OK so we know that the summer is almost over. Next week will be Labor Day and after that everyone will be back in school. You probably noticed that the weather has already started to change. We still have a lot of nice summery weather ahead of us, but winter’s coming.
You may or may not know I am a hockey fan and I used to subscribe to what’s called the Center Ice package where I could watch almost all of the NHL games on any given day. The way that works is that you get to watch TV from different parts of the country and from Canada. I remember one time watching an ad for hockey on a Canadian TV station and it showed a wintery scene and the announcer voiced over, “The bad news is, summer’s over, winter’s coming. The good news is, winter’s coming, hockey’s started.”
So that’s kind of where we are now. Summer’s almost over. I love summer. But time marches on. But Christmas is coming. That’s something to look forward to. I went through a time in my life when I wasn’t keen on Christmas because I think what our culture has done with it is an abomination. But in the last few years I have learned to appreciate the value of it. I can avoid the excesses of our materialistic culture and appreciate the beauty of what Christmas represents. I can also listen to my favorite Christmas CD “Christmas With Weezer”!
This is all appropriate because this week we’re going to look at a part of Paul’s letter to the Romans that describes as being in that kind of situation. Christmas is coming. We know it’s coming. But it’s not here yet. We have to wait. But if you love Christmas (some people really love Christmas, there is this sweet anticipation. We can’t wait. There’s a lot of excitement. That’s where today’s reading leaves us. It won’t seem so at first, but by the time we’re done I think you’ll get it.
What I’m going to do with today’s scripture is I’m going to start with Paul’s cry of anguish and triumphant proclamation of victory, then spending some time talking about what we have gained victory over, and how.
So let’s look at the scripture.
What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. (Romans 7:24-25 NIV)
The Man of Chapter 7
Well you’re probably thinking you’re in for it if I start of the scripture reading with something about wretchedness. And what has this got to do with Christmas anyway? Here we go with the whole sin thing, again. But trust me this really is good news, even though it might not look like it on the surface.
What does Paul mean and who is he writing about when he proclaims “What a wretched man I am!”? Is he writing about himself? That doesn’t seem right. Paul is an apostle. He’s a holy man. He’s seen Jesus in his glorified state. He goes around telling other people about freedom in Christ. He’s told us, just a few paragraphs before this writing, that we can’t live in sin; that we have become slaves to righteousness. So why is he so miserable? And is this even about him?
First off, let’s see if we can figure out why he’s so dejected. In the verses previous to the ones we read we can see that Paul describes being stuck in a dilemma. The dilemma is that the person being described wants to be good, to be righteous, to be holy, but continues to sin anyway. Let’s read it.
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 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. u For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but 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: Although 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 me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. (Romans 7:14-23)
Ouch! This doesn’t sound very happy at all. Here we see a person engaged in a real struggle. A life and death struggle, we might say. Because we see a war being waged between the spiritual life and the unspiritual life. As we will see as we go further on in Paul’s letter, the struggle is between what he calls the Spirit and the flesh. And the outcome of the struggle determines whether we will live in misery and defeat or whether we will live the life of God.
But I think, given all of the things that we’ve heard from Paul, it’s fair to ask whether he’s talking about himself or someone else in this part of the letter. And let me tell you that we’re not the only ones who wonder this. There has been a debate among Christian scholars dating all the way back to the earliest times about this very question.
The question, “who is this man?” can generally be answered in one of three ways. The first way is that Paul is referring to himself before he became a Christian. The second view is that Paul is referring to someone who is a Christian but is immature, the so-called “carnal Christian.” The third idea is that Paul is referring to himself in the present as a mature Christian.
Now you may be wondering why you should even care about this. It all sounds like a bunch of religious hair-splitting and Christians are always arguing about everything anyway. But there is at least one good reason why we should consider these arguments. By understanding the debates about various scriptures in the light of differing doctrines, we can come to understand who we really are as Christians. We can come to understand better what we believe and why. And in the end, this will make our lives as Christians less anxious and more fruitful. So let’s think about each of these ideas in turn.
The first idea suggests that Paul is writing about the unbeliever, the one who has not been regenerated into new life in the Spirit. The one who has not been “born again.” At first glance that seems right. Paul writes “I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.” (Ro. 7:14) And he explained very well, we might think better than necessary, that before we were redeemed by Jesus’ atoning sacrifice on the cross we were slaves to sin.
