Romans 7:7-25

Romans 7 has been labeled one of the most controversial passages in all of the Bible!  What does Paul mean when he says, "I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do this I keep on doing."  This sermon answers that question and more.

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Grace-based biblical teaching and sermons with Pastor Jason White. Messages that focus on Life in Christ and practical application as New Covenant believers.

So today we will be looking at Ro. 7:7-25, and it is one of the most debated passages in all the Bible. Here’s few biblical scholars have written about it…
Thomas Schreiner says, “Ro. 7 is one of the most disputed and controversial passages in the Bible.” …

Leon Morris writes, “Enormous controversy has surrounded Paul’s exact meaning of chapter 7.

Douglas Moo “This passage is one of the most controversial in all of Romans. Since early in the history of the church scholars and laypeople alike have debated just what experience Paul refers to. The debate is an important one, for it influences our understanding and practice of the Christian life.”

So no doubt that good Christian scholars and people throughout history have landed on different interpretations of this passage, but like Douglas Moo said, “the debate is an important one, for it influences our understanding and practice of the Christian life.”
In other words, what we come to believe is the truth about the way things work impacts the way we live. And so this is important to try & understand b/c our understanding of it will impact the way we live the Christian life & the kind of results we get in living it that way. So even before we dive into all of the text, let me just show you a few of the things Paul says which can make an impact on our understanding & practice of the Christian life & the results we see b/c of that…

15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, … For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing… 24 Wretched man that I am!

How depressing right? I mean a lot of us read a passage like that and say, “yep, that’s been my experience as a Christian. I want to do good but I never seem to be able to really do it, and would you look at this…the apostle Paul said that he couldn’t even do it! I mean, if He can’t do it…the guy who wrote half of the New Testament Scriptures, then what chance do I have?” And what follows is a life of Christian misery and defeat.

And if you are a seeker…you’ve never really said yes to Jesus and just checking this whole thing out and you come across a passage like this, you’re going, “Wow, the Christian life sounds a lot like the one I’m living right now…one of failure and defeat. I guess that is just the way life is.” So either you say “no thanks, why would I sign up for something that doesn’t make any real difference in my life?” OR you might say, “Well, I see that Jesus can forgive me and gives me eternal life so I guess I’ll say yes to him for that and at least know that I get to go to heaven…even though this life will still be miserable.”

And I would say, that even though you heard these biblical scholars saying that this passage is filled with controversy and people land on different positions, I would say that the majority of Christians who I come across don’t find any controversy in it at all. They just understand Paul to be describing his own natural Christian experience and therefore should be the natural experience that they have as a Christian as well. And so if this is true, then what we have to admit is that the Christian life is a life filled with sin, frustration, and defeat over and over again…But is that true?

I don’t think it is! And the reason that I don’t think it is true is primarily b/c of what we have seen Paul say already throughout ch 5-7 of Ro.
Listen to just a few things Paul has said already in these passages…

Ro. 6:4 - 4 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. (We don’t live the same life that we used to, it’s a new life. We said earlier, if Paul is describing his normal Christian life that the life he was describing doesn’t sound too much different than our lives as non-Christians… but here Paul said the old us died that we might be something different. Not like who we were before coming to know Christ. So this doesn’t add up)

Ro. 6:6-7 - 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. (We’ve been set free from sin, but you are going to tell me that the normal Christian experience is to live with no victory over sin? Doesn’t add up…so whatever Paul is talking about in ch. 7 can’t be the normal Christian life)

But what then did Paul mean in Ro. 7? Well, the natural argument then becomes that Paul must have been talking about a time before He was a Christian. And listen, you can certainly make a case for this. But again there are good Christian biblical scholars who also look at this and can make a strong case that Paul IS talking about a Christian’s experience with sin.

