I want to take you back to two pictures that I gave in our last study on this text. In the first, I told you about seeing aerial photos of our church property which was a piece of farm land long overgrown with all kinds of bushes, trees, and poison ivy. A number of men ventured on the property to do some initial clearing so that we could put up a sign announcing the new church site and clear the way for the groundbreaking. In the process, I discovered poison ivy—lots of poison ivy! It seemed to be everywhere. But after the excavation work, most of it was cleared away; yet not all was removed. Some still lingers.
Does that mean that the property is evil because it has poison ivy? No, but rather, the poison ivy is the problem not the property. In the same way, we considered that the physical body is not the problem, as the Gnostic philosophy would portray it. Instead, the Christian’s problem is sin that dwells in the body. It is not that his body is inherently evil so he has no choice but to sin. He is a new creature in Christ; he has a new nature that is inclined toward God and obedience to His will. Yet he still lives in a fallen world and still lives in a fallen body that is weak and typically given to sin. He must be continually transformed by the renewing of his mind as he lives out the gospel each day (Rom. 12:1-2).
The second picture had to do with squatters. I told you about the Hotel Buesky in Niteroi where Kevin Millard and I stayed on our first trip to Brazil in 1989. It is situated right across the bay from Rio de Janeiro, offering the best view of the city. It is a bit of a mod-looking structure, all concrete and windows. The problem is that the Hotel Buesky went bankrupt 12-15 years ago. After lying empty for a while, homeless people began to move in and take up residence. Before they knew it, these squatters, unwelcome residents, had taken over the Buesky! The only way to totally remove them would be to tear the building down.
Indwelling sin is a squatter, an unwelcome resident in the life of the Christian. It is not that we want sin dwelling in us. But as long as we live in this fallen world that awaits the final redemption of the body by the return of Christ, sin continues to live as a squatter even in the redeemed. By contrast, sin is a resident in the unregenerate but a squatter, an unwelcome resident in the believer.
Now, how do we deal with the poison ivy and the squatter—these pictures of indwelling sin? Well, how does the law tell us to deal with them? Does the law tolerate even one sprig of poison ivy? Of course not! The law declares that no sprig of poison ivy is acceptable. So until you have removed every sprig and dug up every root, you are not righteous and you are failing miserably in your sanctification.
In the same way, the law tells us that every squatter has to be removed if we would be righteous. We cannot harbor even one poor squatter and still call ourselves righteous. We must throw all of them out and until we do, we stand condemned.
Is the law wrong to tell us that the poison ivy and the squatter do not belong in our lives? Certainly not: the law is within its jurisdiction to point out the evil of the poison ivy and the squatter, while condemning our harboring either one. The law rightly tells us our sin—in detail—and then tells us to do something about it or else we are condemned.
But the grace of God in the gospel is far different than the law. Sovereign grace tells us that it is not your ability to extract every sprig of poison ivy and to evict every squatter that gives you a right standing with God. Rather it is Jesus Christ and His righteousness for you that declare you righteous before God. As long as you try to find God’s pleasure by digging up every sprig of poison ivy and throwing out every squatter, you will live under a cloud of condemnation because you are ultimately, trying to find righteousness in yourself and not in Christ.
But does that mean that I am to coast when it comes to sin? Am I to just ignore the poison ivy and squatter in my life as though neither exists? That takes us right back to the beginning of Paul’s argument in this section. Grace does not give permission to dally in sin. “How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” In other words, grace that has snatched us from the powerful jaws of sin now gives us what we need to battle sin so that we no longer “go on presenting the members of our body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness.”
The law is inadequate to declare us righteous or to keep us righteous in our daily practice. It’s not that the law is bad—it is holy, just, and good. The problem is “sin which dwells in me.” Even though I want to do good before God, I find that I struggle to do so, often giving in to doing what I honestly do not want to do. Indwelling sin—the poison ivy and the squatter in our two pictures—remains an annoyance for the Christian until he is transformed by the final redemption of the body. Until that time, the battle continues for the Christian. The same work of Christ that saved the believer is the same work that sanctifies him until the day of Jesus Christ. Law cannot save or sanctify—but Christ does both. How does the Christian square off in the conflict with indwelling sin? That’s what I want us to consider in this study.
In our previous exposition on this section, I identified five statements that summarize how Paul saw himself as a Christian in his struggle with sin.
This is where we need to begin once more to continue unpacking Paul’s argument about the Christian’s struggle with sin.
Count the number of times that Paul uses law in verses 21-23. First, is the word “principle” in verse 23. It is actually the same word in the Greek, nomos, translated as “law” in the other instances. Second is “the law of God” in verse 24. Third, he refers to “a different law in the members of my body,” and that law, fourthly, is “waging war against the law of my mind,” and finally, “making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.” Five times he uses law to make his point about the conflict in the believer. Let’s investigate each one.
Paul wants to set forth in doctrinal fashion what is happening in the Christian. “I find then the principle [law] that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.” Mark it down, he tells us, even though my new desire in Christ is to do what pleases God, “evil is present in me.” Even though I have been crucified with Christ and raised in the power of the resurrection to a new life, “evil is present in me.” The good does not cancel or negate the presence of evil.