But let’s think about some other things that he writes here. He writes, “I agree that the law is good,” (Ro. 7:16 NIV), “I have the desire to do what is good,” (Ro. 7:18 NIV), “I want to do good,” (Ro. 7:21 NIV), “I delight in God’s law,” (Ro. 7:22 NIV). If what we’ve learned from Paul (and from our experience) up to now is true, this can’t describe the man who is not “in Christ.” Because the unbeliever, the unregenerate man, hates the law, and could care less about doing good. One of the things we know for certain is that it is our sanctification that makes us conscious of sin. I think, really, it is the indwelling Spirit, which we didn’t have before we were reborn. Consider this quote by C.S. Lewis:
What Lewis is saying, and what we will realize if we ponder our own experience, is that before we were born again we did not know we were sinners. Try this out on your unbelieving friends. If you tell them they are sinners, they will at best think the idea ridiculous. At worst they will be offended. If Paul is so concerned about his sinful nature, these verses can’t describe him before he was a Christian.
The second idea is that Paul is referring to the man who has been born again but is still trapped in sin. This imagines that when people are converted to Christ they go through a phase of spiritual immaturity, but at some point they pass from that state into a state of maturity where they no longer struggle with sin.
Again, it seems like there might be some justification for this view. Paul does write on a number of occasions, especially when he is rebuking immorality in the various churches, about being “spiritual infants.” But of course the problem with this is that it presumes at least a “three stage” process of sanctification: unregenerated -> immature Christian -> mature Christian. This is not in keeping with Paul’s doctrine that we have already considered even in the letter to the Romans, the doctrine we refer to as the “Doctrine of the Two Ways.” If you were here the last couple of weeks you will recall I pointed out where Paul’s theology hinges on it.
This doctrine essentially puts forward the notion that everything has to be considered in the context of two opposing realities. One is the reality of God’s perfect love, and the other is the reality of man’s rebellion. God and Satan, Light and dark, Good and Evil, Life and Death, Spirit and Flesh, Redemption and Sin, Christ and Adam; we are all familiar with these great opposing realities. And, according to the New Testament writers, we are all in one or the other of these realms, but never outside or in between. We see this everywhere in Paul’s writings. Can we seriously imagine that he would now, at the end of Chapter 7 of Romans, deviate from this fundamental doctrine and propose three stages of salvation? I don’t think so.
So final we are left with the third alternative, that Paul is writing about himself now. That he is writing about the mature Christian. At first glance this seems like the least acceptable and least likely choice, particularly because of what we have been looking at for the last two weeks, that Jesus Christ has liberated us from sin. If we are liberated from sin, how can we still be slaves to sin, as Paul states here in verse 25?
But if we think about it logically, we will see that this idea is foreign neither to Paul’s theology nor to the overall worldview of the New Testament.
The first thing we must recall is that a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that Paul’s argument had moved beyond the topic of “justification,” the process of being declared “not guilty” because of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, to “sanctification,” which we said was becoming more and more Christ-like. The fact that we are expected to make progress at something indicates that there is a process involved. And if there is a process, we cannot suppose that we will flip a switch which will instantly turn unregenerate sinners into glorified saints in the practical sense.
One thing about sanctification is that it leads to glorification, but we never achieve it in this lifetime. Or at least I am not aware of any human being who has ever achieved the glorified state while still in mortal life. Not even Jesus. Another thing about sanctification is that, as CS Lewis commented in the quote I read a moment ago, the more Christ-like we become, the more we realize how sinful we are.
Further, we will recall that the New Testament age we live in now has been described as the age of “the already and the not yet.” The background for this idea is the Old Testament expectation of the “Day of the Lord.” The Day of the Lord is a day when God will intervene in the affairs of earth in order to bring about justice and vindication. All wrongs will be made right, all trespasses accounted for, and the earth restored to the unfallen state. Everyone in Israel expected it to happen sometime. Nobody knew when. The Jews are still waiting for it. You can find the Day of the Lord throughout Old Testament prophecy. One place that paints a particularly compelling picture is in Isaiah Chapter 61 where we find this prophecy:
61 The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the Lord
for the display of his splendor. (Is. 61:1-3)
Jesus declared that this prophecy was fulfilled by his coming (Lk. 4:18-19). Because of that the contemporaries of Jesus were convinced that the resurrection of Jesus marked the beginning of the Day of the Lord. And we still believe that. But the first Christians had the idea that everything was going to happen immediately, like maybe by next Tuesday. The fact that it is called the “Day” of the Lord led most people to believe that it would be a sudden and decisive event. Even Paul probably believed that, as indicated in some of his earlier writings. But it didn’t happen immediately. The early Christians learned that when God says a day, we don’t know what he means. The apostle Peter writes:
8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Pet. 3:8-9 NIV).
