Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
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Disgust
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Fear
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Joy
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Sadness
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Language Tone
Analytical
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Confident
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Tentative
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Social Tone
Openness
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Conscientiousness
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Extraversion
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Agreeableness
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Emotional Range
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Tone of specific sentences
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Anger
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The Flesh
What Paul has written in Rom.
6:12–14; 8:10–13; and other texts (Phil.
3:12–16) indicates that believers still battle with sin.
His two letters to the Corinthians alone should convince us that believers still sin this side of redemption.
Nonetheless, after everything is considered, the emphasis in the Christian life is on substantial, significant, and observable victory over sin.
Inability to keep the law cannot be assigned to the unspirituality of the law, since the law expresses God’s holy and good will.
Paul thereby defends the view that the law is spiritual, that is, its origin is from the Holy Spirit.
The law is transgressed because human beings are fleshly and have no inherent capacity for righteousness.
The word pneumatikos appears 26x in the NT and it always means spiritual, having to do with the divine spirit or filled with the divine spirit.
I have been sold under sin.
Perfect passive participle “having been sold.”
Completed past act but the use of the perfect is to increase the focus on this aspect of Paul’s argument.
The words οὐ γινώσκω (ou ginōskō, I do not know, v. 15) do not mean that the “I” is unconscious of or unaware of one’s actions.
Nor does it merely signify doing what one disapproves of or hates (against C. Barrett 1991: 138; Murray 1959: 261; Cranfield 1975: 358–59).
What it means is that one cannot fully comprehend the depth of sin in oneself (cf.
Origen in Bray 1998: 191; Lambrecht 1992: 52; Fitzmyer 1993c: 474).
The evil in our hearts is a mystery to ourselves.
In other words, the “I” doesn’t do what it wishes7 but practices what it hates.
Still, the “I” ends up at the end of the day doing what it wants to do; in that sense it does evil “intentionally and voluntarily” (Van Den Beld 1985: 500).
The Sin in Me
16
Paul doesn’t deny responsibility but confesses impotence (cf.
Seifrid 1992: 239).
We need to recognize that Paul speaks metaphorically, and the language used shouldn’t be pressed to release the “I” of moral accountability (Thielman forthc.).
The Explanation
Paul is pointing out that there is nothing in the law and nothing in the flesh to provide the necessary help for him to overcome sin.
He admits that the law is good and at the same time that the flesh is sinful.
Even though he might have wanted to behave morally, he could not.
You can also take Paul’s point to be that Christians still struggle with their sinful nature.
We still sin even though we despise sin.
A Principle is at Work in Me
Is Paul referring to the Mosaic Law or to the Law of God or to just a principle?
He joyfully concurs with the law of God in the inner man.
But he sees a different law in the members of his body.
Paul sees a different law in his members warring against the law in his mind.
This law makes Paul a prisoner of the law of in that is in his members.
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