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Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen. (1 Timothy 6:11-16) Romans 7
Romans 7:14-25 This is where the rubber meets the road!
Romans 7:14-25 • Two Arguments • Struggle of a Saved Soul • Signs of Spiritual Maturity • The application of Justification and Sanctification This is where the rubber meets the road!
Romans 7:1-3 Released from the Law 1 Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? 2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. 3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.
Romans 7:4-6 4 Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.
Romans 7:7-12 The Law and Sin 7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
Romans 7:13-20 13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want,it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
Romans 7:21-25 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
Outline • Romans 7:14-20 – What Law has revealed in us to be so and how it makes us struggle in it. • Romans 7:21-25 – What then, is evil? • The law, or sin in us?
Paul, Pre-Redeption • Let’s look at the argument: • Paul is “of the flesh, sold under sin.” (v. 14) • As having nothing good dwelling in him (v. 18) • “Wretched man” trapped in a “body of . . . Death” (v. 24) • How could this man have died to sin (Romans 6:2), as having his old self crucified and no longer being enslaved to sin (v. 6), as being “freed from sin” (v. 7, 18, 22), dead to sin (v. 11), and as being obedient from the heart to God’s Word (v. 17)?
Paul, Redeemed • Let’s look at the argument: • The person described desires to obey God’s law and hates doing what is evil (v. 15, 19, 21) • He is humble, recognizing that there is no good in himself (v. 18) • He sees sin in himself, but acknowledges that is not all that there is in him (v. 17, 20-22) • He gives thanks to Jesus Christ as his Lord and serves Him with his mind (v. 25). • The apostle has already established that none of those things characterize the unsaved.
Romans 7:14-20 14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want,it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
Romans 7:21-25 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
The Sin King David Had Uriah killed to take his wife, Bathsheba as his own. (2 Samuel 11) Apostle Paul Persecuted and killed Christians, starting with Stephen, the first Christian martyr. (Acts 7)
The Chastisement King David David’s first child with Bathsheba died, and perhaps the most sorrowful thing that happened in the life of David was the rebellion of his son, Absalom, and the death thereof. (2 Samuel 11-18) Apostle Paul Suffered exceedingly. He was beaten, imprisoned, stoned, shipwrecked, and lost everything he had. God said he would suffer for His name’s sake. (Acts 9:13-16)
The Result King David I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. (Psalm 119:11) Apostle Paul For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. (Romans 7:22-23)
The Testimony King David The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever. (Psalm 23)
The Testimony Apostle Paul But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:7-11)
The Legacy King David Redeemed; Man after God’s own heart. Apostle Paul Redeemed; Greatest of the Apostles.
I will defy David to dance before the ark of God with all his might after the sin with Bath-shebahad crippled him; ay, and there is no giant killing, there is no slaying his ten thousands, there is very little of high and mighty exploit in Israel’s cause after the sin, although succeeded by a gracious recovery. --Charles H. Spurgeon
The Struggle of a Saved Soul (Conclusion) Our sin nature stays with us. Remember, sanctification is a process that is never finished here; we are justified once and sanctified continually. Do you struggle with sin? That is an indication of sanctification. Consider this illustration: A rather flippant sort of scoffing young man asked a preacher in a mocking fashion, "You say that unsaved people carry a great weight of sin. Frankly," he said, "I feel nothing. How heavy is sin? Ten pounds? Fifty pounds? Eighty pounds? A hundred pounds?“ The preacher thought for a moment and gently replied, "If you laid a four-hundred pound weight on a corpse, would it feel the load?" The young man was quick to say, "Of course not, it's dead." To which the preacher replied in driving home the point, "The spirit that knows not Christ is equally dead. And though the load is great, he feels none of it."
Signs of Spiritual Maturity We are made increasingly sensitive to sin by way of sanctification. The longer you are a Christian, the more sensitive you will be to sin in your life. Such sensitivity to sin prompted John Chrysostom (Archbishop of Constantinople, 347-407) to say “I fear nothing but sin.” In Romans 7, Paul is humble. He sees not and judges not others’ sins, but rather, he looks at his own self to say “Oh, wretched man that I am!” Our attitudes should be that of humility, and to be ever so much more quick to judge ourselves before we judge others. We love God’s law, and seek to uphold it as we grow in His Word. This attitude is accurately portrayed in what the Great Reformers called “sola scriptura,” a Latin phrase meaning “by scripture alone.” This is what prompted John Huss, Martin Luther, and many others to rise up against Roman Catholicism; although, in many instances, it resulted in their own untimely deaths. Likewise, we should hold God’s Word above all other authorities, musings, philosophies, etc.
The more God makes you holy the more unholy you will judge yourself to be. No man groans so deeply, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” as the man who is nearest to complete deliverance from all evil. The last relics of sin are more horrible to the godly man than the full empire of sin to the newly awakened. --Charles H. Spurgeon