So within the first couple of generations of Christianity we see this idea develop that the Day of the Lord has started, but that it is not complete. Thus we inherit the descriptive phrase “the already and the not yet.” The Day of the Lord has already come with the resurrection of Jesus, but it is not yet fulfilled, meaning that the restoration of all things has yet to occur.
As Christians, because we are intimately tied to the Day of the Lord by our identification with the risen Christ, we too ought to expect that we are living in a time of already and not yet. And this, I think, is how we see Paul describing himself. He has already and forever been completely saved by the atoning sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus, but he is not yet glorified. So the bottom line here is that Paul is using his own experience to show that even though we are saved we can expect to struggle with sin on a daily basis for the rest of our lives.
I. Deliverance from Sin
That’s not a very happy prospect is it? This sounds like another one of those bait and switch things: “Hooray! You’re free in Christ! Now get ready to suffer…” Where do we find “Good News” in this?
In one sense I think we ought to be grateful to Paul for being so honest and open with us. The reason why is we tend to compare ourselves unfavorably with others. Paul could very easily have let everyone think that he was some kind of holier-than-thou who didn’t have to struggle with sin. I think we all want to do that, we don’t want anyone to know that we struggle. But we all do. And we look at other peoples’ façade of sinlessness and compare it with our own inner knowledge of failure and conclude that we don’t measure up. So I think that when we look at Paul and consider how hard he worked and how close he was to the Lord and yet he still struggled with sin, it gives us hope that we are not as bad as we make ourselves out to be. If Paul did all that and was still a sinner, maybe there’s hope for me. And in this, I think that he sets an example for us. I think we should be forthcoming with each other about our failures. That is the only way to really be free.
The most important point here though is that Paul answers his own question asked in agony: “who will deliver me from this body of sin?” Who? “Thanks be to God!” Paul writes, “who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25 NIV). Though we still struggle, the victory has already been won.
If Jesus has set me free from sin, what does that mean? Let me propose that Jesus has delivered us from sin in three ways: deliverance from sin’s penalty, deliverance from sin’s power, and ultimately deliverance from sin’s presence.
The first one, deliverance from sin’s penalty, is probably the one we have the best understanding of, at least intellectually. We know that before Jesus we were lost, living in sin, not even knowing we were living in sin, and that the wages of that sin was death. What we meant by death wasn’t necessarily physical death, but the wrath of God, which was that he looked away from us and left us in our depravity. When Jesus died on the cross, he took that penalty. He cried from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt. 27:46 ESV). And he died. And so the penalty for our sins, past present and future, was paid.
Last week we read the scripture “23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23 NIV). This scripture assures us that those who continue in sin are bound to die, as we just said when we were talking about the penalty of sin. Our understanding of what Paul has been telling the Romans is that we have been freed from slavery to sin by becoming slaves to righteousness. Because we have the Spirit dwelling within us, we are not able to continue in sin. We do sin, but we can’t live in sin. So because of that we have been delivered from the power of sin. Paul writes to the Corinthian Church:
“Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” (1 Cor. 15:54-57 NIV)
The power of sin is broken by the power of the cross.
Finally, we will eventually be freed from sin’s presence. We do not see it yet, but it is coming. It is on God’s calendar. It is inevitable. There will come a day when there will be no more sin, no more crying, no more tragedy, no more suffering, no more struggle. This ought to shape our outlook on life with anxious and joyful anticipation. It’s like looking forward to Christmas. You know it’s coming. And it’s going to be great. But it’s not here yet. Our liberation has already been accomplished. Christmas is on the calendar, but it is not yet fully realized.
There is a contemporary Christian song by a band named Tree63 that observes “It’s Friday but Sunday is coming.” Of course this brings to mind Crucifixion Friday and Resurrection Sunday. In some ways we can consider ourselves to be in that in-between place between Friday and Sunday. It’s not a perfect analogy because we are not in the grave. We are alive, risen with Christ. We’re not yet glorified, but we will be. He who promises is true, and the promise is real. Sunday’s coming. The victory is certain.
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. (Rev. 22:20)
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