10: The Christian’S Struggle With Sin: Ii (7:1-25)
10: THE CHRISTIAN’S STRUGGLE WITH SIN: II (7:1-25)
Through the years there has been quite a debate among Christians concerning the question of to whom Paul addressed chapter 7 of Romans. Some Christians believe, to varying degrees, that sinless perfection can be achieved in this life, subsequent to a “second work of grace” or a “baptism of the Holy Spirit,” or some such terminology. Those who hold such beliefs obviously cannot apply chapter 7 to Christians, because Paul presents himself here as being far from perfect.
Certainly, knowing to whom Paul is writing this chapter would make a great difference in how we understand and apply it. Is it written to the unsaved person, or to the Christian, or perhaps to both? In considering this question, the first thing to notice is where this chapter is placed. It is not placed in the section on justification (1:18—4:25), but in the section dealing with sanctification (5:1—8:17). From its location, we would naturally expect that it is written primarily to the Christian.
I would suggest, however, that the ultimate answer to this question is found in something we have been seeing throughout our study of Romans. We have seen that the principles that apply to justification apply to sanctification as well. There are not three separate salvations but just one. In this larger context, we should expect to find that chapter 7 applies not just to the unbeliever and not just to the believer, but to both.
That chapter 7 applies to believers as much as to unbelievers is also suggested by comparing Paul’s message in this chapter with something he says in Galatians, which as we have noted is somewhat parallel to Romans. In Galatians Paul says, “For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would” (Gal. 5:17). This, as we shall see, is exactly what Paul says in 7:14-24. Anyone who thinks that Romans 7 applies only to the nonbeliever has to explain why Paul said exactly the same thing in Galatians, where clearly he is writing to Christians.
We must assume, therefore, that the principles Paul will explain in chapter 7 apply to believers and nonbelievers alike. When I have accepted Christ as my Savior, I am born again. I have passed from death to life. There is a future salvation, which Paul will speak of in chapter 8, wherein I will find perfection. But in the present life I am not perfect, and the battle continues. I am still a rational and moral creature. I am called to love God. Sometimes I do love Him, and sometimes I don’t. Therefore, while Paul’s argument in chapter 7 certainly applies to the nonbeliever, it applies to me and to all believers as well. As we begin our study of chapter 7, let’s allow it to speak to our hearts.
In chapter 6 we saw that reckon, reign, and yield were key words. From 7:1 to 8:17 we will find that a key word is law.
Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? (7:1)
Here we see the key word law occurring twice, and we also see a key concept we discovered back in chapter 4: “. . . as long as he liveth.” Paul is continuing his comparison of life and death. If you were to circle these two words, as I have done in my own Bible from 4:17 down through 8:17, you would be surprised how many times they occur.
For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. (7:2)
Continuing with the themes of law and life and death, Paul says that, according to the law, a woman must stay married to her husband as long as he lives, but after he dies she is free to remarry.
So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from the law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. (7:3)
Paul is writing to people who know the law, its constraints and limits. Now he is about to draw a profound application from this simple illustration of the law’s reach into marriage.
Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. (7:4)
Two things happened when we accepted Christ as our Savior: We became dead to the law, and we became married to Christ. Before we accepted Christ as our Savior, the law had a proper hold over us. But when we accepted Christ, the law’s hold over us was broken—broken as completely as though the husband had died and now the wife is free.
Paul presses his illustration only as far as it logically applies. A widowed woman might choose not to remarry. But in terms of our spiritual life, there is no such thing as neutrality. The only way to be free from the bondage of the law is to be “married to another,” that is, to Christ. As we saw in chapter 6, as Christians and as human beings we are always yielding ourselves to something. We are always slaves to something. We are not allowed to be neutral. Likewise, the only way for us to be free from the law is to accept Christ as our Savior, and if we have accepted Christ as our Savior, we are in fact dead to the law.
Now, just who is this Christ to whom we are married? It is “him who is raised from the dead” (7:4). We should never fasten our mind exclusively on the dead Christ. We should never live exclusively under the shadow of the cross. Jesus died once for all, and it was finished. The death of Jesus is very important, but He is not still dead. When we have accepted Christ as our Savior, we are not married to a dead Christ, we are married to a living Christ. If a bride were married to a dead man, she could produce no children. But if she is married to a living man, she can produce children. We are married to a living Christ in order “that we should bring forth fruit unto God” (7:4).
