This is the Bible study I wrote for my Bible Exposition class, hot off the press. In fact, it’s not even turned in. It’ll be funny if my professor googles it and finds this…
Also, if you’re a regular reader of my blog, the first illustration will look familiar. I wrote about it a week or so ago. Feel free to skip it if you want (okay, so you’ll skip the whole post if you want!) but I think it makes a great point relevant to this passage. You’ll also want to note that I wrote this exactly as I deliver it, so it might come across a little silly in print at times.
The Believer’s Battle
Romans 7:14-25
A few weeks ago I had an urge for a sweet breakfast. As I pulled up to Dunkin’ Donuts, I saw that someone had parked their luxury SUV in the fire lane 5 feet from the door. Already I was on edge. Who likes a rule breaker? As I walked in, I saw that there were two ladies at the counter. One was a motherly-type in her 50s looking slightly worn down, buying herself a cup of coffee before what I can assume would be a long day. The other was a very put-together woman, dressed in a pink satin shirt and black pumps, buying a mountain of donuts for what seemed to be a work-sponsored sugarfest. She was also ordering a complicated coffee drink, and the teenage boy behind the counter was looking a bit confused and intimidated as he was trying to fill it as promptly and correctly as he could.
Since he was going to take longer than she had apparently anticipated, she stated that she was going to take the mountain of donuts out to her car, that luxury SUV parked in the fire lane. I was between her and the door, so I quickly scooted back, out of her way. She never said excuse me or thank you, but just proceeded out as if she had the right to make me move.
As I drove to work, I thought about this lady. She had an air of privilege and self-centeredness about her. “I deserve to park my SUV here because the parking lot is just too far.” “Surely the fire lane is only there for those other people who would block the stores in an emergency.” “I want my cup of coffee the correct way, my way.” She really irked me. But then I realized something more ugly. My very own sinful heart. It was at that very moment that I felt like crying out, “Wretched woman that I am!” At that moment when I became aware anew of my own sinfulness, there was nothing I could do except cry out to God for help. You’ve probably been there too: wanting to do good, but realizing what you do is the very sin that you hate. It is this realization that Paul relates to the Roman church in the passage we’re looking at today, Romans 7:14-25. What are we to do when we realize our own sinfulness? This is the believer’s battle, the struggle between doing what I know is right and what I want, and doing the very sin I hate.
Context
Before I begin, I want you to understand where the passage we’re looking at fits in the book of Romans. Paul writes this letter that we call the book of Romans to a church he hadn’t met yet. The Roman church was made up of both Jewish and Gentile believers. Though the church was originally predominantly Jewish, the Jewish believers along with the other Jews were banned from the city, so the church grew in Gentile numbers during that time. When the Jews came back they were faced with a Gentile majority in the church, so both the Jewish and Gentile believers struggled with how to live and fellowship with one another.[1]
Paul first writes to the church about how they are all sinners, regardless of whether they were a descendent of Abraham or not. That means that the Jewish believers aren’t to consider themselves better than the Gentile believers, for “both Jews and Greeks are all under sin.”[2] Paul goes on to remind them that no one is justified by their works, but justification comes through faith. This is a key theme of the book of Romans, as it is of most of Paul’s writing. If the believer has been justified by faith and already received that, then why do you and I still struggle with sin? That is exactly what Paul is addressing in chapter 6 and 7. He is answering the objections that some have made that there is no need to stop sinning, as by sinning we are receiving more grace. Paul calls this foolish. The immediate question before our passage today is whether the good Law of God was the reason for our death. Paul’s answer is again a resounding “May it never be!”[3] It has never been the Law that was the problem, but sin. That is the topic of our passage today.
Paul wrote Romans 7:14-25 in order to teach the church at Rome that indwelling sin is enslaving, turns the pursuit of righteous living into a losing battle, and there is nothing or no one less apart from Jesus Christ that can break sin’s power.
Before I really get into the text, I need to address an age-old debate centered on this text. Is Paul relating the experiences prior to conversion or after conversion? There are several strong arguments on either side. There are important figures in church history that take positions on either side of the debate.[4] Scholars today take different positions. So which is it? I believe that Paul is talking about his current experience for a couple reasons: 1) as a believer I can totally relate to what he is saying, 2) a nonbeliever does not “joyfully concur”[5] with God’s law as it is what condemns them, and 3) the most natural reading of the passage is that it is a current, personal expression, and 4) the cry “Wretched man that I am!” and “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”[6] are both the cries of a believer. Regardless, Tom Schreiner makes a good point when he says that the point of the passage is not to distinguish between a believer and a nonbeliever.[7]
I want you to know that indwelling sin is enslaving, keeps us from being victorious in our pursuit of righteous living, and requires nothing less than Jesus Christ to remove.
