted to legalism in the first place because it offers the prospect of living up to God’s standards by one’s own power.

It seems rather that Paul is here describing the most spiritual and mature of Christians, who, the more they honestly measure themselves against God’s standards of righteousness the more they realize how much they fall short. The closer we get to God, the more we see our own sin. Thus it is immature, fleshly, and legalistic persons who tend to live under the illusion that they are spiritual and that they measure up well by God’s standards. The level of spiritual insight, brokenness, contrition, and humility that characterize the person depicted in Romans 7 are marks of a spiritual and mature believer, who before God has no trust in his own goodness and achievements.

It also seems, as one would naturally suppose from the use of the first person singular (which appears forty-six times in Rom. 7:7-25), that Paul is speaking of himself. Not only is he the subject of this passage, but it is the mature and spiritually seasoned apostle that is portrayed. Only a Christian at the height of spiritual maturity would either experience or be concerned about such deep struggles of heart, mind, and conscience. The more clearly and completely he saw God’s holiness and goodness, the more Paul recognized and grieved over his own sinfulness.

Paul reflects the same humility many places in his writings. In his first letter to the church at Corinth, he confessed, “I am the least of the apostles, who am not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God” (1 Cor. 15:9). Although he refers there to his attitude and actions before his conversion, he speaks of his apostleship in the present tense, considering himself still to be unworthy of that high calling. To the Ephesian believers he spoke of himself as “the very least of all saints” (Eph. 3:8), and to Timothy he marvelled that the Lord “considered me faithful, putting me into service” and refers to himself as the foremost of sinners (1 Tim. 1:12, 15). He knew and confessed that whatever he was in Christ was fully due to the grace of God (1 Cor. 15:10).

Only a new creation in Christ lives with such tension of sin against righteousness, because only a Christian has the divine nature of God within him. Because he is no longer in Adam but now in Christ, he possesses the Spirit-given desire to be conformed to Christ’s own image and be made perfect in righteousness. But sin still clings to his humanness, although in his inner being he hates and despises it.

He has passed from darkness to light and now shares in Christ’s death, burial, resurrection, and eternal life, but as he grows in Christlikeness, he also becomes more and more aware of the continued presence and power of indwelling sin, which he loathes and longs to be rid of. It is such sensitivity that caused the fourth-century church Father John Chrysostom to say in his Second Homily on Eutropius that he feared nothing but sin. The person depicted in Romans 7 has a deep awareness of his own sin and an equally deep desire to please the Lord in all things. Only a mature Christian could be so characterized.

The Puritan writer Thomas Watson observed that one of the certain signs of “sanctification is an antipathy against sin … A hypocrite may leave sin, yet love it; as a serpent casts its coat, but keeps its sting; but a sanctified person can say he not only leaves sin, but loathes it.” He goes on to say to the Christian, “God … has not only chained up sin, but changed thy nature, and made thee as a king’s daughter, all glorious within. He has put upon thee the breastplate of holiness, which, though it may be shot at, can never be shot through” (A Body of Divinity (London: Banner of Truth, rev ed., 1965], pp. 246, 250).

The spiritual believer is sensitive to sin because he knows it grieves the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:30), because it dishonors God (1 Cor. 6:19-20), because sin keeps his prayers from being answered (1 Pet. 3:12), and because sin makes his life spiritually powerless (1 Cor. 9:27). The spiritual believer is sensitive to sin because it causes good things from God to be withheld (Jer. 5:25), because it robs him of the joy of salvation (Ps. 51:12), because it inhibits spiritual growth (1 Cor. 3:1), because it brings chastisement from the Lord (Heb. 12:57), and because it prevents his being a fit vessel for the Lord to use (2 Tim. 2:21). The spiritual believer is sensitive to sin because it pollutes Christian fellowship (1 Cor. 10:21), because it prevents participating properly in the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:28-29), and because it can even endanger his physical life and health (1 Cor. 11:30; 1 John 5:16).

As pointed out in the previous chapter of this volume, Paul uses past tense verbs in Romans 7:7-13, which doubtless indicates he was speaking of his preconversion life. Beginning in verse 14, however, and continuing throughout the rest of the chapter, he uses the present tense exclusively in reference to himself. That abrupt, obvious, and consistent change of tenses strongly supports the idea that in verses 14-25 Paul is describing his life as a Christian.

Beginning in verse 14 there is also an obvious change in the subject’s circumstances in relation to sin. In verses 7-13 Paul speaks of sin as deceiving and slaying him. He gives the picture of being at sin’s mercy and helpless to extricate himself from its deadly grasp. But in verses 14-25 he speaks of a conscious and determined battle against sin, which is still a powerful enemy but is no longer his master. In this latter part of the chapter Paul also continues to defend the righteousness of God’s law and rejoice in the benefits of His law which, although it cannot save from sin, can nevertheless continue to reveal and convict of sin in the believer’s life, just as it did before salvation.

As long as a believer remains on earth in his mortal and corrupted body, the law will continue to be his spiritual ally. The obedient and Spirit-filled believer, therefore, greatly values and honors all the moral and spiritual commandments of God. He continues to declare with the psalmist, “Thy word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against Thee” (Ps. 119:11), and that Word is more than ever a lamp to his feet and a light to his path (Ps. 119:105). God’s Word is more valuable for believers under the New Covenant than it was for those under the Old Covenant, not only because the Lord has revealed more of His truth to us in the New Testament, but also because believers now have the fulness of His indwelling Holy Spirit to illumine and apply His truth. Therefore, although the law cannot save or sanctify, it is still holy, righteous, and good (Rom. 7:12), and obedience to it offers great benefits both to believers and unbelievers.

Paul is still teaching about the broader subject of justification by grace through faith. He has established that justification results in the believer’s security (chap. 5), his holiness (chap. 6), and his freedom from bondage to the law (7:1-6). To that list of benefits the apostle now adds sensitivity to and hatred of sin.

In Romans 7:14-25 Paul gives a series of laments about his spiritual predicament and difficulties. The first three laments (vv. 14-17, 18-20, 21-23) follow the same pattern. Paul first describes the spiritual condition he is lamenting, then gives proof of its reality, and finally reveals the source of the problem. The final lament (vv. 24-25) also includes a beautiful exultation of gratitude to God for His Son Jesus Christ, because of whose gracious sacrifice believers in Him are no longer under condemnation, in spite of the lingering power of sin (8:1).

Paul is baring his very soul; and he is telling us of an experience which is of the very essence of the human situation. He knew what was right and wanted to do it; and yet, somehow, he never could. He knew what was wrong and the last thing he wanted was to do it; and yet, somehow, he did. He felt himself to be a split personality. It was as if two men were inside the one skin, pulling in different directions. He was haunted by this feeling of frustration, his ability to see what was good and his inability to do it; his ability to recognize what was wrong and his inability to refrain from doing it.

Paul’s contemporaries well knew this feeling, as, indeed, we know it ourselves. Seneca talked of “our helplessness in necessary things.” He talked about how men hate their sins and love them at the same time. Ovid, the Roman poet, had penned the famous tag: “I see the better things, and I approve them, but I follow the worse.”

No one knew this problem better than the Jews. They had solved it by saying that in every man there were two natures, called the Yetser hatob and the Yetser hara. It was the Jewish conviction that God had made men like that with a good impulse and an evil impulse inside them.

There were Rabbis who believed that that evil impulse was in the very embryo in the womb, there before a man was even born. It was “a malevolent second personality.” It was “man’s implacable enemy.” It was there waiting, if need be for a lifetime, for a chance to ruin man. But the Jew was equally clear, in theory, that no man need ever succumb to that evil impulse. It was all a matter of choice.

There were certain things which would keep a man from falling to the evil impulse. There was the law. They thought of God as saying: “I created for you the evil impulse; I created for you the law as an antiseptic.””If you occupy yourself with the law you will not fall into the power of the evil impulse.”

There was the will and the mind.

“When God created man, he implanted in him his affections and his dispositions; and then, over all, he enthroned the sacred, ruling mind.”

When the evil impulse attacked, the Jew held that wisdom and reason could defeat it; to be occupied with the study of the word of the Lord was safety; the law was a prophylactic; at such a time the good impulse could be called up in defence.

Paul knew all that; and knew, too, that, while it was all theoretically true, in practice it was not true. There were things in man’s human nature-that is what Paul meant by this fatal body-which answered to the seduction of sin. It is part of the human situation that we know the right and yet do the wrong, that we are never as good as we know we ought to be. At one and the same time we are haunted by goodness and haunted by sin.

From one point of view this passage might be called a demonstration of inadequacies.

(i) It demonstrates the inadequacy of human knowledge. If to know the right thing was to do it, life would be easy. But knowledge by itself does not make a man good. It is the same in every walk of life. We may know exactly how golf should be played but that is very far from being able to play it; we may know how poetry ought to be written but that is very far from being able to write it. We may know how we ought to behave in any given situation but that is very far from being able so to behave. That is the difference between religion and morality. Morality is knowledge of a code; religion is knowledge of a person; and it is only when we know Christ that we are able to do what we know we ought.

(ii) It demonstrates the inadequacy of human resolution. To resolve to do a thing is very far from doing it. There is in human nature an essential weakness of the will. The will comes up against the problems, the difficulties, the opposition-and it fails. Once Peter took a great resolution. “Even if I must die with you,” he said, “I will not deny you” (Matthew 26:35); and yet he failed badly when it came to the point. The human will unstrengthened by Christ is bound to crack.

(iii) It demonstrates the limitations of diagnosis. Paul knew quite clearly what was wrong; but he was unable to put it right. He was like a doctor who could accurately diagnose a disease but was powerless to prescribe a cure. Jesus is the one person who not only knows what is wrong, but who can also put the wrong to rights. It is not criticism he offers but help.

(7:14) Law: the law is spiritual. It is spiritual in at least three senses.

1. The law was given to man by the Spirit of God (pneumatikos). The Greek word used is the very name of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the source of the law.
2. The law is the expression of the will and nature of God. The law is spiritual because it describes the will of God and tells man just what God is like. The rules of the law reveal both the mind and nature of God.
3. The law is spiritual because of its purposes.

(7:14-17) Carnal—Flesh—Man, Nature: the first confession of Paul is that he is carnal, sold under sin. The word “carnal” or “fleshly” (sarkinos) means to be made of flesh; to consist of flesh; to have a body of flesh and blood. It means the flesh with which a man is born, the fleshly nature one inherits from his parents when he is born.

The word carnal also means to be given up to the flesh, that is, to live a fleshly, sensual life; to be given over to animal appetites; to be controlled by one’s fleshly nature.

Paul says that he is “sold under sin.” He simply means that as a creature of flesh, that is, as a man, he is…

• a slave to sin.
• under sin’s influence.
• subject to sin.
• capable of sinning.
• guilty of sinning.
• cannot free himself from being short of God’s glory.
• cannot keep from sinning—not perfectly.
• cannot erase sin’s presence—not completely.
• cannot cast sin out of his life—not totally.
• cannot get rid of sin—not permanently.

Paul makes three points about his being carnal and sold under sin.

1. He says that a carnal life is a helpless, unceasing struggle.
2. “That which I do I allow not”: the word “allow” (ginosko) means to recognize, to know, to perceive. A carnal man finds himself doing things, and he cannot understand why he is doing them. He fights and struggles against them, but before he knows it, he has sinned and come short. The sin was upon him before he even recognized and saw it. If he had known that the behavior was sin, he would have never done it, but he did not recognize it as coming short of God’s glory and God’s will for his life.
3. “What I would, that do I not.” Paul says that he wanted to do right and to please God as he walked throughout life day by day. He wanted to be conformed to the image of Christ and to become all that God wanted him to be. But despite his desire and expectation, before he knew it, he found himself coming short of God’s glory and will.
4. “What I hate, that do I.” Paul hated sin and hated coming short of God’s glory. He struggled against failing and displeasing God; he hated everything that hurt and cut the heart of God, and he fought to erase it completely from his life. But no matter how much he hated and struggled against coming short, he still found himself failing.
5. A carnal life demonstrates that human nature and knowledge is inadequate. A carnal man fails to live for God like he should. No matter how much he tries to please God and to be conformed to the image of Christ, he comes short.

Now note: it is the law that tells man that he comes short. The law tells him that despite all his efforts to please God, he is short and not acceptable to God. He may know the law and he may try to keep the law, but his desire to know and to seek God will not save him. His nature and knowledge are not enough; they fail. What he needs is a Savior, One outside his own flesh who can forgive his sins and impart eternal life to him.

Note another fact: a carnal life proves the law is good. The word “consent” (sumphemi) means to agree, to say the same thing, to speak right along with the law, to prove and demonstrate and show that the law is right. The law proves and demonstrates that a man cannot live a perfectly righteous life. A carnal man proves the very same thing. He sins, finding himself doing exactly what the law says not to do and what he himself prefers not to do.

The point is this: when a carnal man sins, the law points out his sin. The law tells the carnal man the truth: he is a sinner doomed to die. Knowing this, the carnal man is able to seek the Lord and His forgiveness. Therefore, the carnal man agrees with the law; the law is very good, for it tells him that he must seek the Savior and His forgiveness. He may not actually follow through and seek the Lord, but the law has at least fulfilled its function and shown the carnal man what he needs to do.

1. Paul’s conclusion is that man has a fleshly nature. What causes him to conclude this? As a man who was a genuine believer, he did not want to sin; he actually willed not to sin. However, he found that he could not keep from sinning. He continually came short of the glory of God and failed to be consistently conformed to the image of Christ. Why?

• Not because he failed to exercise his will.
• Not because his mind was not focused upon Christ.
• Not because he did not know God’s will.
• Not because he did not seek to do God’s will.
• Not because he did not call upon every faculty and power of his being.

He came short and failed because of sin that dwells in him, because of sin within his flesh. The carnal man finds a principle, a law of sin within his flesh that tugs and pulls him to sin. He finds that no matter what he does, he sins…

• by living for himself before he lives for God and for others.
• by putting himself before the laws concerning God and the laws concerning man. (This refers to the ten commandments where the first laws govern our relationship to God and the last laws govern our relationship to man.)

No matter what resources and faculties man uses and no matter how diligently he tries, he is unable to control sin and to keep from sinning. Sin is within his flesh; it dwells in him. In fact, man is corrupt and dies for this very reason. He was never made to be corruptible nor to die; he was not created with the seed of corruption that causes him to age and deteriorate and decay (Romans 5:12). The seed of corruption was planted in his flesh, in his body and life when he sinned. The carnal life proves that man cannot keep from sinning, that man is diseased with the seed of corruption, the seed of a fleshly nature.

The conjunction for carries the idea of because and indicates that Paul is not introducing a new subject but is giving a defense of what he has just said. He begins by again affirming that the Law is not the problem, because it is spiritual. Salvation by grace through faith does not replace or devalue the Law, because the law was never a means of salvation. As observed previously, Hebrews 11 and many other passages of Scripture make clear that the only means of salvation has always been the provision and power of God’s grace working through the channel of man’s faith.

“But I,” Paul continues, “am still of the flesh. I am still earthbound and mortal.” It is important to note that the apostle does not say he is still in the flesh but that he is still of it. He has already explained that believers are no longer “in the flesh” (7:5; cf. 8:8), no longer bound by and enslaved to its sinfulness as they once were. The idea is that, although believers are not still in the flesh, the flesh is still in them. In his first letter to the church at Corinth, Paul describes the Christians there as “men of flesh,… babes in Christ” (1 Cor. 3:1). As the apostle confesses later in the present passage, using the present tense, “I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh” (7:18). Even as an apostle of Jesus Christ he possessed a remnant of the sinfulness that characterizes all human beings, including those who, in Christ, are saved from its total mastery and its condemnation.

But the Christian’s spirit, his inner self, has been completely and forever cleansed of sin. It is for that reason that, at death, he is prepared to enter God’s presence in perfect holiness and purity. Because his spiritual rebirth has already occurred, his flesh, with its remaining sin, is left behind.

Every well-taught and honest Christian is aware that his life falls far short of God’s perfect standard of righteousness and that he falls back into sin with disturbing frequency. He is no longer of his former father, the devil (John 8:44); he no longer loves the world (1 John 2:15); and he is no longer sin’s slave—but he is still subject to its deceit and is still attracted by many of its allurements. Yet the Christian cannot be happy with his sin, because it is contrary to his new nature and because he knows that it grieves his Lord as well as his own conscience.

The story is told of an unbeliever who, when he heard of the gospel of salvation by grace alone, commented, “If I could believe that salvation is free and is received only by faith, I would believe and then take my fill of sin.” The person witnessing to him wisely replied, “How much sin do you think it would take to fill a true Christian to satisfaction?” His point was that a person who has not lost his appetite for sin cannot be truly converted.

The phrase sold into bondage to sin has caused many interpreters to miss Paul’s point and to take those words as evidence the person being talked about is not a Christian. But Paul uses a similar phrase in verse 23, where he makes clear that only his members, that is, his fleshly body, is “a prisoner of the law of sin.” That lingering part of his unredeemed humanness is still sinful and consequently makes warfare against the new and redeemed part of him, which is no longer sin’s prisoner and is now its avowed enemy.

Paul’s strong words about his condition do not indicate he was only partially saved at the time but rather emphasize that sin can continue to have dreadful power in a Christian’s life and is not to be trifled with. The believer’s battle with sin is strenuous and life-long. And as Paul also points out later in this chapter, even a Christian can truthfully say, “I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh” (Rom. 7:18). In himself, that is, in his remaining fleshly being, a Christian is no more holy or sinless than he was before salvation.

Probably many years after he became a believer, David prayed, “Be gracious to me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness; according to the greatness of Thy compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me” (Ps. 51:1-3). The rendering in the New International Version of verse 5 of that psalm gives helpful insight: “Surely I have been a sinner from birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” David well understood the truth the apostle John would later proclaim to believers: “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:8-10).

It was in that humble spirit that Isaiah, although a prophet of God, confessed as he stood before the heavenly throne: “I am a man of unclean lips” (Isa. 6:5). Like Isaiah, the more a Christian draws near to God, the more clearly he perceives the Lord’s holiness and his own sinfulness.

The commentator C. E. B. Cranfield observed, “The more seriously a Christian strives to live from grace and to submit to the discipline of the gospel, the more sensitive he becomes to … the fact that even his very best acts and activities are disfigured by the egotism which is still powerful within him—and no less evil because it is often more subtly disguised than formerly” (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1975], p. 358).

Thomas Scott, an evangelical preacher of the Church of England in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, wrote that when a believer “compares his actual attainments with the spirituality of the law and with his own desire and aim to obey it, he sees that he is yet, to a great degree, carnal in the state of his mind, and under the power of evil propensities, from which (like a man sold for a slave) he cannot wholly emancipate himself. He is carnal in exact proportion to the degree in which he falls short of perfect conformity to the law of God” (cited in Geoffrey B. Wilson, Romans: A Digest of Reformed Comment (London: Banner of Truth, 1969], p.121).

Sin is so wretched and powerful that, even in a redeemed person, it hangs on and contaminates his living and frustrates his inner desire to obey the will of God.

Paul’s proof that sin still indwelt him was in the reality that that which I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do. Understand has the basic meaning of taking in knowledge in regard to something or someone, knowledge that goes beyond the merely factual. By extension, the term frequently was used of a special relationship between the person who knows and the object of the knowledge. It was often used of the intimate relationship between husband and wife and between God and His people. Paul uses the term in that way to represent the relationship between the saved and the Savior: “Now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again?” (Gal. 4:9). By further extension, the word was used in the sense of approving or accepting something or someone. “If anyone loves God,” Paul says, “he is known [accepted] by Him” (1 Cor. 8:3).

That seems to be the meaning here and is consistent with the last half of the sentence. Paul found himself doing things he did not approve of. It was not that he was unable to do a particular good thing but that when he saw the fullness and grandeur of God’s law he was not able to measure up completely. It was not that he could never accomplish any good at all, nor that he could never faithfully obey God. The apostle was rather expressing an inner turmoil of the most profound kind, of sincerely desiring in his heart to fulfill the spirit as well as thelet ter of the law (see 7:6) but realizing that he was unable to live up to the Lord’s perfect standards and his own heart’s desire.

It was not Paul’s conscience that was bothering him because of some unforgiven sin or selfish reluctance to follow the Lord. It was his inner man, recreated in the likeness of Christ and indwelt by His Spirit, that now could see something of the true holiness, goodness, and glory of God’s law and was grieved at his least infraction or falling short of it. In glaring contrast to his preconversion self-satisfaction in thinking himself blameless before God’s law (Phil. 3:6), Paul now realized how wretchedly short of God’s perfect law he lived, even as a Spirit-indwelt believer and an apostle of Jesus Christ.

That spirit of humble contrition is a mark of every spiritual disciple of Christ, who cries out, “Lord, I can’t be all you want me to be, I am unable to fulfill your perfect, holy, and glorious law.” In great frustration and sorrow he painfully confesses with Paul, I am not practicing what I would like to do.

Paul now deals with the reason, or the source, of his inability to perfectly fulfill the law and he begins by staunchly defending the divine standard. “Whatever the reason for my doing the very thing I do not wish to do,” he says, “it is not the law’s fault. I agree with the Law in every detail. My new self, the new creation that placed God’s incorruptible and eternal seed within me, is wholeheartedly confessing that the law is good. In my redeemed being I sincerely long to honor the law and to fulfill it perfectly.”

Every Christian has in his heart a sense of the moral excellence of God’s Law. And the more mature he becomes in Christ, the more fully he perceives and lauds the law’s goodness, holiness, and glory. The more profoundly he is committed to the direction of the Holy Spirit in his life, the deeper his love for the Lord Jesus Christ becomes, the deeper his sense of God’s holiness and majesty becomes, and the greater will be his longing to fulfill God’s law.

What then, is the problem? What is the source of our failure to live up to God’s standards and our own inner desires? “Now it is no longer I who is the one doing it,” Paul explains, “but sin which indwells me.”

Paul was not trying to escape personal responsibility. He was not mixing the pure gospel with Greek philosophical dualism, which later plagued the early church and is popular in some church circles today. The apostle was not teaching that the spirit world is all good and the physical world all evil, as the influential
Gnostic philosophy of his day contended. Proponents of that ungodly school of thought invariably develop moral insensitivity. They justify their sin by claiming it is entirely the product of their physical bodies, which are going to be destroyed anyway, and that the inner, spiritual person remains innately good and is untouched by and unaccountable for anything the body does.

The apostle had already confessed his own complicity in his sin. “I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin,” he said of his present earthly life as a believer (7:14). If the “real” inner Christian were not responsible for sin in his life, he would have no reason to confess it and have it cleansed and forgiven. As noted above, John makes clear that a claim of sinlessness makes God a liar and proves that His Word is not in us (1 John 1:10). A true believer is continually recognizing and confessing his sin (v. 9).

Throughout this chapter Paul has spoken in personal, nontechnical terms. He has not been drawing precise theological distinctions between the old preconversion life of a believer and his new life in Christ. He was certainly not teaching that a Christian has two natures or two personalities. There is just one saved person, just as previously there was one lost person.

In verse 17, however, Paul becomes more technical and theologically precise in his terminology. There had been a radical change in his life, as there has been in the life of every Christian. No longer is a negative adverb of time, indicating a complete and permanent change. Paul’s new I, his new inner self, no longer approves of the sin that still clings to him through the flesh. Whereas before his conversion his inner self approved of the sin he committed, now his inner self, a completely new inner self, strongly disapproves. He explains the
reason for that change in his letter to the Galatians: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me” (Gal. 2:20).

After salvation, sin, like a deposed and exiled ruler, no longer reigns in a person’s life, but it manages to survive. It no longer resides in the innermost self but finds its residual dwelling in his flesh, in the unredeemed humanness that remains until a believer meets the Lord at the Rapture or at death. “For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh,” Paul further explained to the Galatians; “for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please” (Gal. 5:17).

In this life, Christians are somewhat like an unskilled artist who beholds a beautiful scene that he wants to paint. But his lack of talent prevents him from doing the scene justice. The fault is not in the scene, or in the canvas, the
brushes, or the paint but in the painter. That is why we need to ask the master painter, Jesus Christ, to place His hand over ours in order to paint the strokes that, independent of Him, we could never produce. Jesus said, “Apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). The only way we can live victoriously is to walk by Christ’s own Spirit and in His power, in order not to “carry out the desire of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16).

(7:18-20) Flesh—Sin—Man, Nature: the second confession of Paul is that he is void of any good thing. By “flesh” (sarki) Paul means the human, sinful, depraved, and corrupt nature of man. Paul declares: there is no “good thing” in his flesh. This does not mean that he never did any good thing or work. It means that his flesh…

• is unable to please the goodness of God.
• is unable to be as good as it should be.
• is unable to be perfectly good.
• is unable to conquer the tendency and push toward sin.
• is unable to be conformed to the image of Christ.
• is corrupted and short of God’s glory.
• is contaminated and diseased by sin.
• is incapable of reaching God on its own and by itself.
• is aging and deteriorating, dying and decaying.
• is condemned to face the judgment of God.

1. Note why Paul says that his flesh is void of any good thing. He wills and resolves not to sin, but it is all to no avail. No matter how much he wills and resolves, he fails and comes short. Note that being willing to do good is ever present with him. The word “present” means that it is constantly before his face. He is always willing to do good and to please God. There is no lack of will in him. It is not the weakness of will nor of his resolve that causes him to come short of God’s glory and will. How does he know this?

• Because what he wills to do, he fails to do.
• Because the evil he tries not to do, he does.

2. Paul’s conclusion is the same as that of point one. He is void of any good thing because he has a sinful, depraved, and corrupt nature. He is held in spiritual bondage.

In order that his readers will not misunderstand, the apostle explains that the me in whom nothing good dwells is not the same as the “I” he has just mentioned in the previous verse and which referred to his new redeemed, incorruptible, Christlike nature. The part of his present being in which sin still dwells is his flesh, his old humanness, which has not yet been completely transformed.

Again he points out (see vv. 5, 14) that the only residence of sin in a believer’s life is his flesh, his unredeemed humanness. As noted above, the flesh in itself is not sinful, but it is still subject to sin and furnishes sin a beachhead from which to operate in a believer’s life.

Paul had a deep desire to do only good. The wishing to do God’s will was very much present within his redeemed being. The me used here does not correspond to the me of the first half of this verse but to the I in verse 17. Unfortunately, however, the perfect doing of the good that his heart wished for was not present in his life. Slightly rephrasing the same truth, he says, For the good that I wish, I do not do.

As noted in regard to verse 15, Paul is not saying that he was totally incapable of doing anything that was good and acceptable. He is saying that he was incapable of completely fulfilling the requirements of God’s holy law “Not that I have … already become perfect,” he explained to the Philippian church, “but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:12-14).

As a believer grows in his spiritual life, he inevitably will have both an increased hatred of sin and an increased love for righteousness. As desire for holiness increases, so will sensitivity to and antipathy toward sin.

The other side of the predicament, Paul says, is that I practice the very evil that I do not wish. Again, it is important to understand that this great inner struggle with sin is not experienced by the undeveloped and childish believer but by the mature man of God.

David was a man after God’s own heart (1 Sam. 13:14) and was honored by having the Messiah named the Son of David. Yet no Old Testament saint seems a worse sinner or was more conscious of his own sin. Particularly in the great penitential psalms 32, 38, and 51, but in many other psalms as well, David agonized over and confessed his sin before God. He was so near to the heart of God that the least sin in his life loomed before his eyes as a great offense.

Paul repeats what he said in verses 16-17, with only slight variation. If I am doing the very thing I do not wish, he argues with simple logic, then it follows that I am no longer the one doing it. The apostle again uses the phrase no longer, referring to the time before his conversion. Before salvation it was the inner I who sinned and agreed with the sin. An unsaved person cannot truthfully say he is not doing it. He has no moral or spiritual “no longers.”

(7:21-23) Sin, Law of—Mind, Law of—Inward Man: the third confession of Paul is that he finds two laws or two forces within him. Very simply, as soon as Paul wills to do good, he is immediately confronted…

• by a law of evil (Romans 7:21).
• by the law of sin (Romans 7:23).

The law of sin and evil battles the law of the inward man (Romans 7:22), the law of his mind (Romans 7:23).

1. The law of evil or the law of sin means that sin is a law, a rule, a force, a principle, a disposition, an urge, a tendency, a pull, a tug, a corruption, a depravity within man’s nature or inner being. It is called a law…

• because of its regularity; it rises up and rules all the time.
• because of its permanent and controlling power.
• because it is impossible to break its rule and to keep from sinning.
• because it has captivated and enslaved the nature of man (Romans 7:14f).
• because it is not passive but active, constantly struggling to gain the ascendency over the law of the mind.
• Any man who allows the law of sin to rule in his life is a miserable and helpless victim of sin.

2. The law of the inward man or the law of the mind means…

• the divine nature of God implanted within the believer.
• the “new man” created when a believer is born again.
• the abiding presence of Christ in the believer’s life.
• the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

Very simply stated, the law of the inward man is the law, rule, disposition, urge, tendency, pull, and tug of the Holy Spirit to please God and to delight in doing His will.

The confession of Paul is striking. He declares that the law of sin wars against the law of his mind and that it gains the ascendency. The law of sin captivates and enslaves him.

The continuing presence of evil in a believer’s life is so universal that Paul refers to it not as an uncommon thing but as such a common reality as to be called a continually operating spiritual principle. Lingering sin does battle with every good thing a believer desires to do, every good thought, every good intention, every good motive, every good word, every good deed.

The Lord warned Cain when he became angry that Abel’s sacrifice was accepted but his own was not: “Sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it” (Gen. 4:7). Sin continues to crouch at the door, even of believers, in order to lead people into disobedience.

The first part of Paul’s proof that sin is no longer his master and that he is indeed redeemed by God and made into the likeness of Christ is his being able to say, I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man. In other words, the apostle’s justified inner man is on the side of the law of God and no longer on the side of sin, as is true of every unsaved person.

Psalm 119 offers many striking parallels to Romans 7. Over and over and in a multitude of ways, the psalmist praises and exalts the Lord and His Word: “I have rejoiced in the way of Thy testimonies, as much as in all riches” (v. 14), “I shall delight in Thy commandments, which I love” (v. 47), “Thy law is my delight” (v. 77), “Thy word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path” (v. 105), and “Thy word is very pure, therefore Thy servant loves it” (v. 140). It has always been true that the godly person’s “delight is in the law of the Lord” (Ps. 1:2).

Paul’s inner man, the deepest recesses of his redeemed person, the bottom of his heart, hungers and thirsts for God’s righteousness (see Matt. 5:6) and seeks first His kingdom and His righteousness (see Matt. 6:33). “Though our outer man is decaying,” Paul told the Corinthian believers, “yet our inner man is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). He prayed that Christians in Ephesus would “be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man” (Eph. 3:16).

The second part of Paul’s proof that sin is no longer his master and that he is indeed redeemed by God and made into the likeness of Christ involves a corresponding but opposite principle (cf. v. 21), a different law, which does not operate in the inner person but in the members of the believer’s body, that is, in his unredeemed and still sinful humanness.

That opposing principle is continually waging war against the law of the believer’s mind, a term that here corresponds to the redeemed inner man about whom Paul has been talking. Paul is not setting up a dichotomy between the mind and the body but is contrasting the inner man, or the redeemed “new creature” (cf. 2 Cor. 5:17), with the “flesh” (Rom. 7:25), that remnant of the old man that will remain with each believer until we receive our glorified bodies (8:23). Paul is not saying his mind is always spiritual and his body is always sinful. In fact, he confesses that, tragically, the fleshly principle undermines the law of his mind and temporarily makes him a prisoner of the law of sin which is in his members.

As Paul will explain in the following chapter, what he has just said of himself could not apply to an unbeliever, who is entirely, in his mind as well as in his flesh, “hostile toward God” (Rom. 8:7). Unbelievers do not want to please God and could not please Him if they wanted to (v. 8).

Psalm 119 also parallels Romans 7 on the down side, in regard to the believer’s constant struggle with the sin that he hates and longs to be rid of. Like believers of every age, the psalmist sometimes was plagued by evil forces and people that warred against God and his own inner person. “My soul is crushed with longing after Thine ordinances at all times” (v. 20), he lamented, “My soul cleaves to the dust” (v. 25), and, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I may learn Thy statutes” (v. 71). He repeatedly pleads with God to revive him (vv. 25, 88, 107, 149, 154). With the deep humility that characterizes every mature believer, the writer ends by confessing, “I have gone astray like a lost sheep,” by imploring God to “seek Thy servant,” and finally by affirming again, “I do not forget Thy commandments” (v. 176).

As Paul has already mentioned in the first part of this verse, the source of his sin is no longer the inner man, which is now redeemed and being sanctified. Like all believers while they are in this earthly life, Paul found himself sometimes to be a prisoner of the law of sin, the principle that evil was still present in him (7:21). But now sin was only in the members of his body in his old self (Eph. 4:22), which was still “dead because of sin” (Rom. 8:10).

It is not that Paul’s salvation was imperfect or in any way deficient. From the moment he receives Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, the believer is completely acceptable by God and ready to meet Him. But as long as he remains in his mortal body, in his old unredeemed humanness, he remains subject to temptation and sin. “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh,” Paul explained to the Corinthian Christians (most of whom were spiritually immature and very much still fleshly), “for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses” (2 Cor. 10:3-4). In other words, although a Christian cannot avoid living in the flesh, he can and should avoid walking according to the flesh in its sinful ways.

(7:24) Spiritual Struggle—Sanctification—Paul: the fourth confession of Paul is that he is a desperate, wretched man who needs a Deliverer. There is a sense in which man is a walking civil war. He has the ability to see what is good, but he is unable to do it. He can see what is wrong, but he cannot keep from doing it. Paul says he was pulled in two directions, pulled so much that he was almost like two men in the same body. He knew the right, yet he did the wrong. He knew what was wrong, yet he was unable to stay away from it.

There is no believer, no matter how advanced in holiness, who cannot use the same language used by the Apostle. There is a bondage, a power of sin, within the believer’s nature that he cannot totally resist. True, he may and does struggle against the power, and he desires to be free from it; but despite all his efforts, he still finds himself under its influence.