Having accepted Christ as our Savior, we are united with Christ, not in a vague or unproductive sense; we are united with a resurrected, living Christ, and as the bride of this living Christ we have the high and wonderful calling of bringing forth fruit to God. Christ is the vine, and we are the branches, abiding in Him, bringing forth fruit. We are to be like Mary, yielding herself to God and thereby, in an active passivity, bringing forth the body of the Messiah from her own body. This is where we are to live. The law’s hold over us has been broken, not just so that we can be free from the law but so that, being united to the resurrected Christ, we will bring forth fruit to God.
As Jesus said, “If you abide in me, you shall bring forth much fruit.” If the bride is going to bring forth children, it isn’t sufficient for her merely to give herself to the bridegroom on the wedding day. She must give herself in love time after time, and that’s when children are born into the home. We are to give ourselves to Christ, not just once on the day when we accept Him as our Savior, but over and over again, constantly, moment by moment. And when we do that, He will bring forth fruit through us.
Eastern mysticism is quite popular in our day, but the mysticism of Christianity is far higher. The mysticism of the East demands a loss of personality. In Hindu mythology, when Shiva fell in love with a mortal woman, he put his arms around her and she was gone. Not so with Christianity. When we become Christians, we do not in any way lose our personality. God created us as rational and moral beings, and as He reveals His truth to us He addresses us as rational beings. The bride, who has said yes to the bridegroom on their marriage day, continues to say yes or no to him throughout their married life, and out of her choices of saying yes or no there will be the birth or non-birth of children. Likewise we, as rational and moral beings, have the high calling of saying yes or no to God each day of our lives. We have the high calling of giving ourselves in love to Christ, as He produces the fruit through us. This is what, in the last chapter, we called the “creature glorified.”
Christian mysticism is based on the reality of what theologians call our “mystical union” with Christ. God the Father becomes our Father; we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit; but, according to the New Testament, there is a mystical union between the individual believer and Jesus Christ—not a mystical union that diminishes our own personality, but quite the contrary. Remaining rational and moral beings with a call to love God, we who have had the chains of the law broken now have the high calling of giving ourselves to Jesus Christ. As we do this He produces His fruit in us. “Abide in me, and ye shall bring forth much fruit.”
It is simply not possible for us to bring forth this fruit in our own strength. You remember we were told in 6:11 that we should “reckon” ourselves to be dead to sin. We were then told in 6:13 to “yield” ourselves as instruments of righteousness to God. No finer picture could be given of the love of the bride giving herself to the bridegroom than the word yield. No finer word could be used of Mary giving herself to the work of the Spirit so that He produced the Messiah in her than the word yield. It is active passivity. “Yield yourself,” says Paul. To whom? Yield yourself to the one to whom you are married—to the resurrected, living Christ.
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. (7:5)
“Motions” is more accurately translated “passions.” Before we became Christians, the “passions of sin,” which were aroused by the law, brought forth fruit “unto death.” “The wages of sin is death.” Before we were saved, the very law itself produced death.
But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter. (7:6)
Having been freed from the law and the death it produces, we are now not just to be free, but to serve. How do we do this? Through the agency of the Holy Spirit, thereby knowing the power of Christ. We are not saved just for the sake of being saved, not just to be somehow neutral. We are saved so that we might become one with Christ, and that He might bring forth fruit through us. We are saved to serve, “not in the oldness of the letter . . . but in newness of spirit.” If we are going to bring forth fruit, we can’t do it in the old way. As we have seen over and over again, the principle holds true both before and after we’re saved: We can’t save ourselves by keeping the law; and as Christians, after we’re saved, we can’t bring forth fruit to God merely by keeping the law. We can’t do it in our own strength, but only “through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Too often we give new Christians the impression that they can automatically begin exhibiting Christian character. If we try on our own to develop Christian character, we will never make it. It is no more possible to keep the law in our own strength after we become a Christian than it was possible for us to be saved in the first place by keeping the law. It would be like a little branch taking off and saying, “I am the branch and I will bring forth fruit.” Such a thing simply does not happen. The little branch needs the connection with the vine. It would be just as if a bride would say, “I’m married now, so I can have children,” and then would go her own way, without her husband. There is no birth unless the bride gives herself to the bridegroom. When she does give herself to the bridegroom, from the two of them comes the child. And that’s exactly what Paul is saying to us here. If our attitude is, “Now that I am a Christian, I can keep the law,” we’ll fall flat on our face.
