The Raging War Within

You have heard the verse (Matt. 26:41), “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” This passage of Paul’s letter to the Romans puts it even stronger, “although my spirit sees the benefit of living according to God’s Law, my flesh wants to sin and cannot be denied.”

The inability to have victory over sin persists only so long as I fight the battle in my own strength, for then I serve the law of God with my mind, but my body willy-nilly goes on rendering obedience to the law of sin.

Romans: An Introduction and Commentary (3. The Conflict within (7:14–25))

[In this passage] is a picture of life under the law, without the aid of the Spirit, portrayed from the perspective of one who has now experienced the liberating power of life in the Spirit.

Romans: An Introduction and Commentary (3. The Conflict within (7:14–25))

Here is the portrait of one who is conscious of the presence and power of indwelling sin in his life; indwelling sin is a tyrant whose dictates he hates and loathes, but against whose power he struggles in vain by his own strength.

Romans: An Introduction and Commentary (3. The Conflict within (7:14–25))

In this passage, the Apostle Paul emphasizes the existence of this spiritual battle within everyone who has ever lived. He includes himself in the dilemma by writing it in the first-person perspective, not that he continues to find himself on this battle field, but that without accepting God’s righteousness (Rom. 1:17) and continuing to live in it, we all would still remain hopelessly within this battle.

Although we might even find ourselves at the point of recognizing that the Law of God is holy and that we should live according to it, we have been sold in slavery to the law of sin and cannot resist its mastery on our own, apart from Jesus Christ.

As much as this passage is speaking of the raging war within us apart from God’s righteousness (that is apart from salvation), he is leading to the completion of his point presented back in Romans 1:17 “17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.”” Victory over sin initially comes only by faith in God’s righteousness through Jesus Christ, but is also required for victory over continued sin, just like he eventually emphasizes in Romans 8:4 “4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

As Christians, we are as dependent upon faith in God’s righteousness for victory over sin now in our Christian lives as we once were at the moment we accepted Christ. That is what Rom. 1:17 means by “from faith to faith,” that is the righteousness of God being revealed in us from the faith that first saved us to the faith that enables us to walk according to the Spirit.

As long as we fight the battle against sin in our own strength, whether we are attempting to do so in order to overcome our slavery to sin at the moment of our salvation or we are doing so as a Christian to overcome the presence of sin that remains, we will fail...

Our head reminds us to serve the law of God, but our body will still submit obedience to of the law of sin, until we learn to fight the battle in God though Christ, for victory over sin’s slavery and victory over sin’s presence.

This raging battle that is within each one of us will remain a part of us so long as we fight the battle in our own strength. “There is something in humanity, even in regenerate humanity, which objects to God and seeks to be independent of Him.”

Romans: An Introduction and Commentary (3. The Conflict within (7:14–25))

We have been sold into bondage to serve a tyrant master [law of sin] (Rom. 7:14-20)

The chains of Sin always wants to hold onto its captive (Rom. 7:14)

++The chains of Sin compels us to forced labor (Rom. .7:15)

++The chains of Sin demands my loyalty over doing good (Rom. 7:16)

++The chains of Sin breaks my will (Rom. 7:17-18)

++The chains of Sin drag me along its path (Rom. 7:19-20)

We have been bought out of bondage to serve the good master [Law of God] (Rom. 7:21-25)

The raging war between evil and good is self-evident (Rom. 7:21-23)

++The wretched stench of death is inescapable (Rom. 7:24)

++God alone is able to save us through Jesus Christ (Rom. 7:25a, c.f., John 14:6)

++Now we can serve the Law of God, even though at times we still serve the law of sin (Rom. 7:25b)

There are no good works except those that spring from a living, loving, lasting faith in God through Jesus Christ our Lord! How To Please God, Volume 43, Sermon #2513 - Hebrews 11:6

Charles Spurgeon

There is no way of obtaining favour from God but through the intercession of Christ.

John Calvin (French Reformer)

Then you find that you are able to get the roast out only if you place a pan under the roast and lift it out in this manner. This is grace. It gets under us and lifts us out of the bondage of sin. The law brings out sin; grace covers it. The law wounds; the Gospel heals. One is a quiver of arrows; the other a cruise of oil.

Dwight Lyman Moody (Evangelist)

Paul here speaks of the nature that is within through natural birth and the bondage to it. It is the law of Sin. He then contrasts is with the nature of that which is without in the Spiritual birth through Jesus Christ. It is the law of God.

Through birth in the flesh we can only do what the flesh does.

Through spiritual birth we are enabled to do what the Spirit does.

Galatians 5:16 NASB95

16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.

As long as we fight the battle against sin in our own strength, whether we are attempting to do so in order to overcome our slavery to sin at the moment of our salvation or we are doing so as a Christian to overcome the presence of sin that remains, we will fail...

1 Corinthians 15:56–58 NASB95

56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; 57 but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.