This is precisely the bondage of sin, of coming short of the glory of God. Too often he finds himself distrusting God, being hard of heart, loving the world and self, being too prideful, too cold, too slothful—disapproving what he knows to be right and approving what he hates. He groans under the weight of sin, of being short of God’s glory and of failing to be conformed to the image of Christ. He aches to walk in humility and meekness and to be filled with the fruit of love, joy, and peace. But day by day he finds the force of sin reasserting its power over him. He struggles and struggles against it, but he finds that he cannot find the power to free himself.

The believer senses an utter helplessness and longs and desires for God to free him. He is a slave looking and longing for liberty. As one has said, this conflict between the flesh and spirit “continues in us so long as we live, in some more, and in others less, according as the one or the other principle is the stronger. Yet, the whole man is both flesh and spirit, and contends with himself until he is completely spiritual” (Martin Luther as quoted by Charles Hodge. Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1950, p.236).

It is this consciousness that drives the believer to the awareness that deliverance is found only through Jesus Christ our Lord.

(7:25) Spiritual Struggle—Sanctification—Deliverance—Life, Victorious: the fifth confession of Paul is that the great Deliverer is the Lord Jesus Christ. This is an exclamation! Paul bursts forth with praise to God, for there is a glorious deliverance from sin! But note: the deliverance does not come through…

• some man-made law.
• some man-possessed power.
• some man-possessed ability.
• some superior quality and faculty.
• some great spiritual force.

1. The deliverance comes through the great Deliverer Himself, Jesus Christ our Lord. He is the Deliverer from sin; He alone can deliver from sin. He is perfectly clear about this.

Jesus Christ delivers the believer from sin in two ways.

2. Jesus Christ justifies the believer.
3. Jesus Christ places the believer under God’s grace.
4. Paul’s conclusion is that he serves the law of God with his mind, that is, with his renewed mind. The believer who truly knows that his deliverance is through Jesus Christ our Lord learns something. He learns that his mind is transformed and renewed by Jesus Christ; he learns that his “mind” is born again and experiences a new birth just as his “old man” does. He learns that his old mind becomes the new mind and that his “old man” becomes the “new man.”

Because of Jesus Christ, the believer takes his new mind and does all he can to serve the law of God. When he fails—when his flesh caves in to sin—he knows that it is the law or force of sin that has caused it, not the law of his new mind. He knows that he is still flesh as well as spirit, that he is still indwelt by two laws, two forces that struggle for allegiance; therefore, he does all he can to focus his mind upon the law of God. He simply serves God—His will and His nature (that is, His law)—trying to please God in all that he does.

He dedicates himself not to come short of God’s glory but to be conformed to the image of Christ. He knows that he is delivered from the law (force) of sin through Jesus Christ; therefore, the believer keeps justification and God’s grace ever before his face. The believer knows that when his flesh serves the law of sin by failing, he has open access into God’s presence to ask forgiveness. Therefore, he “girds up the loins of his mind” and comes before God for forgiveness. And once receiving a fresh surge of God’s forgiveness and grace, he starts all over again. The believer begins to sense the law of God with renewed fervor, the fervor of his renewed mind.

It should be noted that most commentators see the latter part of this verse as reverting back to what Paul had been saying, as a summary statement of what the carnal man or believer experiences. However, it seems much more natural to see Paul building upon his confession of Jesus Christ as the great Deliverer from sin. After coming to know Jesus Christ as the great Deliverer, it is not reasonable for him to be reverting back to the fleshly struggle of the carnal man. It is much more reasonable to see the mind as the renewed mind of the “new man.” However, if one prefers the summary interpretation, then the meaning would be as follows.

The carnal man uses his mind, his human, fleshly reasoning to serve the law of God. He tries and tries with all his might to honor and to keep the law of God.

However, he is flesh and he is carnal; therefore, he is subject to sin. No matter how much he tries to struggle against sin, his flesh gives in to the law of sin and comes short of God’s glory.

Paul’s final lament is even more intense than the others. He cries out in utter anguish and frustration, Wretched man that I am! Because this person describes himself in such negative terms, many commentators believe he could not be speaking as a Christian, much less as an apostle. If Paul was speaking of himself, they argue, he must have been speaking about his preconversion condition.

But the Scottish commentator Robert Haldane wisely observed that men perceive themselves to be sinners in direct proportion as they have previously discovered the holiness of God and His law. In one of his penitential psalms, David expressed his great anguish of soul for not being all that he knew the Lord wanted him to be: “O Lord, rebuke me not in Thy wrath; and chasten me not in Thy burning anger. For Thine arrows have sunk deep into me, and Thy hand has pressed down on me. There is no soundness in my flesh because of Thine indignation; there is no health in my bones because of my sin. For my iniquities are gone over my head; as a heavy burden they weigh too much for me” (Ps. 38:14).

Another psalmist expressed distress over his sin in words that only a person who knows and loves God could pray: “Out of the depths I have cried to Thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice! Let Thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If Thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared. I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait, and in His word do I hope” (Ps. 130:1-5).

Paul next asks a question to which he well knows the answer: Who will set me free from the body of this death? He again makes clear that the cause of his frustration and torment is the body of this death. It is only a believer’s body that remains subject to sin and death.

 Set … free has the basic idea of rescuing from danger and was used of a soldier’s going to a wounded comrade on the battlefield and carrying him to safety. Paul longed for the day when he would be rescued from the last vestige of his old, sinful, unredeemed flesh.

It is reported that near Tarsus, where Paul was born (Acts 22:3), a certain ancient tribe sentenced convicted murderers to an especially gruesome execution. The corpse of the slain person was lashed tightly to the body of the murderer and remained there until the murderer himself died. In a few days, which doubtless seemed an eternity to the convicted man, the decay of the person he had slain infected and killed him. Perhaps Paul had such torture in mind when he expressed his yearning to be freed from the body of this death.

Without hesitation, the apostle testifies to the certainty of his eventual rescue and gives thanks to his Lord even before he is set free: Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! he exults. Later in the epistle he further
testifies, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom. 8:18). Frustrating and painful as a believer’s present struggle with sin may be, that temporary earthly predicament is nothing compared with the eternal glory that awaits him in heaven.

Because Christians have a taste of God’s righteousness and glory while they are still on earth, their longing for heaven is all the more acute: “We ourselves,” Paul says, “having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body” (Rom. 8:23; cf. 2 Cor. 5:4). On that great day even our corruptible bodies will be redeemed and made incorruptible. “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,” Paul assures us, “the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.
For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality … The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 15:52-53, 56-57).

Paul’s primary emphasis in the present passage, however, is not on the believer’s eventual deliverance from sin’s presence but on the conflict with sin that torments every spiritually sensitive child of God. He therefore ends by
summarizing the two sides of that struggle: So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.

In the poem Maud (x. 5), one of Tennyson’s characters yearns, “Ah for a new man to arise in me, that the man I am may cease to be!” The Christian can say that a new man has already arisen in him, but he also must confess that the sinful part, his old man, has not yet ceased to be.

Conclusion

This text is foundational to our view of the Christian life. As we conclude, allow me to point out some important truths and their implications for our lives.

(1) There is an intense struggle going on within the Christian. Conversion to Christ does not instantly solve all our problems. It even results in some problems we had never experienced as unbelievers. Before our salvation, we were never in opposition with sin. We were unknowingly the slaves of sin, all along thinking we were serving our own interests. Before our conversion, we were enemies of God. Our struggle was the result of our opposition to Him and His present judgment in our lives. As a result of faith in Christ, our animosity toward God ended and a new animosity—toward sin—began. The struggle which Paul is describing in Romans 7:14-25 is the result of his conversion.

 (2) An overwhelming sense of despair over our struggle with sin and our defeat by it is an essential step in the solution to this problem. Paul’s despair was legitimate and even necessary. Until we hate sin, we will not turn from it. Until we reach the end of ourselves, we will not look to God. Just as unsaved men and women must come to the end of themselves in order to receive God’s gracious provision of righteousness, by faith in Christ, Christians too must come to the end of themselves to find the solution, once again, at the cross of Calvary.

 (3) The problem with many Christians is not their despair, like that of Paul, but their lack of it. If coming to the end of ourselves is essential to turning to God for our deliverance, then many Christians will never turn to God for victory over sin because they do not recognize their true condition or take it seriously enough. It was the self-righteous scribes and Pharisees who did not come to Jesus for forgiveness simply because they did not think they needed it. It is the “smooth-sailing saints” who do not come to the cross for deliverance from the power of sin in their lives because they do not agonize over their condition as Paul did.

Christians fail to identify with Paul here in Romans 7? Let me suggest several reasons.

We fail to agonize over sin because we have redefined our old sins, giving them new Christian labels. Aggressive, self-assertiveness, once condemned as sin, now becomes “zeal for the Lord.” These are the same vices, the same sins, but we now sanctify them by putting Christian labels on them.

 We live superficial, hypocritical lives, which deny the reality of our sin, and our failure to live as God requires.

We ignore and reject God’s Law, as though it were “of flesh,” while we are the ones who are spiritual (the exact opposite of what Paul says in verse 14).

 We teach Christians to “cope” with their sin. Paul never teaches Christians to cope. In effect, we say to Christians that they need to learn to live with the agony. Paul says, “No, you don’t. You need to have that agony so intense that you can’t live with it, and you can only turn to God.”

 We seek to convert our socially unacceptable sins to those sins which are socially acceptable. We know that robbery and murder are unacceptable to society, and so we redirect our sinful energies in areas which serve our own self-interest, but in ways which bring us the commendation of others, rather than their condemnation. We give up those sins for which society puts men in prison and take up those sins for which society will make us president.

 We appeal to unholy motives in order to produce conduct which appears righteous. We use pride, ambition, greed, and guilt within the church, making these illicit motives the reasons for acceptable conduct.

 We cannot stand to see people “putting themselves down” and thinking of themselves as wretched creatures, and so we attempt to build their self-esteem. We would not turn Paul to the cross for the solution to his problem; we would rebuke him for his poor self-esteem, and put him in a class or program which made him feel good about himself.

Those of us who are Christians and can identify with Paul are blessed. Those of us who cannot identify with Paul are to be pitied. It is not that we are plagued because we think too little of ourselves, but because we do not take sin seriously enough. The agony of Romans 7 is a prerequisite for the ecstasy of Romans chapter 8.

 (4) Sin is complicated, but its solution is simple. Paul has already said it—sin is beyond our comprehension. We do not understand it. We cannot understand it. But we do not have to understand it in order to solve the dilemma it poses.

Whatever form sin might take, the solution is the same. The solution to sin is not to be found in understanding it. The biblical solution to sin is not to be found in any other provision than that of the cross of Calvary, the teaching of God’s Word, and the enablement of His Spirit. Let us look for no other solution. Let us receive that which God has provided, in Christ.

How great is your struggle? How great is mine? I think if our struggle is as great as Paul’s we will in desperation give up all self-help efforts, and we will turn to the cross. God has provided a righteousness we cannot produce by ourselves. That righteousness Jesus Christ offers to us through the power of the Spirit. “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” The answer is to come in Romans 8. The very Spirit that raised the dead body of Jesus Christ from the grave is the Spirit that dwells in you and will give life to your mortal bodies. God has the solution. The solution for Christians is the walk of the Spirit. But we will never get to that point until we have come to the desperation of Paul in Romans 7.

My prayer is that you may begin to grasp the immensity of the struggle with sin. May you forsake all efforts to serve God in the strength of your flesh. May God help each of us to acknowledge that our flesh is a body of death from which we must be delivered. May God help us to understand as we proceed in our study of Romans the walk of the Spirit, the provision that God has made for us to live in a way which is pleasing to Him.

The Inability of the Law (Rom. 7:14-25)

Having explained what the Law is supposed to do, Paul now explains what the Law cannot do.

 The Law cannot change you (v. 14).

The character of the Law is described in four words: holy, just, good, and spiritual. That the Law is holy and just, nobody can deny, because it came from the holy God who is perfectly just in all that He says and does. The Law is good. It reveals God’s holiness to us and helps us to see our need for a Saviour.

What does it mean that the Law is “spiritual”? It means that the Law deals with the inner man, the spiritual part of man, as well as with the outer actions. In the original giving of the Law in Exodus, the emphasis was on the outward actions. But when Moses restated the Law in Deuteronomy, he emphasized the inner quality of the Law as it relates to man’s heart. This spiritual emphasis is stated clearly in Deuteronomy 10:12-13. The repetition of the word “love” in Deuteronomy also shows that the deeper interpretation of the Law relates to the inner man (Deut. 4:37; 6:4-6; 10:12; 11:1; 30:6, 16, 20).

Our nature is carnal (fleshly); but the Law’s nature is spiritual. This explains why the old nature responds as it does to the Law. It has well been said, “The old nature knows no Law, the new nature needs no Law.” The Law cannot transform the old nature; it can only reveal how sinful that old nature is. The believer who tries to live under Law will only activate the old nature; he will not eradicate it.

 The Law cannot enable you to do good (vv. 15-21).

Three times in this passage Paul stated that sin dwells in us (Rom. 7:14, 18, 20). He was referring, of course, to the old nature. It is also true that the Holy Spirit dwells in us; and in Romans 8, Paul explained how the Spirit of God enables us to live in victory, something the Law cannot help us do.

The many pronouns in this section indicate that the writer is having a problem with self. This is not to say that the Christian is a split personality, because he is not. Salvation makes a man whole. But it does indicate that the believer’s mind, will, and body can be controlled either by the old nature or the new nature, either by the flesh or the Spirit.

The statements here indicate that the believer has two serious problems: (1) he cannot do the good he wants to do, and (2) he does the evil that he does not want to do.

Does this mean that Paul could not stop himself from breaking God’s Law, that he was a liar and thief and murderer? Of course not! Paul was saying that of himself he could not obey God’s Law; and that even when he did, evil was still present with him.

No matter what he did, his deeds were tainted by sin. Even after he had done his best, he had to admit that he was “an unprofitable servant” (Luke 17:10). “So I find this law at work: when I want to do good, evil is right there with me” (Rom. 7:21, niv). This, of course, is a different problem from that in Romans 6. The problem there was, “How can I stop doing bad things?” while the problem here is, “How can I ever do anything good?”

The legalist says, “Obey the Law and you will do good and live a good life.” But the Law only reveals and arouses sin, showing how sinful it is! It is impossible for me to obey the Law because I have a sinful nature that rebels against the Law. Even if I think I have done good, I know that evil is present. The Law is good, but by nature, I am bad! So, the legalist is wrong: the Law cannot enable us to do good.

 The Law cannot set you free (vv. 21-25).

The believer has an old nature that wants to keep him in bondage; “I will get free from these old sins!” the Christian says to himself. “I determine here and now that I will not do this any longer.” What happens? He exerts all his willpower and energy, and for a time succeeds; but then when he least expects it, he falls again. Why? Because he tried to overcome his old nature with Law, and the Law cannot deliver us from the old nature.

When you move under the Law, you are only making the old nature stronger; because “the strength of sin is the Law” (1 Cor. 15:56). Instead of being a dynamo that gives us power to overcome, the Law is a magnet that draws out of us all kinds of sin and corruption. The inward man may delight in the Law of God (Ps. 119:35), but the old nature delights in breaking the Law of God. No wonder the believer under Law becomes tired and discouraged, and eventually gives up! He is a captive, and his condition is “wretched.” (The Greek word indicates a person who is exhausted after a battle.) What could be more wretched than exerting all your energy to try to live a good life, only to discover that the best you do is still not good enough!

Is there any deliverance? Of course! “I thank God that there is Someone who shall deliver me—Jesus Christ our Lord!” Because the believer is united to Christ, he is dead to the Law and no longer under its authority. But he is alive to God and able to draw on the power of the Holy Spirit. The explanation of this victory is given in Romans 8.

The final sentence in the chapter does not teach that the believer lives a divided life: sinning with his flesh but serving God with his mind. This would mean that his body was being used in two different ways at the same time, and this is impossible. The believer realizes that there is a struggle within him between the flesh and the Spirit (Gal. 5:16-18), but he knows that one or the other must be in control.

By “the mind” Paul meant “the inward man” (Rom. 7:22) as opposed to “the flesh” (Rom. 7:18). He amplified this thought in Romans 8:5-8. The old nature cannot do anything good. Everything the Bible says about the old nature is negative: “no good thing” (Rom. 7:18); “the flesh profiteth nothing” (John 6:63); “no confidence in the flesh” (Phil. 3:3). If we depend on the energy of the flesh, we cannot serve God, please God, or do any good thing. But if we yield to the Holy Spirit, then we have the power needed to obey His will. The flesh will never serve the Law of God because the flesh is at war with God. But the Spirit can only obey the Law of God! Therefore, the secret of doing good is to yield to the Holy Spirit.

Paul hinted at this in the early verses of this chapter when he wrote, “That we should bring forth fruit unto God” (Rom. 7:4). Just as we are dead to the old nature, so we are dead to the Law. But we are united to Christ and alive in Christ, and therefore can bring forth fruit unto God. It is our union with Christ that enables us to serve God acceptably. “For it is God which worketh in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). That solved Paul’s problem in Romans 7:18: “For to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.”

The old nature knows no law and the new nature needs no law. Legalism makes a believer wretched because it grieves the new nature and aggravates the old nature! The legalist becomes a Pharisee whose outward actions are acceptable, but whose inward attitudes are despicable. No wonder Jesus called them “whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness” (Matt. 23:27). How wretched can you get!

The best is yet to come! Romans 8 explains the work of the Holy Spirit in overcoming the bad and producing the good“

 

Romans 7:7-13: “What then are we to infer? That the law is sin? God forbid! So far from that, I would never have known what sin meant except through the law. I would never have known desire if the law had not said, “You must not covet.” For, when sin had, through the commandment, obtained a foothold, it produced every kind of desire in me; for, without law, sin is lifeless. Once I lived without the law; but, when the commandment came, sin sprang to life, and in that moment I knew that I had incurred the penalty of death. The commandment that was meant for life-I discovered that that very commandment was in me for death. For, when sin obtained a foothold through the commandment, it seduced me, and, through it, killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, just and good. Did then that which was good become death to me? God forbid! But the reason was that sin might be revealed as sin by producing death in me, through the very thing which was in itself good, so that, through the commandment, sin might become surpassingly sinful.”

 Introduction

One feels mixed emotions toward the Law when it is encountered in the Book of Romans. For in Romans we find both “good news” and “bad news” pertaining to the Law. Consider the two very different perspectives of the Law indicated by Paul in this book:

 The Good News

(1) The Law contains the “oracles of God” (3:2)

(2) The Law defines sin and righteousness (7:7) and bears witness to the righteousness of God in Christ (3:21-22)

(3) The Law was given to result in life (7:10; see Leviticus 18:5)

(4) The Law is spiritual (7:14); it is holy and righteous and good (7:12)

The Bad News

(1) Knowing the Law apart from obeying its commands only makes one more guilty (1:32–2:29)

(2) The Law cannot save man but can only condemn him (3:9-20)

(3) The Law brings about God’s wrath (4:15)

(4) The Law came in that sin might increase (5:20)

(5) The requirements of the Law are fulfilled by those who walk in the Spirit (8:4)

(6) Sinful passions are aroused by the Law (7:5, 8)

(7) Sin used the Law to kill us (7:11)

It comes as no surprise that sinners have no love for law, especially the Law of God. They hate God and His Law (see Ephesians 2:1-3). The natural man cannot understand it (see 1 Corinthians 2) and seeks actively to oppose and overthrow it (Romans 8:7-8). Yet unbelievers’ disdain for the Law of God is not surprising. What is distressing is the number of Christians who disdain the Law of God. The Law of God is seen by some Christians as something evil, something of which we would do well to be rid. Such thinking at best perceives of the Law of God as obsolete, superseded by grace.

Many sins, on the other hand, are looked upon as something good and desirable. This is surely true of the unbeliever. But here again even Christians may be tempted to view sin as something good and desirable, just as Eve saw that deadly tree as desirable, not only to look at but to eat from so that she might be like God, knowing good and evil.

God’s Law consistently receives bad reviews from the world, while sin is heralded with great reviews. The Law is looked upon with disdain, or with mere toleration, while sin is thought to be desirable and appealing. If we must give it up, for God’s sake, we will, but only reluctantly.

While our text in Romans 7 is not the only passage we could use to show the hideousness of sin and the beauty of God’s Law, it is one of the most emphatic biblical statements concerning this reality. Paul’s words in Romans 7:7-13 are intended to convince his reader that the Law is a wonderful gift from God in which the believer can and should delight, and that sin is a horrible malignancy which the world would be better off without. As we study Paul’s words, pay special attention to those things which show us the beauty of the Law and those which show us the ugliness of sin.

Chapters 3-8 of Romans weave together in a remarkable way the various themes of faith, grace, sin, righteous-ness, and law. Especially important for Paul’s Jewish readers was his comprehensive treatment of the law and its role in a person’s coming to Christ and then living for Christ.

Paul has established that the law cannot save (Rom. 3-5), that it cannot sanctify (chap. 6), and that it can no longer condemn a believer (7:1-6). Now he establishes that the law can convict both unbelievers and believers of sin (7:7-13), and next that it cannot deliver from sin, either before or after salvation (7:14-25), and that it can be fulfilled by believers in the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit (8:1-4).

By New Testament times, Jewish rabbis had summed up scriptural law in 613 commandments, comprised of 248 mandates and 365 prohibitions. The mandates related to such things as worship, the Temple, sacrifices, vows, rituals, donations, sabbaths, animals used for food, festivals, community affairs, war, social issues, family responsibilities, judicial matters, legal rights and obligations, and slavery. The prohibitions related to such things as idolatry historical lessons, blasphemy, Temple worship, sacrifices, the priesthood, diet, vows, agriculture, loans, business, slaves, justice, and personal relationships.

To those scriptural laws the rabbis had added countless adjuncts, conditions, and practical interpretations. The attempt to fulfill all the laws and traditions became a consuming way of life for legalistic Jews such as the Pharisees. At the Jerusalem Council, Peter described that extreme legalism as “a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear” (Acts 15:10).

As far as the divinely-revealed laws were concerned, it is clear why faithful Jews tried to keep them in every detail. Through Moses, God had declared, “Cursed is he who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them” (Deut. 27:26). The next chapter of Deuteronomy specifies some of the severe consequences of disobedience, consequences that affected virtually every area of life:

But it shall come about, if you will not obey the Lord your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country. Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Cursed shall be the offspring of your body and the produce of your ground, the increase of your herd and the young  of your flock. Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out. The Lord will send upon you curses, confusion, and rebuke, in all you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken Me. The Lord will make the pestilence cling to you until He has consumed you from the land, where you are entering to possess it. The Lord will smite you with consumption and with fever and with inflammation and with fiery beat and with the sword and with blight and with mildew and they shall pursue you until you perish. (28:15-22)

As an apostle of Jesus Christ, Paul reiterated the truth that “for as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them’” (Gal. 3:10; cf. Deut. 27:26). James declared that “whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all” (James 2:10).

Why one wonders, did God give His chosen people a law that was impossible for them to keep? His purpose was not only to reveal the standard of righteousness by which the saved are to live but also to show them the impossibility of living it without His power and to show them the depth of their sinfulness when honestly measured against the law. The law was not given to show men how good they could be but how good they could not be.

Following his quotation from Deuteronomy 27:26 mentioned above, Paul told the Galatians, “Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident” (Gal. 3:11a). To substantiate that truth he quoted another Old Testament passage that declared that “the righteous man shall live by faith” (v. 11b; cf. Hab. 2:4). The law was given to establish God’s standard and to reveal to men the utter impossibility of their achieving that standard of righteousness and their consequent need for forgiveness and for trusting in God’s goodness and mercy. As Hebrews 11 makes clear, both before and after the giving of the Mosaic law, those who became acceptable to God were those who trusted in His righteousness rather than their own.

Jesus condemned the Pharisees for their failure to understand that truth (Luke 18:9). Paul, once the consummate Pharisee (Phil. 3:4-6), came to clearly understand that reality after his conversion. He testified to the Philippian
believers: “Whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss … in order that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith” (Phil. 3:7-9).

After declaring that “while we [believers] were in the flesh, the sinful passions … were aroused by the Law,” and that “now we have been released from the Law,… so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter [of the Law]” (Rom. 7:5-6), Paul knew the next question his readers would ask would be, What shall we say, then? Is the Law sin? “Was the law given by God through Moses actually evil?” they would wonder. “And can Christians now disregard the standards of the law and live as they please?”

Paul responds by again using the strongest Greek negative,  (May it never be! See 3:4, 6, 31; 6:2, 15; 7:13). “Of course not! Of course not!” is the idea. The law not only is not sinful but continues to have great value for the Christian by convicting him of sin. In 7:7b-13, Paul gives four elements of the convicting work of God’s law: it reveals sin (v. 7b), it arouses sin (v. 8), it ruins the sinner (vv. 9-11), and it reflects the absolute sinfulness of sin (vv. 12-13).

Here begins one of the greatest of all passages in the New Testament; and one of the most moving; because here Paul is giving us his own spiritual autobiography and laying bare his very heart and soul.

Paul deals with the torturing paradox of the law. In itself it is a fine and a splendid thing. It is holy. That is to say it is the very voice of God. The root meaning of the word holy (hagios) is different. It describes something which comes from a sphere other than this world. The law is divine and has in it the very voice of God. It is just. We have seen that the root Greek idea of justice is that it consists in giving to man, and to God, their due.

Therefore the law is that which settles all relationships, human and divine. If a man perfectly kept the law, he would be in a perfect relationship both with God and with his fellow men. The law is good. That is to say, it is designed for nothing other than our highest welfare. It is meant to make a man good.

All that is true. And yet the fact remains that this same law is the very thing through which sin gains entry into a man. How does that happen? There are two ways in which the law may be said to be, in one sense, the source of sin.

(i) It defines sin. Sin without the law, as Paul said, has no existence. Until a thing is defined as sin by the law, a man cannot know that it is sin. We might find a kind of remote analogy in any game, say tennis. A man might allow the ball to bounce more than once before he returned it over the net; so long as there were no rules he could not be accused of any fault. But then the rules are made, and it is laid down that the ball must be struck over the net after only one bounce and that to allow it to bounce twice is a fault. The rules define what a fault is, and that which was allowable before they were made, now becomes a fault. So the law defines sin.

We may take a better analogy. What is pardonable in a child, or in an uncivilized man from a savage country, may not be allowable in a mature person from a civilized land. The mature, civilized person is aware of laws of conduct which the child and the savage do not know; therefore, what is pardonable in them is fault in him.

The law creates sin in the sense that it defines it. It may for long enough be legal to drive a motor car in either direction along a street; then that street is declared one-way; after that a new breach of the law exists-that of driving in a forbidden direction. The new regulation actually creates a new fault. The law, by making men aware of what it is, creates sin.

(ii) But there is a much more serious sense in which the law produces sin. One of the strange facts of life is the fascination of the forbidden thing. The Jewish rabbis and thinkers saw that human tendency at work in the Garden of Eden. Adam at first lived in innocence; a commandment was given him not to touch the forbidden tree, and given only his good; but the serpent came and subtly turned that prohibition into a temptation. The fact that the tree was forbidden made it desirable; so Adam was seduced into sin by the forbidden fruit; and death was the result.

Philo allegorized the whole story. The serpent was pleasure; Eve stood for the senses; pleasure, as it always does, wanted the forbidden thing and attacked through the senses. Adam was the reason; and, through the attack of the forbidden thing on the senses, reason was led astray, and death came.

In his Confessions there is a famous passage in which Augustine tells of the fascination of the forbidden thing.

“There was a pear tree near our vineyard, laden with fruit. One stormy night we rascally youths set out to rob it and carry our spoils away. We took off a huge load of pears-not to feast upon ourselves, but to throw them to the pigs, though we ate just enough to have the pleasure of forbidden fruit. They were nice pears, but it was not the pears that my wretched soul coveted, for I had plenty better at home. I picked them simply in order to become a thief. The only feast I got was a feast of iniquity, and that I enjoyed to the full. What was it that I loved in that theft? Was it the pleasure of acting against the law, in order that I, a prisoner under rules, might have a maimed counterfeit of freedom by doing what was forbidden, with a dim similitude of impotence?. . . The desire to steal was awakened simply by the prohibition of stealing.”

Set a thing in the category of forbidden things or put a place out of bounds, and immediately they become fascinating. In that sense the law produces sin.

Paul has one revealing word which he uses of sin. “Sin,” he says, “seduced me.” There is always deception in sin. Vaughan says that sin’s delusion works in three directions. (i) We are deluded regarding the satisfaction to be found in sin. No man ever took a forbidden thing without thinking that it would make him happy, and no man ever found that it did. (ii) We are deluded regarding the excuse that can be made for it. Every man thinks that he can put up a defence for doing the wrong thing; but no man’s defence ever sounded anything else but futile when it was made in the presence of God. (iii) We are deluded regarding the probability of escaping the consequences of it. No man sins without the hope that he can get away with it. But it is true that, soon or late, our sin will find us out.

Is, then, the law a bad thing because it actually produces sin? Paul is certain that there is wisdom in the whole sequence. (i) First he is convinced that, whatever the consequence, sin had to be defined as sin. (ii) The process shows the terrible nature of sin, because sin took a thing-the law-which was holy and just as good, and twisted it into something which served the ends of evil. The awfulness of sin is shown by the fact that it could take a fine thing and make it a weapon of evil. That is what sin does. It can take the loveliness of love and turn it into lust. It can take the honourable desire for independence and turn it into the obsession for money and for power. It can take the beauty of friendship and use it as a seduction to the wrong things. That is what Carlyle called “the infinite damnability of sin.” The very fact that it took the law and made it a bridgehead to sin shows the supreme sinfulness of sin. The whole terrible process is not accidental; it is all designed to show us how awful a thing sin is, because it can take the loveliest things and defile them with a polluting touch.

(7:7-13) Introduction: the purpose of the law is clearly pointed out in this passge. It is a passage that needs to be carefully studied by both the world and believers. It is a passage that needs to be proclaimed from the housetops, for the law was given by God to show man his desperate need for a Savior.

1. Is the law sin, that is, evil? (v.7).
2. The law reveals the fact of sin (v.7).
3. The law gives sin the opportunity to be aroused and to work every kind of evil (v.8).
4. The law reveals the fact of condemnation and death (v.9-10).
5. The law reveals the deceitfulness of sin (v.11).
6. The law reveals the way of God: holiness, righteousness, and goodness (v.12).
7. The law shows that sin is exceedingly sinful and that it is the cause of death (v.13).

(7:7) The Law: Is the law sin, that is, evil? This is a legitimate question because of what Romans has declared about the law.

1. The law judges and condemns men: “As many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law” (Romans 2:12).
2. The law and ritual do not make a person a Christian: “He is a Jew [Christian], which is one inwardly; and circumcision [a ritual] is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter [law], whose praise is not of men, but of God” (Romans 2:29).
3. The law cannot make a man righteous and acceptable to God: “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20; cp. Romans 3:27).
4. The purpose of the law is not to save man but to bear witness that man desperately needs the righteousness of God: “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference” (Romans 3:21-22).
5. The law leads man to boast in himself—in his own works and self-righteousness—not in God: “Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith” (Romans 3:27; cp. Romans 4:2, 4; Romans 2:29).
6. The law does not justify a person: “If Abraham were justified by works [the law], he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Romans 4:2-5).
7. The law is not the way a person receives the promise of God: “For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith” (Romans 4:13).
8. The law works wrath in that it accuses man of sin and condemns him: “Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression” (Romans 4:15).
9. The law causes sin to increase and multiply: “Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (Romans 5:20).
10. The law enslaves and brings men into bondage: “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace” (Romans 6:14; cp. Romans 7:1).
11. The law arouses men to sin: “For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death” (Romans 7:5).

Such facts as these can naturally cause a person to question the value of God’s law. If the law lays such a burden of sin upon man, what good is it? Is it not evil? Scripture declares loudly and clearly: “God forbid! Let it never be! Such a thought is far from the truth!”

(7:7) The Law: the law of God reveals the fact of sin. Apart from the law, man would be aware that some acts are wrong, such as stealing and killing. However, there would be much that man could not know if he did not have the law, much that he would desperately need to know in order to live a full and peaceful life.

“By the Law is the knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20). “Where no Law is, there is no transgression” (Rom. 4:15). The Law is a mirror that reveals the inner man and shows us how dirty we are (James 1:22-25). Note that Paul did not use murder, stealing, or adultery in his discussion; he uses coveting. This is the last of the Ten Commandments, and it differs from the other nine in that it is an inward attitude, not an outward action. Covetousness leads to the breaking of the other commandments! It is an insidious sin that most people never recognize in their own lives, but God’s Law reveals it.

The rich ruler in Mark 10:17-27 is a good example of the use of the Law to reveal sin and show a man his need for a Saviour. The young man was very moral outwardly, but he had never faced the sins within. Jesus did not tell him about the Law because the Law would save him; He told him about the Law because the young man did not realize his own sinfulness. True, he had never committed adultery, robbed anyone, given false witness, or dishonored his parents; but what about covetousness?

When Jesus told him to sell his goods and give to the poor, the man went away in great sorrow. The commandment, “Thou shalt not covet,” had revealed to him what a sinner he really was! Instead of admitting his sin, he rejected Christ and went away unconverted.

The law reveals the fact of sin, the fact…

• that men are not in a right relationship with God.
• that men are not in a right relationship with other men.
• that men are living selfishly, thereby dooming themselves.
• that men are coveting and lusting, thereby destroying their world and their future.
• that men are displeasing God and have become unacceptable to Him.

The point is this: when a man sees the fact of sin, the fact that he is a sinner, he can correct it and do something about it. The knowledge of sin is a great and glorious thing, for we can take our knowledge and use it to correct the wrong. Without the law, we would roam in ignorance, not knowing what was wrong and what was right, what was dooming us and what was freeing us. If there was no restraint, that is, no law, every man would be doing what he wanted when he wanted; he would be doing his own thing—fulfilling his own desires—regardless of the fallout and the hurt inflicted upon others.

Now note: the law reveals sin; it awakens man to three facts about sin.

