Romans 7, understanding Romans 7:7-25 from chapter 6:16-23

it cannot be about Paul because of the wording. Paul says in other passages how he kept the law while under it. He is not now battling sin while under grace.

 

You may be very correct about "too absolute." But that was my point. Paul's pre-conversion self was a Pharisee who sought to please God with incorrect methods. And in that way, they do not seek to please God--the method prescribed by God through the cross.

 

But I'm not trying to argue that Paul was speaking to a Jewish audience in this case. My point is that the context before vv. 14ff. were about the Law. Thus Paul's preconversion self would be centered around the Law as a Pharisee. I think with that in mind, it makes perfect sense that he wanted to do good (the law was just called "good") yet was unable. We know that he could not completely keep the Law. It just seems way to difficult to leap through the hoops to say these words are about a saved person. Occom's razor would tell us that the interpretation that is the least difficult is to be preferred. In this case, it seems obvious to me that the unregenerate man is the clear winner. Too many hard statements to square with a saved person.

 

STill to be continued or are you finished?

 

Quite an abritrary approach. However, what you are suggesting actually contradicts Romans 7:14-25 as it is found in the present tense instead of the past tense. What you say may be true of Romans 7:6-13 but not Romans 7:14-25.

In my experience in dealing with this issue, those who insist that Romans 7:14-25 refers to Paul in his lost state base this claim primarily on verse 14 where he says:

For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.

However, it would seem that Paul is merely referring to his temporal unglorified condition or state of existence as a child of God in regard to the continuing principle of death still at work in his body in connection with indwelling sin that will not be removed until Jesus comes and we are delivered from the indwelling death principle at His coming (Rom. 7:24).

I say this because Paul clarifies himself in verses 17-18 where he restricts this problem to what he calls "the flesh" in contradistinction to himself or "in me."

Furthermore, this indwelling sin problem or law characterzing his "flesh" is described as a continuing problem until a yet future deliverance by Christ (v. 24). At the second coming the present body of death will be transformed so that the death principle no longer characterizes it.

Also, in speaking to the Galatians he summarizes the very same problem that presently characterizes those who profess to be Christians:

Gal. 5:17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

The same present tense is found here as well as the same solution to this problem - walk in the Spirit (Gal. 5:16,18,25; Rom. 8:1-27).

Finally, what true Christian is not involved in this internal struggle on a daily basis?? What true Christian is not involved in a daily war for the mind (2 Cor. 10:5)??

No lost person has an "inward man" that delights in the law of God but rather their inclination is to be at "enmity with God and not subject to the law of God and neither indeed CAN BE" (Rom. 8:7).

However, saved person can walk "after the flesh" just as much as they an "walk in the Spirit" and sin in their lives proves this (1 Jn. 1:8-10).

 

Both are incorrect. No Christian can walk after the flesh. To walk after the flesh is to be lost.
Romans 8:1 [There is] therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Gal 5:24 And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

Those who Paul was speaking to were those who knew the law, probably Jews, who knew about Christ and had come into the church but were trying to keep the law in their own strength. Thus the war. Paul is trying to set them free from the trappings of the law to walk in the spirit.

 

Is there not a distinction between being "in" the flesh or Spirit:


8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

Versus to "walk after" the flesh or Spirit:

Rom. 7:25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
1 ¶ There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

It would seem that those "in Christ Jesus" are able to walk "after" both the flesh and the Spirit just as Romans 7:25b states it is possible for the same person to serve the law of sin by the flesh and serve the the law of God by the mind. The "condemnation" would seem to refer to what he just previously described in verses 15-21.

Why call upon saved people to "walk in the Spirit" if they could do nothing but that? Why suggest to saved people they are unable to do what they "would" in Galatians 5:17 if Romans 7:14-25 is not an accurate condition of the unglorified saint?

It would appear to me that "in" describes their spiritual status of lost or saved (Rom. 8:8-9) but "walking after" refers to their current manifest life as determined by what they are currently submitting unto (indwelling sin versus indwelling Spirit). For example, does your current life always manifest being led by the Spirit??? Does the Spirit lead you to sin? Don't you ever sin?

 

To walk is present tense continual action. No child of God is in the flesh. To be in the flesh is enmity with God and no child of God is at enmity. To be in the flesh is condemnation and no child of God is under condemnation.

The Gal passage you mentioned 5:17 is speaking to those who were teaching law instead of grace. He is telling them that if you get saved by the spirit walk by the spirit, not the flesh. The flesh and the spirit are contrary one to the other.
Paul is not saying in Romans he was losing the battle with sin. He is trying to get those who were trying to walk in the flesh to come all the way to Christ.
Paul is speaking to those who knew,the law, verse 1, and trying to show them that Christ has freed them from the law.