The first point of our passage today is:
I. As long as sin dwells within us, we will struggle with not pleasing God as we want and ought. (v. 14-20)
Look here at our text. See verses 14 through 17. Now look at verses 18 through 20. Paul seems to be repeating himself an awful lot, isn’t he? Why would he continue on like this? Is he babbling? Of course not. We know that this is the Word of God, so every word is here for a reason. Paul repeats his point for emphasis. He wrote this letter originally to be read aloud in the Roman churches. He couldn’t rely on his audience to be able to review the previous point if they needed to. So he needs them to understand this. It’s important. It’s as if he’s telling them and us, “Listen up!” So let’s listen to what Paul has to say.
Paul is telling the Romans that though it may appear that the law is bad because it brings about death, it is really sin that is the problem. The Law of God in fact is spiritual, from the Holy Spirit, written divinely. The Law is not the problem. It is the extension of the good God that we serve. The problem must lie somewhere else. Paul is contrasting the spiritual nature of the law, the divine origin of the law, with himself. He is “of flesh.” He admits that sin still is within him.[8] He’s human. He’s worse than that, he’s a fallen human, just like the rest of us. More than that, he says that he is “sold into bondage to sin.” This same phrase is used in the Old Testament to describe Ahab, one of the most sinful kings Israel ever saw, and to describe those that sacrificed their children to the pagan god, Molech, which is a practice that is considered especially heinous in the sight of the Lord.[9] There is a bit of a difference though, because the Bible says that Ahab and these idol worshipers sold themselves into bondage to sin, while here Paul is simply admitting to being in bondage to sin.[10] Yet it is clear that we are to see, as John Stott says, that he says that “in myself, and if left to myself, I am its slave, its reluctant, resistant slave.”[11]
If you have glanced over a page to Romans 6:6, you may have a question for me. There 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.”[12] If Christ’s death has allowed believers to no longer be slaves to sin, then why does Paul say here that he is in bondage to sin? The truth is, that if we have become a believer, we are no longer under the bondage to sin that a nonbeliever is. But in our own struggles and in our own sinfulness, we act like we’re still in bondage to sin. Sometimes we even feel like we’re still in bondage to sin. There may be a certain sin that we have vowed to repeat no more, yet we find ourselves at the next opportunity repeating it. Maybe you struggle with coveting. You want your best friend’s trim figure, though you’ve diligently exercised and watched what you eat and you’re still sitting with an extra 15 pounds on your hips and thighs. You realize your sinful heart and you confess to God, vowing to not covet your friend’s figure again. Then the next day you meet up to go grocery shopping, and that desire to be shaped like your friend comes up again in your head and controls your thoughts. Why do you have a tendency towards this sin or another sin? Is it because that sin has an inescapable hold of you? No it doesn’t, but it sure can feel that way! You allow yourself to be put in bondage again to sin, though God has graciously set you free from it in Jesus Christ.
Consider this picture. I have racked up a considerable debt to a credit card company. We’ll say an outlandish amount like 100,000 dollars. Because of this tremendous amount I owe to them, I am not free. I’m enslaved to them. Every extra penny I earn must go to paying down that debt. The interest rate is horrible, so I’m getting nowhere when I give them the last $200 a month I have. It seems inescapable. There is nothing I can do.
In walks a wealthy benefactor. He approaches the credit card company and tells them that he will pay for the entirety of my debt. Every last penny of the 100,000 dollars I have racked up, including interest. No strings attached. He just simply paid the debt. How incredibly freeing! How much I owed, and now I’ve been set free! But our story doesn’t end there. After my debt has been paid and I have been set free, what do I do? Do I turn and thank the benefactor? Perhaps. Do I celebrate and tell everyone I know? That’s a good option too, and maybe I do that. But you know what else I do? I go back to that credit card company and tell them that I still want to be indebted to them. “That 100,000 dollars that have been paid on my account? Ignore that. Let the record still state that I owe you.” Are they going to turn me down? Of course not! If I’m going to willingly let myself be indebted to them, they’ll let me. And so I am, right back where I started. Not because of the power of the credit card company (it wasn’t in their power to reinstate my debt), but because of my own choice.
We’re all like me in that illustration. We have been set free from our slavery to sin. Yet we go back to it. We choose to become entangled in it once again. We walk up to it with our hands out like this, and say, “Please bind me up again!”
Paul admits his struggle with doing what he knows he ought, and what he wants to. The famous Roman poet Ovid, who wrote around the time of Jesus, described the same thing that Paul is here. He said, “I see and approve the better course, but I follow the worse.”[13] I think we can all relate to Paul and to Ovid. We sometimes struggle not with knowing what is right, but with doing what is right. Surely Paul, the Pharisee of Pharisees was well aware of what God’s Law prescribed. He didn’t sin for a lack of understanding. How can someone who knew God’s Word still struggle with sin? In this case it is not a matter of knowing or understanding, but a matter of applying.
