Romans Bible Study: Newness of Life (Romans 5-7)

Hey everyone! As I said in the previous blog, I wanted to post my notes from the Bible study that I did on Romans 8 because I absolutely love that chapter of this book, but then I thought to myself, to fully understand these sections of Scripture in this chapter, there has to be some context to what is being said and so I wanted to give a short synopsis of the previous chapters just so that we are all on the same page and have the lead-in to the verses in Romans chapter 8. The first section in the blog before this one focused on chapters 1-4. This one today will focus on chapters 5-7. And the last blog in the series will be the one that looks at the words that Paul writes in chapter 8! Join me in beholding Him!

Chapter 5-7 Synopsis from the Romans Bible Study:

Chapter 5 is a huge one and a beautiful one! At the start, it talked about how we have been justified by faith (God opens our eyes to faith through His grace and we see Christ’s work and know Him as our Saviour) and, because of that work, we have peace with God. There is no peace with God outside of our being clothed in Christ’s righteousness as a Christian. Christ has made us right with the Father and we are seen through Christ by the Father. It goes into the beautiful verses that speak about how we have been reconciled to God - we have peace now with the Father because we are no longer separated from the Father because of our sin. This is the ministry of reconciliation - what Paul was doing and what we do through our lives - point to the glorious truth that Paul writes here: that we who were once separated from God because of our sin and undeserving of His gracious redemption, have been made right with the Father through the death of the Son and, now reconciled, are sure of our saving by Christ’s life. It is pure awe and wonder to think about this! And Paul writes, “we rejoice in hope” - a hope that withstands our circumstances because our saving, and God’s promises as a result, are certain. And we live differently: “we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:3-5). Even in our hardships, we have reason to hope because of what Christ did for us, we have reason to rejoice because we know God’s love for His children as we are hid in Christ. And, by grace, He not only saved us, He is transforming us and building our Christlikeness and, as He does so, He is growing our hope as we see His glory.

The second half of this chapter talks about headship. We had been under the headship of Adam. Adam’s sin in the Garden, the Original Sin, flows down to his body who are all those who are separated from God because of their sin. All humans. It wasn’t like Adam’s sin took God by surprise. God had authored that sin would enter the story. It wasn’t Adam that caused it and God was like “Oh no! What do I do now? The humans took me off guard!” If you think through it, you will notice that there was already sin in the Garden in the form of the serpent. The serpent happened before Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve didn’t cause history to be adjusted. God is the author of history. God knew that there would be sin in the world. As was talked about, let’s go over this a bit more. If God created man as a perfect being that could be self-sustaining in his perfection, He would create another God, would He not? And if He created another God, He would not be the only God and, thus, He would not be worthy to be worshipped or worthy to be looked at as having none above Him and, thus, a Christian would have no hope. Do you see what I’m saying here? He created man, but man is an imperfect being - not a God. And because they are not a God, they are going to sin.

Now you might ask why this would be the case? Well, for a number of reasons:

1) As was just stated above, if He created another God, He would deplete or negate His God-ness which would not be a right thing to do and which, for the One who is the epitome of all that is right and good and loving, He would not do this.

2) To follow through on this idea, if He created self-sustaining perfect men who could just be saved from the start, or who could save themselves, that would give them a reason to boast and, again, it would remove God’s work from their sight. They would consider His work of saving them as nothing. Or, to put it another way, salvation would be by merit and grace would be voided. Not only this, but it would also remove the full expanse of His attributes from their sight and this would lessen His glory and, indeed, the reason for a Christian’s hope, as well. When we become Christians, having been sinners, we are able to see that He is loving and good and all-powerful, yes, but we can also see that He is righteous and holy, that He is opposed to sin, and that He did what was necessary, in a right way, to save His people from that sin, vindicate His righteousness and show that He is therefore just. We wouldn’t see those attributes if we were perfect human beings (if we could even be that, which we can’t because we wouldn’t be humans, we would be Gods). We are able to see the opposite of Him (and this ties into point number 3), and be amazed that we were even saved because He was rightfully against the sin. He wasn’t okay with it. And it wasn’t just an “oh whatever” mentality when it came to sin.