1. The law reveals the fact of sin, that sin actually exists. The law awakens man to the reality and truth of sin. Man knows that coveting is wrong because the law says, “Thou shalt not covet.” He knows that some things are good and other things are bad because the law tells him. He knows that certain things please and other things displease God because the law says so. In simple and clear language, the law tells a man…

• what the nature and will of God is.
• what he must do to be acceptable to God.

3. The law reveals the fact of man’s own sin, that man is unquestionably a sinner. The law awakens man to the reality that he himself is a sinner. The law shows man…m
4. The law reveals the fact of man’s sinful nature, that man is actually aroused to do some of the things that are forbidden. The law shows man that he has a sinful, depraved, polluted, and corrupted nature. The law shows man that he covets and lusts, enjoys and is aroused…

• to take the second helping of food.
• to take the melons on the other side of the fence.
• to secure the same things owned by his neighbor.
• to go after the excitement and stimulation of the forbidden.
• to fulfill the lust of the flesh.
• to feed the lust of the eyes.
• to satisfy the pride of life.

The purpose of the law is to reveal sin so that man can correct his behavior and save himself and his world. Apart from God’s law, he would not know that he needed to be saved.

On the contrary, Paul says, just the opposite is true. It is outrageous and blasphemous even to suggest that anything God commands could be deficient in the least way, much less sinful.

By being perfect itself, however, God’s law does reveal man’s imperfection. I would not have come to know sin, Paul goes on to explain, except through the Law. In other words, because God has disclosed His divine standards of righteousness, men are able more accurately to identify sin, which is failure to meet those standards.

The apostle has already mentioned or alluded to that truth several times in the epistle: “Through the Law comes the knowledge of sin” (3:20); “the Law brings about wrath, but where there is no law, neither is there violation” (4:15); and “until the Law sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law” (5:13).

Paul is not speaking of humanity’s general awareness of right and wrong. Even pagan Gentiles who have never heard of God’s revealed law nevertheless have His “Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them” (Rom. 2:15). In the present passage the apostle is speaking about knowledge of the full extent and depravity of man’s sin.

Throughout the rest of the chapter, Paul uses the first person singular pronouns I and me, indicating that he is giving his personal testimony as well as teaching universal truth. He is relating the conviction of sin that the Holy Spirit worked in his own heart through the law before and during his Damascus road encounter with Christ and the three days of blindness that followed (see Acts 9:1-18)

Although Christ’s appearing to him and calling him to apostleship were sovereign acts of God, at some point Saul (as he was then known) had to confess his sins and trust in Christ for salvation. God forces no one into His kingdom against his will or apart from faith. In his testimony before King Agrippa, Paul recounted that, even while he was outwardly persecuting the followers of Christ, he was inwardly kicking “against the goads” of the Holy Spirit’s convicting work in his heart (Acts 26:14).

Paul had been trained in Judaism since his early youth, had studied under the famous Gamaliel in Jerusalem, had tried to follow the law meticulously, and had considered himself to be zealous for God (Acts 22:3; Gal. 1:13-14; Phil. 3:5-6a). Before his conversion, he easily could have prayed the prayer of the self-satisfied Pharisee in the Temple who thanked God that he was not like other people (see Luke 18:11-12). He may have asserted with the rich young ruler that he had kept all the law since his youth (see Matt. 19:20; Phil. 3:6b).

Zealous Jews made such claims because rabbinical tradition had modified and externalized the law of God in order to make an acceptable lower lever of obedience humanly attainable. They did not take into account personal faith in God or the inner condition of the heart. To them, a person who lived up to the outward, observable demands of the rabbinical interpretations of the law became fully acceptable to God.

During his pre-salvation experience of conviction, Paul came to realize that the most important demands of God’s revealed law were not external but internal and that he had failed to meet them. It is significant that the apostle chose the most obviously internal injunction of the Ten Commandments to illustrate his personal experience that the law reveals sin. I would not have known about coveting, he explains, if the Law had not said, “You shall not covet.” It may have been the growing awareness of his own covetousness that finally broke his pride and opened his heart to the transforming work of the Spirit. Years after Paul’s conversion, he told believers in Philippi, “We are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh” (Phil. 3:3).

The real battle with sin is internal, in the heart and mind. Counseling, therapy, or even strong willpower often can modify a person’s behavior. People may stop drinking by faithfully following the plan of Alcoholics Anonymous or stop lying or cheating by submitting to psychotherapy. But only the transforming power of the Holy Spirit can take a sinful heart and make it pure and acceptable to God. The law’s part in that transformation is to make a person aware of his sin and of his need for divine forgiveness and redemption and to set the standard of acceptable morality.

Charles Hodge wrote, The law, although it cannot secure either the justification or sanctification of men, performs an essential part in the economy of salvation. It enlightens conscience and secures its verdict against a multitude of evils, which we should not otherwise have recognized as sins. It arouses sin, increasing its power, and making it, both in itself and in our consciousness, exceedingly sinful. It therefore produces that state of mind which is a necessary preparation for the reception of the gospel.… Conviction of sin, that is, an adequate knowledge of its nature, and a sense of its power over us, is an indispensable part of evangelical religion. Before the gospel can be embraced as a means of deliverance from sin, we must feel we are involved in corruption and misery. (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, n.d.], p. 226)

Apart from the law, we would have no way of accurately judging our sinfulness. Only God’s law reveals His divine standard of righteousness and thereby enables us to see how far short of His righteousness we are and how helpless we are to attain it by our own efforts.

The central theme of the Sermon on the Mount is that God demands perfect righteousness in the heart (Matt. 5:48), a righteousness that far surpasses the external and hypocritical righteousness typified by the scribes and Pharisees (Matt. 5:20). Following that declaration, Jesus gave a series of illustrations of God’s standards of righteousness. In God’s sight, the person who hates or denigrates his brother is as guilty of sin as the murderer (vv. 21-22), the person who lusts is as guilty of immorality as the adulterer (vv. 27-28), the person who divorces his or her spouse except on the grounds of unfaithfulness causes both of them, as well as any future spouses, to commit adultery (vv. 31-32; cf. also Matt. 19:3-12; Mark 10:11-12). Truth is truth, and falsehood is falsehood, Jesus declared, and an oath can neither justify a lie nor authenticate a truth (Matt. 5:33-37).

Jews had no excuse for failing to understand that God demands inner as well as outward righteousness. The Shema (from the Hebrew word for “hear”) comprises the texts of Deuteronomy 6:4-9; 11:13-21; and Numbers 15:37-41, and it was recited twice daily by faithful Jews. The two texts from Deuteronomy were also among the four passages that were written on small pieces of parchment and placed in phylacteries worn on the foreheads and left arms of Jewish men during prayer.

The same two texts were placed in mezuzahs, small boxes that Jews attached to their doorposts, following the instruction of Deuteronomy 6:9 and 11:20. Both phylacteries and mezuzahs are still used by many orthodox Jews today. The two texts from Deuteronomy include the repeated admonition to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (6:5; 11:13).

When the Pharisees (who were the supreme authorities on the Mosaic law) asked Jesus to identify “the great commandment in the Law,” He answered by citing Deuteronomy 6:5. He then said that the second greatest commandment “is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’” and declared that “on these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” Doubtless with great reluctance, His antagonists accepted His answer as correct (Matt. 22:34-40; Lev. 19:18).

In a reverse situation, when Jesus asked a lawyer of the Pharisees to identify “what is written in the Law,” the man immediately cited Deuteronomy 6:5 as the foremost commandment and, like Jesus, stated that the second great commandment was to love “your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:25-28).

It is clear, therefore, that despite the externality of their rabbinical traditions, which frequently contradicted Scripture (Matt. 15:3-6), the Jews of Jesus’ and Paul’s day knew that God’s two supreme commandments had to do with inner motives rather than outward actions. Yet they continued to place their faith in their own outward achievements rather than in the God they professed to love with all their hearts.

(7:8) The Law—-Lust—Sin: the law gives sin the opportunity to be aroused, working every kind of evil. Note the exact words of the Scripture: “Sin, taking occasion [opportunity] by the commandment, works in men all manner of evil,” that is, sin uses the commandment. Sin is not within the commandment; it is separate from it. The commandment or law is not sinful. Sin is within man, not within the law. Man’s aging, deteriorating, and corrupt nature has within it…

the principle of sin the tendency to sin the fondness for sin the urge to sin

a diseased flesh a selfish appetite a self-centered mind a dead spirit

Since Paul was a devout Pharisee, seeking to obey the Law before his conversion, it is easier to understand these verses. (Read Phil. 3:1-11 and Gal. 1 for other autobiographical data on Paul’s relationship to the Law in his unconverted days.) Keep in mind too that “the strength of sin is the Law” (1 Cor. 15:56). Since we have a nature that can go toward the flesh, the Law is bound to arouse that nature the way a magnet draws steel.

Something in human nature wants to rebel whenever a law is given. I was standing in Lincoln Park in Chicago, looking at the newly painted benches; and I noticed a sign on each bench: “Do Not Touch.” As I watched, I saw numbers of people deliberately reach out and touch the wet paint! Why? Because the sign told them not to! Instruct a child not to go near the water, and that is the very thing he will do! Why? “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom. 8:7).

Believers who try to live by rules and regulations discover that their legalistic system only arouses more sin and creates more problems. The churches in Galatia were very legalistic, and they experienced all kinds of trouble. “But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another” (Gal. 5:15). Their legalism did not make them more spiritual; it made them more sinful! Why? Because the Law arouses sin in our nature.

Note three points.

1. It is the law that gives sin the opportunity to be aroused. The law actually stirs, awakens, and arouses sin to work all manner of evil. When a man is told not to do something, there is something within him that is stirred and wants to do it. Sometimes the desire to do the forbidden is so strong it becomes a rage, inflamed to such a point that the person just has to do it.
2. It is man that takes and misuses the law; it is not the law that takes and misuses man. The law does not violate man; man violates the law. It is not the law that takes man and forces him to sin. It is man that takes the law and breaks it, that deliberately goes against what it says. It is sin within man that takes and misuses the law to work all manner of sin. Therefore, it is not the law that is evil; it is man who is evil.
3. Without the law, sin was dead; that is, it was not alive and active. It was not guiding and directing man; it was not able to fulfill its function which was so desperately needed: showing man his critical need for deliverance from sin and its condemnation of death.

 

Without the law, sin is dead, but with the law sin becomes alive. Man is able to look at the law and his true condition, that he is a sinner who must be saved if he is to become acceptable to God and live eternally. The law is not evil but good, gloriously good, for it shows us our desperate need for salvation.

Paul once again (cf. v. 7) makes clear that the law itself is not sinful and is not responsible for sin. It is the sin that is already in a person’s heart that takes opportunity through the commandment of the law to produce coveting of  every kind as well as countless other specific sins.

Faithful preachers have always proclaimed the demands of God’s law before proclaiming the grace of His gospel. A person who does not see himself as a lost and helpless sinner will see no need for a Savior. And the person who is not willing to be cleansed of his sin, even if he recognizes it, has no access to the Savior, because he refuses to be saved.

Bible commentator F. F. Bruce writes, “The villain of the piece is Sin; Sin seized the opportunity afforded it when the law showed me what was right and what was wrong” (The Epistle of Paul to the Romans [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963], p. 150). The problem is with sin, not with the law “Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God?” Paul rhetorically asked the Galatians, and then answered with his favorite negative, “May it never be!” (Gal. 3:21).

 Opportunity originally was used of the starting point or base of operations for an expedition. Sin uses the commandment, that is, God’s law, as a beachhead from which to launch its evil work.

It is no secret that man has a natural rebellious streak that causes him almost reflexively to resent a command or prohibition. When people notice a sign that reads “Keep off the grass” or “Don’t pick the flowers,” for instance, there is often an impulse to do the very thing the sign forbids.

In his book Principles of Conduct, John Murray observes that the more the light of God’s law shines into our depraved hearts, the more the enmity of our minds is aroused to opposition, proving that the mind of the flesh is not subject to the law of God ([Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957], p. 185). When a person is confronted by God’s law, the forbidden thing becomes all the more attractive, not so much for its own sake as for its furnishing a channel for the assertion of self-will.

In his rich allegory Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan paints a vivid word picture of sin’s arousal by the law. A large, dust-covered room in Interpreter’s house symbolizes the human heart. When a man with a broom, representing God’s law, begins to sweep, the dust swirls up and all but suffocates Christian. That is what the law does to sin. It so agitates sin that it becomes stifling. And just as a broom cannot clean a room of dust but only stir it up, so the law cannot cleanse the heart of sin but only make the sin more evident and unpleasant.

The axiom of Paul’s argument here is that apart from the Law sin is dead. It is not that sin has no existence apart from the law, because that is obviously not true. Paul has already stated that, long before the law was revealed, sin entered the world through Adam and then spread to all his descendants (Rom. 5:12). “Until the Law sin was in the world,” he goes on to explain, “but sin is not imputed when there is no law” (v. 13). Paul’s point in Romans 7:8 is that sin is dead in the sense that it is somewhat dormant and not fully active. It does not overwhelm the sinner as it does when the Law becomes known.

(7:9-10) The Law: the law reveals the fact of condemnation and death. This is a major purpose of the law. “For if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the Law” (Gal. 3:21). But the Law cannot give life: it can only show the sinner that he is guilty and condemned.

This explains why legalistic Christians and churches do not grow and bear spiritual fruit. They are living by Law, and the Law always kills. Few things are more dead than an orthodox church that is proud of its “high standards” and tries to live up to them in its own energy. Often the members of such a church start to judge and condemn one another, and the sad result is a church fight and then a church split that leaves members—or former members—angry and bitter.

As the new Christian grows, he comes into contact with various philosophies of the Christian life. He can read books, attend seminars, listen to tapes, and get a great deal of information. If he is not careful, he will start following a human leader and accept his teachings as Law.

This practice is a very subtle form of legalism, and it kills spiritual growth. No human teacher can take the place of Christ; no book can take the place of the Bible. Men can give us information, but only the Spirit can give us illumination and help us understand spiritual truths. The Spirit enlightens us and enables us; no human leader can do that.

Note three points.

1. A man who does not know or pay attention to the law feels alive. He is just not aware of the law; therefore, he does not pay attention to sin. He is not aware that he is a sinner and short of God’s glory, violating God’s will and going contrary to God’s nature. He is ignorant of God’s law; he pays little attention to right and wrong. When he does wrong and fails to do right, he is not aware of it. Therefore he feels…

• no consciousness of sin.
• no guilt.
• no dread of punishment.
• no sense of judgment.

He feels alive, safe, secure, confident, and assured that he is pleasing to God and will be approved and accepted by God. He feels alive despite the reality of his sinful state and condition. Without the law he does not know the truth, that he is a sinner, condemned and unclean and ever so short of God’s glory and acceptance.

2. A man who does know God’s law and pays attention to it sees sin come alive. By knowing the law the man becomes acutely aware of sin when he breaks the law. It is the law that gives him…

• a painful awareness of sin.
• a sense of guilt.
• a sense of judgment to come.
• a dread of punishment and of death.

It is the law that causes his spirit to die, that destroys his confidence and assurance, comfort and security. It is the law that shows him the true state and condition of man: that he is a sinner who is to face condemnation and death; that he desperately needs to be delivered from sin and death; that he desperately needs a Savior who can make him acceptable to God.

3. The point is this: the law is ordained to bring life, but not in the way men think. Men think that the law was given to be kept, and that by keeping the commandment they can earn the acceptance of God and work their way into heaven. However, this is not the way the law brings life to man. The law brings life to man…

• by destroying his self-centeredness and self-righteousness.
• by revealing the truth to him, his true state and condition.
• by showing him that he is a corrupt, sinful being.
• by demonstrating that he desperately needs to be delivered from sin and death.
• by proving that he desperately needs a Savior, One who can make him acceptable to God.

When a man really looks at the law of God, he learns his true condition: he is corrupt and destined to face condemnation and death. In learning this fact, he is driven to seek the salvation of God. Therefore, the law is not evil; it is good.

(7:11) The Law: the law reveals the deceitfulness of sin. Note again: it is sin that takes the law and misuses it; it takes the law and deceives us. How? There are at least two ways.

2. Sin misuses the law and deceives a person by making him feel safe and secure. Sin, that is, self-righteousness, says obey the law and you shall live. But this is deception, for no man can keep the law perfectly. Down deep, the thinking and honest man knows he can never achieve perfection by keeping God’s law; but his sin, his self-righteousness, drives him onward to try and try; and he is forever deceived and doomed. The point is this: the law reveals the deceitfulness of sin or of self-righteousness. The law proves that man is not perfect, that he cannot live without sinning, that he sins and sins and cannot keep from sinning. When a man honestly looks at the law, the law destroys the deceitfulness of sin.
3. Sin misuses the law and deceives a person by discouraging him and making him feel helpless and hopeless. Sin deceives men into thinking that the law has been given to bring life to man. Therefore, when a man continues to break the law, he is keenly aware that he is condemned and unable to achieve the righteousness of the law. He knows that he has displeased God and senses that he is unacceptable to God. Feelings of helplessness and hopelessness swarm over him and he becomes defeated and down and out. Sin simply takes the law and uses man’s failure to discourage him. Sin uses the law, so to speak, to whip man, to make him feel unworthy and helpless and hopeless, to drive him deeper and deeper into despair.

Now note: such an attitude toward the law is the attitude of sin. The law was never given to drive men to despair, and in truth, it cannot. It is sin within men that drives them to despair. Twisted minds and ungodly thoughts drive men into a state of hopelessness. The law was given to reveal sin to men, to take the sin that already exists and to reveal its shame and consequences to men. When the law was first given, man was already in a state of sin and death: he was sinning and he was dying. God gave the law to man because He loved man, because He knew that men needed to be pointed toward Christ and needed to be shown their terrible condition and desperate need for a Savior. Such is the glorious purpose of the law, a purpose which is far from being evil.

The law not only reveals and arouses sin but also ruins and destroys the sinner. Still recounting his own experience before salvation, Paul confesses that he had long been alive apart from the Law. As a highly-trained and zealous Pharisee, he was certainly not apart from the law in the sense of not knowing or being concerned about it. He was an expert on the law and considered himself to be blameless in regard to it, thus thinking he lived a life that pleased God (Phil. 3:6).

But throughout all his years of proud self-effort, Paul had served only the “oldness of the letter” of the law (Rom. 7:6). But when a true understanding of the commandment came, he began to see himself as he really was and began to understand how far short he came of the law’s righteous standards. His sin then became alive, that is, he came to realize his true condition in its full evil and destructiveness. On the other hand, he died in the sense of his realizing that all his religious accomplishments were spiritual rubbish (Phil. 3:7-8). His self-esteem, self-satisfaction, and pride were devastated and in ruins. Paul died. That is, for the first time, he realized he was spiritually dead. When he saw the majesty and holiness of God’s perfect law, he was broken and contrite. He was finally ready to plead with the penitent tax-gatherer, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner!” (Luke 18:13). He recognized himself as one of the helpless and ungodly for whom Christ had died (see Rom. 5:6).

In our day of great emphasis on God’s love, often to the neglect of His wrath and judgment, it is especially important to evaluate the genuineness of salvation more by a person’s regard for God’s law than by his regard for God’s love.

 This commandment, representing all of God’s law, which was to result in life, proved rather to result in death for me, Paul says. What he had considered to be a means of gaining eternal life had turned out to be the way of spiritual death.

God gave the law to provide blessing for those who love and serve Him. Throughout the Old Testament, the Lord gave His people such promises as, “How blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord. How blessed are those who observe His testimonies, who seek Him with all their heart” (Ps. 119:1-2).

But the law, the commandment, cannot produce blessing and peace in the unbeliever, because he cannot fulfill the law’s requirements and therefore stands under its sentence of death. The law cannot produce the life it was meant to produce because no man is able to meet the law’s perfect standard of righteousness. If it were possible, perfect obedience to the law could bring life. But because such obedience is not possible for fallen, sinful man, the law brings him death rather than life.

As believers in Jesus Christ, we are saved and given eternal life because “the requirement of the Law [is] fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit,” and because Christ Himself indwells us through His own Spirit, “though the body is dead because of [our] sin, yet [our] spirit is alive because of [His] righteousness” (Rom. 8:4, 10; emphasis added).

Repeating what he has just said about sin taking opportunity through the commandment (cf. v 8) and causing his death (it killed me; cf. vv. 9-10), Paul says that sin also deceived him. Deceit is one of sin’s most subtle and disastrous evils. A person who is deceived into thinking he is acceptable to God because of his own merit and good works will see no need of salvation and no reason for trusting in Christ. It is doubtless for that reason that all false religions—including those that claim the name of Christ—in one way or another are built on a deceptive foundation of self-trust and self-effort. Self-righteousness is not righteousness at all but is the worst of sins. Both by the standard of the law and by the standard of grace, the very term self-righteousness is a self-contradiction.

Sometime before his encounter with Christ on the Damascus road, Paul came to recognize sin’s deceit and the law’s impossible demands and was convicted by the Holy Spirit of his own unrighteousness and spiritual helplessness.

(7:12) The Law: the law reveals the way of God, the way of holiness and righteousness and goodness.

Unsaved people know that there is such a thing as sin; but they do not realize the sinfulness of sin. Many Christians do not realize the true nature of sin. We excuse our sins with words like “mistakes” or “weaknesses”; but God condemns our sins and tries to get us to see that they are “exceedingly sinful.” Until we realize how wicked sin really is, we will never want to oppose it and live in victory.

Paul’s argument here is tremendous: (1) the Law is not sinful—it is holy, just, and good; (2) but the Law reveals sin, arouses sin, and then uses sin to slay us; if something as good as the Law accomplishes these results, then something is radically wrong somewhere; (3) conclusion: see how sinful sin is when it can use something good like the Law to produce such tragic results. Sin is indeed “exceedingly sinful.” The problem is not with the Law; the problem is with my sinful nature.

1. The law is holy: set apart and full of purity, majesty, and glory—set apart in that it reveals God’s nature and will—set apart in that it exposes sin, all that is contrary to God’s nature and will. The law is holy in that it is different and set apart from everything else on earth. The law is God’s way of holiness, the way to live a life of holiness, the way that is so different and so set apart that no man can reach its purity.

3. The law is just: righteous, fair, impartial, equitable, straight. The law treats a man exactly like he should be treated; it shows no partiality to anyone. It also reveals how a man should treat others. The law is just in that it reveals exactly how a man should live. It shows him how to live in relation to God and to his fellow man, and it judges him fairly and impartially.
4. The law is good: it shows man how to live and tells him when he fails to live that way. It exposes his sin and demonstrates his desperate need for a Savior. The law tells man the truth about the nature of man in a most explicit way, and it points him toward the need for outside help in order to be saved.

(7:13) The Law—Sin: the law shows that sin is exceedingly sinful and that it is the cause of death. Note three points.

1. The law is good; it is not the cause of death. “God forbid! Such is impossible!”
2. The law was given to expose sin and to make men deeply aware of its presence and consequences. Men needed to know just how exceedingly sinful sin is. Men needed to know that sin…

• is the worst possible affront to God.
• is the worst imaginable rebellion against God.
• is against all that God represents.

The law proves that sin is against God: against all that He is, against all of His nature and will. Sin is selfish, destructive, dirty, ugly, and impure. The law is the very opposite. The law was given to show how exceedingly sinful sin is, to show just how terrible it is. Take any sin and stand it up against the law that prohibits it and the great contrast is seen. For example, take murder and stand it beside the commandment “Thou shalt not kill.”

Look at the great contrast.

• The commandment protected man’s life, but sin took his life away.
• The commandment protected man’s presence with loved ones, but sin took his presence away.
• The commandment protected man’s existence upon earth, but sin took his existence away.
• The commandment protected man’s contribution to society, but sin took his contribution away.
• The commandment said that man could live, but sin said “no,” and killed him.

So it is with every sin, whether adultery, stealing, or taking God’s name in vain. The law was given to show how exceedingly sinful sin is. It was given to make men think of their sinful state and condition and of their desperate need for deliverance and salvation.

3. The law was given to make men think about death, to make men aware that they die because they violate the will and nature of God. Men died before the law was ever given. They died because they did not live holy and righteous lives, did not live according to the nature and will of God. God gave the law so that sin and its condemnation of death would be exposed more than ever before. Men had to be shown that they were great sinners and that they died because they sinned. The law shows men clearer than ever before and in no uncertain terms…

• that they do sin.
• that they are not perfect.
• that they are condemned to die.

Therefore, they need a Savior who will deliver them from sin and its terrible consequence of death. The law shows man his desperate need to be saved from sin, death, and judgment.

The apostle again answers the question, “Is the law sin?” (7:7). Now he declares that not only is the law not sin but that the law is, in fact, holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Throughout the remainder of the chapter Paul continues to praise and exalt God’s law, calling it spiritual (v 14), good (v. 16), and joyfully concurring in his “inner man” with its divine truth and standards (v. 22).

David highly exalted God’s law, proclaiming:

The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the judgments of the Lord are true; they are righteous altogether. They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them Thy servant is warned; in keeping them there is great reward. (Ps. 19:7-11)

The fact that the law reveals, arouses, and condemns sin and brings death to the sinner does not make the law itself evil. When a person is justly convicted and sentenced for murder, there is no fault in the law or with those responsible for upholding it. The fault is in the one who broke the law.

Once again anticipating a question that would naturally come to mind in light of what he has said, Paul asks, Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? And once again Paul answers his own question with a resounding, May it never be!

To use again the analogy of the murder trial, it is not the law against murder but the committing of murder that merits punishment. The law itself is good; it is the breaking of it that is evil. How much more is God’s law good, and how much more evil is the breaking of it.

It is not the law that is the cause of spiritual death but rather it is sin. The law reveals and arouses sin in order that it might be shown to be sin by effecting … death through that which is good. Sin’s deadly character is exposed under the pure light of God’s law.

God has given His holy, righteous, and good law in order that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful. As already noted, the preaching of the law is necessary to the preaching of the gospel. Until men see their sin for what it is, they will not see their need of salvation from it.

Paul’s point here is that sin is so utterly sinful that it can even pervert and undermine the purpose of God’s holy law. It can twist and distort the law so that instead of bringing life, as God intended, it brings death. It can manipulate the pure law of God to deceive and damn people. Such is the awful wretchedness of sin.

In his letter to the Galatian church, Paul gives additional insight on the place and purpose of the law.

Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed should come to whom the promise had been made. Now a mediator is not for one party only; whereas God is only one. Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be! For if a law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law. But the Scripture has shut up all men under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. (Gal. 3:19-22)

The ultimate purpose of the law was to drive men to faith in Jesus Christ, who fulfilled the demands of the law on behalf of sinners who trust in His righteousness instead of their own.

After salvation Christians still need continual exposure to the divine standards of God’s law in order to see more clearly the sin in their lives and to confess it and experience the full blessing that belongs to His children. Then they can say with the psalmist, “Thy word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against Thee” (Ps. 119:11) and can claim the promise that “if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

Why did Paul choose the commandment forbidding coveting rather than some other command? Did he randomly choose this command, or was there a particular reason for his choice? I believe Paul deliberately chose the commandment pertaining to coveting for very significant reasons.

Consider these reasons why coveting is such a serious and significant sin.

(1) Coveting is a matter of the heart. It is not a matter which can be judged by outward appearance. Murder and stealing are visible sins which are immediately apparent to anyone who sees the evidence of a dead body or missing goods. Coveting is a sin of the mind and heart. We can covet, and no one may ever know it. Legalism tends to dwell on externals, while true Christian liberty is a matter of the heart. Paul therefore avoids an external example, choosing instead an invisible, internal sin.

 (2) Coveting is one of the characteristic sins of the flesh. Our flesh has its appetites which often come into conflict with God’s revealed will. These appetites, or desires, are often forbidden lusts (see Galatians 5:16, 19; Ephesians 2:3; 2 Peter 2:10). Sin frequently overpowers our flesh by appealing to its lusts.

 (3) Coveting is a root sin which is often the cause of other sins. Coveting in and of itself seems to do no harm to anyone, but it very frequently provides the motivation for stealing and even murder. To put a stop to coveting is to “head other sins off at the pass.”

 (4) Coveting is a sin which best illustrates Paul’s statement, “I would not have come to know sin except through the Law” (verse 7). Not all sins are crimes. Murder, perjury, and robbery are sins, and they are also considered crimes by society. Almost anywhere in the world, one will find laws against these sins. Society’s laws serve to signal us that if these activities are crimes, they must be wrong.

Coveting is a sin which is almost never considered a crime. I know of no government which has a law forbidding coveting. Part of the explanation for this is the difficulty of identifying coveting and proving that this offense has taken place, since it is a sin of the heart and mind. Another reason is that most people do not think coveting is really wrong. In some societies, like our own, many forms of coveting would actually be commended rather than condemned.

All of this powerfully demonstrates Paul’s point. Unless God’s Law had identified coveting as a sin, we would never have recognized it as such. Coveting is like a tumor hidden inside our body. Because it is not external, like murder, we do not recognize its deadly existence and nature. The Law is like an x-ray, exposing it for what it is and warning us that we must deal with it.

 (5) Coveting is used by Paul not only as an illustration of the principle he lays down in verse 7 but also as a link to his illustration from his own personal experience in verses 9-11. Coveting seems to lie at the root of the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. In the account of the fall, every tree in the garden was “pleasing to the sight and good for food” (Genesis 2:9). Adam and Eve were given possession of virtually everything in the garden with the exception of one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the fruit of which they were forbidden to eat (see Genesis 2:16-17). Satan successfully focused Eve’s attention and desire on the fruit of this tree. The result was that she seemed to focus only on the fruit of this forbidden tree as “pleasing to the sight and good for food,” and, in addition, “able to make her wise.

During a court session, an attorney will often rise to his feet and say, “Your Honor, I object!” Some of the Roman Christians must have felt like objecting as they heard Paul’s letter being read, and Paul seemed to anticipate their thinking.

In Romans 6-8 Paul defended his doctrine of justification by faith. He anticipated three objections: (1) “If God’s grace abounds when we sin, then let’s continue sinning so we might experience more grace” (Rom. 6:1-14); (2) “If we are no longer under the Law, then we are free to live as we please” (Rom. 6:15-7:6); and (3) “You have made God’s Law sinful” (Rom. 7:7-25).

These objections prove that the readers did not understand either Law or grace. They were going to extremes: legalism on the one hand and license on the other.

In Romans 6, Paul gave three instructions for attaining victory over sin.

Know (Rom. 6:1-10)

The repetition of the word “know” in Romans 6:1, 6, and 9 indicates that Paul wanted us to understand a basic doctrine.

Christian living depends on Christian learning; duty is always founded on doctrine. If Satan can keep a Christian ignorant, he can keep him impotent.

The basic truth Paul was teaching is the believer’s identification with Christ in death, burial, and resurrection. Just as we are identified with Adam in sin and condemnation, so we are now identified with Christ in righteousness and justification.

At Romans 5:12, Paul made a transition from discussing “sins” to discussing “sin”—from the actions to the principle, from the fruit to the root. Jesus Christ not only died for our sins, but He also died unto sin, and we died with Him.

Perhaps a chart will explain the contrasts In other words, justification by faith is not simply a legal matter between me and God; it is a living relationship. It is “a justification which brings life” (Rom. 5:18, literal translation). I am in Christ and identified with Him. Therefore, whatever happened to Christ has happened to me. When He died, I died. When He arose, I arose in Him. I am now seated with Him in the heavenlies! (see Eph. 2:1-10; Col. 3:1-3) Because of this living union with Christ, the believer has a totally new relationship to sin.

He is dead to sin (vv. 2-5). Paul’s illustration is baptism. The Greek word has two basic meanings: (1) a literal meaning—to dip or immerse; and (2) a figurative meaning—to be identified with.

An example of the latter would be 1 Corinthians 10:2: “And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.” The nation of Israel was identified with Moses as their leader when they crossed the Red Sea.

It appears that Paul had both the literal and the figurative in mind in this paragraph.

The mode of baptism in the early church was immersion. The believer was “buried” in the water and brought up again as a picture of death, burial, and resurrection.

Baptism by immersion (which is the illustration Paul is using in Rom. 6) pictures the believer’s identification with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection.

This means that the believer has a new relationship to sin. He is “dead to sin.” “I am crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20). If a drunk dies, he can no longer be tempted by alcohol because his body is dead to all physical senses. He cannot see the alcohol, smell it, taste it, or desire it.

In Jesus Christ we have died to sin so that we no longer want to “continue in sin.” But we are not only dead to sin; we are also alive in Christ.

We have been raised from the dead and now walk in the power of His resurrection. We walk in “newness of life” because we share His life. “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live” (Gal. 2:20).

This tremendous spiritual truth is illustrated in the miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus (John 11). When Jesus arrived at Bethany, Lazarus had been in the tomb four days; so there was no question about his death. By the power of His word (“Lazarus, come forth!”) Jesus raised His friend from the dead.

But when Lazarus appeared at the door of the tomb, he was wrapped in graveclothes. So Jesus commanded, “Loose him, and let him go!” He had been raised to walk “in newness of life.”

In John 12, Lazarus was seated with Christ at the table, in fellowship with Him. Dead—raised from the dead—set free to walk in newness of life—seated with Christ: all of these facts illustrate the spiritual truths of our identification with Christ as given in Ephesians 2:1-10.

Too many Christians are “betweeners”: they live between Egypt and Canaan, saved but never satisfied; or they live between Good Friday and Easter, believing in the Cross but not entering into the power and glory of the Resurrection.

Romans 6:5 indicates that our union with Christ assures our future resurrection should we die. But Romans 6:4 teaches that we share His resurrection power today. “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above…. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:1, 3, NIV).

It is clear, then, that the believer cannot deliberately live in sin since he has a new relationship to sin because of his identification with Christ. The believer has died to the old life; he has been raised to enjoy a new life.

The believer does not want to go back into sin any more than Lazarus wanted to go back into the tomb dressed again in his graveclothes!

Then Paul introduced a second fact:

He should not serve sin (vv. 6-10). Sin is a terrible master, and it finds a willing servant in the human body. The body is not sinful; the body is neutral. It can be controlled either by sin or by God. But man’s fallen nature, which is not changed at conversion, gives sin a beachhead from which it can attack and then control. Paul expressed the problem: “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not” (Rom. 7:18).

