Does Romans 7 Describe a Christian?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | We end the week, Pastor John,

00:00:05.320 | with a topic that dawned on me recently, not long ago.

00:00:08.040 | I was editing a powerful sermon clip

00:00:09.720 | taken from your sermon series

00:00:10.960 | in Romans 7, verses 14 to 25.

00:00:13.660 | Applying what it means to be a Christian

00:00:15.280 | who lives with disordered desires in our hearts.

00:00:18.840 | It was a sermon clip sent to us from a woman in Greece

00:00:20.720 | who struggled for years with an eating disorder,

00:00:23.640 | who chose to open up and tell others about her sin

00:00:25.720 | only after having heard your pastoral conclusion

00:00:28.680 | to sermon number five.

00:00:29.860 | I believe it was.

00:00:31.180 | It's an amazing clip and a powerful listener testimony

00:00:34.320 | that we published about a month ago in APJ 1751.

00:00:38.440 | But when I researched that clip

00:00:39.960 | and set it up for the podcast,

00:00:41.040 | I noticed we've never entered into the debate

00:00:42.720 | over Romans 7 here on the podcast.

00:00:44.560 | Is this the struggle of Christian Paul,

00:00:47.600 | or is it the struggle of pre-Christian Saul?

00:00:51.800 | Several times here in the podcast,

00:00:53.320 | you've said it's a believer struggle,

00:00:55.360 | like in APJs 802, 1183, 1438, et cetera.

00:01:00.360 | And then you built from this stated conclusion,

00:01:02.220 | but you've never defended that position in APJ,

00:01:04.180 | and I'd love to hear you do so.

00:01:05.540 | How would you frame the disagreement?

00:01:07.820 | And why do you land on the side of Romans 7

00:01:10.060 | describing the believer's struggle?

00:01:13.140 | The disagreement about Romans 7, 14 to 25

00:01:17.460 | is whether Paul is describing some dimension

00:01:21.640 | of his Christian experience,

00:01:23.900 | or whether he's describing his pre-Christian experience

00:01:28.900 | of defeat as he tried to keep the law,

00:01:33.180 | and he's describing it now

00:01:34.180 | from his perspective as a Christian.

00:01:36.220 | Now, my view is that Romans 7, 14, 25

00:01:41.220 | is a description of the kind of experiences

00:01:45.580 | Paul often had as a Christian,

00:01:49.740 | and that we often have.

00:01:51.820 | And I say often had,

00:01:54.260 | because I don't want to give the impression

00:01:55.780 | that those verses describe the totality

00:01:58.900 | of Christian experience.

00:02:01.420 | Now, this disagreement among really good friends, right?

00:02:05.500 | Yeah, oh yeah, totally.

00:02:06.900 | You and I could name really good friends

00:02:09.580 | that just don't see eye to eye on this,

00:02:12.900 | and I love those brothers.

00:02:15.860 | I don't consider this disagreement

00:02:17.940 | as a ground for any kind of breaking

00:02:21.260 | of a relationship or a fellowship.

00:02:23.820 | The disagreement exists because on the one hand,

00:02:27.580 | Paul says, "I delight in the law of God in my inner being,"

00:02:32.220 | my inner being,

00:02:34.380 | and he says, "I my very self serve the law of God

00:02:39.380 | "with my mind,"

00:02:42.760 | which it is hard to imagine

00:02:45.340 | as a description of pre-Christian Paul.

00:02:48.980 | That's my opinion.

00:02:50.220 | It's very hard to imagine that.

00:02:52.180 | On the other hand, he says, "I am of the flesh,

00:02:56.380 | "sold under sin,"

00:02:59.460 | or, "I do the very thing I hate," and so on.

00:03:04.460 | Would a Christian, my disagreeing brother would ask,

00:03:09.900 | say that?

00:03:10.740 | Would the Christian Paul describe himself that way,

00:03:14.260 | sold under sin?

00:03:16.460 | So there's the problem.

00:03:18.100 | And here are my nine, I'm gonna give nine reasons,

00:03:21.660 | and I unpack these in what?

