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Last week I assured you Romans 7 is one of the most challenging and controversial passages in the whole Bible. God wants you to know that when you became a believer in Christ, you entered a life-long battle with indwelling sin, in fact, an immensely powerful indwelling sin. If you’ve never struggled with sin in your Christian life, if you don’t experience any conflict in your heart, and as far as you know you’ve been obeying God almost perfectly every day, then you don’t need this passage. Plus, you must be quite proud of yourself because you are doing better than the apostle Paul. Charles Spurgeon heard a preacher talk about how we can live a nearly perfect life; he never returned to that church. Luther thinks Paul wrote this chapter to argue against the error of perfectionism. Wesley taught that believers could be perfected in love. That is not Paul’s story.
Is Paul talking about an unsaved person trying to keep the law but failing? A saved person struggling with sin? Or as Martyn Lloyd-Jones concluded, neither a saved nor unsaved person but somewhere in between, convicted by the Law but not saved. We’re going with the Reformed view, the same view Calvin took, as well as MacArthur, Sproul, and Lawson. Paul is opening his heart for us to see his struggle with his own sinful flesh and to encourage every other believer who inevitably struggles with that power of indwelling sin.
Here are three guidelines to help us as we work our way through the passage.
First, believers love God’s law; unbelievers don’t – vs. 22, “I joyfully concur with the law of God.” If you are a believer, you have a heart like David who declared, “Oh how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day.” The blessed man of Psalm 1 finds delight in the law of the Lord.
Second, every believer has a life-long fight with indwelling sin. Paul fought with sin tooth and nail throughout his life. He knew the inward battle. That’s why this passage is so encouraging. If Paul struggled and fought with his own sin, then I shouldn’t be discouraged by my own struggles. John Owen, one of the great Puritans, wrote a 168-page message on Romans 7:24-25 entitled (listen carefully), “The Nature, Power, Deceit, and Prevalency of the Remainders of Indwelling Sin in Believers; together with the ways of its working and means of prevention, opened, evinced, and applied: with a resolution of sundry cases of conscience thereunto appertaining.” If you’d rather read the shorter version in modern English, Kris Lundgaard wrote a little book entitled The Enemy Within which summarizes and applies Owen’s work for today.
The third guideline as we examine the text is this: every believer is humbled in himself to cry out for God’s deliverance, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. May the Spirit of God open our hearts and make this all real to us this morning. We’ll divide our study into three parts.
THE FOG OF SPIRITUAL WARFARE
Romans 7:14-17, For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. 15 For what I am doing, 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 to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. 17 So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
Back in verse 12 of chapter 7, Paul said the Law is holy and righteous and good. It exposes sin as exceedingly sinful. Now Paul says it is spiritual. It can’t justify or sanctify us, but it came straight from God. God wrote those ten commands with His own finger on Mt. Sinai. Exodus 31:18 says God “gave Moses the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written by the finger of God.” He even wrote a second copy after Moses broke the first set when he saw the people rebelling. Deuteronomy 10:4 says God “wrote on the tablets, like the former writing.”
There’s a huge problem with keeping this Law that came straight from God. The Law is good, but we are of flesh. Not “in the flesh,” which would describe an unbeliever. Paul confesses that all that he is apart from the work of God’s Spirit in his soul is flesh and his flesh is where sin lives and functions. Your flesh, your unredeemed part, is completely under sin’s control.
Back in Romans 6 Paul said we died to sin in Christ. But sin didn’t die to us. God could have totally removed our sinful part from us when He saved us, but He didn’t. He gave us new hearts and this glorious new eternal life. He put His Spirit within us, but He did not remove our flesh. When you look at yourself just as flesh, you’ve got nothing but sin. And that’s our big problem.
Believers have two parts, two inner conflicting realities, motivations. You have the “I” who wants to obey and please God, but you’ve got this thing called flesh or “sin that dwells within you.” I picture our hearts as the steering wheel of our lives. Before you got saved the flesh was driving, every day, all the time. When you got saved, the Spirit came in and took over the wheel, but the flesh didn’t leave. He’s still there and keeps trying to grab the wheel.
