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Sunday, 25 January 2009 - Romans, chapter 7: verses 7 to 25.

This morning we’re continuing our series of studies in Paul’s letter to the Romans at Ch.7:7-25 which starts on page 1133 in the church Bibles.

Just to repeat something that I know both Phil and myself have said before. Romans chapters 1 to 8 form a closely related argument that’s hard to take in fully when considered as separate passages. You always need to be thinking about what’s gone before - and with today’s passage - what’s going to come next week as well, when we’ll be looking at chapter 8. Not doing so might not just be confusing - it might even produce misunderstanding.

And Paul was aware that some of the things he was expounding could produce misunderstanding. Which is why this letter is loosely structured as a debate with an invisible inquisitor into who’s mouth he puts questions. And Ch.7:7 introduces one of these questions.

If you remember Phil’s talk last week - it was based on Paul’s readers being told that they were now dead (as Christians) to the OT Law of Moses. But this was just his latest reference to the Law. He’d been talking about it right through the letter - and always as inferior and deficient as the means of pleasing God by religiously obeying it. In fact he’d been kicking the Law so hard - that he feared some people listening to this letter being read might come to the wrong conclusion - that the OT Law itself was bad. Which is why he asks the rhetorical question at Ch.7:7.

7 What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead.

9 Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. 11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. 12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.

13 Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognised as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.

14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.

18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.

19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

21 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.

24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

One commentator has divided up this passage in this way. Verses 7 to 13 are a first defence of the law - where sin is the real culprit. Verses 14 to 17 are a second defence of the Law - where blame is shifted from the Law to self and then again to sin. And from verse 14 on, is an explanation of how sin works through the divided self. I give you that outline in case it helps as a route map through these verses.

Something else the commentators note is the personal language that comes in this passage. And while in the Greek the “I” of verses 7 -13 could be considered as a ‘representative I’ for all of us - from verse 14 onwards it’s definitely autobiographical of Paul about himself - which has given Bible scholars a serious problem over the year. But we’ll talk about that later.

Paul says in verse 8 - “For apart from law, sin is dead”. In some ways this is the key point he wants to make in these verses. Of course Paul’s been here before - because if you look back to Romans 5:20 - he’s already said, “The Law was added so that the trespass might increase”. But how is this so.

Consider this. You know of a narrow country road with a very sharp bend in it, and ditches and hedges either side. You know that the safe speed you should drive around that bend is no more that 25 mph. Now if you go around at 40 - you know you’ve done wrong when you find boot trying to overtake your bonnet. But - say you’ve get away with it without an accident. And as time goes on - you might even tell yourself you didn’t really travel at a very dangerous speed around that bend. And there’s no record you did.

Same bend sometime later - but as you approach it this time - you see a 25 mph speed limit sign has been erected on the road just before it - not with-standing - you still take it at 40 - and again you’re fortunate not to have an accident. But just around the bend you look in your rear view mirror - and see flashing blue lights. You pull over - and someone in police uniform says to you - “Would you care to come back to my vehicle, and take a look at my video”. Now - you haven’t just travelled too fast - you’ve broken the law.

Please note - it was always the wrong thing to do to travel around that bend at over 25 mph - both for your own safety and for the good others. But without a legal speed limit to be enforced - there was no measurable fault if you did it wrong. The law - if you like - defined the wrong-doing.

At the risk of labouring the point - can I ask you if you think that the top edge of this lectern that I’m standing at is level and straight? How can we know if it is or isn’t? [having checked with level and found out] By checking it against a standard - I can see that it’s neither level or flat. But without checking it against some standard the error in straightness can’t be shown. The Old English meaning for the word ‘sin’ used from the earliest English translations of the Bible, was that used by archers for ‘missing the mark’ - not hitting what they were aiming at. In the Biblical sense - the OT Law was given to measure how much off target people lived. That’s the meaning behind Romans 5:20 & 7:8.

But Paul also wants to say something far more provocative here than that. He wants to go to the root of fallen human nature. He wants to say - tell me not to do something - and that’s the very thing I end up being propelled into doing! And to do so he personifies sin as a power in him working within his ‘flesh’ - or ‘carnal nature’ - or in this translation - ‘sinful nature’. So he says in verse 11 - “sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.”

You may be aware that Paul uses a lot of military metaphors in his writings - not just in Ephesians chapter six but in other places as well - including here. The Greek word translated as ‘seizing the opportunity’ was the military term for ‘setting up a base camp’. In current military strategy you might want to say - establishing a bridgehead. So he says that ‘sin’ took God’s instruction (which was incidently intended for our good - just like that speed limit) and used it as a something from which to launch an attack against us.

