For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 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. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:14-25 ESV)
This passage is one which is hotly debated among some Christians. You see, it doesn’t paint a very flattering picture of the apostle Paul. It really doesn’t. Especially Christian scholars from what are called the “holiness” denominations—groups like the Methodists or the Nazarenes which emphasize the life of the Christian as being marked by holiness and without obvious or overt sin— really struggle with this passage.
On a basic level, once you untwist the sometimes tangled web of do’s and do not do’s, it’s pretty straightforward, and quite meaningful. The life of the Christian is one of knowing what God demands and desires of you, wanting to carry it out but falling short time and again. The problem is precisely that duality at the heart of the Christian life, that we are at the same time both sinners and righteous.
At the Winkler and Morden Ministerial Golf Tournament, the only physical trophy that is awarded each and every year is the Romans 7:15 award. Romans 7:15 says, “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” It’s meant to be a joke to win the Romans 7:15 award, given for the single worst golf shot of the day, but it is interesting to note that our Lutheran church has won this award 3 times out of the 8 years it has been awarded–Pastor Coltman once, Pastor Klages twice. On the surface, this means that our pastor doesn’t play enough golf in order to avoid winning this award so much. Yet it is also true that this award reflects the reality not just of a round of golf, but of the entirety of the Christian life.
“I don’t do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” This really is the heart of the problem with trying to live as a Christian. What we know we’re supposed to do and what we actually do, what we would like to do because we’re Christians and what we’re actually able to carry out are two entirely different things.
Some well-meaning people will try to tell you that to be a Christian is to have your life become easier. They will tell you that if you really have faith in Christ, you’ll be a better person, a happier person, that you’ll have a perfect marriage and perfect kids. If you really believe in Christ, you won’t commit sins anymore because you’ll be beyond all that. You’ll have total and complete victory over sins and lead a perfectly holy life in the here and now. But only if you’re really a Christian. If you have sin in your life, these people will tell you, then you’ll have all sorts of difficulties. The problem with this line of thinking is that those who espouse it want to turn this Romans 7 passage into something which doesn’t apply to them. They want to claim the victory of the Cross without taking it up and carrying it for themselves.
What this passage is saying is precisely the opposite. To become a follower of Jesus Christ is precisely to enter in a life-long conflict, to be caught between the flesh and the Spirit, between the old Adam and the new Adam. To become a follower of Jesus Christ is to be thrown headlong into the greatest of battles, the battle for your soul. As long as you are not a Christian, you are immune to this struggle. It isn’t yours to be a part of. But when Christ claims you to be His own, then it is and remains your struggle.
The reason it is a struggle, a constant battle, is because the flesh and the spirit have different intentions. God created us to be flesh and spirit united, a whole being. Yet the reality of this life is that our flesh and spirit are not completely in line with each other. Our fleshly desires do not line up with what God’s desires are for us. This isn’t to deny that God redeems us both body and soul; but it is to note that this redemption is not complete until our time on this earth is through. The flesh likes sin, you see. It likes it a lot.
Paul calls our condition being “sold under sin”. Notice that he does not refer to the saved sinner as being a slave to sin. As we heard in the first part of chapter 7 last week, sin is not in control. You are not a slave to sin any longer. That has been dealt with wholly and completely by Christ’s death for you on the cross, as applied to you personally through your baptism. It’s not your lot in life anymore. But we are still sold under sin, that is, you and I still keep going back to sin and offering ourselves to it. The victory over sin is complete, but sin is still hanging around just enough to keep options open, should you wish to defect back to the losing side of the battle.
Sin is very alluring to the flesh, as it’s the default state for flesh to be in. We are born into sin and it is the ways and means of sin which we naturally seek after, apart from Christ. We may desire and intend to follow God’s will and God’s ways. We may have the best of intentions to live holy and virtuous lives, but, as the old saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Intentions won’t save you. As one Bible scholar, Martin Franzmann, put it: The soul “cannot live on the illusion that God will count the will for the deed, for God’s Law says, ‘Do!’ The willed good that remains undone is no good at all.”
Now, it can seem that Paul is rather overstating the case in this passage, to say that there is nothing good in him. It’s not a comfortable thought to the modern mindset to say that, or to agree that sin is as pervasive as all that. Especially among Christians, there seems to be a desire to look at sin in two different ways. Before you are a Christian you’re a bad sinner, but once you are saved, you’re not so bad. Or at least, if you’re a Christian, you are trying harder not to sin, so that should count for something, shouldn’t it?
But that’s not how it works. Franzmann also points out: “Modern man calls ‘natural’ that which a healthy judgment, made whole by the Spirit of God, can only call in the highest degree unnatural, namely, withdrawal from God, revolt against God, a turning-away from the life of God to death. That is how Jesus looked on sin. Sin is, for Jesus, the son leaving the father’s house, going away to live like a pig and finally with the pigs (Luke 15:11-16). What healthy judgment can call that normal, natural, or venial? That is how Paul looks on sin. Paul’s view of sin is not oriented in some ethical code; it is oriented in God, God as now revealed in Christ.... We need not imagine unknown lurid chapters in the life of Paul as background to his words, “I do the very thing I hate” (7:15). These words come true in every thought or act that does not spring from man’s communion with his Lord.”
Every thought or act outside of what God desires is precisely what Paul’s talking about as being the fleshly acts he now hates. As he grows in Christ, his consciousness of what is sin grows, so that he is more keenly and acutely aware of his failures, flaws, and shortcomings. As you and I grow in God’s Word, we also become aware that who we are and so much of what we do are certainly not up to God’s standard. And the only correct response to realizing that you fall short of what God has called you to do is to repent. To be sorry for your sin, for your sin-nature. To confess your sins to God and to receive grace from Him.
With Paul, each of us needs to say, “Wretched man that I am!” This, again, isn’t to say that we are the worst people on the earth as far as others may see us, and certainly, we need to be clear that this doesn’t mean we should feel free to go out and act wretchedly toward God or each other. But it is to say that we realize that we do not yet live and act as the people we have been called and chosen to be. We live in a state of becoming the people of God, with the end in sight but still not quite there. We are sinners, wretched, and in need of Christ. Do you see yourself as a wretched sinner in need of Christ? It’s easy to get accustomed to your sins and think of them as mere habits. It’s easy to be apathetic and shrug off sins instead of repenting. Regardless how many years you have believed and followed Christ, you still need Him. You need to hear His Word of Law, to break you from your sin habits. You need to hear His Gospel, to free you from those sins. You still need His forgiveness. You still need His grace. You still need to start over again each day.
But it is because we know that the ultimate battle is won, because we know that in spite of our failures and faults, that we can say, “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory in our Lord Jesus Christ!” Thanks be to God that He doesn’t save His people then leave them to fend for themselves. Thanks be to God that Jesus’ death on the cross has a power which cannot be overcome. Thanks be to God that in Jesus’ death and resurrection we too are put to death to sin and brought to new life in Christ. Thanks be to God who gives us the ultimate victory over sin when this life ends by bringing us from this vale of tears to be with Him forever.
We are sinners, but Christ is a stronger Saviour. We are weak, but He is strong. May Jesus keep us safe in His grace all the days of this life! Amen.
Last updated July 2008 by the webmaster.