How does the flesh, or our sinful self, try to drive our hearts? First, let’s settle on this – the flesh is your enemy. Like Pogo said, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” Our enemy lives in us. And the flesh hates God and everything God stands for. So, you are living with a traitor in your own self. The flesh drives us to do what we don’t want to do. Paul says in verse 15, “I do the very thing I hate.” There’s the war! We do what we hate. Paul even distinguishes himself from his flesh in verse 17. Who’s doing it? We are, but in another sense, sin is doing it. We’re doing what we don’t want to do. This is the fog of spiritual warfare. Paul doesn’t mean he lives in continual defeat, but he also doesn’t live in continual spiritual victory.
Have you fought this battle? Does this sound like your journal? You disgust yourself sometimes. You react in anger. You get easily offended. You take that second look. You overspend after telling yourself you don’t need another pair of shoes. You failed to speak up for Christ when the opportunity came. You failed to get into the Word the entire week. You let your tongue go loose again. You make sure people know how smart you are. Your pride rears up again and again. You even argue on the way to church, then get out and look all pious, “Praise the Lord, brother Norman! Wonderful day!” And you hate it. You do the very thing you hate.
Where is this coming from? I thought I was a believer in Christ! I’d love to speak only encouraging words all the time. I’d love to be kind and humble and compassionate and forgiving and loving all the time. Instead, I find myself esteeming myself above others. It just seems to happen. At times Paul finds this indwelling sin so powerful and compelling, it’s like slavery. Not all the time, but my flesh is there, and it always pushes me to do the very thing I hate. Spurgeon said gun powder is not always exploding, but it’s always explosive. That’s our flesh which is sin dwelling in us, ready to explode at any time if we aren’t on the alert.
Romans 7:18-20, For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing 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 doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
I want to please God, but my flesh doesn’t cooperate. I want to serve the Lord with my whole heart, but this flesh in me is powerful and so often keeps me from it. Paul isn’t saying he never gets the victory. He’s simply teaching out of his own heart what it’s like to be a believer and still carrying around this indwelling sin, this flesh. There is never room for the least pride in our Christian lives, agree? This indwelling flesh keeps us from doing all we wish. We’d like to pray better, witness better, read the Word better, be better parents, better husbands, better wives, better encouragers, better givers, you name it. What holds us back? Indwelling sin. Calvin said even our best efforts are always stained with some blots of sin. The Westminster Confession says the believer’s best works “are defiled and mixed with so much weakness and imperfection.”
YOUR ENEMY LIVES RIGHT INSIDE OF YOU
Romans 7:21-23, I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one 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 the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.
So, what’s going on? Sometimes the onslaught is so severe that you feel like sin has you at the end of his spear, marching you on to carry out his desires. That’s the picture in “making me a prisoner of the law of sin.” Sin lives in us. We saw that in verses 17-20. He lives in a room in your house. You may think you got rid of him, but guaranteed, he’s still there and you will wage this battle as long as you are in your sin-contaminated body. No “deliverance ministry” will get rid of him. No one has the power to cast him out of you. No formula or second blessing will get rid of him. You can speak in tongues all you want; you’ve still got this indwelling sin.
So here I am, all ready to do some good thing. And what do I discover? Evil is present, right there, knocking your aim like someone hitting your elbow when you’re shooting an arrow. He ambushes and retreats to prepare for his next attack. Indwelling sin is tricky, like those trick candles that reignite. I may have done a really good thing and walked away proud of myself, taking all the glory. Or I may have offended someone and determined to go ask forgiveness and sin steps out of the shadows, “Hold it right there, buster. Where do you think you’re going?” Or “What do you mean you’re going to small group tonight? You’re far too tired for that.” “Put that Bible down. Don’t you know the Cards are playing the Phillies right now?” Sin is always present, right there, deflecting your good intentions. Paul calls it the law of sin, like the law of gravity, inescapable, always there.