A tremendous fact is introduced here: the old man (the old ego, self) was crucified with Christ so that the body need not be controlled by sin. The word “destroyed” in Romans 6:6 does not mean annihilated; it means “rendered inactive, made of no effect.” The same Greek word is translated “loosed” in Romans 7:2. If a woman’s husband dies, she is “loosed” from the law of her husband and is free to marry again. There is a change in relationship. The law is still there, but it has no authority over the woman because her husband is dead.

Sin wants to be our master. It finds a foothold in the old nature, and through the old nature seeks to control the members of the body. But in Jesus Christ, we died to sin; and the old nature was crucified so that the old life is rendered inoperative. Paul was not describing an experience; he was stating a fact. The practical experience was to come later. It is a fact of history that Jesus Christ died on the cross. It is also a fact of history that the believer died with Him; and “he that is dead is freed from sin” (Rom. 6:7). Not “free to sin” as Paul’s accusers falsely stated; but “freed from sin.”

Sin and death have no dominion over Christ. We are “in Christ”; therefore, sin and death have no dominion over us. Jesus Christ not only died “for sin,” but He also died “unto sin.” That is, He not only paid the penalty for sin, but He broke the power of sin. This idea of dominion takes us back to Romans 5:12-21 where Paul dealt with the “reigns” of sin, death, and grace. Through Christ we “reign in life” (Rom. 5:17) so that sin no longer controls our lives.

The big question now is, “I believe the facts of history; but how do I make this work in daily experience?” This leads to Paul’s second instruction.

Reckon (Rom. 6:11)

In some parts of the United States, “to reckon” means “to think” or “to guess.” “I reckon” is also the equivalent of “I suppose.” But none of these popular meanings can apply to this verse. The word reckon is a translation of a Greek word that is used forty-one times in the New Testament—nineteen times in Romans alone. It appears in Romans 4 where it is translated as “count, reckon, impute.” It means “to take into account, to calculate, to estimate.” The word impute—”to put to one’s account”—is perhaps the best translation.

To reckon means “to put to one’s account.” It simply means to believe that what God says in His Word is really true in your life.

Paul didn’t tell his readers to feel as if they were dead to sin, or even to understand it fully, but to act on God’s Word and claim it for themselves. Reckoning is a matter of faith that issues in action. It is like endorsing a check: if we really believe that the money is in the checking account, we will sign our name and collect the money. Reckoning is not claiming a promise, but acting on a fact. God does not command us to become dead to sin. He tells us that we are dead to sin and alive unto God, and then commands us to act on it. Even if we do not act on it, the facts are still true.

Paul’s first instruction (“know”) centered in the mind, and this second instruction (“reckon”) focuses on the heart. His third instruction touches the will.

Yield (Rom. 6:12-23)

The word yield is found five times in this section (Rom. 6:13, 16, and 19), and means “to place at one’s disposal, to present, to offer as a sacrifice.” According to Romans 12:1, the believer’s body should be presented to the Lord as “a living sacrifice” for His glory. The Old Testament sacrifices were dead sacrifices. The Lord may ask some of us to die for Him, but He asks all of us to live for Him.

How we are to yield (vv. 12-13). This is an act of the will based on the knowledge we have of what Christ has done for us. It is an intelligent act—not the impulsive decision of the moment based on some emotional stirring. It is important to notice the tenses of the verbs in these verses. A literal translation is: “Do not constantly allow sin to reign in your mortal body so that you are constantly obeying its lusts. Neither constantly yield your members of your body as weapons [or tools] of unrighteousness to sin; but once and for all yield yourselves to God.” That once-and-for-all surrender is described in Romans 12:1.

There must be in the believer’s life that final and complete surrender of the body to Jesus Christ. This does not mean there will be no further steps of surrender, because there will be. The longer we walk with Christ, the deeper the fellowship must become. But there can be no subsequent steps without that first step. The tense of the verb in Romans 12:1 corresponds with that in Romans 6:13—a once-and-for-all yielding to the Lord. To be sure, we daily surrender afresh to Him; but even that is based on a final and complete surrender.

Why does the Lord want your body? To begin with, the believer’s body is God’s temple, and He wants to use it for His glory (1 Cor. 6:19-20; Phil. 1:20-21). But Paul wrote that the body is also God’s tool and God’s weapon (Rom. 6:13). God wants to use the members of the body as tools for building His kingdom and weapons for fighting His enemies.

The Bible tells of people who permitted God to take and use their bodies for the fulfilling of His purposes. God used the rod in Moses’ hand and conquered Egypt. He used the sling in David’s hand to defeat the Philistines. He used the mouths and tongues of the prophets. Paul’s dedicated feet carried him from city to city as he proclaimed the Gospel. The Apostle John’s eyes saw visions of the future, his ears heard God’s message, and his fingers wrote it all down in a book that we can read.

But you can also read in the Bible accounts of the members of the body being used for sinful purposes. David’s eyes looked on his neighbor’s wife; his mind plotted a wicked scheme; his hand signed a cowardly order for the woman’s husband to be killed. As you read Psalm 51, you see that his whole body was affected by sin: his eyes (Ps. 51:3), mind (Ps. 51:6), ears (Ps. 51:8), heart (Ps. 51:10), and lips and mouth (Ps. 51:14-15). No wonder he prayed for a thorough cleansing! (Ps. 51:2)

Why we are to yield (vv. 14-23). Three words summarize the reasons for our yielding: favor (Rom. 6:14-15), freedom (Rom. 6:16-20), and fruit (Rom. 6:21-23).

Favor (vv. 14-15). It is because of God’s grace that we yield ourselves to Him. Paul has proved that we are not saved by the Law and that we do not live under the Law. The fact that we are saved by grace does not give us an excuse to sin; but it does give us a reason to obey. Sin and Law go together. “The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the Law” (1 Cor. 15:56). Since we are not under Law, but under grace, sin is robbed of its strength.

Freedom (vv. 16-20). The illustration of the master and servant is obvious. Whatever you yield to becomes your master. Before you were saved, you were the slave of sin. Now that you belong to Christ, you are freed from that old slavery and made the servant of Christ. Romans 6:19 suggests that the Christian ought to be as enthusiastic in yielding to the Lord as he was in yielding to sin. A friend once said to me, “I want to be as good a saint as I was a sinner!” I knew what he meant because in his unconverted days he was almost “the chief of sinners.”

The unsaved person is free—free from righteousness (Rom. 6:20). But his bondage to sin only leads him deeper into slavery so that it becomes harder and harder to do what is right The Prodigal Son is an example of this (Luke 15:11-24). When he was at home, he decided he wanted his freedom, so he left home to find himself and enjoy himself. But his rebellion only led him deeper into slavery. He was the slave of wrong desires, then the slave of wrong deeds; and finally he became a literal slave when he took care of the pigs. He wanted to find himself, but he lost himself! What he thought was freedom turned out to be the worst kind of slavery. It was only when he returned home and yielded to his father that he found true freedom.

Fruit (vv. 21-23). If you serve a master, you can expect to receive wages. Sin pays wages—death! God also pays wages—holiness and everlasting life. In the old life, we produced fruit that made us ashamed. In the new life in Christ, we produce fruit that glorifies God and brings joy to our lives. We usually apply Romans 6:23 to the lost, and certainly it does apply; but it also has a warning for the saved. (After all, it was written to Christians.) “There is a sin unto death” (1 John 5:17). “For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep” (1 Cor. 11:30, nasb). Samson, for example, would not yield himself to God, but preferred to yield to the lusts of the flesh, and the result was death (Jud. 16). If the believer refuses to surrender his body to the Lord, but uses its members for sinful purposes, then he is in danger of being disciplined by the Father, and this could mean death. (See Heb. 12:5-11, and note the end of v. 9 in particular.)

These three instructions need to be heeded each day that we live. KNOW that you have been crucified with Christ and are dead to sin. RECKON this fact to be true in your own life. YIELD your body to the Lord to be used for His glory.

Now that you KNOW these truths, RECKON them to be true in your life, and then YIELD yourself to God.

 

In Romans 7 Paul expounds on his statement in Romans 6:14, “For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.” In 6:15-23, he used the analogy of slavery to show that we will not sin under grace because we have become enslaved to God and righteousness. In chapter 7, he explains what it means to be free from the law and how this relates to breaking free from sin’s tyranny.

The theme in chapter 6 was sin; Paul uses that word 17 times there. In his mind, there was a direct correlation between sin and the law. In 1 Corinthians 15:56 he says, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.” So there are several parallels between chapters 6 & 7 (Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 270): Believers have died to sin (6:2) and they have died to the law (7:4). We have been freed from sin (6:18, 22) and we are released from the law (7:6). We walk in newness of life (6:4) and we serve in newness of the Spirit (7:6). Our victory over sin is tied to our union with Christ in His death and resurrection (6:8-11). Our release from the law and its sin-arousing power is because we are now joined to the crucified and risen Lord (7:4).

So if we want to gain consistent victory over sin, we have to wrestle with Romans 7 as Paul explains the purpose of God’s law and our relationship to it. His thinking was radically opposed to the common Jewish views of his day. They would have said that the law was given to make us holy, but Paul says that the Law served to arouse us to sin! In chapters 1-5 Paul shows that it is impossible to be justified by keeping the law. Here he shows that it is impossible to be sanctified by keeping the law. In fact, Paul argues that the law is actually a hindrance to sanctification (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans: The Law: Its Functions and Limits [Zondervan], p. 5).

The chapter falls into three sections. In 7:1-6, Paul shows that we are no longer married to the law. A death has taken place and now we are joined to Jesus Christ so that we might bear fruit for God. But that raises the question, “Then is the law sin?” Paul answers this in 7:7-12, showing that the law is holy and good. It is we who are the problem! When our sinful nature comes into contact with the law, it does not obey. Rather, it is aroused to sin. Then in 7:13-25, he shows the ensuing battle that sinners have with the law. This is a very difficult and controversial section, as debate rages over whether the person in view is an unbeliever or a believer. I do not want to raise your hopes that I will solve this puzzle for you, but we will try to work through it as best as we can.

In our text (7:1-6), Paul first makes a general statement about the law’s jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives (7:1). Then (7:2-3) he illustrates his point by showing that a woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. He is not giving comprehensive teaching here about divorce and remarriage. Rather, he uses an analogy to make a point: the law has jurisdiction over the living, not over the dead. If a person dies, he is no longer under the law. Then (7:4), he applies the point, showing that we died to the law through the death of Christ. We are now “remarried” to Christ so that we might bear fruit for God. Then (7:5-6) Paul explains verse 4 negatively (7:5) and positively (7:6). We need to die to the law because it aroused our sinful passions to bear fruit for death (7:5). But in Christ we have been released from bondage to the law so that we serve God in newness of the Spirit (7:6). To summarize:

Through our union with Christ, we have died to the law so that we are free to bear fruit for God in the Spirit.

1. Through our union with Christ, we have died to the law, which only produced sin and death.

Many books have been written on what it means for us not to be under the law, so I can only give some brief guidelines here. I offer one negative and three positive thoughts to clarify what Paul means when he says that we died to the law.

A. Dying to the law does not mean that we are free from specific moral commandments.

We need to understand that we did not die to the law so that we could live lawlessly, doing whatever we please. That was the false charge that Paul’s enemies leveled against him. But Paul makes it very clear that we died to the law so that we might be joined to Christ, under His authority. Just as a woman is under the authority of her husband (according to the Bible), so we were under the authority of God’s law. But when we died to the law, it was not so that we could become free spirits. Rather, it was so that we could now be joined to Christ as our husband.

Paul’s analogy is rather confusing if you try to make it say more than he intends. In 7:2-3, the woman’s husband dies so that she is free to remarry. But in the application (7:4), it is not the husband that dies, but rather the wife dies to the law through Christ. By implication she is raised from the dead so that she can marry Christ, who died and was raised from the dead. But Paul does not intend this to be a tight allegory, where one thing consistently represents another. Rather, he is making the main point that by being identified with Christ in His death and resurrection, we died to the law so that we’re legally free to be joined to Christ.

But, dying to the law does not mean that we no longer are obligated to keep specific moral commandments. As Paul states later (Rom. 8:4), the requirement of the law is now fulfilled in us as we walk according to the Spirit. Sometimes it is argued that the only command under the new covenant is love, since love is the fulfillment of the law (Rom. 13:8, 10; Gal. 5:14). But this is often misapplied in a simplistic way so that “love” means whatever the person wants it to mean. For example, couples argue that it is okay to have sexual relations outside of marriage because they “love” one another. But the New Testament is abundantly clear that the sexual relationship is restricted to heterosexual marriage (1 Cor. 6:9-10, 18; 7:1-9; 1 Thess. 4:2-8). Love does not mean that we are free to disregard the Bible’s moral standards.

In fact, the New Testament gives many detailed commands about love. Love speaks the truth. Love does not steal, but rather labors so as to be able to give. Love speaks wholesome, edifying words. Love is not bitter or angry. Love is kind and forgiving. Love does not engage in immorality or greed (see Eph. 4:25-5:4). Many more specific commands on other topics are given throughout the New Testament to believers who have died to the law (see Romans 12). So we would be mistaken to think that dying to the law frees us from the obligation to obey specific moral commandments. So what does it mean?

B. Dying to the law means that we are free from the demands of the law as an impersonal system for approaching God.

While salvation has always been by grace through faith, not by works, many who were under the Mosaic law wrongly thought that they could be right with God by keeping the law. It was true: Keep the law perfectly and you will live (Matt. 19:17; Gal. 3:12). The problem is, that system brought everyone who tried to live by it under a curse, because no one could keep the law perfectly (Gal. 3:10). As a Pharisee, Paul thought that he was blameless with regard to the law (Phil. 3:6), but at best he was “blameless” only in the sense of outward obedience to the ceremonies and rituals that the law prescribed. The truth was that in his heart, he was proud of his blameless obedience, and pride is the root of all sins before God. When he met Christ, Paul came to see that he was actually the chief of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15).

So dying to the law means that we do not approach God by an impersonal system of performance, where we try to earn right standing with Him. That is the way of virtually every religion in the world, including many that go under the name of “Christian.” The good news is that God justifies sinners by grace through faith alone and that the core of saving faith is to know Jesus Christ (Rom. 4:5; Phil. 3:2-10). And, as I said, Paul’s point in Romans 7 is not only that we are justified by grace through faith alone, but also that we are sanctified in the same way (see Col. 2:6).

C. Dying to the law means that we are free from the condemnation of the law.

Paul says (Rom. 7:6) that the law held us in bondage. It did so by putting us under a curse because of our failure to obey it perfectly (Gal. 3:10). Peter refers to the law as “a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear” (Acts 15:10). The law closes every mouth and makes us all accountable to God (Rom. 3:19). No one is able to be justified by keeping the law; rather, the law brings the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:20) and puts us under God’s wrath (Rom. 4:15). The law increased our transgressions and held us under the reign of sin and death (Rom. 5:20-21). Attempting to be right with God by law-keeping is doomed to failure. The only benefit of the law with regard to salvation is that it shows us God’s impossible standard of holiness and thus drives us to Christ as our only hope, so that we will be justified by faith (Gal. 3:24).

D. Dying to the law means that we are free from the inability of the law to produce obedience.

This is Paul’s primary focus in Romans 7:5: “For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.” In this context, being “in the flesh” means, before we were saved, before we received the Holy Spirit. As Thomas Schreiner puts it (The Law and Its Fulfillment [Baker], p. 133), “The law apart from the Spirit does not produce obedience. The law apart from the Spirit does not save but kills.”

Paul will explain this further in 7:7-11, where he says that coveting was not a problem until he read, “You shall not covet.” That commandment triggered something in him that made him covet all over the place. The problem was not with the law, which is holy, but with his sinful flesh. We can all relate to what he is saying. I wouldn’t think about walking on the grass if it weren’t for that annoying sign that says, “Do not walk on the grass.” The commandment makes me want to walk on the grass!

So the law is not the answer to our sin problem. Trying to keep the law can never reconcile us to the holy God, because we’ve all violated His law many times over. Posting a list of God’s commandments on the refrigerator and trying to keep them by our own strength won’t work, either, because the law just incites our sinful passions. It does not quench the desire to sin. The oldness of the letter was a “ministry of death” (2 Cor. 3:6, 7). We need a more powerful solution, which Paul gives in 7:4 & 6.

Paul says that we were “made to die to the law through the body of Christ” (7:4). That’s an unusual phrase, referring to Christ’s physical body. Paul is calling attention to the fact that in His human body, Jesus satisfied the demands of the law on our behalf, so that He “canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross” (Col. 2:14). So when Jesus died to the demands of the law, we died in Him. In summary, this means: We are free from the demands of the law as an impersonal system for approaching God. We are free from the condemnation of the law. The power of the law to arouse our sinful desires is broken, because being joined to Christ, we now have the Holy Spirit to give us the power to obey.

2. Having died to the law, we are now joined to Jesus Christ, which produces fruit for God in the Spirit.

As I said, God does not free us from the law so that we can live any way that we please. Rather, He frees us from the law (7:4) so that we “might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, that we might bear fruit for God.” Restating it in a slightly different way (7:6), this release from the law enables us to “serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.” So our union with the risen Savior through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit works in us to bear fruit for God. Note six things about this union or marriage to Christ:

A. Our union with Christ is a transforming relationship.

In verse 6, Paul uses the same contrast that we saw in 6:22, “But now.” It points to the great change from before we met Christ to afterwards. Before we met Him, we were in the flesh, enslaved to sin, and under the condemnation and power of the law. “But now we have been released from the law, having died to that by which we were bound” (7:6). If I have broken the law and am facing a prison term, but before I go to prison I die, they aren’t going to take my corpse to prison! My death released me from the power of the law. It changed everything.

Also, our death to the law freed us to be joined in marriage to the risen Christ (7:4). This implies that we have new life in Him, because Jesus doesn’t marry a corpse. We have a new relationship of love with our Bridegroom, who gave Himself on the cross to secure us as His bride. (By the way, it’s difficult as a guy to think of myself as “married” to Jesus, but think of it corporately, not individually. The biblical analogy is that the church corporately is the bride of Christ.) Our new union with Christ changes everything.

There is one thing certain about marriage: it changes you forever! Suddenly, you are not your own. You have to think about your wife before you make plans. You have to think about what pleases her. You have to take her into account in every decision that you make. You have to work at staying close in your relationship to her. But in spite of these new responsibilities, I can say with gusto that marrying Marla changed me for the good! In the same way, being joined to Jesus Christ changes everything. It gives you new responsibilities, but it transforms you decidedly for the good.

B. Our union with Christ is a love relationship.

As I said, the phrase “through the body of Christ” points to the cross, where Jesus died a horrible death to secure us as His bride. He paid the price that the law demanded for our sin. “Christ … loved the church and gave Himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). So now we willingly submit to Him, not out of duty, but out of love.

Picture a woman married to a demanding, perfectionistic man. He’s the kind who takes a white glove and wipes it on the top of the door molding to see if it has been dusted. She lives in constant fear that she will not please him. But then (much to her relief) he dies. Sometime later, she meets a loving, kind, and caring man. They fall in love and get married. Now she still cleans the house and cooks the meals, but she does it joyfully out of love, not dutifully to meet the demands of an impossible tyrant.

The analogy breaks down, in that the law did not die. Rather, we died to it. But, we no longer have to strive in vain to meet its impossible demands as the grounds of our acceptance with God. Rather, Christ met those demands for us and we are joined to Him in love. We still live to please Him, but our whole motive has changed from duty that condemned us to love that accepts us.

C. Our union with Christ is a liberating relationship.

Before, we were bound by the law, but now we are released from its condemnation and domination (7:6). The picture is that of a prisoner who has been set free. I’ve never been in prison, but I got a feel for what it must be like when I was in boot camp. We were in captivity in every sense of the word. The Coast Guard determined our schedule, our activities, what we wore, how we looked, and what we ate. Boot camp was on an island in the Oakland Bay. From our upstairs barracks window, I could see cars stuck in rush hour traffic out on the Oakland freeway. I thought, “Those drivers are probably grumbling about the traffic, but if they only knew how free they are to be able to drive their own car wherever they want to go, they’d quit complaining!” Before Christ, we were bound by the law, but now we’re free.

D. Our union with Christ is a fruitful relationship.

The reason we are joined to Christ is so “that we might bear fruit for God” (7:4). When you compare that to 7:6, “so that we serve in newness of the Spirit,” it probably refers to the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23), or “the fruit of the Light,” which is “all goodness and righteousness and truth, trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord” (Eph. 5:9-10). If you’re not bearing fruit for God, you are not fulfilling the purpose for which He saved you.

E. Our union with Christ is a powerful relationship.

The law was impotent to help us obey, but Christ gives us the Holy Spirit to indwell us and empower us to overcome sin. To be under the law is to be “in the flesh” (7:5), which has no motivation or power to overcome sin. But the Spirit enables us to put to death the deeds of the body, so that we will live (8:13; Gal. 5:16-23).

F. Our union with Christ is a holy relationship.

I mentioned at the outset that being free from the law does not mean that we are free to disobey the moral commands of Scripture. But I mention it again as we close, because it is so often misunderstood or ignored. The word “serve” (7:6) is the same Greek word translated “enslaved to God” (6:22). So Christ frees us from the law to which we were bound, but not to do as we please. We’re freed from the law so that we can be enslaved to God in the newness of the Spirit. Being a slave of righteousness is true freedom!

Conclusion

Martyn Lloyd-Jones (p. 84) says, “You are either a Christian or not a Christian; you cannot be partly Christian. You are either ‘dead’ or ‘alive’; you are either ‘born’ or ‘not born’. Becoming a Christian is not a gradual process; there is nothing indeterminate about it; we either are, or we are not Christian.”

If you’re not a Christian, you are under the condemnation of the law. But if you put your trust in Christ, who bore the curse of the law, you are released from the law and joined to a loving husband so that you can bear fruit for God. That’s even better than the best of earthly marriages can be!

Why God Gave the Law (Romans 7:7-11)

Almost a quarter century ago, philosopher Allan Bloom published his best-selling The Closing of the American Mind [Simon & Schuster, 1987]. He began (p. 25):

There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative. If this belief is put to the test, one can count on the students’ reaction: they will be uncomprehending. That anyone should regard the proposition as not self-evident astonishes them, as though he were calling into question 2 + 2 = 4. These are things you don’t think about.

The chief virtue that this relativism seeks to inculcate is tolerance or openness. The main enemy of tolerance is the person who thinks that he has the truth or is right in his views. This only “led to wars, persecutions, slavery, xenophobia, racism, and chauvinism. The point,” says Bloom (p. 26), “is not to correct the mistakes and really be right; rather it is not to think you are right at all.”

Bloom later (p. 67) reports his students’ reaction to his question, “Who do you think is evil?” They immediately respond, “Hitler.” They rarely mention Stalin. A few in the early 80’s mentioned Nixon, but by the time Bloom wrote the book, Nixon was being rehabilitated. Bloom comments (ibid.),

And there it stops. They have no idea of evil; they doubt its existence. Hitler is just another abstraction, an item to fill up an empty category. Although they live in a world in which the most terrible deeds are being performed and they see brutal crime in the streets, they turn aside. Perhaps they believe that evil deeds are performed by persons who, if they got the proper therapy, would not do them again—that there are evil deeds, not evil people.

I cite Bloom because the worldview of the young people that he observed a quarter century ago is now pervasive in our society. And the worldly relativism that minimizes or even eliminates the concept of sin is not just “out there.” It has flooded into the church. Popular megachurches thrive by making the church “a safe place” for everyone, where no one will be judged and where various types of immorality are relabeled as personal preferences. The “gospel” gets retooled as a way that Jesus can help you succeed and reach your personal goals. If you want your church to grow, you should never mention anything negative, like sin. Rather, tell people how much God loves them because they are so lovable. Build their self-esteem, but never suggest that they are sinners!

But if we are not sinners, then we do not need a Savior who died to bear the penalty of our sin. More than a century ago, Charles Spurgeon lamented (C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, The Early Years [Banner of Truth], p. 54), “Too many think lightly of sin, and therefore think lightly of the Saviour.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones observed (Romans: The Law: Its Functions and Limits [Zondervan], p. 151), “The biblical doctrine of sin is absolutely crucial to an understanding of the biblical doctrine of salvation. Whatever we may think, we cannot be right and clear about the way of salvation unless we are right and clear about sin.” And since Romans 7 is one of the most penetrating analyses of sin in all of Scripture, we need to understand Paul’s thought here.

In our text, Paul defends the integrity and righteousness of God’s law against critics who argued that Paul’s teaching implied that the law is sin. “May it never be,” he exclaims (7:7). He exonerates God’s law as holy, righteous, and good (7:12), while showing why God gave the law:

God gave His law to convict us of our sin and bring us to the end of ourselves so that we would flee to Christ for salvation.

Our innate self-righteousness is so entrenched that until the law strips us of it and convicts us of our sin, we will not cast ourselves totally upon Christ. Our culture adds to this by telling us that we’re not sinners. We’re not worms, for goodness sake! We’re pretty good folks. We may want to bring Jesus into our lives as a useful coach or helper in our self-improvement program. But to trust Him as our Savior, we have to see the depth of our sin as God’s law exposes it for what it is. That’s what Paul describes here.

We come here to one of the most difficult and controversial sections of Romans. In verses 7-25, Paul dramatically shifts to the first person singular, dropping it again in chapter 8. In 7:7-13, he uses the past tense, but then in 7:14-25 he shifts to the present tense. Scholars debate whether Paul is speaking autobiographically or not. At the crux of this debate is when Paul possibly could have been “alive apart from the law” (7:9). There is also much controversy over whether verses 14-25 describe Paul before he was saved, Paul as a new believer, or Paul as a mature believer. So it’s a very difficult passage, with competent, godly scholars in every camp. I do not claim infallibility as we proceed (not that I ever do)!

Paul’s main concern in this chapter is not to share his personal experience, but rather to exonerate God’s law from any hint of being evil. He uses his own experience (as I understand it) to show how the law functions to bring conviction of sin, but also how it is powerless to deliver us from sin’s grip. Rather, it drives us to Christ, who alone has the power to save (7:25); and to the indwelling Holy Spirit, who gives us the power to overcome sin (8:2-4). So, let’s try to work through these verses.

1. The law is not sin, but it does reveal our sin (7:7).

Romans 7:7: “What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’”

Paul is responding to the charge that critics would bring in reaction to 7:5: “For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.” The Jews believed that God gave the law to give us life and make us holy, but Paul claimed that the Law aroused us to sin, resulting in death. So now he answers this charge: “Is the Law sin?”

After strongly rejecting that slur against his teaching, Paul argues that the law functions to reveal our sin to us. He uses as a personal example the tenth commandment against coveting. This shows that by “the law” Paul mainly had in mind the Ten Commandments as the embodiment of God’s requirements for holy living. Probably he picked the tenth commandment because it is the only command that explicitly condemns evil on the heart level. Jesus pointed out that the commands against murder and adultery (and, by implication, all of the commands) go deeper than the outward action. If you’re angry at your brother, you have violated the command against murder. If you lust in your heart over a woman, you have committed adultery in God’s sight (Matt. 5:21-30). But the command against coveting explicitly goes right to the heart. Coveting concerns your heart’s desires, whether you ever act on those desires or not.

When Paul says, “I would not have come to know sin except through the Law,” he does not mean that he (or others) do not know sin at all apart from the law. He has already said (2:14-15) that Gentiles who do not have the law have the “work of the Law written in their hearts.” People sinned from Adam until Moses, even though they did not have the written law (5:12-14).

What Paul means is that the law, especially the tenth commandment focusing on the inward desires, nailed him so that he came to know sin as sin against God. Before his conversion, outwardly Paul was a self-righteous Pharisee. He thought that all of his deeds commended him to God. With regard to the law, he saw himself as “blameless” (Phil. 3:6). But when the Holy Spirit brought the tenth commandment about coveting home to his conscience, Paul realized that he had violated God’s holy law. At that point, he came to know sin. The commandment made it explicit: “Paul, you are a sinner!”

Like Paul before his conversion, most people think that they are basically good. Sure, they know they have their faults. Who doesn’t? They’re not perfect, but they are good. They excuse even their bad sins, just as Paul excused his violent persecution of the church. After all, it was justified because it was for a good cause.

So guys excuse a little pornography because, “After all, everyone looks at that stuff and I’m not hurting anyone. Besides, I’ve never cheated on my wife.” And they excuse their violent temper because that person had it coming and, “Hey, I didn’t hurt him; I just told him off!” People excuse all manner of sin and still think of themselves as basically good people because they have not come to know God’s law, especially the law as it confronts our evil desires. At the heart of coveting is the enthronement of self as lord.

Spurgeon (“The Soul’s Great Crisis,” Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 61:425) compares the sinner who thinks that he is basically good, but won’t look at God’s law, to a man who thinks he is rich and lives in a lavish manner, but refuses to look at his books. The guy lives in style. When he gets into a financial bind, he takes out a loan, and when that one comes due, he’ll meet it with another loan. He says he is all right and he convinces himself that he is all right. At the moment he’s living as if he’s all right. But does he ever get out his accounts and take stock of his real condition? No, that’s boring. We all know where that will end—the man will go bankrupt.

In the same way, Spurgeon says, we may convince ourselves that we are right with God by brushing over our faults as no big deal. We live as if we’re good people; all is well. But if we don’t examine our true condition in light of God’s law, we’re heading for eternal bankruptcy. The law reveals our sin. But Paul goes further:

2. The law provokes sinners to sin (7:8).

Romans 7:8: “But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law, sin is dead.”

Paul personifies sin as an active force that uses the law to provoke us to commit acts of sin. By sin, Paul means sin as a principle and power, not just acts of sin (Lloyd-Jones, p. 120). He repeats the phrase again (7:11), “sin, taking opportunity through the commandment.” Opportunity was a word used for a military base of operations from which the army launched its campaigns. So sin takes God’s holy commandments and uses them to tempt us to violate those commands. It stirs up the rebel in us and makes us want to assert our right to do as we please.

James Boice (Romans: The Reign of Grace [Baker], pp. 742-743) tells a story from when he was in sixth grade. The school principal came into his classroom just before lunch and said that he had heard that some students had been bringing firecrackers to school. He went on to warn about the dangers of firecrackers and to say that anyone caught with firecrackers at school would be expelled. Well, Boice didn’t own any firecrackers and he hadn’t even thought about firecrackers. But when you get to thinking about firecrackers, it’s an intriguing subject. He then remembered that one of his friends had some.

So during his lunch break, he and a friend went by this other friend’s house, got a firecracker and returned to school. They went into a cloakroom and planned to light it and pinch it out before it exploded. But the lit fuse burned the fingers of the boy holding it. He dropped it and it exploded with a horrific bang, echoing in that old building with its high ceilings, marble floors, and plaster walls. Before the boys could stagger out of the cloakroom, the principal was out of his office, down the hall, and standing there to greet them. As Boice later sat in the principal’s office with his parents, he remembers the principal saying over and over, “I had just told them not to bring any firecrackers to school. I just can’t believe it.”

But that’s how sin operates in the hearts of rebels. It takes God’s good and right commandments and entices us to violate them. Sometimes when you read about others sinning or you see it on TV or in a movie, you think, “I’ll bet that would be fun!” You know that God forbids it, but probably He just wants to deprive you of some fun. Besides, what will it hurt to try it once? It can’t be all that bad. And, I can always get forgiven later. So our sin nature springboards off the commandment to provoke us to sin.

What does Paul mean when he says, “For apart from the Law sin is dead”? Since the fall, everyone is born in sin and is prone to sin. Before the flood, before God gave the law to Moses, the world was so sinful that we read (Gen. 6:5), “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” So how can Paul say, “apart from the Law sin is dead”?

He must have meant, “Sin was comparatively dead; as far as his awareness was concerned it was dead” (Lloyd-Jones, p. 135). In other words, before God brought the law to bear on Paul’s conscience, as far as he knew, he wasn’t in sin. He saw himself as a good person. The law had not yet revived the sin that lay dormant in his heart. Apart from the law, sin seems to be dead as far as the sinner is concerned. Paul traces the process further:

3. The law, through our failures to keep it, brings us to the end of ourselves (7:9-11).

Romans 7:9-11: “I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died; and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me; for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.” (I will have to deal with the deceptive aspect of sin in our next study.)

What does Paul mean when he says that he was “once alive apart from the Law”? This is the same apostle who said that before salvation we all were dead in our sins (Eph. 2:1). How could he once be alive? And when was Paul ever “apart from the Law”? He was raised from his youth up in the strictest traditions of Judaism (Acts 22:3; 26:4-5; Phil. 3:5). And, when did sin “kill” him?

As with every verse in this text, there are many opinions. Some say that verse 9 refers to Adam, since he is the only one of whom it rightly could be said that he was once alive apart from the law. Others take it to refer to Israel before the law was given. But most likely, Paul is speaking in a relative sense about his own perception of himself. Once, he thought that he was alive and doing quite well in God’s sight. He saw himself as blameless with regard to the righteousness of the law (Phil. 3:6). Like the Pharisee in Jesus’ story, he would have prayed (Luke 18:11-12), “God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.” In that sense, Paul saw himself as once alive apart from the law. He was “apart from the law” in the sense that it had not yet bore down on his conscience to convict him on the heart level.

But then “the commandment came”—“You shall not covet.” He had memorized that commandment as a child. He had recited it many times. But the Holy Spirit had not nailed him with it. Lloyd-Jones (p. 134) illustrates this with the experience that we’ve all had, where we’ve read a verse many, many times, but we’ve skipped right over it and kept going. It didn’t say anything to us. But then suddenly, it hits you. You see it as you’ve never seen it before. The commandment came to you.

Then what happens? “Sin became alive and I died” (7:9). At first, Paul thought that he was alive and sin was dead. But then, God’s law hit him and he suddenly realized that his sin was very much alive and he was dead. He saw that he was not right with God, as he formerly had thought. Rather, he was alienated from God and under His judgment. He had thought that he would get into heaven because he was a zealous Jew, and even a notch above other Jews, because he was a Pharisee. But now he realized that he was a blasphemer, a persecutor of God’s church, a violent aggressor, and the chief of sinners (1 Tim. 1:13, 15).

