THE GOSPEL OF GOD
Meditations in St. Paul's Letter to the Romans 
FACING THE LAW AS A CHRISTIAN (Part 3) 

"We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is not longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 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. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil that I do not want to do - this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I that do it, but it is sin living in me that does it." 
Romans 7:14-20. 

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VERSES 14-20 again must occupy our attention. We have looked in some depth so far at verses 14-17 as Paul has wrestled with Christian experience in relation to the law of God, and we have found this anomaly, that though the believer has from the heart a desire to conform to the law of God because of delight in it, yet there is some other force within that militates against this desire, causing the desire of the believer to glorify God in observing his law to be unrealised as desired by the inner being. In verse 17 Paul describes this force as coming from sin living in him.

MY SINFUL NATURE.

Verse 18 develops this understanding. Paul affirms "I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature."

This sentence is worth spending some quality time with, so that we may get hold of what Paul is describing concerning Christian experience. In the first part of the sentence Paul is plainly speaking of the whole person. He says that nothing good lives in me. This is startling, and again causes problems. How can a Christian say something like this? and from this, deductions are made which suggest that Paul must have been speaking of a defeated Christian, or someone who is hardly a Christian at all. But then Paul qualifies this rather startling statement by saying that he does not mean the whole person, but only part of the whole. He says that nothing good dwells in his sinful nature. So we have the whole person acting, and the whole person responsible, but the action coming from only part of the whole.

When we think about this seeming contradiction, we can see it is quite a wrong approach to understanding the teaching of Paul here to look at it from the point of view of concrete statements, but rather that we must look at what Paul is saying from the point of view of experience at a particular time or times. This experience is in one sense always there, but its expression in our lives is greater and more disturbing at some times rather than others.

I don't believe that there is any suggestion here with Paul that this describes a life of total defeat, but instead is an expression of a person truly growing in holiness facing the horror of finding sin present in the life, disturbing the desire for holiness and rearing its ugly head so often, and causing the road to greater holiness to be so difficult. This experience does not grow less acute as we grow in holiness and in the image of Christ, for as we grow in holiness we become closer to the Lord. Being closer to the Lord, the greater is the light of his loveliness shining upon us, and so we see failure and sin more clearly, and its ghastly ugliness in comparison with the beauty of the Lord and holiness. Because of this, evil we hardly noticed before becomes apparent to us, and as this process goes on the closer we walk with Jesus, we have to say to ourselves "can we ever get to the place when we find ourselves holy". As we grow closer to the Lord we appreciate the depth of the holiness of God in his law far more perfectly, as we find the law searching more deeply into our living and exposing the evil that is there. Words can't quite meet our need in describing our experience, and fall down all the time because the experience of each of us is so different and is at different levels in the pursuit of holiness, and so what we describe may seem to others as little short of being over scrupulous.

UNDERSTANDING THE EXPERIENCE.

We have already thought upon this difficulty of verse 14 where Paul speaks of himself as unspiritual and sold as a slave to sin. Verse 18 is helpful as to how verse 14 should be interpreted.

In verse 18 firstly Paul says that in him nothing good lives. This is the same seemingly exaggerated statement as is found in verse 14 where Paul says he is unspiritual sold as a slave to sin. Paul is describing the same experience and understanding of himself. Yet is verse 18 he qualifies this exaggerated statement by saying that the problem lies not in himself, but in his sinful nature.

As I see it, Paul is wrestling to express the truth about himself which appears in his experience. When we fail or sin in some way, we do not experience a duality in the experience, but we know it is ourselves as a person that is behaving in this way. However we know this can't be the true person we are, because we find we hate this failure and sin, and we long after holiness, and this evil grieves us because we know we have let down our loving Lord Jesus, and it hurts us that we have grieved his Spirit. Having failed we find ourselves miserable because of it, even as we rejoice that in Christ our sins are covered.

There still remains the question as to why we are like this in our living, and the answer is that although we are redeemed, and raised to new life, there still remains in us the flesh which is unredeemed, which Paul speaks of here as his sinful nature.

This analysis does not remove the difficulties of expressing the problem, but it does reach the heart of the experience, and though we seem to be expressing what can't be true, we know from the Gospel and our experience that this is the truth.

WHERE OUR DIFFICULTIES ARE OFTEN FOUND.

I come again to what I have already stated and that is our understanding of the nature of Christian salvation and new life.

Perhaps the best way to approach this subject is to seek to understand the nature of redemption. When we read the New Testament, on the one hand we know we have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, and on the other hand we are told that we have to wait for the completion of this redemption until we leave this world at physical death, or at Christ's second coming. 