3) The third point is that we are able to see what God is not. There is Him, and then there are things that He describes as evil - i.e. He is righteous and sin is wrong. Let’s look at it this way - God is the author of life’s story. Tolkien, for all of you “Lord of the Rings” fans out there, wrote in that story there would be Sauron and the Orcs to show the difference between them and the Fellowship of the Ring, or the elves, or the hobbits. There is good and then there is evil. Now was Tolkien sinning by doing this? Did he sin by the Orcs doing their sinful things in the story? No, Tolkien did not. Paul writes in Romans 9 that the Potter created those who would become believers and those that would remain sinners. Because all humanity was created right out of the womb with a fallen nature, because again, they could not be perfect self-sustaining beings or else God would create other Gods, you have to look at that - at that idea that ANY are saved as being a wonder! It’s not that all of us were amazing and then not all of us were saved. It’s that all of us were not good, because we are not God, and with our imperfect deceitful hearts we loved sin and wanted to usurp His power - AND YET, God ordained in His story that some would be saved and clothed in a righteousness that is not their own. But you know what it does do? This showing of the opposite of God? It shows the existence of God. That’s one of the reasons why there are no atheists, as chapter 1 states: because, in the understanding of there being right and wrong, there must be the existence of an Absolute Righteous One.

4) And this goes into point number 4: the existence of sin in the world is like the existence of extras in a movie. The existence of sin in the world moves the story along, but it is not God doing the sinning. Do you see what I’m trying to say here? God ordains the events of history, He works and moves through all the details of life, all the connections, to bring His people to know Him and to grow them in Christlikeness. You might experience a hardship, you might have to deal with a sinful person, and through this it might cause you to come to a place where you will come to faith (maybe you have to move to another place, maybe you have to find another job, maybe you have to see the futility of humanity and so on and you start asking questions) or, if you are a Christian already, it might cause you to grow in Christlikeness. The sins of individuals has an impact on the story, it moves your story forward toward Christ or to greater Christlikeness (which is obviously not the people’s intent), and, through it all, God is not sinning - the people are sinning, but God sees the whole play from the first act to the last and directs things for His purposes. He ordains the events, (because as it says in the book of Job, the devil and sin are on a leash - they think that they are doing their own devious plans, but God ultimately knows that the circumstances will end up for good for His people. They meant it for harm, but God meant it for good). This is what is truly meant by all things happen for a reason or that all things work for good for His people - they come to know Him or they grow in seeing that He is their greatest hope and that, though the world may try to physically come at them, their spiritual identity In Christ remains undefeated. God knew that sin would enter the world - He already had a plan for His people’s redemption when He says that the Seed will come and bruise the serpent’s head. It wasn’t Adam and Eve that messed up and caused sin to enter the world to God’s surprise.

And for a Christian, this is beautiful news! Why? Well, for many reasons! God is God - there is no One above Him. When He says for His people to worship Him because He is worthy of worship, He is not telling a lie. He is who He says He is. And we can know great hope and joy in this! His work is sure, His promises are certain. Evil and man and sin do not stand above Him, they do not take Him by surprise. And they do not have power over us as God’s children. Your salvation is secure if you are in Christ. Though we were undeserving of saving, He knew His people and He worked and moved all of history to bring them to faith. Christ came specifically for them, to die on the cross for them! It is not some “oh, man is able to turn Him down and thus make His work insufficient because it is not all-encompassingly complete for His people.” No way! And furthermore, in not being perfect beings who are able to be self-sustainingly perfect we see that we are very small (a very beautiful thing!) and we can receive grace as a gift, and in seeing grace as a gift and not a work of our own that we can boast in, we can see the full expanse of His glory and have endless wonder to fill our hearts with joy for eternity upon eternity. And we can also understand, in seeing the difference between right and wrong, that He is the epitome of all that is good, that Christ’s work on the cross was no small work in being our justifier and not sweeping sin under the rug, and that justice will happen. This is real hope! Do you see?

