13 Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? May it never be! Rather it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by working out my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.
14 For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, having been sold into bondage under sin. 15 For what I am working out, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. 16 But if I do the very thing I do not want, I agree with the Law, that it is good. 17 So now, no longer am I the one working it out, but sin which dwells in me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the working out of the good is not. 19 For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. 20 But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one working it out, but sin which dwells in me.
21 I find then the principle that in me evil is present—in me who wants to do good. 22 For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, 23 but I see a different law in my members, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a captive to the law of sin which is in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin. Romans 7: 13-25 LSB
Romans 7: 13-25
V. 13 Did that which is good become a cause of death for me - The short and sweet is No. Death didn't come by way of the law, and the law is good, but death entered the world through sin. The law points out the cause, it exposes the evil.
13When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone. 14But each one is tempted when by his own evil desires he is lured away and enticed. 15Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.… James 1: 13-15
11Not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. 12Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, so also death was passed on to all men, because all sinned. 13For sin was in the world before the law was given; but sin is not taken into account when there is no law.… Romans 5: 11-13
V. 13c Sin would become utterly sinful - When you are born again you receive a new nature, but you still live in your old flesh, and so basically a war ensues, and I love the way Voddie used to describe it, there is now two dogs, and the one you train and feed the most is going to be the one that wins. Your new nature awakens a conscience that desires the things of God, but your old nature wants to snuff it out. It's anything but pretty. It is why in Ephesians 6 Paul describes it as warfare and tells us about putting on the whole armor of God. What do you feed on? The word of God, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God, which also becomes your weapon, the Sword of the Spirit. The world and your flesh will pull you away from that, have you spend hours of mindlessness in front of the television, day dreaming, and they will laugh at you for praying, but these are the means God gives us. He also gives us brothers and sisters, pastors who preach the word and make it come alive to us. Your new nature wants to grow but it needs to be fed, and when it hears the word of God, hears what He calls sin, it will want to call it sin too. It will want to be set free from it, and we will come to realize that it is difficult to find forgiveness when we refuse to acknowledge it as sin in the first place. The more you read God's word, the more you will want to repent and pray for strength to stand. When he says, "sin would become utterly sinful", it's like turning on a light and realizing your standing in a septic tank. It's more than intellectual assent, reading off a list of sins and saying, "yeah, the Bible calls this sin", it goes much deeper than that, "my Lord and Savior Who died for me calls this sin, and so I hate it." A good sign of a new nature is that your own sin will bother you more than that of other people.
…15From infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work.… 2 Timothy 3: 15-17
V. 14 The law is spiritual, but I am fleshly - Again, two natures trying to occupy the same place. Paul is in agreement with the law, he loves the law, but he still has to battle the flesh. You will more and more see the importance of Christ and His work as you grow. It is easy for us to become proud in religion, but the reality is that salvation is of the Lord. You didn't exercise a faith born of your own brilliance, many smart people die and go to hell. Many religious people go to hell trusting in their own works, but if you were saved it was of the Lord. This is beyond beautiful too, because if you worked for your salvation then how would you know when you reached it? If God gave it to you and then told you, "now don't mess up, don't drop it." That would be the same as saying, "you're damned". No one can save themselves by keeping the law because everyone is in constant violation of it, yet no one is ever saved that is not confronted by the law and caused to grieve over sin. You were once powerless in this, a slave, but now you are a warrior, you have the Spirit of God abiding in you, and it is not a desire to check off boxes, not a drive to earn that salvation which you couldn't, but an innate desire to please your new Master, Jesus Christ.
11Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following the same pattern of disobedience. 12For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it pierces even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight; everything is uncovered and exposed before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.… Hebrews 4: 11-13
…5You welcome those who gladly do right, who remember Your ways. Surely You were angry, for we sinned. How can we be saved if we remain in our sins? 6Each of us has become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind. 7No one calls on Your name or strives to take hold of You. For You have hidden Your face from us and delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.… Isaiah 64: 5-7
…26Therefore I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight like I am beating the air. 27No, I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified. 1 Corinthians 9: 26-27
Vs. 15-20 I practice the very evil that I do not want - He has a renewed mind. He knew about evil before, but now the bar has been raised, the standard is Christ, and my actions fall short. Pride is still at the door, so even when I think I am doing good I find that I am sinning. It's breaking Paul's heart, and it is wonderful. The new nature is alive in him and it does not want sin, and it shines light upon the old nature. Paul identifies more with the new nature, nurtures it, and I don't believe for a moment that he is sinning more than he used to before his encounter with Christ, but being a new creature, developing from a baby Christian to an adolescent to a mature man of God, the closer he gets to Jesus the more appalling his sin becomes. He is wanting to go home.
MacArthur writes
The apostle has already established that none of those things characterize the unsaved. The unbeliever not only hates God’s truth and righteousness but suppresses them, he willfully rejects the natural evidence of God, he neither honors nor gives thanks to God, and he is totally dominated by sin so that he arrogantly disobeys God’s law and encourages others to do so (Ro 1:32).
