Life Project Blog

Romans 7:14-25

We are still in the third main section of Romans where Paul is proving that grace gives victory over sin. In his first supporting point, he has shown that any notion that grace makes sin unimportant is simply false. Now in the next supporting point, he returns to the proposition, that grace brings victory over sin. Here he will support his case with 2 sub points, first that we do indeed struggle with sin (7:14-25) and then that victory comes through the Holy Spirit (8:1-13).

In this post, we have the first sub point, that we do indeed struggle with sin. If you have read the verses (please do read them) they paint a very dire picture, and if they stood all alone, I might be inclined to take back my comments about “The Fall” and our being “fallen” from yesterday, but praise be to God, for this is the set up for Paul’s point, not the point itself!

Humanity is weak and all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God; who can argue against that statement? Jesus Himself noted it on that fateful night in Gethsemane when He observed that the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. We live in a world that is full of the consequences of sin. Our human world often glorifies and romanticizes sin; it models sinfulness for us every day and so it is no wonder that we struggle with sin; for us to avoid sin altogether is asking a great deal indeed. It could be likened to being on a diet and sticking to it in a bakery when nobody is looking: Oh, the temptation!

But nobody held a gun to our heads and forced us to buy those sticky buns; we were just weak.

This is what Paul means when he speaks of our sinful nature. Here, why don’t I just come out and say it? Paul is not teaching the Doctrine of Total Depravity in these (or any other) verses; that doctrine doesn’t work. Total Depravity teaches that because of “The Fall” we are born sinners and totally depraved all of the time; we are not capable of making decisions to follow God or to do anything other than to be depraved sinners. If that were so, then why is Paul writing this persuasive piece that keeps throwing a choice at us; if we are totally depraved then we cannot be persuaded, and we cannot make the right choice, for we would of necessity, be utterly incompetent to do so. Sometimes dear reader, it is helpful for us to actually consider the meaning of the words people throw at us, before we just accept a non sequitur as being true.

We human beings are not totally depraved, but we are fallible, we do make mistakes and errors of judgment; each of us has struggles as we try to live in a harsh world… but do not let anyone convince you that God made you depraved. God did not make you depraved, dear reader− He made you His precious child.

We must not stop reading at the end of chapter 7. If we stop now, we will walk away with entirely the wrong idea, for in 8:1-13 Paul will show us that not only does grace pay the price for our sins, but that it will make it possible for us to overcome this whole sin struggle business once and for all, and we will see how he does it next time…

Romans 7:7-13

My normal practice here is to simplify the complex. If I am criticized for being too simplistic or basic in my explanation, I figure I’ve done my job. For this post, I’m going to do the opposite (just for fun) and complicate that which is simple. Don’t worry, I’ll cover the simple part first, and then delve into the work of complicating it. First, the simple part:

Paul uses a “straw man” argument in this passage. A “straw man” argument is an argument that poses an absurdity and then blows it away to make a larger point. Here is the straw man: “Is the law sinful?”

What a ridiculous question; of course it isn’t sinful, if it is, then God is a sinner!

Paul makes this clear in the verses that follow; I hope you’ve read them. In those verses Paul points out that the Law was a good thing, for it showed us what God expects of us, and gives us regulations so that we can avoid grieving Him. The only problem is that in doing this it strikes a chord in humans that leads us astray. The good news however, is that by revealing how much we need a savior, it also leads us to accept grace when it became available. We can see this at work when we talk to people about Christ, and they tell us they don’t really need saving because they are “a good person.” The Law shows that while we may be good, on our own we aren’t quite good enough… but there’s another way.

OK, that’s the simple part: End of lesson. Here’s me making it complicated:

I would imagine that many read these verses and begin thinking about The Fall and the results of “The Fall” and its consequence that we are “fallen” and can’t help ourselves from sinning against God. I do not like the expressions “The Fall” and “fallen”. I almost never use them, and when I do I normally say that I don’t like the term, but I need a label to shorten things up, for if I say “The Fall” people know what I’m talking about without having to re-tell the whole story. You might be wondering what I have against these frequently used terms, so I’ll tell you:

They don’t work!

Oh, in a way I wish that they did, it would be so much easier for me to take refuge in the notion that I have nothing to do with my own sin, but that simply is not true, for I have everything to do with my own sin. Yes, Adam was the first man to have sinned, but I don’t need his failings, I have plenty of my own. Here, let me ask you a question: If we sin because Adam sinned, then why did Adam sin because he was “fallen”? Did Adam sin after “The Fall”?  Of course not; that’s crazy! If his sin was “The Fall”, then it happened before “The Fall”, even if only seconds before. “The Fall”, and “fallen” as the reason for (cause) of sin are circular arguments, and they do not reflect accurately Paul’s teaching in Romans. You might recall from last week that when we read these kinds of passages in context, they reveal quite a different story.  Martin Luther was a great man of faith, but he was mistaken when he wrote that “even now millions of babies are burning in hell to the glory of God”.