So back to Romans chapter 5 and this idea of headship. People will have an issue with Original Sin or the idea that we are under Adam’s headship because they don’t understand the above paragraphs. If you think that people are good, that we should be like the “perfect beings” in the above paragraph, then you will say “Why are we stuck under Adam’s headship? He’s the one that messed up. Why does it trickle down to everyone when we wouldn’t have done that!” Yes, you would have. That’s the point! We are under Adam’s headship because we are all sinners before we are found in Christ. And we are all sinners because we are not perfect self-sustaining beings. Adam (and Eve) was tempted to want to be like God because they are not God, but they want to be God because they don’t want to be small and be under God. That’s not just an Adam thing, that’s an every person thing. And thus, as the first person, we are under Adam’s headship - the first Adam, he is our head, we are his body as sinners. We are categorized under him - human sinners who can’t make ourselves right with God. And, as a result of sin, came death. But this passage says that a final Adam came, a better Adam. A better representative. Jesus took on flesh, like Adam had flesh, and He died (He was in the form of man that He could die for man) in our place (because He is God He is therefore perfect and His sacrifice is, as well) and now we are under a new Head as Christians. We are no longer under the sinner category. As Christians, we are under Christ. He is our Head and we are His body. His work of salvation trickles down to us. His one action represents us as Christians found in Him, just as Adam’s one action represents all sinners. See it?

Ok, so chapter 6. Chapters 6 and 7 start a train of thought about sin and our response to it now that we are saved. Paul had just written about how there are so many things that were done for us - justification, propitiation (meaning a sacrifice was made for our sin that satisfied the wrath of God against sin), that we are under new headship, that we have been given grace - on and on and on. It’s pretty amazing to take it all in! And now, Paul writes, “Ok knowing this, we have a totally different identity, we have a totally different position when it comes to sin, and we have a different mentality when it comes to sin, as well.” Let’s look at them all briefly. So Paul answers that previous question from chapter 3 here in verses 1-2: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can one who died to sin still live in it?” So some people were saying “Are you saying, Paul, that we can keep sinning and not care about, because God will just keep forgiving us. That’s amazing!” And, again, Paul is like, Absolutely not! That is like someone nowadays saying, “Oh well, God’s bound to forgive, fruit doesn’t matter.” And Paul is saying that way of thinking is totally incorrect. Not only does it show the person's heart, but it completely cheapens grace to think like that and it also clearly shows that the root of salvation is not present if that is the fruit that is coming out. Paul says that a Christian has a new identity. A Christian is no longer identifying as a sinner. And he’ll go into why in a moment. But, first thing first, this is why it is important that the word Christian be used. I know this word has been given a bad image by many people, but if you look at it rightly - as it was intended - it means that we are now in Christ, we are now under His headship. And this is important. When this title is removed from local church discussion it removes a bunch of theology with it. But the biggest thing that it removes is the idea that we are no longer seen as sinners and that fruit matters - but not in a works way, which we will see very soon.

Alright, so, we are seen as Christians now and not sinners because:

1) We have died to sin when Christ took upon Himself our sin on the cross (in a similar way as the sins of the people were laid on the lambs of atonement in Leviticus). Under His headship, it is like we died to those sins, as well. We are now free from the power of death, yes, but also from the power of sin. Look at these words: “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he also died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions…For sin will have no dominion over you…” (Romans 6:6-12, 14). Couple things here: we are not to continue being ok with sin as Christians because of two reasons: a) we have died to sin: “How can one who died to sin still live in it?” And b) we have a new Head and we will live in light of that Head. The body does not do different things than the brain. The branches do not grow different fruit than the vine that it is growing from and attached to. Bananas don't grow on grape vines. “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe we will also live with him.” We are found in Christ - how can we go forward not caring about sin or being ok with consistently sinning without remorse or conviction? It is antithetical to being in Christ. Someone who is in Christ will have the new desires and the new passions of the new life that we have been brought forth into. We will grieve sin and call sin out for what it is. We will not just be saying “Oh well, we’re all sinners [which we aren’t now identity-wise], we all make mistakes, sin isn’t a big deal, no one can say anything against me because God’s forgiven me so I can keep going on in what I’m doing.” Who does that sound like? The people that Paul is refuting! This is the interesting thing that I wanted to point out: small groups in local churches nowadays tend to say that they will be accountability groups. But the accountability is backwards. The focus is on helping each other not do the things that the people actually want to do - the sin. That’s why it’s so discouraging and people are so anxious because the people are saying, “oh, it’s so hard not to do those things.” Paul, in these next few chapters, doesn’t say this, especially, but he also clearly says that the sin won’t be the focus of a Christian’s sight - the new desires will be and, especially, the One who gave the new desires. From chapter 7 into chapter 8, he is saying, “Look, you’re never going to get rid of the sin in your life by your own doing. That’s like the people being like I can save myself. It’s not possible. You don’t have the power to do that.” That is coming at it as someone still in the flesh instead of someone now in the Spirit. This is the massive shift between chapter 7 and chapter 8: he says, you have the Spirit, Christian! Behold God! Look at what He’s done for you, look at what you haven’t done for yourself, and, you know what? He’s left you with a hope and a new desire and a new life and the power to live it!

2) We also have been delivered out from under the headship of sin. We have been transferred out from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of Light and we have a new King = Jesus. So, the section in chapter 6 from verses 15-23 speaks about how we have changed lordships: “But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed [to faith in the gospel] and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness…But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life” (Romans 6:17-18, 22). So one thing that you have to be mindful of when reading this passage is that the term “slave” in Greek does not mean what most of us think of when we think of the term slaves. This word can actually be translated more like servant, so it is best to consider this passage in light of a more feudal situation - like a King and his subjects. With that in mind you can read the passage with the previous chapter’s understanding of kingdoms. We were once in the kingdom of sin, under sin and Satan’s lordship, but now, being awakened by faith, we have transferred kingdoms. We have been set free from that horrible kingdom and are now subjects of the conquering King, having been brought out from that sin-led and Satan-led dominion to the Headship of Christ. We have been set free from sin and death and Satan by Jesus’ work on the cross and with that, we have come under the Headship of our Lord - He is our King and we are His subjects - and, unlike the old kingdom where lawlessness and death grew and ran rampant as fruit, the new kingdom under Christ brings with it sanctification and eternal life. Later in chapter 7, and into chapter 8, he will equate these two dominions by the titles “flesh” (sin) and Spirit. Keep an eye out for this. Because, it is said over and over again that a Christian is no longer in the “flesh” camp, but under the Spirit heading - therefore, no longer under the sinner title.