There’s one more thing here that needs unpacking. What does Paul in verse 17 mean by saying that “no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me”?[14] Is he blaming the sin rather than taking responsibility for his own actions? Not really. What he’s really doing is confessing his powerlessness to do anything about it.[15] There is nothing within his own being that will keep him from sinning.
So if you are a Christian here today, I want to encourage you if you struggle with sin. Sin should be a struggle. We should never be comfortable as a follower of Christ unless we are truly following him. Is there a sin that you need to give up? Is there a sin you’ve given up but returned to? I plead with you to give it up again. Don’t just call it quits. Maybe you aren’t sure what God would have you to do. If that’s you, may I encourage you to spend time in God’s Word, the Bible simply reading what He wants you to know. Sit under good teachers that can help you understand it and can encourage you as you seek to put into action the words that you see on the page.
So the first thing we see in this passage is that as long as sin dwells within us, we will struggle with not pleasing God as we want and ought. Secondly,
II. Though the desire to please God dwells within us, we will still be battled by our sin. (v. 21-23)
As we continue in our text to verses 21 through 23, see that Paul once again emphasizes that the evilness of sin is present within him. It’s not just that there is evil in the world around him, though there is evilness in the world. He’s not whining and complaining about all the sex, drugs, and foul language on TV. He’s not talking to us about how much his friends and associates gossip and are prideful and spend their time unwisely. He’s not talking about how the government keeps allowing abortion and gay marriage, and because of it our culture is entangled in sin. No, he once again draws attention to the sin within him. And he’s not being self-deprecating just because he thinks it’s cool. He’s making a point. Though he’s a sinner, he does desire to do good. So what does this look like?
First of all, Paul says that he “joyfully concur[s] with the law of God in the inner man.”[16] This is not the attitude of the unbeliever, but of the believer. The believer has come to recognize that God’s law, the very words of this book, are good. We know that inside, thanks to the wonderful help of the Holy Spirit. This inner man that delights in God’s Word is the part within a believer that desires to do good and wills to do good.[17] Just because we sin does not mean that we are no longer a Christian. Otherwise I would be standing before you a fraud and a failure. A true Christian does desire to do the right thing, to walk in accordance with God’s Word. This is not the same thing as always walking in according with God’s Word. If this part within us wants to do good, then where’s the struggle? Paul gets to that in the next verse.
In verse 23 we see that Paul uses the language of war to make his point. This might not be familiar or comfortable language for us ladies, but Paul uses it, so let’s stick with it for a little bit. Paul says, “but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.”[18] This is where the struggle is. The “law of my mind” wants to do what God wants me to do. This is what I desire. But the “law of sin” wants me to sin. And I do. It’s not the sin doing it, it’s me. And once again, I’m being taken prisoner to the sin. One commentator has said beautifully that this is a “forceful way of making the point that the power which sin has over us is a terrible travesty, a grotesque parody, of that authority over us which belongs by right to God’s holy law.”[19] Did you hear what he said? Sin’s power over us is a “terrible travesty, a grotesque parody” of the true authority over our lives, God’s Word. Ladies, sin does not rightfully own us. We are not on its side, but on the winning side. If you are on God’s side of the battle, you need to fight. There’s no quitting, there is only picking up and trying again, with God’s help and empowerment. As you start your day, pray. Spend some time meditation on God’s Word. One of the best ways to fight against sin is to memorize His Word and think upon it in times of temptation. Psalm 119:11 says, “Thy word have I hid in mine heart that I might not sin against thee.”[20] God’s Word is a safeguard against sin.
So first, we know that that as long as sin dwells within us, we will struggle with not pleasing God as we want and ought. And now we also know that though the desire to please God dwells within us, we will still be battled by our sin. Lastly, we know that
III. If humility and thanksgiving dwell within us, we recognize Jesus Christ as our Deliverer. (v. 24-25)
Finally we get to my favorite statements of this text. Let’s read verses 24 and 25 together, “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? 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.”[21] This is the climax of the entire chapter. I can just imagine Paul as He is speaking these words to his secretary. He’s been logically going through his argument, talking about how he struggles to do good while he finds himself committing sin. Now he can’t help but cry out, “Wretched man that I am!” in full recognition of his great sinfulness.
This is not the cry of the unregenerate sinner. This is the cry of one who has been confronted with his own vileness and rescued from it. How many people do you know go around talking about their own wrong-doing as if it was actually wrong? No, we hear excuses all the time of people saying, “I’m really a good person.” That’s not what Paul says. He knows he’s a sinner and admits it. This is a necessary act for a Christian. Sin should not be taken lightly.
