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In chapter six, we learned we are united with Christ in His death and resurrection. Our union with Him is by the grace of God which nullifies human pride in our own spiritual accomplishments. We also learned that our sins, past, present, and future, are forgiven in order that we may "count ourselves dead to sin, but alive to Christ Jesus." (Romans 6:11) Paul uses the illustration of marriage in chapter 7 to show Christians have a new husband, Christ Jesus. (Romans 7:4) Paul also discusses why the Christian needs to consider the law in chapter 7. In verses 8-11, Paul gives several reasons or functions of the law for the Christian. First, the law reveals sin as sin. Left to themselves people never think they are sinners. God reveals sin to us by showing us we fall short of His standards as expressed in the law. Verse 7-8 illustrate how the law reveals sin, "Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, 'Do not covet.' But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire." When Paul learned he was not to covet, he became aware of how much he did covet. The covetousness had been there all along. When the law came, Paul could name his sin before God. Adam and Eve were aroused to rebel against God by the command, "You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." (Genesis 2:17) Sin, brought into the world through Satan, seized the opportunity, which resulted in Adam and Eve's disobedience to God's specific command. It is the same with you and me. The more we study God and His ways, the more we recognize the evil desires of our heart and can name them as sin. Be thankful as God leads you into this awareness of sin. It is the Holy Spirit working in your and my life, convicting us and pointing us to the source of strength and victory, Jesus Christ. Secondly, in verses 9-11, we see that the law brings us to the end of ourselves. As long as we believe we are "fine" in our relationships to God, self, and the world around us, we never come to the point of seeing ourselves in need of a savior. But the law, in exposing sin, brings every Christian to a place of devastation and helplessness over his sin. It brings us to an end of our resources and 'goodness'. It does what God sent it to do, showing us to be dead in our sins. The more you know what sin is, the more you can repent, turning from sin to God and His mercy. But you might say, "I know that sin is awful. I know that sin earns death. I know that God abhors sin. I know that the law is holy, righteous, and good. I want to obey God's commands because I love God. He has done so much for me. But I cannot consistently keep God's commands. No matter how hard I try, I sin. I do the things I do not want to do, and I do not do the things I want to do." There is comfort for you in the Bible. What I have just said is the experience of every person who is a Christian; it was Paul's experience, too. Paul experienced frustration produced by the conflict within his sinful nature. He describes and explains his experience for us in Romans 7:14-25. There are several different views of the man described in those verses. This study upholds the belief, that the man of Romans 7 is a mature Christian describing his continuing conflict with sin. Paul is teaching that there is no victory in our struggle against sin apart from the Holy Spirit. Paul is saying that though I am alive in Christ and desire to do His will, when I look at what I do, I find that I fall very short of what I had hoped. (verse 23) From this he perceives that the anti-God urge called sin, though dethroned in his heart, still dwells in his own flawed nature. Paul saw that his spiritual reach persistently exceeded his grasp and that his desire for perfection was frustrated by the distracting energies of indwelling sin. Stating this fact about himself renews Paul's regular distress over it, found in the cry of verse 24. He voices his grief at not being able to glorify God more. However, that grief is answered in verse 25. His present involuntary imperfection will one day be made a thing of the past through the redemption of the body. For that future redemption we longingly await, maintaining the homeward traveling, future-glory perspective that pervades the whole New Testament. (Philippians 3:20) Each of us has a bias to sin inherited from Adam. In addition, there is the pull of long-indulged habits of sin. Your worst enemy is not the devil, but your own sinful nature. How do we become more like Jesus Christ? We become more like Him as we acknowledge sin and turn to Him. The Christian life is a struggle and a battle daily against sin, but we have won through the victory of Jesus Christ. Your life will not be easy. All your life you will struggle with your old sin nature. Cry out to God daily for help to surrender to His way within you. He will help you put off the old self and put on the new. Here are four principles that may be drawn from Paul's teaching in Romans 7:14-25: 1. When God called us to be Christians, He called us to a lifetime of struggles against sin.2. Although we are called to lifetime struggles against sin, we will never be able to achieve victory by ourselves. 3. When we triumph over sin by the power of the Holy Spirit, which should be often, it is by the power and grace of God and not by ourselves. 4. We are to go on fighting and struggling against sin, taking full advantage of the weapons God has made available to us; chiefly, prayer, Bible study, Christian fellowship, service to others, baptism, and communion. We are never to quit in this
great battle against sin. We are to fight it with every ounce of energy
in our bodies and throughout our entire lives until our final breaths.
The Christian life is not easy. No responsible person ever said it was.
It is a battle all the way, but it is a battle that will be won. And
when it is won, we who have triumphed will cast our crowns at the feet
of the Lord Jesus Christ who worked in us to accomplish the victory,
and we will praise Him forever.
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