3) The next point that highlights how we are not identified as sinners is how Paul speaks of fruit. He will speak more about this in chapter 8, but it is relevant in this chapter too. Let’s look at these verses in chapter 8, though: “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on things of the Spirit…For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God…For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit are sons of God” (Romans 8:5, 7-8, 13-14). This topic comes up again and again in the book of Hebrews, as well. This idea of fruit. Paul is juxtaposing those who are still sinners and those who are saved and he paints a stark difference. Those who are saved will have different desires than those who are still sinners. Those who are saved will set their minds on a different focus, on different motivations. The flesh remains hostile to God and doesn’t want to be under His God-ness, while those who are saved have the Spirit living in them and delight in His Lordship. Only the people who have the Spirit are children of God. Notice that? And, like we’ve said above, that is because it is only through Christ’s work on the cross that we receive the Spirit in our lives and are seen through Christ, the Beloved Son. But then the above passage from chapter 8, and others in chapter 6 or 7, will say particular things like, “but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body” or “let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body.” Both of those statements do not mean what the churches are saying they mean. It is not something that you have to do. It is not up to you or else you will lose your salvation. That would negate what Paul said above about salvation being by faith alone, that it was given as a gift and not through a work of man. Do you see that? After all that Paul has been writing about how Christ has broken the power of sin and death and Satan, then he is apparently writing that you have to conquer sin in your own life as an addition to what Christ did? And look at the other verse: “if by the Spirit you put to death.” So we have to put to death the deeds of our body on our own in order to live? Wouldn’t that negate Christ’s work again? Didn’t He cause us to have life, which Paul just outlined in verses upon verses above? No, Paul writes it’s BY THE SPIRIT. What Paul writes here and elsewhere in the Bible is this: because Christ’s work is so certain, because it is so sure that His sacrifice was sufficient and His offering was enough, because it is so absolute that He is a sovereign God who worked and moved all of history to bring Christ to come and die for His people that they would know salvation in Him through the gracious gift of faith that HE gives, that His words do not go out and return to Him empty, BECAUSE OF THIS, Paul writes, those who have the root of salvation WILL DO THIS FRUIT. It’s not like, “Oh I just have to muster it up, I just have to pray for my breakthroughs because, if not, He won’t do things for me.” No, for a Christian the fruit will grow, the desires will change. We were saved to be sanctified, conformed to the image of His Son, as it says in chapter 8. He doesn’t love us as we are (thankfully!), He loves us enough to come despite how we were and die for us and change us. For a Christian, with the Spirit in them to guide and to teach and convict, the deeds of the body will be be put to death and sin will not reign in our mortal body because Christ broke that chain. There is a stark difference between a believer and an unbeliever in their stance before sin. It’s not like sin’s presence has gone away, but its power has through Christ’s work. Its presence, though, will be seen very differently. Sin will be grieved, we will be convicted at the small things before they even become big things, it will be pointing to the joy that God desires for us with different delights as we’re united with Him. It will be calling sin what it is, it will turning from the enjoyment of the wrongs. Repentance won’t be no response at all or responding only when caught or only when feeling pressured by people around you - it will be the understanding that it saddens your heart, it doesn’t point to rightness and this will lead to not wanting to do it anymore. Transformation will happen for the believer - it’s as certain as the root is certain. If someone doesn’t care about God being God or if they want to be like God or if they don’t care about sin or if they don’t want Him to be Lord or Sovereign because it keeps them from their pursuits, or on and on, you have to question the root’s presence. That’s why the Bible does say for people to discern or judge when it comes to who they should take counsel from. It’s not a small thing. It’s a wise thing.

So let’s go to our last chapter synopsis today - Chapter 7. This chapter starts by saying that not only are we set free from the power of sin and death and Satan through Christ’s work, we are set free from the Law as well. So hold up, we have to explain this one cause this has gotten misconstrued to the nth degree. Ok, so as sinners we were responsible for fulfilling this law, right? It was binding on us, as the passage says. For us to be right with God we had to do this Law. It was a Law that was external to us, written on tablets of stone. But to be made right with God that’s what we would be responsible to do. But because we didn’t like the Law pointing out sin and because we didn’t have the Spirit’s power in us, we didn’t want to do it AND we couldn’t do it on our own. (This is what actual man’s responsibility means - not the one that says that we have to accept Jesus as a work of our own doing.)

To prove his point about being set free from the law, Paul starts with this: the law is only binding on a person as long as he lives. He uses a picture of marriage to explain - in a marriage, you are in a covenant relationship with your spouse while they are alive but once they die, that law is ended. If you live with someone else, however, while that spouse is alive you will be committing adultery. So what Paul writes is this: We have died with Christ to newness of life and the law which held us captive by pointing out our sin has ended for us. It is in this way that we have been released from the human responsibility of fulfilling the Law. Does that mean that the Law goes away or that we should disregard the Law? No. Let me explain. We have died in Christ - in the one who completed it. So we are seen as fulfilling it. Do you see? We have been raised from the dead into a life that is not focused on how we can’t complete it on our own and how it’s all duty that we can’t do by our own power and instead we are found in Him who did it all and gave us the Spirit that we may bear the good fruit that comes in keeping with being in the One who did the Law and gave us the power to do it too - through Him. Positionally we are seen as fulfilling the Law. Our responsibility was complete because His perfect life was placed on us and so, with the Spirit at work in us and the Law written on our hearts through Him and His guidance, we become as we are already seen as being.