00:03:23.300 | How many sermons did I preach on that?

00:03:24.660 | Six, five, I can't remember on Romans--

00:03:27.260 | - At least five, yeah. - Seven.

00:03:29.540 | Nine reasons for thinking these are Paul's description

00:03:34.540 | of his present experience from time to time,

00:03:40.740 | though not his total Christian experience.

00:03:44.380 | Number one, the most natural way to understand Paul's use

00:03:49.020 | of the first person I and the present tense

00:03:54.020 | is that he's talking about himself

00:03:56.820 | and part of his life now as a believer.

00:03:59.980 | He uses I or me or my about 40 times in this text,

00:04:04.980 | and he explains his situation in the present tense

00:04:10.300 | all the way through.

00:04:12.100 | I am of flesh.

00:04:14.500 | What I am doing, I do not understand.

00:04:17.980 | I do the very thing I do not want, and so on, present tense.

00:04:22.980 | On the face of it then, it looks like he's describing

00:04:26.100 | his present Christian experience.

00:04:29.020 | So for the average person like me,

00:04:31.340 | it's gonna take a lot to say,

00:04:33.260 | no, that's not what is happening.

00:04:35.860 | Number two, Paul speaks about the law of God in this passage

00:04:40.860 | in a way that sounds like the way a Christian believer

00:04:45.200 | would talk about it, not the way an unregenerate Jewish man

00:04:49.180 | would talk about it.

00:04:50.280 | Verse 22, I joyfully concur with the law of God

00:04:55.280 | in the inner man.

00:04:58.460 | Now it's this phrase in the inner man

00:05:01.640 | that sounds so much like the way Paul talks

00:05:04.700 | as a Christian about the Christian's real inner self.

00:05:08.380 | I don't think Paul would have said this

00:05:11.460 | about his pre-Christian self.

00:05:14.140 | Number three, the description of Romans 7

00:05:18.480 | of Paul as a divided and sometimes tormented man

00:05:23.220 | in relation to the law doesn't fit

00:05:26.980 | with the way he describes his experience

00:05:29.140 | before he was a Christian.

00:05:32.420 | In his pre-Christian days, he is anything but a man

00:05:36.760 | who is torn because of any perceived failures

00:05:40.540 | to live up to the law of God.

00:05:42.820 | In Galatians 1, Philippians 3, he describes himself

00:05:45.900 | as undivided zeal for the law.

00:05:50.900 | So the Romans 7 Paul doesn't fit

00:05:54.820 | with the way he described his pre-Christian experience.

00:05:58.620 | Number four, I think Paul talks about himself

00:06:03.620 | in Romans 7 in a way that only a Christian could,

00:06:08.140 | a person with faith and with the Holy Spirit.

00:06:11.140 | For example, he says in Romans 7, 18,

00:06:14.820 | for I know that no good thing dwells in me,

00:06:18.740 | and then he qualifies it, that is in my flesh.

00:06:23.660 | Now, if Paul is here giving a Christian assessment

00:06:28.140 | of his pre-Christian experience, why?

00:06:31.060 | Why does he add to the statement,

00:06:34.100 | there's no good thing in me, the qualifier,

00:06:37.060 | that is in my flesh?

00:06:40.580 | I think in Paul's view,

00:06:42.500 | the pre-Christian person is only flesh.

00:06:46.140 | Only a Christian is more than fallen flesh.

00:06:51.140 | He has the Holy Spirit, and that's why Paul has to say

00:06:54.700 | that qualifier, that is in my flesh,

00:06:58.180 | there is a good thing in me, namely the Holy Spirit.

00:07:00.900 | So he's not talking about the pre-Christian Paul, I think.

00:07:04.300 | Number five, in Galatians 5, 17,

00:07:07.820 | Paul uses language very close to Romans 7,

00:07:12.100 | but everyone agrees that in Galatians,

00:07:14.700 | it's a description of Christian experience.