SO…which one is it? Well, I don’t think it matters. Because I think that Paul’s whole point is showing us the futility of living by law…to show us that living by law is ineffective in producing a holy lifestyle.
IOW, listen…Paul is either showing us how trying to live by law as a Jew before He met Jesus resulted in frustration and failure IN ORDER TO SHOW US how ineffective it would be to try and live by law as a Christian now. OR if Paul is describing his life as a Christian, He is describing how when he tried to live the Christian life by law that it just resulted in frustration/failure….

So, do you see how it really doesn’t matter to me which one is right? If we understand the context, what we will see is simply the futility of trying to live the New Covenant Christian life under Old Testament law. It’s ineffective – it doesn’t work – it will not get you the results that you want.
B/C listen, this is what Paul just got thru saying in v. 4-6…4 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. 5 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. 6 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.

So you don’t live the new life you have in Christ by going back and trying to live out O.T. Law…you live it now by the Spirit b/c you’ve been united to Jesus on a SPIRITUAL LEVEL. So…what he is going to do next is show what it really looks like to live life by the law…how it really does produce “fruit for death,” as he said in v. 5.

And really if you notice this and are familiar with what Paul says the rest of this ch. and what he says in ch. 8, those last 2 verses give us a great outline for what he is doing. He unpacks v 5 throughout the rest of ch. 7 and then he unpacks vs. 6 in ch. 8. And so let’s look at what all he says here, starting in verse 7…

7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? …Paul had just said how sinful passions were aroused by the law in v. 5, so he knew that some people would be wondering if Paul meant that the law was bad. So he addresses this and is going to explain in more detail what he meant (unpacking v. 5)… By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”

IOW, Paul is saying that when we are confronted with the Law in the O.T. which is a reflection of God’s holy character, we truly learn what is right and wrong. We may not know that coveting is wrong, but when God said not to do it then we know now it’s wrong. So the law is good, Paul says b/c it points out what the standard of holy living is and we need to know that if we are going to live that way…BUT there’s a problem – we can’t live it out! V. 8…

8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. 13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

So even though the law is holy, righteous, and good…because of the power of sin in our lives, as soon as we are told what we can’t do, most of us want to do is whatever we are told not to do!
In other words, here is what Paul is saying…Sin uses the holy, righteous, and good law of God and sabotages it to use as a tool to bring about death in our lives.

And so do you see how Paul is already showing the futility, the ineffectiveness of living by law?
Trying to live by a list of “don’ts” just puts us in a position of wanting to do what we are told not to do…it isn’t going to produce holiness, it is going to produce frustration.
And he goes on next to really show us that frustration and struggle…
14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

Now there is a shift in the way Paul is writing here starting in this verse…Paul has been writing in the past tense but here he starts to write in the present tense. So some will say that this settles the debate that Paul is describing his current condition of being a Christian. He is beginning to write about a present situation.
But listen to what N.T. seminary professor, Thomas Schreiner says about this…

“Scholars recognize that present tense doesn’t necessarily designate present time. The temporal nature of an action must be discerned from context, since present-tense verbs, even in the indicative, may be used with reference to the past or even the future. The tense of the verb doesn’t emphasize time here in Ro. 7. Rather, the use of the present tense here fits with the state or condition of the person. Paul is emphasizing one’s captivity, subjugation, and impotence under the law. His use of the present tense doesn’t denote past time but highlights in a vivid way the slavery of life under the law.”

So listen, when Paul says the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold under sin, EITHER he is an unbeliever, living by the flesh (independently of God) and b/c of that is a slave to sin…just as Paul has been saying is true of all of us before we come to know Christ.

OR he is talking about how as a Christian when not living by the Spirit but under the law, he is living in the flesh and in experience has gone back to the slavery that he had been freed from. Either way, Paul is not painting a good picture of living by law here. V. 15…

15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 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. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

So again, this works in either situation Paul is describing here. If Paul is describing his former life as a Jew before he met Jesus…the law was important to the Jews…he would have had a desire to try and follow it and live it out, but b/c “nothing good dwells in him” as he said in v.18 in his flesh then he can’t carry it out. He cannot follow thru with trying to live out the law in his own strength b/c of sin in his life.
But it also works if Paul is describing his Christian life but trying to live it under law instead of by the Spirit. Look at this diagram that I’ve shown you a few times in this series already.