So part two of chapter 7 looks at this a bit more. This section actually needs more space, and I will probably have to post a separate blog about it, but let’s try to give a brief synopsis. This one needs your logic cap on, though, so hold tight. So what I will say to start, though, is that this passage is not “we’re in a turmoil, this struggle of saying that we can be Christians and carry on in sinning over and over. I want to do right but I just have to pick the right and that’s on me. Like a battle with the angel on one side and the devil on the other and I just have to keep choosing the angel.” Chapters 6, 7, and 8, which are all talking about the difference between a sinner and Christian, and all of the previous chapters in Romans talking about Christ’s work in salvation, refute this. Again, we are not saying that people are perfect or that the presence of sin doesn’t rear it’s ugly head at times for sure, but it cannot be that sin can carry on over and over in a Christian without caring (Chapter 6 shuts that down) and it doesn’t say that it’s up to us to make ourselves not sin as Christians for our salvation (Chapters 7 and 8 show this is untrue). So what is it actually saying. Let’s start at the very beginning of this section. Paul asks the question that he is being asked: is the Law sinful? And he emphatically says No! What he is putting forward in this section is this: The Law is not sinful even though, through the Law, we come to understand what is sinful. This hearkens back to chapter 5 right? The presence of sin in the world does not make God sinful - He doesn’t sin - much like Tolkien writing about the Orcs in Lord of the Rings. God shows the opposite of Himself through this. Same thing with the Law. God defined what sin was in the Law. He said this is wrong. And in so doing we could see what was not good. But the defining and showing of what is wrong doesn’t make the Law, which shows it, wrong. See my drift here? If God didn’t highlight or define sin, we wouldn’t be guilty, but He did define it and therefore we are guilty - but the Law isn’t guilty. It is good and right because it shows what is opposite of Him and what is of Him. The Law made these things explicit. Paul says that it pointed out our sin and, along with it, our condemnation. So what was brought into existence as something that could make us right with God (which ultimately it couldn’t) actually put a huge spotlight on the fact that we couldn’t because sin dwelled in us and so, therefore, showed that we were rightfully condemned because of our sin.

This passage is sandwiched between Paul writing “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 the old way of the written code [or by the letter]” (v. 6) and the beginning of chapter 8 which says these words: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on things of the Spirit” (Romans 8:1-5). We have to take this into consideration when we look at this passage and try to understand who Paul is talking about. We have just been told that we have been released from the Law and he also has just said that the righteous requirement of the Law has been fulfilled in us because of the perfect life of Christ. But you have this passage in between that says things like we are still under the captivity of the flesh. “Flesh” being the word used here for sin. “But I am of the flesh, sold under sin,” for instance. It’s like a dichotomy between the old way of the written code and the new way laid out in chapter 8. It’s like a progression from flesh to Spirit. This is the Law attempted to be fulfilled without the Spirit (chapter 7) and this is the Law being able to be fulfilled by the believer through the work of the Spirit (chapter 8).

