Romans 7

THE WAR WITHIN

Recap of Fundamental Principles of Salvation:

Salvation is in Christ alone. 

Salvation is secure in Christ alone. 

Salvation is not a license to sin. 

Romans 7

Romans 7 NIV

1 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? 2 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. 3 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. 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. 7 What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. 11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. 12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. 13 Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! Nevertheless, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful. 14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. 21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

THE WAR WITHIN:

As we read Romans 7, we really begin to sense the internal war within humanity, and see the struggle of Paul himself.

Romans 7:14-19

Romans 7:14–19 NIV

14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.

It is clear, that there are waring desires within Paul, and Romans 7, I belive gives us the theological framework to navigate this war, and to find victory in it.

When I was in college, prior to becoming a Christian, I beleived in the law of atrraction, which basically is, if you do what feels good, good things will come. Follow your desires. And the more things you do which feel good, it only draws more things that feel good. The problem with that was that I found two very different and conflicting desires within me. For instance, in one sense, I wanted to do well and graduate, but I also wanted to sleep in and skip class. Or, I wanted to be in a commited relationship with a young lady, but I also wanted to be free to spend time with who I wanted to have time with. In other words, I wanted to do what was right and good, but I also desired to do what was not right, and not good. I am conflicted internally. And if you are honest, all of us are like this. It is the nature of man.

In the book, Dr Jeckyl and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson writes about this reality. There have been many movies portraying this story over the years..but the story centers around a Dr. Jeckyl, who became convinced of this duality of man. This good and evil. Part that desires right, and part that desires evil.

“I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both.” ― Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

He works on developing a potion that can seperate them. Because he belives that man is never truly happy because the part that desires good is always hindered by the part that desires evil, and the part that desires evil, is always restrained by the convictions of the part that desires good. He hoped that this potion could free the good part of humanity to be all the more virtuous, if he could split it from the evil side.

But something happened as he began to take this potion. Heres what he found out about himself…his evil side was much more wicked and powerful thatn he thought.

“I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original sin; and the thought in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine… [Edward Hyde’s] every act and thought centered on self.” -Dr. Jeckyl and Mr Hyde

This evil part of him, Mr Hyde, is called Hyde because it comes from the root of two words, hidden and hideous. His evil unreigned was more monstrous than he thought.

And throughout the movie, and the book a startling realization comes about, he initially belives that he can contain and control this Mr Hyde. But soon, he finds himself having to take a potion to turn into Dr. Jeckyl. The Mr Hyde completely takes over..to the point he loses control. He runs out of the potion, and ends up killing himself so that this evil part of him doesnt reign uncontrolled.

Now, is Robert Louis right? Is this truly the condition of the human heart that we have? Is our evil that deep, hidden and powerful?

Robert Louis Steven is right and wrong. Hes right in the sense that we are that evil left to our own divices, but he was wrong about how we overcome it. He imagined that if you could sepeate them, adn tlet them both live sepeartely, then we would be happy. But here we will find that the old nature has to in fact die

Paul in Romans 7 is going to describe two conditions: The Natural Man, and The Spiritual Man. The natural man is the man or woman who is not saved, and has no power of the Spirit. The Spiritual man is the new creature, and who has been given life through Christ.

We are going to look ath these two conditions and how we overcome the battle within.

The Natural Man (The Man Apart from Christ)

Romans 7:1-3

Romans 7:1–3 NIV

1 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? 2 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. 3 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.

To describe Humanity, Paul talks about our relationship with the law apart from Christ.

To do that, we need to define what exactly the Law is.

The Law is a written code for moral and right living concerning God’s people. So in this, Paul is referring to God’s law.

The Greek word is “nomos”, and Paul uses “nomos” 121 times in the scriptures. The law, the “nomos” is the totality of God’s universal standards of right & wrong. 

The scripture defines God’s Law in two distinct parts.

The first part is the Moral Code or what many of us refer to as The Ten Commandments. This gives us a moral code for how to live our lives in relationship with God and with others. The second part is the Ceremonial Code. This is found in the cleansing rituals of Temple worship with its sacrifice prescriptions, feast observances, dietary regulations, and prescriptions for dealing with lawbreakers.