S Lewis Johnson comments that…
it is difficult to imagine an unsaved man diagnosing his case so perfectly, or affirming such things of an unsaved person. He has a clear view of himself (Ro 7:18, 24). He has a noble view of the Law (Ro 7:16, 19). In three ways he is a saint. He hates sin (Ro 7:15, 16; can this agree with Ro 3:7?). He delights in the Law of God (Ro 7:22). He looks for deliverance to Christ alone (Ro 7:25). John Stott comments, "Now let me repeat that anyone who acknowledges the spirituality of God's law and his own natural carnality is a Christian of some maturity." - PA
…18who have deviated from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already occurred, and they undermine the faith of some. 19Nevertheless, God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: “The Lord knows those who are His,” and, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord must turn away from iniquity.” 20A large house contains not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay. Some indeed are for honorable use, but others are for common use.… 2 Timothy 2: 18-20
…127Therefore I love Your commandments more than gold, even the purest gold. 128Therefore I admire all Your precepts and hate every FALSE way. 129Wonderful are Your testimonies; therefore I obey them.… Psalm 119: 127-129
Vs. 21-22 In the inner man - Paul, at his core, wants to serve God in everything but in this life he is aware that there is a constant struggle, a war between good and evil. It's important not to become confused or dualistic here. The flesh, your body, skin, eyes, heart, all that, that returns to dust. It is a temporary temple. Some of the ascetics would call the flesh in that sense evil and would whip themselves, mutilate themselves, basically commit another kind of sin in order to deal with their sin. This is talking about two natures that are competing within the framework of this earthly temple. The old nature will die with this body though, and you will be given a new temple, unsoiled, undefiled. Your hand is not evil, but you can choose to do evil with it.
…33“We are Abraham’s descendants,” they answered. “We have never been slaves to anyone. How can You say we will be set free?” 34 Jesus replied, “Truly, truly, I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35A slave is not a permanent member of the family, but a son belongs to it forever.… John 8: 33-35
Wuest explains that law (principle)…
… could refer to a law such as the constant rule of experience imposing itself on the will such as a modern scientific law, or the Mosaic law, or to the law of sin which Paul speaks of as in his members (Vincent). The last interpretation seems most in keeping with the times in which Paul is writing, and with the context. The law in his members warring against the law of his mind is, of course, the evil nature. Paul finds a condition that when he desires to do good, this evil nature always asserts itself against the doing of that good. He brings out the same truth in Gal 5:17 (note) where he says,
“The flesh (evil nature) has a passionate desire to suppress the Spirit, and the Spirit has a passionate desire to suppress the flesh. And these are set in opposition to each other so that you may not do the things which you desire to do.” (Wuest's Word Studies from the Greek New Testament: Eerdmans)
In this verse Paul says that evil is the constant rule of experience imposing itself on the will. Paul found that evil is still present in an individual whenever he wants to do good.
Barnes has a good explanation of the law writing that…
There is a law whose operation I experience whenever I attempt to do good. There have been various opinions about the meaning of the word law in this place. It is evident that [it] is used here in a sense somewhat unusual. But it retains the notion which commonly attaches to it of that which binds, or controls. And though this to which he refers differs from a law, inasmuch as it is not imposed by a superior, which is the usual idea of a law, yet it has so far the sense of law that it binds, controls, influences, or is that to which he was subject. There can be no doubt that he refers here to his carnal and corrupt nature; to the evil propensities and dispositions which were leading him astray. His representing this as a law is in accordance with all that he says of it, that it is servitude, that he is in bondage to it, and that it impedes his efforts to be holy and pure. The meaning is this: "I find a habit, a propensity, an influence of corrupt passions and desires, which, when I would do right, impedes my progress, and prevents my accomplishing what I would." Comp. Gal 5:17-note. Every Christian is as much acquainted with this as was the apostle Paul. (Albert Barnes. Barnes NT Commentary) - PA
…16I ask that out of the riches of His glory He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Then you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18will have power, together with all the saints, to comprehend the length and width and height and depth…
…19of the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, 21to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.… Ephesians 3: 16-21
Vs. 23-25 Wretched man that I am - This is when we know we have seen ourselves rightly. Too many today miss the true gospel, the beauty of God's holiness, substituting it for self help, self esteem and self worship. God owed you death, but somehow we feel entitled to not only live in the sin He hates, the thing that brings us death and sorrow, but we also believe that God should somehow commend us in this, allow it to not only continue, but to also enhance it. We don't come to hate sin on our own, only consequences. Paul is seeing beyond the consequences; he is hating his sin, and it is here that you can appreciate the otherliness of God, that yes, He is a God of love, of mercy, of forgiveness, but over each of His attributes hangs the crowning attribute of His holiness. He is holy, holy, holy. So many false teachers today forget to mention that God is also just, and that He is angry with the wicked all the time. They take away the beauty of the cross by making light of the very sins which demanded it. God is love, but He is also just, so in order to show us His love and to not violate His holiness, He paid the price of sin with the life and death of His only Son.
…8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God’s love was revealed among us: God sent His one and only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. 10And love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.… 1 John 4: 8-10
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