 

Apart from the various views, this portion seems to say that there is a dual nature to those who are "brethren" and a choice to live after:

Romans 7

11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.
13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify (present indicative) the deeds of the body, ye shall live.​

HankD​

 

No, not at all. It is a comparison of two different people, One is of the flesh and one of the spirit. One is of Christ and one is not. Each has a debt to pay and it is levied by what we are associated wiht. The Spirit unto life (eternal life) or the flesh unto death (eternal damnation).
No person has a dual nature. The lost cannot have the nature of the saved and the saved cannot have the nature of the lost. It is one or the other, not both. That is the point.

 

You mix "in" with "walk"! The first deal with your spiritual state - lost or saved (vv. 8-9). The latter deals with your present experiential living determined by leadership (vv. 12-14).

The child of God that walks after the flesh shall die. However, all humans "shall die" sooner or later. He is not talking about physical death but experiential death while walking after the flesh or while under the leadership of indwelling sin. In reverse if we walk after the Spirit or under the leadership of the Spirit, then we experience life presently.

As long as you live, indwelling death/sin/corruption, will always be at enmity to God. Whenever you choose to sin, that portion of your life is at enmity with God. The lost person is "in" that state completely but the child of God only experiences it whenever they "walk after" or follow the leadership of indwelling sin.

The immediate context beginning with verse 1 shows he is addressing saved persons not lost persons. He is not addressing the Judiazers nor is the letter addressed to the Judiazers.

 

No child of God is at enmity with God. No child of God walks in the flesh, no child of God is warned of death. The passages are speaking of those who know the law and have not come all the way to Christ. They are still trying to walk in the flesh and so they experience what happens to those who are not set free. Paul is seeking to tell them who sets men free.

 

So are you going to say no child of God sins? No child of God can continue in sin for a moment, hour, day, week, year? What about David? What about Abraham? What about Lot? Did not David continue unconfessed in his sin until he was confronted by Nathan? Did he not "walk after the flesh" during that period of time?

You come back with these absolutes but you do not respond to the scriptures I gave. Is it not true that all human beings "shall die"? Hence, the words "shall die" in Romans 12-14 must refer to something else. It would seem it is placed in contradistinction to "mortify the deeds of the flesh." In other works either one is experiencing death by walking after the flesh or else one is putting to death the deeds of the flesh.

Is not "death" separation from God and does not sin separate you from God, thus if one is currently "walking after the flesh" are they not EXPERIENCING separation from God as long as they walk "after the flesh"?

 

Why do you add to what is said? Yes a child of God can sin, but they cannot practice sin. Sin will not be a way of life. 1John 3 Also you cannot point to the OT saints as they did not have the indwelling Spirit as we do as the Spirit had not been given yet according to Jesus.
When the scriptures speak of death ion those passages they are speaking of eternal death (hell).
No believer can ever be separated from God. Jesus said he would never leave us or forsake us.
The passages in Romans 7 are not dealing with the saved. They are dealing with those who knew the law, knew about Christ and was interested, but had not come all the way to Christ. They were trying to satisfy the law by living in the flesh and were experiencing a battle.

 

I have to disagree on the basis that even you admit you sometimes sin.
This thing called living in sin is what we all do if we are honest. If we sin it is always the same sins over and over. It being habitual is what makes Chapter 7 the battle we all go through for the rest of our lives because it isn't natural for man's flesh not to sin.

Flesh is still natural. Our flesh is not regenerated. Sin still lives with in our flesh which is why Paul trained him self. We have to train our flesh to run the race so to speak.
I've never met anyone who could live long with out commiting some kind of sin.It's why we have an advocate named Jesus Christ proclaiming our innocents because we wear His righteousness.
MB

 

Christians can and often do terrible things. We are given the example of the Church at Corinth where some "slept".

Having an unworthy walk and then coming to the Lord's table even "drunken".

1 Corinthians 11

30 For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.
31 For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.
32 But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.​

Also in the Church at Thyatira the servants of God were committing fornication.

To what do you attribute the source of these sins FAL if not the flesh which had not yet been mortified?

James 1

14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.​

It would seem that if there were no flesh nature but only a spiritual nature after being born again then it would be impossible for a child of God to sin at all which some in christendom have believed and taught.

Even these groups make room for repentance after such sins but yet are at a loss to explain how a regenerated being with only a spiritual nature has the ability to sin.

Obviously I disagree.

Thanks
HankD​

 

Amen Hank that is why we know the person fighting this battle is saved.
MB