What shall we say then? Is the law sin? (7:7a)
Paul knew that this question would arise among the believers in Rome, and we hear the same question raised today. There are those who teach that, after we have accepted Christ as our Savior, we are completely done with the law. Paul does not say this. The law has its place. The law isn’t bad; the law is good, but in its place. Paul discusses this at length in Galatians. For instance, he asks, “Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” (Gal. 3:3); that is, “Are you now made perfect by your own human efforts to keep the law?” The answer is obviously no. You couldn’t be saved this way, and as a Christian you can’t live this way. It is not honoring to the resurrected Christ, who waits patiently to be our bridegroom, to try to produce the fruit ourselves without Him.
What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. (7:7)
Paul is apparently telling of his own pre-conversion experience. “I would not have known I was a sinner,” says Paul, “except for the law.” Actually, the words “lust” and “covet” are from the same Greek root, and both could be translated “covet.” It is interesting that, in giving this personal example, Paul quotes the only one of the Ten Commandments that deals exclusively with an internal manifestation of sin. It was this Tenth Commandment that showed Paul that he was a sinner. It is possible to fool ourselves and think we are keeping the first nine commandments, because we can think of them as merely external. Of course, none of them are merely external, as Jesus clearly showed, but we could mistakenly think of them in that way. But there is one of the Ten Commandments that is in no way external. It is totally, intrinsically internal: “Thou shalt not covet.” In the Jewish religion as it had developed by the time of Christ, there was a constant tendency to make individual laws external and therefore keepable. But there was one commandment that Paul knew he could not keep, and that was, “Thou shalt not covet.” Whenever he thought about that commandment, he realized he was a sinner who needed salvation. The law is useful as a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ (Gal. 3:24). However, if we try to live in our own strength in the light of the law, we’ve missed the whole point.
It is good, in the long term, that the law shows us our sinfulness and our need of salvation. In the short term, however, this new self-awareness can be a very disagreeable experience.
But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence [coveting]. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.
Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. (7:8-12)
The law is good because it shows us how far short of perfection and goodness we fall. But precisely because it does show us how imperfect and sinful we are, when we seriously look at the law, we cannot honestly think of ourselves anymore as basically good. In that sense, the law “kills” us (verse 11). You’ll recall that Jesus said He had come not to save the righteous but to save sinners (Matt. 9:13), meaning that only those who realize they are sinners will respond to His offer of salvation. That is somewhat parallel to what Paul is saying here. He is not saying that there was ever a time when he hadn’t sinned. Rather, he is saying that, when he began to look at himself in the light of the law, he gained a new understanding of just how sinful he really was. In that sense, the law killed Paul and will kill anyone who gives it serious consideration. The law is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. When we see ourselves in the light of the law, we are killed by the realization of our sinfulness, and thus we are ready to hear the gospel.
Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. (7:13)
The law was given so that sin “might appear sin,” so that it might be seen to be “exceeding sinful.” It is through the law that a man comes to realize his guilt and therefore his need of a Savior. And, of course, even as Christians we need constantly to see our sinfulness and our need of grace. The Ten Commandments have a purpose for us. The commandments of the New Testament have a purpose for us. The Sermon on the Mount has a purpose for us. It is wrong for the Bible-believing Christian to read the Bible’s many commandments and then just go home and go to bed. Being under grace is not a license to carelessness and indifference. When I read the great moral teachings of Christ, it should bring me to my knees as I realize all the times when I have been a hearer rather than a doer of His Word (Matt. 7:24-29). I need constantly to bring my shortcomings under the covering of Christ’s blood. I need the fresh cleansing and forgiveness. I need to go back to my bridegroom’s arms, so that He might bring forth fruit in me.
