Don't Do and Do Do Part Deux

Romans 7:21-25
So I discover this principle: when I want to do good, evil is with me. 22 For in my inner self I joyfully agree with God's law. 23 But I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I myself am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh, to the law of sin.

Paul’s tongue twisting theology on doing vs wanting to do calms down in verse 21. Here he starts to explain why this battle rages in him. Paul puts it simply, “when I want to do good evil is right there with me.” This seems quite obvious, but it reveals some theology that many Christians neglect. Too many believers, especially new believers, assume that submitting your life to Jesus will be the end of all your sinful ways. While that is ideal, it is unlikely. The assumption is that “now that I am a Christian I won’t want to do those wrong things anymore.” This would be great but is obviously not true most of the time.
Prior to salvation there was no desire to shun evil and strive only for good. At salvation Christ puts his nature (to desire to obey God) within us. This is the new creation and the new nature the NT speaks of. So now we desire to do good, but when we do, and this is the part most new Christians don’t expect, evil is still there trying to make us disobey. For many, including myself, the continual temptation to return to old ways is not even the worst part of this battle. The guilt of still being tempted, whether you give in or not, can be very destructive to your walk with God. Satan knows this and will capitalize on it every chance he gets. If he can’t tear you down making you sin he will do so by exaggerating the guilt you feel for even wanting to. His goal being ultimately to keep you out of heaven, and if he can’t do that then he will settle for you not living a full life of joy. We often will give in to sin based solely on the fact that we already feel so guilty for being tempted. We may as well go ahead and commit the crime.
Verse 22. There is something inside of us that rejoices in submitting to God (Read Psalm 119). We were originally created to glorify God and live in relationship with Him. No matter how calloused and sinful we get there will always be something inside of us that delights at the thought of pleasing God. Even those who deny there is a God feel some joy in their inner being when they do something that aligns with God’s law, though of course they chalk it up to “serving the greater good of the species” or something like that. When we accept Jesus this delight in obeying God is reinforced by the nature of Christ that He imparts to us. So now, we have both our originally designed objective of pleasing God and the nature of Christ who was concerned only with obeying and glorifying the Father. Double whammy! We know the temptation will remain, but if a Christian has no inner part that rejoices at the thought of keeping God’s law, there is a serious problem.
Verse 23. That is the good news, that there is some part inside of me that truly wants to please and obey God. The bad news, as we mentioned earlier is that this desire is not the only thing in us. Paul finds another law at work in him, the law of sin. This is what our great great great X 10 to 17th power (guessing here) Grandfather Adam passed on to us. Since him every person has been born with a sinful nature. That doesn’t mean that we are born already having committed some in-the-womb sin, but that we are born with the desire to rebel, be selfish, and disobey God. Adam gave us that nature but it is still our decision to act on it…which we all do. Paul says this law wages war against the law in his mind. This goes hand in hand with what he says in Romans 12:1-2. There he says part of the salvation/sanctification process involves a renewing of the mind. A Christian ought to have a Christ like mind that seeks to please the Father. That is our new nature. The law of sin wages war against that new part of us that wants to obey God. It is so powerful that Paul says this desire to sin makes him a captive or slave to the parts of his body. This reflects the early Christian correlation between sinfulness and the physical body. Elsewhere in the NT we see a sinful life called “walking according to the flesh”. Our various desires to sin are also called carnal (which means of the flesh, even in modern Spanish carne means meat or flesh) desires. Where did this idea that sin is centered in our flesh come from? I think the thought process is as follows. God created us in His image. This does not mean God has 10 fingers on 2 arms etc. Rather it refers to most of our non-physical traits. We have a spirit, a rational mind, a sense of humor etc. These are the parts of us that reflect God. However, what we have gained from Adam we have gained through physical association. We are not made in “Adam’s image”, but we are all physical descendants of his, so what he passed on to us he did through DNA, and childbirth. So our spirit, although calloused and marred by sin, is still reflecting the image of God, whereas our desire to sin has come to us from our physical ancestors.
Some have taken this thought way too far and have ended up with a dualistic view of Christianity. Christian Dualism teaches that only spirit can be good or redeemed and all flesh is automatically evil, no matter what. So they teach that Jesus was not physically incarnated, since God becoming flesh would make God automatically evil. Instead, they teach that He was an apparition or ghost. There are obvious problems with this view, namely; 1. It’s not what the Bible teaches and 2. A ghost being nailed to a cross does nothing for us. Without a physical body suffering on the cross God’s wrath towards sin has not been absorbed and we still await our judgment. Obviously Paul does agree that sin is more closely tied to the body than to the soul, but there is certainly no clear cut line that all spirit is good and all flesh is bad.
I like that Paul ends that thought by saying that he is a prisoner to it. This small statement carries great weight. He could have said that this law was his enemy, or adversary, but he chose to say that he was a prisoner to it. This indicates that Paul is powerless to do anything against this law of sin on his own. If it were an enemy he could fight it. If it were his predator he could run from it. But by saying he is already a prisoner to it he is saying it already has him in its grip and he can do nothing to get out of it. The idea of prison is that the prisoner is confined and cannot get out until someone else lets him out. That’s how Paul sees himself in relation to sin. Not fighting it, not running from it, already gripped by it and powerless. That sets up the next verse nicely. If Paul himself is powerless to free himself from sin…who can?
Verse 24. Paul starts this verse with a very transparent moment of exasperation and frustration with himself. “What a wretched man I am!” Basically, he’s taking a short break from his theological dissertation to reveal how fed up he is with his inability to escape sin. Even talking about the sin problem drives him to extreme emotion. We should take a lesson from that. After his emotional venting he gets back to theology. As mentioned before, he is powerless to free himself from sin’s bondage. The natural question to follow is “then who can set me free?” And that is precisely what he asks. Again we see the connection between sin and the body in the phrase “this body of death”. And Paul rightly calls it a body of death for the wages of sin is death (Rome 6:23).
Verse 25. The answer to the above asked question is obvious. Only God can save us from the problem of sin. And He did it through the work of Jesus on the cross. It was the Father’s idea, the Father’s will, the Father commissioned the plan. Jesus executed the plan. So in regards to our salvation our thanks is to God, through Jesus Christ.
The second part of this verse is simply a reiteration of what has already been said. There are two laws. In the law of my mind I am a slave to God, but the flesh or sinful nature still wants to do wrong.