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About Jesus Steve Sweetman Chapter 7 An
Illustration From Marriage (Ch. 7:1 – 6) In chapter 7 verse 1 Paul is reminding the reader
that he is speaking to them as those who know the Law of Moses.
Therefore he is going to proceed by using an analogy from the Law
of Moses to back up the point he has been making.
Paul says in verses 1 through 3 that according to
the Law, a woman is bound to her husband in marriage as long as her
husband is alive. If he dies,
she is free to marry another man. If
she marries another man while her husband is alive, she is committing
adultery, but after he dies, if she marries, she is not committing
adultery. In the same respect, the Law has died so that we
could be remarried to another. We
were once married to the Law, but not any more.
We are free to be married to Christ, where we can produce fruit of
a righteous life. This is just
one of a number of verses in the New Testament that tells us that the Law
of Moses has been laid aside, with all of its 613 rules, that includes the
big rule that many churches like to keep and promote, and that's tithing. Verse 4 specifically says, "you also died to
the Law through the body of Christ."
What Paul is saying here is that when Jesus died on the cross, he
put the Law to death. He says
such things a number of times in his writings.
Now, because the Law is dead, we are free to marry another, who is
Jesus. In verse 5 Paul says that when we were married to
the Law, our sinful passions were aroused. We were controlled by these
sinful passions. Paul talked
about that back in chapter 5, verse 20 when he told us the Law made us sin
even more. The fruit of this
passionate sin was death. So in one sense of the word, both the Law died
because of the cross, and we died because of the Law.
The Law told us not to sin. We
sinned, and then died. We
have now been released to serve God in a new way.
This new way is by the Spirit of God, and not by merely obeying
rules. Here is another mention of the Holy Spirit. This is now the third time Paul mentions the Holy
Spirit. This time he makes a
clear statement. He says that
there is a new way in which we serve God. The old way of obeying the Law
is gone. The new way is by the
Holy Spirit‘s enabling. This
is the crux of the whole New Testament.
This is what the Old Testament people were waiting for, that is the
Holy Spirit living within us, enabling us to obey God.
The Law could never help us obey God.
It only made us sin more. It
told us that we were sinners. It
could not help us in living right. Many churches, at least in the past, that were very
legalistic in nature often downplayed the place the Holy Spirit played in
the life of the believer. Paul
basically says that the Holy Spirit replaced the Law.
Other churches who do promote the activity of the Holy Spirit and
are legalistic as well, confuse the issue by trying to combine living by
rules and living by the Spirit. This
does not work. The tendency in
the church has always been to help God out by adding our rules and
regulations, but if God laid aside His Law, our laws would not be worth
much. In speaking in terms of God laying aside the Law of
Moses, we need to note that the Law has not been destroyed.
It still holds much prophetic significance, and Jesus Himself said
that the Law would not be destroyed until
all of its prophecies were fulfilled. The
Law in relation to salvation is dead, but in relation to prophecy is very
much alive.
Struggling
With Sin (ch. 7:7-25) Before we begin this section, let me warn you that
there is a lot of thought that is needed to understand this passage.
There has been much debate and disagreement over the centuries on
how to interpret what Paul is saying in Romans 7.
I do not pretend to have all the answers.
I only have some thoughts. So
be prepared to think a bit. Another thing to think about is this.
The whole of the Bible is all about man's struggle with sin.
Another way to say this is that the whole Bible is all about the history
of humanity in conflict with Deity. This
chapter really shows this to be true. Paul begins this section in verse 7 with yet
another one of his logical questions.
“Is the Law sin?” You
might think Paul had little respect for the Law after all that he has just
said. Someone might ask, “is
the Law sin?” His answer is,
“far from it”. Then he
proceeds to give another reason for the Law’s existence.
“I would not have known what sin was, except through the Law”.
The Law taught us what sin was. It
told us that stealing was wrong. The Greek word “aphorme” that is translated as
“seizing” in verses 8 and 11 in the NIV
means, “to mount an attack“. This
word would have been used when an army was preparing for war.
The idea here is that sin within a person mounted an attack on that
person once the Law told sin that it was in the wrong.
Paul presents sin here in chapter seven as a separate identity,
something that is not a part of him, yet lives within him.
Paul says, the sin to covet, once it sees the
command not to covet, produced an abundance of covetous desires within
him. He wanted to covet more
than ever once the Law said not to. In verse 8 Paul says that apart from the law
"sin was dead". Here
we have yet another thing that Paul said was dead.
He has already told us that the Law was dead, and that we are dead,
and that Jesus died. Here he
is saying that sin was once dead. That
simply means that if there is no law telling us to sin, then there can be
no sin. One puzzling question over the centuries is this.
Is Paul speaking about himself, or is he speaking about mankind in
general in this chapter? In
verse 9 he says “once I was alive apart from the Law, but when the
commandment came sin sprang to life”.
Is he talking about himself here, or is he talking about mankind in
general? Was Paul ever apart from the Law.
I am not sure he was. The
Law was in existence all through his life.