First, this is anyone who hasn’t said yes to Jesus. B/C of indwelling sin, Scripture teaches we are spiritually dead. So the only option like we said a second ago for Paul in this life was to live it in the flesh (under his own strength) and he was going to fail b/c the law aroused the sin that indwelt him and he failed.

But watch in this one, once we say yes to Jesus, He unites Himself to us thru the H.S. so we are now spiritually alive. Now we are able to live by the Spirit…

But instead of walking by the Spirit as a Christian, we could start to try and live again by law (and notice again in v. 6 they are pitted as 2 different ways to live...) so living by law does not start in the center circle (at a Spirit level), B/C if they are 2 different ways to live then they can’t both be starting from the same source –

Living by the Spirit puts God as the Source, so what is the only other source of living by law? FLESH! And guess where indwelling sin is still present? (It’s not in our Spirit – remember, we are dead to sin) but it is in our flesh.

So watch, if we try to operate under law, we are doing so in the flesh, and sin is present there…What has Paul been saying sin does with the law and commandments? IT AROUSES SINFUL PASSIONS!
So the result, if Paul is describing himself as a Christian is ONLY when he is living by law and in the flesh…not the normal Christian experience! Again, don’t think what Paul is describing here is normal for you as a Christian…

He is either describing pre-Christian experience or a Christian trying to live by law, but NOT a Christian living by the Spirit. V. 21

21 So I find it to be a law (principle) that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 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.

Again either scenario this works…As a Jewish man before Christ he is going to delight in God’s law but not be able to carry it out b/c of sin.

Or as a Christian, he is wanting to carry out God’s law now that He has been saved, but when trying to live it out, it is impossible because it is lived out in the realm of the flesh where sin is still present in him.
So he cries out either way in v24…

24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
As an unbeliever, he is a wretched man thru and thru spirit, soul, and body and needs to be rescued from the power of sin and the condemnation of the law…
Or as a believer trying to live by law, again that’s done in the flesh (so he is crying out, needing rescue from his flesh.

And of course in both cases the answer to his problem is Jesus…
25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

But again, either way, the answer is Jesus. Jesus is needed to get out from under the enslavement and condemnation of the law in the first place…

OR He is the answer to living out the Christian life if you’ve been trying to live it by law in the flesh.
Paul had said in v. 6 we live by the Spirit and not by the law b/c it is at the spiritual level where we are united to Jesus and He is the only one who can produce good fruit in us.

So listen, again…I am not too concerned about whether Paul is talking about his pre-Christian experience w/the law as a Jewish man or if he is talking about his Christian experience of trying to live life thru the law, either way Paul shows us the futility of living under the law…it doesn’t work. Our only hope is Christ in us, the hope of glory.

So if you are a Christian & have been thinking that Paul is describing the normal Christian experience here…that if Paul can’t live in victory over sin then what chance do I have?
Then know the truth today…

Paul is describing the ineffectiveness of living life by the law.

The truth is that the old you is gone & the new you is dead to sin & dead to the law, & you can live in victory over sin as you live by the guidance and power of the Spirit in you.

And listen, if you are here and have never said yes to Jesus, the Christian life is not the same as the life of frustration and failure that you experience in trying to be good enough…
Jesus has been good enough for you and died for your sin…so when you put your faith in Him He will forgive you…

and He will come to live in you thru the Holy Spirit, guaranteeing eternal life with Him in heaven one day and guaranteeing that He is able to provide a new and victorious life today…not a perfect life, but a victorious life as you trust in His guidance and power in you too…

And so won’t you say yes to Him today? I hope that you will!