Paul doesn’t mention Satan - the devil - or the powers of evil here. But a lot of commentators see Paul here alluding to the first failure to keep God’s commandment in the Garden of Eden. The first couple were happy and carefree of any inclination to grieve God until they had a commandment to break. Then sin used that single command as it’s base camp to propel them toward the Fall. They were deceived into believed the lie that the command was bad - not the breaking of it. That inclination has been with us ever since

Being single of course - I’ve got no children. But I have been around other people’s kids quite a lot over the years. And on more than one occasion I observed an almost perverse desire to cross boundaries of behaviour by children when told ‘no’ or ‘not to..’. On one occasion I remember seeing one young man trying to get away with what he’d been told not to - and after a while it was obvious he was doing it just because he’d been told ‘not to’!

And before we all sit back nodding in agreement about ‘naughty children’ - what about naughty adults? Is the same principle at work within, say, people using their undoubted abilities to create damaging computer viruses - just to see if they can get away with it - and see what mayhem they can cause?

And what about us - each of us - individually? What in our private world are the rules we break - the ignored road-signs along the journey of our lives? Did we miss seeing the signs and not realise we were breaking God’s laws? Or do we see them - and purposely pretend they were not there? Probably a mixture of both, if you’ve lived for while.

If you take a close look at Paul’s life - it looks on the surface like he’d lived one of strict integrity before he met Jesus on the road to Damascus. He told the Philippians that his life then was one in which he could say that - as far as the law was concerned - he was blameless. Perhaps like the rich young man who came to Jesus in Matthew Ch.19 - he’d have been able to tick off the same check list that Jesus initially presented to that man. Have you murdered? No. Committed adultery? Never. Stolen? Not at all. But just as with that young man - it wasn’t the visible - but the internal - that was the problem area - the place of failure - in Paul’s life. Which of course it is with all of us as well. Even in the areas that Paul would have confidently ticked off, Jesus made abundantly clear that it was what goes on in the heart that is wrong. Murder and adultery for instance - isn’t just what we do physically.

So it’s the tenth commandment - the one that deals with motivations in the soul - that Paul uses to illustrate his argument. “...I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” And as we’ve already noted - Paul goes on to say - sin seized the opportunity afforded by the commandment to produce every kind of covetous desire.

Just a small point. Don’t just think of the word ‘covet’ as only to do with ‘things’. More than one commentator’s noted that we’re talking here about a powerful ‘involuntary desire’ - or ‘lust’ - taking us away from God’s will and taking us into the realm of human autonomy. More than one refer to our Ego - or our own self-centeredness - as being the root of the sin. It’s the ‘what I want’ syndrome. With that understanding it can cover the full gambit of ‘money, sex and power’. Which is probably why Paul talks of sin producing every kind of covetous desire in him - or as another translation puts it, “all manner of evil desire”.

But the point Paul wants to make is that it’s not the Law’s fault! It’s this:

“I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.”

So the Law’s good - but I can’t keep it. Why can’t I keep it? Which brings us to the change of tense at verse 14. And the problem.

The problem (as seen by all commentators) is this - Is Paul here speaking about his life before he met Jesus and put his trust in Him - or afterwards as a Spirit filled disciple? Is this a flashback moment beloved by film-makers - or shot in real time as the letter’s being written? Is this the unconverted Paul struggling with sin - and failing - or the born-again believer Paul living out an ongoing day-to-day struggle with sin? Over the years a whole lake ink has been used to try and answer that question!

Augustine (a long time ago) had started off by following the line of the early church fathers - saying that this was the unsaved Paul’s experience - but in later life changed his mind and conceded that this must be the experience of the Paul who knew Jesus. Many significant Bible scholars have embracing one or other of these opinions ever since.

The problem is this. How can the Paul who says in Romans 6:2 - “We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer” - and who goes on to say in Romans 8:2 - “... the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death” - say in chapter 7 that he’s “sold as a slave to sin”, and both “a prisoner of” and “a slave to” the law of sin. Do you see the problem?

I’m inclined to think Paul’s not speaking in ‘flashback’. I think there are two - perhaps three - good reasons for accepting the view that this is the born again Paul talking in the ‘now’ of his Christian experience. Let me explain.

First - it’s the person who really doesn’t want to sin that can echo Paul’s heartache over the inner conflict with the sin “waging war against the law of his mind” (as he says in verse 23). The fact that he recognises this warfare and sincerely grieves over the defeats he suffers at the hands of sin is the proof of having come into the kingdom of God - and not being still a totally absorbed citizen of the kingdom of darkness.

I don’t know if you’ve heard of the sixteenth / seventeenth century poet , John Donne. He wrote a famous verse who’s first line is “Batter my heart three person’d God...”. In this poem he talks of himself as being a town that belongs to God but has been taken over by a usurper. He says that he labours to admit God - and that his mind (his reason) strives to defend the town against the usurper - but he says - “is captive, and proves weak and untrue”. He goes on to call to God to - separate me - untie - break the knot again that binds me to this usurper! If these two had lived in the same era, Paul would have had great empathy with these lines. It’s the sentiment of being controlled by what you don’t want to be controlled by. Which is why the cry in verse 24 isn’t one of despair (which I think I used to think it was) but a shout of shear frustration! And should we be people shouting it too?

