ROMANS -- ABUNDANT LIFE IN CHRIST
Paul's Sad Encounter with Himself Responding to the Law, not to Grace
Romans 7:7-25 (NKJV)
Gordon E. Johnson
Rio Grande Bible Institute
Introduction
In spite of the liberating truths that Paul has expressed in the preceding verses: Rom.6:1-14 and
Paul's Head On Encounter with God's Law - The First Step Downward Rom. 7:7-13
Paul has just said that he died to the law and is to serve "in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter" (7:6) The only problem was that he did not experience that newness of the Spirit. He faces reality, but asking the question: is the problem with God's law? Evidently not but the simple ninth commandment slew him: "You shall not covet", in other words you should never ever have any other desire than that of loving and obeying God. That proved to be an impossible but just command.
His response, as ours so often, is not to disobey but rather to try to obey. That intention in itself is commendable, but we just don't have the wherewith all to do it. So Paul redoubles his effort and the more he strives and tries, the more he fails. That just command would not let him escape. Sin, the principle of the «ego», the self principle, revived and inflamed and he died. He cannot blame God who has every right to demand perfection as expressed in the law. But the bottom line is: "but sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful". (
Paul's Head On Encounter with God's law - The Second Step Downward Rom. 7: 14-18
Faced with the insight of the exceedingly sinfulness of the «ego», pride, Satan's first sin, Paul analyses correctly that the problem is not with God but with himself; he is carnal, fleshly in his response to the law. He draws on his best intention to obey God, as a child of God but bypasses God's resources soon to be discovered. What follows is the sad litany of: "For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do". (15) Who has not been there in the inner struggle with a given secret sin?
But Paul arrives at a theologically correct conclusion but still not fully broken, but the process continues under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit using the law to reveal flesh's total inability to please God. "For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good, I do not find". (18) Again who has not been right there. The mind of the believer grasps the fact, but the flesh stands in the way. Notices Paul does not deny that good remains in him --a tacit recognition of his regeneration. Christ does dwell in him but he is stymied by the flesh.
Paul's Head On Encounter with God's Law -The Last Step Downward Rom. 7: 19 - 24
The struggle continues but negative progress is being made. Paul is «unlearning» the ways of the flesh, always a most painful process. We must unlearn before we can learn. We must die before we can be raised again. This is the Cross life that crosses out the «ego» and allows Christ to take his place. Paul now abjectly and correctly faces his dilemma, no ifs or ands or buts. "For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man (proof positive that Paul experiences this struggle as a believer and an apostle). But I see another law (dynamic, thrust) in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members." (22, 23).
Paul is rendered powerless, defeated, realizing now that his best endeavors are doomed to fail. Victory in Christ was never planned to be that way, the way of self improvement. God had rejected out of hand that system when he nailed Paul to the cross in Romans 6:6:"Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with (cancelled, rendered null), that we should no longer be slaves to sin" This truth Paul had not grasped in living faith and hence his utterly defeated life, and that in spite of all his theological knowledge.
"O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?". (24) In his utter desperation Paul has finally given up on his own efforts as a possible hope for victory. It will not be he but WHO? This is progress that will result in divine intervention, never before and always timely. Now comes the illumination of the Spirit. Broken of his self righteousness, he must claim by faith his death with Christ, considering himself "to be deed indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord". Rom.
Watchman Nee in his book The Normal Christian Life relates this personal experience. He was a conference speaker in
Implicit in Paul's desperate outcry was: who, not what. Having come to the end of his own resources, he is ready to look away from himself; the Holy Spirit can now bring the truth before known but not grasped in faith. I died in Christ to the sin principle; it no longer needs to control me. He looks to the Cross and lives. In our next study we will develop that «how» of this crisis moment.
Yours in the Message of the Cross,
Dr. Gordon E. Johnson
Rio Grande Bible Institute