Therefore, when I sin, I cannot blame the Law, I cannot blame Adam, I can’t blame the Devil and I cannot blame God.

Believe it or not, I think this is really great news!

It is really good news because grace gives victory over sin!

Oh, by the way, that is Paul’s proposition, the very point he has set out to prove in this section go figure.

Romans 7:1-6

Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives? For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man.

Romans 7:1-3

Paul concludes this point with an interesting illustration; marriage. When a marriage partner dies, their covenant is dissolved and the remaining partner is free to marry again; I don’t know about you, but I find this an interesting point. If I remember correctly, Jesus blew the minds of the Pharisees one day when they brought this up. It seems they couldn’t deal with the thought that in heaven a woman might have more than one husband, if her husband died and she remarried, so they asked Jesus about it. To be fair, on this particular occasion, they weren’t trying to trap Jesus; their real targets were the Sadducees. Anyway, Jesus told them that in heaven, we will be like the angels who do not take partners in marriage. When I read those verses, I always smile at the rivalry between the Pharisees (who did believe in resurrection) and the Sadducees (who did not)… and at the same time, I have a chuckle at the expense of some of our romantic notions about heaven.

Back to Paul’s point, it would seem that Paul didn’t share any romantic notions about husbands and wives in heaven either. When the husband dies, the widow is free to marry another because she… and her husband for that matter… are released from the bonds of matrimony. In the same way, just as Jesus’ body died on the cross, so did we, and we are thus set free from the Law.

So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

Romans 7:4-6

Having been released from the Law, we reap significant advantages such as freedom from sin, freedom from fear and freedom from death; yes indeed, this is a really big deal. Before this, we were caught up in a system that didn’t lead us to a good place, for under the Law, we could only be condemned. It would seem that there is something deep in human nature that the Law could not repair: “…when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death.”

What is it in us that drives us to sin in the face of divine law?

Have you ever told a 2-year-old not to do something? If so, what do they do?

Yep, the very thing you told them not to do!

I think that answer to the question comes down to what the nature of sin really is. It isn’t merely the violation of a rule; it’s a spirit of rebellion. When Adam ate the forbidden fruit, his problem wasn’t just that he did a “no-no” it was that he wanted to be like God; he rebelled. Law defines what it is to rebel, it makes rebellion clear to us and what do we do?

We rebel.

Things are different now, for through Christ we died to the Law and are released from its written code; obedience to God is not longer a matter of mastering our own will, for now we have a whole new life within us, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit. The presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit changed everything; there is only one thing we have left to do, and that is to make a choice: Follow the old way or follow the new way.

The sad truth is that most of us never actually make a choice, and suffer repercussions as a result. What is the repercussion? Without making a choice, our “settings” remain “default settings” and therefore we follow the old ways. When a person is still following the old ways, they tell everybody around them of their status; can you guess what they say? Yes, that’s it! They say…

“But it’s too hard…”

Romans 6:15-23

No! We are not free to sin; we are free from sin… and the difference between these two is huge.

In these verses, Paul is explaining what he spoke of in our previous passage when he presented us with a command and a choice. This time, he uses slavery as his illustration.

First, in verse 16 he explains what he meant in his use of the word “offer”.

Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?

Of course, in verse 17 he points out that as followers of Christ, we have given ourselves to Him; not to sin, and therefore we are now “slaves” to righteousness (v. 18).

What good ever came from offering ourselves as slaves to sin? No good at all, we earned death. Now, Jesus has set us free from all of that, and we are called upon to offer ourselves as slaves to righteousness (to continue Paul’s metaphor) and righteousness brings eternal life. So now, let’s pause for a moment; remember those phrases from last time; here they are again:

… count yourselves dead to sin … do not let sin reign… Do not offer any part of yourself to sin … offer yourselves to God… offer every part of yourself to him…

Now, remember what they have in common: They are commands that leave us with a choice; follow the command or don’t follow it. What will we decide?

OK, dear reader, let’s sit down and figure it out together: Which way is better: The way of sin that leads to death, or the way of righteousness that leads to eternal life? Here, to help get the conversation started, I’ll throw in my two cents:

Death sucks; I’d much rather have eternal life.