We do know that from Adam to Moses, mankind was apart from the Law,
as seen in Romans 5:13 and 14. So
possibly he is talking about mankind in general here. Yet some say Paul is
talking about himself as a child, before he understood the Law.
Then once coming to an age of understanding, sin mounted its attack
on him, making him extremely miserable.
Both ideas are not clearly stated here. In verses 11 and 12 Paul said that sin deceived
him. When sin saw the Law that
told Paul not to sin, sin took over and seized him as a prisoner that led
to death. Paul often speaks of
man being a prisoner to sin and death.
It is like when a mother tells a child not to eat a cookie.
The child is then tempted to eat a cookie, when prior to the
command not to eat the cookie, he had no intentions to eat the cookie.
In verse 12
Paul further answers his question he asked in verse 7 concerning
whether the Law was sin or not. He
says here in verse 12 that the Law was holy.
Before he says this, he does state once again that sin mounted its
attack when he was introduced to the Law.
The Law did make sin increase as seen in Romans 5:20, but was that
the Laws fault, or sin’s fault? It
was sin’s fault. Sin was
aroused by the Law. As Paul
says here in chapter seven, he would not have known what it meant to covet
except that the Law told him not to covet.
Once he understood what coveting meant, the sin of coveting within
him leaped up and made him covet even more. So the Law did cause man to
sin, but in an indirect way. It
was sin that was already in man that caused man to sin once man understood
what the Law said about sin. The
Law gave sin the opportunity to sin more.
Therefore the Law is holy. Once again, we should note that Paul speaks of sin
as something foreign to him but lives within him.
That doesn't mean we are not responsible for sin, because we are.
In verse 13 Paul asks yet another question.
“Did that which is good (the Law), then become death to me”?
Once again his answer is, “by no means”. Paul goes on to tell
us that through the Law sin might be recognized as sin.
The Law was meant to expose sin for what it was, even though it
knew sin would increase, thus making sin “utterly sinful”, or worse
than ever. Simply put, sin was in man when there was no Law,
but man did not recognize it as being wrong.
The sin still produced death. The Law came along, making it clear
that what we were doing was sinful and wrong.
Once sin was exposed within us, it rose up in rage, causing us to
sin even more. Now we were
really in bad shape with all this sinning going on.
Thus with this excess of sin, sin became “utterly sinful”.
When sin gets this bad, we need lots of help.
Verse 14 begins to present the challenge of the
ages. Paul says, “ the Law
is spiritual but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin”.
He goes on to say that the things he should be doing, he doesn’t
do, and the things he is doing, he shouldn’t be doing.
Once again there are two camps.
One camp says that Paul is not talking about himself but mankind in
general, even though he says in verse 24, “I, myself in my mind am a
slave to God’s Law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of
sin”. If Paul is speaking of
mankind in general why would he use the words “I myself”, doubling the
emphases on “I”. For those who believe Paul is talking about
himself, there are usually three different ways of looking at it, (1) Paul
the non-Christian, (2) Paul the normal Christian, (3) Paul the carnal
Christian. All three of these
positions as well as the “mankind in general”
position have been held by creditable theologians over the
centuries. I will not try to
prove any point in these paragraphs, partly because I am not one hundred
percent sure myself. I wish I
knew for sure, but at the present I don’t.
Yet, even if we are unsure of these things there are still things
that we can learn from these verses. Paul says in verse 14 that he is a slave to sin.
Let me point out in chapter 6:18 Paul says that he and other
Christians are slaves to God. We
had already concluded that we are either slaves to sin or slaves to God,
one or the other. It doesn’t
appear we can be slaves to two masters.
Yet Paul says here that he is a slave to sin.
This might mean that the “I” Paul is referring to is the
“I” before he became a Christian.
He might be referring to himself as a non-Christian
who knew the Law. As a
result he would know what is right but not have the power to live this
righteousness out. To support the idea that Paul is talking about
himself here, one could say that when Paul speaks of himself being a slave
to sin, he is speaking of his carnal, or natural self apart from Christ.
Really, without Jesus we are
a slave to sin, and at best, with Jesus we struggle with sin. In verse 15 Paul says that he just doesn't
understand. Well, he does
understand as he writes these words, but without Jesus, or, in his natural
self, he doesn't understand. He
says the things he should do, he doesn't do, and the things he shouldn't
do, he does do. This is a
clear picture of fallen humanity, and at present, we are still in our
fallen state of being. In verse 16 Paul says that the Law is good.
He has never said it was bad. He
says it's good because he does what he does not want to do. The Law is
good because it is pointing out to Paul his sin.
Verse 17 really makes the distinction between Paul
and the sin within him. He
says that it is not him that is sinning.
It is sin within him. Sin
is a foreign thing living in Paul. Again,
Paul is still responsible for this sin, even though it is a foreigner
living in him. This might well
help support the position that this is Paul speaking for himself and about
himself after he got saved. I
say that because he portrays sin as a foreigner who lives inside of him.