Twice in this chapter, and only here in the New Testament, Paul uses the phrase “present in me” [parakeitai]. It literally means that ‘evil is at hand,’ or maybe even better, ‘evil is ready.’ When I am seeking to do what is right and good before God, evil is ready to do just the opposite. It is that “sin crouching at the door; and its desire is for you” of which the Lord warned Cain before he slew his brother Abel (Gen. 4:7). But even worse, sin is not just crouching at the door, it is “present in me,” lying right at hand for the moment to advance its evil agenda in my life.
Do you know something of this by experience? Surely you do. You have those times when you seem to almost have the Christian life under control—or so it seems. Then suddenly, sin throws you down. You have your quiet time and feel warmed in your heart, but then someone crosses you the wrong way and you snap at him.
I remember a particular occasion with great shame and remorse. We had enjoyed a wonderful worship service at South Woods. I had unusual liberty in preaching and sensed the presence of the Lord on me as I opened the Word. It was a wonderful day! But that was when we still had a houseful, and more drivers than we had cars. So in the shuffle of everyone getting home for dinner, I walked out to an empty parking lot. By an oversight, I was left stranded. I started boiling! I was mad that my family had not checked to make sure that I had transportation. I gruffly called the house to have someone pick me up. I huffed and puffed around displaying the flesh it all its ugliness. I should have just laughed and patiently waited but I didn’t. Evil was present in me, the one who had just enjoyed doing good! Before I could offer thanks at the meal, I had to confess my sin to my family and ask them to forgive me for such folly. Here was that principle or law at work that Paul understood in his own experience.
That principle of indwelling evil stands in contrast to the law of God. Paul explains that the Christian delights in God’s law, even though still facing sin crouching at the door and ready to pounce at any moment. “For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man.” This cannot be the unbeliever for he would never find joyful agreement with God’s law. Here is the Christian whose heart pulsates with a desire for God to be gloried in his life by faithful obedience to the law of God. He sees the law of God as the moral character of God codified in the written law. As a Christian, I resound with joy over this law. The word “joyfully concur” uses the intensive middle voice, showing that he is actually doing the joyful concurrence. As a compound word, it has a prefix of “together with” and root word, “be pleased with” or “delight in.” It implies that the Christian rejoices with God in what He has commanded. He shares the same sentiments about the law that God does! He does not complain about the law but finds it an inward delight. He and the Lord are on the same page when it comes to the law.
Think of how strong such language is in describing the change wrought through the work of Christ. While he had spent all of his life up to the point of conversion opposing the law of God, now through the new birth, as his mind is changed in the way that he looks at everything, the Christian shares God’s delight in His law. There’s no hesitation. He wants to do what is pleasing to God because, as a Christian, he wants to be like Christ in his thoughts, conversation, and actions.
All would be well if this were the case in his whole being. But this joyful agreement with the law is confined to “the inner man.” What does he mean by “the inner man”? It is the regenerated man: that aspect of his being that lives on in eternity because the Holy Spirit applied the work of Christ to him. He distinguishes inner man from the body subject to decay. The inner man is not some box or region in the human personality cordoned off for God as though the rest is out of bounds for the display of God’s glory. Steve Motyer explains that it is deliberately vague, expressing “graphically the human focus of God’s work of regeneration” [S. Motyer, “Inner Man,” Walter Elwell, ed., Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 608]. It stands in contrast to the “outer man” that is decaying while the “inner man is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). It is that part of our renewed being that longs to be clothed with a glorified body that can never decay (2 Cor. 5:1-4). The inner man is that place where the believer is strengthened with power through the Holy Spirit (Eph. 3:16).
While the law of God thrills the believer, there is yet another law, “a different law,” or a different kind of law, “in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind.” He clearly distinguishes this law from the law of God. It may be that Paul is using the word “law” as a “principle” or a “rule of action” that labors against the law of God. It is synonymous with “the law of sin” used later in this same verse [cf. Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans, 295]. This different law is let loose like a pack of wild dogs, seemingly uncontrollable, destructive, loud, vicious, and inhibiting productive life.
Notice what Paul is doing. He moves from one law to another in order to show that there is a very definite conflict going on in the believer. While he joyfully agrees with God’s law, that law is not the only law at work in him. We might explain it like this. A man is part of a kingdom. He has a good and gracious king whom the man loves. He loves the kingdom and its laws. His heart resonates with patriotic delight at the very thought of his king and the kingdom over which he rules. But all the while, there is a subversive dictator ruling over an evil kingdom that tries to undermine all that the good king does. The man, though patriotic, finds himself intimidated by the evil king and his minions, often putting him in a situation where he follows the evil king’s devices that run contrary to the good king. The reality is that the good king will one day totally remove the evil king. He has promised it. But until that day, this patriotic citizen must put up with the intimidation, threats, and influence of the evil king. He wants to do the will of the good king; but he often slips up and does just the opposite. All of this gives him a greater longing for the day when the good king will rid the kingdom of the presence of the evil kingdom.