00:07:17.300 | He says in verse 17, the flesh sets its desire

00:07:21.500 | against the spirit, the spirit against the flesh,

00:07:24.100 | for these are in opposition to one another,

00:07:26.180 | so that, and now comes the phrase

00:07:28.060 | that sounds just like Romans 7, almost the same language,

00:07:31.540 | so that you may not do the things that you please.

00:07:36.540 | This is a description of the inner conflict

00:07:39.660 | of the Christian, and the language is so similar

00:07:43.580 | to Romans 7, I do what I don't want to do,

00:07:46.060 | I don't do what I want to do, that I conclude

00:07:49.340 | Romans 7 is also Christian experience like Galatians 5.

00:07:54.820 | My sixth argument is an answer

00:07:58.340 | to the strongest argument against my view,

00:08:01.020 | at least that's what some say it is.

00:08:02.940 | In Romans 7, 14, Paul says,

00:08:05.900 | I am of flesh sold under sin.

00:08:10.900 | And my friends would say, would Paul really say, Piper,

00:08:17.140 | of a Christian that he's sold under sin?

00:08:22.620 | The imagery is of being sold as a slave.

00:08:27.620 | Can a Christian ever say,

00:08:29.500 | I am sold under the slave master of sin?

00:08:33.660 | After all, Romans 6, 18 says, having been freed from sin,

00:08:38.660 | you became slaves of righteousness.

00:08:41.660 | Now my response is, I don't think Paul is saying

00:08:45.700 | the Christian lives under sin as a normal way of life,

00:08:51.540 | continually dominated and defeated by sin,

00:08:56.540 | but that in the moment of failure,

00:09:00.700 | sin gets the upper hand like a slave master

00:09:05.100 | temporarily getting control of a person

00:09:07.500 | who's not really his, and I think this

00:09:10.700 | because both in Romans 6, 12 and Galatians 5, 1,

00:09:15.700 | Paul warns Christians, warns Christians

00:09:20.180 | precisely not to submit again to the reign

00:09:24.940 | or to the yoke of slavery.

00:09:27.340 | It's a real possibility that Christians can see themselves

00:09:32.940 | as temporarily sold under sins.

00:09:36.420 | I don't think that is a decisive counter argument.

00:09:41.100 | Number seven, a response to the objection from Romans 7, 24.

00:09:49.620 | Can a real Christian cry out,

00:09:52.020 | who will set me free from the body of this death?

00:09:57.980 | To which my response is, can a real Christian not cry out,

00:10:04.300 | who will set me free from this body of death?

00:10:08.100 | The body is not only diseased and dying and groaning,

00:10:13.100 | according to Romans 8, it is also the staging ground

00:10:18.380 | for many evil desires, Paul says.

00:10:21.260 | It is regularly the base of operations for sin.

00:10:24.660 | The unbeliever does not cry out for release from this.

00:10:30.660 | He doesn't.

00:10:32.220 | He is at home in it.

00:10:34.420 | This is a Christian cry.

00:10:36.300 | My eighth argument is the way others use Romans 8, 2.

00:10:45.580 | This is, I think, very powerful.

00:10:48.380 | It says, for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus

00:10:52.660 | has set you free from the law of sin and of death.

00:10:57.500 | Now, some say that this is a clear declaration

00:11:01.860 | that the warfare of Romans 7 is over

00:11:05.460 | because of the phrase law of sin in 8, 2 is used in 7, 23.

00:11:15.040 | The person in verse 23 is made, quote,

00:11:19.340 | "a prisoner of the law of sin, which is in my members."

00:11:24.340 | But now in Romans 8, 2,

00:11:27.980 | we are free from the law of sin and death.

00:11:31.980 | So people conclude the person in 7, 23

00:11:36.380 | cannot be a Christian because the Christian is Romans 8, 2,

00:11:41.380 | and he's free from that.

00:11:44.400 | But I think, in view of all we've seen,

00:11:47.980 | and in view of the exhortations in Romans 6,

00:11:51.860 | that to say we are now in Christ set free

00:11:56.860 | from the law of sin does not at all preclude

00:12:03.060 | the reality that from time to time,

00:12:06.440 | the law of sin does indeed get the upper hand

00:12:11.340 | and must be repented of and renounced.