Verse 22 is beautiful and could only be true of a believer. “I take great delight, I joyfully concur, and take pleasure in God’s Law.” Psalm 119 is full of this joy in God’s truth. Where does this great delight happen? Not in your flesh. In your inner man, where you’ve been renewed through faith in Christ. This is what we’ll see in Romans 8 when Paul focuses on the power of the Spirit.
The inner man joyfully agrees with the Word of God, whether it’s the Ten Commandments or any of the commands in the New Testament for believers. We love them all. We know how good they are and how they honor God. But there’s this inner war, this law or power of sin that is in my members, all the parts of me through which I live. Jesus warned in Matthew 26:41, “Be on your guard. Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation.” Fight the good fight. Hebrews 12:1 says lay aside the sin which so easily entangles us, trips us up. 1 Peter 2:11, “Abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul.” Don’t excuse any sin, no matter how hard your flesh begs and whines and insists. Paul doesn’t mean we have to cave as believers. But the war is incessant, and the enemy is subtle, persuasive, and shrewd. None of this, of course, excuses sin.
YOUR FINAL VICTORY IS ROCK SOLID IN JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD
Romans 7:24-25, Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free 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.
What does Paul confess? “Oh, what a wonderful person I am.” “I feel so very good about myself.” “I have faith in myself.” No, quite the opposite. What does he cry? “Wretched man, I am.” It’s the picture of a man who has toiled till his hands are all blistered. Now he’s weary and drops in total exhaustion, miserable, smashed down with failure. And notice, he doesn’t cry out, “What can deliver me?” He’s not looking for some medication or therapy. It’s not “what” but “who.” Clearly, he knows he can’t deliver himself. He has no inner resources in his own sinful self.
He cries, “Who will deliver me from this body reeking of death.” Paul may have been thinking of the mythical Roman King Mezentius, who would have a dead corpse strapped to a criminal and make him carry that rotting corpse around until he himself was dead. Paul certainly felt the weight of his spiritual deadness in his body. And we do too.
Suddenly Paul opens the door and in rushes the fresh air of God’s life-giving, refreshing grace and mercy of Jesus Christ our Lord, our only hope. “Thank you, God, for sending your Son to deliver me from myself.” While we struggle with indwelling sin in this life, Paul looks ahead to that glorious deliverance when Christ comes back for His own and we leave this body of death behind. Romans 8:23 looks forward to the future redemption of our bodies. We’ll soar to glory with perfectly sinless bodies to praise and glorify Christ forever. Good riddance flesh, this indwelling sin that dogged our tracks all the way to death or the rapture – preferably the rapture!
Romans 8:23, And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
SO WHAT?
R. C. Sproul in a sermon on this passage insists, “We need justification by faith in our blood stream. There’s enough continuing sin in my life to remind me without the righteousness of Christ I have no hope whatsoever!” Our hope is in Christ alone, not in ourselves or even our sanctification. Only Christ can deliver you from your own sinful flesh.
Be always on guard since sin lives in your flesh. By God’s Spirit you can crush individual sins, like crunching wasps in the window, but they’ll be back. Remember, the flesh is always “present” right there, trying to grab that steering wheel. You need the Word, prayer, fellowship, serving the Lord for the strength of His grace. Keep on fighting this war within. In due season you will reap, if you faint not!
Augustus Toplady wrote the hymn Rock of Ages. He confessed, “Oh that ever such a wretch as I should be tempted to think highly himself. I that am of myself nothing but sin and weakness.” Paul would agree. Humility should characterize our lives. We have nothing to boast of, do we? We should cry out to God like Paul did, every day. “I’m a miserable sinner, the chief of sinners, but I have a wonderful Savior who came to save me from my sin.” And God allows sin to remain in our bodies to show us our daily need of Him. The hymn writer didn’t write, “I need Thee every Sunday,” or even every day. What did he write? “I need Thee every hour.” He could have written, “I need Thee every moment.”