The purpose for God’s Law (both the Moral Code and Ceremonial Code) is to point out sin, to set boundaries for the flesh, and establish rules and regulations for how man is to relate to God. For the most part, people don’t like the law—it aggravates our sinful, rebellious nature.

You might not want to hear this but the law is not BAD - the law is good, WE are bad.

But he used the illustration of marraige to teach us about our relationship with the law.

Paul says as a spouse is released from the law of marriage when thier spouse dies, so death releases us from the law. The laws power ends at death.

We are bound to the law, but it is not the law that dies, we must die.

How do we die to the law?

Romans 7:4

Romans 7:4 NIV

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.

The wages of sin is death. That means you will die either way. You will either die in your sin, or die to the law through the body of Christ.

You either die to the law through your body or Christs. You either face the consequences of your sin upon yourself, or your bind yourself to Christ who takes that death upon himself.

Our relationship with the law must change!

Humanity Seeks Salvation Through The Law, But We Are Unfaithful to It

We must no longer look to the law as a savior. The law was inteneded to point us to the savior, not be our savior.

The text shows us that we must die to the law, and instead be bound to Christ. The problem is that humanity seeks to find salvation through obeying the law, rather than trusting God.

Now by saying we must die to the law, it really means that humanity must die to the idea that salvation comes from what we do.

Every religion essentially says that salvation can be found by obeying certain commands. By what we do. But we can not obey the law perfectly

It is interesting Paul points to unfaitfulness in marriage. He says that if a woman cheats on her husband while he lives she is an adulteress, but if she is with somene once he dies…shes free. We are bound to the law, and in our case, we are unfaithful. We are spiritual adulterers. And as an adulterer would be be killed in the OT, so too spiritual adultery is deserving of death.

What must I do to be saved? Nothing!

Humanities problem is that we believe we don’t need God, and can save ourselves!

Humanity Does Not Delight in Good, But Aggrivated by It

Romans 7:4-6

Romans 7:4–6 NIV

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.

These verses reveal something surprising, but true. When we learn the law, and what is right, there is something in us which is aggrivated by it.

There is something in us that when we are told not to do something, thats what we want to do.

There is something in us that when we are told not to press the red button..thats what we want to press.

More law does not make us more obedient, but more rebellious!

The problem for humanity is a matter of the heart. That even if we don’t do evil, we still have desires that want to do it.

Our sin is not primarily about our action but our desires.

Hear me, the monster of sin can not be tamed by tying up your hands. It can not be tamed by biting your tongue. It can not be tamed by trying real hard to be good. Its deeper than that.

It gets down to the heart.

Jeremiah 17:9

Jeremiah 17:9 NIV

9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

We don’t love the law. If we try real hard to obey and do good..we still want to do bad!

Our marriage to the law is a bad one. We don’t really love the law. We are aggrivated by it. We try to use the law, but we don’t love it. Because there is in us a monstrous nature that desires evil.

There is within all of us a Mr Hyde. A hideous, hiding wickendess that fights against us.

Humanity, Apart From Christ, Does not Have a Good and Evil Side. We Have An Evil That Expresses itself Two Ways.

Romans 7:7-11

Romans 7:7–11 NIV

7 What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. 11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.

Up to this point, I’ve followwed Robert Louis Smiths Example of this duality of man. This good bad within us. But I want to show you, as Paul will show us, that there is no good/bad side. We evil just expresses itself two different ways.

Paul says this, For I would not have known what coeting was if that law had not said it. But sin, siezing the opportunity, produced in me every kind of coveting. Once I was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin sprant to life.

It almost sounds like Paul is saying, there was a time I didn’t know what coveting was, but once I found out about it…it sprang up on me and I became covetous. But this is unlikely, Paul would have grew up in the law and there would have never been a time where he did not no “thou shall not covet”.

The Epistle to the Romans C. Is the Law Sin? 7:7–12

It is difficult to see how a Jewish boy from a pious family could ever be apart from law, for from his earliest days he would have some instruction in the way to serve God. But he may mean apart from law, in the sense that there had been a time in his experience when he had not realized the force of the law’s demands, a time when he was “under no conviction of sin” (Hendriksen). Elsewhere he himself refers to a time when he had been “blameless” as regards the righteousness of the law (

Paul is talking about a time where he knew the law, but foolishly was not convicted by it. He thought he was good.