Now, if you look, you will notice that all of that beginning paragraph (v.7-12) are all in the past tense. It’s almost as if he is talking as someone there at the time of the establishment of the Law, being like, “Let’s look at this back then when the Law came into view.” And he begins to explain this - how the Law pointed out sin and then the sin in us, the sin that we were enslaved to, was brought into even more abundance because it was like “oh, let’s do that” or it was like “we don’t want God to be Lord of our lives” or it just flat out showed that we were rightfully condemned because it highlighted we were sinners. It’s interesting the form of language Paul uses. The beginning paragraph is largely past tense, like I said before, and then these new paragraphs almost take the form of being back at that time and speaking as if he is there, with present talk speech. Kind of like if I were asked to explain why I decided on a particular move in a basketball game: I could start off by saying, “Yeah, that happened yesterday and it was a crazy game. But see, the play that I decided to go with in that game came from the vision of the court that I had. I’m there, right, and I don’t know how to react because I’m met with two options. If I go this way on the basketball court, that tall guy blocks my shot, but if I run to the left, my shot will bounce off the rim.” Notice how the speech changes in that sentence but it is all about a past event. We have just come out of the verse above, “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 the old way of the written code” (Romans 7:6) and it seems like the “old way” is the transition into this new discussion. Like Paul goes back to stand in that in- between state, that written code state, of a person given faith but without having the indwelling Spirit. The person saw it was good and it was from God, but then the sin that enslaved the individual perpetuates the sin (“So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me” v.17) because, as we saw, under enslavement to sin, or as sinners, none did good (“For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh” v.18). They see the law as good but do not have “the ability to carry it out” (v.18) because they are still in sin and separated from God. But then it says, “Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Christ Jesus our Lord!” (v.24-25). So, let’s look at this whole passage to understand it more. There are a couple points to make:

For one, because of what Paul has already been saying, and because of some of the terms in these three paragraphs, it seems more likely, like I have said previously, that this is “the old way” leading into the “new way” of chapter 8. Let’s parse this out a bit more. That verse that I just wrote “Who will deliver me from this body of death?”, Paul has just been saying in chapter 6 that we have already been delivered from death. He talks about how we have already been transferred from under the headship of sin, so the verses that speak about still being enslaved to it, like Romans 7:17 (“but sin that dwells in me”) or Romans 7:14 (“I am of the flesh, sold under sin”) don’t line up with what was spoken about earlier in chapter 6: “For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (v. 10-11) or “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin” (v. 6). Sin is still present, yes, and we still die physically, but the power of both have been broken for the believer just as these verses clearly show. Furthermore, a believer is no longer separated from God and therefore is not without the ability to do the Law that is delighted in. Look at Chapter 7:4-6: “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. 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. 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 the old way of the written code.” Or look at chapter 8:2-4: Paul writes that we have been set free “in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Finally, verse 23 of chapter 7 (“but I see in my members another law waging war against the law in my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members”) seems unlikely to be speaking about present believers since Paul has just written “For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace” in chapter 6, verse 14. Indeed, verse 14 is the foundation for why what is talked about in verses 12 and 13 won’t happen in a believer (“Let no sin therefore reign in your mortal body” or “Do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness”). Why? Through Christ’s power we will be changed and transformed, having been brought to newness of life (as chapter 8 will talk about) we now have the ability to do what is right through the Spirit at work in us. It will happen because God’s plan and Christ’s work are sure.

All in all, though, let’s look at two general takeaways from this chapter:

1)Backsliding is not a biblical thing. A person cannot go years and years without caring about sin if they are a believer. Paul will build on this in chapter 8, but he starts the conversation here.

2)A human being cannot will ourselves to make ourselves right with God or to do right things apart from the Holy Spirit. Only those who are guided by the Spirit do things in keeping with the Vine. But let me say it another way. If you have the Spirit, then Christ has saved you, not by your own doing, and He has given you the ability to do the right things BY HIS POWER. If we say that “we just have to do this, we have to make this happen, we have to get ourselves right with God and His plan” it makes it a work of man. It is a Jesus and that points to merit instead of grace. Paul writes elsewhere in Galatians that if you carry on with the Law, you have to take the Law to its full extent in your life then. If you still keep thinking that you have to do that in your own willpower then you are still looking at it pre-Christ, pre-indwelling Spirit (which includes the time of the Gospels before Christ’s death and ascension), and you won’t have the ability to carry it out. It is only in the Spirit that it will happen, not of your own work, but by the saving work of the One who fulfilled the Law.