The commandment promised life (7:10) to all who keep it (Lev. 18:5; Ezek. 20:11). Paul thought that he had been keeping it blamelessly. But God shot the arrow of the commandment, “You shall not covet.” It hit Paul in the heart and killed him. Spurgeon (61:427) says, “What died in Paul was that which ought never to have lived. It was that great ‘I’ in Paul … that ‘I’ that used to say, ‘I thank thee that I am not like other men’—that ‘I’ that folded its arms in satisfied security—that ‘I’ that bent its knee in prayer, but never bowed down the heart in penitence—that ‘I’ died.”

Spurgeon goes on (pp. 427-428) to show several other respects in which Paul died. He died in that he saw he was condemned to die. He stood guilty before God. He died in that all his hopes from his past life died. His good works that he had been relying on came crashing down as worthless. He died in that all his hopes as to the future died. He realized that if his salvation depended on his future keeping the law, he was doomed. His past showed that he would be sure to break it again in the future. And, he died in that all his powers seemed to die. Formerly, he thought that he could keep the law just fine by his own strength. But now he saw that every thought, word, and desire that did not meet God’s holy standard would condemn him. And so all his hope died. He felt condemned. The rope was around his neck, as Spurgeon says elsewhere (Autobiography, 1:54).

Conclusion

Can you identify with Paul’s experience? Has God’s holy law hit home to your conscience so that you died to all self-righteousness? Has the law killed all your hopes that your good works will get you into heaven? If so, that’s a good thing, because Jesus didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance (Luke 5:32). When you see God’s holy standard and how miserably you have violated it over and over, you then see your need for a Savior. And the best news ever is that Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners (1 Tim. 1:15)!

James Boice (p. 746) tells of a time when John Gerstner, who was then retired from teaching church history at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, was at a church preaching from Romans. He expounded on the law and used it to expose sin. After the service, a woman came up to him. She held up her hand with her index finger and thumb about a half-inch apart and she said, “Dr. Gerstner, you make me feel this big.”

Dr. Gerstner replied, “But madam, that’s too big. That’s much too big. Don’t you know that that much self-righteousness will take you to hell?”

God gave His law to strip us of all self-righteousness and to convict us of our sin so that we would flee to Christ to save us. Make sure that your hope for eternal life is in Christ alone!

The Utter Sinfulness of Sin (Romans 7:11-13)

In 1973, psychiatrist Karl Menninger, founder of the famous Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, wrote a best-seller titled, Whatever Became of Sin? [Bantam Books]. I didn’t read that book, but the title, especially coming from a psychiatrist, who to my knowledge was not a Christian, is significant. Menninger realized almost 40 years ago that the concept of sin was vanishing from our culture. He argued (as summarized by James Boice, Romans: The Reign of Grace [Baker], 2:747),

In the lifetimes of many of us, sin has been redefined: first, as crime—that is, as transgression of the law of man rather than transgression of the law of God—and second, as symptoms. Since “symptoms” are caused by things external to the individual, they are seen as effects for which the offender is not responsible. Thus it happened that sin against God has been redefined (and dismissed) as the unfortunate effects of bad circumstances. And no one is to blame.

We now view many behaviors that the Bible calls “sin” as psychological or emotional issues for which therapy, not repentance, is the solution. I’ve read polls that show that even among evangelical Christians, many do not view premarital sex or homosexual behavior as sin. Churches offer anger management classes (not anger repentance classes) or groups to help you overcome your “addictions” (not sins). Sin has become a disease that we treat therapeutically, not a behavior for which we’re responsible.

Christians regularly watch Hollywood’s latest movies that are rife with filthy language, sexual scenes, and violence, without any concern that they are disobeying Scripture, which commands (Eph. 5:3-4), “But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints; and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.” So Dr. Menninger was quite right to ask, “Whatever became of sin?”

In our text, Paul is defending himself against critics who alleged that he taught that the law is sin. Paul has been teaching that if you try to gain right standing with God by keeping the law, you are doomed to fail. The law was not given to make us right before God. To the contrary, “through the Law comes the knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20). “The Law brings about wrath” (4:15). “The Law came in so that the transgression would increase” (5:20). And so Paul shows (7:4) that through our union with Christ, we died to the law in order that we might bear fruit for God. We have been released from the law so that now “we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter” (7:6).

Paul knew that critics would react to this teaching by accusing him of saying that the law is sin. His response is (7:7), “May it never be!” The problem is not with the law. Rather, the problem is our sin. When you mix God’s holy law with our sin, it produces negative results, much like mixing two incompatible chemicals.

Verses 11 & 12 wrap up Paul’s argument that the law is not the problem; rather, sin is the problem. As we saw last time, he personifies sin as an active force. Verse 13 serves as a hinge verse, restating the argument from 7:7-12 while also introducing 7:14-25. We can sum up his thought in 7:11-13:

God’s law reveals the holiness of His commandments and the utter sinfulness of sin so that we will hate our sin.

1. God’s law reveals the holiness of His commandments.

Paul concludes (7:12), “So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.”

By “the Law,” Paul means the law as a whole. When he repeats, “the commandment,” he may be referring to the tenth commandment against coveting that he has just mentioned (7:7), or to the moral commands. But he means that the law as a whole and every single part of it is “holy and righteous and good.” He piles up these terms to emphasize his point (in 7:7) that the law is not in any way sinful. The reason that the law is holy, righteous, and good is that it was given to us by God who is holy, righteous, and good.

God’s law is holy. God’s holiness means that He is altogether separate from us and separate from sin. Christ’s aim for His church is that “she would be holy and blameless” (Eph. 5:27). Applied to us, God’s holy commandments show us how to live separately from this evil world, in a manner pleasing to the Lord.

That God’s law is righteous means that it is right or just. God Himself is the standard of what is right. Moses says of God (Deut. 32:4), “For all His ways are just; a God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is He.” If we violate God’s moral commands, we are wrong because God is always right. His standards are not relative, changing with the culture or over time. We can’t persuade Him to bend His righteous commands to fit what we may think is right.

God’s commandments are also good because they come from God who is always good. As with righteousness, God is the final standard of what is good (Luke 18:19). This means that all of God’s commandments are for our good. To violate His commands is to bring trouble and hardship on ourselves. If we want to live the truly “good life,” then we must follow God’s good commands.

Since as new covenant believers we are not under the Law of Moses, we may wonder, “Which of the Old Testament commands apply to us? Are we obligated to keep the Ten Commandments, since Paul calls them a ‘ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones’” (2 Cor. 3:7)?

In the sense that the Ten Commandments serve as a summary of the two great commandments, to love God and love others, they are valid and binding for today. Also, all of the Ten Commandments, except for the Sabbath command, are repeated in the New Testament. The Sabbath command, as I understand it, was fulfilled in Christ (Heb. 4:1-11; Rom. 14:5; Col. 2:16). The exhortation to us is not to forsake assembling together (Heb. 10:25), but we are not under that command in the legal sense of the Old Testament. (See my message, “God’s Day of Rest,” from Gen. 2:1-3, 12/17/95, on the church website for my further thoughts on this.)

So Paul wants us to be clear that God’s law is holy, righteous, and good. Being under grace does not mean living in a lawless manner (1 John 3:4; 1 Cor. 9:21).

2. God’s law reveals the utter sinfulness of sin.

Paul concludes (7:13c), “so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.” As C. H. Spurgeon put it (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 59:469), “[The law] was not the cure of the disease, much less the creator of it, but it was the revealer of the disease that lurked in the constitution of man.” He goes on to show that when Paul wanted to come up with a word to describe how bad sin is, he didn’t call it exceedingly black or horrible or deadly. Rather, when he wanted to find the very worst word, he called sin by its own name—it is exceedingly sinful. There is nothing as evil as sin. God gave His law for our good (Deut. 10:13), and so when we deliberately throw it off and trample it under foot, that law exposes the utter sinfulness of our sin in at least four ways:

A. Sin is utterly sinful because it is rebellion against our loving and kind Heavenly Father.

When God gave Adam and Eve the command not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that command was for their good, to keep them from the consequence of death (Gen. 2:16-17). We can compare it to parents who tell their little children not to run into a busy street. That command is not to deprive the children of fun, but to protect them from death. So when we sin, we rebel against the God who is loving and kind towards us. He is never mean, harsh, or cruel. Rather, sin (as Spur­geon put it in another sermon) is the monster that this verse drags to light (ibid., 19:73). We need to see sin for what it is, rebellion against our loving and kind  Heavenly Father.

B. Sin is utterly sinful because it takes a good thing and uses it to kill us.

Sin takes the good law and turns it into an instrument of death. It would be like taking a scalpel and using it to murder someone. Is the scalpel bad? No! The scalpel is a good and useful tool in the hands of a skilled physician. The sinner who used the scalpel to murder someone is the culprit. Sin takes God’s holy commandments and uses them to kill us. (Paul mentions “death” or “killed” in 7:9, 10, 11, & 13.) He means that the law brings us under God’s righteous, eternal condemnation because we have deliberately violated it over and over. So we should fight against our sin with as much effort as we would struggle against an intruder who broke into our house and was attempting to murder us.

C. Sin is utterly sinful because it involves deliberate violation of God’s good and perfect will for us.

As Paul said (4:15), “Where there is no law, there also is no violation.” This is not to say that people did not sin before the law (5:13-14), but rather to say that the law heightens the sinfulness of sin by showing that we are deliberately going against what God has commanded for our good. Our conscience may nag at us that something is wrong. But when we read the explicit command in the Bible and then go against it, we’re just thumbing our nose at God. We’re saying, “God, You don’t know what is best for me! I know better than You do, and I’m going my own way.” The commandment shows sin to be utterly sinful.

D. Sin is utterly sinful because it uses deception to kill us.

In his book and film, “Peace Child,” missionary Don Richardson told about the wicked practice of the Sawi tribe before he brought the gospel to them. They extolled deception as a virtue. They would lure an outsider into their midst as a friend, who didn’t suspect their treachery. They would treat him as a king and feed him well, but they were literally fattening him for the slaughter. At the opportune time, when the victim thought that the Sawi tribal leaders were his friends, they would sadistically smile as they killed him, and then they would eat him. And so when Richardson first told them the story of Jesus, they thought that Judas was the real hero! He used deception to kill Jesus. In the same way, sin is utterly sinful because it uses deception to kill us.

In two other places (2 Cor. 11:3; 1 Tim. 2:14) Paul uses the same verb, “deceived” (Rom. 7:11) to describe the serpent’s deception of Eve in the garden. One commentator (C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [T. & T. Clark], 1:352-353) shows three ways that the serpent deceived Eve. First, he distorted and misrepresented God’s commandment by drawing attention only to the negative part of it and ignoring the positive. Second, he made her believe that God would not punish disobedience with death, as He had warned. Third, he used the very commandment itself to insinuate doubts about God’s good will and to suggest the possibility that she and Adam could assert themselves in opposition to God. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Romans: The Law: Its Functions and Limits [Zondervan], pp. 155-160) lists nine ways that sin deceives us. I’ve incorporated his list into my own list of 15 ways that sin deceives us. I don’t expect you to remember all of these, but by piling them up without much comment, I want you to see how dangerous of an enemy sin really is.

(1). Sin deceives us into thinking that outward obedience alone pleases God, whereas we need to please Him on the heart level.

This was the downfall of the Pharisees. They thought that they were keeping all of God’s commandments, but Jesus rebuked them because their hearts were far from God (Mark 7:6-7; Matt. 23:25). Sin deceives us so that we congratulate ourselves for our outward obedience to God, but all the while our hearts are corrupt. “Sure, I look at some porn, but at least I’ve never cheated on my wife.” “Sure, I’m bitter over what he did to me, but I haven’t killed him.” But God looks on the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Heb. 4:12).

(2). Sometimes sin changes its tactics and tells us that everything is hopeless, so we might as well keep on sinning.

We wrongly conclude, “I’ve failed again and again, so there is no hope for me. I might as well just give in and go on sinning.”

(3). Sin deceives us to presume on God’s grace.

Sin tells us that it doesn’t matter whether or not we are holy. It says, “Don’t worry about your sin. It’s not hurting anyone. Besides, you can always get forgiven later.”

(4). Sin deceives us into thinking that it will bring true and lasting happiness, while holiness will bring us misery.

This is such a common ploy that you would think that we’d see right through it. But it works over and over again. “An affair will bring happiness, but being faithful to your marriage vows will make you miserable.” Related to this is the next form of deception:

(5). Sin deceives us into thinking that we have a right to happiness, while we forget that we have a responsibility to holiness.

I’ve known Christians who walk away from their marriages with the excuse, “I deserve some happiness in my life. My marriage has only brought me misery. How can this new relationship be wrong when it makes me so happy?” That’s the defense of a well-known Christian singer who divorced her husband and married another singer who divorced his wife. I recently read an article that tried to convince the readers that this sinful behavior was all right, because now she and her new husband are so happy. But what about the biblical command to be holy?

(6). Sin deceives us by getting us to discount the consequences of willful disobedience.

Satan lied to Eve (Gen. 3:4), “You surely will not die!” God would not be so mean as to impose such harsh consequences for such a minor thing as eating a piece of fruit, would He? God is loving and gracious; He won’t punish your sin!

(7). Sin deceives us into thinking that we’ve earned some free passes to sin because of all that we’ve done to serve God.

This may have been what led to David’s downfall. He was the king—didn’t that give him some extra privileges? He had written many psalms. He had fought and won many battles. Didn’t he deserve a “break”? Several years ago, a well known pastor was exposed when it came out that he “relieved the stress” of his ministry responsibilities by going to a homosexual prostitute! Talk about being deceived!

(8). Sin deceives us by getting us to swap the labels and call it something much more acceptable.

It is not adultery; it’s an affair or a fling. It’s not perversion; it’s being gay. It’s not stealing; it’s just taking what the company owes me but doesn’t pay me. I’m not angry; I just have a short fuse. It’s not gossip; I just wanted to share a prayer concern.

(9). Sin deceives us by making us think that we’re normal when we sin and to think that holy people are weird.

We look around at the world and conclude that yielding to temptation is normal. The weirdoes are those holy people who obey God. Or, we think, “I’ll bet that they’re no different than I am. They probably engage in some secret sins, but they’re hypocrites. At least I’m honest about who I am.”

(10). Sin deceives us by working by degrees, so that eventually that which would have shocked us is now accepted as normal.

When I used to paint houses, the home owner would walk in and make a big deal about the smell of the paint. But I was so used to it that I didn’t even notice. The prophet Hosea chided “Ephraim,” or Israel (Hos.7:9): “Gray hairs are sprinkled on him, yet he does not know it.” Can you imagine someone going gray without being aware of it? But the prophet was using this humorous analogy to show how we drift spiritually without being aware of how far off course we really are. The first time you watch a sex scene in a movie, it shocks you. But after you’ve seen such filth a few dozen times, you just shrug it off as no big deal. When you first hear profanity, it jars you. But after being around it a while, you don’t even wince and you may even toss off a bad word or two yourself without being aware of it.

(11). Sin deceives us by making us angry at the law, feeling that God is against us when He prohibits something.

Sin gets us to believe that God and His law are unreasonable, impossible, and unjust. “Does He expect me to be perfect? Why doesn’t He give me a break now and then? He must not care about me or He wouldn’t give such unreasonable commands!”

(12). Sin deceives us by making us think very highly of ourselves.

“You’re smart enough to figure out what is best for you. You’re able to determine right and wrong without putting yourself under God’s legalistic standards. Think for yourself!”

(13). Sin tells us that the law is oppressive, keeping us from developing the gifts and talents we have within us.

“God’s moral standards are holding you back from reaching your full potential! Use the brain that God gave you! You don’t have to be restricted by that outdated book, the Bible!”

(14). Sin makes righteousness look drab and unattractive.

“You’ve only had sex with your marriage partner? How boring! You go to church every Sunday? How restrictive! What a way to mess up your weekend!”

(15). Sin deceives us by getting us to compare ourselves with other sinners, rather than to compare ourselves to God’s holy standard.

The psalmist says that sin flatters us in our own eyes (Ps. 36:2). It makes us think that we’re not so bad because we compare our relatively “minor faults” with the really bad things that others do. By comparison, we’re not so bad. But the standard is not what others do or what we do, but what God’s Word commands.

Thus God’s law reveals the holiness and goodness of His commands, along with the utter sinfulness of sin. What should our response be?

3. The practical result of understanding the holiness of God’s commands and the utter sinfulness of sin is that we should hate our own sin.

I am inferring this, since Paul doesn’t state it directly here, although he does go on (7:14-25) to show how much he hates his own propensity towards sin. But the Bible is clear: “Hate evil, you who love the Lord” (Ps. 97:10a). And we’re not just supposed to hate the evil in others, but first and foremost, we need to hate our own sin. Take the log out of your own eye first (Matt. 7:5). It was Paul’s hatred of his own sin that caused him to cry out (Rom. 7:24), “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?”

Conclusion

Do you hate your own sin? Do you hate it enough to stop making excuses for it and to give serious thought and effort as to how not to sin? Sin is ugly, ugly, ugly! To watch a believer fall into sin is like watching a dog licking up its own vomit (2 Pet. 2:22). God’s Word shows us how walk in the light so that we do not fall into the mire of sin. Love the Word! Read it! Memorize it! Obey it! Don’t let sin kill you. Rather, hate your sin enough to kill it!

Who is This Wretched Man? (Romans 7:14-25, Overview)

We come now to one of the most difficult passages to interpret in the Book of Romans. With the exception of certain prophetic texts, there are not many other passages in Scripture where there is such widespread difference of opinion among godly scholars as there is for Romans 7:14-25. Is Paul describing his own experience here? If so, is it his experience before he was saved, his experience as an immature believer, or his experience as a mature believer? Since Paul is in the midst of teaching us how to overcome sin in our daily experience, it’s an important text to understand. But we can’t apply it correctly until we first understand it correctly.

In this message, I want to give an overview of the various views and their main arguments. In subsequent messages I’ll work through the text in more detail. When you come to a text where so many godly men differ, it’s important to be gracious towards those who differ and acknowledge that there is no neat, tidy view that answers all the difficulties. Each view has its strengths and weaknesses, and so you have to pick which weaknesses you’re willing to live with in the view that you adopt. If someone claims to have solved all the problems, he is blind to the weaknesses of his view. If we could solve all the difficulties, then everyone would agree.

Also, when you come to a difficult text, it’s important to interpret it in light of other texts that are more clear. We need to try to harmonize and integrate this text into the flow of Paul’s unambiguous teaching elsewhere. And, as always, we need to confess our lack of understanding to the Lord and ask Him to give us insight through the Holy Spirit so that we will grow in godliness. Our aim is not just to solve the interpretive puzzle, but to become more like Jesus Christ.

The main problem that we have to grapple with here is that some statements make it sound as if Paul were not a believer, whereas other statements make it sound as if he were a believer. Among those who argue that Paul is describing the experience of an unbeliever, some say that it is the experience of a Jew under the law. Some say that it describes a man under deep conviction of sin just before his conversion. Among those who argue that it describes a believer, some argue that he is talking about the normal experience of a mature Christian, whereas others say that he is describing the experience of a new or very immature believer.

Some argue that Paul is not speaking autobiographically here, but it seems to me that he is describing himself here. He uses “I” 24 times in 7:14-25, plus “me,” “my,” or “myself” 14 times. While Paul could be using this as a literary device, the most obvious way to take it is that he is speaking of his own experience. Obviously his experience is representative of the experience of all who have struggled against sin. But we’re learning through Paul’s experience.

Also, we need to keep in mind that Paul’s main purpose is not to share this as an interesting story, but rather to establish the holiness and integrity of the law, while at the same time to show the law’s inability to deliver us from sin. To have consistent victory over sin, we must learn to rely moment by moment on the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, which Paul explains in chapter 8.

With that as a background, let me walk you through some of the arguments for the various views. There are a number of variants within each view which we will not have time to delve into.

Romans 7:14-25 describes an unbeliever.

This was the position of the early church fathers in the first three centuries of Christianity. Augustine held this view earlier in his Christian life, but later argued that it refers to believers. John Wesley and many in the Arminian camp hold to this view. Here are the strongest arguments for this view:

1. Paul uses language throughout the passage that could only be descriptive of an unbeliever.

This is the strongest argument for this position. In 7:14, Paul laments, “I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.” But in 6:14, he stated as a matter of fact, “For sin shall not be master over you.” He also stated (6:17-18), “But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.” He reinforces this in 6:22, “But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.”

Also, in 6:2, Paul said, “How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” But in 7:25b he says that with his flesh he is serving (the word means, “to serve as a slave”) the law of sin. In 6:6, he says that we were crucified with Christ so that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. But in 7:24 he laments, “Who will set me free from the body of this death?” In 7:18 Paul says, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.” How could a man indwelled by the Holy Spirit say such a thing? In 7:23 he adds that he is “a prisoner of the law of sin.” And, how could a believer who has already been redeemed by Christ cry out (7:24), “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?”

So the descriptions of our new position in Christ as believers in chapter 6 are totally at odds with these statements of the wretched man in chapter 7. He must still be an unbeliever.

2. The flow of the context argues for 7:14-25 being a description of unbelievers.

Almost everyone agrees that 7:7-13 describes Paul as an unbeliever. If 7:14 shifts to his experience as a believer, you would expect a disjunctive word, such as “but.” Instead, Paul uses “for,” which indicates that he is explaining further his experience as an unbeliever. This is further substantiated by his immediately stating that he is “of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.” This goes back to 7:5, where Paul describes his experience as an unbeliever as being “in the flesh.”

Also, some argue that our text describes further the experience of 7:5, of the unbeliever in the flesh, whereas 8:1-17 picks up on 7:6, which describes the newness of serving in the Spirit. Also, there is the dramatic shift between the miserable experience of 7:14-25 and the “now” of 8:1 and the experience of victory that follows. Douglas Moo (The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans], pp. 442-451) argues that Paul presents his experience as a representative Jewish unbeliever under the law to show that the law is impotent to save anyone from their sin, thus reinforcing the argument of 7:1-13. He also is persuaded by the contrasts mentioned under the first argument.

3. In 7:14-25, there is an absence of any references to the Holy Spirit, who indwells all believers, whereas in chapter 8, the Holy Spirit is mentioned frequently.

Paul makes it clear (in 8:9) that every believer is indwelled with the Holy Spirit. If you do not have the Holy Spirit, you do not belong to Christ. Since there is a glaring absence of any mention of the Spirit in 7:14-25, as contrasted with at least 17 references to the Spirit in chapter 8, chapter 7 must describe an unbeliever.

4. The person in 7:14-25 is not just struggling with sin but is defeated by sin.

Elsewhere Paul makes it clear that all believers struggle with sin, but that’s not what he describes in these verses. His experience in 7:14-25 is not just a struggle, but one of repeated failure, defeat, and inability to obey God. This is descriptive of an unbeliever.

There are some variations of the view that these verses describe an unbeliever. Martyn Lloyd-Jones argues for the position (also held by Godet and the Pietists, Francke and Bengel), that Paul is describing the experience of a Jew who is under deep conviction of sin, but not yet reborn. Thomas Schreiner (Romans [Baker], p. 390) argues that “Paul does not intend to distinguish believers from unbelievers in this text.” Rather, “Paul reflects on whether the law has the ability to transform human beings, concluding that it does not.” So Schreiner says that the passage could be describing either unbelievers or believers. Stuart Briscoe (The Communicator’s Commentary [Word], p. 147), somewhat in line with Schreiner, holds that “Paul is relating the struggles he had with the law of God before he knew Christ and which he continues to have since coming into an experience of the risen Lord.”

Romans 7:14-25 describes a mature believer.

This was the view of Augustine later in life, as already mentioned. It is also the view of Luther, Calvin, and most of the Reformers, along with Reformed men down through the centuries, such as John Owen, Charles Hodge, John Murray, James Boice, J. I. Packer, John Piper, and others. Here are the main arguments to support the view that Paul is describing the experience of a mature believer. (John Piper gives ten arguments in favor of this view, but I can only list a few.)

1. The shift to the present tense argues that Paul is speaking of his present experience as a mature believer.

As I’ve noted, Paul makes a very obvious shift from past tense verbs in 7:7-13 to present tense verbs in 7:14-25. The most natural way to understand this is that Paul is here describing his ongoing struggle against sin when he wrote this letter.

2. The context of Romans 6-8 is a discussion of sanctification in the Christian life, not of an unbeliever’s struggle with the law.

3. If 7:14-25 describes Paul’s pre-conversion experience, it is in conflict with how he describes that experience elsewhere.

In Philippians 3 and in Galatians 1, along with a couple of places in Acts, Paul portrays himself before conversion as a self-satisfied Jew, bent on persecuting the church. There is no record that he went through an intense inward conflict such as that described here.

4. Paul’s desires in these verses are those of a believer, not of an unbeliever.

He says (7:22), “For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man.” He is seeking to obey the law, not just outwardly, but with the “inner man” (7:15-20, 22). Unbelievers may put on an outward show of obedience, but their hearts are far from God (Matt. 23; Mark 7:6-13). Unbelievers do not seek after God (Rom. 3:11) or desire to please Him (8:8). His heartfelt cry, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” sounds like the cry of a man who yearns for God and the new resurrection body, which will be free from sin. The closer a man draws to God, the more he sees the corruption of his old nature and the more he desires to be free from all inclination to sin.

5. The battle between the two “I’s” describes a believer, not an unbeliever.

Unbelievers only live in the flesh, but believers have a new nature and the indwelling Holy Spirit that war against the flesh (Gal. 5:17). Every Christian who is honest acknowledges this inner struggle against sin that goes on throughout life. Paul’s lament (7:18), “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh,” indicates that there is more to Paul than just flesh. He has a new inner man that longs for God and His holiness, although he has not yet attained it.

There are more arguments for each side and each side has arguments to rebut the arguments of the other side. For sake of time, I cannot go through each of these. Rather, I will now give you the correct view (yeah, sure!). As I said, there are strengths and weaknesses with every view, so we have to pick a view that seems most to harmonize with other Scriptures and to have the fewest problems. I actually was pushed toward this view by reading Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ volume on Romans 7 where he argues that these verses describe a Jew under intense conviction of sin, just prior to conversion. (He would not be happy that his argument pushed me in this direction!)

Romans 7:14-25 describes an immature believer who has not yet learned that he is free from the law and that he has the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit to overcome sin.

Let me begin by acknowledging that the main weakness of this view is Paul’s use of the present tense. It sounds as if Paul is speaking of his current experience, not of a past experience that he had as a new believer. But Paul could be using the present tense as a vivid way of sharing his experiences as a new believer. For reasons that I will share in a moment, I cannot accept that Paul is describing his experience as a mature believer.

Also, I want to distance myself from what is called the Keswick teaching, popularized by Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret, Watchman Nee’s The Normal Christian Life and Ian Thomas’ The Saving Life of Christ. These and other books of this persuasion teach that Romans 7 describes a “carnal” Christian who has not yet learned the secret of the “exchanged life.” When you learn the secret, “not I, but Christ,” you break through into the experience of Romans 8. It is sometimes pictured as moving from the wilderness to the Promised Land. This teaching gives the impression that once you break into the Romans 8 experience, the Christian life becomes an effortless, struggle-free, sin-free life. You never worry, you’re never ruffled by trials, and you experience perpetual joy and close fellowship with the Lord. These books convey that if you’re struggling against sin, you haven’t learned the secret of letting go and letting God. That is not my understanding of the biblical Christian life!

I understand the Christian life to be an ongoing, lifelong struggle against the world, the flesh, and the devil. We never arrive at a place in this life where sin no longer tempts us, where trials are not a difficult burden, and where we have attained sinless perfection. Jesus Himself cried out to God with loud crying and tears (Heb. 5:7). Paul was burdened so much that he despaired of life itself (2 Cor. 1:8). He describes his Christian life as a fight, not an effortless rest (2 Tim. 4:7). The author of Hebrews commends his readers in their striving against sin, and encourages them to submit to the difficult discipline of the Lord that for the moment does not seem joyful, but sorrowful (Heb. 12:4-11). So I’m not saying that in moving from Romans 7 to Romans 8, life becomes an effortless, ecstatic experience of perpetual victory. Even mature believers fall into sin on occasions and they always fall far short of perfection.

This means that there is always going to be some degree of the struggle expressed in Romans 7 in the Christian life, even in Romans 8. In that, I agree with those who argue that this is the experience of a mature Christian. As we grow to know God and His ways more deeply, we will always be painfully aware of how far short we fall. We will always lament our propensity toward living in the flesh and yielding to the sin that so easily besets us. There will always be the battle between the two natures. I do not agree with those who say that believers only have the new nature, or that we only sin occasionally. It is a daily battle with many setbacks.

But I disagree with those who argue that Romans 7 describes the “normal” Christian life. The man in Romans 7 is not just struggling against sin, which every Christian must do all through life, but he is consistently defeated by sin. He describes himself as “sold into bondage to sin” (7:14). He is “not practicing” what he would like to do, but is doing the very thing he hates (7:15). He wills to do good, but he does not do it (7:18). He practices the very evil that he does not want to do (7:19). He describes himself as a prisoner of the law of sin (7:23). These descriptions are contrary to 1 John 3:9, which says that believers cannot continue to sin as a normal way of life. Believers do sin, but they do not live in perpetual defeat to sin as Paul here describes. Mature believers do not continue practicing sin or living in slavery to it.

I’m sensitive to the argument that in light of chapter 6, no believer could say that he is “sold into bondage to sin” and “a prisoner of the law of sin.” As I said, that is the strongest argument that this is an unbeliever. But an unbeliever would not experience this intense hatred of his sin and inner desire to be free from it. And a mature believer would not describe himself as being in bondage to sin. Thus I think that Paul is describing his experience as a new believer, before he understood that he had died to the law and been joined in marriage to Christ and before he learned to walk by means of the Holy Spirit.

Since Paul before his conversion was a legalistic Pharisee, it’s not likely that immediately after his conversion he understood that he was dead to the law or that he now could live by the power of the Holy Spirit. He probably began his Christian experience by striving to obey the law in the flesh. After a time of trying and failing and trying again and failing again, he finally broke through to realize, “Sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace” (6:14). He came to understand that since he was identified with Christ in His death, he was now free from the law, so that now he could serve in newness of the Spirit (7:4, 6). He grew to understand his new identity in Christ. He realized the glorious truth, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (8:1). But it probably took him a while, perhaps a few years, to work through all of this both theologically and practically in terms of his daily experience. My understanding is that he is sharing those early struggles in Romans 7:14-25.

Conclusion

I’ll go back and work through these verses in more detail in coming messages. But for now, let me leave you with a few practical issues to think about.

First, if you do not hate your sin and struggle against it, you need to examine whether you are saved. Those who have experienced the new birth hate their sin and they desperately want to have victory over it. If you shrug off your sin as no big deal, it is not a sign that the Holy Spirit is dwelling in you. A life of ongoing repentance is the mark of the new birth.

Second, if you have trusted Christ but are defeated often by sin, so that you feel in bondage to it, there is hope for deliverance. Your defeats do not necessarily mean that you are not born again. At the same time, you need to realize how serious your sins are and that God did not save you so that you would live a defeated life. He has provided the Word, the indwelling Holy Spirit, and the body of Christ to help every Christian gain consistent victory over sin, beginning on the thought level. We will never be sinless in this life, but we should be sinning less as we grow to maturity in Christ. If you learn to walk in the Spirit, you will not carry out the desire of the flesh (Gal. 5:16).

So wherever you’re at spiritually, I want to offer you genuine hope in the Lord. If you are not saved, cry out to God: “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Rom. 10:13). If you are defeated by sin, so was none other than the apostle Paul. But he learned to live in consistent victory in Christ, and so can you! Romans 8 will help point the way.

The Merry-Go-Round of Sin (Romans 7:14-20)

Have you ever felt like you were on a merry-go-round of sin, but you couldn’t figure out how to get off even though you wanted to? In that sense, it isn’t a merry-go-round, but a miserable-go-round! You hate going around and around, but you don’t know how to get off the stupid thing.

That’s what Paul describes in Romans 7:14-20 about his spiritual experience: he hates what he is doing, but he can’t stop doing it. He knows that God gave us the law; it’s spiritual and good; it’s the right thing to do. The problem is, he can’t do it. He doesn’t have the power to get off the merry-go-round of sin.

But the problem we face in trying to understand Paul (as I explained at length last week) is that it’s difficult to determine whether he is talking here about his experience before salvation or after he was saved. Some of his statements sound as if he was an unbeliever, but other statements sound as if he was a believer. And, if it refers to his experience as a believer, how then do his words about being in bondage to sin (7:14) square with what he has said in chapter 6 about being freed from sin?

My understanding is that Paul is describing his experience as an immature believer, before he came to understand that he was no longer under the law and that he could experience consistent victory over sin by relying on the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. I hold this view because Paul makes some statements that an unbeliever could not make. He loves God’s law and wants to keep it from the heart (7:22). He hates his own sin.

But he also makes some statements that a mature believer could not make. He is not merely describing the ongoing struggle against sin that all believers experience, but rather an experience of ongoing defeat. He was habitually practicing the very evil that he hated (7:15, 19). This does not square with a person who walks by means of the Spirit and thus does not fulfill the desires of the flesh (Gal. 5:16). It does not line up with 1 John 3:9 (and 2:3-6), that those born of God do not practice sin.

It’s reasonable to assume that after his conversion, Paul did not instantly understand his new position of being dead to the law and united to Christ (Rom. 7:1-4) or how to walk in dependence on the indwelling Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:4, 13). So I believe that he is describing his own frustrating experience as a new believer, before he learned these truths. And, as I also said, Paul’s main point in the context is to show that God’s law is holy, righteous, and good, but it is not able to deliver us from the power of sin.

As I also explained, I agree that the Christian life is never free from the struggles that Paul describes here. We have to do battle against indwelling sin as long as we live. But Paul is not merely describing a struggle here. Rather, he is talking about a life of consistent defeat. He’s not just describing an ongoing battle, but a losing ongoing battle! I contend that this is not the normal Christian life of a mature believer.

