Grasping – Romans 7:14-25

What is Paul trying to grasp in our passage?  Is he grasping for life inside his own personal experience or is he portraying the grasping within an anticipated argument which will certainly come from his audience – Jews, who understood the law? I am proposing that Paul, as a converted Jew, is trying to become all things to all men (in his reasoning) to his Jewish audience.  After all, as a Jew, now complete in Christ, he knows precisely what the challenges are of embracing the New Covenant.

I can anticipate the response that is coming: ‘I know that all God’s commands are spiritual, but I’m not (spiritual)….. Roman 7:14 (Message)

To many Christians, Paul’s supposed confession of futility perfectly represents their own experience with sin, therefore it confirms for them a theology which leads to victimhood and fatalism. This misses the message of Paul’s life.  We need to rescue this passage by interpreting it in the context of Paul’s life.

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)

I believe Paul is simply portraying an anticipated, yet-to-be-redeemed, track of Jewish logic for the sake of highlighting the liberty he has come to know as a new creation.

Earlier in this chapter Paul states 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 portrayal of spirituality arising from his older position of enslavement. Yet, while this was true, it is no longer true. Because…

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 produces the twisted logic of the flesh. 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. He himself described this as serving the law of God in his mind. He also knew, as well as anyone, that just knowing about truth does not in itself produce liberty.

As I read Romans 6-8 and the rest of Paul’s writings, a futility-laced interpretation of Romans 7:14-24 does not fit as a description of Paul’s inner life. How can we reconcile Paul’s lamentable condition here with the fuller council of truth which includes Romans 6? Sadly, this chapter is most famous as the place where we find verse 23; the verse, which to many, highlights salvation in the hereafter-sense while the entire balance of the chapter relates to salvation in its fuller here and now-sense. The whole of Romans 6 is abundantly hopeful in its forecast of man’s liberty. Paul’s life is totally out of sink with Romans 7 as a perceived dumpster dive into personal depravity.

In his address to the Jews, Paul says he knows 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 they were new creations in whom the old things have been replaced by new things? How could he possibly teach that Christ was in them and was now their hope of glory? Surely Christ is a among the good-things that had come, making a nothing-good comment nonsensical!

Paul says he is of the flesh while the law is spiritual.

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.

I don’t believe Paul teaches we are doomed to inner futility. Rather, he teaches we are given new hearts which not only concur with the law of God in the inner man, but, in Christ, we know the consummation of that law within us. We are not doomed to failure. We have the capacity, in Christ, to live as free men. This reality manifests itself in Paul’s life which is altogether contrasting to any futilistic interpretations of Romans 7:14-24.  I believe Paul’s overarching message is freedom from cycles of futility, which many, for conscience sake, gladly read into this passage.

I believe many of us, in our fatalistic interpretation of this passage, believe we have found legitimate relief for our troubled consciences which Paul never meant to offer. Does the Spirit really intend we find some misery-loves-company kind of salve that says, “Thank God Paul is messed up too!” This perspective leads to a view of grace which radically undershoots Paul’s intentions. The woe-is me view of ourselves causes us to think of grace more as a get-out-of-jail-free card for those frequently in trouble as opposed to the equipping- overcoming reality grace is to be for a people called to progressive freedom.

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.

My experience has been that I fell into sin more frequently when I believed my heart was incurably sick and, for the most part, beyond hope. While I perceived the deepest truth about me was my depravity my life consisted of one sin-management project after another. My reasoning went like this, “How could I expect more if Paul himself so frequently stumbled? How could I succeed if the principle of evil is ruling me from within?” This line of thinking, I can report, truly does lead to cycles of futility.

I fear this view of ourselves as just sinners saved by grace is a root-error within a theology which projects from its own experience, which at best, expects to tread water in this life. Mostly we will know setbacks with most gains going to the kingdom of darkness. This leads ultimately to a retreat and regroup – theology, centered around a rapture. (Because a rapture is the only way we are getting out of this loosing battle with our flesh.) 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 sin which is ruling in our members. 

It all boils down to our identities. Who do we perceive ourselves to be at the deepest levels of our being? When we look down into the foundation do we see flawed and fallen beings dominated by our 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 don’t believe Paul lived his life grasping for more. I believe Christ was his sufficiency and that he was utterly content with Jesus as his inheritance. I don’t believe, after meeting Jesus, Paul thought something remained fouled deep within him. I don’t believe Paul vacillated in doing good or being indecisive. I don’t believe he was bullied around by sin which ruled him from within or that he lived his life at the end of some rope. I believe Paul, being in awe of the heights and the depths of God’s love, was trying to cast down an imagination which, for 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 which have been called, destined and redeemed for glorious outcomes in both this life and the next. Help us to see what we have thought of as the next life is coursing within us even now in Christ. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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