The Holy Spirit also lives in Paul, but sin is trying to move in
along width the Holy Spirit. However you might interpret this, Paul does say in
verse 18 that “there is nothing good that lives within me”.
Once again, this is the Depravity Of
Man that we have mentioned before.
We really do need to believe and understand this point, that there
is nothing good living within us, other than the Holy Spirit Himself who
we have as Christians. Paul
does clarify in verse 19 what he is saying. He says, “in his sinful
nature” there is nothing good.
By adding the words “sinful nature” he may be saying that he
has a sinful nature as well as a spiritual nature, and in the sinful side
of him there is nothing good. He
has to say this because the Holy Spirit lives within him. He can’t say
everything within him is bad because the Spirit isn’t bad. Paul repeats himself in verse 21 by saying,
"it is not I that sins, but sin in me." In verse 21 to 23 Paul presents this battle that
seems to be taking place within him. In
his mind and inner self Paul wants to serve God, yet there are parts of
him that want to serve sin. These
two are in constant conflict. He
feels like a prisoner. He
cries out in verse 24, “what a wretched man I am, who will rescue me
from this body of death”. Here
it is again, the Depravity Of Man”.
Of course he doesn’t leave us without the answer.
It is Jesus who will rescue Paul as he states in verse 25.
This might suggest that the “I” Paul is talking about, is the
”I” who is a non-Christian. The only way to change his status of
wretchedness would be for Jesus to come and rescue him, and if Jesus
hadn’t done that yet, Paul would not be a Christian. So maybe this is
not Paul the normal Christian, or Paul the
carnal Christian, but Paul the non-Christian.
On the other hand, since he gives thanks to God for Jesus, Paul
could be saying that Jesus has already delivered him from the body of
death, and that is why he is so thankful. We see that Paul views himself as a wretched man.
This is how we are to view ourselves.
We are wretched, no matter what our society and modern church tells
us. We are miserable sinners,
in need of Jesus. Paul concludes in verse 25 that
in his mind he will serve God, but in his sinful nature he is a slave to
sin and death. This verse
might suggest that this is Paul, the normal Christian as he is presently
living because he is serving God.
There are a few thoughts I would like to add at
this point. Paul speaks of us as having two natures which is evident in
verses 14 and 21. One nature
is unspiritual, carnal, and sinful. The other nature is spiritual, seeking
the things of God. There is a
great battle that rages between these two natures.
So here is the question. If
Paul is speaking about himself here in chapter 7, is it Paul the
non-Christian, the normal Christian, or the carnal Christian?
By non-Christian I mean, before
Paul’s conversion when he was trying to find salvation by the Law.
Normal Christian would mean that what Paul is describing here is
normal Christian experience for all of us.
We all should expect these hard struggles with sin.
A carnal Christian would be one who is a Christian but not really
living for Jesus, but living by his own fleshly desires. I tend to think at the present moment that Paul is
either speaking of Paul the non-Christian or the normal Christian.
I can see both. In
chapter 8 verse 2 Paul says that the Spirit has set us free from this law
of sin, which is the sinful nature, as noted in earlier verses.
This might suggest that we can overcome the sinful nature, and if
this is correct, then chapter 7 is not the normal Christian experience,
but the pre-Christian experience.
Paul suggests in chapter 8 that if we are true Christians, we will
live by the Spirit and not the flesh. It could not be Paul as a carnal
Christian either, because a carnal Christian wouldn’t be worried about
such things. It could be
Paul the non-Christian, before he knew the Lord, when he was a slave to
the Law, when he was trying hard to do good but couldn’t.
Still, I believe, that even Paul, the man of God that he was, still
struggled with his sinful nature, but because of the Holy Spirit, each
time the struggle presented itself, by the Spirit he won the battle.
At present, I'm still not one hundred percent sure how to view
this, but if I had to take a guess, I'd guess this is Paul the normal
Christian, as he was presently living when he wrote these words. In verses 14 and 24 Paul views himself as a
prisoner, or a slave to sin. That
does not sound like the Paul in earlier chapters who told us he was a
slave to God. Romans 6:18
says, “you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to
righteousness”. This is
another reason for this being possibly Paul the non-Christian.
This does present a question though.
Where does the sinful nature fit into the scheme of things as a
Christian? It would appear, even though we are no longer
slaves to our sinful nature, we still have it.
Chapter 8 verse 12 says, “we have an obligation, but not to our
sinful nature…” Here Paul
is speaking to people who have the Spirit of God (ch. 8:9).
The conclusion then is this. Those
of us who have God’s Spirit living within us are slaves to God, and not
to our sinful nature, even though our sinful nature is still a part of us.
Though we still have our sinful nature, it doesn’t rule us as it
once did. That is why
Paul exhorts us not to be obligated to our sinful nature.
It is still within us but we have been set free from its power.
Therefore, if this is the case, we should not be expected to live
as the person described in chapter 7.
This is only one way to look at chapter 7.
I am not saying that I am completely right.
Whatever the case about chapter 7, chapter 8 is important, no
matter how you view chapter 7.
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