There is a story about the punishment of murderers in a town nearby Paul’s home town, Tarsus. It is said that when a murder is convicted, their punishment is to be tied to their victim and left alone to die of infection and starvation as they are tied to that rotting flesh.[22] This may be what Paul was thinking when he wrote, “Who will set me free from the body of this death?” It’s a powerful picture. You and I have been tied up to our own sin, unable to escape, just like a murderer is tied up to the one he murdered, unable to escape his sin and his just punishment. And the very sin we commit is what kills us. Oh, but the chapter doesn’t end here, does it?
Now we get to Paul’s beautiful cry, the only answer he has for his own sinfulness. “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Yes, Jesus Christ is the answer for the non-Christian. Only through the death, burial, and resurrection of the sinless Jesus Christ do we have salvation. But Jesus Christ and His gospel continues to be the answer, even to the one who has already obtained eternal life. How do we escape sin? Through Jesus Christ. Even as a Christian I cannot escape from sin on my own. I must be relying on the Holy Spirit and His help in my life. I must humble myself to accept His help. I can’t think as I too often do, “I got this! Thanks, but no thanks!”
Maybe you’re here today and you have never taken that initial step towards a real relationship with Jesus. Maybe this struggle with sin that we’ve been talking about today is unfamiliar to you. Maybe you’ve never really considered that sin should be something you struggle with. Maybe you grew up in church or in a nice home, and thought that was enough. Maybe you were even baptized as a child and have relied on that to win the favor you want with God. But really, not even baptism grants you favor in the sight of the Lord. Remember that he can see ever thing you do, he knows your every sinful thought, and he hears your every sinful word that comes out of you mouth. You may be able to convince others you are a good person, but you’ll never be able to convince God. He knows you. He created you and loves you, but He knows your inward bent towards sin. You and I deserve to die for our sin.
On the other hand, we know in the Bible that God is perfect, without sin. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to this earth, divinity in human flesh, to live a perfect life. But that’s not it. He willingly gave Himself up for you and I that we might have eternal life. On the cross He died to be buried in a tomb. On the third day he rose again, which gives us hope that we can live again, too. We can choose to admit our own sinfulness and trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation in this life and the next. If that is something you are interested in, or something you have questions about, please feel free to come and talk to me afterward. I’d love to share with you more about it and here from you as well.
Or maybe you’re here today and you’ve already recognized your own sinfulness and trusted Jesus for salvation just like Paul does in this passage. Have you confessed your sinfulness to God recently? Was it merely a onetime thing? It shouldn’t have been. I know in my own experience and Paul shows from his that a Christian, though she desires to do good, will continue to sin. This is especially the case for those who are not relying on the power of the Holy Spirit to keep from sinning. What do you do when you are tempted? Let me challenge you to memorize scripture that you can meditate on when that all-too-familiar temptation comes to mind. Let your mind dwell on the Scriptures in such time and may you humbly thank God for His guiding presence.
So now we know that indwelling sin is enslaving, keeps us from being victorious in our pursuit of righteous living, and requires nothing less than Jesus Christ to remove. As long as sin dwells within us, we will struggle with not pleasing God as we want to and ought to. Though the desire to please God dwells within us, we will still be battled by our sin. And if humility and thanksgiving dwell within us, we recognize Jesus Christ as our Deliverer.
Sin is not a one time thing that we are delivered from. You and I need a deliverer, and the only one that can has stepped up to the plate. Will you trust Him today as you go out from this place and come face-to-face with temptation?
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[1] Craig S. Keener The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downer:s Grove: IVP, 1993), 407-409.
[2] Romans 3:9, NASU.
[3] Romans 7:13, NASU.
[4] Leon Morris, The Epistle of Romans, Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996),
[5] Romans 7:22, NASU.
[6] Romans 7:24-25, NASU.
[7] Thomas R. Schreiner, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: Romans (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1998), 379.
[8] John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 260.
[9] 1 Samuel 21:20, 2 Kings 17:17.
[10] Murray, Epistle, 261.
[11] John R. W. Stott, Men Made New: an Exposition of Romans 5-8 (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1978), 75.
[12] Romans 6:6, NASU.
[13] Ovid, Metamorphoses 7:21. Quoted in Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 457.
[14] Romans 7:17, NASU.
[15] Schreiner, Baker, 374.
[16] Romans 7:22, NASU.
[17] Murray, Epistle, 266.
[18] Romans 7:23, NASU.
[19] C. E. B. Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans, v. 1 (Edinburgh: Morrison and Gibb, 1975), 364.
[20] Psalm 119:11, KJV.
[21] Romans 7:24-25, NASU.
[22] John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Romans 1-8 (Chicago: Moody Press, 1991), 392.