But he says, there was a moment where the commandment “you shall not covet came to life”

Where he say it differently! Where he realized that he was covetous after all.

The use of coveting is intentional. I think he is talking about the specfic sin of coveting that he sees as his problem.

What is coveting? It is more than wanting something. its good to want certain things. But coveting is to want something more than God!

Heres what I belive happens to Paul..he says, I thought I was righteous, but then I realized that even in all my righteousness, I had made an idol out of being good. I was belieivng that my “goodness” ammounted to something.

In other words, Humanities problem is not ust that we disobey God, its that even when we obey we become prideful. We can’t do good without comparing ourselves to others or thinking it amounts to something!

Philippians 3:8-9

Philippians 3:8–9 NIV

8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.

Mr Jeckl

 I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin. After all, I reflected, I was like my neighbours; and then I smiled, comparing myself with other men, comparing my active good-will with the lazy cruelty of their neglect. And at the very moment of that vainglorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most deadly shuddering. These passed away, and left me faint; and then as in its turn faintness subsided, I began to be aware of a change in the temper of my thoughts, a greater boldness, a contempt of danger, a solution of the bonds of obligation. I looked down; my clothes hung formlessly on my shrunken limbs; the hand that lay on my knee was corded and hairy. I was once more Edward Hyde.

OUr prolem is that we are covetous. And we can do that by being really bad or even by trying to be really good!

Sin- Arrow

Comparing who got closer.

The Spiritual Man (The Man Saved by Christ and Redeemed by His Spirit)

Romans 7:13-20

Romans 7:13–20 NIV

13 Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! Nevertheless, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful. 14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

For the Spiritual Man, the man who has died with Christ, and saved..there must be a transition in order to find victory.

The Spiritual Man No Longer Identitiees With Thier Sinful Nature

Romans 7:17

Romans 7:17 NIV

17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.

When you are in your sin, dead spiritually..when you sin, it is you that sins. It is what you are.

Paul points out a key distinction in the life of the beliver…we still sin, but we no longer identity with it.

When we are not saved, we sin becase thats what we are. When we are saved, we sin despite what we are.

Sone will argue that this verse is Paul describing an unbeliver, but I disagree

First, he uses the present tense, not saying I was..but in verse 14 he switches from past to present.

Secondly, again he says, it is not I who do it, but sin in me.

This is foundational to what it is to be a beliver and to find victory.

Romans 7:21-23

Romans 7:21–24 NIV

21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?

Again verse 21, he says in his inner being, he delights in God’s law. This means who he is delights in God’s law, but there is another law at work in me, not him anymore. but a law that works against his mind making him a prisoner of the law of sin at work in him.

The Spiritual Man Still Experiences Moments of Weakness and Momentary Defeat Against Sin

Though the beliver was won the War against sin, they still battle, and may in fact lose momentary battles.

Paul is not describing his general condition as a beliver. He is describing moments of defeat where sin gets the upper hand.

Truly you do not know the power of sin, untill you try to live rightly.

The person who says, I am a “good person”. Or thinks that they are not that bad, and are not trying that hard to resist sin

For the closer you get to God, and the more His light shines on you..the more sinful you will see yourself.

1Timothy 1:15

1 Timothy 1:15 NIV

15 Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.

Paul says I am the worst!

The Spiritual Man, that is growing in sanctification, continues to see how far they need to go.

Believers will always face momentary defeat in various waysin this Christian life.

But though we lose battles, the war has been decided.

Before we fought a battle we fought a war we could not win, not we fight a war we can not lose.

Romans 7:23-25

Romans 7:23–25 NIV

23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

The Spiritual Man Rests In The Present Victory of Christ

Notice the patter in these last 3 verses.

Paul says what a wretched man that I am- He sees his sinfulness, and moments hwere he fails to obey God

Next Paul says, who will rescue me? He does not try to rescue himself. He does not look to the law, but looks to another savior!

But then, Paul says, Thanks be to God who delivers me through Jesus Christ.

The Victorious Life is one that rests in the present victory of Jesus!

Its gratitude. It is not a miserable life that says Lord I pray for the victory, but that says, I than you God for the victory.

Which man do you identify with?