Rather, as we grow to understand and live in light of our new identity in Christ and to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit, we can experience consistent victory over sin. We will never be sinless, but we will sin less as we grow. Also, as we grow we will come to see more and more of our inward corruption and more and more of God’s holiness, so that we lament our propensity toward sin and long for our new resurrection bodies. But we will not yield to our sinful desires as often as we did as new believers. So that is my approach to these verses.

Several commentators (F. Godet, Commentary on Romans [Kregel], p. 282, is the earliest that I could find) point out the cyclical structure of Romans 7:14-25. Each cycle begins with a fact, then gives the proof of it, and a conclusion:

First cycle (7:14-17):

Fact (7:14): “For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of flesh….”

Proof: (7:15-16): “For what I am doing, I do not understand….”

Conclusion: (7:17): “So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.”

Second cycle (7:18-20):

Fact: (7:18): “For I know that nothing good dwells in me….”

Proof (7:18b-19): “For the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not….”

Conclusion (7:20): “But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.”

Third cycle (7:21-25):

Fact (7:21): “I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.”

Proof (7:22-23): “For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in … my body….”

Conclusion (7:25): “So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but … with my flesh the law of sin.”

The second and third cycles in many ways repeat the first cycle, which is why I’m describing Paul’s experience here as being on a merry-go-round of sin. He’s doing the same thing over and over, in spite of his good intentions to the contrary. He wants to stop, but he can’t. And so the overall feeling is one of powerlessness. He knows that he’s doing wrong and he wants to please God, but he’s not able to do so. Sin gets the upper hand again and again.

In this message, I will look at the first two cycles (7:14-17, 18-20), which teach us:

After the new birth, immature believers often experience a frustrating cycle of being defeated by sin because they yield to the old nature.

I’m not saying that once you understand the truths of Romans 8, you will never suffer bouts of being defeated by sin. Romans 8 does not propel you into a life of effortless, struggle-free spiritual victory. The Christian life is a continual battle and there are setbacks and at times overwhelming failures. But I do contend that Romans 7, with its perpetual defeat, pictures an immature believer, whereas Romans 8 gives us the key to consistent victory. This means that if Romans 7 describes your life right now more than Romans 8 does, there is hope! Paul was once where you’re at now. His frustrating experience teaches us three things:

1. When God saves you, He gives you a new nature, but He does not eradicate the old nature, which is corrupted by sin.

In Romans 6:6, Paul says that “our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.” In light of that, some, such as John MacArthur, teach (The MacArthur Study Bible NASB [Nelson Bibles], p. 1670), “The believer does not have two competing natures, the old and the new; but one new nature that is still incarcerated in unredeemed flesh.” As highly as I respect John MacArthur, I strongly disagree with that statement. I think it is unhelpful and dangerous, because it minimizes the spiritual danger that resides in every believer. I don’t care whether you call it the old nature, the flesh, or indwelling sin. But there resides in every believer a strong propensity toward sin that wars against the new nature that we received through the new birth.

Then how do I explain Romans 6:6? It reflects our new position in Christ, which we must count as true in the daily battle against sin. Paul often portrays the tension between our position and our practice in the Christian life. In Colossians 3:9-10, he says that as believers we have “laid aside the old self with its evil practices and have put on the new self….” But in the parallel in Ephesians 4:22-24, he commands us (almost all commentators take the infinitives as imperatives) to “lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit …” and “put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.” If we have already laid aside the old and put on the new, why does he command us to do it? The answer is, positionally it is true. But practically, we must count it as true and live in light of it.

You find the same tension between Romans 6, which emphasizes that we have died with Christ, and Romans 8:13, which commands us to put to death the deeds of the flesh. Or, in Colossians 3:3, Paul says that we have died with Christ, but in 3:5 he commands us to put to death (literal translation) the members of our earthly body with regard to various sins. We’re dead, so we need to live like it by putting our flesh to death.

So the point is, conversion does not eradicate the strong desires of the flesh or work to improve the flesh. The old man is “being corrupted according to the lusts of deceit” (Eph. 4:22). It won’t get better over time. You may have been a believer for 50 years, but you still must put off the flesh on a daily basis. That’s why the godly George Muller used to pray as an elderly man, “Lord, don’t let me become a wicked old man!” He knew that in him, that is, in his flesh, dwells nothing good (Rom. 7:18).

2. New believers are often still enslaved to sin because they yield to the old nature.

Again, while there is much controversy, with some saying that these verses describe unbelievers, while others argue that they reflect Paul’s experience as a mature believer, I contend that they describe an immature believer who is still yielding to his old nature. He has not yet learned to put on his new identity in Christ and to walk by means of the indwelling Holy Spirit, who gives us the power to resist the lusts of the flesh (Gal. 5:16).

There has been a lot of confusion because of some popular teaching that Christians may be divided into those that are “carnal” and those that are “spiritual.” This teaching was popularized through the Scofield Reference Bible, Lewis Sperry Chafer’s He That is Spiritual, and Campus Crusade for Christ’s “Holy Spirit” booklet. Purportedly based on 1 Corinthians 2 & 3, the teaching is that you can legitimately be a Christian through a decision to invite Christ into your life as Savior, but you’ve not yet chosen to let Him be Lord of your life. So you live with self on the throne until you learn to yield to the Holy Spirit. After that, you bounce back and forth between “carnal” and “spiritual,” depending on who is on the throne: self or the Lord.

But Scripture does not present the option of accepting Christ as your Savior, but not as your Lord. And you don’t bounce back and forth between being carnal or spiritual. Granted, there is a lifetime of growth involved in yielding every area of life and every thought to Christ. But if you are not seeking to obey Christ in every area of life, you need to examine whether He has changed your heart. All who are born of God strive to please God in every way. (See Ernest Reisinger’s booklet, What Should We Think of the Carnal Christian? [Banner of Truth], for more on this.)

It is better to say that Christians, like humans, grow through various stages: infancy, youth, and adulthood (see 1 John 2:12-14). Paul addresses the Corinthians as “infants in Christ,” who needed milk, not meat, because they were still fleshly (1 Cor. 3:1-3). Just as human babies must grow from milk to solid food, and from being fed to learning to feed themselves, and from being carried to crawling to walking, and in many more areas, the same is true spiritually. Newer believers usually yield more often to the old nature (the flesh or indwelling sin) than more mature believers do. Maturity involves learning to reckon yourself as dead to sin and alive to God in Christ. And it involves learning by the Spirit to put to death the deeds of the flesh (Rom. 8:13).

Here, Paul gives us a glimpse of his losing battle against sin as a babe in Christ, which he calls being “sold into bondage to sin” (7:14). Note six things about this enslavement to sin:

A. This enslavement to sin stands in complete contrast to our new identity in Christ, creating an intense internal battle.

Romans 7 stands in such stark contrast to the truths of Romans 6 that many have concluded that it describes an unbeliever. If it were not for the inner struggle, you’d look at Paul’s behavior and conclude that he is not a believer. He is in bondage to sin. He does not obey God’s law, but rather does the opposite. In other words, Paul knew that he was living in disobedience to God. But internally, this war was raging, because he knew that his behavior did not match what he was supposed to be and what he desperately wanted to be.

This means that living in continual defeat to sin does not necessarily mean that you are not saved. But if you are saved, you can’t live contentedly in sin. You will hate what you’re doing and you will fight it desperately until you gain the victory. Spiritual complacency is not a good sign! Even young believers experience this intense internal conflict.

B. This enslavement to sin causes inner turmoil, because it conflicts with the desires of the new nature.

Jonathan Edwards argued forcefully in his A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (in The Works of Jonathan Edwards [Banner of Truth] 1:236), “True religion, in great part, consists in holy affections.” In other words, when God saves us, He gives us new holy desires. Edwards argues (1:239, italics his), “So holy desire, exercised in longings, hungerings, and thirstings after God and holiness, is often mentioned in Scripture as an important part of true religion.”

We see that here. Paul wants to obey God’s law and do what is right, but he’s failing. He confesses that God’s law is good, but he’s not able to obey it. His desires for holiness are evidence that God has imparted new life to him, but his inability to do what God requires is causing this inner turmoil. If you know that you’re disobeying God, but you just shrug it off, it may mean that you’re not born again. Those born of God’s Spirit are in turmoil when they disobey Him.

C. This enslavement to sin causes mental confusion.

“For what I am doing, I do not understand” (7:15). By “understand,” Paul may mean that he does not approve of what he is doing (C. E. B. Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans [ICC, T. & T. Clark], 1:358). Or, he may mean that he does not fully comprehend the depths of sin that are still in his heart (Thomas Schreiner, Romans [Baker], p. 373). But it’s obvious that he is a confused man. He doesn’t understand his own behavior. Sin always clouds our minds and causes us not to think clearly.

D. This enslavement to sin does not eradicate our recognition of God’s holy standards.

Paul agrees with the Law, confessing that it is good (7:16). Even though he is defeated by sin, he still recognizes that God’s ways are right and his own ways are wrong. He isn’t disputing with the law, as if it were unfair or even wrong.

E. This enslavement to sin stems from the ongoing existence of indwelling sin, not from our new, true identity in Christ.

Paul concludes the first section (7:17), “So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.” We need to be careful not to fall into error over verses 17 and 20, which say essentially the same thing. Paul is not saying, “I’m not responsible for my sin. I’m just a helpless victim. I didn’t do it; sin did it!” Rather, he is acknowledging the powerful inner struggle that takes place in every believer. He’s personifying sin not as an honored guest or a paying tenant, but as an uninvited squatter who is difficult to eject (Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 293). But since Paul commits the sin, he is responsible for doing it. And he is acknowledging that when he sins, he is acting against his new identity in Christ, which is his true new person. As new creatures in Christ, we are responsible to consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ (Rom. 6:11).

F. This enslavement to sin shows that indwelling sin is a powerful force that we are not able to control in and of ourselves.

You can resist sin outwardly by sheer will-power, but it will keep wearing away in your inner man until it wins. In other words, outward morality is not enough. The Pharisees were outwardly moral, but Jesus nailed them for their hypocrisy and the evil that was in their hearts (Matt. 23). You have to judge sin on the thought level. It is so powerful that Jesus graphically portrayed dealing with it as cutting off your hand or plucking out your eye (Matt. 5:29-30). To live in consistent victory over indwelling sin, we need nothing less than the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. We all tend to minimize our sin, excusing it as no big deal. But these verses should show us that we’re dealing with a powerful force that is out to control and destroy us. We need more than will-power.

Thus, we all have a battle within due to the existence of the new man and the old in the same person. If we yield to the old man (the flesh, indwelling sin), it will dominate and enslave us.

3. A new believer’s enslavement to sin feels like a merry-go-round of defeat due to the inner battle between the two natures.

In large part, verses 18-20 are a repeat of verses 14-17. Paul is explaining further the conclusion of verse 17, and his conclusion in verse 20 is almost identical with his conclusion in verse 17. He’s on the merry-go-round and can’t figure out how to get off. The repetition serves to drive home the facts that sin is more powerful than human will power, that the flesh is corrupt, and that if we let it, the old nature will dominate the new, even against our desires to the contrary. So we need nothing less than the very power of God to overcome the power of indwelling sin.

Conclusion

There are no answers to this huge problem of indwelling sin in Romans 7:14-25, except for the brief exclamation of hope in verse 25, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” The answers come in chapter 8.

But in one way there is an answer here: Sometimes God lets us come to the end of ourselves so that we will be driven to trust in Him alone. By our proud fallen nature, we’re prone to trust in ourselves, first for salvation, and then for sanctification. God has to show us that we cannot save ourselves by our own righteousness or good deeds. God only saves sinners who cast themselves upon His mercy in Christ. And He has to show us that we cannot conquer sin by our own will-power and effort. If we could, we’d boast in our holiness! Peter had to learn that painful lesson by denying the Lord. We have to learn it by going through the Romans 7 merry-go-round of resolve and failure, until we learn that the victory is not in us; it’s in the Lord.

My friend, Bob Deffinbaugh, who is a pastor in the Dallas area, put it this way (bible.org/seriespage/war-within-romans-714-25): “The problem with many Christians is not their despair, like that of Paul, but their lack of it.” He goes on to point out that until we come to the end of ourselves in utter despair, we will not come to Christ, because we think that we don’t really need Him. Until we see the magnitude of our sin problem in the inner person, we’ll assure ourselves that it’s under control because we’re outwardly moral. The first step to get off the merry-go-round of sin is to cry out (7:24), “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?” Thankfully, the answer is clear: God will set us free through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The War Within (Romans 7:21-25)

I recently saw a bumper sticker with the peace symbol around the border. It showed two children with their arms around each other. The caption was, “All the arms we need.” I said to Marla, “What planet do these people live on?” When we dwell on the new earth, when all sin is completely eradicated, we won’t need arms to defend ourselves. But as long as sin is in this world, we need arms not only to hug one another, but also to fight against enemies that seek to destroy us. As unpleasant as it is, the reality of life in this fallen world includes conflict.

That’s also true in the Christian life. We all want peaceful lives. Perhaps you came to Christ because someone told you that in Him, you would find peace. That’s true. In Christ, we experience peace with God (Rom. 5:1). Christ is the basis for peace between believers (Eph. 2:14). As much as is possible, we are to be at peace with all people (Rom. 12:18). And, in Christ we come to know a sense of inner peace, even in the face of tribulation, that we lacked before (John 16:33).

But while the Christian life is one of peace, it’s also one of constant warfare. As we serve Christ and seek to extend His kingdom, we’re at war with the evil powers of darkness (Eph. 6:10-20). We’re engaged in the battle between God’s truth and the lies of Satan that captivate the minds of the unbelieving (2 Cor. 10:3-5). And, as every Christian knows, there is a fierce inner battle that goes on between the flesh and the spirit, the old man and the new (Gal. 5:17). If we do not learn how to overcome the strong inner urge to gratify the flesh, sin will take us captive and enslave us. Paul describes this war within in Romans 7:14-25.

As I explained in the previous two messages, some godly scholars understand these verses to be a description of Paul as an unbelieving Jew, striving but failing to keep God’s law. Others argue that Paul is describing the ongoing battle that he was experiencing as he wrote. Even mature believers have to fight this battle against indwelling sin as long as they live.

While I agree that mature believers must fight a continual battle against indwelling sin (the flesh or the old sin nature), I disagree that such a description adequately explains these verses. Paul is not just describing a battle here, but a losing battle. He describes himself as (7:14), “I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.” He is not practicing what he would like to do, but rather was doing the very thing he hated (7:15, 18, 19). He was a prisoner of the law of sin (7:23). As I explained (in the last message), he was on the merry-go-round of sin and he couldn’t get off.

We looked at the first two cycles (7:14-17, 18-20) of sin and defeat. Now we come to the third time around the merry-go-round, which follows the same three-fold progression: Fact, proof, and conclusion:

Fact (7:21): “I find then the principle that evil is present in me ….”

Proof (7:22-23): “For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in my members, waging war…”

Conclusion (7:25): “So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.”

I reject the view that Paul is describing his experience as an unbeliever because he says things that are not true of unbelievers. I reject the view that he was writing primarily about his struggle as a mature believer because while mature believers struggle with sin and sometimes lose the battle, they do not live in perpetual defeat and bondage to sin.

I contend that these verses primarily describe an immature believer who has not yet come to understand that he is no longer under the law, but under grace. He has not yet learned to rely on the indwelling Holy Spirit to overcome the lusts of the flesh. (There is no mention of the Spirit here, but much is said of the Spirit in chapter 8.) But at the same time, the war that Paul describes here does go on, even for mature believers. The difference is that while sin is winning the war in chapter 7, Paul through the Holy Spirit is winning against sin in chapter 8. While we can never in this life obey God’s law perfectly, we can learn to obey God consistently. We do not have to yield repeatedly to sin, which is the frustrating cycle that Paul describes here. This third cycle teaches us:

To win the war within, we must understand the magnitude of the inner conflict so that in despair we cry out to God for deliverance.

In 7:24, Paul cries out in despair, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” His exclamation in 7:25 gives us a ray of hope, followed by a summary of the war within: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.” Chapter 8 goes on to unfold the deliverance that God gives us over sin through the indwelling Holy Spirit. I see three lessons in our text:

1. To win the war within, we must understand the nature and magnitude of the conflict between indwelling sin and the new man.

The Christian life is a constant battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil. Here the focus is on the flesh. “I find” implies that this was a discovery that came to Paul after some painful failures. He discovered this truth in the school of hard knocks. Even though Paul had experienced a dramatic conversion, it didn’t immediately result in a life of consistent victory over sin. And so he portrays here the two combatants in this battle. We can picture them as boxers:

A. In this corner: The reigning champion, the old man, waging war in my members to make me a prisoner.

Paul uses several terms here to describe the evil within. While they have different nuances, they basically describe the same thing: “the law that evil is present in me” (7:21); “a different law … waging war” (7:23); “the law of sin” (7:23, 25); “the body of this death” (7:24); and, “my flesh” (7:25). All of these terms refer to the old man and its method of operation. The old man is not eradicated at conversion, but continues to be corrupted according to the lusts of deceit (Eph. 4:22). As we saw last time, positionally the old man was crucified with Christ, in order that our body of sin might be done away with (Rom. 6:6). But practically, we have to reckon this to be true in our daily experience by putting it off (Rom. 6:11; Eph. 4:22-24). If we don’t learn to do this, the old man will make us prisoners to the law of sin (7:23). Note how the old man operates:

(1). The old man (the flesh, indwelling sin) operates according to a law.

The word translated “principle” (NASB, 7:21) is literally, “law.” Some commentators argue that it refers to God’s law (as it does in 7:22 & 25), so that in 7:21 the sense is, “I find then that in reference to [God’s] law, evil is present in me .…” While that is possible, the fact that Paul specifies “the law of God” in 7:22 indicates that he is distinguishing it from the law that he has just mentioned in 7:21.

So he is probably using “law” ironically in 7:21, both to compare and contrast the law of sin with God’s law. In this sense, it rules us and with authority tells us how to live (although wrongly!). It promises rewards if we obey it: “You’ll be happier and more fulfilled if you experience the pleasure of this sin.” It threatens us with penalties if we do not obey it: “You’ll miss out on all the fun if you don’t do what I say.” So indwelling sin is powerful. It operates as a law, commanding us, threatening us, and enticing us. (I am indebted to Kris Lundgaard, The Enemy Within [P & R Publishing], pp. 23-26 for some of these insights about the law of sin.)

(2). The old man operates by waging a cunning, relentless war.

Paul says (7:23), “But I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war ….” The war that the old man wages is a guerilla war. It doesn’t wear red coats and come marching towards you in formation, so that you can see it coming. It uses snipers and land mines and hidden roadside bombs and civilians posing as friends when really they’re enemies. In other words, sin is subtle and cunning. It lures you into traps where you get ambushed. And it’s relentless. If it loses one battle, it doesn’t pack up and go home, conceding defeat. It keeps coming at you until it brings you down.

(3). The old man operates through our bodies.

This law operates “in the members of my body” (7:23). Paul laments “the body of this death” (7:24), which refers to his physical body that is under the curse of death. He contrasts the law of sin with “the law of my mind” (7:23).

We need to be careful here or we could fall into an error that became prevalent in the early church. Gnosticism taught that the body is inherently evil, whereas the spirit is good. This led to two different extremes. Some said that since the body is evil, we must treat it harshly by depriving ourselves of food, comfort, and physical pleasure. This is asceticism, which Paul strongly condemns (Col. 2:16-23). The other extreme was that some said that since the body is evil anyway, you might as well indulge it. What the body does is unrelated to the spirit. So you could indulge in sexual immorality, but at the same time claim that your spirit was not in sin.

Since Paul elsewhere clearly denounces these errors, we would be mistaken to take his teaching here in that way. Rather, he is saying that the law of sin works through his physical body and manifests itself in evil deeds. But it takes his entire person captive (7:23, “making me a prisoner”). In this sense, by his members, Paul means his flesh (7:18), which is the old sin nature. Temptation always begins in our minds, but it appeals to and works its way out through our bodies. Thus one strategy against sin is to make it your aim always to glorify God with your body (1 Cor. 6:20).

(4). The old man operates through strong compulsion or feelings, not through reason alone.

Sin uses reason, however faulty, to appeal to us. Satan reasoned with Eve that God surely would not impose the death penalty for eating a little piece of fruit. He also used faulty reasoning to get her to doubt God’s goodness in imposing the command. The fall brought our minds as well as our bodies into captivity to sin.

But in addition to reason, temptation always appeals to our feelings. Leon Morris (The Epistle to the Romans [Apollos/Eerdmans, p. 294) refers to it as “the compulsion to do evil.” It’s not purely rational. In fact, sin is usually irrational. If we were to stop and think about the consequences both for us and for others, we’d resist the temptation. Don Kistler pointed out the irrationality of sin when he astutely observed (in “Why Read the Puritans Today?” referring to Jeremiah Burroughs’ thesis in The Evil of Evils), “Sin is worse than suffering; but people will do everything they can to avoid suffering, but almost nothing to avoid sin.”

So, in the first corner, we have the reigning champion that has dominated the human race ever since the fall: the old man.

B. In the other corner: The new challenger, the inner man, joyfully concurring with the law of God.

Paul wants to do good (7:21). He says (7:22), “For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man.” He says that with his mind he is serving the law of God (7:25). This must refer to the mind of a regenerate man. So by the inner man and my mind, Paul is referring to the new man, which through the new birth “has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth” (Eph. 4:24). Leon Morris (p. 295) calls this “the real Paul.” F. F. Bruce (Romans [IVP/Eerdmans], rev. ed., p. 146) identifies it as “the ‘new nature’ in Christ that is daily being renewed in the Creator’s image.” He adds (ibid.), “In light of 8:7-8 it is difficult to view the speaker here as other than a believer.”

One of the marks of the new birth is that God gives you new desires. You have a new love for Christ, who gave Himself on the cross for you. You love God’s Word and desire it like a newborn babe desires his mother’s milk (1 Pet. 2:2). You long to be holy, just as Jesus is holy. You hate your own sin. You love to be with God’s people and talk about the things of God. And yet, at the same time, you know that in your flesh there is still a strong desire to do evil. In new believers, the desires of the old nature (the reigning champion) often win out over the new desires of the new nature (the new challenger) until the new believer learns how to fight.

That’s the picture of Paul here. He has a new nature that joyfully concurs with God’s law in the inner man, but he’s still dominated by the old nature. Unbelievers do not have two natures warring against each other and they do not joyfully love God’s law in their hearts. But mature believers have learned to put on the new man and put off the old, so that they experience consistent victory over sin. But before we begin to see consistent victory, we often experience frustrating defeats because of the power of the reigning champion, the old man. Let’s examine what deliverance from the old nature looks like:

2. Deliverance in this conflict consists of consistent victory over sin in this life and perfect, permanent victory in the resurrection.

In addition to Paul’s dramatic use of the present tense, one strong argument that he is describing mature believers here is that even mature believers identify with the struggle pictured here. Even after we’ve learned to overcome temptation on a consistent basis and after we’ve walked in obedience to the Lord for years, we still find ourselves sinning. We lash out in anger at our loved ones. We act selfishly with no regard for others. We see a seductive woman and lust floods into our thoughts.

But I do not see Paul describing here a lack of perfection, but rather a lack of obedience. He is not doing what he knows to be right. He is practicing what he knows to be wrong. He is failing completely. I agree with Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Romans: The Law: Its Functions and Limits [Zondervan], p. 222), who argues that Paul’s cry of anguish (in 7:24) is not caused by the fact that he is in conflict against his old nature, but rather by his persistent defeat in yielding to that old nature (7:23). So let me make three observations to try to picture what deliverance looks like:

A. Deliverance does not refer to a state of sinless perfection in this life, but to consistent victory over sin.

In this life, I will never love God as completely as I should, with my entire heart, soul, mind, and strength. I will never love others as much as I love myself (Mark 12:30-31). I will always fall short of these commands. But a lack of perfection is not the same as persistent disobedience. As a new creature in Christ, by God’s Spirit, I can choose to love God by spending time with Him each day in His Word and in prayer, by gathering with His people to worship Him each week, and by honoring Him with the money He entrusts to me. I can love my wife, my children, and others in a self-sacrificing manner. The deliverance that Paul is crying out for (in 7:24) may include the perfection that will come when we get our resurrection bodies. But he wants to be freed from his present enslavement to sin (7:23). He wants to obey God consistently, even if such obedience can never be perfect in this life.

B. Deliverance from sin always creates tension with the growing awareness of your many sins and shortcomings.

There is an irony in the Christian life: As you walk more consistently in obedience to God and grow closer to the light of His holy presence, you see all the more how dirty you really are. When Isaiah saw God in His holiness, he immediately saw how sinful he was (Isa. 6:5). Paul’s cry here may have stemmed partly from this awareness of his sinful imperfection. In that sense, it’s a cry that we will continually echo as we grow in Christ.

But it seems to me that Lloyd-Jones is right when he connects Paul’s cry in this context mainly with his disobedience and defeat, not just with his imperfection (7:24 follows 7:23). Yet at the same time, growing to know Christ and obey Him more always leads to a greater awareness of how sinful you still are. Deliverance from sin’s power does not eliminate this tension of how far short you fall.

C. Deliverance from sin means consistent victory over it, but it does not eliminate the lifelong struggle against it.

After Paul’s jubilant exclamation (7:25), you’d expect him to move on to talk about victory over sin. But instead, he summarizes the war he has just described, in which with his mind he serves the law of God, but with his flesh, the law of sin. It leaves you with the feeling that sin is still consistently winning. Victory doesn’t come until chapter 8. Bishop Lightfoot (Notes on Epistles of St. Paul [Baker], p. 305) says that while Paul’s thanksgiving is out of place, he can’t endure to leave the difficulty unsolved, so he gives the solution parenthetically, even though it interrupts his argument.

But while the struggle against sin is a lifelong battle, when we do learn that we can’t win it in our own strength and when we learn to walk in the Spirit, we can experience consistent victory, which is the flavor of chapter 8. But even when we walk in the Spirit, the daily struggle against sin goes on. The war within of chapter 7 is never eradicated in this life, but the difference is, chapter 7 pictures persistent defeat, whereas chapter 8 pictures consistent triumph and victory, even in the face of severe trials. By God’s grace, we can put the defeat of chapter 7 in the past and experience the consistent victory of chapter 8.

3. To experience consistent victory over sin, we must despair over our sin and cry out to God for deliverance.

As I cited my friend Bob Deffinbaugh last week, the problem with many Christians is not their despair, like that of Paul, but their lack of it. They don’t feel the anguish of their persistent disobedience. They avoid the struggle, often by minimizing their sin as a “personality quirk” or as “just being human.” They excuse it as normal: “Everyone has his faults.”

But you will not gain consistent victory over sin until you first see God’s holy standard and realize how often you’re disobeying that standard. You must also realize, often through repeated failures, that you cannot obey God in your own strength. Then, in despair, you cry out, “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?” As you search God’s Word for answers, you learn that “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death” (8:2). You learn to walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit (8:4). You begin to experience consistent victory over sin in your daily walk, beginning on the thought level.

Conclusion

Dwight Eisenhower once said, “War is a terrible thing. But if you’re going to get into it, you’ve got to get into it all the way.” Underestimating the power of the enemy is a sure way to lose. The war within will be with us as long as we live in these fallen bodies. It is winnable, not perfectly or permanently, but consistently. But we can’t be half-hearted. If we fully engage the battle using God’s resources, we can consistently win!

Something in human nature makes us want to go to extremes, a weakness from which Christians are not wholly free. “Since we are saved by grace,” some argue, “we are free to live as we please,” which is the extreme of license.

“But we cannot ignore God’s Law,” others argue. “We are saved by grace, to be sure; but we must live under Law if we are to please God.” This is the extreme expression of legalism.

My greatest need is to be right with God. If I am to have that need met, three other needs must also be met. Romans 7 begins with Paul giving us this direction: the need to be forgiven, the need to be changed, and the need to win the victory over the flesh.

Paul answered the first group in Romans 6; the second group he answered in Romans 7. The word law is used twenty-three times in this chapter. In Romans 6, Paul told us how to stop doing bad things; in Romans 7 he told how not to do good things. “You were not justified by keeping the Law,” he argued, “and you cannot be sanctified by keeping the Law.”

Every growing Christian understands the experience of Romans 6 and 7. Once we learn how to “know, reckon, and yield,” we start getting victory over the habits of the flesh, and we feel we are becoming more spiritual. We set high standards and ideals for ourselves and for a while seem to attain them.

Then everything collapses! We start to see deeper into our own hearts and we discover sins that we did not know were there. God’s holy Law takes on a new power, and we wonder if we can ever do anything good! Without realizing it, we have moved into “legalism” and have learned the truth about sin, the Law, and ourselves.

What really is “legalism”? It is the belief that I can become holy and please God by obeying laws. It is measuring spirituality by a list of do’s and don’ts. The weakness of legalism is that it sees sins (plural) but not sin (the root of the trouble). It judges by the outward and not the inward. Furthermore, the legalist fails to understand the real purpose of God’s Law and the relationship between Law and grace.

These verses actually continue the discussion that Paul began in Romans 6:15, answering the question, “Shall we sin because we are not under the Law, but under grace?” He used the illustration of a master and servant to explain how the Christian should yield himself to God.

In this passage he used the illustration of a husband and wife to show that the believer has a new relationship to the Law because of his union with Jesus Christ.

7:1 The law has authority over a man only as long as he lives.^NIV Paul continues his thought from 6:14, “For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.”

Obviously, the law has authority only while someone is alive—a dead body cannot be expected to follow any laws, nor can it make restitution for sins committed. Paul’s word for has authority includes the idea of the “master”—literally, “The law lords it over a person.”

Paul’s rhetorical question creates a chilling afterthought. Death brings an end to the authority of the law, but what remains is judgment. Death removes a person from the frying pan of the law, but then drops him or her into the fire of judgment. But if a person can get out from under the authority of the law without coming under the judgment of law, that would be good news!

7:2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage.

The illustration is a simple one, but it has a profound application. When a man and woman marry, they are united for life. Marriage is a physical union (“They two shall be one flesh” Gen. 2:24) and can only be broken by a physical cause. One such cause is death. (Matt. 5:31-34; 19:1-12 indicate that unfaithfulness also breaks the marriage bond, but Paul does not bring this up. He is not discussing marriage and divorce; he is using marriage to illustrate a point.)

As long as they live, the husband and wife are under the authority of the law of marriage. If the woman leaves the man and marries another man, she commits adultery. But if the husband dies, she is free to remarry because she is no longer a wife. It is death that has broken the marriage relationship and set her free.

The marriage vows bind a woman to her husband while he lives. If he dies, she is free from her vows to him.

Paul uses marriage to illustrate our relationship to the law. When a spouse dies, the law of marriage no longer applies. Because we have died with Christ, the law can no longer condemn us. We rose again when Christ was resurrected, and now we belong to Christ. His Spirit enables us to produce good fruit for God. The result is that we serve God, not by trying hard to obey a set of rules, but out of renewed hearts and minds that overflow with love for him. Why do you serve God?

7:3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.

If the wife leaves her husband for another man, she is called an adulteress (except for the provisions described in Matthew 19:9 and 1 Corinthians 7). The Greek word for called means “to be publicly known as” or “to receive the stigma of.” If this woman is widowed, she is free to marry another man and not be an adulteress.

Again, Paul was having to put this in “human terms” (6:19), by developing an analogy from common living to emphasize his lesson. Having begun the theme of marriage, Paul wants his readers to remember that under normal circumstances any breaking of the marriage vows would be adultery. Having stated that fact, Paul explains its significance.

7:4  Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.

Just as death breaks the bond between a husband and wife, so a believer’s “death” (death to his old self) breaks his bond with the law. The old contractual arrangement had to be completely severed before the new one could begin. This had to be as final as death.

Jewish believers could not live with a dual allegiance. They could not be under the lordship of Christ and the lordship of the law. Total commitment to Christ cannot coexist with a total commitment to the law. That would be spiritual adultery. A believer belongs fully to Christ. This happens through the body of Christ, that is, because of Christ’s death on the cross. The believer is then freed to belong to another, to Christ.

Bear fruit to God.^NKJV Just as there is fruit (i.e., children) from a marriage, so there is fruit from our relationship with Christ. In 6:20-21, Paul reminded the Romans that their old life had borne fruit that was reason for shame. But now there are prospects for a harvest of good. Only by belonging to Christ can we do good works and live a life pleasing to God. This is how we serve in the new way of the Spirit (7:6).

A NEW WAY OF LOOKING

When a person dies to the old life and belongs to Christ, a new life begins. The unbeliever’s mind is centered on his or her own personal gratification. Those who don’t follow Christ have only their own self-determination as their source of power. By contrast, God is at the center of a Christian’s life. God supplies the power for the Christian’s daily living. Believers find that their whole way of looking at the world changes when they belong to Christ.

 

Paul is drawing a contrast between the two states of man—without Christ and with him. Before we knew Christ we tried to rule life by obedience to the written code of the law. That was when we were in the flesh. By the flesh Paul does not mean simply the body, because a man retains a physical body to the end of the day. In man there is something which answers to the seduction of sin; and it is that part of man which provides a bridgehead for sin that Paul calls the flesh.

The flesh is human nature apart from and unaided by God. Paul says that, when our human nature was unaided by God, the law actually moved our passions to sin. What does he mean by that? More than once he has the thought that the law actually produces sin, because the very fact that a thing is forbidden lends it a certain attraction. When we had nothing but the law, we were at the mercy of sin.

Then Paul turns to the state of a man with Christ. When a man rules his life by union with Christ he rules it not by obedience to a written code of law which may actually awaken the desire to sin but by an allegiance to Jesus Christ within his spirit and his heart. Not law, but love, is the motive of his life; and the inspiration of love can make him able to do what the restraint of law was powerless to help him do.

7:5 ⁵  For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.  or, “When we were in the flesh.” Paul reminds his readers that the law did little more for them than fuel their passion for sin. They were under the authority of the law, but they disobeyed it. In the New Testament, when Paul used the term flesh (sarx), translated here as sinful nature, he had two concepts in mind: (1) basic humanity, or the mortal body (see 2 Corinthians 4:11; 10:3; Galatians 2:20; Philippians 1:22, 24), and (2) the human tendency to be dominated by desire and sin (see 8:7; Galatians 3:3, 5:24). Here, Paul is using the second meaning.