There is a hymn by Augustus Toplady which contains two verses which express this revelation concerning redemption. It is not a hymn that you will find in modern hymn books because the biblical truth expressed in it is out of favour at the moment in the church as a whole. The hymn can be found in Golden Bells (280), and the verses quoted are verses 3 and 6. The whole hymn is worth reading and meditating upon. The verses go like this -

The work that his goodness began,
The arm of his strength will complete;
His promise is "Yea and Amen",
And never was forfeited yet.

And I to the end shall endure,
As sure as the earnest is given;
More happy, but not more secure,
When glorified with him in heaven.

The first of these verses express the fact that the work of our redemption is an ongoing work in this life. It also expresses the fact that there is nothing doubtful about that redemption, because God never fails to keep his promises. He has assured us of eternal life in Christ, and he will keep that promise. The second of these verses expresses the fact that because our redemption is sure, there is no doubt that we will be brought to the completion of it in heaven. It tells us we have an earnest of it impressed on our hearts by the Holy Spirit, and this is the assurance that we are justified freely in God's sight, know the forgiveness of all our sins, and possess eternal life. It then goes on to say that in heaven we will be more happy than we are now in Christ in this life, but we shall not be more secure. This expresses that we have now the certainty of redemption, and have a sure and joyful part of it now, but the fulness is still to be bestowed upon us.

In Galatians 4:4,5 Paul expresses the fulness of redemption we have in Christ through his death. God sent Jesus to redeem us who are under condemnation of the law of God on account of our sin. Christ has redeemed us. This means that he has paid all the redemption price for our sins when he bore their penalty on the cross, and so there is full and perfect redemption eternally, because our sins in the past and in the future received the punishment due for them in the person of Jesus on the cross, and there is no more to pay. Full redemption has been paid. This is the certain redemption we have. We cannot be more secure than this in Christ. This redemption secures for us a certain place in the heavenly glory.

Then taking Ephesians 1:14 with 2 Corinthians 1:22 we see that although we possess complete redemption the moment we believe, we don't enter into the fulness of it untill we reach glory. These verses also tell us that we have the earnest of this sure hope in the gift of the Holy Spirit who bears witness within us that we are truly children of God and in the work of holiness he is working within us.

So back to the understanding of new birth we have in Christ. We are truly redeemed so the life of holiness in the presence of God which Adam lost is recreated, and we are created to be like God in righteousness and true holiness. In this new life we are completely redeemed, and restored to the holy person who alone God can dwell with and have communion with. But we still have the fulness of the experience of redemption yet to come, because our bodies are not redeemed, and in our bodies resides our flesh or sinful nature. This sinful nature is as sinful as it has ever been. It is the place from which all Satan's temptations come. It can not be made holy, it can only be mortified or put to death, by constant struggle and warfare in the Spirit.

It is because so often people are taught that the flesh can be made holy, on the one hand, and on the other hand because people are not taught the true nature of our redemption in Christ and that we are created holy in our new nature, that Paul's expression of the struggle with the laws of God expressed in Romans 7 becomes so difficult.

In our one personhood there is a duality. One person is always acting, but within the one person there is in this life always the struggle between the flesh and the Spirit. In Romans 7 Paul is not expressing defeat, nor is he suggesting there is no progress in holiness of life in the believer, but he is expressing the experience in the struggle which we have under the constant scrutiny of the law of God. This will never cease in this life, and the pain of failure, even when we grow in holiness to a marked degree, will ever increase so that we will always empathise with what Paul is describing in Romans 7.

CONCLUSION

So because of the new life within us, in our total personality we will express our desire to do what is good, for this is the good we want to do with all our heart. It is because of the holy new life that we mourn deeply when the good we want so much to do, we fail to do, and keep on doing. We mourn over the impotence so often we experience that we are unable to reach the holy living we want so much, and which is expressed by the new person we are.

But we realise, as Paul expresses here, that it is not the new person we are that is doing this, so it is not the true person we are who is doing this. So we have no problem in understanding Paul when he says that it is not ourself who is doing this, but the sinful nature still within us, even though it is the person we are in this earthly body who is acting.

I can't understand those who have problems about this and see here a Christian who has a low quality of life and spirituality. It seems to me that it is impossible for someone whose Christian life is lived at a low level to feel this conflict so acutely. It is only when we live in the Spirit and realise our true new creation and birth, that this struggle becomes such a problem, and the holier we grow, the more grievous is the failure we still see, and the more we mourn over it.