I would recommend that you read John Bunyan’s Holy War as he this develops this with precision in allegorical fashion. As you do, you will find yourself thinking that the 17th century Baptist pastor had looked in on your life!
This different law is “waging war against the law of my mind.” What does he mean by “the law of my mind”? He shows where the conflict takes place—in the mind. That tells us that the Christian life is to be lived from the mind outward. By that I mean, our emotions or feelings are not the starting point of Christian living or sanctification. It starts with the mind. That’s why the constant renewal in the believer’s life takes place through “the renewing of your mind” (Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23). Leon Morris explains, “The mind emphasizes the intellectual side of the struggle” [Morris, 295].
Does that mean that the Christian is to engage his mind? Yes indeed. Does that mean that the Christian life is to be filled with thinking, exercising the mind, wrestling to understand and grasp truth? Yes indeed. Does that mean that if I do not engage my mind in dealing with truth that I will not grow spiritually? Yes indeed!
Keep in mind that Paul focuses on the renewed mind since the mind is used in everything that we say, think, or do. The war rages against the mind that has been renewed by the gospel through the regenerating work of the Spirit. Now, if you are trying to neatly categorize this by dividing the mind into segments, don’t bother. Paul is not that precise in the way he speaks of the mind. He speaks later of those in the flesh setting their minds on the things of the flesh while those who live according to the Holy Spirit (that’s the regenerate life) set their minds on the things of the Spirit (Rom. 8:5). It is the mind that hears, interprets, and applies the Word of God. No wonder there is conflict when the law of sin wars against it!
F.F. Bruce calls this “the evil principle, or the tyranny of indwelling sin” [TNTC, 154]. This different law wars against the law of the mind “making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.” This law of sin has its place “in my members” rather than it being “of my members” [Morris, 296]. In other words, it is a squatter that does not belong in the renewed person. Here is the influence or principle of sin that inwardly campaigns for evil, and that manipulates and cajoles us toward following the path of sin. Its goal is to imprison us in sin. The word means to capture with a spear, so that we get the picture of sin threatening and sticking us to hem our thoughts and actions toward sin.
Is this a conflict? More than that, it is a war! The present tense of “waging war” and “making…prisoner” shows that the war goes on. We often talk of certain regions of the world that have known nothing but war all their lives and for generations before them. That’s the picture that Paul gives of the inward battle in the Christian. The point he makes is this. We live under one law or another. We live under the law of God or law of sin. They are in constant conflict, “For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please” (Gal. 5:17). Even the so-called “antinomian,” the one who is against the law of God is actually controlled by a different law—the law of sin. You may think that you can escape living under law but none can. You live under the law of sin and face the point of sin’s spear taking you captive. Or you live under the law of God by the grace richly supplied by the Spirit. Meanwhile, the conflict rages!
Is Romans 7 a description of a normal or an abnormal Christian? If you think that you are a strange Christian because you face struggles with sin then think again. Read Romans 7 again and again. Notice the use of “I,” “me,” and “my” over 35 times in these few verses. Look at the present tense verbs that show the current reality of the conflict. Paul bares his soul with the struggle he knows as well as how he deals with it. He points out the normality of the struggle with sin, not so that we will get complacent with sin but so that we might intensify our fight in not giving the members of our body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness (6:12-14). Brethren, without Romans 7, Galatians 5, and Ephesians 4-6, we might find ourselves exasperated in the pursuit of our sanctification.
Why do we get exasperated? One reason is due to those that teach sinless perfectionism—that Christians reach a point where they do not sin. Since you have not reached that point, you might find yourself under condemnation. We are indeed to sin less but nowhere are we taught that we become sinless until we stand in Christ’s presence (cf. 1 John 1). Others deny the spiritual conflict. They refuse to admit that they struggle with sin due to pseudo-spirituality, which is a thinly veiled pride and arrogance over their superiority. They use Christian clichés, know all the buzzwords, regularly criticize others that they consider less spiritual, and seem to be quite short on self-examination of the deeply seated attitudes of their own sin. Still others give the idea that you can cease your striving against sin if you will just “let go and let God,” or learn the secrets to the deeper life.
Instead, a war rages within; battling against the mind, trying to take you captive to the law of sin. Have you noticed how often Paul uses military terminology when he talks of living the Christian life? Like a prisoner of war or a soldier under enemy fire and duress, he knows that he needs rescuing! “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” Is there a deliverer now and forever? Yes, my dear brothers and sisters; yes indeed. “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Does that end the conflict? Not yet; not until we see Him face to face. But meanwhile, do not despair: the Christ that justifies you also sanctifies you and keeps you until you stand blameless in His presence. Rely upon the grace shown to you in Jesus Christ and His good gospel. Press on in the conflict knowing that the victory is already won. Your Deliverer hears your cry for aid and rescues you.
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on our website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be explicitly approved by South Woods Baptist Church.
Please include the following statement on any distributed copy:
Copyright South Woods Baptist Church. Website: www.southwoodsbc.org. Used by permission as granted on web site. Questions, comments, and suggestions about our site can be sent here.
Copyright 2011, South Woods Baptist Church, All Rights Reserved