But how come this passage sits where it does between the seemingly contradictory verses of Romans 6 and 8? That question takes us into the realm of eschatological theology. (Well Phil said last week he wanted to use some long words so I thought I would as well!) It means that we are living in ‘the end times’ - but ‘the end’ has not yet come. It means that we’re living in the ‘in-between times’ - between Jesus Christ having died to save us from Sin - and the bringing in of His new kingdom: that time when His kingdom will be fully implemented. Which is why Paul talks elsewhere about us living as ambassadors in a world currently being ruled by God’s enemy - the usurper. Part of the world under the influence (indeed the control) of the usurper is our old sinful nature - described as ‘the flesh’ in the old KJV. So we live on two levels - which is perhaps the best explanation of verse 25.

You see - unfortunately - when we become Christians - that old nature doesn’t pack it’s bags and leave. We do not become instantly perfect and holy. If that were the case all the Bible teaching about resisting the devil and not satisfying the desires of the flesh would be meaningless. So we still have - even as people who’ve said a definite ‘Yes’ to God and have Jesus as saviour - two natures inside us - the new God-given one of the Holy Spirit - and our old ‘Adamic’ fallen nature. And don’t we know it! And it when we try hardest to follow the right path is when we recognise that fact the most! Which is exactly what Paul says about himself in verse 15, 19 and 21.

I read this book a little while ago. ‘How to Keep your Inner Mess from trashing your Outer World’. I suppose over the years I’ve read a few books on how to improve your Christian life. They all want to take me in the right direction - but some set targets I can’t meet and others use language I don’t understand. Not this one.

Christianity goes through fads and fashions like everything else - and I got caught up a while ago in the idea that you ‘take your hands off your own life and let God do it all’. Sort of hand over the steering wheel to him and let him be the driver. Trouble is - at a practical level I have trouble applying this.

But this book says ‘you’re the driver’ - with God or other influences in control of the route because it pictures our life as a bus. A bus with us at the wheel - and the passengers - that which is inside us - ordering the journey. And it doesn’t matter what sort of bus you are. A well preserved vintage - or perhaps a one-off special with unique features and style. Or maybe you consider yourself just to be a very ordinary modern utility sort of bus. But the truth is - whatever sort of person you are on the outside - the inner you is the driver! And this makes more sense of the route that circumstances take us down. To continue the metaphor - road and weather conditions are outside our control - as is other peoples actions. But our response to them comes down to which ‘passengers’ in our life guide us.

Some years ago George Porter (who some of you know) used to come and speak here at Sunshine Corner. I know I’ve mentioned this before - but one Friday night he put up on the board a flannel-graph (that shows you how long ago it was) with two boxers on it - facing each other - fighting. And he asked the kids a question: “Which one is going to win?”.

I can’t remember if the kids got the answer - but the answer was - “The one you feed the most”. That principle is the same for us all - do we build up our new nature and starve our old one - or visa versa. But that’s all I’m going to say about this today - because if I travel further down that road I’ll be entering the territory the guy who’s going to speak next week.

Except - I will say something about those two boxers. According to Paul - there aren’t two! We don’t actually have two natures (although it’s a useful picture) - we have one divided nature - the ability to be two different people in the same skin! Which is why you can’t kick the old nature out!

Have you ever seen those actors who play several parts? Sometimes they hold a conversation between two different people. Face one way - and you see that half of them wearing one garment - turn about-face - and you see a different style of clothes - which is of course the same clothes in two halves! And that’s you! It’s also me. It’s our divided self. Half on the way to heaven - half married to death. Half says “By faith I obey... I trust...”. The other half says “I’m going to do it my way..” - or more specifically in the context of Romans 7 - I’m doing it Sin’s way. And as Christians we are gripped by this internal conflict all our lives. No wonder Paul say in Romans 7:24, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

But what was the answer he gave to his own question? Well - actually - he doesn’t give one! He just exclaims loudly and ecstatically “Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!”. And that’s also given commentators problems down the years (together with the fact verse 25 appears after it).

I’d like to think he was recalling a fact that he’d write later to the Ephesians, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works (not by a measurement of how well we succeed in doing what’s right). Why? So that no-one can boast.”

Yes - we are called to starve out the sin in our lives and let God’s Holy Spirit be the navigator of our lives - but our ticket to heaven isn’t purchased by our doing this! We already have it as God’s free gift from when we accepted Jesus Christ into our lives. This is the gospel - the ‘good news’ - the free gift from God - and it’s by grace from first to last. This is the core message of Romans 1-8. And it’s this free gift of God we’ll be celebrating in just a few minutes time. But first - just a moment’s silence - and then we’ll sing.

Granville Richards