Yes, OK fine; I’ll admit that maybe I’m simplifying things just a bit, but really, it’s a no-brainer.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (6:23)

Paul’s point is so very simple; in fact it is so simple that I’m not sure that many of us really take it seriously enough. Grace has set us free from the sin that once dominated our lives so that we are now free to choose whether to follow the old ways that lead to death or the new way that leads to life. Life is better than death, so choose the new way and receive life. Not really taking this very seriously, this is where we say, “But it’s too hard!”

Before we go any further, what is the point Paul is making in this third main section− anybody remember?

It is that the power of grace gives us complete victory over sin. His first point in proving this is that sin is still relevant. We are in the middle of his second supporting point which is that grace brings us victory over sin. I would say that so far he is doing a good job of making the case that grace gives victory over sin, wouldn’t you?  We have not yet finished the second supporting point and there is still a third supporting point, so let’s try not to jump into the “it’s too hard” stuff just yet; that discussion is yet to come.

When we get back together, let’s dive into 7:1-6 where Paul will show us how we can obey God…

Romans 6:1-14

Last time, we covered the first four verses of this section (6:1-4) where the idea of being dead to the old way of living was introduced; now in the rest of the passage Paul develops this idea further beginning with verse 5:

Paul continues with the idea of having died with Christ as he moves from the picture of baptism to that of having been crucified with Christ. In this imagery, he reasons that since our old selves were crucified with Christ, our old selves died, and thus we are set free from the sin that ruled over us, so that now, united with Christ in His resurrection, we are free to live for God.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

Romans 6:8-10

These verses reflect the key point that Paul is making here: just as Christ died when His mortal human body was put to death, so also was our old self put to death when we decided to believe Him. Just as Christ rose from the grave, so also we rose again from baptism to be born again with an entirely new kind of life within us in the Person of the Holy Spirit. He continues…

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

Romans 6:11-14

Let’s consider the following phrases from 11-14:

… count yourselves dead to sin … do not let sin reign… Do not offer any part of yourself to sin … offer yourselves to God… offer every part of yourself to him…

Does anyone see a pattern here?

These little bits of text have something in common: They are commands that leave us with a choice to make. The choice is whether or not we will follow the command.

Jesus has entirely set us free from the oppression of sin; let it go so you can live a new life: This is Paul’s teaching on the subject of sin.

Before you say I’m crazy, consider one other point: Did you notice the way Paul is referring to “sin”? He isn’t speaking of it in the sense of rules and violations here; no, he is almost personifying it as a person or force of some kind. In that sense, it has no power over you any more, unless you allow it. (“Do not offer any part of yourself to sin”…”offer yourself to God”)

How can this be? How can I just be done with sin?

(Hint: you have a whole new life within you)

You see dear reader, in Christ, you are not under law, but under grace; offer yourself to God− He’s waiting for you.

Paul will explain more about that in the next section and we will discuss it next time.

We have now completed the first two main sections of Romans, and so far we have discovered that no one can be saved by the law, for the law condemns us all (1:18-3:20). In the second section, we discovered that grace takes our sin away, thus bringing about our justification before God (3:21 – 5:21). Both of the first two sections relate to our outward problem of sin, but there is much more to grace than the simple removal of sin; it has an inward aspect as well.

Once our sin has been removed and we are justified before God through grace, there is much work to be done for forgiveness of sin is not the end of the story but rather it is the beginning. In fact, it is entirely possible for a reasonable man or woman to read our discussions about grace and in all seriousness to ask if it matters what we do from this point forward, after all our sins are forgiven anyway. Why should we obey the teachings of Jesus? Does it make any difference how we live? Can’t I just do my own thing? If my sins are forgiven, who cares?

Paul answers to these questions are found in the third section of Romans, which covers chapters 6-8, and as we will see, grace is a double cure.

To put this another way, in the last section, Paul demonstrated that grace provided justification for sins, in this section Paul will demonstrate that grace provides total victory over sin. Once again, there are three main points in the argument: First in 6:1 – 7:13 he will show that grace does not render sin irrelevant. The second point in 7:14 – 8:13, shows us that grace gives us victory in our struggle against sin, and finally in 8:14-39 we will see that grace’s total and complete victory over sin is assured.

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

Romans 6:1-4

With these words, Paul launches his argument that sin is not irrelevant because of grace. No, we don’t keep on sinning so that we might receive even more grace, how can we do such a thing?

What exactly and precisely, does it mean for us to be “born again”?