Let’s recall again what we learned in chapter 6: It is possible for the Christian to be a slave of the devil, to give himself as a weapon into the hands of the devil in his battle against God. To avoid doing this, we must let the law speak to our hearts. This is 10,000 miles away from any notion of sinless perfection. When I read the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, it should bring me as a Christian to my knees again to claim the blood of Christ, to be forgiven and to say thank you for Christ’s finished work. And I shouldn’t just stop there. This is only the front hallway, so to speak. Having been brought to my knees by this fresh awareness of my sin, I need to give myself anew to the Savior, so that He might fulfill the requirements of the law in me.
Sin is shown to be really sinful whenever I truly understand the law, whether that be when I first turn to Christ for justification, or later on in my Christian life. We Bible-believing Christians, who believe we have been forgiven and have the assurance of eternal life, can become hard and complacent toward sin. We can forget the sinfulness of sin. We need to be constantly brought up short to the awful fact of what sin is. We need to realize that when we sin as Christians, we receive the wages of sin, which is death. Not that we’ll be lost again, but we begin producing death to all those around us. We constantly need, through a tender conscience and through the work of the Holy Spirit, reminders of the awfulness of sin.
We can put our emphasis so much on the “once-for-allness” of salvation, which is so wonderful and beautiful, that we forget that salvation is a flowing stream that includes an ongoing process of sanctification—a process that is not automatic, but that involves clear choices on our part. As I study the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, as I look at the commandments of Paul and look at the example of Christ’s life, the sinfulness of sin will become apparent if I am sensitive and letting the Holy Spirit speak to me. I will flee to the shed blood to claim God’s cleansing in this moment, to commit myself anew to Christ. Then and only then comes the wonderful promise of verse 4, that through my marriage to Christ, He will “bring forth fruit unto God” through me.
For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. (7:14)
The law is spiritual. It has a good purpose. I am free from the law when I accept Jesus as my Savior, in the sense that it no longer binds me (7:1-4). I am no longer condemned by the law. Still, however, the law sets before me the character of God. The law sets before me what it means to love God. And as I look at the law, I realize that “I am carnal, sold under sin.” The problem is not the law. The problem is me.
Beginning with verse 15, Paul describes his own ongoing struggle with sin even after becoming a Christian.
For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. (7:15)
The word translated “allow” is really “know.” “For that which I do I know not.” In other words, “I don’t understand why I do the things I do.”
If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. (7:16)
Paul has asked, “Is the law sin?” (7:7) and has shown that in fact the law is good, especially in that it shows us our sinfulness and therefore our need for Christ. Now Paul is saying the same thing from a slightly different angle: Whenever Paul does something wrong and then realizes that it is wrong, he is in essence acknowledging that some kind of law is needed.
As we have seen, even the most blatant materialist and the most outspoken atheist make certain moral judgments against others and then sin against those same moral principles themselves—and they know that they are doing this (2:1). They know they are violating their own conscience. They know they should be doing better. Now, in 7:16, Paul says that this very realization that we should be doing better shows us that the law is good and is a necessary thing—even as it condemns us.
Man is a rational and moral being. No one can live as though the world were completely amoral. There are those who try to live this way, but ultimately everyone has to have some kind of moral standard. In verse 16 Paul is saying, “Even if a man wants to say that the law is evil, the very fact that he desires to do better demonstrates that the law is good.” Even the nonbeliever knows that he should not covet. The very fact that he knows this, and the very fact that the law says, “Thou shalt not covet,” shows that the law is good. Even those today who try to deny all moral absolutes hold up self-sacrifice as a moral virtue. Whenever anyone acknowledges something to be a moral virtue, they are acknowledging that we need moral absolutes. They are acknowledging that the law is good. A man who rejects the Bible recently said to me, “Well, what we need to do is to show people a sense of love.” Everyone has within themselves this sense that there are some things they simply should do. And surely this condemns them, because they know that they don’t live up to their own standards. People can talk of self-sacrifice, but I’d like to be in their homes for a few days and see how self-sacrificing they really are! None of us can perfectly live up to our own standards. Our own standards condemn us as surely as the law condemns us.
