At last!! This is the bit I have been wanting to get to. This is the bit where I disagree with all of the commentators!
The last part of chapter 7, from verse 14, has always been a great comfort to me. It was also a great comfort when I first heard the commentators on it. The trouble is, like most people I completely forget what I have just read and read this in complete contradiction to what has gone before.
When we read this passage, "The thing I don't want to do, I end up doing and the thing I want to do I don't do" has always been my cover up. But when I looked more closely and decided to follow it through I realised that Paul was not actually writing his Christian experience. We have just seen some crucial things:
1, we are dead to the law
2, it is only by deception of sin that we try to keep the law
3, Paul is speaking to those who are under the law
4 we are under grace not law
Paul is actually summing up for those who know the law the futility of trying to follow the law. He sums up that he agrees that the law is good, and that it is him that cannot keep it. It is the cry of the futility of trying to live by the law that cries out, "24Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?" The Christian should never cry this because in the next verse Paul gives the answer "25Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" We have already been set free, we just don't live like it! We live according to the flesh, even when we try to live by law, we are living according to the flesh. We need to put off the old nature and put on the new. The Christian life is written in Romans 8.
We can obviously identify with what Paul is saying here because we have the essential ingredients the same as everyone else, an old fallen nature, sin and the law. However, if we think this is describing the Christian life then we have missed the point that we are dead to the law. The Christian does not live according to the law, which is exactly what this passage is talking about. I do not know many Christians who do not live by this passage and cling to it as "grace." The kind of grace that says, "Well as long as you wanted to do the right thing it's OK!" But as we have hopefully seen grace isn't a cover up. Grace is the driver, it is God's grace at work in us that sanctifies us, not trying to live by the law.
"14For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.
15For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.
16But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good.
17So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
18For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.
19For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.
20But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
21I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.
22For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man,
23but 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.
24Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?
25Thanks 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."
To back this up compare verse 25 with Galatians 5:4 "4You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace."
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6 comments:
This is hard for me to understand. Can you explain it a little more?
your writing isn't hard to understand. it's the concept.
Basically, in a long winded way, I have said that Romans 7:14-25 is not Paul talking as a Christian, but talking about the futility of trying to live by the law.
Most commentators say "Well, we all go through this don't we? We do what we don't want, and we don't do what we do want, therefore Paul is speaking of a Christian experience."
Even though we may idenitify with it that doesn't mean that is what Paul is saying. His constant reference to the law, following how much he has said we are dead to the law, shows he isn't talking about it from the point of view of a Christian. He is talking to Jews, who are Christians, and he wants them to realise that "The Law" has been replaced by "Grace" as the means of sanctification. This was done because "the law" could not free us.
I am not advocating anarchy, we haven't yet reached the point where he talks about what we do do! This is such a big passage it is no wonder that few preachers touch it or do it justice. It is one of Pauls best goes at explining the whole things and he takes three chapters to spell it out. I wanted to do it justice but obviously it will take longer to get to the point than Paul does!!
Not sure if that answers your question. If not then let me know more specifically what it is you aren't understanding.
Gotcha.
You know, I don't think I've ever heard this passage explained this way. But it makes sense!
As I have said, I always took this passage as "the Christian experience" I have heard renouned bible teachers say that this is talking about the Christian experience, then one day as I was going through it myself, I noticed the references to the law, and thought that he has just said we are dead to the law!
Then at first it felt so odd. When I wasn't reading the bible I was doubting it and thinking I must have missread it. I'd check the bible and there it was, references to the law. It completely changed my view of what our faith is about.
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