Bear fruit for death.^NRSV The only fruit produced by a life that is under the law is sin and death. Why? Because sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies.^NIV

• The law had authority, but it did not effectively control human passions.
• Sinful passions rebel against the law, seeing it as a “to do” list rather than God’s standard to be obeyed.
• Sinful people, unwilling to obey God, are just as unwilling to obey his law.

The law restrains us and teaches us God’s will, but it also reveals and stimulates our sinful nature. At the same time it identifies sin, it also generates sin.

Paul expands on these thoughts at length in verses 7-13.

 

WHY DO WE ENJOY DOING WRONG JUST FOR THE SAKE OF IT?

l It temporarily satisfies our itching desires.

l It provides an instant and intense sense of power.

l Passionate wrongdoing can be intoxicating and addictive.

l It feels good to rebel.

l We easily jump to a host of wrong conclusions:

—If one cookie tastes good, the whole bag will taste better.

—If some of anything is satisfactory, then a lot of the same thing will be intensely satisfactory.

—More is always better than less.

—Wanting really isn’t different than needing.

—Nothing is wrong unless you get caught.

l Once an improper desire is seriously considered, it quickly intensifies in appeal and power.

7:6  But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

This statement anticipates the spiritual solution to the problems Paul will address in this chapter. Because we have been released from the law, we no longer Wave to obey in the old way of the written code.^NIV In other words, the law is not erased, but it is no longer to be obeyed on the superficial level of “works” (the way of obedience familiar to the Jews).

Nor are we freed from all responsibility to serve. God still desires our moral obedience, but we are to serve Christ out of love as our chosen master. Our focus should be on his desires, not on a list of commands. We have been released so that we can serve in the new way of the Spirit living within us, guiding us, and showing us how to please God. We are still called to serve, but our master is gracious, and we are no longer trapped by the cycle of effort, failure, and guilt.

We are delivered from Law (v. 6). This is the logical conclusion: the Law cannot exercise authority over a dead person. The Authorized Version reads as though the Law died; but Paul wrote, “We having died to that wherein we were held.” Death means deliverance (note Rom. 6:9-10).

But we were delivered that we might serve. The Christian life is not one of independence and rebellion. We died to the Law that we might be “married to Christ.” We were delivered from the Law that we might serve Christ.

This truth refutes the false accusation that Paul taught lawlessness. What is different about Christian service as opposed to our old life of sin? To begin with, the Holy Spirit of God energizes us as we seek to obey and serve the Lord. (The word spirit ought to be capitalized in Romans 7:6—”newness of Spirit.”)

Under Law, no enablement was given. God’s commandments were written on stones and read to the people. But under grace, God’s Word is written in our hearts (2 Cor. 3:1-3). We “walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4) and serve “in newness of Spirit.” The believer, then, is no longer under the authority of the Law.

 

FREED TO SERVE

Some people try to earn God’s approval by keeping a set of rules (e.g., obeying the Ten Commandments, attending church faithfully, or doing good works), but all they earn for their efforts is frustration and discouragement. However, because of Christ’s sacrifice, the way to God is already open—we can become his children simply by putting our faith in Christ. No longer trying to reach God by keeping rules, we can become more and more like Jesus as we live with him day by day.

Let the Holy Spirit turn your eyes away from your own performance and toward Christ. He will free you to serve him out of love and gratitude. This is living “in the new way of the Spirit.”

 

Deuteronomy 22:1-4 (ESV)
¹  “You shall not see your brother’s ox or his sheep going astray and ignore them. You shall take them back to your brother.
²  And if he does not live near you and you do not know who he is, you shall bring it home to your house, and it shall stay with you until your brother seeks it. Then you shall restore it to him.
³  And you shall do the same with his donkey or with his garment, or with any lost thing of your brother’s, which he loses and you find; you may not ignore it.
⁴  You shall not see your brother’s donkey or his ox fallen down by the way and ignore them. You shall help him to lift them up again.

Proverbs 3:27 (ESV)
²⁷  Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.

Proverbs 21:13 (ESV)
¹³  Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered.

Ecclesiastes 7:20 (ESV)
²⁰  Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.

What are some of the problems in life that we must face and overcome? Number one on the list is sin, because nobody on earth is sinless. We are all guilty of both sins of omission (“doeth good”) and sins of commission (“sinneth not”). If we walk in the fear of God and follow His wisdom, we will be able to detect and defeat the wicked one when he comes to tempt us. Wisdom will guide us and guard us in our daily walk.

 James 4:17 (ESV)
¹⁷  So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

Romans 7:18-20 (ESV)
¹⁸  For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
¹⁹  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
²⁰  Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

Paul had a deep desire to do only good. The wishing to do God’s will was very much present within his redeemed being.

Paul is not saying that he was totally incapable of doing anything that was good and acceptable. He is saying that he was incapable of completely fulfilling the requirements of God’s holy law

As a believer grows in his spiritual life, he inevitably will have both an increased hatred of sin and an increased love for righteousness. As desire for holiness increases, so will sensitivity to and antipathy toward sin.

The other side of the predicament, Paul says, is that I practice the very evil that I do not wish. Again, it is important to understand that this great inner struggle with sin is not experienced by the undeveloped and childish believer but by the mature man of God.

It demonstrates the inadequacy of human resolution. To resolve to do a thing is very far from doing it. There is in human nature an essential weakness of the will. The will comes up against the problems, the difficulties, the opposition—and it fails.

Once Peter took a great resolution. “Even if I must die with you,” he said, “I will not deny you” (Matt 26:35); and yet he failed badly when it came to the point. The human will not strengthened by Christ is bound to crack.

It demonstrates the limitations of diagnosis. Paul knew quite clearly what was wrong; but he was unable to put it right. He was like a doctor who could accurately diagnose a disease but was powerless to prescribe a cure. Jesus is the one person who not only knows what is wrong, but who can also put the wrong to rights. It is not criticism he offers but help.

When we are made aware of sin, we have a clear responsibility: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9 niv).

1 John 3:16-18 (ESV)
¹⁶  By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
¹⁷  But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?
¹⁸  Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

Popular sitcom, he characters are arrested on a duty to rescue violation. This law requires people to act as good Samaritans, and holds citizens legally liable for their failure to act. In common parlance, a lie of omission may be referred to as “playing dumb.”

Any treatment of Christian doctrine would be incomplete if the biblical statement concerning sin were omitted. Modern Philosophy denies the existence of sin, but any such denial is part of a false philosophy. All refusal to admit the existence of sin can neither be controverted nor challenged. The Bible declares sin’s existence and the human heart displays it. Sin is not a myth, it is not a figment of the mind; sin is a fact.

The Explanation of Sin

What is sin? Dr. Charles Ryrie has given a listing of Hebrew and Greek words which describe sin. He says that in the Hebrew there are at least eight basic words. The usage of these words leads to certain conclusions about the doctrine of sin in the Old Testament.

(1) Sin was conceived of as being fundamentally disobedience to God.

(2) While disobedience involved both positive and negative ideas, the emphasis was definitely on the positive commission of wrong and not the negative omission of good. In other words, sin was not simply missing the right mark, but hitting the wrong mark.

(3) Sin may take many forms, and the Israelite was aware of the particular form which his sin did take.”

“The New Testament uses twelve basic words to describe sin. From the uses of these words several conclusions may also be drawn.

(1) There is always a clear standard against which sin is committed.

(2) Ultimately all sin is a positive rebellion against God and a transgression of His standards.

(3) Evil may assume a variety of forms.

(4) Man’s responsibility is definite and clearly understood.”

The word that is used most frequently is missing the mark. It is the most comprehensive term for explaining sin. Paul used the verb hamartano when he wrote, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

God has a high and holy standard of what is right, and so long as man follows the Divine standard he will see himself as he truly exists in God’s eyes.

The Book of Judges contains the record of 700 men in the Tribe of Benjamin, all left‑handed, and “everyone could sling stones at an hair breadth, and not miss” (Judges 20:16). The word translated “miss” is chata, rendered “sin” in Exodus 20:20 and so translated about 200 times in our English Bible. The left‑handed marksmen in the Tribe of Benjamin rarely if ever fell short of their target. They were known as men of the sling, with a deadly accuracy which never missed the bull’s eye. On the other hand, the Bible contains no record of a man, save Jesus Christ, who never missed the moral standard of Almighty God

Every man has failed to do what he ought, therefore the term is fittingly applied to sins of omission. Every man can be charged with the sin of the Pharisees whom our Lord charged with leaving undone the things they ought to have done (Matthew 23:23; Luke 11:42).

The Bible says, “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin” (James 4:17). You see, sinning is not limited to the doing and saying things that are wrong, but it extends to our failure to do what in God’s standard is perfectly right, missing that mark, falling short of the honor and worth of Almighty God.

The Entrance of Sin

With respect to the entrance of sin in the human race we are confined to God’s revelation to us in His Word. The Word of God leaves no room for doubt in this matter of sin’s origin.

According to Scripture sin first made its appearance in the world in the angelic creation. Peter wrote, “God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment” (II Peter 2:4).

To this Jude adds, “And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, He hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day” (Jude 6).

The obvious deduction is that the sin of these fallen angels was a free act on their part, arising from their dissatisfaction with the place God assigned to them when He created them. Lucifer, who became the Devil, appears to have been the leader of the rebellion (Isaiah 14:12‑14), so that the Devil and demons were not created by God as such.

They were angels who rose up in rebellion against God. Exactly how such dissatisfaction and rebellion could arise in beings whom God created is not revealed by the sacred writers. We assume that they possessed personality and freedom of will and thereby had the capability of making right or wrong choices.

The Scripture is clear in its declaration that “by one man sin entered into the world . . .” (Romans 5:12). Sin is a very real and terrible fact of human life. The problem as to its earthly origin is solved in Romans 5. It came through the sin of “one man,” Adam, and thereby “passed” to “all men.”

The Extent of Sin

The seat of sin is in man himself. Our Lord said, “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” (Matthew 15:19).

The Effects of Sin

Genuine guilt toward God arises from illumination we receive from the Bible. It appears as the result of a breakdown in man’s obedience to God and his utter dependence upon God. It is a truly genuine guilt when the sinner knows in his innermost heart that he has disobeyed God, and that all such disobedience is sin. If a person is gripped with guilt‑feelings which are a result of sin and the convicting power of the Holy Spirit, there is one solution, and only one. He must turn to God, trusting the redeeming work of Christ, and he may be veritably assured of forgiveness and cleansing.

When a person feels guilty because of sin, he does so because God has disapproved of that sin. He knows he has transgressed God’s law and therefore deserves to be punished. The guilt‑feeling grows out of the fact that his fellowship with God has been marred.

Every sin is an offense against God and stands in opposition to the holiness of God. We should be thankful to God that He has provided in man’s make‑up and constitution the genuine and real guilt‑feeling whenever sin enters.

Another consequence of sin is the punishment imposed upon the sinner by God. Since sin is a capital crime against God, man is guilty of death. The Scriptures repeatedly tell us that sin and death are inseparably linked together.

 “For the wages of sin is death . . .” (Romans 6:23). “For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me” (Romans 7:11). “Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (James 1:15). The guilty sinner cannot escape the Divine sentence, “As it is appointed unto men once to die . . .” (Hebrews 9:27).

The Expiation For Sin

Expiation is the act of making satisfaction or atonement for a crime or fault. God, because of His nature, not only demands that sin be punished but He also has provided for the sinner’s restoration to fellowship with Himself. It is at this point where the death of Christ enters the scene.

God could not be satisfied until sin had been fully atoned for. The Bible teaches that by the sufferings and death of Christ, the acceptable Substitute was provided for the sin of man, thereby making His sufferings and death to be vicarious, that is, in the room and stead of the sinner.

There could be no expiation for sin apart from the sacrifice of blood, the reason being that God so declared it. “Without shedding of blood is no remission” (Hebrews 9:22). “It is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul” (Leviticus 17:11). Christ was the sinner’s bleeding sacrifice. “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (Hebrews 9:12).

Paul wrote, “One died for all” (II Corinthians 5:14). “For He hath made Him to be sin for us . . .” (II Corinthians 5:21). Peter added, “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit” (I Peter 3:18).

Expiation means that our sins were laid upon Christ. “The LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).

The chief purpose of the Incarnation of Christ was to offer Himself a ransom for sinners. “Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).

“For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).

How is it possible for God to save sinners in the person of Jesus Christ? We understand that somehow Christ took our place on the cross, but how was such a substitution possible?

Paul answered the question in this section, and these verses are the very heart of the letter. To understand these verses a few general truths about this section need to be understood. First, note the repetition of the little word one. It is used eleven times. The key idea here is our identification with Adam and with Christ. Second, note the repetition of the word reign which is used five times. Paul saw two men—Adam and Christ—each of them reigning over a kingdom. Finally, note that the phrase much more is repeated five times. This means that in Jesus Christ we have gained much more than we ever lost in Adam!

In short, this section is a contrast of Adam and Christ. Adam was given dominion over the old creation, he sinned, and he lost his kingdom. Because of Adam’s sin, all mankind is under condemnation and death. Christ came as the King over a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). By His obedience on the cross, He brought in righteousness and justification. Christ not only undid all the damage that Adam’s sin effected, but He accomplished “much more” by making us the very sons of God. Some of this “much more” Paul has already explained in Romans 5:1-11.

Skeptics sometimes ask, “Was it fair for God to condemn the whole world just because of one man’s disobedience?” The answer, of course, is that it was not only fair; but it was also wise and gracious. To begin with, if God had tested each human being individually, the result would have been the same: disobedience. But even more important, by condemning the human race through one man (Adam), God was then able to save the human race through one Man (Jesus Christ)! Each of us is racially united to Adam, so that his deed affects us. (See Heb. 7:9-10 for an example of this racial headship.) The fallen angels cannot be saved because they are not a race. They sinned individually and were judged individually. There can be no representative to take their judgment for them and save them. But because you and I were lost in Adam, our racial head, we can be saved in Christ, the Head of the new creation. God’s plan was both gracious and wise.

Our final question must be answered: how do we know that we are racially united to Adam? The answer is in Romans 5:12-14, and the argument runs like this: We know that all men die. But death is the result of disobeying the Law. There was no Law from Adam to Moses, but men still died. A general result demands a general cause. What is that cause? It can be only one thing: the disobedience of Adam. When Adam sinned, he ultimately died. All of his descendants died (Gen. 5), yet the Law had not yet been given. Conclusion: they died because of Adam’s sin. “For that all have sinned” (Rom. 5:12) means “all have sinned in Adam’s sin.” Men do not die because of their own acts of sin; otherwise, babies would not die (Rom. 9:11). Men die because they are united racially to Adam, and “in Adam all men die” (1 Cor. 15:22).

Having linked Jews and Gentiles through Abraham to the promises of God, Paul now shows how the gospel applies to all humankind. Paul made important points by going back to Abraham; but by going back to Adam, he will draw conclusions that affect the fate of every person.

Twice in the last paragraph Paul expressed one idea and then followed it with an equally marvelous parallel idea (from the niv): “Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath,” (5:9); and “If . . . we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more . . . shall we be saved through his life!” (5:10). Here, in verses 12-21, Paul also uses a series of parallels, only this time they express ideas moving in opposite directions: “Just as sin entered the world . . . and . . . death came to all men” (5:12). . . “how much more did God’s grace and the gift . . . overflow to the many” (5:15); “For if.. death reigned through that one man, how much more will . . . righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ’ (5:17 niv); and “For just as . . . many were made sinners, so also . . . many will be made righteous” (5:19). Paul shows that all of us are affected by Adam’s disobedience and Christ’s obedience.

5:12 Sin came into the world through one man.^NRSV This one man is Adam, who sinned against God and brought alienation from God and death to all humanity (Genesis 2-3). God had warned Adam, “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die” (Genesis 2:17). Because Adam disobeyed God’s command, the judgment of both spiritual and physical death fell on him and all his descendants—death spread to all men, because all sinned.^NKJV Death is the consequence of being under the power of sin. “In Adam all die” (1 Corinthians 15:22 niv). It was not in God’s original plan for human beings to die, but it was the result when sin entered the world. Inevitably, the gift of life we bequeath to our children includes with it the sting of death. All human beings have two characteristics in common: They are sinners, and they will die.

5:13 Before the law was given, sin was in the world.^NIV Verses 13-15 are a lengthy parenthesis to Paul’s statement beginning in verse 12. God’s law was not given until the time of Moses, so the people who lived between Adam and Moses did not have any specific laws to obey or break. Paul explains that sin is not taken into account when there is no law.^NIV What Paul is saying is that the sin that was in the world was the power or force that causes people to act independently of God. All people are under the power of sin, and all people act in rebellion against God. Those sins did not count the same as Adam’s sin because they were not deliberate actions against God’s commands (as was Adam’s, see 5:12) because there were no commands. Thus, they were not taken into account. Paul continues this thought in 5:20 and in chapter 7, when he describes the law’s role in defining sin. Sin was in the world from the beginning, but it came into sharp focus when the law was given.

With this statement, Paul follows through his argument from chapter 2 regarding the pride of the Jews in their role as keepers of God’s law. The very fact that they had the law, and that it is the law that makes people accountable for sin, means that the Jews’ sin was deadly—they were certainly in as much need of redemption as the rest of the world.

5:14 Death reigned . . . even over those who did not sin by breaking a command.^NIV Adam had knowingly broken a specific command (5:12). His descendants who lived prior to the time of Moses could not break any specific laws because there were none. But they still sinned, witnessed by the fact that death reigned. Adam’s descendants had sinned with Adam (5:12). Death is the result of Adam’s sin and ours, even if our sins don’t resemble Adam’s. For thousands of years, the law had not been explicitly given, and yet people died. The law was added (5:20) to help people see their sinfulness, to show them the seriousness of their offenses, and to drive them to God for mercy and pardon. This was true in Moses’ day and in Paul’s day, and it is still true today. Sin is a deep rupture between who we are and

who we were created to be. The law points out our sin and places the responsibility for it squarely on our shoulders, but it offers no remedy.

Adam . . . a pattern of the one to come.^NIV Paul uses the word pattern (typos), or “type” to describe Adam’s role in history compared with Christ’s. Adam, the first man, was a counterpart of Christ, whom Paul calls “the last Adam” in 1 Corinthians 15:45. Adam’s one act determined the character of the world; Christ’s one act determined the character of eternity. In modem terminology, we could say that Adam was a flawed prototype, but Christ was the perfect original. Just as Adam was a representative of created humanity, so is Christ the representative of the new, spiritual humanity.

5:15 The free gift is not like the trespass.^NRSV The gift from God through Christ (justification) has a greater but opposite effect than the trespass of Adam and its consequences. Yet in each case, the act of one affected the lives of many.

Many died by the trespass of the one man.^NIV Because of Adam’s sin, death entered the human race, and since then all people have died (with the Bible’s exceptions of Enoch and Elijah). All people will die until the end of this age.

The gift that came by the grace of . . . Jesus Christ, overflow to the many.^NIV God’s gift because of his grace—salvation and eternal life—overflows to the entire human race. It is available to all, but not everyone will choose to receive it.

Every human being is born into Adam’s physical family the family line that leads to certain death. All of us reap the results of Adam’s sin. We have inherited his guilt, the tendency to sin, and God’s punishment. Because of Jesus, however, we can trade judgment for forgiveness. We can trade our sin for Jesus’ goodness. Jesus offers us the opportunity to be born into his spiritual family—the family line that begins with forgiveness and leads to eternal life. If we do nothing, we have death through Adam; but if we come to God by faith, we have life through Christ.

Adam’s offense is contrasted with Christ’s free gift (v. 15). Because of Adam’s trespass, many died; because of Christ’s obedience the grace of God abounds to many bringing life. The word “many” (literally “the many”) means the same as “all men” in Romans 5:12 and 18. Note the “much more”; for the grace of Christ brings not only physical life, but also spiritual life and abundant life. Christ did conquer death and one day will raise the bodies of all who have died “in Christ.” If He stopped there, He would only reverse the effects of Adam’s sin; but He went on to do “much more.” He gives eternal life abundantly to all who trust Him (John 10:10).

5:16 Judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation.^NIV God passed judgment on Adam’s one sin of disobedience. As a result, Adam and the entire human race received condemnation.

The gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.^NIV Everyone since Adam has sinned, and yet Christ overcame those many trespasses and brought justification to those who accept him. The result of sin is death; the gift of God—his justifying sinners—results in reigning forever with Christ.

The effect of Adam’s sin is contrasted with the effect of Christ’s obedience (v. 16). Adam’s sin brought judgment and condemnation; but Christ’s work on the cross brings justification. When Adam sinned, he was declared unrighteous and condemned. When a sinner trusts Christ, he is justified—declared righteous in Christ.

5:17 By the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man.^NIV By capitulating to sin Adam allowed the whole human race to succumb to death. Death is inescapable; it comes to every living thing. We all live close to the valley of the shadow of death. And the reign of death over creation began because of Adam’s sin.

Will those who receive.^NRSV The only condition upon these wonderful provisions of grace is that we receive them by faith. God’s love and Christ’s work are for all men and women, but they are appropriated by faith.

Reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.^NKJV Those who believe in Christ will become rulers, reigning in his kingdom of life, where there is no death (Revelation 1:6). What a promise this is to those who love Christ! We can reign over sin’s power, over death’s threats, and over Satan’s attacks. Eternal life is ours now and forever. Though this promise has its greatest fulfillment in the future, it also has a significant immediate impact. In Christ, death loses its sting (see 1 Corinthians 15:50-57). We are still subject to the physical suffering and death brought by sin in the world, but we are free from the eternal spiritual separation that we would experience outside of Christ. Also, in the power and protection of Jesus Christ, we can overcome temptation (see 8:17 for more on our privileged position in Christ).

The two “reigns” are contrasted (v. 17). Because of Adam’s disobedience, death reigned. Read the “book of the generations of Adam” in Genesis 5, and note the solemn repetition of the phrase “and he died.” In Romans 5:14, Paul argued that men did not die “from Adam to Moses” for the same reason that Adam died—breaking a revealed law of God—for the Law had not yet been given. “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). Because sin was reigning in men’s lives (Rom. 5:21), death was also reigning (Rom. 5:14, 17).

But in Jesus Christ we enter a new kingdom: “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Rom. 14:17). “Therefore being justified by faith” we are declared righteous, we have peace with God, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Note that it is we who reign! “Much more they… shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.” In Adam we lost our kingship, but in Jesus Christ we reign as kings. And we reign “much more”! Our spiritual reign is far greater than Adam’s earthly reign, for we share “abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness” (Rom. 5:17).

5:18 Just as the result of one trespass was condemnation.^NIV Paul emphasizes the contrasting roles of two single agents, Adam and Christ. Adam’s sin brought condemnation on the human race. Christ’s sinless sacrifice, or as Paul writes, his one act of righteousness opened the way for justification that brings life.

5:19 By the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners.^NRSV The same statement is made in different words: Here Adam’s trespass is called “disobedience,” and it resulted in all people becoming sinners and thus unacceptable to God. The word trespass describes the specific act of Adam’s sin, while disobedience describes its intent. The original temptation downplayed the importance of the act (see Genesis 3:1-7) and focused attention on the desired ends: “You will be like God” (Genesis 3:5 niv). Temptation still takes that same form, rationalizing deliberate disobedience to God in pursuit of some supposedly higher ideal. Ends and means do not justify one another. In Adam’s case, neither the ends (disobedience) nor the means (trespass) turned out to be right.

By the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.^NRSV Again, in contrast, here the act of righteousness is called Christ’s “obedience.” Adam’s response to temptation was “My will be done”; but Christ’s prayer to God was “Thy will be done” (Luke 22:42). Because of Christ’s obedience, those who believe will be made righteous. Becoming righteous is both an immediate standing before God and an ongoing process to be completed when he returns.

The two “one acts” are contrasted (vv. 18-19). Adam did not have to commit a series of sins. In one act God tested Adam, and he failed. It is termed an “offense” and an act of “disobedience.” The word offense means “trespass—crossing over the line.” God told Adam how far he could go, and Adam decided to go beyond the appointed limit. “Of every tree of the Garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:16-17).

In contrast to “the trespass of one” is “the righteousness of one,” meaning the righteous work of Christ on the cross. In Romans 5:19 Paul calls it “the obedience of One” (see Phil. 2:5-12). Christ’s sacrifice on the cross not only made possible “justification,” but also “justification of life” (italics mine). Justification is not merely a legal term that describes our position before God (“just as if I’d never sinned”); but it results in a certain kind of life. “Justification of life” in Romans 5:18 is parallel to “be made righteous” in Romans 5:19. In other words, our justification is the result of a living union with Christ. And this union ought to result in a new kind of life, a righteous life of obedience to God. Our union with Adam made us sinners; our union with Christ enables us to “reign in life.”

5:20 Law was added so that the trespass might increase.^NIV This statement is certainly not what Paul’s Jewish readers expected to hear. Paul had already explained that the law was ineffective for salvation, but now he says that rather than being an antidote for sin, it actually increases sin! Paul is winding up the argument he has been carrying on through the first five chapters of his letter. The purpose of the law for his own people, the Jews, had been to make them aware of their need for salvation; thus, their trespass was increased. Sin was present from Adam, but the giving of the law was like having a huge spotlight turned on—the sinfulness of people became all the more defined (see also Romans 7:7-13). The solution to sin was not law, but grace.

Where sin increased, grace increased all the more.^NIV No matter how much people sin, God’s grace is greater. There are occasions of insight in life when people realize in a new way the reality of their sinfulness. Sometimes, reflecting on the commandments reminds us of our tendency to fall. Our consciences also flare with guilt from time to time. At other times, a loving friend may confront us with a sinful act or habit. When our awareness of sin increases, we need to ask God to help us see that his grace is always greater in its capacity to forgive than our capacity to sin.

OPEN ARMS

As sinners, separated from God, we see his law from below. Sometimes it seems like a ladder to be climbed to get to God. Perhaps we have repeatedly tried to climb it, only to fall to the ground every time we have advanced one or two rungs. Or perhaps the sheer height of the ladder is so overwhelming that we have never even started up. In either case, what relief we should feel to see Jesus with open arms, offering to lift us above the ladder of the law, to take us directly to God. Once Jesus lifts us into God’s presence, we are free to obey—out of love, not necessity, and through God’s power, not our own. Then we know that if we stumble, we will not fall back to the ground. Instead, we will be caught and held in Jesus’ loving arms.

5:21 As sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life.^NIV Our age is characterized by sin and inevitable death; but the age to come will be characterized by grace, righteousness, and eternal life. It is common to call the ultimate struggle that is going on in the universe “the conflict between good and evil.” Paul was picturing here the outcome of the war between the kingdom of grace and the kingdom of sin. Until Christ, the war appeared to be decided, because sin reigned in death. But Christ’s death and resurrection provided the decisive victory by which grace will reign. Under the reign of grace, a righteousness is declared that will bring eternal life.

This ends the first section of Paul’s letter and his explanation of the law and its relation to salvation. But the law is not set aside as old and worthless. Paul will explain, in coming chapters, the role of the law for believers.

Law and grace are contrasted (vv. 20-21). “Then Law crept in” (WMS); or, “Then the Law came in beside” (literal translation). Grace was not an addition to God’s plan; grace was a part of God’s plan from the very beginning. God dealt with Adam and Eve in grace; He dealt with the patriarchs in grace; and He dealt with the nation of Israel in grace. He gave the Law through Moses, not to replace His grace, but to reveal man’s need for grace. Law was temporary, but grace is eternal.

But as the Law made man’s sins increase, God’s grace abounded even more. God’s grace was more than adequate to deal with man’s sins. Even though sin and death still reign in this world, God’s grace is also reigning through the righteousness of Christ. The Christian’s body is subject to death and his old nature tempts him to sin; but in Jesus Christ, he can “reign in life” because he is a part of the gracious kingdom of Christ.

An Old Testament story helps us understand the conflict between these two “reigns” in the world today. God rejected Saul as the king of Israel, and anointed David. Those who trusted David eventually shared his kingdom of peace and joy. Those who trusted Saul ended in shame and defeat.

Like David, Jesus Christ is God’s anointed King. Like Saul, Satan is still free to work in this world and seek to win men’s allegiance. Sin and death are reigning in the “old creation” over which Adam was the head, but grace and righteousness are reigning in “the new creation” over which Christ is the Head. And as we yield to Him, we “reign in life.”

In Romans 5:14, Adam is called “the figure of Him that was to come.” Adam was a type, or picture, of Jesus Christ. Adam came from the earth, but Jesus is the Lord from heaven (1 Cor. 15:47). Adam was tested in a Garden, surrounded by beauty and love; Jesus was tempted in a wilderness, and He died on a cruel cross surrounded by hatred and ugliness. Adam was a thief, and was cast out of Paradise; but Jesus Christ turned to a thief and said, “Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). The Old Testament is “the book of the generations of Adam” (Gen. 5:1) and it ends with “a curse” (Mal. 4:6). The New Testament is “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ” (Matt. 1:1) and it ends with “no more curse” (Rev. 22:3).

You cannot help being “in Adam,” for this came by your first birth over which you had no control. But you can help staying “in Adam,” for you can experience a second birth—a new birth from above—that will put you “in Christ.” This is why Jesus said, “Ye must be born again” (John 3:7).

 

Paul introduces some difficult concepts in this chapter. He demonstrates the truth of the gospel in ways that stretch our thinking.

To begin to understand the next four chapters, it helps to keep in mind the two-sided reality of the Christian life. On the one hand, we are complete in Christ (our acceptance with him is secure); on the other hand, we are growing in Christ (we are becoming more and more like him).

At the same time, we have the status of kings and the duties of slaves. We feel both the presence of Christ and the pressure of sin. We enjoy the peace that comes from being made right with God, but we still face daily problems that help us grow.

If we remember these two sides of the Christian life, we will not grow discouraged as we face temptations and problems. Instead, we will learn to depend on the power available to us from Christ, who lives in us by the Holy Spirit.

5:1 Therefore, since we are justified by faith.NRSV

Here he begins to describe how justification affects our relationship with God. First, there is peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Peace anticipates Paul’s claim that we have been reconciled with God (5:10). Peace (eirene) means there is no more hostility between us and God, no sin blocking our relationship with him. More than that, a new relationship has been established, so we no longer dread the outcome of judgment but live under the protection established by God.

Peace with God is only possible through Christ, because on the cross he met the conditions required for peace. Not only was “the punishment that brought us peace” (Isaiah 53:5 niv) borne by him, but he also fully lived up to his given title, Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6).

The basic teaching is that through our Lord Jesus Christ peace is established between us and God, whether or not we feel it from moment to moment. In Christ we claim peace with God, even when we are experiencing turmoil.

5:2 Access . . . into this grace.^NKJV

Not only has Christ justified and reconciled us to God, but he also has given us personal access to God. The grace of God initiating our salvation is the same grace in which we stand.

The word access (prosagogein), has also been translated “introduction” (nasb), “brought us into” (tlb), “been allowed to enter” (neb).

The thought is not about possible access to God, but accomplished access to God. Having been introduced to grace, we, now . . .

Rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.^NIV Mankind was created for glory (more about this will be said in chapter 8) but, because of sin, had fallen “short of the glory of God” (3:23). It is God’s purpose to recreate his image, his glory, fully in us.

Because of Christ, we now hope for (anticipate, look forward to) the time when we will share Christ’s glory. This hope helps us overcome our present frustrations when we fail to be all that we want to be or all that God wants us to be.

Paul mentions three occasions for rejoicing:

1. In the hope of the glory of God (5:2). Anticipating our future with God ought to bring moments of joy. We stand in God’s grace, and the outcome of our lives is secure in his hands.
2. In our suffering (5:3). We are not to be glad for our suffering, but to be glad that suffering can perfect a person’s faith.
3. In God (5:11). Our faith in Jesus Christ frees us to deeply enjoy our relationship with God. We no longer need to be haunted by thoughts of judgment; now we can reflect upon and respond to his grace.

5:3 Rejoice in our sufferings . . . suffering produces perseverance.^NIV

The key was that he learned to rejoice because he knew that suffering produces perseverance—the ability to face difficulties without giving in. For Christians, suffering does not negate the reality of God’s love, but provides the occasion to affirm and apply it.

DON’T JUDGE TRIBULATION BY ITS OUTWARD APPEARANCE
We rejoice in suffering not because we like pain or deny its tragedy, but because we know God is using life’s difficulties and Satan’s attacks to build our character. That is one of God’s loving purposes. Our problems will develop perseverance which, in turn, will strengthen our character, deepen our trust in God, and give us greater confidence about the future. It is likely that our patience will be tested in some way every day. Rejoicing begins by thanking God for these opportunities to grow and then facing them, relying on his strength.
5:4 Perseverance, character.NIV Endurance, in turn, deepens character. The word character (dokime) includes the idea of “approved as a result of testing.” A person with this kind of character is known for his or her inward qualities rather than any outward appearances. There is a progression that begins with suffering and ends with character. The end result of this chain reaction is hope—confidence that God is in control and will see us through. God’s work in us now, conforming us “to the likeness of his Son” (8:29), gives us a glimpse of the wonderful things he has in store for us in the future.

If we can maintain our love for Christ and see his work through all our difficulties, the result is increased faith, hope, and love. The difficulties of life are not random, meaningless, or wasted when we are trusting God.

5:5 Hope does not disappoint us.^NRSV Our hope in God’s promises will never disappoint us by being unfulfilled. When our hope is in God, we are absolutely assured that he will fulfill all that he has promised—we will be resurrected to eternal life and will be with him in glory.

The first hope Paul mentioned (5:2) is one that primarily looks to the future, when we will share in God’s glory; this hope, the maturing product of a life trusting God, focuses on the more immediate experience of God’s love. So hope, for the believer in Jesus, includes a future worth rejoicing over and a present that will not disappoint either!

God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.^NIV

It is the Holy Spirit who has filled our hearts with God’s love and who continues to encourage us as we hope in God.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “[God] anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit guaranteeing what is to come” (2 Corinthians 1:21-22).

