Paul is definitely grasping in this passage. The question is, “Is Paul grasping in his own personal experience or is he portraying the grasping within an anticipated argument that will likely come from those to whom he is speaking (those who understood the law)?” As a completed Jew is Paul trying to become all things to all men (in his reasoning) and relate transformational grace to incomplete Jews, those who are yet to fully walk in newness of life? After all, as a Jew, now complete in Christ, he knows precisely what the challenges are of embracing a new covenant with its scandalous gift-provisions.
The NAS translates vs 14 as, “For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.” The Message paraphrases this verse as; “I can anticipate the response that is coming: ‘I know that all God’s commands are spiritual, but I’m not (spiritual). Isn’t this also your experience?’ Yes. I’m full of myself—after all, I’ve spent a long time in sin’s prison.”
To some it might seem I’m splitting theological hairs. I don’t think so since the given interpretation of this verse creates a pretty large divide. To many in the Body of Christ, Paul’s grasping is a perfect representation of their experience as Christians, therefore confirming a theology that could lead subtly to a victimhood mentality.
For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. (NAS)
What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary.(MSG)
What if Paul is simply portraying an anticipated, unredeemed Jewish track of logic for the sake of highlighting the liberty he has come to know as a new creation?
Earlier in this chapter Paul is stating a fact; “For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.” I could see Paul’s apparent grasping, defeatist, bearing-fruit-for-death perspective arising from this old position of enslavement. Yet, while this was true, it is no longer true.
But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.
This is why Paul can now say that we have been freed from the Law of sin and death which naturally produces bad fruit such as the twisted logic he portrays as naturally coming from the mind of the flesh, which, armed with religious ideas is void of any transformational experience. Does the following sound like the Paul we know from the balance of his teachings as one who has been raised to newness of resurrection life. Listen to the spirit of the following words from the Message….
But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.
It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope.
REALLY!?
Paul knew the Jews concurred with the Law of God even in their inner man. He himself described this as serving the law of God in his mind. He also knew as well as anyone that just knowing truth does not in itself produce liberty.
As I read Romans 6-8 and the rest of Paul’s writings, Romans 7:14-24 does not fit at all well. How can we reconcile Paul’s lamentable condition here with a fuller council of truth which includes the following verses?
Romans 6 as a whole. Sadly, this chapter is most famous as the place where we find 6:23 a verse that too frequently highlights salvation in the hereafter-life-only sense when the entire balance of the chapter relates to the spiritual underpinnings of salvation in its fuller transformational dimension. It is entirely positive and hopeful in its forecast of man’s liberty and totally out of sink with Paul’s dumpster dive into personal depravity.
In this address to Jews Paul says that he knows that there is nothing good that dwells in him and that the principle of evil and sin are within him . REALLY!? How then, with a straight face, could he tell the Corinthians that they were new creations in whom the old things have been replaced by new ones? How did he say that it was Christ in them that was the hope of glory? Surely Christ is a good something making his nothing good comment nonsensical!
Paul says he is of the flesh while the law is spiritual. This is Paul’s final view of himself? REALLY!? In the very next chapter Paul says…
If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
No. I believe Paul’s message is that we are not doomed to inner futility rather we are redeemed and given hearts that not only concur with the law of God in the inner man but, in Christ, have the consummation of the law within us and therefore the capacity to comply with it. This reality manifests in a life altogether contrasting to Paul’s comments in Romans 7:14-24. From experience and interpretation I believe that Paul’s overarching message is freedom from the grasping cycle of futility and failure described in todays passage.
For those of us in Christ it is true that…
We have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.
Many who believe Paul lived his entire life with duplicitous motives and a roller coaster spirituality will be alarmed for my spiritual welfare since pride (such as my mine) will precede a fall. To be honest I fell much more frequently when I believed my heart was a Jeremiah 17:9-level, incurably sick heart that was, for the most part, beyond hope. While I perceived that the deepest truth about me was my depraved heart my life consisted of one doomed sin-management project after another. I reasoned like this; How could I expect more if Paul himself so frequently stumbled? How could I succeed if the principle of evil ruled from within? Now this, I will testify, leads to futility.
I fear this is the root to a theology that projects from its own experience that at best we can expect mediocrity for the Church – mostly setbacks for God’s kingdom with any gains going to the kingdom of darkness. This leads ultimately to a divinely organized retreat and regroup -theology centered around a Rapture. It reasons; We best get evacuated out of here so we can get new bodies and finally overcome sin because we certainly can’t do it with hearts that are prisoners of the law of sin ruling in our members.
It all boils down to our identities. Who do we perceive ourselves to be at the deepest levels of who we are. When we look down into the foundation do we see flawed and fallen beings dominated by their flesh, doomed to a loosing battle with sin? Or, do we see those who
have been called and equipped to reign in life through Christ; who have received the Spirit of adoption as sons and daughters which cry out Abba! Father! If we have not yet had this foundational revelation of God as our Papa, it should truly become the priority of our existence.
I really don’t believe that Paul lived his life grasping for something more. I believe Christ was his sufficiency and that he was utterly contended with Jesus as his inheritance. I don’t believe that after meeting Jesus Christ as he had that Paul thought something had gone wrong deep within him. I don;t believe Paul vacillated in doing good or being indecisive. I don’t believe Paul was bullied around by sin reigning from within him or that he lived feeling he was at the end of his rope. This gentile believes Paul, being in awe at the heights and the depths of God’s love was trying to cast down an imagination that, from his own Jewish countrymen, would attempt to exalt itself above the true knowledge of God.
Father, help us to see where we have not yet come to rest in the complete provision of your Son as our identity. Persevere with us until we see ourselves in Christ and see Him in us. May our hearts comprehend that you have given us new hearts that have been called, destined and redeemed for glorious outcomes in both this life and the next. Help us to see that what we have thought of as the next life has already begun in your kingdom which even now indwells us in Christ.
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