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.
Romans 7, understanding Romans 7:7-25 from chapter 6:16-23
Discussion in 'Baptist Theology & Bible Study' started by Romans7man, Nov 5, 2011.
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I have read everyone's post up to now and see some good points, none I haven't heard before, but I see at least you have studied on this before.
Romans 6:16; Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
Here Paul makes a statement of logic that anyone could relate to, just as he does in 7:1.
Here Paul is beginning to reiterate his main points he started in chapter 1. In chapters 1:18-3:20 Paul begins showing us how man has gotten in the mess he has. In these chapters we see man making one choice after another. The first wrong choice is 1:21;Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Our first mistake is when we think we don't need God and we can do just fine without Him. When we know God or know of God and do not glorify Him for who He is and then add insult to injury by not even being thankful for all He has done for us we have broken even our own standard of conduct. Here in the south it is basic understanding that we thank folks for even the smallest of things, such as when someone opens the door or holds the door for even a stranger, but then we don't give thanks to God for all He has done for us? I'm not saying it is a sin to do those things for our fellow man, but when a man will thank another man for things such as this, but then we don't do it for our creator, I would say we have our priorities upside down.
When we turn away from God and are not thankful, where else can a man go but into sin?
Paul goes through a list of things that anyone, well, most anyone, would be in agreement that those that do such things are indeed worthy of death. Paul does this to cause one to judge and condemn others, but then he turns the table on them and says in 2:1;Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things.
Paul reminds us that God's judgement is according to thruth, whereas ours may be biased.
He then tells us in 2:6-11 basically what he has told us in 6:16. It is how one lives their life that determines whether or not they are servants of righteousness or servants of sin. Depending on which one determines life or death.
Romans 6:17;But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.
Here Paul picks up where he did in 3:21 saying "But now" leading up to what has saved us, faith in Jesus Christ.
Paul makes a contrast between our old lost condition brought on by our works to our new relationship with God. He gives thanks to God that sin is not our master any longer, but that we have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine that saved us. That form of doctrine that we believed from the heart and delivered us is faith. When you go back and read 3:21-4:25 we see faith is what God has been trying to get man to come to. So go back and read 3:21-4:25 and 5:1 and 2. Paul picks this up again in 9:30. So read 9:30 through the end of chapter 10.
Romans 6:18;Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.
Again Paul tells us we are free from sin. We are free from sin because we have been justified by faith, Romans 5:1. We are not servants of sin, but servants of righteousness. Romans 5:21;That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.
to be continued.......... -
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The Biblicist Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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). -
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. -
The Biblicist Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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? -
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.
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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 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. -
The Biblicist Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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.
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. -
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The Biblicist Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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. -
The Biblicist Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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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 -
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 -
MB
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