5:6 Christ died for the ungodly. Paul wants to make sure that there is no misunderstanding about who Christ actually died for—the ungodly. Nor can there be any doubt about who the ungodly are, for Paul uses the same terminology at the end of 5:8, exchanging us in place of the ungodly.

We can have hope in God because of the nature of his love. God’s plan, from the beginning, was to send his Son to die for us, at just the right time, when we were still powerless^NIV.

The right time refers to both the timing in history and the timing in God’s plan (see Galatians 4:4). In the face of our powerlessness, God was fully in control.

The events in human history did not determine the plan of salvation; the plan of salvation was designed by God to happen at just the right time.

We are saved only because God took the initiative and demonstrated his incredible grace and love by sending his own Son to take the punishment we deserved.

5:7 For a good person someone might actually dare to die.^RSV The highest expression of human love is when someone gives his or her life so that another person can continue to live. People are able to understand sacrificial love, even though it is rarely practiced. This kind of sacrificial gesture is almost always dependent on a relationship that already exists between the one sacrificing (parent, friend, lover, fellow soldier) and the one benefited. People do not readily die for their enemies.

5:8 God demonstrates His own love.^NKJV People do not have to hope blindly that God loves them; he has openly demonstrated it.

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Christ did not die so that we could be made lovable; Christ died because God already loved us and wanted to bring us close to himself. No matter how lonely or alienated we feel, we have the unalterable objective fact that Christ died for us. Every time we celebrate communion, we hear the words from Jesus, “this is my body broken for you; this is my blood shed for you.”

5:9 Justified by his blood. God bases our justification on the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross (see 3:25). Because God is holy, he could not accept us by simply disregarding or ignoring our sins. Instead, those sins had to be dealt with.

And God did this through the sacrificial death of his Son. Again, this justification is God’s approval, given to us only on the basis of what Christ did. It is an acquittal that sets free all of us who were otherwise hopeless prisoners of sin.

Saved from God’s wrath.^NIV Those who have been justified and pronounced righteous are also delivered from God’s wrath at the final judgment. The comparison implies that justification is a present event, while the full display of God’s wrath will come only in the future.

5:10 Enemies . . . reconciled to him through the death of his Son. Alongside the theme of justification, Paul introduces the theme of reconciliation. Our peace with God has legal as well as relational aspects.

We were enemies because we were rebels against God. “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight without blemish and free from accusation” (Colossians 1:21-22 niv). Because of Christ’s death, we are reconciled—our proper relationship with God has been restored.

Much more. As in verse 9, Paul is using a comparison of wonder. He holds up one wonderful idea for consideration (our reconciliation with God through Christ’s death) and immediately follows with an even more wonderful thought of what Christ’s life accomplishes for us and in us.

Reconciled. Those who are reconciled are those who were once enemies of God but have now been brought into a relationship of peace with God.

There are two steps in the reconciliation process:

(1) God made the first move toward reconciliation by sending his Son to die on the cross (see 2 Corinthians 5:19),

(2) believers then accept the work Christ has done for them and thereby become reconciled to God (see 2 Corinthians 5:20). Reconciliation removes the hostility and establishes unity between believers and God.

Saved by his life.^NKJV Because Christ’s death accomplished our reconciliation with God, so his life—his present resurrection life in which he intercedes for us (see Hebrews 7:25)—insures our complete and final salvation.

POWER RESERVES

The love that caused Christ to die is the same love that sends the Holy Spirit to live in us and guide us every day. The power that raised Christ from the dead is the same power that saved us and is available to us in our daily lives. We can be assured that having begun a life with Christ, we have a reserve of power and love to call on each day for help to meet every challenge or trial. We can pray for God’s power and love as we need it.

5:11 Rejoice in God.^NIV It is not enough to list the marvelous facts of our relationship with God. Knowing all that God has accomplished should cause us to be filled with joy.

Paul has already told his readers that they should rejoice in the hope of glory (5:2) and in their sufferings (5:3). Now he exclaims that they should rejoice in God.

We rejoice in God because Christ took our sins upon himself and paid the price for them with his own death, instead of punishing us with the death we deserve (see introduction to this chapter). We have now received reconciliation.nrsv Through faith in his work, we become his friends (received reconciliation) and are no longer enemies and outcasts.

 

(Romans 4:13-17 NIV) “It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. {14} For if those who live by law are heirs, faith has no value and the promise is worthless, {15} because law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression. {16} Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring–not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. {17} As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed–the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.”

To Abraham God made a very great and wonderful promise. He promised that he would become a great nation, and that in him all families of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:2, 3). In truth, the earth would be given to him as his inheritance. Now that promise came to Abraham because of the faith that he showed towards God. It did not come because he piled up merit by doing works of the law.

It was the outgoing of God’s generous grace in answer to Abraham’s absolute faith. The promise, as Paul saw it, was dependent on two things and two things only-the free grace of God and the perfect faith of Abraham.

The Jews were still asking, “How can a man enter into the right relationship with God so that he too may inherit this great promise?” Their answer was, “He must do so by acquiring merit in the sight of God through doing works which the law prescribes.” That is to say, he must do it by his own efforts. Paul saw with absolute clearness that this Jewish attitude had completely destroyed the promise. It had done so for this reason-no man can fully keep the law; therefore, if the promise depends on keeping the law, it can never be fulfilled.

Paul saw things in terms of black and white. He saw two mutually exclusive ways of trying to get into a right relationship with God. On the one hand there was dependence on human effort; on the other, dependence on divine grace. On the one hand there was the constant losing battle to obey an impossible law; on the other, there was the faith which simply takes God at his word.

On each side there were three things.

(i) On the one side there is God’s promise. There are two Greek words which mean promise. Huposchesis means a promise which is entered into upon conditions. “I promise to do this if you promise to do that.” Epaggelia means a promise made out of the goodness of someone’s heart quite unconditionally. It is epaggelia that Paul uses of the promise of God. It is as if he is saying, “God is like a human father; he promises to love his children no matter what they do.” True, he will love some of us with a love that makes him glad, and he will love some of us with a love that makes him sad; but in either case it is a love which will never let us go. It is dependent not on our merit but only on God’s own generous heart.

(ii) There is faith. Faith is the certainty that God is indeed like that. It is staking everything on his love.

(iii) There is grace. A gift of grace is always something which is unearned and undeserved. The truth is that man can never earn the love of God. He must always find his glory, not in what he can do for God, but in what God has done for him.

(i) On the other side there is law. The trouble about law has always been that it can diagnose the malady but cannot effect a cure. Law shows a man where he goes wrong, but does not help him to avoid going wrong. There is in fact, as Paul will later stress, a kind of terrible paradox in law. It is human nature that when a thing is forbidden it has a tendency to become desirable. “Stolen fruits are sweetest.” Law, therefore, can actually move a man to desire the very thing which it forbids. The essential complement of law is judgment, and, so long as a man lives in a religion whose dominant thought is law, he cannot see himself as anything other than a condemned criminal at the bar of God’s justice.

(ii) There is transgression. Whenever law is introduced, transgression follows. No one can break a law which does not exist; and no one can be condemned for breaking a law of whose existence he was ignorant. If we introduce law and stop there, if we make religion solely a matter of obeying law, life consists of one long series of transgressions waiting to be punished.

(iii) There is wrath. Think of law, think of transgression, and inevitably the next thought is wrath. Think of God in terms of law and you cannot do other than think of him in terms of outraged justice. Think of man in terms of law and you cannot do other than think of him as destined for the condemnation of God.

So Paul sets before the Romans two ways. The one is a way in which a man seeks a right relationship with God through his own efforts. It is doomed to failure. The other is a way in which a man enters by faith into a relationship with God, which by God’s grace already exists for him to come into in trust.

(4:13-16) Introduction: a man is not justified by the law and its works. The law is the wrong way for a man to seek acceptance and justification by God.

1. The unmistakable statement: the promise is not through the law, but through faith (v.13).
2. The argument against the law (v.14-15).
3. The argument for faith (v.16).

The key word here is “promise.” Abraham was justified by believing God’s promise, not by obeying God’s Law; for God’s Law through Moses had not yet been given. The promise to Abraham was given purely through God’s grace. Abraham did not earn it or merit it. So today, God justifies the ungodly because they believe His gracious promise, not because they obey His Law. The Law was not given to save men, but to show men that they need to be saved (Rom. 4:15).

The fact that Abraham was justified by grace and not Law proves that salvation is for all men. Abraham is the father of all believers, both Jews and Gentiles (Rom. 4:16; Gal. 3:7, 29). Instead of the Jew complaining because Abraham was not saved by Law, he ought to rejoice that God’s salvation is available to all men, and that Abraham has a spiritual family (all true believers) as well as a physical family (the nation of Israel). Paul saw this as a fulfillment of Genesis 17:5: “I have made thee a father of many nations.”

(4:13) Promise, The—Faith vs. Law—Righteousness—Reward: the unmistakable statement—the promise of the inheritance is not through the law, but through faith.

Note several things.

1. The promise involves inheriting the whole world. This is clear from several facts.
2. Canaan was the promised land, a type of heaven and a type of the new heavens and earth God is to recreate for Abraham and his seed (the believer).
3. Abraham was promised that he would be the “father” of many nations. He is said to be the father of all believers from all nations of the earth (Romans 4:11-12). He and his seed (believers) are promised a new world when Christ returns.
4. Christ is to inherit the world and be exalted as the Sovereign Majesty of the universe, ruling and reigning forever and ever.

Abraham and his seed (believers) are said to be heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. They shall all reign with Christ through all eternity.

2. The “seed” of Abraham refers to all believers. This is clear from the promise that is said to be “sure to all the seed” (Romans 4:16). Every true believer is an heir of the promise. If a man believes, he receives the most glorious promise: he will inherit the world.
3. God does not give the promise through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.
4. A man will not receive an inheritance in the new world because he…

• tried to keep the law.
• did some great works.
• lived by good deeds.
• was moral and very religious.

1. A man will receive an inheritance in the new world because he…

• believed God for righteousness, and God took his belief and counted it for righteousness.

The point is clearly seen, and it is unmistakable:

 (1) Salvation is not of works, and only by faith. It should be clear that man can contribute nothing to his salvation. It is all of God; all of grace. And let us not make one last effort of claiming any part in our salvation by supposing that faith is our work, for even this is the gift of God (cf. Eph. 2:8, 9; Acts 13:48, 16:14).

Only this week I talked with a man who felt that we must contribute something to our salvation. I told him that man’s sin is like having greasy hands. When I work on the car and have grease on my hands, everything I touch is stained with grease also. When I come in with greasy hands, my wife quickly informs me not to touch anything until my hands are clean. So man’s hands are smudged with sin and there is nothing but the blood of Christ which can cleanse them. If we try to approach God by means of the works of our hands, those works will be smudged with sin and unacceptable to God. We must do as the words of the song instruct us, “Nothing in my hands I bring; simply to Thy cross I cling.”

 (2) Faith is the only way of receiving God’s blessing. Paul not only tells us that salvation is by faith, but also God’s blessings come only by faith.

 THE ADVENTURE AND THE PATIENCE OF FAITH

Hebrews 11:8-10: “It was by faith that Abraham, when he was called, showed his obedience by going out to a place which he was going to receive as an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was to go. It was by faith that he sojourned in the land that had been promised to him, as though it had been a foreign land, living in tents, in the same way as did Isaac and Jacob, who were his coheirs in the promise of it. For he was waiting for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”

The call of Abraham is told with dramatic simplicity in Genesis 12:1. Jewish and eastern legends gathered largely round Abraham’s name and some of them must have been known to the writer to the Hebrews.

The legends tell how Abraham was the son of Terah, commander of the armies of Nimrod. When Abraham was born a very vivid star appeared in the sky and seemed to obliterate the others. Nimrod sought to murder the infant but Abraham was concealed in a cave and his life saved. It was in that cave the first vision of God came to him. When he was a youth he came out of the cave and stood looking across the face of the desert. The sun rose in all its glory and Abraham said: “Surely the sun is God, the Creator!” So he knelt down and worshipped the sun. But when evening came, the sun sank in the west and Abraham said: “No! the author of creation cannot set!” The moon arose in the east and the stars came out. Then Abraham said: “The moon must be God and the stars his host!” So he knelt down and adored the moon. But after the night was passed, the moon sank and the sun rose again and Abraham said: “Truly these heavenly bodies are no gods, for they obey law; I will worship him who imposed the law upon them.”

The Arabs have a different legend. They tell how Abraham saw many flocks and herds and said to his mother: “Who is the lord of these?” She answered: “Your father, Terah.” “And who is the lord of Terah?” the lad Abraham asked. “Nimrod,” said his mother. “And who is the lord of Nimrod?” asked Abraham. His mother bade him be quiet and not push questions too far; but already Abraham’s thoughts were reaching out to him who is the God of all. The legends go on to tell that Terah not only worshipped twelve idols, one for each of the months, but was also a manufacturer of idols. One day Abraham was left in charge of the shop. People came in to buy idols. Abraham would ask them how old they were and they would answer perhaps fifty or sixty years of age. “Woe to a man of such an age,” said Abraham, “who adores the work of one day!” A strong and hale man of seventy came in. Abraham asked him his age and then said: “You fool to adore a god who is younger than yourself!” A woman came in with a dish of meat for the gods. Abraham took a stick and smashed all the idols but one, in whose hands he set the stick he had used. Terah returned and was angry. Abraham said: “My father, a woman brought this dish of meat for your gods; they all wanted to have it and the strongest knocked the heads off the rest, lest they should eat it all.” Terah said: “That is impossible for they are made of wood and stone.” And Abraham answered: “Let thine own ear hear what thine own mouth has spoken!”

All these legends give us a vivid picture of Abraham searching after God and dissatisfied with the idolatry of his people. So when God’s call came to him he was ready to go out into the unknown to find him! Abraham is the supreme example of faith.

(i) Abraham’s faith was the faith that was ready for adventure. God’s summons meant that he had to leave home and family and business; yet he went. He had to go out into the unknown; yet he went. In the best of us there is a certain timorousness. We wonder just what will happen to us if we take God at his word and act on his commands and promises.

Bishop Newbigin tells of the negotiations which led to the formation of the United Church of South India. He had a share in these negotiations and in the long discussions which were necessary. Things were frequently held up by cautious people who wished to know just where each step was taking them, until in the end the chairman reminded them that a Christian has no right to ask where he is going.

Most of us live a cautious life on the principle of safety first; but to live the Christian life there is necessary a certain reckless willingness to adventure. If faith can see every step of the way, it is not really faith. It is sometimes necessary for the Christian to take the way to which the voice of God is calling him without knowing what the consequences will be. Like Abraham he has to go out not knowing where he is going.

(iii) Abraham’s faith was the faith which had patience. When he reached the promised land, he was never allowed to possess it. He had to wander in it, a stranger and a tent-dweller, as the people were some day to wander in the wilderness. To Abraham God’s promise never came fully true; and yet he never abandoned his faith.

It is characteristic of the best of us that we are in a hurry. To wait is even harder than to adventure. The hardest time of all is the time in between. At the moment of decision there is the excitement and the thrill; at the moment of achievement there is the glow and glory of satisfaction; but in the intervening time there is necessary the ability to wait and work and watch when nothing seems to be happening. It is then that we are so liable to give up our hopes and lower our ideals and sink into an apathy whose dreams are dead. The man of faith is the man whose hope is flaming bright and whose effort is intensely strenuous even in the grey days when there is nothing to do but to wait.

(iii) Abraham’s faith was the faith which was looking beyond this world. The later legends believed that at the moment of his call Abraham was given a glimpse of the new Jerusalem. In the Apocalypse of Baruch God says: “I showed it to my servant by night” (4:4). In 4 Ezra the writer says: “It came to pass when they practised ungodliness before thee, that thou didst choose one from among them whose name was Abraham; him thou didst love and to him only thou didst reveal the end of the times, secretly, by night” (4:13). No man ever did anything great without a vision which enabled him to face the difficulties and discouragements of the way. To Abraham there was given the vision; and, even when his body was wandering in Palestine, his soul was at home with God. God cannot give us the vision unless we permit him; but if we wait upon him, even in earth’s desert places he will send us the vision and with it the toil and trouble of the way become all worth while.

 BELIEVING THE INCREDIBLE

Hebrews 11:11, 12: “It was by faith that Sarah, too, received power to conceive and to bear a son, although she was beyond the age for it, for she believed that he who gave the promise could be absolutely relied upon. So from one man, and he a man whose body had lost its vitality, there were born descendants, as many as the stars of the sky in multitude, as countless as the sand upon the seashore.”

The story of the promise of a son to Abraham and Sarah is told in Genesis 17:15-22; 18:9-15; 21:1-8. Its wonder is that both Abraham and Sarah were ninety years old, long past the age of begetting or bearing a child; and yet, according to the old story, that promise was made and came true.

The reaction of Abraham and Sarah to the promise of God followed a threefold course.

(i) It began with sheer incredulousness. When Abraham heard the promise he fell upon his face and laughed (Genesis 17:17). When Sarah heard it she laughed within herself (Genesis 18:12). On first hearing of the promises of God, the human reaction often is that this is far too good to be true.

“How thou canst think so well of us, And be the God thou art,

Is darkness to my intellect, But sunshine to my heart.”

There is no mystery in all creation like the love of God. That he should love men and suffer and die for them is something that staggers us into sheer incredulity. That is why the Christian message is the gospel, good news; it is news so good that it is almost impossible to believe it true.

(ii) It passed into dawning realization. After the incredulity came the dawning realization that this was God who was speaking; and God cannot lie. The Jews used to lay it down as a primary law for a teacher that he must never promise his pupils what he was unwilling or unable to perform; to do so would be to accustom the pupils thus early to the broken word. When we remember that the one who makes the promise is God, there comes the realization that however astonishing that promise may be, it must none the less be true.

(iii) It culminated in the ability to believe in the impossible. That Abraham and Sarah should have a child, humanly speaking, was impossible. As Sarah said: “Who would have said that Sarah would suckle children?” (Genesis 21:7). But, by the grace and the power of God, the impossible became true. There is something here to challenge and uplift the heart of every man. Cavour said that the first essential of a statesman is “the sense of the possible.” When we listen to men planning and arguing and thinking aloud, we get the impression of a vast number of things in this world which are known to be desirable but dismissed as impossible. Men spend the greater part of their lives putting limitations on the power of God. Faith is the ability to lay hold on that grace which is sufficient for all things in such a way that the things which are humanly impossible become divinely possible. With God all things are possible, and, therefore, the word impossible has no place in the vocabulary of the Christian and of the Christian Church.

 SOJOURNERS AND STRANGERS

Hebrews 11:13-16: “All these died without obtaining possession of the promises. They only saw them from far away and greeted them from afar, and they admitted that they were strangers and sojourners upon the earth. Now people who speak like that make it quite clear that they are searching for a fatherland. If they were thinking of the land from which they had come out, they would have had time to return. In point of fact they were reaching out after something better, I mean, the heavenly country. It was because of that that God was not ashamed to be called their God, for he had prepared a city for them.”

None of the patriarchs entered into the full possession of the promises that God had made to Abraham. To the end of their days they were nomads, never living a settled life in a settled land. They had to be for ever moving on. Certain great permanent truths emerge from them.

(i) They lived for ever as strangers. The writer to the Hebrews uses three vivid Greek words about them.

(a) In 11:13 he calls them xenoi. Xenos is the word for a stranger and a foreigner. In the ancient world the fate of the stranger was hard. He was regarded with hatred and suspicion and contempt. In Sparta xenos was the equivalent of barbaros, barbarian. A man writes complaining that he was despised “because I am a xenos“. Another man write that, however poor a home is, it is better to live at home than epi xenes, in a foreign country. When clubs had their common meal, those who sat down to it were divided into members and xenoi. Xenos can even mean a refugee. All their lives the patriarchs were foreigners in a land that never was their own.

(b) In 11:9 he uses the word paroikein, to sojourn, of Abraham. A paroikos was a resident alien. The word is used of the Jews when they were captives in Babylon and in Egypt. A paroikos was not very much above a slave in the social scale. He had to pay an alien tax. He was always an outsider and only on payment a member of the community.

(c) In 11:13 he uses the word parepidemos. A parepidemos was a person who was staying there temporarily and who had his permanent home somewhere else. Sometimes his stay was strictly limited. A parepidemos was a man in lodgings, a man without a home in the place where life had sent him. All their lives the patriarchs were men who had no settled place that they could call home. It is to be noted that to dwell in a foreign land was a humiliating thing in ancient days; to the foreigner in any country a certain stigma attached. In the Letter of Aristeas the writer says: “It is a fine thing to live and to die in one’s native land; a foreign land brings contempt to poor men and shame to rich men, for there is the lurking suspicion that they have been exiled for the evil they have done.”

At any time it is an unhappy thing to be a stranger in a strange land, but in ancient days to this natural unhappiness there was added the bitterness of humiliation.

All their days the patriarchs were strangers in a strange land. That picture of the sojourner became a picture of the Christian life. Tertullian said of the Christian: “He knows that on earth he has a pilgrimage but that his dignity is in heaven.” Clement of Alexandria said: “We have no fatherland on earth.” Augustine said: “We are sojourners exiled from our fatherland.” It was not that the Christians were foolishly other-worldly, detaching themselves from the life and work of this world; but they always remembered that they were people on the way. There is an unwritten saying of Jesus: “The world is a bridge. The wise man will pass over it but will not build his house upon it.” The Christian regards himself as the pilgrim of eternity.

(ii) In spite of everything these men never lost their vision and their hope. However long that hope might be in coming true, its light always shone in their eyes. However long the way might be, they never stopped tramping along it. Robert Louis Stevenson said: “It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive.” They never wearily gave up the journey; they lived in hope and died in expectation.

(iii) In spite of everything they never wished to go back. Their descendants, when they were in the desert, often wished to go back to the fleshpots of Egypt. But not the patriarchs. They had begun and it never struck them to turn back. In flying there is what is called the point of no return. When the aero-plane has reached that point it cannot go back. Its petrol supply has reached such a level that there is nothing left but to go on One of the tragedies of life is the number of people who turn back just a little too soon. One further effort, a little more waiting, a little more hoping, would make a dream come true. Immediately a Christian has set out on some enterprise sent him by God, he should feel that he has already passed the point of no return.

(iv) These men were able to go on because they were haunted by the things beyond. The man with the wanderlust is lured on by the thought of the countries he has never yet seen. The great artist or composer is driven by the thought of the performance he has never yet given and the wonder he has never yet produced. Stevenson tells of an old byreman who spent all his days amidst the muck of the byre. Someone asked him if he never got tired of it all. He answered: “He that has something ayont (beyond) need never weary.” These men had the something beyond-and so may we.

(v) Because these men were what they were, God was not ashamed to be called their God. Above all things, he is the God of the gallant adventurer. He loves the man who is ready to venture for his name. The prudent, comfort-loving man is the very opposite of God. The man who goes out into the unknown and keeps going on will in the end arrive at God.

(4:14-15) Law—Faith vs. the Law: the argument against the law. The promise of the inheritance does not come through the law.

Three facts about the law show this.

1. Law voids faith; it erases any hope of ever receiving the promise. The reason can be simply stated: law demands perfection; law insists that it be obeyed. Law cries out, “violate and break me and you become guilty and condemned and are to be punished.”

No man can live perfectly righteous before God; no man can keep from coming short and breaking the law of God at some point. Therefore every man is a lawbreaker, imperfect and short of God’s glory, and is to be condemned and punished.

1. If the promise of God’s inheritance is by law, then no man shall inherit the promise, for the promise is given only to the righteous; and no man is perfectly righteous. This, of course, means something. If the promise is by law, then no man has hope of ever receiving the promise, for he does not and cannot keep the law. The law erases the promise, makes it of no effect or value whatsoever.
2. If the promise of God’s inheritance is by law, then faith is voided and has absolutely nothing to do with securing the promise. A man would have to keep his mind and eyes, and most tragic of all, his heart upon the law, for it would be the law that would determine whether or not the man received the promise. Faith would not be entering the picture; it would be voided, irrelevent, having nothing to with receiving the promise.
3. This point is often overlooked. If the promise of God’s inheritance comes by the law, then receiving the promise would have nothing to do with faith, nothing to do with…

• trusting the love of God.
• learning and knowing the love of God.
• focusing one’s mind and thoughts upon God.
• knowing God’s Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

If God accepted us and gave us the promise of inheritance because we kept the law, then we would have to focus our lives upon the law. Believing and loving God and knowing God’s Son would have nothing to do with our salvation. The law would force us to seek God by keeping the law. Faith would have nothing to do with the promise. The law would void faith and make useless and ineffective the love of God and the Son of God.

2. Law works wrath in three terrible ways.
3. Law shouts out at a man, “Break me and you become guilty, condemned, and are to be punished.” Such is antagonistic and stirs and aggravates anger and wrath. When God is seen as a legalistic Person who hovers over us, watching every move we make, there is a tendency to view God as stringent, demanding, condemnatory, upset, angry, vengeful and full of wrath against us. Why? Because we fail and come short ever so often. Therefore if God is legalistic, then He is hovering over us, and not a single one of us is going to inherit the promise. We are guilty and to be judged, and we are not going to be rewarded with an inheritance. Therefore, law works wrath between God and man; it keeps a man from being acceptable to God and from ever receiving the promise of God.
4. Law works wrath in that it keeps a man tied up in knots, under pressure and tension, and in a strain. The man who works to do the law struggles to do the right thing and guards against doing the wrong thing. He fights to avoid all the evil he can, wondering and worrying if he is ever doing enough to be acceptable to God.

Such a life is not full of love and joy and peace. There is no sense of purpose, meaning, and signifi-cance, no sense of completeness and fulfillment. Such a life is filled with uneasiness and turmoil, uncertainty and insecurity. Such a life of legalism works wrath: it keeps tension between God and man and establishes and builds a strained and uneasy relationship.

1. Law works wrath in that it causes a man to focus his life upon the law and not upon God. His mind and attention and thoughts are…

• upon keeping the rules, not upon trusting God.
• upon watching where he steps, not upon drawing near God.
• upon avoiding errors, not upon learning the truth of God.
• upon observing certain rituals, not upon fellowshipping with God.
• upon practicing religion, not upon worshipping God.

3. Law means transgression. There are three reasons for this.
4. If no law exists, there is no law to break; therefore, there is no transgression. But if there is a law, then breaking the law begins to exist; transgression becomes a reality, a living fact. Where there is no law, there is no transgression; where there is law, there is transgression. The point is this: the man who seeks God’s acceptance by keeping the law lives in a world of transgression, of breaking the law and coming short of God’s glory. The law means transgression, that a man fails and comes short of God’s acceptance; therefore, it means that the legalist is guilty and condemned and is not to receive the promise of God.
5. When a law exists, there is an urge within man to stretch it to its limits and to break it. This is one of the paradoxes of human nature. Man has that within himself, an unregulated urge.

When a law exists, it tells a man he can go this far and no farther. He must not go beyond this limit or he becomes a lawbreaker, a transgressor (cp. a speed sign). The law actually pulls a man to go that far. It is within his nature to go to the limit, to do as much as he can. The urge within his nature even stirs him to stretch the law and to go beyond its limits.

When the law exists, there is transgression. Every man becomes guilty and is to be condemned and punished, not rewarded with the promise.

1. When a law exists, it becomes an accuser, an antagonist. It shouts, “Break me and you become a law-breaker and are to be condemned and punished.” Now note: the law has no power to keep a person from transgressing; it can only shout: “Transgression!” The law is…

• not a power to save, but a rule to control and condemn.
• not a savior, but a judge.
• This is the very problem with the law.
• It can only accuse; it cannot deliver.
• It can only point out sin; it cannot save from sin.
• It can only show a man where he failed; it cannot show him how to keep from failing.
• It can only condemn; it has no power to free.

The man who tries to live by law is left hopeless and helpless, for he transgresses and becomes a lawbreaker. He is to be condemned, never receiving the inheritance of God’s promise.

(4:16) Faith—Promise—Grace: the argument for faith. The promise of the inheritance comes through faith.

Three facts about faith show this.

1. Faith brings grace. Grace (charis) means a gift, a free gift, a gift given without expecting anything in return. It means favor, approval, acceptance, goodwill, assistance, help, kindness—all freely given and given without expecting anything in return.

Now, who is the Savior, the Deliverer, the Subject who deserves the praise and the honor and the glory? The answer is obvious: God. God is the center of the picture. This is the very reason salvation and all its promises are by grace through faith. Grace puts God in the center. And when a man makes God the center of his life, casting himself completely upon God and putting all his faith and trust in God, God is bound to hear and answer the man. Why? Because the man is honoring God completely, and the man who honors God is always acceptable and heard by God.

Now note: when a man really believes God, his faith brings the grace of God to him. It causes him to focus upon God, to center his life upon the love of God, to see the presence of God, to secure the fellowship and companionship of God, to know the love, joy, peace, care and concern of God. Simply stated, it causes a man to seek a personal relationship with God, a relationship of trust and dependence. Such is the life of grace, the grace that is given to man by faith. It is faith that honors and praises and glorifies God, and because it does, it brings the grace of God to man.

3. Faith makes the promise sure. This is seen in the above point. When God is honored and made the center and focus of one’s life and trust, that person can rest assured God will accept him and give him the promise of the inheritance. That man will inherit the earth.
4. Faith assures that the promise is for everyone, that it is available to all. The promise is not given to an exclusive club of people, to an exclusive nation or race or class of people. The promise is given to all, to every person on earth. If the promise was by law, then it would be only for those who have the law and are able to keep the law. What then would happen to the heathen who do not have the law and to the handicapped who are unable to do some of the things the law commands? They could never be saved if the promise came by the law. However, when the promise is given by the grace of God through faith, no man is exempt from the inheritance. Every man can be saved and inherit the promise of eternal life in the new heavens and earth, for every man can believe and trust God (the very thing that even a human father wants of his children).

 Believing in the God who Makes Impossible Possible

Romans 4:18-25: “In hope Abraham believed beyond hope that he would become the father of many nations, as the saying had it, “So will be your seed.? He did not weaken in his faith, although he was well aware that by this time his body had lost its vitality (for he was a hundred years old), and that the womb of Sarah was without life. He did not in unfaith waver at the promise of God, but he was revitalized by his faith, and he gave glory to God, and he was firmly convinced that he who had made the promise was also able to perform it. So this faith was accounted to him as righteousness. It was not only for his sake this “it was accounted to him for righteousness” was written. It was written also for our sakes; for it will be so reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus, our Lord, from the dead, who was delivered up for our sin and raised to bring us into a right relationship with God.”

 (Romans 4:18-25 NIV) “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” {19} Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead–since he was about a hundred years old–and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. {20} Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, {21} being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. {22} This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” {23} The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, {24} but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness–for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. {25} He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”

The last passage ended by saying that Abraham believed in the God who calls the dead into life and who brings into being even things which have no existence at all. This passage turns Paul’s thoughts to another outstanding example of Abraham’s willingness to take God at his word. The promise that all families of the earth would be blessed in his descendants was given to Abraham when he was an old man. His wife, Sarah, had always been childless; and now, when he was one hundred years old and she was ninety (Genesis 17:17), there came the promise that a son would be born to them.

It seemed, on the face of it, beyond all belief and beyond all hope of fulfilment, for he was long past the age of begetting and she long past the age of bearing a son. Yet, once again, Abraham took God at his word and once again it was this faith that was accounted to Abraham for righteousness.

It was this willingness to take God at his word which put Abraham into a right relationship with him. Now the Jewish Rabbis had a saying to which Paul here refers. They said, “What is written of Abraham is written also of his children.” They meant that any promise that God made to Abraham extends to his children also.

Therefore, if Abraham’s willingness to take God at his word brought him into a right relationship with God, so it will be with us. It is not works of the law, it is this trusting faith which establishes the relationship between God and a man which ought to exist.

The essence of Abraham’s faith in this case was that he believed that God could make the impossible possible. So long as we believe that everything depends on our efforts, we are bound to be pessimists, for experience has taught the grim lesson that our own efforts can achieve very little. When we realize that it is not our effort but God’s grace and power which matter, then we become optimists, because we are bound to believe that with God nothing is impossible.

(4:18-22) Faith—Abraham: the strength of Abraham’s faith. Note two very significant lessons.

1. Abraham’s faith was in what God said, the promise of a seed or of a son. He had nothing else to go on but God’s Word: “that which was spoken.”

The phrase “against hope believed in hope” means that Abraham was past hope, beyond all human help and any possibility of having a son. His situation was beyond hope, yet he believed God; he placed his hope in God and in what God had said.

1. Abraham was not weak in faith despite thinking about his own physical inability. His body was “now dead”; he and Sarah were about one hundred years old. The word “dead” is a perfect participle in the Greek which means that his reproductive organs had stopped functioning and were dead forever and could never again function. Abraham could never have a son; it was not humanly possible. He and Sarah were almost one hundred years old, now sexually “dead.”

Abraham thought about the matter. The word “considered” (katanoeo) means He fixed his thoughts, his mind, his attention upon the matter. But he did not give in to the thoughts. He was not weak in faith.

Just imagine the personal relationship Abraham must have had with God! To know God so well—loving and trusting God so strongly—that God could give him an experience so meaningful that Abraham would believe the promise without even staggering in faith.

1. Abraham was strong in faith—not staggering at the promise of God. Instead he walked about glorifying and praising God for His glorious promise. The word “staggered” (diakrino) means he did not waiver, did not vacillate, did not question God’s ability to fulfill His promise.
2. Abraham was fully convinced of God’s ability and God’s power. He knew God could overcome the difficulty of his body being “dead,” and he believed God could and would either…

• quicken his body, or
• recreate his reproductive organs (Romans 4:17).

He did not know what method God would use, but he knew God was able to do what He had promised. Abraham believed God; He was fully persuaded that the promise would be fulfilled.

2. Abraham’s faith was credited as righteousness.

(4:23-25) Faith—Abraham: the recording of Abraham’s faith is for two purposes.

1. That men might read the account. It was not recorded just to honor Abraham as a great man. It was written so that we might read and understand how we are to become acceptable to God.
2. That men might be counted righteous by believing. It is necessary to believe two things.
3. That God raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.
4. That Jesus died for our sins and was raised again for our justification.