00:12:14.380 | There is a freedom from it,

00:12:17.100 | but not an absolute freedom from its influence

00:12:21.500 | that we can defeat with warfare in the spirit.

00:12:25.580 | And finally, number nine,

00:12:27.500 | Romans 7 seems to reach its climax in verse 25.

00:12:32.500 | The first half of the verse goes like this.

00:12:36.820 | Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

00:12:40.900 | In other words, who's gonna deliver me

00:12:42.460 | from this horrible situation that I've been in

00:12:45.380 | in describing in these verses in Romans 7?

00:12:49.180 | Answer, thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

00:12:53.360 | This is often taken to mean that after all the failure

00:12:58.360 | of verses 14 to 25, Paul now arrives

00:13:03.520 | at a point of triumph and transition.

00:13:06.900 | He is moving from the defeated pre-Christian experience

00:13:10.180 | of Romans 7 to the triumphant Christian experience

00:13:13.900 | of Romans 8.

00:13:15.120 | But if that's the way Paul is thinking,

00:13:20.760 | the second half of verse 25 is a colossal embarrassment

00:13:26.880 | and a stumbling block.

00:13:29.060 | Verse 25 closes like this,

00:13:32.940 | which doesn't at all fit this understanding

00:13:35.980 | of big transition from 7 to 8,

00:13:40.180 | with the fulcrum being the first half of verse 25.

00:13:43.240 | Just when this view expects a triumphant statement

00:13:49.060 | about how the divided man is finally united in victory

00:13:53.740 | and beyond conflict and entirely under the sway

00:13:56.740 | of the spirit, what do you get in verse 25b,

00:14:01.580 | the second half of the verse?

00:14:03.460 | You get just what you would expect to get

00:14:07.220 | if Romans 7 is really about the frequent Christian experience

00:14:12.220 | of conflict and struggle.

00:14:14.300 | You get a summary statement of the struggling

00:14:18.620 | and divided life.

00:14:21.020 | It goes like this.

00:14:22.760 | So then, on the one hand, I myself, with my mind,

00:14:29.460 | am serving the law of God, but on the other hand,

00:14:33.980 | with my flesh, the law of sin.

00:14:37.260 | What an anticlimax, if the intention is to say

00:14:43.420 | that there's this decisive break between 7 and 8.

00:14:48.420 | So for these nine reasons, I think we should read Romans 7,

00:14:55.300 | 14 to 25, as the description, not of the totality

00:15:00.300 | of Christian experience, but the kind of discouragements

00:15:07.300 | and conflicts and defeats we often encounter

00:15:12.300 | as we do battle with sin.

00:15:14.620 | - Yeah, very good.

00:15:15.460 | Thank you, Pastor John, for explaining it.

00:15:16.460 | Again, this episode was inspired by a sermon clip

00:15:20.300 | sent to us by a listener, a woman in Greece

00:15:22.140 | who struggled for years with an eating disorder

00:15:23.900 | who only chose up to open up and tell others about the sin

00:15:27.340 | after having heard the sermon clip we published a month ago.

00:15:30.580 | See APJ 1751 in the archive for the clip and for her story.

00:15:34.920 | You can find episode 1751 online

00:15:38.580 | at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:15:41.640 | Well, we break for the weekend and return next week

00:15:44.720 | to talk about embryo adoption.

00:15:47.420 | It's a topic you have all asked about a lot over the years,

00:15:50.860 | and it's one we have not addressed much on the podcast

00:15:53.340 | in our first decade.

00:15:54.180 | We need to get back to it, embryo adoption.

00:15:57.660 | That's up next time.

00:15:58.500 | I'm your host, Tony Reinhke,

00:15:59.420 | and we'll see you back here on Monday.

00:16:01.420 | (upbeat music)

00:16:04.000 | (upbeat music)

00:16:06.580 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Does Romans 7 Describe a Christian?

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