Paul continues to describe his personal struggle with sin:
If then I do that which I would not . . . Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. (7:16a, 17)
Paul is not looking lightly upon sin, as if to say, “Oh well, I can sin as a Christian and it really doesn’t matter, because I’m not the one doing it.” Paul is not saying any such thing. Rather, he is saying, “When I constantly do those things that I don’t want to do, I’m just like a slave.” When we sin, we become separated both from God and from ourselves, so that with Paul we feel like saying, “I’m not the one doing this! I’m just a slave to sin.” A person going through a nervous breakdown will seem extremely separated from himself, but all of us feel that way sometimes, especially in the area of good desires. Even the most amoral people have good moral desires, and when they find themselves unable to live up to those good desires, they like Paul feel separated from themselves and enslaved to sin. “It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.”
Paul develops this as he goes on.
For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing. (7:18a)
All humans have good moral desires within themselves. They all like to do good things for other people. They all want a better world. Yet, contrary to their good desires, they find themselves enslaved to sin. When Adam sinned, he didn’t stop being the moral and rational creature God had made him to be. He continued being a moral and rational creature. It is because man does have a conscience that he is condemned, because as he makes moral judgments against others, he doesn’t live up to those standards himself (2:1). God writes down those judgments and holds them up to judge him. As people have good desires but don’t live up to them, they are condemned.
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. (7:18)
Notice again, it is “I,” it is Paul himself who has this struggle. Nonbelievers have this battle, but so do we who are Christians. Paul wants to do what is right; it’s the “how” that escapes him.
For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. (7:19-20)
Here again we see Paul the slave to sin. It is the conflict that each of us knows only too well—the conflict between our ideals and the reality of what we are. The most debased man or woman in the world has ideals, and there’s a conflict between the ideal and the reality.
I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. (7:21)
“Law” in this particular verse does not mean the Law of Moses, but simply a principle of life, similar to a law of nature—something that is true for all people. Ever since Adam committed that first sin, this is where we humans are.
For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. (7:22-23)
Paul’s struggle against sin has given him a divided personality. On the one hand he “delights” in God’s law, but on the other hand there is “another law in my members” that is constantly warring against his delight in God’s law. Through Christ we have become justified before God. His Word informs, calls, corrects, and encourages us. Yet in our body, we are still part of a fallen world. Legally, our problem of guilt before God has been resolved, but factually we are still waiting for the full redemption that will be ours only when Christ returns. Till then, our battle with sin continues. It is truly a “captivity” to sin, and Paul longs for deliverance.
O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (7:24)
Our problem with sin isn’t just some theoretical problem, and Paul’s language in this verse brings it right down to the physical level, here in this space-and-time historical world in which we live: “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
Paul will now answer that question, in words that should by now have a familiar ring:
I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. (7:25)
The answer, for Paul, can be found only “through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The law is not enough. There must be a yielding to the power of Christ. Paul comes back to what he said in 6:11: “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” And again in 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” As we have seen, this verse applies in a special way to that time in the past when we first put our trust in Christ. But it applies to us also in the midst of the battle, in the reality of our everyday lives as Christians. It applies not just in our ivory towers or at Bible conferences, but it applies to me when I walk out into the dark streets of Lausanne. “O wretched man that I am,” but then, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
As we have followed Paul through this seventh chapter, we have seen him wrestling with the same problems that we wrestle with every day. The picture he paints is certainly not one of the possibility of sinless perfection, but neither is it one of hopeless defeat. For we, like Paul, can, “thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord”—once for all for our justification, but then also as a moment by moment thing as we pursue sanctification.
We need the power of Christ for our lives, whether for justification or for sanctification, and it is only possible to have this power through Jesus Christ, and the agency by which we acquire this power is the indwelling Holy Spirit.
There shouldn’t be a chapter break after 7:25, for the thought flows right on. As we come to chapter 8, we’ll find that we are introduced in a flaming way to the agency of the Holy Spirit, who is the point of contact between us and the power of the resurrected Christ.