The answer is in these verses: We are baptized into Jesus’ death; this is where the “old me” died with Him. When Jesus was placed into the tomb, He was most assuredly dead, but then a curious thing happened: He rose from the dead. When I was baptized, they put me under the water and then a curious thing happened to me also: I came up out of the water a new man: I was born again. I was a new creation because I went under without the Holy Spirit, and I rose up with the Holy Spirit within me; “sin” remained behind. (see also Acts 2:38) You see, when I was baptized, not only was my sin stricken from my “permanent record” I became a new person. As a new person, why would I want to run back to the old way? That would be stupid!

Paul expands on this thought in verses 5-14, so we aren’t finished with this quite yet, but I think I’ll end for now and let you have a little time to ponder this. We’ll pick up with verse 5 next time…

We have now completed the second main section of the book of Romans, and I thought this would be an opportune moment to pause and regroup. The purpose for writing this section was to demonstrate that while humanity, both Jew and Gentile, is in a bad place, being under condemnation from God, there is a way to overcome that bad position: Grace.

To make his case, Paul made three points in his argument: First, that grace provides justification for our sins (Romans 3:21-31). Then he demonstrates that Abraham was found righteous because of his faith (Romans 4). Finally, Paul shows us that our justification by grace through faith is assured (Romans 5).

His first point, in 3:21-31, that grace provides justification for our sins, is backed up by 5 points and thus, his argument looks like this:

Proposition: Grace provides justification for sins. (3:21 – 5:21)

1. Grace as justification for sin is by faith in Jesus Christ (3:21-31)
2. Grace has now been fully revealed to us through Jesus Christ. (3:21-23)
3. Sinners are justified by the blood of Jesus Christ (3:24-26)
4. Sinners are justified apart from works of the Law (3:27-28)
5. Grace is available to all people (3:29-30)
6. Law is upheld by the proper working of grace (3:31)

If you look carefully at these points, you will easily see that Paul has made a compelling argument that grace provides us justification for our sins by faith in Jesus Christ. Notice how he really zeroes in on his target here; there are no sidebars or detours in his argumentation. Now, let’s have a look at his second point:

Proposition: Grace provides justification for sins. (3:21 – 5:21)

2. Abraham was found righteous because of his faith (Romans 4)
3. Abraham was justified by faith apart from works of the law (4:1-5)
4. David explained and confirmed justification by faith apart from works of the law (4:6-8)
5. Membership in Abraham’s family is by faith and not by circumcision which is a work of law (4:9-12)
6. The blessings promised to Abraham come by faith and not by works of the law (4:13-17a)
7. Faith means believing God’s promises (4:17n-22)
8. Those who believe like Abraham are justified like Abraham (4:23-25)

Once again, looking at Paul’s argument, we can see that he is relentless in proving his point that Abraham was found righteous in God’s sight (justification) in spite of his sins, because of his faith. We can also see that in the process of making this argument, Paul has blown up the notion that circumcision is in any way an operative factor in receiving God’s grace. Now, let’s see his last point:

Proposition: Grace provides justification for sins. (3:21 – 5:21)

3. Justification by grace through faith is assured (Romans 5)
4. Assurance of personal salvation (5:1-11)

1) Justification by faith is critical to assurance (5:1-2)

2) Trial and tribulation do not nullify assurance (5:3-5)

3) Christ died for us while we were still sinners (5:6-8)

4) Our hope is even more secure now that we are His friends (5:9-11)

1. The death of Christ is all-sufficient (5:12-21)

1) The sin of one man, Adam, brought sin into our world (5:12-14)

2) Christ and His sacrifice are greater than Adam and his sin (5:15-17)

3) Christ’s sacrifice reverses completely the results of Adam’s sin (5:18-19)

4) Grace triumphs over sin and death (5:20-21)

With point 4) above, the proposition is proven.

Once again, we can clearly see that Paul is writing this to make a particular point, which is another way of saying that he is writing in context. As a further observation, he is using a persuasive structure that is called primacy – recency that recognizes that in any communicative setting, a listener or reader is most likely to remember what they heard first and what they heard last, and that of these two, they are most likely to remember what they heard last. Thus, when you are making a case with three main points, your most important point is the last one you mention, the second most important point is first mentioned, and the least important point is in the middle. Clearly this is in play here, because of all three of his supporting points, the most important is that our justification is assured. In using such a structure as this, the strength of one’s case would be reduced significantly by inserting a sidebar or detour in the middle of the most important point, which is one more reason that I do not believe for a minute that Paul intended to do so in chapter 5.

In any case, if you are new to all of this “interpretation stuff” I hope this little exercise has been helpful; if nothing else you can see how I have reached the conclusions I have written about in these posts.